I was going to send this to a contest then I realized it was crap. Fortunately, I sent Waiting for a Plot. Still, it's worthy of at least typing up...
A bright tune, pregnant with celebration, thick and heavy with smoke and incense, golden hair and scales sparkling in the candlelgiht, in the mirrors.
The incense cannot cover the thick, enticing scent of blood.
But perhaps that's just me. Many, so many illusions.
We all know it's just smoke and mirrors anyway.
I am tired. It took so much effort to pass the wards without alerting anyone. They don't know I'm here. Must be the smoke and mirrors.
How amusing.
I rest, bobbing my head in time with the celebratory music. What do they celebrate, I wonder? The death of so many of their people whom they hadn't even declaired there enemies? Do they celebrate that their position as 'best' and 'holiest' is now impossible to protest? Or are they simply celebrating because it stops them from thinking? Perhaps they believe that if they simply ignore it, it will go away?
I will never understand dragons, nor do I wish to. My people are designed to hide behind smoke and mirrors; they are supposed to be the good guys.
Unfortunately for them, although their own children are fooled by the smoke and mirrors, being what I am, I am not.
My master's orders will be carriedout, and there will be no guilt upon my part.
After all, after seeing what they are capable of, my first-massacre nervous flutterings are almost non-existant. let them see how their smoke and mirrors failed to hide you from your most important opponants: the people you are supposed to be fighting in this war.
Someone is coming, but I am not yet ready to fight. I send out a tendril of power to test, and relax. This young man will be powerful someday, but not yet. I smile at him as he passes, and he stops to stare at me.
'Young man', I called him. Younger than me, at any rate; male gold dragons age rather quickly, comparitivally. I am probably ten or more years older than him - not much for one of my kind - and he looks a few years older than me already. In a hundred years, he will already be passing middle aged and I will be barely appearing older than I am now. Power counts into that too; I can see something in his eyes blocking him from growing much. Power slows age, and he probably will never tap his potential.
"I don't recognize you," he says warily.
My smile widens, and I nod my head at him slightly. "I am a guest... for the festivities." I am, but not in the way this young dragon will think.
Still, his suspicions seem to have calmed. "Oh. Well, enjoy the party!" He hands me a flower.
As I take it, I cannot keep myself from asking. "What is your name?" Juuou-sama did ask me to keep a few alive and I would like to know the names of those I spare, so I can recognize them in the years to come.
"Saichono," he responds easily. "Yours?"
Let him know. My name must be remembered. "Xelloss Metallium."
The name triggers no alarm bells in him; a pity really. I would have liked to see his face... ach, plenty of time for THAT later.
"Well, Metallium-san, do enjoy the celebrations," he calls as he continues down the corridor.
Feeling stronger already, anticipation humming through me, I stand to watch him go, leaning on my staff. "Oh, I plan to." And how.
My staff is whispering to me again, as always, demanding blood. I caress the deep, blood-red stone, smiling. Blood you will get, my love, enough to sate you for centuries. And I will get its counterpart, the pain and anger and terror. How wonderful. The thought alone is sending delightful shivers through me.
Standing straighter, I smell the flower the dragon offered me. Same scent as the incense. This must be what they made it from. The flower is a delicate-looking thing of blue. My hand closes around it, and I feel it crush. I head for my goal, the dance room, letting the petals drift to the ground behind me in a path.
I always had a sense of the dramatic, a sense of smoke and mirrors.