//------------------------------//
// Ch 2: Day 9999 
// Story: Guardian of the Bridge Between Nothing and Nowhere 
// by Orderly Disassembly 
//------------------------------//

Will today be the day that he gives up? 

He’s returned thousands of times before, but he must have a limit. I have one, the bridge has one, the gods themselves have one, and if everything else has a limit, so must he.

I grunted, shifting to set an elbow on my knee. I felt tired, exhausted even. However, I couldn’t rest until I saw this cycle through. Wake up, wait for the fog, then kill the pony, and take a nap. It was a quick and simple ordeal each time. But the hours have dragged long. What’s taking that weak moron so long?

I growled as I tried to shake away the fuzziness at the edge of my mind. It was a comforting warmth, a consuming one as well. I could feel it constricting my memories, chewing them up and swallowing them slowly. As if there was a mold gnawing at my brain from the outside in. It’d started over a dozen cycles ago, and it felt like there was less of me every time I woke up.

Am I dying?

I snorted at the thought. I am a dragon, that much I remember, and dragons are immortal! We die on our claws in great blazes of glory, not on our backs withering away!...

My internal rant went on like that for a time, but it was mostly the same few points being repeated over and over again. It was just another way to kill time between cycles.

My monologue ceased when a familiar fog hissed forth from the gray pit across my bridge. 

Finally. 

I climbed to my feet as the blanket of vapor slowly obscured the stony ground with its opaque mist. I snatched my hammer from the ground and settled in a ready stance with a smooth efficiency borne of endless repetition.

I wondered if he’d finally get the idea to ambush me from the obscuring fog? However, just like every time before, my opponent only appeared after the mist passed.

The sandy-maned stallion nodded at me as he drew his knives from their sheathes. He smiled at my tense posture and tilted his head as he spoke.

“You give up?”

It was tempting, I admit. It would’ve been so, so easy to just let go. To just drop the hammer and let him through. I would be free of this place, of this unending duty… I scowled at him and tightened my grip upon my war hammer’s shaft. With a sigh, I shook my head, leveling the metal head at him as I did so.

I had a reason for standing against him for so long, a good one. I wouldn’t have killed him so many times otherwise. I wouldn’t still be here. So I stood, so I stand, and so I will continue to stand against this frail invader until he gives up. 

Every step I take means something only because I decide that it does. Every time I strike him down, he may get a little faster, and I may lose a little more. But I will always stand. For I am Ironhide, and while iron does bend and even shatters when pushed too far, it does not give up! I am Ironhide! No more, no less!

I roared a mighty battle cry that made the rock beneath our legs tremble and charged.