The Dragon Bride

This is it. The big day. The day my life is going to change. Today, I am supposed to choose, choose who I am going to spend the rest of my life with. I am now eighteen and, as is customary, there is a ball tonight in my honor so that I may choose my spouse. Oh, I may have forgotten to mention, I’m a princess. And so princes from all over are going to be attending this ball. All because they want to marry me. This is why, at two in the afternoon, I am staring at myself in my full length mirror dreading the evening that’s quickly approaching. I take in my white hair that goes around my slightly pointed ears and fell at my waistline along with my violet eyes. My build is slender and petite, but considered elegant by most. My coloring is rare amongst my kind. My father has black hair, a somewhat common color, and violet eyes, the sign of our family’s royalty. My mother however has white hair, a very rare color, and green eyes, a slightly uncommon color. We are a Draconian race. That means we are able to shift into dragons, like a werewolf shifts into a wolf. I hold up a maroon gown with violet embroidery that matches my eyes. This should do for the ball tonight. I love the mesh sleeves and fitted bodice on this particular gown. I turn to look at my personal attendant. “Martha, I have decided on this one for tonight.” “Yes, Your Highness.” She bows her head slightly so that all I can see is her medium brown hair styled neatly and out of the way. “I’ve told you before, there is no need for you to address me that way in private quarters.” She lifts her head and I meet her dark brown eyes with streaks of red in them. Different variances of red is common for us to have as an eye color. Sometimes there is a case like Martha, where it is mixed with another color. She then proceeds to help me change and style my hair. When she is finished I admire her work in the mirror. “Thank you, Martha.” “Of course. If I may ask.. do you have an idea of who you are going to choose?” I turned to face her. “Honestly...none whatsoever. You remember those old tales of having a mate? I wish that was still a thing. But most people don’t find theirs anymore. We don’t travel like we used to and now we just find someone suitable and marry. I want to have someone I am meant to be with.” Martha’s eyes got dreamy. “That would be nice.” “Nice is an understatement.” I turned towards the door to head out into the hall. I had to check on the preparations for tonight. Since the ball was for me my father let me decide how it was to be set up. Which I appreciated. I mean, if you are at an event where you are choosing something that affects the rest of your life, at least you get to decide the setting in which it’s going to happen. I went to the ballroom of the castle. It was located towards the center of the castle while my room was in the west wing. My parents’ room was in the south wing and my brother’s was in the east. I only had one sibling. My parents wanted more children, it just hasn’t come to pass yet. My mother is currently praying to the moon goddess once a week to give her more children. The moon goddess is the one who made all shifters. She took her moonlight and sewed together the souls of a dragon and a human in order to make our race. And the soul of a wolf with that of a human for werewolves and so on and so forth for each shifter. Do you think we will know who to choose tonight Ryoko? I sighed as I listened to my dragon’s concerns. Honestly, Zisra, I don’t know. When I reached the ballroom I took in my surroundings. The pillars were wrapped in climbing roses and a buffet table was being set up in the back of the grand room. Rose petals lined the floor close to the walls, giving it the feel of almost being in an enormous rose garden. As I was examining everything my twin brother walked in. “Ryoko, trying to make everything look perfect I see. Usual.” “Ryujin, it’s better than letting everything be a mess, like the constant state of your room.” I glared at him. If anyone was more my opposite, but also my closest friend, it was him. He was the older twin, and he never let me forget it. A whole minute and three seconds that I would never live down. We shared the same white hair and violet eyes. The girls seemed to think that white hair looked fantastic on a boy, but he’s my brother and closest friend; thinking about things like that where he is concerned is gross. He had more of an athletic or bulky build. Not huge, but you could definitely tell he worked out, was strong, and by his walk you could tell he knew he would be left standing in a fight. “So, sis, who do you think you’re going to pick?” I sighed. “How am I supposed to know? I haven’t met any of them yet.” “No... but you know about at least some of them. I mean you were given a folder with information on each of the top prospects. I mean I don’t know about the prince from the Northern kingdom. You’d probably freeze your tail off.” “Don’t you have better things to do! You’re eighteen too. You’re supposed to start figuring out who you want to try and court so you can go to their ball or seek an audience with