I have not forgotten The Charity Boy or The Princess Swan or any of my other stories. I get very tiny amounts of time to write nowadays, but I do have some holidays coming up so arrrrghhh I hope I can write then.

The more I write Milka, the more she fascinates me.

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

~Dylan Thomas.

In the end, Milka mused, gliding peacefully towards the kitchen door, I should have predicted this would be the outcome.

Her nails were ragged; torn by the lightning she had wielded only moments ago - at least two of her fingers were broken. It wouldn't greatly affect her casting, not when she had only two more incantations in mind, but it was still a mild annoyance. A primal part of her mind screamed that her mangled digits were icy cold and hot at the same time; that they were cramped; twisted; bleeding.

Milka just ignored it. She had become very good at ignoring pain.

Just as she reached the door it…stopped really being a door. Milka was very aware of how wooden it really was. Solid, ancient wood, smoothed by weather – even her rigorous cleaning could not fade its rich dark colour, ribboned with stark streaks of earthy red.

It was a pretty door, but it wasn't really a door, it was part of the wall and the brass doorknob was just a tasteless decoration because there was no opening, just a firm flat picture of a door –

To anyone looking on from the road, they would have seen the south wall of a quaint cottage blow outwards to allow for a blooming whitehot fireball, flowering over a healthy vegetable garden. They would have shielded their eyes against the glare, cringing as hard spikes of pain stabbing into their eyes from the brief exposure. They would perceive the glare fading a second later, and a gale of fiercely hot wind would have ruffled their hair.

Black splotches dancing in their vision, they would have made out a regal, pink haired woman picking her way delicately through the ash piles that was once the garden. They would have seen how the crops for a quarter of a mile south had been obliterated.

Perhaps, at this point, they would have rushed to get help. Or approached the woman to find out what had happened. Perhaps they would have fled, relating the story many months later after too much to drink.

But no one was around the witness this. Milka had made sure of it. It was the only way for everyone to be safe. She had chosen a cottage shielded from the road by a thick copse of trees, and nestled in a long forgotten overgrown field for the express purpose of saving the world. Her world.

Her world was not far behind, crackling and splitting under the power forced upon her. Suffering the fate she had been born to fulfill because Milka had failed her.

Milka paused just at the edge of the garden, in the shade of a great tree, wreathed with ivy. An old swing creaked from its stoutest branch – it had been strung it up for Robin when she was just seven years old, and her wee daughter had hooted with glee and scampered about like a rabbit for the whole afternoon.

Robin still liked to swing on it, at twilight, and watch the stars shyly step out.

Milka sometimes joined her, seated on the knot of a great root, teaching her about the constellations and passing on the old stories of Plegia. Not the ones taught by her corrupted community, but the tales passed down by the true people of Plegia.

As she watched, the tree fouled. Leaves did not wither so much as rot and clump, falling in squelching piles around a trunk silvered and sagging. Branches fell, and dusted mere centimeters from Milka's crown, blown back by a sudden, repulsive gust.

She felt sick. That was no way to treat the innocent.

The Fell Dragon laughed, low and thick and satisfied.

"You are more powerful than I gave you credit for, turncoat." It was Robin's voice. Robin's voice sullied and twisted, guttural and deeply pleased, hungering for the pain of others.

The swing clunked to the ground, rope green with decay and seat crumbled.

"My abilities did not languish here," she answered, turning deliberately to face the Dragon.

Her breath caught. Her next retort died away. The Fell Dragon stood proud and confident, hair tossing in the wicked breeze, a smile like an axe wound rupturing Robin's face. Milka's own coat billowed, a battle standard.

Milka found her voice. "I believe you've taken something, Pathetic Dragon."

The entity inhabiting her daughter grinned widely, so widely it split Robin's cheeks to her ears, baring teeth and cartilage. The coat was a little big on Robin – they were made to fit the wielder, and Milka was built on taller lines than her slender daughter.

She had planned on making Robin her own coat one day. Not embroidered with the Grimleal seals, but with her own choosing. Maybe the Ylissean seals, to show that old practices could still be worked for good.

"It'll do for now," the being rasped, and its voice slimed into her bones. "Your sorry rags are not truly fit for me, traitorous mud."

"They were never meant for you," she answered quietly. "You are wearing what does not belong to you, and never will."

