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Princess Sirrini had known only comfort and safety within the confines of The Clockwork Forest.

Her illusions were shattered months ago when she was playing a game of Search And Surprise with friends near the outer edge of The Forest. As she darted wildly about through the scraps of underbrush, a large chain network suddenly sprang up around her and lifted her toward the heavens. She reacted to the start with laughter, and wondered which of her friends had put in all the work and planning to create such a crazy trick just for a seemingly impromptu game! What a grand surprise, she thought!

But after a few minutes, the sounds of her friend's voices drew silent, and she cried out for the first time with unfiltered panic in her inhuman voice, "Hellooo! I'm up here! I can't get down!"

Between sobs, she heard a distant cry. It was one of her friends, they must be looking for her! She smiled for a moment and realized how silly she must be for being so afraid that they would leave her.

But then the cry came again and she recognized it was full of fear as well! Squinting into the direction of the sound, she could see no one walking, where was her friend? Her eyes crept with horror up the trunk of the trees in the distance until they came to rest on the sight of a bundle of chains hanging from the branches. Then another, and yet more cries from the opposite direction! It was all too much to bear!

And then night began to fall in The Forest. Sirrini curled up tightly and waited.

She was woken with a strange fleshy face leering down at her as the bundle of chains encircling her flattened out against the earth with a jangly 'WHUMP'.

The human was wearing black pants covered in golden embroidered scrollwork and a matching vest that held back a voluminous red shirt with long baggy sleeves. It was wearing a necklace with a clockwork spider resting on a filigree heart pendant. She couldn't tell if the human was male or female or young or old from the look of it, as her experiences around biologicals was so very slight.

It smiled at her and said naught as it pushed her back down to the ground as she struggled with the chains to extricate herself. Then it pulled a glowing yellow blade from its hilt and the smile disappeared entirely into a blank look.

When the sword swiftly cut through Sirrini's neck, she felt no real pain, but simply feedback into her sense receptors as wires broke and shorted against each other.

Then complete nothingness for a relatively short amount of time. It could have been days or even just hours, it was hard for her to tell.

But soon enough, she felt something happening. A flash of lights in quick succession filled her senses and a distant hum began to be noticable. There seemed to be a warmth around her, but it was subtle.

Soon, she perceived an empty space in the nothingness, which sounds truly insane; but that is indeed what it felt like to her. When she inspected the empty space it seemed to have a shape about it, so she inserted her mind into the shape and suddenly was flooded with feeling, sights and sounds. For the first time in her young life; she also felt an immense amount of physical pain! Something was terribly wrong, she wasn't in her own body any more!

She immediately struggled to escape, lashing about wildly to release her mind from the pain and the light and the clatter of laughing human voices all around her. She reached desperately for the nothingness, but it was beyond her reasoning. She collapsed onto the floor in hopelessness.

She was roused with a kick. "Wake up, my pet!" came the horrible meaty voice beside her.

She opened her eyes and looked around. She tried to move her head but there was a chain holding her by the neck to the floor. The humans and her were all inside a wooden box of some sort, and she was surrounded by a dozen of them, but they seemed a lot smaller now. They were all dressed in different fashions and colours that meant nothing at all to her, and she wished in that moment that she had payed more attention in Biological Relations class.

Then her eyes fell upon a long metal tail flicking in the corner of the room and as she struggled to get away from what she recognized immediately as a Brass Dragon; the terrible realization came upon her that the tail was her own!

She was the Brass Dragon.