Andromeda

If one conveys a certain amount of temper and outwardly directed intimidation, they can be met with results, storms of results which make a solid defense against unshaken reputation. Through different eyes that regard things of much variety, she was seen rose-tinted as much as she was seen a cruel figure. Her name was Justice, and despite the protestations that would rise quickly to such a statement, from both sides, out of admiration, as well as fear, she thought herself much a horrible leader. She was not inclined like the rest into believing she was some hero, because she was, flatly stating, not. In every fractured facet of her soul, she could see the lines, the disfigures which made her imperfect, and much of that had to do with the way she thought of herself, and her scarred past.

You see, Justice had one flaw that made all others who were more a representation of purity of soul, feel despise at her leadership. She was, in every flutter of a wing and every deep-voiced declaration, a figure carved of pride. Pride was something arguably terrible. Some may not recognize the trait but nobody, not even the most bull-headed of creations, can admit to admiring it. It was something nobody dared taint the air, but they were all as aware as the next, for Justice broadcasted it in her strong tone of voice, her stern decisions and punishments.

If one could understand her past, they may understand her pride as well. Some people could breathe through the tangible self-regard, and continue to worship her greatness, but others were faintly disgusted. They disliked her every command. They did not cower under her slighting amber gaze.

Her past will be told now, in as detailed as it can get so one might imagine the scenes as they pass.

Justice was not born, but crafted by the deities. She was molded from star-touched clay and breathed life into from heaven-lined clouds. She was set onto the long grasses by invisible claw-tips and lifted her head from a stark eggshell of soot and ash. The smell of smoke tinged the air, crept under her nose, made her hair lift imperceptibly. She looked into the pond and felt a stiffening of herself. She wasn't so sure she liked water, the wetness it made her feel and the strange, creepy, lingering touch on her scales. But one thing it could give was reflection. Pride and vanity are not the same thing, so whilst she privately acknowledged her weakness, she openly discouraged the use of riverbanks for the sole purpose of gazing. Pride is how one feels about oneself, you could call it full-of-themself. Vanity is how one wants others to feel of theirself, but what they cannot actually, physically control. They can change themselves to be more likeable, yet it is impossible to control the opponent's regard.

She took steps onto the grass, which brushed long against her stomach and tickled the tips of her scales. She gradually began to learn to do something called keep balance, and to quicken her pace into a run. She, as a loner, taught herself to accomplish many daily tasks.

She grew up in the wild, so she was not accustomed to the selflessness of clan life when she joined one. She had met a dark dragon, one who looked quite strange. He had large batlike wings and spikes all along his scales. And such wondrous colors! There were swirls and stripes on his coloring, glowing shapes running across his back, moonlight kissing his eyes.

He called himself the Teller and told her his sole purpose was to Tell, never to Receive. She was not allowed to speak to him, to give him information of any sort. The only thing she could do was listen, with sharp ears never tampered by other voices. His tongue, in the meantime, was of a strange sort. It carried a sort of accent she could not distinguish, husky on the undertone, and vivid, descriptive, rich in emotion over. It fascinated her. Her ability to observe heightened.

He took her to his clan, and the day after, he left. She would never figure out what exactly had happened to the Teller.

She made a large influence on the clan, as more time passed. People were interested by the way she spoke, her wide fiery eyes, her reckless, fiercely proud personality. And another problem arose from there, another flaw to the great, heroic mind: she was selfish. Selfish beyond belief.

She had never had to share her food. She was never expected to give others things which rightfully belonged to herself. She didn't understand why she had to help the others carry firewood when they seemed just fine on their own.

But, little by little, her mind twisted itself, to learn. She adjusted to life in a clan, discovering where her selfishness lay and working to extinguish it. Though it was strange, she began opening herself to others. She spoke words carrying the hint of grassland, the spark of fire. In her voice was such haunting relation she was given much time and much attentive eyes.

It was just the peak of daylight, on her seventh day as leader, when the Teller came back. He carried bloodshed in his eyes. His scales were, she discovered, ridged. The spikes stood out on his back and he resembled, faintly, a horned predator.

He went padding over to her with lifted head and eyes filled with anger. His wings were quivering and he was making the biggest effort to still them. His clawtips were adorned by gold rings, in different shapes and sizes, which made a click-click sound against his scales whenever he moved.

He spat, "You were not meant to become leader, Justice. You were supposed to be the Outsider. The Story Relater.

"In other words, you were supposed to be a Teller." And he bared his teeth, eyes filled to the brim with reckless anger, pupils flared, frame taut. In the slight glow of the sky, he looked absolutely terrifying. The thick fog covered the patterns over his scales, and he looked almost like her, just all basic. She lifted her chin and stared coolly into the fiery hatred of his gaze.

"You have meddled with fate." His words thundered across the air like lightning crackling across the sky, a tension-filled presence. The word 'fate' did not give Justice any sort of outwardly reaction, as she had no belief for such unprovable substance; it only served to make the Teller more tempered.

"And those who meddle with fate...will receive no fate at all afterward. You will continue in your life, with no other prophesied ending. You will find what importance it poses, and you will regret it, you will regret it all."

He leaned in closer, so the pupils in his eyes glowed like tiny crescent moons, in the sky of expansive darkness. The patterns on his scales were hypnotizing. They seemed to move, inconsistent, so unlike the regularity of her basic. "You will walk a path of unknown, with no deity to guide you, nobody to give you hope, nobody to pray to for help," he hissed. Just before he left, he took his claw, the one with rings dangling all over it, and sliced into the vulnerable flesh near his talon. A drop of blood flowed out, then another, more generously. Though, it was not the color of rich, deep red; instead, it was green, dark as the trees.

With that, he paced off. The fog swallowed his figure and when she ran to catch up with him, just by a prickling instinct against her head, he was gone. Not even the grass beneath her claws was flattened to acknowledge his presence. She concluded he must have flown.

The day following, she remembered something. She had become leader because her charge had died. She had done it for the clan, so it could thrive without questions arising of who would rule thereafter. But now.. she wasn't so sure. Why did she have to receive such bone crushing results from seemingly a good intention?

She closed her eyes and forced herself to look into the murky waters, seeing her scales ripple softly, like wind. She started. A mark was across her, once invisible, was now a pattern of what looked to be webs and poison across her scales, in a green color. She swallowed her fears, knowing she had no deity to turn to, only her fellow mortal souls, and forced herself not to relate to the one other time she had seen such a vivid, dark color.

The mark across her scales, the blemish covering her otherwise basic scales, was a pure representation of the blood which had flowed from the Teller.

She, drawing in a sharp breath, her stomach clenching, nose quivering, sliced her long claws into her flesh. The color of the blood was not like the kind she had encountered when she had had nosebleeds before, or bled from battle training.

No, this one was the same eerie green which had been from the Teller. And she thought, just for a moment, that she could hear a voice, drifting across the wind, taking the place of birdsong, of the rustles of tree.

It spoke in whispers, murmurs, calls, singing: You cannot escape destiny when it calls for you.