Menagerie

"Mama! It hurts!" The smallest hatchling in the nest writhed as she crawled towards the massive bulk of her mother. She'd woken to her tiny body twisting and changing. Pain wracked her frame as she cried out.

The claw that scooped her up was so large she didn't even fill it. She rolled in her mother's palm, reaching up. Her very bones ached as they shifted inside her.

"Why do I hurt so much? What's wrong with me? Mama!" the little one wailed.

Her mother's tear splashed down her back. The baby looked up, her own eyes wet. The huge claw lowered her back down without any comforting touches. "You did nothing wrong, my child. You suffer for my foolish sins. And I can do nothing. Nothing for you."

She was rolled gently into the dirt, weeping with pain. Her eyes fixed again on that distant face, shining tears dripping down it.

"Go, child. You must run. And never ever come back!" A distant roar sounded and her mother jerked towards it, her wings mantling and her fur standing on end.

"Run! Run before he finds you!" The lash of her mother's tail tumbled her down out of the nest. She looked back as her siblings, all so much bigger than her, gathered around their father.

She looked down at the claws that no longer resembled his and couldn't understand. She blinked the second set of eyes she'd opened for the first time that morning. Her mother had told her to run away. So the hatchling ran.



It was night and the pain was overwhelming. The hatchling had run all day. She fell, twisted and deforming limbs splayed out around her. Her eyes were raw from all the tears she had shed. As she watched with blurry eyes a piece of the deep blue night sky unwound to spiral around her.

A dozen red eyes blinked open. They looked through her and the hatchling could only close her own eyes.

"Little one. If you continue on this pain will kill you. Or I can take you where you might yet live. It will not be an easy life. But it will be a worthwhile one." The high pitched voice fluted through the night air.

The hatchling sniffled and lifted her head, all four eyes opening to look at the multitude of red ones.

"I don't want to die!" she cried to the many eyed night. There was no answer as the eyes closed and the stars went out. Darkness swallowed her.



The hatchling opened her eyes slowly. The terrible pain was less, more of an ache. But she felt changed and fragile. Nearby a shaggy gaoler lifted her head. Her toothy smile gaped her jaw. A row of green eyes down the side of the dragon's gazed at her. The hatchling shivered at the sight of them.

"Easy now little one. You've had powerful magic used on you. I found a path for the change that you could survive. The transformation left a mark. Many marks. Some can be seen. Others only you can feel."

The hatchling blinked, a feeling like a wave down her body. The blink felt wrong, her eyes felt wrong. She could see too much. She could see -

"You're afraid of what I might become. You can see… I can see. I can see everything." the baby said slowly.

"And more." Came the chagrined answer. The shaggy dragon shook her head, mane flying. The hatchling turned away to examine her body. The shape was unfamiliar. She was wholly changed, chunks of her body seemed as clear and delicate as glass.

"I.. thought I was a guardian."

"Someone tried very hard to make you something you were not. Instead they made you… many kinds of dragon in one form." came the answer, rumbled sadly. The hatchling closed her many eyes tears trickling from them at the memory of her mother.

"What am I now?" The hatchling asked.

"Now? You're one of us. A seer of deeper mysteries. A Sage." the shaggy dragon replied.

"My father was supposed to name me." she paused, a catch in her throat. "But he did not. What does one call many dragons?"

"A myriad, plethora, a collection, plenty, a flight, a menagerie, a bevy ah.."

"Menagerie. I am many dragons in one form. I am Menagerie."

DragonForce - Fields Of Despair