Chapter 26: The Princess’ Dreams
The old carriage wheels creaked over uneven roads, each jolt sending pain through her bones that felt too brittle to endure the journey. The rough interior smelt of old leather and the medicinal sachets her attendants had packed. It was an old carriage, like all of her family's carriages. Very outdated and she hated it. In the few outings they were invited to, out to the grand modern palaces of the wealthier nations, the old carriage was as much of a spectacle as her species itself was.
It was, frankly, embarrassing.
Old clothes, old carriages, old customs. She felt like an outcast because of their poverty. And even their herbs strung up inside the carriage here were doing nothing for the fever that hadn't left her in weeks. They were just as old too, being from a medicinal practice not commonly used anymore in the more modern world.
The, literally, sheepish Vildt princess Bruschetta sat propped against cushions that did little to soften the ride, her gown covered now by a travelling cloak that hung loose on her thinning frame. Even the curly wool of her body was becoming matted and flat, the illness taking away its bounce. It was nearly as straight as an elf's hair.
Through the small window, she simply watched the landscape change. They had left the titan forests three days ago, passing through rolling hills that gave way to rougher terrain. Mountains rose in the distance, dark and jagged against the southern sky.
Somewhere in those peaks, the dragon waited for her.
Bruschetta's heart beat faster at the thought, a flutter that had nothing to do with her illness.
"Princess," one of the guards said from his seat across from her. His voice carried the careful gentleness people had been using around her for years now. She missed it when people just spoke to her normally. "Try to rest. We have many days yet before we reach the mountains."
She didn't look at him. Her eyes stayed fixed on the distant peaks, on the place where her dreams told her she belonged. "She's beautiful," Bruschetta murmured. Her fingers curled against the fabric of her cloak. "Dark scales. Red eyes. She moves through the air with such grace." She sighed, lifting her eyes to look at the sky, as if the dragon would be there for her to see right this second.
She wasn't.
The guard exchanged a troubled glance with his companion. "...Princess, you need your medicine. The fever is -"
"- I've seen her every night for weeks." Her voice came out soft but certain. "She comes to me. She takes me away from it all."
"The dragon is a monster, Your Highness. It will -"
"She's mine." The words slipped out before Bruschetta could stop them, quiet and very possessive. "And I'm hers. The dreams showed this to me."
Silence filled the carriage.
One of the guards shifted uncomfortably. He leant to his side. "The illness has taken more from her than we thought," he muttered to his companion, low enough that he probably believed she couldn't hear.
But she heard everything these days. Her body was failing, yes, but her senses had grown sharper in strange ways. She heard the whispers. She saw the pitying looks. She felt the weight of their assumptions pressing down on her with every mile they travelled.
They thought she was delirious, broken by fever and fear.
They just didn't understand.
At night, when the caravan stopped and they made camp under the open sky, she lay in her tent and waited for sleep with such excitement that it ironically kept it from her. The guards posted watch outside, their low voices discussing her deteriorating condition, debating whether she would even survive the journey or not.
Bruschetta didn't care what they thought.
When sleep finally came, she found herself standing in a cave of obsidian and gold. It was dark and a little scary, but the dragon was there, counting coins with careful claws, her tail coiled around treasure that glinted in terrifying firelight. Bruschetta always thought her wool would catch on fire, but it never did. In those dreams, the dragon would turn, those red eyes meeting Bruschetta's across the dream space, and something in the princess's chest expanded until it felt too large for her fragile ribs to contain. It was like she was waiting for her.
"Soon," Bruschetta whispered to the vision. "I'm coming to you soon."
The dragon tilted her head, confused in the way she always was in the dreams.
It was like she knew Bruschetta was there but couldn’t hear her fully despite them staring at each other. Nonetheless, the dragon rose to her feet and moved toward the princess.
“Very soon,” promised the princess, obsessed.
And her renewed oath was rewarded by the strong hands that took readily and greedily from her body that she gave to it and the lips that stole her own.
The dream broke.
She had fallen asleep in the carriage again.
