Within the halls of the Luminary...

Here, the soul of the fallen dragon prince, Izoria Vhal, languished.

In his dreams he could envision so lucidly, a girl with lavender hair and eyes green like molten envy who was less than a mortal, or perhaps far more. As chains, black like midnight and sharp like an obsidian-edged blade, flowed from all over her body with a life of their own while her flesh came alight with ethereal flames burning in shifting shades of white and purple.

Who was she? Her name escaped him. Everything was all but a blur.

“Once, you had scales so white and pure. Now, look at you… if only you can behold yourself as you are…”

The dragon that sought him, who said those words with thinly-veiled contempt he could sense so keenly, was alive unlike the others within the Luminary. He had scales red like blood and lidless eyes that burned a fiery orange, and it was a presence that made him shudder. And perhaps he knew him, and perhaps he did not. Even so, the presence of the other dragons, or at least what remained of their souls, had long made themselves scarce.

“Once, you sought to become human to escape my curse. Now, I offer you this, ‘brother’…”

Izoria Vhal paused, watching quietly as yet another living being stepped forward, dressed in bloodied rags. She was no dragon, but an elf. Young and beautiful, like that girl with lavender hair. And yet, not the mortal of his dreams, for her hair was white and short, its fringe and the rest of it a whimsical mess. And her eyes, they were a shade of amber rather than green. Strained, with streaks of red.

“Where… am… I…” she uttered, glancing about nervously. “Master… tell… me…”

“He is here to help you. Tell him your name, mortal…”

“But, master…”

Izoria Vhal remained silent. The elven girl had turned to the red dragon, her eyes filled with tears as she trembled before him.

“Is something wrong? Tell him your name.”

“Yes… of course! I’m told… it’s…”

Quietly still, Izoria Vhal looked at her. And then, at the red dragon whose eyes remained upon him the entire time. Who was she, and who was he? Everything was still a blur.

“Pandora…”

In silence, Izoria Vhal’s gaze returned to the elven girl. He could sense it, the life within her. Weak, and dying. But life, nonetheless.

Awakening, within the Forbidden City…

“Am I… whole again?”

The throne room, this place known to all dragonkind and the mortals under them as the Hall of Supreme Harmony, was now a sight so familiar to Pandora’s whitened eyes. It was as beautiful as she had remembered it to be, when she had abandoned it all those years ago back in another life, where she had scales that had once been so white and pure. At least, until the accursed pox happened.

“I am… I was…”

For so long, the dragon prince was dead. And now, alive again. Felt like it, anyway.

“Izoria Vhal... I am as my mother Sophia made me. The most beautiful... destined to rule…”

Thoughtlessly, she brought a finger up to her mouth. She bit into it until it bled, and brought it up close, twirling it slowly before her eyes.

“Yes, I am. I can feel it. This is real.”

She licked that finger, and she smiled. The blood gushing from the tooth-shaped cavity inflicted upon its flesh was a beautiful shade of red. It was, in a way, too good to be true.

“Welcome back, ‘brother’. Pray, how do you feel?”

“You…”

Truly, perhaps it was too good to be true. Now that her memories were crystal clear, the sight of Terask Dagon lounging upon the throne once meant to be hers, made Pandora gnash her teeth like they were the pristine fangs she once had that had been forever lost to decay. This, she felt, as tears of blood trickled down from her white eyes, as her sigil formed upon her palm when she brandished it at him, its lines forming its likeliness of a leering serpent.

“Oh? Would you?” Terask Dagon remarked bemusedly, without so much as revealing his sigil in turn. “Even after so graciously possessing my peace offering for yourself?”

“Yes. I should kill you, for all that you have done to me and our great Imperium.”

“But I have need of you, ‘brother’. Now that you are back, do you not remember her? Your beloved Anna de la Lune. Now, she serves Ebondrake’s Black Legion, and my spies tell me that they are coming for us.”

With a guttural growl escaping from her lips, Pandora lowered her arm and clenched her hand into a fist, her white eyes fixated intensely upon Terask Dagon’s lidless and burning gaze. The magic that had formed in her sigil crumbled into shards that dissipated into the air around her.

“Remember… her…? That name, it is…”

“Yes, you surely do,” Terask Dagon stated. “Anna de la Lune. Remember her.”

Pandora grit her teeth.

“I do not know… what…”

“She means the world to you, ‘brother’…”

Taking a step back, Pandora growled once more, pressing a hand upon the fringe of her white hair and pushing it against her forehead. The tips of her elvish ears twitched as she felt the surface of her skull upon her palm, and she took a deep breath. And then another, as it all returned to her. Back in the Luminary, the girl of her dreams. The girl in chains, and how, back then and there, across the sea and within the Holy See of Arcadia, what she had wanted from her and the way it had ended.

“Yes, I do remember… my beloved…”

“Then we are in agreement. We both want the same thing.”

“No! I care only… for her…”

“Same thing, really.”

Ignoring Terask Dagon, and with a grin upon her lips, Pandora turned away from the throne that was once hers and took her leave of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The throne, just like the traitor occupying it for far too long, would have to wait. Because, for now, there was a very special someone on her mind. And the mere thought of finding her, and the things she would do to her when that moment came to pass, made her quiver with mirth. Especially so, now that she remembered her.

And her name, it was…

“Anna…”