003: Training Session

[Carnelia]

I tried to stay strong and be regal and centered, but seeing my babies suffer made me hesitate to leave them even for a moment. What if I took a selfish moment to be somewhere else only to find they had taken a dark turn? Could I forgive myself if they stopped breathing while I was off attending to a personal need?

What kind of mother am I to leave them like I did when they were suffering? I should have sent someone else to speak on my behalf.

After seeing them struggle, I stayed there with them all night, refusing to leave. I also had all my food and other essentials brought here, setting up camp in a comfortable corner of the infirmary. I plan to be here for every moment they have left even if that means I do nothing but watch for the next week.

This situation feels so impossible, I can't think of anything better to do.

I place a hand on my two smallest babies, Nyx and Nox. They are both shadow dragons and hatched on the same day within minutes of one another, giving them the nickname "the twins." They were the last two eggs in my clutch of eight to be laid and the last two eggs to hatch. The eggs were so small and underdeveloped that everyone, including the healers, assumed they wouldn't ever hatch.

But just as we were about to give up home, they proved us all wrong.

Which makes it so much harder to see them suffering now. They seem to have gotten the worst of the condition as well, sometimes disappearing into mist and shadow as their bodies try to make sense of their 4th form while also processing the other three. None of the other babies have shown this particular symptom, for which I am grateful. Every time I see these two shift, I fear it might be the last time I see them at all.

The healers cannot be certain, but based on their observations, they think that even after a cure, these two may have a lifetime of difficulty ahead of them.

They were hatched into suffering and continue to suffer only to possibly suffer for the rest of their lives, even after receiving the cure. And the only way I will get the cure for them is to offer them up to the Luxandrian queen as an offering of peace. It would cost her nothing to give us the cure. But instead of building alliances for the sake of peace, she chooses to use my family as a way to blackmail me into submission.

Once she has my children, there is no guarantee that she won't use their illness as a tool against me, giving them the cure only to take it away before they are completely healed to teach me a lesson. "Oh Primus, why did you leave me to do this alone?"

I massage my babies' backs as they toss and turn. I smile, as I watch them sleep, knowing that every breath is a miracle of sorts, considering I grew up believing I was human and had the fortune of falling in love with a dragon prince.

Leaning against the edge of their crib, I let my eyes close, the feeling of their heartbeats underneath my fingertips calming my frazzled nerves. Each beat of their heart is an affirmation. This is real. They are real. And out there, in the dark, their father is also real.

But he is dead to me. And soon, they might be as well.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, Ona was kneeling, shaking me.

I sit up with a ragged gasp.

“Little Sister,” Ona clasps my shoulders firmly giving me another shake. “You need to get some proper rest. The babies will still be here when you wake up.”

“You can’t know that!” I snap, standing. “What do you know about having little ones to care for? What do you know about wondering if their next breath will be their last? You have no idea what it feels like to be a mother, never mind a mother watching her babies slowly die. You abandoned your babies before they even hatched!"

Ona's eyes widen as my words land, each one stinging her like a hard, vicious slap to her spirit and pride. Her movements are fluid, she rises slowly until she can meet my gaze eye to eye.

“I’m sorry, Ona, I…” I should have never called her motherhood into question. She has done so much to amend the consequences of her choices.

“I know you didn’t mean it, Carnelia,” she fumes, her voice hard. "You’re right, I don’t know how it feels to be you right now because I’ve never been in your situation. However," she takes a deep breath, her fists clenching as she adds, “That doesn’t mean I don’t care about your pain or that of my nieces and nephews. I may have missed my children’s hatching and their childhood, but it was because that was what needed to be done to keep them safe. My father and brother would have killed them if they knew they existed. I didn’t have a choice."

“Ona…” I whisper her name, feeling even worse for making her relive one of her most difficult decisions. "I'm sorry that I hurt you, but you must understand why I need to be here," I plead, "and why I can’t leave them now."

“I know why you might believe that,” her tone is blunt, her eyes glowing red as she turns to face me. “But you can trust me when I say that no amount of suffering on your part will make this problem magically disappear," she flings her hands up with a flourish. "You need to snap out of this...funk and become the queen and mother they need you to be."

"But I need to protect them, I need to be here for them. What if..."

"Stop risking their lives by playing the martyr.” she hisses as she steps forward, fire spiraling around her fingertips. "I don't know what it is about you and my brother, but you both tend to want to wallow in your misery instead of removing the obstacle in your way. What you are doing now," she continues scolding me, her eyes hot coals burning in frustration and anger, "is not serving them or you. None of this will make them well or bring Primus back. The only one who can do that is you. So stop wasting time!" she looks me up and down, shaking her head. "If this is going to work, you need to pack, plan, and train."

"Train?" I shake my head. "I'm not in the mood, Ona, for one of your training sessions right now. There are better things we could be doing with that time and..."

"That's where you're wrong," she interrupts me, raising a red-taloned hand to silence me. "You must continue to fine-tune your powers as a universal dragon. Your secret is our biggest superpower. As far as anyone on the surface knows, you are just a sun dragon, and not a particularly strong one." She smirks. "Universal dragons are so rare, most of them will have never seen another in their lifetimes. We will use that to our advantage, Little Sister," her grin becomes predatory, the edges of her lips curling gleefully as she contemplates what might happen next. "The Luxandrians will not see us coming until it's too late."