Bruschetta woke to dawn light filtering through canvas and the sound of guards breaking camp. Her attendant entered with water and medicine, pressing the cup to her lips with that usual gentleness that made her skin crawl. She missed when she was healthier and her guards would let her wrestle and play with them.
Bruschetta blinked, quickly wiping away the wet on the corner of her mouth.
"How are you feeling, Princess?” He touched her forehead. “Oh no... Your fever is raging again."
Bruschetta took the medicine without complaint. She needed her strength. Needed to survive long enough to reach the mountain.
"I dreamt of her again," she said.
The attendant's expression flickered with something between pity and discomfort. "Try not to dwell on such terrible things, Your Highness. The priests say fear can make the mind conjure awful visions."
"They aren't terrible." Bruschetta's fingers tightened around the empty cup.
She handed the cup back and turned to face the tent wall, toward the south, where the mountains grew larger with each day of travel.
Wiping an eye, the attendant left without another word, simply shaking her head and muttering to the guards about how brave the princess was, facing this sacrifice for them all with such selfless stoicism.
Perhaps it looked that way for them.
But as for her, she could hardly wait.
The mountains were closer now. Another week, perhaps two, and they would arrive.
Soon.
“I’ll be there soon,” Bruschetta promised quietly.
F.P. sat on a makeshift throne made out of a treasure chest and a stack of gold in the treasure chamber, playing idly with a strand of her blue hair as she stared into the middle distance. Her grey eyes tracked nothing in particular, her expression unreadable. The dungeon's radiating warmth washed against her skin.
Barjuchne knelt nearby, counting new coins. Tribute from the valley villages, carefully sorted into piles by denomination and metal content. Her clawed fingers moved through the gold, her lips moving silently as she tallied values.
"...Do you ever feel like you're being watched, but nobody is there?" asks Barjuchne, suddenly looking up from her coins as she stares into a dark corner of the chamber. There was, indeed, nobody there.
Silence stretched between them.
"Shouldn't you be out there expanding your territory or something?" F.P. asked finally.
Barjuchne froze and then looked back at her, confusion crossing her features.
The fairy examined her nails with affected disinterest. "The system gave you a deadline. Your time is running out, isn't it?" She met the dragon's gaze directly. "It would be a shame if you had gotten this far only to fail in your progress now, after all of this."
Barjuchne's tail lashed with irritation. "Well, what am I supposed to do?"
The system quest lurked in the back of her mind constantly. Defeat a hero-class entity. Produce offspring. Conquer ten cities. Three impossible tasks with sixty days remaining. She'd already wasted thirty days making no progress at all.
"I'm not a conqueror," Barjuchne muttered. "I just want to be left alone."
"And yet your body is built for conquest." F.P. tilted her head, her blue hair falling across one eye. "Your nature demands expansion. You must gather more territory. More power."
"My 'nature' can demand whatever it wants. I'm content." Barjuchne looked back toward her gold.
F.P. laughed sharply. "I've already ruled over one dead kingdom. I have no interest in participating in a second." Her expression hardened. "So you'll understand if I intend to pressure you to not stagnate where you are. I, myself, am certainly not content."
The dragon side of Barjuchne flared hot with annoyance. She reached over and grabbed the fairy from her seat with both hands, eliciting a surprised yelp. She held F.P. close to her face, her eyes blazing.
"Unless you can tell me where I can find a hero to defeat, submit yourself to bear my offspring, which brings about so many other logistical questions that need to be answered first, or happen to know a few nearby cities that hate their current mayor and have active elections, I'm not interested in being lectured by empty words, fairy."
At first shocked, F.P. recomposed herself quickly, resting her elbows on Barjuchne's large hand. She smiled, half her face visible below the dark blue bang that obscured her features. "Well, I can certainly help you with one of those matters."
Her finger twirled through her hair, the gesture deliberate and provocative.
The dragon girl stared at her. Barjuchne's draconic aggression weakened as her human senses regained control. But she was determined not to show weakness in front of F.P., lest the fairy begin her scheming anew.
She still didn't fully trust her, even after all the promises.
