We were all exhausted after the battle with the evil sorcerer Gurk, he who had transported us from our world to this one of fantastic beings and magic. None had escaped unchanged from our imprisonment in Gurk's citadel; his death and our freedom were gifts we never expected to receive after spending half a year in his kitchens and training fields. Five of us had been transported, five still survived. We had learned new skills but the learning had not come cheap. None of our 'company' had been too harmed; a few bruises, a cut here and there, but the scars of the psyche now ran deep in all. At the moment, we were planning to travel to far off Verst to find a Grand Wizard to hopefully send us home.
A slender blonde and a rough-hewn young man were rummaging through the items we had quickly plundered from the wizard's rooms and storehouses in the chaos. Anna and Mick were seeing what we could use most and was lightest, for the journey to Verst would take many months, and who knew what the game would be like on the road.
Across the glade, three men in armor were swapping stories. Wayne was talking to Garm and Bernie, two of the citadel guards who had escaped the collapsing fortress with us. They were passing a flask between the three of them, laughter becoming louder with every round. I was trying to get a nick out of a sword I had 'borrowed' from the armory on our way out. Blasted thing was being stubborn but I was determined to fix it if it took the entire trip to Verst.
Wayne had begun telling his famous 'Farmer's daughter, a sheep and a guy from Chicago' joke when the sound started. I couldn't make out much of the beginning but it ended in a roared "won't Do IT!" The voice was slightly familiar, though none of us had ever heard her voice that loud before, even when her blood was being taken against her will.
It was Ella, our fifth member, our voice of reason in a world out of a fantasy novel, the quiet one. She had had the worst time at the citadel, for Gurk had performed a spell on her, changing her into a full-fledged weredragon, capable of changing shape at will...or Gurk's command. Seems that old Gurk believed that mature dragons' blood, were- or ordinary, could change lead into gold or give immortality. And he believed that he had finally performed the spell for eternal life...until Ella and Tal had called down the lightnings upon him, incinerating the sorcerer mid-syllable.
A human tornado stormed through the glade, heading toward the other side of forest. Ella. Fuming. Mad. Unbelievably furious, which we had never seen before. Winging in behind her was Tal, the young dragon who Gurk had kept as a living pantry for some of his spells. She had been taken from her parents a hundred years ago, becoming an orphan once Gurk had decided he needed a young dragon for power. We had rescued her, or she had rescued us, it didn't matter. Usually Tal was calm beyond anything happening around her. At Ella's outburst, though, she was looking worried and nervous. Which meant that in anyone else, they'd probably be hysterical and we should all be gibbering in terror.
Anna looked up by the piles of food and weapons, asking, "What's the matter, Ella?"
At her words, Ella visibly tried to calm down but had a hard time trying to hold it all in. "Oh, not much, really, just got a some news on my new body," she laughed, her voice breaking a little. "Why don't you just ask Tal? Or better yet, I'll let you in on the joke, and maybe you can tell me the punch line. It seems that I need a guy. Man or drake, I don't know, but it seems I need to 'get some.'"
At this, Wayne laughed, braying like a donkey. Swaying a little as he moved a few steps away from his buddies, he yelled, "You? Plain Jane? Now _that's_ funny! You couldn't get some if your life depended on it!"
Ella went pale as if the blood in her veins had stopped flowing. A moment later, she turned bright red as if her heart had gone into overdrive. Her eyes throwing sparks, she hissed, "Yeah, something like that." Turning on her heel, she stalked into the forest, hissing things under her breath, shadows wrapping around her.
A loud thump against the ground brought our attention back to the glade, where Tal had just jumped onto Wayne, her talons right against his throat. The guards were on the ground laughing at him, the great warrior being knocked to the ground by a little dragon. Little did they know that anything Tal's size could knock someone off their feet if she got up enough speed. She had only needed a standing jump thanks to Wayne's little happy hour.
