Thornless Rose
Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis or the original canon characters.
Summary: Dragons are the bane of the human race. The dragons nearly killed our ancestors. They are greedy for power. They are violent and cruel and do not care about humans' well-being in the slightest…but is that really true? Rewrite of Dragon's Master.
"Dragon" – Normal Speech
'Dragon' – Normal Thoughts
Dragon – Telepathy (thoughts only)
Never a dull Moment
"I hope you don't mind in the slightest," Rose said with a smile as she stood by the door to the mansion.
"Why do you want to go into the forest anyway Rose-chan?" Ann asked the girl as she was about to finish her breakfast.
"I just want to go hiking in the mountains," Rose said once again hoping for them to get the idea that she just wanted to get out of the big mansion they were in currently.
"But aren't you scared of all the wild animals there? Like the mountain lions, the snakes, the bears, and all those sorts of things?" Eiji asked biting on his fingers at the thought of all those wild animals just waiting in the mountains for them.
"I would have thought that you would have liked to see the lions you cat-fanatic," Rose snickered causing Eiji to pout at her comeback.
"It'll only be for a little while. I just want to be by myself for a bit. I'll be fine. We are still on vacation for another week or so, and I want to go to the mountains. I'm starting to get sick of being at the beach for the last couple of days," she said with her own form of a pout with her head tilted to the side.
The others tensed up slightly before looking away from the girl. They knew that if they even took just one glance at the girl, she would get her way from the look in her eyes. 'Why does she keep doing this?' several of them thought while trying not to even take a glance at the girl.
Rose just mentally giggled as she realized that they were trying not to look at her. With Ryoma's help for the past few weeks, she had nearly perfected what the humans called a…'puppy pout'? She didn't know why they called it that, but all she cared about at the moment was that it worked out for her which it normally did.
Giggling to herself, she looked around and noticed that practically everyone in the room was facing away from her…except for one…
She saw him chuckling lightly before inclining his head at the door and raising a finger up to his mouth to signal her to be quiet as she left.
Nodding her head slightly, she mouthed a 'thank you' to the boy before opening and closing the door as quietly as she could before rushing off toward the mountains. "I have to remind myself to thank Fuji-senpai later," she said to herself as she continued running up to the mountain sides.
"Hey, where did Rose-chan go?" Gakuto asked looking around the room. He just noticed along with everyone else that Rose was now gone from the room completely.
"She went to the mountains," Fuji replied with a smile on his face.
"What?" Kamio said with wide eyes. "And you let her?"
"She was going to go anyway whether we said 'yes' or 'no'," Fuji reasoned. He knew her personality a bit better now, and when she wanted something, she was going to get it…
"Figures," Ryoma commented while leaning back in his chair.
"You aren't going to do anything?" Tachibana questioned staring at the boy.
"If she wants something, she'll get it. If she wants to be left alone, I can follow just this once."
"You mean you wouldn't follow her wish to be alone any other time?" Oshitari questioned this time noticing his last sentence.
"If she was injured, I would be following her, but now she is fine from her injuries yesterday thanks to the storm disappearing. Her magic is up and running and her wounds are healing so there is not much to worry about," he answered calmly. Opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling, he added, "It's not like she can't defend herself anyway. She's got her hybrid transformation pretty well now thanks to our fight…well…the speed down anyway."
"Shouldn't you be worried then?"
"Nah, she'll be fine. She has her fans too so it won't be a problem," he replied back calmly before closing his eyes to relax.
"So what do we do until she gets back?" Oishi questioned.
Ryoma smirked before saying, "I have one idea but it will probably take the whole day to prepare."
"And that would be?" Atobe drawled out the question curious as to what the boy was planning.
Ryoma's smirk grew wider before he explained to them what was going on.
When they finally understood what he was talking about, they smiled to each other excited before starting to prepare for the next day. It was going to be a fun day tomorrow, and they all knew it.
Looking out over the top of the mountain, Rose noticed that it had been an hour or two since she had left. Taking a deep breath of fresh mountain air, she commented, "So glad that I climbed mountains when I was a tiny dragon." Looking out toward the mansion, she noticed that most of the regulars were outside doing something. What they were doing was her question as she couldn't see them all too clearly from her position.
"Hmm," she said placing her chin in her hand. "I wonder what they would all do if I just made it snow on them right about now. Especially considering that this is a beach which is normally supposed to be warm," she chuckled at the end. "I bet they would freak out. I would love to see that," she commented to herself before nodding her head slightly.
"I wonder whether this will work," she said before taking a deep breath. "Here goes nothing," she whispered before she said, "Transform into the winged horse of the legends of heaven. Hide those wings from the rest of the world and show the reality within the legend."
A gust of wind blew around her before shining a bright white and then shattering.
Taking a look at herself, she gasped in surprise before saying, "That worked better than I hoped it would…I wonder what Ryoma will say to this!"
With a happy thought in her mind, she ran down the mountainside back to the base of the mountain and stopped. Taking another deep breath, she opened her mouth and blew a mist up into the air right up into the sky. "My work is now done," she said happily with a smile on her face as she noticed snow clouds beginning to form in the sky right over the beach area where the others were. "Now let's go see how they react!" she yelled happily before rushing over to the area and hiding in the bushes to see.
"It's snowing! It's snowing!" Eiji yelled as he jumped around trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.
The others were surprised at the sudden snow…especially considering it was a beach.
