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Contest Dragon Growth Story

Working Title: "The Desolation of Tiamat"

By Shalion (2012)

Act I: Creation

The humans say that the world began with a song. A glorious song at the beginning of time of such marvelous complexity that the music became the world. Before creation, it sang of all that would come to pass, all that might have come to pass and that which would never be. It sang of the stone, the water, the wind and the heat of the sun. It sang of leaves and cool streams and shadows dappling on secret glades. It sang of the surf, the sand and the steady pounding of waves. It sang of frigid winds and high passes, of soaring heights above the clouds. And it sang of the birds, the fishes and the worms in the earth, those of paw and hoof, of fang and antler and it sang of people too and all their ways. But what the humans didn't seem to understand was that the song sang of itself as well and though the common opinion was that the song ended with the moment of creation, they are wrong. The song continues, with every breath it continues. And the song continues to sing of itself as it sings of all things under heaven. But the humans cannot hear it. But I can. I can hear the song most clearly in the bones of the earth and sometimes I hear the self song, creation identifying itself and I understand that it does not mention all its wonders. What it mentions is its end.

I am that end.

***

As far as I know, I have always existed. My memory stretches back to a time when there were no men. It was a blessed time, if simple. When I emerged from the soil after what had seemed an eternity of fruitless squirming, I arose blinking into sunlight. I stared in awe at the things that surrounded me, my eyes having a purpose for the first time in my life. I did not know it at the time, but I arrived at a time when life was relatively new on the land. There were no woody plants, only ferns there were, acres of ferns and grass. Tall they reached overhead, casting the ground into shadow for I was very small at the time. Nothing flew, but things did crawl on the ground and in the soil. Mostly small things, but some quite large. Nothing flew or danced on the breeze; that would come later.

Still it all seemed a wonder, despite its comparative monotony of species. Nothing was fast nor fierce nor even really good at reproducing. It was a slow time.

I knew hunger from the first day I broke the surface of the earth and drew my first breath of life. Seeing the life bursting around me, slow-witted though it was, I knew intrinsically that it was mine to take if I wished. Coming upon the base of a tall fern, I placed my minute claws upon it. I could not even wrap my claws about its girth. The fronds wavered softly far overhead, I could sense the primitive plant spreading its spores into the air, its germs, its offspring. I did not know how, but I did. The distraction passed and I sank my fangs into the stalk and began to lap the green sap which dribbled out. I tore hunks from the fern, but as I swallowed the flesh of the plant, I could sense that something else was coming with it besides the juices and the pulp, something like "Essence of Fern." Its "Fern-ness" was perfect and indisputable. But it was not something that lived solely in this fern. I realized that it lived in all ferns, whatever this thing was that I received from eating this thing.

I continued to eat for my hunger was great. I ate until the fern became unstable and fell to the side. It dying, I knew. I had wounded it mortally and its slow thoughts of water and sunlight would fade and pass away. I became mortified at what I had done. My first act on the world. But... Hadn't I known what I was doing from the start. I had identified the fern's life and sought to make it my own. It was my nature. It was... my purpose.

I breathed deeply, tasting the air whose flavor was still so new and astounding, My belly was full and I slept where I lay. To honor the fern, I ate of its remains so as not to waste its sacrifice. It took me three passings of the sun to eat the entire thing. The fern's body passed through my own and I was aware of the tiny and subtle processes within myself which took apart the fern and incorporated it into itself, but only a tiny part of the whole mass of the fern. I adored the thought that at least part of the fern's body would live on as a part of my body, but I was saddened at the waste. However, there was something that did not waste. It was the "fern-ness" I had tasted. It coursed through me, was a part of me and in its entirety and I was glad. The fern lived. I had tasted it and it yet lived.

The next fern I lay my claws on was of a similar size to the first. I could see that my hand was a tiny, a very tiny amount larger than it had been before. The only thing I thought then was "This is going to take a while." Then I sank my fangs into the fern stalk.

I was lost in the blanket of ferns for a very long time. Their height and their fronds obscured my sight, but they were not firm enough to support my weight whenever I attempted to climb up and see what there was to see. I tasted fern and "fern-ness" many times, but I also tasted of worms, of beetles, of centipedes and things for which there never existed names. All had hard shells that protected them, but not from my fangs and none of them were fast enough to escape me if I wished for their flesh. They were all delicious. But delicious also were the tiny invisible things that lived in the soil. I could feel them there, leading blind, simple lives with hardly a thought, a whisper of existence and "ness-ness." When I licked a low hanging fronds, I ate millions and when I passed soil through my body, billions lent me their strength. But I did not do this often for the flesh of bigger prey better sustained me.

It was a great time to be alive, but I did feel a little lonely at times. Ferns and insects did not think of the things I wished to think about and the essences which lived inside of me had only little wisdom to impart. So I wandered, as far as my tiny feet would take me each day for a very long time.