"Fool! If you would only usse that head of your'ss for thinking before you sspeak, insstead of ass a sshield during battle! Would that your dam taught you more before allowing you to go out into the world on your own!" Tal's voice was quiet but every word was edged in ice, hissing as her temper overrode her usual self-control. As Wayne's eyes finally showed his realization of how much danger he was actually in, Tal flipped off of him, slapping him in the face, as if by accident, with her tail. His buddies had recovered enough to draw their swords, though their aim currently was moving around as they swerved this way and that.
Mick waved them off, sending them to keep watch in the forest. Who knew what could have heard Ella's roar and would come to investigate? Once they had left, we all gathered, or in Wayne's case rolled over to, around Tal, who was now preening in an effort to calm down.
Anna, always the first to break the ice, asked as she sat down, "Tal, what did Ella mean about needing a man? What's set her off? Is it some kind of after-effect of the spell that transformed her?"
Tal sighed and wrapped her tail around herself tightly. "All I know is the dragon lore I learned from my parents and what I saw at Gurk's citadel. When a dragon is proved both mature in stature and in magic, they are considered ready to mate. Gurk's spell transformed a mature human into a mature dragon and her use of the lightning spell to kill a powerful sorcerer proved her maturity in magic." She looked up at the humans sitting around her. "You see, Gurk was right in his beliefs of the power of dragon's blood. Ella has told me of a stone of the philosophers of your world which can work wonders, the results of which are the same Gurk was wanting. That stone is like the dragons of this world, a combination of all of the elements: we dwell in the earth, we fly through the air, we control the waters of the clouds and the lands, and breathe out the fires of the hearth and the lightning. Our blood is us. The blood of a mature in stature dragon can give immortality. The blood of a mature in body and magic, powerful magic, can raise the dead.
"We live in the fifth element, magic. This element increases in us as we mature, but control of magic is not as easily gained as maturity. A dragon must be able to control the magic or else be destroyed by it. Once a dragon is determined mature enough to mate, the magic will increase out of control in him or her. This keeps happening until they mate. If they wait too long or cannot control the magic within, they will be destroyed by the built-up power, exploding as the magic rages to be freed." Tal lowered her head.
"When a dragon mates, it mates for life, until one partner is dead. The bond between newly mated pairs is usually so strong that the death of one will cause the death of the other immediately. Amie, the first of Gurk's weredragons, mated with a soldier she loved who died the next day in a street brawl. Her death in his workroom left Gurk deaf for a month."
"If a mate is not chosen well, such as against their will or with no love in the mating, all of the magic of the dragon dies. Sela, Gurk's second weredragon, chose a young man who was a kitchen slave in the citadel, chosen only because she thought she would be safe in that he rarely saw danger. When Gurk used her blood for his spell, it aged him an extra hundred years. He killed her then and there. This aging made him desperate enough to take only immortality first. Desperate enough to transport people from another world." She raised her head to look at all of us.
"Though he did not know he would bring so many; all he needed was a young unmated human female. You men were only extras caught in his spell, then curiosities in whether your world could be used to supply slaves and warriors." She gazed sadly at Anna. "You, my dear, would have been his next spell ingredient if Ella had failed."
Mick laid back on the grass, hands behind his head. "So? We find a wizard in Verst to take the weredragon spell off, no problem! She doesn't blow up, we go home and everyone's happy."
Tal quietly asked, "And how long will this trip to Verst take?"
Wayne belched. "Garm said that most caravans take a year or more to get to Verst, depending on weather and troubles on the way. I'd say two years max."
Slowly, Tal lowered her head onto her forearms. "Ella will be dead within the year if she does not mate. And she will not have a choice in the matter near the end. My dam taught me that when a dragon is mature, certain signals are sent on the wind that only mature males will notice. They will seek out the female and court her, or fight other males for the privilege of courting her. As a weredragon, these signals will also be sent to human males, though I doubt they are strong enough yet for human males to notice. Your senses are too weak. But once the signals are strong enough, human males will seek her out to mate, fighting even the dragons to mate with her.
