There was a lake in a quiet forest in a remote valley far from any civilization that might have disturbed the tranquility of the place, and in this quiet place the cry of a child rang out across the valley without being heard by any living soul. If one looked in the direction of the cry, it was possible to see a woman with scarlet hair, which were now terribly uncombed, and she was dressed in simple clothes, while in her arms was a baby with similarly scarlet hair. The baby too was wrapped in simple clothes that kept her warm and protected the infant from the elements of nature.

The baby was crying, which made it clear that it was healthy and full of energy, which was being emitted all around it. Anyone who saw it would immediately have a smile on their lips, because the child was unbelievably cute and its brown eyes, identical to those of its mother, were full of life and capable of enchanting anyone who looked into them. These eyes were staring into the face of her mother who was in ecstasy and could not help but have a huge smile on her lips. However, anyone who saw this smile would immediately understand that it was not the smile of a mother, it was more twisted and in the eyes of the woman one could see the gleams of madness.

The woman who stared with such eyes and had such a smile at her child was called Irene Belserion, the queen of a kingdom called Dragnof, which existed 400 years ago. However, she was betrayed by her companions and husband after she began to transform into a dragon as a side effect of using the Dragon Slayer magic. After years of torture and imprisonment, she finally transformed into a dragon to save her unborn child and spent 400 years searching for a way to transform back into a human. 

However, when she gave up after centuries of failure, she met by chance a Black Magician who easily gave her a human form, but warned her that it was only a form and he did not transform her into a human, but then Irene ignored this, too entranced by being able to see her face again. It didn't take her long to understand what Zereff was trying to tell her, as the sensations of the dragon shrunk into human form made Irene unable to taste food, sleep, and even over time just being in this form drove her mad and to the brink of insanity. The dragon's sensations were not meant for humans after all, and this overloaded her sensations so that she could no longer feel anything in normally way.

Now, in her mad desperation, Irene and her baby have found themselves here.

"Thank God...

It's a girl..."

The joy in Irene's excited voice was undeniable, and the frantic glint in her eyes only increased in strength and that gaze was predatorily directed towards her tiny daughter, who didn't know what was happening at all, continuing to cry. 

"My new body.

My new life."

Irene's voice became more excited with every word, but a hint of madness could be heard in it, possessing it more and more strongly because, what she wanted so much was now in front of her and no one would be able to take it from her. 

"If I can enchant my whole personality into this child...

I will surely bid farewell to this cursed body..."

She will finally become human again, this suffering that she has to endure every day for the last years will finally end and Irene will finally be able to be happy again. Just a few moments, just a little more and everything will be back to how it should have been from the very beginning, and what her treacherous companions have taken away from her.

"I have waited 400 years for this...

To experience this moment...

Now become my vessel."

Irene prepared a spell scroll, a spell that would free her from her cursed existence and allow her something she no longer practically remembers, a real life. A life without suffering, without pain, where she will be able to smile easily, pretend nothing, where she will be able to possess a smile of true happiness. At the same time the child finally stopped crying.

"Why are you smiling..."

But before Irene could use her spell, she looked at her daughter, who after she stopped crying, looked at her mother with an angelic smile that drove a splinter into Irene's heart and made her crazed eyes start to shake, then her body joined in. How could her child smile so happily when her own mother was about to steal her body and thus take away any future, yet her child smiles.

"Why...

I endured 400 years of torment, you know.

Don't make me hesitate."

Irene's heart began to bleed as she looked at her child's smile, from which she was unable to take her eyes off and could only burn into her mind the smile of her daughter, who was still smiling cheerfully. Irene was not able to understand what was happening in front of her, no, she did not want to understand what was happening in front of her. She had to endure 400 years as a monster, she had suffered all these years. She deserves to be happy, so why is this child smiling, after all she has never suffered from anything.

"Don't smile!"

Irene couldn't take it all anymore, she didn't understand anything anymore, the only thing she knew that would solve everything was to enchant herself into the daughter she loved, and she did just that by activating her spell, causing the scarlet mana to illuminate the entire valley with its radiance. However, even though Irene's spell was in action, the little child who understands nothing and should be scared now, crying with fear, feeling the power of Irene's power, still smiled. Irene's eyes stared into those of her smiling daughter, who waved her tiny hands in her direction.

"DON'T SMILE AT ME!!!"

Irene shouted casting her spell, on her child. But at the last moment, her bleeding heart overcame her madness watered by years of suffering, giving her enough strength to break the spell and not deprive her daughter of her future. However, such a spell cannot simply be broken and because Irene did not finish it at the last moment, it caused the spell to reverberate, striking Irene. Because of this, her mind was opened for a short moment, which would allow the memories of the souls who travelled to the afterlife to make an imprint in her mind.

