Chp.21: An act... almost perfect

When she saw the fireball heading towards her, Sisna acted on instinct and dodged it by jumping to the side. Though her face was twisted into an expression of concern and anger, as any creature would have in such a situation, she was actually grinning inside herself. Everything was going exactly as planned.

It was a natural instinct of all living creatures to attack a predator on sight, if there was no way to escape. And dragons were the natural enemies of all life in the world, and there was no way a human could outrun a dragon. It was obvious that the adventurers' first reaction upon discovering her identity as a dragon would be to try to kill her.

This was exactly what she wanted: for the moment, in fact, the adventurers were scared, and therefore they wanted to eliminate her... but what would happen when they discovered that she didn't even have a year to live? That she was just a little more than half a year old? That she just a baby? While the newcomers' emotions were largely incomprehensible to the dragons, they had learned how easy it was to make them feel guilty.

If a human killed a wolf, and then found out that that wolf had cubs, then he would feel guilty even if he only did it in self-defense. Likewise, once the adventurers discovered that Sisna was just a baby, that she didn't mean to hurt anyone and was just trying to survive, they would feel tremendous guilt for attacking her. And the more the adventurers empathized with her, the easier it would be to get them to be friendly towards her. Once that was done, getting information would be a joke.

All she had to do was fight a little. While she could easily close the distance between them and strike them, or use a rune to unleash a spell, she would instead remain constantly on the defensive, just like a frightened baby dragon would. And of course, she'd have to play the victim. "Why? What have I done to you?" she yelled at the mage who had hurled the fireball.

Obviously no one answered her. It didn't matter: she knew they had heard her. Even if they were ignoring her at the moment, her words would have a big impact later on.

The adventurers emerged from their hiding place. Two of them, two men, ran to opposite sides of each other, clearly circling her, while two others, two almost identical women, stood motionless in the same spot and began chanting some incantation in unison. The last woman, the one who had originally thrown the fireball, ran straight at her instead. Sisna pretended to back away, and to improve the act she tripped over her own legs (obviously pretending: it was impossible for a dragon to trip given their superb sense of balance). She did everything to look scared.

The woman who was attacking her muttered something, and again fire began to form in her hand. Judging by the speed with which this happened and based on her experience with fairies and ogres, Sisna deduced that this mage must be barely a silver level. In a one-on-one fight, she'd probably be able to hold her own.

This time the spell was not a ball of fire, but a kind of fiery whip that spun in the air and like a snake tried to wrap itself around Sisna, who ran away pretending to be scary, when in reality she wasn't in the least afraid given that her scales would protect her from the heat: even if the fire whip managed to hit her, it would take several minutes before the flames consumed her scales enough to start burning flesh. "Stop it! I don't want to fight!" she screamed, and even added a few tears as if she was desperate.

Even though no one answered her again, she could notice some signs in the adventurers' faces that signaled that they were having some doubts. However, that wasn't enough to stop them: the two male adventurers muttered something and taking advantage of her distraction they struck the ground below her with a spell. Tentacles of earth formed and wrapped around his legs very tightly. Sisna realized that distracting her had been their plan all along; after all, newcomers worked well as a team. The twins who had remained on the sidelines up to that moment drew a circle with their fingers, and a strange thread emerged from them: that of the twin on the right was red and fiery, while that of the twin on the left seemed to be made of water. The two threads came together in a perfect circle and began to spin.

That must have been a very dangerous move; Sisna absolutely had to dodge it. However, she could at the same time continue acting while making it safe. "What are you doing? Let me go!" she yelled as she pretended she couldn't free herself from the tentacles of earth.

One of the male adventurers looked rather annoyed. It was clear that Sisna's play was working perfectly. "Guys, maybe we're making a..." he tried to say, but before he could say anything else the other male adventurer uttered some sort of spell which exploded around him like a shock wave; it was impossible for Sisna to dodge it, but when it touched her it did her no harm, but caused a total imbalance of her senses. It seemed to Sisna that the world began to spin in strange positions, as if she were nauseous.

That spell was probably some kind of mind control magic to dull her senses; fortunately, dragons possessed strong mental resilience and although she felt as if she were drunk Sisna was still able to understand what was going on around her. However, now it was too late: the circle formed by the twins exploded in a flash of light and two beams of magic, one blue and one red, were hurled against Sisna.

At that point the dragon could waste no more time: with a jerk, she broke the tentacles of earth and threw herself to the side. Those tentacles could have pinned her on her own strength, but under her paws she had several fortification runes that granted her extra strength. She dodged the blow just in time, which shattered against the rock behind her; however, she let it lightly brush her thigh. It wasn't enough to injure her, but it still hurt a little. She threw herself on the ground and pretended to burst into tears: "W-Why are you doing this? I d-did nothing to y-you! Y-You are mean to me!"

Now the other male adventurer and one of the twins also looked dubious. "Guys, seriously... maybe we're really wrong... I don't think she can..." the adventurer tried again to say, but was suddenly interrupted.

"SISTER!"

The adventurers froze when they heard that voice and turned away. Not far from them two other dragons had appeared and were running in their direction. The adventurers prepared to face them, but the two dragons completely ignored them and ran towards Sisna. The two dragons were, of course, Rhaegal and Darbi, who had fully entered the part they were to play. "Sister! Are you okay? What have they done to you?"

