'Are you alright, Lady Natalia?' a shadow hovers over her, making her look up. She smiles as his warmth washes over her, bathes her in the sunlight of his touch. 'You seems upset.'
"Helios, I am fine," she pushes his brutish head away with a palm. "Did you fetch the things I asked for?"
'I got all my Lady required,' his voice is like the calm in the middle of a storm, his mind brushing against hers with every word. Although he does not speak out loud—for how can he without the correct vocal cords to make her human noises—his voice is as melodic as any siren's or enchantress'.
He crawls in front of her, pulling one of the larger tombs towards himself as she watches. Even though they are of separate species, they are of the same mind and heart. She loves him with all her being and does not care for the casing but for the being inside.
She remembers nothing of her life before this, before him and the music of his voice and the wind rushing through her hair. He has been with her through everything. Through the growth of her body and her mind. She wears clothes he steals for the villages closest to his castle, her eyes have absorbed the dragon-tongue that pops up from the pages of his books. All of the languages of the lesser species, even her own, are in her mind and in the books she reads. But the best part is the magic. He's shown her things that she never even knew existed. Like the mythical creatures that fill the woods around the castle. How to tend to a garden filled with special plants for spells and enchantments. He is beautiful when he shows her things about his world that she never would have experienced if she still lived with her birth family.
"Do you ever miss it?" she asks as she settles back into one of the many sagging chairs around the room. "Your Haven?"
'Sometimes, Lady Natalia, it is all I can think of.' He gives her the draconic equivalent of a grin, with his canines poking out from between his lips and his beautiful ocean blue eyes sparkling with mirth. 'But I do not regret meeting you. Saving you from that dreadful place.'
She smiles and reaches around the giant book on her lap to hug him, wrapping her arms around the width of his neck. Natalia can feel his chuckle as he puts his head over her shoulder and snorts smoke, which makes her squeal. The steam makes her skirt damp, so she swats him on the nose and yells at him, but she doesn't mean it. She grabs the horns on the top of his head, one in each hand, and brings his face to hers.
"I love you, Helios," she whispers, pressing her nose to his snout.
'I love you too, my little human.'
Later that night, they curl up by the hearth, her body resting against his stomach. The rumble of his breathing and his heart against her back lulls her into a sense of security and home. This is where she belongs.
'Do you wish to continue the story, Lady Natalia?' he asks, nosing the book near her leg over to her. It's a thick book, with strange symbols on it and some of the pages are dog-eared and others are sticking out slightly.
"Sure." She smiles at him and takes the book onto her lap. He drops a self-inking quill into her lap. "What should we write about this time?"
'It is of no concern to me.' Smoke rises from his nostrils as he huffs out a breath. His ocean blue eyes find hers and they sparkle in the firelight. She can see how happy he is just to have her company and it makes her heart flutter in her chest. She doesn't care what anyone else thinks… he is her dragon and she is his princess.
"Did we add the part about meeting the water nymphs?"
'No, but it was a humorous event,' his chuckle against her back makes her whole body shake. 'Especially the part where she chased you around instead.'
"Shut up, Helios." She pushes against the side of his head in jest, because she can't push on his chest and get him to budge. "Maybe she wanted the secret to eternal youth." She looks around the vast library that lines the walls of the room. "I'm sure you have a book on it somewhere in this mess."
'There is no such thing as eternal youth, but us magikal creatures are immortal. We do not die from sickness or old age. We die honorable, in battle.'
"I hope you never die, Helios," she says with a smile, curling up against him.
'I will never leave you, Lady Natalia,' he purrs as he puts his head in her lap and closes his eyes. She shuts her own and finds herself in a dreamscape where she and her dragon can be together forever.
She hates him. Hates the man pulling on her arms, with his smartass smirk and his uppity view on the world. As if he is the best thing that is ever going to happen to her. But tears stream down her cheeks, jade eyes wide as she takes in the sight before her. The castle she's lived in since before she can remember is in ruins. Pillaged and plundered by bumbling idiots who care for nothing but themselves. All of those precious books and manuscripts, gone in minutes.
She brushes a dirt-covered hand through her knotted hair, tears staining her bedraggled face, making her look almost as insane as they think she is. But she isn't insane… they are. For taking her away from her home, from her love. His roars echo in her ears and her heart clenches.
She is lifted up against her will onto the prince's horse. The strange animal feels unfamiliar between her thighs. She is used to soft yet rough scales, a leather pad the only thing between her soft supple skin and the skin of her draconic savior. So the soft fur of the creature makes her almost cringe because it isn't right. This isn't where she is meant to be.
