The Onset of Madness

The onset of madness and the loss of reason; our city was at the very epicenter of it.

It started as a few whisperings around town; I had a young daughter at home, I hadn’t the time to partake in baseless rumors and gossip.

That day, a black dragon circled our village, so high above he was nothing more than a black speck against the white clouds. A bad omen, the people whispered. Though we worshipped them at our temples we all knew nothing good had ever come from a dragon's appearance.

When the town elders first addressed the onset of madness, they told us it didn’t exist. There were just a few outlandish individuals stirring up trouble; humanity still had rationality. But as time passed, the sickness affected us personally: friends and family afflicted, they acted entirely out of character. It became more and more obvious that it did exist.

We could deny it no longer.

They then told us that it did exist, but it was not our fault. How could it be when all we’d done was live our lives as successfully as possible? Madness, perhaps, was something that came to everyone, like the flu. And yet as we spread and grew as a society, the madness grew with us, slightly faster than we outgrew it.

How could we continue denying it when it started in our very town?

And so they told us it was human caused, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Our loved ones with the affliction were still here, they were still alive. They still showed affection for us even in the absence of easily understood rationale. This was a fine sentiment: if we were to lose our rationality and succumb to the madness, we would still fundamentally be us. Perhaps it wasn't so bad.

Until Aunt Liana became afflicted, and slaughtered Uncle Nap because he forgot to water her plant while she was at work. And up until Saint Minnie’s own daughter lost all reason and chewed her fingers off so they couldn’t run away, it seemed like a normal disease. In frighteningly increasing numbers people stood in the middle of roads, paths, forests and they spoke to the air before them. Days later, they would be found deceased, laying with their eyes as big as saucers, their lower jaw trying to pull away from their upper jaw.

Then, a leader of our village, Bartan, came down with madness and it became clear to an entire nation, and soon after the world, that the onset of madness was that big of a deal.

To appease us, they said it was, in fact, a big deal. But it was too expensive to fix, and that money was best used elsewhere. If we cannot even afford to feed and clothe the members of our society, how were we to fight off this disease?

We awaited the help they claimed would come; we were quite patient. The madness continued to spread but what could be done?

When we thought we couldn’t last another second longer, they told us it was far too late to stop the onset of madness.

And in the middle of everything, like a beacon pouring forth its dying light into the putrid stench of the night, there you were. Your cries scratched deeply into my bones, your chubby little fingers rubbed mud all over your face.

I could’ve reached you; all I had to do was reach my hand out and take yours, to pull it away from your chubby face.

But I hesitated.

One second; yes, that was all I needed to change the course of fate.

As his grand thunderous roar filled the woods, as the beating of his wings threw branches to the forest floor around your bleeding feet, I hesitated. With no idea what was happening, I took my eyes off you. The ground rolled like a grand ocean; rocks unmoved for centuries fled. Warm rays of light that once caressed lovingly over our skin vanished. A scream drew my attention to you, but by the time my head turned, all that remained where you once stood was a darkened titan silhouetted by sunbeams; the forest was cast in his massive shadow.

That filthy beast spent days circling our village, he watched us suffer as the madness took us. Why here, why now, did he leave his post in the sky?

As I watched him take you, I couldn’t even scream.

Sunlight returned to the woods, but without you, all that remained for me in that village was darkness. I closed my eyes as I felt the sickness take hold within my mind, stronger than before. It's been coming in waves, each one engulfing the one before it like a brewing storm. All I could do is whisper to you, “I’m sorry--”

Why couldn't I remember your name? The very name that I, myself, gave you?

“I’m sorry--”

A sentence cut short again and again. There should be something added, but that place remained unclaimed. A name… what was your name?

What was your name?

****

Issa arriet.

There was no better word to describe my people. In your language, it meant arrogant, haughty.

But you, little one, were not this. As small and meek as you were, you thought of others and little of yourself. You were demure and modest. You were not arrogant, you were Arriet.

