"Sister..."
The little red dragon hid behind her sister, eyes closed, afraid to look at the burning corpse.
"Are you afraid, Loughshinny?"
"I don't know. Maybe I really am afraid. Why do you have to hurt other people, Sister?"
"Loughshinny, everything they have done to Tara is reason enough to make them swallow those flames of hatred."
"If we don't do this, the fire of hatred that has endured for a thousand years will only burn fiercer, until it consumes us instead."
"But, Sister... why are you smiling?"
"Since you aren't willing to smile, I have to. At least that way, they won't see two weak red dragons."
"...I'm sorry, Sister."
"Then, Loughshinny, would you like to hear a story?"
"Please tell me, Sister. I'll listen to the whole thing."
Long, long ago—
[To reclaim the kingdom occupied by her enemies, the greedy red dragon sought help from the black mist lurking in the forest.]
[The red dragon breathed flames of death, and the black mist drove their enemies into the fire. Together, they reclaimed the kingdom, restoring life to the wilderness once overgrown with thorns.]
[But deathfire spread across the plains. Unnoticed, the entire land and its inhabitants began to wither. New lives were cut short one after another, and even the dead could not rest.]
[The red dragon could not tolerate death spreading unchecked. She wanted life to belong to life, and death to belong to death.]
[To that end, before the Late Summer Festival, she gathered those tainted by deathfire in her lair...]
"What happened next, Sister?"
"There is no next part. The writer never finished the story, but I've thought about it."
The older red dragon told her the ending she had imagined—
[In the end, the red dragon infected every one of her subjects with