Fiona the Dragon

 
Hey all! This is a short story I wrote today. I had a hard time slapping an end on it, but I wanted to get it out tonight. I'm so tired :D 

Based on this prompt:

https://writing-challenges-and-prompts.tumblr.com/post/188744275523/writing-prompt-dialogue

“We both collect, [--].”

“What is gold compared to souls?”

“Gold buys people like you.”

---------------------------------------------------

The man Fiona is scheduled to meet is already seated in the far corner of the coffee shop. He doesn’t have the typical look of one of her clients. Usually her clients have the sort of desperation one acquires after drowning for a long time. Red-eyed and hollow-cheeked with twitching hands. Sometimes they’re well-dressed, sometimes they’re not. She doesn’t mind the scent of fear or anger they carry with them, but she does mind the ones who are too calm. The calm ones always spell trouble for her.

She thinks this one might be trouble. He’s sitting with his hands folded on the table, a latte untouched in front of him. His greying beard is neatly trimmed, but the salt-and-pepper hair on his head is not. His suit is at odds with the sneakers he’s trying to hide behind a briefcase that’s too pristine to be more than a few days old.

Fiona pauses at the counter, taking in his eerily calm demeanor through her peripherals. He hasn’t spotted her. Most of her clients are looking for the tell-tale signs of a dragon in human skin rather than a college-aged woman with broad shoulders in overalls. Her kind like to be flashy and wear their gold around their neck, fingers, and wrists. Most of them are nearly seven-feet-tall and like to accentuate that height with well-tailored suits and dresses. Fiona doesn’t like well-tailored anything. Why spend gold on not gold things to show that you have gold?

Most of her kind are idiots, in her opinion.

Fiona debates just grabbing her coffee and leaving. The man isn’t twitching a muscle, all of his attention honed in on the door of the shop. The more she observes him, the more he seems like a predator himself. His suit is too well-tailored to not be his own, which means his sneakers are for a practical reason rather than not owning anything nicer. His beard is freshly trimmed to change the shape of his face and his hair is grown out to hide the parts of his head he can’t change at all. 

She should leave. This--all of this--smells like a trap. He’s too calm, he’s dressed to trick, and he declined to describe the job over email. All bad signs.

“That will be $4.75,” the cashier tells Fiona cheerfully. 

Ah, Fiona thinks ruefully, digging through her wallet for the emergency five she keeps in the bottom. Maybe I’ll just hear him out. No promises. It’ll be fine.

The job is well paying, or so he says, and she really needs a payday. Her tuition is coming up and she just spent her last bit of cash on a latte. Why did she do that? She should not have done that.

So she gets her coffee and approaches the man with a professional smile. She drops her bookbag next to his briefcase and claims the seat opposite him, mirroring his latte’s placement with hers.

“Wow,” the man says, bushy eyebrows flying up. “You are good.”

She knows what he’s talking about. Besides the affinity for fancy clothes and too much jewelry,  most dragons can’t hide the fact that they’re other. They’ve got too many years under their belts or, maybe, too much power. Normal humans can sense them from a couple dozen feet away and avoid them because of it.

“Eh,” Fiona says. “I get by. Mr. Edwards?”

The man nods a microsecond too quickly, which means it’s a fake name. He draws a business card out from his jacket’s inner pocket and hands it to her. “Yes. I’m an Antiquities Collector.”

She examines the card. She guesses the profession could be real, even if the name isn’t. “And what does an Antiquities collector want from me, Mr. Edwards?”

“That’s...delicate,” Mr. Edwards hedges. His hand goes up to pull at his beard and he seems momentarily surprised when it’s shorter than he expects. He covers the surprise with a cough. “It’s difficult to get into here.”

“I’d love to play Cloak and Daggers with you,” Fiona says flatly. Now he’s behaving like one of her normal clients. She doesn’t have time for it. “But I have an essay due in four hours, so you’re going to need to be brief.”

“An essay?” Mr. Edwards asks, frowning. His eyes dart to her bookbag and then back to her. Understanding dawns. “You’re a student. That might make this easier.”

Fiona uses the cream spoon they gave her to ruin the heart art on top of her latte. “How so?”

