Abscess

[josephine_marrs]

summary/preview: Imprisoned beneath Camelot, the Great Dragon broods.
content notes: allusions to people getting eaten

     Light filtered down the tunnel that led to the cavern, lapping over the rock in phantasmal rivulets. On clear days, its progress could be steadily noted, growing brighter and stronger as it ebbed downward, shining bright and tempting at its apex just out of his outstretched reach; and then, like the tide, retreating, turning from gold to silver as moon rose to replace sun. Cloudy days – and there were many of those – were more challenging, and the light could only be detected as a faint brightening of the darkness from above, the light dew of rain on the rocks the only tangible trace of the world above.
            Well…that was not entirely true. There were many times when he would crouch as close as he could to that passage, able to smell the distant earth and the grass above, and quietly whisper to the living creatures there, seducing the more sensitive ones to wander down into the darkness. Once they came within reach, their blood and flesh had been quite tangible. And delicious. Sheep, mostly, with the occasional cow, and once, there had been a person, and that one had tasted best of all. It had worked beautifully, until they had set a metal gate in front of the tunnel…but every now and then, he could get one of them to come to the grate and batter themselves senseless against it, their cries of uncomprehending pain echoing down over the stone and making sweet music for him. That, too, was delicious.
            Not that they didn’t see to it that he was fed. There was another tunnel, far smaller, that they used to drag carcasses down to the ledge for him. Near the beginning, he’d managed to catch a few of them unaware, in a different manner every time; one, he’d bitten neatly in half from above; another, he had ensnared with his tail, and taken his sweet time nibbling the soft meaty bits from its hard carapace of leather and metal. His favorite, though, was the one that he had decapitated with a well-placed swipe of his chain. That had taken some skill. After that, though, they had grown much more cautious. His food merely came rolling down to him in an undignified heap. He tended to ignore it, until it started to get fragrant; it did tend to taste a little better, that way, and made up for the lack of sport that he enjoyed in getting it.
            Over the past two decades the cavern had taken on a distinct, musty smell, of the natural wet, mossy dampness mingled with scorched rock, and his own scent. The guards complained that it smelled like a pit of snakes, down there. He found that he had made it a habit to rub his scent glands along the rocks near the narrow tunnel, making the smell that much more pungent; at first, he had done so out of his own weak self-pity, until he found that it displeased his captors. After that, it had become a statement of strength.
            In the early years of his imprisonment, he had spent much time and energy trying to break his chain. That was when most of the scorching had happened, as he had breathed gout after gout of fire against metal and stone, trying to obliterate it. How the flames had danced along the rock, casting his shadow in gargantuan proportions along that dark backdrop! How the metal had glowed, and ground bright sparks against the stone, chafing off impurities in sluiced scales as he had dragged and whipped the metal against the stone as if it were one giant anvil! And how he had strained against it, hoping that this would be the moment that it broke, hoping that he had finally stretched the metal beyond its limits…only to be drawn back short, his muzzle falling just at the threshold of that wide passage to the world above.
            He’d managed to dislocate his leg, a couple of times. His roars when the joint had popped into place had shaken the castle. The wound on his hock, where the metal had driven past his scales into the flesh below, had taken years to properly heal. It was only by luck that he was not crippled.
            In the end, he had to give them some credit. Never before had he seen metal that could resist his power. Magic had to have had something to do with its creation. He wondered of the various motives of those sorcerers who had lent their efforts to forging the chain; had they fancied that their acquiescence would result in their lives being spared? What fabulous lies had they been told, to imagine that betraying one of their own kind would result in their own continued existence?
            Or…had they known, somehow, that by being imprisoned here, in the darkness, in the womb of the earth, that his own powers would be honed beyond his imagining? Had they therefore hoped for some revenge, long after their bones had disappeared into unmarked charnel pits?
            At first, it was difficult to discern his visions from his dreams, as difficult as it was to determine whether it was night or day when the skies above were cloudy. It was true, when he breathed his bile on the rock to watch his fire flow upward in slick, liquid flames, that he saw things. None of them made any sense to him, nor did he care much about them one way or another. He assumed that his will was simply breaking, and that he was going mad.
            One vision had piqued his interest, however. In it, he saw Balinor, still alive, still free. Yet, it was as if he saw the man in two places; one image dwelt in a cave – how ironic – and the other hovered, nearly invisible, near a peasant woman and her child. He found himself focusing on them more out of boredom than anything else. Watching them, in their oblivious freedom, made his heart burn with bitterness, the only thing that made him feel like a live creature anymore, instead of yet another corpse buried deep in the earth. It was only when he saw the child moving objects with mental cantrips as he played, that he realized the importance of it all.
            He watched how the other villagers reacted to the strange child, and noted the growing apprehension of his mother. When, at last, she began to think of sending him away, hope began to course through him.
            This boy would be sensitive. He would be able to hear him, once he got close enough. He would come to his call. And, in return, he would tell this boy how the future would go.
            He would convince him of his own importance in the grand scheme of things. Encourage him to develop his gifts, make an ally of him. And, when the time came, he himself would be free.
            When he saw that the boy had crossed paths with Uther’s son, he laughed for the first time in a decade, and his plans took on a whole new, wonderful dimension. Yes, he could see it now. Yes, you will both be great instruments in the destinies of your people. You must be together, you must help each other, you must both grow in power and strength…but you must both also make certain enemies. You are both so important, after all; what is the dismantling of a family, what is the betrayal of your own kind, in the great, grand picture of your futures?
            They would become powerful, yes, part of legend. And they would both create their own undoing. Uther’s line would pay dearly, for all he had done. And Balinor’s line would live forever…in loneliness, and desolation. A decade of self-imposed torture, for every day that the last dragon had been held captive. Long after he himself had passed from the earth, they all would pay, for what they had done to him. He would have his vengeance.
            He could taste it already, as strong on his tongue as his scent was on the rocks, as he rubbed his throat against them, and put his muzzle to the narrow entrance of the tunnel.
            “Merlin,” he called. “Merlin.”
            Delicious.