The Best Medicine Ch. 05

As Shadow Wing landed, the smaller dragon, Aodh, immediately took a subservient pose, head bowed and body below that of the larger beast. After a moment, the two dragons' eyes met, then Aodh started looking around frantically. Shadow Wing let out a puff of smoke, rolled its eyes, then looked at Aodh's feet. The smaller dragon looked quizzically at its larger counterpart, then lifted its front foot. There, it found the remains of the werewolf it had stepped on earlier.

Farmer was grinning and on the verge of laughing as the smaller dragon started shaking its foot, much like it was trying to get a piece of gum off of its shoe. Finally, it scraped the bloody corpse off using a tree. Shadow Wing stared at Aodh, then looked around the field. The younger dragon nodded enthusiastically, then began to march in a circle around the clearing while Shadow Wing headed over towards Farmer and company.

Halfway there, Shadow Wing began to transform, smoke pouring out from its very core. When the smoke cleared, a muscular, gorgeous, and wholly naked woman stood where the dragon had just been.

"I swear, that boy would lose his head if it wasn't attached," the woman was muttering as she arrived at Farmer's location.

"He's a good kid," Lillian scolded the newcomer. "He does his best, and it might not hurt to remind him of that." She motioned to the werehyena. "Shamira, this is Farmer, leader of the Joker's Wild hyena pack. Farmer, this is Shamira."

Shamira nodded, crossing her powerful arms over her enormous chest. "Nice to meet you, all things considering."

Farmer returned the nod, a little dumbfounded as to what to say. "You're a dragon."

"You've rendered another one in total awe," Lillian chuckled.

The muscular woman actually looked flustered . . . almost embarrassed. "So, where's this Princess we came to rescue?"

"She's unconscious, but otherwise appears unharmed. We have three werehyenas to patch up, but this is the only one who had life-threatening wounds. We can patch everyone else back together once we get to Savannah."

"Savannah? I thought you guys were based out of Atlanta."

"Normally, yes. But security is tighter at Banshee's territory down in Savannah thanks to the Greater Dragons, so Lord Stapleton thought it would be better to take the Princess there. The Representative is already down there, and the Alpha and Shepherd are on their way."

"Well, this is gonna be a party," Farmer muttered. "So . . . you're a dragon?"

Shamira through her arms up in the air. "Yes, I'm a dragon. Living incarnation of Shadow Wing, yaddah yaddah yaddah. Can we just move past that part?"

"No," Reaper said.

"Unlikely," Bangaly added.

"You're joking, right?" Farmer said. "You're a fucking dragon! A big one! That's . . . that's gotta be the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"It is rather impressive," Lillian added, standing and giving Shamira a peck on the cheek.

"She's hot!" Jack said, his hand covering the scars on his face.

"Well, at least now we know he's okay. He's oggling," Farmer said. Then she glanced at the Princess. "Speaking of subjects of his affection, I wonder why --" She stopped, glancing at Lillian. Currently, no one outside the caravan knew that Trina was still alive. And why hadn't Trina taken over Vanesse's body?

Vanesse's eyes opened. "Did we win?" she gasped.

"Groan."

Farmer looked over to the source of the noise, and her blood froze. The vampire! She had completely forgotten about the blood-sucking fiend, and now the bitch was awake! With a snarl, Farmer lunged across the earth, closing in. As soon as the vamp opened her eyes, the werehyena punched straight between them.

The being who had caused them all so much heartache went flying back in an undignified clump, crashing and rolling in the dirt.

"Wait!" Vanesse screamed, but her voice was drowned out my Farmer's anger.

"Uhm, should we be interfering or helping?" Shamira asked.

Lillian nodded. "That's the vampire that the Representative warned us about. They've been looking for her for centuries."

Farmer leaped up and came down with claws extended, intent on taking the vampire's head clean off. But those dark, sultry eyes were opened and . . . confused. The would-be victim rolled backwards, getting out of the way just in the nick of time.

"I think the boss is claiming this fight," Jack said. "She --"

"Stop her!" Vanesse bellowed. "That's not who you think it is!"

"Princess, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I --"

Vanesse recognized the voice, but not the face. "Lillian? What are you . . . that's not the vampire!"

Farmer was drawing on every ounce of primal rage at her disposal, to the point where she was knocking over trees to get at a vampire who seemed to be retreating without actually going anywhere.

"Don't hurt her!" Vanesse screamed again, then went charging after the fight.