“I’m looking to acquire a...vase,” Mr. Edwards says. He reaches for his briefcase, unclasping it with one hand with more ease than she expected. He draws out a manila envelope and hands it to her. “The details of the vase are inside. I’d prefer it if you don’t open it he--”

She tears open the envelope, ignore the clasp closing it completely. She pulls out three sheets of paper which, in her opinion, is far too few to use a whole envelope for. One is a brief history of the vase in question, going back ten owners. Another is a map of the location and she understands why being a student might make this job easier. The vase is located in Jacer Museum in downtown. The museum is open to the public, but only for a few hours everyday. As a student, she’d be able to get in on one of those rare days where art students are allowed to spend the night to spend time with certain pieces.

The last page is a series of pictures, haphazardly put together like a collage. There’s one of the vase being exhumed from a patch of dirt, the surrounding details carefully cropped out. Another is of the vase against a black velvet screen. There are a few closeups of the scenes depicted on the side, all of a woman through various stages of her life. Fiona would like these pictures--dotted with bits of color here and there so that they almost seem alive--if she didn’t know that this isn’t a vase.

Fiona’s lip curls. “The Jacer Museum is displaying this?”

“Yes,” Mr. Edwards says. “It’s part of their newest collection, on loan from the Kissinger family--”

“Well, I’m going to have to decline this job,” Fiona interrupts. She throws the papers across the table. “I don’t steal souls.”

Mr. Edwards goes still. “You know what this is?”

“I do,” Fiona says, “and so will anyone else you go to for this. Nobody’s going to touch a soul jar, Mr. Edwards.” She pauses, thinks. “Well, not unless they have a death wish. I’m not familiar with the Kissinger family, but whoever is the real owner of this jar wouldn’t have just loaned it out.”

“Sometimes the real owners, as you put it, give up ownership,” Mr. Edwards says. He lifts his chin, mouth tight. “It’s not illegal to be a collector of souls, Ms. Devons.”

Fiona scoffs. “It’s not illegal, but it is stupid.” The various supernatural councils out there never outlawed the practice, but not because it wasn’t frowned on. People with the power to make or keep a soul jar are not easy people to control.

Mr. Edwards’ eyes flash. “Be careful of your tone. We both collect, Ms. Devons. I do not sneer at your...taste.”

Fiona can’t believe this guy would even make the comparison. “What is gold compared to souls?” She shakes her head. “My collection won’t walk me to an early grave.”

“Gold buys people like you,” Mr. Edwards says. Now he really looks like one of her clients. He’s angry. “A soul is infinitely more precious. Luckily for you, Ms. Devons, I have very little choice when it comes to hiring mercenaries. I’m willing to pay you double what I said in our initial correspondence if you hand it over to me in one week’s time. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to go to one of your...competitors.”

Fiona feels her fire spark in her chest. She keeps her mouth shut until she’s sure no plumes of smoke will curl past her lips. “You are talking about stealing a soul, Mr. Edwards. I can not accept this job, no matter the pay.” She throws back the last of her latte and starts to stand.

“Then I’ll go to Hand,” Mr. Edwards says. “He’ll take it on.”

Fiona pauses for a second, but only a second. She’s not responsible for Hand. Not anymore. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll turn it down too.” She pushes in her chair. “Good day, Mr. Edwards.”

She leaves the shop without looking back. She can feel Mr. Edwards rage directed at her and she grimaces. It’s lucky he’s not a witch--that’s enough hatred for a curse. She tries not to kill potential clients after just one meeting, but she makes exceptions for curses.

She pauses a few blocks down and glances around to make sure nobody’s followed her. Only then does she take out her phone and make a call.

“Hi, you’ve reached Ash Hand, please leave you name, number, time you called, and favorite Teletubby after the beep. Failure to follow these rules means a failure to return your call!”

Fiona grits her teeth. She hates his sense of humor. She absolutely hates it. “Hand, if you take this job, I’ll hunt you down before the Reapers get a chance to.” 

There. At least she warned him. That’d be enough.

Right?

------------------

Fiona’s got two midterms this week, an online discussion question about the advent of the printing press, and about fourteen pages of accounting she’s been putting off. She should be at home with a carafe of coffee and some classical music playing in the background to boost brain power. There’s very little chance she completes everything on her to do list as is, she doesn’t need to add anything else to tempt fate even more.

