Ten things Bianca knows, but probably hasn't told anyone else about. Another take on "Of Artisan Stock", from another character's perspective. Reviews and concrit are appreciated.

This fic takes place just before Bianca opens the sorceress's lair in the Midnight Mountain at the final battle of Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Standard disclaimers apply.

Half Unwanted Gifts.

Bianca wasn't born with magical powers.

She had taken them. Or rather, she had tried to steal them, failed, and then been offered them instead. By the sorceress. It happened a long time ago or at least it felt like a long time ago. Bianca wasn't certain how long, precisely, except for the fact that she had been small enough when it happened that even the boulders stacked around outside the castle doors had seemed like mountains to her.

The Sorceress's castle in the Midnight Mountain was bright and tall and deceptively beautiful and every day, Bianca would stand below its walls and look up. That was what her people did – they stood on the outside of big things and looked up at them, but were never a part of them. Bianca had heard that it was a habit of her species from long ago: they would stand and stare at bright and beautiful things, even if those bright, beautiful things could destroy them.

Bianca's people stole things. It was what they did, simply because it was the only way they could survive. They stole their food from the people in the Summer Plains, and their clothes and tools from the people in the Midday Gardens. She had to admit, though, going after the sorceress's magic had probably been a little greedy.

And there are days when she kind of… not regrets it, exactly, but wishes she'd thought more about her actions, first. She'd never been one for thinking ahead.

She couldn't read as a child, after all. When you lived a place like the Lapine settlement in Crystal Caverns, learning the written language usually didn't stand out at the top of your to-do list. So why, exactly had she not thought to ask for different kind of magic? One that didn't rely on spell books and incantations and words she couldn't understand.

It had taken her two years just to grasp the meaning of the individual letters and words, another two years to be able to speak them even close to confidently. Even now she continues to mix up spellings and pronunciations. The important kind of pronunciations than could mean the difference between changing a rabbit into a flower and changing a rabbit into a giant, killer monster with really big, blunt teeth and a taste for Lapines.

Turning a perfectly harmless bunny rabbit into a monster that immediately tried to eat you, right in front of your enemies… Yes, that hadn't exactly been the proudest moment of Bianca's life.

They aren't enemies now, though, which is more of a surprise to her than anyone else. And Spyro…

He doesn't like her very much. He probably doesn't trust her either. But then again, if that's the case, then why is he allowing her to do this? Why is he allowing her to take the magic from his brothers and sisters and use it to unlock the door to the Sorceress's hidden lair? Why is he letting her help when it's quite obvious he doesn't know how bad she feels about everything.

'You let us go,' he says with what she supposes is a kind of dragon-shrug. As if that explains everything. Maybe it does. She's willing to leave things as they are right now and, having already felt what he's capable of, she'd really rather not annoy him any further.

Besides, she wants to do this.

It's the kind of thing you don't notice until you realise it isn't there anymore: the magic, that is.

The first time little Bianca became aware of it, was on the day the teleporters in her home world stopped working. Then her mother stopped being able to pull the little magical tricks she used to pull with glasses and mirrors. Music through glass and turning furniture into small creatures and other talents Bianca hadn't inherited. Those were the games she'd played with Bianca as a baby, to make her laugh. They thought at first that it was just the eclipse. The Night of Darkness happened once every two hundred years and… it'd been due. A simple glitch of magic, and nothing more.

And then the portals started dying, and Bianca realised something was wrong which was far worse than just an eclipse.

'I talked to Hunter in Scorch a while ago…' Spyro says. 'He believes you, you know. I tried telling him it was crazy, but that didn't matter. He thinks you're doing this for us. Is that true?'

Bianca nods and says a private thank you to Hunter in her mind, but still Spyro still doesn't look as if he believes her. 'He might trust you, but I don't. You could be leading us into a trap.'

'But you still have to destroy her, right? The sorceress?' She whirls on him, cape hood down, face and form exposed. She's thought that showing him her form instead of hiding herself under the cape might've softened him up a little. She forgot.: dragons don't think about those kind of things. Their kind of magic lets them see through anything. He probably knew what she was from the beginning. 'Either way, the only way to do it is by getting through that door.' Bianca brandishes at the door behind her, glancing at it over her shoulder. 'You don't need to trust me, you just need to go through it.'

Spyro knows she's right. Still, he doesn't look too happy about it. If this is how he looks at her, Bianca wouldn't want to be the sorceress. That dragonfly of him flickers and sparkles, the same way it did when it ate the butterfly she conjured up in Midday gardens. Bianca is sure the Dragonfly doesn't trust her either.

When she discovered what was happening, Bianca had left her realm and headed to the Midnight Mountains homeland. There, she had clambered up the icy vines on the outside walls of the castle and crept into the sorceress's dungeons.

