Dawn of the New Empire

     I don’t know when it started, but ever since I can remember, that dragon has been a part of me.  At first, it was just a faint voice, but as the years passed, that voice soon had a shape to go with it.  The shape began as a shadow:  a nebulous cloud.  But soon, that cloud grew huge wings and a tail.  It kept its sleek blackness, which at the time I thought was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and the feathers; they made it even more imposing.
     For the most part, the dragon was very quiet.  He remained as a tiny sliver in the back of my mind, but whenever he spoke, his words were gentle.  Whenever he spoke, I was powerless to resist.  As calm as his words were, they had an intoxicating effect.  He could persuade me to slow down and enjoy life even if I was in the most panicked rush.  He kept me calm, composed.  Each word was well-thought and never misplaced.  He could silence an angry mob with just one soft word:  “Why?”
     Whenever he made an appearance—whenever I could easily see his sleek black feathered outline, his huge rippling muscles, and his gentle, but firm glare in my mind’s eye—I felt important.  I felt as if I were first hand to a great king.  I felt as if I was higher than the top of the world, and yet I remained humble.  He had the composure of a great emperor, and yet he spoke gently of helping those less fortunate.
     He and I are one now.  We are one for all eternity.  Not even time can ravage our bond nor our existence.  I am writing this because I want Man to know how I came to be the majestic creature that once inhabited the innermost recesses of my subconscious.  I wish to tell my story.  No.  I wish to tell our story, from the time I became aware of him until the time I became him not just in mind and spirit, but in body.  From the time he found me to the time he infused his spirit and his essence into my soul and gave me the tools he wanted me to have to show Man the way.  Now, I tell you our story…

     For the longest time, the time in which he was just a voice and a shadow, I merely dismissed him as a figment of my imagination.  I regretted that decision.  I was never able to think creatively during that time.  Then, when I started getting older and closer to being an adult, he became more defined.
     I could see him in my dreams.  I could see the despair in his eyes; I could see the betrayal.  His legs were shackled together and chained to the floor, and his gentle smile extinguished by a muzzle from which there was no escape, and he was kept in a cage made of heavy iron bars that even he could not break.  The sight pained me so, but there was nothing I could do.  I could not find the strength he needed to break his bonds.  He remained caged up as a helpless animal while I tried desperately to free him.  He could see my vain efforts, but they weren’t enough to restore the fire to his eyes.
     Then, I wrote down one sentence:  I am the dragon within.  It was for nothing more than a school assignment.  The subject—the thesis rather—was “I am…”  I wasted an entire day trying to focus on that thesis, but my thoughts kept returning to the disheartened dragon that was festering in that solitary confinement in my head.  I suddenly saw myself, in a way, restrained and lonely like the dragon.  I had no friends, and I had no talent to speak of in any way.
     I suddenly connected myself to the dragon with that sentence “I am the dragon within.”  And just as suddenly, the fire returned to his eyes.  He became aware of the connection I made, and he suddenly realized that I had known of his existence.  And almost as suddenly, he redoubled his fruitless assault on his restraints.  I struggled to write much more than that sentence for the first few minutes, struggling to free that dragon so I could know more about him.
     First, the chains restraining his legs broke.  The moment he could move again, he rammed into the cage at full force.  He kept ramming the cage until his thick hide could bear the impacts no more and wept blood at his pain, but he still fought to escape.  I wrote about his struggle, and it became the pry bar that I used to aid him.  The cage was being attacked from both fronts.  Slowly, one by one, the rivets and the welds gave way.  The iron bars misshaped themselves and then broke.  He was finally out of the cage, but he wasn’t free yet.  He still couldn’t speak, but he wouldn’t let me remove the muzzle—at least not yet.
     He spoke through his eyes.  His glare welded my feet to the ground, and I couldn’t move for fear that I’d anger him.  But there was something more to his pained expression.  Despite the obvious pain that he was feeling, and his bloodstained feathers that glinted in the dim light of my darkened and misused mind, I could see forgiveness.  Slowly, I reached out to him.  At first, he backed away, and I saw the first flash of fear darken his expression, but I held his gaze and my stance.  Slowly, he edged closer to me, and I could see the blood running down his face from his brows and catching in his feathers.
     The sight disturbed me because this was the first time I had ever seen, in physical form, this dragon that fought so hard for freedom and was now suffering unimaginable pain for his efforts.  I waited only long enough for him to touch the tip of his long muzzle to my hand and let me slowly run my hand up his blood-covered jaw.  Then, I threw myself into him and wrapped my arms around the base of his great neck and sobbed into his side.  At first, he was ready to punish me for what I’d done to him, but he saw my remorse.  I felt his muscles relax, and I could feel myself sharing in his pain, and he slowly and gently wrapped me within his great wings and held me.  Our unbreakable bond was forged in that embrace, and the both of us knew there was no going back.

