Lance was floating in blackness again. Just like before, he was weightless in a featureless, infinite expanse. He cast a look around him and quickly realized he was dreaming. He imagined a floor below him and precisely as soon as he thought it, it came into being around him. That made sense to him. This was his dream, so it was pliable to his will.
He began to reshape the dream world around him. The black emptiness all around him turned to whiteness, as light seemed to come from everywhere. He liked the white better, he decided. He thought to look down at himself and in this dreamscape, he had no bullet wound in his thigh or pain left in his chest, even though the pain from his physical body would still be there, tugging at his consciousness.
He lifted off from the marble-like floor and began floating in a random direction. He wanted to see what kinds of things his mind could create with infinite space. A smile on his face, he flew over the ground and a thought occurred to him. He knew exactly what he wanted to do here in his mental sandbox.
He floated up what he estimated what would be 100 feet from the floor and stared intensely below him. The effort to drudge up the old memory was significant enough to take a few seconds work. Below him, Era City slowly rippled into existence, starting directly below him. After a few minutes, the whole city had been reconstructed and he started to lower back down to the street.
He was standing on the corner of an intersection familiar to him. Directly before him stood a glass store-front obstructed by long deep purple curtains that reached to the very top of the windows. It was his all-time favorite restaurant. In the real world, it had long since closed, being the victim of a kineticist, one of the city's most common plagues, real people endowed with elemental powers, however this particular kineticist had been extremely arrogant and hadn't cared when his powers completely demolished the whole place.
But here, in the dream world, it still stood. He could still return to it. It was strange, he thought, that despite his inheritance and his powers, there remained a great number of things he wished to do that he still lacked the ability to do. He smiled once more, simply taking in the sight of the familiar and cozy place. Then, he strode confidently through the front door.
Inside the little restaurant was dark and its atmosphere welcomed him. He had loved this place. When he had no one, he had this place to come and sit and enjoy a good sandwich and Italian soda. It was exactly as he had remembered it. The front counter stood to the left side of him, a bar counter that ran with the side wall there and then turned to his right and continued to the closest wall. Behind the counter sat his favorite barista.
She was a sandy-blonde girl around college age and she wore simple slacks and a fitting sweater, with a maroon apron draped over it. Her name tag read Nicole and she smiled as he came in. "Hello again, sugar baby," she said teasingly. His heart swelled at the sight of her. He hadn't seen her in years and even though it was only in his mind, it was good to hear her voice again.
Her nickname for the emancipated and financially setup young boy he had been had been 'sugar baby', both in reference to the candy and how he loved to tip her well. When Lance had been completely alone in the world, he knew he could come here and Nicole would smile and talk to him and be friendly. He regretted that after the shop had been forced to close, he had never seen her again to tell her how much she had helped him get through that time.
The broad grin on his face was completely genuine. "Nicole! It's so good to see you. May I have a turkey club and hazelnut soda?"
Nicole smiled in reply and nodded. "The usual, coming right up!" She disappeared to the kitchen area and Lance found a seat in his favorite nook in an overstuffed easy chair. Nicole brought his food and drink with a smile and left him to eat it.
The food was just as good in the dream as it had always been in reality. He closed his eyes and cherished the sensation of the not-quite-real food.
That was exactly when the dream turned into a nightmare.
A chilling voice came from right beside him. "Hello, my child…" it purred. The sound was like feline claws in Lance's ears. He flinched and recoiled as his eyes flew open.
The woman sitting in the chair next to him was as beautiful as she was terrifying. At least to Lance. Her skin was pale, but fair and nary a freckle marked her ivory beauty. Fuchsia eyes peered curiously at him, like the cheshire cat, and her smile revealed perfect, pearly-whites. Her hair was platinum blonde, almost to the point of pure whiteness, yet a tinge of pink showed like highlights in her flowing locks. Faerie glamour clung to her like stink on a garbage can. She was bright, beautiful, dressed a flowing white dress, exactly how he had last seen her.
Also in a dream, he remembered. Tension bunched up like cords in his neck and back and he wanted to jump out of his chair. "Travesty," he replied in a frigid tone. "Get the behind me, remember? This is my dream, so scram. You're not welcome here."
Travesty, ruined Fae and Lance's godmother, only smiled wider, showing her canines to him. "Child, I do not take orders from mortals. You are so cute when you attempt to intimidate."
That caught Lance off-guard. This was his head, his dream, his world. Why did she simply not disintegrate into mist on the wind, not to be seen again, when he commanded her to leave? Worry shook him into sinking back into the chair.
"Yes, you begin to understand. It is really I, Travesty, Prime Counselor of the Fae," she purred pridefully. "I have bridged the gap between my little demesne and your dream-world."
In a word, this was bad. Lance reeled through the implications of what was currently happening. If Travesty could appear in his dreams, and it was actually her and not his imagination of her, then his assumptions about her power were dead wrong.
The first thing he did was try to will himself awake. Nothing changed. He was still in the same place, and so was she. He concentrated harder on waking his body up, but still nothing happened. He cast an expectant look at her. A slight nod of her head confirmed his suspicions. He was stuck in this dream world with her for the time being.
