Disconnect

An intro to the nature of a dragon's soul.

At the moment, I wasn't sure that I could have been any more miserable. I glared at the ceiling through my tears, caught up in a great deal of pain both external and internal. My whole body ached. My painkiller had to be wearing off. I wasn't normally someone to cry, but it hurt! It hurt so badly. I wanted to curl up into a little ball of agony and just go to sleep, but I couldn't. My head throbbed. The tears were making my headache worse and worse. I had to stop crying, but I couldn't. Argh … my whole brain might've been swelling up, the pressure like the inside of a soda can against my skull, about to crack the bone. My hand hurt. It felt like it was full of splinters of glass. The same went for my entire left leg. I couldn't move. It was so sharp. I just wanted it to stop … just wanted to sleep …

But the worst part was not about my bruised hand or aching head.

I couldn't reach my fireheart. I had tried to tap into it when the vampires had walked out of the room, but I couldn't find it. Like the memory of my parents' human names, it was blocked from me. And the implications were much worse than that of the lack of a few names.

Without my fireheart, I was nothing more than a mortal. The entire dragon half of my very being had been swept away.

No more sky. No more mountains. No more scales. No more fire. I was human. Fragile, killable, and hopelessly short-lived. I would never be able to perch on our mountain home deep in the Alps and watch the stars in their clockwork rotation around the earth. I'd never race through the skies with the rest of my young friends, spitting fire and falling like flaming shooting stars just for fun. I would never lead the Great Siege as I had been born to.

I could never go home. I would be the laughing stock or the pity story of my Siege. I was not a dragon. I was not welcome among dragons.

The fireheart was an integral part of a dragon's being. More integral than memories. More than a dragon form, even. The fireheart was the great generator of spirit and life. It testified of our birth from the heart of the earth and the rising sun. It was the very soul.

Without it … I was not.

Seraphinartisa was not.

All that remained was this mortal shell. This little body they called Sera.

Mourning my loss was giving me a splitting headache. My ears were ringing and my eyes throbbed. My tight throat was making it hard to breathe normally, and it, too, hurt. I couldn't swallow. Too painful.

If I really did regain memory of my parents' names and contact information, what would I tell them? What was there to say? That they had just lost most of their daughter? That wouldn't go over well. But I had to say something. They'd start to wonder if something was up when I didn't come home after a month or two. My lies about still hunting vampires would fall flat after a time. They'd know something was wrong. Then I'd have to tell them. Or they'd come to fetch me. Then what? Would they carry me home?

Did I even want to go home? The only human in a society of dragons?

No … too painful. Every one of them would be a reminder of what I'd lost. They'd sweep the skies over my home and call to each other, and I'd be in pain every time. And they'd all look down upon me in my tiny human shape, wagging their heads and pitying the unlucky heiress. Poor creature. One freak accident, her whole future … gone.

I wasn't sure how long I lay there, suffering, before a nurse came to check on me and found me like that. She tried to talk to me, to ask me what hurt, but I couldn't respond. I wasn't totally sure why. It was just … too hard. She might as well have asked me to get up and run a mile with all my injuries, dragging my IV rack with me. I couldn't do it. Just couldn't.

She eventually just plugged a small syringe with another dose of painkiller into the free section of my IV and loaded me up. Then she hurried out.

I shut my eyes. Oh, good. Just leave me alone.

But then, not a minute later, she was back with Dr. Cullen. I thought she was alone until the vampire spoke. I hadn't heard him come in. His steps were too quiet.

"Sera? Can you hear me?"

I opened my aching eyes. His golden gaze watched me, worriedly. He was bending over my bed, trying to see what was wrong. I pulled in a deep, shaky breath, my head pounding, blinking tears out of my eyes.

"Yeah," I muttered. It was all I had energy to say. Even one word was exhausting.

Dr. Cullen relaxed, just slightly. He nodded. "Good. Can you tell me what hurts?"

My whole soul. If I still had a soul.

I couldn't find words, so I just shook my head a tiny bit, as much as I could without knocking myself out. Argh … ow … I shut my eyes, squeezing out more tears. It was like stabbing, lightning pain through my skull. My hand twitched of its own accord at the pain. Ah! Everything was dizzy, spinning.

Dr. Cullen was softly murmuring to the nurse. She was telling him about the painkiller she'd just given me. He sounded unsatisfied. Maybe I needed something stronger.

A few minutes later, and he stood at my left side again, administering another dose through my IV. The nurse dimmed the lights until they were almost turned off at his request. That was good. Helped my headache a little.

Dr. Cullen stayed with me for a while. The nurse left, but the vampire doctor remained like a solid presence beside me, apparently trying to keep me sane as a supportive entity. He occasionally spoke my name and told me the worst would be over soon. Between those instances, I could hear him speaking in the strange, low, humming speech of a vampire talking at vampiric speed.

It was a nice distraction. I focused on it, desperate to get my mind working on something, anything, other than my lost fireheart. I knew that vampires occasionally spoke to each other with this lightning-quick speed when they didn't want to be heard by mortals. Once, when I'd still been able to transform, I'd been able to understand this speech in my dragon form. But now … no, no, I couldn't think of that.

The question was, who was he talking to? Crispin? Was that library-vampire in the room? I cracked open an eye with a huge effort, as though trying to lift a bowling ball with my eyelid. Dr. Carlisle had his phone up to his ear. I didn't see Crispin anywhere. The doctor noticed I had an eye open and smiled, soothingly, although it didn't reach his eyes. He watched me closely, and then sighed and muttered into his phone again.

I shut my eye. Where was that library-vamp, and why was Dr. Carlisle calling him? He couldn't be talking to anyone else at that speed … unless he was addressing another vampire. Chills crawled up my spine. The shiver sent spasms of pain through all of my nerves. My ears rang, deafeningly.

Argh … I tried to think through the pain. What was going on? I'd lost my train of thought.

I gave up thinking for a while. It was too difficult.

The painkiller's effects came on gradually. I only realized that the agony was fading when I abruptly came out of my subconscious doze at the sound of my name. "Sera? Can you hear me?"

I blinked back into the world of the living. Everything was fuzzy and vague. A familiar, dark-haired, golden-eyed someone was standing at my bedside. I had to shut my eyes again at the twang of pain that the mere movement of my eyelids caused. Crispin sighed, heavily, and his cool breath stroked my face. There was a sweet-and-earthy/spicy kind of odor to him, like the smell of sap on a pine tree or honeybees in the garden after rain.

"Well," Crispin sighed. "At least there's some life in you, still."

Some life in me still? Mortal life, maybe. Hardly worth a rat's tail compared to draconic life. Whatever. I flexed my fingers. Still painful, but in a muted kind of way. The painkiller was working.

"Dr. Carlisle had to go," Crispin said. "I'll stay here in case you need anything."

Oh, good. A vampire was staying near me. That should not have been comforting in the least way. But it was, somehow. I tried to relax, to think about nothing in particular. I was so tired … just a little sleep … yes … rest …