[ WP ] A western dragon meet an eastern dragon .

The man named Fafnir was born a babe like any other, suckled at his mother's breast like any other, grew admiring his father like any other, received rings and a sword from his King like other. 
 
 But the rings changed him. 
 
 They were not unusual rings, but Fafnir loved them and lusted for them with unusual fire. He did not love them for their beauty or what they could buy or for the favor they signified, but only for the knowledge that *other* men coveted what *he* could deny them. 
 
 He fought for his King, not for glory or out of loyalty, but out of lust for more of shining, chaste gold and silver he knew valor would bring him. When he deemed his reward unjustly small, he turned to unjust means to increase it. He hid spoils of war from his King. He stole from his fellows. He murdered. 
 
 Eventually, at risk of being discovered, he fled with his gold into the woods. He made his home in a cave, and hid his hoard in the deepest of its crevices. He stalked the borders of the woods and killed those who came there. Failing to find game, he ate the bodies of those he killed. He wore his armor so long, the scale mail clung to his body like a second skin. 
 
 Slowly, his outside changed to match his inside. The scales grew to cover his body. His fingernails sharpened to claws to clutch rings and coins he hoarded in his cave. He grew large from the flesh of those he consumed. His teeth sharpened rend the flesh of the men and women who lived on the edge of the woods. He became a predator. He became a dragon. 
 
 But he still dreamed as a man dreams. In his cave, as he slept on his hoarded gold, he saw a golden light at the mouth of his cave. It was not gold like the gold lusted after, but an uncanny, otherworldly gold. The perfection of its light revealed the imperfections of that upon which it shone. It shown upon the cave, and Fafnir saw how soon the cave would fall into dust. It shone upon the treasure and Fafnir saw how his treasure would tarnish, and fade, and one day vanish. It shone upon Fafnir's body, and Fafnir saw how his body would wither and die. It shone into Fafnir's eyes and Fafnir saw how his soul would lurch from body to body, from cycle of suffering to cycle of suffering. 
 
 `` Your house is on fire, Fafnir.'' 
 
 Fafnir forced himself to look into the light. Squinting, he could barely make out the form of a girl, about eight years old. A girl... or a dragon? Did she have arms or claws? Did she have scales or skin? He could not tell. He looked away. 
 
 `` My house is stone, and the bones of the earth, little girl!'' He wanted to roar, but really he whimpered. `` Leave me, and torment someone else!'' 
 
 `` I have come to free you from your torment.'' The girl replied. `` Your house burns with the heat of your desire, the beams heave with the weight of your deeds. Run from your house!'' 
 
 `` I run from nothing and no one!'' Fafnir wailed `` I will not leave my house or my gold, except to eat! Leave me, before I eat *you*!'' 
 
 Fafnir lunged towards her, but no matter how far he leaped, or how far he strained his neck and his jaws, the dragon girl grew no closer. 
 
 `` You can not approach me but by wisdom, Fafnir.'' Said the dragon girl. `` Hear, that you might approach. Hear what I have heard. Once, in a town upon a great mountain, a great lord dwelt with twelve hundred monks, all stainless, free from depravity --'' 
 
 And Fafnir fled into the depths of his cave, and roared and roared to drown out any wisdom that might draw him away from his gold. He roared until his throat was raw, and the dawn came, and the girl was gone. Then he wept for himself, and the wisdom he had lost, and he stayed in his cave until the hunger was too much. 
 
 He slunk slowly from his cave to seek a man or a woman to eat, and he was so hungry and so disturbed by what he had seen and heard and refused to hear that he did not notice the hole someone had dug outside the cave's entrance. And so when his great length passed over the hole, the man named Sigurd who was crouched inside it stabbed up and into Fafnir's heart. 
 
 And as Sigurd's sword clove his heart, Manjushri's sword clove his ignorance and Fafnir saw how small and how cruel he had been, how close wisdom had come to him and how far he had run from wisdom. And so he died. 
 
 In a far away land, a boy rose from bed to see a golden light. 
 
 `` Your house is on fire, Zennichimaro...'' 
 
 [ Dragon king's daughter ] ( http: //www.sgilibrary.org/search_dict.php? id=483 ) 
 
 [ Fafnir ] ( http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafnir ) 
 
 [ Zennichimaro ] ( http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichiren ) 
 
 [ Manjushri ] ( http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manjusri )
