Alina

Alina was the crown princess of the Shadethorn Kingdom, but that didn’t me was weak and defenseless. Thanks to her mother’s heritage and constant training, Alina was also one of the most power witches in Sornieth. She could create the most deadly potions and spells that could destroy entire kingdoms within a few hours.

Fortunately for everyone in Sornieth though, the pearlcatcher had no interest to in using her powers to destroy the world. She had been inspired by her great great great great great grandma and grandpa to dedicate her life to making Sornieth a better place to live for every familiar and dragon just like they had done. Much to Alina’s good fortune, her mother and father gladly supported their daughter’s decision to follow in her because great great great great great grandparents’ footsteps, even if it meant she wouldn’t be acting like a ‘proper princess’ should.

Whenever word traveled to the Shadethorn Kingdom that there evildoers afoot in some distant land, Alina would take to the skies without hesitation to make things right. Never once did Alina turn down a request for aid...or at least she never did until the day she received a letter from the king of the Sheona Kingdom, which requested that she rescue Prince Fishertail Marilyn Currentcall the third from the claws of some rogue serthis. That was the first day Alina crumbled a request for aid into a ball and chucked it into the trash can.

“Alina, the Shadethorn and the Sheona Kingdom have been in an alliance for a thousand years. They won’t forgive such a betrayal.” Alina’s younger sister, Kayle, warned as her weary eyes peered over the cover of her book.

“Their kingdom would be better off without that arrogant jerk.” Alina argued, eyes still pinned to the trash can as if her gaze could somehow burn the letter.

“The last time you saw him was five years ago, Alina. I’m sure he has grown—“

Alina snorted.

“Fisher will change his ways as soon as gaolers and tundras can have children together.” The older sister grumbled.

Kayle rolled her eyes.

“Look, Alina, I am aware you two don’t agree on a few things—“

“He hates everything I stand for.” Alina cut in.

“But as I was saying, one day you will be a queen and he will be a king and you’ll have to work with each other so I suggest that you be the better dragon in this case or else we’ll probably be going to war in the next few years.”

“So?” Alina replied.

Kayle let out a exasperated sigh and leaned back in her chair.

“Can at least rescue that fae for the sake of embarrassing him?”

“What do you mean?” The pearlcatcher questioned, with her head cocked to the side.

Kayle flicked her blue eyed gaze back to her sister, with a growing smirk that could only reflect ill intent.

“Think about it. Fisher is convinced you and I are too emotionally unstable and weak to do anything. Now, imagine just how he will feel when he, the big, strong crown prince, has to rely on one of those weak little princesses to save his behind.”

“Hmmm,” Alina thought aloud, coyly. “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

The pearlcatcher walked over to the trash can, reached inside of it and pulled crumbled letter out.

“Perhaps I should pay Fisher a visit.” Alina drawled as she held the paper ball in front of her face and a vicious smile bloomed on her snout.

Payback. For all of the awful things Fisher had done to her over the years.

The idea sounded wonderful.

~

The first incident had happened on Alina’s twelfth birthday. Alina’s powers had first shown themselves only a few months ago and the hatchling had decided to reveal her new abilities to her extended family members and friends on her big day. Although, even though Alina planned to divulge her powers to everyone at once on her birthday, the pearlcatcher was most excited about showing them to her best friend, Fisher. Because of that, she made sure that, once she ushered everyone into the castle’s auditorium before the big reveal, Fisher had a seat in the front row.

When everyone had found their seats, the little pearlcatcher jumped onto the stage and let the wispy tendrils of her magic flow from her talons. Gasps, ooohs and aaaahs quickly became the melody to Alina’s performance. Alina couldn’t have been happier—until she looked into the crowd and saw that the seat she had reserved for her best friend was empty.

For a moment, the hatchling stopped moving and her magic with her.

“Where’s—“ Alina started to ask.

“Alina, LOOK OUT!” Kayle shouted from her seat.

