Writing Prompt 18

"
I stood on top of the world, upon the snow-throated spire of the Eldest Kingdoms, looking at my predatorial prey. It was larger than me, but nigh kin in scales. It looked upon me tiredly, with somber voice.
"You must be most bold to venture to this place. Joor qah suleyk. There is power in your mortal scales." It said, speaking flawless Tamrielic. I grinned at that.
"Perhaps. I just do what must be done." I reply for the sake of brevity.
"Fent los folaas. Perhaps the things you see as a must are not. Only time can tell. Tiid votinvaak. Time will not talk; bormahu-dovah sleeps soundly, free of mortal conversation." It said, looking skyward.
"Time doesn't always tell," I affirmed what the Dragon was trying to say. "Is that it?"
"Mmm. Yes. I do think so." The Dragon, then, looked down upon Skyrim. The land of the north. The frigid realms of the children of Atmora.
"I know why you are here," the Dragon's eyes darkened. It looked sorrowful. Perhaps pained remembrance? "It is a mission of self-slaughter." It said firmly.
"Maybe. Not that you'd know." I replied bluntly. I knew that Dragons, in old tales, were immune to the tides of Time. Ageless.
"This one is a scholar? Lah vahrukt?" It looked curious.
"No," I said. "I just know things."
"Mmm... Knowing without understanding. A blight all too common."
We stood there for a bit.
"Well, are you ready?" I asked.
"I am not the in need of preparation." It said coldly.

In just a few moments, I was there and then I wasn't again. I was falling, my ears ringing with sacred words. The Dragon spoke a holy tongue, older than the world of Man. I was falling. Falling. Down the cliffside of a mountain, but sometimes it was the edge of a tower. I crashed, then, into the snow and I was in another realm. Or perhaps it was the hallucinations of a dying man. The delusions of death. Falling. Falling. It was a world blanketed in snow and ice, expanding for millennia as though time was terrain. Through frozen fractals I saw mismemories of my life, in tainted mirrors. I recognized the experiences. Then, the crystals would crack, in spirals of infinity showing the multitudes of paths I could have walked.

I fell, then, into an eternal ocean or a river of souls. Or perhaps it was just mushy snow I landed in from falling off the High Hrothgar. I was drifting. I was sleeping. I was dying. I was living. I was awakening. I was dreaming. I was dreaming. I was dreaming. I was dying. It took two eternities to open my eyes and see the truth. I shed my scales slowly, like grains of sand. The labyrinthine intricacies of my interior withered away into whispering waters. I could feel the blood depart my concept-organ. Soon my ivory armor rusted, and I was a force. An urge. A will. And then I was nothing. Nothing but the desire to live. I saw all the brothers and sisters I never and ever had. I saw all the lives I ever never lived. I saw the world, blinking back at me with a burning eye. Eye. I.

The water was constricting around me. Malevolent magic maelstroms, rupturing my peace. There was now just water and no air, in a sort of oval prison. And then there was no water. And then I felt the walls of the prison. Walls were made to be broken. It was a serpentine skin. One I must pierce. I clawed angrily at the confines of my own mortality, breaking free of the Tower.

Sunlight. Peace.

And my parents, looking down at me with burning eyes. I am a hatchling. My name is Xajata-Mei. I do not remember what just happened. It probably means nothing. This was eighty years ago. I am grown now, living on a peaceful farm in Cyrodiil."

"Grandpa! Haha, you don't need to tell us where you live, silly! We're in your house!"

"Hahaha. Perhaps you're right, little lizard of mine. I just feel as though sometimes, if you do not have a pointer to tell what path to venture in life, you may lose yourself to the dark... Ah, but I'm just an old codger. Now then, children. Who would like some sweetrolls?"

"Oh, oh! Me! Me! Me!"