"But if she still does not mate, these signals will start to affect her own body, to force her to mate in an attempt to ensure that there will always be dragons. She will mate whether she wills it or no, believing in her heart that to mate is her only destiny. This first mating does not produce hatchlings, but it ensures that she is prepared for the task. I do not know if she would produce hatchlings even with a human male, but maybe the magic of life decides what the offspring will be.
"I have seen at the citadel how danger and coming terror affect humans and their mating, almost as if they were trying to defy Death by creating life. So it is with dragons, for as the unmated female is more distressed by dangers in her life, the more urgent the mating call becomes."
Wayne groaned at this and rolled over onto his face. "We're doomed. If Ella isn't the most stressed out worry-wart we know, I'm the Queen of England. In a _week_, we're all going to be wanting to f-"
At this, Anna stuffed his face down into the dirt, drowning out his words. "Shut up, your Majesty."
I got a bit thoughtful as Wayne tried to spit grass out of his teeth. "It's not like we can put an ad in the local paper to set her up on a date or anything. 'Single weredragon female, seeking male drake or human for _long_ lasting relationship. Likes to read and sing. Dislikes power-hungry sorcerers. Must be willing to relocate to another world if necessary.' I'd say no smokers but then again, she's a dragon now, and that may be something she likes now." A new thought had occurred to me. "Tal, did Ella say whether she was interested in dragons or guys?" Wayne was turning a sickly green beside me, but I think it was more from the topic than from the grass.
Tal sunk lower onto the ground, her tail now completely wrapped around herself. "I do not know. She seemed to be mostly concerned with human males when we talked. Ella was upset with all of this. More than to be expected from an unmated female. She was distressed with attracting the attention of many males, muttering many things about what she called a 'Love Potion Number Nine' effect. I had never heard of this spell and asked her about it, but she would not elaborate. She was distraught, saying that males would only be interested in her due to the signals. And that she wished to mate for love, that her mate should love _her_, not because of the magic she was giving off."
Tal sighed, then looked up at all of us. "For dragons, we know those who are of mating age around us. Love as you call it grows over centuries, through the raising, defending and teaching of hatchlings. Our minds become one through flights taken and dangers survived. We have the time for these things, for our lives are like a hearth fire while yours is like the lightning.
"I mentioned this to Ella, telling her to simply pick a mate whose qualities she likes and make him hers. She became very quiet and inquired if rape was known among dragons. I answered yes, though it has only happened a mere handful of times, when the male was possessed of great evil. I tried to make her laugh with the thought that it would be quite impossible for a human male to rape a dragon, for she would be able to disembowel him with the merest thought. Instead of laughing though, Ella turned from me and asked that if a male was not interested in her before the signals affected him, would she not be raping him, mating with him against his will? I told her that he would _want_ to mate with her. She faced me again, this time with tears running down her face, crying 'And after the spell wears off, if it can? What then? Will I ever know if I could have found a love without having to use magic or some kind of spell? Will I have to live through the centuries wondering if his love for me is real or just an aftereffect of the spell?' I was very confused and told her that if she desired a male, to take him, to let love grow over time, for if she did not mate, she would die. She screamed that she would not do it, even if it meant her own death, and walked away from me." Tal closed her eyes, obviously wearied from the whole ordeal.
We all turned at the sound of someone rushing through the forest, breaking through brush and old tree limbs. It was Bernie, collapsing a few feet from us. Scrambling to our feet, we rushed over to him. He looked up at us, gasping and trembling in more fear than we had ever seen from him. "Oh please, help me!" he pleaded. We tried to calm him down but he kept gasping like a dying fish.
Wayne shook him a little, yelling, "What happened?"
Bernie looked up at all of us, his eyes wide. "Garm and I went out on patrol like ya asked. We didn't see nothin' for awhile until we came upon the Dragon Lady." That was the name the soldiers at the citadel had for any of the women Gurk had used in his spells. Tal, on the other hand, was the Lady Dragon.