“ID, please,” the woman at the ticket counter says, one hand holding her chin, the other already reaching for Fiona’s student card. She barely scans it before tossing it back. A ticket spurts from the machine and she tosses that too before Fiona manages to put her card back in her wallet. “Lock in starts at 11pm. You’re out by 8am or else. Got it?”

Fiona nods, brow furrowing. Did all art students put themselves through this? A 9 hour lock in sounds pretty extreme and, judging by the woman’s attitude, there probably won’t be any refreshments. 

This is all Ash’s fault, she thinks to herself sourly. She follows a line of students to be pat down. They’re all carrying easels and sketchbooks under their arms. Fiona feels empty-handed. 

“Dude,” a boy behind her says. He’s not really a boy, but he’s still got the hungry look of a teen going through puberty. He’s got a wagon behind him, canvas and brushes piled high. “How are you going to work with just that?”

Fiona looks down at her purse. It’s not her smallest bag, but it’s close. She doesn’t need a lot to yell at Ash and, so, hadn’t thought to pack even a water bottle. She meets the teen artist’s eyes. “I’m, like, spiritually connecting with Nighthawks tonight,” she says, trying for his same intonation. “Material possessions will totally bog me down.”

The boy looks disgusted. “Geez, you’re one of those.” He pulls his headphones off his neck and around his ears, dismissing her entirely. Against all reason, Fiona is offended. She didn’t know the art geeks had a hierarchy.

She steals one of his canvases out of the wagon while he’s getting pat down and wanders into the museum with it tucked under her arm. She has no idea why he brought so many. Surely he’s not going to paint all of them in one night. He can afford to sacrifice one to her cover story and, if he notices, she’s going to blame it all on Ash.

If he’d just answered his phone she wouldn’t be here.

It’s been a few years since they were in a mercenary group together, but she still feels a bit of responsibility to the new kid on the block. She’d tried to teach him everything she knew, but he’d never really seemed to get it. He wore striped black and white pants to their first hostage rescue. He dyed his hair bright orange the night they were meant to be infiltrating a fancy dress party. He had two weeks to learn some Japanese for his first abroad mission, but learned Mandarin instead. They once told him that they were going incognito and he showed up with a bag of Taco Bell because he somehow heard that they were “going in with burritos.”

She still doesn’t understand where that message got so messed up.

She’d been so burned out by the end of it all that she hadn’t even blinked when their group kicked him to the curb, citing his inability to “blend.” When they’d kicked her to the curb for sticking up for Ash all the time? For challenging their leader? For covering for him? She was more relieved than anything. Fucking idiots.

So, yeah, she’s worried that Ash might have accepted the job. He’s too curious for his own good and, worse, he’s pretty talented when he sets his mind to it. She just wants to make sure that he didn’t have one of his flashes of intuition and end up here to do Mr. Edwards’ bidding. As soon as the lock in begins and she sees he’s not here, she’ll make her escape.

Nothing good comes from hanging around a soul jar. Still, she’s got to find it to make sure that Ash doesn’t so she sets off down the halls, peeking into various rooms and wings for where they might keep particularly delicate vases. The museum isn’t the biggest one out there, but it is prestigious so every room is packed with pieces “on loan.” She finds a fair few Monet’s, Rousseau’s and, for some reason Lichtenstein’s all grouped near each other before she hits the roman statues. It’s as she’s rounding a rather large cast of Dionysus frolicking that she’s absolutely run over. Just completely obliterated. Indisputably steamrolled.

Dragons are not easy to run over. They’re heavy, even in human form, and are strong enough to at least catch themselves before they hit the ground. Fiona is even harder to knock over considering how short she is. Her center of gravity is very low, so low in fact that it normally takes two dragons to bring her to her knees.

That’s probably why she spends a lot longer than she’d like to admit staring at the ceiling, head smarting, flat on her back with someone on top of her. She’s in shock.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t think anyone would be looking at boring old Greek stuff--Fiona?”

Of course, Fiona thinks, still staring at the ceiling. The body on top of hers is running even hotter than her and she can make out a shock of bright green near her chest. Of course it’s him. “Why the fuck are you running in a museum?”

“I wanted to see everything before it got dark out,” Ash says like that makes any sense. He pulls her to her feet, forgetting that she’s a nearly a foot and a half shorter than him and pulling too hard. She nearly takes him out before he corrects himself. “Sorry, sorry. Have you gotten shorter? I didn’t even see you down there.”

