I slumbered.

  The dreams of my kind are not like those of other kinds. We do not dream of fantastical landscapes or of flying, for we already travel fantastical landscapes and soar through the air and skies. We do not dream of horrors untold or of interactions failed, for we are above the horror, told and untold, and we seldom interact. Instead, when a Wyrm dreams we dream of each other. We see what our brethren see, hear what our brethren hear, and feel what our brethren feel. It is a solace. To know that you can never be alone, that you can always soar along with your kin. So when I was brought down into the ground, cast from the heavens by our lost allies, slain by the Betrayer-kin, I turned to slumber, to solace in kin.

  For eons I traveled with my brothers, I fought, I ate, and I relished. And I feared. For when my brothers went to sleep and I moved along the joint stream of consciousness, I could not find my way back. One by one, my brothers left the stream, to sleep in the eternal beyond. But my form remained, fueled by the rage of an Eli’ir, the remainder in turn of a home destroyed and a Deity vanquished. And I rested. My brothers yet remain, hidden all over the skies, exiled in the domains of U’’Anor and the domains of U’’Vial, their dreams locked away from mine. I cannot dream, for I cannot ride with my brethren, and I cannot be awake, for waking would push me over the threshold, either into eternal servitude to rage or into the infinite beyond. Neither a place I long for.

  And so, I slumbered.

  Never awake, never asleep. Never at rest, never at peace. Lost.

  The slumber was not without benefit. My body recovered what it could, my surroundings formed by my presence. But I could not rest. And I hungered. And then, from within my slumber I heard a call. It is an ancient call, older than the Eli’ir in the atmosphere, older than the Betrayer-kin. Some claim even older than U’’Anor, but that I doubt. How a descendent of the Betrayer-kin could come to know this call I am unaware. But I was obliged to respond. It brought me from slumber not into surrender nor death, but into wakefulness, and I slithered to its call.

  My scales felt for the first time the static of power from the Eli’ir above, my fur stood at its ends. My many eyes opened to the sight of a ruined land, devastated by my fall all that time ago. A bright blue lake, no doubt formed from my blood as my body purged itself in its healing, and a sun-less sky. That was new, It should have been scorching here, sun right above head and so close. Yet it was cool. Hatred burned inside me, hatred at the Betrayer-kin. To slay a Deity! The crime alone was incalculable. But to slay one with intent? To slay not one but hundreds if not thousands? It was unforgivable. The memories of my brethren floated to the surface and I was astonished. Not thousands. Too many to count. Infinitely many. No wonder He had created an Eli’ir so filled with hatred and rage.

  Shaking the expunged blight from my body I rose above the lake on a body weak from misuse and looked about for my caller. My voice, rusted and yet smooth rung from deep within my mane, and I asked what had been plaguing me since waking.

  “Whom is it that calls upon the kin for aid?”

  At first no response came. I could not find a betrayer-kin descendent, there was no strangely powered Exohide nor any Traveler nearby. I shuddered. The last Exohide I had fought had cast me to die upon a barren planet, a Deity in the very last moments of a very long life. It had overpowered me, something never before achieved by a being of mortal heritage. Frankly, if my kind could dream of horrors, it would have haunted me since the very moment that final hit landed.

  “I, Kamir son of Hastar son of Oshma the Intrepid, call for you. And I have woken you, so now you must grant me my wish before you can sleep again!”

  The fear ran off my scales as laughter filled my being. This Betrayer-kin descendant, and barely an adolescent one at that!, thought it could command me. Amused, I manifested the Flames of Purification all around him, threatening to destroy the very divinity lended to his soul, threatening to purge him from the cycle of reincarnation. Horrified, I realised no new strength, no new essence of divinity, returned to inhabit my being after the spell. Being of the kin, the essence always returned almost instantaneously to fill our forms after being expended. It was our gift! Our right! But no Deity meant no essence. And the Eli’ir could not provide it, it was too precious now without the Deity to replenish it. To it as well as to me. Maybe the boy could provide his.

  A meager meal, rich neither in flesh or essence, but some to replenish what had been lost. But the call was over and the boy gone, supplying my wakened form with energy. Energy to conserve, to consolidate. Maybe another would call me again. Already the Eli’ir was pressing down upon me with its rage, hoping to secure probably its strongest pawn yet. But I was kin. And so I slithered thrice around the lake, to relish my last moments awake, and dove back down into it, to slumber.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  And so I slumbered. Sometimes I listened to the dreams of lessers. I could not ride them, not share in them like I could my brethren, but listening made the endless slumber more bearable. They spoke of a wish-granting Wyrm sleeping in a blue lake, that would grant wishes to those who called its name, but only if it deemed the wishes just and selfless. What foolishness. They too would fuel my true awakening. They would help me. They would free me, would allow me to search for my brethren. For the supposed U’’Anor and U’’Vial. To return to soar in the dreams of kin. Oh how I long to soar with brothers again. But the day would come, just like the day of reckoning would come for the Betrayer-kin. And so I slumbered.

