*I do not own jane and the dragon or its characters

Thanks for all the reviews. I love this fic way too much, so here's another chap.


Once, a group of traveling minstrels was stranded. With nothing else to do but wait for word to reach back to them, they set up tents nearby, but not on the road. The next morning, while David was on his way to retrieve a trinket, he spotted a young girl of about sixteen years or so. He had not meant to stare the way he had, but it was not common to see someone who was so fair of face, with hair so dark, and eyes uncommonly violet. Her name, by chance was Violante, and while he had tried to explain his own name, she spoke in the foreign tongue of Romani.

If David would have been anyone else's son, or if he decided to take any other road, or if his father had not asked for such a trinket, he would not have known what seeds of love had been planted the moment Violante cursed him in his face. Still, while no grand gestures or wedding marches were yet to occur, they were considered. "I cannot wait for your visit to the castle," he admitted. "My mother would know what you are trying to tell me. Oh, if only father had come, he would know. I… I will come back later, and…."

Of course there was much more to be said, but not before being chased away by a protective father. David could only laugh, and while his laughter would be remembered for more than a thousand footsteps, he stopped long enough to flash one of his famous smirks. As forgettable a smile, or wink would have been, no one could forget such a ruddy man of about nineteen, or the gaze that came from a pair of stormy grays. Perhaps she might one day come to like him. What of the road? If it could speak, which it could not, it would say Here we go again!