dragons were born from the cracking of the sun at its set. they fledged and survived at night while gazing at the moon during its fullest wondering if it was home. mother sun and father moon , so the story was told by sephiroth's mother as it was told to her as a young dragon , and so on and so forth. just as geese instinctually knew where to fly with the coming winter dragons knew the story of the birth of dragons and presumably learned from generation after generation of parent. perhaps that was not instinctual at all except sephiroth held no memory of his mother save for a feeling and a whisper of a voice. to be nurtured. to be loved. to have family , but sephiroth was the only living dragon in existence presumably.
as far as humans were concerned , dragons were long extinct having faced the ravages of infertility and poaching after the end of the dragon rider line. dragons were more than the humans which mounted their scaled backs and took care of their eggs. apparently not. if there were any dragons on this part of the continent , surely sephiroth would have found another of his kind. he was , without any doubt , the largest dragon in current and past existence. a massive behemoth of beauty and terror who perhaps reaped the benefits of solitude. however if a creature as massive as sephiroth existed , the largest terrestrial animal , and humans falsely believed them all to be dead that meant there was hope.
all sephiroth knew was solitude and loneliness with mother sun and father moon as his only sources of companionship. if it was just a matter of desperation , sephiroth could have easily shifted his appearance and lived among the humans. how long had he lived in his dragon form? centuries perhaps. the seasons changed but they often passed in a blink of an eye. there were autumns he slumbered through and springs spent in the ocean. time a fickle thing without any doubt. sephiroth hunted , fed , and isolated himself away from the infestation of humanity. in a way he betrayed his dragon heritage for being a dragon meant more than draconoid form ; he had no one to teach him nor guide him. sephiroth's life was his own. how melancholy.
like any creature from aves to canid , his claws did grip for any semblance of home even if his home was long taken over by rodents and dust. the sun cracked open on the draconoid isle. century after century it was told molten dragon breath evaporated all the water surrounding the isle in order to bridge the boundary between dragon and dragon rider. verdant was the isle now ; too accessible to human interaction. deer and owls roamed freely where they had not before ( for fear of being devoured ) , and that only bothered sephiroth meagerly. he worries not warding the creatures away. the most pesky of creatures were of course the humans , and he could not understand why they enjoyed exploring and destroying every crevice on the planet.
his home was a grave site to the past but not in complete ruins— in part to sephiroth's miniscule contributions and in greater part to ironic human intervention. intervention with black spires for hair and flesh like a new peach. it , the human , was his sole source of crass entertainment he had for how many seasons? the human did not make the journey to the draconoid isle every day but when he did , sephiroth watched a with a keener eye than all predatory birds combined. a massive creature curled up in camouflage and watching. watching. the dragon watched as the human ran off vandals and even tousled with one or two. watched as he scrubbed away any signs of crude defacement. watched as he . . seemed to treat the isle like it was his own home with care. sephiroth watched as the human then turned more man than boy , but it was still boyish with the ardor and devotion it demonstrated toward the long dead isle.
it wasn't dead entirely , not with the presence of the human and not with sephiroth's existence. the two of them.
having recently feasted , sephiroth licked the blood and sinew from massive jaws as he curled into himself much like a feline after feast save for being incredibly massive and scaled. his scaled flesh tingled with pleasant warmth as he settled into the tree bound mountain face. another perfect cranny in the world. the world meant for dragons. well-furred creatures scurried in the treetops without fear for the dragon as slumber began to envelop his body. the creatures of the forest did not change their habits at all but sephiroth's inner ears twitched to life and eyelids larger than boulders opened in a millisecond. the smell of smoke carried in the wind but with the intrusion of humans on the world , it alone was of no concern , but then came the desperate cries. prayers on the tongue of the devoted human , and prayers meant for the gods and the dragons. they were deaf or gone , but sephiroth heard. my village! my family!
the sun broke to give birth to dragons — a heart broke to bring the dragons back.
the trees and vegetation were accustomed to sephiroth's size and movements , however the animals stirred nervously when his body roused with unfamiliar speed. the forest was tense and waiting for the climax of the play. he dug his claws into the ground and tensed the muscles of his hindquarters. potential energy turned kinetic energy more powerful than canon fodder. animals yelped and screamed and the trees yelled too , so powerful was the motion of the dragon launching into the air that whiplash hit the surrounding area. too long had the earth not felt the natural disturbance of dragon movements. sephiroth flew low to the ground though massive beating wings were thunder in the horizon.
dreadful to those who were ignorant. the verdant isle was interrupted by not only sound by sight as the gigantic body of the dragon suddenly emerged from behind the mountain of the isle where once hundreds of dragon eggs lied nestled in their own nests. a magnificent beast he was among the green— a silver unlike any other on earth were the colour of his scales and it caught the sun's shine like a mountain of precious gems and metals. blinding but demanding attention. he was not merely silver however , his scales were were secondarily teal and the earthy hue was only visible in the broadness of sunlight. where his scaled tail reached its narrowest end the green-blue hue was more prominent than silver.
contrasting the cool colours , his ventral scales were warmer and shone creamy-like to rival all the pearls in the ocean. the human would be able to see it all— the incredible splendor as the dragon stood atop his birth-home. from such a great height the human was incapable of seeing those massive eyes of teal and serpentine pupils , but it could see the human in detail he had never seen previously. those ebony spirals for hair , work-tanned flesh , eyes holding the reflection of an ocean , and. . . a scar on his cheek. dragon rider , sephiroth's blood hummed. a pollinator meeting flower. a seedling reaching first sunlight. sephiroth studied him quietly until quiet was forced to death.
