I walked my lair with my scaled feet and majestic claws. I took flight from the battlements with my all-encompassing wings! I should say wing - for I was only able to bear one attachment, but it turned out that one wing was all I would need to fly. I gazed down on my land from afar, I grazed upon the few dregs of cattle we had left. When the small-folk saw me they screamed and ran. They left offerings for me, hoping I’d leave them alone.

How long did I rule over the skies? Days, years, an age? Time stops making sense to me, for I was immortal and had no fear of death. The only chance of such a thing came from my enemies but I was too powerful for them, too harrowing in my great form and power. A dragon, finally a dragon.

But soon enough rough men in dark capes came to my lair. They wanted my gold and body. They were envious of me. When they knocked the door down and came to see the desolation of my lair I was not frightened. All I had to do was to bellow fire, to scorch them down to their bones, to send them running to the hills.

But my new body failed me. Their mortal weapons breathed more fire than I could and soon I was a heap on the floor. They tired me up with a rope and chains and dragged me screaming from my home.

“By the Pale Lady, what a sight!” one of the gasped, when he bent down to regard me.

All I could do was laugh back in his face. He was envious, no doubt. He was such a small man. Soon I would regain my strength and burn them all to cinders. It was just a matter of time. I am nothing but patient.

Yet my strength never returned. My body ached, my wings fell limp and lifeless. The men in dark capes sheared off my claws to keep as a trinket. It unfolded as before - the curse of my race. Mortals always want the parts of a dragon. Mortals always destroy and steal.

They threw me in a jail cell, up in the Northern Fathoms, their homeland. They were horrified by the sight of me. When they asked me questions about who I was or how I ended up this way, I heard pity in their voices. Disgusting pity. One does not pity a dragon…

I vowed to burn them all, to burst free from my prison and once more take to the skies!

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But instead I was displayed in a cage. They took me to an opera house where I was kept behind the red curtains of a stage and unveiled to a gasping, petrified crowd. Though I am not proud of it, I confess that the sudden attention made me cower. But soon enough the laughter made me roar.

In these showings I found a kind of admiration I’d never felt before. All wanted to see me, people came from far and wide to gaze upon my body. Finally I was getting the recognition I deserved. Finally my race was back in the world and although in chains, the mortals were able to see how powerful a dragon really was. I could tell by the way they looked at me. It was glorious.

On the fourth night of my display, the Pale Lady came to look upon me. I suppose it was logical for a powerful woman such as her to be interested in the body of a dragon. There was pity in her eyes, too.

“I simply can’t look at him,” she said. “It is a sad thing, what madness can do to a man. We must end this.”

“Hanging? Pale Lady?” asked one of the guards who liked to torment me so.

“Oh no,” she said. “We must study him. We must keep him alive. He shall be kept in the dungeons until we discover the truth. I want you to send men to his estate.”

And so I wait…

Forever in the dark, forever in the blackness.

But I am still a dragon.

They feed me scraps of meat, sometimes they ask me questions but I always tell them the same thing. Or I roar, proudly as I can, all the while promising msyefl that soon my strength will return and I will take to the skies once more. I will burn the Northern Reaches to the ground! I will take the Pale Lady in my claws and devour her, just as I ate the Surgeon up all those years ago.

Sometimes, when I gaze into the darkest corner of my cell, as I await the changes, I hear the voice again. It tells me the same thing my father did, ever since I was but a hatchling.

“I am a dragon,” I say. “Am I not?”

There is more often than not silence after that, a silence that lingers so long that I wonder if the voice will ever return to me. But it always comes back. I hear it loud and clear against the murk of my cell.

Oh yes, it says. You are a dragon, and thus the dragon does ascend…