The Dragon's Den

My wielder, my fourth, was at the end of his life. 

Stricken with an illness that even the best doctors of the land were unable to cure. Some said this was a curse I had given upon him. Others said it was a curse laid upon him by a demon. Either way, I was bound to him, fighting battles and meditating up until this point. 

Forty-two years, he lived in total. We were bound when he was just eighteen. 

Humans lived such fleeting lives. Whatever flesh their tiny souls clung to was temporary, rotting, come their birth. For them, a year of life was a milestone. For me, it was nothing more than a second’s passing. 

I stayed with him in his final moments. Bedridden in a little room, he had turned himself towards the outside world, viewing the petals of cherry blossoms fall. I watched with him through his dimming gaze, his weak hands resting on the hilt of my prison. I despised his violent coughing of blood and phlegm. It broke the silence. 

Nothing was said between us. In a way, I was simply waiting for his soul to pass on. Then, it would be the next wielder. He had a plan to gift me to someone— some human that lived for battle, who could brave any curse. So they claimed. Holding me was nothing more than a timer to the end. This one was somehow fortunate enough to live long enough to see his end be peaceful. 

The rest were all so…

So terribly violent.

I closed my heart, even if it did not beat in this realm. 

“Dragon.”

He spoke to me in his own language. I was not sure if he believed I was a dragon or not to this day.

“A question for you.” He rasped. 

More philosophical prattle. He had time to think now, I supposed. “Speak it.” I answered.

He coughed, clearing his torn throat. “Does a blade mourn?”

He always asked these kinds of questions to me. I never gave a clear enough answer. He was a sword without a master to swing him for all of his life. Whatever purpose he was trying to find was ultimately lost now at death’s door. I sighed. Perhaps I would indulge him with something straightforward. 

“A blade is nothing more than a tool,” I said, “It is a means to an end; a weapon that ends lives. It does not grieve. It does not celebrate. It simply is, wielder.”

“I see.” He murmured, voice nigh a whisper now. “I have no regrets. I have no vices, nor do I have any fears. I have no purpose, and yet, I feel at peace even now.”

“Then you have served your purpose as a blade. There is nothing for you to mourn.”

“A blade wielding a blade. How strange…”

His breathing was starting to get shallow. His coughs weren’t as violent anymore. The daylight was dripping through the small sliding doorway and the wind blew petals onto the mats from outside. 

“Will you mourn for me?”

I glanced down at the little soul, nearly faded from view from within. “Excuse me?”

“Will you mourn, dragon?” he repeated, firmer. “I will die. I do not know when. I know it is soon, but you will continue. Will you mourn?”

What a stupid question. “Tozz feek. Hurry up and die already, fool.”

He laughed and laughed as well as a sick man could— coughing in between laughter. Through the heavy gasps of his strained lungs, he sputtered out some more inane words. “A blade wielding a blade, eh?” he asked, steadying his breath, “A blade does not bite back when asked a simple question.”

“Nor would it, even if it could.” I grumbled, resting my talons in front of me. “I am a means to an end.”

“Then why do you sit with me now?”

“I have no choice in the matter. It is the nature of the magic that I must linger with your feeble soul.”

“Yet you choose to humor a human at the brink of death in philosophy.”

“Perhaps it is out of obligation as a blade that I listen to your gripes, banal as they may be.”

“Ha. Then you are no blade.”

This prattling old man was lighting a blaze in my belly, were I still able to feel it. “My purpose is to be mankind’s weapon— a tool passed down from person to person to use as they see fit! This bond we shared is only temporary, for my own strength would have ripped you to shreds!”

“I believe a blade, cursed by its nature or not, would not speak in such a way,” he countered, voice wavering but still so strong. “It would not warn its wielder of its strengths, its weaknesses… it would simply exist. Silent. Unchanging. Undeterred.”