He didn't like being a joke to her, so he turned the situation around on her. "You're not able to leave your pocket dimension. How the heck are you doing this?" he asked her sternly.
Travesty seemed amused by this question, even going so far as to let out a delighted giggle, as if she were a teenaged girl without a care in the world and not a legendary power in the supernatural world. "It isn't difficult. But if you really wish to know, you may bargain for that information. I would only ask twenty-four hours of servitude from you."
Lance knew that was a terrifically bad idea. A day of service to her would be a day without his free will, he would be her puppet and he would be reduced to spectating within his own body while she did whatever she pleased with it. Including killing anyone she wanted. That kind of thing was not going to happen.
"Let's try this again," Lance said, not amused. "Why are you here? What in goodness name do you want?"
"Ah, now that is a good question. And one I will answer for free," his godmother replied, whimsy lilting in her tone. "As your godmother, it is my responsibility to help guide you in matters of the soul. And warn you when there is a threat to it."
"Yeah, I bet you're here out of the goodness of your heart. Oh, wait, you actually don't have one, do you?" he snarled.
She seemed bemused by his belligerence but she did not stop tempo to address it. "Now, now, don't be like that. I really do care what happens to you." He quirked one eyebrow at her but didn't retort. "It is time you learned more about the method I chose when granting you your powers."
That really got Lance's attention. If Travesty was telling the truth, which he could never be quite sure about, when it came to her. The best course of action with her advice was to take it with a grain of salt while remembering her exact choice of words. He had learned Faeries, at least his godmother, could be true to the letter of what they said, but the spirit could vary wildly.
He thought back to when she had ceremoniously granted him the powers of a dragon. Flight. Strength. Fire-breathing, and later, full pyrokinesis. If something about that was important now, it would be best to try to extract whatever information she held, and if he could manage it, wring more knowledge from her than what he gave. He gave her a small, capitulatory nod. He would hear her out, but be on his guard for misinformation.
"Good to see you exercise some sense, godchild. The matter concerns the source of the draconic power you were bestowed. Long ago, before the rule of the Faeries in the immortal realms, the lands were ruled by the World Drake Triumvirate. They were the ultimate authority in the realms."
Lance felt his jaw fall open, despite himself. Was she really going where he thought she was?
Travesty continued as if she had not noticed. "The Drake relative to this discussion is Y'ggdrasil, the Drake of Flame."
"Y'ggdrasil? Isn't that the world-tree in Norse mythology?"
"Do you really think a being the ultimate power would allow their true name to become known among lesser powers, much less mortals? Do you really believe my true name is what you call me?"
That made Lance think for a moment. He hadn't considered the possibility that immortals would use psuedonyms. Interesting. If even they had need of a secret identity, that meant knowing a being's true name would be a sort of leverage against them. Lance didn't understand the specifics, he couldn't even fathom them, but it seemed that without knowing it, Travesty had slipped up and given him knowledge he didn't have before. He was one-nothing against her. He truly wanted to keep it that way. So he nodded as if accepting the concept at face value.
Travesty returned to her story. "At the end of the Age of the Drakes, I became the steward of one of his scales. Payment for a favor given. I did not conjure your power out of thin air. Your power came from that scale."
Lance truly reeled back now. The source of his power was an immortal who had ruled long before the Fae had come to power? That instantly made him wary. It didn't click. Why on earth would Travesty have granted him his powers from a source more deep than she? Something in this puzzle was missing. But he said nothing and let her continue.
"I thought the dying Drake to be an old fool, close to death. Y'ggdrasil turned out to be more crafty than I had ever imagined. Within his scale lay a shade of him, a copy of his soul, if you will."
"Wait, you're saying old Yiggy left his ghost on his scale?"
"Dear child, don't interrupt," she said saccharinely. "Upon the scale, lay an enchantment to preserve a small fraction of his power and spirit until I made use of the it. When I did, and granted you the powers you now wield, the shade accompanied the power it brought into your soul."
Lance let his eyes bolt wide open now. "I have a ghost of a dragon in my soul?"
"Godchild, please," she hissed through clenched teeth, showing the first sign of any real emotion yet. "That spirit was tied to the power, there was no way to separate it from the power. I had no choice but to let it into you, where it has been hiding away in quiet plotting for three years now."
As she spoke, she waved a hand at another nearby chair. Between both of their pairs of legs, directly across from that point, another plush, comfortable chair sat. In it materialized a body.
Red scales were the first thing Lance saw. The man had bright scarlet scales all over his body, like a snake's skin. Second, Lance noticed the horns. He had curved bone-horns also of red about 3 or so inches long protruding out of his forehead and reaching up towards his hairline. Behind him in the chair were large scaly wings, tipped at the top with more pointed bone. His hair and eyes were a bright shade of crimson. He was dressed in a black tank top and baggy red jeans. He was built strongly, with plenty of upper-body muscle. And as far as his face and the human portions of his body went, he looked exactly like Lance.
