Chapter Text
The mountain fortress was cold.
Damian was four years old. He was small. His bones felt heavy; the dragon parts made them different, Mama said. Made him special. But right now he just felt cold.
Mama left him in this room a long time ago. He didn't know how long. He couldn't tell time yet, not really. But it felt like forever.
The stone floor was cold under his feet. His shoes were thin. He wanted to ask for a blanket but there was nobody to ask.
Where was Mama?
She said she'd come back. She always came back.
Damian's tummy hurt. He was hungry. And he needed to go to the bathroom but he didn't know where the bathroom was and Mama said never leave the room without permission.
So he stood very still in the middle of the big stone room and waited.
The door opened.
Grandfather came in. Two people in white coats came with him. Damian knew Grandfather was important. Mama said to always be good when Grandfather was watching.
"Damian," Grandfather said. His voice was loud. It bounced off the walls.
Damian stood up straighter. "Yes, Grandfather."
"You are here because you are special. Your body is different. Better. But we need to make you even better. Do you understand?"
Damian didn't understand. But Mama said when grown-ups ask if you understand, you say yes.
"Yes, Grandfather."
"Good boy." But Grandfather didn't smile. He looked at Damian the way Damian looked at his toys; like a thing, not a person. "These doctors will check you now. Stand still."
The people in white coats came close. One of them had cold hands. They touched Damian's head, his chest. They put stickers on him, sticky things with wires. It felt weird.
"Where's Mama?" Damian asked quietly.
Nobody answered.
One doctor shined a bright light in Damian's eyes. It hurt. Damian wanted to close his eyes but he remembered— be still, be good.
"When do I go home?" Damian tried again.
"This is your home now," Grandfather said.
Damian's chest felt tight. This wasn't home. Home had Mama and his bed and his stuffed animals. This was just cold stone and strangers.
"The hybrid neural structure is remarkable," one doctor said. She was talking to Grandfather, not to Damian. Using big words Damian didn't know. "His nervous system will be highly responsive to the conditioning frequencies."
"Excellent," Grandfather said. "He will learn quickly."
"Learn what?" Damian asked.
Grandfather looked down at him. "Obedience."
Damian already knew how to be obedient. He was good. Mama said so.
"Take him to Chamber Seven," Grandfather said. "Begin tomorrow at dawn."
The doctors took Damian's hands. Their hands were cold too. Everything here was cold.
They walked through hallways made of rock. Damian's legs were tired. He wanted to ask if they could stop but he remembered, don't ask for things.
They came to a smaller room. It had weird panels on the walls that looked like the speakers in Mama's music room, but bigger. Scarier.
In the middle was a chair. A metal chair. With straps.
Damian stopped walking.
"It's okay," one doctor said. Not mean, but not nice either. "You'll sit here during your sessions. The straps keep you safe."
Damian looked at the straps. They looked like the straps that held down the bad people in Mama's training videos.
"I don't want to," Damian whispered.
"You don't have a choice," the other doctor said.
Damian's eyes got hot. He wasn't supposed to cry. Crying was for babies. But he was only four and he was cold and hungry and he needed the bathroom and Mama was gone and these people were going to strap him to a chair.
"Where's Mama?" His voice cracked. "I want Mama."
"Your mother isn't coming," the first doctor said. "This is your training now."
Something in Damian's tummy dropped. Like falling. Like the ground disappearing.
He looked at the chair again.
At the straps.
At the weird panels on the walls.
He didn't know what they were going to do to him. But his body knew something his brain didn't have words for yet.
Danger.
This was danger.
And there was no Mama to save him