Once upon a time, there was an impetuous young spiral named Mazeshudder. She liked to curl around larger dragons' necks and shoulders and whisper gossip into their ears, strewing drama and discontent wherever she went. She had an explosive, gleeful cackle that carried through the entire cave--a laugh often in reaction to her own cutting wit. She wasn't nice, and she wasn't kind, but she could be gentle with the very few that were close to her heart. More frequently than not, her eyes would flash with light at the sheer joy of living, and if she were not slung around someone else's neck like a particularly uncooperative scarf, she would writhe and lash in the air like an eel on a hook with restless, euphoric energy.

(She was the kind of child to play with her dinner, to pick the wings off of a moth and laugh as it struggled.)

She and Tidespiral had little in common besides their boldness and their ambition, but as youths that was enough to unite them against the world. She and Whitelake had nothing in common on first glance, but in both of them shone an unusually powerful appreciation for the many wonders of creation. For many, many years, she was one of a trio of flawed leaders, three adventurous young dragons ruling a small clan of their very own.

(They were all three ugly lost children pretending they could overcome their flaws, playing at leadership.)

And then things changed. It started when the Pearlcatchers arrived, when Maze suddenly found herself no longer the slyest, the wildest, the most politically minded. Or it started before that, with the discovery of a simple bone mask on the cusp of her adulthood. Perhaps it started when she realized the intimate friendship she had with Whitelake, which meant more to her than she would ever put into words, was less than what he wanted from her.

(It started in the egg. That's when the rot always sets in.)

In truth, when Maze began to change is of no consequence. What matters is that the gradual shift, the natural alteration of her personality as her gentleness hardened and her meanspirited jokes escalated in cruelty, became something very different when Whitelake died.

(She always would have become a monster. If we hadn't killed him, he would have left her all the same when he saw her for what she really was.)

Once upon a time, there was an impetuous young spiral named Mazeshudder. One day, stifled and frustrated by a changing clan, growing responsibilities, and twisting relationships, the spiral convinced her dear friend, a tundra named Whitelake, to undertake one last adventure with her. To accompany her on a journey to discover the origin of a mysterious artifact in her possession.
The two of them traveled from the Sunbeam Ruins, through the Tidelord's Sea, and deep into the Scarred Wasteland. When they returned, both were ill, and neither could speak for the boils and bonespurs in their throats. Mazeshudder had donned the mask she had been investigating, and would never again remove it. On the third night after their limping return, Whitelake died. On the next, Maze was spry enough again to fly. The clan believes they reached the Wrymwound and touched something within it, but none know exactly what transpired at their journey's end.

(They did reach the Wrymwound, but I was the one who touched them.)

Nowadays, the Crystal Cave is not led by a mouthy little spiral and her friends. But it is haunted by an old spiral wearing a bone mask. Maze is mute still, though she can laugh a creaking, hacking laugh. Her jeweled eyes are dull and the colour of pus, and never seem to move. Larger dragons will sometimes find her wrapping herself around their necks, just as she used to, but those dragons never seem to stick around long. She's a good listener, say some, if you don't mind the quiet rasping, scraping noises she makes as she twists. She laughs at the right places, and even if her laughter goes on a little longer than it should, that's hardly new.
(She laughs at the wrong places too, say others. The worst places. And sometimes, they say, the rasping and scraping sounds more like a whispering voice, reminding you of secrets never told and better forgotten.)

(Nowadays, the Crystal Cave is haunted by a bone mask wearing an old spiral.)
(Ha)
(HA)
(Ha)