Of course, some memories there weren't able to do anything to a woman who had lived over 400 years, but it gave her some clarity of mind, where the emotions contained in the memories calmed her down and dismissed her madness to the back of her mind, where it had gone for now. Also for now she ignored the strange memories to focus on her daughter who suddenly began to cry after seeing her mother in pain and this crying caused Irene to give her full attention to her daughter. She hugged her crying daughter which made her daughter slowly calm down and at the same time Irene had a moment to think about what she was feeling.

"This is undeniably true.

You are my child.

I have always loved you."

Irene's words were apparently able to reassure her daughter, as she began to smile again, cheerful at the sight of her mother's genuine smile. It was true when Irene thought that everything she wanted was right in front of her, but she didn't really want to enhant herself on her, at least not in her heart. Her mind might have gone into madness but it all started because she wanted to protect her child and now that she saw her smile she was no longer driven by her madness but heart.

Irene stayed like that with her daughter for some time that seemed like an eternity to her, although it did not last more than an hour and after that time Irene decided to leave her daughter in the nearest village. She was afraid of herself that her madness would eventually take control of her and that at that point her smile would no longer stop her, from doing the unforgivable. Therefore gathering her resolve Irene stood up, starting to walk slowly towards the village, which as far as Irene could remember was called Rosemary and as she travelled she tried to make her daughter smile by swaying her slightly, gently.

All the way she contemplated what she was going to do, on the one hand she wished with all her heart to stay with her daughter, to look after her, to be here for her but all the time she was fighting with her damaged feelings that were bringing her to the brink of madness again and she wanted to get rid of that, throwing her thoughts in a dangerous direction. So she decided to leave her in the church where they would take care of her daughter, where Irene was going to try again to find a way to at least get rid of her fits of madness and maybe then return to her daughter, not that she believed she would then have the right to call herself her mother by then.

However, during what seemed to be a slow march, to her it was the greatest journey of her life and on the other hand at the same time the memories she received after her spell failed were starting to come back to the forefront of her thoughts. She didn't even notice how those memories pulled her in, as she suddenly found herself in front of a church in a village where the day had not yet begun and everyone was still in deep sleep. Now even though she had already made up her mind she was unable to move her child away from her, every millimetre required all her willpower and every lack of it destroyed all her progress.

The memories belonged to an orphan, not to her, and she witnessed the pain of a child without a family, which only worsened her already weak will. However, what prevented her from rejecting her child, what gave her false hope, was that the memories she received contained knowledge of magic she had never heard of and in them she saw that a solution was possible, which gave her a tempting thought.

[Perhaps I can do it?]

That thought was like a balsam to her cracked and bleeding heart, making room in it for the hope she thought had long since vanished, where she thought it had only moved on desperation fueled by madness brought on by overloading all her senses. Now she had a chance to overcome that and have the right to be, with her daughter. She would just have to endure a little more pain but when she looked at the face of her sleeping daughter, there was no other choice and she swore to herself that she would endure a second as much as she had endured so far to be able to stay with her daughter.

"Yes we will be together, don't be afraid, mum will hold out Erza."

Irene said in a whisper to her sleeping daughter, where these words were not so much directed to her, but to the world as a mother's vow. As if answering her a warm gust lightly blew through her hair. For the first time in a long time this feeling felt pleasant to her. 

Then Irene headed for the church to look for a shelter, because in her madness, she did not care about anything to free herself from her pain and at the same time there were no needs she had to fulfil, so currently she had nothing but what she was wearing now. 

***

A few weeks passed after that fateful day and things slowly started to stabilise for Irene and her little daughter Erza. The people in the church were very friendly and Irene was able to take care of Erza without any problems. In return, she helped in the church wherever she could. However, Irene knew that she could not stay like that for long, so she decided to become independent for the sake of her daughter. 

Fortunately, Irene was able to leave Erza in the hands of a trusted woman from the church for some time to leave the village with the intention of earning some crystals in the nearest town to start a new life and be able to repay the people in the church for the help and good will they showed her. Of course she didn't have time to endure working as a mage, as she wanted to spend as much time as possible with her daughter and the rest on researching her condition, so she decided to create some magic wands that she could sell. 

As a High Enchanter, Irene was easily able to create some rather powerful wands, even though she made them out of ordinary wood, as her skill more than compensated for that disadvantage and she was able to sell them for a good price, her sharp eyesight more than telling anyone to take her seriously. She had even received a few trade offers to think about, but she wasn't about to create, something that would draw too much attention to her. Irene wasn't going to let by creating something powerful, draw attention to herself and thus negatively affect Era.