"And where can I find a 'hero' then?" Barjuchne replied, not playing into the flirt out of a half sense of interpersonal tactical manoeuvring and a somewhat smaller half of her own lingering social awkwardness.
"Oh. You don't just 'find' a hero." F.P. shifted in her grasp, making herself more comfortable. "Heroes will come to you, historically speaking, once there's a threat large enough to need one to arrive. If there's no problem, then there's no hero to fix it, right?” she asked.
That did make sense.
“A hero can't appear until there is a problem for them to solve; otherwise, there's just no need for them. No problem. No hero."
F.P. leant her head onto one hand, staring at Barjuchne with a lustful glint in her grey eyes. "So, maybe, a good problem for the world to need to solve would be, for example," she dragged on playfully. “- A great dragon that has conquered many of its lands and sired a new flesh-eating brood that threatens all life on this world."
Her other hand traced patterns along Barjuchne's scales. "Get out there. Conquer a few cities, and a hero will come to put you down. That's just how nature works."
Barjuchne sighed, her shoulders dropping. "...You really are a troublesome little witch."
But the fairy was right. She'd been too complacent.
As a dragon, the universe expected her to be a loud, violent presence that shook the world to its foundations. And she hadn't been doing much shaking lately. But it’s not like she wanted to. It was just the system making her go on and on. She herself was content with just living quietly in her mountain forever.
"Well, they do say that witches are the brides of the devil," F.P. replied, tilting her head the other way. Her voice dropped lower, taking on a teasing quality. F.P.'s smile widened, showing too many sharp little fae teeth. Her fingers continued their slow exploration of Barjuchne's scales. Barjuchne lifted an eyebrow as a very particular look lingered between them for a moment too long.
The slow day had just become significantly more interesting.
At least in F.P.'s dream, which all of this had been a part of.
In reality, Barjuchne shuddered.
“...Do you ever just sometimes randomly feel like somebody is talking about you behind your back?” muttered Barjuchne, looking over her shoulder as if a ghost were there.
The dungeon held a particular stillness that morning, the kind that numbed the muscles of the body. It was not a lethargic feeling, exactly, but rather something almost overpoweringly comfortable.
It was, and felt, safe. She loved it in here.
The heat of the mountain’s magma made it swelteringly hot inside the dungeon. It felt as if it were the aural touch of a long summer that promised to never end. The air smelt of yesterday's cooking fires and the mineral tang of stone, unchanged and unchanging.
Today was a slow day. That sensation just felt like it was in the air for everyone.
No response came.
She turned her head, looking at F.P., who was actually deeply asleep. The fairy lay there, twitching and mumbling to herself. A little metal lightly rattled and clanked as she moved. “No… that won’t -,” mused the fairy princess in her dream aloud and then rolled in her fabrics. She let out a raspy, witches' cackle below her breath, her face smearing along a cushion.
Barjuchne shrugged to herself and returned to her counting. “...I guess if there isn’t at least one complot brewing for your murder, you’re ruling incorrectly,” said the dragon girl to herself.
She finished and rose to her feet.
Veliah knelt on her mat in the valley-overlooking exercise chamber that Barjuchne made for her, her breathing steady as she extended one leg and folded forward with her usual grace. Besides her, Rou-ya mirrored the movement with surprising fluidity. The goblin princess had improved dramatically over the weeks, her initial awkwardness replaced by smooth coordination.
"Your form is much better," Veliah observed, shifting into a new position. “Oh. A little lower she said. The elf reached over, holding the goblin’s waist with both hands as she adjusted her position.
Feeling a flush in her cheeks, Rou-ya cleared her throat, letting it happen. "I had a good teacher." Rou-ya followed the transition seamlessly, her goblin skin glowing faintly in the dim light. "Though I still think half these stretches are designed to torture people," she said, looking up at the elf.
"Well. They're designed to maintain discipline and your flexibility," replied Veliah. “It wouldn’t be purposeful if it were easy. Lower,” she said again, her hands guiding Rou-ya further. The goblin winced, reaching her limits. Her body was shaking as her muscles fought to keep that position.