The others didn't know about you, and I intended to keep it that way. Given their haughty nature, they would likely incinerate you beneath scorching dragon fire the moment they came close enough to do so, as they had done with all members of your species.

As the light died afar of the cavernous rock we dwelled in, just above the raging ocean below, I must leave. Though I didn't wish to, I mustn’t be late. So I took large leaves gathered to make a little bed for you, and within my hands, each as big as my little Arriet, I tied my little pet together and placed you at the back of the cave. You cried and struggled against your restraints, but I felt nothing towards you. The voice summoned me, as it did every sunset.

My wings could barely spread within this cave. I ran to the entrance, and fell. Below, the ocean churned violently, bloodied by the sunset and sparkling like a queen’s jewels. Wind constricted like a viper around my body, it screeched in my ears. To open my wings in this extreme turbulence was to try and fell a tree by pushing on it. They trembled and shook as I forced them open.

With the suddenness of a cone dropped from a pine, the pressure keeping my grand wings shut vanished. Every one of my muscles strained; the wind caught beneath my wings, and I glided.

Across this short ocean there sat an island with three massive rocks that pierced the sky above and were dressed in an oceanic gown below. Here the thunder of dragons arrived night after night, summoned by the voice of the elders, the voice of community and rationality: the Sho’ M’orret.

I pushed my wings farther out; they burned as I beat the wind into submission. Higher and higher I climbed, the sparkling ocean below expanding farther and farther until I could no longer see the whitecaps of the waves, until all that remained below me was a stunning multicolored blanket that quivered and shifted.

My crash through the clouds was a soundless explosion of mist and vapor that clung to me. Ahead, there was a great eruption, a growing cloud mound that eventually birthed forth a young drake, soft and feathered like the weakling tuft of a hatchling bird painted a robin's egg blue. Though she faced me, she chose not to see me; she deemed me beneath her. Those soft feathered wings carried her to the tri-tips of the titan-like rockery. Perched like a perfect egg within its rocky nest was a massive marble building.

I followed her lead and tried not to look at her. An entrance opened before me like the maw of a great whale; the wind screamed around me as I soared through it.

Within the marbled sanctuary a vast concord of draconic bodies perched their taloned claws on rows of massive marbled dowels. They rested their strong backs against a marbled half-wall behind each dowel.

The only light within came forcefully through a massive glass window which faced the final dying rays of light. Reds and oranges spotted amongst the floor, blue and purple hues covered the ceiling and caught the sparkles therein like a starry night’s sky.

Three wrinkled dragons stood with their backs to the light; they were illuminated like great deities of old. We were an unmoving rainbow, perfectly still like the colorful rocks in the river Aonei; the elder dragon in the center of the three opened his mouth, and the sermon began.

Every word spoken by the elders used the Sho’ M’orret; it attacked our minds with a ferocity that drew shivers from my very bones.

They commanded us to continue maintaining our vigilance in the skies, above all other species where we belonged. Should any creature dare approach us, they must be incinerated by the hellfire that was a dragon’s greatest gift. Dragonkin must never fight: we were above such violence. Like the stoic mountains, who had lived peacefully together for generations untold, we were too grand to fight one another. And all that we should consume from this world was the greatest of prey: the angel-fur caribou who lived on these rocky mountains, and the blubberous white whales that dwelled in the sea.

We were dragonkin, descended from the mountains themselves, chosen by the gods to ascend from our smaller reptilian brethren. We'd been granted the Sho' M'orret as proof of our ascension; it gave us emotionless beings something that only humans with their morality had forged:

The ability to create society and community.

This was the reason we dragonkin gathered in this temple every night, to renew those commands that had enabled the growth of our great draconic society.

The sermon lasted half an hour; the elders' final words ended right as the last spider’s thread of sunlight cut from its host, and the sun sank deeply into the sea.

Their words echoed within the hollowness of my mind. I waited statuesque as the other dragons filed out and took to the skies. Not one of them acknowledged me, not even with a slight look.