Fiona is enraged. She’s not short. She’s just not seven-frickin’-feet tall. It’s an argument they’ve had before so instead she says, “I told you not to take this job.”

Ash frowns. “You meant this job? You should have specified, I turned down a rather interesting case involving a balloon animal and truffles this morning.” He pats her shoulders like he’s getting dirt off. “You really leave the worst voicemails.”

“I leave the worst voicemails?” she asks incredulously. Then she shakes her head. “No, we don’t have time to get into this. Did you actually take that nutcase’s job?”

“Well,” Ash hedges. He looks around, green hair flopping wildly over his forehead, before grabbing her by the elbow and ushering her behind a pillar. This museum is awful at separating Roman from Greek architecture. “I did, but not to get the vase for him. The original owner contacted me right after Mr. Edwards left. Did you know that it’s been stolen three times? Samantha sounded heartbroken over the phone.”

“Samantha,” Fiona says flatly. Of course he’s already on a first name basis with the probably-a-witch owner. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Ash, you know what that ‘vase’ is, right?”

“An important family heirloom,” Ash replies immediately. He straightens, towering over her and smiles proudly. “Samantha nearly cried when I said I’d get it back for her.”

Fiona now remembers what it was like working with Ash. It feels like she’s having a heart attack. “Ash, I taught you this. It’s not a vase, it’s a soul jar.”

Ash rears back like he’s been struck. “No. Really? Gross.” He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “Wait, that means Mr. Edwards collects souls, not expensive vases!” He looks thunderstruck. “Does that mean Samantha’s a bad guy?”

“I don’t know,” Fiona says because she’s always found honesty to be the only way to get through to Ash. She drops her canvas so she can grab him by the wrist and starts dragging him through the museum. “I don’t care. We’re getting out of here and you’re going into hiding for a month at least.”

Ash squawks and acts like she’s pulling him along by force. She knows that if he really meant it, he’d be able to break free. “But Samantha sounded very sure that she needed the vase for a good reason! Maybe, if she is a witch, she’s a good one! What if the soul in the jar is an ancestor who her family’s been searching for for years! What if it’s actually an evil demon that they’ve been keeping from breaking free for generations? What if it’s--”

Fiona whirls and jabs a finger into his chest. “This! This is why I told you not to take this case! You think too much, Ash, and it messes you up. It’s a soul jar. That’s the only reason you need to decide to go home.” 

Ash is silent for a long moment. Fiona takes the opportunity to prod him  a bit further, down past the end of the statues and into a vacant corridor she vaguely remembers coming down. There’re busts of playwrights lining each wall and a large archway ahead that looks like it could circle back to the front of the museum.

This is a really terribly organized museum.

“No,” Ash says, planting his feet so suddenly that Fiona nearly runs into him. He lifts his chin. “No, I gave my word. Maybe Samantha is bad, but she could be good too. I’m going to get the soul jar and find out for myself what she intends to do with it before deciding what to do with it.”

Fiona growls too loudly. The sound echoes off the bare walls and comes back to her. She sounds close to inhuman. Ash has always brought out the dragon in her. “Ash, that thing is 200 years old at least. You are for sure going to get cursed if you so much as touch it.”

“That’s my problem,” Ash says. He adjusts the satchel on his side so it’s hanging over the small of his back. “I appreciate the concern, Fiona, but I make my own decisions.”

“Ash--” she starts to say, but then has to stop and gape as Ash turns on his heel to flee in the opposite direction. “Seriously? You’re running?”

“You can’t make me leave!” he shouts back over his shoulder. “I’m going to solve the case!”

“It’s not a case! It’s a--” he disappears around the corner, the sound of his heavy tread slowly fading as he takes the first staircase up to the second floor. Fiona wants to cry. “It’s a theft.”

She dithers on the spot for a moment, tugging anxiously at the straps of her overalls. It’s nearly 11 and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t be here for lock in. But it’s Ash, her mind hisses. He’s got the worst luck. 

She takes off down the hall after him.

-----------------------------------

Two hours. She’s been chasing after Ash for two hours before she finds him. The art students have taken over most of the main rooms and she’d spent way too long checking each face just in case Ash learned shapeshifting while he was ignoring her existence. Of course he hadn’t.

