I felt like I was in a cave or a huge dungeon but time passed quickly or slowly, I couldn't tell!
I went to bed and remained silent.
I was an animal!
I withdrew into myself and watched for the slightest noise and draught. Sometimes I would hear rales and screams and repeatedly a clang of a big grid hitting its frame and it would squeak.
I try to launch care but a buzz takes my head and the necklace gets hot. I try again and the necklace doesn't heat up but it burns me. Impossible!
I pull on the wall, I try to unhook one of the chains and if I can do it I will twist it and pry it up. But I can't. The only thing I managed to do was to have a turn in addition to a chain around my neck.
I was strangling myself.
Never mind, I'm dying!
Die for die!
Might as well end it that way... I'll join Mom and Godmother.
And I'm choking!
An incredible electric shock and pain took me by the necklace and stopped my impulses.
A voice said to me, "You can try harder!"
Me:
GRRRRRRR, you again! Wait! Wait! One day you'll make a mistake but I won't miss you then! GRRAAARRRRR!
Merlin: "We can stay like this for a long time if you don't want to listen."
GRROOOAAAAR! YOUR MOUTH! RRRRAAAAAARRRRRRRRR
I pull and pull and my flesh tears and I collapse from pain!
------------
Somewhere in King Arthur's castle:" So, Merlin, how is he?" Arthur asked.
Merlin: "Bad, very bad! He has given up living and for a child it is the worst thing.
His heart is broken by all our violence and frankly, I have a bad prognosis. Even if we release him, I think he's trying to take his own life! He is as unhappy as the world. Everyone betrayed him and all his hopes were destroyed."
"I know how to use magic through him. I know how to heal the flesh but not the spirit."
"What will your do with him?" King Arthur asked.
Merlin: "I think the first thing to do is to leave him alone and ask his forgiveness. Only time can calm him down, but he is filled with hatred, resentment and revenge.
Maybe if Bob or Kirine came here, he'd calm down a little. We have nothing else."
"And Mordred?" asked the king.
"Mordred, as always wants your loss, Arthur! And beware of him, he would attack the dragon's friends. Close protection is no use, but let me handle it."
-----------------
I wake up with bandages around my neck. Obviously, I was healed! My wounds are closed, so we had to use magic!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
I'm still blind.
I shout: "OLD MAN! Did you gouge out my eyes so I wouldn't find you?
But with your old mummy smell, don't worry, I'll find you! Unless you rip my nose off in turn!"
Merlin: "TAIS TOI! DRAGON. I will no longer call you by name but by monster or beast!.. I have a name too and if you don't learn respect you will learn to respect me!"
Me: "Your old mouth............... Swueeek
SQWEAK SKIIIIKKKKKK GRRRLLL GGGRRRR"
Merlin: "It will teach you to be polite with the older ones. Now when I talk, you shut up and listen."
He took my voice away from me, the bastard! GGGGGRRRRRRRRR-- MEGA HATE MEGA"
My eyes are turning red!
My scales turn ashen, all black!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG
MRRRRRRROOAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
MRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
My neck and limbs were tightened and my strength increased tenfold!
BERSERK!
I shake my neck violently left and right and hit the wall and walls and stones fall and the piton that holds my chain has moved!
GGGGGGGrrrrrr
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
DRAFT
AGAIN!
ZZZZZZZZZZZZAp!
Sleep!
-------------------------
Merlin comes close to me, knocked out, my neck bloody! my skins turned upside down on the handcuffs and necklaces on the neck and legs that were plowing my flesh.
He put his hand on my neck and cast a healing spell but at that moment I opened my eyes and laughed: "ERROR!"
And clap, I bit Merlin but I bit my tongue, I forgot my muzzle!
DAMN IT!
I was spilling blood.
Merlin stood up and threw force upside down and I had a feeling of weakness and my body collapsed on him, too heavy.
I started moaning!
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Merlin, furious, did not say a word but shouted: "Well, you don't want to make an effort, so stay here!"
Merlin had lost his temper for the first time and I was happy. I had shaken his dirty little nerd face that's playing it up!
Then I fainted because of the loss of blood.
I wake up with bandages again but no one to talk to me.
A crazy time is passing, I think? I don't know anymore!
Then Arthur comes in and talks to me!
"DRAGON IVAN, I am Arthur, King Arthur. I'm not going to say your king because you don't recognize me."
I ignore the king!
"Listen, Dragon, give us a chance to get off on the right foot! I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you."
No reaction!
The king went around, but I couldn't see him.
But he was shocked! I was crying!
I had lots of tears running from my closed eyes and when I felt he was approaching, instead of grunting at him, I turned my back on him in silence.
I didn't make any more noise. Nothing left.
And that's where the drama happened.
Arthur went up the stairs, moved, shaken, as if the emptiness in me had been transferred to him!
He pushed Merlin up the stairs.
Merlin: "Arthur? Arthur? What's going on? What's going on? You look all weird!
What happened with the dragon?"
Arthur: "Nothing! Exactly, nothing, and that's the worst part! It's empty! It's empty! I can't see him anymore! His sadness invades my heart, my judgment. His eyes, what have you done to his eyes! Tell me, Merlin. Why did you touch his eyes?"
"He looked at me with his blind eyes, but it was as if I was looking into the depths and the depths were looking at me!
