Page 12 of Scaled Hearts

What’s going on? My curiosity is piqued at this. I wonder if it’s something to do with my fellow brethren. Or maybe it’s a shipwreck!

That thought has me lifting my head and lumbering to my feet. Maybe I’ll go down to the shore to check it out. I haven’t been down there in so long. I could frighten some wayward sailors or steal their supplies for my own.

Not that I needed them. I couldn’t go anywhere and I was sustained on the fish that got caught under the magical seal. Still, it might be fun to antagonize them for washing ashore.

On the other hand, it might be another competition. The thought of being involved in a dragon competition bored me to tears. Our kind think of everything as a competition, including the right to breed with the female dragons. They love to compete in everything, from who can bellow the loudest, to who can blow the biggest plume of fire...or even who has the biggest balls.

Exhausting, if you ask me. I like my solitude. Not to mention that their combined magic can stir up a firestorm that would wipe out all the surface vegetation once they got carried away. It takes absolutely decades for the vegetation to grow back when that happens, and it’s annoying because it also prevents many of the fish from successfully breeding as well, meaning I’m forced to hibernate longer.

I hope they’re not out there causing a ruckus. I find most of my fellow dragons irritating nowadays. I’m getting cantankerous in my old age. Not that I’mold, but by dragon standards I’m getting a bit up there. I’d probably be in my mid six-hundreds in elven years by now, if we had the same lifespan.

Most of the other dragons are practically children to me. They’re young and full of life. They don’t know, or remember the war that we fought, that we fled from. All they know is dragonkind. Their existence is this island and their lives revolve around being dragons.

I suppose if I was born a dragon on this island, I wouldn’t care about anything but my own amusements either. I still remember the days before the change, before this place, though. The memories are dim, hazy in my brain but they still exist.

I recall the days of living as an important elf in a family that was prominent in the wars. We had only been a few generations in as I grew up, so early in our making from the Thirteen, but we still had servants and luxuries that I long for now.

It was a different time. I wonder now if the same nobility rule there. It’s been a few centuries since we left.

My eldest servants would be long dead by now. Some of the younger ones would have probably moved on to work for the King, or one of the nearby Dukes. I miss my manservant. He was a good sort, very loyal.

When the Hearthkeeper appeared to me, I was alone that day. I had sent my servants off to enjoy a nearby festival, content to spend time at home, simply reading for the day. I’m glad they weren’t there when the Hearthkeeper appeared. They would have been crushed when I destroyed the manor.

I wonder if they ever tried to figure out what happened to me? Perhaps they thought a beast ravaged the house and took me away with it. I don’t know but I can’t help thinking of my old life and mourning what I lost.

Even though the blessings of being a dragon are great, the downsides are also great. In the end, I would rather leave this island and have my freedom once more.

There’s something to be said for the elven life I left behind.

When we first came here, the island seemed like a paradise. Lush vegetation as far as the eye could see. Rivers of water that flowed down the rocky volcano, pouring off into beautiful waterfalls and pooling at the base of the volcano into luxurious swimming holes.

We enjoyed the fruits of the land, the warm climate, the tropical atmosphere...but it soon turned into a luxurious prison – at least for me. I could no longer look at the waterfalls and see their majesty. I couldn’t admire the lush vegetation, the rich, abundant greenery and beautiful flowers, all that managed to grow here. It felt like a vast stretch of endless sameness, everywhere I looked.

Once upon a time, I was young and carefree. I thought that living a long, long life in paradise was the dream. Only now I see the reality. All I want is to slumber, to be left alone in my cave. If not for the other dragons causing the occasional mayhem with the weather, or younglings sneaking up to play tricks on Angurus the Grumpy, I might have forgotten I wasn’t alone here.

Alone was what I wanted. I was too old and tired for company anymore. Even if I’d thought about wanting company, with the way the female dragons drove off any notion of mating unless the potential suitor defeated all others in combat, it didn’t seem worth it, trying to fight for their hand.

So for now, I stayed in my cave, content with my existence, content to slumber away my days.

But I had stirred because something changed in the atmosphere. Now. as I settle back down, I wonder if I imagined it. Was it part of my dreams after all? I cock my head to the side, listening intently. Nothing is there. It hardly seems worth it to investigate, either. I’m too old and ornery to bother getting up.

Sitting back down, I yawn and stretch my wings, fluttering them for a moment to shake off the dust. My sleep was disturbed for no good reason. I hope it wasn’t a youngling trying to impress his friends by messing with me. I’ll really give him what for if it was. They’ll have to learn to leave me well enough alone.

I scratch my belly with one extended claw. My scales need a good shedding soon. I have to claw them off and shed the old ones once every fifteen years or so and I’ve let it go far too long since I was asleep. I scrape a few off my belly now, licking over the new, tender flesh underneath. I need to scrape them all off, clean myself up and then sleep for a while to let my flesh heal and harden once more.

I learned the hard way what happens if I let it go too long. I was once stuck inside my skin for two years, in immense pain, because I was too stubborn to ask for help. I finally caved and asked one of my only friends, Ryzzur, to help me shed.

I can still hear his incessant laughter. “Stubborn as always, then?” He’d said as I bellowed his name from the top of the mountain. “What would have you done if I’d gone as coarse as you? If I was determined to stay in my cave.”

“I guess I’d live out my days doing what I have been: sleeping.”

Ryzzur had paused as he reached for me. “Well, it sounds like you don’t really need my help then.”

“Dammit, Ryzzur!” I grit my teeth, annoyed at how it itched. “Just get me out of here and stop being an ass.”

“Ah,” he said as he scraped a layer free, and I sighed at the cool air rushing in. “It seems the years of solitude didn’t ruin your bedside manners after all.”

And he teased me as he set me free, insisting that I owed him. I was forced to the base of the mountain that night to see the new dragons I had been avoiding.

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