"She was sittin' on a stump, rocking back and forth. Garm thought she was hurt and went over to her. He gave a yelp like somethin' had bit him, so I ran over." Bernie took a deep breathe, trying to calm down. "There were all these jewels around her, all differnt colors and differnt sizes...there was a ruby bigger than my fist!" He clenched his left hand in the air, and amazingly, his eyes got even wider and he started to hyperventilate. He gasped, "Garm took...one of the big blue ones...and he just started weeping like a baby!" Bernie looked wildly at each of us. "Garm! He ain't even cried when his arm got broke and reset! I took one look at him, then decided that I'd take one of the little orange ones. But then I got all scared and I had to find you all...what's _doing_ this to me?" As he wailed, clenching his fists harder, he started shaking harder and harder, until it was almost as if he was having a seizure. I grabbed his left fist and pried it open, and sure enough, there was a little orange stone rolling around on his palm. It fell upon the grass as Bernie collapsed back upon the ground, finally still, completely unconscious. I decided to carefully pick it up...and the whole world changed.
I felt adrenaline pumping through my body, my lungs gasping for air. I looked around the whole glade, completely shocked at why there wasn't hordes of soldiers coming at me, or a group of dragons attacking, or _something_ that would explain why I was _this_ scared. My hands clenched and suddenly I was on the ground, bucking like poor Bernie had been just a little bit ago. It took Mick and Wayne both to pry my hands apart to let the little harmless-looking stone fall back onto the ground. Once I had my breath back and my heart down to at least the speed limit, I sat up. "What _was_ that? It felt like I was being scared to death!"
Tal was taking a close look at the orange stone. At my words, her head snapped up. She whispered, "Oh dear heavens, no...." She started into the forest a little bit before returning. "Quickly...do we have a bag to carry that in?" Mick and Anna rummaged a bit and came up with a small velvet bag.
I scooped the stone up into the bag with out touching it and closed the bag tight. "Tal," I asked. "What's going on? What's happened to Ella?"
Tal was already halfway across the glade before she turned back to answer my question. "I just hope that what I think has not happened..." And she winged off into the forest. We left Bernie to recover and keep an eye on our stuff as we headed into the trees. Bernie had left a trail a child could follow and it wasn't long before we came out into another smaller glade. Ella was sitting on a stump as Bernie had said, rocking back and forth. Garm was sitting near her and as we drew closer, I could see the tears still flowing down his face.
He looked up at us and whispered, "Please...make it stop....it hurts _so_ much..." There was no resistance in his fingers as we pried them open, revealing a sapphire blue stone the size of a deck of cards. I placed my hand close to the stone and could feel waves of sadness and despair radiating from it. I drew back, surprised Garm hadn't decided to fall upon his sword holding onto that piece of perpetual misery. We tipped his hand, spilling the sapphire out on the ground. Garm looked startled as it had hit the ground. He stood up, wiping his eyes and looking very embarrassed. I sent him back to Bernie to guard our stuff, mostly to give him a chance to pull himself together.
Ella was still silently rocking back and forth, the ground in front of her covered in jewel-like stones. There was the ruby Bernie had mentioned. A few feet away was a diamond the size of an orange, sparkling in the few beams of sunlight that penetrated through the leaves above. We all gathered around her; she didn't even notice. "What's the matter with her?" Mick whispered.
Tal slowly made her way closer to Ella. "A powerful spell has been used here." She sat at Ella's feet and placed a talon on her lap. Ella stopped rocking and looked at her, her eyes a complete blank.
"Hello, Tal," she said. Her voice was flat and lifeless. She looked up at all of us and said hello again in that toneless way. "What's the matter, guys?"
Mick knelt by her and took her hand. "Ella, what's the matter with you? Are you feeling okay? You don't sound right..."
Ella cocked her head to one side, thinking. "Nothing's the matter with me, Mick," she replied. "As to how I'm feeling, I feel...empty. Null. A void." She smiled, but it didn't have any of the usual light that seemed to come from one of her smiles.
