Nemean reached the lagoon and did not even call for help, she just dove right into the icy waters to save what little flesh might have been left on her body. She was shaking, terrified, hurt—and this fucking burning wouldn't stop!

A gentle whirlpool lifted her from the water and held her above its surface; a calming, icy touch soothed her to her bones and she did nothing but cradle herself in a fetal position, still hugging the moonstone to her chest. She said nothing to him as his body emerged from the lagoon, his magic soft and cool. Tenzin also did not say anything, and instead focused on quelling the fire that clung to her tiny body. He might not have known what happened, but knowing Nemean, he figured she might have deserved it. Astraea had left perhaps moments ago, off to mourn by himself or do who-knows-what.

It seemed she'd arrived just in time for the festivities. A great show had unfolded entirely in her honor. Not that they knew she was here--but they would.

She had followed the stench of burning flesh. It wasn't hard to miss, and it stood the teetering gauge of her impending victory, leaning ominously toward fruition. The only obstacle that stood between her and the treasure she sought was distance, now. Step by step, even that was dismantled; for she was, and always would be, His greatest Dismantler.

It was a light rattle that breathed her in. Tiny golden chains dangled from the clasps around her ankles; mistake them not for shackles, they were vessels for the thing that quietly raged inside them. They were the sound that twinkled in the silence extending around the sprite and the bird. And then, a click; one, two, tap. Draconic nails patiently etching all her time waiting into the loam. Each step, another eternity. Another eon which pulled her closer to the singularity that would bridge darkness and existence.

The line between chaos and natural order was always the first to blur, and she would make it so, here, today, as she was raised to. Perhaps she would teach these precursors what it meant to really Serve.

Tap, tap, tap. She was padded footfalls on long grey legs. A train of silky blue rippling like ocean waves across the ground, a homesick sight. Robed in elegance was she: desaturating the world around her, so that she may be the only locus of colour, of brilliance, designed so by ego. Plush brown keratin in rolling bushels on her shoulder, a thing once alive draped around her neck; she'd killed it over and over again to realize her ideal wardrobe, but, oh--it was ever-changing, and she already knew of a few somethings that were fit to nourish her impeccable fashion. One, in the hands of the little lion. Two, on the breast of the bird. And three, soaring and screaming, uttering a key of fury that she was fervent to harmonize with.

She had decided with ease how those things would be hers.

Out of an unusual shadow, she emerged at the edge of the lagoon, tilting her silver eyes to the sloped and ribbed walls and the moss that hung from them and the mist that pooled at her feet. How terribly humble. What a happy mistake this all was; but wasn't that chaos at its most authentic? You know beautiful things come from entropy, don't you?

Or you just haven't met her yet. That most beautiful thing,

At the lagoon, peering down her nose at these subjects of hers. Not waiting to be noticed, but commanding to be recognized.

Under reign of Him, under order of Her:

Lord Dhracia.

Despite the silence between them and the roar of the waterfall, both Nemean and Tenzin looked up simultaneously as a figure approached the lagoon—it would be wrong to say they heard her, or glimpsed her from their peripherals, no; it was a presence that demanded their attention, innately calling their focus onto Her.

Tenzin was first to stir: he shifted into a soft bow, but his eyes betrayed any respect he might have been displaying. It was fear that glazed them. And then it was Nemean moving, freed from a paralyzing realization. She fought to free herself from the bubble in which Tenzin held her, her wounds still rolling with the embers of fire.

"My Lord," peeped her voice, rising in the silence like some kind disgusting act of defiance. "My Lord Dhr—" her sound cut out into a garbled, suffocating sound as Tenzin engulfed her face in quietly placed water.

It was known. If She wanted them to speak to Her, She would ask.

And so Tenzin awaited Her Command, with Nemean watching from the enclosed bubble.

The clamshell of her dominion all at once unfurled, for she was the only key that could slide so innocuously into this nest's convoluted aperture. Silver and sleek, crafted not by locksmith, but by house; the house in which all such furnishings were born and bred and tuned to beautiful, anarchic perfection. This House of Natural God, turned black by his fallen angel, House of Wretched Enemy; it was a matter of perspective, because what was an enemy if not an antithesis of self? She balked at the perfection of law which, to her, was not perfection at all. Here she was, pieced together by scattered fractals of the most broken things, and in spite of this, she was perfection. The key to the house which was the body of a thing by many names. Devil, Demon, Him. She stands at the altar of Him and beckons for your gaze.

