A latent melody

Indeed the creature was beyond pain. Where there might have been blood or revealed tissue beneath, instead as its scales were pried apart there was only the whimsical burst of ethereal dew and pollen, opalescent in the blossoming light.

One day your watch too will end. Each of you. Make sure you know what it is you guard. What it is worth dying for. No judgement, no accusation. The group before the creature were fractured in their interests; two decidedly on opposite sides, one firmly on one side of the line, and one somewhere in no-man's land.

So saying, the creature dipped its massive head. Rather than slithering off into the dawn's light, it simply breezed away, the ethereal particles of its ghostly form releasing themselves from each other like so much pollen on the wind.