baruch attah adonai [tarnished]

[Tarnished]

I watch you fast asleep,
All I fear means nothing.

His mother made dragons known for their ire, but not their wisdom and tendency to prosper. She was a vicious, callous, calculating woman that lived with many regrets—and that’s what killed her. She was not to be admired, she was not to be pitied. Things broken beyond repair are meant to be thrown out, not repaired; he has slept and dreamed and lived her life many times over, he still does not know how Yael and the others failed to see Nocturnal for the wrecking ball that she was. The black dragon. The great destroyer.

Tarnished smiles when he spies a golden dragon surging towards him; she’s pretty, glittering gold and shimmering silver. Classy and delicate-looking even in such a strong monstrous body. He tries not to move, though when she lands the ground shakes and he finds himself rocking gently side to side. The blue lion flicks his ears forwards and cranes his neck to look up at her. “Been a while, stepmother,” he says, his tufted tail twitching—seemingly in anticipation. Somehow, he always got the feeling that she wasn’t very fond of him, and how could he blame her? His father and mother had betrayed her in the worst of ways; her lover, her best friend. It must have hurt.

It might have ruined her.

But here she is, healthy and happy and diligently protecting her kingdom as she always has.

He wishes his mother had been of the same caliber, but alas.

“I think we need to talk,” he goes on, looking off into the distance as Nocturnal often had; he watches the sand rolling across the dunes, spots a great bird of some sort scouring around an oasis for a meal and he frowns. Remembering. It’s all he has ever done, remembered her life—it’s affected him so much that he hasn’t been able to enjoy his own. There’s parts of her etched so deeply into Beqanna that he often finds himself feeling sick from the weight of it all. It’s been a miserable life, but still, he perseveres.

“She hurt a lot of us, you know,” Tarnished sighs, turning his head to look at the dragon again. “I tried to tell my father, but I… couldn’t. I didn’t want to put that burden on him. He never knew what she did to me.” But Yael does.

Magicians always knew.

tarnished