     I wrote on that piece of paper for what seemed like several hours straight.  When I finally finished, I had used every line on both sides of five sheets of paper.  I stapled them together and left the essay to be titled later.  When I went down, I found that my dinner plate was covered by a paper towel, and the food was cold.  I could feel the dragon’s regret at causing me to miss out on a satisfying warm meal, but his remorse didn’t last for long.
     I had a hunch that this dragon was old, and that he wasn’t originally a part of me, but the instant I put the plate of food into the microwave sealed my suspicions.  He was definitely from another time, and he expressed a fascination in the device that I was using to rapidly warm an entire plate of food.
     At first, he was hesitant to tell me much about himself.  He wouldn’t let me come anywhere close to removing his muzzle for the first few weeks—he guarded it with pride.  Somehow, I could feel that he’d grown accustomed to being forcefully silenced, so I merely let him lie next to me and give me comfort.  It seems that was all he desired.  He never told me directly, but I got the feeling that he wanted to be a servant of some sort.  He never removed the manacles, and the only parts of him that he allowed me to completely free were his wings, which were freed when he escaped the cage.
     Since he insisted on being silent, I opened my mind to him.  I let him learn whatever he wanted to learn, and I told him of my deepest secrets.  He did nothing but listen.  He couldn’t do anything but listen since the muzzle prevented him from opening his mouth even the smallest fraction of an inch.  But he was content to just sit and listen and keep his muzzled muzzle shut, and so I spoke to him.  He was the ear I needed to talk to, and he knew that was what I needed the most at this turbulent time of my life.
     He wouldn’t talk except for a slight whisper between his teeth every once in a while.  He wouldn’t talk at all, and he wouldn’t let me return to him the ability to talk.  Even though he would allow me to run my fingers over the muzzle, he growled and tensed up at every effort I made to remove it.  At this time, the time when he wanted to do nothing but listen to me and make it be known that that was his will and there was no way I could convince him otherwise, his eyes were his voice.
     He kept that same glare that he had the moment he and I locked stares, but I could see emotions playing across his eyes in the same fashion that clouds played across the sky.  I could read his expression like a book by the time four months had passed.  I could see his confusion or his curiosity if he had a question.  I could see his understanding, and (even though he did smile and huff through his nose) I could even see the kind of joy one would experience after hearing a bad joke.
     After a year had passed of me letting him learn whatever he desired, and him doing nothing but listening with that leather muzzle still tightly holding his muzzle within its cold, unfeeling embrace, he allowed me to start playing with the straps.  He decided that he had listened long enough.  My heart-to-hearts with him had become less desperate and less frequent anyway.
     I wasn’t sure of what he was trying to do, but I made an attempt at figuring out how to remove the muzzle, and he didn’t bother to growl.  He just relaxed, and he spoke his permission through his eyes.  He never nodded, but I swore I could feel his head slowly bobbing up and down, and I could see the reflected light shifting in his eyes.  I played around for a few minutes, and I found a tiny clasp.  I unclipped it and the muzzle fell off.
     For the first time, he opened his mouth, and I could see his sharp, white teeth.  He looked straight at me with his introspective glare, and he spoke for the very first time since I had banished him to my subconscious, where he had taken up permanent residence.  All he said was:  “Forgive me.”
     I didn’t understand why he wanted forgiveness at first, but then it hit me.  He realized that I didn’t just need an ear to listen.  I wanted that ear to speak words of comfort back to me.  However, I also understood why he wanted to do nothing but listen.  I replied, “You don’t need to be forgiven.  Giving me your ear was more than enough.”
     “Then why,” he asked, “do I feel guilt?  Why do I feel horrible for not letting you give me my voice back until now?  I am torn up inside.”  His voice was soft and wavering.  He could easily overpower me and speak louder than the amplified voice of a political candidate making a speech, but he didn’t.  He spoke softly, and softly was apt.
     “How can I make it up to you?” I asked.
     “You can listen to me,” he said quietly.  “You can let me tell you my story.”
     I sat and listened for a while, but I couldn’t listen forever.  Just like in our sessions of me teaching him about my world, I had to leave the visit to return to the real world.  However, before I had to leave to wake up for yet another day of school, he gave me his muzzle to keep as a memory of his great escape and return to glory.  I have no earthly idea how the hell it happened, but when I woke up, I was holding his muzzle in my hand.  It was made of the same tough leather that was capable of enduring his clawing, and it had the same runic markings.  Even the clasp that I unclipped that freed his head of the inescapable bindings was there.  He told me that the magic in the muzzle prevented him from taking it off.

