Orrery

He wondered about his name sometimes. Or, he thought, meaning gold or light depending on the language, fitting for a dragon in light the colour of brass. Or, he thought, Orrer. He thought of his horrors.

They called him Orrery because of all the worlds in his head.

Not daydreamer's worlds, not those castles made of clouds and spun sugar and hope. These worlds held the heavy-tongued taste of reality because they were futures, divergent worlds, Sournieths that could be.

They came into his head unbidden and unwanted, all with an equal chance at truth. They loomed ominously as he hatched from the egg, swirled violently as he learned to walk and speak and fly, haunted him nightly as sleep slipped away from him.

In some, he saw the clans begin to fight and fight until there was no fight left in them and they lay down and let the Beastclans take the world, and the gods wept at their fallen children.

In others, it was the Arcanist who came to finish what he had failed to do twice and the world fell to pieces under his mists and magic.

There were worlds taken by ice and disease and meteor strikes and volcanoes.

There were far too many worlds where only the Shade remained.

In his favourite world, a small, shimmering one that hung on the edge of perception, there was unity. Flame and sea, glade and plague, light and shadow united against the Shade and defeated it in an elemental maelstrom, bringing Sournieth, once more, to peace.

If only he could do more than see them.