Chapter 1: I ||| Is Freedom a Bitch or is it You?
Torture is all I've known for two thousand years.
Not because I'm the one causing it, which ain't the case, but because since the old reptile, Dragon Queen Meredith Bloom and her daughter in law, Crowned Princess Philippa Bloom kidnapped me from my mother when I was 7 years old, and killed her in front of me, I've been treated like a material she absolutely despised but wanted to make a weapon with.
All because I'm the bastard daughter of the Crowned Prince Russell Frederick Bloom, the "holy-golden-dragon" with my mom, a black dragon extremely powerful who worked directly with the Dragon Queen and King as the Royal blacksmith and stylist. Which baffles me even more is that mother and Russell were mates, but as dear grandma there didn't want a black dragon to mate with her precious golden son, she terrorized my mom when she learned of their affair and made sure her son married a female golden dragon of high birth right away.
That's where Philippa Pepper Wreathers-Bloom comes into the picture. She got engaged to my birth father before mother could even have me, and as soon as she had me on the territory now known as New Zealand, she ran away to her family's original territory on the Himalaya Mountain Range. Which is where she made her lair and raised me for 7 years, in physical age. That is, until dear grandma came and ended our short-lived happiness.
Aye, key detail. Mom and dad were both dragons, of different founding clans but both dragons, nevertheless, I came out weird and I'm not a dragon at all, I'm something else entirely, though still in the reptile family. Which is another reason why Meredith tortured the shite out of me. If there was something she despises more than having a bastard in her perfect Royal bloodline, is having a bastard who's an error in the system (not my choice of words, hers), something that's only been heard in legends of the long gone old world.
What are you then, Hel? I'm a serpent. But not just a serpent, I'm a gigantic black serpent with emerald scales here and there (which Meredith is to blame for), long and wide bat-like wings, with sapphire eyes, and silver sharp fangs full of a very lethal poison.
That is, according to all Meredith and Cosmos mentioned. I haven't really seen myself, as doing so it's kind of hard, but I did see the extension of my body and color of my scales. I don't really have a way to see my reflexes, as I'm locked up in Meredith's sacred Royal crypts which is only accessible to the Queen. And unfortunately, she's the one occupying that very position. That fucking old bat that never dies, she must be the oldest being on the planet if she's a dragon and has wrinkles of age.
I wouldn't even doubt if she was present around the time humanity was created. She's really that old, which is comprehensible as dragons are immortal as long as you don't kill them. And it's extremely hard to kill one, but not impossible.
As most of my existence I've spent locked up in a literal emerald coffin, since I was 7, I don't know exactly how stasis work or why they do it, but she put me through it the second she brought me in secret to the Dragon Court. Grandma dearest would open the coffin and wake my body up on the 1st Sunday of every month, then she would make me drink the worse potion ever made, followed by a liter of a transparent strong drink that made all of my internal organs burn and made my mind dizzy.
During her monthly visits, after she woke me and gave me that shite to drink, she would put me on the wider area of the crypt where there were tons of torture tools, would handcuff me to the ceiling by my wrists, with more two emerald handcuffs on my ankles that were connected to the ground, and one more on my waist tightly. Only when I was unable to move, she would begin her enjoyment by torturing me.
Nails of fingers and toes cut off. Hair plugged off my hair by force. Eyelashes stripped from my eyes one by one. Back, torso, arms and legs beaten with a thick emerald whip until my flesh was open. And lastly, she would break all of my bones starting from my hands, arms, feet, legs, going for my ribs, hip, my spine, and then my neck. Many times she would burn me with her purple dragon fire, said to be the worst kind of fire in the world, and my skin would melt leaving me purely on bloodied flesh.
Still, through the pain, crying, vomiting, feeling like fainting, I was never able to lose consciousness. Maybe she did something to prevent me from it, or maybe something just went wrong with me, but it remains. I was always fully awake. Paying extreme attention to every hit, to every word she said, to every time she breathed, no matter how much I tried to sleep, I couldn't.
She would unlock all the handcuffs and throw me in the emerald coffin again, letting me heal myself throughout the 29-30 days before her monthly visit. And I healed so painfully slowly that I didn't know what was worse: getting the wounds, or the process of healing. I counted every second that passed, every minute, hour, day.
Waiting for her to come to punish me for being born again. Having to listen to her talk shite about my mother, and about how delicious it was to murder her in front of me. How great it felt to separate her from my father before he realized they were mates. About how amazing it was to make him believe his mate was Philippa, and to watch him love her like he never did my mom.
Potion. Burning drink. Handcuffs. Torture. Coffin. Waiting. Potion. Burning drink. Handcuffs. Torture. Coffin. Waiting. Potion. Burning drink. Handcuffs. Torture. Coffin. Waiting. Potion. Burning drink. Handcuffs. Torture. Coffin. Waiting. All over again, and again, and again, and again.
Many times she would torture me in my changeling form, others she would make me change to my serpent, then she would pluck my scales, whip my body entirely, collect my venom, and break my fangs and wings. She would throw liquid gold with silver and pulverized emerald on me, burning my scales and causing more pain than breaking all bones in my body ever would. When she didn't also use her purple flames on me.
For two thousand and forty years it kept going.
It took me a thousand and fifty-nine years to stop screaming, to stop crying, to stop begging for mercy, which I used to do a lot automatically. And she began making me drink two liters of the burning drink after the disgusting potion, every time. As if trying to numb be from my senses, so I would keep screaming and crying uselessly.
But I held my ground, which only pissed her off more, but I could not let myself break more than I had already. I could feel that it was getting harder and harder to heal all my wounds, the external ones. I could tell it was leaving scars in my body, and it was humiliating enough.
