Keldroch

There was a little glade at the bottom of the hill where the sun shone cheerfully and a waterfall stirred the air to keep it fresh and clear. Dense vegetation carpeted the ground, happily quaffing the omnipresent moisture with huge, billowing leaves. And it was here that the young dragons would play.

The young ones weren't particularly large -- no bigger than a grown dog. They would scrap and tussle and dash through the river. Wars would break out and truces would be called, and everything would be just as quickly forgotten. Scratched tails and sore wings didn't last forever, after all; a little rough fun had never hurt any of them. Of course, the plants would often get burned in the struggles, but it was nothing that couldn’t grow back with a little patience.

On the top of the hill, an older dragon lay watching over the little ones as they went about their games. His eyes were gold and his scales were the color of the evening sky. He was terrible, and he was beautiful. His name was Keldroch.
His roar split the air. The playful tussle ceased. Four pairs of eyes, startled and terrified, turned to fix upon that beast looming over them, standing majestically on all four legs with wings stretched out to quench the sun.

"Despair, little ones!" he thundered. "Know that I, Keldroch the Inexorable, shall be the doom of you all! To my teeth you shall succumb, and by my belly you shall perish!"

The specter swooped from his perch. It was no difficulty to snatch up the slowest of the young dragons as they fled. To a creature of his stature, full grown with jaws that could swallow a horse, the young dragon was quick work. It vanished with a yip between scaly lips and went down in one great lump.

He relished the sport of the hunt. They would hide, and his snout would go to work, trying to draw out their scent. They would flee, and he would pursue. He would catch them at last, and there was barely time to savor the victory before they would vanish unceremoniously down his gullet.

He captured the last of them. It was a little red that bucked and squirmed terribly as he held it pinned. Its cries filled the air, "Please don't eat me! Let me go! I'll do anything!" The pleas sounded vainly against the irrational hunger of the savage beast. Tooth and tongue gathered the tiny body up. A graceful ripple ran along that long throat. The cries ended forever.

A stillness was left in the wake of the young ones. The only sound was of Keldroch's tongue lashing across his teeth as four playful dragons met his cruel appetite, their innocent lives snuffed out for the sake of a meal.

He strutted regally back to his perch, letting his paunch hang down low. Truly, Keldroch was the master of his domain. Nothing opposed a dragon in the wild but another dragon, and he was determined to stay on top of the heap. He relished the act of supping upon the next generation, to dispose of them so viscerally. Without them, his rule of this place would continue forever. Never would he suffer the company of other dragons; they were conniving usurpers, all of them. Their only worth was in the pit of his stomach.

He sunned himself high on his hill and looked over his domain -- the hill and the woods beyond, and the valley where the river ran through. All of it was his. It was glorious. One talon stroked along the lump of his belly, feeling the little bodies within that had ended their struggles.

"And the mighty worm celebrates his glorious victory."

A shadow fell over him, and a chuckle rumbled up from behind. He studied the shape of the shadow quizzically and considered the voice. Another dragon? He turned to this intruder with an annoyed scowl. "Step out of my light, or I shall --"

He froze. The sight before him was not to be believed. It was a great gold dragon that addressed him, with sags of flesh and a colossal size that spoke of a long, fruitful existence. The grace and beauty had long left its body, replaced by a sturdy, enduring architecture. There was age in this creature's eyes, but also wisdom and virility. Keldroch's eyes went wide. He was positively dwarfed by this great beast. And for the first time in his life, he was awed into silence.

"And the mighty worm enjoys devouring the young of his own kind, does he?" There was a smirk on the gold's face that gave Keldroch a sinking feeling.

"I eat what I eat!" Keldroch insisted. "A dragon answers to nobody!"

A long gold tail swished behind the great dragon as it approached, thick and ponderous. "And so the strong shall rule the weak." An ominous rumble filled the air. Though Keldroch was stunned by disbelief, there was no question as to the gold's intent.

Keldroch leapt to his feet and ran, crying out in panic; there was no time to risk taking to the air. The easy gait of the gold dragon tromped along behind him, matching his run easily. It toyed and it teased, nipping at his tail whenever he slowed. "Run, mighty worm!" the pursuer bellowed. "Flee for the sake of your miserable existence!" Through field and marsh the chase wore on, and though it was clear that the gold could overtake him without trouble, it delighted in the pursuit and in wearing him down. At last, sobbing, he collapsed to the ground.

When he dared to open his eyes again, he was greeted with the final sight that would meet them -- the gold dragon's jaws unfurled and slid around his head. He was too spent to offer more than a cursory struggle as he flowed into that rich, red sea, pulsing and glistening as it slowly drew him within. And then everything became darkness.

Elegantly, efficiently, the proud blue dragon was drawn into the body of the conqueror. His beautiful wings folded in defeat and were soon a memory. His great belly, a trophy of encounters with countless unfortunate dragons, was only a brief, pleasant sensation across the gold's lips. The malehood he'd never used to father an heir vanished as though it never was. The gold's rib cage had to come unhinged to work the mass of its unusual dinner down. And soon there was nothing left; the only evidence he'd ever existed was a rather large, lumpy mass hanging from the gold dragon's belly. Keldroch would not be walking away from this encounter.

Mumbled roars of protest could still be heard from within. The gold chuckled, stroking his gut with both hands. "Yes, tell your woes to my belly, mighty worm. You shall soon know the sympathy of a dragon's stomach." It rolled out a loud, triumphant belch that proclaimed his doom to the world. It was the last the world would hear of Keldroch. With the moment's diversion spent, the gold dragon went off to pursue other business, his belly hanging so low that it nearly scraped the ground.
And so, Keldroch the Inexorable, ruler of the hill, the valley, and the woods surrounding, succumbed to a gold dragon who'd passed by his home one day on a whim. His fate was ignominious indeed -- vanquished by the passive actions of a complete stranger's digestive system. His body churned through the anonymous dragon's intestines in a matter of days and passed from it at the foot of a tree as several hundred pounds of steaming mulched dragon, nothing but a rich ordure that would soon return to the earth.

A good deal of Keldroch lived on within the gold dragon. The most noticeable change was a ton of flesh that lined the gold's belly, but indeed he'd been incorporated everywhere. He reinforced the gold's bones, he fed its flesh, he gave it blood, and he became its seed. When the gold dragon took a mate, it was Keldroch's essence that impregnated her and became their children.

And Keldroch became their hope for the future.