"Now come," she looks over her shoulder. "You have 15 minutes to make it to the training mats before I return and force you." She gives me another self-satisfied grin over her shoulder as she lets a spark of lightning flash between her finger and thumb. "Either way, you will join me."

Ona never gives idle threats. That is the first thing to understand about my Sister Queen. Never cross her and never test her. She may look beautiful and even delicate, but she will leave you as burning ashes before you even question whether or not it is a good idea to cross her. 

It isn’t. Ona is hard even for her family. Especially to her family, because she loves us enough to care.

 Since coming to the Celestial Kingdom, Ona has taken it upon herself to help develop my powers to make me into a “true universal dragon.” What it takes to truly become this mythical creature is a bit of a mystery, because it is so rare, and even when it does happen that a dragon is a universal dragon, and they understand what they are, there is no good reason to admit it.

To be a universal dragon is to have the powers of creation at your fingertips. There is no limit, as far as we can tell, to the powers I can learn and absorb. Universal dragons can take the shape and abilities of any other dragon type they encounter, especially those they spend an extended time within close physical proximity. 

Learning to be a sun dragon was easy, almost second nature. It is the type of dragon my mother, Jana, was. Since I spent several months developing within her, growing within my egg, I am naturally familiar with everything that makes a Sun Dragon unique. When I have to choose my natural form, it is always that of a sun dragon. 

Ona believes I might have a different, truer form, but we have yet to unlock it, possibly because I have yet to be in the presence of another universal dragon. 

The only forms I have so far perfected are sun, fire, and, of course, earth dragon types. I’ll never forget what it means to be loved by an Earth dragon. I did, after all, hatch one of the most powerful Earth dragons eight remarkable children--Children that I now need to save by learning any skill I can to give us an advantage. It won’t be enough to cure them--I also need to find a way to keep them and hopefully bring their father home as well. 

When the doors to the sparing room slide open, the first thing I notice is that the room is surprisingly full. Usually, when we train, it is just me and Ona with maybe one or two other dragons for me to learn from.

This time there are at least twenty, possibly more. 

“What is this,” I search Ona’s face, hoping to find some clarity.

The edges of her mouth twist up with an almost malicious glee as she announces her intentions. “Today we are going to test your limits, Little Sister. Truly test them. You are going to spar with each of these dragons. You will learn how they move, how they attack, and how they defend. You will see them in each of their forms. They have all been commanded to not back down until you can demonstrate the ability to take on all of their forms while under stress.”

“But what about getting ready to go?” I protest, looking back the way I came. “Don’t I need to pack and…”

Waving a dismissive hand she laughs. “That’s what servants are for, Little Sister. Right now this is your job.”

The first dragon I face is my nephew, Orion. He is a very unique type of dragon, a combination of fire, sky, and water--a storm dragon. There have been other storm dragons in the past, but currently, he is the only one living in the Celestial Kingdom.

“He’s just a boy!” I glare at Ona. “I am not hurting him.”

“He’s not a boy, he is a powerful drake proven in battle. He is also your opponent. You can choose not to spar, but that will just make it easier for him to defeat you.”

His eyes grow hard, glowing blue as he rises from the ground while in his human form, lightning shooting from his hands and feet. 

I cross my arms, pouting. “No.”

Orion nods to his mother and then, without lifting a finger, he turns to me. His eyes are mesmerizing, enchanting me as they spin and swirl--just before shooting daggers of light from his irises, aimed directly at my chest.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“No,” his grin is a mirror copy of his mother's. “If I were trying to kill you, I’d do this.”

As he raises his hands, wings of lightning form on his back and he dives at me, his energy focused into a blade of burning fire and light. 

Frozen in shock, I am almost impaled before I wake up enough to move out of the way. 

I try to bring forth his lightning but I can barely muster a spark. 

“Do better!” Ona screams.

As her voice crashes into my mind, something shifts in my perspective. 

This isn’t about whether or not I hurt Orion. He can take it. 

This is about whether or not I can trust myself to become the weapon I need to become. Images of my babies at their hatching, the joy I felt when I wrapped my serpentine body around them, only to have that joy dashed as they cried out in pain, one by one. 

Orion makes another pass. This time I don’t move out of the way--I let his power burn through me. He pauses mid-attack, not sure what to do as my body convulses. 

“Aunt Carnelia!” his face is horror-struck as I fall to my knees.

As the pain burns through me, my mind flashes through memories both painful and sweet. I see my family, our life, and how it should have been, with my happy, healthy children running through the halls of our keep.

I see my love, Primus, our fights, our unquenchable passion.

His look of disappointment when I refused him and left him alone at Ridgewood Keep.

  The joy when I finally accepted him, and we twirled in the air as he kissed me breathless.

The feeling of him moving inside of me that first time, claiming every part of my body as his, filling me with our beautiful babies. 

And finally, the cold dead look in his eyes, as he sat next to the Luxandrian Queen, his flash of fear and pain like an arrow to the heart.

I open my eyes. 

Orion and Ona both gasp, taking a step back. 

The lightning rolls along my arms and legs. Wings of light and fire spring from my back and I rise from the ground, my hands promising retribution. 

Laughing, I look at my stunned nephew and ask, “What else do you have for me.”