Disclaimer: I'm currently in the middle of making a bootleg DVD from my bootleg VHS copy of Dragon Slayer I taped off of either Spike or TNN some eight years ago, and wouldn't ya know it? This popped in my head. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself. So you know, this might not make much sense unless you've seen the film. P.S.S. I really wrote this because I thought the romance was both rushed and lacking. Enjoy my pumpkins!

~DS~

Were it not for the clear blue, cloudless sky above him, he would have sworn it was thunder he was hearing in the distance. To think, he still hadn't grown completely used to the sounds of the ocean waves beating against the cliffs they had settled on and made their home. It had been her idea, really, to live upon the crag; said she fell in love with the sea when she and her companions had ventured from their homeland to fetch his master.

They both knew well what followed that escapade.

It was strange to think that it had been a year since they left the scene of the foolish King Casiodorus Rex, stabbing the dead heart of an already beaten Dragon, far behind them. A year since her father told them to leave the only home she had ever known, with a man he had only know for a few weeks, to start a life together. Were they married? Good Lord no, at least not in the eyes of the church – but then, he was the apprentice to a Sorcerer, and she was the girl parading as a man since birth. The Christian church never held much weight with either of them. And to be fair, the church held the two in equally high esteem, and was really looking for another reason to doom them in the eyes of God. Well God be damned, he had his own deities for which to thank the many blessings he'd been given: he was still alive, even after the fight with the King, Tyrian, and the Dragon. He had been relatively unharmed, and still had his youth. That should make him thankful, right?

As the sun beat harder on his tanned flesh, Galen Bradwarden felt another reason to thank the powers that made him.

And there she stood, much in the same fashion she had all that time ago when she gave him the shield made from Dragon scales. Dark hair in her glorious brown eyes and the basket on her hip. Only this time, instead of unused scales in her woven container, it was their wet clothes she was preparing to hang out to dry. There was a frown tainting her lovely, lovely face, and he found himself frowning in return as he shielded his eyes from the high noon sun.

"You're thinking about it again, aren't you?" Her tone was the same one she used when politely informing him she didn't care that he loved the Princess. Which he didn't, and still doesn't. The voice he affectionately calls it the If you lie, I will smell it.

"Why would I think about that when it is my favorite time of the week?" He asked, a charming smile dancing across his boyish face. And it was his favorite time of the week, seeing as at the moment the only thing she was wearing was the crucifix her father gave her on their departure. Which was one more article than he had.

His orbs moved rakishly over her, starting with her eyes and moving down the column of her smooth neck, along her creamy breasts, over the swell of her stomach to the apex of her thighs, and finally the length of her tone legs before making the trek back up to her eyes. All terrain he knew quite intimately, and thoroughly enjoyed when it was free for him to see.

"You don't have to lie to me, Galen Bradwarden. I know well when you start thinking about it; your eyes become unfocused and you watch something only you can see." Her words shocked him, though no more than the usual bluntness that she possessed. But should he really be so astounded that she could read him that easily? No, he didn't think so.

"Do you miss it?" The question was so sudden he thought it might have surprised her as well, but one look at her stoic face and he knew she had been planning on asking it for some time.

"Miss what?" Try as he might, his false confusion couldn't fool her. She had practice at reading him for a year now.

"The power. The princess. Everything you could have had, would that day gone differently." She shifted her stance, readjusting the basket on her hip; heaving himself up, there was no hiding the self-evaluating smirk on his lips as he took her load from her.

"All the magic I had came from the amulet – I am as powerless now as I was before it ever came into my hands." He loved the playful smile that started in her eyes and moved south, towards her curling lips.

"I don't think that's entirely true. You made me give up being a boy in a world where virgin girls are sacrificed to a vicious Dragon – and that was all on your own." She laughed as they made their way down the path to the makeshift clothesline they had somehow managed to put together.

"Very true," they both shared another hearty laugh as they hung the clothes together, "And as for the Princess, I've said it before, and if you like I'll say it again. I admired her strength and even her beauty, but it was never Elspeth I wanted." She needed more validation, he could see it in her eyes as she stopped her movements to watch him. Pushing another thick strand of midnight hair behind her ear and away from her face, her chocolate orbs studied his movements as he, too, stopped his task to watch her.

"She was very brave, wasn't she?" Her voice didn't shake, much like the last time she brought up the Princess. He admired her for that, her own strength in the face of her insecurities.

"Aye, very brave indeed; yet so were you if I recall. She may have gone willingly into the Dragon's lair, but part of it I think was to prove herself, to the doubtful villagers and to me. You went in many times, always driven by your love for me." He took her right arm then, holding it in his rough and calloused hands as he looked over the three thin, jagged and white scars that cut across her otherwise tan skin. Mementos from the young of the beast that she received when she was gathering scales – the very scales used to make his shield.

Tenderly he lifted her healed wound to his lips, kissing each one softly as he kept connection with her eyes. True, the Princess Elspeth may have lost her life for her people, but Valerian was forced to live with reminder scars for him. That made her the bravest person in the world to him, gender be damned.

Finally she allowed a smile to appear, and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her senselessly – and maybe other things were she up to it – but he had one thing more to say.

"You have given me your love, and have proven it several times – to the point where I fear I shall have to demonstrate my own love for you the rest of our days. So I still got everything; I have you, both of you."

Her smiled blossomed into a full on grin as he gave in to his desires and kissed her hard. His hand dropped her arm in favor of wrapping around her waist while the other moved down between them to her expanding womb. There was little hiding the evidence that, were the Dragon still alive and the lottery still taking place, she would certainly no longer be eligible. The growth of their unborn child was quite clear under her naked skin as they embraced beneath the hot sun.

Galen felt everything suddenly shift into place when the child kicked his hand – harder than usual but as a father he could overlook that. He had been granted the opportunity to explore new and unknown territory, to create a fresh life for himself, and a wonderful woman to create it with. It didn't matter that he hadn't married her in the eyes of the church; where they settled no one knew them, and when asked if she was his wife he did not hesitate for a moment to say yes. What the villagers and town's people didn't know certainly wouldn't hurt them. Besides, in their hearts Galen and Valerian were joined in marriage, and needed no priest to tell them so.

You will soon inherit something far more valuable than gold, my dear boy, his master Ulrich had told him once, not long before he had been killed and the plot set into motion. And as he stood there, kissing his wife while caressing their child, he couldn't help but thank the old man.

And as Valerian pushed him down onto his back and stroked his growing arousal, Galen couldn't help but let out a strangled laugh before capturing her lips again.

Thank you, master, my old friend. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you tha-