>>5748464>>5748362>>5748349>>5748161>>5748129>>5748109>>5748073You stare at the arm, at the fire-blackened, grasping hand. You turn the human limb over, regarding the liens of the palm, and consider this man or woman’s life and death, their likely profession, their family—their possible hopes and dreams, their future cut short.
You dig in.
It is what it is, you decide. You are hungry, and humans are meat… As, you suppose, are Reptilians, though your reaction to cannibalism of THAT sort still gives you a somewhat more visceral feeling of nausea. Oh, it’s not as if you plan to hunt humans as game-beasts, or to farm them for their flesh, but you are a DRAGON. If someone commits a crime worthy of torturous execution, should you simply throw their body, wastefully, from the cliffs, or burn it or bury it? And if you are offered delicious blood to quench your thirst, or to commemorate a great victory or anniversary, are you to deny your rich cultural heritage for the sake of propriety?
No, you are not so soft, and nor shall you impose such weakness upon your people.
Once you are done quenching that exact thirst, and your belly is full, you feel a little better for it—more YORUSELF, in some unplaceable way, or perhaps like the being you were not so long ago, before Hawksong and its Queen. You feel emboldened perhaps, and eager to set right whatever has one wrong in your three-chambered heart and in your lizard brain. The Hawksong Infiltrator called Halle and the other Silkscales seem to discussing things amongst themselves—she seems to be regaling them with tales of her assigned city in fact—but you wrest your subordinate from the harem’s clutches with some muted grumbling and set her to watch; the other females, you assign to supervise the Red Dragonborn.
“And what will YOU be doing, Superior One?” the Hawksong Infiltrator dares to ask, though with a deferent head-bow.
You call a council of your fellow males of the Master Race, to beseech their advice.
“Archer, Great One,” you address them both. “Our journey will take us not just to Bloodrise, but first to the northern forward base.”
You see your Great Green Dragonborn brother tense up at the thought of returning to the place which he has so recently escaped captivity, but you assuage his fears—it is to be a brief stopover, but a necessary one.
“I fea—I have concerns,” you begin, haltingly, unsure how to explain your predicament without showing weakness. “We have achieved many victories in Hawksong, but they were victories of… Compromise. Diplomacy. Marital politics. Mercy and compassion. All WORTHY methods… But not, necessarily, the Methods of a Knight Ascendant of the Feathered Serpent God.”
