He spoke to her once more, though now that a piece of him was above ground he could be heard by anyone close enough to listen. “Branwen.”

She gasped then looked up from her hands. Eyes stained with tears, she looked around with wide eyes reminiscent of a surprised owl. Though her lips did not move, she still clearly asked, “H-hello?”

“I asked you before. Do you wish to be set free?” asked Blackthorne. He planned to do it regardless of her decision, but this was a not so subtle reminder that he never intended to fight her in the first place.

“Never!” cried Dallen. “I will never set her free!”

Blackthorne ignored the noisy fly that buzzed in his metaphorical ear. Branwen was the only one who could speak on the matter.

“Yes.” She spoke the word in a quiet, almost reverent, tone. Yet, strangely her mouth did not move. He had not noticed it until now, but she seemed only to speak to him in his mind.

The dark mass that was Blackthorne began to drift slowly upward from beneath the floor. He did not speak. Instead he shifted into human form.

Branwen immediately lowered her head and started to tremble. Blackthorne hated that reaction. The fierce girl that he had battled was reduced to such a state by a lifetime of slavery and the appearance of even the tiniest sliver of hope. He could not help himself. He reached out and placed his hand atop her head.

Her trembling ceased, but she did not look up at him. He spoke to her in a soft caring tone. “I won’t ask you to forgive me. This is my fault for not being stronger.”

She sniffled a little but said nothing. She did, however, slightly nudge her head upward like a cat who sought affection. Blackthorne gazed down at her, momentarily lost in thought. How long had she gone without even that simple bit of affection? How long since she had known the touch of a person who simply wished to console her?

“Kill him!” snarled Dallen.

She did not speak. Yet her voice was heard. “No.”

Dallen, however, acted as though he did not hear her. He shouted for her to kill Blackthorne once more. The slave seal on her back flared to life. Yet, no amount of pain could cause her to move in that moment. Tears well up in her eyes. She cried out. However, she did not move.

Blackthorne, however, saw something in her in that moment that made his eyes widen and his pupils narrow into serpentine slits. Rather, he saw something that she lacked.

She closed her mouth tightly then looked toward the floor with her head bowed. The light in Blackthorne’s eyes intensified greatly. The reason that she had spoken to him mentally, was because physical speech was impossible for her. Dallen did not want a slave who could talk back.

Anger flared inside his heart, but it soon died away as something cold and hard took its place. Blackthorne removed his hand from atop her head then turned to Dallen.

“You wouldn’t dare…” said the man, his eyes filled with apprehension.

“My family—” began Dallen, only to stop mid-sentence. He took a horrified step backwards.

Blackthorne took a cold step toward him, even the light dying in his eyes. A decision had been made in that fateful moment when he realized the truth about Branwen. It was a truth made worse by a simple fact. She would have been able to regrow her mutilated tongue. The dragon blood in her veins clearly allowed for such a thing to happen in a reasonable time frame. The only way that it would not regrow is if it was repeatedly cut off on a regular basis.

Dallen turned and fled toward the nearest exit. Blackthorne did not even bat an eyelash. He shot forward like an arrow in flight. He grabbed the fleeing man by the shoulders then hurled him sideways toward the wall. His shoulders dislocated with the force of the throw. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs.

He panted and wheezed but could not even reach up to beg someone in the audience for help. Not that anyone would have come to his aid.

“What do you want? Money? No! w-women!” cried Dallen. He tried to slither sideways like a broken serpent, but the pain of his dislocated shoulders was too much. “You want the girl? Take her!”

Blackthorne continued to walk toward him, his face an implacable mask. Dallen saw the cold expression, dead nature of his eyes. “Just tell me what you want! I’ll give it to you!”

“Give Branwen back the years of her life that you stole from her,” said Blackthorne in a strangely calm tone of voice.

Dallen swallowed hard, but stupidly sensed that a bargain was being struck. He could do bargains! “I can’t do that, but… you can buy her future!”

“Her future belongs to her. You have no right to sell it,” said Blackthorne. He began to walk forward once more.

“Why!” screamed Dallen. “Why act like you care so much about that bitch? Who is she to you!”

