Dragonlady

"There's a dragon in my belly!"
hisses the wild-eyed woman with shaggy hair,
as she scratches at the iron bars
with long and blood red claws.
"They locked me up in here
-for my own good, they said!
Truth is I scare them witless!
They're afraid of what will happen
when my dragon finally breaks free!"
Ragged nails are dragged through long, tangled hair.
Her eyes glow, surely just a trick of the light,
pin-points of red fire deep inside them.
She grins and her teeth seem, oh, so sharp.
She speaks again and in her voice is
a faint whisper like scales slithering,
claws clicking, across a floor of stone.
"My dragon has been slumbering for years, you see,
but now it's rumbling and stirring in it's sleep;
it's stretching and flexing it's sinuous, powerful body.
I can feel it's growing impatience
to break out of its narrow confinement.
It won't be long now!"
The madwoman throws back her head
and starts howling with laughter, triumphantly.
- And the sound of laughter rebounds, impossibly,
like the rumbling of distant thunder,
like the echo in a deep, dark cave...

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