Full Summary: The land has grown old and forgetful, allowing for ancient evil to spread its roots far and wide, deep within the earth and sprouting up when one least expects it. A sole Dragon flies the skies and all eyes seem to be upon him and his rider. To what lengths will evil go to get them under its control?
Part One: All Jane ever wanted was to be respected. To have her wish to be a Lady Knight honoured and not laughed at. But after her first great quest, she still does not have the respect that she desires from other Knights and Squires, who scorn both her and Dragon. Jane thinks that no one outside her group of friends and her mentor will ever treat her like the Knight she desires to be, that is until she meets the mysterious and beautiful Lady Regina out in the wilderness of the land. But there is something strange about this beautiful and mysterious woman, though only the court jester seems to feel it.
Danger is creeping slowly towards Kippernia Castle and by the time anyone notices it, it may be just too late.
Rating: Mainly T, suitable for 13+ but there will be violence and minor suggestion of adult themes (though it'll be miniscule). Part 2 is when the rating will probably go up, though maybe not, I still have to write Part 2 up, I'm only just finishing Part 1, but there will be more violence, like fighting and so on in Part 2.
Author's Note: Hello there, whoever is reading this, thank you for deciding to, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I'm enjoying writing it. This is really my first ever go at writing a purely fantasy fanfiction. Usually there's some sci-fi thrown into my fics and so on. This one, not so much, purely fantasy and medieval fantasy at that. Oh and any of you who are reading this have also be reading my Hunger Games fanfic and wondering where the hell I've been, I've been here 'hangs head'.
This fic was originally my go-to-fanfic when I was having writers block with all my other fanfics I was writing (because this is so different from all my others, I couldn't possibly get them confused and this was original meant to help calm my brain when I was stressed out with some writing that no one is ever going to read which definitely took the stress out of writing this), so I'd write a bit here and write a bit there and then all of a sudden I just switched all my attention on to this fanfic and it is now over 97 pages long and up to twenty chapters 'hangs head' and I'm a few chapters away from writing Part 2.
This fanfic was particularly inspired (or at least it got off the ground) when I saw Snow White and the Huntsman. I thought it was a cool movie and for some reason the fueled the desire that I had for a while to write a Jane and the Dragon fanfic, so there are some elements from it that are in here but with my own twist to them, so yeah.
Anyway, I'll shut up so that you can read and hopefully if you like it (or don't like, no flames though) you can give me a review.
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own Jane and the Dragon, book or show, they are own respectively by Martin Baynton, Weta Productions and Nelvana
PART I
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
- Ambrose Redmoon
Chapter I
Jane was not pleased with being left behind, minding the horses and being stuck with Gunther and the other squires from the neighbouring kingdoms. Why couldn't she have gone along with the Knights? She would not have gotten in their way and she and Dragon might even have been helpful to them.
Speaking of Dragon…
She glanced over to where her huge scaled friend was crouching nearby, far enough away so that he would not scare the horses any more than he already had with his mere presence.
She felt her worry for her great, green friend rise another notch.
She had never seen him so wound up before. All his great muscles were tense; his mighty wings half spread as if he was only moments away from taking off, his usually calm amber gold eyes were almost red with their intensity.
"Dragon?" she says, but he makes no response, simply continues looking in the direction that they were all facing, all their ears pricked for any signs that their masters are returning to the camp.
"They've been too long." She hears a squire whisper somewhere nearby.
"Do you think we should go after them?"
"No," she says loudly, forcing her voice to rise above the voices of the other squires "They told us to stay where we are, to mind the horses. If we go after them then we are deliberately going against a direct order."
"But they could be in trouble." A tall, dark haired squire hissed back at her.
"They're not." She says with the calmness and authority that she doesn't feel but has always admired in her Master Knight, Sir Theodore.
"Oh and how would you know?" Sneered several of the squires and Jane immediately felt her temper rise.
"Because if they were in trouble, Dragon would let us know. Wouldn't you?" she asks her over-size newt.
He grunted and she feels more worry eat at her. Why won't he answer any of her questions?
"And we're supposed to trust an over-sized, flying lizard." The tall, dark haired squire snorts sceptically.
"You forgot the fire-breathing part, short-life." Dragon replied cheerily causing several of the squires, much to Jane's delight, to squeal in surprise and jump even further away from her scaled friend.
