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The sun hurt. Blinking open tired, strained eyes, she attempted to see through the dirt that blocked her vision. After a few minutes, her neck could move as well, allowing her to lift her head from the stone ground. She lazily blinked her eyes, trying to comprehend the scene before her.
Destruction. Dunes of upturned earth that had never been there before. Collapsed dirt and stone mounds that had once been homes. There were no longer any roads or clean grass. A suspicious red lay in patches all over.
A heavy weight prevented her body from moving, large wings trapped under rubble. Slowly but surely, she wiggled her body free, shifting rocks as carefully as possible. As she rose from the rubble, she surveyed the land around her, looking for any signs of life.
Nothing. Where once grass green as emeralds grew, brown earth and blood took its place. The stream that ran through the village was blocked by the bodies of her kin, their scales no longer vibrant and beautiful. She had to turn her eyes away when she began looking too deeply into the former home closest to her when she spotted a piece of an egg shell.
Slowly, she moved through her once peaceful village, trying to comprehend what she was seeing, and why she saw it. Why was she alive? How did she live through all this chaos? Perhaps because she had lived on the outskirts of the village, or some divine force had guaranteed her survival; for what purpose, she did not know.
She stopped at what used to be a main crossroad, not nothing more than churned dirt and blood. Not knowing why, she looked down, and stared.
There, in the dirt, where footprints. Not just those of her kin, large and clawed, but smaller, thinner. They were human prints. And it all came back to her.
She remembered hearing the calls from the watchers, a warning that an enemy was approaching. That in itself wasn’t common, they were dragons, fire-breathers, why would someone attack them? The calling grew louder, more frantic, and soon it wasn’t just the watchers crying out.
She moved away from the crossroads, memories flashing through her mind.
*
The humans stormed through their village, swords and bows thirsting for blood. Her kin tried reasoning with them, before being slaughtered. Her kin had not been conquerors for a long time, had not breathed a breath of flame at a human for centuries. They were peaceful, so why were the humans killing us?
*
She broke into a run, tears rolling down her muzzle. The old bridge was in tatters, some of the wood still burning as she rushed across it.
*
Some of her kin attempted to take to the skies, only to be shot down by black arrows. The humans had brought large crossbows mounted on wheeled carts. This had been planned. There would be no escape, and no survivors.
*
She sprinted across the flatlands that had once been her home, tears flowing down her face, her eyes closed to the world.
*
She hid in the farthest, darkest corner of her home-cave, covering her golden scales with dirt and mud. The slaughter outside waged on, the screams of her kin echoing across the flatlands, the roars of the humans nearly as deafening. Why, why, why were they doing this?!
*
Finally, she entered the forest on the outskirts of what was once her village, dodging and weaving through the trees and foliage in her path. It was dark in the forest, the trees so clustered together that hardly any sunlight filtered through the leaves to the ground.
After running for what seemed like an hour, she slowed to a stop, panting with exhaustion and sorrow. She was a long ways from her home, so much so that she didn’t know exactly where she was. A sharp sound caught her ear from just ahead of her. It was high pitched, not unlike a bird singing in the morning sun, but harsher at the same time, as if in reprimand. Creeping her way through the foliage in front of her, she peaked between two trees and gazed upon the scene before her.
It was a human. A female, arms laden with baskets of fruits and greens. Her back was turned, and she appeared to be looking for something. There were other humans too, male and female, wandering around stone homes, through cobbled streets, and by horse drawn carts.
As she looked upon the happy village, she felt a white hot rage begin to course through her veins. These humans were happy, they were thriving, they were alive, and her kin weren’t. These were the creatures that had so readily slaughtered her kin, destroyed her home! Fire burned in her lungs, begging to be unleashed upon the creatures that had taken everything from her.
She closed her eyes, images of her once-home flashing through her mind.
Her eyes snapped open, fire and hate raging within them. With a mighty flap of her golden wings, she took to the air, soaring high above the, now that she had a decent view, large village. She circled, looking for the best place to start.
Upon seeing the village square, she dropped from the sky, fire at the ready. Snapping open her wings just before hitting the tops of the humans homes, she unleashed her fury. Fire flowed out of her mouth with the grace of an erupting volcano, scorching everything in its path. Dropping into the middle of the village square, she struck out with her claws, tearing chunks out of the streets, homes, and humans alike.
Turning her head to face down what appeared to be a major road, she opened her maw once again. Flames flooded the street, splashing up and inside homes, melting the stones and incinerating the wood. The humans stood no chance against her awesome might. The humans cries were like music to her ears, their dying screams echoing, louder and louder--
Her eyes snapped open, a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding releasing. A loud cry came from in front of her once again, prompting her to look back over at the village.
A child, young and innocent, ran to the female that she had seen earlier. The child was smiling, and excitedly waving their hands and speaking quickly, as if regaling the female with an exciting story. Her breath stopped when she finally got a look at their eyes.
Blue as sapphires and just as precious. They were just like her own son’s, who had not lived past his first winter. Beautiful and full of life, these eyes had not done any wrong. These eyes have not seen the world in its true, cruel image.
Her eyes dropped to the ground below her. Slowly, so as to not disturb the scene in front of her, she turned, and she left.