The First Dawn

Summary

Hmm, of course one of you would be the one to find me. Not even at the end of the worlds themselves can I hide from you cursed humans. Do not offend me with your pretending surprise. Alone you may be, but your eyes tell me you know who I am.   For what else do you seek me, Auverndal?   ... The truth?   Whose truth, woman?   Mine? I speak no truths, only what I see, and what I know. The others scorn them both. You still seek these words, knowing how untruthful they are?   Hmm. Hm hm hm. You demand satisfaction for your labors, but no one must oblige them. It is your own sweat and blood. All that just to listen to my old self gratifying indulges.   What is that thing of yours?   It records sounds and plays them for others to hear, is that so?   ... I hear it.   Interesting.   Give it to me.   Do you want to believe you have a choice?   Hm. There, just a tiny piece of power.   People lie, words can be rewritten, but the voice is immutable. Solemn. Eternal. Now this thing will hear my voice and remember it, and no daughter of humanity can twist them. It is almost refreshing to think about. A bit like the days of my youth, when there wasn't a word called 'lying'.   You came all this way, just to hear about those days? Are there no others who speak of them left?   ... No? Such a somber thought. Then again, the world is vast. There are others like me, I imagine.   Cease your pointless bleating, it bothers this solemn ambience. I will tell you of my youth and those days, however little such small words can convey.   No, that is the problem with you humans. Well, one of many. You rely on words too much. How can such tiny sounds speak grandly? They cannot, you must live well enough to begin giving them meaning. But then others come and they lack your experience; you talk but no one can listen. They hear you, but they do not.   You'll try.   Hm hm hm.   Funny.   'The First Dawn', you call it. I do not know why. We do not. It is simply the time of us, before all you others invaded our world. Then we lived, pure, grand. Beyond even what we are now; that word of yours, 'goddess', it is close. Not quite. Too many opposing flavors. But close. It is in that time we created, and shaped, and fought with glad laughter and envious desire. Oh, how we lived. Immense palaces, entire mountains carved to our liking, the skies dancing beneath our wings, singing their songs to us. Each of us were unto ourselves truly great, our children spreading far and vast.   Tch.   This is why I hate words. Your experience is so, trivial. Tiny. Lacking. You think of your queens, of your palaces, of the ruins of others, and do not understand. You cannot feel what we feel and so will not understand what 'vast' is. So very frustrating. But then again, I do not speak solely to you; for a human. You are to carry my voice, and others will hear it. Some of them will understand.   Hm? Ah, those screaming howlers. Yes, they were then as well.   Do not mistake them apart of the world, for they are not. Our world is not so deliberately cruel. Where they come, or why, I know not nor any of mine who ever found it. They simply are, and befitting of us to crush time and again. Such wonderful sport they make, pale reflections of us they may be.   What else is there to speak of? Our time remains beyond your understanding. Even those carrying our blood, distant and dim, struggle to understand. To be as we were. To live as we should. Everything has changed so much. I do not think it terrible, as much as your stupid expression amuses me. To seek what is lost is to chase sand between your claws. Pointless. Stupidly frustrating.   And it gets everywhere.   It is not the duty of our inheritors to return to what we were. It is their burden to aspire to new greatness, beyond what we used to be. Something not even I can imagine, that is what they must become. Returning to what we were truly is quite mad.   You want to know of this 'second dawn' then. Hm.   No, that is not something I will speak of. There are nightmares even I am afraid to give voice to.   What of you then? Ah, when the first humans appeared.   Yes, the end of our splendor.   Where did humans come from? Such a tiny question that has maddened us for years uncounted. What hole? What ocean? What forest? Where was it? None could say, though so many tried. These strange beings who stole our form, wore our flesh with faltering hands. Never able to grow our magnificent scales, never strong enough to command the world. Weak, like maggots. And still, you bore our form. Yes, ours. Two legs, two arms; failure to achieve it properly. You lack the wings and tails, the scales and strength. An imitation. It is only the eyes that is yours and yours alone.   Those lying eyes.   You would never see it. You are human. Nor do others of this time see it, for they have become used to it. No, perhaps those are not the words. Your eyes are better at lying now. Only ones such as I, who have seen your real self, can still see it now. There is a ... certain way, of looking to find it.   Why do human eyes lie? I do not know, nor did the first humans. Whatever they saw disappeared into them, consumed by some thing. It is them who made up the word for 'lying'. The deception. The falsity. We dragons do not, for there is never a need to. Never a desire, never a want. Then you humans cursed us, for your lying made us lie in turn. Then you changed our world, invaded it to suit yourselves. Never satisfied, ever changing, always seeking a truth because of the lies you live in.   Hm, hm hm. Old age does not hamper we dragons but it certainly matures the bitterness on the tongue.   Yes, even now. Even you. I see it staring at me, through your eyes. You smile to hide it, blushing with a palpable lie called embarrassment. But it is there, staring, always. Hungry, I would say. If, truly, it felt anything at all. What word is there to call it? What do you name nothing that is something that isn't, but is?   What lie do you call yourself, if not 'human'?  

— From the only known recorded conversation with Auverndal, one of the most ancient dragons alive on Veltrona.