Chapter 22

Eva Lemuria

I woke up in an unfamiliar place. Its dark, but there's light coming through the thin walls. I look around and see that I am sleeping on a weird mattress on the ground and most of the furniture in this room is unfamiliar to me. I get up and look at my body that's wrapped up in some unfamiliar clothes. They're like robes held closed by a cloth belt around my stomach. I don't recognize these type of clothes at all so I look around the room for my own clothes, but I found absolutely nothing in this room. I look around the room till I spot an opening in the walls that I assume is a gap in the door. I push on it, but it doesn't move forward so I move it around till it slides to the side. It's weird at first for me, but I can see the convenience of not having a door swing in or out.

I look outside and see a beautiful courtyard with a lovely garden. I don't stop and admire the garden long as I move down the path till I find more rooms, but they are all empty and covered in dust for some reason. It seems only my room was clean. As I am walking through this building while looking through rooms I notice that I have been using my right arm as naturally as before and I cant help, but feel disgusted for it. I reach for where my dagger would normally be till I remember I don't have anything. I keep walking till I see a gate that will hopefully lead me out of here.

I push open the gates and look around. I seem to be in a small village area, but everything is extremely well made. Its simple, but has and amazing elegance to it. I notice that there are no people around and a lot of this small village is dirty and seems as if it has been abandoned. As I am about to go take a look around I hear wind rushing and large wings flapping. I look up and see several dragons coming toward me. I cant help myself and to be scarred of their appearance. I realize I probably now have a slight trauma from my death so I cant help but be defensive. I will my mana and around me, to form a ring of flames from the ground to surround me. My flame armor then wraps around me and I take a defensive stance. The dragons land away from me and I get a good look at them. There are two green dragons, one red dragon, and a familiar dark blue dragon. There are flashes of light and the dragons are gone and people have taken their place, but I do not let my guard down.

“Eva please calm down. No one here means you any harm ok? These are my parents.” Saras waves two the two that are dressed similarly to each other in green robes. “And this is a scholar from our tribe.” She then waves to the one in red robes with a face that looks like he should be a general instead of a scholar. She herself is wearing the same green robes as her parents.

I finally realize that we had made it to the dragon tribe and this little village must have been for their human forms or something else, but the dragons must prefer their true forms. I look around past the village and see that we're in some kind of valley surrounded by tall mountains in all directions. I see in the distance that there are some giant buildings embedded into the mountains that must be the dragons homes. They are big enough to fit the Dragons comfortably it seems.

I keep looking around and realize I should calm down so I take a breath and release my flame armor and the ring of fire around me. I absolutely don't trust anyone here so I still keep my guard up. Three of these people are strangers and the last one had killed me before cursing me.

“Do you mind if we can come closer and inspect your arm?” The red robed dragon asked me so I nodded my head before outstretching my arm and pulling up my sleeve. He slowly approaches while introducing himself. “My name is Zane Sunspot and I am a scholar and record keeper in our tribe.” He reaches me and then grabs my wrist as he probes my arm with his other hand. I don't care that he is a little rough because my arms scales seem to be a natural armor.

While he keeps probing my arm the other three approach as well. The man and woman that are Saras parents both look like her in the facial features, but Saras has dark blue hair with tints of green while their hair and eyes are both different tints of green. The woman has a more bright green while the man has a darker green. They are both looking at me with analyzing eyes trying to figure out everything about me. Finally, the man opens his mouth to speak first.

“Your name is Eva Lemuria Correct?” I nod my head. “You are the princess of the humans the Lemuria Kingdom?” I again nodded my head with a saddened look. “One of our past members that went of his journey had heard rumors about you in the kingdom. It seems the rumor about you being different is true now that I look at you.” I glare at the shitty dragon talking nonsense. I cant tell if he is trying to piss me off or not. I know those rumors all say I'm a monster.

“What my husband means is that we have heard of you and we are grateful that besides rumors you were kind enough to save our daughter.” Saras mother seems to try and recover the situation, but she seems to have gotten something fundamentally wrong.

“I guess she skipped the part where I wasn't trying to save her. I was trying to kill her. I thought I had found a weakness not whatever was controlling her. I wanted her dead then and I still kinda do.” I decide that nothing really matter now so why not tell the truth straight out. They both look shocked before turning towards their daughter who looks back at them with a saddened gaze. “Where are my weapons? My dagger and halberd are both important to me even if they're damaged. And my clothes are gone so who changed me?”

