In the Shadows We Fight (for justice and ourselves)

How can people let go so easily?

She had been alone when she was a child. Her parents had stuck around long enough to teach her how to pick chorus fruit off branches to eat, and they had left her alone. She stayed where they had left for a few days. She ate chorus fruit off the branches, holding the fruit to her chest as she waited for her parents to return to her. She did not know anything except for how to eat and sleep. Boredom ransacked her spirit, but it was secondary to the crushing loneliness. She denied the fact that she had been left for a long time. It was only until the Enderman whose territory she had been born in beat her up with wild purple eyes and heavy limbs that she realized her parents had taught her a second lesson about the End: It was everyone for themselves.

She kept moving, trying not to stay in one area for too long. If she stayed one night too long somewhere, she knew that the person who claimed that part of the End would come for her head. By moving, she eventually made it to an End city. Although it was populated by Enderman and shulkers, the rules she had learned before remained true. The city was more like a bunch of antisocial, self-serving people who lived adjacently to each other for safety reasons. No one helped anyone else. No one made friends or had family. They were individuals, and that was all they could ever be.

They did have jobs, though. In order to receive chorus fruit from the Ender council, they needed to prove that they deserved it. She was able to get a job quickly by groveling and offering to do what no one else wanted to do. She cleaned the End spikes, making sure the obsidian towers and the iron cage shone like the stars dotting the endless night. It was a tiring, thankless job that was meant to reassure the people of the End that the dragons would one day return. She knew better than to believe in that. There was no creature that could ever unite the people of the End. They would always be lonely creatures terrified of breaking the norm. She was among the scared populace, but at least she was self-aware enough to know where she stood in the matter. The Ender Dragon was a sham that the council perpetuated the rumor of for their own self-interest.

The End crystals that floated on top of the spikes were beautiful, though. They bobbed in the air with a rich purple light. If she reached through the iron bars, she could almost touch one of the crystals. Her hand would get lost in the thick purple light, and she would feel the energy swirl in her body. It was probably the closest to happiness she would ever be able to achieve.

After a full year working at the job, the council began to kidnap people off the streets for unspecified reasons. She didn't pay any attention to it, assuming that the people getting taken were criminals or people so desperate for companionship that they broke the rules. She thought this until the shulker hybrid guards slammed open the door to her small apartment, dragging her by her arms into the streets. She fought against them, and she was usually able to escape. But the shulkers kept coming back, and one good hit to her head knocked her unconscious. When she woke up, she was chained to the wall in an Ender dungeon.

The council personally met her. They poked and prodded her skin as if she was an inanimate object. It hurt, and it brought tears to her eyes. When she could no longer handle it, she gave the council what they had been hoping for: a transformation. Black scales grew across her skin and stubby horns protruded from her hair. It wasn't a complete transformation, but it was more than anyone else had ever been able to do. The council excitedly took her out of the cell, and she was presented to the people as the reincarnated Ender dragon. She bestowed the name Jean, something she didn't need or want.

The people revered the Ender dragon as a goddess, but the council treated her like a weapon. She was forced to train past the limits of her body. If she felt like she could no longer go on, she was shoved against an End crystal that usually gave its life to heal her and refill her with energy. The beauty she once found in the cold, bittered world was soured, and she found that she no longer loved her home. She never did, really, but now she was certain she hated the End. She hated the people, she hated the loneliness, she hated the cold temperatures, she hated the long nights. She was so filled with hate that she lashed out at everything and everyone, truly losing herself to her draconic instincts.