Ranger

a heart consumed by jealousy makes you do horrible things.


x

---

---

OCTOBER 2021

Today, I set off to explore the ruins I discovered yesterday. To my surprise, a new pathway has opened in the main lobby, uncovering a pathway that led to another area. I entered it and was greeted with a room that had maroon walls and marbled tile floors.

The interior was sophisticated, to say the least.

At the end of the room was a lectern. Upon closer inspection, there is an old journal on it. Its exterior is dull, perhaps from all the years it was left to rot here.

I dusted off the dirt from the book and opened it.

I started reading.

---

It began with a trail of broken scales. Iridescent, glinting in the pale blue from nearby mushrooms. I followed them, my curiosity piqued and my senses on alert.

The presence of another dragon did not dawn on me until I nearly tripped over their motionless body, their scent masked beneath dead bracken and singed nettles.

They were not my concern, yet I had stayed.

The excuse I gave was the mask. Glinting in the murk, empty, unfeeling, concealing a face contorted by injury and slumber. The next was treasure. What fool fell asleep unattended in a land filled with thieves and thrill seekers? Half my size and coiled in an ungraceful slump, they were a Spiral with unattended belongings.

My claws curled beneath the mask, intending on pilfering it from an unsuspecting owner, and something washed over me.

I had read stories once, of fairytales and love. How their hearts raced upon sight of others. How something in them changed at the sound of their voice. How it simply clicked into place, and you knew what you were destined for. I knew not what love felt like, but the giddy flutter of glee in my stomach was close enough for me.

I replaced the mask. I paced. I debated. I cursed at myself. I lamented. I howled. I screeched.

None of it helped mitigate that which built within me.

None of it awoke the unconscious Spiral either.

Weeks, months, years—none of it would change the story I fabricated.

I did not take him. I rescued him.

Nestled into a cabin, safe from harm, with everything he needed and supplies left at the door. I only intended to help ... but I couldn't ignore the strange feeling within, like a void gradually consuming me. So I followed the thread of chaos and willingly unraveled into the embrace of the unknown.

///

I observed for a long while.

Unseen, curled around a tree, blended into the underbrush, lost in shadows. I was larger, but I also knew the grove better. It had been made for one such as me, and I had lived there for many long, uneventful years; I had nothing else to do but map the lands with my mind.

He did not leave, which surprised me. Whether because of the injury that had landed him there or because of something more sinister—I liked to think he was on the run, for the thrill of it all, or perhaps I was just justifying keeping my makeshift prisoner with no name.

I never witnessed him without the mask since I saved him. It remained upon him, as if cemented in place, obscuring calculating eyes. One of my excuses back then was only one more glimpse, just a tiny peek, and then I would be on my way. To see if the feeling in my gut persisted, you see, purely for experimental purposes.

But he never removed it, not even while dining.

///

One day, I thought I felt liberated. Free to spread my wings and leave behind that rotting cabin, to return to my clan and continue my monotonous tasks.

A rare breeze derailed my thoughts. Unnaturally gentle, tickling my nose with scents of savory meat and damp moss. It carried something melodious, woven into the sweet solitude, almost lost amid the natural sounds of the wildlife at my back. But I would not have countless beasts embedded in my claws if I were not attuned to all that resounded in my presence.

It was him, the cracked window allowing his voice to spill forth into the shadows.

Only for me.

It had to be, for no one else resided in that forest but the pair of us. His voice matched the spiderwebs shimmering with dew, the sparkle of fireflies in the canopy, the single beam of moonlight fighting to splash its glow across the clearing between them.

Beautiful and haunting and melancholy—a sound that sent ants crawling beneath my scales and fangs itching to tear into something.

anything

My heart raced with something I could not name yet, something dangerous. Once given a name, it would swallow me whole.

So I stayed, my wings clipped, all for him.

///

I paced again and again, watching the flicker of lantern flame in the window. I hunted every night, leaving gifts once he had fallen asleep; they were always gone within the morning light. My visits went from once a day to twice a day to watching him around the clock, ever curious, ever learning.

Before I knew it, the feeling slowly picking me apart had taken control; I was his, and he was mine, even if he did not know it yet.

It began with the mask, and it ended with the mask.

Staring at him on the doorstep, claws digging into the soft soil and body tense, something primal in me c a c k l e d with delight.

This Spiral, this b e a u t i f u l tangle of leaden sky, was surely the culmination of love. I could think of no other word so suitable, so fitting, even as I observed from the protective shroud of murk and he stared into the distance, unaware of my proximity.

I loved, and so would he.

///

i found him

he is mine

he belongs to me

ixxf o uxxnxxdxxhim

for as long as he moves and breathes—he isxxmxxixxxnxxxxe

///

---

I turned the page. All the reading didn't prepare me for what I saw next.

---

---

Scribbles.

Pages and pages of messy scribbles with the same three words, over and over again. It filled the rest of the book.

I stared at the last page, unsure of what to feel about the things I just read.

"This guy is deranged..."

I pity whoever got found by him.

[all the journal entries were lore written by moonsteeth! <3]