Then she finds the third floor.

She’s pretty sure that there’s not supposed to be a third floor. The stairs are hidden behind a particularly horrible boy-mannequin done at nearly twice the normal proportions. They’re not roped off or anything, but she’d been hesitant to go up them anyway, sure that she’d end up in the security office for going out of bounds. She’s been up and down this museum though and, she swears, if Ash isn’t here, she’ll leave without him.

The stairs lead up into a single showroom. It’s wood-paneled and there are three windows, all bearing weathered wooden frames. It looks a bit like a Little House on the Prairie exhibit until she sees that the room is lined with pedestals. On each pedestal is a piece of pottery. In the center of the room, surrounded by these spiraling displays, is Ash. His back is to her and he doesn’t twitch when she arrives at the top of the stairs.

Fiona’s so angry that she has a hand over her mouth to hide the fangs that have grown there. “Ash.” She can feel the heat from her own breath. She’s sure her eyes are starting to lighten into a truly draconic color. “You are in such--”

Fiona stops. Ash isn’t moving. His satchel is laying on the floor at his feet, spilled open to reveal the pages from Mr. Edwards,  car keys, and a gun. She’s more surprised to see the car keys than the gun for a moment. She didn’t know Ash drove. But then she sees that there are bullets scattered around the weapon and the clip is missing. Ash was a mercenary with her. He wouldn’t carry an unloaded gun.

She’s by his side between one second and the next, not caring when she bumps the pedestal he’s looking at hard enough to make it wobble precariously. She reaches up and jerks his face towards her, heart thundering in her chest as her suspicions are confirmed. Ash’s eyes are pupiless and a bright, shimmering silver. He’s in a fugue.

“Ms. Devons,” a man says from behind her. “I was afraid you’d be too late.”

Fiona freezes. She’s an idiot. She didn’t even check behind her when she came rushing in like an idiot. She turns slowly to find Mr. Edwards smirking at her and, beside him, a young woman. She looks about Finola’s age, tall and willowy with a cloud of dark hair around her head.

Witch, Fiona’s instincts scream. “I’m guessing you’re Samantha.” The woman smiles gently. A wave of calm and peace washes over the room and Ash’s shoulders slump even more. Fiona bites her lip and glares at the woman, willing her dragon eyes to wake back up. She’s not anymore immune to witch spells than Ash. The minute she starts to cast, Fiona has to be ready to act. “You tricked him.”

The two enemies are standing way too close to not know each other. It clicks. Mr. Edwards contacted Ash, hoping he wouldn’t recognize a soul jar or, maybe, hoping he wouldn’t know the danger. Then, when he was wavering, Mr. Edwards sent in Samantha to finish the con. They’d probably seen how good Ash was, how willing to help, and cemented his cooperation with a few tears and a sob story.

But why do all that to lure Ash here?

“You weren’t budging,” Mr. Edwards says with a sigh. “I did tell you that I’d have to involve Mr. Hand if you didn’t cooperate.”

“We don’t need two dragons,” Samantha tells Mr. Edwards. Her voice is still kind, but Fiona can hear an undercurrent of anger. It’s enough to weaken the empathetic control Samantha has over her for a second. Samantha, scowling furiously at Mr. Edwards, doesn’t seem to notice. “Why did you let her come here?”

“Now, now,” Mr. Edwards says, “aren’t you glad? You get a choice of sacrifice now.”

“It’s a dragon,” Samantha says, unamused. “I only need one for the jar.”

Everything comes together very quickly in Fiona’s mind. There are only a handful of witch spells that require a dragon’s sacrifice. None of them are good and only one of them involves a soul jar that’s over 200 years old.

Consumption.

She’s only heard of the concept once, a long time ago. Soul jars work like vacuums. The tricky part isn’t getting the soul inside of one--it’s creating the jar in the first place. The process requires so much blood and spiritual power that  most people who attempt it are unable to control it. They’re trapped in the “death space” they created, unable to break free. Even when they do succeed, they have to find their target quickly before the jar consumes them. The jar closes behind whatever poor soul that’s earned a witch’s ire and that’s that.

Or, rather, it should be.

