The Red Queen of Nothing

Hear me all of Dragonia. Now, I am weak and tied to the stakes like a criminal. You have scorned me, blemished me, and persecuted me. You've tried to hide the truth from the world, but trust me it will come out one day. And on that day, you shall once again remember my name.

- Witch-Spy Lanasis' last words before his execution.

Vinnandra was momentarily stunned.

"How?" She managed to ask. And for the first time that night, she decided to let go of the little fear that disallowed her from taking a good look at Astrid.

Somewhere in her head, her father's chiding voice from her childhood back when everything was fine started playing.

"Vinnandra, you must not stare a bonded dragon in the eye for more than five seconds. It might reduce you to crispy ashes if it feels like it. For an unbonded dragon, if you might, don't stare at it at all. You have no business doing so."

She wasn't supposed to stare closely at a bonded dragon, but for more than five seconds she took a real close look at Astrid, staring the dragon straight into her eyes.

"How…" she asked again, but her words were soft and she felt as if she was being transported into another world.

"How?" She asked once more, but this time she felt like she didn't speak the words out loud, it was all in her head. But how was that possible?

"Let me show you…" Astrid's answer came in a deep, powerful feminine voice unlike a human's but very much like a dragon's. She instantly realised that Astrid was speaking to her from her mind which didn't make sense. A dragon could only communicate to her rider, and not anyone else. And yet, It would seem like Astrid was talking to her.

"Open your eyes and feel all of you…" The voice referred to an internal eyes of some sort, and it was nudging her towards something. What it was, Vinn was unsure of. But she felt a ball of something in her trying to unfurl and reach out to a string.

"I want you to be aware of you…" Astrid's voice was firmer. This time around, the ball inside her unfurled a little bit, and it was that moment that she heard a voice that she had not heard in eight years.

"Vinnandra dear," her mother's voice cooed at her, and she felt the other woman's hand on her hair which was still as white as snow. Her mother was brushing it. "Your hair is made from a pure dragon's breath, you know that right?"

Present Vinn wanted to scream at her mother with angry tears that she was a liar! Her hair was most certainly not formed by a dragon's breath. It was a flame licking red of a thing—Fiery, despicable and cursed. It was the reason for her many problems. But she found that she could not scream.

In whatever space that she found herself in, all she could do was allow everything to play out like a nightmare she couldn't pull herself from.

"I know." Her voice answered. But it was smaller and certainly younger.

"In whatever you do, wherever you go, be sure to know that your hair will protect you no matter the time and place."

"Yes mama." Her younger voice beamed in response.

Hot angry tears stung her eyes blinding her. She found that the only thing she could physically see was blazing yellow eyes. Astrid's eyes. She should have taken her fathers advice not to stare a bonded dragon in the eye. But no, she had to be stubborn.

The ball she felt in herself was straining stubbornly, and threatening to snap. Vinn felt like she was the cause of it, instead of allowing that ball to unfurl, something dark within her would rather it snapped into a million scarred pieces than it unfurled gracefully.

"Why will you not allow yourself to be aware of you?" Astrid's voice was surprisingly gentle and coaxing. Vinn knew it in her bones that Xander had the best dragon in Dragonia, and thought it would be a shame to lose her. Could she do anything to save her? Vinnandra was afraid not.

"Whatever it is that you want me to be aware of scares me terribly." Vinn didn't know what it was, but didn't doubt the fear she felt at the unknown.

"One cannot come into herself without awareness. It is being aware that makes us whole." Vinn knew Astrid spoke nothing but true wise words. But inside that knowledge was the confusion she felt for herself. What scared her terribly? She did not know what.

"Do you think I can save you?" Still in her mind, Vinn asks Astrid in an attempt to change the subject of discussion.

"Can you?" Astrid makes a sound like a deep rumble, akin to the distant roll of thunder, accompanied by a low, throaty growl that might just be a chuckle. "I don't believe anyone can save me, not even a hateful one like you who is barely aware of herself." Her tone was devoid of spite, and matter of fact. "But Gloptra showed you to me. The red-haired woman."

There was only one red-haired woman in all of Dragonia, and that was Vinn. The few witches that worked for Dragonia were strictly forbidden from having intimate relations with dragon riders, talk more of having children with them. It was seen as a taboo of the highest order, and such intimate relations were met with the execution of the dragon rider who was involved in it.

"I believe she can save you." Xander says to Astrid, his voice rings in Vinn's mind like velvety smoothness. As always, as she had now always found herself doing, she turned to look at Xander, severing her connection with Astrid's enchanting eyes.

"How?" Vinn asked out loud, relieved to find that whatever spell that held her captive was broken. She was asking the wrong questions. She was supposed to ask what it was that Xander found in her to make him trust her terribly so.

"I just believe." He answered in the lazy manner that was meant to dissuade people from questioning him further. But Vinn saw that move coming from a mile away and she was ready for it.

"Why?" She persisted. "Why do you trust me so much? Why is it that you think someone like me, discarded by all, can amount to someone worthy enough to become your ally? Why is it that your faith in me is bigger than all I've had for myself in years? Why is it that you give me all those books expecting me to read them and be stronger… worthier? Why?" With each question her voice got smaller, clogged with all the emotions in the world as she only looked at Xander.

He didn't answer, but she forged ahead anyway.

"You're the heir of Lenklock castle, you ride this formidable dragon… I mean you say Astrid is dying but she doesn't even look it. You're the best in your class at the dragon academy. Don't ask me how I know that, everyone gossips about it. You're … just you. And I, on the other hand, is noth…"

"Nothing?" Xander cuts her, stealing her last words from her. He walks up to her and tilts her chin up to meet her eyes with hands as cold as the iciness in his demeanour.

"I will say this but it will be for the last time," he starts, silver eyes penetrating hers, and once again, she was lost in his being. "I am not everything you think I am. Right now, what I am, is a desperate man. Desperate enough to do anything to save Astrid and myself…desperate enough to cling to a lost woman like you for help. Do you know what happens to a dragon rider when his dragon passes on?"

Her chin still held in his cold hands, she flips through a book in her head and answers, "The dragon rider lives in a pain so maddening that he might as well run insane, or even beg for death. An exception is if the dragon rider is bonded to another dragon…"

"Vinnandra," Xander interrupts her academic bumbling and she tries not to think about how her full name rolled off his tongue like fine honey. "I am only bonded to Astrid. I will only be bound to Astrid, so I must save her."

Vinn found his loyalty maddeningly attractive and insane at the same.

"You're the child of both a dragon rider and a witch," he forged ahead, holding her eyes like he always did. "I refuse to accept that you're nothing. I am not a believer usually, but I believe that Gloptra showed you to Astrid for a reason, so you must be able to save her. Master whatever spell you must, bond to a dragon if you can, but you must become something. I forbid you to be nothing."

"Xander…" her voice was breathless, but it was only his name that she could call out.

"So please, be aware of yourself." He begged her, but he didn't have to because at that moment, Vinnandra could burn the world for him if he asked.

Only problem is, she had a feeling that the ball she would rather it shattered to pieces than unfurl was a memory from eight years ago that she locked, threw the key, and vowed never to remember. This was the point of her lack of self awareness.

And she had a strong feeling she would rather die than remember it.