Blue Dragon

hard to tell.
    I was sitting cross-legged on the couch watching a DVD in my room when there was a tap on the door. ‘Ma’am, it’s me.’
    ‘Come on in, Ah Yat. What do you want?’
    Ah Yat opened the door and smiled at me.
    ‘Is the human girl okay?’ I said.
    ‘She is fine, ma’am,’ Ah Yat said. ‘She’s learning quickly. She has chosen the human name of Sonia, but she is trying to work out a family name. I had to explain to her that Donahoe wasn’t appropriate.’ She hesitated, obviously uncomfortable about whatever was coming next.
    ‘You want me to teach her the facts of life?’ I said.
    ‘She knows about that already, ma’am,’ Ah Yat said. She looked down, still uncomfortable.
    ‘Okay, ask me, Ah Yat. What do you want to know?’
    ‘She says that you did it to her.’
    I sighed. ‘Yes, I did.’
    Ah Yat fell to her knees in front of me. ‘Please do it for me, ma’am. Can you? I will stay with you, I swear,I will not leave your service. But I would give anything,’ she took a huge gasping breath, ‘ anything to be human.’
    ‘You’re nearly there anyway, Ah Yat, the Dark Lord said so himself.’
    ‘You could do it now , my Lady.’
    I turned off the television with the remote and turned to face her, leaning over my knees. ‘Get up, Ah Yat, I can’t talk to you like that.’
    She pulled herself up from the floor and stood twisting her hands together.
    ‘She doesn’t know the rest of what happened before I changed her,’ I said.
    Ah Yat was silent.
    ‘We were testing out an unusual type of energy that apparently only I can generate. It destroyed about half the demons I used it on. Others, it changed. It turned a humanoid into black goo, but it was still alive.’
    Ah Yat winced.
    ‘It turned a bug into a tiny Mother. And then it changed Sonia into a human. About one in ten, I think.’
    ‘The others were destroyed or changed?’ Ah Yat whispered.
    ‘Yes. Except for one, which was undamaged.’
    ‘Can I see the energy?’
    ‘It’s black, Ah Yat.’
    ‘Can I see, ma’am?’
    I held my hand out and generated a ball of black chi about the size of a tennis ball.
    Ah Yat inhaled sharply. ‘I have seen that before.’
    I reabsorbed the chi and shot to my feet. ‘Where? Who?’
    ‘It was during the Trouble Times, ma’am, just over a thousand years ago. The King had been destroyed by his Number One son. The son could produce that.’ She pointed at my hands.
    ‘But that would be the current King,’ I said.
    She bowed slightly. ‘That is correct, ma’am.’
    ‘Did his black chi produce similar results? Just random effectiveness?’
    ‘No, ma’am, it just destroyed things. It destroyed everything. It was very scary.’
    ‘And you want me to use it on you? I don’t think so.’
    ‘I have one chance in ten?’
    ‘I think so. Maybe more, maybe less. I’m not trying it out on anything else, the results are too unpredictable.’
    She fell to her knees and touched her head to the floor. ‘Please, ma’am. Ngoh kow nei . I beg you.’
    ‘If you continue to serve us as you have, how long before you attain perfection?’
    ‘Not more than twenty years, ma’am.’
    ‘You would give that up for a one in ten chance?’
    ‘I could be human now , ma’am.’
    I went to her and held out my hand. ‘Up you get, Ah Yat.’
    She took my hand and rose, then bowed slightly.
    ‘Ah Yat,’ I said, patting her shoulder, ‘as far as all of us are concerned, you’re already human. Would you like a salary? We could pay you. You could have a job, exactly like Sonia. The difference at the moment is purely academic. To us, you’re human.’
    ‘If you give me an order I am forced to obey, ma’am,’ she said softly, head bowed. ‘If I were human I would have free will.’
    ‘Ah Yat, I want you to consider something. Say you were human and were still working for us. If the Dark Lord gave you an order, would you obey him?’
    ‘Of course, ma’am,’ she replied.
    ‘Well then,’ I said, patting her hand, ‘there you go. No difference whatsoever. I won’t do this to you, Ah Yat, the risks are too high. Stay and attain perfection, and be glad for Sonia. Will it be the same for you when you get there?’
    ‘No, ma’am, it will be completely different for me, but I can’t tell you how. It is one of those things that cannot be shared with mortals, even nobility such as yourself.’
    I laughed. ‘Nobility? I think I’m about the furthest you can get from nobility and still be