Deception Come To Light

Stan awoke to a worrying and rather awkward situation. His eyes were nearly crusted shut with dirt, the cold earth digging into his back. His wrists and ankles ached, as did his hips, back, and pretty much everything else on his body.

"Wha?" He exclaimed, realizing suddenly that his hands and feet were bound together, up in the air, like a pig ready for slaughter. Mira sat watching him from across the campsite. He realized with a start that it was early morning.

That's not Mira. A voice whispered in his head. That's some other being. Memories flooded back into his brain. Panic spread across his face. Mira remained expressionless as he struggled like a fish caught in a net.

"What the fuck?" He croaked, then coughed as the dust from his face fell into his upward pointing mouth. "Mira, what…"

"Not Mira." She said, bored. She was rubbing her fingers against a twig, and Stan realized that her fingernails were somehow slicing away layers of bark like they were soft butter. It was disconcerting, to say the least. He struggled to remember what she had said her name was, but nothing came to him.

"Where's Mira?" He finally settled on asking the question instead of trying to guess or remember her name.

"That's a challenging question." She said, sighing dramatically. "Mira… Mira died a long time ago." She searched for an answer. "In here, I mean. You see, we …" A look of disgust crossed her face, "We deatheaters don't cause death and destruction." She shrugged. "We merely choose to inhabit bodies that are no longer of use to anyone."

Stan's mind was spinning. This didn't make any sense to him.

"You're a deatheater?" He asked incredulously. "Like, a dragon?"

Mira nodded and smiled that weird, toothy grin. "Interesting, right? Who knew that we could take bodies? Who knew that dragons weren't just… you know, dragons?"

"But aren't you…" He searched for another question, but the words that came to his mind: vicious, deadly, nefarious, didn't seem to fit the thing sitting before him. The thing that he felt strong affection towards.

"What? A monster?" She asked. He tried to nod, but couldn't really move his head effectively against the ground. "Yes and no." She was infuriatingly vague with him.

"Can you…" Why couldn't Stan seem to find his words? Probably because he was shivering and tied up like a roasted piece of meat. He struggled to focus his brain and restarted his sentence before she tried to fill in his blanks. "Can you please untie me?"

"That depends." She said. The stick was now a sharp dagger, and she was making little designs in the part that would be a handle. "Are you going to try to kill me? I am so over that sort of shit right now."

"Would it work?" He asked frankly. She laughed.

"Ah, there's the Stan I know. Always reaching for humor when he's in a dark place. No, dear, it wouldn't work. I would gut you. And then probably eat you. Oooh, or leave Mira here and use your body instead. Being Stan would be fun!"

"You're clearly the stronger, better creature here." He said. "I won't try to hurt you."

"Then yes, I will untie you." She said. She pointed the stick at him and waved it like a toy wand. He felt the ropes fall limply on his body. His arms and legs flailed awkwardly out from him, as they had been resting against the bruising ropes. Not expecting the sudden release, he startled, and slammed his head back against the ground as he tried to correct himself.

"Ow." He complained, laying in his own pile of arms and legs, somewhat defeated. "You could've warned me."

"Sorry. I've been cooped up in this human facade for so long. It feels good to stretch my wings." Though Stan didn't see any movement, he felt a sudden gush of air, as if she had beat her wings at him. He pretended it was the wind.

"Okay, so let me get this straight." Stan said, pushing himself up off the ground. "You've been masquerading as Mira for … how long?"

"At least fifteen years." She answered without hesitation. "Your father was not a kind person. He kidnapped her and left her up on that mountain to die. He was sloppy, used too much of his sleeping drug. She died. I found her first."

"So this entire time. The rescue, our marriage…"

"Yup. That was all me."

"Wow." Stan sat in silence for a long while after that. Memories flooded back through his head -- of their courtship, their building a life together. Her standing by him as he struggled with his new shaman duties, his relationship with his father, his random bouts of depression. Their struggles to have children.

"You're a very kind man, Stan." She said quietly. Her sudden nearness startled him. He looked up to see her standing over him. "And none of it has been a…" She searched for the word, "A lie. I have great affection for you. You are probably the best man in Dyssa."

She sounded more like Mira again, and for a second, he felt his heart soften. Then he looked up into her decidedly reptilian eyes, and the fleeting moment was gone, leaving him with an awkward, sad, strange feeling in his stomach. He looked down, trying not to flinch away as she put a hand on his shoulder.

"I think that taking over Mira's body was more of a kindness for you than finding her dead atop that mountain at the tender age of fourteen." She said, squeezing his shoulder.

"So…" Now he was the one lost for words. She gave him space to think his thoughts and figure out what he wanted to say, "If I've been married to a Deatheater,"

"My name is Tulith." She corrected him. "I did tell you that last night, but mortal minds can be so pesky sometimes. Especially after being magicked."

"Right. Tulith." The name felt strange on his tongue, but seemed to fit her perfectly. "So if you and I have been married for the past ten years or so, then why did you decide to reveal yourself to me last night, of all nights?"

