Sasha’s father’s words cut through the silence like a hot knife through butter. She would admit that she flinched slightly. It was not the contents of the words that left her feeling so, it was how he said them.

  When Sasha was young, her father had seemed like the light of her world. Strong, but kind, rough looking, even to a child, but gentle. That version of her father had died the day he beat her for standing up for another girl that had been grabbed by a neighbor boy.

  “It’s… it’s nothing, really father. Just a gift from someone I met on my way home.”

  She was pressing herself into the bench beside her mother, as far away from her father as she could get, without getting up. She would never say it out loud, to anyone, but she was terrified of her father.

  You could never truly know how he was feeling, he was constantly wearing a mask of calm that could fall at any moment. And if it fell… the bruises were faded now, even more so after her rebirth, but the phantom pain was still fresh in her mind.

  Her mother had them too, but less. And he made sure that they were in places that couldn’t be seen without undressing.

  “Is that so, can you tell us more about this person? And why would they give you of all people a gift?”

  Caring like no other one moment, and raging the next. There were rumors in town that her father had once been a berserker in the army, that he was sent home for fighting with his superiors.

  “I- I— I don’t know why she gave it to me, really. But she said it was important, and I needed to keep it safe.”

  “She?”

  One word, that was it. He’d completely disregarded the rest of what she said, and latched onto the gender of the person who’d given her the crystal. Archibald was also known in the city for other reasons.

  ————

  The beating hurt a lot less than it normally did. But she was still curled around her stomach an hour later once she’d crawled up the stairs. When he’d noticed that in as much pain this time, he’d just hit harder, and longer.

  Her skin itched all over, and her throat was hot.

  He’d called her a liar and a thief, said that no one in their right mind would just give her something important. He’d said that she’d probably stolen it from some rich man after she’d fucked him.

  Her finger and toe nails itched aswell.

  She couldn’t get a word out to defend herself in between the moments that his boot was pulling back to hit her again. She wanted to throw up again just thinking about what he’d accused her of.

  The base of her spine tinged.

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  He said he’d be taking the crystal to the guards office by the southern gate in the morning. To let the guards find the “real owner” of it. She couldn’t stop crying, curled in on herself in her bed.

  Her teeth hurt, and her shoulder blades felt like they were tearing open.

  She’d failed her Goddess, and on her first night of her new life. It hadn’t even been two hours since her rebirth, and she’d already lost one of the two things her Goddess had given her.

  The fire in her hurt stomach was soothing at least.

  She let sleep claim her, it was the only thing she had left when this happened, other than her pendant now. It was difficult with the pain, but she was used to it. And soon enough, she was out.

  ————

  “Welcome child, to my hoard.”

  The voice startled her, she had just fallen asleep hadn’t she? And now… all she could see for miles upon miles, was gold. Great piles of it, with tracks crisscrossing across the sky, with mine carts that were constantly dropping more gold below.

  There was no surface that wasn’t covered in the metal. She was standing on it, and she could not see a floor below it. Only more gold. And it wasn’t just gold, there were gems and crystals of every size shape and color. In the distance, she could see a ruby bigger than her home.

  “Most take some time to take it all in the first time, I don’t blame you, it is magnificent, isn’t it?”

  That voice again, she knew that voice. It was honey flowing on molten gold. It was the ring on an anvil, as a smith created a masterpiece. It’s was the grinding of the gears that the world ran upon. And it was larger than the last time she heard it, but no less magnificent.

  She turned to face the voice, and immediately dropped to a knee.

  “My lady, I am so so sorry. I—“

  “Shh, this is no time for that, only time for you to learn. Look at me, do not avert your gaze, it displeases me.”

  She did as she was told, and looked up. The dragoness lounged upon her hoard, at what could only be described as a throne. She didn’t set on it as a human did, but it welcomed her no less.

  And she was magnificent. Her scales were an ever shifting rainbow that shown with a faint radiance. One eye glowed gold with the light of the divine, the other, a mechanical red.

  Her entire body followed this pattern, but each part that wasn’t organic was no less divine, she would slay anyone who would say such a thing with her own hand.

  Mordred’s left forelimb was mechanical aswell, it seamlessly merged with the rest of her at the point where the torso met the shoulder. And from slightly above the middle of her left thigh, her left leg was also mechanical.

  The same went for her left wing. And finally, half way down her tail, it transitioned into machine aswell. There was a claw at the end of her tail, slowly rotating, as the three prongs idly flexed.

  “My lady you are beautiful, I am sorry, but I cannot help but saying so.”

  The Goddess smiled, it was not a human smile, instead it was a crinkling of the eyes, a gesture so close to narrowing them, that anyone who didn’t know draconic expressions would mistake it for such. And somehow, Sasha recognized the expression as if she had known it from a babe.

  “You flatter me child, and I thank you for that, but we are wasting time as it is. You see, you are not actually here. I pulled your consciousness here as you fell asleep, and that is how you are interacting with this place. It can be dangerous for you, so I will not do it often. And it will not be long until you wake.”

  Lava flowed freely down the wall in streams every few hundred feet in the wall behind the throne, and Sasha couldn’t help but look at them for a moment as the Goddess spoke. She thought she saw her parents' faces in the fiery liquid.

  “I will wake soon my lady? But I do not want to leave this place, I don’t want to leave you. Out there… it is not good. I know you wish me to change it, but…”

  “You do not think yourself the right one for the job? It is a common sentiment in those who are worthy. It is often one of the reasons they are worthy, my child. Those who want power, are never the ones who deserve it.”

  The Goddess lowered her head as she spoke. She couldn’t be eye level in this form with her. One of Mordred’s smaller teeth was taller than Sasha was, if she had to guess.

  “I… if… if you say so my lady. But… but what am I to do. My father had taken the crystal you gave me, and he intends to bring it to the guards in the morning. I don’t know how to stop him… not without…”

  She flinched at the thought of being beaten by her father again. A sadness came over the dragoness, it was not just in her face, but in the subtle folding of her wings, in the way her tail stopped its idle flicking back and forth.

  “I believe that the problem is sorting itself out, my child. And I also believe it’s time you wake.”

  And with that, she was gone.

  ————

  She was warm when she woke. But it wasn’t the pleasant warmth of a fire in the hearth, and a warm blanket pulled over her. No, it was the oppressive heat of an open flame, in the process of dying out.

  Her eyes shot open, only to see burnt wood, and the open sky above her. The sent of pork, was heavy in the air.