Find previous chapters here.
Nassty, tricky humans!
Who did they thinks they were? Shouldn’t food know it’s food?
In all Damia’s long life she’d never faced anything like that. Humans were weak little things, easily lulled to sleep by her singing. Their sharp, pointy sticks were only mild inconveniences—if she wanted to play with them before she sang to them.
That was the way it went. That was how the world was supposed to be.
So clearly she was unprepared for what she’d met at the castle.
Damia shuddered in pain. Swinging her wings up and down shifted the slices in her flesh painfully. She could smell her own blood leaving a trail as she flew. Damia didn’t even know how long wounds like these would take to heal.
Stupid, sneaky humans! They’d set a trap, she knew it. They’d somehow gotten word of her approach and set a nasty, tricky trap. Sealing the tasties in a stone burrow, shooting little sticks at her, stabbing when she got close enough to snatch them up.
How had this happened?
How had her voice done nothing? No one, from the tallest to the tiniest human, had slumbered. Damia didn’t understand.
They must have powerful magic to render her powerless! Just to test that she still could sing, Damia opened her mouth and shrieked. The air split open before her voice and snapped back closed when the sound passed.
As it should be.
As it did at the castle!
They were eeevil humanses. They must do witchy things. No good came from witches! Damia knew the song people sang: “Witchy gnarled, bent, and brown. Burn it, burn it, burn it down.”
She let the heat inside her spew out, singeing the tops of the trees beneath her. That’s just what she’d done, burned the witches’ castle down. Served them right.
She flew for aimless hours, seething inside. When she could no longer smell the smoke from the castle, Damia swept down into an opening in the forest. She needed to rest.
She was curling up into a ball when a scent reached her nose. Damia froze and sniffed. A smile replaced her scowl.
Princess.
A princess had been nearby, and very recently. This was gooood news.
Damia’s belly and back started throbbing around her stab wounds. She would sleep, laying low and recovering for several days. Then she would be off to find her princess.
That would be a nice consolation prize, indeed.