Malekum was in the maelstrom of the black hole and his existence was wavering.

But in the darkness, he could see a gaping maw that sucked everything in and eight pairs of yellow eyes, all the size of planets.

He was in nothingness and his marrow ampoules containing the essence of Tiamat were ripped out and sucked up by the evil hydra.

Then the whirlwind stopped and the heads began to smile.

‘Fight!’

was all he felt in his flesh.

He was no Tiamat, but the hydra had accepted his challenge. He had to find his place. His rightful place.

And then, in a flash, he thought he saw a palace of Crystal, the palace of the Mad Hydra and full of pedestals with the names of dragons, assorted heroes and Tiamats frozen for the end of time.

This was the hall of eternal heroes, enemies or friends of Tiamats defeated in different universes. All placed and organised like a collection with stories and summaries written in a forgotten language, probably that of the gods. Companions, key characters in the glory or defeat of the frozen Tiamats. Each collection had its own crystal dome in a super museum, but Malekum saw it as his ultimate goal to enter the annals of Evil. He wanted Tiamat's place, not his subordinates or forgotten children.

he found himself in the dark tunnel emptied of screams and cries and considered himself lucky not to have taken part in the demonic entity's sacrificial feast.

His plans and his fervour were all the more motivated when he let out a roar that shook the entire mountain where the base was located, setting off burglar alarms in numerous vehicles parked on the surface and in the underground car parks.

Some of the top brass were waiting outside the tunnel when they saw Malekum in a bad way, his eyeballs torn out and his back bloody, but he was smiling. An evil smile.

As he passed his personal aide, he said in an almost inhuman growl: ‘Double the sacrifices! His majesty awaits!’

The Russian officers didn't dare say a word, but they saw the dragon's lacerated back and wondered who or what could have hurt their leader like that.

They realised that he was referring to ‘His Majesty’ and that he had come into contact with something worse.

Drops of sweat beaded from his forehead and for a moment Malekum stopped, sensing the officer's transcendental fear, but he resumed his heavy, crushing march towards his underground palace.

Arriving in front of a kind of pool surrounded by Greek columns, whose reflection alone gave light, the ceiling fled into darkness, the black dragon entered the water and immediately it turned red, blood flowing from his back.

Moments later, the wounds had closed and all traces of injury had disappeared.

A muscular man with long black hair emerged from the pool by the front steps.

He was naked and picked up a sheet lying next to one of the temple's eternal braziers. On top of the columns was a forehead depicting a god, similar to Zeus, but behind him, 8 dragon heads looked down on the observer.

Meanwhile, at the Institute of Zoology, Emilie was giving her students a test, and her mood was 180 degrees different from usual. She was always jovial and amusing, but today her students were discovering a dark and worrying side of a human-sized red dragon.

She talked very dryly and you could hear the flies flying around the lecture theatre.

Emilie: ‘It's time. Put your papers in the basket on my desk and don't forget to write your name and class.

A student stood up and went down to join the dragoness, standing on her hind legs like a biped.

‘Professor... Are you all right? Something seems to be bothering you...’

And, against all expectations, Emilie laid her head on the student's shoulder and began to sob.

The student didn't know what to do, but she stroked the dragoness's neck and Emilie let herself go.

‘Einrich...Sniff’

The caresses ended in a hug and several students hugged Emilie.

They could see that their favourite dragon teacher was feeling a bit blue.

Victoire turned to her classmates and nodded ‘no.. don't talk..’

Emilie straightened up and said ‘Thank you... you're good people..Thank you... Thank you for accepting me. And if you have a friend, cherish these moments and engrave them in your heart’.

They understood Emilie's grief at losing her lover.

But as they emerged from the amphitheatre, they saw not a sad dragoness but a determined dragon full of rage.

Emile had grown to the size of a large pony and was moving around on all fours. Like a dragon. In fact, she was a whole dragon and proud of it.

Clak, Clak, Clak, clawed her big, sharp claws on the cobbles and she stopped in front of the office of her godfather, teacher and mentor, Professor Chardon.

She opened the door ruthlessly and it slammed against the wall as it opened.

At the far end of the room was a divan on which a black dragonet had been resting, now awakened by Emilie's thunderous entrance.

She turned her head left and right, but could not see the professor.

So, staring into Blackthorne's eyes, she advanced like a predator intent on finishing off its cornered prey.

