Her Maiden

Chapter Thirty: Stake

It crosses your mind that you may not even be conscious any more. That this could all just be a terrible dream and that in reality, you were passed out, moments from suffocating to death, your mind filling you with these last, phantasmagoric images before you left the world forever.

Monsters come in many forms.

You had seen them, countless times within your life.

Wicked, malicious things which seemed to sate their appetites on the misery and misfortune of others. Your Aunt. Andrea. The intruder.

They had all been human, hadn't they?

You stare down at the creature which had once been Alcina; a great, heaving, snapping, winged beast, with mere echoes of the woman it had once been - appearing in tendrils, like smoke, upon it's back, like a shadow.

In that moment you realise that you aren't looking at a monster.

You are looking at your protector.

Then you feel the impact of Alcina's strange new form, as it lunges forward, on four hunkered, clawed legs, bursting through the air, a fanged maw opening with a roar, rows upon rows of sharp, needle-like teeth shining in the light like tiny daggers, ready to tear into Miranda - to do whatever was necessary to release you from her grip.

Miranda is ready for her though.

She meets Alcina with a sickening wrench of twisted roots - the spear like claws which had once been her fingers, now keenly sharp and deadly, poised to sink into her attacker.

Your stomach flips as you hear a shrill shriek of pain from Alcina. You watch Miranda's claws sink mercilessly into her flesh, some catching her squarely in the soft flesh of her throat.

Alcina's large, gnashing mouth does not relent though, and you watch as she sinks her teeth, hard, into Miranda's shoulder, eliciting cries which are now mingling with Alcina's and filling the room in a terrible cacophany of intertwining agony.

The pair are locked together, entangled in their violent stalemate for a moment - but Alcina is larger and stronger. Her weight wins out and she sends Miranda falling backwards, hitting the hard stone floor below with a sickening smack, Alcina toppling down upon her - her neck still stuck with Miranda's sharp, piercing claws.

"How... dare you... how dare you do this to me, your creator?" Miranda shrieks, her voice pained as agony overcomes her and she chokes back a mouthful of blood.

She grunts in effort as she pulls her arm back, her long claws sliding out from deep within Alcina's flesh, creating a spurt of dark, black blood in it's wake. It sprays into the air, a morbid fountain which covers them both as Alcina screams in pain, her veins opening and sputtering like a broken faucet.

"You were nothing before me. A weak mortal, destined for an early death. I showed you strength. I showed you what it was to be powerful - to be immortal," Miranda spits, her voice strangled.

Yet still, Alcina stands above Miranda, large, imposing, one of her sharpened claws gripped threateningly over her throat.

You recognise that same, conscious gentleness Alcina often displayed in this moment. She could easily crush Miranda's windpipe, grind her neck to dust underneath her large lionesque paw, yet even now, this dragon, in all of her extraordinary power, was choosing to be merciful - to be humane.

"You will let her go and leave my castle, before I show you what it is to be destined for an early death," Alcina hisses, her voice drenched in seething hatred and betrayal, "I worshipped you - I would have done anything for you! but now I see what she sees, what my daughters see -"