Thursday, December 09, 2010

The Princess' Dragon


{About a month ago, my lovely cousin produced quite possibly the most amazing Dragon and Princess picture for me that I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. In return, I promised that I would write a story to go along with it. Written in snatches of time between clinic and reports and classes, here is the result.}


The Valley of Dragons was bright and clear that afternoon, ideal for sunning myself on the warm rocks while Ciara gathered armfuls of flowers, herbs, and, most importantly, Dragonsleaf. The brilliant orange and blue plant was a delicious contradiction to the myth that dragons are strictly carnivores, and well worth the quarter hour flight from my cave in Mount Ignis to the Valley. It was a perfect day for a dragon and a princess to ignore the world around them and just relax.

The late summer sun was already high, and the rocks had soaked up plenty of heat. I stretched myself out lazily, practically melting into the warmth. Then I must have fallen asleep, because when I next opened my eyes, Ciara was nowhere to be seen. I was not alarmed, as there are few dangers that would risk the wrath of a fully-grown dragon. I arched my back and stretched, letting the motion ripple all the way down my tail, then rose to look for my princess.

As I searched, I realized this was not the first time she had disappeared. In fact, every time we had come to the Valley for the last month, I had awoken to find her out of my sight. More often than not, she had wandered back within a few minutes, arms full of flowers and singing with a dreamy smile. The few times she did not make her way back immediately, I had found her in the maze of boulders to the south. She seemed so happy after every visit to the Valley that we had made the trip more frequently than ever before. I loved my princess’ smile, and the sound of her laugh was pure joy in my ears.

I turned toward the boulders, but paused. I heard Ciara’s laugh, but it was accompanied by another sound, a sound that did not belong. It was second human’s voice. Specifically, it was a male human voice. I had little dealings with the humans, but after facing so many knights and princes and spending so much time with Ciara, I had learned to distinguish between the genders. It was definitely a male voice.

I flapped my wings and rose a few feet from the ground, scanning for Ciara. I caught a glimpse of her, coming towards me. There was no one else in sight. I scowled, certain of what I had heard. But only Ciara was in view now, skipping lightly my way, arms full of flowers, and that faint smile that suggested her thoughts were a hundred miles away.

“O Princess, My Princess,” I called, letting my scowl fade.

She looked up from her bouquet and waved joyously. “O Dragon, My Dragon,” she called back. It had been our private joke for years. “I found a new patch of Dragonsleaf today.”

I smiled broadly, showing my teeth in pleasure. “And that is undoubtedly why you took so long,” I hinted subtly, settling back to ground and extending my wing for her. She only laughed, then scrambled up and took her usual position behind my neck.

“I am tired, Korav,” she said with a yawn, changing the subject.

“Then perhaps we will not come tomorrow,” I suggested. “I do not want you to become exhausted.”

“Oh, no,” she protested quickly. “I will be well after I sleep. I promise.”

I rumbled deep within my chest, but did not reply. As we flew away, I glanced back down at the Valley. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but I thought I saw a horse and rider, just for a moment. Then they disappeared among the boulders, and I could not be sure. I flew faster toward Mount Ignis, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but in the Valley.


* * *



I won’t deny that having a princess was something of a status symbol among dragons, primarily for their usefulness. A princess would remove the prickly leaves from Dragonsleaf. A princess would sweep out the ashes of things accidentally burned, so they did not fly around in the wind and get into a dragon’s sinuses. A princess would shine and polish a dragon’s horns and remove those annoying loose scales so new ones could grow. And those were just some of the benefits.

But having a princess was also a bit of a bother. Once word got out that a princess had been seen with a dragon, every knight and prince and soldier within a hundred leagues was determined to try their hand at rescuing her. Depending on the season, a dragon with a princess could expect to be challenged by at least one would-be rescuer a month. Some dragons relished these fights, but more often than not I went out of my way to avoid them. I had purposefully made myself hard to find and had no intentions of letting any one steal my Ciara away.

Nearly a week had passed since the odd experience in the Valley of the
Dragons. I had all but forgotten it. Life had continued as normal. We had been back to the Valley several times, but not once did I have to search for Ciara. She continued to be blissfully happy while we were there, but glum when we left. The Dragonsleaf was at the peak of its season, and I enjoyed having a fresh supply on hand, but I was concerned about Ciara’s listlessness when we were not in the Valley.

