Disclaimer: Okay, MA! is not mine. Ni'khali is. Rakkmire is. Sssirukk is.  Pretty much every-character-with-a-name-you-don't-see-in-the-show is... all these will be properly introduced later.

Rewritten from it's original ugly glory of two years back.

Welcome to my world.

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Dragon Tamer, Human Friend - Prologue



"Prince Rapses is missing!" The words spread like wildfire through the palace, alerting servants and royalty alike.  The queen's scream reverberated along the stone columns, stirring all back into the waking world with a pang of fear.  As Ja-Kal, chief among the royal hunters and leader of the prince's unwary guardians, raced through the corridors, panic quickening his footsteps, he was quietly followed.

Golden-green eyes glimmered softly from the shadows of a stone column, their owner trailing quietly in the man's wake.

Time…there is so little time!

*******

She crested a dune, hissing as her feet sank into burning sand.  Human form was such a nuisance!

All discomforts were forgotten as her eyes found the scene below her.  The flat-topped pyramid was almost lost in a morass of chaos, the five humans and their chariot being slowly but surely overwhelmed in the midst of the artificial army – Shabti, were they called?  She muttered a curse under her breath at the hopelessness of the scene.

Below, three of the stone soldiers at the fringes spotted her, beginning a clumsy climb up the shifting sands.  One grabbed for her foot – she kicked at it ineffectually and began swearing as it pulled her downwards.  Pulling a thin dark staff from where it had been slung across her back, she brought it down hard on the Shabti's head, which crumbled, as did the rest of it.  She then swept it down across the other two's feet, watching them tumble down the dune.

This isn't going to work…help me, goddess, and grant me your power…

The answer came in the form of a prickling, down her spine and out along her limbs, and a deep-set aching as her body began a familiar transformation.  Her skull split and warped into a snout, weak human teeth sinking back into her jaw to be replaced by a set of flesh-ripping fangs.  As claws melted out of her fingernails, blades slid painlessly through her skin.  The ache redoubled fiercely at her neck, shoulders and the base of her spine, as extensions entirely foreign to her previous body made themselves manifest.  She was no longer even the least bit human, her angry thoughts melding themselves with something alien, reptilian, bloodthirsty.

I am…the Dragon.  I must protect my Prince.

She launched herself angrily at the Shabti, heedless of the injuries dealt to her delicate wings as she fought to reach the other guardians, already failing and being overwhelmed.  Scores of the lifeless warriors crashed into pieces at her saurian feet…yet more kept coming.

Quicker than thought, something dark rippled across the corner of her vision.  She hissed, bringing the blades on her wrists up to counter – too late.   Three bloody gashes burned across her shoulder without warning; she cried out and lashed at empty air.  Within the span of a second something blurred and struck again, sending her flying.  She gave a thin, angered screech, launching herself into the air, away from the constriction of the Shabti and more than ready to face what had suddenly barred her path.  "Show yourself."

The hidden shadow materialized in front of her, lazily beating his wings in an imitation of her movements.  Her eyes widened, fear and rage mingling within their depths.  "You."

Hello, Ni'khali-Sssirukk – or am I to call you Ni'ssiruk? he replied…casual, almost polite.  How nice of you to join me – it is such a wonderful day to die.  His voice was hers, in inverse – low, deep, piercing her to the core.  He dove for her throat.

"Contrary as always."  Her voice deepened into wary amusement, the Goddess portion of the mingled human and dragon showing through as their blades clashed.  "How do you know you can beat me?  You are my shadow.  You have always been my shadow and my opponent.  If I were not manifest on this earth, you would not be.  If I was on Scarab's side, you would be on the Pharaoh's.  So predictable.  You are nothing but a nuisance, Rakkmire, dark-half."

He yawned delicately, slashing (she dodged, but barely) at her underbelly.  Perhaps not so.

And then came the tail, it's blades plunging deep into her underbelly as she emitted a pained gasp.  Already weakening and paralyzed with agony, she pushed feebly at the black objects protruding from her body.  He laughed, shredding the membrane of her wings as the shadow-spines withdrew themselves from her vital organs with a sickening noise. 

"I will…return…and you know it."

He looked into the dimming eyes and bared his teeth.  Well and good!  How boring it shall be without you in this life…ah, but that cannot be helped.  I hear your own guardians calling, little girl, broken gold-half.  I will claim them.

Copper faded, guttering to green-gold.  The golden dragon's voice was suddenly a young girl's, frightened and hoarse.  "No!  You can't!  You wouldn't!"

Ah, is the child frightened for a certain someone, then?  I must remember that! 

And he was gone, as suddenly as he had come.  His laughter echoed in her ears, mingled with the noises of clashing metal, the sound of crumbling clay, and the screams of pain, blood-scent filling her nose.

It's over…I've failed…he CAN'T/no it can't be i am immortal this isn't possible--

A golden dragon fell, a human girl struck.


*******

In the chaos and the carnage, the Pharaoh's searching troops never found Ni'khali's tattered form.

One dragon did.

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Mou…and that is it for revision of the first chapter.  I know I haven't written any of this in…forever… *wonders if she'll ever finish it*

It's sad, the way the MA! following has dwindled over the years…

~Draconicality, January 2, 2004