I stood on the edge of the cliff outside my sire's lair, gazing into the night. The moon shone through the clouds, and you could feel the air's call.
I was done here. All that was to be passed on, had been. All that I could learn, I had. I was a grey. My sire a red. There was only so much of my destiny he could show me.
I was fed, content. But not full. The wind caressed my wings.
It was time.
With a push of my hind legs I was off the cliff, my wings spread, and I answered the age old needs flowing through my blood.
I flew, never to return to this place.
I know now your kind would not understand. I did not need to say goodbye to my clutchmates, sire, or mother. They would know.
I circled upward, following the currents, feeling the magic flow through my body as my wings came down carrying me into the sky.
I had flown before. This was different. This was freedom.
Above the clouds I soared, into the moonlight which shown even off my dull grey scales.
From above you can watch the moonlight move in patches across the ground between the clouds.
I spotted my shadow on a bank of clouds, the spread of my wings, the long profile of my body.
I flew higher.
Then south.
Why? It called to me. I had seen it in my dreams. A place. An island. I knew the way.
The mountains gave away to plains, the plains to sea. The cloud cover grew thick after a while, and the sun rose, warming my wings which had begone to ache from the cold.
That urged me on, and I quickened my pace.
There was nothing to see until the sun was setting, and the first doubts set in when the cloud cover broke. I was tiring. And even from as high as I was, there was not a bit of land in sight. Just water, and more water.
I had to calm myself. Trust your vision. It is what we have done since time was young.
Still, the thought lingered in the back of my mind, "is this what happened to all our kin who were never heard of again? flew themselves to death? fell into an ocean only to be known to the fish?"
The sun set, the moon rose again, this time with a sliver of black. My body ached, and the tips of my wings were numb.
The clouds returned then, spreading out over the way before me. Soon, I could no longer see the ocean in the moonlight.
What if I overshot this island, never seeing it?
I had not known fear before. I didn't like it.
Then it was there, and I remembered. A peak rising from the sea of white.
I started to glide down, circling that spire, until I came level with it.
I spied a ledge, and I landed. As I knew there would be, there was a cave. I entered it.
I knocked down the petty walls that the little ones had erected in ages past, and entered the main chamber. It was as I saw it, a library of knowledge hidden from ages past, books, tablets, scrolls.
I was home.
I slept.