Tal crawled into Ella's lap, moaning, "Oh child, child. Why have you _done_ such a dangerous thing?" At our questioning looks, she explained, "Ella has used a spell to remove all of her emotions. Each jewel you see around us is an emotion, pure and concentrated." Ella nodded.
Wayne shook his head. "But she smiled! How can you smile without emotions?"
Anna whispered, "But it wasn't a real smile. It didn't reach her eyes."
Tal glared at Wayne. "She smiles often; it could just be a habit. Or the spell could have ripped her emotions out as you would a plant, leaving bits of emotions still in the soil of her soul, to die in hours or days." She looked up into Ella's eyes. "_Why_, Ella, why?"
Ella blinked. "You said that the signals increased when I was upset or worried. The signals increase, I'm that much closer to dying or driving guys nuts. If I don't have emotions, I can't get upset or worried and the signals won't go out. No problem."
Tal shook her head, unconsciously wrapping her tail around Ella's wrist. "Child, you need those emotions. Emotions are the colors on our canvas of life. Removing them removes yourself. Without them, you're not the woman we all love and care about!"
Ella gave that same paper smile. "But Tal, now you're all safe! And you all were wanting me to be more serious!"
I impulsively gave Ella a hug. "Not at this cost! We want our old Ella back!"
When I looked into her eyes, I saw a flash of hurt, of anger. But it lasted only a moment. Her voice was still flat when she said, "But you guys will get hurt."
Mick whispered to her, "Ella, if you don't have any emotions, how could you, why would you, care what happens to us?"
Ella turned to him. She whispered back, "Habit?" but it seemed to come from so far away within her.
Tal's tail tightened around Ella's wrist, drawing her attention back to the dragoness in her lap. "Ella," Tal urged. "Take back your emotions! You must hurry before the spell becomes permanent! _Please!_" It was the closest I had ever seen the little dragon to tears.
Something must have finally reached Ella. She kept looking at Tal and then, all of a sudden, her head dropped and she nodded. Our sighs of relief could probably be heard by Bernie and Garm in the other glade. Tal dropped out of Ella's lap and looked up at all of us. "Hurry!" she said. "Gather all of the stones, but be careful not to touch them. If you touch them, they will affect you. Bring them here to Ella." She turned back to silent weredragon. "Ella, when they give you the stones, you _must_ reaccept them." I pulled out the small sack with the small orange stone Bernie had picked up earlier.
Wayne was standing near the sapphire stone Garm had been holding. "Can't we just give her the good emotions, like love and happiness, and stuff? Who needs sadness and grief and moods like that?"
Anna stood near the diamond where it still lay sparkling in the sun. "You need all emotions, Wayne. They're all connected. Take one away and you affect the rest. If you don't have sadness, how can you tell when you feel happy? Without heartbreak, how you can you know love?" She grinned. "How can you make others laugh if you can't laugh at yourself and the rest of the world, at life?"
We all brought the different stones to Ella, who picked up the sapphire first. Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked up at us. "Do I _have_ to?" she pleaded. "Do you guys _know_ what could happen if I do this?"
All of us nodded. I added, "And we know what'll happen if you don't do this, Ella. We'll lose one of our best friends, watching her become a machine, an emotionless thing on two legs."
A tear fell down Ella's cheek as a glow came from the stone. The glow became brighter until her whole body was lined with it. Her back arched and the stone disappeared, the light from it lingering a little longer. Silently, we passed each stone to her, each of us waiting until the glow from the emotion had faded before adding the next to her lap. This continued until the entire glade was emptied of the stones, Tal searching every inch of the ground to make sure none had been missed.
The last light faded, leaving the glade darker, the light of the sun fading as well. Ella stood up from the stump, stretched. Tal winged over and took her place on the stump. "Ella," she asked, "How do you feel?"
Ella looked around at the sky, at the setting sun. "Upset," she whispered. "Scared." She looked at all of us and smiled, a real smile. "Loved. Whole." She sighed and looked each of us in the eye. "So, what next?"
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