They all thought I was beneath them.

One remained with me in the sanctuary, an elder dragon who's set to inherit the Sho’ M’orret after a reining elder returned to sand.

I was aware of her, as many other young dragons were. She was Aunt Vailloria.

The four of them spoke to one another like I didn't exist. To acknowledge my existence, even if I should listen to a private conversation, would be to acknowledge that we were equals.

“Elders.” She bowed her head, avoiding eye contact. “I saw one acting odd, the flesh-apes.”

Humans. They called themselves humans.

Elder Chawo scoffed. “Humans act in strange ways we cannot possibly understand. They elect to remain and reproduce with the same partner for the entirety of their lives, which only weakens their species. They claim ‘love,’ a concept that, by definition, is the action that they use the word ‘love’ to justify in the first place.”

Aunt Vailloria’s claws scraped at the marble, their infernal scratching cutting into my sensitive ears. “Yes elder, I understand, but this was different. The creature, it threw perfectly good food off the cliffside. Strange or not, no ordinary creature would throw out perfectly good food.”

And Elder Yomai chuckled. “There is likely more to it than we understand. Perhaps bugs had gotten into it, or perhaps they dropped it in their own excrement.”

“Elder, I checked it, and-”

The Sho’ M’orret was invoked. It echoed through the sanctuary like a violent lightning strike. “The madness. Does not. Exist.”

The glass quaked, the marble shook; I trembled beneath its might.

“Yes, Elder Nogomo.” She quickly shuffled to the entrance and fell into darkness.

The three elders exited through a large entryway to the right of their podium and into the adjacent room. There, they would stay until tomorrow’s sermon. The elders were supposed to be wise; they were privileged to use the Sho’ M’orret. And yet, they used the voice to lie to us all, for the onset of madness was as real a disease as you or I.

Cold wind slowed my blood. I must return to my pet, to little Arriet, before I fell into dormancy. I followed to the entrance, where a blast of cold air threatened to consume me. Like a stone carried over a great waterfall, I dropped.

There was only a slight amount of light remaining, enough to see but only barely. To open my wings this time was a task even more difficult than the first, for now I was colder and darkness threatened to consume me. With little choice, I ignited the flames within my skull. They flew from my nose, from my throat, they were taken by the rushing wind and their heat seared my black scales. I felt beautiful as I fell, dressed in hellfire.

I snapped my wings open and soared to my familiar cave. The ocean was a black beast below me that writhed and crawled over anything it found. I watched it as I flew.

Opening afar was a gaping maw in an otherwise beautiful shear cliffside. It was uninviting and dark, a black blemish on the landscape.

It was my home.

As I always have, I folded my wings and fell into the cave, landing on massive talons with an earth-shattering sound.

You screamed. Tears fell from your eyes. You were not where I’d left you, wrapped tightly in your leaf bed. I stared at you with a predator’s aggression, and in the silence broken only by your cries, the words spoken not an hour before by the elders echoed in my mind. Heat consumed my skull, the inky shadows within the cave were chased away by the flames that flickered and played like demons within my maw.

It would be a blessing to a creature so pathetic like you, to be consumed by hellfire.

My head upon my reptilian neck twisted and writhed.

But you took your hands from your eyes, and you looked up at me.

You looked at me.

Your eyes were so blue they could be plucked directly from the ocean.

To ignore the Sho’ M’orret was a difficult task that was entirely beyond most hatchling dragons. But I was no hatchling, and though young, I wasn't an ordinary dragon.

I shall not be controlled by the Sho’ M’orret.

The hellfire died beneath the saliva in my mouth. I lifted your tiny body; you felt soft and warm beneath my taloned fingers, like a very tiny angel-hair caribou with no bones. You continued to scream and cry, but your fear evoked no response from me. I had only three emotions: pleasure, fear, and anger, none of which were befitting of this situation.

I laid you down in your destroyed bed of leaves and coiled my body around it. For a long time that night, you attempted to climb my scales.

