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Which was better, the mental feeling of being wanted and fulfilling the desires of both the self and the other, or the physical aspect of holding his loved one close, just laying there, feeling the warmth, the gentle breathing as she slept, not yet awake. He’d never felt this way before, this emotion was completely foreign, but not unpleasant. He’d have to remember to ask the oracle what it was called. He decided it was the warmth, radiating from her deep, red scales, taken up by his own dark blue, because it felt good physically while also working as a living metaphor. Curled up on the floor of his dwelling, tails wrapped around eachother, her body fitting snugly within the contours of his own, the moment could have lasted forever, unchanging, and it would have been a perfect life. He reached over and gave her belly a soft rub, surely after last night’s festivities, there was new life gestating within. Her eyes slowly opened, she looked back at him, smiled, laughed, he woke up.

He stormed back and forth down the halls of the lair, furious. This had to be someone’s fault. Someone had to pay for this, he had to hurt someone. It couldn’t have just been a dream, no, this was some treachery, some insurrection from some sorcerer's apprentice, some farmer’s son, he turned over every stone and inspected every shadow and crevice of the cave system, futilely searching for some evidence that this new emotion was not his own mind’s betrayal of his heart. That feeling he felt, before waking up, it was so… warm, and this one he felt now? He choked, almost crying, shuddering on the floor, curled up into the same position on the cold stone as he had in the dream. Breathing became labored. What could this feeling be? It wasn’t anger, or, or victory, and it wasn’t quite hunger? But what other emotions WERE there? There’d never been a problem before that couldn’t e solved with muscle, murder, or fire. He took a deep, ragged breath as for the first time in the dragon’s life, he cried.

He thought back to his youth, when he’d lurk on the edges of campfires, and listen to the humans telling their stories, sharing their songs, telling himself that he was looking to hear of his own exploits from his preys’ perspective, but secretly enjoying them on their own merit. There was one theme in many of the songs that, for decades, he’d never understood, but it always affected them like it did him, now. What did they call it? Yes, that’s right, he thought, pushing himself to his feet, wiping the fluid from his face with a talon, they called it:

“Loneliness.”

“Loneliness? Are you sure?”

The oracle, a feeble elderly human, cowered in his elegant chair in his cottage, off to the side of the town, a few hours’ flight from the dragon’s mountain. The creature would visit him, on occasion, mostly to massage his ego through rhetorical questions such as ‘Who is the most beautiful being in all the land?’ or ‘Who is the most powerful creature alive?’, to which the safest answer was always ‘you are’; for as the oracle knew all there was to know, this included not only the correct answers, but also the knowledge that the beast asking the questions was easily wounded by words, and would be liable to retaliate for the insult with destruction. It’d happened before. But still, he visited often enough, and was never directly hostile to the oracle, excluding implied threats, but he treated their relationship as one resembling a caricature of friendship, even coercing a band of local masons and mechanics to install a “secret door” in the oracle’s cottage, in that now the entire northern wall of it could now swing out on a hinge.

“Yes, I believe that was what it was called. I feel,” The dragon took a deep, controlled breath, to steady his thoughts and heart rate, “As though I had been given a taste of the most pleasant flavor possible, then to have it torn away, and in reflection, the negative remains.” He always liked to speak in less than straightforward mannerisms, even if only to feel more different from his possessions, as he called them who lived within his domain.

“Well, this is unexpected. The feeling you described to me before, and I am surprised you did not recall it from the songs as well, was what they call ‘love’, and I had not been previously aware that it existed for you.”

The dragon rolled over , half caring to avoid knocking around his friend’s possessions, half not being able to avert it, due to the distinct size mismatch between him and this home. Laying on his back, looking up at the old man in the chair, his tail bent around the walls of the room and nearly doubling over to meet his face again, he begged, almost pitifully, “Where can I find her? Please, I’ll do anything for you, I need to be rid of this feeling, I want to feel that again.”

Seeing the monster that held dominion over this county in such a state amused him, a little, but outwardly he maintained his composure of sullen commiseration, and gestured towards the fireplace, letting a little bit of magic scry the target of the affections, based on the verbal description he’d been given.

“Yee-ess, that’s her.” He twisted his neck to face upright, shoving his snout towards the fireplace, examining the image more closely. In slow-motion, she was there, ruby-red scales glistening with a million tiny flecks of blood, her glowing eyes reveling in the chaos, as a small army of human soldiers assaulted her, futiley, from all directions.