Lance's red, draconic doppleganger sat across from him eyeing him eagerly.
"My godchild, meet the shade. Shade, my godchild," Travesty said by way of explanation.
Lance stared in shock at the figure seated across from him. If it was true, that meant Y'ggdrasil's shade had been sharing his body ever since Travesty had granted him his powers. Ever since the day before his parents had been murdered.
It was unlikely that Lance had been completely unaffected by the spirit's presence. Why else would it never have made itself known before now? His thoughts turned to Travesty's motivation for telling him this. If it was a misleading falsehood, he could understand that planting doubt in his mind would be a sound tactic. If it was all true, however…
No matter what, she must have had a solid reason for doing this now. Faeries, especially ones who had once been second-in-command of all the Fae, didn't do anything without thinking it all the way through. He needed to know what her angle was, which meant he was going to have to play her game.
Lance eyed his double warily but the figure said nothing. Instead it smiled sinisterly at him, its red eyes hungry. He looked away and to Travesty instead.
"You're just now telling me this? I don't get it, what do you get for hiding this for so long?" he asked aggressively.
For the first time during this meeting, Travesty appeared truly displeased. Her mouth settled into a straight line and her eyebrows came together over narrowed eyelids. "As I said, it is my responsibility to look after your immortal soul. The shade shares your soul, granting you great power. With that power, it has great influence over you. By making you aware of it, it may no longer hide from you. I am doing you a favor, godchild."
Her annoyed tone hadn't quite hidden her use of the word 'favor'. Lance was well aware of how the concepts of debt and payment functioned among the Fae. He narrowed his own eyes. "I need no such favors from you, godmother," he said, placing such strong venom in the final word.
"Insolent child. Do not be blind," she spat. "It is capable of manipulating you. Do you not see?"
Lance decided to try a different angle to pry more information from her. "The same could be said of you. What have you to gain from all of this? I doubt your ilk knows anything of true compassion for mere mortals like me."
Half a second later, Travesty was standing before him, with his chin in her petite but firm hand and he found that he could not move to leave her grip. She pointed his face up at her. He refused to look away, or to be intimidated.
She leaned in close to his face and hissed, "Do not forget your mortal lineage is bound to me, boy. You yet owe me a debt and I will see it repaid. For my own benefit, I see fit to preserve you. Do not make me reconsider my foolishness."
She released his face and he could suddenly move again.
She had such power even within his own mind. It surprised and unnerved him. She could have even more leverage into his mind if she felt the need so Lance found it wise to stop pressing. He had learned quite a bit already, anyway. There was no sense in risking everything for more.
Travesty retook her seat and out of his periphery, he could swear the shade was chuckling silently. But he didn't dare remove his gaze from her. She seemed composed again but Lance knew that anger would be bubbling under the surface for quite a while.
She cast her eyes back to him and the two stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. "I have prepared a spell to assist you as well, godchild. If you are all done objecting to every little thing."
He tried to look unamused, but it was hard to keep his poker face under the pressure of her gaze. He hoped that he held it together. Regardless, she continued after he remained silent. "Good. It has become evident that this wyrm's influence has swayed your emotions from time to time. I have prepared a spell that will prevent it from exercising that power over you anymore."
"What if I decline?" Lance asked. He didn't want Travesty, under any circumstances, to work anymore magic on him. Her magic had already caused enough trouble.
"Then you and I will stay here in this imaginary world for the rest of time. I cannot leave until you wake and you cannot wake unless I will it. We will both be trapped here inside your mind for eternity."
Darn, she drove a hard bargain. He couldn't accept giving up his role in the real world. The Titans were the only way to eventually beat her. He had to play the long game and focus on his end-goals.
"Then I have little choice but to accept. Do it quickly and let's be done," he said, trying to sound more annoyed than nervous. The truth was the magnitude of what she was about to do was almost as bad as letting her simply keep him trapped here in his own mind forever. It was a serious case of the lesser of two evils.
"Very well. Remain still while I prepare the spell and this will go faster."
Lance did as he was told, though he didn't have to be happy about it, and so he wasn't.
Travesty closed her eyes and began moving her lips but no sound emerged from them. Lance chanced a look at the dragonling shade. His red orbs were upon Travesty as well, so he returned his gaze to her as well.
After a moment, she opened her eyes again, spoke a quiet word in a long-dead language and held up her hands, as if she were blowing dust into the wind. He felt pressure in his chest, around his heart. He also felt an immaterial change, something not physical being altered.
She lowered her hands to her lap, the spell completed. "What did you do?" he asked.
"I have placed an impenetrable barrier around your heart. It will safeguard you from the shade's more subtle influences. Be careful, because now it must speak to you to influence you."
"I have much experience in that field," he said snarkily.
"You are not as funny as you perceive yourself to be," she replied. "As I was saying, do not be swayed by its whisperings. Also, when you awake, take some time to get used to the change." As she spoke that last sentence, her mouth turned up into a smug smirk.
"Wait, what?" he asked, but the dream world was already swirling away from him and he was rising through the deep darkness once more, alone.