Dark Fall (3rd Book)

Chapter 5: A Dragon's Thoughts, Part I

She gazed at them with concerned eyes, watching them lug about, carrying some unknown rock to and fro, and to make matters even worse than what they already were, they entered this swirling mass, this portal, only to come out even more battered down, being dealt pain she never imagined would be felt by someone, let alone a human.

Naked, sweaty and bloody, they carried on, forcefully doing what their master had demanded to, and she now understood why the humans were widely regarded as the most persevering race to ever walk the fields of this forsaken land.

She saw how they wept, and how they fought from their chains, but never once uttered a loud complaint, even when they were left alone, with only the company of others and the maddening solitude itself shrouding their minds, making themselves lethargic fools.

She saw how they worked together, when in the past they were warring dogs fighting for the last scrap, now they worked to get the smallest meat to be found, to be salvaged, and she was deeply admiring them for that.

But she also felt contempt for it.

They only unite when forces greater than them attack.

Is that the only way for peace, then? To join only when a godly threat is known?

I can't understand how Merec would expect them to survive living on just meat and dirty water.

But she knew already that Merec really did not intend for them to stay long in the living world.

She shook her head, startling a group of three passing by her, and they muttered their own apologies, bowing their heads, out of fear or respect, she didn't know. They watched her warily as they lumbered this giant rock to a field miles away from her, and she wondered what He was planning.

Is he so arrogant that he enslaves these people to build statues in his name? If at all possible, her great disdain for the Shadowy Death intensified, and it was as if her fire was her rage alone, and that she was nearing the point.

She knew the others and also herself wouldn't fare very well if she broke again.

As she told them that it was alright, and that they were not to be punished for anything mundane, she added a pitiful thought, and was rather overjoyed when a young man, barely experiencing his twelfth winter, smiled slightly, and that alone made her want to break their chains.

So young, so innocent, and yet thrown into the thick of things with naught but his own will to survive as a weapon.

But is it not the most powerful weapon of all? She asked herself, closing her eyes as words permeated her consciousness, filling her mind with words she barely even knew.

Or maybe the allure of domination. Such is the most destructive, but the will to survive, I think, is most powerful.

But both shall deal pain nonetheless. She rambled on, quite liking this direction her mind lead her, and she trudged on, getting lost in this sea of rambling thoughts, a cacophony of the same voice saying cryptic words over and over again.

I wonder. Why do the humans war with themselves. The elves are content,and the same for the dwarves. But the humans... why do they always seek for the rivers to run a deep red.

She sighed, the breath exploding out of her maw, her nostrils releasing a short plume of smoke, scaring another group of slaves, and she waved them off, too lost in her own maze to particularly care at this moment.

The humans always seek to expand their empire, while the elves are content with their small settlements, and the dwarves with their single stone mountain, Vren Muldir, the shining rock.