The Curse of the Broken Shrinking God

Ragnarock

In their new found forms the dragon-kind sought to occupy themselves with intellectual conversation and pastimes as they saw fit.  Eagerly they awaited the time when the golden maiden would bear the promised one that would be able to fuse them once more into the full-fledged dragon.

Wandering far from the warmth and glow of the good maiden the cat-eagle and the water-horse galloped and flew further and further into the blackness beyond.  With her keen eyes she was not only able to see clearly but also glimpses of the future.  He had lots of feelers that could not only perceive the shadow around them but also gave him an intuition on the course of action they should take.

In the distance they saw the solitary glow of embers burning against the barrenness surrounding them.  They followed it until they perceived it was a hardened mass in the frigid cold that only survived as it continued turn over fresh flame re-melting its asphalt core.

Finally it spoke to them, "Don't just sstand there!  Do someththing!"  

"Oh, how are you alive?"  The eagle ventured a talon to poke him then reconsidered feeling a gust of the flame, "I didn't know you lived!"

"Alive?!?  A living Death!  I have this flame in me...always hungers, never finds it."  The flame spurted.

"Oh?  Find it?"  The eagle raised a blue feather "Ooh I know!  Your counterpart!  I love these guessing games!  You need the one that completes you - don't you!"

"Ssilly oaf of a bird!  Have you any sense?!  I could never be whole.  My demise is foretold.  The one who my master gave me up for.  I was the child in him!!  I was the cravings he sought to feed!  Pushed me aside like a feather of a no-thing when I was the all-devouring inside!"

"Oh, you sweetie thing!  Of course mommy is not mad!  You're mad!  Aren't you?  Aren't you?"  The blue bird pretended to nuzzle him with her beak being careful to not let her feathers catch flame as her spouse the green-scaled horse opened one eye wide twisting up his face in bewildering exasperation.  "You just need someone to give you a little love.  What is your name baby?"

"RAGNARRROCKK!!!"  He spewed seeking to crawl himself up into a head and arms to devour her.

"Sure, sure...and what would make you happy Ragnarock?"

Ragnarock paused sizing her up.  "You honestly think that when this promised king is born that you will still be important?  You will be absorbed back into his body never to be remembered again.  He only keeps you around because you are to be the airiness of his wings on that day.  SSspouse, you won't have a spouse.  Children, not your children.  Dragon's eyes, dragons wings...why be things when you can be kinggsss!!!"

"Hhmmm.  You know, now that you mention it I do see myself being crushed and swallowed...in the very near future!"  The blue eagle bobbed her head getting agitated.  "I'm glad I ran into you buddy."  She strummed her talons.  "...Looks like we may have a common foe!"

"Gooood.  You feel it."  Wisps of darkness swept around the Rags as he entered her soul.  "You see what I am saying...what he does to you!"

"Whoa!"  The seahorse felt the gravity of what was happening.  "Back off of her!  Don't touch her!"  He stamped his talon-y hooves attempting to pin the flame.  Where he stamped the flame hardened extinguishing with his watery, cold touch.

But she was consumed, blue flames shot around her.  When her spouse saw the flame in her eye he fell backward stunned.

As it turned out there is more than one way to form the dragon. Neptune shuttered, his hooves frozen in the remaining asphalt.  Before nothing weighed him down or held him back but now a heavy weight began to seize him weighing in all around.  His spouse had always been bewildering to him but now she was terrifying. He attempted to convince himself the shivering was from the absolute zero temperatures that surrounded him.

An empty loneliness began to seize him as he watched his wife get smaller in the distance, blue flames still lighting her way. The hollowness entered his stomach. He had never experienced hunger before because they did not need to eat or be warmed in their care-free states. But now Death sought to hold him down. Icicles formed on the hairy tendrils that hung from him. The only way to break free was to allow the fire to burn within himself. Survival kicked in.