Silic

There is a beauty to stillness. As a hatchling, he had always known this. His father told him tales of vast and shining expanses of ice, of the peace and the silence which permeated the coldest reaches of the world. He had, at first, longed to see it. To see this beauty his father spoke so highly of… So he tried. He flew.

He was not strong enough.

Too young, too weak to fight against the howling winds beyond his sheltered home, he was swept away. When he was thrown from the storm at last, he was far from home and farther from the ice which had drawn him out. The air around him was warm and thick, smelling of salt and heady flowers… and rot. He pushed himself to his feet, body exhausted and bruised. His own heartbeat was too loud, too…

It was not his own heartbeat.

He looked up, turning as a shadow fell over him. There was a beast, something terrible, something wonderful, something beautiful. Its hide shown with the depths and light of the deepest space, its teeth like swords hewn by the finest smiths with jewels and silver. It bent down to see him, its movements too smooth, too fluid and slow. Its head was beside him before he knew it had moved at all, yet it seemed as if it had always been there.

It asked him his name. Well, not in so many words. Not in any words, really, but he knew it wished to know.

“I am…” He paused. He could not remember his name. He did not believe, in fact, he had ever had one. His siblings had names, though he could not remember their faces. His father and his mother had names, though he could not remember their voices speaking them.

His name was Silic. This was not the name his father had given him. He did not have a father. This was not the name his mother had given him. He did not have a mother. This was his name, spoken in his soul, in the beat of his heart. In the beat of the creature's heart. After all, they beat the same.

“I am Silic!” He shouted, confident. Proud of this identity, this proof of his existence. The creature was proud too. It led him along, and he followed. They went down, deeper and deeper, into a labyrinthian cavern. It became cold. Blessedly cold, and the water was colder still. Cold, and undisturbed. There was beauty in stillness.

Silic did not know how long he waited by that water. When he moved, at last, to look towards a noise, his body did not want to cooperate. His body was larger, and heavier, and was hard to move. His wings did not move at all. But with much difficulty, he turned and saw another dragon. A mother, carrying a hatchling. She looked at him with fear in her eyes, light reflected from glowing crystals which lined the cavern. She spoke, but he did not understand. She crept forward, towards the water, and a passion filled him. They would disturb it, they would ruin it, they would…

The hatchling cried, and he realized he had roared. He felt the dagger-like teeth in his own mouth, cold and foreign, and he looked down for the first time to see his claws. He wanted to cry with the child, to remember a mother, to know the touch of another dragon…

The creature loomed behind the newcomers. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to protect them. And so he committed the greatest heresy. He turned and leapt into the water with a resounding crack, and it splintered beneath his feet. It was not water. It was not even ice, for it wasn’t cold. It was glass, perfect and smooth, and now broken. It dug into his claws, and then his legs, and chest, and neck. And he beat his wings, magic surging through him. He did not feel his wings any more than the glass around him, which is to say he felt it *all*. He moved, and the glass moved, and they surged back. The glass like a liquid flowed over the creature, encasing it. A beautiful creature, now still. He would ensure it never moved again. The other dragons fled, and the cavern was silent. There was beauty in stillness.

The creature in the glass called itself Sagittae.