I grew strong and stronger still with food and rest and time, like a fern springing from the ground. My body was long and covered in shiny scales. My tail was sleek and narrow as long again as my body. I enjoyed waving it to and fro as I walked and wrapping it about things when I paused to rest. My paws were wide and thickly padded, as if designed to support great weight and my neck was long and nearly as flexible as my tail. My head was smooth and scaled, like the rest of myself, my shoulders and haunches wide and thickly muscled. I could run, but I didn't usually. I preferred to walk, occasionally stopping to rear up and stretch my head towards the sky to look around.

By the time I could see above the ferns, the world had already changed from how I had known it. There were different varieties of ferns, each with different flavors of "fern-ness." And the bugs had changed too. There were new types and some of the old types, usually the slower ones, were nowhere to be found anymore. I had already lost count of the number of days it had been. I'd also lost count of the number of ferns and bugs and tiny things I'd eaten.

When I could reach my head out of the canopy, I was shocked to see the sky in all its splendor. I had caught glimpses of it before, but now, there it was spread out as if to infinity. I thought then, how marvelous it'd be to reach up and touch it. But I couldn't now, I'd have to grow far more for that. After the glamor of the sky had faded, I looked about me and found that I was near the bottom of a wide valley. In the distance, I could see mountain rising to the north and south, mostly bare. There were ferns and green stuff stretching for as far as the eye could see. I breathed a sigh of contentment. For me it was like looking upon an endless, all-you-can-eat buffet.

Nothing very interesting happened for a long time. The ferns kept getting taller and they got stiff and woody so they wouldn't fall over. The ferns weren't content with slinging their precious spores out helpless to the mercy of the wind either, so they began to package and bundle them up safely instead. Many, many of the bug-things disappeared and as the plants proliferated, they either died or shrank themselves. Many were stubborn and refused to change, but I saved their "-ness's" within myself for I had time to taste them all.

My wanderings took me many places. Eventually, I came to a place where the land ended and I was afraid. I was born of the earth and I was not sure that I would be welcome away from it. But it turned out I needed have worried. Imagine my wonder when I began to know of the things of the sea. I tasted them and knew that all things that thought and breathed had come from this place. All of them except me of course. The things in the sea were much faster and stronger than the bug-things on land. They had hard shells or sharp teeth or fins which moved them far more quickly than I could swim. And many of them were much larger than me and had a mind to taste me and take me into themselves.

They tried, but they never succeeded. Whenever I had the misfortune to be eaten, I found that the inside of their bellies was not an inhospitable place. The juices they secreted did not penetrate my scales and I had no need of air or the gasses in the water to sustain myself. I needed only the essences I held in my body. So, the creatures in the deep were always surprised when I sank my teeth into their innards and began to eat them from the inside. I still ate the whole creature before proceeding on. Though sometimes my creed led to inconveniences like spending moons at the bottom of the dark places of the sea where the water would crush most creatures from land or shallows.

I spent a long time in the sea and grew a lot, but I found land again at last and I was happy. There were new things here to taste and know. I could hardly wait.

There came a time, as I was crawling up from the shore, that I looked out upon the land and found that I knew it. Of course, it was much changed from the last time that I'd come. Forests grew here now and I was again dwarfed by the size of the plants. But by the lay of the land, I knew I had come home again. Except that that wasn't true. The whole world was my home. Realizing this, I strode happily into the forest to see what was new.

The bugs had all gone tiny, I observed. In their place were beings more like me, with spines and skeletons on the inside. Their skin was tough and pebbly, but only a few had scales like mine. These were small, but that changed pretty fast as I accounted things. They got big, and bigger still. I was large enough now to fit an armored crab into my mouth, but the lizard-things, they got so big that they could fit me easily into their mouths.

More than that, the animals were getting faster and meaner. They had spikes and horns and tusks now and they were always doing the most dreadful things to each other. Their thoughts were hot and alive though and I twanged with them as I had twanged with nothing before. I did not mind so much when I was eaten, though it happened far more frequently than it had in the ocean.

But I kept growing and slowly, the number of things that wanted to eat me dwindled. I was glad for my wide paws now and my thick legs because I realized that I was getting rather heavy. On muddy days - and they were frequently muddy - I could slip deep into the soil if I wasn't careful. And I could not be so careless with my movements anymore. My body was becoming vast and it needed solid support. Falling down began to hurt and I sought to avoid it when I could.

With my increased size, my appetite naturally grew. I could strip an entire tree in a day if I wanted, but the heavy trunk still took several days to devour. But the flesh of animals was always sweeter. I found that I could devour the flesh and bones of a creature only a little smaller than myself. When I did, my belly became vast and I had to sleep, usually for more than two days, sometimes four. When I slept, I dreamed and the essences that still lived in my body spoke to me, telling me of the wisdom of their species, their hopes, aspirations and their failings. The ones whose lines still lived spoke of the future of their offspring. Those whose lines had ended spoke of the past and what might have been.

