Chapter 181

"Even I didn't see that coming." Albedo muttered under her breath as the broken meat that was once Remedios Custodio went sailing away from the wall, the dragon… seemingly ate the prisoner, and then left as if he was only there for a quick bite to eat. The stones of humanity's defenders crumbled with ease that would have made her laugh had she not been maintaining her cover.

Illyana, she saw out of the corner of her eye, looked with wonder and awe as the titan-like strength of her human oppressors, once so impressive to her, crumbled like a little sandcastle kicked at by a child.

Out of the corner of her other eye, she saw the whores get away from their tents, a great many were frozen in fear, but those who ran away showed very good instincts as blocks of stone came crashing down, turning some unfortunates into red stains in the dirt.

Arrows flew from bows before the dragon had gone even twenty meters from the wall, but their aim was between hasty and bad, earning a mix of praise and contempt from the Guardian Overseer. 'Adept effort, but poor execution.' She thought as people around her scattered. As a test, her own passive area of effect resistance seemed to translate to a curious kind of 'luck' wherein stones that should have headed toward her instead seemed to land away from her instead.

'The New World is really a very interesting place.' She kept a bemused smile on her face that didn't vanish when Illyana took cover behind her, crouching down at Albedo's back and covering her golden hair with her hands.

The whole of the event took a mere minute or two, and then it was over, and Albedo's mind began to race with the possibilities, and how much faster this would mean her master would come to join her.

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Olasird'arc did his best not to do any harm to the squire in his mouth, and as he flapped his wings away, he tried to ignore just how good she tasted. 'She must have magic in the blood…' He thought, and recalled her mentioning her ability to imbue mana into her arrows for some nasty effects on those she hit with it. 'Of course she does.' He realized, and tried to speak, albeit somewhat muffled.

"Ah am a lawttle late, but yahl be fawn. Jus trah naht toh move." He said and looked behind him. The arrows fell far short of him, and though his sharp eyes saw that they were loading ballistae, they were in no way prepared to hit the small target he was rapidly making of himself.

Whether they finished loading or not, he wasn't sure, but he caught sight of no giant arrows, and so he concluded they hadn't bothered to shoot.

He landed out of sight beyond a distant hill as soon as he was able, and lowering his head to the ground, he opened his mouth.

The first thing Neia saw when she opened her eyes, other than the top of the inside of a dragon's mouth, was that there were several orcs rushing over and picking her up by the stake to which she was still bound.

Her body was starting to feel cold, 'I'm dying.' She knew the signs, without a caster, she wasn't going to last long, Remedios should have pinned her with only one sword and allowed her to expire over time, but she had used three. Worse, vital organs had been pierced and then more damage done during her rescue. She'd seen demihumans die like this, pierced, bleeding out, some spoke of how cold they were.

Out of pity, more than once she had covered the dying with a cloak so that they would not expire shivering. A pointless gesture, 'But now it is my turn.' She thought and looked up at the orcs that laid her down on the ground.

"The caster is coming." Olasird'arc growled down at her when he raised his head up again.

Neia spat out blood from her mouth and gave him a weak smile. "It's enough that you came back for me. Nobody ever did that before." She said, but her body had begun to shiver. "It's cold in me. I'm glad you got away. But unless you've got a potion under those scales…" Neia said, and then her eyes, which had been closing, popped wide open as Olasird'arc raised his foreleg and then put a claw to it, then sliced open his armored body. Blood as white as snow gushed out and for a moment Neia feared she might drown in it. Already cold, for a moment Neia was utterly freezing, and then…

'I'm not cold anymore? Am I dead? Did I die…?' She asked, her eyes could see nothing, but the sense of freezing and chills were utterly gone.

Then she felt something else.

Her strength returning. But it didn't feel like her normal strength.

Everything around her was white as if she were surrounded on all sides by glowing lights, but they were fading, her numb limbs were getting their feeling back.

She felt the swords being pulled from her body, and opened her mouth to scream into the light, but she couldn't hear the screams she was sure she was making.

Neia felt utterly disembodied, a will, a mind, but no 'body' to contain it. Only the ghost of pain and agony clawing away at her, but rapidly weakening.

Then even that was gone, and the light that engulfed her began to fade. She could hear the chattering voices of others again, "I don't think she will need the healer after all." She recognized Olasird'arc's voice, the sound of relief that would have been easy to overlook before.

"Isn't she human?" An orc was speaking, an orc whose voice she knew.

'I spared that one.' She realized, 'I am now where he once was, but Olasird'arc is here, so maybe not. So many questions.' The rational part of Neia's brain was working again, and it was confused.

"She was. But I doubt her fellow humans would count her as that anymore. They're very finicky about these things, or so she has told me. Even distant elven ancestry is held in contempt." Olasird'arc remarked, "Her life is saved, but the life she had is now gone forever. I am afraid she will never be able to go home."

As the light faded away to nothing, Neia opened her mouth to speak, everything felt… utterly sublime. "What… what did you do?" She asked and opened her arms, the bonds which held her fast, snapped like toothpicks.

"I gave you some of my blood." Olasird'arc said in a grave, quiet voice which Neia could not pin down as far as what it felt like. "I couldn't say if it would work or not, but as you have at least some magic in you, I thought it might. And it did. It didn't work quite how I expected, but it did work."

Neia pursed her lips and looked down at her hands where the chains dangled uselessly. The light tan she had on the skin there was gone, her bare feet were the same. Like her body had not been kissed by sunlight before, but with a very light bluish white hue.

Her fingers felt strange too, a bizarre impulse came over her, something she could not explain, and when she focused on the tips, she saw the once normal human nails, extend, curve, like vicious claws. Small, like an eagle's talons.

"Ah… this feels strange… very strange." Neia whispered, and felt the breath on her hands, it was cold as a winter's chill.

"Your hair has changed also, it's now very white." Olasird'arc added and Neia's hands darted up to grab at loose strands and pull them a little away from her head so that she could see the strands out of the corner of her eyes.

"I… am… what happened… exactly what happened…?" Neia asked, confusion as a whirlwind in her head, she reached up to her mouth and touched her teeth, they were not all like tiny knives… but a few, very much so.

"I do not know the word for it, Neia Baraja, but if I had to name it, I would call you a dragonid." Olasird'arc said, leaving Neia struggling to work out just what that meant for her, before the reality of it all hit home. She sat down on the stake she was meant to die pinned to, the rusty swords lay at her feet on the ground as if they had been cast down in surrender.

'Mom… dad... ' Had there been anyone else, she would have named them in her thoughts, but there wasn't. Only them, and when she looked back, the wall and the fortress were obscured, hidden by the hill, but even out of sight, she knew the truth. 'I can't go to that side anymore, I'll be killed on sight, not just as a traitor… but as… a demihuman? An enemy of humanity. My home. My life. My family… I just barely got the latter back, and now it's gone forever.'

She missed, through the tears that fell, that those orcs that gathered nearby, led by the big one she spared once before, all began to kneel.