Matt

I still didn’t trust Aoife.

She was the best chance we had at actually making Cyrus hurt. The best chance to keep him from hurting anyone else. Even still, she was a dragon too. She was just as capable of manipulation. I know she said she could only produce fear, but I had no way of knowing if that was the truth. Besides, even if she was being honest, her control over her presence would only grow with time. That power of manipulation was an inevitability.

Of course, that only made our new routine of ‘presence training’ all the more important. When your emotions are being meddled with, it becomes all the more important to keep a clear head and think things through rationally. When you’re feeling a certain way, your brain tries to rationalize it. It tries to justify the way you’re feeling. If you can’t direct those thoughts in as productive a direction as possible, you leave yourself vulnerable, becoming little more than a puppet, ruled by your first impulses and instincts.

Knowing all of that, knowing exactly what I needed to do, made my inability to do so all the more frustrating. I was frozen, paralyzed by fear, as Aoife just stood there, smiling. This was our third session, and I’d yet to be able to move an inch when she turned her presence up. She looked uncanny to me, like some awful fae creature pretending to be human. I just knew, deep down, if I got close to her, something horrible would happen.

I knew it wasn’t real. I’d seen her before, time and time again, and I’d never felt this afraid. I knew the fear wasn’t real, but it just wouldn’t go away. She told me that all I had to do was walk up and shake her hand. If I did that, she’d turn her presence down and we’d be done for the day, but I couldn’t. What if she was lying to me? Dragons always lied! She just wanted me to trust her, she wanted me to walk to my own death willingly. She could rip my head off without breaking a sweat, why would she ever need my help? It was all just an excuse, just a ruse! It had to be! There’s no way something so awfully powerful wouldn’t be able to kill Cyrus herself! She was just playing with us! Using us for-

Her presence cut off abruptly, and I fell to the ground, panting and wheezing and waiting for my heart to stop thundering so hard. When I finally recovered enough to sit up, I looked over and saw Chelsea, drenched in sweat and swaying on her feet, standing next to Aoife. She’d done it. She managed to shake her hand.

How?

“She’s pretty incredible, don’t ya think?” The sound of heavy hoofbeats heralded Erica’s arrival, and she plopped down into the grass beside me.

“Chelsea or Aoife?” I asked, still trying to catch my breath.

“Yes.” The friendly minotaur gave me a casual wink. “The amount of force Aoife can put out is… breathtaking. She might not have Cyrus’ control, but as far as output is concerned, I’d say it’s a toss up. And yet somehow, Chelsea was still able to approach her and complete the exercise.”

“Do you think you could do it?”

“Probably, yeah, but I’ve had lots of practice.” Of course she could. Of course she had. It made sense. I was kind of hoping she could commiserate with me though. “You wanna know what I think, Matt?”

“Sure, I guess. If it’ll help me figure this out.”

“That depends on you. The truth is, I think you’re failing because you don’t trust her.”

“For good reason!”

She gave me a hard look, eyes narrowed and aggressive.

“Do you want to know what I think?” I shut up and nodded. “Then let me say it. You are allowed not to trust her. She can control people’s emotions, and as much as she hates that about herself, it’s not going to change. You were abused by someone with the exact same power. I won’t ask you to trust her. The issue,” she began, pausing to make sure I didn’t interrupt her again. “Is that that’s the first thing on your mind when you think of her. You don’t trust her, so when her presence elicits fear, you naturally assume it’s because she wants to hurt you. That becomes the path of least resistance when your mind tries to justify the emotion. Next time, I want you to try and find something else to fear. Ideally something that’ll help you shake her hand, but honestly, anything will do. It’d still be progress, yeah?”

That was easier said than done. I was afraid of plenty of things, from Cyrus to cockroaches to the deep ocean, but I had no clue how any of those things would help me here, and even if I could latch onto one of those, the fact is, I was scared of Aoife. Even without her presence affecting me, I was terrified of her. I was trying to move past all the shit Cyrus taught me, and I was doing ok at it, but Aoife was a dragon herself. She was like him, and she was something he taught me to hate. There was hardly anything I was more scared of than her.

Hours and hours of presence training probably wasn’t helping that either. I just wanted it to be over. I never wanted to do this again, but the fact is, I’d be worse than useless if I met Cyrus now. That needed to change, and until it did, the presence training would continue.

And that scared me.

“Thought of something?” Erica tossed one of her trademark bovine smirks my way as she clambered to her feet. I nodded and stood beside her. “Then let’s do this.” She raised her voice, waving for Chelsea to get clear. “Hey Lizard! One more round for me and the boy!”

Aoife just rolled her eyes, waiting for Chelsea to get some distance, before a wall of dread crashed into me like an avalanche.

ashlynflagg

A spooky Halloween to you all! I hope you've been enjoying the story as well as the fall weather. I've been busy with classes lately, but I'm committed to keep pushing to the story's conclusion. Thank you so much to everyone who's committed to the last 73 chapters, that's a hell of a long time spent on the work of a nerdy trans girl, and it means the world to me.

I'm still working away at my next long running series, but I think I'm going to take a little break once Scale has run its course. I have some shorter stories I want to put out, and those'll be a hell of a lot easier to maintain for my last two semesters of college. Aaaanyways, I hope you all have a great Halloween. May you be swept off your feet by a dashing vampire, werewolf, and/or any other gorgeous creature of the night.