When You Tell Me What Will Be

by Lamia of the Dark

AU in which Claudia and Soren catch up to Rayla and the princes before they reach the Cursed Caldera. From the moment that her father told her to choose the egg over her brother's life, Claudia knew that she would never follow that order. But when the time comes that she must make a difficult decision, it isn't Soren's life or the egg. It's Soren's life or the princes' lives.

DISCLAIMER: The Dragon Prince belongs to Wonderstorm.

It's not the way that you say it,
When you do those things to me.
It's more the way that you mean it,
When you tell me what will be.

-The Moody Blues, "Question"

~ When You Tell Me What Will Be ~

"Choose the egg."

Until the moment her father said those words, Claudia hadn't really believed he could be that evil. Oh, she'd known his morals were... skewed, to say the least. She knew that he dabbled in dark magic, but she hadn't realized how far gone he truly was until that moment.

And as soon as he said the words, she knew she would never follow them.

If she had to choose between the egg and Soren's life, she would choose to save her brother.

---

"Choose the egg."

But when they finally caught up with the princes, the egg wasn't part of the choice she needed to make. Claudia froze as Soren and the Moonshadow elf girl ran at each other with blades drawn.

The princes shouted, "Rayla, wait!"

The elf glanced back at them, distraction causing her to stumble. Soren shouldered past her, sword raised to-

"Soren, no! What are you doing?" Claudia shouted, rushing toward him.

The Moonshadow elf was faster, but she didn't attack Soren, instead throwing herself in front of the princes. Soren brought his sword down, but the elf blocked the strike with her blade.

Claudia dimly registered the sound of the princes' panicked shouting as she crashed into her brother from the side, catching him off-guard and tackling him to the ground. The elf slowly backed away from the struggling siblings, keeping herself between them and the princes. Although in her rage she did not realize it, Soren was only fighting back half-heartedly (or even less), and Claudia came out on top. Having wrested the sword from her brother's grasp, she now held it pointed down toward his face as she knelt with one knee on his chest.

"Why would you do that?" she shouted.

Soren cringed, his eyes darting, clearly panicked. "I didn't want to! Father said-"

The rest of that sentence died in Soren's throat as his sister drove the sword downward.

"You didn't have to do it just because he told you to!" she cried as she buried the point of the sword in the ground beside her brother's face.

---

"Choose the egg."

She did. But not in the way her father meant.

And now that the Dragon Prince had hatched, Claudia and her brother were going to do everything in their power to assist the princes on their quest to return him to his rightful place in Xadia.

~end~