#look out onto the insides of the volcanoes and underground fires/lava pits

[hirazuki]

For @melkors-defense-attorney

This was the first and last time Mairon ever let him hold court in the traditional fashion. Everything from there on out was communicated through detailed written reports, directly on Mairon's desk XD

[7deadlycinderellas]

Deals with Dragons, ch2

AO3 link

The mountains are about two days ride north of the palace. Slowly the forest thickens, then as the landscape ascends, twisting and bending up and around, it gives way to stark, sharp rock.

With Emma riding on Lily, the two reach the mountains before sunrise, much faster than a horse could.

Emma eyes the walking path that they’re above.

“Do people actually come up here? It looks really dangerous”.

“Not really,” Lily replies, “That’s probably why mom used to use it. She taught me to fly up here, said all the pointy rocks would give me incentive not to fall”.

They’re over a deep gorge with several rocks rising to points that look as though they could easily skewer a human.

“At least one of these mountains used to be a volcano. That’s where all the weird rocks came from. We’re below the snow line too, so there’s no real reason for people to come around here. The roads all fork and avoid it through the rest of the kingdom”.

“Is this where she kept the other princesses she kidnapped?”

“No” Lily says, starting her descent onto one of the ledges protruding from the slope. “She cursed their kingdoms too. She liked to wreck a lot of terror on their families. One of them burned all of the spindles and spinning wheels in the land in fear of her power”.

She sounds almost bitter.

“I actually don’t know a lot about what she did when she was young. I know about King Stefan and Briar Rose and their daughter Aurora, but she never spoke of her life before. Anyway, we’re here now.”

The rock ledge juts out where they land wide enough that a horse could easily come through. It looks almost cut, sliced out of the mountainside. The entrance to the cave is tiny, barely taller than Emma, small enough that a full grown adult could not enter while standing up. There’s a torch hanging on the inside of the wall, that Emma grabs and has Lily light before she transforms back.

Lily leads her into the cavern, which opens up after a few dozen feet. It’s dark except for the torch until the path widens drastically, and a bit of natural light comes in through the top.

When Emma gets a good look at the inside, all she can say is “Wow...this is a lair?”

Cut out of the stone are staircases leading in multiple different directions. The center is full of chests of varying sizes marked with stamps and hinges of gold. Crystal emerged from some parts of the rock in patterns, and the little light that filtered through caught through these, refracting into patterns all over.

“I’m not sure what this all started as. It’s been unused for a while, we barely even came in here when I was doing flying lessons up here.”

She picks the staircase closest, the only one to head downward.

“That lava pits and through here, I’ll cook us breakfast”.

The lava pits are hot and glowing, and the size of a small pond. There’s a pit dug into the ground covered by a flat rock. Lily removes it and pulls out a loaf of bread.

“How is that still good?” Emma says.

“Magic,” Lily replies, “Might want to be careful touching stuff, I don’t know for sure what’s enchanted here and what’s not”.

Lily sticks pieces of the bread with metal sticks, and they hold them over the open lava pits until they’re nice and toasty, and then smear them with jam. Emma hadn’t realized how hungry she was, it’s one of the best tasting things she’s ever eaten.

When they’re done, Emma yawns.

“Oh thank god, I thought it was just me. Mom sometimes makes me stay up all night, but I haven’t done it in a while”.

She leads her further up, to one of the highest rooms in the cavern.

“Sorry about the dust”.

The room is carved out of the stone, but has a lamp, and a bed laid with blankets.

“Can we look through everything else here later today?” Emma asks. This place reminds her of some of the rooms in the palace back home, full of books and antiques and other things that haven’t been touched in years. At home she would sometimes spend hours exploring these rooms, in search of their mysteries.

“Sure” Lily says, “It’ll probably be a few days until your parents send anyone to try and rescue you, and like I said, I don’t really have much idea of what’s in here. I’ll probably sleep outside in front if you need me”.

Emma lays back, she truly hadn’t realized how tired she was either. The excitement, riding all night, making a new...friend, it all had added up to her being exhausted.

