MPAG: This chapter is the very first chapter in our collaborated story! I wrote it, so read and review and tell me what you think? Next is from AT32, so express your feelings and tell us what you think!


Prologue

'Twas a long time since I had last thought about the happiness in my life. An eternity of living, and I have never once doubted that I was complete. But I now see my life, which I have always taken for granted, in a new light. A different, brighter light that has blinded me, yet is showing everything in a sharper and much clearer perspective.

This light was not my doing. It was the work of that human, Jonathan. I had seen the men that some of the females of my kind, pixies, have fallen for. I had scoffed at the idea that a human could ever be more than a parasite, nothing much more than a maggot. Yet this particular human was special. In his current state, he wasn't human at all. He was a dragon.

I came across his little home when picking wildflowers for some of the other fey. I had heard of dragons, of course, and how they were the supposed "scum of the Earth". They weren't even supposed to have a language. You can imagine my surprise, then, when he cried out to me in shock. I remember it as clearly as it had happened yesterday…

"Sable, be a dear and fetch some wildflowers for my hair."

"Oh, yes Sable! I need a new perfume!"

"And I want a garland of flowers!"

I sighed as a gaggle of squealing pixies ordered me to grab them some blossoms from the meadow near the river. I shrugged them off and stalked away, wincing as I heard them exclaim over some sort of human technology called "makeup".

They giggled some more while they bartered the tiny containers for outrageous sums. The translucent wings on my back itched to take flight and away from those girls, but I needed some dignity, or at least some reverence. Flying was only used in the event of an emergency, due to risk of "discovery" from humans.

So I trotted away, grinding my teeth together as I went along. I knew their sensitive elfin ears could hear me, so I gave them the satisfaction of my frustration and irritation in getting their wishes fulfilled. My eyes were nearly slits by the time I was out of their earshot, and I was flushed with anger. How dare they! Treating me as though I was a slave…

I stopped dead.

Sitting in the middle of the beautiful meadow was a sleeping creature so frightening, so horrendous, that I gasped audibly. Its eyes flicked open, and a glossy red orb stared back at me. My pulse raced, and my breathing became quick and shallow. It stared for another long moment before smiling a horrible smile. Or it could have been a grimace; it was too difficult to tell.

I felt my teeth chatter in fear, and I was shaking. In a few moments, I knew I would be in panicked hysterics.

"Don't be afraid." Said a pleading and desperate voice in the back of my head. I froze. The voice was not that of my conscience, which was always muttering furiously at me. It was a deep sound, rich. The voice of a thousand angels in one, yet it was male. The legends that there were said that all seraphs were gender-less.

For what seemed like the first time in my pitiful life, I felt self-conscious. I could feel the wings on my back, like the fragile wings of a butterfly, protruding from in between my shoulder blades, each intricate detail in perfect symmetry with the other wing. My skin was a light blue, as though I was suffering from hypothermia, even if I did not have a temperature to freeze me to death. My hands were like that of a human's, though I possessed inhuman reflexes and the knowledge that so many of those pathetic mortals seek. Silver hair was piled on the top of my head with a complex coiffeur, with braids and twists that defied gravity. No ordinary human hair could ever do so.

But then I remembered my audience, with its watchful ruby eyes. I assumed it was male, and his head tilted to one side, as though he was keen to observe my every movement. I began to back away slowly, attempting to hide in the shelter of the trees. I reached the end of the meadow, and the dragon had not moved one inch. The stories were wrong; he looked intelligent and fierce, unlike those geckos and lizards found slinking around the forest.

I reached out my hand to feel the solid tree trunk behind me. I could feel the rough bark against my delicate skin, and breathed a sigh of relief. I was about to turn and run, but that voice in my head, that voice of a thousand angels, called to me.

"Do not forget me, please!" it pleaded, and the dragon had a look of desperation quite similar to what I would imagine the man in my head to have at this particular moment. I gasped, and then turned around to run, faster than ever before. My pixie legs carried me far through the forest until I reached another clearing, one full of flowers with fragrances and scents that were unimaginable.

I plucked a few from the grass, and tucked them securely under my arm. Huh, dragons were a lot different from what I had been expecting. I had been expecting something much closer to those komodo dragons, nothing too big.

But when realization struck me, I had stood there, gaping. Whilst legend claims that dragons have no way to communicate, this one did. Its voice was incredibly seductive, alluring. It was beautiful. Who knew what else legend had blurred?

I awoke sometime later in a canopy by my little tree house. The leaves were so dense over the sky that it was always dim, always nighttime. The absolute silence that rang through my ears told me that it was somewhere around midnight, or about early morning. A bonfire burned brightly outside, the guards meant to make sure the fire is kept tame were asleep.

Every night I awoke to those paradoxes, those riddles, after a short nap instead of a deep sleep. And yet, I was never drowsy. Nor did I ever try to find answers.

Not until now.

I summoned my magic and dressed myself in a simple peasant's dress, a human dress (so very unlike our swirling robes and colorful cloaks), and stained my skin a light peach. I added the rosy tinge most girls wanted for their lips and cheeks, and dyed my hair a dark brown. I added green irises and dark black pupils to my clear white eyes. Perfect. I now looked like a normal human girl, who was really a pixie in disguise.

And thus my tale of deceit and betrayal began.