"Princess!" everyone shouted at once as they gave chase. All except Shamira, who just shook her head.

"It was supposed to be my weekend off," she grumbled, then started to change back to her dragon form.

Farmer grabbed a log that most people could not even lift and swung it at her adversary. The vampire ducked, then seemed to find her voice.

"What the fuck are you doing, you insane mongrel?! Do not MAKE me kick your ass again!"

Farmer swung down, causing her vampire opponent to cartwheel somewhat gracefully out of the way. "It wasn't me you fought last time," she growled. "It's not me you jumped from behind and --"

"What are you (duck) talking about? Did someone (dodge) put some bad shrooms on your pizza? If you hurt Vanesse's body, I'm going to beat you so bad, even your mama won't love you."

That made Farmer pause for just a moment. "Vanesse's . . . Trina?!"

"Of course it's Trina, you half-wit! Who else would be possessing Vanesse's body?"

"That's . . . not Vanesse's body."

"Of course it is," the vampire said, then looked down. "Though I don't remember Vanesse wearing . . . when did she dye her hair black?"

Vanesse stumbled between the two of them, throwing her hands up to protect the vampire.

"Princess, get away from her!" Lillian shouted when she arrived, cutting off Vanesse's explanation. "That's Natasha Baranova, a very old and very dangerous vampire! She's completely insane and --" It was Lillian's turn to be confused, when the would-be villain jumped in front of Vanesse and took a defensive stance.

"Where?" the vampire said, looking around. "I don't hear anything."

"If you would just let me explain --" Vanesse started to say, then was interrupted again when the remainder of Joker's Wild, along with Lillian's bodyguards and a pair of full-sized dragons arrived.

"Duh . . . dragon!" Vanesse said, staring at the sky, then subsequently fainted.

"Princess!" the vampire said, moving faster than the eye could follow and catching the elf before she hit the ground.

"Natasha, don't hurt the Princess. It's over," Lillian said. "If you let her live --"

"Okay, who are you and why are you calling me Natasha?"

"Let's not play games," Lillian said, her voice soothing. She saw Bangaly raise his weapon half-way, making sure that Natasha saw him. That meant that Reaper, one of Lord Stapleton's assassins, was somewhere nearby, waiting for his shot. "You don't need to do this."

"What are you . . . wait," the vampire said, lifting up the Princess. She looked at Farmer. "This is Vanesse!"

Farmer nodded. "Yep."

"I'm not in Vanesse!"

"Nope."

"Who's in Vanesse?!"

"At the moment, just her."

"So who am I in?"

Farmer pointed towards Lillian. "I think she has an explanation as to the 'who' of it."

"What are you two talking about?" Lillian asked.

"Uhm . . . well . . . erh . . . hmm," Farmer muttered in order.

"Actual words might help," Lillian suggested dryly.

"Speaking really isn't her strong suit," Jack mumbled. "Could someone fix my face? I mean, chicks dig scars and all, but this is just a bit gross."

"EVERYBODY STOP!" This was projected directly into the skulls of everyone present by one very confused Greater Dragon.

Farmer held her head. "Ouch! Not so loud. Why didn't anyone tell me that it --"

"She," Lillian corrected her.

"-- that SHE could do that?"

"You didn't ask," came the prim, telepathic response.

"If we could wake up Vanesse, she could probably explain it better than I could," Farmer said, sitting down and shifting all the way back into her human form. One of her own had arrived carrying Doreen, so she went to check on the fallen hyena.

"I whacked her good," the weak but still animated girl said.

"Yeah, I can tell. Was your master plan to strangle her with your lower intestines?"

"Only if stabbing her in the eye with an exposed rib didn't work."

"That's my girl," the matriarch said, ruffling the girl's hair.

"Okay, could people stop pointing guns at me and explain what happened?" the captive vampire said.

Lillian gave a quick boost of power to Vanesse, bringing her into the conscious world again.

"Where . . . what . . . I could have sworn I saw a . . . dragon," she ended in a whisper, staring up at the blackness she had mistaken for the sky.

"Good evening Princess, Shamira sent, "I mean you no harm."

Vanesse could not speak. The Greater Dragons were things of legends, even to the legendary. Before her stood something that she had only heard in the wildest tales, curled up in her father's arm as he spoke in melodramatic tones before an open fire.

"Princess?" Lillian asked. "Vanesse?" She snapped her fingers in front of the elf's face, which seemed to finally get her attention.

"That's a dragon."

"I know."

"Right there."

