Scales like Stars Pt. 06

"Did you attack my husband? My people?" Relix snarled, her hands clenching as she took a step forward. Cold energy crackled around her mouth and she actually looked as if she was becoming larger with every moment, her muscles hardening. This made the woman blink. Slowly, she looked back at Relix.

"You care?" she asked.

"I...what?" Relix spluttered. "Of course I-"

The old woman stood so fast that Lisa could hear her knees popping. "You don't merely care! You're worried!"

"I heard spinfusors! Of course I'm worried!" Relix snarled, her claws flexing, her wings flaring out. "My husband is out there with a hatchling to-"

"Oh praise the gods!" the woman laughed, then flumped backwards onto the side of the pool. Her head rolled backwards and she closed her eyes, grinning. "I won. I told you I'd win, you cynical bastard."

Lisa looked at Relix, then at the woman. "Okay. Um, maybe you should explain, and fast, because-" she paused. She realized she couldn't hear, nor feel, the combat going on in the rest of the castle. "I really hope that means they won."

"Oh, that battle is on hold for now," the woman said. "I tucked us into our own little demiplane a few seconds ago." She waved her hands. "Come, sit, my children. And let..." She chuckled. "Let Granny Goodness tell you a story."

It was a good thing Lisa was not Merton.

Merton would have shot the woman right then and there.

Lisa was more of a Marvel girl, after all.

Sitting down before the old woman, Lisa set the rifle next to her. Bathing in the radiance of the pool felt astoundingly restful. Granny Goodness cracked her knuckles with a series of bangs and pops nearly as intense as the spinfusor fire from earlier, then started to speak. "In a time before the fall of Atlantis. Before the rise of the sons of Ares and the spread of the Hellenic Way. In a time before the Ming domesticated the great wyrms of old, and the Great Count was new, and the fourth world was young..." She sighed. "It was a time of magic and wonder and terror the likes of which you could not imagine."

"Where?" Relix asked. "I've never heard of-"

"On Earth," Granny said, reaching out to rap on Relix's head. "It's bloody obvious, innit?"

"What!?" Relix asked.

"B-But we're-" Lisa looked at Relix. "Mage blind!"

"Says the woman with the eyes plucked from her head," Granny said. "A great wealth of magic flowed through Earth, like a river. A feature of the mantle and the moon was the theory. A large moon. An active mantle. All developing when the early buzz of the Big One kept roaring." She shrugged. "Who knows. Maybe that's the case. Maybe not. What matters is Earth had a glut of wonder."

"What happened to it?" Relix asked.

Granny slowly turned her gaze on Relix.

Relix didn't get it for about thirty seconds. Then every single feather on her head drooped.

"Oh..." she whispered.

"Oh. Indeed." Granny frowned. "The dragons were the first of our inventions. We took the best here, the best there, of all our favorite animals. The wings of the bat. The splendor of the great lizards. The intellect of the parrot..." She grinned, wickedly. "The fuckability of the ewe."

"Ugh!" Lisa made a face.

Relix started spluttering like a teapot again.

"And things were good," Granny said, quietly. "But do you know who fucked it up?"

"Men?" Lisa asked.

"Of course humanity would force our hand!" Relix said, sounding defensively.

"No, not man. Men." Lisa shrugged. "For the past three thousand years, men have been responsible for the massive share of humanity's incredibly piss poor decisions. Nearly every war, genocide, spree shooting-"

Relix blinked, then looked at Granny.

Granny nodded. "It was a man. A terrible man named..." She opened her mouth. But no sound came out. Instead, there was a blank spot in the world, a blankness that felt as off putting and discomforting as nails on a chalkboard. Relix and Lisa squirmed. "...and his weaponized dragons. He made the chromatics, you see. And the wars they started were devastating. And when the killing was done, they realized they had a taste for it. And the killing began all over again..."

"Why couldn't I hear his name?"

"It was struck..." Granny looked down and to the side. "Struck from the annals by the strongest magics there were."

Relix bristled. Then she sprang to her feet. "Not all men!"

"Hashtag what?" Lisa asked.

"You both are so eager to throw down an entire gender because of the mistakes of some of history's greatest monsters! But...but...but..." She trembled. "But that's throwing aside every gentle heart and strong soul. Every Merton and every Brash and Carlos, and even Trevor! There's so much passion in each of them, and when they harness it they can do amazing things! It's easy to be cynical, but...but..." She closed her eyes, her snout glistening. Tears gleamed in her eyes. "But if we don't believe in them, then what the fuck are we doing anyway? If we cannot love, then why even fight?"

