A Final Battle

Mira shot off the stage herself and crouched near the corner. She didn't want the villagers to see her, nor did she want Brenda to attack when she was done with her maniacal laughter. She let the rage boil up out of her, hoping against all hope that she could change fast enough, that she could call her body even though it had been years, to do battle with the draag. In some sense of the word, she had been ready for a long time, but she still felt pressed for another moment or two to think about what to do.

The world faded to gray as she reached for her inner dragon. Her black leathery wings felt like home to her, and she floated above her mortal body, taking slow physical shape in the night time. It felt good to breathe again, really breathe, and feel the night time air cool upon her skin. She released a slow, long exhale, feeling flames flicker to life on her breath. The world came into focus and she was above the cackling hag, floating in a holding pattern.

Her dragon eyes confirmed to her what her gut had said was true just minutes before. Brenda was not human. Mira couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before.

She hoped the element of surprise would be on her side. Flapping slowly, she realized with a twisted glee that the draag had not yet noticed the dragon floating above it. Good. She thought. Tulith swept down on a gust of wind to meet her prey. With this one fell swoop, she opened the gaping chasm of her mouth and engulfed the draag's human body. She closed her jaws. Brenda screamed. Brenda crunched. Tulith swallowed. The legs fell with a sickening thud to the podium.

The screams of the villagers dampened the taste of sweet manflesh in her mouth. The small part of her that had grown accustomed to humans felt somewhat bad at the killing of Brenda's human self, although she doubted there was much of Brenda left inside. Draags, after all, only thrived in hateful auras. But surely the villagers thought at this moment in time that she -- not Brenda -- was the evil force that was assaulting their village. Thankfully, the "heroes" of the village were more interested in saving their own asses from a dragon than they were in playing the party. Even the man-boys eager to prove their worth had fled in the wake of Brenda's flying limbs.

Tulith felt something nip at her tail, and she craned her neck behind her to see the draag firmly latched on. In its true form, it wasn't any prettier of a sight than Brenda had been. It was an amorphous blob of black slime with glowing red eyes and a devilish smile. Where it was dangerous was not in any bite or claw, but rather in its touch. The draag succeeded by poison, not by force. Tulith felt her tail grow numb with the contact. She hissed at the slimeball attached to her, roaring deep orange flames at it. They warmed her tail, and the creature… steamed? In response. That was really the only way to describe it. A sickening orange fog rolled off of the draag where fire had licked at its form. In response, it continued its slow and steady climb up the dragon's body. Tulith felt the first spark of fear.

It was said, in her mother tongue, that old grudges were where draag were born. Once born, they stuck to everything they touched. They could drive good men mad and bad men to rot. They could do the same to dragons.

With fire not really an option, Tulith chose to nose dive down towards the podium, which was well cleared of everything except Brenda's still twitching legs. As she grew close -- too close -- to the ground, she swerved upwards at the last second and brought her back and tail down hard into the stamped earth. The draag splattered across the trodden field, with some small semblance of resistance. It was more a smear than a splatter, really. She turned her neck back towards her tail, relieved to see that the draag was off of her. She turned a slow loop and faced the black, bubbling substance that criss crossed the earth.

Tulith let out a long, determined line of fire, flamethrowing across the open space where villagers had been gathered not five minutes ago. The ground blistered where the pieces of the draag were, and seemed to eat up the flames like hungry children.

You must make sure it is all gone, or it will come back with a vengeance. The elders spoke in her ear, an ancient reminder of the stories she had heard as but a small hatchling. She turned and saw a smear of black on her tail. She winced in advance, taking a deep breath and breathing fire onto its tip. It blackened, but she was sure that the organic matter had gone.

With her task done as dragon, Mira landed in a patch of darkness away from the screams of villagers. She searched for her human body in the gray vision. She took a deep breath, and began to focus homewards.

"Mira, are you in there?" Mira felt herself being gently shaken awake. The sky was… light? She blinked confusion from her mind, and opened her eyes to find Stan's round, bearded face above her. She gave him a weary smile.

"I thought I had lost you." He said, pulling her body up and towards his, wrapping her into a tight, one armed hug. "When I found you, you were just sort of… dazed. Like someone had tried to cram you into a body you didn't fit in anymore.

"Wha… Brenda?" Mira struggled to speak. It was more of a croak, really. Stan laid her gently back down onto the mattress where she had been laying and brought a cup into her field of vision.

"Here. Drink. You've been out all night." Stan offered the cup. Hands shaking, Mira took the cup from him and struggled upwards to take a sip. It was warm, a little salty, but exactly what she needed.

"Wormroot tea." He acknowledged. She must have looked puzzled.

The blear was clearing from her eyes, and she gave Stan a once-over. His arm was wrapped up into a sling, and he had a few cuts and bruises on his face, but other than that, he seemed completely fine.

She wasn't sure that the same could be said about her. She ached like she never had before in her human body. She tried her words again.

"Brenda. Is it… dead?"

"A dragon swooped in from the night time sky and bit her in half. Literally. We only had legs, and we burned them outside the village." He stared at her pointedly. "I assured the villagers that this dragon was a good one. They were too terrified to organize a hunt on their own."

"Good thing there was a dragon to protect Dyssa." She said drily. She coughed again, tasting blood. "What… what happened to me?"

"I think you just fell when you… left your body." Stan said awkwardly. He clearly was unsure of how it all worked. "And hit your head. You knocked a tooth out somehow, too. But other than that, you seem okay."

"Were there any… pieces of tar… laying around? When it was all said and done?"

"I'd sure hope not. You… the dragon … burnt the podium and most of the land around it to a crisp. Somehow though, Brenda's legs were unscathed."

"Bad things don't burn easy." She muttered. Stan laughed.

"I'm glad you're okay. I was worried that you had left and weren't coming back."

"Why is that?" She asked. She scooted up against the wall into a sitting position on the mattress, letting the blanket fall from her chest and into her lap.

"Well, Brenda was the draag, right?" He asked for clarification. "I'm assuming that she was, given that she got bitten in half and then roasted by a very hot flame."

"Yes." Mira had thought briefly of denying it, but could see no point.

"And you had told me a while ago that the reason you were inhabiting this world was to take care of it. Or so I thought. So I figured when it was gone, so would you be."

"You don't have to worry, Stan." She said with a smile. "I'm not going to take off on you. Yes, that was my original reason to be here. But all in all, I like this place. For the most part, it's monster free." She waggled her eyebrows at him. "And you're not so bad, for a mortal."

"So what are we going to do about this whole.. Village riot and hero culture we've got running rampant in Dyssa?" He asked. He offered her a cheese platter. "Eat slow, you might be concussed."

"Thanks." She said, biting through a piece of hard cheese from the plate. "Well, we're definitely going to need a town meeting and a heart to heart talk with our townspeople about how it's okay not to slay a dragon. Unless the need truly arises."

"And we still need to deal with that weasel, Kreev." He grumbled.

"Oh, we'll work it out. I'm sure of it." She smiled a toothy smile at him. "Or a dragon might just descend upon Wissler and take care of some outstanding business there, too."

Stan's faced had a look of horror run across it. Mira laughed at him.

"Not unless he starts killing virgins. No worries, Stan. I'm not a bloody killer." She saw him relax. "Not unless you cross me."

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