Melissa

“Trees take you!” Lonna cursed, writhing on the ground. “Can’t you give a girl a little warning before you put alcohol on her wounds?”

“Said it would sting,” Joanie replied, sounding almost offended. “Didn’t think you’d complain so much. Nope nope.”

“Yeah, well you try getting nearly bisected, and see how you deal with any extra damage after the fact,” Lonna snarked back, before flopping down on the ground. “Fine. Have at it. Rip out the splinters, and pour the alcohol! I’m ready!”

“Yup yup,” Joanie confirmed, shifting positions so that she was kneeling next to Lonna’s body. “One big splinter, coming out.”

Lonna hissed as a bit of wood was drawn out from her wounds, but managed to avoid pulling away this time. “Right… Where were we?”

“You were going to explain the Majesty Trees to me?” I asked, fidgeting awkwardly. Honestly, I wasn’t really sure what to do with myself. Plopping down all casual-like felt kinda rude when Lonna was clearly in distress? But I didn’t think just standing around and wincing every now and again was helping either… Honestly, I didn’t wanna even look at the wound care - needles freaked me out bad enough when they weren’t weren’t being used to sew up someone’s side - but it was clear Lonna needed someone by her, so… there I was.

“Right,” Lonna muttered. “You gonna sit down or what?”

“I… ah…”

She patted the ground next to her. “Come on. You can face away from me if you’re squeamish. Just make sure you pay attention, because I’m not repeating myself.”

“R-right…” I stammered out, quickly settling down in the spot she’d indicated. Facing away from her, as offered, for all that it got a scornful laugh from her.

“Alright… The Majesty Trees are… not actually a great place to start this conversation, to be honest. For that, we actually need to discuss to discuss the dragon in the room - which is to say the fucking dragons.”

“Right… It’s still so weird to me that everyone hates them in this world,” I admitted. “Dragons back home were… I mean, yeah, some of them were portrayed as evil, but they were also kinda really cool? And sometimes helpful? And often just wanted to be left alone… though I guess there’s also plenty of stories about them kidnapping princesses, too…”

“Dragons kidnapping princesses, huh?” Lonna snorted. “What sorta weird world did you live in?”

“Well, they weren’t real,” I explained. “We didn’t have magic, where I’m from. We had electricity, and… and gas, and cars, and… stuff. "And we told stories. Lots of stories, about fantasy worlds where dragons were real, and yeah sometimes they were the bad guys, but… I always preferred stories that went against the grain there, I guess… Ones where the dragons were heroes.”

“Well, this isn’t a story,” Lonna told me, before letting out a sharp hiss. I fought the urge to turn around and see what had caused it. “This is history - reality. And in reality, dragons are ancient, terrifying beings who enslaved humanity.”

“Humanity?” I asked, frowning. “Wait… does that mean you’re referring to humans in general? Or is it more of a catch-all term in this case?”

“Patience!” Lonna scolded me. “Yeesh… I’m getting there, alright?”

She waited until I nodded before moving forward.

“Look, back then, when it all began? There were only humans.”

That time I did have to turn around, just to see Joanie’s reaction. She didn’t say anything, though, choosing to just nod instead.

“There wasn’t any magic, either. At least for most people… To be honest, the dates are kinda iffy on all this. Everyone agrees on the Great War being a couple thousand years back, but the further you go? Nobody’s sure where the first dragon came from - or the first Majesty Trees, for that matter. There’s legends and myths, like dragons coming from the skies and the trees emerging from the earth in response to the tears of humankind, but there’s nothing solid. The only thing I can say for sure is that there were dragons, and there were humans, and there were Majesty Trees.”

I wanted to ask where the other species came from, then, but I bit my tongue and just nodded, knowing it would get me in less trouble with Lonna.

“Back then, magic didn’t exist in the world at large, like it does now. It still existed, but you had to be able to distill it directly from sunlight in order to actually do much with it. Dragons - like my ancestors? - they did it naturally. They absorbed it through the sun, and they stored it in their bodies with a near infinite capacity… or so the stories say, I guess. My capacity’s certainly limited, even if it is huge, but I’m also only half dragon, so… You know…” She shrugged.

“Right…” I nodded. “Can’t really tell either way, then?”

“Yeah… but that’s just the dragons. There was also the Majesty Trees - these absolutely massive old trees. They came in all shapes and sizes, dotted across the continent. All different sorts of trees… but they all had one thing in common - they could distill magic from sunlight. Except, unlike the dragons, they didn’t just hoard it all inside themselves. They spread it - just… in a limited area.”

“Alright,” I said, nodding along. “So… You’ve got the dragons that hoard magic, and the trees that spread it around… I’m guessing the dragons didn’t like that very much?”

“Got it in one,” Lonna confirmed, before letting out a little yelp. There was a moment of silence - probably her eyeing Joanie - before she continued. “Anyway, yeah - the dragons didn’t like the Majesty Trees. Which sucked for the Majesty Trees, because they couldn’t really do anything about it.”