Blackthorne shimmered softly then entered a slowly drawn out transformation. His hands became claws. His body stretched and morphed. Leathery wings sprouted from his back, and horns rose from his head. Soon, he stood before Dallen in his dragon form.

“N-no!” called out Dallen. “You’re lying! You’re not a dragon!”

The remaining members of the crowd suddenly unleashed an uproar. Many shouted in surprise, denial, and some even shouted in jubilation.

Had Blackthorne given any credence to the latter, he would have seen a group of people dressed all in black. Several of them wore far too many black leather belts, or they had numerous chains which dangled uselessly from their clothing and served no legitimate purpose. Did the dream world have a store that sold gothic style clothing? Was there such a thing as, ‘Ye Olde Hot Topic’ in this world?

The edgy weirdoes stood now, cheering. It seemed that even dark lords, might have their supporters.

One of the overly edgy weirdoes shouted, “Swallow his soul!”

A female weirdo lustfully shouted, “Impregnate me with your dark spawn!”

A man standing next to her cried out, “Impregnate me as well, dread one!”

Sonja’s eyebrow quirked upward upon hearing those last two remarks. Were Blackthorne a bit closer to her, he would have heard her retort. He was not, however, and her words were lost to the ages.

Dallen did his best to ignore the oddly dressed people, and somehow managed to collect himself. Believing that he had caught Blackthorne in a lie, Dallen attempted to sit up. He might be able to use this to his advantage.

The dragon gaze solemnly at Dallen for a moment, though part of him did hear the shouting of the weirdoes. Frankly, they were a distraction, but he did his best to ignore them. Blackthorne focused his thoughts on what he needed to do. The choice that he had made. He did not even try to hide the fact that he was reading the man’s soul. He pierced him deeply, so deep in fact that even Dallen was able to notice it despite his lack of mystical training.

“Dragons can’t turn into mist like that!” exclaimed Dallen.

The ice-cold aura around the dragon died away. Now, if anything, he seemed saddened. He had seen many aspects of Dallen’s life. Very little of it had been anything that might even approach reasonable behavior.

Blackthorne stared at him for a moment then slowly took a breath. Dallen, seeing the shift in the fake dragon’s mood spoke up, “What… What are you going to do? If you’re done trying to intimidate me, we can discuss—”

A loud sigh escaped Blackthorne’s scaly lips. He acquired a sober tone of voice and looked Dallen in the eyes. “You know. None of this had to happen.”

“Right! So… you can let me go and…” began Dallen. He could tell by the look in the dragon’s eyes that such a thing was not going to happen. His words trailed off on their own volition.

“I came to this trial simply because I wanted to be able to face my accuser. I wanted to see how justice might work in this world,” said Blackthorne. He spoke to Dallen, as though he were speaking casually to a friend.

Dallen, was not fooled. He also did not speak. If he was fortunate, perhaps someone would come and save him. So, he quietly listened as the fake dragon spoke.

“You see. My intent was to inform the magistrate that you attempted to kidnap Sonja. I suppose you would call that theft of property,” said Blackthorne.

The dragon sighed then laughed in a self-deprecating manner while he shook his head. “Fool that I was, I thought that perhaps this would end in an apology and perhaps you would look like an idiot.”

Blackthorne looked the man in the eyes once more. “Then… you had that man of yours make me late to the trial. The judge was in your pocket, bribed to end this in your favor.”

Dallen said nothing. It was a common enough thing, and there was no reason to admit his guilt openly in public despite the pain in his shoulder.

“It became obvious what you planned. I would end up fined, sentenced, seen as something of a boorish menace. Then, when I was proven to be too lacking in funds to pay those fines you would have ‘convinced’ the judge that you could lower yourself so far as to take collateral,” said Blackthorne.

He continued to gaze impassively at the man. “I suspected something like this from the moment I was introduced to the charge against me, but this whole thing was an elaborate scheme to force me to give you Sonja and have that forced trade be seen as legal.”

Dallen started to speak, but in the end, he merely looked down again. What would be the point in speaking now? The fake dragon somehow knew everything.