The sorceress had found her, of course. And she had brought the Rhynocs with her. Bianca ran as fast as she could, but they had trapped her in no time, in a small room near the back of the castle, with the bottle of magic she had stolen still clutched tightly in her hands.

'Useless,' the sorceress had said.

Bianca remembers it. She remembers running for her life down the castle corridors, being tracked down, being caught, being held against the wall by a powerful burst of magic, the bottle she had stolen still grasped in her hand.

'There's no point in taking that. A creature such as yourself could never control it. What did you want it for anyway?'

'I…'

She tried to move, to escape. But the sorceress's magic held her fast. The tip of a wand brushed her face sending a chill right through her body. 'Think carefully, child. Your answer might depend on your answer.'

'I'm not lying to you.'

'Like I said, I don't know whether I can believe that. so what happens when that door opens anyway?' Spyro glares at the door over her shoulder, as if it's just another monster she's conjured up in order to destroy him. 'Does the roof cave in or what? Just so you know, Sparx call tell when things like that are going to happen in advance, so don't even try tricking us, because we'll know.' The dragonfly buzzes in agreement. He looks… pretty fierce for a little insect.

'I know he can,' she lies. In truth, she knows hardly anything about dragons except for the fact that they a) hatch from eggs and b) are incredibly tricky both to get rid of and to get back, depending on which you're trying to do.

'We're not so different.'

'Oh, please, what exactly do we have in common?'

'Hunter, for one thing,' Bianca says, calmly, and for once she is certain of her answer. It's strange. Thinking about someone else is not something which has ever made Bianca's life any easier before.

Spyro's expression changes when she says that. He can't argue.

'And… and the magic's dying everywhere.' Her explanations were running out. She'd told the sorceress everything, because she feared she would die if she left out so much as a single thing. She was also still held up against the wall, and the wand was still pointed at her chest. Even though it hurt, it was still comforting, in a way, because it had been so long since she'd felt fresh magic. 'The portals don't work… I had to walk here, all the way…So you see, I… I didn't want this for me. I wanted it…'

'For your parents, is that right?' The sorceress leered. 'For your people and your home. You mean to bring life back to them by returning your homeland's disappearing magic. It's a bad plan. The magic you hold in that bottle can only be ingested by a living being with enough brainpower to use it correctly. Its effects on your world would be temporary, at best. You have come on a fool's errand, girl.

Bianca blinked, confused, worried, intensely frightened.

'Look around you, brat. The rest of the world is dying, surely you realise? The magic you have stolen is one of the few examples left in this world. I am the only creature left that can give you what you desire.'

'You're doing what I ask because he says you should, right? Bianca asked. Spyro shuffled a little, still keeping his eyes cold and locked on the doorway. Funny, Bianca realises, that she should now be standing where she has always stood – the one thing in between him and the sorceress. 'You still don't trust me at all.'

'Maybe. Or maybe just think the sorceress needs getting rid of enough for you to not be important anymore,' Spyro mutters. Bianca nods. She gets the feeling she was never that important to him in the first place.

'Yeah… You also know that my world is dying and it's going to keep dying if the dragons go away again.'

'I didn't say I was going to let that happen.'

'You'd better not,' Bianca mutters, surprising herself with her ability to continue to fake a threatening air. Of course, it has no more affect on Spyro now than it did the hundreds of times before. Heck, he wasn't even fazed by her turning into a rainbow right in front of him, or conjuring up a monster to destroy him.

'Since when were you any good at making threats?' Spyro snapped. 'I got them back once. You take them away and I'll get them back again.'

Bianca nods. She knows she couldn't do that anyway. The dragons are mostly hatched now –many of them broke from their shells the moment Spyro touched them– and would be decidedly more difficult to catch. She doesn't know where the fairy is keeping them, but Bianca knows there's no point in asking. Spyro isn't likely to tell her.

'If my world dies…'

'Them I'll be to blame, yeah, I know. But I've never let a world die. C'mon, Bianca,' Spyro scowls. 'It's a lose-lose situation either way, but at least my way you have a chance. Hunter wasn't kidding when he said he might convince the dragons to come back. Hell, I'll even help him once I'm sure the sorceress is gone for good.'

It's what she expected him to say. Angry with her as he might be, Spyro isn't selfish. He won't put the rights of one world above another. Maybe he's been struggling with this the whole time, just as much as Bianca has.

She's right, really –they aren't so different. Except…

Except for that she still would've chosen her world over his. 'There's something else you should know… she's using the dragon magic directly, her sceptre has been reconstructed and she's using a suspended dragon egg as her power source.'

She see's Spyro tense up a little. 'You mean…'

'I mean she's got a dragon egg attached to the thing and therefore has all the potential; abilities you do on top of all her own.' Bianca finished.

'Why're you…'

'Telling you this? What, did you think my help would stop at just opening the door? I meant what I said. I want to help. Oh, and that monkey ho claims you rescued him, by the way… I mentioned this to him; he'll be there, too.'

