Instant Pot Cheesecake

Chapter 32: Dragon Nemesis  

Vlad was back to the drawing board. He could acknowledge, once he calmed down, that his own lack of planning had been his downfall at the council meeting. When he riled himself back up, however, it was all Svend’s fault. Svend and his horrible wife had ruined all his hard work. It was his calling to bring back the reign of dragons, to reinstate them to their prestigious status as the dominant species. He had no idea he was surrounded by such feeble minded weaklings on the council. Swayed by treats? What utter nonsense.Vlad and Mirabel had ruined his best chance of gathering allies among the council with their sneaky bribes. Moreover, they were terrible people/dragons and he hated them. So obviously, his next plan of action was to destroy them, as was his due as their self-proclaimed nemesis. 

Vlad was grudgingly impressed by Svend’s trident defense at the council but, since he was obviously superior, he didn’t need no stinkin’ third prong, he would defeat those imbeciles with two prongs. He was Vlad Dracula, the purest bred dragon of this generation, nay of this century. Maybe he would use three prongs, just to show them how a trident defense should look. Tridents shouldn’t be used to defend, they should be used to attack! His trident attack would end with the most glorious third prong ever: Gloat. Prong one: reconnaissance. He spent the next two weeks watching their movements. He especially took notice of when Mirabel was alone as she would be the focus of his revenge, she was the dirty blooded mix afterall. Prong two: attack: demonstrate his innate superiority, and prepare for gloating. 

Mirabel was lost in thought, walking the pleasant mile home from her new bakery when she noticed the unnatural quiet of the forest. This was not a restful silence, this was a silence of fear. Mirabel’s senses had improved due to her transformation, but she was still getting used to processing the increased flow of information. She stopped walking in an attempt to pinpoint the source of her unease. She held her breath with the forest as she slowly turned in a circle. She heard the soft hiss of a dragon that had spotted its prey. She felt the back-draft of the massive wings of a dragon landing in her clearing and looked up just in time to see the massive black jaws and ruby red wings snapping down toward her. She flinched down into the fetal position, knowing this was the end. Vlad had come for her and she had no training whatsoever in dragon fighting. 

But the end didn’t come. She lived another breath and then two and then three before she was finally able to uncurl herself and look up to see not one dragon in the sky, but three. Gregory and Svend were there, holding Vlad back from destroying her. They fought as she could never imagine her sweet, thoughtful Svend fighting, but he would not relent as long as she was in danger. The dragons hissed and roared, Mirabel saw only jaws snapping and claws racking before she was dodging out of the way of flame shooting toward to ground inches from where she had just been curled on the ground. Mirabel finally remembered that her dragon form was significantly more resilient to dragon flame and such and transformed with the intent to stay out of the way. 

Vlad knew things weren’t going his way. Maybe he should have had more prongs. This was supposed to be a quick grab and kill, Svend and Gregory were supposed to be at the forge till evening! But he wasn’t going to back down now, he would just have to kill them all. 

Svend had never been more scared and furious in his life. He and Gregory had been keeping a close eye on Vlad, of course. They knew he was angry and humiliated and it was only a matter of time before he came after one of them. But seeing that giant black jaw about to close down on his beloved Mirabel forever, that was too much. He would be haunted by that image for as long as he lived, and if he and Gregory couldn’t take care of Vlad right now, that might not be a very long time. 

Gregory hated fighting dragons. They knew all the same tricks and had almost all the same weaknesses. Dragons didn’t fight among themselves often, they were too aware of their dwindling numbers to waste life with such immature frivolities. But Gregory knew, if they didn’t stop Vlad now, none of them would ever be safe again. So he pushed aside all feelings of regret and focused on one thing: the enemy in front of him. 

Mirabel could only stare, wide-eyed as the three dragons tumbled and roared in the sky. Even with the numerical disadvantage, Vlad was holding his own, it was hard to see which way the fight would go. Vlad was all anger and blood lust. He really had nothing left to lose, and Mirabel could tell in the way he was fighting. Finally, Gregory was able to distract Vlad from below, while Svend came down from above. With one great rip, the fight was done. Svend had ripped off his head with a final roar, Gregory pulling the body down from below to assist. It was disgustingly messy with blood spraying all over their cottage and the surrounding clearing. If Mirabel had been in her human form, she would have vomited. Repeatedly. As it were, she had to look away immediately. 

Gregory and Svend appeared frozen. They hadn’t really believed they could defeat Vlad, or rather, they couldn’t believe that he was really dead. Neither had ever killed a dragon before and it was even more gruesome than they had imagined. At long last, Gregory descended and brought the severed head over to Vlad’s body in order to burn them together. Svend also descended and slowly approached Mirabel. He wasn’t sure how she would respond to him, after seeing such a violent death brought about by his hands, er, jaws. Luckily, for Svend, Mirabel was all too aware of the danger she had just been rescued from and was overcome by gratitude, not fear or disgust. She bounded over to Svend, rubbing her neck along his, as was the dragon way to embrace. 

Gregory burned the dragon body and they all shifted back to their human form and retreated inside the cottage. The cottage itself was undamaged, but the outside had a significant amount of blood splatter. 

“We can probably paint over the blood and it will look as good as new.” Svend mused out loud, looking fondly at the first home he had ever really known. 

“I think that would only work if we painted it bright red.” Mirabel responded sadly. She was also fond of their little home. “Maybe we should burn it down now, people will have seen the flames from the fight and burning Vlad’s body. We can tell them it was a kitchen fire.” 

“You would really be willing to burn down your home to create a cover story?” Gregory was shocked, whenever his human cover story had problems he just left that village. 

“Of course. Plus it might be nice to build something with a little more space. I would love to do more baking at home, instead of needing to go to the bakery so early in the morning.” Mirabel replied with a glimmer in her eye. “With Vlad gone, we can settle here for a long time. It would be nice to stay close to my family, and the forge and the bakery are really taking off, with all the new dragon clients we got from the council meeting.” 

“Speaking of, we need to report this whole incident to the council. They won’t be happy, but they will understand that we acted in self-defense. Maybe we should bring some new treats to smooth it over.” Gregory was hoping he could get Mirabel to start experimenting with recipes because she always brought him some to try. 

“Ha! You just want free food Gregory.” Mirabel saw right through his trickery. “Lucky for you, I did just work on a new recipe. It’s a cheesecake, but I make it in the pressure cooker over the fire. It’s so much quicker, I’ll whip one up right now while you two get our things out of the cottage so we can burn it.” 

“You’re so eager to burn this place down?” Svend was a little reluctant to say goodbye to their home without so much as a fare thee well. 

“Not eager to say goodbye to our home, but eager to start our next chapter. Maybe we will need more space for more than just our bakery….” Mirabel was definitely scheming now. 

Svend was not quick to pick up on her subtle message. “What else would we need room for? Do you think we should invite some other dragons over? It’s not as if we can invite humans to stay….” 

Gregory, knowing Mirabel was referencing the possible arrival of a more permanent house guest, took this opportunity to gracefully exit the conversation by grabbing the nearest pile of important looking stuff he could find and hauling it outside. 

Svend was still so excited that Mirabel had married him, he couldn’t imagine changing their status in any way. 

“We can talk about the details later, we have tons of time, thanks to you.” Mirabel smiled, patted him on the hand and went through to their kitchen to get started on her cheesecake. Svend shook his head a little and followed Gregory’s lead in emptying out the cottage. About an hour later, the cottage was empty and the cheesecake was ready. This is the cheesecake that she made.