The Reborn Witch had a nice 'Tea Time' with the Dragon Queen today
Chapter 48: Time’s Guillotine hung for the Betrayer

Chapter 48: Time’s Guillotine hung for the Betrayer

In the frosted garden of frozen time, the horned Queen stared into the emerald eyes of her hooded kin, one a queen who masacred her families in the name of peace, one a scientist who desecrated corpses in the name of curiosity. The Queen and her sister, the sunlit executioner and the graceful velvetstorm.

The emerald eyes sunk further as they dried, narrowing as they observed the ashes that painted Adrei’s scaled robes, the ashes afloat as they coated a mantle of the anarchist against time. Bemused at her sister’s nonchalance at her world-bending magic, the emerald-eyed scientist’s steps lifted as they sidestepped the soil that embraced her bare feet like a polished stone, the roughness that came with Earth’s defiance nothing before mere taps of a Dragon Elder of Time.

"Sister, you have grown. Since when did you learn your flames could deny me my artifact for <Time Magic>?"

Adrei scowled as the ashen mantle pulsed, not of frustration or repulse, but of a slight humiliation that came with the scientist’s tone as if viewing caged rats with paws instead of claws. Her draconic irises now could comprehend the vague existence that came with her sister, as the ashes tarred away all unclear boundaries before them. Her amused gaze was unsettling, the slight tilt of her head ajar before the Queen with no respect but a taunting distortion.

"Your merely never grow with your nature, Coriel. Your reliance on trinklets dulled your sense as a Dragon Elder of the Woods."

"...I seem to recall you used to praise me for my...’trinklets’, sister."

A hesitation marred Coriel’s voice, as she stopped before the walls of stilled petals. The floating hues that threatened to spill without falling even as the scientist grasped them, the smooth, unbending beauties against the authoritarian that falsely claimed time as their own.

"And should the one who annilated our families really lecture me for my ’nature’, Sister?" The heaviness of the emerald-eyed dragon’s words dissonant with the light playfulness as she cradled the petal, a fragile gesture almost as if she is a tragic heroine, if not for the disinterest pupil that skated the the veins of the petal.

"I won’t deny for the necessary cruelty I comitted, Coriel. Yet among the elders...perhaps it is only you who haven’t moved on." Adrei’s tension in her brows unwinded like cut string, the realisation that her sister perhaps was carried with grief tainted her resolve, if not for the oily syllables that dripped from her sister’s lips.

"Oh, I see. Good for you." Coriel’s lips curled up into a smile, a weightless curve satisfied with her Queen’s lightened burden. She flickered the petal, unreacting as indifferently as the Dragon of Wood, before her palms stretched to the back, as she once again stared at the sky where Dragons used to rule. Adrei frowned, her cackled hesitation incinerated, as no hints of sorrow could be found on her sister’s expression, as if she merely read the incident on a historian’s book.

"Was it...fifteen years ago?" Coriel chuckled, the only honesty she could bare to her sister. "Ah, the claws that drank our families’ bloods...I’m sure it would be as sweet as the vampires’ feast on thier ancester who betrayed them, don’t you think?"

A mockery on betrayal, for the fellow Queen who wished well on any others except on their own subjects they ruled. Yet not a flinch, not a tremor could be observed by the emerald eyes, the wood dragon’s Queen scales remained steels that would shatter her enemy to dusts, even if some was too dense to break apart.

Adrei merely narrowed her eyes, not in rage or guilt, but pure, unbridled detachment, a detachment different to the observatory sister, as if hollowing out her emotions not for a kin, but for a mere scoundrel who spouted hollow echos.

"La Llorona is a fool. I am a matriarch, a peacekeeper for the future, my sister."

As if giving enough courtesy, Adrei stepped forward, her gaze towering over her own kin as she strode, smokes fluttering in motion like a walking magma approaching.

"Strengths, at the end, define all. A basic of existence that La Llorona could not comprehend, as she did not merely fail, but was too greedy to comprehend the true cost of Peace, resorting a betrayal not to annilate evil, but to strip away her own kins’ strengths."

Her claws darted out from her fingers, the sharpness shimmering a perfect clarity even admist the frozen time, as her draconic lens vibrated to capture the kin she was eager to tear apart, the rage only belied her drumming heartbeats.

