The Phoenix Queen (1/2)

For the half a year, Fina mostly spent her time exploring the palace and occasionally visiting her grandmother-in-law, Arla. That phoenix woman seemed awfully subdued and depressed lately, and this only made Fina even more worried about those two boys.

Where DID Dakka and Fheldin go?

And so, Fina thought that she could get the answer out of Arla. Why is she so nervous? Is something going to happen to Dakka and Fheldin?

Arla never really answered any of her direct questions. Instead, she insisted on eating with Fina and walking around the gardens with her.

Alas, Fina understands one thing. It's that what Arla needs is some company – not someone to go fix her problem.

'If I can't get any answers from the woman,' Fina thinks, 'I'd mind as well do something useful and make her feel better.'

Thus, Fina starts to shut up about where those two dragons went, and she instead focuses on spending time with Arla.

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As Fina and Arla spend more and more time together, Fina starts to notice a strange pattern around Arla's behavior.

Firstly, Arla starts to visit the nursery every day to chat with all of her youngest children there.

Fina would've thought this a normal thing, but she could tell by reading all those dragon and phoenix children's Spirits that this is VERY abnormal behavior for their mother. She usually spends all of her time researching alchemy and occasionally sharing her notes with her daughters.

However, Arla starts to uncharacteristically eat every meal with them and play with the children. The only time she goes into her lab is to show her daughters how to use all the equipment.

Heck, when Arla starts giving her equipment away to her daughters, the Felkin princesses all have their eyes pop out of their sockets.

Their mother? Giving away her equipment? Hasn't alchemy always been her life!? Isn't this the same woman who'd spend more time among herbs than with her own children?

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It doesn't take long for Arla to start sending out invitations to all of her sons and daughters – asking them to come home and visit her.

Most of these princesses had started their own families and built lives for themselves by now. Plus, many of them live VERY far away. So sadly, only a few of the Felkin show up to visit their mother.

However, the ones who DO show up are showered with rare ingredients and given extremely valuable alchemic equipment – the kind of stuff Arla would never hand over to amateurs.

Each time, all of her daughters would wear shocked expressions and ask, "But… why? We can't take this!"

Each time, Arla would only reply, "Just take it. I've decided that I don't need it anymore. I've grown… bored of alchemy."

Meanwhile, whenever Arla's draconic sons would show up, she'd pat them all on the head and ask them how they're doing. She'd call their names one by one and ask them to accompany her.

The dragons don't question their mother nearly as much as the daughters did. Maybe it's because their brains care a lot more about hierarchy than any other race.

Even still, with all of her sons taking walks with her and carrying her around, only a few realize that something is wrong with their mother. The ones who DO notice don't even know how to broach the subject.

…And this entire time, Fina is seeing something rather strange going on.

One by one, as each of the Mistress's children come to visit her, Fina sees that Arla's golden Spirit Threads are unraveling, one by one.

Fina has an idea of what this means, but she chooses to stay quiet about this all. Just from Arla's actions alone, Fina can sense that something has happened to Lord Fheldin.

It's like Arla is tidying up all loose ends in her life and saying her goodbyes.

'That can't be!' Fina thinks hesitantly. 'Fheldin can't be DEAD! That's right. Arla is probably just worried sick... But... why can't my Spirit Magic sense Fheldin at all? Is it because he's in another world right now?"

The more Fina thinks about it, the more uncontrollably furious she starts feeling toward Dakka.

'How dare he make Arla worry so much like this! When he gets back home, I'll kill him!'

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Many months later, Arla and Fina are both in the herbal garden that's kept just outside the front gate. Right now, Arla is showing her in-law how to tell certain plants apart – all very mundane stuff, really.

Fina herself is doing a splendid job of pretending like she's interested, and it seems that Arla hasn't seemed to notice yet.

They occupy themselves in the garden for so long that they only think about leaving when the sun starts to set, and the sky is beginning to turn the color of a dying flame.

It's at this time that a large, looming shadow drifts over them – turning the afternoon sky into a dismal, black shade.

The phoenix and the Ant woman both look up to see a large, brown and green-scaled dragon descending…

Dakka's here… but where is Fheldin?

Fina rushes forward and crosses her arms – looking up at her husband. Dakka notices her stern gaze, and his heart clenches a little.

For some reason, ever since she got her soul repaired, he's always felt incredibly nervous whenever he sees his wife get angry. It's like something in her eyes is intimidating, despite the fact that she (probably) can't actually kill him.

She can't, right?

Whatever the reason may be, Dakka doesn't want to deal with his wife's mood, but he knows he has to.

Groaning a little, Dakka turns back into his humanoid form and drops to the ground.

