Odeara - The Era Of Embers

To the Lands of the Beasts

The cold air bites as it races across the land. Small villages dot the landscape, and massive creatures tear through the surface of the ocean. The mountains sit on the land like blades of stone aimed to pierce the heavens. The sound of rushing footsteps, through snow and grass. The song of a heavy steel blade slicing through the earth and the crescendo as it meets the nails of a massive dragon. The air it exhales like the heat of a volcano. The skin hardens, bearing the force of a mountain swatting it away. Piercing amber stabbing the dragon, the grip tightening and claws extended. It lunges for their throat, and a river of red whose taste feels like a mouthful of iron fills them. The dragon screams. In pain? In pleasure? The first kiss of mortality it has faced. From the wound, the blade enters and the bell has rung. The dragon begins to fall, indenting the snow and earth alike. Atop it's corpse sits a beast. Relentless. The villages breed more of them.

A trophy. A claw from the dragon taken and sharpened. Etched, heated, mounted, anointed. The beast holds it in their hands, human-like and tender. The edge of the claw harder than steel, the handle carved from the joint. They enter the village, and to the center. A baby, placed in a nest weaved of warm cotton. The beast places the knife at the foot of the nest, their kin wiping the blood from their mouth. The taste of iron still lingers.

It washes away with the taste of alcohol. The numbness soothing the aching canines. The food which sits infront of them stinks of the same heat and metallic smell of the dragon's flesh and blood. They sink their teeth into the meat. Reminiscent of the once living beast, their canines ache once again.