Rising Dragons

Matt and Seong

Character Rambles - So, these guys don't get much but you guys get something. I'm not sure how I feel about this - I wasn't sure of who I was writing until I was like halfway through, and thought - huh - this could work for these guys and it doesn't make sense, and boom, I'm loving these characters who were not shining stars of mental health and these guys were (swear warning) fucked up no doubt, but they couldn't reach out and didn't know something was wrong. The society they were in, well, you can see how it responded - it didn't do anything. Or, at least, not that Matt knew.

You peel back lips and run your tongue over bloodied teeth. There are words you want to spit out here, spit and drop on the ground and crush beneath your heel – ugly words like penance. You've never really grown from that scrap of a boy you were – the boy who put his fists up and started fights because it felt right, because it made you forget.

Here you are now – something years past – and you aren't worth much more than that bloodied scrap that spat at others, and not often with words. You've never been that good with words – but that isn't here or there. You aren't worth something, so it doesn't matter if your words work or not. You can stand and laugh and pretend the world means something, pretend you mean something, but it changes nothing. Your worth isn't something you get given. You're still what you are – blood-soaked fists and self-directed anger. You're a body though, and that means you can hit and you can kill and you can bring some of the bad guys down.

You don't think anyone even knows your name here – they probably don't trust you, which is fair. You aren't the trustworthy sort, dragon or not. You – kind of – blend in with all the others, because you've learnt to shrink your grin and hide your scars, your scabs. You learn to hide your nature because no one else is like you.

You know what they used to say about you, still do say if they don't think you're nearby – they whisper words like savage and animalistic and you don't think they're wrong. They might not be entirely right because savages pull apart bodies and do unspeakable things and you aren't an animal because you think, but – and that's the thing, there's always a but – you grin in fights and snarl and growl and fight with all you are, you enjoy fighting. No one ever does – no one human, at least.

Honestly, you've never really understood it. Dragons enjoy fighting, enjoy killing. They're carnivores and predators and deadly creatures. It's in their nature to enjoy a good fight, to grin while fighting, to snarl, to growl, to be savage, to be animalistic. However, when you do it, it's wrong. You think they should get it – really, they should. They, like you, are bonded to a dragon and they should be able to feel that fierce desire to fight, to attack, to protect. You tried to explain it one time – saying words about bonds and fighting desires and being a dragon in human form. You don't try again because they end up looking down at you like you're a misfit, like you're wrong, like you're abnormal, like something about you isn't right. You turned away, biting your lip, and heard they say bad bonding.

You hear them, but you know this thing called ignoring and you know how to do it. You get better over the years because the whispers never fully disappear.

There's something in your past – a damned event, one you've blackened and pretend it never existed, even if you act in a certain way because of it. You know you've let your rage fly out of control – but only once – and you know the way blood sprays up walls and on stone paving and you don't like to think about it anymore.

You get older and you like to pretend you've moved past being a scrap of a boy, even if you haven't really. But you learn you can hide behind steel way better than you can hide behind words and falsified expressions.

You figure it out sometime, figure how to pretend like you can't feel wings, sometimes, beneath your skin, all folded and twisted up. You figure out that if you pretend your talonfingerclawnails nails are blunt claws that it's easier to pretend that you feel like you have talons, long, sharp, deadly. You take steel and feel safer, you claim it as yours and dare anyone to say anything. They speak and you go back to ignoring them because if you turn on your supposed allies everyone turns on you. It isn't fair because they aren't right and you aren't like them, but–! But, that's the thing right? There's always a but. But you let your snarls and blood-soaked hands slip beneath stupidly fragile skin and pretend to smile, to laugh, to talk, and you act like it comes easy like you don't want to be something other than what you do.