"I DIDN'T KNOW WE'D BE GONE THAT LONG!!" Dakka bellows with a rushed voice. He's sure to spit out his reasons for being so late before his wife gets to ask about it. "IT WAS ALL GRANDFATHER'S IDEA!!"

"Do you know how much you've made Mrs. Arla worry!?" Fina hisses at Dakka. "Six months. SIX MONTHS!? What? Did you go on a vacation? Where did you go?! Where's Lord Fheldin? We spent so long doing this and that…"

Fina goes on to chew Dakka apart with her words, and it doesn't look like she's stopping any time soon.

As her voice goes on and on, Dakka's thoughts start to get a little distracted, and he starts glancing past her shoulders. 'Aren't those trees new? My, I didn't know that tree had such pretty flowers before? I wonder how deep the roots go?'

"Are you listening!?" Fina hisses at Dakka.

Dakka thinks about lying to her, but he decides against it. Lying to a Spirit mage is completely pointless. "No. I'm very sorry."

Without another word, Dakka bends down, picks Fina up, raises her up to his eye level, and plants a big fat kiss on her lips.

"Do you feel better now?" Dakka asks with a careful voice.

"…No…," Fina sighs. Even though she really is angry, that kiss poked a hole in her sails. Suddenly, she just feels very tired.

"Go talk to your grandmother," Fina says tiredly.

They both look over, and they see that Arla is sitting alone on a bench, looking down and saying nothing. Even though Dakka is back, the phoenix doesn't seem very anxious to ask him about her husband.

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Dakka and Fina walk over to Arla, and the dragon gets on one knee. He bends down even further and looks Arla in the eyes. "Grandmother? … I don't need to tell you where Fheldin is, yes?"

Arla doesn't say a word. Instead, she shakes her head.

"Do you want me to tell you… how it went? Is there anything you want to know?" Dakka asks carefully.

Arla shakes her head again. Then, she extends a hand and beckons with an open palm. "Did you bring anything back from him?"

"I did," Dakka nods slowly. "Where do you want me to bring it out? It's pretty big."

"Here is fine."

Dakka raises an eyebrow. "You sure? It'll crush your garden."

"It's fine," Arla shrugs nonchalantly. "I don't care about the garden anymore. Just bring it out."

Dakka reaches into the space bag on his waist (a gift from Haalfrin), and he releases a large torrent of red energy.

The energy quickly flows out of the bag, and it takes a large, undefinable shape. Moments later, the energy materializes into white bone, and it hardens into the shape of a large dragon skull with 6 Horns.

The second the skull smashes into the ground, it takes up the entire chasm. The horns are even stabbing into the walls in some parts, despite the snout being wedged tightly against the other side.

Seeing the enormous skull materialize, Fina steps back and yelps in surprise. Sure, her husband's head is still bigger than this one, but that doesn't make its arrival any less surprising.

"Dakka… Who IS that?" Fina asks while pointing at the skull. "That's not…?"

"It's Lord Fheldin," comes his short reply.

"That can't be," Fina protests. "Wasn't he a 5-Horned dragon? Nevermind that. Why is he dead? Can we bring him back?" Fina looks up and recalls something she'd forgotten about dragons. "Do you know any 7-Horned dragons who could do that for you?"

Dakka shakes his head. He then looks over at Arla, who's still sitting on her bench – stone still and staring at the ground with lost eyes.

"Let's go inside," Dakka says softly. He picks his wife up again and props her on his shoulder. "I don't think we should distract Grandmother. She needs a moment alone."

Frankly, when Fina saw that Fheldin was dead, she didn't take it seriously at first, since even her husband had died at one point, then was brought back to life.

However, seeing everyone's somber reactions, she realizes that something is wrong – that something is different with THIS death.

"All right," Fina nods, "but set me down first. I want to have a word with Arla." After spending the last several months with her grandmother-in-law, she's become strangely attached to the phoenix matron. She'd hate to leave without at least saying something meaningful to her.

So, Fina hops off her husband's shoulders and trots over to the lone phoenix. She then kneels on the ground next to her and asks, "Are you all right? Do you need anything?"

Arla shakes her head silently.

Fina then extends her hand. "Why don't you come inside with us? We'll get you something warm to eat?"

Arla shakes her head again. She then says in a quiet, mouse-like voice, "It's fine. I'll stay out here. My husband can't join us inside when he's this big."

Fina stands up and sighs. "All right. I'll go with Dakka to get you something to eat. You stay put, ok? We'll be right back."

This time, Arla nods her head. Then, she looks up and smiles warmly at Fina. "Wait!" Arla suddenly calls. She instantly takes Fina's hand before she can retract it. "Thank you. Dakka found himself a good woman to marry. You'll make a good queen for this world. Make sure to take care of the Clans for me."