We were a mighty race, that we were. Such were the days of our greatness, when we fire-drakes were mighty indeed, and unparalleled. We were the scourge of the elemental flame itself; our breath shivered stone and melted steel in our ire. Our hunger was mighty, and we strived for greatness and glory upon the infant earth.
But we were mightily vain and mightily quarrelsome in our age of power, and those we slew not perished in moments of mighty weakness. There was no vulnerability that man, that verminous insect, did not take advantage of. No belly that he did not slit. No vein that he did not tap. No vanity that he did not flatter, as, handful by handful, he stole like a miser and usurer what we had won by might. There was nothing that this toad, this weasel of slime, did not attempt in greed and twisted nature, and he, that pest of pests, stole many of our noblest lives.
And now, I alone, senescent, wait for my doom. With me shall die all dragons, and after me what? Sarcasm and callowness, parody and mockery.