Souls, no matter who they belong to, are powerful. Some witches are hungry for that power, desperate to fuel their spells with another’s essence. It’s said that a spell cast with a soul’s power will never fail, no matter the scale. But a soul jar is nearly impenetrable. If you do manage to break it open, the soul inside races out and wreaks holy havoc on whoever’s nearby. That begs the question:  How can they get to the soul without letting it loose before they get the chance to eat it?

By replacing the soul with another power, one equal or greater to the soul in the jar. That way, the seal never “breaks.” The trapped soul is pulled out slowly and the jar sucks at the new soul to fill the gaps. And what soul could possibly be powerful enough to counterbalance one that’s been fermenting for over 200 years?

A dragon’s,  of course.

Fiona moves. She’s not going to let these people trade Ash’s soul for whoever’s in the jar. She wishes Samantha had contacted her instead of Ash. Fiona’s never been squeamish about killing witches.

Mr.; Edwards’ eyes widen as Fiona lunges for them. He doesn’t seem to have expected Fiona to attack even after hearing about how they need a dragon to sacrifice. Did he really think his little witch was so powerful? So infallible? Able to protect him from a dragon’s rage?

Then Fiona is flying back across the room, crashing into Ash hard enough she’s seeing stars. Ash, even in his fugue state, barely sways. Fiona feels like she hit a wall.

The witch’s hands are glowing an eerie green. “I wouldn’t recommend trying that again.” She throws pure magic at Fiona and, still dazed, Fiona only manages to twitch partially out of the way. It hits her shoulder with a crackle! And instant pain.

Fiona gasps around the pain in her shoulder. Her bones are too dense to break, but she felt that. The witch just used a wordless spell to throw a dragon.

Fiona’s instincts scream at her to run. There’s a reason she kills witches before they can curse her. But she can’t leave Ash here, not when she knows the fate that waits for him. 

“You’ll regret attacking me,” Mr. Edwards says. His lips are white with fear and anger. “Samantha, take care of her. If you capture her alive, I’ll find another soul jar for you to use. As a bonus.”

Samantha’s eyes light up. “Now that’s worth the extra risk.” She raises a glowing hand and turns to Fiona. “No hard feelings, dragon. Business is business.” The witch starts to bring her hand down in a sweeping motion. “Go to sl--”

Fiona opens her mouth and roars. She’s not in her full form, but the sound is impressive anyway. Both Samantha and Mr. Edwards clap their hands over their ears, eyes shut tightly against the vibrations. A few of the magic-less, more delicate pieces of pottery shatter and the air heats up by several degrees.

Fiona’s not a particularly large dragon. But she is a particularly loud one.

The moment she stops to breathe, Samantha hits her with a silencing spell. There’s a burst capillary in her eye.  “You absolute, bitch. Were you trying to make me angry? Well, congrats, I’m furio--ack!”

Ash  is a lot faster than Fiona. The witch doesn’t have time to react when he shoots for her, fangs bared and eyes a shining crimson. Dragon’s are impossible to reason with when coming out of a fugue. Fiona is just glad he chose to attack the enemy instead of her.

Fiona climbs to her feet, throat smarting under the witch’s silencing spell and the blows she’s taken. It’s been way too long since she’s been in a magic fight. Even for a dragon, she’s particularly weak against spells.

Samantha screams, magic crackling as she fights to keep Ash from crushing her. He’s growling and it even sounds scary to Fiona. As naive as he is, Ash is dangerous. It’s what drew him to mercenary work in the first place, despite his soft heart.

Though, speaking of his soft heart, maybe Fiona should go stop him before he actually kills the witch. She’d do it for him so that he doesn’t feel guilty when he regains his senses.

Fiona’s not afraid of Ash. He’s come at her once or twice when he’s been hurt or disoriented and he never does any real harm. That’s why she has no problem walking up to him and smacking him over the head.

Ash jerks like he’s been shot, hands falling away from the witch’s neck as he twists to snarl at the new assailant. When he sees Fiona, he blinks hard once. Twice. Three times. “Did you shout me out of a fugue?”

Fiona shrugs. Technically she roared him out of a fugue, but she doesn’t have a voice to split hairs. Samantha gurgles and gasps for air under Ash. Her eyes, tearful and blue, flicker green as she reaches for her magic.

Fiona grabs the nearest heavy object--an iron pan on the pedestal next to her--and chucks it at Samantha’s head before Ash can react. It connects with a sound like a gong, tearing open a gash near the witch’s hairline. Her eyes roll back up into her head and the second she loses consciousness, the silencing spell breaks.

