Notes: I wasn’t planning on getting started with Haja lore so soon, but I was suddenly inspired. So, here we go. Uh, warnings for vague dubious consent and torture I guess.
One could never think something different, no matter how they felt about the sickly green glow that had replaced her red eyes, or the way she smiled and spoke, like a snake getting ready to strike. Even the way she held herself, elegantly, but firm, made her appear like a deadly flower, luring her stupid prey to their deaths with her beauty.
Orirm couldn’t tell if he was smarter or stupider than those who surrounded her now. They were all falling for her tricks, but he, he could see through her gorgeous petals to the poison and teeth inside, and yet he still found himself drawn closer.
Her glowing green eyes met his and he could feel more than see the smile that spread across her face under the skull she wore. Her antennae twitched and Orirm felt his own sphere throb as a wave of pure smugness assaulted his senses.
He was by her side before either of them could blink.
“You’d follow me,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but Orirm couldn’t say no.
Her name was Tallah, Orirm learned. She was a Queen.
Her clan was still small, but they were loyal. They bowed before her with reverence. They cast their eyes to the ground when she walked past.
The only one who did not was a Fae called Drest. Tallah introduced Orirm to her as the High Priestess. Drest had looked over him and nodded, firmly, before turning to Tallah to tell her that the egg was coming along nicely.
It was in Tallah’s bedroom, where she told him everything. She told him how she had been born at the will of the Plaguebringer. That she had no need for family ties and that she yearned for none. Instead, the Plaguebringer’s blessing coursed through her veins and it was all she would ever need. She spoke of the truth of the Plaguebringer, and of how those weak to her message must be eradicated.
Later, when he was alone, Orirm reached for the connection he had always been told should exist and felt nothing but a roaring anger and deep shame.
Later, when he looked into Tallah’s glowing green eyes the moment before he removed her tatters, Orirm knew she would be his death.
Escape crossed his mind like a vestige of a dust storm; a sweep of something painful before it disappeared all together. Tallah had done what he knew she would. She had ensnared him all too well.
So he returned to her arms and waiting for her claws to bring him his oblivion.
The egg hatched, and the dragon that emerged was dubbed Aeoylss. Drest presented her to Tallah in the throne room and told her what she saw in her future.
“She will know more about magic than anyone but you, Holy Queen,” Drest said as the hatchling stared up at Tallah with wide, curious, red eyes. “Her studies will be unlike anything that has ever been seen in this world before.”
Tallah looked down at the hatchling and smiled a smile that Orirm remembered seeing for the first time all too well.
Aeoylss grew and Tallah awarded her the title of Divine Scholar. She, like Drest, did not drop her eyes when Tallah walked by.
It was the middle of the day when Tallah came to her rooms, Drest by her side and that smile on her face.
“Follow me,” she said and Orirm was by her side. He would walk willingly to his death if it was by her side.
As always, eyes fell away from Tallah like water droplets when she walked, but Orirm could feel them burning into his back.
Ahead of him, Tallah’s eyes wandered and her antennae twitched. Orirm followed her gaze to a young Guardian with a sword strapped to her waist. She didn’t drop her gaze and Tallah smiled.
Tallah lead him away from the crowds and into a dark room, and for a moment, he did not understand. His death, his execution at her hands; he expected it to be public, for the shame he had brought to all they were trying to do.
“Aeolyss,” Drest called.
She came, the runes carved into her skin glowing and a smile wide across her face. “He’s mine?” she asked.
“As promised,” Drest said.
“Aeolyss,” Tallah said and Aeoylss looked up at her with eyes as wide and curious as she had when she was but a hatchling. “Show me what your studies are worth.”
Tallah smiled. Not at him, never at him again, but she smiled and then she left.
And even as pain seared through him, even as he changed and mutated, even as hatred and anger festered like the plague she was so fond of, Orirm could not help but want to see that smile one last time.