their father.” “Yeah... but I’ve got time to lay back and figure it out. You on the other hand have to figure out who you’re going to start courting before morning.” “Don’t remind me,” I mumbled under my breath. I was dreading tonight. Not because I didn’t like dancing or music or a party, but because of the impending decision. What if I made the wrong choice? I would have to deal with it for the rest of my life. I mean, I do have time to court them first and so if I find something I don’t like I can deny them, but still. The gravity of tonight was weighing heavily on my shoulders. I slumped slightly. I had no idea what to do. “Hey. Ryoko. Hey!” I snapped up and looked at him. “Sorry. What now?” “Let’s go train for a bit, or fly, something to loosen you up.” “But I’m already dressed for tonight.” “Eh you’ll be fine. I’ll help you if need be.” I grinned wide. He always knew how to help. Even if he was a pain in the tail sometimes. I followed him outside and to the training yard. There were some training garments nearby for anyone to use. They were washed daily. Ryujin helped me get out of my gown so that I could change. Afterwards I set the gown down in a safe place that it wouldn’t get dirty or damaged. We started with some hand to hand combat. We had trained together since we were children and so we knew all of each other’s tricks and what style each other tended to use. It made it fun though because then we had to think outside of the box when sparring because the usual things wouldn’t work as well. He aimed for my jaw and I leaned to the left, dodging, but fully expecting the blow he attempted at my diaphragm next. As I leaned I had also taken a step back so that he came just slightly short. After about an hour we both stopped and stared at each other sweating and breathing hard. I gave him a small smile and he smiled back. We had somewhere around three hours left until the ball. It was about three in the afternoon. I gestured to the sky. “You know, we have time to go for that fly if you wanted to.” “True. And it would be a nice way to relax after that sparring match and before your impending doom.” I threw a rock at him and he ducked, grinning. “Remember those words on your wedding day.” I shifted into my dragon, Zisra. She shared the same coloring as me, white with violet eyes. I watched as Ryujin shifted into his dragon, Zelair, who was also white with violet eyes like my twin. It was thanks to a special material that we had that our clothes didn’t shred to pieces. Most shifters had their garments made of this material because it is extremely flexible and so it stays together even when shifting, even though you don’t see the clothes in the shifted form. I looked at Zelair. He was a bit bigger than me. His shoulders broader and well as his chest. His neck longer and his wingspan wider. But him being a male and me a female, this was all common. Another clear way to tell a female dragon from a male is that a female has almost like a type of mane going down her neck while a male only has spines on his. I took off and started climbing my way to the clouds, each beat of my wings bringing me closer and closer. Eventually I reached them and saw my brother next to me. I evened out just above the white puffs of air and smiled at the sunlight glinting off the top of them. This is a view only dragons and their trusted companions get to see. Seeing above the clouds is a extraordinary experience. I honestly have not come across anything that compares. I wouldn’t give this up for anything. We glided for a while and then Zelair dove into a cloud. Because of our white coloring, it was nearly impossible to spot him. Where did you go, brother? Come find me. I sighed, but with a smile. This was a game we often played as children. It wasn’t as much fun with the other dragons because they were easy to spot with their colors, while being white made it too easy to hide from them. I focused my eyes and looked for any slight movement that was different from the clouds’ normal drifting. He had to be around here somewhere. Suddenly I saw a small flick of movement directly below me almost like the movement of the end of a tail. I quickly folded my wings to my sides and dove down. As I went down I reach out my claws in order to grab onto Zelair’s tail. Ha! Got you! I could hear his laughter in my head. That you did sis. We should probably head back. It’s getting close to time. I sighed. I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want this to end. This might be the last time my brother and I would get to play like this as carefree as can be. I didn’t want to enter into this new chapter in my life. But, as the princess, I had to. It was my duty. I had to keep the peace and make sure everything went according to plan. Otherwise things might start to fall apart. My father would not accept such an outcome. Ever. It was unacceptable. Therefore, I had to accept my place and do what I must. Even if it’s the very last thing I wanted to do. Yeah... let’s go. I started a slow, melancholy descent towards the castle’s training grounds. Towards, as my twin phrased it earlier, my doom.