“We have given your weapons to our blacksmiths so that they can try and fix them and also study them a little. They are both different from the things we've seen before so they wanted to look them over a little. As for your clothes, my daughter and I changed you so that we can look at the scales covering your more private parts.” Saras mother explains to me composed before looking saddened. “Do you truly feel that way about my daughter even after she cut out her own heart and saved your life?”

“She killed me! She had completely destroyed my heart and she cursed me with this!” I rip my arm out of Zane's hands and showing them my arm. “Do you not understand how I will be treated by others now? I have become a mana mutant that will be exiled from my own country. I'm already tainted in black, but now I have this. I will have no place to accept me!”

I feel my uncontrolled anger bursting forth. The emotions that seem to have been blocked are finally rushing out. They can't even understand how I feel. One just wants to study me like a specimen while the others are probably thinking the same as everyone else. They look normal, but I know they are only seeing me in disgust. I won't accept this. I form my flame armor before I throw a destruction fist at them. Saras dad snorts before holding out his palm, but when it crashes with my attack his face shows shock before my attack explodes in his face and he's sent flying into the abandoned village. “I will not be looked down on! I won't take those looks from you!” I start my lightning shift except this time it was different. Before I have to slowly shift my body one part at a time. Now my whole body shifted instantly and I moved straight above the abandoned village and look at the dragon getting off the ground before there's a green flash and a dragon is standing there in his true form. I hold both my hands up and start to gather destruction element into a ball. I let it keep growing and Saras dad seems to realize my thoughts as he flies towards me with a panicked expression. I throw my attack straight down at him as the wind starts to gather around him forming a bubble. My ball of destruction clashes with his shield and stops so I form a destruction fist before throwing it at the ball of destruction. It pushes forward and both my attack and the dragon crashes into the ground before exploding.

As I am about to rush forward I am blindsided by Saras again. She stopped me from cutting off my arm before and now she snuck up on me again. She is in her dragon form this time and I can't help but shiver from seeing her.

“Get away from me!” I try to throw a punch but she wraps her arms around me and her tail also wraps around me. I try to struggle free from her, but I can’t. As I am panicking My right arm starts to slowly free itself from her and once it's free I try to punch her away, but another tail completely wraps around it. Saras mother is also in her dragon form now holding me. They make their way back down to the ground as I keep struggling. I start to release all the lighting in my body as I thrash around. All of a sudden I become dizzy and have trouble breathing. The air is becoming thinner around us. I feel my body slowly losing its strength. Damn it! I cant pass out here. I don't know what they will do to me if I lose conscious here. “Damn it! Let go! Aaaaahhhhh!” I let lose all my mana that I have and as if there is an eclipse the light starts to fade from the area around me. No, it's more like my mana is tinting everything it touches black. I feel their grip loosen. I take the chance and release a wave of condensed mana around me to push them away. Once free I jump up only to be blasted away by something. I crash through the abandoned village before rolling to a stop. I look up to see Zane in his dragon form. He lands right on top of me and holds me down. I keep thrashing, but he is far stronger that the other two. The air starts becoming thinner again only quicker this time since I already discovered their trick they don't try to do it stealthily. I can't keep going anymore. The world is becoming blurry. I feel myself be release, but I cant even move my body anymore. I slowly lose consciousness.

Talia Skyclaw

I am Talia Skyclaw a wind dragon of the dragon tribe. I cant be considered a very powerful dragon in our tribe, but I am still a dragon so I can be considered strong to other races. This just makes it more unbelievable how this little girl was able to overpower us. It took Zane holding her down just to give us the chance to knock her out. He is a scholar, but he was also born with the incredible strength and his knowledge allows him to use it to the fullest potential.

