For the lovely Tessa
Once outside her door, the ladies walk with her to where the carriage is waiting. Jane isn't very fond of carriages but no one besides her seemed to find the idea of riding a horse or Dragon to her wedding appealing. The other ladies, including Pepper, help Jane with her overtly large dress, they grab the back and hems to keep it from getting dirty as she makes her way to ground floor and outside to the open door of the carriage that waits to swallow her into a new life. Smithy is there and he smiles at Jane.
"You look lovely." He tells her, Jane gives him a small tight-lipped smile, its about as cheerful as she thinks she can handle today.
She grabs his hand preparing to step inside when she hears Dragon his wings flapping he shouts her name as he lands in the courtyard. "Jane, Jane! Is that you? I thought I had missed you!" He crawls over and then seems taken aback, clearly noticing the way she has been done up for the big day, then bursts into absolute uproarious laughter. He laughs so hard he spins over onto his back nearly knocking over a precious statue of a past king. "What are you wearing? That is the most ridiculous short-life outfit I have ever seen!" He shouts in absolute delight and then he bursts into even more uncontrollable laughter.
Her mother looks highly affronted, like she could charcoal Dragon herself. The other ladies simply look curious and a little appalled. Except for the one that did her hair, she has a wide smirk on her face and suddenly Jane is sure that she was yanking on her hair on purpose. "Dragon..." Jane tries to calm him down, a smile tugging at her mouth despite everything. She loves her reptile more than ever in this moment knowing that he can make her smile at a moment like this. She tries to walk over to him and nearly falls over, she had forgotten that all the woman behind her had a hold of the ridiculous dress.
"Oh short-lives, so strange." Dragon manages through heavy breathing, but hes calming down and turns back over on all fours nearing Jane. Her mother is suddenly in front of her and steps in between, keeping Dragon at bay.
"Dragon," Her mother says in a curt voice. "I know you care very much for Jane, so I can assume you wouldn't want to ruin this special day for her by dirtying her dress." Jane snorts before she can stop herself, luckily for her Dragon did so at the very same time, the flames from his nostrils narrowly avoiding the same statute he almost knocked over a few moments before. Well if her mother had reservations about allowing the "dirty" dragon in front of her near her immaculately dressed daughter, that certainly didn't help.
"Why would Jane care if she was a bit dirty? She already looks ridiculous, I think a bit of soot might be an improvement. Jane?" He suddenly turns his attention away from Adeline to address her directly. "Don't you agree with me? You are not really going to go in there looking more ridiculous than Gunther are you?"
The last question catches her of guard, and her heart almost skips a beat. "What?" How could he know what Gunther looks like today. "Have you seen Gunther this morning?"
"Yes," Dragon answers her gleefully side stepping her mother, who blanches slightly, to bring his head slightly closer. "That is why I was looking for you. Gunther said I could wait for you at the big Church, but that is where everyone else is waiting for you and I wanted to be the first to tell you about my present for you!" His smile is genuine and Jane is touched, that he would think to get her something, not that she can imagine what it might be.
"Oh Dragon, you did not have to get me anything."
"Yes I did!" His voice takes on a very as-a-matter-of-fact tone as he speaks. "It is a common thing you know everyone else is giving you a gift, and I, as your very best friend, had to get you the best present of all!" He holds his arms wide looking very pleased with himself. Jane glances around seeing nothing besides her friends, companions and her Mother who looks ready to throw a fit, its very possible that they are already late, the ladies all stand around looking like they are getting tired of holding up her dress, Pepper just looks a bit concerned albeit curious and Smithy leans against the carriage with a smile.
"You, got me... the pleasure of your... company?" Jane asks when she sees nothing around them but the reptile that is delaying the inevitable.
"No! Well, yes I would make a rather good present wouldn't I? In fact why didn't I think of that? There is nothing better than me!" Jane crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, but it isn't without endearment.
"Alright you big frog, spit out, I'm already going to be late as it is." As much as she would appreciate whittling away as many minutes as possible taking to Dragon in this courtyard her mother looks increasingly more livid. Any redder in the face and she might indeed start spewing flames and that is simply not something Jane wishes to deal with upon everything else still this day.
"Well I got you something almost as good as me, lets say the next best thing. Only it was too large to carry around so I had Gunther take it to your house this morning." His smile is very wide and Jane can only imagine what it might be. A live sized statue of Dragon for her new garden? "I know you won't get it until you go this evening but since I'm telling you now and its already at your house, I'm technically giving it to you first."
Jane reaches out her hand and pats his snout, "Alright, thank you very much for giving me my present first." She doesn't bother to tell him that her mother had already given her something that morning.
"Well of course, Jane it is my duty as your best friend after all."
"Alright, alright." Jane's mother cuts into the conversation ushering Jane quickly back towards the carriage. "Thank you very much Dragon, but Jane really should be on her way now." Jane bids fair well to her friend and with Smithy's help quickly gets into the carriage and is on her way to her undesired destination.
Hello, lovely people. I hope you are doing well!
I just wanted to say thank you for reading! I hope you are enjoying this story because I am enjoying writing it!
I wanted to say also Thank you for the favorites and follows it is incredibly heart warming to know that you are keeping tabs on my story and that you like it enough to add it to your favorites list.
I wanted most of all to say thank you to my reviewers! It means the world to me that you took sometime to write your thoughts and share them with me.
SunRise19 you get a special shout out because this story wouldn't exist without you (and i totally put SunRise19 without capitalizing the R and you should have totally scolded me for it! but I'm fixing that now.). I'm glad that you are enjoying it! and don't worry The next Chapter is all Gunther!
Two my two wonderful guest reviewers. I hope you see this, because here is some more as requested. And as I said above the Gunther parts are surely coming!
So, it would be wonderful to hear your thoughts on this chapter, or any questions ideas or ! Please Review!