The Dragon's Blood (Part 87.3)
During which tragedy strikes...
87.3
Their laughing was over then, all of it, perhaps forever, for when they saw what had mangled one of their own leap out of that alley, tooth, nail and claw lashing outward, they saw death itself.
He didn't stay long, only long enough to howl once, lash out and kill a few dozen and take to the air. He could only think of her, of them. He beat his wings with all his might, his vision coming in a tunnel, one that led to his home high up that mountain, his home where it was warm, his home where he'd learned what love was, his home so far now, so agonizingly far.
He crashed into the cave, not caring what damage he'd done to his wings, his legs, his ribcage. He was moving through it in a flash, his eyes searching, his others senses telling him what he already knew.
He could smell her, he could smell them, they were here still but they were different. Gone was their warmth, gone was their fire, what remained was cold and lifeless, the smell of rot, the smell of the departed.
Some of the others were here still, their little weak fleshy bodies among what was left of all he loved. They were
pillaging, wearing pieces of his children, holding aloft parts of his Domina in their hands, branding shards of her magnificent crown like obscene weapons. They had taken the gold too, her precious treasure, taken it all, that warm glow that had reflected all across the walls gone, leaving even the cavern itself devoid of any semblance of it's former self.
She saw her face, beautiful in that water so many years ago. He smelled her aroma, still here among the others.
It was with her great presence overcoming his mind, threatening to overwhelm his sense that he set about not only slaughtering those still remaining, but leaving nothing of them not desecrated. He ripped, shredded and absolutely did rend every part of them. They died in agony, every one of them, and every piece of them found a place to adorn her cavern. He spared none, not even the young ones some of them had dared to bring up here to witness their great desecration. They were ruined too, ripped apart and left unrecognizable among the remains.
Then he listened to himself and found it, the fire, and oh was there so very much of it now. It was a veritable cauldron of flaming death within him. It was nothing to let it loose, to allow every bit of it out to dance all about their home, to turn every thing within it, the men and what remained of all he held dear into nothing more than ashes. He let it forth, his fury made physical, made an unstoppable force of pure entropy.
And when he was done, when there was nothing left, he found he wasn't finished. There was more within, more fire, more fury. He knew where to take it, knew for whom it was for.
The rest of that night, the return of Fafnir, was nothing but a nightmarish blur for the being that called itself Trakaan Astranax, soon to be Stefan Blackmoon. He remembered nothing but fire, death and the screams of lesser creatures.
In the morning, when he woke within the hole in the earth that had once been an entire village he searched his thoughts and still felt it, nothing but an abyss where he'd once been. It was a great gaping hole where warmth and love had once dwelt, a chasm he knew he'd never be able to crawl out of, didn't even care to.
“-----for to avenge what his Children did to the Wagner folk----”
That was what he'd said, that was all he could hear in his mind now.
What Children? Tyraan and Komodus hadn't been old enough to use their little wings, much less venture out and hurt any humans.
What children of his had done harm to any Wagner folk? What children of Domina's?
A low growl escaped his throat as he decided to find out.
End Part 87.3
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