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The Swamp was multifaceted- both loud and quiet, harsh yet gentle, nurturing but cruel. Every kin had their niche. Some thrived within larger social groups and settings, enjoying the colorful company of others- yet some still relished solitude, and the peace and quiet that came along with it. Fire Made Flesh was one of the latter, through and through. Perhaps he was the original loner. Even family he gave a wide berth, save for those who sought him out and begged for his brief company- but even then, they were but a fleeting second in the grand scheme of time and life.
So alone he wallowed in a dark and dank cave, all gristle and Spanish moss and stale air. His scales were worn smooth with repeated friction rubbing against the pebble-y floor of the cave. Every rock, each dangling strand of moss, every stray wandering beetle was exactly where he wanted them (no, not really the beetles, those stubborn little crawlers went wherever they damn well pleased but Flesh would adamantly declare otherwise). In short, everything was just the way he wanted it. The aged dragon knew which songbird made its nest just a tail’s length from the mouth of his cave and that their voice rang out just as the sun began to descend beneath the horizon. He knew the daily path of the foraging boar family which wandered through his clearing every day just past noon. Fire Made Flesh’s life was an organized one and a predictable one.
He did not take too kindly to interruptions or disruptions of any kind.
So when one day began just like every other day before it, it might be said that Flesh was unhappy when it did not follow the same predictable route. The disruptive scream of something was immediately a grievous offense against the peace of his withdrawn cavern. It mattered little what or who was creating such a ruckus, but the simple principle that it was happening was enough to rouse the typically sluggish dragon. He was on his cloven hooves before the first scream had even faded, his scaled tail lashing back and forth behind him like an angrily swaying cobra ready to strike. As a second screech rose upon claw to rip through the air the dragon purposefully strode out from his dark grotto. The sunlight broke upon his scales with not a glimmer nor gleam for the grime and dust upon them was enough to stave away the shimmering sun. So deeply furrowed were his heavily scaled eyebrows that one might miss entirely the bright and angry eyes beneath them, intently surveying the immediate area with all the sharp skill of a hunter determined to find his prey offensive neighbor.
Maybe it was an injured or sick animal, simply needing to be put out of its misery. It would certainly not be the first time the dragon awarded a merciful death to silence a pitiful creature. Death was entirely natural and necessary and Fire Made Flesh held no reservations on the subject. In anticipation the adrenaline began to well and rise with all the ferocity of the tide just before a storm, the waves crashing upon the shore with a greater and greater force each break.
A third shrieking cry alerted Flesh that he had quickly closed the distance between his cave and the source of the sound, and it took but another moment more to find the pitiful owlcat… and it appeared to be stuck in a tree. Flesh stopped dead in his tracks. Clearly the creature was half-witted, or maybe had suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury and a resulting lack of mental capacity. Whatever the case may be, it had gotten itself into a precarious situation with no one to thank but itself. The dragon entertained for all of two-point-seven seconds the idea of trying to flush the creature from the tree to cease its ghastly cries.
But now that he knew their source, Flesh found them to be less disruptive. They were cries of anguish and frustration, perhaps at knowing that fate was a lack of food and slow starvation- and Flesh could not find it in himself to interrupt what could only be called natural selection.
So with a satisfied smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, Flesh made sure to take his time getting back home. He wanted to enjoy the sounds of the Swamp.
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