The dragon-girl almost preens as the stare of the boy caresses her. In the midnight light, she was illuminated green and red as the spirits weaved and danced about her, swaying to a beat so ancient and wild it was a wonder the entire forest was not swaying too. Every now and then, the red would trail closer to the colt, as if daring him to touch her illustrious, elusive form, before trilling a laughing bell and returning to the dance with her brethren.

Amaris watches them silently, feeling their power swirl around her. Control was an illusion; they were souls who had lived their own lives, some wild, some bonded, all of them able to communicate with her in their largely varied ways. Some rarely spoke, some did not know the meaning of silence, and others still simply sang a sad, musical song to the girl. The red today was one Amaris had not met before, and she was devilishly playful and wilful, surely a wild drake in her previous life. The green crooned softly at the back of the golden girl's mind, amusedly pointing out the transformation that the belle was herself unawares of.

More dragon? she questioned the green silently, wondering what it was the wizened one spoke of. How could I become more of what I already am?

You became the queen your mother was, the green simply said, not speaking of how she knew such history. An image of the draconic body her mother could transform into flooded the girl's mind, but she was left to ponder the thoughts on her own, as the green fell silent within her thoughts and simply continued to weave majestically about her hybrid form.

The boy seems to assess her further after her query is posed, as if he had an answer on the tip of his tongue that he had reconsidered giving. Surely it was an easy enough question to answer, surely the boy, an equine one at that, had heard stories of dragons, of their ability to bond with only those who possessed enough equine blood in their veins. Though.. He was only young, and perhaps he was not a native to Helovia - maybe he came from lands where dragons did not reside. Impossible, the green's sultry voice echoed within her mind again, dragons are everywhere. Just not everyone know how to look.

His voice finally breaks the silence again, this time with an answer, a response, a guess. In an instant the dragon, the queen has returned, and she preens before him, sniffs her regal nose in a scoffing, mocking laugh.

But with a flick of her ear, the girl is back, and her golden pools hold a softness to them that the queen's did not. Quietly, the girl murmurs, in her honey-sweet, silken tones; "nay, the gods of this land would not be so easily caught by something so small." She had not meant for her words to be cruel and mocking, and her tones were gentle as they delivered them, but it was an afterthought that said she had been too harsh with them. "I am Amaris," she adds, hoping that by giving herself a label, even if just with her name, she might encourage the same from him.

And always, the girl wondered at the queen that kept surfacing from within her, wondering at whether it was voluntary or not, at whether it would keep happening, whether it might affect her life, whether it was normal or not - but how could one define 'normal' when one was part dragon?


@[Volterra]

Daniel Schiersner @ flickr & larfsalot @ deviantart