“Fucking witches,” Fiona hisses. She reaches to help Ash up. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Ash says. He looks up at her, dazed and slides to the side so he’s kneeling on the ground next to the witch rather than straddling her. “You saved me. I--I’m sorry, I just thought that--”

A cry draws Fiona’s attention to her right before she can hear what Ash thought.  Mr. Edwards is staring at her, shaking with rage. He’s got the soul jar in his hands, knuckles white around the base. “You! You! You! You won’t ruin this! You can’t!”

Fiona moves to stand in front of Ash, hands up as if soothing a wild beast. She can hear Ash struggle to climb to his feet and fail. She grits her teeth and plants her feet. “Put down the soul jar, Mr. Edwards. It’s over.”

Mr. Edwards is calm. Too calm. It’s the calm ones that always spell trouble. “No. No, i found this jar and I am not walking out of here tonight until I get what I want.”

“Your witch is dead,” Fiona says. She reaches for the flames in her chest. She’ll burn Mr. Edwards with his stupid jar if she has to. She’s not letting him get another step closer to them with that in his hands. “You can live if you set down the jar and go.”

“Who the fuck is dead?”

Fiona feels like she’s trapped in a dream. It takes forever to turn and, when she manages, she feels like she’s in a nightmare. The witch isn’t dead--far from it. Her head is dripping blood, but it’s like she doesn’t even notice the injury. She’s got her arms wrapped around Ash, yanking him back into her chest and as far away from Fiona as the room will allow. She must have used her magic to drag him back that far. One of her hands is on his chest, dripping in paralysis magic. Her other hand is wrapped around his mouth, force feeding him the consumption spell.

Ash’s eyes are wide and terrified.

“I’m going to kill you,” Fiona says. Smoke curls out of the corners of her mouth. She shoves the pedestal nearest her out of the way and it goes flying into the opposite wall. “You bitch--”

“Now, Mr. Edwards!” Samantha shouts.

Mr. Edwards hefts the soul jar in one hand and lobs it directly at Ash.

Normally, throwing a soul jar isn’t enough to break it. They’re sturdy for obvious reasons and can take a beating. But the confidence on Samantha’s face is enough to assure Fiona that it will break if it touches Ash.

Fiona’s never been any good at leaving the other dragon alone.

Fiona goes for the jar.

Ash shouts out from behind the witch’s hand.

Samantha curses and Mr. Edwards’ eyes widen. 

Fiona roars and, this time, fire fills the air in front of her. The flames wrap around the jar, melting the depictions of the woman on the side. She’s glad to see that dragon fire can hurt it, but it’s not enough. The jar, dragged down by the weight of her flames, drops to the ground and rolls towards Ash’s feet. The witch curses and struggles to keep a hand on Ash while the other reaches for the jar.  Fiona leaps again, arms outstretched. 

She reaches the jar just as the first crack appears. She doesn’t know what will happen if the soul inside touches Ash when he’s been primed to take her place, but she knows it can’t be good. Samantha’s magic blasts against her back, ripping at Fiona’s shirt. Her scales protect her from the worst of the blow, but it still hurts.

Fucking witches, Fiona thinks and wraps her whole body around the jar, tucking it into her stomach, heedless of the flames still licking along the clay. She feels the second and third crack form. Fucking soul jars.

The jar breaks.

The first thing Fiona can parse from the wall of sensation that overwhelms her is the screaming. There’s a lot of screaming. Some of it is hers, some of it is Samantha’s and some is even Ash’s. But most of it, most of it is the woman trapped for 200 years in the jar.

I loved her, the woman shrieks. There’re tears in that voice, decades and decades of tears. I loved her!

“Fiona!” There’s the feeling of being gathered into someone’s arms. A man sobs. “Fiona!”

The woman’s soul sinks into Fiona’s bones. She can feel the woman’s rage tear at her insides, sharper and deadlier than any dragon’s claws. She fights it best she can, but there’s too much to fight. This soul’s been trapped for 200 years, stewing in her own hurt and grief and rage. Fiona, even with all her past behind her, isn’t enough to squelch the sheer power of this soul.

She can only redirect it.

