<br/>Somewhere deep in the bowels of the mountain, another shape began to stir into wakefulness. Buried under the weight of darkness for centuries on end, the being that stretched its full length was but a shadow of the one he had once been known as. For the longest time his universe consisted of words and concepts that now sounded almost foreign; of the hard rock under his belly and the furrows his claws had gauged into it after the first few years; of the comforting bed of gemstones he had called to cover them one at a time and now provided him with a comfortable bed that shone with thousands of rainbows whenever he cared to illuminate it with his breath.<br/><br/>He didn't need his breath to know where each of them were, though. Here under his weight, above, on the sides, dwarfing the large cave to the point where he could hardly walk around it any longer -- if walking were something he ever cared to do. He could feel them deeper in the stone, above and below, the ones he hadn't yet called to himself in order to leave. Leave? Why would anyone leave this den? A bit of a snort illuminated the gate ahead as he opened his eyes just enough to stare at the bejewelled surface. /Sleep/ he told himself, in a tongue long dead. /Sleep/ the familiar loved/hated wraith said in his head in the exact same tongue.<br/><br/>How coud he sleep when things felt wrong, though?<br/><br/>Shinies didn't move on their own, and he wasn't moving these ones. Far away. His eyes closed again, scaled tail sweeping the back of the cave and tumbling a pile of rainbows in a predictable pattern. That was what was wrong, he decided. That other pattern was not predictable. It wasn't rolling down like some did when they fell into the water and got carried away; it wasn't shifting with the passing of a wave or the kick of an animal; it was getting closer and closer on its own, as if coming to him of its own volition. /Mine/ his thoughts rumbled, focusing on the motion. It was much closer now.<br/><br/>He reached for it, tugging it tentatively toward himself, telling it to come to him.<br/><br/>For a moment, it obeyed, and then it got caught. Contained in something, he made it shake .<br/><br/>The dragon huffed through his nose once, letting it go. It would come at its own pace, then. And he'd be waiting, there was nothing else for him to do.<br/><br/>