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“Ugh." Niara groaned as she woke up. Dear Father, who art should be in Hell, why did you not make dragons immune to hangovers?

She made a retching noise, and swallowed hastily. The last thing she wanted was to vomit everywhere, and make an actual disgrace of herself. These people would get along well with the ancient Macedonians. So much drinking. I'm surprised they don't all die of liver failure by the time they're thirty.

A nauseating smell was coming from somewhere out of her line of sight. Given that her line of sight consisted of the canopy of the bed, above her, and the gauzy drapes, on all sides of her – Hey! I'm really proud of myself. I didn't tear down a single drape on my way through! – that wasn't particularly surprising. She was lying flat on her back, wings spread and poking through the curtains to drape on the floor, and legs spread wide in an extremely unladylike pose. Looking down at herself, she would have giggled if her head hadn't been throbbing so.

Ugh. That smell. Make it go away.

She poked her head out of the drapes to her left, squinting her eyes against the harsh glare of sunlight outside her window, and very nearly vomited again as a fresher, stronger whiff of the smell assailed her nostrils. And when she caught sight of what appeared to be a raw, disemboweled, filthy deer carcass lying on a particularly large platter, she did vomit.

A particularly distraught servant came rushing in at the noise of it, but she was still choking and heaving too much to pay him any heed.

Agh, kill me now! What demon invented alcohol, anyways? Hah, haha. “Hahahaaa, owwww." Oww, my head!

She nearly cried from the pain of it, and from the amusement she felt at seeing the servant empty his own stomach, turn a strange color, and collapse in an unconscious heap.

If they all react that way, though, who's going to clean me, and this mess, up?

Groaning, she slowly retreated her head back inside the drapes. Rolling around, and trying to get comfortable, she eventually just resorted to moaning and feeling miserable.

* * *

She dreamed of Leon running head first into a wall and knocking himself unconscious.

He had been running through the streets of Jenne alongside a short, hairy, man. And then… Someone started poking him?

Why did he run into the wall?

She dreamed of Leon chasing Gabriel – Why is Gabriel naked? – through the streets of Jenne. And then… he grimaced in pain, his eyes lost focus, he slapped a hand to his forehead… and he ran right into the wall.

Niara giggled in her dream. Did I do that? Did he feel my hangover headache when I woke up? She giggled again, and the dream wavered and was replaced by something vastly different.

She was nailed to a giant wheel, her wings tattered and frayed, her body badly abused, and the world around her fuzzy and dim. People were busy jabbing her with sticks.

She closed her dream eyes and willed her dream self to wake up, or at least to go to a better dream, but still the sticks kept prodding.

No! Stop!

Prod.

This isn't real!

Poke.

She felt herself becoming overcome with fear.

Jab.

Noooo!

She woke up with a strangled shout, thrusting her head over her chest as far as her neck would allow, eyes wide and as full of terror as the eyes of the humans surrounding her.

No! They're trying to kill me!

She lashed out frantically at the nearest of them, teeth coming very near to finding flesh.

My wings! She felt tears of anger, of fear, and of sorrow well up in her eyes as she frantically looked to either side of her to see her wings healthy, and intact.

Have to get up! Have to fight!

She couldn't move her body, only her head and neck. She felt herself giving in to panic, and did all she could think to do—she called out to Leon.

:I love you! Forgive me… please… don't forget me…:

There was no response; of course there was no response, he would be sleeping by this time of the night, and his skill with mind speech still needed work. Maybe he would incorporate what she had sent in whatever dream he was having, and maybe he would vaguely remember it when morning came. She just hoped he would survive the coming war, and that he would be able to live a full life without her.

She closed her eyes, and laid her head back down on her pillow, waiting for the end to come.

The end didn't come.

Instead, with surrender came calm, and with calm came the ability to think clearly and to move her body once again. She peeked open one eye and saw the humans gathered together whispering to each other and pointing fearfully.

Some of them had sticks.

The servant who had come in earlier was still lying where he had passed out, only he looked lifeless, rather than just unconscious.

Focusing in on what the humans were saying, she realized that they had thought her dead, and had poked her with sticks to see if she were still alive.

“Wha?" she croaked. She tucked her left wing close to her body and rolled over it to get to her feet; the action left her head spinning.

“What happened?"

They had heard her, this time, and the whispering grew momentarily louder before disappearing entirely as someone who appeared to be their leader, and one of her assigned guard, stepped forward, bowed to her, and began speaking.

“My lady," he began, nervously. “We thought you dead, murdered, assassinated." He wiped sweat from his brow and took a moment to still his shaking. “We feared the worst."

Well, yes. I suppose my being dead would be 'the worst'.

The man hesitated and nervously scratched the back of his head. “We found Makosa," he pointed at the corpse and swallowed, his face as pale as she had ever seen a Nyanga get, “dead… in that mess…" He looked away, back at Niara.

“And you assumed he had been poisoned," she finished for him. He nodded, and she continued. “And you saw me, and I wasn't moving, and you thought I was dead, too."

He nodded again. “It would have been all our heads." He gestured with his arms, encompassing every person in the room.

All? That seems harsh. Instead of speaking her thoughts aloud, however, she just asked him about the disgusting offering on the enormous plate.

The man glanced at it, looked appalled, and just as quickly returned his gaze to Niara. “An offering, perhaps a bribe, maybe even an assassination attempt. We're not sure… not even of what happened to Makosa."