She waited a moment. He looked up and saw her struggling with her words. "Well, to be honest, Stan, this was the first night that we had any true privacy in the last few weeks. And this is the first time it's been relevant for you to know."

"And all of the tricks, last night?" He asked, a hint of anger in his voice. He felt her fingernails digging into his shoulder, sharper than they ought to be. He wondered idly if he was bleeding.

"They weren't tricks, I was…" Mira settled on an apology instead of excuses. "Sorry. That Brenda bitch had me in a tizzy yesterday, and I hadn't had time to calm down, and then my flair for theatrics, which I've suppressed because Mira wasn't like that, came out. I think I thought you'd react better. Though you did a dashing job of trying to save me."

"So you were angry at Brenda, and took it out on me." Stan summarized her rambling apology. "By scaring the ever living shit out of me while we were alone in the forest, on the run from dragons and angry villagers."

Was that a blush of embarrassment that crossed her face? It was gone too soon to tell. "Sorry." She offered concillatorily. The grip on his shoulder relaxed. "I hadn't thought it out fully. I was … how do you mortals say it… flying by the seat of my pants."

"If you've been Mira this whole time, how come you've never had problems talking to me before?" Stan asked suddenly, looking up at her to read her face. She smiled, pleasantly surprised by the question.

"Oh, that's a good one! When I am Mira -- fully, Mira -- I am playing her. My own thoughts are somewhat muted when fully in a mortal experience. It's sort of like when you speak your ritual words -- you play a character, then. The character of shaman. Just like that… I was playing the character of Mira. And now…" The pauses started up again, as she considered her own being, "I am half Mira." She settled on those words. "And half Tulith. Mira's essence is… here," She pointed to her chest, "But not here." She pointed to her head. "So when I use human language, it has to go from here," She pointed to her brain, "To here and back again." She gestured at her chest and then back to her face. "Make sense?"

"What happens if you become fully you?" He asked as a followup question. She shrugged.

"I become… very large. And I speak mind to mind, not mouth to ear. That can be… unpleasant." She smiled at him. "For you."

"What happens if you go back to being just Mira?" He asked gingerly. He wasn't sure if the question would anger her.

"I speak… faster, but I'm not able to… react or think as quickly." She said. She didn't seem angered by his question, but he didn't dare ask the question that was pounding in his chest -- Can I just have Mira back please? He knew it was all a lie.

"So why… Why now?" He wasn't sure how to ask the question that needed to be answered, but he figured this was a good start. It was really fifty different questions. Why had a dragon inhabited a villager's body? Why had the dragon married him? Why had she had sex with him? Was the sex even good, for a dragon? Why did she run from the village if she could just murder them all? Why had she dragged him out to the woods to find two missing children? Had she eaten the children?

"I have been waiting a long time." She admitted. "But now is the time, because things are… snowballing here."

"With my father's death?" He asked and she nodded.

"Yes, but not because of … what you think." She said. "It is different than that. And then with your trip to Renya… Things are changing. For the worse, I think. And we must… work against it."

"Okay, so what's different than how I see it?"

"A dragon did not kill your father." She managed to get the sentence out without pausing. "But something else… did. You had the foul scent of magic upon you when you returned."

"But aren't you magical?" He asked curiously. She scowled.

"Yes and … not yes." She said. "I am … magic. But I am old magic. This is… sorcery. Done with… malice." She wrinkled her face up. "We are different, your magic and my magic. And this was definitely not… dragon magic."

"So a human killed my father?" He asked, and she nodded.

"Human or used to be human." She agreed. "Not sure. Only caught a brief whiff. I thought maybe… one off incident. But then you come back and tell me that Wissler shaman also missing…" She was pausing less, but also missing words here or there. Stan didn't comment on the change. "Something wrong. With this place."

"And then I tell you that there's a deatheater dragon around, and you've had enough?" He prompted, and she shook her head.

"No, that is… funny, interesting. But irrelevant what Renya shamans think. No, it was Brenda."

"She killed my father?" Stan asked, confused. Mira -- Tulith -- laughed.

"No, Brenda … She is part of it, but not important. I will… deal with her later."

"Did she actually drug you?" Stan asked curiously. "You said yesterday…"

"Yes and no." She said. "She tried… human magic. She has a deep hatred inside." Tulith paused, her expression darkening. "If you are… light, then she is… black."

"Really? Brenda?" Stan looked perplexed. Mira shrugged and shook her head a little, like a dog shaking water from its face.

"I will deal with her later. Not worry."

"So what now?" Stan asked. "You're Mira, but not really. Where are the missing children? Do you know?"

"No." She shrugged. "But I can find out."

Stan sat with Mira -- Tulith -- cross legged in the dirt. The sun was happily shining over the trees, now, and Stan wanted to break camp and get moving, in case the villagers had decided to pursue them. He wasn't sure if they knew he had come back, but he was certain that they must know by now that Mira was missing.

