He was fading.

There were lots of theories why. It had been happening for several hundred years, so his kind had plenty of time to ponder it as they diminished. Some were fading, like he was, into nothing, and others were diminishing, in size and power. One had been killed by a common man-at-arms, in Italy, and he’d diminished to a mere six feet long…

Some thought it was the slow and gradual change of the humans’ world view. In the old days, Tiamat had been a bloody fright to the Babylonians, but she had long since faded from sight, though she was still there, a whisper in the dark.

But he couldn’t imagine why there’d be any connection between what the humans thought and their existence in the world.

His own theory was this: That in the end, after thousands and thousands of years, they’d become a bore to themselves, and so the slow unraveling of his species. They might persist a few human generations, but only as dreams, until they finally found blessed rest in oblivion, finally wiped from existence.