Once We are Descendants

Chapter 89: Dance of the Dragons

While still scanning for Evie, Mal is secretly enjoying the cool air between her scales. It's not very often that she gets to fly like this. Normally, it's for battle only, like at the Cotillion or the fight that brought all of them here in the first place. It was so freeing and thrilling to just be herself and use her gifts to help. She was always going to be a VK and a rebel, Mal knows she is a good person and would do anything for anyone.

Her eyes suddenly narrow in on a spot where there could be some movement. With her gaze captured, she is only vaguely aware in her peripheral vision of a large object barreling towards her. She has no time to turn or react when Lily barrels into her side, causing her entire form to explode in pain. If she did not have tough, scaly skin, the damage could have been a lot worse.

Mal roars in agony, struggling to breathe and she's completely knocked off balance. Her wings desperately try to keep her in the air, but the weight of her body is causing her to plummet downwards. She growls and wails in pain as she falls towards the trees, which could hurt even more. She's trying to work through the throbbing pain in her side from where the other dragon had hit her and she's ready to confront the attacker.

Finally, her wings come through and manage to prevent her from being further injured or even impaled by the trees. She manages to hover above the trees, and her green eyes look up to fully understand what happened.

A grayish, almost black scaled dragon is glaring down at her, its golden eyes narrowed but also appearing to look pleased with itself. It lets out a roar and one could see the glowing in its throat, warming up for another attack, this time by fire.

Mal's mind is still reeling, she shakes her head trying to recover. She sees the two dragons and she knows the more purple and bigger one is Maleficent. The Mistress of all Evil is roaring loud enough to shake the surrounding landscape, the sorceress likely confused and angry by the entire thing. When Mal looks at the other dragon again sees the gold eyes... it finally clicks.

It's Lily!

Lily attacked her and she had obviously inherited the more reptile side of the family. Both daughters of Maleficent could turn into dragons. Now all the times that Mal swore she saw Lily's eyes glow gold it was because she was suppressing the urge to transform, just as she had done before.

The younger of the daughters wants to confront Lily and ask what the hell was wrong with her, but of course, being a dragon, it only came out in a snarl followed by a roar.

Lily opens her mouth and Mal can see the flames brewing inside. It was obvious that the "big sister" took the roar as a threat or a reason to continue, so without a second thought, Mal begins to conjure up a fireball too.

She does so just in time as both streams of fire meet halfway with a loud explosive boom and flames begin to spew in different directions, raining down on whoever might be below. Mal worries that Evie might be there, or they could both start some kind of forest fire that could destroy the town.

As the fire continues emitting out of her mouth, she can feel the pressure and the power. Obviously, Lily was as powerful she was, if not more so due to her age and level of current aggression. But as they continue, the younger daughter can sense that the fire isn't as direct or focused and there were irregular amounts of pressure in the fire blast, one minute it was strong, the next a little weak. It was like water pressure in a sink while someone is taking a shower. It was fluctuating. To Mal, this told her that Lily was inexperienced in dragon form and wasn't as comfortable in her scaley skin. She wasn't aware of the power she could have in this form and at this moment, probably didn't care.

When the two finally need to stop, Mal decides that she needs to escape or turn human to hide. She's hoping that Maleficent can reason with Lilith and stop this before it gets worse.