Alina didn’t have time to react as some force knocked her into the stage’s cold floor boards.

“Your magic doesn’t change anything!” Fisher shouted.

Alina turned her head back up and gawked at the fae now standing above. It didn’t make sense. Fisher was her best friend. Fisher was—

“I’ll always beat you! I’ll always be stronger than you!” The fae roared, the rage in his eyes so fierce that Alina froze. “And you wanna know why?” The fae challenged as he took a step closer to her. “It’s because you’ll always be a weak, little female!”

It an instant, all the joy Alina had felt moments ago was completely devoured by Fisher’s words. She felt ugly, deformed and small. Tears welled in her eyes and began to slide down her cheeks.

“You’ll never—!”

Fisher didn’t have time to finish because a wave of dark, solid magic, Alina immediately recognized as her mother’s, materialized infront of the pearlcatcher hatchling and knocked the fae onto the ground.

“Don’t you dare speak another lie, Currentcall.” Alina’s mother, Queen Hope, snarled as she leapt onto the stage. The queen rushed to stand between her daughter and the foreign prince. Her husband, King Triumphant, was at her side a heart beat later.

Fisher scrambled to his feet and tilted his head up, with wide fearful eyes, to see the massive rulers of the Shadethorn Kingdom. King Triumphant to a step forward, looking furious enough to suggest he intended to bash the hatchling into earth. Although, Queen Hope placed a paw on her husband’s shoulder to stop him from moving any closer. Triumphant twisted his head towards his wife and opened his mouth to speak, but a single warning look from the queen made him clamp his mouth shut.

For a moment, the rulers just held each other’s gazes in a silent conversation. Fisher had done something unforgivable, but he was a prince and harming such a prince in the presence of his own parents had many dangerous implications. Queen Hope’s eyes flicked to Fisher’s parents, who sat in the front row, unblinking and gripping there arm rest so hard, their knuckles were white. The rulers of the Sheona Kingdom were all two aware of how easily King Triumphant and Queen Hope could kill their son. Since the Sheona Kingdom had a stupid rule that prohibited princesses from inheriting the throne and Fisher was their only son, murdering the fae Prince was as good as murdering the future of the Sheona Kingdom.

“I trust you will escort Prince Fishertail home immediately and punishment him accordingly.” Queen Hope said.

“We will.” Fisher’s mother promised as she stared into the Shadethorn queen’s eyes without flinching. “Come here, Fishertail.” She didn’t even look at her son.

Fisher didn’t need to be told twice. He darted to his mother’s side in a short blur of blue and orange color. Silence hung in the air and seemed to thicken until the Sheona Kingdom’s rulers got out of their seats and headed for the exit. Their son wasn’t far behind.

Alina’s parents stood their watching the royal family until the darkness of the auditorium covered them. Only then did they turn face their daughter. The parents quickly pulled Alina into a tight embrace. Alina buried her head into her mother’s chest and sobbed so violently, her body shook.

Ugly. Deformed. Small.

The words kept echoing in her head.

“Alina, you did nothing wrong and there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed off.” Her father assured, his normally gruff voice soft and tender.

“That puny hatchling’s words change nothing, Alina.” Her mother swore to her daughter. “You have the power to level mountains and change the courses of wars.”

“You can very well be one of the greatest witches in all of history.” Her father added. “Able to bring whiny males to there knees in one fowl swoop,” he paused to give his wife a grin, “just like your mother.”

Alina slowly lifted her head to look at her parents’s faces, beaming with pride and love.

“You mean it?” The hatchling squeaked with tears that were being to dry. “I could really do all those things?”

“We swear it to you, Alina,” Her mother vowed as her father nodded.

Alina felt tears welling in her eyes again as beheld her parents. They believed in her, loved her, and supported her. The hatchling decided in her heart that was all mattered. She wouldn’t care what hatchlings like Fisher thought. In fact, she would prove them wrong with every single breath she took.