Next to her, Veliah smiled, resting her head on Rou-ya’s shoulder.
They'd developed an easy rhythm together over their time as the dragon's brides. The initial tension between the two of them had faded into something warmer, more companionable.
Rou-ya turned her face, looking at Veliah, and then gulped, looking back forward. "Should we ask Barjuchne to take us to the lake today?" Veliah asked during a brief rest between positions.
Rou-ya's expression shuttered immediately. "The lake is cursed," she replied. Her voice came out too flat, too carefully neutral. "We do not go there for leisure."
Veliah studied her companion's face, reading the subtle tension in her jaw. "I see."
The truth was obvious enough. Rou-ya didn't want Barjuchne bringing any other princesses to 'their' spot. The crater lake held special memories now, private moments that belonged to the goblin and the dragon alone. Veliah understood. She had her own treasured moments with Barjuchne that she guarded jealously.
"Perhaps a quiet afternoon in the hot springs instead," Veliah suggested diplomatically. “Just us.”
Rou-ya's shoulders relaxed fractionally. But Veliah’s hands were travelling away in other directions.
“That wouldn’t be- I- Without Barjuchne?” stammered Rou-ya, suddenly confused. “That wouldn’t be -”
“- What do you mean?” asked the elf, cutting her off. “Barjuchne is right here,” said Veliah.
Rou-ya blinked and looked down at the dragon-girl she was sitting on the waist of as if she had been there below her the entire time.
The elf’s pair of hands was resting on the goblin’s shoulders. “...A little lower,” encouraged Veliah, whispering into Rou-ya’s ear while pushing her down onto the dragon at the same time. A moment later, Veliah’s slender lips met Rou-ya’s.
Rou-ya was fast asleep.
Barjuchne stood there in the corridor with her hands on her hips, looking in at the goblin princess, who was deeply clocked out in her chamber and muttering to herself in her dreams too.
The unusually sweaty goblin princess twitched, cackling like a dazed hyena in an awkward, breathless laugh in her dreams as she rolled over. She was muttering about Veliah of all people, for some reason. The elf, in contrast, lay slumped blissfully silent on a pile of silk.
Was everyone just sleeping today?
It really must be the heat from the new magma chambers getting to them.
The dragon girl shook her head and kept walking. "Is anyone awake today?" she asked.
"Yes, great Queen," replied a random Dragon Clan goblin from the corridor. She looked at him and he looked back at her. They had started painting their faces with black ash in triangular, jagged shapes. It was meant to be endearing, to look like her dragon scales. The Dragon Clan had begun adopting all sorts of rituals like that, under Rou-Ya's guidance. This one was relatively harmless and cute. Although they had also tried smearing the hot ash in their eyes to make them red, like hers too. Rou-ya quickly put a stop to that for obvious reasons. "Vrek-Shan is awake. I patrol your lair without rest."
The dragon stared him down.
"...It was a rhetorical question," she expanded after a moment of somewhat awkward silence.
"Yes, Great Queen," he replied. "Very rhetorical. Well done."
"Do you even know what 'rhetorical' means?" she asked after a lingering moment.
"You are the red oracle, leader of our brood, foreseer of all bad futures."
"Red-what? No, I said rhe - " She sighed. "- Never mind. Good work," praised Barjuchne, walking past him. "Tell the front to open the gate. I think it's too hot in here today. It's making people weird."
"Sugar?" asked the ant princess, with two pairs of crossed arms.
"I love sugar!" The slime princess beamed, her translucent form rippling with enthusiasm.
"Flowers?" The ant princess tilted her head, all four hands gesturing excitedly.
"I love eating flowers!" The slime princess wobbled closer, her gelatinous body bouncing. "They taste pretty! Like colors taste!"
The ant princess's mandibles clicked together in what might have been a smile. "Nectar from the deep forest flowers has seventeen percent higher sugar content than surface varieties. I could show you where they grow."
"Yes! Let's go eat flowers together! I want to eat all of them!"
"Have you tried concentrated syrup?" the ant princess asked.
"No! What is it?"