neighs of terror from the mounts and gasps of shock from the blood-stained humans who rode the horses captured the dragon's fearsome attention. there was blood , so much rushing blood , and for the apex predator it was like a trigger to kill. smoke curled warningly out from the dragon's nostrils as he desired more than anything to set the men alight into pyres of warning ; the horses did not deserve such a fate even if sephiroth could feast from their charred flesh upon his return. smoke curled darker and more threateningly before the opening of razor-toothed maw , and sitting at the base of his throat was the sun itself but an angry sun. a fireball twisting and turning as if yearning to be unleashed.
horses screamed and nearly bucked off their riders , but sephiroth did not release the ball of fire. it served a warning. tremendous webbed wings darker than the rest of his body as though stained by soot shook both the earth and the sky as he took to the sky. he flew slow and deliberately over the group of marauding fools. if the threat of immolation did not frighten enough , the powerful gust of wind sent them running away from the dragon home. one unfortunately rider was bucked off after much struggle and snapped his neck upon impact. the pillagers rode wildly back in the direction where they came from until their horses foamed at the mouth from struggle. sephiroth beat his wingers until he lifted higher into the sky.
one second hovering the next he shot away from the pleading human and the isle like the true marvel of nature dragons were. fast — incredibly fast given his tremendous size. what was leagues to humans even on horseback were mere seconds to dragons , and sephiroth honed in on the sight and smell of fire , easily pinpointing the human's home he was so ardently praying for. only fire continued to stir for humans turned into stone. utter awe compelled them all even those humans with ill-intentions. what a magnificent glory! the return of the dragons! there was only one dragon however , yet sephiroth was enough for three if not four.
breath took solid form and could be captured for that moment in human history. as sephiroth's already massive body descended and grew all the more massive , people remembered they were just humans in the presence of a dragon. awe became poisoned with fear as villagers darted way ( but still insisted on watching ) , and pillagers dropped torches , weapons , and stolen items to flee for their lives. most of them anyway , those who had brains and not spoiled eggs inside their skulls. two men threw torches at sephiroth yet the fire-gleam of the torches only brought out the brilliance of scales as it bounced off him like fly against boulder. sephiroth was careful to not step on any homes as he pressed forward while children cried and smoke dominated.
sephiroth swept great head to and fro with maw open and blew hot air ( not fire ) against violently-lit fire with a strength that threatened to blow roof from home yet only completely suffocated fires. one pillager who stood his ground hit sephiroth's foot with a pole axe , and the weapon shattered like a children's toy. sephiroth's teal eye engulfed him. fear made the murderer soil his breeches but it did not end there for him. the magnificent beast so accustomed to the taste of gore in his mouth moved like his viper relative but with the stern gentility of a crocodilian. the sight and sound of the man being picked up in the mouth of the dragon instilled tremendous fear. sephiroth could hear it and thought the humans weird. no blood gushed through his teeth— no death was at hand , not yet.
the man thrashed and struggled inside the warm and wet mouth. a mouth that surely smelled of ancestral death. sephiroth curled his neck , reared his head , and then flung his head to the side while opening his maw which sent the trespasser flying through the air like living ammunition. the gore would be too far away for the villagers to see , but the explosion of blood and limbs was close enough to the human's retreating comrades who they and their mounts screamed. the second human who had stood body-to-claw against sephiroth had run away from village and his comrades in a maddened state of panic. the ground trembled and villagers cowered as sephiroth almost seemed to saunter about like new ruler.
silver and teal tail whipped around with care as more jets of hot air were produced to put out one flame after the next. a strange mixture of muffled noises and silence overwhelmed the village. most children were afraid but not all as some openly stared while enveloped in the arms of mother or father. sephiroth spared no looks as he leaped with great agility away from the village , taking step after step , crushing bushes under foot before he reached the runaway warmonger. one second he was a man panting , and the next second he was pressed bone , organ , and blood on the earth. sephiroth leapt from the ground and great wings propelled him into the sky.
if the pillagers believed they would be released with little warning they were gravely incorrect. as felids toyed with their near-kills , sephiroth hovered above the fleeing scoundrels until the fright of his presence caused rider after rider to be bucked off horseback. in one instance , a horse tumbled with its rider and broke its leg during the panic. all twelve fallen men and one injured horse met a dragon's fire. a mere whisper of fire and death gripped them from bright fire to black meat. sephiroth stomped on flamed grass , trees , and corpses until no fire threatened the woodlands. the rest of the marauders were allowed to continue living and sephiroth watched them until tree cover obscured their bodies.
sephiroth spared no further glances towards the village or the justice he instilled , for he again took to the skies with several bounds of powerful legs. he flew with no urgency but openly soaring. a dragon who did not bother hiding ; it was futile. he spun in circles and touched tree tops with the tips of his toes for the simple pleasure of it as he returned to his distant mountain crevice for much needed solitude. sephiroth did not return to the dragon rider wherever the boy was. tranquility and flattened grasses awaited him on the mountain face though the rodents gave him an earful for such a dramatic exit.
plotted starter for @puppyclasshero
