the silver dragon: a splintered crown - 1073 words

"When you hatch in the bottom of a pit, all you see for your whole life is the twisted light from the above. And you would do anything to reach it."

 

You never know how messed up your home is, until you look at it from the outside.

 

Discrimination. It was the beginning and the end, the hide and the heart, the core and the outermost layer of the cursed kingdom. Focused on nothing but appearances, it was like a wolf leading a herd of sheep. The more beautiful you were, the higher you could aim. Your whole body was like cattle, its parts marked with charcoal lines - lines, that told the envious where to cut.

 

If imperfect by design, your psyche war torn apart, and your hideous body tossed to the hyenas that were known as the lower level dragons.

 

You never wanted to end up there. If the high and mighty rent your mind, the dragons below would rip your very body into shreds to be consumed and shared. They lived on scraps and on anything they could get their splintering claws on. They were outside the corrupted system, and if you could not defend yourself, they would eat you alive.

 

As a drop of hope in the sea of madness, at least you never ended there by default. A tier system kept their hungry maws at bay, but such practice did not help anyone any more than that. It fed the beautiful and the rich, and killed off the poor and the ugly after taking advantage of their wretched souls. One single misstep, whether it was the looks you hatched with or not, would send you down there faster than you could plead for mercy.

 

But above their sheer desperation, anything could be twisted and seen as a flaw. Something as stupid and trivial as scale shape - and you have no idea how much gold you could scrape off the purses of the despondent, if you knew how to pull garbage like that.

 

Although, it never ended well for those that did know. They were chased down as scam artists, and thrown to the lowlifes below to suffer - all because those mutilated scales would shed and grow anew, and they never appeared the same as right after the operation. Funny how that works. Imbeciles.

 

One of the worst punishments one could fathom, was to get your form shifted into something else. Something horrid, anything else than a dragon. A humanoid figure was a popular one, since it was small, weak, and often lightweight. Easy to toss around. It was a public humiliation, which was enjoyed by everyone around the victim. Many did not survive their sentence, whether from being literally tortured to death, or through their own hand.

 

What comes to me - I was the low caste. No one would miss me, and no one would care. Even if one would survive their sentence in another body, the hex would still wear off, however long it took - but only for those who were worth keeping alive. The weak and ones denounced unworthy were always a disease in the eyes of the highest caste. If a low class dragon got in front of the law and so-called justice, they were done for.

 

I was convicted of plotting against the crown. Of assassination attempts, of yearning the crown of the kingdom for myself. Of various types of indulgence. This and that, whatever they came up with.

 

I never wanted the crown. I would have never, ever even entertained the thought of ruling that rotten hive. Never would have I wanted that disgusting diadem pressed onto my scales. I only wanted that leech of a monarch to fall, and take its tyranny with it. But, of course, as I was what I was, I held no value. One wrong word slipped from my tongue, and they got all the so-called evidence they needed. They could write anything they wanted into their scrolls. What I actually did or did not, never mattered.

 

Sure, I was never a model citizen. I wanted to get out of the small slot I had hatched into. I yearned for something better, and did things I regret. They only hastened the trial I faced, pushed forward the flaying of my scales from my skin. It was always easier to twist the truth, than to make up lies from thin air. Their perverse tongues painted my crimes so dark, that none who heard them would look me in the eye, ever again.

 

They never entertained the option of putting me under a rock they would lift. They wanted to have fun with me. Real fun. Spoke about not having a clown for a long time to spit on. Which I did not understand. Countless unlucky dragons went through the court weekly. Were they not worthy to be their spit buckets?

 

But they were careless. Intoxicated by the power they wielded over the lives of others, they made a mistake they were unable to correct. For wanting to see me squirm and writhe among my own people, they did not lock me up. They wanted to hunt me, and see the terror in my eyes as they cornered me.

 

Yes, I was disgusted by my very own hide. Its softness, its weakness. It took me... a while to get over it enough to be able to function. But it gave me one advantage they did not possess.

 

My new form, even if vile to the bone, was smaller, and nimbler than the scales I used to carry. I could work from the shadows, and they would never see me come or go. Their blood hounds would never find me, if I was careful enough. After a time, they grew bored, but I would never be free if I had no way out. Within those walls, I would never survive. So many suffered the same fate, whether their body was cursed, or not.

 

Still, I moved alone. No dragon in their right mind would ever help a hexed outcast, no matter how close they would be. The risk just was not worth it. The clicking of ravenous maws from below, during the quietest moments of the night, kept everyone vigilant - even the self-proclaimed kings and queens.

 

But the wall of such tyranny was not crackless. It held a candle among the haystacks.

 

I just had to find it, and tip it over.