"Don't open your eyes, Cassie."
With a frown, the Amazon closes them again, letting her friend resume her work. Melody was spreading a layer of green paint over her face.Apparently it was part of an initiation ritual among the tribe of nagas.
A stabbing pain ran through the girl's right arm as a needle began to pierce her skin. To the right of the golden-scaled naga, a blond woman clad in a white robe, was concentrated on the right arm of the amazon, etching strange symbols on the pale skin. Cassandra just sighs. After accepting the request to marry Ahura, Elder of the Python Clan and Mistress of the Eastern Grasslands, she had allowed the amazon to bring Elizabeth with her. The former MI6 secret agent was focused on her work and completely cut off from everything else. Cassandra had not been able to avoid noticing the confused torrent of feelings that had crossed the face of the succubus when you contacted her and told her about your intention to marry the Elder. In the end, she seemed to have accepted it, reluctantly.
Cassandra could feel the touch of callused hands on her new, scaly, tail. It was Alix, the head of the servants in Ahura's court. During the last 10 minutes, she and her assistants, some of them in human form, had been spreading a white substance on your golden scales, forming strange patterns on them. The Elder's maidens had assisted her in the preparations for the introduction of the new member to the Naga tribe and her new status as Ahura's future wife.
"Done." Elizabeth withdrew from the left arm of the new champion, letting you to observe her work: On the back of her left hand, engraved in ink, were two words written in Greek letters. The letters were surrounded by glyphs in a language that were completely unknown to the Swordbearer.
“Ascletios and Dina?” Cassandra needed to improve her Greek if she was going to live on that island from now on.
"Asclepios and Diana" interrupts the succubus. "Asclepios It is the name of the god of medicine and science. Diana? Of the wild animals and the hunt. Both deities are revered among the Naga clans and, in exchange for offerings, they grant them favors. This conjuration, which you have on your skin, will help you to maintain your transformation without my help.”
Cassandra run her fingers over the letters etched into the skin.
"Can it be removed?" She asks, curious.
"Only by its wielder." Using both of her hands, the irate succubus stands up. "Now, if you excuse me ..." When she was sure that her work here was finished, the succubus withdrew from the room without giving a single glance to the girl with had shared her past and her bed.
Cassandra tries to get up but Melody's hands urge her to continue sitting and continue with the arrangements.
The snake women continued in silence, until Melody, broke the uncomfortable silence.
"So…" She sounded amused. "A succubus and the Elder of a naga clan… You know how to choose girls.”
"She and I met when i got stranded in the island. Her presence and friendship have helped me to cope these last days."
"You and her ...?" She makes an obscene gesture with her hands imitating what you did to Ahura during the carnal act that had led the amazon to this damned situation.
"Once." Cassandra's cheeks take on vermilion and she keeps her head down, embarrassed by how she had behaved with her.
"And after that, you assault the Elder of the Python clan?" Chuckles, "Cassie, you've gotten a bit wild since we last saw each other." Melody takes another pot containing white paint and proceeds to spread it over Cassandra´s lips.
Cassandra couldn't help but think that she had lost her temper since her arrival. All those physical changes have done something to her. She has gone out of control, just a "bit."
Ahura's servants seemed to have finished off with her tail and, one by one, they were leaving the room. Alix stood in the doorway for a second, staring at the new champion with a look in her eyes that announced doom and damnation. After that, she leaves, closing the door behind her. The two friends are now alone on the hut designed to the visits of the champion of the island.
"What about you?" Cassandra was curious about Melody´s tale. "How did you end up as a guest of the snake-tailed tribe of women?”
"How did I end up here?" Melody removes her fingers from the skin of the bedridden naga, and returns the bowl to the table where she had put another half dozen bowls full of paint. "Well, after your disappearance during the storm, i tried to found you so, I steered the ship in the direction in which you were last seen. After three hours of fruitless searching, i spotted the island. While sailing towards its shores, I found the remains of a life jacket with your ship's name engraved on it. I could not contact anyone using the radio, so i found a cove and took a boat to the beach.”
"Was then when you found the nagas?" You could have imagined the look of happiness on Mel´s face when she found the snake women.
"More or less ...” a strange smile crossed her features revealing her fangs. “When I entered the woods I followed some strange noises of fighting and I came face to face with a strange scene: A woman with the body of a horse trampling a girl on the ground."
"It has to be quite a shock to find something that belonged on a fairy book."
"Yes, well ... the centauress was more shocked when i hit her with a rock in her stupid face.” Chuckles. “As you can imagine, that got her fuming.”
At her friend's actions, the golden naga could only respond with a laugh. Cassandra had really missed her dear friend.
"Enraging a woman whose horse body must weigh at least 400 kilograms is not exactly one of your best moments."
She responds by scratching her forehead.
"Yeah, if that sounds bad to you, you should try to leave one of those things behind. There were no obstacles in the forest that she seemed unable to pass over."
"How did you escape?"