Of course, during her quick journey, there was no way around it and Irene must have encountered some thugs who wanted to rob her after she had already left the city. They had to see how many jewels she got for her magic wands and then decided to assault her, thinking that she was a craftsman type and thus had no skills for fighting. The whole time they had that typical thug face of theirs and those obscene eyes that looked at her figure, Irene just had an expression on her face that said 'No f*cks given'. 

"Annoying."

With that word, she knocked the three men down with a weak atmospheric enhancement in one go and continued on her way without even giving them a single proper look. Irene felt that the level of magic had decreased significantly in the last 400 years and although the number of mages had increased their level was less than basic, comparing it to her times. But she knew that this point of view was not the most correct one, because back then there was a time of war involving dragons and it was obvious that only strong would be able to survive there while only monsters would prosper. Well, now was not the time to remember him. It was time to hurry home.

After that she returned to Rosemary's village, repaid fruitfully the people who had helped her. Using her magic Irene enchanted the trees at the side of the village to force them to her will and thus she was able to create a house for herself and her daughter. It was big enough for two people and had a basement big enough to allow Irene to do her research. The newly found will to live allowed Irene to easily overcome her uncontrollable feelings that did not allow her to forget itself and fortunately Irene already had an idea how to deal with it.

But now she had moved to her house where she could spend more time with her daughter and forget herself for a while in order to distract herself from unnecessary thoughts. Nobody in the village minded that Irene had made a home for herself next to them because, during the few weeks she had spent in the care of the church, she had helped everybody in the village using her magic and thanks to that she had a very good reputation. Well, she didn't do it all just out of the goodness of her heart, first of all it was a way to pay back the people from the church and secondly Irene thought that such a quiet village would be good to live in.

The city was out because Irena had already given in with her goal of becoming human, now just hoping to dull her senses and the city would drive her crazy with all its noise, even as she dulled her senses, of that Irena was sure. Also the fact that she is a powerful mage will not be spread far from this village and thanks to that Irena didn't have to worry that some suspicious types came to her doorstep, after all Irena knows very well what kind of creatures people are. Here, however, Irena will be able to create an answering environment in which she will be able to take care of her daughter without any problem.

***

Five peaceful years have passed in this quiet village, where Irene has finally acclimatised to life in Rosemary's village and Erza has been cheerful all the time, as she has found a few friends of her own age, although Irene would have preferred it if she hadn't tussled so often with other children. Her first friends Simon and his younger sister Kagura, are from the Mikazuchi family. Unfortunately they lost their parents, so someone from the church helps them in the house their parents left them and also because of that some children bully them, which is where Erza comes in, defending them.

Because of this, the three of them became inseparable, often staying at Irene's house, which did not bother her in any way and she was even happy with the healthy relationship that Erza was able to create for herself. Irene herself was able to cope with a few problems related to her less than optimal condition, so now she was able to withstand the unregulated sensations without any problem and thus was able to watch Erza playing with a light heart.

Irene was able to reduce her uncontrollable feelings which before were driving her to the brink of insanity in two ways, the first was a potion which temporarily stupefies her feelings and the second way was a temporary change into a dragon to bring her feelings back to normal. She was able to modify slightly the curse cast on her by the Black Magician, to be able to change into a dragon and back on cue. Even for her, it was quite an impressive accomplishment and she had to admit that the memories she had received had helped her with that. She is sure that she could have done it without them, but it would have taken her many more years and an idea that she does not know where she would have gotten from.

"Erza I'm going out for a while. Keep having fun."

"Okay! See you Mom!"

Said Irene leaving the house getting a loud and energetic response, after which Erza went back to playing with Kagura who was just as cheerful, although not being able to keep up with Erza who had an incredible amount of energy. Irene, after leaving the house, took a quick step towards the forest where she then threw herself into a run, travelling to the valley where she had once been and there transformed herself into a dragon to then take to the air where she made herself harder to detect with the help of magic. For the past few years she has travelled to a town that was days away from Rosemary's village, where she made a deal with a certain craftsman.

His name was Mura and he forged all sorts of wands and magical items for Irene, from rare materials and letting Irene enhance them, whose enhancements were better than anything he was able to do himself. What's interesting is that he wasn't even jealous, but more determined to beat Irene by creating items better than what she would reinforce and Irene was able to notice that from the beginning of their acquaintance, that's why she choose him for a partnership. She had a deal with him that meant she didn't have to worry about too much attention directed at her and at the same time earn more than enough to take care of the house.

Irene was able to arrange everything in such a way that her daughter Erza could have a peaceful life and there was only one problem left for Irene, which kept occupying her mind. This problem had red hair and kept repeating one and the same thing.

"Mummy teach me magic."