My body was filled with such voices now, so that it seemed to sing when I was asleep. Tendrils of light immaterial coursed through me like a web tangling morphing and shifting with every passing moment. My body was the framework on which they lived now rather than their past flesh. But my flesh was composed of their flesh also. My heart was their heart, my lungs and my stomach too. In a real way, they were me, but I was also more. I was at they heart of them all and ever they sought to know me, but it was usually too much for a single voice.

One day, I had filled myself with as much flesh and bone as I could hold and welcomed the essence of the creature I had slain to house itself in my body and I settled down to sleep in the warmth of a tropical sun. The noises coming from my abdomen were deep and soothing, like the sound of the sea and I knew this would be a long pleasant sleep. However, there was something different happening inside of me.

The countless years I'd been alive had wrought within me a web of glowing light which was thick and crossed many, many times. So many times it crossed itself, it indeed felt cramped. My abdomen was rich and swollen as I liked it, but the crampons went beyond the mere volume of my skin. The framework of my very self was cramped. This body, though so much vaster than I had known at the start of my life on the surface was not enough for all the voices. I had not enough flesh of my own to go around and the voices were clamoring with the addition of one more. "More!" They cried as one, "More!"

But I had naught but my body to give. I tried to assuage them with the thought that I continued to grow, but this only infuriated the essences further. "Too slow!" they raged, spinning about on a golden web as thick as silk within me. I thought for a long time about what to do. They couldn't hurt me of course, but it distressed me to see them in such an inharmonious state. But the solution came to me from the distributed wisdom of the voices themselves. If one body was not enough, then two should suffice.

Carefully and for the first time, I weaved the web of essences inside of me. I unknotted the fibers holding them together, separating a large portion from myself. This I folded and folded down and down, tighter and tighter. The voices complained, but I paid them no heed. "Take shape." I told them. "Deep inside, take shape." And I shaped the golden cloth and felt the quickening inside of me, my flesh heeding my command. I gave the essence the shape I cherished most, my own.

When I awoke, I was aware of new life inside of me, another beating heart, tiny and fragile, but well protected. I was as happy then as when I had clawed my way out of the surface of the earth for I knew that I had accomplished something marvelous that day.

Slowly I nurtured the new flesh inside of me and the tiny life grew in my midsection. I fortunately already had the necessary organs in place for the task, but the experience was novel. When the first dim flickers of thought emerged, I communed with my child and taught it everything that I knew. There came a time when my belly was distended with the body of the life inside of me such that I scarcely had room to eat. That was when I knew it was time. It was more painful than I had been expecting, I'd let my calf grow far too large inside of me. I laid on my side for days as I struggled to pass my daughter, but eventually the shoulders and then the hips were through and the tail slid out of me.

My daughter was half my size, for most outward appearances an excellent replica of myself. And yet she was different, shaped by the essences inside of her. I was truly exhausted for the first time in my life and my daughter was weak. She took her time in rising, but at long last she came over to sit beside me and I was able to look into her eyes for the first time. She grinned a dragon's grin. "Mother." she said to me, our thoughts mingling. "Thank you for life."

"You are welcome to it." I said, rising myself. I felt greatly diminished and very hungry. As I laid my eyes on the flesh of my flesh, I very nearly succumbed to temptation and tasted of her. Though, of course, that would have defeated the purpose of all the trouble I'd gone through. "But know that this life I give you is borrowed from myself. One day, I shall need it back."

She inclined her head. "Of course, Mother." She said nothing else, she knew from what I had taught her in the womb. She left me then and I was grateful that she removed temptation as well. We separated, my daughter heading east and I west and we did not meet again for a long time. In fact, my web grew dense and thick again and I fashioned a new daughter and again and yet again before we had the opportunity to see each other again face to face.

My daughters became pilgrims of the world as I was and they ate and tasted of things and took their essences into themselves and knew them. However, they grew only to the size that I conceived of when I fashioned each of them and no larger. I however, continued to grow.

Trees started to become a nuisance to me. In places they grew too thickly for me to pass and I spent years eating my way through them, the forests springing back up behind me in the time it took me to pass. The animals got still larger, but the gap between me and the largest was shrinking. The shock of my feet on the ground usually drove smaller creatures away for a mile around and only the driest firmest ground would not yield under the weight of my claws.

Small creatures began to appear and I grew annoyed at my inability to catch and devour them. I was desperate to know them. That was when I began to experiment with fashioning my daughters. I made several with small, slender bodies that could dart among the trees. Eventually, I gave them wings so that they could spread far and wide and catch the birds of the air, even when they chose to distain the earth. I was eager to taste all things and bring all essences to harmony within myself. Of course I was doomed to fail and still, my body was not nearly vast enough. "This is going to take awhile." I repeated to myself and trudged ever onward, plowing through every obstacle.