"Tree blood. Very sweet. Humans boil it down to increase potency."
"I want to eat tree blood! Death to three trees!"
They continued like this, bonding over their shared love of high-sugar nutrition, as is the basis of all healthy relationships.
“I’m going to use my wealth to buy you both as many sweet things as you like!” promised a sudden voice. The ant and the slime princess both looked at Barjuchne, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and snapped her fingers.
Immediately, armed guards marched in, carrying large platters full of food.
“Let’s all eat together!” suggested Barjuchne, grabbing the slime princess and putting her onto her lap. “I’ll start with you,” she said, taking Blibli into her arms.
"Nooo~" laughed the slime princess.
Barjuchne stared, looking down at the rippling, flat puddle that was the sleeping slime princess, Blibli. If it weren't green, she would have never known it wasn't just condensation from a steam pipe.
She was also dreaming. “...Best friends,” she said quietly in her slumber, a gloopy, happy smile floating around in her mass.
Barjuchne rubbed the side of her own head.
Outside, down below Barjuchne's mountain in the siege camp by Jaesowen Vale.
The monastery bedroom held perfect silence broken only by exactly synchronised breathing. The twin saintess princesses lay there, sleeping.
They lay side by side in their shared bed, white sheets pulled to their chins, their fingers intertwined between them even in sleep. Moonlight filtered through the narrow window, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow.
One priestess dreamed of scales. Dark obsidian that caught light and reflected nothing, smooth under her trembling fingers. The dragon loomed above her, vast and terrible and beautiful, its eyes holding something that she desperately wanted to understand. Heat radiated from that massive form, pressing against her skin and making her breath come faster. She reached upwards. The dragon lowered its head, bringing those smoking eyes closer, closer, until she could see herself reflected in their depths.
The other, in contrast, dreamt of a softer entity that was paralysed by hesitation, of all things. How she came to this, one may never know. But in that dream, the dragon stood before her in a humanoid form, small and vulnerable and achingly uncertain. Those red eyes held such fear, such desperate longing for acceptance. She reached out and the dragon flinched but then ultimately leant into her touch, like a shy animal. Warmth bloomed where their skin met. She pulled the dragon closer.
Both twins gasped awake simultaneously.
Their hands clenched together reflexively. They lay staring at the ceiling, neither willing to look at the other, their breathing ragged and their faces flushed in the darkness.
Silence stretched between them.
"I have received... a vision," one said finally. Her voice came out steady and almost clinically cold and professional, despite the hammering of her heart.
"I, too, have received a prophecy," the other replied quickly.
They both spoke at once: "The dragon."
More silence. Each twin carefully avoided thinking about the specific details of her dream. Each desperately hoped the other had experienced something appropriately divine and prophetic, rather than what they themselves had felt about the matter. So, neither said anything in more detail than that.
“It must be destroyed. A great evil has fallen onto my heart,” said one.
“A corrupting force,” agreed the other. “Sinful, wicked magic poisons the air I breathe.”
"When?" they asked together.
"Now," one said. "Immediately."
"Tomorrow," the other said. "After I rest more."
They turned their heads on their pillows, meeting each other's eyes for the first time since waking. Identical blue gazes searched identical faces, looking for answers, for guidance, for any indication of what the other had truly seen.
"We differ," one observed quietly.
"...Let me consult the spirit realm on further instructions," the other suggested.
They faced forward again and reclosed their eyes to return to sleep, releasing the tension between them without resolving it. Their hands remained intertwined. Their breathing slowly synchronised once more.
These odd dreams had been coming for a while now.
Weeks, even.
Sleep reclaimed them gradually.
The moonlight continued its slow journey across the floor. Morning would come soon enough, bringing with it the need for harder decisions.
“...Did I see a sheep too?” asked one quietly just before drifting away.
“I saw a fairy.”
“...How strange,” they both muttered at the same time.
Tomorrow, the beast would simply have to go once and for all.
It was time for them to move and bring about heaven's final judgement on the matter of the dragon. At least in reality. In their dreams, however, life took many different directions.