Who’s that girl?

Margaret Bellis Manikara of Marigold had two and a half Licorn years and a half, more than six to seven years in the time of our world.

Margot was always sick and nobody could approach. After that night, she was healthy and nobody wants to approach.

Even that she looked normal now, Margot barely could be awake.

Cooca had any problem. "Margot´s is a bit dizzy and week for expending all those years in the bed. But soon she defines her attributes and makes a bit of exercise will be in perfect shape."

"Her eyes become green like the eyes of a dragon," Aracaea said distrusted.

"Like Cooca." She smiled with her crocodile eyes.

"No.," Granny Calla said. "They aren't anything like yours."

After a party that Gem and the other kids couldn´t participate in, the Cooca witches said goodbye to everybody like they were old friends or even members of the family. The own Cooca acted like she was a kind of auntie and everybody liked her.

Jolly still had some doubts. "When you pretend to take Margot to turn into a Cooca witch?"

"Margot already is the great of the Cooca witches and is going to make a queen for Cooca."

Bonina hugged her with a smile and tears in her eyes.

"There's no need to thank Cooca, Bonina paid the price." She kissed the stuffed dragon and put it at the side of the children. "Cooca take good care of Margot."

"If you aren't here I'm going to turn her into a tanzek like me." Granny Calla said in a tone of challenge.

Cooca just answered with a smile and she went away with the other witches, with the exception of one. Madam Dulcineia that was not one of the Cooca witches.

"If I could help, I don't want her to become a Cooca witch either," Sapoti said.

"What's the problem to be a Cooca witch?" Gem asked with her arms crossed.

"The Cooca witches were powerful because they fell in corruption my child," Granny said with a smile. "They look like women, but were demons that lose their humanity for power."

"Sapphire my daughter." Gem was startled, her mother only called her Sapphire when things were much serious. "You can't say to anyone what you heard here. Nobody can know that Margot has part of Cooca's soul or that she can become a Cooca witch, you understand?"

Gem nodded her head and made an x in her chest with the little finger as a promise.

Cooca went away in her carriage pulled by boi-Roomba's and all the other witches went flying away. The whole place seemed empty without their noise. Nobody could deny that the Cooca witches were lively. If that was the life they had after being taken from their parent´s wasn't a surprise that bad. Being a Cooca witch seemed to be super fun.

The next day, Bonina appeared all excited carrying Margot that was completely awake.

"She seems dozens of times better than yesterday," Sapoti said surprised. "She´s going to be improving every day."

Bonina gave a huge smile.

"She hopes so."

Margot looked at her with squeezed eyes. "Pelas barbas do profeta. Você tem um olho na testa?"

There's silence and everybody stared at her.

Margot looked at them with a thrilled expression. "O que foi? Essa mulher não se fantasia como os outros?"

"She spoke a weird tongue." Sapoti stammered. "You all heard, she spoke in a weird tongue."

"Calm down," Jolly said. "Calm down everybody. It sounded like a mumble doesn´t mean she said anything."

"I´m pretty sure she talked auntie Jolly."

"Please Sapoti. Keep that for a while we aren´t sure of anything."

"Okay," Sapoti said with a distrusted expression.

"You too Gem. Don´t talk about it."

Margot stared concerned. "Porque cês tão me olhando assim? O que cargas d'água foi que aconteceu, que todo mundo parece que viu um fantasma?"

There´s none doubt that Margot could speak. Each day she mumbled her and sounded like a fluent person.

When there are adults around she acted like a small child, however, when she thought it was alone her behavior was far away as possible from a toddler.

Gem found her super fun.

In the next days, Bonina Husband Durian appeared. Sapoti explained that there had a "convenience" marriage for political reasons after Zenon, Margot's real father disappeared in the Dark Mist.

Durian took Bonina position as head of the Marigold family because she couldn't talk. But granny Calla still was the one who commanded the family.

That was too confusing to Gem at the time.

After he went away with some other relatives that make a quick visit everything seemed to went back to normal and Gem played with Margot under Sapoti supervision.

"Ei doçura. Eu tou que tou morrendo de sede aqui." Margot pointed at her mouth.

"Are you hungry again?" Sapoti said distrusted.

"She wants something to drink."

"I don´t how you understand her." Sapoti went to the kitchen swinging her head and found Auntie Arum Lily making candy with her grandsons Iron tortoise and Daisy.

"You left Margot alone with Gem?" Daisy scolded her.

"What she´s going to do? Eat Gem?"

"Who knows?" Iron tortoise answered.

"I just come to get something to drink. Gem seems to understand Margot more and more each day."

"That thing about Margaret talking again?" Auntie Lily raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't saw Granny," Daisy said. "When there's an adult close she acts like a boob, but soon is alone with us she babbling like crazy in a weir language."

"I can´t get close to her." Auntie laugh. "She´s terrified of me."

"She´s terrified of everybody in their venna form." Iron tortoise said. "Another day Miss Rhodochrosite went to pick her and she started to scream; Socoho lobeesome!" He waved his hands showing what happened.

"But she loves people in their primus form. She wants to hug everybody." Sapoti says.

"You guys think if she didn´t know that people change and she didn't recognize us in venna form?"

"She called us satyrs," Daisy complained. "You know what that means granny?"

"Satyrs mean us: The tromok, in dragon tongue of course." Auntie Lily pointed at all of them with her big wooden spoon. "All the nagual that were also called therianthropes by the wizards, linked to the bovine animal field that can shape our forms to horned magic beasts."

