The world is bathed in shades of crimson. She tastes copper and rot on her tongue. Sweet, savory copper. She is hungry, completely and irresistibly ravenous.
The meat that she tears into is overwhelmingly savory; lightly charred and warm to perfection with a subtly enticing spicy tang. And the blood that spills off of it is twice as addictive. It has its own unique taste that burns like cinnamon as it goes down. It coaxes her to rip it to further shreds all the while it screams for her to stop.
Pale tendrils thrash and writhe with excitement and greed.
She isn’t sure which mouth to feed; the dragon’s maw or her own mouth. And so she lets the dragon devour the entire lower half. But her prey is so small, so insufficient.
She reaches out with vicious claws and lifts her prey from the ground. Bleeding profusely from it’s severed lower half, it is little more than a slab of meat.
Except it cries out in anguish and fear and…resentment. There is a strange touch of resentment.
“Why?” It asks quietly.“Why are you doing this to me?”
She looks into its crying eyes and a sickness begins to take hold. She can’t place where it comes from but it is horrible. And suddenly the meat doesn’t taste so heavenly. She licks and laps at it, bites into the arm but it tastes vile.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t remember.
She regrets…
.oOo.
Alcina jerks up right, eyes wide, body shaking.
She hasn’t had the nightmare since the beginning stages of her mutation. Since her second form had revealed its hideous self. She lets her head fall back to the pillow, clasps her hands back atop her belly, and forces her eyes shut.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
Her eyes are wide open once more, and for one horrible moment she thinks that she has actually made a bloody mess of the girl.
She knows that if her heart had a beat, it would be pounding furiously. She springs up once again and wanders into the room across from her own. It would seem that tonight is a night for wicked dreams and unrest; she spies the Azula thrashing about. She has gotten herself good and tangled up in the sheets.
With a sigh of relief and frustration, she rises from her bed and wanders to Azula’s. She tenderly untangles her, trying her very best not to disrupt her sleep any further.
The fire child had furiously insisted on getting a bed of her own but Alcina thinks that she ought to have her stay with her sisters. They could help her through her nightmares.
Azula’s thrashing slows, her body stills, and her breathing evens out. For a moment she thinks that the girl will remain asleep but she squeezes her eyes shut tighter and then opens them. Alcina frowns, she should have just left the girl to ride out her dream and fall back into slumber. Instead she is sitting up, clutching the bed sheets to her chest.
“I-I wasn’t screaming, was I? I didn’t wake you mother?”
Alcina’s brows furrow; just what did this girl suffer at the hands of her real parents to make her feel as though a panicked awakening would be enough to earn her chastising? She brushes a hand over the girl’s hair, “no you weren’t, dear.”
“Then why are you awake?” She mumbles, eyes downcast.
“I had a dream of my own. A dreadful thing.”
Azula nods, “what was it?”
Her mouth falls open, wordlessly for a moment. “It was about Mother Miranda and…something that she had done to me.” It is true enough. The woman had put this beast in her, this nasty, ugly thing… “and yours?”
“I don’t remember.” Azula answers. She seems to think for a moment and shakes her head. “I usually don’t. But I’ve had these kinds of nightmares for a while now.”
“Are you sure that you wouldn’t like to keep company with your sisters? They are very easy, they aren’t noisy and they don’t pull the blankets.”
Azula contemplates this too before finally nodding, “I’ll stay with them.”
Alcina smiles. “They will be pleased to have you.” She smooths her hands over her nightgown. “I suspect that you aren’t planning on trying to sleep again?”
Azula nods.
“Then come, I’ll fix you a glass of, what would you like?”
“Tea is fine.”
“I will fix you a glass of tea and I can show you a few devices and machines that you might not have seen yet.”
This seems to bring a smile to the girl’s face. “That sounds perfect, thank you.” She is a delightful girl.
“It is my pleasure.”
Azula carefully steps out of bed and has a small stretch. In her mind, Alcina sees the girl’s face twisted in pain. Begging. Confused.
She thinks that it is far past time to show the fire child exactly what her mother is.
.oOo.
Azula wakes up hunched over a coffee table–granted it is a regular table to her. She hadn’t realized that she’d fallen back to sleep. She lifts her head up and finds her mother sitting across the room at a–she tries to think of the word, she knows that Alcina had told her what it was last night…
For a moment she only listens to the rhythmic clacking and an occasional ding. She slips down from her chair and goes to her mother’s side. It smells faintly of fresh ink. Just as she is about to inquire, the word comes to her, ‘typewriter.’
“Good morning, mother.”
Alcina doesn’t turn around, “yes, good morning, dear. Give me a moment.” There are several more clacks and another ding and the woman turns around.
“You said that you had something to show me.”
Alcina inhales sharply. “I do, yes.”
Azula furrows her brows, “it is a bad thing?”
The woman nods. “I am not sure how you will take this.”
Azula shrugs. “I’ve seen plenty of unsavory things, what’s one more.”
“I promise you that you have never set eyes upon anything like what you are going to see.” Suddenly she seems overcome with exhaustion. “Can you promise me something?”
Azula tilts her head.
“Can you swear to me that you won’t leave me after I show you this.”
“I won’t leave you, mother.” She promises. The woman has been nothing but good to her.
“Follow me, dear.”