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˖*°࿐chapter seven vii. MOTHER OF DRAGONS
LAELIA LAID HER HEAD ON LOKI'S SHOULDER, tears slipping from her eyes as she sobbed. "I lost him, my sun and stars. I lost the stallion who will mount the world. It's all my fault." Loki shifted to her, eyes holding sympathy, and uses his fingers to turn her face to his. "You didn't. He was possibly just not the stallion. But our next child will be. The next baby boy we shall have will be the stallion, and he shall conquer the Seven Kingdoms of your world. He shall be the one." "Do you know what I've noticed?" Laelia asks as a small smile appears on her angelic features. Loki shakes his dark head in answer. "We've almost never talked, yet we treat and love each other the way a real couple does."
"Are we not a real couple, my moon and stars? I believe that we have gotten married a while ago."
"It seems as if we married just yesterday but it has been a full month. How can time pass so fast?"
"I assume that we just are so in love, time doesn't exist for us. We never stop for time as time has to catch up with us."
Laelia laughs, kissing Loki's shoulder. "They found the woman that created the poison that was meant to kill me. As they do not have a way to pay for their crimes, I want to perform a burning. I want to burn her, the merchant, and Rhaego in order to get something in return."
"What is it that you shall get in return?"
"Blood must be spilled and fire must be burned in order for dragons to be born. Fire and blood."
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LAELIA STANDS AMONG A GROUP OF ENOCHIANS, LOKI, and Allister around the large platform that held her unborn baby, the sorceress and the merchant strapped to the beams of the platform, wearing her grey dress she wore to the wedding and her hair was made into four braids held together as three. Ashur takes her eggs out of their chest and asks in Enochian, "is this your command, Khaleesi?" She gives him a curt nod in response. He walks to the center of the platform and sets her eggs on the ground, Ser Allister walking up beside her. "Rhaego will have no use for dragon eggs in the night lands. Sell them. You can return to Björndottir and live as a wealthy woman for the rest of your days."
"They were not given to me to sell," Laelia retorts.
"Khaleesi, My Queen, I vowed to serve you, obey you, to die for you if need be, but let him go, Khaleesi. I know what you intend, do not."
"I must," Laelia furrows her eyebrows as she answers in a breathy voice. "You don't understand ━"
"Don't ask me to stand around as you climb on that pyre. I won't watch you burn," Allister shakes his head. Laelia smiles. "Is that what you fear?" She presses a tender kiss on Allister's scruffy cheek, Allister thinking it meant 'goodbye', but she meant it as a reassurance.
She turns around to view the group that stood behind her, dress skirt flying in the wind. "You will be my khalasar, I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one will stop you. But if you stay it will be as brothers and sisters, as husbands and wives. I am Laelia of House Greystone of the blood of Old Krefson. I am the Dragon's daughter. And I swear to you that those who would harm you will die screaming."
"You will not hear me scream," the sorceress retorts.
"I will. But it is not your screams I want to hear. Only your life."
Loki hands his spouse the torch he held, watching as she placed the burning tip on the wood, watching it catch flames and spread all throughout the pyre. The sorceress begins to chant an incantation. She returns it back to Loki. The sorceress' incantations turn to screams as the fire begins to lick her tanned flesh, boiling and peeling off chunks of the muscles. Laelia gives Allister and Loki one last glance as she begins to wander into the fire, not even screaming or flinching as the fire touched her skin. It didn't hurt. It was a simple caress of the flesh, warm and inviting, like a bowl of soup on a cold day. Allister looks away when he sees her dress catch fire. Laelia, covered in flames, walks into the center of the pyre, no longer seen by the khalasar.
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LAELIA HAS BEEN INSIDE THE PYRE ALL NIGHT LONG, the khalasar laying on the sand and falling asleep. Loki and Allister sit on fallen logs and talk about the heir and the dead baby. "When the baby came out, he was blind, scaled like a lizard, and had wings like a bat. The sorceress said that she pulled him out herself, and when she touched him the skin fell off his bones. He was full of graveworms. I'm sorry that your first child together had to come out this way, My King."
"It is alright, My Lord," the prince answered, "you were not the one that did that. I still believe the sorceress poisoned the horse heart in order to stop the stallion from ever being born."
"Laelia came up to me the day the ritual was performed and said that the heart had a peculiar taste, but we brushed it off as nothing more than her not eating red meat before."
Loki stares at the spot the pyre was built on and sees the fire has burned out, but there was no sign of his counterpart. His eyes welled with tears, not wanting the only person that truly loved him to be dead. He only had her for a month; that was too little in time. "Let's see if she's there, My King," Allister notices the tears. "It might help ease your state." Loki glares at his wife's advisor, "to see that my wife is dead?" "No, Your Highness," he shakes his head, standing up. "I have forgotten that the Greystones are known for being immune to fire. Well, a certain few."
Loki nods, wiping away his tears, and follows the old man through the sleeping figures of the khalasar. Ashur and another Enochian flank them. As the smoke clears, Laelia's silver braids are seen, her head resting on her thumb and forefinger. She holds a bundle in her left hand, and at the sound of their footsteps she looks up. She's covered in soot and ash, an innocent look written on her features as she sits up straighter. A miniature head peeks over her shoulder at the men in front of them. It squeaks, crawling up her skin. Allister kneels on one knee, "blood of my blood." Two more dragons are by her lower region, the one she held protected her womanhood from their eyes, but her breasts are exposed. She stands up, a cream and golden dragon snaking up her leg. The red and black dragon standing on her joint. More khalasar kneel before her, resting their foreheads on the dirt.
The dragon at her shoulder spreads its wings and lets out a shriek, the other two following with their voices; the night air was filled with the song of dragons once more.