The Lord lifted her head, her chin tipped with regency, and regarded those inhabitants of this house with the thinnest patience. One span of time in which they had their one chance to deign to her, and they did: wisely. It was the phoenix first, and then sworn in by babbling subordination, the little lion, whose tumult bowed its head for her. Lord Dhracia hummed, but no emotion was granted clemency by her lip. She was stoic. She was Judgment.

One span of time to deign and it had passed.

Blessed were those under trial, for the verdict arrived swaddled in scheme, on the current of a lofty voice and entirely, universe-shatteringly omnipresent, in the way that the pansophical whisper was:

"You've come so far, Architect. My, it must have been a tribulation to see your jurisdiction fall to such shambles."

Barely his jurisdiction, but not his domain, because this was Hers, and above Hers, it was His. The Masters had always been taught to remember that. Or did they forget?

She saw evidence of negligence in every molecule of air here.

Lord Dhracia turned her eyes to the little lion.

"Tell me whether I should be impressed with your longevity, or if I should consider it a slight."

Already decisive, she held in her goblet mercy, and sipped from it knowingly before those parched throats. She smacked her metaphorical lips and dangled it above them if only to relish watching them build their ladder of words to just graze it. To breathe it.

Nemean's head turned from Dhracia to Tenzin as he was spoken to, her eyes flicking between the two of them, hungry to see both her command and his reaction. But the phoenix only grimaced. There was nothing to be said, nothing he would dare do that would betray himself. How, after Astraea had been risen, Tenzin's nature easily found itself crawling to the freedom that was the pale, silver centaur. How, after they had been abandoned and forgotten, he was eager to serve again, even if it was not for the Creator.

His eyes could not fall away from her, but he wished that they could; even if He was not here, the image of Her standing beside Him was burned into his very core. Tenzin could not look away from Her, much in the same way he could not truly be free of Her, or of Him. Unless he was risen, again, by Them; and oh, how he envied this of Astraea, who had thrown such a gift away.

Nemean's head popped free of the bubble and she reached up with one tiny hand to smooth the fur on her face. "My Lord, we still continue; we have not abandoned the task," she answered, her hand having returned to the moonstone where her tiny claws trembled. It had been eons since they had been visited—at least to Nemean's knowledge. This was her moment, her chance.

"How may we Serve you?" the sprite asked cautiously, her eyes wavering around the silver eyes that could sentence death: she did not look directly into the mercury for fear it would take her life.

They have not abandoned the task. Haven't they?

Lord Dhracia rose her eyes to behold this sullied vestibule, which has allowed life to overtake its once purged corners and extend filaments of unity to its haphazard shards (of all kinds of material: genetic, emotional, cognizant.) Unseen, it was that network she could feel cloying at her skin, pulling at her, like a goliath stepping through a spider's web unhindered, yet annoyed all the same. They would mistake her for a fool if they sought to convince her that this place was still under their control. Oxygen, nitrogen, life-giving necessities teemed where once they were absent, or at least beautifully too erratic to be harnessed.

Something else held the reins of genesis here.

Again, she looked to the little lion, and this time made her dissatisfaction known in the marginal dip of the lashes framing her eyes. All the secrets of this world lay in the specks that cradled her pits of pupils. All of her past indictments, all of her mercies. The shapes of the little lion and the bird were beginning to materialize among them, secrets that still suffered mortal bodies, who, if they found themselves fortunate, might find themselves trapped on the right side of the glass. Let's see how this plays out.

"With truths, Lion," she uttered, and took the needle of her criticism to voice, injected that black, dripping contempt. This drug was named Disapproval, and it was clear she had stumbled into the most dilapidated of dens so rife of insipidly starved users. "Were it still serviceable, you would still be attached to your anglerfish's head. Is it failure that nourishes you these days, or do you just blindly suckle at any teat extended to your mouth?" the Lord drawled, unaffected, above the need to display disappointment. It should be inherent to them at this point. Yes--she could sense what usurper had come traipsing through these old hallowed lands.

She took a sweeping stride closer and hovered at the edge of the water. It's lapping tiny crests wavered in her wake, as though in fear of her almighty countenance, spread and smoothed to cede an offering of appeal their own. The water was glass; the Lord's reflection held in infinitely higher regard, the most pristine likeness to have ever been conceived, for even the water in this place would not dare to insult her.