It was late one afternoon, closer to evening, when Ciara noticed my darkening mood. After dinner, as she did so often when trying to tease me back into a good humor, she brought out her polishing cloth and the salve for the leathery skin under my loose scales. I smiled gratefully, with just a touch of fang, as she started searching for scales that needed to be removed.

“What is the matter?” Ciara asked earnestly, tugging a scale free from my front leg. That one had been bothering me all week, and it was high time to grow a new one.

I hesitated a moment, unsure if I wanted to burden her with my troubles. “A knight actually challenged me today,” I frowned, the ridge above my eyes turning a darker blue. “That has not happened in months.”

“A knight?” Oddly enough, Ciara seemed to perk up at that. “What did he look like?” she asked eagerly.

“How am I supposed to know?” I flicked my wings with an irritated snap. “All humans look the same to me. He was waving a sword, just like all the others.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, turning away.

I had the oddest sense that I had said the wrong thing, but I could not understand why Ciara should care about some knight. She never had before.

“What happened?” she asked, still facing away.

“I breathed a little fire his way. His mount was not up for it and bolted. I did not wait to see if he would come back; I was not in the mood for a fight today.”

It was the shifting, fading sunlight, of course. There was no other explanation for what had looked like a sigh of relief roll off her shoulders. I waited for a moment, and Ciara returned, her eyes perhaps a little too bright. She picked up the polishing cloth and motioned for me to bend my head. We said no more about the challenge that evening.


* * *


The next afternoon, I left Ciara and flew to the neighboring mountain alone. I needed to sort things out. I needed to talk to Lohren. A large, fierce, yellow dragon with many battle scars, Lohren was obstreperous, but we had grown up together, known each other from dragon kits. The bond of time had proved stronger than anything else. Occasionally, he had been known to give good advice, and occasionally, he had helped simply by showing me which was the wrong course of action.

I found him in his cave, getting ready to eat a sheep he had likely stolen from some villagers.

“Korav,” he said warmly. “What tears you away from your princess to socialize with your own kind?”

I settled into a coiled crouch and folded my wings back. “Actually,” I admitted, “that is why I am here. I am worried about my princess.”

The ridges above his eyes rippled with surprise. “I thought everything was idyllic in your corner of Mount Ignis.”

“It was. It is. I am just concerned. I think my princess might be ill.”

His eyes narrowed. “That is concerning.”

I was actually mildly surprised that Lohren was agreeing with me, but then he continued, “If she is ill, you cannot eat her.”

I gave him an annoyed flick of my tail. “For the last time, Lohren. I am not going to eat my princess. And neither are you.”

He snorted flame. “You cannot blame me for hoping,” he said. “What is wrong with your precious princess?”

I told him everything. I told him of our frequent trips to the Valley of Dragons, of napping and waking to find her gone, and of her blissful contentment while we were there. I mentioned the day I heard voices and talked about her melancholy disposition when we left the Valley. I finished by telling Lohren about her odd reaction to the story of the knight who had challenged me, then waited for his response.

He was quiet for a long moment, long enough that I wondered if he was even going to answer. Then, finally, he asked, “How long has your princess been with you?”

“You know full well, Lohren. You were there I found Ciara ten years ago.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “I remember that I was dead set against the idea from the start. Taking in an eight year old human-child? I still do not understand what possessed you, my friend.”

“Her family, practically her whole country, had been murdered by barbarians,” I growled. “She was left—“

“—all alone and wandering in the forest,” Lohren finished for me, and I winced. Perhaps I had told the story too many times. “Her tears moved you, and instead of eating her, like any normal dragon would, you took her in. Took her in, cared for her, raised her to be quite the lovely princess, even if she is the princess of nowhere. And you still refuse to eat her.”

“I will not eat Ciara,” I snarled, resenting the implication that I should.

He shook his head. “That is not the point here, Korav.”

“Then what is?” I demanded.

Lohren laughed, pityingly. “Your princess is in love!”

I blinked, then blinked again. “No,” I said flatly. Then again, with just a touch of uncertainty, “No. Not possible.”

“I am afraid it is. She is in love with that human boy-man, and she will never be yours again. Your only choices now are to eat her or let her go. If you take my advice, you will have her for dinner, now that you know she is not ill. She looks delicious.”

I snarled and spat flame at him. His lip curled up above his second fang. “Fine. Then let her go. You should have done one or the other a decade past.”

