Pain nourishes courage. You cannot be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
~Mary Tyler Moore
Days pass. Weeks. The demons decide to give me food and water. I guess what he said was true. They don’t want me to die. Small comfort that is. Having to be grateful to demons. Damn them!
I know they grow impatient with me. Each time he visits, the cool mask slips just a little further, his words are just a little more desperate. I could have escaped from here long ago, but the incident on the road made my talent flee from me. I’d never killed anything before. Maybe that’s why.
Finally, the day comes when they have no more patience left for me. He enters, holding the lantern, his face completely expressionless, and almost angry. He doesn’t sit down this time, but remains standing, as though to remind me who is in control here.
“You won’t get many more chances to accept this on your own, child. They,” he jerks a nod upwards, “grow impatient with you to rejoin your kin. Accept it, Rois. You know it is the truth. Come home, Rois Melinor.”
I was ready to give in when he entered the cell that day. But, at the use of my surname, my human surname, he unwittingly tells me that I am really not one of this. Demons don’t have or use surnames. To use mine can mean only one thing: he is lying. And that infuriates me.
“No,” I hiss. “Go back to them, you crawling, cringing hellspawn, and leave me in peace. I am not a demon! I am not!” I repeat those words over and over, louder each time. This angers him.
Faster than my eyes can follow, he sets down the lantern and pulls me as far up as possible by the front of my shirt. “Fool!” he snarls, enraged. “You don’t know what you are doing!” He shakes me, but I don’t notice at all. His words make no sense, but are merely an odd, buzzing sound. The shadows cast by the lantern ripple sinuously and slowly, and a familiar feeling comes over me. The feeling of transformation.
This time, the change is slower, and almost painful. Scales cover my body, and once again, my tail lashes out, but this time, it destroys a section of wall. I’ve become enormous, my forelegs almost as thick around as my whole body was before. My tail lashes out another section of wall, and suddenly, daylight pours in, glittering on my silver-blue body. It is then that I realize what I have become. I am a dragon, one of those mighty creatures of legend, vanished for five centuries from this worlds-realm.
My tongue tastes the air, and I can smell the fear of the pitiful demon before me. In this form, I see what he truly is; a sinuous mass of shadows flickers underneath the human form, and the ever-changing eyes stare up with fear and hatred. The fire of rage burns inside, and before I know what I’m doing, I take a deep breath and spout flame at the demon. But this flame is different. It has none of the true heat of a wood-fire; it has the unnatural, magical heat of the hottest deserts, the chill of the coldest wastelands, and a destructive power that is nearly unimaginable. This flame tears away at the solid stone until its energy is expended, then it simply vanishes. The demon has time for a brief scream of agony before he is nothing but a few ashes floating in the air.
I turn with a cry of triumph and crouch, then spring into the air and spread my wings for flight. But before I can make good my escape, two dragons of shimmering black appear in the sky. Damn, I think to myself.
Stop now, Rois Melinor, a voice from nowhere orders. Stop now and you will not be hurt. Halt, and your crimes shall be pardoned.
“No!” I scream in defiance.
You seal your own fate, the voice warns. It is too late for you now.
“So you say,” I mutter, and turn to fly away from the demon-dragons. But my form matches my own age; immature and unable to outfly adult dragons. I realize this a bit too late, as claws sink into my back and immobilize my wings. With a dragonish scream of agony, I twist wildly in the clutch of the demon, but to no avail. Slowly and surely, I am forced down to the ground.
The pain causes me to shift back to human, and I crumple to the ground in agony. I can feel the blood seeping from my back and soaking my thin shirt. The demons change to a human form and stand over me, silent and forbidding. I barely feel their icy hands when they force me to my feet and nearly drag me away, back into that forsaken fortress.
A door in one of those dark corridors opens on its own, and I am flung inside. The last sound I hear before darkness claims me yet again is harsh, mocking laughter.