Cassandra Pendragon
There was something magical about warm, bubbling water. I had always loved campfires, but there was nothing that could compare to the weightless sensation and the welcoming, relaxing heat of sliding into a bath. Even a tub could feel like a miracle, but the clear, azure pond, surrounded by thick, verdant bamboo in the middle of nowhere held a charm that was beyond even transcendent powers. Not to mention that I was alone. True enough, I'd have preferred to share the moment with Ahri, but enjoying the small wonder all by my lonesome was definitely a close second. I had even transformed, the sanctuary of sparkling water, steam and warmth much too enticing to remain in my animal shape. My hide just wasn't as sensitive as my skin.
With a content sigh I slipped down the smooth walls of the pond until the clear blue waves covered my breasts. Then I moved my tails and quickly skimmed through the items I felt in my stamp. A moment later I held a battered, wooden brush and began the arduous task of combing out eight, almost two metres long, fluffy appendages. Admittedly, it didn't seem quite as daunting while I was relishing in the sensations of a natural hot spring, but I still wouldn't have minded a few less tails to deal with. Two would have been fine, maybe three. At least my transformation helped. As a fox dragon I didn't have actual fur, even though it seemed that way, and my scales couldn't become as entangled as the real thing. The knots I gained as a kitsune somehow survive the change, though.
Once I had caught the tip of a tail I wiggled around until I had found a comfortable position and closed my eyes. The silky feeling under my fingers, the smell of life in my nose and the constant, soothing song of bubbling water and my own heartbeat in my ears made me drowsy and with a small, happy smile on my face I allowed my thoughts to wander freely. What had set me off? Why had I suddenly felt like I would end up within that gods forsaken seed, one way or the other?
The poem? The one I had managed to decipher in the… other place? Luckily I had wrapped the memory in a coat of power, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to recall every word:
A lock, a key, a dream to see
A crown, a lie, a fate unfree
An angel's plight, a demon's wrath
Darkness obscures the hidden path
The light restrained, the war unleashed
The final spark is not bequeathed
Close the gate, reveal your fate
Immortal's doom, for dawn we wait
Hmm, chances were the second half was referring to something in the future. "The light restrained, the war unleashed" was probably a reference to the immortal war I'd have to fight sooner or later. "The light restrained" didn't sound very promising, but if I was right, I wouldn't have to deal with that ominous tidbit for quite a while. Logically the first four lines should then allude to the present or the past. I groped around languidly until I got a hold of a second tail.
I knew I was grasping at straws, but what if the first line depicted my battle against Gabriel? Or maybe it spoke of the ring I was wearing and the sigil Ahri had been branded with. She had called them a lock and a key, at the very least. The second line might have referred to my split identity. In that case it stood to reason, that something in the third or fourth line had caught my attention.
Intuitively I didn't think much of "an angel's plight, a demon's wrath". It could have pointed at a million different things, some of them I had already lived through, which left me with just a single sentence. A pretty generic one, at that. "Darkness obscures the hidden path" could have been applied to every single legend or story I had ever heard. In Greek mythology there was even an explicit myth about Hercules, or rather Heracles, who had been faced with that particular choice.
On one of his travels he had come to a crossroads in the mountains. The three fates had told him that one path would have led to a happy, boring life, but the other would have brought suffering, pain and glory. The choice of a hero basically boiled down to which road to take. Unfortunately, that didn't help… by all the saints at the backside door of purgatory! Maybe it did.
Really, had it been just that? Had I simply thought about an old legend? Aim for the worst bit of trouble you can find, close your eyes and suffer until you're through? Really? I shook my head in denial and bit down on my lip until I felt the skin break. The taste of silver entered my mouth and I felt my ears twitch agitatedly. Even my tail trembled in my hand. For the love of god, if Amazeroth had been the one to leave those lines behind for me on purpose… it might have just been the truth. It was something I would have done… I had done when I had taught Anna and her coven.