There ...witch...she breathes to the spirit. She can’t get her mental breath back to speak coherently. She… hurt…

The soul isn’t convinced. It’s angry, so angry, and Fiona feels that anger twist inside of her, like a snake.  This is a lot of hatred Enough hatred for a curse.

I swear...I’m telling the truth, Fiona whispers. She doesn’t know if she manages to say it out loud, but the spirit, for the first time, seems to hear her. On...on my soul...the witch…

On your soul, the soul hisses, seething and twisting inside of Fiona, Ha! Fine, on your soul, you’ll tell the truth. Where’s the witch?

Fiona would throw up if she didn’t feel like she was on fire. That was a curse. That was definitely a curse. She can feel the way it curls around her heart, settling there like barbed wire. What sort of curse is it? Did the spirit mean to do it? 

Not the time, Fiona thinks to herself. She can worry about being cursed later; right now she’s got to get this thing out of her. 

There.

The soul leaves her like razor blades, slicing at Fiona’s aura on its way out. Fiona convulses, blood in her mouth, and barely has the presence of mind to recognize that the screams have dwindled down to one source. The witch’s.

“--iona! Fiona, please!”

Fiona pries her eyes open. Ash’s face is right there, hovering over hers. His cheek is stained with blood and his eyes are frantic. Behind him, Fiona can see flashes of light, the witch’s last attempt to fight back against the soul. As she watches, they dwindle and go out.

“Ow,” Fiona says. Her body remembers the pain the soul inflicted, even if it’s gone now. She sits up with Ash’s help, hissing as her muscles seize and tremble. “Ow.” She looks around. “Where is Mr. Edwards?”

“Dead,” Ash says. He doesn’t sound particularly upset about it, even though she knows he must be. His hands flex around her arms. “Y-you took on a soul jar, how are you not dead? Why did it leave you? Why did it disappear when Samantha died just now?”

Fiona opens her mouth to say, Can we do this later? I’m fucking tired, you idiot.

But instead she says, “I redirected the soul to the witch. I got lucky, she remembered that a witch put her in there and I was able to convince her that it’d be better to take her revenge on another witch instead of me. It fulfilled its last purpose when it killed Samantha, that’s why it’s gone now.”

Oh no, Fiona thinks. Panic builds in her chest. No, no, no, no--

Ash doesn’t notice anything amiss. “And you’re okay? You’re not hurt?”

“I’m injured. The witch hit me multiple times with her magic while you were incapacitated. I think the soul ruptured something inside me when it was rampaging and I might be bleeding out. Also, I’m pretty sure I got cursed.” When she no longer feels compelled to speak, Fiona hisses. “Fuck! I’m definitely cursed.”

“I’ve got someone good for that!” Ash jumps to his feet with her in his arms, seemingly not noticing the extra weight. He strides for the stairs. “He’s got weird habits so it’ll be hard to track him down, but he can definitely help! What type of curse, do you know?”

Stop rushing, she tries to say, you’re making me sick. But instead the compulsion takes hold and she says, “Truth curse. Looks like it prioritizes answering questions before what I want to say.” She swears. “Can you slow down? I might throw up.”

“I’m sorry!” Ash stops at the base of the stairs and takes a careful step forward. “Fuck, I don’t know--do you need to go to the healer?”

As dragons, they all had the same healer. Not because they liked her, but because she was the only one who even knew how their physiologies worked anymore.

“Yes, but I hate her,” Fiona says. “She’s got issues.”

Ash looks freaked. “You can’t just say that out loud, Fiona. She’s got ears everywhere.”

“Then stop asking me questions!” Fiona snaps. “I’m cursed! Have some respect!”

“Sorry!” Ash squeaks and doesn’t say anything else as he sneaks them out of the museum. He helps her into his car without a word, but when he climbs into the driver's seat, it seems like too much for him. "Uh, I'm sorry, I don't do well with silence, do you mind if we listen to some music?"

"Fine," Fiona says between gritted teeth. 

Ash's shoulders lose some tension. "Great." He starts the car. "Any preferences?"

"Frozen," Fiona says and then claps both hands over her mouth. That's a secret. That's a secret.

Ash looks delighted. "Hey! Me too!"

Fiona pretends to be asleep the entire way to the healer so that he doesn't ask her to join in singing Let It Go.

She doesn't want to know if she'd say yes.