Rosaspinam

She starts her day by reinforcing the wards. Arcane energy weaves a shroud that shrinks and vanishes, tendrils swallowed by the jungle's humidity. Next, she checks the booby-traps. Empty as ever. The final step is to pray; she hasn't felt the Arcanist in years, but she still kneels before her halfhearted shrine and mumbles a few words, hoping they'll keep her enemies at bay.

Distantly, the sound of a dragon running. She lopes forward to meet them and they wheel around together, neither slowing, both bearing towards the heart of the clan. Quince, a member of the Wellsprung. His eyes are wild.

"Rosaspinam, the coatl you described--she's here, she's meeting with the clan-heads."

Her voice shakes. "You're sure?"

"I saw her fangs. She wants to ally with--" Rosaspinam sprints ahead, pink afterimages embedding themselves in the mud. There they are, the clan leaders walking on either side of her, laughing, chatting. Aria asks her hosts to excuse her, and they smile and nod, continuing down the path without her. Quince takes an apologetic step back. The coatl's voice is soft. "Come here." Rosaspinam tries to snarl, but her throat fails, and she feels her legs trembling beneath her. No, no, no! She'd fought it off--this can't be happening, but Aria just sits back on her haunches, spreads her arms in a waiting embrace. Her smile is gentle, maybe a little sad. Rosaspinam feels her feet start forward. "Rosy, my lovely, let's not fight!" The coatl's smile widens, sun glinting off the metal on her fangs. "I'm not here to steal you." Venom fizzes in Rosaspinam's bloodstream. How long had it been since Aria's last "blessing?" Must have been months--can't be much of it left--she spits razor-edged spells that should've blanched the dirt and turn the grass to paste.

But they fizzle out, and even as every nerve and muscle screams at the sight of the coatl, she feels them straining to obey. Aria wraps her arms and wings around the snapper's head, smothering her in the damp warmth of her feathers. The familiar smell, with its hints of metal and nectar, is enough to make Rosaspinam sick. Aria presses their faces together.

"We love your clan, Rosy. They're going to love us, too, and I want them to love you just the way we do! I've seen some of Her plan. You remember the Well? It's going to make you so soft..."

The images come rushing back--eyes in a clearing, the melted forms of once-dragons, sides heaving and shuddering like nightmare bellows. And within the Well, under the surface, the things Aria didn't see, couldn't see or refused to. Living, whole, conscious things, all twisted beyond belief and old beyond knowing, radiating magic like miniature suns. And she remembered herself bolting into the jungle, crashing through the trees, not stopping until she met the Wellsprung and promised to fight for them. Never should have stopped. She finally tears herself free.

Aria stands there, blinking. Smiling.

"I know there's something that stole you away. No one blames you, we just want to be sure we don't lose our general again. And it's okay if you want to run! Otherwise, we'll have to convince your clan to give you up. And I really think I love them, I really, really do. But you taught some of them to fight us. Nature against Nature! I'd never ever hurt them, Rosy! Why would you do that?"

There's real pain in her voice as they stand there, prophet and general. Finally, Rosaspinam finds her voice. "You'll expose them to the Well."

"I'll protect them. I'm here to keep them safe from the un-Natural Flights. From assassins and spies and..." her voice trails off, eyes harden, she takes a step forward. "...pink-eyed war criminals."

The poison digs deep. Old memories rise as hallucinations, trapping Rosaspinam in a cocoon of screaming and bleeding, flashes of pink and green, sizzling radiation eating through scales. There's pain in her voice, too. "I'm sorry."

"I know, sweetie, and that's why I'm here to save you." Aria wades through rune-smoke as a pink sea rises and the ground drops away. Rosaspinam is drowning. Aria extends her claw. "Easy way or hard way?"

Rosaspinam sinks into the tide.

She wakes in her lair, her wards scattered, her traps torn down, her half hearted shrine to the Arcanist gone. But for the first time since she met Aria, she's fully free of her poison-blessing. Beautiful, blasphemous thoughts flood her mind, until she realizes the implication. Aria had passed judgement and marked their next target. Not her as she had been--half-obedient, cloudy-eyed. No. Aria needed her sober, hateful, unholy, complete.

The general sweeps the table clear and settles down to plan.





Art by Hyracia