Chapter 45: This is Mine
As if she were a child in the home of parents who refused to just finally get divorced, the screaming got louder as Barjuchne walked down the corridor toward the closed door of the bedroom.
It was F.P.’s private room, which the fairy never used.
— Really, all of the private rooms just felt symbolic at this point. Rou-ya sometimes stored some trinkets and things in her space, but that was about it.
It was the kind of screaming that suggested the screamer was not in danger but was, in fact, causing it for everyone else. F.P. sat on her shoulder with her legs crossed, her wings folded flat, and the hard-pressed expression of someone who had been listening to this for hours and had moved past irritation into something more clinical.
"She's been doing that since she arrived," F.P. said. "Non-stop. The goblins have started crying."
Barjuchne rounded the final corner and stopped.
“...You know. I’m not really impressed with the Dragon Clan,” said Barjuchne, dryly and openly. “What do they even do around here?”
“Why, they did make all these charming flags and ornaments,” replied F.P., looking at the crude banners and animal skills along the dungeon walls. “It does give it all a flair, no?”
Barjuchne sighed. That was true.
She opened the door.
The chamber had been redecorated.
A silk canopy had been erected across the ceiling, held in place by gold that had been melted and pressed into the walls as the world’s most expensive bolts. Given how soft gold was as a metal, it was good that they only had to hold up some fabric. Cushions covered the stone table. A rug, far too large for the room, had been folded at the edges to force it into the available floor space. Exotic incense burnt in several separate braziers that had definitely not been there before, filling the air with a cloying sweetness that made Barjuchne's nostrils burn. By the door was a tiny box, filled with F.P.'s affects, that appeared to be just waiting for someone to take away.
And in the centre of it all, perched on a chair that had been stacked on top of a second chair on top of the stone table, sat the petite stranger.
She was dressed in silk that probably cost more than most of the hoard. Her hair had been arranged by someone who clearly knew what they were doing and her body was proportioned in the stature of someone who had never carried anything heavier than a paper fan. She radiated the absolute confidence of a person who had been told she was important every single day of her life and had never been given a reason to doubt it.
"WHERE IS MY DRAGON?!" she bellowed. The contrastingly large volume coming from her frame was genuinely impressive. "I have been waiting for DAYS! I was told it would be HERE! I am the PRINCESS of this nation and I will NOT be kept waiting by some ANIMAL that lives in a CAVE!"
A line of servants stood along the wall, their faces arranged in a professional immunity to being shouted at. Like any good minimum wage employee, one of them was crying but did a masterful job at not letting the world see.
Barjuchne looked at F.P.
"The royal princess," F.P. confirmed. "She arrived days ago. Paid a chest of gold to the goblins, told them she was here to collect her purchase. They were very confused but also very happy about the gold."
"I told them not to accept random money from strangers," sighed Barjuchne.
"They're goblins."
“See? This is what I’m talking about,” said Barjuchne, gesticulating. “I’m going to have to have a word with Rou-ya.”
The human princess spotted Barjuchne and stopped screaming. Her eyes moved up and down. She took in the form of the creature standing there, the smoother scales, the reduced tail, the travelling cloak that did not fit.
“Another lizardman?” she sighed. “Get out.”
“Dragon,” replied Barjuchne plainly, not in the mood.
Disbelief fell over her porcelain face. "You are the dragon?" The princess's voice shifted from screaming to something more dangerous. Her servants showed as much in their shifting posture. Disappointment. She looked at one of them. "It doesn't even have wings."
“Correct, your majesty,” replied a servant. “It does not have wings.”
The other servants all clapped in unison, as if praising her assessment for being something deeply profound.
"I have wings," Barjuchne said. "They're just. Not here. Right now."
"It doesn't have wings," the princess repeated, louder, turning toward her servants as if this confirmed a suspicion. "I paid a fortune for a dragon and it doesn't even have the decency to have its wings. How am I supposed to ride it? This thing?" She gestured at Barjuchne.
This would be a perfect time for an 'ask your mom’ joke. But Barjuchne just got home after a march and she really wanted to just rest at this point.
"You're not riding me," Barjuchne said.
"I will ride whatever I please. I am the heiress to the throne of this kingdom."
"You're in my mountain."
"Your mountain? This is my kingdom's territory. Everything in it belongs to my father. You are a... disappointing creature that happens to live in it. I am here to collect you and I expect you to be grateful for the opportunity to serve the crown."
Barjuchne blinked.
She looked back at F.P., waiting for some input here on the matter. But F.P. simply sat there and examined her nails.
Barjuchne's eyes turned toward Veliah, who had followed them in and was standing by the door with her arms crossed.
"Don't look at me," Veliah said. "She's your problem. You’re the one who wants princesses. There you go. A princess." She turned her head away, making a point.
Jealous as always.
"I don't understand," Barjuchne said, turning back to the princess. "Do you think you bought me?"
"I did buy you. The gold has been delivered. The transaction is complete. You are mine."
"First of all, no. Second of all, that's not how any of this works."
"Of course it is. Everything has a price."
Barjuchne stared at her. The princess stared back with unblinking certainty.
The dragon looked around the room. The silk canopy. The cushions. The incense. The crying servant. The melted coins pressed into her walls. Maybe she should change the tempo of the conversation to find a way to reach this girl. She liked pretty things, apparently.