“I swear to you—both of you,” Alina told her parents as she looked them both in the eyes, “I will become exactly what you believe I can be.”

Years later, Alina liked to believe she still lived up to that statement.

~

Busting into the serthis hideout Fisher was being held in was pretty easy. Many of the serthis recognized her and ran off screaming. Those that remained to fight were no match for her spells. Finding Fisher was pretty and getting him out of the hideout wasn’t much harder. Sure the serthis had broken Fisher’s wings, the fae was so darn skinny that it was easy to carry him. Finding satisfaction, surprisingly, out of taunting him was the hardest part.

“It must be driving you insane,” She drawled on. “Getting literally carried out of this serthis camp by a little girl.”

“Yeah.” Fisher agreed absently with his blue eyes cast on the trees bellow. His voice was so bizarrely quiet.

She glanced down at the small fae she held between her paws. She had imagined that when she rescued Fisher, he’d whine and scream the whole way home about how his family should have sent ‘proper guards’ to rescue him. The pearlcatcher had never thought the fae would hang in her arms, limply and silent, as she flew to the Sheona Kingdom.

Alina supposed she should have been happy about that.

Alina carefully eyed the prince’s back as the air rushing beneath her wings became the only source of sound. His scales had become so much duller since she last saw him and there were plenty of new scars coating wings. Alina took note that many of the scars couldn’t have been from the serthis, not Fisher had only been held captive for four days and the scars were fully healed.

“You know when we arrive at the Sheona Castle, the entire kingdom will see a female dragon whisking you off into the castle.” Alina tried again, falsely smirking.

The Fisher Alina had been forced to spend time with during trade negotiations and holidays, would have started begging her to let him down so he could walk the rest of the way.

“Okay.” The prince replied, not looking up.

Alina lifted her head up to the clouds and let out a long sigh.

“You’re not making this any easier.” She groaned.

There was another short pause filled with nothing, but the whistling wind.

“You can give me back to the serthis.” Fisher offered.

Alina whipped her head back down to fae, not believing her own ears.

“Why would you say something like that?”

She had seen the serthis torture chambers and the body parts that remained in them for the first time when she had gone to rescue Fisher. Some of the machines within them had been specifically designed to make fae dragons feel as much pain as possible. Alina was pretty certain, based on the lack of damage to Fisher’s body that he hadn’t been put in those machines, but he had to have seen it or at least heard the screams coming from it.

If Alina was being honest, she had felt a little guilty for having been so reluctant to rescue Fisher and having laughed at him once she found him in the serthis’s cages, but that matter she’d save for another time.

“They don’t put things inside their prisoners.” Fisher whispered, barely audible over the wind.

Alina felt the fae shudder a little in her grasp. The pearlcatcher opened her maw to ask Fisher what exactly he meant, but the igniting of a sudden, sharp pain in her wing stopped her. The pearlcatcher twisted her head to see the cause of the pain: an arrow, Alina instantly identified as one of the serthis’.

“Crap.” The pearlcatcher muttered, just before she started to plummet down.

Fisher frantically began trying to twist and claw his way out of her grasp.

“What you are doing, idiot?!” Alina shouted as she clamped her paws tighter around the prince’s body. “Where both going down no matter what!”

“You don’t get it! It wants out,” the fae’s entire body, from snout to tail, was trembling. “And th-they’ve come to fr-free it.”

“What the heck does that even mean?!” Alina screamed.

Fisher’s lengthy neck bent back far enough so the fae cold look her in the eyes. The utter terror that Alina found in the fae’s gaze struck a memory she didn’t realize she had. The princess had see that look on Fisher’s face before. At the end of some banquet, when the king of Sheona had put his hand on his son’s shoulder and promised the young dragon that he’d see Barnaby as soon as he got home. He’d had the same look then as he did now. She hadn’t seen him after that either—not until five years had passed.

Alina shallowed hard as the sky and land kept switching places in her peripheral vision.