“She is my princess,” I growled, letting the anger roll through my voice, “and I will decide what is to be done and when.”

Lohren flicked his tail impatiently. “Then go. Decide. And if you choose to eat her,” he said with a toothy grin, “tell me how she tastes.”

Lohren’s cave filled with my fire as I let him know exactly what I thought of that idea. If dragons could be burned by our own flame, he would have been a pile of cinders and fangs. As it was, at least I deprived him of his lunch.

“The Council of Dragons agrees with me, Korav!” Lohren called after me as I took to the sky. “You have had her too long. No other dragon in history has ever kept a princess past three years. A dragon’s cave is no place for a princess to live forever.”

The Council of Dragons could mind its own fiery business as far as I was concerned, but Lohren’s words haunted me the entire flight back home. Ciara in love? It could not be possible. I cast my mind back over the last month, searching for any indication that Lohren was not just blowing steam without fire. Nothing came to mind, and I was ready to dismiss his opinion as another manifestation of his disgruntled view of my princess.

I began my descent towards our cave, and I noticed a shift in the flow of air. A quick glance told me a scale had come loose from my breastplates. I made a mental note to ask Ciara to remove it soon.

That thought jolted my mind back to the previous night, when Ciara had taken care of the loose scale on my leg, and to her uncharacteristic interest in the knight that had challenged me. Why should she care about that particular nuisance? Unless Lohren was right. Unless Ciara loved that human boy-man. Then, unbidden, a crystal-clear montage of the last month flashed through my head: the constant requests for trips to the Valley, Ciara’s blissful smile and merry laughter, the faint sadness every time we left, the man’s voice in the boulders. And it all fit, making sense in a way that it had not when I had described it to Lohren.

I had to alter course abruptly to avoid crashing into the side of Mount Ignis, so overwhelmed was I. My princess. In love. I veered away from our cave and headed toward the peak. I needed to be alone to sort through this new idea.

Summer was quickly turning to autumn, and the top of Mount Ignis was chilly. It would be covered with snow in a month or so. Ciara loved the snow and had since she was a child. I still remembered the spot where she made her first snow-human and snow-dragon. In the spring, the peak of the mountain would be blanketed with Ciara’s favorite purple and yellow wildflowers, and she would fill the cave with them and their faintly spicy aroma.

I stayed up on the mountaintop for most of the afternoon, lost in thought and memory. I did not like the conclusion I finally reached. Lohren was probably right. Ciara was in love, and I was being selfish. I had had her for eight years, and, as Lohren had pointed out, that was five years longer than most dragons kept their princesses. Somehow, I had assumed she would be with me forever. But more than I wanted her with me, I wanted her to be happy. And if being with that human boy-man would make her happy, then I would not stop her.

So resolved, I returned to our cave and found Ciara sewing, as industrious as always. If she was surprised at my suggestion that we visit the Valley so late in the day, she did not show it. She happily climbed up onto my neck, and away we flew. When I started our descent into the Valley, I fully intended to bid Ciara farewell and leave her with her love.

I banked right, planning to land next to the maze of boulders. Motion caught my eye and I saw the human boy-man, sunlight glinting off his armor and sword. Suddenly, an unexpected wave of fury burned in my chest. That human boy-man had no right to Ciara! I had raised her, cared for her, loved her as if she were my own kit. This puny would-be knight had done nothing to be worthy of her. Fire exploded from my mouth, scorching the ground between us and the human boy-man. His horse reared, nostrils flaring, then turned and bolted. I heard Ciara’s horrified gasp.

I felt a slight pang of guilt, but thrust it away quickly. I did not care if I was being selfish. I did not care what anyone said: she was my princess, and no one could take her from me. Not barbarians, not Lohren, not the Council, and certainly not some snot-nosed brat wearing borrowed armor and waving his father’s sword. My wings beat the air faster and faster, leaving the boy choking on a cloud of dust and ash as my princess and I wheeled in the sky, heading for Mount Ignis and home.

We made the return journey within ten minutes, a personal best. I did not care. All that mattered was still clinging to my neck, likely bewildered at my odd behavior.

“Korav?” Ciara asked hesitantly when we reached our cave. “Is something wrong?”

I shook my head tightly, but betraying smoke curled from my nostrils. “I decided I wanted dinner instead,” I said shortly. “I have not eaten today.”

