For the Love of a Dragon
A long time ago, or so it would seem, there was a beautiful shining city. Dragons played in the skies above this city and magic was free. However, one day a tragedy struck and the light of the city was snuffed out. The dragons fled and magic was forced to hide.
One day a young maiden arrived in the city. Though she did not know it at the time she held the spark that would relight the fire that had once lit the city. In the city she met a dragon.
He was no ordinary dragon though. He was a human with the ferocity and bravery of a dragon. On her first day in the city the maiden saved this dragons life. As a reward she was employed at the castle where this dragon was the prince, but this maiden had secrets. She was a warlock, one born with magic, and a dragon lord.
She hid her secrets right under the dragon prince's nose for years. She was there for him through everything, the happy and the sad. Eventually the dragon prince's father died and he became the dragon king.
The maiden had long since realized something, another secret she kept hidden from him. She had done the unthinkable, she had fallen in love.
And so the dragon lord fell for the one dragon she couldn't control, the one dragon she couldn't have.
A few years later the dragon king was pressured into a courtship with a visiting lady. She was as beautiful and graceful as a fey.
But the maiden could see the darkness behind the lady's beauty. The maiden overheard a plot between the lady fey and her sister to kill the dragon king. The maiden ran as fast as she could but the plot had already been set into action.
When the maiden burst into the dragon kings room she found her love falling to the knife of the lady fey. The maiden had once feared her king's reaction to her power but she did not think twice.
She cursed the lady fey, changing her beauty to match her heart. She transformed the wicked woman into a large bird with black feathers and a horrid broken cry.
The maiden cradled her dragon king in her lap. The wound the lady fey had inflicted was killing him. But the maiden could not bear to see him die. So she ignored her fears about his reaction and the warning she had once been given by a golden dragon about overusing her powers.
She summoned up all her power and healed him, well aware of the danger that using that much power posed to her. Her eyes glowed golden with the power and her love was healed. She smiled and fell.
The stunned dragon king caught her as she fell. She had not yet died, though he thought she had. She had fallen into a magical sleep that would soon claim her life if it was not reversed.
The maiden dreamed of her king as she lay in this deathlike sleep. She dreamed that he cradled her, fearing that she had given her life that he might live.
She felt his tears falling on her face but could not wake up. She felt her life ebbing away but could do nothing to stop it. She was happy despite this. Her dragon king had not rejected her for her magic, had not hated her for her secrets.
He confessed that he loved her, had loved her for a long, and loved her for who she truly was. Her magic was wonderful, he said. She smiled as she felt the last of her life slipping away.
The dragon king cried openly over his maiden, his savior who hid in shadows. She had given her life to save him. It had taken this act of true love to open the kings heart, long locked away to true love behind a wall of loss.
He leaned down and kissed his maiden, his true love, goodbye.
Her eyes flickered open and she smiled.
He had saved her with his kiss and together they brought back the light, not only to their city and all the kings' lands but to all the world as well. Magic was free and dragons once more flew through the skies.