father

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Father is dying. At least, his soul is...it was the brightest, clearest blue, once, I just know it. Now it's all scuffed and dull, and you can see the places where it's rotting, ebony and sick greenish yellow like a fungal infection. Sometimes, though, I can still see the sapphire. In his very softest moments. Adjusting Mother's necklaces before parties, trying in vain to calm her when Grandmother made her cry. Reverent tales of sparkling ice and snow, told sadly to me under the moons. Forest green fireworks, all around. Just for them. Maybe a little for me, too, but mostly for the broken pair of never-healing wings that is Mother and Father. I think they need to see the fireworks most. They don't live in colour like I do, though, so the fireworks are mine to watch. Sometimes it makes me sad. Sometimes it fills me with pride, knowing I finally have something that nobody else does. I have my colours and my swirls and my starbursts. They protect me from the darkened abyss that is dragonkind. 

The world is tipping, but nobody feels it. The sand begins to trickle, but nobody sees it. I know what will happen. My colours bring me tales of the future, but their beautiful poetry, their prophecies, their wonderful language...none of it could possibly be translated into Dragon, which is nowhere near as beautiful. 

I can never convey their warnings properly, try as I might.

Too late, the dragons will finally notice the tipping world, the falling sand, the pelting rain, but only when we're about to fall, when the last grain is about to drop, when the world is already flooded and everyone is drowning.

Dragons are ignorant like that.

I am glad I keep such wise company as my colours.

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