"Revenge"
by Arizhel

She awakened with a start, sending the tattered wisps of dreamstuff drifting away in the dank, fetid air of the cave. Disjointed, random images came unbidden, fleeting glimpses of a great battle with a mighty warrior, a juggernaut in silvered plate mail. The pain was still sharp in her mind, a reminder of the wounds she'd suffered before fleeing, barely holding onto a flicker of life. She hissed into the darkness, enraged that the warrior should still plague her. Despite her best efforts to forget, he still stood just on the other side of the umbra, out of sight, but barring her from her very dreams!

All around her, younglings stirred and whimpered, perhaps gripped by dreams of their own. She moved closer to the mouth of the cave, placing each foot carefully amongst her sleeping children. In the pale light of early morning, she eyed the scars that ran across her ribs and belly; twisted, pale mockeries of flesh, as of yet untouched by scale.

Her rage seethed, and the amber drake plotted her revenge.