By the Great Fox, it was absurd. Was I honestly supposed to dive head first into the only maelstrom of power and might that could actually kill me? Based on nothing? A hunch, at best? And what if I was wrong? God forbid, what if I was right and I wouldn't go for it? Eternal Abyss… was it also about trust? Trusting a demon who had tried his best to destroy my life, but yet had saved it more often than I could count? I knew I had pulled shit like that with the witches. If he was anything like me…
Was he? I couldn't tell. Not anymore. Were we similar? Did we have to be? Had he even written those words? I opened my eyes and bared my teeth, a habit that had carried over, even though I hadn't spent that much time as a fox dragon, yet, and slid further down until I was entirely submerged. The rustling of bamboo leaves, the quiet scurrying footfalls of small paws in the undergrowth and the smells of the forest disappeared as I was left in a silent, tasteless world of golden sunlight and dancing bubbles. Was there even a point in guessing? Why was I fretting like a child over something, that might just as well have been a result of my overstimulated and sleep deprived imagination? Wouldn't I know either way, once I saw the root?
Probably, but unless I was mistaken the entire thing was already frozen, petrified in a single moment without a chance to… oh. Stupid. I drifted to the bottom of the pond and pressed my back against the jagged crack through which a scorching hot stream surged into the spring. I opened my mouth and exhaled a large, shimmering bubble. While I watched it rise to the surface I tried to recall what I had done.
My moniker, devourer of immortals… I had never put much stock in it, but when I had faced Gabriel I had come to understand why my siblings had thought it fitting. When I had struck her down, I had had the chance to absorb her power, but I hadn't. I had left it intact for Reia. Consequentially the power I had used when I had frozen the seed hadn't been my own. Not really. It had simply been the remnants of Gabriel's magic, still contained within my armour. Sure, it had been driven by own will, but in the end it still hadn't been under my control fully.
Which meant my perception had had to have been skewed. I had been sure I had succeeded, because I hadn't felt anything aside from my own power, but what if I hadn't even touched the seed, but simply frozen its shell? Come to think of it, I already knew it contained more than one immortal's worth of transcendent power. Its skin had to be sturdy enough to contain it, but I had been ready to believe a single assault, which hadn't even been powered by my own, admittedly absurd, strength, had subdued the entire construct in the blink of an eye? Had I become conceited? I turned until the hot water massaged my belly.
Thinking back, ever since I had bested my sister I had run around with a head the size of a planet, utterly convinced that nothing on Gaya could touch me, now that I was capable of slaying a fully grown angel. I had been so sure everything would yield, once I could get my wings on it, that I hadn't even entertained the idea of encountering something beyond my reach. Hells, as far as I knew the seed was connected to the Source and contained the essence of at least three fallen immortals. Hubris, assuming I could scratch, never mind freeze, something like that with a puny bit of stolen power wasn't even arrogant anymore. It was plain stupid. And Ahri hadn't been there to call me out on my bullshit. She had left before I had acted.
I clenched my jaws and flexed my legs. My head broke the surface amongst a sparkling curtain of dancing light and with a huff I pushed myself towards the edge of the pond. Once I had settled down against the wall again and wiped my drenched tresses out of the way, I focused on my tails in earnest to quickly comb through the rest. Great. Now what? A mirthless chuckle escaped me when I remembered watching turtles on Galapagos a few centuries back. The animals were nigh invulnerable within their shell, but once a predator managed to crack their carapaces, or god forbid, wiggle their way inside, they were nothing, but soft, juicy meat, served on a silver, or in this case bony, platter.
Really? Goosebumps erupted along my arms, but with a derisive snort I ignored the lump of unease in the pit of my stomach. There was no point in closing my eyes. Assuming I was on the right track and provided I managed to slip through the root and into the seed… then what? Most likely I'd find myself face to face with the mother of all thunderstorms, powered by stolen strength that made me nauseous every time I merely recalled the sense of dread it had instilled in me. If the maelstrom was still churning, what in god's name was I supposed to do about it? Smile and say pretty please? Honestly, killing the thing off was doable, if I cut off every root, it'd definitely wither, but keeping it in stasis until we were going to have a chance to plant it? Not so much.
Then again, every puzzle had a solution. I just couldn't see it. Fine, everything else aside, what could I come up with that might be related to my current troubles? The ring, Ahri's glyph, the Source, the realms, Hell and of course the godforsaken seed. A seed that had sprouted partly and had already given birth to a dryad. Greta. A lock, a key, a dream to see. What if it referred to her?