“Spare me your musings.” I snapped. I did not want to look at his flickering soul anymore. “If you mean to suggest I am not a blade because I have thoughts, then you misunderstand the very essence of what it means to wield and to be wielded. I may be your weapon, but I am so much more than just that.”

“Indeed, you are.” He chuckled, “What fires have you braved, Mysherra?”

“Enough!” 

I slammed my fist down against the ground. What did he know? What would this dying human know of fires?! What pain would he know of, a warrior with no purpose!? “I have bathed in the blood of a thousand soldiers, all of them with lives just as meaningful or meaningless as they have made it! The hands that have touched me are cursed to perish by battle or by my own hand! I am more than a weapon— I am a dragon, a destructive force that no human could ever hope to resist!”

My wielder was silent. He was silent for a long time. The image of the outside world flickered just a bit. Finally. He was going to pass on. Gods bless this day this stupid fleshling died. Long may he rest in A’aru, or wherever this type of human goes when they die. 

“You will mourn.”

Oh. No. I suppose he was not dead. Of course not. Of course he—

“You may not mourn for me, as you believe our bond to be temporary, but you will feel the weight of my absence. Or perhaps, the weight of someone else’s.”

My jaw tightened. How would he know?

“You are no blade, Mysherra. You think, like man. You speak, like man. And behind the mask you wear, you feel, like man.”

My eyes continued to stare out into the window to the world, the warm breeze feeling more and more distant as the image panned away from me. Further. Further. Pink petals blew into the hall, dancing across his vision and my own, fluttering along the ground. 

“One day… you will feel—you’ll…”

He gasped suddenly, and exhaled. I noticed he had stopped coughing a while ago. In fact, he stopped talking finally. The image of the outside faded away, wisps of white flickering across my eyes. The golden realm of my own domain stared back at me, and I was graced with silence once more. 

Idiot. 

Who was there to mourn for? It was not in my nature to mourn anyone. The anger I felt inside of me was only the fuel that burned my flame. What did he know, philosophizing my life, sharing some tired knowledge that only a dead man would share in their final moments? Elder dragons would be just as long winded as he was, but they would at least know when to pass on. 

Pathetic. 

It was just a matter of waiting now. Waiting for someone to inevitably find him, dead on the ground. The next hand that had enough spark to hear me would know what to do, but the next hand that would pick me up would likely not be the caretaker. I was already promised to someone else. And then they would die, and then I would do this all over again. An endless cycle of death, and viewing the world from the eyes of some battle-crazed lunatic seeking their next fight.

Pathetic…

I missed that tribe girl. She was a battle-crazed lunatic, had a temper, but she had spoken to me like I was a God and not some cursed object. What irony, this man, telling me I would mourn— that I would feel, at the same time treating me like a burden when he swung me around. Dragons were revered by his people, were they not? Why now was he so…

Pathetic?

What were these streams of water falling from my eyes about?  Who was I shedding tears over? That boy— my first wielder? No. I mourned him. I had to when I was in the hands of the second. Right? I could not be mourning the second. I hated him, as much as we shared the same fate. The girl? Was I mourning her? Was I mourning the samurai? What was I crying about!? Who was I crying for? Was it myself? Was that it? Was I so utterly swayed by this dead man’s words that I was mourning myself? It was my decision to do this! To protect human kind, I became a blade to support their endeavors! I was a weapon! Weapons don’t cry! Weapons are just a means to an end! My scar on humanity would not be forgiven without my service to them! What did he know!?

My teeth pressed against the sides of my lip. If I could bite any harder I would tear my own jaw off. I would draw blood if I could still bleed. 

Pathetic. 

I was alone again. Alone with nothing but my own anguish. 

He died. Fulfilled and satisfied. 

And I continued to exist .

Pathetic.

The tears stopped. I was not aware that I could still shed them. Closing my eyes, I curled my neck around my body. The next I woke, I would be in the hands of someone else. 

“Rest well, Esumi Nagehari.”