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
Fire illuminates the southern half of the island. Trees scream as the heat sucks every ounce of moisture and cracks their bark.
In the northern half, snow melts and thick clouds of steam rise and minimize ground visual.
Everywhere, plant life is dying and burning to ash.
Castile soars high above, a vulture circling its meal. His eyes flicker with sick conquest as the island writhes underneath his hellfire. A toothy grin stretches across his muzzle, but only for a cluster of heartbeats before tilting his body and descending toward the mayhem once more.
(Burn it all)
(A living Hell)
A bone-chilling bellow pierces the night sky as the dragon emerges from a thick layer of black smoke, his body perfectly matching their burning world. Another torrent of fire shoots from his mouth, combusting another knot of pine trees in passing. There’s more in him – hunger to destroy – and his mind funnels on the concept until a noise pierces his concentration like a polished knife sinking into flesh. It pulls him out of the darkness shrouding his thoughts, but Castile – the true man lost in it all – is still unable to surface. Beryl’s appearance gives pause to the destruction as the dragon glances back to see her. As a lion, her balance is impeccable as she steadies herself on his back while searching for means to hinder him. A hiss, snake-like and threatening, stings the air between them as he regards the feline distastefully before abruptly swerving to try unseating her. It’s during this motion that she manages to slice the nearest, and narrowest, section of his wing closest to his shoulder blade.
The pain nips at him, an agitation as he thrusts his wings to rapidly ascend. Much to his luck, the air is open enough that even as her shadows mask his face, Castile continues to climb higher where the air is thin and depriving. His other senses desperately compensate for his lost vision, but just as he levels himself, there is a familiar voice shouting above the fray. Leilan. Instinctively, Castile rotates away from the sound of the stallion’s voice, no longer regarding Beryl and whether she remains latched on or not. Her shadows still badger him and blot out his sight, but he doesn’t stop. He cannot stop. Flames burst from his muzzle, lacking aim, but still attempt to combat this quieted world. A hunger for chaos has manifested inside him in the last months, and finally, it comes to fruition.
We must stop.
(No. We mustn't)
This isn’t right.
(We belong in our own Hell. Destroy everything)
Castile’s grip on himself slips further and further beneath the waves, but he continues feverishly treading water in attempt to remain present and formidable. He wants to steer away, but the creature has clapped shackles on his ankles in its valiant march for power. Primal instincts eclipse all else. Nothing matter except its innermost wants, needs, and attack mechanisms.
As he turns southward again, the overpowering stench of everything burning playing as a beacon, Castile prepares to resume the onslaught, but there is another trumpeting roar looming near him. Even without his vision, he can hear and feel the wind from the heavy beating of his opponents wings. A resounding bellow vibrates through his core in response, and just as he prepares to emit a plume of fire, there is an odd tingling in the air followed by an unfamiliar chatter from a bird.
An odd sense of electricity brushes across the Loessian, and he shies from the contact reflexively. Spiraling upward with labored wingbeats, he almost entirely eludes Ruinam’s attack due to the Popinjay’s crackling warning, but his tail is caught in the madness. A grunt escapes him in defiance, as his entire body yanks downward by Ruinam’s relentless grip. They fall like comets from the sky. The island beneath rises toward them quickly, but just as time works against him, Castile adjusts his wings to catch the air and jerk him from Ruinam’s grip. It’s then that Popinjay’s electricity shoots outward to the other dragons, but still, the Loessian king is unaware as his world remains cloaked in abysmal blackness.
Fire aimlessly pours from his mouth as he tries to streamline away from his opposition, marring and destroying all that he can.
Little does he know how blue flames rise from the secluded tree in the north.
He does not see the geysers erupting or the world cracking.
He only tastes the sulfur and smoke in his lungs, noting its amount in blind recognition of his efforts.
And he feels the blood dribbling from his tail and left wing with realization.
I’ve done something wrong.
(Not at all)
Remorse… You don’t have it, but I do. I need it.
(You need only me)
Banking, Castile heavily alights on a small granite overhang, crumbling the edges of it beneath his titanic weight. Arching his neck and lifting his head, he roars, trembling the ground underfoot.
castile