"Dragon tongue?" The kids became excited. "Auntie knows how to speak the dragon tongue?"

"No! But we learn a thing or two, living the whole life closer to a floating mountain were lives a dragon god." She made a reverence to the window of the kitchen where they could see the floating mountain on the horizon.

"Cooca called Auntie Lily Minotaur." Sapoti reminded. "That´s also a dragon tongue?"

Auntie looked up for a moment. "I believe it is."

"It means that Margot knows how to speak to dragons?" Daisy was frightened.

"That's not Margot. It is something EVIL that Bonina brought when she broke the rules of nature." Auntie Aracaea entered the kitchen.

"It´s Ironic to hear you say that auntie Aracaea." Daisy gave a smile.

"Why?" Auntie Arum Lily asked curiously.

"Auntie Aracaea is Margot's favorite," Sapoti answered. "She always cheerfully when seeing her."

"Humpf!" Aracaea wasn't amused and opened a drawer with her mind to look for something.

"That´s another thing." Iron tortoise pointed. "Margot become excited like crazy when she sees someone using magic."

"Principally auntie Aracaea." Daisy said.

"That´s not really Margot," Aracaea said angrily. "Probably she will grow up to become a new tyrant dark lord that will try to take over the whole Empire."

"The new dark lord? We should do something to stop it." Daisy asked.

"We never should mess with such a thing my little. Bonina broke the laws of nature and now will pay the price for letting her do that."

"Is so wrong to want to save her own daughter?" Sapoti asked with revolt.

"Yes!" Auntie Arum Lily said sadly. "I had six children who died to have the four I have today. You have two dead siblings and your own mother died for you to be born." Auntie Lily said with guilty. "I felt sorry for Bonina, but there is an equivalent change in the world."

"Equivalent change?" Daisy asked.

Arum Lily pointed to the sugar pot and Sapoti gave it to her.

"One dies so the other could eat. Is the yanantin law that rules the cosmos and everything is made upon, not even the gods can oppose it."

"That sounds fair to me Granny." Iron Tortoise tried to put a finger in the cauldron with candy but auntie stop him.

"The great balance of the cosmos is too big for us mere mortals to understand my child. One day, maybe one of you will become wise and understands the yanantin, the balance of the world." With care auntie, Arum Lily gently stroked her head.

"We really shouldn't call the church of the burning witch to do something?" Daisy asked.

"If the church of the burning witch knows they can burn the whole manor." Auntie put a finger in her lips looking at the sides in a signal to make it secret. "Bonina and those Cooca Witches who performed the ritual would all be burned on stakes."

"Why bother?" Daisy mumbled with a frowned face and crossed arms. "I´m sad for cousin Bonina, but those bitches are disgraced demons, they just look like women, but they aren't real people."

"Language!" Auntie Arum Lily treated to hit her with the spoon. "We don't use that kind of language in this house. We Marigold can be poor, but we still nobles. Act like one."

"Sorry Granny." Daisy crossed her arms frustrated. "It´s my fault that forbidden ritual blessed too."

That hit hard Sapoti. She didn´t have any guilt. Sapoti was the one who gave the green-lit to the ritual.

"It is better to not do anything, for now." Auntie Arum Lily sighed and returned to make milk candy. "We trust in the yanantin and pray to the gods to take care of it."

Daisy was displeased. "We should just look away and pretend that nothing happened?"

"Both are exactly correct. When you see a baby alone in the jungle surrounded by beasts, what you do?"

"I get the baby?" Sapoti answered in doubt. "I take him out of the jungle."

"Wrong. It could be a trap. You don't think it is going to die, or even tries to save the baby. You warn the local tyrant that soon a young lad with a weird past is going to appear to cut his head with a magic sword in some years."

Iron tortoise thought seriously. "So… We don't do anything and let her take down the Empire?"

"We just pray that she will be the kind of evil lord that makes their closest subjects live in prosperity until the day the lad will appear to cut her head off."

"But if she was a terran?" Sapoti asked. "There are many tales about terrans who came from a world without magic and bring technological wonders like numbers, medicines, and musicals instruments."

"Please Sweet Thing." Auntie Aracaea sighed. "You are too old and are too smart to believe in silly fairy tales like terrans."

"So childish!" Daisy criticized. "Terrans tales were made just to explain things no one knows were come from anymore, like plumbing, flush toilets, printed press, and those weird draws that appear in the middle of crops."

"And everybody knows how fairies are a bunch of shameless liars." Auntie Arum Lily complemented. "Terrans are just another fairy invention to trick naive and gullible people; like the existence of small invisible creatures that make people sick called bacteria and germs. They just want to trick people to buy molded bread."

Daisy agreed. "I heard they started spreading rumors that homeopathy is not effective and are making potions made with mold bread called penicillin."

"Your Uncle Nicolas is always falling for those fairies." Auntie stops coking to warn them. "Fairies have dark tricks called psychology to control people's minds. Take care of them."

"And about Margot and the dragon tongue?" Daisy asked.

"Maybe we could talk with Miss Butternuts to consult Cooca." Sapoti said.

"Are you out of your mind?" Auntie Aracaea shouts with bugged eyes.

"We could call your excellence mister Prudence." Iron Tortoise. "He's a dragon priest; maybe he can speak dragon tongue."

Arum Lily and Aracaea exchanged glances.

"Now someone goes keep an eye on her. I don't like to let her alone for so long." Saying that Auntie Aracaea closed the drawer and left the chateau from the backdoor with a potato peeler floating at her side. "She´s dangerous, I feel it in my horns."