"They're not in trouble, at least none that I can hear." He says as he lowered his head to Jane's eye level, so that she can scratch his eye ridge.
"Then what is wrong?" she whispered, "You've been tense since we got here."
"I don't know to be completely honest. I just smell..."
"Smell what?"
"I don't know, but nothing that I have ever smelt before, and... I don't like it. It smells all wrong and strange…" he pauses before shaking his great green head, "too many words to describe it with and too few to describe it accurately."
"Oh, informative."
"Shut it, Gunther." Jane sighs glancing behind her at her fellow squire.
He looked to be as uncomfortable as she felt with being left alone with all the new and strange squires without their master being nearby. He, like her was worried about Sir Theodore, but the way his shoulders were hunched almost to his ears, his discomfort with being in this strange new group overruled his fear for their mentor Knight.
"Well, he could at least have given us a bit more than that, at least than we'd know what our masters are up against."
"They're not in trouble which is the main thing." Jane mumbled, looking once more in the direction that the knights had gone in.
There were strange occurrence happening throughout the land, villages being found destroyed and their inhabitants missing. Or rather the women and girls were found to be missing; the men and boys of the villages were found dead.
Jane shuddered as she remembered passing through such a village and discovering the body of a young man with pale straw-coloured hair and wearing a blue tunic. She had almost screamed out his name, truly thinking it was him, forgetting that he was safely back at Kippernia Castle and spent a horrifying moment truly believing that he was gone from the world.
She viciously shook the still heart-stopping image from her head and went back to searching the surrounding woods for any sign on movement, friend or foe.
"I can hear them." Dragon spoke suddenly and every squire jumped to attention as moments later several knights start to come into view within the forest of dark trees.
Jane was relieved to see that none of them appeared to be injured but it did not stop her from feeling a little fearful when she looked to her mentor Knight's face.
Sir Theodore's face was drawn and pensive as he came to stand by her.
"Was it like the rest?" She asks softly.
The Sir Knight sighed heavily before nodding his proud head.
"Yes, I fear it was."
"Who is doing this?" She asked but her master can give her no answer, for he and none of the other knights standing in the clearing knew.
So far no villager seemed to have been able to escape the villages that had been attacked, none had been able to tell their tale, and so the villains had been able to continue roaming the land freely and without justice being brought to them.
Oh, Jane thought as she mounted her steed, but it would. When they found the villains who had committed these terrible crimes, she promised that they would receive the justice that they wholeheartedly deserve.
Though by night fall, Jane had all but forgotten her desire for revenge when she found herself close to falling off her horse several times from weariness.
They had been riding for several hours straight in the direction of the kingdom of Kippernium and had been working their poor beast hard to do so.
She vaguely heard a halt being called somewhere near the front of their company, but her brain was far too tired to process the order and so did not reign in her poor beast.
"Jane!" She felt her poor mount being tugged to a sudden halt, almost throwing her off in the process.
She blinked wearily down at the figure who had forced her poor horse to stop.
"Gunther?"
"Yes, Dunderhead." She is surprised to feel his hands taking hold of her waist and gently pulling her from her horse's back.
"Come on," he says harshly as he sets her upon solid earth, "stand up straight and look lively. You don't want those lot to think you're weak, do you?"
"No." she sighs and pushes her shoulders back and holds her head high when really all she wanted was to find a comfy spot of grass and sleep.
"Where's Dragon?" She asks as they tied their horses' reigns to a large, fallen log so that they would not wander off during the night.
"The big lizard's flying around still, don't know why." Gunther informs her with a shrug of his shoulders. "Come on, we have to help with setting up camp." He tugs on her arm and pulls her to where the rest of the squires were setting up a large campfire while the Knights stood off to the side, talking in low, serious voices.
"Wonder what they're talking about?" Gunther muttered to her as they set up a tent together.
Since joining up with the other knights and their squires a few months ago, Jane and Gunther had learnt to put aside some of their rivalry so as to help each other with certain task as the other squires appeared to think they were not worthy of their time and usually forced the two of them to do the worst of the chores that were assigned by the Knights.
Another reason for their new comradeship was protection. Protection from the other squires, who seemed to think it was funny to pull extremely unfunny pranks upon the two of them. Jane had lost track of how many times she's had had to battle with Dragon to not flame them for all the times they had prank her. She still had the bruises from their last "prank".