Lisa smiled, slightly.

Granny looked as if she had been clubbed in the side of the head. "Which breed of dragon are you, missy?"

"Feathered," Relix snapped. She jerked her head to the side, wiping at her snout with her forearm. Her tail lashed. "And open a damn portal to my husband, or-"

"Wait..."

Granny and Relix both looked at Lisa.

Lisa looked at Granny.

"What cynical bastard were you talking about before?" Lisa asked, watching Granny.

Granny sighed. "If there's a Granny, there's a Grandfather." She shrugged. "I control the castle. He controls the shadows inside. They've kept me here."

Lisa paused. "I don't buy it."

Granny looked at her, her brow furrowing.

"Every other human with magic like yours is dead. Any human left, like this Grandfather, they wouldn't have spent thousands of years just keeping you prisoner. And if you guys didn't build dragons with failsafes, then I'm a monkey's uncle." She stood slowly up. "Grandfather would have taken over the galaxy centuries ago. So, that means, either Grandfather is hiding among dragons...or there's something you're not telling us." She looked around the room. "Also, kinda interesting how you can control a fortress made of solidified regret with your mind."

"You think you're a real smart bitch, don't you?" Granny asked, her voice sour.

Relix grabbed Granny by the throat. She lifted the incredibly elderly woman up and snarled, her voice a low growl. "Explain."

Granny's feet kicked. Her face purpled.

"Humans can't talk while you're holding them up like that!" Lisa exclaimed.

"Oh, right," Relix said, looking abashed. She set Granny down. Granny coughed, rubbing at her throat.

"Fucking gods," she gasped. "I forgot how dim dragons can be..."

Relix's growl was loud enough to shake the room.

Granny rubbed her shoulder. "Fine..." she looked down. "I'm him. I'm..." She spoke the name again - and again, Relix and Lisa shuddered. "I was the only one left, after the war, save for the slaves."

"Slaves..." Lisa whispered. "You didn't mention the slaves earlier."

Granny scowled, showing her blackened teeth. "Hey, bitch, nostalgic editing!"

"So, you made chromatic dragons," Lisa said. "And after the genocide, you fled here, the last place in the multiverse anyone would look for you." She shook her head. "Surrounded by your own self hatred, sustained by your own stubbornness..."

"Why did you become a girl?" Relix asked. "Beyond us being the clearly superior gender."

Granny shot her a look.

Relix scoffed. "Just because not all men are terrible doesn't mean that women aren't clearly better. Duh."

Granny sighed. "I thought...if I changed...the castle would let me out. Back then, I thought it was someone else. It was Goodness, or Ethosa, or the Nameless One. I thought they had survived and were wreaking vengeance on me from a distance. I tried every form - until...I realized that it wasn't the form. It wasn't them. It was just...me." She spread her hands, slowly. "And that I would never leave."

Relix nodded.

Lisa looked down at her rifle. "Is there a failsafe?" She asked. "Some kind of magical self destruct that works on dragons?"

"If there is," Granny said. "I'm not sharing it." She looked at Relix. "Some of them, at least, deserve the chance to prove they're better than their creators."

Relix's muzzle flushed. Lisa closed her eyes. She breathed in, then breathed out. "All right." She shouldered her laser rifle, swung it around, and fired into the pool before anyone could stop them. The pulse of laser light smashed into something deep within the water, sending up gouts steam of blessed heat. The pulses kept pouring from the rifle, causing a stutering drum of steam bursts, until the pool flickered, then went out. Granny gaped at her.

Lisa looked back. She smiled.

"An exit, ama sani," Lisa whispered.

Granny smiled as the light faded more and more. Darkness surrounded them. Then the door opened - and Lisa and Relix stepped out into a courtyard of slagged glass and smoldering piles of ash and scorch marks and spent shell casings and still humming spinfusor disks and a discarded hellwhip - still crackling with heat. They walked slowly past a shadow of past regrets that had been sliced cleanly in half.

Merton sat on a pile of obsidian bodies, still sheathed in Brash.

"Hey," he said, panting. "This dragon is OP as balls."

Relix tackled him with delight.

TO BE CONTINUED