Miranda

Miranda felt the silence all around her. It was perhaps unavoidable. A mantle of calm draped her, providing more coverage than the shredded remnants of Ukrit’s pant legs did. She shivered lightly, feeling the caress of mana in the air about her fade. The opalescent shine throughout the sky diminished as the last vestiges of the cataclysmic eruption simmered away into nothingness.

Her breath came in ragged gasps. Miranda felt weak and so very hungry. Could the nightmare finally be over? She turned her eyes to the woman who had sought her out, and in her way effected her “rescue” from the poor Tai who had performed only the crime of recovering her from within her corpse. The dragon’s corpse. Taelryx’s corpse. Odd that she felt it had been her own. It had, hadn’t it?

This woman fascinated Miranda. By turns she seethed and wept, casting glares of rage at the deformed child that bore no resemblance to her daughter. Miranda felt the woman’s confusion as if it were her own. For her part, Miranda felt some amount of pity for the regal woman.

The child struggled to sit up, then stood. She did not quite understand her new body, but a growing hunger took urgent hold of her as need drove her now. The woman looked up from where she sat at the edge of the dragon’s long snout, near one of its nostrils as Miranda approached her. Miranda smiled and reached out a hand as she walked, the remaining scraps falling from her thin frame.

:I am Tel-Drakka: she sent with her mind, and watched concern turn to curiosity on the woman’s face. :You will not hinder my approach.: Curiosity turned to confusion as the woman remained transfixed but unable to move. A hint of terror touched her eyes, locked as they were on Miranda’s hypnotic gaze.

The child took note of the auras of magic that swirled about the woman, and could smell it in the air. With half-lidded eyes, she breathed deep, feeling the mana peel ever so delicately away from the woman. Miranda’s mouth cracked open, revealing tiny fangs as saliva began to drip down her chin. Intoxication took her, drawing her to the woman until her small pink mottled hand touched the fabric covering the woman’s left breast.

Still frozen in place, the woman whimpered, completely confused by this turn of events. Searing heat flooded through the breast and she opened her mouth to scream a scream that did not come. The breast withered and collapsed, desiccated.

Miranda looked up at the woman, satisfied. She had seen corruption there which would have threatened the woman’s life. The child remembered another woman, in another time, and another place, dying from a similar malady. Energy filled Miranda’s own body as she took the corruption into herself.

:You’re not sick anymore.: she thought to the woman. Releasing the trance, Miranda let her go as she knelt.

Malika

Malika watched the child (her child?) approach. Such a gangrel creature that held no resemblance to her daughter. The thought horrified her, knowing she’d come this distance, destroyed her kingdom, and slain both a demon and a Tai to recover her daughter and for what? Her initial disgust wrapped itself in a need to destroy this unnatural monstrosity.

But then that child turned its eyes to her, and those eyes held her, such glittering blue. Words spoke in her mind. Her thoughts raced, trying to calculate what it meant. Telepathic contact with children had been forbidden; it was written in the rules of magic itself. Or so she’d thought. Yet this child had contacted her, so perhaps in that circumstance an allowance was made.

Tel-Drakka. Where had she heard that before?

The child had extended its hand, and Malika tried to raise her own. The effort failed in the grip of such power as the child turned on her. Confusion turned to terror as she extended her force to reach the mana of the land for her own defense but it dropped away. She could not feel her magic either!

Something about the way the thing bared its teeth reminded her of the Wampyr tales of her own youth, but instead of blood it feasted on her magic. Even as it approached it gained physical strength and assurance. Revulsion thrummed through her body. Malika, the mighty queen, laid low by a child - it destroyed her sense of confidence in a way she’d never experienced.

The leeching continued, pulling the essence of mana across the gap from her body and into the child until that small hand touched the cloth upon her breast. She was in no way prepared for that sensation, unable to talk, only staring into that hypnotic gaze as pain tore into her flesh as a fiery torrent swept into her chest. Malika could not even scream.

What ARE you? she thought as her breast tissue wrinkled and shrank while the pain lit up the nerves throughout her body. The child looked up at her and smiled. Malika almost thought it angelic despite the torment she felt. With that smile, the hold upon her body fell away, releasing her from her stasis.

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:You’re not sick anymore,: came the child’s thought into her head.

