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He lived in pain. That was a constant.
Every day, even before he was moved to this place. He was in pain.
Before, he was whipped till bloody, starved till his skin grew thin and scales turned brittle- while the blond haired human stuffed his mouth and laughed at his misery. For being pathetic enough to be born into the hands of a murderer.
Before, he was a toy to be tamed. Now, he was a lab rat.
They ripped out his scales, tore into his teeth. Chained him down and shoved their needles into his skin-uncaring if they pierced through already wounded and barely healed flesh.
And throughout all of it, humans made sure to remind him just how weak he was. How he, a great and mighty dragon fell prey to the hands of a weaker animal.
It made him sick.
Now, he lay in his cage, watching his surroundings with hyper vigilance- freezing and tensing up at the slightest bit of movement towards his being.
"It seems to be resisting less," a human remarked,
Another one scoffed, "Sir Elliot upped the dosage yesterday- must still be feeling woozy"
These humans were the two who guarded his cage most of the time, he didn't think they were that bad- with them freely talking about information around him and kicking the bars or spitting on him at worst. It was pathetic, that they thought that much would rattle him.
It didn't change the fact that they were humans, or that they would probably hurt him bad if they could, but they didn't.
At this point the dragon would take that over anything else.
The black dragon curls up further in his cage, forcing his shoulders to still when a human looks back at him- tucked his wings and forced his throat quiet.
It made his instincts yowl and growl- to be docile to these creatures who decided that dragons were lab rats, to act as if they were anything but stupid, ugly, and angry all the time.
But… if there was one thing that would tempt these guards into the "other", it would be showing weakness.
And he can't show anymore weakness, not when he could feel himself be changed every time he was injected, not when he could feel his insides rot as the days go by.
Not when gloved hands grabbed his maw and shoved packs of poisoned meat down his throat, not when they grabbed ears and dug their tools into the insides just to see him scream- not when they ran their gaze over his stomach and chest and told him he looked so good like this.
Not when they took everything from him and still pretended he was the beast. That the dragon they kept as a pet was the evil one compared to the rest of them.
It will come to an end soon, he tells himself. Soon he will be able to escape, to gain revenge on his torturers and make them feel everything they inflicted throughout these past years.
Because he is a great and mighty dragon, and he will not succumb to these humans.
Soon came in the form of an explosion, a second of panic. It came with a rush of adrenaline- seeing the world shake all around him.
His cage was breaking down, his chains rattling against each other.
And a thought sprung into the dragon's head as he watched light and heat burst trhough the ceiling above.
-Why not?
Why not now?
Why wait when everything was already falling apart?
Wasn't this the perfect opportunity?
Someone was looking at the hole in the wall in shock, another human ran out the room as soon as they could-
What else did he have to lose?
His collar rattled as he felt the excitement begin to grow, his mana bubbling up and boiling through his paws.
-He was getting out of here.
It felt so good, so cathartic at first. To be able to have this much power, to be able to use it for the first time to kill everyone who dared to trap him in here. The victory and adrenaline running through his veins so fast he barely recognized the pain.
Keyword: At first.
At some point, the excitement began to fade, the screams of terror fading away as he surrounded himself with more dead bodies and more raging flames.
He didn't want to move anymore, everyone was dead.
At some point though, he finds he cannot control his body anymore.
Even as he wills himself to turn- to run and recover, his maw still opens, his voice still roars- even as his limbs tire from exhaustion, his legs still move. Tail slamming against anything it could find, wrecking havoc in all he could reach.
He's so tired.
He spent his whole life in pain his whole life caged behind a metal noose and a rock too powerful for him to overcome. And now, now that he's free-
He's still trapped. he's still caged. Stuck behind the bars of his own skin, watching his limbs break down, feeling his throat bleed.
A tear runs down his cheek as another round of blood comes up, the liquid pitch black and burning- putting out the flames that came before it. His struggle for control useless
How delusional must he have been?
His legs stumble and stomp on everything in sight, mindlessly aiming for the blood red haze in the distance.
To think a weak excuse of a dragon like him would be able to escape? To think that he would be able to be free?
A burst of mana throbs through his chest-
He's still as trapped as he was before. He was still in pain.
-and he lets go.
Nothing has changed, even after all this time.
A blur of pain, gold, blue, red and black sparks later, he finds himself in a bed of flowers.
Something happened, he doesn't have the energy to know.
His body was beaten and pushed to the side, shrinking, much like how it was before.
The dragon was vaguely away of the two humans still here, but he was so, so tired.
He didn't want to fight anymore. He just wanted to rest.
He closes his eyes, silently bracing himself for the pain.
…
……
..Huh?
He shivers at the cool liquid being poured down his body.
His eyes snap open when he feels himself being pulled onto the human's lap-
But… the human still did nothing. He rubbed his hands gently across his head and back scales, holding him close despite the blood staining his shirt.
Venion always hated when his blood did that.
With tired, dull yet wide eyes, he watches the human speak.
"I'm sorry," the human whispers, "I'm sorry I was too late,"
…How strange
Human's don't apologize, they don't feel bad.
He rubs his head against the warmth of the man's body, a soft rumbling emitting from his chest.
The liquid.. it must have done something.
He feels his eyes droop,
Ah, well, it shouldn't be too bad.
It doesn't hurt as much, not anymore.
Choi Han silently watched Cale pet the dragon's head, gentle despite the damage the creature had caused him.
"Cale-nim…"
Cale lifts his head, eyes dull and heavy.
The body on Cale's lap had long grown cold, the stains on Cale's shirt slowly turning brown as the afternoon wind drifted by.
"He was five," Cale says, softly. "He would have turned six this spring,"
Staring at the small body on his league's lap, Choi Han feels his chest hollow.
It was small, noticeably starved too. His fists clench and his fingers dig into his palms- recalling the words Cale told him, all those years ago.
“Such an existence has fallen into darkness since it was born. The only thing currently lighting up the darkness in its life is torches, and it has never even seen the light of the sun. What kind of life do you think it is having?”
But they had arrived too late. Ohn, Hong and Cale had arrived to nothing but an empty chamber, with dried blood and marks of struggle marred onto it's stone walls.
The child was moved to.. this place.
He had been subjected tot the bell tower's experiments for the past 2 years, had been chained and experimented on with dead mana- as a child, a child barely five years old had been-
-forced to become an existence without rationality.”
Choi Han watches Cale slowly take the corpse of the child off his lap, still careful- as if not to wake him from his eternal slumber. As if all that pain were just a dream.
“It has had to suffer through its loneliness, without any family or anything to lean on.”
He stares at the redhead, noting how even when he knew the dragon was going to die anyway, when Cale knew there was no use in using the highest grade recovery potions they had- he still used them.
He still used them to make sure the dragon died the most painless death it could.
Quietly, in the stillness of the field, Choi Han finds his voice.
"I'll help with the burial," he says,
He silently carves a name onto the child's gravestone, distant memories of a far away land drifting across his mind. One of child just a little older, his face unrecognizable but joy still apparent- hands chipping away at the rock they had chosen.
Raon Miru.
He and Cale stay there until the sun rises, doing nothing but keeping the grave company.
Choi Han hopes that a name and a few hours of company- will be enough to sooth this child's soul to make his way into the afterlife.