The Girl With A Dragon

Gut Feeling

Alina

I f*****g knew it. I should be surprised, my mind is….but my gut isn’t. My gut feeling that there was something more to Elric and me was correct. So what the hell happened. What was so terrible that no one has told me. Why don’t I remember?

I look over at the clock in Emily’s room and it’s four-thirty in the morning. Rolling my body over to the side of the bed, I just decide to get up and roam around the castle...again. Maybe I’m just not meant to get sleep tonight.

I leave Emily’s room and I see the doctor coming out of Elric’s room. I hear a cough and peer over the doctor’s shoulder. I see Elric is pale but awake. I try to go into his room, but the doctor stops me.

“Lady Alina, Elric needs rest..”

“Let her in,” said Elric, cutting off the doctor's orders.

“As you wish, your highness.”.

As I enter, the moon is right outside of his window. I notice that Elric is shirtless. He has a massive bandage on his left side. He is covered in cuts where his armor didn’t cover him. Exactly how many men had he and his dragon fought off to save my mother? He looks pale. This is saying a lot considering how dark he normally is from living on an island. 

“I have some good and bad news. What would you like me to start with?” he asks.

“The bad, I suppose.”

“Half of your castle was burnt to the ground. I got there before my army and was able to assist yours. Between both forces, we were able to push the other army back. We were able to save your mother’s dragon and after she is healed, I have a ship waiting to bring her here regardless of her wing. I have left some of my men with her to guard her day and night. The dragon keeper said that she should be able to travel in a few days”

I let out a sigh. How many servants died because of this fire? I sat down in a chair next to Elric’s bed.

“I left my best general there to interrogate the few men that we captured. We find out who did this to you,” said Elric while looking at me. His eyes were stormy and determined again.

“They tried to poison me. My lead lady is probably dead now. I was so close to being able to give her the antidote.”

Suddenly everything hits me. My home is half gone. My mother almost died. My life was that close to ending. Almost looking Elric. Ann sacrificed herself. 

I start sobbing. My body is shaking.

“Alina, please...come here. I can’t move, but I can comfort you here.”

I take a deep breath and cuddle up on his side without the massive bandage. He puts his arm around me and I sob into his chest. His warmth is comforting. This should feel strange, but it doesn't.

I calm myself before asking.

“We’ve done this before haven’t we?”

I feel Elric stiffen.

“Cuddle? Yes, we’ve cuddled before.”

“Childhood friends don’t cuddle Elric. Did we...date?”

Elric sighs.

“We more than dated….we were engaged”

I stop breathing for a bit. Engaged? This I wasn’t expecting.

“Engaged? Why the hell don’t I remember this?”

“Alina… please. I’m in so much physical pain right now. I can’t deal with that heartache. If I live through tonight. I will tell you in the morning... I promise”

I looked into his eyes that were pleading with me not to push the issue.

“Elric...you can’t die.”

“I don’t have a choice. We aren't sure of the extent of my internal injuries”

“Well, I need you to fight it...for me. Can you tell me our happy memories? Were we always in love?”

Elric shakes his head, “ No, you were here so much, I mostly thought of you as a younger sister for a while. But after your sixteenth birthday, your parents announced that you were their heir apparent. I didn’t see you for almost six months. You were training to become queen.”

“I sort of remember that change. The extra classes. I started taking on royal duties almost right away. I stayed constantly busy”

Elric nodded and continued, “ I put off my coming out party until I was nineteen. My parents decided to throw a party for a long weekend. Since so many people had to travel by boat.

“Did you have people that breathed fire?”

Elric looks at me and nods.

“I remember that for some reason.”

“Hmmm. Interesting. Well, you reminded me of fire that night. You showed up late the first night. Your dress was red and the bottom layers had some orange tones in it. i had danced with other royals that night, but after I danced with you, I was a f*****g goner.”

I lifted up my head and looked Elric in the eyes, “Why though? There's plenty of royal daughters that are more attractive than me”

Elric shakes his head before saying, “ I disagree, but had nothing to do with your looks. You were like fire incarnate. You left me six months before as a young girl, and when I met you that night, I met a passionate queen to be. Instead of talking to me about upcoming parties, and the weather, you brought up the changes that you were excited to make. You were radiating confidence and excitement. I danced with you so much that night that my mother pulled me aside and asked me to dance with other women...some of the royals said that the attention that I gave you was unfair. Since we had already practically grown up together, I needed to give the other girls a chance. I entertained them the first night, but the next two nights we didn’t leave each others side”

“How long did we date for before we engaged?”

“Six months”

I feel my eyes widen, “Six months? That's it? How is that possible?”

Dating between royals usually takes years and sometimes doesn’t lead to engagement. If the parents can’t come to a mutually beneficial agreement.

Elric laughs a bit, “Both of our kingdoms are wealthy. So I didn’t worry about the paperwork. We were crazy about each other. When we weren’t flying to see each other, we were writing to each other. We were inseparable and it became even worse when we became engaged.” 

“Worse how?” I asked.

“Well, you were a month away from turning seventeen when we got engaged. our parents asked us to wait to be married until after you were eighteen and had already taken the throne on your own. As your own ruler. It was really important to all of you. So instead of waiting over a year to wake up next to each other...we started sneaking into each other's room and sleeping in the same bed.”

i feel my cheeks redden..oh no...did we…

“Am I… did we…” I sputter out. 

“No Alina, we havent had s*x. We were just young foolish kids and we hated being separated from each other.” 

“We kissed though, right?” I asked. Wondering if my earlier dream was real.

Elric chuckled, “Yeah...we kissed...a lot”