Chapter Text
C1: once a dragon (hand)maiden
“You’re Zhan Tiri”. The whispered accusation left Cassandra aghast.
“Oh, quit pretending you're horrified.” The demon replied. “We're not so different, you and I. We were both cheated out of destiny!! In fact, we're more like sisters than you and Rapunzel ever were!! We even want the same thing. And we can get it, if you continue to let me help you.” It finished with a hand held toward Cassandra; the warrior repelled it.
“I'm nothing like you. Just because I'm pursuing my destiny doesn't make me a bad person.” Cassandra unsheathed the Moonblade and charged against the accursed woman. It was for naught. The (frankly telescoped) strike passed a hair length of the demon’s neck.
“You really are your mother’s daughter Cassandra”
“I. Am. Not.” Was the answer, punctuated each time with a strike. Each time the demon recoiled just enough for avoiding the blade, taunting the fighter with a smirk.
“But you are, infinite potential fooled by your own ego and an obsession with a sun artefact, the flower for her, the princess for you. You could have left Corona after capturing the Moonstone. You could have stayed as a guard in Corona instead of joining the expedition. But no, because of course you would have left sweet, sweet Rapunzel alone and that, You. cannot. do”. Zhan Tiri was interrupted by a series of rocks emerging brutally under her feet.
“Didn’t anyone teach you that it’s rude to interrupt people when they talk.” A shoot answered and two rows of rocks tried to crush it in a pincer.
“I guess it’s a no. Well, it’s time to teach you a lesson, naughty children are transformed by the big bad Zhan Tiri”. The warlock clapped her hands and for the second time in two weeks the Black Tower was flooded with a blinding light and a deafening bang. Then she threw a spell to her disabled opponent.
Suddenly Cassandra felt dizzy, her legs no longer being able to support her; she fell. Her environment grew bigger, except it was her who was shrinking. And the spell wasn’t finished with her. It started with a strange sensation in her fingers and her toes, like pins and needles; it spread in her limbs to her chest and guts, and finally to her heart. She then cooled brutally as if one had taken the Great Blizzard and poured it in her veins. And things went from weird to painfully weird. Her bones and organs changed violently, some fused, some separated, some appeared, some disappeared, and all rearranged themselves. The caster pricked up her ear, her face split with a smile
“Oh! What a sweet sound I hear! Continue, delight me with your cries!” The transformation ended in the most gruesome way, scales black as night replaced the rocks by piercing it. But in the place where the rock did not cover her dermis, skin and hair were brutally torn, falling into the growing pool of blood at her feet. An elongated jaw split her face in the middle and scales grew on all her head.
Cassandra never felt so much pain. Even at the Great Tree, when the Decay Incantation stroked, it burned but from the outside, there, it was her blood burning from the cold. When the pain receded, fast with the Opal’s help, she saw her reflection in a near black rock. What looked back at her was a lizard, 1 meter long, black with a lone turquoise scale near her heart, her head, and her right anterior leg of the same hue.
“Reduced to a lizard, not even a cute little critter. May this remind you of your place, with the losers at the bottom of the ladder. Honestly girl, when will you understand?”
The humiliation stunk deep and poured oil on the fire of her wrath. White hot anger flew through her system, blinding reason and judgement. This rage, amplified by the Moonstone, reacted with something deep inside, a primal thing buried right beside her heart. Just like an egg, it was covered by the Opal as its parent. Just like the first peck of a nascent creature cracks the egg, so did the spell with the entity. The arcane’s energy, enhanced with Moonstone’s aura and primal rage, ripped the egg open.
And from the egg flew energy, pouring through her veins. Her reptilian body just…grew, taller and taller till it reached the ceiling. Two wings sprouted from her back; a stinger appeared at the tip of her tail and four horns jutted on her head, one straight and one curled on each side.
She roared.
“So Gothel tried it. How interesting.”