"Why have you done this?" she hisses when the prince hoists himself up behind her, crowding her in and making her extremely uncomfortable. She squirms, but it only makes the man smile because he thinks she's getting comfortable.
"Because your mother has requested I bring you home." She bites her lip, holding back the growl and all of the draconic curses her beloved has taught her over the years. "I saved you, Princess, therefore, I shall have my reward."
She opens her mouth to scream at him, but is cut off when she hears the painful roar of her only friend. Her heart clenches. "Stop!" she clutches the unnamed man's shirt with her nails. "Please, don't hurt him!"
"That creature," he spits the word out as if it is vile, "kidnapped you as a child and brought you here. You have been its slave for far too long, my princess."
Her whole body shakes with fear and rage as she holds back the need to punch him until he's bleeding and broken. 'No!' she want retort. 'He saved me from people like you! He brought me out of the dark and taught me things you'll never believe.' But she keeps to herself, hoping that her beloved has escaped, that his cries of pain are not for himself.
"I hate you," she snarls at him. "I hate your leader and all of the people who have brought me from this place."
He chuckles, as if something she's said is funny, but she's completely serious. "Your humor amuses me, Princess. I am looking forward to hearing more of it when we get to court."
She refuses to say anything to anyone on her way back to the palace. Even going so far as to refuse drink and good food that the cook of the campaign makes every evening. Sometimes, the prince forces her to drink and eat, so that she will be in good health when they get back to the palace.
He tells her all of the things she should be looking forward to when she gets home. Like balls and jewelry and princes vying for her hand in marriage. "But," he tells her, "as I have saved you, I will most likely become your husband… and the king in the future."
"You will never have me!" she screams at him. "You will never have my heart!"
"You cared for that beast?" he spits the question at her, as if she is disgusting for caring for the dragon.
"More than I will ever care for you!" she shouts back, her eyes red from crying but there is fire there as well.
"I saved you. Therefore, you will be mine!"
'I didn't need to be saved!'
"Why must I wear this again?" she snarls. Her hair is pinned up tightly, making it feel like her face is being stretched out.
"Because this is what a proper young lady wears, miss," the young girl by her side answers. Her name is Virginia, but she is known as Pepper throughout the castle. Natalia thinks she is beautiful, but the girl won't hear it. The princess doesn't understand why her family thinks they are above anyone else when they are all the same inside. She's read many anatomy books Helios had in his library and…
The thought of her dragon makes her face twist into a grimace. Natalia has been told that the dragon disappeared as soon as she left the vicinity, but he hasn't come to get her yet. Maybe he thinks she is happier where she is; that she actually likes court life and being a princess and having to kiss up to every noble that comes her way.
Every day before her mother can find her, she runs to the garden. There's a secret place behind the farthest wall where she can lay around and look at the sky. Sometimes, one of the numerous gardeners give her tools and different seeds to plant. Unlike her mother or any of the other court folk, she finds more favor with the servants than with the rich and powerful. A nice old gardener named Phil usually helps her tend to her garden especially when she cannot because her mother has stolen her away for some horrible fitting.
This court life makes her want to scream until she has no energy left to fight. So, she flees to the garden her only safe haven. However, she allows Pepper to bathe, feed and dress her before she runs. She does not wish for harm to come to her maid while she is out among the flowers.
She walks among the flowerbeds barefoot, using the royal fountains to clean her feet and ankles every once in a while. She sings the songs of the dragons, of the nymphs and the cloven-hoofed satyrs. She sings of magic and myth and times before the humans pushed the creatures from their land. From her friends, she's learned that the place the creatures call home is also called the Moors by the humans, who only seek the magic within it for themselves.
So lost in thought, Natalia loses track of time and finds herself surrounded by guards. They all wear the livery of her mother, the red hourglass inside a black circle. She finds Pepper's gentleman friend Anthony within the crowd of guards, but all she gets is a nod and a small smile. His eyes, however, speak of humor and mirth at finding her it this situation; she doesn't understand what he finds so funny because he finds her like this almost every single day, running from her mother.
"Child, what have you done to your beautiful dress?" her mother screeches louder than a banshee as she enters the throne room, still garbed in her soiled dress, her feet still bare and covered in mud. The queen's face is flush with anger, eyes alight with almost a hateful fire. Good, Natalia thinks, I'd rather she hate me than coddle me. Tony snickers from his place as her personal guard.
"I've done nothing, mother," she sneers, flashing her teeth in a draconic-like fashion. "Just the same as I did yesterday and the day before. I will never be what you want me to be." At her mother's scoff, she continues. "You stole me from the only place I knew. From the only being I've ever loved."