Blackthorne was tiny in front of the mass of claws, teeth, horns and sharp scales that was Emilie.

‘It's good that you're scared, but it's not enough. I want to see you pissing yourself, I want to see you begging and dying in your own blood and broken bones. I want to see you die, feel your life disappear in my mouth and spit you out in a toilet bowl! Die, Blackthorne...!’

The dragonet screamed in fear, hissed and called to the teacher for help.

Emile: ‘What? you're not shouting “MAMAN?”, ’Tiamat?

What's changed in you???’

his snout blew boiling air at the dragonet, ready to be engulfed in a red dragon's destructive blast of fire.

‘Please, Emilie... please....’

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Emilie chuckled...’ You? mercy??? Do you know what that means? Have you ever had even a little?’

She lifted Blackthorne by the scruff of his neck with a squeeze of her index finger, the scales struggling hard not to let Emilie's claw dig into his flesh.

Now he had a view of her jaw, as full as an orc's.

‘Give me one reason why I shouldn't bite you. right here, right now!’

‘I I have died and been reincarnated...’

Emilie: ‘Me too, but I don't have innocent blood on my hands, well, paws now...So...Why? Why were you so motivated to behead us? Why did you let Luc die? Why all these deaths? Why Heinrich? Why ????’ She shook the dragonet painfully and he let out a cry of pain.

‘Why? Spit out the truth or die! You don't even deserve Egypt, you don't even deserve a second chance!’

‘Daathr... Daathr...’

Emilie: ‘Daathr???’ Who's that?

Then, at the entrance to the room, Chardon shouted at Emilie

‘That's enough of that! Put it down! I mean... look at you! You're not yourself anymore! Emilie!??’

The tension eased and she put Blackthorne back on the cushion and patted him as if to knock the dust off and straighten an imaginary tie.

She whispered, ‘We haven't finished our discussion!

Thistle: ‘EMILIE! Get out!’

Emile got out and straightened up into a biped and slid with his back to the wall, his legs spread wide in the corridor and his head hanging down, supported by his arms. His wings pressed painfully against the wall.

Chardon rubbed the dragonet's neck and took out the medicine cabinet and put some anti-inflammatory ointment on the area where Emilie had hung the dragonet.

He massaged him and said ‘It's over... I should have locked the door...’.

He saw the carnage on the floor and grabbed a bucket and a tea towel while Blackthorne clutched his shin, crying like a terrified toddler.

He paused for a moment.

‘We really must lance the abscess... It can't go on like this!’

He took a sheet from the wet sofa and laid Blackthorne on it.

‘Don't move... I have two words to say to Emily...’

He went out and, thinking he saw Emily still angry, saw a rag slumped in the corridor. He thought she was in the lecture theatre or her office or the staff room, but she was crying her eyes out on the floor.

Chardon knelt down and took the head of his beloved dragoness and said... Emilie..., I know it's eating away at you... but you have eternity ahead of you... You have lots of friends and I'm sure you'll find happiness.’

Emilie.. ‘They..They...They take everything I have, again and again and again...I can't take it anymore. and...that bastard... He's here, there... as if to taunt me....He should be in hell...with his mother or grandmother... Godfather... sniff... I can't take it any more...’

The teacher straightened up, thoughtful, and sighed for a moment...

‘Emilie... you know, everyone here on earth will one day lose someone they loved..and if you want to know... I didn't know my parents at all... They were murdered and I wasn't always a lonely uncle... but now, you're my family. You're all I've got left, Emily, and it's my duty to make sure you're happy. You're a good person and you always have been...even as a dragon...Especially as a dragon...If I was younger, I would have fallen in love with you and I would have done anything to share my life with you...’

Emile turned and looked him in the eye.

She jumped on his neck.

‘Thank you... thank you... you always have the right words... I don't know how you do it...’

The teacher, a little overwhelmed by the mass and size of the dragoness who was embracing her, gently patted her back, but also a little like judokas who hit the tatami to make the hold stop.

‘Emilie. ouf... I'm suffocating here!’

She pulled back but her sad eyes were replaced by a smile.

A smile full of teeth but Emilie couldn't help it. Human feelings in a dragon's body were not always easy to express...

Then Chardon picked himself up...

‘Listen, Emily. The little one here must have had a rough time of it and he really is a newborn. You could almost say he's another dragon with the memories of Blackthorne...’