The seed could be a lock, she might be a key, but whose dream could it be? A dream to see… to perceive… maybe to touch, to actually live? Was the dryad the key to make it come true? Something else stirred at the back of my mind. Another memory, much more recent this time. I held a gruff man upright while his eyes quivered behind closed lids and he relived the torments of his recent past. The history of our planet, of her creation gradually unwound before me through the memories of spirits long forgotten. Spirits of the elements, of energy, of mana, of life itself told their story. A story of hope and despair as the current structure of our world was created from the ground up bones and the coagulated blood of what had come before. In the end, everything had to burn for something new to take its place, for something new to grow from the ashes… like a phoenix. Coincidence? Or was I simply rambling? I blew up my cheeks and shook my head.
Once I had finished with my last tail I turned my attention to my hair. Whether imagined or not, I had already asked Viyara to bring the phoenix along and it couldn't hurt either to keep the dryad in mind, once I had found the root. It was nothing tangible, but at least I now had an inkling of the meandering path my subconsciousness had taken. If there was any truth to it, I'd still have to see.
With a sigh I reached for the woven bamboo basket close by. Despite my beastly features Lin, accompanied by her disciple, had insisted on handing over several soft towels and a few bottles with a variety of herbal extracts, after they had shown me the way to the secluded spring. A narrow trail led through the bamboo thicket around the pond and along its winding drain towards a tiny hut where the two girls were still waiting for me. Out of habit I extended my senses while I made my way over to an old, menial, iron pump I was going to use to rinse my hair, but after a few, languid steps I stopped at the centre of the pool, small waves sloshing around my waist. Blood. The scent of blood was in the air and the women's breath was much too shallow and their heartbeats much too slow. They were unconscious and their strength was draining. Quickly.
My ears twitched and my wings broke through my back, but I was just a tad too late. An ominous, flickering, electric glow ignited around the edge of the pond and without warning twelve lightning strikes tore the day asunder and struck the waters around me in every direction. Steam shot up with a roar like a living, enraged beast, the superheated pool surged against my skin like the ravenous claws of a dragon and from every point on the compass a deadly, screaming torrent of power headed my way. At least I'm already naked, was the last thought that fluttered through my mind, before I became engulfed by a merciless tornado of crackling blue. The clearing vanished behind a curtain of unrestrained power, inexorable fingers of pure energy reached for me, but as soon as they touched my bare skin they were extinguished like a torch under water.
The stones glowed an aggressive red underneath my feet and a dangerous hiss sounded from the spot where the hot stream was turning into mist as soon as it left the bowels of the earth. It fed the impenetrable, white wall around me continuously, but I could hear all the better for the thick, heavy fog. Through the soft, wet darkness that had swallowed the world I heard, for the first time, the breaths and heartbeats of three other people and a deep, slow voice command: "again." Sure, that'd do the trick. In the absolute silence that had gripped the grove a strange melody rang out.
Words meant to control and to strengthen reverberated in the air as they recited one nonsensical mantra or the other, but I didn't intend to let them finish. I suppressed the glow from my wings and dropped to my knees while my body grew, invisible behind the curtain of steam. I unfurled my wings, uncoiled my tails and brought them down in one single, earth shattering movement. A shockwave thundered away from me and tore through the mist to reveal a towering, silver dragon in the shape of a fox, its eyes aglow with silver and blue, its maw open and its wings flared.
The bamboo bent and groaned in the gale, torn leaves dancing on the storm, but the three men, who had taken position around me, didn't even flinch. A soft, golden light had enveloped each one and their voices kept on hurrying through the incantation without ever stumbling over the complex syllables. The sky darkened and the mountains disappeared behind a towering, black cloud. A deafening, mighty thunderclap heralded the imminent discharge of their magic and from afar I could see protective glyphs in the mountains flare up and peter out like candles in the wind. I clicked my tongue. Fine. I had never before actually eaten a sentient creature, but there was a first for everything and those three had just about pressed their luck once too often.
Like a snake I struck. There was an imperceivable moment of resistance when my teeth closed around one of the humans, but the protective enchantment shattered and disappeared the very moment it came in contact with my fangs. A crunchy, yet squishy sensation, almost like biting into a day old pastry filled my mouth, followed by the rich, coppery taste of blood and something decidedly unpleasant. Sewage, I mused disgustedly and shuddered as the taste spread to my nostrils. How on earth had Viyara been able to chew on old Ebenezer that thoroughly? I only managed to chomp down once before I immediately spat out the dripping, mutilated corpse. Never again. Rancid or foul didn't even come close. The other two I'd simply trample underfoot.