“Because they were just trees?” I guessed.

“Don’t be dumb,” Lonna scoffed. “Of course they weren’t just trees. They were fully intelligent! Aware! They just… couldn’t move. Or actually cast. But what they could do was make pacts.”

“Pacts?” I asked. “Like… warlock pacts?”

“That’s another word I don’t know,” Lonna told me, shaking her head. “But probably not? First off, it’s important to note that these trees were pretty rare to begin with. Maybe by nature, or maybe because the ones that weren’t in super out of the way places all got fucked up by the dragons before they could get too big - I don’t know. Nobody does. What we do know is that in certain out-of-the-way parts of the world, various people came across these trees, and made pacts with them. Pacts that changed them on a fundamental level.”

“The other species?” I suggested, the idea clicking in my head. “That’s why you said there were only humans at first?”

“Another good guess,” Lonna confirmed. “Guess you weren’t kidding about being some sorta scholar where you come from…”

“Well… I don’t know if I’d call myself a scholar per se, but… I’d like to think I’m pretty smart,” I confessed, unable to resist smiling a little.

“Yeah, yeah - don’t let it get to your head. You’re right, though. The sapphi, the roptera, the harpies and the lamia - almost all the different roots came into existence through those trees. They were all given special abilities, to better live in the regions their trees grew. The sapphi gained telepathy, as well as enhanced senses and strengths in line with the animals they take after. The harpies gained wind manipulation alongside their wings, and gained the ability to fly. The lamia can freeze people in place with a look, and often have powerful poisons to boot… It goes on.”

“What about the lapsi?” I asked, noting an odd absence. “Or are you getting to that?”

“I’m getting to it,” Lonna confirmed. She probably rolled her eyes at me, too, but I was a little scared to look knowing that Joanie was still hard at work stitching her up.

“Our story starts with the battle between the Majesty Trees and their roots, and the dragons. Not that it was much of a fight at first, I guess. Mostly the roots were pretty damn content to just live their own isolated lives while the rest of humanity suffered enslavement, from what I understand…”

There was an awkward pause, as if she expected Joanie to pipe up there, but she never did.

“…Alright, fine. To be fair it wasn’t like the roots were all that powerful, either. They could use magic, but only near their trees… and only through the magi languages their trees taught them.”

“The magi languages?” I asked, latching onto the new concept. “You’ve said something about different magic languages before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. Every tree - every root - has their own. A language given to them by the Majesty Trees, which the magic of their tree would respond to. These days, the most proficient magi actually blend different words from different languages - there’s a lot of overlap, but the same words can have different connotations in different languages, or there might be words for specific concepts in one that you can’t find in another, and all that crap. I learned how to speak them all, myself, but I was never great at writing them.”

“Wait, you speak all of them?” I demanded. “Fluently?”

“I mean, it’s not like it’s the sorta language you talk to people in - that would be dumb. Magic would be going all over the damn place if you did that. But yeah? I guess…”

“That’s…”

“Impressive?” She snorted. “I was a princess, remember? That’s the least of what was expected out of me… and again, I was never great at the written parts. Which you kinda need for spellcrafting - sure, you can do simple spells through speech, but… There’s a reason we refer to your magic capacity as ‘breath’ - all spoken spells have to be made with the same breath of air.”

“So, simple spells only I guess?”

“Yup,” Lonna confirmed. “Written spells, on the other hand… those things get complex. Sure, you’ve got basic one-circle spells, but if you want to make anything truly complex, you’re going to need subspells, to better define the specific terminology you’re using - and sometimes you’ll need sub-sub spells to identify what you meant by a certain word in the subclause, or sub-sub-sub spells or… Well, you get the idea.”

“R-right…” I agreed, though I kinda didn’t. I mean, I could guess? Probably more complex instructions got you better results for less magic spending, but… Well, I didn’t want to push Lonna by asking when we were already getting off track.

“The point is, the Majesty Trees and the various roots weren’t really that strong back then. Not strong enough to rise up against the dragons, for sure - but one dragon king in particular didn’t care about that. He saw the very existence of the Majesty Trees as an affront to his reign. To his control over the world. So he went to war with them - and they responded in kind.”

“And they won?”

“No.” Lonna let out a bitter laugh. “They didn’t. They were all but slaughtered… The Majesty Trees were ripped out from their roots, and burned.”

“Then… how did they win?” I asked, barely able to contain the wonder in my voice. I had to remind myself that this was real - that this wasn’t a story, to her, but history.

“A miracle. When the Majesty Trees burned, something in the world changed. Some people say it was their final gift to us - personally, I’ve always wondered if it was just revenge on the dragons…”

“That’s sacrilege,” Joanie whispered, her voice low.

Lonna laughed. “Guess it is. Going to tell your precious Countess about it?”

“Nope nope,” Joanie replied. “Religion has had no place in your mother’s government, anyway…”

“She’s not my mother,” Lonna snarled - and yet it lacked some of her normal energy, sounding almost tired. “Not that it matters much to the story. Point is, after the Majesty Trees burned up, magic started flowing freely through the world - it became available to everyone for the first time.”

