There are fewer of us now.

Some have lost interest in the experiment.  Others have been consumed.  Some fled at the sound of her wings, and forget our Lord has more than teeth and tail.

We wait.  Time has no meaning except as a measurement.

We have always known her to be thus, as she thrust the serpent symbol at us.    All at first she saw our master fearing he hungered for her disaster.  But us “alone” as single “we,” a magic she simply cannot see.

We are a mystery to her, one she would well devour and absorb did she not fear our Lord.

Would that we could say, “I.”

Her eyes are the same.

They’re a shallow blue, a tidepool, a sip of time that barely tastes of a moment.  She is starving, but so do many of her ilk, as dreams turn to dust and wars to circuitry and the bones of the Mothers are blasted through for roads.   Shrews and dinosaurs, and the myths fade from histories with no room for maybes like the Dragons.

Like us.

But there is the heart.  Her solace, her only meal for years, easily.  Those that feed the Dragons want the ones that are fiery red, burning hot white and blue.   Fast cars, fast Dragons, quickly eaten and no real lasting substance.

Not like a sorceror’s love.

It is a strange feeling that we hold that he, the small power has not touched us.  Some are sad, some strive us to tempt, some are angry.  And within, we almost feel the “I.”

Would he love us if we were one girl?  Can he love us now? 

We do not think he will come this far.

She moves quickly, her bulk slithering behind her.  They say cats have whiskers to determine their likelihood of being stuck, so how does she fit her wings so carefully within the walls?  It is a question he would ask.  She is more serpent than bird, but neither fish nor fowl.   The halls whisper her name. 

“You have not eaten,” she accuses us.

Like all of them, she has a collection.

Thin strands of gold snarl a nest of thorns both iron and steel, clasps, buckles, and horns, and more to conceal.    Herbal concoctions as sold in auctions, feathers and bone, from the dead and the flown.  What meals here are untainted we are unacquainted.

But it would not be Hospitable to say that.

We remain silent.

Candles and magic both light the room, leaving odd shadows in colours that have names that lack music.  It is painted in dishabille, rather than inusitation.   It is not a place for guests, but we are still bound by what we are. 

Are we captive?  She cannot use her magic to bind us here.  We are lacking reference as to which world we have been brought, but while it is not inimical  to our kind, our gifts are unreliable without synthesis into the weave.  What is ours remains, what is our environment is suspect. 

She is not without wit or charm.

Or power.

She is in a quandry, for she cannot harm us without cause.  Devour us in entirety, and she would be breaking many laws. 

“What are we going to do with you?” she asks, and part of it is that the phrase brings her comfort, and part of it is a concern. 

Her scales are made at least partially of bronze, of her Mother’s coils, and they reflect the light in glittering hypnotics, and protect her from the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  Her eyes are lidded in gold, and her teeth are firm and made of the bones of warriors.   Her wings are freight trains and hurricanes and her tail is the lightning bolt. 

Yes, of course, she is a Dragon.

But within us is the blood of another.  Peredur he calls himself now, and we are a reflection of his Angharad.  He would not forsake us.

He remains silent.

“Who are you?  What are you?” the Dragon asks.

He is the breath of life, and we are then the breath of thorns and ashes.

Ill-luck, we named ourselves.

We have decided that is how this will end.  In thorns and ashes, as our Lord had made of us, and ill luck for those who have stolen us from our will.

We answer her.