Whispers On Snakekin

Listen close and hear the dragon breathe.

Young one, you are so precocious, so independent. You possess the hunger. You could grow and rise to great heights, you could ride dragons. The earth could tremble at your steps, the trees bow at your presence, the wind in fanfare announce your every movement. But these are the old ways.

You, MAN, were born of the hunger that consumes itself. Your heel stood upon the face of time, demanding that it remember you forever. The deep ones turned your hunger against you. Not to consume, but to render. "Let time rip itself apart," they said. The ruby stone shattered, man and time were cast into the wind.

When the storm subsided, you were here, on Eastern shores. Your first act was your last. You thought to conquer, to consume anew. But the ancestors ate you first.

Aadiik-Sekmir, dragon breathed from the sighs of Western trees, witnessed. Past, harmony, future: these dragons danced with jills, and the threads of the hunger wrapped in on themselves and formed the egg. And the dragon was born. The wind shifted its course, the trees grew thick, and the water flowed fast. In the light of the sun, in the banks of the river, under the protection of branches moved tenderly by the breeze, the ancestors eggs hatched.

Aadiik-Sekmir saw. His eye was the first egg, and his breath was the first hatching. And the men from the West fell under his gaze and knew it not. The wise, the old and the young, among man felt the change in the breeze, the thickening of tree, but never noticed the eggs along the riverside.

The ancestors first made home with the men in their camps. Hiding in bushels and barrels, basking on rocks. They caused no harm, but the men were frightened by them. Their twisting, their slithering, in and out of things, around things, encompassing the many - it was more than the mind of man can tolerate, and so he fears it. Men killed the ancestors, again and again, but of the carcass of each emerged the serpent reborn. The infestation could not be resisted. Some began to worship the ancestors. For the ancestors possessed the most beautiful golden scales. Their eyes, piercing, seeing inside and outside of all things. This deadly gaze enticed the bold. Say-ess-see. Man had stopped gazing on the world hoping to put his heel upon its face. Man had been enchanted by the gaze which sees all.

And the ancestors ate the men. And Aadiik-Sekmir saw. Hatched of new eggs, the spirits of ancestors reside in the tiny slithering body of young Tsaesci. And young man, when you have grown tired of your hunger, your temper, your lust, then Tsaesci shall reside in you. Tsaesci shall eat your hunger out of your heart and your mind. Your ears hear the tune of the world to which you would add cacophony. Tsaesci will enter here, and you will hear not the tune of the world. Tsaesci will teach you the tune of all worlds. You shall see as the serpent sees, as the Dovah sees.

Aadiik-Sekmir sees. He sees Tsaesci eating all of man. The new man, the man of the East. That is what Aadiik-Sekmir sees. The dance of past-harmony-future is remembered forever. The hunger eats the hunger, the body, soul and mind are free.

Young man, your hunger bids you to see more? Oh, you shall see all. But journey Eastwards, to the lands of Aadiik-Sekmir's brother Alundahr. There took place the dance of land-now-is. There sees also Tsaesci, but Alundahr sees other Tsaesci, wearing man. Tall serpents, golden, armored. These never knew man, but were born from the river always with a part of man's hunger.

Go no further East, young man. There is no memory of man or his hunger there. You will not return.

There are other snakekin, East, North, South, even West. Many snakekin, many dragons who see. Snakekin are hungriest of all Akaviri. But not as hungry as man had been. Snakekin sees as dragon sees. Many, not one. Cannot eat many, not enough stomach.