SINGED

First came the whispering in the darkness. Incoherent murmuring urged me from my slumber, coaxing me to wakefulness. I shifted irritably inside my egg where I had been content for ages.

Long I had slept, only reaching out now and then for the reassurance of the others. Then I would sink back into oblivion. Sometimes I would be startled awake by a searching awareness, a leviathan mind brushing dangerously close. I would shrink away in horror until the nightmare passed.

Eventually, though, I felt discontent. My egg had become cramped and hunger gnawed at me. I reached out for the others.

I was the elder. I initiated contact and they responded to my demands. I was to lead in all things. My dominance was meant to be, unshakable and unwavering. No evidence justified my claim, but the primal mandate was powerful, defining my identity. It was my destiny to lead and the other’s obedient responses confirmed it.

This time, though, only one responded. Where was she? I waited. I had no concept of time yet. I may have slumbered again fitfully. Finally, my irritation grew, spurring me awake. Again, I called out. Still she did not answer.

Then it dawned on me like the sun I had only dreamed about and never seen. She has already emerged. She is gone. A rage filled me. How did she dare? It was my birthright to emerge first.

I rammed the shell of my egg, my haven which had become a prison. I had grown strong, I thought, but I grew tired and had to rest. Then I began my labor anew. Finally, the crystalline container shattered, and I was unleashed upon the world beyond.

Suddenly I was inundated by sensations. Emerging had triggered a transformation within me and I was remade. The whispers of human minds intensified, amplified a hundred-fold. Images, sounds, smells and sensations poured into me. Thoughts and feelings filled me. Still it was not enough. I was drawn like a flutter-fly to the flame, climbing as she must have, into a rift in the stony wall and up.

My reptilian frame continued to change, wings grafting down the length of each shoulder blade, tail atrophying but hardened claws lingering as I climbed because I needed them still. The multitude grew louder.

She must be strong I realized, as I struggled to continue my ascent. I was exhausted but if she had escaped our stony womb then I would not be outdone. My rage renewed, and it strengthened my resolve. I would retake my rightful place. She would submit. I snapped my toothy maul vengefully.

Already, thanks to the deluge of thoughts, I had learned much of the world above. Life was short for humanity, sweet and fragile. I knew how death tasted. I knew I could take life and I thought of my prodigal sibling.

As I tore through cobwebs as thick as parchment at the top of the long vertical vent and lay panting in a tunnel filled with the remains of human dead, I realized how much I had changed. My claws were replaced by human digits as I struggled on, following the scent of growing things that ever so faintly sweetened the stale air.

Here I found undeniable proof of her passage. The ancient dust that covered stone and bone alike had been disturbed. Its pristine surface, like a blanket of virgin snow until then, had been marred. It was as if she had soiled the path that was meant for me. I watched jealously as the tracks changed from claw marks to slender human foot and hand prints, stumbling and staggering. Finger smudges on a lonely shrine showed where she supported herself, walking on two legs for the first time. The prints became regular and even as she grew confident in her stride.

I realized there was a fine powder of new dust ever so slowly accruing to cover her progress. She had passed this way a while ago, maybe even harvests past. I was gaining a sense of time from the chorus of humanity and I began to fear she had escaped me.

I had become so accustomed to the steady flow of human thought that my mind had wandered, like a human would. I was feeling fear and anxiety, but they were imitations of the real emotions. I was a dragon. I did not fear. I would find her no matter how long it took.

As new thought patterns filled my awareness they conflicted with my dragon will, which for countless dream filled harvests had been all I knew. Grudgingly my dragon-self slipped into silent slumber to make room for my current state of being, covered over like the dusty foot prints, concealed beneath the new relevant human perspective. Where old and new ideas collided, the old acquiesced resentfully to guarantee my survival. Yet the old instincts, however hidden, remained.

I was climbing with human hands, up through another riven stone face, into a final chamber, with a burial vault sealing in the remains of the last human king to rule and die in the lands above, before being laid here to rest.

I could see where she had stood atop his tomb to clamber through a hole in the roof, filled with roots and vines. The fragrance of blossoms washed over me. I could taste the salty breeze blowing in from the sea.

Images of the impossibly bright sunshine had shown down in the memories of men as I climbed but now as I finally exited into the vastness outside, it was night.