"Humans, so attached to their materials," the creature gurgled.

"I was not," Milka said in a low, dangerous voice, "referring to the coat."

The Dragon twisted Robin's face, and she had to keep reminding herself it was not Robin, it was not, Robin had never looked at her like that. "What I take becomes mine. If you cannot take it back, it remains mine. That is a law made by humans." The Dragon laughed gutturally. "You hardly need my help to spread pain and suffering."

Seemingly ignoring the Dragon's taunt, Milka raised one of her unbroken fingers to her mouth, and bit down hard. The tang of iron filled her mouth, but she merely spat and began to trace symbols on her arm.

The Fell Dragon chuckled thickly, obviously enjoying her last ditch attempt. "There is nothing you can do, Milka of the Spiteful Blood. You cannot kill me, any more than your absent Naga."

"I do not adhere to the Ylissean system," Milka murmured, filling out the last of the symbols. The Fell Dragon had no way of seeing what she was writing, and he would probably believe she was bluffing, anyway.

She glanced at him pityingly. The Fell Dragon was a god of anger, of vengeance, of reclaiming what was lost. She had studied the scriptures. None of them indicated when this…corruption had taken place.

She wished she could go back to the old days, when being part of the Fell flock was to be safe, in a community. Now it just meant death.

The seals were simple. They had to be. This was not a spell undertaken lightly, and often used in a great hurry.

A musical incantation, like a foamy wave rushing up a cold beach, activated the sigils, making them flare. It was comforting, the same way a will o' the wisp was comforting for a lost traveler.

She thought she heard the swish of a scythe nearby, her life thread run across a blade, the beating of wings and sand rasping through a pinch. She had always been fascinated by the death lore of the world. She wondered which would turn out to be correct.

"Oh, very clever," The Dragon purred, unimpressed. Her face twisted, oh such a phrase had never been so nauseatingly accurate, and then settled into a suspicious frown. "What…"

She did not have much time. Already, she could feel the wards digging their hooks deep into her very being. Beautiful strands of light fell from her broken hands, coiled above the grass and slithered dreamily towards The Fell Dragon.

"Robin, I – " Her throat caught. She had planned her words in preparation of this moment, though she fervently hoped she would never have to use them. Now her carefully chosen speech had fluttered away, smoky butterflies torn apart by the Fell Dragon's tempest. Wasn't that always the way? Even the best speeches fell to pieces in front of an audience. "I did not wish for this to happen. I can fix this, but you have to be brave by yourself from now on."

The whips of lights shivered momentarily when they reached Robin's feet, but an extra surge of power from Milka, drawn from the deepest reserves of her power, from her soul, had them winding up Robin's legs. The gale settled a little, and The Fell Dragon huffed, motioned to shatter the bindings.

They inched higher, slowed but still determined.

It took a long moment for realization to set in, and when it did The Fell Dragon screamed, struggling mightily now against the bindings. Each movement shook Milka to her core, as though she were a bell being rung by a mountain, but her spell stood strong.

The Fell Dragon was pinned. Robin's arms were free but unable to do magic, and her feet were firmly fixed.

The Fell Dragon railed against her for several long minutes, shouting in long dead tongues, spitting curses that made Milka's ears bleed, words sawing across her bones.

The pain was superfluous. There was a curious calm in knowing you were certainly going to die.

She remembered taking young Robin to a nearby village, when a troupe of entertainers had set up camp nearby. A small fair had been set up, and how her darling Robin's eyes had sparkled to see the jugglers, the ponies, the caramel apples, candied figs and baked sweet potatoes! Robin had run herself so ragged she needed to be carried home, and had been sick the next day from all the sweets, but it had been, as she put it, "the best day ever so far!".

She said that every day.

But she remembered one solemn man, early forties, his mop of dark hair just beginning to silver. His resonant voice had recited all sorts of poetry, merry to sorrowful to humorous to defiant.

"Rage against the dying of the light," Milka breathed, thought again of that mysterious, gentle man, and regretted things she could not name.

Milka had woken more than once, weeping, from the memory of his kind brown eyes.

"Your actions are for nothing, whore mage," The Fell Dragon hissed, its eyes red, so red, red from blood creeping out the edges. Milka shook herself back to reality, though she knew the pull of memories were just a side effect of the binding spell. "She's not here anymore…"

She had stalled long enough. She didn't want to die. But she would. Milka closed her eyes, squeezed them shut, ignored her god.

