She woke from her dreamless sleep and yawned widely. Though the light was odd, and her neck was a little stiff, she felt strangely renewed, with a clarity of thought that hadn't existed when she woke up earlier with her hangover.

She pulled her head out from where it was tucked under her left wing and, looking over her surroundings, felt a moment of confusion. Where'd my bed go?

She was in a large cave filled with floating mage lights, their blue glow illuminating the entire room without actually being all that bright; certainly it didn't hurt the eyes to stare directly at one. They are rather pretty. She frowned. I can't remember the last time I saw blue mage lights. I wonder how I got here…

She could hear the sound of someone working on something to her right, so she turned her head to look. The movement must have drawn the person's attention, as he set down a glass beaker full of some liquid he had been examining, wrote down a quick note in a thick leather-bound journal, and turned to face her.

Her frown grew deeper, and took on an edge of anger, visible to the man even from across the room. “Salmonius," she hissed. “What are you doing here? What am I doing here?"

The man, Salmonius, was as dark skinned as anyone else in the region, when he had been light skinned the last time she had seen him, but she recognized his face—and in particular, his eyes. His face crinkled up in a smile that she found particularly disturbing, though she was willing to admit to herself that that probably had more to do with her own personal knowledge of him than with the smile actually being creepy.

He bowed, sweeping his arms out in a welcoming gesture. Straightening, he greeted her warmly, his words crisp and neat, as usual. “Grandmother, how nice to see you again. I trust you had a most refreshing nap?"

She spat. Grandmother. By blood only.

:Leon? Are you awake?:

Aloud, she said, “How did I get here, Salmonius? Why aren't you dead, yet?"

His face took on a hurt expression, as he said in a sorrowful tone, “You wound me, grandmother. Can't a grandson welcome his own grandmother to his new home? I've been living in this land for a few, well, no… it's been almost four thousand years now, actually! My, but time really does fly, doesn't it!" He turned back to his work bench to pick up the beaker he had been previously examining. Holding it in his hand, he started walking toward her.

“This should restore your memories." My memories? “It's something I've been working on for a while, now. A way to restore memories lost from any number of causes…" Niara took a bit more of an aggressive stance, warning Salmonius off with her body language; he didn't pay her any mind. “So far it's worked wonders for my men, when they got too drunk and forgot what they did the previous night!" He swirled the liquid around in its beaker. “Let's see if it works to counter the effects of my latest… sleep inducing agent."

Ugh. He drugged me? Somehow that doesn't surprise me. She let out a huff of air and deflated her posture. Fine. Let's get this over with. “Give it here, then," she grumbled.

He held up the beaker for her, and she clasped it between her teeth. Tilting back her head she drank down the – What? Fruit punch? - surprisingly acceptable tasting liquid. Bringing her head back down to its normal height, she felt her mind go fuzzy and didn't even notice when Salmonius reclaimed his beaker. The feeling didn't last long, but by the time it ended she recalled everything that had happened to her during and leading up to her kidnapping. She felt herself growing angry again.

“You, had, me, kidnapped?!" she exclaimed. “And you took away my magic, with drugs?!" She huffed, angrily, growing even more indignant as she recalled the offering his thugs has presented to her. “And, your, men," she growled, “gave me a disgusting, rotting, deer carcass to eat!"

Now back at his work bench, he turned to face her at her mention of the deer carcass. His face took on a questioning expression.

“You could have at least given them one of my favorite deserts to drug, if you insisted on your usual games," she finished, in an exasperated tone.

“They didn't tell me that part," he stated calmly, raising a single eyebrow. “Well, no matter. You're here now. You have your memory back. And your magic should also be working again. Just be aware that –"

At the words 'your magic should also be working again' she had decided to test that; and she had, by launching a fireball speeding at Salmonius.

Lifting a single hand and seemingly catching the enormous fireball, which disappeared as though it had simply been wicked out of existence, he continued with barely a pause, “- any attempts to leave without my permission are futile."

Her jaw was touching the floor of the cave, and she barely noticed it. That's impossible. She blinked a few times, body frozen in place, before she realized she was gawking like a child and snapped her mouth shut with an audible clacking sound. I can count on two feet the number of people who can do what he just did.

:Leon? Can you hear me?:

“I've established a barrier around this cave, the castle above it, and some of the surrounding land," he continued. “As I'm sure you are well aware, these things are best established in ellipses, so you'll have to forgive me for not extending it too far out into the grounds." He turned back to his workbench. “You'll find that it's tuned specifically to you, and it will remain active until His Arrogance accepts the terms of the latest treaty I have proposed to him."

Well, that explains why Leon's not answering. She puffed her cheeks and blew air out the front of her face, making a drawn out exasperated pfft sound.

She drew in another breath, and let out a long, drawn out sigh. And then another. And another. She shuffled her feet a bit, stretched her wings, and looked around at the walls again.