“What have happened to you, Fisher.” It wasn’t really a question.

“I’m sorry,” the fae apologized, lips trembling. “I’m sorry if I kill you.”

That was the last thing the fae said before they dove into the pines’ prickly embrace.

~

Since she often sought out the worst kinds of criminals and fought them, Alina seen a lot of bad stuff. Although, what she saw happen to Fisher—that was probably the most horrific set of images that had ever been engraved into her memory.

Fisher had exploded in a sudden spray of blood. His body parts were flung everywhere—a piece of Fisher’s back slammed against Alina and knocked her into the base of a tree. Stars danced in Alina’s vision as she slid against rough bark and landed in the mushy earth. Had circumstances been different, the pearlcatcher imagined she would have lied, dazed and in pain, beneath that tree for a long while. Although, with adrenaline coursing through her veins and her instincts screaming for her to get up, Alina only felt a dull throb in her arrow-torn wing as she scrambled to a standing position.

The princess quickly scanned the perimeter. She was completely surrounded by pine trees and shadow. Fisher was dead. Alina decided that she’d ponder the weight of that statement later. Pieces of the prince were everywhere: hanging on tree branches, shoved beneath stones, scattered on the ground like confetti. Fisher’s severed head lied at the epicenter of the shredded fae pieces. His eyes were still bulging with utter terror.

There wasn’t any blood, aside from a handful of droplets staining the mossy ground.

Snap!

Alina’s ears flicked forward, out of reflex, towards the sound that came from beyond the prince’s array of body parts. The pearlcatcher went completely still.

Something was out there.

Snap, creak...Snap!

Alina clutched her pearl tightly hind leg and prepared to summon all of her magic to strike whatever revealed itself from the darkness of the forest. Alina kept her eyes locked on the shadows behind the trees. As if they sensed her gaze, the creatures emerged, ever so slowly, from the darkness with fanged grins piercing their cheeks.

Alina blinked at the creatures as all the hairs in her mane stood on an end. Their bodies and clothing were identical to any ordinary serthis’, but their eyes were pure white and there were undulating strands of ebony smoke that oozed from the crevices between their scales. Alina shallowed hard. She had seen a harpy like these serthis before—it had completely possessed by the Shade somehow and had killed its own family without flinching.

“Are you in there, Sssister-brother?” Both serthis said in unison as more smoke billowed from their mouths.

Alina dug her claws into the soil and began whispering an old spell under her breath.

“No, I’m here.” A deep rumbling voice responded.

The princess lip’s stopped moving. Someone else was here. She frantically looked in every direction for the owner of that new voice. Her gaze stopped on Fisher’s severed head. It had moved. That head was now tilted in Alina’s direction and to make things even more horrifying, it was grinning at her.

The pearlcatcher hardly believed her eyes.

The serthis drew closer to Fisher’s head and their grins seemed to grow wider. The head tilted towards the possessed Beast Clan members.

“Although, don’t free me yet. I want to play with this skin a little longer.” The head said before it leaned back to look into Alina’s eyes.

“Want?” The serthis asked as both their heads cocked to the side.

The ignored them and kept his gaze fixed on the princess.

“I have always wondered what this ‘Alina’ was.” The head drawled. “Fisher always used to think about Alina whenever I played with him. Sometimes, when he thought I was asleep, he’d try to picture your face and his eyes would start producing this fowl liquid when he’d realize he couldn’t remember it exactly.” The thing started to inch closer to her by shoving it chin into the soil to pull itself forward as it spoke. Its gaze roved every inch of her body with an unsettling hunger. “I always wondered, but I think I understand now.”

“Stay back.” Alina snarled.

The thing chuckled, but refrained from moving closer. Although, Alina knew it wasn’t giving her space out of curtesy. It was toying with her. Seeing how she’d react when he pushed and pulled her buttons—all for fun.

Little did that thing know, two could play at that game.

