Chapter XXXI
"You've been doing exceptionally well my little dragon. But today you have the day off. After all, you wouldn't want to miss your own coronation, would you?"
"My coronation?!" Stygian dropped the scroll she had been studying. It bounced on the tile and then lay still.
"Of course! The Priests understand that you live here now. That we share this temple. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine." Turbulence's beady red eyes gleamed in the candle-light. "You ought to be very proud of what you've accomplished. You now understand the vocabulary of a five-year-old child. Though like a five-year-old, your grammar still needs some work."
It doesn't seem possible. This was all happening so fast. Stygian had only been here for a week, and Lyngoriann wasn't even close to Dragon Speak. Yet she had no problems pronouncing the words even though she didn't have the voice for it. She didn't stumble upon the strange syllables, the long angular words that filled her mouth up with so much space. She didn't skip a single consonant, including over words that were 14 letters long. Lyngoriann wasn't an easy dialect by any means, even within the human languages, nor was it the most widely used. Instead it was the direct language of the people of the City nearby, and one only one the Northern Hemisphere spoke.
"I don't understand." Stygian voiced outloud.
Turbulence tapped her temple, a coy smile on her lips. Today she sounded more female than normal.
"It's because you're a really fast learner." She praised. "I've never had a student as excellent as you! What is there to understand?"
Stygian doubted Turbulence had ever had a student before her at all, but she didn't say that outloud. Again doubt glimmered like a spinning coin in her heart. She had never known herself to be a particularly fast learner of anything, certainly not language. In fact out of all the siblings, Malachite had been the best at absorbing knowledge. Stygian had never been excellent at anything really. She had considered herself an average Lustrous Dragon who was good at things all Lustrous dragons were good at. Swimming, climbing, floating, walking on water, and doing quick turns and acrobatics. Lustrous Dragons, aside from their walk-on-water trick, weren't especially known for being specialized in much except looking beautiful.
But Stygian didn't even have that anymore.
"You learn something new about yourself every day." Turbulence went on happily. "And you are very good at this."
Is it just me or is she trying too hard?
Still, although embarrassed slightly, Stygian couldn't deny the praise. She really had learned this all very quickly...though it hurt her head a great deal to do so. It was strange how the learning went... How a murky mind shrouded with darkness could form such clear words. How her mouth could just naturally distinguish the dialect as if she had been born speaking it. She still had a lot of learning to do but still...
"Turbulence." She said slowly. "Do your powers, by any chance, have something to do with giving other dragons skills they didn't previously have?"
Turbulence narrowed her eyes at her and his happy demeanor vanished instantly.
"Perhaps." He said carefully, his eyes guarded.
"Why is this some big secret?" Stygian demanded, growing angry at his stubbornness to be open again. "Shouldn't I have a right to know what exactly you're doing to me during these activities? Why does my head always hurt? Why do I always wake up with almost no memories and a headache, yet seem to remember the words from the pages so clearly, like they had been planted there in my brain almost overnight?"
"You still do not trust me." A pitiful, almost lonely sigh escaped Turbulence's lips as she blinked disdainfully back up at Stygian. "But how can I blame you really? Being through as much as you've been through. Would you trust me if I demonstrated my powers for you? Would that somehow ease your caution of me?"
"I can't promise anything."
Turbulence rolled her eyes. "Excuse me? More like you can't commit. I show you my powers, you need to show me your loyalty. You have a coronation tonight that we must prepare for. Do you dare disappoint all those people?"
"Show me your powers and I'll decide for myself where my loyalties lie." Stygian stood her ground.
"Fine!" Turbulence spat, her eyes clouding with anger. "Yes, there is a flow of power dampening your brain with knowledge. Yes it does come from my hands. Yes it will leave you with headaches. That's a lot of knowledge for your brain to abnormally learn at once. It tends to be overwhelming. I can assure you however that your brain is perfectly healthy. Everything I do is for your own benefit because you want to erase this curse so badly. And based on the speed at which this curse is taking place, I am rushing to teach you these things. I'm sorry if it strains your brain a bit and gives you headaches and causes some short-term memory loss. Such are the consequences of speed learning."
"AND you can breathe fire!"
"AND I can breathe fire."
"And you're called the God of Confusion, though that doesn't seem to match either fire-breathing OR imparting knowledge on someone. What is it you're not telling me?"
"I can impart knowledge and I can take it away." Turbulence said at last, his eyes simmering with resentment. "I am a God of Extremes. A God of Opposites. My enemies cannot stand against me, I can meddle with their minds. I can take away the knowledge they DO have. I Give and Take. I am to be Feared."
Stygian swallowed. He's lying. He's just an ordinary dragon. She tried to assure herself. Some imposter who made up this elaborate story about himself to trick the masses.
"And you're a liar." She said at last, after the silence had stretched out between them so long as Turbulence continued to stare her down, waiting for her reply.