“They call her ‘The Ravener,’ the people do, I mean.” The oracle sniffed, pushing up his glasses as he examined his magic book. “She does not claim a territory, but stalks the entire western continent, seeking to attack and destroy any enemy she can find, even attacking villages and sparing a few, deliberately, only to return a decade later once they’d grown and their hate festered. “

“Bloody Claws. “ The name came back to him, he’d heard it before, “Turana.”

“Yes, it’s a pretty name, I suppose, for adragonness. Ancient Farimian, too, a very powerful bloodline, she can probably trace her heritage to the first dragons to arrive in this world. You know, you never taught me your own native name. Not to pry, I just feel as though it would be nice to learn, as if you choose to pursue her, this would be our final goodbye.”

He rolled back onto his stomach, tensed his wing muscles. “I suppose it would be fair, after all you’ve done for me, Oracle. When I was in egg, I was thrown down a deep chasm, in the depths of Moldath, and I grew up in the caverns, stalking the mountainfolk through the tunnels,” He positioned a wing so the membrane would block the light of the fire, its light casting a starry-sky effect through the dark skin’s numerous tiny, light blotches. “When I was small, I made them afraid to enter a dark tunnel, and when I outgrew the tunnels, I climbed to the surface, and made them fear the night sky. They called me ‘Teeth in the darkness’, Zulban.”

The oracle forced a laugh, “Well, good luck in your courtship. Be careful, though, around here you were the only dragon for hundreds of miles, but there’s more competition over there. I’m sure you’ll be fine, just don’t get caught off guard.”

As to parting gift, he carefully tore a few scales from his neck –they’d only take a few weeks to grow back-, collected the dribble of blood in their concavity.

“I will depart now, to the other continent, for good, I hope. Wait until the next full moon, and then claim to the townspeople that you have killed me, with this evidence. My gratitude will be echoed through them.”

And he left.

Turana reclined on her throne, liberated from the filthy human clutches that had so wrongfully claimed it. Their little “civil war” here in the nation of Farim had been the perfect opportunity. Who knew they’d surrender unconditionally, and all she had to do was fly in and eat one little king? All his guards were just a nice meal, and fun to kill, too. It was nice of them to build this luxuriant palace, they didn’t even know she was coming for it, but they couldn’t POSSIBLY have believed a human could deserve this wealth, could they? No, even their tiny heads couldn’t be that stupid and egotistic. She licked the blood off her claws, surveying the throngs of bowing new servants, yes, this castle had been built just for her, even if they didn’t realize it until just now. But it wasn’t enough. Nothing ever could be. She snarled with some degree of disgust at her temporary contentedness,

“Mage.”

She flicked her tail at the shaking bundle of bones and robes in the corner, the former court oracle, now her pet.

“Y-Yes, your divinity?” He limped over on an old cane, like a twig upon which his body shook as a leaf.

“Was he receptive to my summons?”

“His ego was too strong to deliver during the day, but we modified it slightly, and delivered as a dream. He is on his way to meet you, already willing to follow your every command.” It was certainly not an easy task, crafting a full sensory experience for a completely inhuman mind, and sending it across a thousand miles’ distance, but he had an old colleague who lived near the target to act as an arcane antenna.

“Good.” She pulled herself up more onto the thrones, draping her long, slender body across both the king and queen’s former places, “That’s one down, looks like the plan is coming together quite nicely. Have you located the others that I asked you to?”

The mage gulped, stepped forward very slowly, taking his time to make peace with his gods, before speaking, “I’m so sorry, my empress, but,” he shrunk back, bracing for impact, “One is living as a hermit this time, and the other, uhm, well, in this timeline he already died, nearly eight hundred years ago.”

The dragon’s eyes glowed a deadly orange as she drew herself up to her full height, crushing the golden chairs beneath her weight, her wings pulling up into an intimidating stance. Light debris from the earlier battle began to hang in the air briefly, as energy gathered in her throat.

“You disappoint me, so very much. “ She stepped forward, towering over the mage. “But,” the pebbles clattered back down to the floor, the radiant heat from her torso ebbing, “I still have use for you. Obtain for me the six strongest necromancers you can find. I’ll be back soon,” She waded through the crowd, the majority of it managing to escape her strides’ path in time to avoid casual evisceration, “I’m going to bring back the bodies.”