Palace of Ice (final)

When Rowan woke up, he was alone in the plain, except for the Ouroboros Serpent that curled around him. They had reduced their sizes, and their watchful eyes covered both the heavens and the earth.

Nothing could come through them. He ran his hands down their scales, and even though they existed in a void inside his heart, they were still warm. He almost wanted to snuggle deeper into those scales and sleep.

But now he knew that with this new bloodline, he could no longer rest or sleep. For everyone else, sleeping was too akin to dying, they would not remember the moments of their rest.

For him, however, sleeping holds no solace, even in the darkness of sleep, he was aware, and inside that darkness, time had no meaning, and it almost seemed like he had spent a thousand years alone inside of it.