     Years passed by.  His shape became more definite.  The bleeding wound over his eyes had long healed before the fateful day when he let me take his muzzle off, but the scars remained.  The feathers on his head were small, and the scars practically became a symmetric tattoo across his brows that symbolized his victory over confinement.  The manacles eventually broke off as his legs grew too large from his returning strength.
     By the time I had graduated from college, he was pulling me by force into the world of slumber each night.  He was not the servant he originally aimed to be.  He became my closest companion, and he infallibly stood by my side and guarded me from the fiercest of nightmares.  The both of us eagerly looked forward to our nightly adventures in dreamland, and the fact that you can be anything in dreams meant that he could change his appearance, but did so only slightly.
     I remember an entire year of recurrent dreams in a futuristic world.  I was a mercenary, and he was my genetically engineered right-hand dragon.  He loved playing the part, and he had altered his appearance to resemble a partial cyborg.  Of course, one could see his living flesh if one looked close enough, but certain parts of his body like a paw and foreleg were covered in metal plating to emulate prosthesis or a cybernetic implant.  No one died in that fantasy since it was purely for fun, but we’ve had more exciting dreams that, unfortunately, did have bloodshed.

     I never told you the dragon’s name have I?  Well, just days after I de-muzzled him, he introduced himself as Calyo Delphi.  He was the last dragon emperor.  He ruled the dragons’ worldwide empire for millennia, and he was by far the most philanthropic of the billion-year-old lineage of emperors.  He preached living alongside Man in an interspecies cooperation, but Man had other ideas.  They destroyed the dragons in an effort to gain the empire’s unparalleled riches, but he—Calyo—had ensured the safe protection of these riches.  Then, using sacred magic, Calyo preserved the spirits of the dragons so that they can inhabit Earth for eternity in search of worthy humans to guide.  Calyo is still the emperor.  The magic he used forever bound him to his duties.

     Even through his playful nature, he was a mentor most of all.  He kept me off the paths of addiction and dishonesty, and he was there to fold a wing over me when I was down.  He was practically a separate being within my own mind, and he was slowly growing.  I had also noticed that by the time I had moved to my second job, I was acting more like him than me.
     He had also noticed my personality shift and he started growing.  Instead of just being a subconscious presence, able to disappear at will and lock himself away for alone time, he spread into my conscious mind.  He started having more input in my decisions, although he kept to a strict doctrine of letting me have my way unless he had a very good reason otherwise.  He could control what I said or what mood I felt with a single, soft spoken word, but he never did.  The only time he ever took control was when I had gone into a blind rage.  Only then did I realize the frightful extent of his control over me, but I soon realized that he took control for my own good.  After that day, he retreated back to my subconscious where he was firmly bonded to me, but I managed to persuade him back out.  We had learned to trust each other.

