Dragon Boy and Princess

Chapter 42

Hello, everybody!! I know, I know, I've been gone a long time, and I'm so sorry!!

Mira: Heck yeah, you've been gone a long time! You abandoned me for weeks!

Meena: Hey! I had writer's block, okay? And I actually had a lot of work to do. You can't help what life throws at you sometimes. 

Mira: Whatever...

Meena: You're so mean, Mira! Be happy you got a chapter!

            Their bellies full from all the meat, and their bodies well rested, everyone fell asleep rather quickly, Lucy included. The familiar corridor stretched again before her, and though she knew she would relive her mother's death, she was slightly excited. Her suspicions about the dream were confirmed when she opened the door to Layla's room to find her alive, and talking to the vortex in the air again.

            "I'll never let you—" Layla was saying.

            "Ma—" she heard herself say, and yet again Layla whirled around, cutting her off.

            She had a panicked look in her eyes that didn't suit her usually calm features, and hurried to clamp a hand over Lucy's mouth.

             "Who's there?" the gravelly voice boomed again.

            "No one," Layla hurried to say, holding Lucy behind her.

            Little her grabbed a fistful of her mother's skirt, and leaned to the side until she could just barely see the vortex. A giant eye greeted her view: what would be the white part of the eye was completely black and glistening, and so thin it was barely visible was a blue slit that seemed to be his pupil. Something nagged at her in the back of her mind, but she couldn't grasp it quite yet, probably because of how the cruelty present in the eye chilled her to the bone.

            "You cannot stop me, Layla," the entity growled out again, its voice sounding like stones grinding against each other.

            "Maybe not, but someone will," Layla said firmly. "Killing all the dragons is not the solution! It won't bring your family back!"

            "WHAT DO YOU KNOW?" it roared, and Lucy felt her mother flinch. "DRAGONS TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME! THEY DESERVE NOTHING BUT PAIN! THEM AND THEIR UNHOLY OFFSPRING!"

             "Look at you! You've become as bad as the ones you hate! You're not even human anymore!" Layla bit back, and that was the first time Lucy had ever heard her mother sound so vicious.

           "It's a means to an end," it said curtly.

            Layla scoffed.

          "And what are you going to do to stop me? You don't even possess your family's prized weapon."

            Étoile Fleuve flashed in Lucy's head, and she knew that there was no other weapon the entity could be talking about. She wanted desperately to get Layla's attention, to tell her she had it, but she couldn't move. This was, after all, a memory.

            "I'll go find it," her mother said confidently. "And I will stop you, no matter what it takes."

            At this, the creature—because Lucy had deduced that it was obviously not human, or it least wasn't anymore—seemed to panic, indicated by its pupil dilating until it was almost non-existent.

            "You wouldn't," it said unsurely.

            "I would. No matter what we were in the past, Acnologia, my duty as a Heartfilia is to protect the people, human or otherwise," Layla said, straightening her back.