Ravanan heard her crying and rushed over to pick her up. Kalara passed out as she heard him cast “ANCHOR”.
Kalara woke up later soaking in the warmed seer pool. She felt weak.
Ravanan was sitting nearby at the table. There was a fresh goblet of water and pizza, a whole glorious pizza, toppings and all. She cried and cried. The crying made her head hurt which made her cry some more. Kalara couldn’t talk, all she could do was cry between gulps of water. She didn’t want to talk, she just wanted to recuperate.
The pizza practically dissolved in her mouth she was so hungry. Ravanan let her eat in peace. Kalara ate until she couldn’t stuff anymore in.
Then she finally found words, “This is so good, where did you get this?”
“This is my territory, I’ve got anchors all over. You said you wanted pizza, so I went to Manaus and got you one. It got a little cold waiting on you to come out of there but it’s not bad is it?”
“Oh it was fine. Why did you allow me to run off into the dark like that?”
“First off, you wanted to go in there. Secondly, you told me you didn’t want my help. Besides, I couldn’t see you to know where you were. Then after a minute or two when I knew the tunnel was where you’d gone, it was too late to find you. I couldn’t detect you to bring you back or target you to give you light – it’s that shadow suit you’re wearing. You called it Naught because it masks your aura and body from dragons, humans, and animals alike, but it also severely dampens the effectiveness of your verbal spells.
“I was that good? To enchant something that even you can’t see?”
“Yes, you had only made the difficult piece some hundred years ago to take advantage of the humans’ first world war. It’s very high level and the amethyst enchantress of your past isn’t going to be happy about the holes you’ve made in it.”
“But why would I make something that hinders magic?”
Ravanan looked sad that she would ask such a ridiculous question but yet had a reminiscing smile about him. “That wasn’t your goal with Naught. Your goal was to be invisible and to make an unnatural enchantment like that, to stop a beating heart from pumping blood and auras or breathing lungs from telling the world their alive, to literally remove all the flesh from the visible world, is to also accept the fact that it dampens the ability to affect the outside world with magic. After all, that is the goal, to not let the world know you are there.
“You loved to hide amidst your prey and then primitively assassinate your target with their own weapons. The more restrictions you put on yourself, the more fun you had.”
Ravanan’s words reflected how much he missed his mate. After a moment he added, “You’d rather starve than take the easy pickings in Manaus. That’s probably what got you into trouble to begin with.”
Kalara didn’t feel any closer to her former self after hearing that. And she was in no mood to hear about Ravanan’s turmoil. “But couldn’t you have maneuvered the bouncing beams of sunlight to light up the passageway for me?”
“But then you wouldn’t have cast your first spell.” Ravanan smiled, “You sound tired, I’ll leave you alone to wash up.”
By the time she finished her bath the lair’s magical sunlight was beginning to fade with the day. Kalara agreed to wear the healing robe again after finding out it belonged to her and Ravanan was not responsible for its revealing style. He helped her put it on because her many scrapes and bruises ached her so.
As they watched the lair grow dim Kalara reflected back on the day “I realized something in that crevice; it is that I can only count on myself. Annette tried to help me. You are trying to help me. But really it comes down to just me. I have my magic now and if nothing else I can build on that to get my memories back. I know you also want my memories back and any help you can give I appreciate, but I don’t need to keep asking you about it; waiting for you to do something. I can try to fix myself in the meantime.”
“Yes you can.” he answered her. “But I also feel like it’s time to get your memory back. So let’s begin in the morning after you’ve rested. I’m satisfied with the clues we’ve found in your recent memories, unless you held something back from me which I don’t think you did.”
The blue wizard stood up from the table and Kalara scooted over to make room for him on the bed. Instead of going to her, he walked far enough away to undo his Morph spell. Kalara watched Ravanan’s robe disappear and saw his hair grow upwards into long twin horns when he released himself back into the dragon that he really was. The gigantic cobalt-blue dragon arched his back and stretched out his wings as if he’d been confined for months and flicked his tail to curl it around his clawed feet.
The immense dragon before her was magnificent to behold and she felt a hint of envy that she couldn’t leave her human form behind like he could. She had, however, heard his unspoken statement loud and clear. He would not repeat last night.
Kalara rolled over to face away from him and hid her disappointment that Ravanan had chosen not to share her bed.
She was done with being vulnerable to him and returned her mind to the crevice where she’d found strength. No longer would she allow herself to be hurt. She didn’t have Ravanan though she wanted him desperately. He was untouchable, mated to her elusive past. He wasn’t hers. And so, deep within herself and far away from Ravanan she buried her desires, hiding them in the dark void of her heart.
Kalara didn’t even shed a tear over the matter. Deep inside the darkness was the only place remaining where she felt safe from heartache. The dark crevice would be hers, she would claim it and no one could take it from her, she owned it, she had lived it, and the bumps and scrapes on her skin proved it. No matter where her body was, who she was with, or whose clothes she was wearing, none of it really mattered because she was at home with herself. The darkness of that corridor had filled Kalara with a cold nothing and that darkness was part of her now; giving her strength, protecting her. She had immersed herself inside the uncaring rock and could not be parted from it because it echoed how she felt. The dark part of Kalara was more than independence, it was cold indifference.