So, even though all I wanted to do was scream, I bit my tongue hard and swallowed it, enduring her torture in pure silence and wanting nothing more than to destroy my dearest paternal grandmother to dust. Praying that one of the Goddess would hear me and help me get through this, help me find strength inside of me to stand up, to fight her. But you can't have the luxury of keeping your sanity intact in a situation like that.
And when she wasn't with me in her monthly visit, I could hear everything. All the tormented souls she killed in here reached out to me, crying, screaming, pleading for me to end their misery. Telling me about their stories, about how they ended up in her class, how they ended up dead. They begged for a hand I couldn't lend them, given my situation, and they never stayed shut. Only when she came, but I could almost taste their fear in my tongue, even though they're gone, to them she's the grim reaper.
Understandable enough, I would say. But they kept dragging me to their misery, and their voices were driving me insane. They were outside my emerald coffin, but I could hear them as if the emerald was nothing but thin paper, and it took me a long time to realize that they were telepathically speaking to me, and that was why I couldn't shake their arses away from me. Why I couldn't brush away the rotten smell of death and shite.
Vampires, shifters of all kinds, witches, wizards, elves, sirens. She must have killed a bit of all the races in this hell for it to be so hunted by them. Even dragons were here, which isn't a red flag at all.
The only spirit who gave me a coherent information instead of just begging for me to do something I couldn't, was a born vampire called Naël-Gaspard Maurice, said to have been tortured to death by grandmother dearest 72 years before I was bought in here. He was eight centuries old at the time, and told me he had the special ability of foresight.
Naël, who was the first─dead─person I talked to since the loss of my mother, was still considerably sane for a dead guy. He told me that Meredith was so old that no one actually knew how old she was (which is a lot to take in, coming from a vampire), and that she was part of the strongest group of supernatural beings on earth, called MSB (Ministry of Supernatural Beings), ruled by the strongest mated couple of each of the strongest races.
Dragons, vampires, shifters (all put together in one group), witches, demons, sirens, seraphins, krakens, fairy, giants, and elves. Grandma dearest, apparently, having the highest seat in the Ministry and being the Supreme Queen with her husband and mate, King Preston Bloom. As she seems to always win the competition that goes around the rulers, as well as she defeats anyone who defies her… with her mate, who's my paternal grandfather, though I don't really know anything about him aside from him being a golden dragon.
He told me that Meredith believed in the supremacy of dragons above all races, and that she was always very crude when it came to showing others what she thought of them. That made the other races try to get her attention, as they all thought it was better to be on the side of the strongest, which happens to be her. Nevertheless, he also told me that there are people who are skeptical about her unchanged spot as the "strongest".
According to him, the Vampire Queen and King absolutely despise that, and though they seemingly respect her, they can't wait to see her fall, as they believe the vampires are the supreme race who should rule over others… which in my honest opinion is similar to her view of things, but in a way that it's better for them. He also mentioned the Witch Queen and Wizard King as people who don't like Meredith, also because they believe they are better than dragons. Lastly, he mentioned the Kings and Queens of the Demon and Seraphim Courts.
Which is very important to me, if I want to take her out one day.
Naël also said that she's terrified of the future, no matter how she acts on the surface, and that's why she killed him.
A year before he was captured by her when he was exploring the mountains surrounding the Dragon Kingdom after some hidden gold, since he said he was a vampire pirate, he had a vision that she would lose the favor of the Triple Goddess and her reign would come to an end as she would befall by the hands of the one that controls the very energy of the universe. In his vision, she would be stripped of what made her a dragon, as well as of her powers, and then her soul would be poisoned and cursed to never reincarnate and she would be murdered.
His words gave me hope. The hope I needed to gather my shite and hold onto my dear life. Hope that I'll leave this place and find this person with the overwhelming power I've never heard off, get them on my side and help them kill her. Which is hopeful, as he said I would play a part in it, and that this "savior" (in my point of view, of course), would gather the most powerful people with the strongest special abilities to get to the end where they kill grandma dearest.
Maybe I could help them gather these people. In all honesty, I'd be open to help even if it was to be the carrier of this person's stuff. As long as I play my part is destroying the one who destroyed me, I'll be in peace.
But what shocked me the most was that Naël told me Meredith has literal support from one of the Triple Goddess, but that he had no idea if it was the Maiden, the Mother, or the Crone. He told me that it was one of them who advised Meredith to use the specific potion on me, and to put me in both a coffin and handcuffs of emerald specifically. Which, of course, made me furious.
I've been praying for the three Goddesses for literally centuries, to only discover that one of them was fucking me up. Awesome. If my birth paternal family wasn't enough, now I have a deity on my arse. Precisely all I needed. But it kind of explains how she was able to remain at the same spot for millennials, as is favored directly by one of the Triple Goddesses.
Unfair, definitely. Infuriating, absolutely. Understandable? Also.
If I were a Goddess, I would also chose to have the strongest under my watch, as they would be the most beneficial underling to have, and right now, Meredith Bloom is the strongest. It's a shite truth, but true nonetheless. Though knowing this and understanding it doesn't lessen up my anger of this situation, after all, they are helping my mother's murderer. I can only hope that his vision will come true and she will lose their favor, because it will make it easier to defeat her.
As I couldn't help myself, I asked Naël if he knew why she kept me locked on a emerald coffin and came every month to give me the potion. To which he explain that in theory the whole staying-in-a-coffin-while-having-the-magical-potion is a process that every royal and noble supernatural being goes through, to unlock special abilities. Which usually, according to him, only result in one special ability, but some times, in rare cases, the person is able to unlock more than one.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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