The Fable Of The Dragon And The Wolf Poem by Stuart MacLennan

Sing with me o’ Muse of Melponene
To a fable of glorious woe.
To a Dragon sneering from high above,
And a Wolf waiting patient below.

Many a lore of rivalry,
Makes way o’er sand and sea.
But where it all began remains,
A plight to oft rouse me from sleep.

Two young brothers were thicker than all,
In the forms of their sibling-hood bond.
Never did tarry too far from the fall,
To the folly of Winter’s cold song.

Ask me their names and I shall tell,
Of Mathias and his brother Verces.
But the outcomes of such a foolhardy wrong,
Even I could scarcely believe.

Mathias was such of the brazen, bold kind,
Oft would he gather the young.
When the Herald gave beckoning horn,
A dragon in distance did come.

But of a thousand, did he save these young,
From jaws that breathed flame and did yearn.
To set to the village and put it alight,
Watching the newly built burn.

Mathias grew weary til one fateful day,
His speed did not call to the task.
Three so unlucky were set to the flames,
Both in anguish and flame did he bask.

The youngest a boy, whose name Mordekai,
Was so very fond of his dog.
He’d sought to retrieve him, lest he be a meal,
For a dragon that soared in the fog.

The middle child, oh, his name was so odd,
Heximillion, a Prince to the Throne.
Traveled so far to visit this place,
To the graveyard that now he calls home.

The eldest survived, but was burned and was scarred,
Her soul quickly matched to her wounds.
For it calloused and hardened, embittered her mind,
Til one night she would seek the full moon.

This lonely ol’ girl, the blacksmith’s own child,
A daughter to fall of a hammer.
Some say at night you may hear her whistle,
The call of the Lycan, Savannah.

She would tease and she purred, and let them believe,
She was harmless, a kitten to play.
But Nyx’s eye turned, and under that moon,
To hunger her nature gave way.

Not long at all, did it take for her thoughts,
To wonder of how she could tame,
To use what had cursed, to get her revenge,
On he who shared the Coward’s name.

She so grew enamored, to the village it seemed,
With the brother of her would be savior.
Verces was lost to throes of this love,
To scorn he who could not have saved her.

A season had passed, the winter revealed,
The beauty of the blooming, bright spring.
Verces, in wonder, with poetic and muse,
Took to a lute and did sing.

Upon this endeavor, Savannah was lost,
Spite cast from her soul and her thoughts.
The song of this lover, wooed her beyond
That which her revenge had bought.

“Play it again.” Savannah crooned so,
Enraptured by the voice of this man.
The name of Mathias did not surface once,
As they lay on the meadow’s green lands.

Singing ‘til dusk, Verces had smiled,
So fond of the doe-eyed expression.
Savannah adored him, her plans but forgotten,
She was lost to his melody’s weather.

Something went wrong, her body now quivered,
In a way it had not done before.
Gazing above, she saw what stared down,
The Full Moon to mark her kind’s lore.

Backing away she told him to flee,
Verces, not wise, did not follow.
Advice best to heed, for he quickly was savaged,
His lifeless form found on the morrow.

Savannah did mourn, twelve seasons beyond,
The village had offered their pity.
Nobody knew of what had occurred,
So far out of walls from the City.

The Dragon returned, as he had done before,
But suspicion grabbed hold of Mathias.
He had such a gift for knowing the presence,
Of deceptions and that of a liar.

Knowing the find, oh how gruesome and bloody,
Verces had been mauled by a wolf.
He demanded she bite him, her face shot a glance,
Confusion, to fear and Savannah stood.

“Fight it yourself.” She said with great pain,
“I’ve spilled too blood from your kind.
I hope you forgive me for what I have done,
To Verces, it shall not leave my mind.”

Savannah now fled to the shadow of fog,
Mathias beckoned with a roar.
The Dragon was stunned at this mortal’s hot fury,
Not often did Dragons feel awe.

A turn and a charge, Mathias passed the home,
Of a new sister that he might’ve known.
A hammer in hand, he lunged with a rage,
To the jaws, down the throat of his foe.

Inside his gullet, Mathias did hammer,
Shattering vessel and bone.
And on that day, the Dragon was bested,
Now the Slayer knew he was alone.

There he remained, refusing to leave,
From the throat of the beast he had felled.
Dragons have magic, as we all know,
Mathias did not predict such spells.

When he awoke, the world seemed so small,
He looked down to see what he’d done.
Claws so titanic, a fire in his chest,
The Beast he had slain, he’d become.

Instead of a roar, a cry of his pain,
Sounded as humans such would.
He fled to the cave, remaining for months,
‘Til one night, heard a stirring of woods.

“Leave me alone! ” Mathias screamed.
“I slew with hate but never remorse.
The spell of the Dragon repaid me in kind,
By sending me to this fate’s steep course.”

“Oh I know the feeling.” A familiar voice said.
“To slay whom had never deserved.”
Out of the shadows of pine and of leaf,
Savannah the Lycan returned.

She spoke nothing further and walked to the beast,
Knowing the man was within.
“Nyx gave me sight, she gave me control.
Perhaps it’s time you let her in.”

A cry and a moan, the morning dawn rose,
The Dragon once more was a man.
Savannah returned to mortal of forms,
Scars gone, in beauty Mathias did stand.

Shocked by the look, her eyes were so kind,
Forgiving, divine where she stood.
Savannah, Mathias, both still roam the land,
Together. The Dragon and Wolf.