We were young and wild and free,
fightin' in a love we couldn't leave.
It’s been years.
I’ve kept in touch with them, of course. Mostly Gendry. My big brother is always there when one of us decides to rip ourselves apart and considering how much that happens, he’s an almost constant presence in all our lives. Hallows, ah, Hallows. I started to see less and less of him after Wex was born—he moved his family north, because seclusion felt safer. Is safer. He’d always been the wisest and it was wise to stay out of Beqanna. Xero had left with Mom, they’d gone somewhere where even time couldn’t reach her—and as much as I miss them, I cannot find it in me to call them back to this awful place. Drom’s gone and I cannot say I’m sorry to have seen him go. Nocturnal knew there was a darkness in him, had wished she’d culled that one—but she could never bring herself to kill one of her own children.
One of their children.
And so she’d let him live.
Even at Drow’s expense.
Drow, he’s always been in and out. Always hurting. Always. There’s darkness of a different kind in him, it’s self-destructive, and as much as Gendry tried to fix him I knew he would always be broken; there was nothing that could fill the hole Nocturnal had left when she died. When she left him.
I think that’s what makes me hate her the most.
If any of them had inherited her telepathy, I would’ve known years ago; they still mourn her death and might have despised me for what I thought. But it’s the truth. I swear, it’s the truth. After all, I know her better than anyone. I relive her life every night in my sleep, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Quark was the only light in her life and she hated it. Nocturnal hated that she loved Quark and their children so much that someone could use it to hurt her. If only because someone would hurt them to hurt her; she had made them targets, she realized, and that hatred turned inward when Gendry was taken from her. She never forgave herself and all of her decisions beyond that point were selfish.
Selfish and stupid.
Nocturnal had tried to distance herself from Quark after that, tried and failed, hence my many brothers and sisters; she tried not to love Quark, tried to separate herself, she had only wanted to keep them safe—keep herself safe, because she simply couldn’t handle losing anyone else. That selfishness, that weakness, that aversion to emotional pain had brought the entire family to ruin and it disgusts me. I, however, am not so cruel as to tell them that they’re all still mourning the death of a coward and that she isn’t worth the suffering they’ve endured.
I have never liked flying, but it’s quiet and clear and I don’t have to worry about running into someone looking for idle conversation; I swoop low over the trees, my hooves skimming the tips of leaves dried up from the sun and knocking them loose; it happens then, without me realizing it, happens when I least expect it and I don’t even notice until a chorus of screams erupt from The Meadow below.
My body has changed, and while it does that a lot, this isn’t a form I’ve taken before; I’m at least sixty feet long and an unknown margin high, and like my hellhound form, I have spikes growing out of my back—my tail forks, because that’s what it’s used to doing. There’s three horns that grow out the length of my snout and shiny hard black scales that shimmer red have replaced my roan coat. My fangs are longer, sharper—there’s fire in my throat, smoke in my lungs, but it doesn’t hurt. I can just smell it, taste it. I can taste the air with my tongue.
I’m a dragon.
I twist through the air in a way I’ve never done before, it just feels so easy. So… right, but wrong at the same time because I have seen this dragon’s reflection. She saw it. I’m a replica of my Mother in her younger years, though far larger.
Gritting my teeth in frustration, I struggle to change shape as quickly as I can because this isn’t happening. I refuse. I sort through what I know, what I remember, until I’m a little crow that quickly darts out of sight. I head towards the mountains, because seclusion is safer; I head towards the mountains and towards a place I know I won’t be bothered because there’s never anyone there. Except there is.
I spot her from above, sweating and panting and looking exactly the same as I’d seen her years ago. Rather than shoot straight towards her, as I would have done as a child, I ease into a landing and slowly change back into a winged horse before I ever touch the ground. It’s funny, I suppose, how much more comfortable I am with dragon wings on this body than I am being an actual dragon; Vanquish had them and while we were never close, I wanted to be. I respect the old King. “Daeryssa?” I ask, glancing around. “What’re you doing up here?”
tarnished
vanquish x nocturnal
Even on the way down, even on the way down.
equus mutatio, immortality, disease manipulation, trait immunity