She still wouldn't admit it. Wouldn't admit she was scared.
She has no power over me.
At that a crooked grin spread across Turbulence's muzzle.
"You don't believe me?" She blinked. "Let me show you!"
She took into the air on her little wings—that grin still on her face, though it wasn't a grin that overflowed with happiness. Instead there seemed to be something almost bitter about the little dragon at having to prove herself. She landed on one of the metal cylinders that flickered burning gold in the candlelight like molten lava and grabbed a scroll that was half sticking out of the shelves.
And what scroll is that? Stygian wondered. It wasn't her scroll. It wasn't her mother's either, for Turbulence had shown it to her. Did her mother's scroll even exist anymore now that she was dead? Or did it just end at death?
With that thought, a roiling nausea rose up inside of her at the sickening memories that plagued her mind. She swallowed the bile that rose up in her throat and tried to concentrate on Turbulence, who was now gliding back down towards her with the scroll tucked under his arms, a stain of malice showing through her scales.
Stygian's heart raced.
"Behold, the scroll of your brother, Malachite!" Turbulence dropped the scroll at her feet. "Now watch carefully. Watch ever so carefully little dragon..."
Stygian looked down, partly terrified of what was going to happen to her brother's scroll. Partly in doubt that anything could happen at all. Just because Turbulence knew their future didn't mean he could change it. He had stolen these scrolls after all, not written them.
But something very real was unfolding beneath her talons. Something that struck terror into her heart and soul.
Slowly, as she watched the words on the page began to blur together. The ink began to come alive from the page, wriggling like little black snakes, coming undone from their shapes and patterns and merging together into a boiling mass. Beautifully engraved loops uncurled and zigzagged into the pattern like lightning bolts. Dots began to leak like dripping blood down a wall into the growing mass of ink. Words and pictures and vowels and consonants were losing their form and shapes as they spread out in wispy fingers, like water breaking out of its container and splashing all over the page. Sucking the life out of the pages. Then slowly, the huge black mass that had begun to cover the whole page began to sizzle and fade, from the page, as if it evaporating like water in the scalding sunlight, never to be seen again.
"NO!" Stygian cried. "STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! MAKE IT STOP!!"
Turbulence tipped her head at Stygian, studying her carefully as the black stain continued to dissolve. There was something almost cruel in those eyes. Some otherworldly depth that Stygian didn't understand, couldn't comprehend. It was as if she were looking into the soul of a long dead ancient beast that was barely containing its anger after decades of silence.
The words continued to roil and fade while Stygian screamed and tried to grab them with her claws and stick them back in place. But the ink only stained her claws, and like a brand, began to brighten a glowing red and burn through her scales.
It burned and burned and burned, leaving a handprint ingrained in her scales.
Stygian cried out in agony and flared open her healed wings. And with that the pain went away just as suddenly, as if it had never been. And she was staring down at a blank scroll that had once been so full of...something. Of some kind of meaning.
Now it had no meaning at all. Not even a droplet.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Stygian cried. "TELL ME WHAT YOU DID!!" Tears streamed from her eyes and stained the page with a new kind of ink.
For even her tears were black.
"I erased his scroll." Turbulence grinned. "You asked for a demonstration and I gave you one."
"PUT IT BACK TO THE WAY IT WAS!!" Stygian roared. But now she didn't lunge at Turbulence. She didn't dare, not knowing what else he could do. Not knowing what would happen if he did the same to her scroll too.
What else could he do?
Stygian flinched as Turbulence's tiny claw found her own. She winced at the pinpricks of his tiny black claws as they prodded into her scales.
"Don't. Ever. Ask me to demonstrate again." Her hiss was like oiled silk. So quiet but carrying the threat of a warning under concealed layers of gentleness. A breath seemed to pass between them. A whisper that couldn't be comprehended.
And with that, Turbulence removed her claw from Stygian's and the scroll at Stygian's feet began to take shape again. Slowly words began taking shape on the sheet of paper, back in their original places, as if they had never been touched.
"And that's enough questions for today." Turbulence went on, putting a little more pep into her voice as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "We have a coronation tonight and that's worth celebrating! Come, I'll fix up those last scabs on your wings and heal you of your scars just in time for the Priests to arrive. They'll adorn you with jewels and lead you into the City for a parade. You have been announced as Leviathan, God of Legends. The City awaits you my dear."
Stygian was trembling so hard she found it hard to sit still as she assessed her claws where the ink had branded her. But there was nothing there. Nothing at all. Her head snapped back up at Turbulence, her eyes pleading for answers, but Turbulence paid her no heed, only bouncing about on her little feet, clearly excited over the coronation ordeal. And though so many questions riled like the ink worms within Stygian's brain, she didn't dare open her mouth.
She didn't know what any of it meant. She didn't understand just how far Turbulence's power stretched. And she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
What does she want with me? What would a God like this ever want with me?