In that peaceful void Kalara felt relaxed, able to cast and craft spells – that was all there was left to do in her life. The newly formed dark crevice in her core would be her training ground to work on spells, slowly building off of the one she knew, Starlight.
It didn’t matter if she was tainted as Ravanan said, she was the only one of her kind, not human, not dragon; and she might never get to change so she would gladly wear the banner that separated her from all other beings. Driven there by his rejection and anchored there by her sorrow, Kalara embraced the darkness.
Ravanan swung his great head over to her, it was the same size as the bed she was on. He was trying to read her thoughts but he couldn’t – not even a hint of an aura change. He could still sense her aura, but beyond that there was nothing but silence. All he frustratingly knew was that Kalara wasn’t dead and her aura was fully charged.
He had gotten used to knowing her feelings and he hated asking but he asked anyway “How does your head feel?”
Kalara didn’t move or speak, it was as if she hadn’t heard him which was preposterous because he hadn’t whispered. He craned his head around to see her eyes in the darkening lair, they were closed but he knew she wasn’t sleeping. Ravanan let it go, realizing that she was blocking him, and it gave him hope that his mate would return to him soon.
The next morning, early, Kalara woke to a maelstrom of high winds and cold rain. She was in the eye of the storm with only an occasional spray of rain hitting her and her body was pressed down magically to the unmoving bed that was still inside the main chamber of Black Blade Lair. She peered through the storm to see Ravanan the Azure Wizard standing safely outside of it, he was controlling it. She waited to see what would happen.
Nothing happened. The winds died away eventually and Kalara felt the release to move.
Ravanan walked over to her “Do you remem
ber anything?”
“Should I?”
“I chose to try that spell first since you were sleeping. I knew it was a long shot, but I had to try it.” Ravanan looked eager. “My theory was that the rocks you’ve called home for two thousand years might hold some impressions of you. If they did listening to them would require you to be very calm since they live slowly. Did you feel anything at all?”
“No, not a thing other than cold water spitting on me.”
“Well it was only a theory.”
After Kalara had eaten her breakfast of boring cooked steak, Ravanan took her back to the bed. “What are you doing?” she asked him.
Sitting behind her, he answered “Preparing you for your past. I’m going to make sure you are relaxed for the spell to have full penetration. I know you don’t like it when I calm you with the spell so I won’t, I’ll do it with massage.” He braided her long dark hair, sometimes his fingers brushed against her skin.
Kalara couldn’t deny that she enjoyed his attention, but she refused to let it show. She retreated again into her crevice to shield her desires from him. As he worked her hair and touched her skin, beckoning her to relax, her body was now prostrate on the bed and her finished braid spilled out on the bed beside her like a snake. Ravanan pulled her robe from her body, revealing her naked flesh, and began to rub her back. Her loose body melted like butter and she noticed that the patterns his fingertips made on her spine were the same as when he had been true to his heart the other night. The relaxing runes worked their tranquil magic on her. She was comfortable and didn’t resist him in the slightest way, so comfortable in fact, that she was beginning to drift off to sleep. In those drowsy moments she heard Ravanan cast “RESTORE”.
She didn’t feel any different after his spell. Ravanan laid down beside her breathing with exertion, he was worn out from having put so much effort into the spell. In the long moments that followed she drifted in and out of sleep. As they both laid there resting he asked “Well, did that do it? Do you feel anything? Remember anything?”
Half asleep, she answered “No, but I do feel good.”
Ravanan turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
Kalara looked over at him then fell back to sleep.
When she woke up around mid-day, Ravanan the Malefic Azure had just returned from hunting, his scaled belly looked quite full. Kalara was proud that she felt his aura at full strength at two striking distances away from him. He tossed a seared jaguar leg to her and then morphed back to the Azure Wizard while heading off to his alcove, deep in thought.
Kalara gave him time to think, feeling that he must need it, and chewed a few bites of her lunch. Then she got up and went to the wizard’s alcove to find him. Ravanan was at the dais studying a green crystal, he was visibly upset. Kalara asked “What is it Ravanan? How can I help?”
Ravanan threw the crystal over to its pile and answered “I can’t find a suitable mineral for what I need.”
“Why do you even need crystals? Isn’t your magic strong enough?”
Now it might seem that question would have upset Ravanan but it didn’t. He plainly answered “Sometimes the properties of crystals are a tool to help our blood manifest the spell we want by amplifying it. But sometimes there isn’t one. It would seem that no crystals exist for what I have planned.”
“And what do you have planned?” Kalara could tell that Ravanan was reluctant to proceed without a crystal.
He regarded her offer to help “Perhaps if you were to cast a spell of remembering, your past would come back to you. I know you don’t have the expertise needed to cast such a spell..... but I do.”
