Chapter 5: Brothers No More

I could just hear him wheezing my name through my paws. "What?" I growled out.

"You can't kill your own brother Ivor, you don't have it in you."

"What makes you say that?" I pushed harder on his face.

"You are not me, Ivor, and I am not you. You cannot kill, not even for food." I released his mouth and nose.

"You really think I don't know how to hunt? I caught your food when you were barely bigger than a dragon scale!" He stared at me.

"But that was father, he said so. He said he was father." I sighed and took the form of a great eagle; I was by far the superior bird, my plumage an off white shade of my usual grey. I silently waited for his reaction.

"You. Why would you pretend to be him?"

"You would never listen to me if I was just me."

"Ivor, Ivor, Ivor. You are not my brother nor anything else to me but a traitor."

"How am I a traitor to you?"

"Lied to me for years. We are not family!" My eyes flickered red as he said it; almost as if a switch had been struck. If he wasn't family than I could hurt him, I could kill him; especially as he became a threat to the humans around me.

I shifted back into my nemean lion form, I didn't wait for his chimera shape to be ready. My jaw clamped the goats horn, my tail wrapped around the snake and one of my back paws jammed the lion head's jaw open in such a way that it would be impossible for his fire to be used without burning himself. I twisted my head forcing the other goat horn into Kullervo's own flank; I swiftly pushed the snakes fangs into the goat hind. With his own venom rushing through his veins e lion head was the first part to slump, leaving my foot free to push apart the two headss from the body. As I knew would happen the blood that flowed from the wound was a black sticky substance like tar. It oozed and hardened on the floor and the parts that were being drained grew heavy and much like a creature being turned to stone by a gorgons gaze.

When I was certain Kullervo was daed, I dropped his carcass at the dragons feet. Morjik looked at the once threat and then at me.

"What do you wish me to do with it?"

"You could burn it." My voice was cold and cruel. Just as Kullervo had been for so many years.