"It was thanks to Camilla." Camilla? Maybe she was a member of the Naga Tribe, the golden naga thinks. “She is the reason for what I’m here, telling you this story. She and Ava, the girl who was being attacked, had gone on a reconnaissance mission to the Temple of the Fountain. As they returned, they were separated. Camilla could only find her companion when she heard the sounds of the fight between Ava and the centaurette. She climbed up the trunk of a tree and took position in front of the clearing where Ava and her attacker were standing. She was prepared to jump on top of the centauress when I made my pathetic attack. During the brief chase that took place, Camilla was following us, sliding through the trees until I had no place to escape. When she saw that there was no escape and that the centauress had its full attention on me, she leaped from the tree branches with a hiss and used her powerful tail to curl her body around the horsewoman's back.”
Melody had her eyes open and gestured a lot with her hands as she recalled the experience. It was clear to the amazon that she had been through a lot during her brief stay on the island. Cassandra had to overcome her own trials, but at least she had her magic sword and the Amazonian strength on her side. Melody only had her fragile human nature to face a mythological beast with a weight and strength greater than her own and that was capable of crossing great distances in a short time.
Whoever Camilla was, I´m glad that she came to your aid. She Thought.
"You should have seen them: a naga with tanned skin and a scaly black tail, using her nails to maintain the grip of her upper body on the hairy back of that muscular centauress, with that black tail pressing hard on the equine body. The warrior could only kick, uselessly, in a desperate attempt to shake her off. The fight ended when Camilla used her fangs on the warrior's neck. "Her gaze turned hard after remembering that part and her voice trembled." That´s basically a death sentence."
"A death sentence?" Cassandra had been spellbound by that brief but incredible adventure that her friend was telling you about, but now, she was interested in the naga´s attributes.
"These," Melody opened her mouth briefly exposing her snake fangs. “Are not just for showing. Like snakes, our race contains a gland inside our bodies that produces powerful toxins that help us defend ourselves from other tribes.”
"Are they lethal?"
"Depends on the toxin you are using." She began to enumerate each one while he remained immobile on her coiled tail. "Nagas can segregate up to three different types of toxins: The first serves to paralyze other creatures, leaving the victim in a state of torpor for a couple of hours; that was the one Camilla used with me to take me back to her people when the fight was over. The second and at the same time, more harmless, it´s used to treat infected wounds destroying possible bacteria, it is mainly used by our healers. And, the third one...”
"Let me guess, it's the one your "friend" used with the centauress."
"Imagine a mixture between the toxins of a Coral and a Taipan but 5 times faster and more potent." Cassandra did not know much about snake poisons and the effect it has on other living beings but the Amazon supposed that it was not something pleasant to see. "No matter what size you have, in a few minutes you end up dead.”
"Wow!" Cassandra didn't know how to respond to the lethality of her new species.
"Tell me about that. I didn't know if i should be scared or amazed by it. When the centauress ran out of air after the first minute, I just prayed that they never injected me with what had been put into that woman's body.”
"So, what happened next?"
"Camilla stared at me with those greenish eyes shaped like a snake, but more alive, she seemed to be deciding what to do with me. I started babbling about nonsense as the Centaurette gave her last death throes, on the ground next to me. I don't know how long I spent like this, "Knowing her, Cassandra bet that she could have been rambling forever. “Suddenly, her upper body shot in my direction and bit me on the left shoulder. I thought I was finished when I started to notice that my muscles were losing strength, but when the paralysis was the only effect of the toxin introduced into my body I was slightly relieved. Before I was unconscious, my last thought was that at least they wanted me alive and, "she added in a mischievous tone," hopefully, they wouldn't want to eat me."
"You wouldn't have been easy to digest. That I assure you." You tried to sound funny.
"At least it would have given her a real stomach ache as it went down her intestinal tract."
"What happened when you were presented to the tribe?”
"Well, Camilla and Ava had talked about my "act of bravery” before the whole tribe. When they woke me up, Ahura herself was next to my bed."
"The clan leader came to visit you?"
"Apparently she was impressed by my bravery in the face of danger and she offered to join the Python Clan and transform myself into a naga. And as a scaly geek, I couldn't help but accept her offer."
"I´m sure that it was the most difficult decision of your life." The sarcasm in Cassandra´s voice was evident.
"Well, in the end it was all worth it, and now that you've decided to join us, things will be fine."
Melody uncoiled her tail and hugged the huge Amazon, a huge, that Cassandra returned. Meanwhile, their multi-colored tails were curling between them, in an affectionate way.
"I want you to know that I am glad that you are here with me." Melody's voice was full of emotion. "And I really hope you can fix your relationship with Elizabeth.”
"Thank you, Melody. I'm also glad I found you in the middle of this mess."
"Well, do you want to see how good you look now?"
Using her new tail, the golden naga, stands up. Her muscles were still a bit stiff from all the time she spent lying on that bed, motionless, but she recovers quickly. Confidently, Cassandra, moves her new tail´s muscles and slides towards the mirror placed in the center of the room. The naga stood there, transfixed by her new looks.
"Wow!"
"Yep!" Melody was proud of her work.
“You really are bad at this, right?”
“Shut up!”
“Why did you draw a frickin´ frog in my face?”
“It's the face of a snake!”