"The forecast didn't mention any abnormal snowing," Tezuka commented staring at the snow clouds that seemed to form out of nowhere.
Before anyone could question the weather any further, a whinny was heard from the bushes.
Turning toward the source of the whinny, they turned to see a white horse with brown patches and a light brown mane and tail. The horse was about fifteen hands tall which was about five feet high with its mane reaching to its chest, the eyes a light blue in color.
The horse slowly walked up to them and watched as they slowly put their hands in front of her eyes to avoid startling her before they moved to pet her neck and run their hands through her mane.
"She's friendly," Eiji said happily as the horse didn't back up and even walked over to a few of the regulars and nudged them in the back.
"Very friendly considering how she is nudging practically everyone," Ryoma said bluntly observing the horse walk around and nudge everyone in the back at least once.
What happened next scared everyone because the horse had just stepped back a few steps before charging right at Kirihara.
"Kirihara!" several of the Rikkaidai players yelled as the horse hit its head into his back sending him flying.
"Never mind, that horse is violent!" Eiji yelled before running out of the way of the charging horse.
"Kirihara!" Jackal yelled seeing the boy flailing in the air as he started to fall.
Before anyone could even move from their spots, they saw the horse turn quickly before jumping into the air right below him and catching him on its back before he hit the ground.
Kirihara could only cling onto the horse's mane in fear as he had never been through that before. Getting knocked into the air by a horse and then getting caught by the horse was pretty scary now that I think about it…
Kirihara, along with several others, was just happy that the horse had caught him in time before he hit the ground and risked an injury to something. Loosening his grip on the horse's mane, he sat up on the horse before lightly kicking its side to get it to trot.
"It seems tame too," Oshitari commented as he stared at the now trotting horse as it went around the group in a large circle.
"It is strange how that horse appeared soon after the snow appeared," Sanada commented as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"That's a good point," Inui commented pulling out his notebook and taking a few notes on the horse.
"Something about that horse seems familiar though," Atobe commented with his chin in his hand. "There should be no horses around here, so why is there one here of all places?"
"She is also way too friendly to be a wild horse," Niou commented as he stared at the horse with a calm stare.
"Nya, who cares? We got a new friend now, ain't that right?" Eiji asked walking over to the horse and petting it on the neck.
"That's a mare now that I look at it," Ryoma commented as he stared at the horse one more time. "Yup, it's a mare," he concluded with a nod of his head.
For the rest of the day, they decided to take the mare around the beach as they were a little bored without Rose there with them. Usually the girl would have a few ideas or two to spout out for them to use to not let themselves get bored.
At the end of the day, the others had created a small fire outside on the beach shore away from the waves and sat around it.
"Where do you think Rose could be?" Kirihara questioned after noticing that the girl had not been seen anyway ever since breakfast that morning when she was able to sneak away to the mountains.
"She's probably still fine," Ryoma said before getting another marshmallow onto a stick and setting it near the fire to cook.
"But seriously, she's been gone the entire day. You are not at all worried about your own partner?" Kirihara asked right back becoming a little mad that Ryoma wasn't even a little bit worried from what he could tell.
The horse whinnied before getting up onto its legs and trotting around a bit as if searching around for something before trotting back past the group to the other side.
"Is something wrong with her?" Eiji asked as he noticed her do the same thing in each direction.
"I don't know whether something is wrong with her or not. I'm not the horse's owner after all," Ryoma said glancing over at the horse as it finally finished what it was doing and trotted back to them before stopping right behind someone.
The mare did something surprising as it suddenly reared up on her two hind legs and suddenly yelled, "Boo!"
"Ah!" several of the regulars screamed before falling onto the sand and backing away from the horse.
They could hear the horse laughing as it leaned forward and then landed onto all four of her legs before running around them all.
"Wait a minute…that laughter sounds familiar," Yukimura said after listening to the mare laugh a little more. "Rose?" he questioned getting odd looks from the people around him.
The mare suddenly jumped right into the air and looked to crash right into Yukimura scaring everyone in the group except for Yukimura for some odd reason.
Before everyone's eyes, they saw the horse's figure get surrounded by gusts of wind before her figure shattered to reveal a girl who pounced on Yukimura for a hug while yelling, "Bingo Yukimura-senpai!"
"Rose!" several others yelled seeing the girl hug Yukimura around the shoulders. "But! How? When? Where? What? Why? What the heck just happened?" everyone yelled in fragments still in shock at what they just saw.
Rose giggled at them before looking toward Ryoma and seeing him shake his head slightly.
"No wonder you seemed so familiar," he said walking up to her and ruffling her hair lightly. "I forgot that you have been practicing on turning into other animals of legend. I see that you have worked on the winged horse of legend haven't you?"
"Yup! The Pegasus transformation is a success Ryo," she said happily before adding, "and so does the cloaking of the wings!"
Turning to the others in the group, she smiled at them before saying, "You should have seen your faces everyone. You guys looked hilarious. I want to scare you guys again sometime," she finished before starting to laugh as she noticed the small red on their faces.
The regulars looked down in embarrassment at being surprised, shocked, and scared so easily. Taking notice of another chuckle, they looked up to see that Ryoma was laughing even though he was one of the ones that were scared earlier when the horse jumped at Yukimura.
As they looked at Rose and Ryoma laugh at what had happened, they all smiled, even if it was small, and started laughing or chuckling as well.
"With Rose around, it is never a boring moment," Yukimura commented with a small shake of his head.