Into the Depths

Chapter 21

Mal paced around the room, feeling like a caged lion longing for release. Or maybe a caged dragon would be a more fitting description. It had been a couple of months since Uma's escape from the Isle and Mal had gotten no closer to mastering shifting into her dragon form.

She had only managed it twice in her training. It seemed as though it only wanted to work when she was feeling protective of Ben, something Steph and Lenora had been quick to notice.

Lenora was interesting; as a Protector Fairy she had the typical brown wings of the Fae but with red feathers along the inner wing. Her hair mimicked her wings as it was dark brown with red undertones. Her eyes were green like Mal's but while Mal's were more of a jade green Lenora's were more emerald, standing out against her fair skin.

Clearly fair skin is more of a Fae thing than an Isle thing, Mal thought. Despite her time off the Isle, Mal was still fairly pale. She had earned a wicked sunburn at her and Ben's joint birthday party, thank the Gods for Aloe Vera and a faster healing time. Fire may not burn a dragon but the sun sure could! Not to mention Mal wasn't a dragon at that time—she was in her human form.

Mal had to say, of all the 'helpers' she'd received since arriving in Auradon, Lenora was the best; working with Steph rather than against her like Natalie probably would have and not spending time in the training sessions arguing about whether a power was more 'Godly' or 'Fae-like' in nature.

Such as Mal's dragon ability.

One might say it fell under shape-shifting which everyone knew was a Godly ability. Zeus had once transformed into a swan after all while the other Gods and Goddesses transformed people into spiders and even a mint plant. However, the Fae were no slouches when it came to shape-shifting either.

Before she was put on the Isle, Maleficent had turned her raven into a human to keep her powers strong—though he was more useful to her as a raven, being able to spy on others unnoticed.

"Mal, focus," Lenora said, pulling Mal out of her thoughts and directing her attention towards the Fae. "You're not always going to be feeling protective of King Ben. You're going to have to make the transformation second nature."

"I know," Mal sighed. Persephone, unfortunately, was back on the Isle so there was no tag team this time. Of course it might have been a good idea to have a back up for the six months Persephone was off the Isle but that would require Zeus to stop dragging his feet on this.

No, Mal certainly wasn't bitter toward her uncle at all. It wasn't like he would know Hades' powers as well as Persephone or anything, being his brother!

Gods, if he hadn't dragged his feet on this I'd be further along in my training, Mal thought, not noticing the faint wisps of purple smoke surrounding her as she continued to rant about her uncle in her head. Soon the wisps got thicker and Mal's eyes glowed green as the smoke enveloped Mal just as it did at the viewing.

When the smoke cleared, a medium sized dragon was sitting in front of Lenora.

"You know, I'm never going to get used to that," Macaria's amused voice broke through the silence and both dragon and Fae turned to look at her.

"Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt," Macaria said, noticing the attention. "I just...Grandfather said that Mal was here on Olympus this weekend and I wanted to say hi."

Lenora chuckled softly. "It's alright. Mal, change back and you can have a break. Just focus on anything other than what you were thinking about to turn into your dragon form."

Mal nodded and tried to think of something other than her irritation toward Zeus.

What was Ben talking about the other day? Oh yeah, one of the books he got at the birthday party. Something about Narnia and a wardrobe? And there's a lion and a witch who fight each other? Personally I'll stick to Tolkien—yeah he's got evil magic users too but he's also got good ones. Plus he's got dragons...granted the dragons are bad but they still are in the story.