When she wakes back up the sun is high in the sky shining through the cavern skylights. There’s a trunk at the end of the bed, containing a number of simple linen dresses. Emma pulls off her night clothes, and switches it for one. It’s a bit large, but fits. She pulls on the boots she was glad to have the forethought to bring. The stone of the cave is starting to hurt her feet.

She finds Lily in the next cavern over pouring over a bunch of enormous spellbooks.

“Sorry if I woke you, there’s all kinds of stuff in here”.

“I’m fine...what time is it anyway?”

“Almost noon, you didn’t sleep long,” Lily says, tossing the book aside and pulling down a scroll.

Emma picks up the book and flips it open. The pages are yellowed with age, hand written in fancy script. The illustrations are vivid, detailed, almost like the anatomy manual of the castle healer that Emma had once peaked at.

“Are you looking for something particular?”

“Mom was always hands on about teaching me magic. Throw me into the fire so to speak, like it would make it stick more. She wasn’t much for theory.  I thought maybe if I looked through these books, something would make it easier. But these might as well be in a different language. Some of them are.”

The next book she tosses aside is written in pictorial symbols, that Emma feels like she’s seen before, but can’t make heads or tails of.

The first shelf in the cavern is full of more books and scrolls, but the next one is a lower shelf, littered with dusty bottles and vials full of liquids of every color.

“I wouldn’t touch those. Potions are a big thing for mom, that shelf probably has all sorts of nasty stuff.”

Emma squints at the bottle on the end, which has a shakily written label.

“‘For the prevention of the bites of the moon-winged butterfly of the South Woods’...that’s, oddly specific”.

“You can make a potion that does about anything if you know what you need and how to get it.”

Behind the shelf of elixirs is a painting. It’s a scene Emma does recognize, a huge black and purple dragon reigning over a whole kingdom encased by wild vines.

“Wow.” Emma says, staring, “I should have realized when you said last night...that your mother was Maleficent”.

“Her reputation precedes her. She would be pleased”.

Lily’s voice is dispassionate.

Along one wall, there’s a low, broad chest that Lily pulls open. It’s full of jewels, and gold coins.

“What’s that for, some kind of knight bait?”

“Well traditionally, the knight that slays the dragon gets it’s treasure. Dragons have a thing for shiny things, mom’s got chests like this all over the place back at the Forbidden Fortress, she never uses them for anything really.”

Emma picks up a red stone, marvels at the light running through it.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, about the whole dragon thing. You seem to spend a lot of time as a human. Do most dragons do that?”.

Lily shrugs.

“I don’t really know, all I have to go by is mom and me. Mom spends more time as a dragon than I do. When I’m human, it feels like it’s what I’m supposed to be, but when I’m a dragon, I feel the same. I only know about other dragons from the stories.”

She touches the necklace Emma just noticed, a small crescent moon.

“Don’t you have a father?” Emma asks.

“I suppose I must, I mean I have to have come from somewhere. But I don’t know anything about him, mom won’t tell me, no matter how many times I ask.”

The hand that was on her necklace, she lowers, clenched into a fist. Emma finds herself reaching out to touch her shoulder, but Lily jerks away.

“I think I need some air, come on, there’s something else you might want to see”.

Lily leads her back up, then onto the staircase that leads furthest up. It’s longer than the other have been. When it opens up again, Emma is shocked to see a huge underground lake.

She runs up, kneeling and sticking in a hand. The water is warm, almost like bathwater. She looks up, and sunlight streams in from the largest opening in the cave that she’s seen so far. She pulls off her boots and sticks in her feet too. Honestly, she’s been feeling the need for a bath.

“I didn’t know there were any hot springs this far north. All the others are swarming with people year round.”

“As far as I know, this is the only one” Lily replies, staring up at the sky.

“I’ll be back in a little bit, I’ll bring dinner.” is the last thing she says before transforming, and flying out into the opening in the cave.

Emma strips off the unfamiliar clothes, and slips into the water.

Then she stares up at the sky, at where Lily had been a moment before.