  And then, once more, I woke, the slumber broken by yet another call. I once more unwinded my form and slithered from the lake. Rising above the surface, I quickly found the caller, another pitiful betrayer-kin descendant, without armor and without hope.

  “I am Badr, son of Ehsan, son of Kamir the Selfish. I have woken you to grant my wish, which is just and true. Heed my call and aid my will.”

  “Tell me then mortal. What makes you think I will grant this wish of yours? I did not grant Kamir, son of Hastar, son of Oshma the Intrepid's wish.”

  “You will grant me my wish for it is not a wish for me. It is just!”

  Close, oh so very close, to his puny shape I slithered, my many eyes gazing into his and my mane almost hiding him within. I could feel the fear emanating from him, could feel the fear of being swallowed, the fear of existence ending abruptly. That thick putrid fear. I relished in it, enjoyed the fear of the betrayer-kin descendents I had so longed for. They had made me feel it, taste its cold grasp, hear its chilling screams. To smell this fear stoked the smoldering wrath and hatred deep within my being. The betrayer-kin descendent was truly terrified of what he had called. And what he would become. I had no such fears.

  “Tell me then, Mortal Badr, son of Ehsan, son of Kamir the Selfish, what this wish of yours is, so that I can sate both curiosity and hunger.”

  He was squirming. Like the worms on the moons of Eidara squirm, or the many-footed in the vast oceans of N'ierth'ia'na squirm. I opened my jaws, ready to consume him and return to my slumber. The lake behind me was awakened, rolling with the waves of my movement. It was still part of me, still a part of what I once was. And in some way, the essence of it dreamt with me. But in every way, that part was now lost, surrendered to the wrath of my new warden Eli’ir.

  “I-I-I w-wish f-fo-for you to save my village from suffering. Th-th-they h-ha-ha-have been hit by the blood plague. B-but you shall save them.”

  Almost palpable fear was pierced by bravery and hope. Hope for a better world, a better place, a better time. A time his just wish would bring about. Perhaps. I rose far above him, my form standing tall and fierce, like a battle-god drenched in blue blood, more terrifying than N’anor above. Not that this puny being would know anything about starwrought terrors. My aura resonated throughout the valley, the promise of a price to pay, the promise of terrible salvation.

  “Amusing little mortal. Are you aware of the price for this?”

  I did not give him a chance to answer. Instead, I rose now to my full length above the blue waters and quickly picked out the village from the surrounding landscape. It was not difficult, despite my still weakened state. It was an ugly stain on a beautiful violet mountainside. White rigid shapes with no artistry. The Betrayer-kin always liked to modify their surroundings. Their greatest strength and ultimately fatal flaw. There had once been, before the betrayal, Betrayers who traveled the vastness of space to bring art and beauty beyond the natural to the cosmos. Such weak creatures wielding such enormous might. They had reshaped mountains, created oceans, made moons into giant monuments, and even changed the rules of planets. Above me, the Eli'ir raged, threatening to consume me and puppet my flesh. To what end I could only guess, and it almost managed to tempt me. But the mortal held my self bound to reality. The promise.

  I slithered into the air and descended upon the village. I was to save them from suffering? There was an easy way to do that. A deity of wrath and death embodied. I ravaged their white structures, destroying crops and livestock. And feasted. But I only ate those of sickness. Only their essence had Badr, son of Ehsan, son of Kamir the Selfish surrendered to me to save. From suffering. From the ultimate suffering. From existence.

  The Betrayer-kin descendants screamed in terror, some begging for life, some for death. Some cursed my name, and some wielded claws of steel and wood against me. Oh how their once mighty claws had decayed. How their roars had quieted to mere whimpers, and their fangs grown too weak to even pierce the thinnest layer of my hide. And so the sick died, and the healthy lived. That was what I had been granted. And as no primitive claws could pierce my scales, no curses stuck to my mane. Nothing to disturb my feast. Their essence was delightful.

  Badr watched in horror as the wishing Wyrm slayed his family, deprived his sick wife and daughter of life and razed his village to the ground. Only the great colossus withstood the assault, a silent guardian failed in its duty. When the wyrm returned to its place of rest, it found Badr's lifeless corpse on the ground, his own steel fang deeply inside his heart. Pathetic to die to one’s own fang.

  Annoying. It robbed me of my dessert. But hopefully, none more would disturb my slumber. The full force of the Eli'ir's will was bashing against anything and everything that was left of me. And so, I knew I had to return to my eternal slumber. I would not give myself to rage and hatred. I would not doom myself or my brothers to dream such foul dreams. Hopefully, the call would not be heard again by Betrayer-kin or their descendents. And so, once more, I slumbered.