'You've thought of everything, haven't you?'

'No. just the things she would've thought of. You she might be expecting to see, but I somehow doubt she'll be expecting a monkey wielding a 9-500 laser gun.'

'You could be useful to me… you were daring enough to at least try and steal what belongs to me. You might even have succeeded had you been a little smarter than you look. But you didn't. With my help, you could be more powerful than anything that bottle contains.'

'…More powerful than you?' It was a silly question, she realised the moment she'd asked it. The sorceress laughed at her for the first of many times.

'I wouldn't go that far, brat. Maybe I should phrase it differently: you don't have any choice in the matter. I can kill you now, for invading my domain… for attempting to steal from me. Or I can put you to a purpose that could not be served so well by your corpse… granted I've been messing around with the idea of bringing back the dead…' Bianca shivered uneasily, getting the feeling the sorceress meant it. 'But no… it's not appropriate'

'What… what do you want me to do?'

'Will you do anything to stay alive? And to save your world?'

Bianca nodded before she could help herself. 'Then you'll have to work for me, and maybe we can find a way of saving this world and everything in it.'

'You don't believe me,' the sorceress said calmly and, as if to emphasise her point, she realised her hold and Bianca felt herself drop to her knees, the bottle clattering on the floor. 'There's no need to be suspicious. I've needed an apprentice for a while… stupid as you are, there might be hope for you in the magic department. I don't suppose you can read, girl?'

'N…no.' Bianca wasn't even all that certain just what reading was.

'Pity. But we can work through that. I'll even give you that bottle you were trying to run off with. Call it an initiation gift. Wouldn't you like that?'

Bianca knew from the stories her mother had told her that the sorceress never did anything nice for anyone, especially not thieves. But seeing as she'd probably be killed anyway… 'Yes… I would… I would like that.'

'I thought so. Get off the floor.'

Bianca stood up.

That was the day the dusty, box filled room had become hers, and the sorceress has been in her head ever since.

She had also given Bianca the very power she would need one day, in order to help someone else destroy her mistress.

Bianca has never been able to read out a proper spell in her life. But now, when she holds out her hands before the door to the room the sorceress has sealed herself within, she gets the incantation word perfect first time.

'Open.' Still, he might not be afraid of anything, but that doesn't mean he's got the power to defeat the sorceress.

The door creaks, the shackles break, and the door opens in a splash of rainbow light. Spyro doesn't thank her, or hesitate before entering, but then, she never expected him to. He has met every challenge she's thrown at him so far with exactly the same vigour and enthusiasm. She would've admired him earlier, if he hasn't torched her the way he did. She stands and watches him enter the doorways with the dragonfly close being him.

And then he paused. 'Oh, yeah, almost forget: Hunter told me to tell you to meet him in Scorch if I saw him around. He'll be waiting in the temple. Don't worry about the scorpions and Rhynocs –I already took care of them.'

…Scuba diving lessons? Bianca raises her eyebrows. 'I… I beg your pardon?'

Spyro gives another vaguely amused dragon-shrug. 'Don't ask me, witch girl. I just brought him with me; I'm not responsible for the trouble he gets into whenever I leave him on his own.'

'Am I trouble?' Bianca thinks, but doesn't say aloud, because she already knows what his answer would be, and she knows that he's probably right, too. She is trouble; she always was even before she got magic. But maybe Spyro is trouble too, just in a different way to her.

'Guy's scared of getting his fur wet, you know,' Spyro says, as he advances into the room. She always had him tagged as the 'less talk, more action' kind of guy, but now, he seems almost… conversational. And with her, no less. 'But he wants to take you scuba diving… he's a strange one kinda weird, but he's still my friend, so… watch it.'

Bianca doesn't argue, she simply nods as he walks into the chamber and vanishes from view and she finds herself hoping and praying that the sorceress doesn't kill him, the way she's killed so many others.

She probably won't.

In fact, when she thinks about the fact that she herself, has actually been able to outsmart the sorceress on this one occasion, and use the magic of the world against her… Bianca thinks it's more than likely that Spyro will be able to destroy the sorceress, too.

She doesn't know how she'll explain all of this to Hunter if Spyro doesn't came back.

Fic Explanation #2

What's to say about this one?

I noticed another moral issue concerning Spyro was – exactly what does happen to the Forgotten World if Spyro releases all the hatchlings and sends them back to the Dragon Worlds? Doesn't it… you know, die again? I understand that there's ways around it (example: send half the hatchlings back, keep half in the Forgotten World) but I'm not sure a guy like Spyro really thought of that.

However I also know that Spyro isn't the kind of person who would put one world over another: he helped the Forgotten Worlds as he did his own, and somehow managed to help both at once.

The idea that the magic has been dying for centuries is not an odd one, given that the dragons were banished a thousand years ago. I'm just guessing that it really started to make itself evident in recent years.