"That beast stole you from here and killed your father when he tried to retrieve you." Her mother thunders down the dais' stairs and makes her way over to stand nose to nose with the redhead. "I will not have you disrespecting his memory in this castle."
"Fine," the young woman shrugs. "Then I will do it whilst I am not inside the castle."
"You stupid, insolent child!"
"Are you needing anything else, my Lady?" Pepper asks meekly as she stands beside the mirror. On the chair beside her is the soiled purple dress and the young woman's undergarments. One thing she had secretly asked Pepper to retrieve for her was a covering of furs to wear instead to her constricting night clothes her mother ordered for her. It is the only thing that brings her some comfort and reminder of home. It has been the only thing she'd ever asked of Pepper that might put the maid's job on the line.
"No thank you, Pepper," Natalia, still cradling a smarting cheek, smiles kindly at the only human friend she's been able to speak freely to. "You are dismissed." After a moment, she speaks up again. "Actually, I wish for you not to return until midday tomorrow. You are free to spend it with your gentleman."
"Thank you, Mistress," Pepper flushes and bobs her head as she backs out of the room, a wide smile on her face.
Her dreams are of flying, of flames and smoke.
She remembers the tongues of flame licking at her arm but not touching her. She dreams of all of the times she soared higher than any human has ever gone before. She remembers the kiss of sunlight on her skin and water droplets on her face as they raced the wind spirits and the little sprites that played between the earth and the heavens.
In her dreams, she revisits the nights where she would fall into a peaceful slumber against the belly of her beloved, the sound of his heartbeat and the rumble of his snores the only lullaby she's ever needed to fine her nightmares chased away.
She dreams of the times her dragon has protected her. From the Chimera that was threatening to make her into scraps of meat for its young. From drowning when she was still young and a danger to herself with her curiosity. She remembers the times when she'd wake from nightmares to find ocean eyes staring at her, nudging at her nightmares with his mind at the same time to scare them away. She dreams of the times when she knew that nothing would dare harm her while her dragon stands guard.
But that world seems to belong to another girl now…
Slumping over in her chair beside her mother's, she waits to hear the complaints of her people. Natalia hates how much her mother dislikes the people who live within her boarders. It is as if anyone who is not rich or bearing gifts worth more than a bunch of chickens is not even worthy to see the face of the queen. It is disgusting.
"Natalia, sit up," her mother slaps her wrist enough for the girl to wince, "sit up straight. It is not proper to slouch like a peasant." Her eyelids flutter and the queen swoons. "Besides, the next to be let in is said to be a knight from another land come to pledge his allegiance to me."
Natalia snorts and slouches again, not caring that her mother will soon beat the idea out of her. "I care not for knights, or for your treatment of the people of this kingdom."
Her mother scowls at her before she turns to the front of the room with a smile. "Come in, good knight."
Stepping into the light, the knight's appearance makes Natalia gasp. He is unlike any other the other warriors that have tried to please her. His shoulders are broad and strong; his hands look worn from many hours working in the fields. He kneels in front of the dais, spreading his arms in respect. "Your Majesty," he nods to the queen without looking up. "Princess." The music of his voice tugs at Natalia's memory, but she disregards it for it is impossible.
"Welcome, knight," her mother smiles with a sort of cruel kindness in her eyes. "Please state your name and purpose for requesting an audience."
"I am Steven." His voice rumbles over Natalia, making her heart speed up. "I am here to pledge my allegiance to Her Royal Highness."
Her mother smiles again, still cruel as she regards the man in front of her. The young woman beside her can see the calculating eyes that match her own but are anything but the same. "Very well," her mother nods. "I shall add you to my personal guard."
The knight, Steven, shakes his head, a smile on his own face that confuses both mother and daughter. "I think you misunderstand me, Majesty." His chuckle tugs at the strings of Natalia's heart, making tears bead in the corners of her eyes. "I wish to pledge my alienage to Her Royal Highness, the princess."
He looks up, right at Natalia and she gasps. A tear slides down her cheek as she sees the same ocean in his eyes that she remembers dreaming about since she'd been captured. A laugh bubbles up in her chest, bursting out of her as the tears begin to flow. Her mother tries to stop her but the young redhead races down the stairs. Her vision is blurred with tears of joy as she barrels into the steady, warm presence of the knight. His chuckle rumbles under her ears and his heartbeat is strong and steady as she breathes in the scent of him. It's cleaner, but not much different than she remembers. His gaze as she looks up at him is as familiar as her own.
She'd recognize her dragon anywhere.
Just something I wrote on the bus. It's based off of a poem I found on tumblr. Please don't forget to review and check out my other stories!