Salmonius had left the walls undecorated, a fact she didn't at all consider surprising, if what he said about this cave being underneath a castle were true, and given what she knew of him. She also didn't doubt that his barrier could keep her and her magic out; he seemed to have grown absurdly powerful from his years of study and experimentation.

The mage lights are pretty, though. He does good work.

Salmonius appeared deeply involved in whatever he was working on, and she thought about attacking him again, with another fireball, or perhaps a glacial spike, or maybe even an arcane blast… But she knew her offensive magics were too straightforward. She specialized in fire magic, ice magic, and mind magic, and judging by the mage lights he had better control over all three than she did.

But still, she wasn't going to just sit here and be bored. Not if she could potentially annoy Salmonius into giving her something more substantial than the bare essentials of what had happened to her and why he wanted her here.

She drew in a deep breath, puffed up her cheeks, and started making farting noises with her lips as loudly as she could, alternating that with making more pfft noises.

She could see Salmonius starting to twitch—clearly she was getting under his skin.

Suddenly he waved his arms outward from center in a gesture encompassing the whole of his workbench and what was on it. Niara's jaw was touching the ground again, and again she didn't even notice.

Everything encompassed by his gesture had frozen in time. She knew he hadn't actually stopped time, that was impossible, but he had slowed everything down to the point where it may as well have stopped for his workbench and the experiments sitting atop it.

Salmonius spun around angrily. “Stop, making, that, sound, with, your, mouth!" he shouted.

As the echoes of his shout died away, the chamber was quiet as a tomb, but only for a moment. A shrill squeaking noise cut through the air, shocking the both of them.

Niara spun her head around to stare at where her tail met her body, paused briefly, and then returned her head to its previous position staring at Salmonius, who now had his head in his hands. Niara started giggling.

Salmonius threw his hands up in the air momentarily, before dropping them back to his sides, and then said with exasperation in every word, “I already gave you permission to go wherever you please within the castle and the cave! What more do you want?" His voice lowered to a mumble, “You'd think I was the older one," he ended with a sigh.

Niara sobered herself, and said with what dignity she could muster after her ironically timed expulsion of bodily gases, “I have someone I need to speak to with mind speech."

“Not possible."

“Then I want to know what's going on here. Why was it so important to kidnap me, and why are you so good at energy conversion?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “Why? Did I impress you?" He flared his nostrils a few times, in what appeared to be suppressed amusement. “I don't suppose there's any harm in me telling you the basics. The last great war for the fate of this planet, as I'm sure you will recall, also introduced to our universe magic, as magic was traditionally thought of before your father created the mind magic the world takes for granted, now." He paused, seemingly waiting for her to acknowledge his point. She nodded slightly, and he seemed to take that as his cue to continue.

“Logically, the enemy was far superior at their form of magic than anyone on our side, with the obvious exception of Nile, who, as we all know, ever insists on limiting himself well below his true capabilities." Salmonius looked irritated at that, as though he took personal offense at someone else not utilizing their full potential. And maybe he does. He's spent his entire life trying to strengthen his own powers.

“What you may not know, however, is that not all of the –" he uttered something unintelligible to her ears, “– were killed or forced back through to their world." He paused for a moment, studying her.

Niara noticed that she had cocked her head about as far to the side as was possible, and returned herself to a more normal, less quizzical, posture.

“Dark Elves, if you insist. They certainly don't call themselves that name. I admit, though, it took me years of study to speak their tongue fluently."

“Ah." She couldn't think of anything else more fitting to say.

“I captured two of them—a master and his apprentice. The master, of course, I killed immediately. The apprentice, on the other hand, was quite useful."

As was usual for him, he remained standing with his hands neatly folded in front of him. Niara didn't know how he could manage to hold so still for so long while talking; her own body refused to do anything of the sort. In fact, her tail had been moving with a mind of its own, like a cat's.

She began to grow bored—he hadn't said anything for some time now. “And?" she prompted.

“That's it."

“That's it?"

“That's it."

“And kidnapping me?"

“His Arrogance, King Mwindo, the twelfth of his name, has not treated me with the respect I require for keeping his border safe. It's been one hundred years, now, and he still hasn't signed a treaty."

Has Salmonius gone crazier than he already was, cooped up down here for all these years? “Surely you have lost track of time…?"

He donned an affronted expression, and it showed in his tone that he found her comment insulting. “I most certainly have not. Do you not know the king's ancestry? I find myself equal parts shocked and appalled!"

She tilted her head, trying to think back to her encounters with the king. Maybe… there was something? She honestly couldn't think of anything to tell her who his ancestors were, other than kings of the Nyanga.

Salmonius looked disgusted with her. “To think, the great Niara unable even to recognize one of her own blood." His lip curled up. “He's descended of Bellerophon's line. My perverted uncle could never keep it in his pants, hence the proliferation of Dovahkiin scattered across this world."

“He couldn't?"

