A bit of a departure...

I've been reading tales for a long time now, and you know what bothers me? The relative scarcity of tales written from the Monsters point of view. I mean we have tales of Vampire Hunters, and Witch Hunts. We have tales of the slaughter wreaked on villagers by Lycanthropes, and Undead, and all manner of beasties, but very few written from the point of view of such things themselves...

So I have attempted to Remedy this... When I can find it, I'll post up the first part of Blood of Fenrir. And when I finally get round to figuring out where else to go with it, I'll write and post additional parts. For now however, you'll have to put up with this. And SKAAL! To any Man, Woman or Child, who can guess who be monologuing before the end. And by who, I mean Whom. And By WHOM I really mean What.

We sit, on a razored knife ridge of granite, jutting up from the blue ocean. Taloned feet dig gouges into the rock, as we stare into the wind. The lesser breeds have a name for this place, but they have a name for everything. We of the eldest folk have no care for such things. It is enough for us that a thing is, without needing to tack words that cannot describe it in truth onto it. Beneath us, so far below, the sea is rough, what the lesser breeds call white horses running along its surface. A fair enough title, even if it fails to match the true majesty of the sight. From the corners of my eyes I see my kindred, all of them glancing from side to side, ensuring their clutchmates are beside them.
I need not do this. My clutchmates all fell long ago. I am alone, the eldest of us all. To any who watch I crouch motionless, seeing the black smudge spread across the horizon, and the horses below leap higher and higher. The scent of the open sea is in the air, clean and pure. Soon, the storm will be upon us. The youngest of us quiver with excitement, serpentine necks flicking this way and that, tails lashing against the rock. For some, this is their first time knowing the joy that is our gift. The older, those who know what is to come restrain themselves better, saving their energy for when it will be needed, but even they still fidget. Only I am still as the rock we grasp, save the rise and fall that comes with my breath.
The smudge is nearer now, the horses frantic, throwing themselves against the base of the rocky craig. The spray of their struggles almost reached the lowest perches of my brethren. To one who has been alive as long as I, the sky holds few secrets. And so, acting on signs only I could see, I inhaled, my sides belling out. As my lungs filled, the wind dropped, stopped. A moment of calm ensued, to which my kin reacted differently. The youngest glanced about confused. They had not been expecting this. Those slightly older tensed their muscles, ready to leap. The rest of them braced against what they knew to be coming. Only I continued to remain motionless, watching the air. I knew when the first breath would come, I could see it coming, and so I met it. As the gust front hit, I roared my greeting, and even if their was naught that a lesser being would consider a word in that greeting, well, the wind understood.
The gust passed, and died, and then, the wind picked up again, driving against us with the teeth of the gale. As soon as I felt it's touch, I lept, up and out, straight into the teeth of the gale. It welcomed me, caught my spreading wings, and flipped me about, over the ridge. I'd been the first, as befitted my post as eldest. Even as I whipped around in the wind, till it was behind me, I could see the others following me. A leap into the wind, backwinging to raise them up and over the craig. Spinning and twisting in the wind, till it had their backs, driving them, driving us, over the craig, as the storm drove in towards land. The wind whipped over and under and around us, and we twisted and writhed in its grip. Long, leathery wings beat against the wind, riding it, matching it will to will. And of all the wings to beat, mine still beat the hardest, the strongest. And none of my kindred can match me in skill. I can see it, see them struggling against the wind. They fight it, pitting their will against it's. Below me, I can see one of the youngers ones, caught by a buffet of the wind. The gale drives him into the tip of the wave below. The horses of the sea will drag him under, battering him, breaking him.
We cannot win if we pit ourselves against the storm. The trick, learned slowly over our long, long lives is to learn to work with it, to ride each buffet, each gust. It is a skill I have nigh on mastered. A gust hits me from the side, and rather than fighting against it, I tuck my wings into my sides. I roll into it, cutting through it rather than trying to force myself past. As I drop, I feel the winds shift, and the wings spread again, catching another breath, winds hooking it and launching me high, higher than before. The joy of the storm is upon me, the rain slashing against my scaled and armoured hide. I roar my ecstacy into the sky, and taken by a whim, I roll over onto my back and drop. I stretch my neck and tail, arrowing straight down. I hurtle ever lower, passing my lesser kindred. The spray kisses my snout, and yet I continue my dive. My muzzle breaks the surface of the sea, and a wave crashes over my tail, flipping me over and driving me under. It's turbulent under the water, rougher even than it is in the air. 'Tis easy enough to shift until the sky is behind me and drive myself even further underwater.
The sky is dark, which means that under the water it be almost impossible to see. I can tell where I'm oriented by the sound of the rain and the crash of the waves pattering above me. My tongue flicks out, tasting the water, and with a flick of my tail I twist towards the surface. My tail lashes back and forth, as do my wings, driving me up. Three of my lengths, nose-tip to tail, from the surface, my wings fold back, and I rocket free of the water into the fury of the storm. I reach the height of the leap, and as I begin to drop back down, the wings snap open, perfectly judged to catch the wind and flick myself up. A roar of triumph is loosed from my jaws as I rise again, feeling the pressures in the air, the force of the wind, the lash and sting of the rain. As I pull further and higher into the sky, catching the updrafts and dodging the downs, I can see others trying to replicate my feat. Only the luckiest or most skilled will pull it off.
Already the storm begins to die. 'Tis perhaps a symptom of age that they seem shorter than they once were. Not as strong, not as harsh, but still, we can feel the joy and freedom of riding the storms. As the storm settles, we come back into the knife-ridge to land. As I was the first to take off, so I am the last to land. There are so few of us now, and every year there are fewer. To be fair, some of that is my fondness for such tricks as my dive, which the young bucks have yet to learn they cannot yet handle. On the other hand, next year fewer will try tricks they are not certain they are capable of, so it serves its purpose. Mayhaps we'll grow in number soon, but it matters not to me. I will not last much longer. I've lived long enough to lose nigh everything that matters, and all that remains to me now is the sky. With a roar and a bellow I touch on the ridge, for forms sake, and leap off. The ritual of the storm is complete, and the time has come for me to find a foe who can give the death that befits one of my blood, that befits the eldest of those the lesser breeds name 'Dragon'