Upon coming up onto the crater’s edge, the man had realized that he had not understood what a dragon was. He expected another form of a man, one that’d become understandable through his actions.
The sight before him was not a man. To say the Dragon is in the crater is not incorrect, but it is a fair bit of a stretch. The dragon’s right arm, a scaly mass bulging with muscle and shining gold scales- some shining scales - ran up its arm to its body. The arm also had a lack of scales, pink flesh underneath instead being revealed. None seemed to be damaged, to the man’s perception.
Though, it is to be understood that the man’s perception is unbelievably dull. For if he had looked further to the left of the arm at the body, he’d realize the head of the dragon was large enough to dwarf his body three times. And because of the way he’d come over the crater, he’d been staring at the Dragon’s hand the whole time, not knowing all the while the Dragon stared at him with its slit eyes, its head being directly to his left.
The Dragon, cordially, blew a breath of air from its nose. A slight gruff, enough to force the sands to scatter and a breeze to pick up. In response, the man finally started to his left, the shock palpable on his face.
The Dragon tilts an eye towards the man, as if questioning the shock. It takes another snort, and talks in quite a dull tone, though one that is rhythmic to listen to all the same. There is an age to its speech, a respected and dignified one that demands attention.
“Human, why have you come? Why do you dirty your cloak? Is this crown supposed to be a joke?” The Dragon did not sneer or accentuate, he asked with open mindedness and no prejudice.
Still, the words of the cloak, and the crown hurt him.
“I’ve come because the Fairy told me you were here. He said… that the noble are buried in the dunes, and I was unworthy.”
He paused, hoping that was enough. But the Dragon stared into his soul, not demanding a response but refusing a rejection without appeal. He sighed, and answered.
“There’s no water here to clean it. And even if there was, the quality of the cloak doesn’t change. I Don’t care how it looks. As for the crown… It is my dignity that I wear it. At one point, I had worn it with purpose. As I live, I don’t want to reject that choice.” The man answered resolutely, he was proud of his answer.
The Dragon took a breath, drawing in the surrounding air in an act of force. The air felt thick against the back of the man and he could only look up in awe, and the Dragon then exhaled a long exhale. The air blew the sand up, and the man lifted his hands to cover his face. After the temporary weather event, the Dragon began to speak.
“You don’t care how it looks, but you’re proud of wearing it? I can’t say that makes sense to me. Would you not want something you're proud of to be admirable to others? Do you think that is a sin? Are you better than I? Than others?”
The man did not respond.
“Your dignity? But don’t you understand, you have none. You let one part of you dirty, but protect the other with a frightful hand. A fool! A fool! You have tasted a hint of life so you think you have the right to decide what’s precious and what’s not?”
The man, again, did not respond.
“You come for another’s sake. But is that true? You say the Fairy, but were it The Coward, The King, The Cultist, The Peasant, The Idiot, wouldn’t you have followed their words as well?”
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The man could not respond.
“You apply meaning to what you hear, unaware of the value of sight. You see a sight yet unseen, and forget you can hear. You have no structure, you are hapless.”
And the Dragon clicked its tongue, which sounded akin to a bang, and he continued.
“Now tell me for a moment, would you leave your crown behind, your coat behind?”
The man responded immediately.
“No! They’re evidence of who I was, and they’ve helped me to get where I am now. I don’t want to wantonly throw away something precious to me.”
The Dragon grumbled, like an old man, and spoke in response.
“And yet you dirty it without care, you wear it without care, and you claim dignity? You keep them because they’re comfortable, it’s no secret. You’ve chosen to accept the gifts from yesterday, and you reject the past without recourse. Do you not see the contradiction in your existence? You’re lingering, and the focus you do have is outward, you look only to the sands and what's on your body for your understanding of the world. But let me ask you, fortune teller from the sands, what is your name? What shall I address the man with dignity and resolve as, eh?” The dragon leaned in, its eyes growing larger as it examined the man. He looked in stunned silence, a sick feeling rising in his stomach.
“I’m…” And nothing came after. He did not know. He came from the sands, and his journey had only started a short time ago.
And then he thought, how awful was it that he had not even asked the Fairy or the Coward their name. In their shared circumstance, he had rejected them that basic act of companionship in a cold world.
The Dragon saw the man think, and waited. It did not speak with the intent to destroy, but it once existed above the heavens. Of course arrogance flowed through its blood, it had existed at the apex. And even though long gone, it had not forgotten once what it meant to fly freely.
The man thought, but he could reach no conclusion. He could not explain his lack of name, or come up with one. None of his encounters could explain, and that from before was long gone. So he acted on a simple impulse.
“How can I find my name?”
He asked the Dragon, the symbol of pride and legacy in front of him. It was a behemoth, something that could crush him in an instant. But he felt no fear, and simply wished to hear from the sage in front of him.
The Dragon let out a quick breath that sounded awfully like a stifled laugh, and spoke in its same tone.
“An answer is a path, a step on a greater road. The entrance to the path is here.” The Dragon lifts its hand away from the crater, revealing an opening to a cave.
“Where it is will be up to you. To be willing to look, this is something I commend you for. Hatchling, leave your cloak behind. You may keep the crown, but go down as a man with his dignity, not a man who hides himself away.”
The man shows quite a bit of hesitation at this. He looks at the cloak, a feeling of pain filling him at the idea of taking it off. It had been part of himself for so long, he felt the idea that he was hiding himself was ridiculous. Almost for a fact it was as integral to him as his skin.
But the Dragon would not let him descend with the cloak. It stood steadfastly, and the man understood that in any fair competition the dragon would win. Any unfair one, as well. And even this very moment, he understood it was by choice that he was still alive and that the Dragon could have wiped him away without care. So he thinks harder about giving away his cloak.
And he does, leaving his cloak on the claw of the dragon. He now only wears a light undershirt, and a pair of shorts that brush the knee.
Before his entrance into the cave, he looks back to the Dragon, resolute. “You said it didn’t matter who I heard, that I would have followed them anyway. I dispute this. The Fairy spoke of a world that only he could have, and for that reason I’m here. To even say were it another, I reject the notion. I will live with what occurred and follow his words by my choice.”
And so the man descended to the cave, escaping from the sights of the endless dunes of sand. Although the Dragon told him nothing of what was to come, he understood that this is a place where he’d change.
The Dragon watched the man descend, and he looked at the cloak. “To dirty it so easily, yet to give it away with hesitation. Do not fear contradiction, understand it. Boy, may your name be blessed, and cursed.”