"Hmmm, probably about the villages and who is behind it." Jane mumbled back through a yawn.
"Wish they'd look over here and see that we're doing all the work while those slugs are simply lazy about by the fire." Gunther hissed as they finished setting up the tent and moved on to the next. Jane was simply too tired to make any replying comment, simply focusing on the task at hand, so that, hopefully, she will be allowed to collapse into sleep the moment it was done.
Gunther glanced over at his fellow squire and was more than a little amazed at how well she could help set up a tent when her eyes were barely even open.
He scowled over his shoulder at the other squires, wishing that he could do something to get them to leave Jane and him alone.
Didn't they have better things to do with their time than try and make Jane and himself look bad? Grant he knew Jane got it even worse than him from the other squires. Because she was smaller than the rest of them, had less muscles than them and of course, the obvious fact that she also happen to be a girl, meant that she was bullied by the other squire far, far worse than him.
He knew that he was making things only worse for himself by sticking by her side and helping her as much as he was able to, but for some reason the idea of abandoning her didn't sit too well with him. His father would call him a fool for staying by the side of the girl squire, but he also knew that if word ever got to the green lizard, who would then be sure to tell all of Jane's friends back at the castle that he had sided with those who were bullying her, he'd have to look over his shoulder for the rest of his time in Kippernia Castle to make sure he wasn't burnt to a crisp or having dung dumped on top of him or other things of an equalling terrifying or gruesome manner happen to him.
He sighed and tugged on the almost fast asleep Jane's arm to get her to go and curl up in her bed roll and proceeded to set up the last tent by himself.
"Where's Jane?" Gunther jumped violently at sound of Dragon's voice behind him. How had he not heard the clumsy great beast land and come up behind him?
"Over there, sleeping." He says with a yawn trying to cover his embarrassment over jumping at Dragon's sudden appearance.
He watches the great lizard look in the direction that he had pointed Jane to be in, near to where the horses were grazing and far from the warmth of the fire that the squires were sitting around.
"Hmmm."
"What ever is the matter with you? You're acting very odd." Gunther asked.
"Didn't know you cared beef-brains."
Gunther scowled at the name and snapped back, "I don't! But you have been acting strange all day and I was simply curious as to know why. But now I don't care. Go away so that I can finish this." He says as he fixes up the slightly skewed tent.
"Alright then. Oh by the by, the slug-heads over by the fire are whispering about stealing your sword and hiding it." Dragon's said before walking over to where Jane is sleeping and curled up next her, his great tail moving so that it is between her and the rowdy squires.
Gunther simply sighed heavily at the news, which wasn't really news to him.
One of the more petty pranks the other squires had pulled on them was stealing their swords and hiding them, so that they then have to spend a good deal of their time hunting for them, getting them into trouble with the Knights for wasting time and for losing their blades.
He scowled more angrily over at the fire as he finished setting up the last tent, before grabbing his pack of belongings and stalked over to where Dragon and Jane were, ignoring the looks he knew were being thrown his way from the fire side as well as from the still gathered Knights, but he refused to be prank this night and he knew one of the best ways as to deter the lug-heads from trying to pull anything over him was by sleeping by the over-sized lizard.
He ate some dried jerky even though he longed to eat the freshly cooked meat that the other squires were digging into, but made no move to join them. He'd only get scraps if he went over there and he refused to give them the satisfaction of knowing that he was hungry for their food.
"Looking forward to getting back to the castle?" Dragon asked him after a moment.
Gunther looked up at him before, after a moments hesitation, handed him a stick of his jerky, which Dragon took from his hand so gently that Gunther didn't even feel the jerky leave his hand until Dragon's head was well away from him.
"Yes."
Dragon nodded.
"Yeah, we are too."
The two fell silent and soon Gunther, like Jane, was fast asleep while Dragon kept a firm eye on the mischievous squire while also keeping his keen ears open for any sound to what had been bothering all day.
Something was going to happen tonight. He could feel it in his bones.
Author's Note: So that was chapter one. Depending on the interest in this fic will decide when I update with the next chapter. I'm not really bothered, I'm going to keep on writing this fanfic either way, lots of review or none, I just won't post very regularly with chapters if there is no interest in it. I just want to get the thing out of my head before it causes it to explode.
Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed and reviews are much appreciated.