"You know that I have inarguable means to get what I want," she continued, staring point blank at the pair. You could have been either of them. Little lion, bird, the royal collection of this disgusting menagerie. "And in any passing moment, what I want might be for you to digest in a certain reptile's stomach. I did hear him coming this way; I'm sure you know his cadence well by now."

There it was, the tiniest betrayal of a stirring notion, administered on purpose to inform them of exactly what their Lord found satisfying. The smirk in the corner of her lips. The promise that her threat was very much made in flippant whimsy.

"But you're clever, Lion. Perhaps you can advise me of something I might desire more," she said.

Lord Dhracia's gaze sunk down to that gleaming stone in Nemean's little paws.

Serve me truths, she would remind with a pointed look.

Tenzin remained silent, watching; he did not want to get involved if he did not have to, especially if Nemean was taking the helm and pushing her way into Lord Dhracia's attention.

Nemean winced at Her words, her gaze shifting to the ground so that she did not have to glare at any part of Lord Dhracia's image. She bit her cheek, withholding the urge to defend herself—that no, she did not suckle at any teat before her..! And she definitely didn't want to talk about Aquarian.

As Dhracia drew nearer, Nemean inevitably rose her eyes again to look at her. She could understand what her Lord was saying, but she felt reluctant to give up the moonstone. Her tiny fingers tightened around its facets.

"S-sir," she uttered, the cogs in her brain furiously turning, scheming: what could Nemean get out of this? Was it a trade? The moonstone, for what, quelling Raheerah? Saving Nemean from rotting in the depths of his stomach? She frowned. There were plenty of places she could hide, but probably not forever. She lifted the moonstone from her chest and stared at it, and it was here that Tenzin finally caught a glimpse. His feathers puffed in an immediate reaction, be it anger or pure surprise, and he narrowed his eyes at her. Still, he was silent.

Finally, Nemean fluttered free of the bubble she had been resting in, her wounds still crisp and warm. She was reluctant to hand over her prize, but she knew she did not have a choice.

"Y-yes, it is true, we have been.. slacking, my Lord," Nemean said at last, holding out the moonstone toward Dhracia's hand. "It is harder to work with—with, these... creatures," she fumbled on, her fingers still curled around Dawa's stone. She swallowed hard, then continued. "But the Chaos Beast, Raheerah," she paused to hold up the moonstone, "he can be controlled, with this. Dawa."

Tenzin flinched at the name coming from Nemean's mouth. If Lord Dhracia were to take her, his daughter, Tenzin looked upon her finally and pleaded, "...please be kind to her, my Lord." It was all he had to say to her, all he had to ask of her—and it was not his place to do so, but he did. "Any price, Lord Dhracia, please," he offered. There could be no confirmation, of course; he would never know her true fate. But he could hope... Indeed, Raheerah would submit to the bearer of the stone, and even more-so if Dawa were once again available to soothe the tumultuous storm inside of him.

Nemean held the stone out for Her to take. She wasn't attached to Dawa, she didn't care what happened to her, but she did want the freedom to live as she had been—without fear of her entire body being obliterated yet again.

Every tiny gesture ran the gauntlet of her judgment. The tightening of Nemean's fingers around that stone--that solution which Dhracia had been hunting ever since she was reminded of its existence--that was insult. That this mite would even consider keeping something from her. It burned immediately. Between her lungs, fire. The wrath that coursed through her veins was not without a reputation of its own, that it had earned, rightly so; and the little lion was beginning to tread dangerously close to arousing it.

She was not named Lord Dhracia for her inaction, after all.

It was the phoenix's response that stalled her from squeezing the life out of her disobedient subject in that moment. Her curiosity was stirred, her eyes lifted to behold the shock of the bird regarding the stone, which shed a great and depraved nuance that tickled her annoyance into intrigue. Oh, hmm. How far had the family dynamic shifted? It was so like the little lion to interfere with business not her own; was she the reason why the dragon was snapped into operation in the first place? How delightfully complex.

But it didn't change anything. That stone would still be hers.

In recognition of sense, the little lion offered it up. Lord Dhracia didn't yet move, only listened and stared, entertaining the stumbles of Nemean's little troglodyte brain piecing together the one simple task she had to complete to survive. Do you understand now why Lord Dhracia is here? The Chaos Beast was perhaps this nest's most valuable asset--she wasn't about to let it decay in a place where its worth went unappreciated. He'd been given the greatest outfit of all, no dexterity sacrificed without dexterity to begin with: he was entirely brute strength and rage, the ideal weapon. Soon, she would venture into a place where His influence was choked--she had to--and the Chaos Beast? He would be her searing blade.