Yet listened harder than she ever had in her life.

Threw open the structured, guarded, magnificent gates of her mind and let everything flood in.

Every giggle of the flowers…

Please let this work.

Sap pounding through trees…

I don't want to die.

Tiny claws scraping frantically into dirt…

But I want her to live even more.

A myriad birds soaring higher to the safety of the clouds…

"You could search a thousand years and not find a ghost of that child."

She didn't need a thousand years, she just needed a few more seconds!

She was so open now, the world pouring into her mind like floodwater over a levy.

She was a puddle trying to catch the ocean, an egg trying to clasp shut on all the world's precious molten gold, a single bird singing every song ever written and –

– mother please help me mother please –

Slickness ran from her nose, seeped between her lips. It was running over her collarbone and she wondered if it was blood or brain fluid or maybe her liquefied soul. Not that it mattered.

In the grand scheme of things, she would gladly spend the rest of existence experiencing one painful death after another if it meant freeing her precious, wonderful child from the Fell Dragon.

- Mother no please –

Did she ever tell Robin how proud she was of her? Yes, she told her almost every day. But did she tell her enough? Did she tell her how funny she was, how Milka would sometimes burst out laughing at the strangest times, recalling something her daughter said or did? She must have known.

- Don't do this –

She only ever wanted Robin to be the best she could be! To have the life Milka gave up, and realized too late was what she needed to offer a brilliant, kind, mirthful child. Robin didn't deserve that enclave, that death clan, that festering blight on the history of this world. Robin deserved sunshine, and pie, and hot baths and books.

- Mother you can save –

Milka hoped she would find happiness. She hoped she would find friends, and family, and have children who would never know what a terrible, bloodthirsty sorcerer their Grandmother Milka had been.

- Mother don't leave me –

Her Robin, her lovely Robin was clawing at her own face, but every scratch healed instantly. Milka's coat, still donned by her daughter, flapped wildly in the gale pouring forth from Milka's fingers.

"What. Have. You. Done?" The Fell Dragon screamed, boiling eyes fixated on Milka. Her skin began to recede from the hastily drawn symbols on her arms, and Milka felt her very spirit smoking at the edges.

"Forgive me, that I could not help you," she murmured, her voice shivering to incandescent notes as her swan song spell finally reached its apex.

The Fell Dragon snarled. "Your daughter is gone!" But even she could hear the tremor of uncertainty in The Fell Dragon's voice.

Milka smiled once, a smile for a dragon. It was not triumphant, but it was not kind. "My daughter will outlive you by many years. And I was not talking to her."

Her body was just a thin membrane around a sun…

For a second, she saw her daughter there. Her real, beloved, wonderful daughter. Robin's face wrought in fear, sadness, tear-streaked and twisted with anguish. Robin's lips silently called to her, over and over again; if she could have uttered a word she would have screamed herself hoarse.

The world rushed back, and the last thing she heard was Robin's ugly scream, crushed with grief and despair.

The final words fell from her lips. They were the only words which could ever complete a sacrificial spell.

She closed her eyes and saw her daughter's face how she would always remember it, grinning with unbearable, pure joy.

Milka let herself go.

The girl walked for days. It was a girl, because she was clearly female shaped. The girl walked because the only other option was not walking. The girl had tried that. It was not interesting and a calf had nibbled on her coat.

Walking at least made the scenery change. She bypassed the bustling, smoking smudge that was the capital city. It was lost to the horizon in short order. She was not supposed to go there. She couldn't remember why.

She wanted to reach the sea. Maybe she could keep walking into the sea. She had tried it once before, when the ground was closer and her limbs less coordinated. She supposed she must have been younger.

It was odd. She knew she must have tried it, because she recalled salty seawater and waves bowling her over. She knew she could not breathe water. But she could recall it in the same way she could recall speaking, or writing, or slicing a vegetable. She didn't know when she learned, only that she knew.

It was curious. She scanned her mind for any other hints. But it was a wasteland.

It rained once. She stood on the open road, her head tilted to the clouds and her mouth open to catch raindrops. It was the only water she had in a few days. She was parched, she realized dully.

