and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
At this height, high above the overcast sky, it soars undetected, looking hardly more than a bird. Out of the reach of prying eyes and ears, far from the roaming tendrils of magic. There is freedom here, but also in its heart at it drums in its deep barrel chest. Each powerful stroke of its wings goes unheard by the world below, a quiet whisper lost in a hurricane.
Streamlined and silent, Castile remains undetected during the hours spent airborne, not even uttering a resonating bellow to announce himself.
Hollowed are his eyes as they peer down from underneath scaly brows, showing no former semblance to the softness that Castile often exhibited toward those dear to him. They are not thoughtful or considerate; blackened pools of terror searching only to sate his innermost needs. A monster is what he is, what he has truly become. The final threads of his memory fade with the faerie’s curse, damning him to a world of impulsiveness and selfishness. They twist, however, those fraying ends, merging together into their own tales and reasons for his actions.
Icicle Isle.
Plague.
Desertion.
Isolation.
Prisoner.
In its solitude, the spit of land has done no wrong to Castile, but he reflects on Jesper being in Loess. A hostage. Rages glues together the relapse in memory, tying together a fable of war and treachery and misfortune. The island will collapse beneath him, he decides, and it will burn.
Hunger churns in his stomach – hunt, feed - , but it’s the relentless love of chaos in his heart and mind that eclipses all else.
The wind changes, a frigidity biting into his scales as he soars into the night. Hours have passed, the travel from Loess having been extensive even for his own immense size and speed. It looms, Icicle Isle. He can nearly taste it as his mouth opens to drink in a lungful of cold air. It burns down his throat initially, but the rolling inferno within him melts away the chill as it nips his heels. Excitedly, enthralled by what looms, Castile’s lips stretch back into a predatory grin as he shifts his weight and rapidly descends like a comet bursting from the clouds to make landfall.
He will cause near enough destruction here.
A torrent of fire blasts from his mouth just as he lifts his chest to break the dive and skims above the island’s autumnal southern tip. Pine trees combust from the fiery stream. They screech in their falls, snapping. Small claps of thunder punctuate the clash onto their frosted gravesites. Mayhem’s symphony tangoes with the rhythm of Castile’s wind thrusts. A boisterous rhapsody splitting the island’s peacefulness. Animals caught in the line of attack cry, trees groan in their uprooted plunges, a deafening roar unhinges the land’s serenity.
Castile does not falter in his blind rampage.
Beneath, they cannot see the emptiness of his eyes, how they’ve blacked with primal malice. Void of genuine emotion, he is a released monster thrusted into the world – a circus tiger set free on the awed and frightened audience.
They do not see his typical piebald pattern or the golden band strapped across his muzzle. A behemoth shrouded in darkness, Castile adopts the abysmal black of the looming night except for the spines racing down his crest and back that dance with colors of firelight.
Another quaking boom emits from his chest, an ear-splitting roar as he tilts northward still.
There lies the notable heart-shaped pond, frozen over and patrolled by a lonely tree. An image of solace, a monumental and notable piece of the territory. It flickers across his memory – when he first saw it, the plague – but in the second it takes to blink, a plume of raging inferno engulfs it all. The pond does not melt, nor do the icicles dangling from the tree branches above. What little magic stored in this land to preserve and pull it from the depths perseveres and combats Castile’s fire.
But he does not notice. He soars past and continues to burn all that he can – trees, snowy hills, anything – before amending his path again to trace down the untouched lanes of the island where more destruction explodes to life. Oblivious, Castile does not witness how his fire mingles with the island’s magical winter or how it encases the lonely tree – an eternal blaze of dragon ice – and hisses at the pond’s edge.
Lapping around the island, Castile mars every surface he can with torrents of fire that dance under the new moon. He admires it from above in the moments he takes a deep breath, his eyes twinkling mischievously. Mayhem tastes delectably sweet on his tongue; he swallows, savoring the flavor as he gains some altitude to better observe his work. Beneath him, angrily roaring, the firelight mingles with the starlight and watercolors of the aurora borealis, bringing to life a wasted land.
castile