At every turn, you failed.

Eventually, you slept, and this seared my brain with pleasure. Little pet, you would do as I wished.

***

Our lives together paralleled that first day. I enjoyed playing lazily with my pet until the Sho' M'orret again summoned me to the temple. Upon my return from the sermon, I paused by one of the many abandoned human houses, and I gathered supplies. I fought the urge to consume you by hellfire every night; you no longer cried upon my return.

You were so wary of me at first, but you seemingly came to enjoy my companionship. This elicited no emotional response from me. Only when you stared at me did I experience pleasure; your eyes were like gemstones, the perfect addition to any dragon’s hoard. You were the first in my own hoard, my Arriet.

I could’ve lived a thousand lives over just repeating this cycle. But everything came to its eventual end.

Today was no different, so what caused it?

What caused you to speak?

“Yo’ vaa’nai!” You shouted. You pulled at my nostrils, as you did when cold. “Yo’ vaa’nai!”

It meant hellfire.

This was a development I never foresaw of my pet. It could speak draconic… no, it dared to learn the language of the dragons!

Arriet, how wrong I was; you were just as arrogant as the rest, to think you could freely speak as I did.

I snorted and yanked my head away, I stared at you. For the first time, I felt anger to you.

Fire flared within my skull, it ignited the cave with light. Should I give you what you wanted?

But you looked at me again, you looked at me, and you sniffled.

How could I destroy my only treasure?

I left you early that day, listening to your screams blend with the whistling of the wind around me.

It was a week later when I returned. You were pale and thin, sobbing in a corner of the cavern. With your arms outstretched, liquids rolling down from your eyes, nose and mouth, you pressed your face into my titanic leg.

There was no maternal response in my brain to your emotional state. I felt no pleasure in seeing you cling to me like this. With patience, I waited until you cried yourself to sleep atop my foot.

Days passed as they had before, but you now spoke my language in small snippets. Where once it was endearing to have you look at me, it was now insulting; you were a pet, you were beneath me. You should bow your head to the ground when in my presence, and yet you stared deeply at me.

The pleasure I felt with you had faded to ire.

“Issa arriet.” I told you time and again.

You made a face at me, pointed to your chest and shouted: “Arriet!”

“Issa arriet.”

You stomped your feet, you screamed and shrilled, and you pointed and said: “Arriet!”

More often than before, you took your soft fleshly little hands and you pounded them into my scales. Your hands became scratched and bloodied, you cried and pressed your mouth to the wounds and held them up for me to see.

I felt nothing in response to your self-righteous pain.

As time passed… less and less dragons came to the sanctuary. It couldn't be because they were ignoring the Sho’ M’orret’s summons; the missing dragons spanned all ages. If even the hatchlings, who were incapable of resisting the voice were missing, something must be physically preventing them from coming.

We paid it no heed… until elder Nagoro and Aunt Vailloria wheezed like their lungs were collapsing.

The two remaining elders commanded together in the voice: “DON’T MOVE.”

We obeyed.

“Someone here has brought the flesh-ape’s sickness to our domain.” Elder Chawo called.

“SPEAK.” Elder Yomai summoned.

I mustn’t… for your sake, I mustn’t say, I must fight the voice of community, the voice of society, the very voice of reason itself.

But even the action of fighting the Sho’ M’orret lent itself to my guilt; I groaned as I fought it, and in an instant, they all knew.

For the first time in centuries, I heard my name spoken.

“Aurobo, what manner of betrayal is this?”

I opened my eyes, not realizing they were sealed shut. “I have betrayed no one.”

“You say so, yet you fight against the Sho' M'orret. What is it you fight to keep secret?” Elder Chawo's voice shook the temple.

When it became clear I wouldn't speak, Elder Yomai invoked the voice, each commanding word driving deeper and deeper into my skull. “SPEAK. SPEAK, AUROBO. SPEAK YOUR SINS.”