     Then came the fateful day when he had decided that I was ready.  He had shut me out from his little corner in my subconscious earlier that morning, so I knew he was planning something.  Of course, I just guessed it was yet another dreamland fantasy.  Then, he reappeared and asked if it was warm enough to go to the park.
     The sun was quite bright outside, and the weather was very enjoyable.  I didn’t even hesitate to answer.  I just grabbed my keys and wallet and rode a bus to one of Calyo’s favorite parks.  I hadn’t been to the park in several weeks, so I was glad to see the grass was just a bit greener.  Then, I felt some sort of energy surge through my body like a cold shiver.
     “I have a proposal for you,” Calyo said to me.
     I nervously sat down at the base of a tree and once again opened my mind up like the dragon had taught me to do when in relaxation.  “I’m listening,” I said back.  He knew I’d listen regardless.
     “You know of my heritage and my bloodline,” he said in the same gentle voice of his, but he held me in the same stare that froze me in place when he was first freed, “but what you don’t know is why I chose you, and also why I finally decided to choose a human to guide.”
     I was curious now.  I had to ask, “Does this have anything to do with you being the last emperor?”
     “Yes.  I am the last emperor of what will be known as the old empire.”
     “Why the old empire?”
     “You’ll find out soon enough.”
     “I have a question.”
     “And I will answer it.”
     “Can you… It’s kinda senseless really… Can you make me into a dragon?”
     Then, Calyo did something that I wasn’t expecting.  He smiled, and that glare disappeared.  He laughed heartily as a kindly old man would at a joke.  He replied in a much deeper and fuller voice than his gentle half-whisper, “As a matter of fact, I can, but are you ready for it?”
     I sat and pondered for a minute.  My answer was simple and soft-spoken:  “Yes, I am.”
     The dragon resumed his characteristic glare, softened slightly by excitement and, from what I could tell, admiration.  As far as I knew, he didn’t know that the year he spent in self-inflicted forced silence enabled me to read his eyes as one would read their favorite cartoons in the Sunday paper—the poor soul.  I had never seen him look at the subconscious me with admiration, so I knew that I had said something that he wasn’t expecting.  His instructions were simple:  “Go to the top of the grass knoll behind you and stand with your back to the sun.  Close your eyes and clear your mind until I say you can open them.”
     I heeded his instructions.  I could have decided to stay put under that tree.  I certainly was comfortable enough, but he had a deeper control over me than what I could understand.  Even though he wasn’t directly influencing my behavior right now, he knew that his words alone were enough to bend me to his will when I was in this relaxed state.  However, I trusted him, and he trusted me, and his will was never ill.  As soon as I cleared my mind, I could feel an ethereal energy surrounding me.  It was gone as suddenly as it formed, and I heard, with my real ears this time, the dragon say, “Open your eyes, my friend, and see the once great king that is ready to pass his throne on to you.”
     I opened my eyes, and sitting on the grass in front of me was a ghost in the shape of the dragon.  I could see his glare that had its own way of betraying his thoughts.  I could see his sleek, feathered body, but he was white as mist, and spirit energy swirled off of him and seemed to cast an ethereal glow over everything it touched.  I was completely dumbfounded.  I thought spirits—much less ghosts—didn’t even exist, but standing before me was a ghost of the great dragon that I had come to love.
     Many of the people that were enjoying the park stopped and watched.  I could feel hundreds of eyes looking my way, but that dragon’s incessant glare focused my thoughts and gave me the bravery I needed.
     “You must understand that once this happens, it cannot be undone,” Calyo said.
     “Will I still be able to speak with you?” I asked, unsure of what I knew was about to transpire.
     “I will speak through you because you will be me.  We will be one.  You will know all I know, and you will possess all the powers that I once had.  I cannot foresee the future, but I can tell that you will be as great a ruler as I once was. Once I am through passing my legacy and my duties on to you, my spirit will finally be free, and I can live with those that have already passed on.”
     “I will miss you.”
     The spirit gently folded my hand over my chest.  “I will always be here in your heart.”
     “Then let it be done.  Free yourself as I freed you many years ago.”  I closed my eyes and took a breath.  The ghost dematerialized and started swirling around me.  All the while, the people in the park and on the street watched as my body shifted.
     At first, I could feel nothing but the spirit’s infinite energy.  Then, I felt it begin.  First, I felt the scars cut across my face with a sting, and the feathers began following suit.  My face elongated to become Calyo’s triangular muzzle and my neck lengthened.  I grew horns and my ears moved and also lengthened.  My entire body grew larger and I could feel my features sharpening and becoming more muscular, and the magic of the dragons began pulsing through my veins.  The tail and the wings were the only strange new sensations that I experienced as my spine lengthened and a second set of shoulder bones grew to accommodate the new limbs.
     I fell onto four legs, and with a final breath, the spirit entered my mind and gave me all the knowledge and wisdom of millennia of life.  I let the breath out through my mouth, and the spirit left as a ball of light that floated skyward, and I could hear the dragon’s gentle whispers echoing.  “Remember.  I’ll always be in your heart if you keep me there.  Rule wisely . . . great emperor.  You have the world as your subject.”
     After I bid another soft-spoken farewell to my lifelong friend, I reared up and spread my wings, and I took flight over my new empire.  Finally, the dragon spirits had an emperor to guide them once more, and the world was forevermore a better place to live.