Soren

He is a contained conflagration.

Soren thought about these words sometimes. Not about the meaning of the words themselves, but the way Taylor said them. The sound of her voice, the way her scales shone on the tip of her nose, the way moonlight would shimmer in her eyes. He especially thought about her words on the nights like these. Even now, when he soared over the night landscape, when he was supposed to look for something to eat, his mind would wander sometimes. Even though his ever-growing hunger and need for blood, her face would come to his mind again and again.

He beat his wings from time to time, to gain some altitude and soar again over the moonlit forest. He kept his head inclined downwards, his eyes constantly scanning for the life underneath, life carrying the precious blood that he had been craving for longer that he cared to remember. And yet, each time he caught a glimpse of his own shadow passing below him, his heart would leap. It was almost as if he caught a glimpse of her wings, gliding in silence. He knew that it was impossible, he saw her dying. She was gone, yet his heart refused to acknowledge that simple fact.

‘I will not be distracted!’ he said to himself. ‘I am not a hatchling to be so short of attention span!’

Indeed, Soren was as far from being a hatchling as a dragon can possibly be. Even more so, he will be even farther still, his vampirism being able to extend his lifespan beyond what a normal Pearlcatcher could possibly expect.

‘And it all will come to an end if you will not feed’ he scolded himself again. ‘Will you wait until the sun burn its rays into you come the morning?’

He beat his wings faster, fuelled by his annoyance at his own perceived weakness. He needs to finish his hunt, he needs to feed and be strong. He needs to avoid the scorching touch of the sun. For Taylor. For… Aaron!

Soren stopped in the air, hovering above the pine forest suspended between the moonlight sky and the darkness below. His wings were beating even faster now, holding him up as he looked around.
He forgot! How could he forget? This night was unlike other nights where he would spring forward from the lair to prowl the night in search of blood. Tonight he hadn’t been alone. Tonight he had Aaron with him. How could he just drift into his thoughts and memories, forgetting that he had his son flying along!
Now he was alone. Aaron was nowhere to be seen.

Soren pushed his wings to move even faster. The updraft he created swayed the tips of the pines as he ascended. He kept looking around, hoping that his altitude is going to give him the advantage he sought. He looked over the dark sky, trying to spot the silhouette of his son, gliding over his head. Then, not finding anything dragon-shaped above him, he stretched his neck to watch the landscape below him.

Nothing. No one.

Soren circled, feeling the silent dread rising inside him.
‘Aaron is not a hatchling’ he kept telling himself. ‘He will not get himself in any trouble.’
Aaron was not a hatchling anymore, but just so. Barely grown out of his hatchlinghood, the young dragon was still inexperienced. Sornieth was not a forgiving place. Many misadventure can befall a dragon too young to know it fully.

Soren kept circling, flying an unfurling spiral into the night sky, extending his search pattern. He was straining his eyes, looking for any break in the pattern of the landscape shrouded by darkness.

There! A spark! No, not a spark. A fire! Soren saw the plumes of flames licking at the brambles at the same time he smelled it- smoke and scorched earth. The fire was bigger than he thought, the line of flames travelling steadily in many directions at once.
Something told Soren to fly closer, and as he did, he could see clearly that the fire was not natural. There was something strange about it- it wasn’t just burning in a mass of red and gold tangled all over the area as a wildfire would. It was a ring, a ring of blaze radiating from a single point in its centre.

Soren hovered over the inferno, feeling the hot wind filling his wings. He waited.
As the ring expanded, it seemed to slow down. A while longer and it left nothing but a few glowing embers as the fire burned itself out. Soren landed, exactly at the point where the fire seemed to start. He folded his wings and walked over the hot earth, right to the small stone outcropping. His long extended claws, another effect of his vampiric state, made a loud scrapping sound over the rocks. It was this sound that had roused the young dragon sleeping on the charred stone.

Aaron looked at Soren. For a moment Soren felt as if that pair of strange eyes was looking straight into his soul. One eye was as red as Soren’s own, marking Aaron undoubtedly his son. The other was orange, the exact colour of the fire that was running rampant through this area just moments before.

Then Aaron yawned.
‘I'm sorry father. I’ve fallen asleep, haven’t I?’
‘You have had’ said Soren.
‘I’ve dreamed of fire, father. And the earth is scorched here. What does that mean?’
‘Nothing, son. It means nothing that you should be concerned with.’
Soren spread his wings.
‘It is time to finish the hunt’ he said.
Aaron nodded and the pair of them took off, diving once more into the night’s sky.

He is a contained conflagration.
Taylor’s words rang out in Soren’s memory once again. Yet for the first time he thought not about her voice, or the colour of her scales or even the pattern on her wings. This time he thought about the meaning behind her words. He thought and wondered.