Ciara’s eyes narrowed, and I knew that she knew I was hiding something. But she did not share her thoughts. Rather, she brought me an enormous bowl of Dragonsleaf without comment. Every mouthful was bitter and hard to swallow, but I did not think that it was the fault of the plant. I was sure that I was tasting my own guilt.

Dusk fell quickly, and I watched, like many nights before, as Ciara combed out her long, brown hair. The playful evening breeze snatched strands and tossed them in the air, letting them dance in the fading sunlight.

“Ciara,” I said hesitantly, “Are you happy here?”

Ciara looked up, startled, as if she had forgotten my presence. I in turn was shocked to see a tear glistening on her cheek.

“Of—of course I am happy, Korav.” She smiled at me bravely. “I am always happy with you.”

I bent my neck and nuzzled her face, wiping the tears away. “You know I would do anything for you,” I rumbled.

“I know.” She stroked my nose. “You are my family.”

I let the silence hang in the air for a few heartbeats. Then, I steeled myself and asked, “Do you love him?”

Her jaw dropped open, and her eyes grew as round as my eye-ridge scales. “What—? Who—?”

“The human you have been seeing during our trips to the Valley of Dragons,” I said softly. “The human who challenged me yesterday.”

Tears welled in her eyes again, and I winced. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “He was not supposed to challenge you. I told him not to. I—”

“Hush,” I breathed softly. “Do you love him?”

She hesitated for a long moment, then, biting her lip, said, “Yes. I do.” Then she rushed on before I could reply, “But I do not want you to be hurt! And I do not want you to kill him, either. And if he challenges you, then one of you will die and my heart will break!”

“Ciara,” I interrupted. Her voice trailed off reluctantly, and she raised her eyes to mine. I swallowed and forged ahead, knowing that I might regret my words. “Ciara, if you love him, then I will not keep you. I have been selfish too long.”

She looked as if she were going to say something else, then she fell against my neck, hugging me fiercely. “But Korav, I love you, too!”

“And I love you, Ciara. You will always have a home with me. I will not force you to go. It is your choice.” I waited for an answer that did not come. “Who is he?” I asked after a long stretch of silence.

Ciara stepped back, wiping her eyes. “Colin. He is a prince,” she said. “He is from the nearest kingdom.”

“How did you meet him?”

She laughed. “His father sent him out adventuring for a year when he turned twenty-one. Colin did not want to go. He would rather have stayed home and continued his studies. But his father insisted, and even a prince does not refuse the king. So he rode as far as he wanted to go, then came back. But he still had two months left before he could go back. He found the Valley of the Dragons and has camped there for six weeks. He was right next to a patch of Dragonsleaf, which is how I found him.”

“What is he like?”

“Colin is brave, when he has to be. He is thoughtful and funny and kind. He knows all about things I have never even seen, like the ocean. Did you know that there are more than one hundred different kinds of fish? He could tell me all their names if I asked. He loves his family and has many friends that he misses. Colin told me about growing up in a castle and what it was like to see people every single day.” For nearly an hour, she talked about Colin and his family and his interests and his accomplishments in astonishing, glowing detail.

Finally, I managed to get a word in edgewise. “And does he love you?” It was really the only question left.

“Colin said that if he had to stay in the Valley of the Dragons forever, just to see me one time a year, it would be worth every minute. And Colin hates being away from home. He was miserable the entire time he was traveling.” She met my gaze. “Yes. He loves me.”

Her eyes were shining now, and I did not think it was tears again. My princess was thoroughly, hopelessly, head-over-heels in love. I sighed; Lohren was going to be insufferable.

I lightly flicked out my tongue, dropping a dragon kiss on her cheek. “Ciara, will Colin be by the boulders tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “He comes every day and waits for me.”

“Then tomorrow,” I promised, “we will go to the Valley, and you may go with your Colin.” I raised a claw to forestall her protests. “No arguments,” I said firmly. “You have made me very happy these last ten years. Now I have the chance to do the same for you.”

Her eyes overflowed, and she flung her arms around my neck again. Her joy was unmistakable, and I knew that this time I had to follow through. I could not destroy her future for my own selfish purposes, but I still laid awake far longer than did Ciara, trying to convince myself it was for the best.


* * *


Ciara said that Colin was more likely to be waiting for her in the afternoon, and so we left Mount Ignis just as the sun peaked in the sky. It was a warm day, one of the last of the season, and I flew leisurely towards the Valley.