She spoke in a tongue that sounded a mockery of human language. All hisses and rasps and gulps, it made him feel as though he was prey to a snake, coiling to strike. She had laughed, earlier, when he had offered her use of the opaque salt orb.

"Real magic," She proclaimed haughtily, totally unlike the Mira he had known and laughed, "Doesn't use… children's toys."

So she sat there, eyes closed, back straight as an arrow, speaking her strange tongue. He sat there, aching, rocking back and forth on his butt cheeks as they began to fall asleep, simply waiting for her answer. He wondered idly if he would've been more use breaking down the camp, but didn't want to disturb her.

After a long while, her eyes flickered open, alight with amusement.

"Oh, Stan." She announced. "I have good news."

"They're okay?"

"They're pregnant." She cackled, "and moving south towards Yikk."

"What?" Stan furrowed his eyebrows. "How old are they, again?"

"Does it matter? Freya has -- had -- her monthlies. She's missed them twice now. She didn't want to tell her parents the news, so she convinced that idiot of a boy, Rufus, to run away with her."

"But that's not towards the mountains at all!" He grumbled. He could think of nothing else to say. They passed a few seconds in silence, and he rose to his feet. "Well, what should we do now?"

"The children are safe, but we should probably … keep an eye on them." Mira said. She held a hand out and he helped her up, though he had a feeling that it was all for show. "We can't prove our innocence without them, and I'm assuming that you want to stay in Dyssa, so yes… we will need to return them to their families."

"But should we trail them right now?" Stan asked. He started gathering their packs together, checking straps and compressing where possible.

"It's your call." She said, packing up her own stuff. "I have… important things to attend to, elsewhere, but I'm sure that wherever we go, it will… be okay."

"Well, let's go to Wissler for now, since we're most of the way there, and I need to check in on Kreev. From there, we can skirt the villages and pick up our missing children, then head back home and set our villagers straight."

"Yes, that is a plan." She agreed. She lifted her heavy pack as if it was a feather and slung it onto her back. Stan still needed to get used to this new… whatever his wife was.

"We'll have to be careful." He admitted. "Some of the villagers may have gone to Wissler to try and find you, after they realized that you had fled."

"We don't have to be… fearful." She pointed out wryly, and he shrugged.

"Even if they're not going to kill us, I am not a dragon." He said, hefting his bag over his shoulder and pointing towards the general direction of Wissler. "I need to be able to survive after all of this goes down, and it'll be a lot harder to do that if word gets around that I'm a murderer."

"True." She acknowledged.

"Are you planning to stay in Dyssa?" He asked conversationally as he followed her down the small deer trail that they had used to get to their campsite. "After you've done whatever it is you've planned to do? I mean, you've stayed for fifteen years, that's quite a long time. I enjoy your company, even if you're not who I thought you were…" He trailed off. His heart ached. He realized that he felt like there was a timer on his relationship, like he had lost his wife and father all at once, and was now drifting, alone in the world. Even as his wife's shapely body was walking, right in front of him. It just wasn't the same. It'd never be the same.

"I will stay." She said. "It would… cost you… if I left. Although this time is… blink of eye, for me, I know it is… half your lifespan. Would not be fair to… keep you for so long and then let you go."

His heart softened a bit at this, but he was still unsure. There were so many questions in his mind, and he didn't know if any of them would piss her off, or worse. The captor-captive scenario had eased, somewhat, but he still had bruises blooming where ropes had dug into his wrists, and he knew she could leave him for dead at the slightest turn in the road. The dragon literature was very certain about the unpredictable nature of dragons, and he really didn't want to find out the hard way.

"Was this why…" He searched for the words, but decided to go for it. "Is this why you couldn't have kids, when we tried?" He asked finally. She stopped in her path, and he nearly ran straight into her bag.

"Yes and no." She said. She turned to look at him. "It's not because I am… dragon. Deatheater. It's because Mira's body … not right. The body is important, but she… barren?"

She shrugged, as if offering an apology. He wasn't surprised, of course -- they had been trying for years.

"Did you know?" He asked, and she nodded.

"I knew you wouldn't… believe me. Not when I was just Mira. Had to be… other. To be heard." She turned around with that and kept walking. Stan knew it was true. Even if she had said she was barren, there's no way he would've believed her even two days ago.

What did that say about him? As a man? As a shaman? Not even able to believe his own wife about her body? But when suddenly it's not hers, he understands? He put those troubling thoughts about bodily autonomy and respecting women on the shelf for the moment.

"Sorry." He offered in the silence. "For not respecting you. Believing you. Like I should have. Just because you were a woman." The apology felt strange, but right, on his lips. She accepted it graciously.

"Men are… strange beasts. In some ways, stranger than my kind. You… wrap yourselves up in ideas, in hopes, in power. But you never truly… listen." She said, pivoting the subject. "I think… you better than most. I will share soon why I am here, in hopes that you… open ears and understand."

"Thank you." He was unsure of what else to say. They walked in silence a while longer.

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