Of course, throwing her right into the dungeon was an option, but the dragon was, when it came to princesses, a softy.
"You've redecorated.”
"The space was unacceptable. I made improvements. You're welcome." The spoilt princess shifted on her stacked chairs. "Now that you’ve arrived. I expect appropriate accommodations. A proper chamber, not this hovel. My servants will need quarters. And I require a bath within the hour." She looked up. “One that isn’t in a wet hole in the rock,” she said. “Your hotsprings are disgusting. It's just... a hole in the ground.”
"...Who are you?" Barjuchne asked, genuinely asking. It's not that she didn't know already, but she was just surprised that this girl didn't have an ounce of fear anywhere in her heart. Many of her princesses had been terrified, or at least indignant. This one, however, was like a herbivore on a remote island with no predators. The concept that there was something out there in the world that could eat her just didn't seem to exist in her head. Barjuchne couldn't explain her attitude any other way.
The princess's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. The colour in her face shifted from pink to red to something approaching purple.
"Who am I?" she repeated, her voice climbing in pitch. "WHO AM I? I am Her Royal Highness, Princess Schmand, daughter of the king—”
“Oh yeah, that guy,” muttered Barjuchne to herself.
They should talk sometime.
“Sovereign ruler of this nation, heir to the continental throne, protector of the eastern marches, and keeper of the royal seal! There is no person in this kingdom above me! And you, a BEAST, asks me WHO I AM?"
Blibli emerged from the floor behind the princess.
"Hi! I'm Blibli!" the slime princess said, extending a pseudopod in the universal gesture of friendship.
Schmand screamed. Afraid of something after all, she launched herself off her stacked chairs and hit the floor on the far side of the table, her silk dress tangling around her legs. She scrambled backward until she hit the wall.
Her servants all copied her, each of them pressing themselves back so that she wouldn't appear to be afraid all by herself. That would be undignified.
"What IS that?!"
"That's Blibli," Barjuchne answered.
“I’m the favourite!" said Blibli. Veliah rolled her eyes and grabbed Blibli, pulling her away. “Noo~!” Her googly eyes were at their widest possible diameter as she dragged along the floor and back out of the room.
Barjuchne was too tired for this song and dance to continue. It was a long journey and she had been a hydra for less than a week and she still did not know how to use the bathroom properly in this body.
There were questions.
Barjuchne crossed the space in strides. Schmand saw her coming and smiled.
Apparently, she was afraid of slime, but not of a dragon. How that worked, Barjuchne couldn't explain.
“Good. Sit,” said the princess, gesturing to the floor. “I’ll be expecting a return of my money, though,” she said. “Given what a let-down this all is.”
Barjuchne picked her up.
She did it the way you pick up a small, noisy animal that has been making too much noise for too long. One hand around the middle, lifted clean off the ground, the princess's legs kicking uselessly beneath her.
"Put me down! I am the PRINCESS! You cannot DO this! This is TREASON! I will have you EXECUTED! I will have this entire mountain DEMOLISHED! I will."
The servants stood there quietly, all of them exchanging glances, before looking back at Barjuchne towering over them.
“Take five,” Barjuchne told them.
The dragon carried the kicking and screaming Schmand out of the conference chamber, down the corridor, and into the treasure room. The shrill noise was like a goblin repellent. The hallways cleared, goblins clutching their ears and running away in terror as she passed by their camps at the sound, as if a banshee had come to haunt the mountain.
The hoard gleamed in the magma light. Gold and silver and gems and weapons and armour and silk, all of it stacked in careful piles that Barjuchne had spent months arranging and F.P. had spent days rearranging behind her back.
Barjuchne walked to the centre of the largest pile, knelt, and set the princess down on the gold.
Confused and aggitated, Schmand sat where she was placed. Her silk dress pooled around her on the coins. She was surrounded by more wealth than even she had probably ever seen in her life, and yet the expression on her face suggested she was trying to decide whether to be furious or frightened.
"You're collected," Barjuchne said. "Congratulations. Stay there."
Barjuchne turned and walked toward the corridor that led down to the brooding chamber.
"I am NOT!" Schmand shrieked after her. "I am the BUYER in this transaction! Hey! Come back here! You are MINE! You can't just DO this! I PAID for you! I PAID GOOD GOLD for you!"
Barjuchne kept walking.
“This is KIDNAPPING! This is REGICIDE! This is... this is... I'll have my father's ENTIRE ARMY here by MORNING!”
The corridor curved downward and her voice faded behind her.
The brooding chamber opened before her, its circular island ringed by glowing magma. Several eggs sat in their alcoves now, each one distinct in colour and texture. The first, dark and smooth. The second, scaled in green with flecks of gold. The third, a deep amber with ridges that caught the light. A fourth alcove glowed faintly. The shape inside it was still forming, not yet solid.
Barjuchne knelt beside the first egg and pressed her forehead to its warm surface. The shell hummed against her skin. She could feel the life inside it, small, hers. Something stirred deep inside the thick shell.
The dragon stayed there for a long time, breathing slowly, letting the heat of the mountain settle into her bones.
The silence of the deep chamber was absolute.
She closed her eyes, falling asleep.
From somewhere far above, very faintly:
"I want a REFUND!"