When we arrived, Colin was indeed there, scrambling onto his mount at the sight of us. He looked terrified. I wished that I was leaving Ciara with someone more capable of defending her and tried to comfort myself with the knowledge that he was sure to have guards at his castle.

I settled to the ground near the boulders and bent my neck down to a medium-sized one. Ciara slid off and began to scramble to the ground, but I stopped her.

“Stay here, Ciara. No matter what happens. Stay here.”

She looked up at me with wide eyes and nodded, then sat on the boulder. I turned towards the human boy-man, who was trying to urge his horse forward. He saw me staring at him and raised his sword.

“Stand forth, Dragon, and do battle!” he bellowed, and his voice squeaked only a little.

I rose up on my hind legs and belched a column of fire into the air to accept his challenge, and he charged.

To be honest, it was not a fight worthy of a legend. If the boy had been trained in the use of the sword, it was not obvious. As Ciara had implied, he was more scholar than soldier. His poor, skittish mount was no warhorse, and the sight of a fully-grown dragon terrified it. It dumped the boy on his behind not two minutes in and bolted for the cover of the boulders where Ciara waited. But the lad held his ground and gained my respect.

I tried to make my side of the battle as convincing as possible, but it was difficult when I had to limit my flames and watch where I stepped. I knew that the pretense was necessary. Any prince worth his crown would be mortified if a dragon gave up its princess without a challenge. I imagined that Colin would mind less than others, but that his father would be disappointed if Colin did not have at least one adventure before returning home.

Colin’s attacks were random and sadly futile. He never even came close to injuring me, even mildly, but still he kept trying. I had to admire his tenacity. But I could tell that he was growing desperate. Despite my attempts, I could see in his eyes that he knew he was losing the battle. I was not sure how I could allow him to defeat me in a way that would be convincing.

Then, in a final, valiant effort, the lad hurled his sword at my exposed underbelly. He missed, and the blade only knocked off the loose scale from my breastplates. However, he was now weaponless, and I was mostly certain he had no way of knowing that the scale would regenerate. It seemed a good way to end the fight. I drew back dramatically, rose on my hind legs. and roared, belching flame into the sky and spreading my wings to their impressive full span. Then, with a thundering crash that shook the trees, I collapsed into a coiled heap, my head lolling to one side.

There were four counts of utter silence, broken only by the lad’s labored breathing. I lay very still, keeping my eyes shut. I heard Ciara’s horrified gasp as she slid off the boulder and then her footsteps rushing over to me. Through one cracked eyelid, I saw her prince advance, cautiously, stopping a dozen paces away, his retrieved sword held outstretched. It trembled only a bit. The lad had found his courage. I felt a little better about the whole thing, knowing that I would not be sending my princess off into the world with a weak-kneed coward. He would defend her, if the need arose.

Ciara fell against me, wrapping her arms as far around my neck as they would reach, whispering “no, no, no,” over and over again. My heart grew warm with the knowledge that she still loved me, that she was not just replacing me with Colin as Lohren had suggested. A low, pleased rumble started deep in my chest and startled her. She looked up sharply, and I opened one eye, then winked. I smiled just a little, letting a hint of fang show. I kept that one eye open until I saw realization spread across her face, then shut it again.

She squeezed my neck as hard as she could. “Oh, Korav,” she whispered. “You are wicked. You could have warned me!”

I flicked my tongue out and planted a soft dragon kiss on her forehead. “Go,” I rumbled as softly as I could.

“Thank you. Thank you. I will see you again one day, I promise, O Dragon, My Dragon,” she said softly. “Goodbye.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed the flat of my nose. Then she turned and ran to her prince. He caught her up rapturously in his arms, spinning her around, and they clung to each other for a long time.

I did not rise until they were ten minutes gone, departed on his white stallion and well out of sight. Already I missed her, but it was enough for me that she would be happy and among her own once again. Lohren, for all his inaccurate and unwanted insights, had been correct about one thing: a dragon’s cave was no place for a princess to live out her days. Likely I would need to endure some good-natured joking about being bested by an untried, clumsy youth. The memory of Ciara’s face when she embraced the lad, however, was worth more than my reputation.

With a melancholy sigh, I uncoiled myself from the ground and leapt into the air. As I circled the Valley of Dragons, I saw Ciara and her prince galloping in the opposite direction. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, but I vow that Ciara turned and waved at me. I let loose a full stream of dragon flame in response, a final farewell, then turned towards Mount Ignis and never looked back.
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