“I could smell the stench of corruption in the air.” Blackthorne looked at him casually. “It’s one of my natural abilities, in case you are wondering.”

“Originally, I intended to deny all allegations against me after I realized what you did. I did not intend to engage in violence here. If anything, I planned to simply leave.” Blackthorne inclined his head then continued. “Of course, I would not have let the situation drop. I would have investigated further, found evidence, and then saw that justice would be done.”

Dallen fought the urge to throw up in his mouth a little. This fake dragon sure did love the sound of his own voice. Where were the guards? Surely, at least one of them could stop this talkative beast.

“You see…” said Blackthorne. He craned his neck slightly to the side and seemingly studied the man. “It would have been so easy to kill you.”

“I saw it in my head, you know. Felt the warm texture of your skin as my claws slit a path down through your fatty flesh. Rending. Tearing… Stripping that flesh from your bones.” Blackthorne looked strangely nostalgic.

Dallen’s eyes widened and his testicles flexed slightly. If he did not know better, he would have believed that they tried to shrivel up and crawl back up inside of his body.

“So easy. Simple really. Just kill anyone you don’t like, or who commits a heinous crime,” he said.

“Why didn’t you?” asked the man with a hint of belligerence. He was at the point where he did not care anymore. The incompetence of the guards knew no bounds. No one was coming. Why not end the farce?

“I tried it once before. An obviously evil man committed the most terrible deed imaginable to me, and I witnessed its aftermath.” Blackthorne tilted his reptilian hid in the opposite direction but kept his eyes on Dallen. Like a serpent attempting to hypnotize its prey, Blackthorne merely watched the man with an intense stare.

“I beat that heinous creature. Bludgeoned him. Pummeled him. I crushed his bones and splattered bits of his body across the room,” said Blackthorne. “The ruination of his flesh is the only thing even remotely similar to a good memory that I can ever have from that day.”

Blackthorne’s voice grew cold. “Yet, he refused to die. In the end, despite everything that horrid creature did… people took his side.”

“You see… Even though he was a man in need of experiencing a wicked and brutal end. Even though he raped my little sister to death in our very home.” He eyed Dallen carefully. “Despite the fact that he was literally covered in her blood… I was the one whom everyone called, Monster.”

“Tormented. Beaten. Ridiculed and derided in public,” he said. “I was only nine years old.”

“You see. In the eyes of the people, I was a vicious psychotic child. I was put in a cage for the crime of attacking the man who raped my sister to death,” said Blackthorne solemnly.

He jabbed his claw forward. “Poke the little monkey in the cage. Poke it, and watch it cry. It deserves it. Clearly it is defective.”

“That…” said Dallen, though his words did not continue.

“It’s about perception, you see.” Blackthorne’s tone returned to that of a casual acquaintance who had decided to share a bit of gossip over a cup of tea. “I absolutely wanted to kill you the moment your plot became apparent to me. However, to do so would have made me seem to be a monster.”

He flashed a wicked reptilian smile. The light gleamed from his fangs as he continued in a strangely jovial manner. “I mean. I certainly am one of the monsters here, but I’m not the real monster. Am I, Dallen?”

“If I killed you, I would just be seen as some murderous beast. I would, in the eyes of these onlookers, be the criminal and you would be the victim.” Blackthorne grew serious once more. “It would not matter to them what I said. It would not matter what evidence I showed. Had I killed you straight away, I would forever be branded as a murderer.”

Blackthorne sighed softly to himself. “People like to pretend things. They pretend that the laws they create actually matter. They pretend so that they might feel that these laws give them a sense of equality in a world of absolutely unequal people.”

“Things escalated. Even after you introduced Branwen to the situation, I still wanted to serve the cause of justice in the only way that I knew how.” He lightly swatted the air with his paw. “So, I tried to knock you out. Terrorize you until you fall unconscious. Maybe Branwen would stop attacking.”

Dallen snorted. Blackthorne nodded to him. “I know better now. She would not have stopped. If she had stopped, and you were captured or killed, your family would have killed her and sold her for parts. Right?”

Dallen wisely chose not to answer that question. It was probably the smartest thing he had done all day.