“Oh." She almost allowed herself to feel amused – But it's not really that funny, is it? – for a moment, recalling what had actually slain Makosa. Instead, she kept her appearance calm, and steady, as she had done since recovering her composure—certainly she was grateful that they hadn't commented on her violent outburst from earlier. “He… choked to death. I'm afraid I was rather ill, when I woke up…"

“After the feast. Yes. All who partook were," he supplied, helpfully.

“Yes. Well, I was ill, and that," she pointed her nose at the filthy deer carcass, “did not help me any. And I'm afraid I made the room even less appealing than it had already been, and poor Makosa walked in, saw and smelled… this… and passed out. I think he must have choked on his own vomit." She grimaced. Talk like this definitely didn't befit her role as a visiting queen, which was how King Mwindo had presented her to his people.

The man burst into laughter, shocking everyone who had been too far away to hear their conversation. He wiped away tears from his eyes, and loudly said, “Here lies Mistake, who died of a mistake! He was not supposed to be serving her ladyship, tonight, and came by mistake. He passed out at the stench of that, and choked to death on his own vomit!"

Wow. She was dumbfounded. The servants had started to disperse, many shaking their heads in disbelief though a few were laughing quietly. That was… callous. Guh, my head still hurts…

“Please, follow me, my lady. This chamber has become entirely unfit for even the lowliest servant, let alone a lady of your high stature."

Niara grunted unintelligibly and followed the man. What was his name? Did he ever tell me? She walked out into the stone hallway, a rather closed and airless space with no windows. She had no memory of this place. I must have been really drunk…

He led her down a narrow staircase that she would not have been able to fit down had she not been one of the smallest of her kind. No, I definitely don't remember this. Is he leading me through a back way?

The staircase opened into a loading bay, likely used for bringing in food and supplies to the castle by the servants.

The sound of the door slamming shut behind her caused her to jump, and when she heard a heavy beam slam into place, locking the door, she spun around to look behind her.

What? There were men with weapons and nets standing in front of the now locked door, and when she turned her head around to look at her supposed guard, he too had drawn a weapon. They can't be serious.

She erected the same magical barrier she had used earlier, when she first came to Nyanga Castle.

???

The barrier didn't form.

“You look concerned," came the voice from behind her. “Is something not working as it should?"

What did they do to me?!

She slowly backed toward a wall in such a way as to keep her eyes on the two men by the door and the man who wasn't actually her guard, and saw another three men coming in from the loading bay's main entrance. They too were carrying nets, like the others, but they also carried spears.

Keeping herself low to the ground, she flared her wings at them and growled as menacingly as she could, showing them a good look at her dangerous looking teeth. It was mostly for show; she knew they had her beat—she had been designed for using her mind as a weapon first, and her body as a weapon only as a last resort—she wasn't like her more physically capable descendants.

The men spread out in a semicircle around her, holding her at bay with their spears. Her not-guard spoke again. “Just give up. We aren't going to kill you; no, our employer wouldn't want that. We're just going to bring you to him, and what he does with you then," he paused and shrugged, “Well. That's for the two of you, but mostly him, to decide."

She mantled her wings and lashed her tail, staying as flat to the ground as she could in order to protect her softer underside. Snapping at the spears, she tried to clear enough room to escape, rage and fear clouding her mind too much to let her think clearly. Not that it would have mattered; the space was too enclosed for her to fly, and she had no access to her magic.

Biting at a spear to her left, she felt a net land on her from her right; it was covered in small barbs, and she found herself unable to shake it loose.

While she was busy with the net on her right side, she felt another land over her left wing, snaring it. Blinded by rage, she lashed her head around, snapping at the men.

A net landed over her head and she lost sight for a moment as the men threw their weight into the ropes and her head slammed into the floor.

She continued to struggle, but the men had won; they had captured their prize, and there was nothing she could do to free herself.

“I truly am sorry," her not-guard said from just in front of her. “You are an honorable, and magnificent creature. It pains me deeply to treat you in such a way, but it could not be helped. You did not eat the deer, as we had hoped. If you had, you would be drugged now, and sleeping peacefully while we moved you."

She willed herself to some degree of calm, though a seething rage still boiled beneath the surface. “That deer, was disgusting," she growled.

“Yes," he agreed, “It was." He pulled some sort of vial out of his pocket. “Unfortunately for us, we believed you would think otherwise. We are not, it seems, all that knowledgeable about what dragons consider appetizing."

She watched as he unscrewed the cover of the vial and inserted the vial into a device that appeared to be a very crude needle-less syringe. “That deer was rotting," she spat.

He walked closer to her. “I would have chosen something… fresher… but that was what we had." He gestured to the two men holding her head down. “Keep the ropes tight. I don't want her biting my hand off." The men grunted their affirmation to him.

He leaned down, resting one hand on the top of her snout, and with the other hand he stuck the end of the syringe up her left nostril. She tried to struggle and resist, but her head was held too firmly. The liquid being shot up her nostril was cold, and numbing; she only felt it for a moment before her entire nose had lost all feeling.

The man finished squeezing all of the liquid out of the vial and got back to his feet. Taking the vial out of the device again, he screwed the cover back on and put both vial and device back into his pockets.

“I didn't want to have to do that," he said, as her vision started to go black. “My employer made clear that using his concoction would cost…"