Emilie: ‘Doesn't that shock you? Don't you want to punish him?

Thistle: ‘Do you remember how you were manipulated by Tiamat?

Emilie: ‘Yes...’ and she lowered her head, as if feeling a little guilty.

Chardon: ‘I've spoken to him a bit, and he's really difficult. He's traumatised and completely lost. But he's also done terrible things for love...’

Emilie: ‘How? Him?? out of love? And then he mentioned Daathr's name’.

Thistle ‘What if he really loves Daathr? and she's a hostage...?? That she should be beheaded instead of you?’

Emilie turned red with rage.

‘HMPH! So what? What about me?’

Thistle: ‘Maybe he had a hidden plan? He was always glued to Tiamat but didn't participate ..’

‘What?? are you kidding??? And in Yemen? in the harem palace? All those dead people, those children? He made Ochria and Azur eat human flesh!. They even bit me and tasted my blood!’

Chardon: ‘I think you're confusing your mother with him... It was Rudia who was in Yemen...’

EMilie: ‘He was still shagging Rudia....ma... mother... and she realised that Blackthorne might be her father...’

HIIIIII.

Emilie rushed into Chardon's office and ran over to the dragonet with her two paws on either side of him.

‘Blackthorne... answer me... Are you my father????’

The dragonet screamed in terror...

Emilie screamed and finally roared, causing the whole institute and the surrounding buildings to shake...

Chardon shouted ‘GET OUT! You're suspended until you calm down! Go home to MONT!’

But Emilie wanted an answer.

Blackthorne curled up into a ball and said: ‘NOn....I loved Daathr... not Rudia... Crazy Rudia...’

EMile turned and ran past the professor.

‘Excuse me Professor...’ and she ran off on her feet, out of the institute and transformed back into a 25 metre long red dragon and flew off towards the Ardennes...

Chardon bent down towards the dragonet

‘Don't be afraid any longer... the anger is over... Now, both of you, make peace...’

Blackthorne clung to the professor and fell asleep, his neck on the old man's shoulders.

Thistle: ‘I'll make sure you're a good person too. Do as I say and all will be well...’

The dragon moaned in his sleep and dragon tears beaded a little.

Half an hour later, Emile landed in his heliport garden at the farm and poked his head out of the window where his mum was preparing dinner.

‘Emilie, I had your godfather on the phone and he told me to cook you a nice meal to calm you down. ‘

‘Mum...’

‘Yes. Emilie... I know... but I have 2 dragons here to protect me... and if that's not enough what do you want us to do about it? And go where?’

‘But..’

She received a kiss on her muzzle for all answer.

‘Mum.. I love you..’

Behind her, Emily's tail whipped across the meadow and threatened to turn the lawn over...

The sound of the sawmill...

The barking of the dogs

and the bells of the sheep being taken out to pasture restored a sense of calm and happiness to the scalded dragoness.

Then, having regained her human size, but without being able to look like one, the dragoness sat down at the stool with her mother, her brother and her sister, having kept the same appearance as herself.

Azur: ‘We wanted to make you happy, and also to tell you that we are proud of who we are. We are the dragon people, the real ones!

Emile regained a sort of peace as she watched her little brother grow into his soul. He was no longer at all the monster she had known at the beginning... If it had been like that from the start... what suffering we could have avoided... Then, when the meal was over...

Emilie suggested: ‘Why don't we play a board game?

Ochria took out a pack of Uno cards and the game of four ended with Suzanne winning the ‘UNO’ game, she exclaimed, leaving the last card.

Then Emilie went to her room and took all the photos of her adventures with Einrich and put them together in a magnificent tin candy box in the shape of a dungeon treasure and she felt her scarf one last time, folded it up and put it away in the treasure chest. It was her dragon treasure... a big box of sweets.

A tear fell and she put the box away in a large trunk in which she kept souvenirs of her travels and adventures.

‘Thank you, Einrich... may you find happiness in another life...’

Emilie's mother came forward and leaned against her.

‘You've grown up and I know you'll find happiness... I promise.’

They retreated to the living room, chips and popcorn waiting for them as they turned on the TV, the fire in the hearth and a little cat coming to meet them squeezed between the two girls.

Ochria had gone out with her boyfriend and Azur was online with his mates, occasionally roaring into the microphone. Some of them provoked him online to get angry and roar. Everyone laughed.