"Just as you are, Coriel. Greed, all greed. In your pursuit of ’potential’ or ’growth’, you truly failed to recognise the flaws of your ideal, the equality you seek will not ever come."

Flames flickered like whiplashes around the Dragon Queen, swirling like a tornado as Adrei dashed forward, her ember claw meeting Coriel before a green barrier seperated between them, green runes now skating over Coriel’s cloak, another one of her trinklet’s function.

"Your flames that burned concepts are indeed powerful, sister, but my barrier was solely designed against it." Coriel’s calm emeralds smiled, as her index pointed to further explain. "From Rhino’s Blessing, Archilies’ Drift and Pixies’ ashes, the connection between this cloak and the Spirit Realm strengthened as it would teleport concepts, strengths or manas towards the other side. I have anticipated this situation for a very long time, so I-"

Her words stuttered, as a defiant crackle echoed in her unsuspecting ears. Her eyes widened rightwards as the claws retreated, fingers curling with a crack, before the fist pummeled into the barrier, shattering it before sinking into her hooded cheek.

Her figure flew in the air, literally, the petals the only witness as she glid with the suspended gusts, as she collided into the ’smooth’ soil, grazing her arms and knees as she tumbled backwards. One roll...two rolls....three rolls....before her palm slapped the soil, lifting her into the air and landing, the hood falling like a challenge thrown, except she is destined to be a loser.

Adrei frowned at her sister who kneeled as a subject should to a queen, white straight hairs sprawling in a tangled mess that uncannily resembled her wife after her sleeping hours. Her tall scaled figure towered over her sister, her subject, her kin, the hollowed gaze glancing downwards not to judge, but to merely slap away an annoying fly on a platter.

"Put away your toys for leisure, Selene. This is a deathbattle between our prides, and you should die with what little dignity that you have been spared with."

That punch was not a declaration, but a warning. An honourless peacekeeper’s way of maintaining a forbidden honour before she tore her own family’s sins apart. Coriel chuckled, hints of defeat and exhaustion chipping away her mask of indifference, as she realised her sister really, truly could ground her into dusts with precisions unbefitting of fingering an ant into a corpse.

"Truly, trinklets...all of my inventions, trinklets before the Queen."

A defeated chuckle, before the emerald eyes returned to a calm smile, before she loosened the collar for her cloak, casting aside an artifact she spent dozens of corpses, livings and hours to work on, a taint that could not even scratch a Queen’s wraith.

With a deep heave, Coriel’s step brushed against the earth, as trembles of her mana sent a calling for her own children, summoning thickened green roots that surrounded her frame, another living embodiment that could defy time, a symbolism of her flawed time artifact, with the barks’ dense lushness that would sully Adil’s roots of hatred. Adrei frowned upon the little stopwatch, hanging over Coriel’s waist, her royal robes still attached to her albeit with hints of redness and tatters, as if just exiting another experiment of the day.

The thick roots rushed at her like soldiers with warcries, as Adriei’s lips merely puffed out a tint of flame, the small flaring tip touched, then scattered the flares over the barks, a single ember that defied the soldiers’ rush. Adrei merely walked over the tarred woods as they melted in the air, her eyes never leaving the shocked emeralds, even as Coriel continued to chuckle in a mocking disbelief, her sense of reality duller than her reliance on artefacts.

Her steps were not of march but a mere movement, her draconic irises unblinking for the betrayer of the Council. Coriel threw more roots, Adrei puffed more embers. Each marches met a dead barks of ashes as silence. Coriel nodded her head, no hood could now hide the tremours in her eyes, as the exectioner’s stride came to be inevitable within her parameter, and she was the one on a guillotine.

Of course....with the artifact of ’Blinks’, she could teleport away in a moment’s notice, but it never left her, the curiosity of how much strength was contained within her Queen, the distance between sisters gourging her courageous gamble. And so, the sister closed her eyes, the chants forming into Draconic Languages in her mind, as she muttered the true start to the battle between world-ending giants.

<Tear, cracks, scatter>

And so, the frozen petals vibrated naturally, as a crack of unnatural void seeped into the air, a blackhole that toiled at Adrei’s arm.

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