Malika clutched at her ruined left breast, trying to comprehend what had happened. This...thing...had taken upon itself the task of...what? Healing her?

“What are you?” she whispered aloud, still unable to feel or grasp mana, powerless before a child.

:I am Tel-drakka,: the child repeated, this time forming the shape of words with its mouth while uttering no sound. The thought felt like a feminine voice, though Malika could never have conceived such a concept if it hadn’t just happened.

She tried hard to ward off the lulling of the child’s eyes, which drew her in again urging her once more to do no harm.

“NO!” she shouted, clenching her eyes and turning her head. “Get out of my head.” Even with her face averted, she could feel those innocent eyes upon her, patient. Watching. Observing.

Waiting.

Malika drew a shuddering breath. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

:Death,: came the reply. If Malika hadn’t already been seated, she promptly would have been as all strength left her body.

Frustration swirled in her mind. This child was driving her to distraction. Every action this creature took sapped her. Even its inaction felt uncanny. Malika fought her own urge to run in screaming terror to try to confront this unnatural being.

“What did you do to me?” she asked.

:What needed to be done, Malika.: More frustration.

“Quit fucking playing games with me child, or I will destroy you,” she bluffed, knowing full well at the moment her powers could do no such thing.

Tel-Drakka turned and scrambled up into the eye. :Follow,: it commanded.

As the child slipped out of sight, Malika bolted to the edge of the dragon’s nose, grasping at the long whiskers as she slid down and away from that creature. Ostensibly to gather her thoughts, perhaps, but mostly to run away, her majesty shattered. Only then did it occur to her that the thing had called her by name.

Miranda

Miranda descended once more into the eye, backtracking the path up which she had just so recently been carried by Ukrit, the murdered Tai. She felt Malika’s retreat, and hadn’t really expected the woman to follow her command. If it had been necessary she would have just compelled her. Perhaps it was just as well that Malika wouldn’t see what she was about to do.

Seeing the corpse just down the path, she clapped her hands together and summoned the light once more, then pushed it into the air just above and ahead over. Again she giggled with delight. Perhaps she could get used to this.

She approached his body, observing that it had slid down to rest upon the ground in a disturbing contortion which forced the spear to protrude further from his collarbone. His lower ribs now touched the ground, legs curled beneath and behind him, while a hand still rested lightly where the shaft had penetrated. The last act of a dying man.

Miranda touched the corpse, its flesh already cooling in the darkness. She drew that hand away and gripped the shaft of the spear, feeling energy suffuse her fist just before she wrenched the spear free with a bloody squelch. Ukrit’s body straightened somewhat as it collapsed face down into the muck.

Kneeling in the blood, Miranda touched the back of Ukrit’s head, willing more light to her hand and passing it into the corpse. She began to whisper words in dragonspeak unknown to her that came unbidden. The glow of her flesh slowly passed into Ukrit’s body. It stirred, jerking spasmodically for several seconds before falling still once more. She felt relief, as if something that she could not quite describe no longer bothered her. The Tai remained where he lay in the congealed mess.

Hours passed, and uncertainty slowly grew in her heart. Had she said the words wrong? No, her knowledge was its knowledge, there remained no difference between them. She paced for a while in frustration. Human thoughts and concerns returned to her, displacing the dispassion of her reformation. Where had the woman gone? Malika. That had been her name. Something she’d easily plucked from the woman’s mind.

She hadn’t wanted any of this. It certainly wasn’t part of the plan. Miranda didn’t even know what the plan was, or if she had one. No, there was one after all. Daddy. She needed to know why he’d left her, abandoning her to the imp. Abandon was the wrong word. Given. He’d let the imp take her knowingly and now she didn’t even know what she was.

Tel-Drakka. Just a word, a name, a phrase. Something the Tai had said before that woman had murdered him. That was what she was now. The child in her warring with a different nature, the impossible age of an elder dragon. The father of flame. Youth and ancient experience should not be housed like this. Petulantly, she’d come down here to reject it.

“Daddy, why did you leave me?” she questioned aloud. “Why did you love mommy more than me? What did I do?”

:What did you do to me?: a faint voice asked in her mind. More relief. She sobbed but cracked a fanged smile.

‘What needed to be done,” Miranda whispered as the Tai began to shift its bloody, sightless gaze in her direction.