With forced conviction, I gazed into their eyes. Growls arose like the waves that crash against the base of the mountains. To stare into the eyes of one who looked at you was to assert yourself as equals. “I did not bring the madness here.”

A claw dug into the scales behind my skull; they thrusted my head upon the half wall ahead of me; I could feel my nerves as they grinded against one another.

“AUROBO.”

The voice pierced my skull, it rend me bare and exposed.

“HAVE YOU INTERACTED WITH THE FLESH-APES?”

“Yes.”

More growls arose; if I closed my eyes, it sounded like I stood in the middle of a forest where all the trees simultaneously cracked at the base and fell.

“HAVE YOU LEFT THE SKIES?”

“Yes.”

“HOW OFTEN?”

“Nightly.”

“AUROBO. STAY.”

“For the betrayal of your kin, you will be executed, here and now.”

"We begin with the stripping of your armor."

Their claws dug deeply beneath my scales. They ripped my scales away one by one. I cringed, I writhed and twisted.

“AUROBO. STAY.”

My body, of its own accord, froze.

The pain was a searing knife that stabbed into me time and again. I forced myself to break free of the command, and I pulled fiercely.

“AUROBO. STAY.”

And I was frozen again.

My mind was a storm of lightning strikes: stay, move, stay, run, stay, leave, stay, go. Fear consumed my every fiber.

I closed my eyes, and I pictured your eyes, like the ocean, like starlight, like gemstones.

My mind, completely fried, blankened before the intense pain. I shrieked pathetically, a measly prey animal in the jaws of its predator.

Their command, it continued again and again and again, echoing in my empty mind.

Your eyes… there they are. “Arriet! Arriet!”

I snapped my wings wide.

“AUROBO. STAY.”

Igniting within my mouth was the hellfire you wanted.

“AUROBO. STAY.”

I spat it around my body, consuming my open flesh with its red dress. My wounds cauterized, my nerves screamed. The burning forced my mind to refocus; it gave me a temporary break from their commands.

I forced the air into submission with my wings,

They held me down.

“AUROBO. STAY.”

And I beat the wind, I felt their claws rending down my scales in long streaks.

The resistance is intense, far greater than any wind that held my wings prisoner before.

But I was a dragon, there was nothing that wouldn't bend to my will.

I beat the air, I forced it into submission.

I was airborne. I soared from the sanctuary, and I plummeted towards the ocean.

This time, I did not open my wings; the ocean took me.

As the cold and the darkness consumed me, I used my whip-like tail, and I moved like a worm in the mud away from the setting sun.

They may be faster than me in the air, but they didn't know the oceans as I did. I was a black dragon who dwelled on the cliffs above these violent seas; this was my domain.

“AUROBO. COME.”

My fear-stricken mind couldn't handle the command; I swam further and further, disappearing into the inky ocean.

I returned to you in shambles. You were happy, at first… but you sobbed when your hands touched the missing scales. “Why?” You asked in dragonkin. “Why you hurt?”

Without an answer, I lifted you in my hands. We left everything we had known, and we flew away from that place.

***

They hunted us every night. Their summons never ceased, and in the silence of my mind, I heard them again, and again, and again. It was enough to drive any creature mad.

We travelled near the ocean; any time they found us, I placed you in my mouth and dove into the frigid waters.

But I no longer knew these waters. Where was safe? What was dangerous?

Tides and currents pulled my body in every direction; dragons soared above the dark waters. If my scales were any color but black, they would have seen us from above.

***

My body was hot, my wounds infected. With you in my hands, I crawled along the tree-line, just outside the ocean

You patted my arm; again and again you told me, “Yo’ wozeig love hoa… yo’ wozeig love hoa.”

Love was a human concept, there was no word for it in my language, and nothing I could reciprocate.

***

Today you asked me to play with you, like we used to. But all my efforts must go to resisting what my brain said was the reasonable thing to do. I must remind myself every minute of the day that what was in my mind was untrustworthy.