She stood there, letting water pelt her face, soak into her clothes and drag down her hair. It was a strange colour, she noticed. The people around her all had red, or brown, or blonde hair. No one had white hair. Except the elderly. Maybe she was old?

She checked in a clear pond as soon as the storm passed. The face there was smooth and youthful. It was her own, because there was no one else beside her so it had to be hers. It looked like a stranger's. She waved politely, just to check, and the reflection waved back.

Walking seemed to only task she had. And she walked, and the wheel of day and night spun overhead, and her mind patiently rebuilt itself. No memories, just knowledge. She knew she had to drink, and eat, and stay warm. She had to relieve herself. She had to sit down every now and then to rest her feet, and she knew sleep was a thing she should do but it never came.

She estimated she had been walking for nearly a fortnight. The people around here were kind. One man had given her his lunch, commenting that she looked pale and ravenous. She had bowed in thanks, not trusting her voice, and when the cart had disappeared over the hill she had torn into the meal with a voracity she didn't know she possessed.

Her stomach hurt by the end, but she felt happier.

Then one day, in the late afternoon, a flash of gold caught her eye. She stopped dead, her neck craning to get a clear view.

Stretching out before her into the distance, wind rippling through slim strands, lay a sea of golden grass. A neglected field, wheat and weeds mingling, the usually uniform edges tapering off until they hit the winding edge of the road.

Like a woman possessed (and didn't that thought send a shiver down her spine?) she stepped into the field, her knees shaking so badly she thought they might give out right away. She only made it a short way in until the pressure against her body, an invisible force pressing all the air from her lungs, was too much to fight.

The field filled her vision. Peaceful, rippling yellow and gold like water, under a brilliant blue sky. Distantly, a bird called, to be answered by its fellows.

In her eye, another field overlapped this one, dancing in and out of focus if she tried too hard to picture it.

That field was black, and smoking, and the destruction rose from the ground to sully the sky, blot out the sun. A woman stood a few meters away, her hair snapping about her face. Pink hair, she knew her hair should be pink as new blossoms, but it was the pink of raw, infected flesh.

The woman was bleeding, and her body was pulsing, and when she raised her head so the girl stared right at her face, her eyes–

She didn't scream. Her throat closed up, so all she managed was a throttled cry. She ground rushed up to meet her, and her mind was merciful enough to shut down.

"Chrom, we have to do something." The first words fell over her like downy feathers. Her eyes cracked, and brilliant light bled through. It hurt, but she couldn't afford to stay asleep.

"What do you propose we do?" Not cruel. Just enquiring, like a teacher wanting to hear a student's opinion.

The other certainly answered like a student. "Urgh, Ahhh…I don't know!" She was getting a clearer picture now. Probably male on the left, probably female on the right. Her vision cleared further.

The sky was so blue, she noted a little dreamily. Different blue, though, from before. Lighter. How long had she been asleep?

The two noticed her revival at the same time. The girl on the right looked relieved, joyous. The man looked more surprised than anything. They leaned in a little closer, and she giddily noticed how pretty they both were.

"I see you're awake now." Baritone; kind; commanding. Her heart gave a terrible thump. Perhaps she was ill?

"Hey there," the girl cooed softly, and she felt a little calmer. She was so pretty. Did she know how pretty she was? Angelic, even. The prettiness came from underneath her skin, like the world had known how beautiful her mind and soul would be, and had given her a body to match.

"There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know," the man advised, a little teasingly, and she had no response. The ground was fairly comfortable. It smelled like warm wheat, healthy soil and recent storms. In her opinion, it was a fairly decent place to sleep.

"Give me your hand." His hand was in front of her, gloved and steady. A hand reached out, a hand emblazoned by an odd, watchful mark, and only when she felt a thrill of contact shoot up her arm did she realize it was her own.

Her hand was similar in size to his - her fingers tightened automatically around his palm. It was like there was no glove at all, and she could feel his skin, callouses on his fingers, his pulse and the subtle play of complex, hardy muscle.

He pulled her up in one smooth movement, and she was so close, so close to open, sincere eyes. He smiled again, just a small twitch of his lips. He was handsome, she noticed, but there was more. A wellspring of kindness and purity, like his sister. He was brave, and caring, and…he was…he was…

She was…

She…wasn't sure who she was.

Poor Milka. I want her to be happy.

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