We made him a monster! "added the shaken king.
Merlin: "But, but, he can't cast a spell on you or curse you, it's impossible. What did he do to you? I've never seen you like this before!"
Arthur: "It's worse! Wrap him up, send him under a volcano, but I can't stand his gaze! It's twisting my guts. Kill him but do something."
Merlin: "But Arthur, pull yourself together, what did he do to you?"
Arthur: "THESE ARE HIS LARMS! I've never seen anything really cry.
I just saw the pure sadness! A rejection of life, of existence that twisted my mind.
Arrggh, this, this, this picture! This image is like, engraved in my head and that's all I can see anymore!"
"Ahh, give me Excalibur, I'll finish it off!" said Arthur.
Then Arthur took his sword, Excalibur and rushed down the stairs
When I got close to me, I didn't flinch and he took his sword out of its sheath and I recognized the sound of its blade and he brandished it.
So I put my neck on the ground and stretched out my throat so that he would finish me off all of a sudden. Slowly I turned and swallowed one last time waiting for the final blow. I made one last moan: IIII IIIIII, more a cry than a moan.
But the blow never came.
CLang, the sword swung to the ground and the king knelt down and squeezed my neck.
"PARDON, PARDON, DRAGON!" said the king.
I got angry, without violence, in silence and a little moaning.
Arthur stepped up and sat on his chair and took a bottle of spirits and Merlin asked him:
"Is it done?" Merlin asked.
Then Arthur sent his glass to the wall opposite him.
Merlin, what happened?
Arthur: "I squeezed his neck and he got angry. But when I wielded the sword, he knew the sound of it, recognized it and stretched his neck so that I could give him the final blow. I couldn't do it!
It seemed like he was relieved to die, but his crying, his moaning, it seemed like it came from the other world!
Merlin: "That's the problem! He's homesick! He wants to go back to where he came from!
I'll talk to him!"
Merlin went down the stairs again and went into the dragon's lair and brandished his stick:
Restoration of blindness
Speech restoration.
I felt the magic heal me but without believing it too much.
I started to see where I was, in a cave and I saw the huge red steel fire and ice chains.
And I saw the high stairs that had to be 25-30 meters high. A slip and hop, a fatal fall. What if I freeze everything?
Oh, yes, the muzzle!
Merlin spoke:
"Ivan, I see you hate me more than the king!
You could have killed him. But you didn't do it!
It's that there's still something left in you to save.
You can talk... I gave you back the voice.
You can look me in the face!"
I totally ignored that old fool.
Was it out of hatred?
Was it out of disdain?
Was it out of revenge?
I didn't care about anything.
I got angry and stopped moving. And fell asleep, as if in hibernation.
My colours disappeared and I became stone-like.
The days went by and a palfrenier came to Merlin, with a worrying look.
Master Merlin, there's a problem with the dragon.
He's losing his scales! He's drying!
It's normal, it's a reptile.
But he hasn't had a drink or eaten in 10 days!
He refuses everything we bring him. Whether it's living or dead!
Merlin, have you tried soup? Bread? Fruit? What did you give to the dragon?
We gave him meat like the wild animals.
Oh, no.... He's a human inside! Give him food like the knights. Fatty ration!
I was presented with a big bowl of soup and opened my mouth and poured the soup, but it was good, I took it but nothing else. It was not enough! I didn't take more than a portion of a human child and to make me live I would need 40 to 50 times this volume. But I had decided to eat only what I had when I was 6 years old. Period. Either that or die!
I was losing weight but above all I was dehydrated. My scales were falling but didn't come back underneath. It was leather like a hairless cat.
I really looked like a broken umbrella or a dead fish.
I was letting myself go.
10 days passed and it didn't get any better.
Then Merlin came near me and touched me. "Big mistake?"
No, I wasn't reacting anymore. I didn't want to anymore.
All my scales were rising.
Merlin started crying!
"I'm sorry, dragon, but I never meant to hurt you. I wish I could have been your friend and teacher."
"I'm really sad that this world can't bring you a smile anymore. You know, even if we are in an uncertain time, forget the human and go live your life in this beautiful nature!
Look, the world is a big place, full of treasures and adventures! You don't talk to animals? I do, look, I can talk to that squirrel, I can even transform myself!
Tell me, just a yes or no. You want to go back to your world? Answer me, I beg you! Say something! Say something! IVAN! IVAN!"
I replied, "Dead! All dead! All dead! I have nowhere to go back to! I want to end it here!"
Merlin: "Tell me what happened! I beg you!"
I said, "Ténébrion! He took my place and I took his.! He talked to me 40 years after the exchange. They all died of old age... at least they were happy and Ténébrion was fine. He's a hybrid now and he's free, he's having fun and I'm in it, what am I?"
GRRRRRRRRR. "I'll tell you what I am, Old Man!"
Merlin, caught unaware of my mood swings, and obviously trapped in a well-made trap:
"OLD MAN, I'M A CARELESS MAN! AN EXPIATORY VICTIM! A MONSTER!"
Merlin threw himself at my neck and squeezed me. "NO NO NO AND NO". You are you!
I looked up and shed tears that flowed over the old man and fell into a coma, exhausted, hungry and depressed.
Merlin: "NOOOOONNN, noooonnnnnnn, stay with us, Ivan,, hold on! "