She was impressed at least that she didn't need to spell it out for her. Pressing her mouth into judicious tolerance, rare and served with intention, Lord Dhracia ascended her slender fingers to grasp it--to touch it--when she was hailed again, this time by that most piteous of element, emotion. An intrusion on her crusade of an entirely different kind. Needless to say, Lord Dhracia found it was still wrath predominantly crawling up in her throat.

"This is your penance for failure," hummed Lord Dhracia, flicking her eyes to Tenzin with the biting intensity of flung daggers, "a plea?"

He did not deserve for his voice to even be heard.

The expression that wormed its way onto her face then, finally, was soft, but not tender. It was petite, but not subtle. It was the hardest point in the beak of her shrewd lips. It was the traitor of clemency: it was a kindness that she did not permit him to have, a smile embellished with the open taunt of deceit.

"She will Serve as she was meant to, which is more than I can say for you," said Lord Dhracia, and raised her hand to bridge the gap between her palm and her treasure; she didn't condescend herself to taking it from the little lion's paws, like one's own plebeian porter, but ushered a sudden surge out of the darkness. An exhalation of shadow squeezed out of the air, out of the cracks in the rock beneath her feet, out of the ripples of reflection in the water below. It hissed and moaned and writhed toward Nemean, slinging across her feet, her wrists, so pervasively extorting the stone from her grip and delivering it to the Lord with the obedience of grass bending underfoot, and then the shadows slunk back beneath her just as quickly as they had come.

And when it was finally in her possession, she pinched its facets and smoothed its surface, and breathed, and felt what bones and empty spirit were left behind in the prison of it. Ah. Just holding it in her hand--it was well worth the venture to get here.

"The price you pay isn't for my benevolence, Tenzin. It is for my mercy," Lord Dhracia said briskly, looking upon him one last time, and when she spoke his name, she had the sound materialize out of his very life essence, wrenching it painfully from him, commanding his existence to be the toll he had to pay for her acknowledgment. "I advise you make yourself available when I come to collect."

Fortunate that she already knew what she was going to take away from him.

No other words needed to be said. The Lord clasped her palm over her treasure and receded from the edge of the lagoon. She knew where she had to go now; the bed of smoke on the ceiling was her promenade, the pull of the nucleus of this place informing her where her ultimate prize lay. Lord Dhracia was going to take what was rightfully hers.

Exit Lord Dhracia.

Nemean started at the shadowy claws that moved across her body, but thankfully, they only took the stone; she felt herself loosen with a sigh of relief, her body slowly flitting out of the way as Lord Dhracia addressed Tenzin.

His head had bowed, again out of respect and fear, as he listened to Her speak of Dawa. There was nothing more for him to say; he had begged, begged for both himself and Astraea, for Dawa's well-being. But when his name was Commanded, his head snapped up to look at Her, his eyes held prisoner by Her demanding gaze. Tenzin could feel the very being of himself writhing under Her stare, but he could not look away. He could not flinch.

He did not want Her benevolence, no; Her mercy was what he sought. As She released him, he only nodded. He would be here whenever She was ready, then. He had nowhere else to be.

When She had left, Tenzin's talons opened to target Nemean, clasping her between his toes as he slammed her into the hard rock ground beside the lagoon. She squirmed under his grasp, scratching at his rough, scaled toes and hissing a warning to him—they had survived Lord Dhracia, and he would attack her now!?

"That was not yours to give away," he hissed, stepping with more weight onto her tiny frame. He could simply pop the entirety of her body from existence, but alas, he could not find it in his nature to do so. Once, perhaps, but no longer. He had yet to ease though, watching her gasp and wheeze for air. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, to condemn her for, but it would be pointless. He was probably already dead. Whenever Lord Dhracia returned—and it would be soon, he imagined—he could very well suffer a real death.

Finally, he eased off, turning to stare into the depths of the lagoon. "Get out of here," he hissed, but Nemean was already fleeing. She hated him! She hated this whole fucking nest!!! After a short moment, Tenzin crouched and spread his wings, lifting himself into the air with cold, powerful wingbeats. He rose to the height of the waterfall and disappeared, where he'd sit and wait for fate.

Exit Nemean. Exit Tenzin

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