"I can see her."

"No, she's right there!" Vanesse said emphatically, pointing at Shadow Wing.

"Yes, she's a very good friend of mine. In other words, we've met." Lillian smiled.

"There was another one and --" Vanesse followed Lillian's pointed finger to where the smaller-ish green dragon was looking on quizzically.

"And we'll talk all about the dragons AFTER you explain why you don't want us to kill Natasha." When Lillian was met with a blank stare, she added, "The vampire who killed Trina."

"Trina!" Vanesse said excitedly, looking up and then seeing . . . her. The woman who killed her best friend. Her new best friend, currently cradling the Princess in her arms. "Don't hurt her!"

Everyone looked from the elf to the theoretically hostile vampire. Well, everyone except Farmer.

"See?" she said. "Told ya."

Vanesse struggled a bit, so the vampire put her down. "This," she said, "is Trina."

Lillian looked confused. "Trina was your battle-dancer. That's --"

"I know, I know. Listen, there was something I didn't come clean about the last time we talked. Trina isn't completely dead." Then like a flood, Vanesse spilled the story, from Trina's death to being reincarnated within Vanesse's mind. She left out the part where Trina had interpreted events as being rejected by the Dancer in White. That seemed far too personal.

"That's not possible," Lillian said. "Only vampires and demons can occupy a human host. Vampires only possess their own bodies, and demons force their way into someone else's."

"Possible doesn't seem to apply here," Vanesse replied. "Because the woman in my head was Trina. Now . . . Trina's in here," she said, putting a hand on the vampire Natasha's shoulder.

"But . . . how?"

Vanesse took a deep breath. "I did a full-force life blast on the vampire,forced her spirit out and replaced it with Trina's."

Most everyone looked confused, except for Reaper, Lillian, and vampire Trina.

"That's impossible!" Lillian said.

"You forced a host spirit out of its vampire body?" Reaper said, an unaccustomed fear in his voice.

"Vanesse, you could have hurt yourself!" Trina said, shaking Vanesse by the shoulders. "Or worse!"

"I couldn't let her keep on walking while you were trapped inside my head! She took your body away, why shouldn't I give you hers? She killed you! She deserved to die!"

Lillian still looked stunned. "You forced the spirit of a vampire almost half a millennium old out . . . on force of will?"

"Is that hard?"

"It's unheard of! Any kind of expenditure like that should have killed you. I . . . and I'm not sure what kind of precedent this sets." Lillian looked at Reaper, the only other vampire present. "By all accounts, it was self defense, but . . . there will be some vampires who are more than a little concerned about what you did. What you're capable of doing."

"I . . . I was just so angry," Vanesse whispered, feeling herself wrapped up in Trina's new, strong hands. "All that she did to us. To you."

"I'm not mad at you," Trina said, unfamiliar with the sound of her own voice. It was too deep and husky for her liking. "Except for putting yourself in danger. Again. We'll figure this out, okay?"

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I think we need to get going," Shamira thought. "There is only so much interference that the Lord of Tennessee is going to be able to run, and we've made quite a commotion out here.

"You're right, of course," Lillian said, her eyes still on the Princess. "I think that I'll ride with her Majesty. Has transportation been arranged?"

"We're switching vehicles again?" Farmer muttered. "I'm leaving a trail of broken parts across North America."

"Lord Stapleton has provided several buses. Your getaway vehicles will be disposed of in a manner that they cannot be traced back to you. We will be accompanying the Princess." She looked up. "You might want to take the young one and fly home."

"I'm not that young," came a new set of thoughts, broadcast from the smaller dragon.

"You're two, Aodh. That's young."

Vanesse snickered as the smaller dragon actually seemed to pout, then took off into the sky.

"Great, now I'm going to have to boost his ego," Shamira thought, glaring at an unrepentant Lillian, then followed her charge into the darkness.

"He's only two?" Farmer asked, her disbelief plain to see.

"Physically, but he's the equivalent of a teenager mentally. Whether that's a good thing or not varies greatly on whether you're asking Shamira when dealing with him or when she's dealing with the younger ones."

"How many are there?" Vanesse asked.

"There's Aodh, two sea serpents, a quetzalcoatl, a stone dragon, and a horned dragon. So that would be six, plus Shamira." Lillian grinned. "We get so excited when a new one hatches, then Shamira realizes that it means she gets less time alone with her girlfriend. That's when she starts banging her head against a rock."

"She's amazing," Vanesse said

"That she is," Lillian agreed. "That she is. Shall we depart, Princess?"