My shoulders felt sore down to the bones from the hours of flight they'd endured, my tail ached like needles pierced it deeply. You wanted us to rest for a time, but we cannot. Their voice, it still called me back; I knew they still hunted me.

***

Their summons were like a scratching within my bones, a pain within my mind.

My wounds had healed fully. You asked me why my scales are still missing.

It was because a dragon’s scales formed in the egg and grew larger as our bodies grew. Once removed, they did not return. The exposed flesh was like thin paper, it split open easily, and burned under the very sunlight that once warmed me.

***

You dreamt of finding a place for us amongst your people, where we could live together; you wanted a family, something I couldn't even begin to grasp.

You’d grown tired of moving, you wished to find a home. A home was something we dragonkin didn't understand; all we needed was a place to sleep, where we hoarded our treasures.

Arriet, my only treasure was you; there was nothing else I needed.

***

There no longer was angel-hair caribou, no white whales. I must eat anything available. With every bite I took, the ancient voice echoed in my mind; these were things unfit for a dragon. I threw much of it back up. You fretted over me, you offered me your food, but this was miniscule and worthless, the equivalent of me offering you a maggot as a day's meal.

***

Dragons did not dream.

But while I slept last night, terror overtook me in the shadows that existed from the pain I once felt. It became somewhat of a common occurrence. In your language, they were known as "night terrors." You learned this from one of the many books you'd taken from the abandoned villages we passed through.

When was the last time you asked me to play with you?

***

I woke up today, and the voices in my mind were silenced. Had they given up?

You slept beside me. I lifted you in my hand and I realized you’d doubled in size. When did you do that? Surely it couldn’t have been overnight?

With your gemlike eyes, you woke up and looked at me. Immediately you knew something was different.

Finally, I could think clearly. For the first time since my hatching, I ate without the words of the Sho' M'orret bouncing in my mind. Without issue, I ate a deer whole.

You looked at me with glee, you laughed and then cried into the missing scales on my legs. I couldn't fathom how any creature could be this emotional, surely not all humans were like you, Arriet?

We scoured the area to see if there were any human villages around.

All were abandoned.

You found some clothes you liked, and gathered some food in a little pack made of leaves. In your arms were books. I'd seen you gather them before, but had never taken notice of it until now.

"Can we stay here, Aurobo?"

"No. We must keep going."

"But Aurobo..."

"NO."

You trembled beneath the might of my voice, and fell to the ground. Your new dress ripped on a branch, your books scattered like feathers fallen from a molting bird. We stared at one another for long moments. I did not open my mouth the second time... I said it within your mind.

The only way that was possible was by usage of the Sho' M'orret. But such power was only given to the eldest dragon.

The... eldest dragon.

Fear pounded through me. I plucked you up in my hands and took to the skies.

***

It was a few weeks later that we, at last, found a village with inhabitants. I settled us down on the outskirts. They rushed up to us with weapons. Gently, I set you down, and you ran forwards with your arms out wide to protect me, but what could a tiny girl like you do to protect against their wrath? You screamed in the language of your people, "No, no! He’s not going to hurt anyone, I promise!”

I understood every word you said, though none of it was in my tongue. Was this how the elders understood the world? All along, could they hear the voices of those who were deemed 'beneath' our kind?

“They’ve done more than enough damage!” One of the villagers cried. “Where were the dragons when we needed their help?!”

“They were… They…” Your little mind searched for an appropriate excuse that would’ve kept my species busy. But of course, you came up with nothing.

“Why didn’t you come?!” A woman screamed, her eyes locked on mine. “Why didn’t you show up when my child succumbed to madness?!”

And there, in her arms I saw it: a young boy, barely breathing, cradled to her chest.

There was no time to react properly. I snatched you in my arms. The villagers panicked, they backed away and raised their weapons higher.

You screamed as my great wings threw us high into the air, you pounded your fists into my hand. “No, go back! Go back, Aurobo! They’re good people, I know it!”

