XVII · Micah [1]

Mass release: 11/15

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Micah Gustavo Avak'yan Montevecchi

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I did not, in any way, expect her to be like this. In fact, when we told everything to the headmaster, while her shadows and Dean were present, and we came up with the plan to speak to Tara this way, we were ready to deal with her denial and resistance. There was none.

The second she understood a bit of what we were trying to tell her, she changed entirely, she looked... relieved, natural, and when she presented herself to us, to the headmaster and went for a handshake, she felt like an entire different person. As if she has waited for us to learn the truth, to see through her perfect acting, ages ago and had lost hope, but now saw it again. She doesn't look like a dragon.

Could I be wrong? Did I overlook into things?

We all shared a look and then looked back to her, Dean was the one to speak, "Tara, you said yesterday that you got attacked by a high demon when you were a child, and that someone protected you and died in the process, but managed to kill it."

A feral grin curled her round full lips, "Interesting understanding, but who told you he was protecting me? I said that I saw it happening, that I saw someone dying after an encounter with a high demon, and that he managed to kill it in the process. I didn't say the high demon came to us because it was hunting me down."

"You said it wanted young souls," I countered her claver speech.

She licked her lips, "I said that?"

"Wasn't he hunting you?" Rheia asked.

"I'm just a magically weak girl, why would it hunt me?" She grinned amused, as if she was loving her word play.

"Because you're not weak magically."

She turned her light brown eyes to me, "How so?"

"Your magic was sealed," I said at final, hoping to be right, hoping that my leap of faith was not bad calculated.

But then she gave me the prettiest smile I have ever seen, full of white teeth and dimples, "I was what?"

"Sealed," I said confidently.

"You think I'm the dragon?" She chuckled amusedly.

"I do, we all do," I said firmly.

"Are you confident in that accusation?"

"I am," I am, right?

"Was you who came to that conclusion, Micah?"

My heart shouldn't race like this, should it? "Yes."

She narrowed her eyes, "And they bought it?"

"I'm convincing."

"Well, you're wrong," she burst out laughing and my jaw dropped.

"You're not dragon?" We all asked in shock.

"Oh? No," she giggled, softer now, "I am the dragon, he's just not convincing," then she winked at me.

But when she snapped her fingers, something weird happened, her short straight black hair turned longer, so long it reached her hips and became wavier nearly curly, the color changing from black to mahogany, her skin went from tanned to an olive shade of brown, her ears turning pointy, her canines sharpened, and her curves became sharper. The cherry on top was that when she opened her eyes, they were molten gold, her pupil now reptilian. Tara cracked her neck and inhaled deeply, her nose also looking a bit more snub and thinner, her eyelashes longer, and her eyebrows now in a shade darker than her hair.

Then she stood up and we all instantly pushed ourselves a bit away from her, her aura exhaling power. Setting her hand back down on the chair, she turned around, grabbed all of her long hair out of the way and showed us a complex and beautiful round magical circle that was tattooed in the top of her back. I instantly knew that was the seal.

"My dad sealed 80% of my magic in his last moments with all the strength he had left, because I was attracting the attention of high demons and above, and he was scared for me," when she turned to us again, still standing, she was dead serious. "If a dragon was not born in the surface, staying in it for more than a year will weaken their power, my father stayed here because of me, he was afraid of what his family would do if they learned he had me. He stayed for me, that weakened him, he was solely in 40% of his real strength when he fought the white-haired high demon, and he was protecting me, that's why he died after putting the seal in me.

"He didn't die for the high demon, but the wounds he got in that fight played a big part in him dying, but he knew he would be down for more than a month, and if another high demon popped up after me, or him, he wouldn't be able to fight, and we would both die. So, he sacrificed his vital energy when carving the seal in me, and that was what ultimately killed him," she hugged her own arms. "All to save me. I spent the next three years fighting all the low and mid level demons that came after me with the skills my father taught me. But the seal isn't a permanent help, it fades away.

"Despise what I said yesterday, it's my fault that they are here, the five high-demons. I have been trying to find a way to break the seal to free my magic, but all I found on my kind was books about magic and history and on how to deal with demons, nothing all seals. I may be a bit heartless, and I may look down on most of you, but I'm not on board for genocide, so I'm sorry for causing all this. I don't want to die, so I can't go and give myself to them, but I also can't fight because I'm helpless with seal on, even if it started to fade.

"The seal is the reason why I had to do what the Abdelaal wanted, why I messed with you all as Chione, and also why I had to be there. To be under the mambas, because the demons can't get to their dimensional rift residence. I've been running and fighting them my whole life, they follow me wherever I go."