Vanesse nodded and made her way towards the road, surrounded by werehyenas, Lillian and Lord Stapleton's guard, and by Trina. Vanesse's gaze kept falling on the new incarnation of her best friend. The vampire was staring at her hands, and had gone completely silent when Vanesse had been fawning over the dragons. She raised her hand to get her friend's attention, but she was swept into a vehicle which Lillian was using as a mobile medical station. Vanesse wanted to watch a master at work, with Farmer's doctor's training coming in handy. But she kept looking around for Trina, who seemed to have vanished.

After an hour, Lillian had the wounded patched up, and she looked much fresher than Vanesse would have. She had explained energy flow and retention, and what seemed like a million other things that she should have known. It frustrated her all over again how little her skills had advanced. Lillian had taught her more in a few phone calls and an hour on a bus than her uncle's tutors had in fifteen years.

"Where's Trina?" she asked at last.

"The . . . your friend is actually on the next bus," Lillian said slowly and calmly.

"Why? She's my battle-dancer, so she should be --"

"We don't know what you did or what happened exactly, so if there's any chance that Natasha is still in there, we can't risk her being near you. The Representative informed us that she is completely insane."

"No, she's gone. I felt her leave. I want my friend," the Princess said, trying to summon up some royal backbone. "Now."

"Princess, I don't think that's --"

"Unless you've moved from rescuers to kidnappers, you have no right to keep her away from me! You cannot tell me who I can and can't --"

"Your Highness, she agreed to it."

Vanesse's felt like she had been punched in the gut. "No, no she wouldn't." In thirty years of Vanesse's life, Trina had never voluntarily left her side. This had to be a mistake.

"Yes, she would. I believe you that Trina is in that body now, but if there is any chance that Natasha could re-exert control, we want to keep you safe. Farmer is here, and her seconds are in better shape now. They can protect you if you don't trust me and Lord Stapleton's men," she added, pointing towards the others on the bus.

"If she was going to hurt me, she would have when she had the chance," Vanesse growled through gritted teeth. "I . . . want . . . my friend."

Lillian pulled out her phone. "I'm going to call the next bus. You can talk to her and ask her. Okay?"

Vanesse took the phone as if she thought Lillian might bite her. "Hello? Trina?"

The voice that came through the other end sent a chill through her. The voice held no fond memories for her. "Princess?"

"Trina, if you call me Princess one more time, I will fire you. I mean it," Vanesse said, trying to alleviate her mood a bit.

"How are you holding up?"

"Well, I was doing fine until someone told me that you shouldn't be around me. How could you agree to that? How --"

"Vanesse, I had to. What you did is unprecedented. I don't feel anyone else in here like I did when I was in your head, but we have to be sure. It's just until Lillian can take a better look around my head."

"This is supposed to be the good part, though. We're safe, we're free . . . you're supposed to be here with me to celebrate."

"You can celebrate with Farmer and the gang. Doreen almost died trying to save you, and Alani and Jack both got hurt. They can --"

"None of them are you! You're my friend and my battle-dancer and --"

"I'm not your battle-dancer," came a whispered reply. "Not anymore."

Vanesse shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

"By our oldest laws, only elves can be battle-dancers. I'm . . . I'm not an elf anymore."

"That's a technicality!"

"No, it isn't. And it's a rule that the monarchy and your people agree on. No matter what, your uncle will insist that you get a full battle-dancer . . . and elvish battle-dancer --"

"So by trying to give you your life back, you're . . . you're leaving me?"

There was silence for a moment, broken by a voice choked with an emotion that Vanesse could not recognize. "I gave you my Word that I would always protect you, and even without my Word, you know how I feel about you. And if there is ANY chance that my being near you might cause you harm, then I have to take that seriously. But . . . I --"

"Yes?"

"Vanesse, I don't even know who I am now. I hear my thoughts, but when I look in my reflection, do you know who I see? The woman who killed me. At least when I was in you, it was a person I knew, someone's whose face I had looked at every day. More often than my own, I think," she added a bit shyly, and in a way that made the Princess's heart pitter-pat. "I know what you tried to do and that you were doing it for me . . . from your heart. I just don't know what it leaves me as."

Vanesse wanted to cry, but she would not. A Princess did not cry in public, in front of strangers. "You're still Trina. You're still the woman who knows me better than I know myself. You're the amazing person who's saved my life and made the world less scary. You're the one who always came through for me."