“So everyone rose up and defeated the dragons together?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” Lonna replied. “More like… there was a huge and bloody war. The Lunargent Scale and Quecaw both come from that era. Weapons used against the dragons - I think. Tales of the Lunargent Scale are sorta hard to trace… Though at least they exist. There’s even less on the Quecaw.”

“So how do you expect to find both?” I asked.

“Tales about where they came from are hard to find. Where they are is wel known… They’re hard to get for different reasons.”

“Such as?” I asked, wondering just what I’d gotten myself into.

“Can we deal with that later?” Lonna asked. “I was sort of in the middle of telling a story here?”

“I thought you were done,” I replied, honestly surprised. “The dragons fell, right? Isn’t that the last of it?”

“If it was, I wouldn’t be here,” Lonna replied, glumly. “There’s a bit more… You might have noticed, besides the lapsi, that I haven’t mentioned the dryads? That’s because dryads came into existence after the Mystery Trees left. Some say from their scattered seeds. As for the lapsi, they were actually… Well, sorta… slaves? For the dragons. Except they were the slaves that kept all the other slaves in line… Not that they had much choice. According to what I know, they were basically just mindless minions back then. It was only after magic spilled out into the world that they started… Well, the lapsi usually refer to it as ‘the Awakening.’”

“So they got smarter when they had more of their power source available?” I asked, piecing together the evidence. Were the lapsi some sort of ancient automaton?

“I guess?” Lonna shrugged. “Don’t talk about it like that in front of Talith, though. He’s a bit more religious than me…”

“R-right,” I said, making note of that. I didn’t want to accidentally offend him.

“But yeah. The lapsi mostly joined the other roots when they awoke - they were pretty much instrumental in the final victory. There were still some grudges from the old days, but… things mostly worked out, I guess? Except for one little problem…”

“Which was?” I asked, turning to face her - and then quickly turning away again when I saw Joanie busying herself with some scissors to snip off the threads she’d sewn.

“Two things, really,” Lonna amended. “Or maybe three, depending on how you count? Or just one… Ugh. It’s about the royal family - my grandparents. The Dragon Emperor and his Empress had too much magic stored up inside them. They couldn’t be killed. Even after all their forces went down, they would have kept fighting endlessly, impossible to put down… Except… Except for the fact that the Empress was pregnant… This part’s usually dressed up a bit when you hear it in a sermon, but basically news leaked to the opposing roots - that’s our word for the different people’s, if you haven’t picked up by now - and they threatened to focus their attention on killing the Queen’s baby… So they gave up.”

“Just like that?” I asked.

“Just like that. I think they assumed they’d just outlive whatever the problem was… but the humans, once they had the dragons captured? They bound them. Bound them with curses that stole all their power away from them. Not just them, but their daughter, too, the moment she was born… Not that it stopped them from living like royalty in their underground palace. Concessions made so that they wouldn’t fight the restrictions. They even had some unawakened lapsi trapped down there, I’ve heard, forced to keep everything running…”

“So what happened to them?” I asked. “You make it sound like they were impossible to kill, but also like they’re gone now?”

“Sorissa happened. As a dryad, she’s a source of infinite magic - she takes what she refers to as ‘spent magic’ out of the air and turns it back into ‘usable magic’ just by existing… but by all rights she shouldn’t be able to cast it. Everyone knows dryads can’t cast spells! But… everyone knows dryads are bound to trees, too, and she sure isn’t…”

“You don’t know either?” I asked, surprised. “Even though she’s your… you know…”

“Mother?” Lonna finished for me, spitting the word like a curse. “Yeah, well, she didn’t tell me everything. In fact, a lot of what I’m learning I only found out after I fled the castle… All I really know is that she apparently unsealed the buried palace, killed the king and queen, and somehow unbound their daughter. Then she claimed that the whole country rightly belonged to her new wife - the sole remaining dragon of the royal family - and thereby ‘legally’ sectioned off a part of it to create our current Queendom. And that’s it. That’s our sordid history.”

“So… Your mom was… Sorissa, right? But… what about the dragon princess?”

“Also my mother. Technically. Not that I ever met her - she died giving birth to me… Maybe if I’d gone down with the ship then-”

“Lonna!” I interrupted. “No! I don’t know what Sorissa did that got you on this path of revenge, but-”

“She killed my mother.”

“...Huh?”

“She killed my mother,” Lonna repeated. “My adoptive mother, if you want to be precise. She killed her, and burnt down our house, all to send me a message. So yeah. Sorry if I get a little mad at you calling that monster my Mom. I know it’s not my fault that Maiar’s dead - but it is hers. And I”m going to make her pay for it.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a single good thing to say to that.

I guess Joanie couldn’t either, as a moment later she simply clapped her hands, nodded to Lonna, and walked back towards her horse on the already cleared road, ready to start trotting away.