The sneer returned to his face. “Did you pay so little attention to your eldest son's proclivities? He had an obsession with human women. He bragged about it at the dinner table! He spoke of how he loved it when they would squirm beneath him, when he filled them with as much of his dragonhood as they could take, and how they arched against him, somehow managing to take him completely." The sneer on his face was so pronounced, now, it appeared to Niara as though his lip was going to depart his face and fly away like a bat.

She did find herself enthralled by his description of Bellerophon's exploits, though. Clearly she and her son had been more alike than she had realized, though her own interests lay in stallions and in being filled, rather than the other way around. She possessed enough shapeshifting ability to alter her physical gender over a period of some few days… but she had never felt comfortable as a male, even for the sake of a disguise. To be fair, it's not much of a disguise; I still look like me, only a little more masculine.

The sneer disappeared, and he looked more irritated than anything, now. “I will admit that he was never in it just for himself, at least. He always made sure they enjoyed it at least as much as he did. I'm almost surprised stories of him haven't persisted, he'd have made a great 'sailor of the skies' figure; he certainly mated like a sailor—with a different woman at every port of call."

She snorted; she couldn't help herself, the mental image that conjured was exactly how she had thought of herself, at one point in time during her younger years.

Salmonius rolled his eyes slightly. “I figured as much. Your sense of humor is as childish as ever." He took on his usual dour expression, once again. “The point is. He's one-hundred and twenty years old, now, and likely to live twice as long, again. Bellerophon mated with a princess of the Nyanga some six thousand years ago, not long before he died—he's buried under their castle, by the way—and managed to produce offspring with her. Her father took it as a sign that the gods had blessed his line—given that the humans still thought of us as gods, at the time—and passed on his rule to the boy when he reached adulthood. That boy became King Mwindo the Second, named for the king from their legends. That original king was, of course, as much dragon as I am, and he could well have gone on ruling forever had not one of his enemies put a spear through the roof of his mouth and into his brain." He paused, took his head in both hands and twisted first one way, and then the other, resulting in a series of loud popping noises. He shook his head, resulting in several more, and then rolled his shoulders, completing the process.

He frowned, then continued. “Disgusting habit, that. But my neck and back crink so, with all of the work I do down here. Now, where was I?" He held up the pointer finger on his right hand, stopping her from speaking. “Ah, yes. I didn't arrive here until just after the Dark, Elf, invasion, nearly four thousand years ago now, so I didn't witness these events personally. No, I inquired about them from King Mwindo the Third, a man who was quite thrilled to meet a relative of the dragon variety. He was a good man, and I actually liked him."

She opened her mouth, but was stopped short once again by his raised pointer finger. Instead, she thought to herself in a disgruntled tone. A good man? I doubt Salmonius has ever liked a good man.

“Unfortunately, he did not long outlive my arrival, having been injured so gravely during the invasion. And from there, the Kings of this land have all been more human than dragon, to the point where the change was no longer possible."

He spread his hands. “And now, we have the eleventh, called the Twelfth, who will not live to see four hundred even should he die of old age. And somewhere, along the way, he decided that I am not due the respect that his ancestors all afforded me. So, here you are, taken and held as a display of my power."

She waited a moment, to see if he had anything more to say. When it appeared that he was indeed done speaking, she asked, “And why wait until now? Surely there were other… guests, of his, you could have taken?"

He looked at her like she was an idiot. “Of course there were other opportunities for me to display my power and to force his hand. But nothing truly interesting has happened in all the years of his reign. Now, on the other hand, I've heard rumors of an invasion from the south. That wasn't interesting to me, by itself—but when you showed up, it became interesting."

She tilted her head slightly. “So you've heard of Lochlan the Destroyer, but you just didn't care until I came here?"

He lost his composure entirely, shocking her more deeply than his ability to absorb her fireball so cleanly had. She had never seen him lose his composure so thoroughly before, and doubted the likelihood of ever seeing it again.

And then, as quickly as that, he was looking nonchalant, as though he had not just lost his calm. “Maybe I should let you return to Nyanga Castle, after all, and not force the issue. This news is less interesting than I had expected." He turned away and returned to his workbench.

She wasn't going to let him go quiet on her now, when he had inadvertently let something slip like that. “Who is he? You know who he is, don't you?"

“He's nobody important. This is just another one of your father's games."

“My father? I sent for him… Lochlan has his staff."

Salmonius' back stiffened, and then loosened again. “That's no matter to me."

“And if the Emperor arrives?"

“He won't. It would spoil the game."

“But if he does?"

“Then this world is lost; but I am nothing if not prepared. In the event of a cataclysm, my castle and this cave are set to shift into another frequency. Technically it's more complicated than that, but you never did understand how to travel between the worlds."

She tilted her head again. “So it really wouldn't bother you?"

“No. Now leave me alone, I believe I have answered your questions."

Pfft. Not to my satisfaction, you haven't. And I'm not leaving here until you've told me everything you know.