I look back to the black haired girl that my daughter had brought home and can't help but feel a headache. We were home relaxing as a family when a dragon came in and told us our daughter had returned from her journey. He had a complicated face when he told us but we ignored him as we rushed towards our daughters location. She was at the valley entrance and was being held up there for some reason. Normally a dragon can come and go as they like so the guards are only supposed to stop other races. When we got there I noticed Saras was injured so I rushed past the guards to get a better view. I saw my daughter protecting the human girl and wouldn't let anyone approach. We couldn't even get a good look at the girl so I asked my daughter who the girl was and my daughter told me it's her savior. My daughter wouldn't let anyone approach until they would tell her the girl will be same no matter what. If the human was my daughter savior so I don't know why anyone would want to hurt her. While we were trying to connive my daughter the family heads all showed up because of the disturbance being made. We all agreed with my daughters demand so she finally let us approach and get a good look at the girl she claims to be her savior.

The girl was a shocking sight. She had black hair and my daughter says she had matching eyes. It was really shocking that she had scales covering parts of her right side. My daughter then explained everything that has happened to her. While talking she had broken down in tears while speaking. When she got to the part where she cut out her second heart everyone had mortified faces. This is a really serious matter because someone has attacked our dragon tribe and my daughter has done something completely unheard of with unknown repercussions. My daughter said she got the idea from old stories and I feel my headache increase. Those stories are incredibly old and no one really knows if they are true but she did it anyway. I'm not sure if I should feel pity for this girl or hate her for causing my daughter to suffer that pain and whatever repercussions her actions will have. While we were talking the earth dragons notice the girls weapons my daughter was carrying so they took them to study because they've never seen them before. The rest of the tribe heads leave so we take the girl to the abounded village that we would use when we have a guest from other races.

My daughter and I cleaned up the girl while Saras told me the girl was named Eva Lemuria and she was a princess of the human kingdom. Apparently, this girl was someone we had flagged because of rumors about her being a monster. I can see now that she does seem to be different and she had the strength to defeat my daughter. I can’t imagine what having my daughters heart and that arm will do for her now. We cleaned her before putting her in some guest robes. We had used some wind earlier to clean a room for her to rest in before I took my daughter back to our house. We got there and I saw my husband Dan Skyclaw talking to Zane. Apparently, Zane is interested in Eva because of her hair color and her arm.

We talk for a while about our plans and what we should do about this situation. We decide that the best thing would have been to talk to her first so we fly back over to the abounded village only to see her already awake. She's standing outside the main residence in nothing, but the sleeping robes we put her in. I thought that she's incredibly indecent at first before realizing we left her nothing else. When she spots us she instantly went on the defensive. After that she allows Zane to examine her arm, but my husband seemed to have said the wrong thing to her in a very condescending tone so I try to save the situation, but it seems my daughter left some things out of her story. Everything that Eva had said did seem reasonable. We argue till Eva’s emotions seem to burst forth and then the situation completely deteriorates. She ends up being far stronger than we could have expected as she completely overwhelms us. It takes Zane to hold her down so we can knock her out.

Here we are standing over a crying girl that we had knocked unconscious and it gives me a very sourer feeling. My husband seems completely enraged, but it's probably just his pride that is hurt from being overwhelmed by a human girl. Saras is crying while holding Eva. I don't know why she cares so much, but she seems to have become attached to the girl that saved her. Zane is looking very serious probably trying to come up with a solution.

“We shall take her to the prisons and chain her up. She seems to have strength slightly above you green dragons, but you are known for speed and agility, not strength. We will have to use those chains to hold her down there.” Zane

“We can’t! She is completely innocent! She's scared and emotional from her experiences!” Saras cries out

“Saras we will make sure that she's comfortable there, but until she's more stable we cant have her running around. We also cant let her go or kill her because we don't know what effects Saras giving her heart will have. We don't know if their might still be some connection between you.” I hope she understands that this is the best option. We will make sure she's comfortable till we can feel safe letting her out. My daughter nods with her consent and we pick her up to move her.

After we secured Eva in the giant cell made for dragons we leave Saras behind to watch Eva. The rest of us make our ways to the archives to find some answers. We are going to look for information on that story I told Saras and we will also look for anything about Eva's black hair and eyes. We will also look for anything about black dragons because I have never heard of anything like a black dragon. The closes thing was a gray dragon called the ash dragon, but he was a variant like Saras. We know that the scales one Eva are definitely dragon scales and not a reptile like snakes. For now, we can only look for answers while we wait for Eva to become more stable. We might consider sending someone to inform her family as well because of its easier to avoid any political problems later on.