“W-What are you?” Alina questioned with false fear.

Fisher’s head grinned wider. Just as she suspected, the creature liked to see how his presence instilled fear.

“Oh, Fisher, you haven’t told her about me?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Alina saw one Fisher’s legs start shaking. The pearlcatcher’s stomach lurched as she realized Fisher might still be trapped in his shattered remains. The image of Fisher’s blue, fear-struck eyes flashed in her mind. He must have known that was going to happen, Alina concluded, sick to her stomach.

Fisher’s head bellowed a ground-shaking laugh. Then, smoke that matched the gas which surrounded the serthis began to poor from the head’s sliced neck.

“We simply must change that, Fisher.” The thing purred.

Alina watched as more obsidian gas spewed from the other pieces of Fisher. The inky smoke started to lift those pieces of Fisher and that horrid, laughing head to assemble a fae body. Although, this new fae’s body parts didn’t touch each other; they were held loosely held together by a swirling void.



“Do you like this magnificent form, Alina?” It cooed.

Alina had to take a step back and tilt her head up to take in the creature in fully. The princess knew she should have acted scared to keep that thing thinking it had control over her, but it that moment, all Alina felt was rage towards the creature that now occupied her childhood friend. She couldn’t fake otherwise.

“Virekius!” Alina shouted.

Instantly, her magic shot out and blasted the thing to the ground. The thing twisted and roared on the ground as it struggled to resemble itself. The serthis, however, didn’t miss a beat. They lunged for Alina and the princess in turn fired more blasts of magic energy at them. For a while, Alina managed to keep the serthis at bay. Although, the serthis still had the upper hand—they didn’t feel the pain or at least the beings controlling them didn’t. The serthis managed to pin Alina down with the weight of their own bodies. One of them pulled out a dagger from its belt and swung it down, straight towards Alina’s exposed neck.

The pearlcatcher was certain she was done for.

Miraculously, a blur of blue, orange and inky black color knocked the Shade-controlled serthis off of her before the blade struck her neck. Alina heard the thud of the danger’s holt hitting the ground as she scrambled to get onto her paws.

“Traitor!” The serthis shrieked.

Alina found herself gawking too as stood up and saw Fisher, chest heavy and he stood between her and the serthis. All of his body parts were touching against and their wasn’t any sign of the smoke that had once held them together. Fisher was completely normal again, at least, Alina hoped.

“You. Don’t. Touch. Her.” Fisher rasped as a bit of that black gas has was expelled from his flaring nostrils.

“We do not lisssten to the god-ssspawn!” The serthis hissed, just before they charged at Fisher with their daggers raised.

Fisher blowed his head and squeezed his eye shut as he braced for the serthis’s onslaught. Those serthis didn’t touch the fae though—Alina made sure of that. The princess uttered the words that made up one of her most draining spells without pausing to take a single breath. Precisely after she had pronounced the last syllable, the serthis were both turned to stone, just as their dangers had gotten only a few inches from Fisher’s scales.

Alina wanted to go to Fisher and to make sure he was safe, but with all her magic spent, the pearlcatcher’s body couldn’t take it anymore. The princess’s knees buckled and she collapsed.

Everything went black.

(Continued in Fisher’s Bio)



Trivia

Familiar



~Seeingslicer the Apparition Lance~

Seeingslicer was a gift Alina received from the elder witches of the Shattered Plain after she had rid their lands of a malicious shade-possessed harpy. Since then, the apparition lance has become her most iconic weapon and beloved pet. Seeingslicer and Alina have fought and survived many battles together. However, when the pearlcatcher leaves home to complete tasks she deems easy, such as saving a prince in distress, she often leaves the apparition lance to guard her family while she is away. Seeingslicer isn’t capable of communicating its emotions in words, but that doesn’t prevent the weapon and the witch from having conversations. Both Alina and Seeingslicer are very good at reading each other’s body language and are often found having silent discussions with one another.