Tanithe

Look at you, Tanithe. Nothing like your father or mother, none of their beauty, none of their grace. It makes you wonder, hm?

Tanithe curled tightly around himself, into himself, delving further away from the voices and their accusative question marks.

All your siblings are gone, even Gloriana. Oh, she was a pretty one, wasn’t she? And you loved your sister, didn’t you? Yet here you are, you with your blinding marks and - well, look at you.

Voices, so many voices. Pushing and clawing at him like an insistent ocean, the cresting waves intent on pulling him under. He might be insane. The voices might be right - no, they were right, and that was what nearly killed him. Ugly, clumsy, reclusive. He saw the words in the other dragons’ eyes, watched them spell across the night sky, an otherworldly finger pointing at him, declaring that you, Tanithe, are unwanted.

He was insane and the voices were right.

Irony at its finest.

Sometimes, watching the darkness roll across his scales, Tanithe let himself wonder what might have been, if he had just followed his siblings like they wanted him to. If he hadn’t been so scared, so cowardly, if he hadn’t shied away at the rustle in the trees, if he hadn’t lost his siblings in the spill of shadows, if he had kept his eyes on Gloriana’s whipping tail.

If, if, if. He should be serving the Flamecaller now, instead of hiding from the world like this.

Who are you? Coward, ugly, clumsy, scared, reclusive? Is that who you are? Why do you insist on hiding?

But he fought. How he fought. To keep his thread of thought, hear his own voice higher than the others, to feel the warmth of sunlight without guilt. The voices were so heavy, and he wanted to breathe.

I am Tanithe I am Tanithe I am I am I am