Then the cold came and many wonderful things passed from the earth. The great animals all died, but fortunately, I had gotten to know most of their kind and their essences lived on secured in my flesh. The sky was dark for years and the plants of the land mostly withered and died. The memory of their essences was stored in the flesh I found, but before long all had become dust. The ice came down from the north and I retreated as fast as I could towards the south. With the size of my body, however, I was scarcely faster than the ice and more than once, it was difficult finding enough biomass to sustain my body.

At my most desperate times, I cast my thoughts wide and summoned my daughters to me. The winged ones first, because I was needy for their flesh, what little they had to give back to me. When I ate a daughter, rather than a slight augmentation to the fabric of my essence, it was like an explosion of light. All the essences that my daughter had known in life flooded into me, became a part of me and weaved itself into the fabric of my web. I took the time to know each new voice in the time my body needed to rest.

Though my journey to the unspoiled regions of Earth was arduous, my other daughters found me, sooner or later. They thanked me for life and offered themselves to me readily. My jaws sank into willing flesh which sustained me and my glowing net grew heavier and denser. At the equator, I found enough surviving biomass to allow for the expedient of converting flesh into fat which I stored around my middle and on my neck and tail. It was easier than crafting new muscle and bone and organ, though I continued to do this as well.

I put on as much flesh as I could because, after I had eaten all of my daughters, the essences inside of me were all packed up very tightly, much more tightly than ever before. It was a noisy clamor whenever I closed my eyes and shut out the world of the material things. But I did not desire to seed more daughters at this time. Earth was struggling through a crisis and I did not want to strain its ecology with hungry daughters. But the extra flesh made it easier to contain the vast fields of essence inside of me. I grew very fat by all outward signs. My flanks became wide and my belly dropped low. My tail thickened and became very heavy so I had to drag it on the ground when I moved. My neck became thick, so thick that the skin dangled and folded itself along the bottom.

But as a cosmetic change, I did not find anything wrong with my appearance. In fact, I rather liked it. It felt, somehow more right than when I had been slimmer. Also, I rationalized that I had more than enough extra flesh to create several daughters at once when the world began to recover. In the mean time, I found most of my sustenance at sea, where the creatures were not so badly affected and it was not so much of a burden to move myself about.

Into the deep I retreated for a long time. Decades past in which I did not see the light of the sun. It was peaceful and quiet enough so I could meditate and enforce stillness within myself if I willed it. The flesh of my body grew to astounding size as I feasted on acres of things which grew without the aid of the sun. They knew of no trauma on the surface. Waving my tail in the still water, I traversed the darkness, the dim thoughts of living things guiding me from oasis to oasis. Eventually, I accumulated enough flesh that the din of the wed inside of me stilled and became at peace. I thought I might remain on the bottom forever, until the world ended.

But slowly, thoughts of the surface returned. They were slow at first, slow as years, but I remembered the sun and warmth and the touch of cool air on my hide and I yearned for it. So again, I rose from the blackness.

On my way up, I soon saw evidence that the crisis had past. Large creatures roamed the sea and their thoughts were complex and vast, more than I'd known from creatures that had come before. These were whales and I longed to know their thoughtful flesh. I was as big as any of them now, save the very largest. The voices began to clamor inside of me again, the dense fabric inside of me reawakening. Annoyed, I began to quicken several new bodies inside my vastness. But first, a long awaited meal.

It was hard in coming. These whales were far fleeter than I was in the water with their massive fins. I had my long, thick tail, but my claws were not webbed and furthermore, I was very wide just right now and the water did not flow over me as easily as it did the whales. But I did catch one with the patience of a timeless one. I came on it from the deeps as it was diving for prey of its own. It wailed in the grasp of my teeth, its thoughts so frantic and alive. How could I have forgotten such pleasure? Tube worms hardly cared when you ate them. But this whale wanted desperately to live.

Dimly, several voices called to me from the vastness of my innards. They claimed relation to this whale. In life this voices had belonged to small, shrew-like things that grew fur all over their bodies. As I tore into the flesh of the whale and its struggles died against the grip of my claws, I almost laughed at the audacity of their claims, but looking deeper into the whale, as its essences poured down my gullet along with the blood and tissue, its essences twanged with those of the shrew creatures and I knew their kinship. What a strange and marvelous world it was.

The hot flesh of the mammal brought me more awake than I had been in centuries. The fight had invigorated my thoughts where they had grown slow like the plants and shellfish of the deep. I rose higher, wanting to see the light again. And I did, and it was just the same as I remembered. I tasted the air for the first time in ten thousand years and its flavor was different, but no less refreshing. With a belly full of whale meat and quickening daughters, I began a long swim along the surface to rediscover the land.