"Sister?" one of the twins murmured, voicing the thoughts of all five adventurers. Weren't dragons a solitary species? According to the stories they knew, it was impossible to find more than one dragon in the same place...

A thought flashed through their minds. In reality it was false: it was possible to find more than one dragon in the same place... when they mated... or when they were still...

A doubt crept into their hearts. Was it possible that those dragons were just babies? It would explain why they were so different from the stories… but they were so big… it wasn't possible, right?

Darbi's roar brought them back to reality. The dragon stood before his two siblings, and his claws and teeth were on full display. It looked like he was ready to get hit to defend them. "Filthy bastards! How dare you hit my sister!? How could you be so cruel!?"

What the adventurers saw was a very strange, yet at the same time very familiar scene: Sisna was on the ground trembling and sobbing, and one of the male dragons seemed to be trying to help her, while the other stood in front of them to protect them. If they had been humans, they would have been no different than a sister being attacked, a brother rescuing her, and a second brother defending her. The five adventurers felt a strange weight in their hearts seeing them like this: were they really attacking a family? "Wait... we don't..." one of them tried to say.

"Don't try to say it was her fault! My sister hates fighting! She's still young!" Darbi growled. "It was you who attacked her, I'm sure of it!"

Those words made the adventurers doubt even more. "Is she still young? But... how old is she?" one of the twins asked.

"What does it matter now?" Darbi snorted, but then added anyway: "Anyway, she's seven months old"

Now the adventurers really felt very guilty. Only seven months old? If so, that dragon must have been just a child. No, a baby. She was huge... but after all people said that dragons were huge... and her mentality really didn't seem superior to that of a child...

Darbi began to advance towards them menacingly. "You dared to touch my sister... I'll tear you apart!" he roared, and he seemed ready to pounce on the five adventurers, who in fact immediately went on the defensive.

"NO!"

Everyone froze and turned to Sisna. She was crying in Rhaegal's arms and looking at Darbi pleadingly: "Brother, stop... no more violence... please..."

"Sister..." Darbi looked devastated to see her like that. It was clear that he wanted to kill those who had hurt her, but he didn't want to do it in front of his sister.

It was a truly heartbreaking scene, and the adventurers felt very sick to watch it. Perhaps, they reflected, Sisna had some kind of mental problem, since she seemed incapable of tolerating violence. Among humans it sometimes happened. Maybe she had been traumatized, or maybe she was born that way. And judging by the looks of her brothers, it shouldn't have been the first time this had happened...

Now the adventurers felt really bad at the thought of being the cause of that cry. In fact, Sisna hadn't done anything to them… they had attacked her… she had never even been hostile to them…

Finally, one of them, a tall, raven-haired man, stepped forward. "We are sorry!" he exclaimed. "We made a mistake. We thought she was... dangerous, that's..."

Darbi looked furious at those words, but Sisna seemed to calm down. "So... are we friends now?" she asked in an innocent voice.

In front of those glittering eyes, the man seemed unable to say no: "Well, we can try to be friends" he replied.

"How beautiful!" Sisna exclaimed with a smile. "Then no more violence, right, brothers?"

Rhaegal and Darbi looked at each other hesitantly, then nodded. "All right, sister, no more violence" they said, but glared at the adventurers to let them know they were watching.

Obviously, the three dragons were exulting within themselves. Everything had gone exactly as planned: they had managed to play with the emotions of the adventurers in a masterly way. Their act had been perfect, and now Sisna had to do nothing but continue to act like an innocent child, while Rhaegal and Darbi would play the suspicious and grumpy brothers, just as they would have done if such a situation had really happened. With the right words, they would get what they wanted.

Sisna approached the closest adventurer. Darbi pretended to stop her: "Don't go near her, sister!"

"But we're friends now, aren't we?" Sisna said in her usual innocent voice, then she looked at the adventurer. "What is your name?"

The woman smiled. "My name is Sarah. This is Martha, Lisah, Efren and Carlos" she replied, and then look at the slight burn on Sisna's leg. "We hurt you. Wait, I have a healing potion here" she said, starting to search for something inside a dimensional bag (obviously the adventurers had one too).

"You are so nic..." Sisna's instincts suddenly kicked in and she sensed danger nearby, but it was too late: Sarah's face suddenly took on a determined expression and she pulled what looked like a bone from the dimensional bag and stuffed it into her mouth. Sisna backed away and spat out the bone, but the woman smiled triumphantly. "As I expected: the teeth match! You're the one who ate our master! You're not as harmless as you're trying to pretend to be, are you?"

Sisna was confused for a moment, then her face also completely changed expression: from innocent she became furious when she realized that she had been discovered. She didn't know how the woman figured this out, but it was clear the cover had been blown. She bounded back to Rhaegal and Darbi again, and all three moved into attack stances.

The other adventurers assumed a surprised and at times angry expression: they had fallen into the trap. Only Sarah understood something was wrong. Immediately they began chanting magic again, ready to cast a spell.

But of course they didn't make it in time. A second later, there were five thuds and all five adventurers fell unconscious. The other dragons had appeared behind them. "Jeez, for a second I really thought it would work" Corgorin muttered.

"It was working, until that woman pulled that bone out!" Sisna grumbled. "Why didn't you kill them?"

"We can't" Kotaru replied, then she pointing to Maldor: "Our sister has an idea. An idea that could allow us to get all the information we need without struggling"