“That woman, she said her child contracted madness! The whole village is likely contaminated!”

“Her son was dead, Aurobo! Madness can’t spread from a dead person!”

I knew this well, and searching my memory, I knew the truth. The boy wasn’t breathing, his dead body just rolled slightly in the woman’s arms. I mistook it for a breath.

And yet, I still activated the Sho' M'orret and exploded in a commanding voice: “We will not return! This is the end of this discussion!”

You trembled the first time I used the voice, it frightened you. And now, you simply stared at me with your silent eyes. When did you become used to something that I, myself, was not used to having?

I wondered if you knew that I was afraid… afraid to let you go back to your people. If you did, I would be truly alone.

***

Over the next few days, you fell into a silence that was deafening. You slept as much as I did, you barely ate. Your little body withered.

If nothing was done... you would leave me anyways, wouldn't you Arriet? You would, like everyone else, return to sand.

And then came a morning when you did not wake, all day. You still breathed, but only barely.

If the dragons had just done something before... everything would be different. So this time, I chose to do something.

I was leaving you, Arriet.

***

I awoke the next morning in the forest, just outside the village. The villagers came to me, they offered me food and medical care.

It was the first time I could remember waking up and not seeing your face.

"Where..." I asked. "Where is Aurobo?"

"The dragon?" An elderly woman frowned. "We haven't seen him in days."

I stared at her. "He'll be back."

The villagers looked at each other.

My recovery was slow without you there, Aurobo. These flesh-apes didn't know anything of medical herbs or roots. They'd never seen anything like the leaves we used to heal you.

Being around them was difficult. They acted in strange ways, shouting and yelling. They pushed past each other in the streets to get to tiny stalls offering food, they pulled carts along with their treasure hoards and carried belongings in strange bags. I even saw them attack each other, and the surrounding flesh-apes just watched it happen.

One day passed, then another and another. You'd be back for me... we were family. We loved each other.

A week slid by, I remained in bed. We loved each other, you'd join me soon.

Then a month.

I had to leave the hospital; I was no longer sick.

There was no home for me to sleep in; I slept beneath a tree that night. I did as we always had, and entered a seemingly-empty home for food.

It was not empty. The owner shouted in fright, the man she lived with beat me with his belt until I left.

I tried other houses, but none were empty. They called me a thief, as if food could be a possession, and they chased me from the village. I tried pushing through the crowds to those tiny food stalls I saw earlier, but they asked for something in compensation, and nothing I owned appeased them.

I waited for you beneath that tree. The children, they threw rocks at me, they called me a witch. But I had to stay, right here. This was the tree you abandoned me at, and when you next came for me, this was where you would look first. As their stones bruised me, I wondered if this was how you felt when they ripped your scales out.

I wanted to wait patiently for you, but I couldn't handle it any longer. I cried, I pounded my fists against the tree's scale-like bark. "Why... WHY, Aurobo?! Why did you have to act like all the other dragons and isolate yourself?! We should work together, like we talked about! To build a world worth living in instead of just running from our problems! Why can't you see that this won't solve anything?! You can't keep pretending that everything is okay, like you did when you lost your scales! This world isn't going to get any better... if we can't work together."

I cried at the base of that tree every night for weeks, until the onset of madness returned to the village.

The people claimed I brought it here. They tried even harder to drive me off, but what if you returned and I wasn't here? It would sadden you, wouldn't it Aurobo?

All patients showing symptoms were gathered in the isolation home in an attempt to stop the onset of madness.

But it was seemingly impossible to stop the onset of madness.

It eventually came to me, too. I felt it root deep within the quiet subconscious of my mind. It had a familiar feeling, like those times you spoke directly into my mind.

I thought you had come back for me.

As the madness festered within me, I found there only one choice left. I crept into a victim's home, and I filled my bag with as much food as I could gather. That night, I left in search of you.

If you refused to stand united, Aurobo, then we would die together.