There she is, my equal and opposite.
Fell creature of The Deep, the Piercing Tooth of the Great Maw That Devours, She Whose Steps Blight The Land approaches with wicked blade drawn and wild eyes staring.
I grip my own sword. Our great conflict ends today. It must.
Warily, step by step, we close the distance.
How many times have we danced our roles like this?
It is too many. Countless battles always ending in a perfect draw with each other. Every time, the Maw consumes more, and then we of the Shining Mountains rebuild what we lose.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Each side perfectly balanced against the other. A coin that keeps spinning in the air and manages to never land, never resolving the final fate of our war.
I have grown so tired of stalemate.
It ends here and now.
I have been nursing a secret, and I am confident she will not see it coming.
I wait, approaching on guard as ever before, until I am close enough to see the scattered, glimmering reflection of my sword’s light on her dark scales.
She starts the fight, as she always does.
With a fierce cry, she lunges forward, blade thrusting toward me, and this time…
I drop my sword.
And hers plunges unerringly through my belly.
My armor may as well be paper, as easily as she stabs me. White-hot pain nearly blinds me. I feel ripping inside.
I have just enough time to appreciate the absolute shock on her fanged face before I fall forward into an embrace with her.
“It is done,” I whisper in her ear. “You win.”
She stiffens. I wonder if she thinks this is some trick?
Perhaps if she twists the blade inside me, really tears me up, she’ll believe in her victory.
She doesn’t, though. She withdraws it.
I nearly collapse from the agony of her jagged weapon ripping into me further with each bit that slides back out of me.
She holds me upright.
So lightheaded now. Warmth runs down my legs, pooling at my feet.
“I was hatched especially for you,” she whispers back to me. “To be your match. Without you to fight, what purpose do I have?”
“T-the Piercing Tooth of the Great Maw needs to ask?” I respond weakly.
I tremble in her arms and gasp my last words. “Devour me. Take my strength. And then let us finish all of this.”
She cannot resist such an appeal to her essential nature, and her teeth sinking into my neck is the last thing I feel before it all goes black.
When she swallows her last bite and nothing remains of the Bulwark Who Blazes With The Dawn, she closes her eyes and savors the last taste she’ll ever have of her other half.
Then we open our eyes, and we see a conflict in which there is no one to oppose us.