He came closer to her, “I don’t want to control you. You must believe me when I say that it sickens me to even consider manipulating you. You’re my mate, or at least you were, you are not idle prey to be driven to its own death. But I could cast the necessary spell through you, using your voice and your blood. I was just hoping a mineral could take the burden rather than me... it could have been a simple crystal that you willingly pick up and it releases a one-time-only binding spell to control you and cast the spell through you. You’re so defenseless, I would hate myself for taking advantage of you.”
Kalara said softly, “It’s not taking advantage of me if it’s something I want you to do. I want you to do whatever it takes to get my memories back and I want to help however I can. It’s either control me or kill me, right? So control me then. What do I need to do?”
“Alright, just like this morning you need to be relaxed. Relaxing isn’t necessary but it helps for better spell penetration and we both want this to work. Don’t even get excited about it working, just think about the massage I gave you, feeling my hands on your skin. You want your heartbeats to remain low and steady.”
Ravanan was speaking gently and cast his spell. “I’LL BE CONTROLLING YOU, I don’t want you to speak or help me in any way, got it?” He led her by the arm as they walked over to sit down at the table. While they were walking he suggested that they practice first to get her used to being controlled. Ravanan was so good at casting the high level spell that Kalara didn’t even notice he had already slipped into her mind, perfectly matching her own will and pace to make her body walk. He was a master at mimicking movements, pretending that he wasn’t there inside her mind. He hid his presence from her and mirrored all her small movements exactly.
He sat down across from her, leaned back to relax and cast “ARMOR”. There was a level of uncertainty about what would happen when her memories returned and Kalara the Mighty Amethyst discovered that he was controlling her. He needed to be prepared since he was linked to her mind. With his transparent coat protecting him, he said “I won’t hurt you.”
When Ravanan finally did reveal his dominion to her, the shearing effect was unnerving to Kalara. She felt his will shift and slide off the rails to run alongside her own. Even though her will was still running the race she saw it for what it truly was; he was right there, matching everything she did, copying her. Who was controlling her? It was tearing at the connectivity of her mind. Even though she was yielding to him her primal, basic existence was still fighting – but it had to give way or else the stress would tear her body asunder. The only thing he had done differently was to lift himself away from her, showing her his will, revealing who the real power over her was; it was disturbing. Then his will overtook hers, beating harder and faster, until his was the only one on the track; and just that easy, Kalara had become a spectator in her own mind.
Kalara was calmly sitting in the chair trying to be still for Ravanan. Then her arms raised up. She feared she’d disobeyed. She hadn’t done that, she was being still but she did it anyway and her arms stayed lifted. Her arms felt heavy as her fingers began to remove the braid in her hair. Ravanan easily took her tight braid apart as if he were doing it with his own hands. The movements were smooth and deft, they would fool anyone into thinking that Kalara was intending to undo her braid. It felt weird to be touching her hair, feeling it flow through her fingers when she wasn’t meaning to. She watched him from across the table – it was all she was able to do since he was in full control of her. He sat there with an involved look on his face, staring at her.
As she was watching him, unable to move her head, Ravanan took his eyes off of her to look down at the hem in his robe to flick some dirt off the otherwise pristine sapphire robe. Kalara wanted to scream “What are you doing?!” He should be concentrating on her. He held her very life in his mind, this spell was a whole lot more important than keeping his robe perfectly clean. He was obsessed with that robe!
In dismay she realized that line of sight wasn’t even needed for him to control her. With a dead quality, her arms came down after pulling the remainder of the braid out. It didn’t stop there. Ravanan then made her hands fluff her loosened hair and drape it beautifully around her. Her body was numbly following his orders. She was nothing more than a puppet.
Kalara felt herself stand up, turn to face him
, and then her eyelids closed. This upset her because she couldn’t see what was going on. She saw nothing but pitch black. Not that the darkness bothered her, it strengthened her. But this wasn’t simple darkness. Kalara was trapped so tightly that she couldn’t make her eyes open or lungs breathe, even her connection with her newly found magic was severed. Being trapped inside her own head bothered her a great deal. The not knowing what was happening, the wondering......
All Kalara could do was think......
‘DON’T LEAVE ME LIKE THIS!’ Kalara wanted to scream. She feared he’d left. Couldn’t he have at least opened her eyes before he did?
Nothing was happening, was the spell of remembering over? Maybe the spell didn’t work and now Ravanan was going to finally kill her. She couldn’t see or move. Of all the ways to kill someone, why did he have to trap her in the dark? She wanted to cry, to feel wet tears flood her eyes but couldn’t even do that. What was he intending by this? At least he could have had the decency to let her see until her last breath. It was so dark.
She waited, trapped. Fright overtook her as she remembered that darkness in the shopping mall, how it had descended, and trapped her with those iridescent eyes, eyes that took Ravanan away from her, leaving her alone. They were everywhere around her, watching her without sound. Would the eyes return this time? What if the eyes had returned and she didn’t know it? Did the eyes take Ravanan again? Is that what happened to him? New panic washed over her mind. She began screaming and fighting but somehow knew she really wasn’t. Oh how she wanted to cry and scream out! She would be stuck like this forever – it was maddening. Was Ravanan alive? She’d never know because her eyes were shut!
The Cursed Dragon Page 18