The Prince and his Dragon (Book 1 of The Pilatus)

Kassandra The sun was bright on the cool late fall day as Kassandra Winters stepped out the door of her mom's Chicago apartment. Putting her air pods on, she started to stroll down the street towards the University of Illinois in Chicago campus, minding her own business and reflecting on her life just far away. This was the same route that she took every day. She was in her junior year at UIC and was feeling great. She had found another sport that she loved to play, rugby, and had a great job working at her mom's Tae Kwon Do dojo. With the new team came new friends that she could be with her, and she loved it. Even at Tae Kwon Do she started to experiment and became an expert swordswoman. Today was going to be a regular Wednesday for Kassandra. Her political science class was having a morning guest lecture, per usual, and then she had a couple that psychology courses followed by rugby practice this afternoon. Kassandra was a psychology major at UIC but was required to take a certain number of politics courses due to being in the hub of Chicago’s political center. As normal, the lecture in political studies was going to be about another place's political structure, but this one was going to be about the government of another country. As she walked, Kassandra wondered if they were just going to have an associate professor speak on the country. Shrugging, she kept walking, paying no mind to what could be brought up in the lecture, as it was just going to be about another country and not her own.   Nothing seemed off about today when she arrived at the campus auditorium entry area. It was a normal fall day in Chicago. Everyone was excited because Thanksgiving break was coming up next week. Kassandra looked around the lobby and saw her friends by the Dunkin Donuts grabbing coffee and snacks before the first lectures for the day. Around the table was multiple girls from the UIC rugby team, Tatum, Abby and Sam. Tatum was in her Social Psychology class with, so they normally sat together and passed notes or watched training videos about rugby during the class. So, by the end of today’s lesson, they had found two new plays they wanted to try during practice. On the team, Kassandra played a flaker and Tatum was the 8th man, so they would work together a lot during scrums.    Anyways, nothing seemed off with how today was going. After Social Psychology, Kassandra and Tatum headed into the hallway and picked out a table near the coffee shop to relax while waiting for our next class to start. Sam came by after her class and sat with them. Sam was someone that loved ink and designing her own, so she always walked around with a sketch book. So, like normal, Sam dropped her bag on the floor with a pencil in her hand and her book in the other.    “Hey Sam, what are you working on today? Anything new?” Tatum swirled the remnants of her coffee around her mug.     “Yeah I was making something up for if we win nationals this year, something I think we should all get”. Sam didn’t look up from her book.    “What matching tattoos?” Abby plopped down on the last chair at the table. “It’s always tattoos with Sam, so what are you proposing we get now?”   Sam glanced up and glaring at Abby before looking down again, “It’s a design of a rugby ball.” Abby was one of the only girls without tattoos.    Kassandra hadn’t had a tattoo until last school year. It wasn’t a rugby related tattoo, but something had drawn her towards getting a small dragon tattoo around her ankle. It wasn’t a large tattoo, but it still held a lot of meaning for Kassandra. She thought dragons were awesome, but it was very much a spur of the moment thing that drew her to get it. She had been walking downtown enjoying the early fall weather in Chicago and passed a tattoo shop. Without thinking, she had walked in and told the artist that she wanted this specific tattoo around her ankle. Despite playing rugby and doing Tae Kwon Do, Kassandra was not actually someone that does well with pain, needles usually freaked her out a ton. But on that day she just walked right up and said “I want this tattoo” and didn’t even flinch when the artist began working on her ankle.    “Guys, are you going to be ready to head into the lecture soon? I want to get good seats for this one,” Abby grinned.    “Abby, you want great seats to see some old guy that’s friends with Dr. Ryan’s old professor buddies. This will be the first time in history you are excited about attending a politics class.”   Abby rolled her eyes, “You don’t understand, while you guys were in your first class, I was hanging out here and saw these gorgeous people walk in, in like business suits and such, and I thought wow they are hot, even the girl, but then this guy came in, obviously the person the people in the suits were with, and he was wearing like this royal uniform suit, you know like the ones that the British people wear? Yeah so anyways, he walked in and didn’t say anything but was just listening to all the people in suits. There were like five of them surrounding him, like two in front, two in back, and one of them took like orders from another person in the suit and left to go to Dunkies.”   “Woh, Abby slow down and take a breath,” Kassandra cut her off forcing her to breathe. “What do you mean the British people and what people in suits?”   “Thanks, Kas, I needed that. Anyways, what I mean was that the guy in the middle was wearing a suit with like a red sash or something on the front with some medals or something on it. Yeah, so the one guy in a suit left and got coffee and food from the dunkin donuts while the rest of them headed into the auditorium. I didn’t catch what they were saying, but it almost sounded like they were talking in a different language. That’s about when I saw you guys showed up here, so I came over.” Abby stopped to take a breath. “Yeah I think that the fancy hot guy is giving the lecture today, but I’m not sure, which is why I say we head into the auditorium now to find seats.”   “Jeeze Abby, I think you need to lay off of the caffeine this early in the morning,” Tatum stared wide-eyed at the little winger. Abby’s role on the rugby team was one of the faster, smaller players that played on the outside of the field. Those players didn’t tackle much and were almost never involved with a ruck. “I think you should really save coffee for just before practice, so you don’t crash,” Tatum shook her head, grabbing her bag and standing up.    Just then nail splitting pain swept across Kassandra’s forehead, “Ouch, talking about caffeine, I might need to get a refill. My head is hurting a lot for some reason,” she stood up and grabbed her coffee mug.   “Don’t tell me your turning into Abby and having a bad caffeine addiction too, Kas,” Tatum shook her head and rolled her eyes.    “No, this just suddenly came on. I’ll be right back,” Kassandra said and walked over to the empty counter at the dunkin donuts. “Could I have a refill?” The lady nodded and took her mug while she swiped her card. Kassandra smiled and thanked her when she handed back her mug. Kassandra turned to find her friends had already gotten up and started towards the auditorium. Sam had stayed back at the table as she was off for this hour. “Thanks, Tatum, for grabbing my backpack,” Kassandra said as she caught up to the rest of the girls and took her bag from Sam. Sam nodded and they headed towards the auditorium entrance. Abby leans over and whispers loudly to the other girls, “Look, it’s one of the business suits guys I was talking about.” She pointed at the young man by the door in a black business suit.    “Abby don’t point,” Kassandra gave a huff and hit her arm down as the man glanced over at the group of girls. Kassandra winced and smiled at the man while rubbing her forehead when the pain came back. The man raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything as the girls passed by him into the auditorium.    Kassandra was staring away from the stage at Abby to her left when they entered. Abby was grinning from ear to eat as they entered, and she stared down at the stage “That’s him. The really hot one on stage with the red sash.”    As Abby focused Kassandra’s gaze in the direction towards the stage, a smell of pine needles and a winter forest hit Kassandra’s nose. The hair stood up on the back of her neck as the feeling of being watched swept over her. A slight pain creeped over her forehead as she turned towards the feeling and stared down at the most gorgeous and handsome man that she had ever seen. He was standing on stage with Dr. Ryan was probably discussing what he was going to talk about during the guest lecture. He has dark blond hair perfectly cut, if that is a thing, so it wasn’t long but also not super short. Kind of like the haircuts you see military people have when they complain about needing a haircut. His suit fit him perfectly, showing off how muscular and lean he was even from the distance they were at. He looked about college age, probably between 21 to 24 years old, but it’s always hard to tell especially from a distance, but he couldn’t be any older than 25.    “Earth to Kassandra,” Tatum waved her hand in front of Kassandra’s face and she shook her head and looked at her. “Where do you want to sit, Ms. Starstruck?”    “You pick.” Kassandra gave a cough and looked back at the stage.   Tatum shook her head and led the way towards the middle of the auditorium, “I get he’s nice looking and everything, but I don’t see why half of our class is swooning over the guy.” Tatum was one of the many lesbians on the team, though she still apricates the look of hot guys, just didn’t get the hots for them. Kassandra rolled her eyes and looked around and, as Tatum mentioned, more than half our class, guys included, were almost drooling over the man on stage.   Kassandra shook her head again and followed Tatum to the seats she picked out. While they were walking across the auditorium, she got the prickling hair sensation like someone was watching her. As they climbed up the stairs to an open row of seats, she glanced over her shoulder and caught the man on stage staring in their direction. His eyes never left their area until long after they were seated in the row. “Is it just me or is he staring at us?”   “I think you mean to ask if he is staring at you, because girl, I think so,” Their classmate Tierra leans down from the row behind them. “He hasn’t stopped following you since you guys entered the room, and every girl in here has been trying to get his attention.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder.    “What do you mean by that? And how do you know he was staring at me? There were three of us walking together.”   “Because girl, his eyes were like hawks, tracking just your movements, it’s not fair.” She pouted and then looked ahead as their teacher stepped forward on stage while the man sat in one of the chairs that had been brought on stage.    “Maybe we can try to talk to him after the lecture? I think that would be cool,” Abby grinned and settled into her chair.    Kassandra sniffed the air again, smelling the pine needles as the man on stage shifted in his seat. She winced again as she had more pain flashing through her forehead. “Jeeze, I wish my headache would just stop; this came on so suddenly.”   “You sure you’re ok? You might have a migraine,” Tatum glanced over worriedly, “Maybe you should think about heading home after the lecture.”   “Yeah, I might do that, especially if this doesn’t go away soon. I wouldn’t be able to focus the rest of the day, and it would probably hurt worse if I go to practice today,” Kassandra gave a little pout, a little wishing she wouldn’t have to miss practice for something seemingly so small.    “It’s probably better if you don’t. Some headaches are no joke, especially if this one is hurting you so much,” Tatum bit her lip but turned towards the stage as Dr. Ryan began to speak.    “Good morning students. Today we have a very special guest all the way from Switzerland, Prince Jacob Creed. He is here to share how the politics and government work in Switzerland and the presence that the royal families in European countries have on politics. Please give him your upmost attention as he has given up time from family and friends to be here to speak to our class.” Dr. Ryan turned and nodded his head towards the Prince.    “Yeah right, he’s here just to talk to us instead of being with family. There has to be some other reason he came to UIC of all places,” Abby whispered from Kassandra’s left. Kassandra nodded but kept her gaze on the stage.    “Good Morning, like Professor Ryan said, I am Prince Jacob Creed from Switzerland. As many of you know, Switzerland has a democracy, but much like England, there is still a monarchy presence. Many of the rules or laws must be voted on and approved by the family leaders before they can be instated into the society. These family leaders are much like Lords or Ladies that you would hear about in medieval history…”    The Prince continued, but Abby jabbed Kassandra’s sides, tearing away her attention, “He barely has an accent, aren’t they supposed to speak German there or some form of it?”   Kassandra shook her head, still watching the Prince, “They have their own version of German, not one that is understood by many Germans, but is similar enough to German that I could get around in Switzerland without too much problem. It’s more of an older style of German back when everything was under Germanic states, Germany with no one ruler. Usually though, when Germans speak in English, they have more of a British accent than an American accent. So, it is really odd that he doesn’t sound to have any accent at all.” Kassandra happened to be half German and was taking German classes for a degree here at UIC.     Kassandra lost track of what Abby responded to as she became transfixed in listening to the Prince. Well, she was more transfixed in watching him, not really seeing what he had to say. As he walked along the stage, using some great speech practices of taking in the whole audience, Kassandra couldn’t help but get the feeling that his gaze kept coming back towards where her friends and her were sitting. Kassandra shook her head and thought ‘I mean, of course he would stare in our direction multiple times. We were sitting in the middle of the auditorium, sort of like eye level if you were speaking from a stage without staring down your nose. But still it really seemed like he made a point of looking at us.’ The hair on the back of her neck continuously stood up throughout his speech every time he looked in their direction.    Again, it took Abby’s sharp elbow to her left side to bring her gaze out of focus on the Prince.   “Kas, if we want to go talk to him, we had better get up and head towards the stage,” Abby was trudging on, tugged on Kassandra’s sleeve to get her moving. All around them, people were beginning to file out of the auditorium. Kassandra had completely lost track of time and had zero clue what the Prince had talked about after his brief introduction.    “Yeah I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m be right behind you,” Kassandra shook her head and gathered her bag from the floor and followed Abby out of the row and allowed Tatum to get up. She followed Abby down their section’s stairs and towards the stage where the Prince was answering questions from a couple of their classmates. One could tell right away that the girls asking him questions didn’t give one s**t about what he told them. Based on the way they were standing and twirling their hair said enough that they were trying to flirt with him. As the rugby girls approached, the smell of pine needles and forest became stronger, causing Kassandra to faulter in her steps. The slight movement caused the Prince to turn away from the frat girls towards the approaching group. Kassandra’s eyes widened as she locked eyes with the Prince, and he gave her a bright smile. But just as suddenly, both winced as if to have a slight headache.    “Good morning, Your Majesty. On behalf of our school and our school's women’s rugby team school, we wanted to say thank you for coming and speaking in front of our class…” Tatum began speaking, doing the polite thing while Abby was next to her googly eyeing the Prince. Kassandra stood off to her left and just watched them talk for the time being.    Towards the end of Tatum’s lengthy thank you speech, nothing of which Kassandra could remember. Maybe she talked about rugby for a bit, but she was unsure. Anyways, she was wrapping up and Kassandra nodded her head and said thank you to the Prince as well. She could hear Abby echoing her from the other side of Tatum.    The Prince nodded and smiled while turning to look at Kassandra. Not only did he turn his head, but he turned his whole body, like he was done thinking the other two even existed. “So, what do you study here? And I assume you play rugby for the school like your two friends here.”   Kassandra nodded and blushed, “Yes, I do play on the rugby team with Tatum and Abby. And I am on track to get a major in Psychology and a minor in German here at UIC.”   “Ah very fascinating, so you probably have psychologically analyzed me most of this briefing.” Abby snickered, but it's cut short by Tatum’s sharp elbow to the side. “Your friend here, Tatum, said your name is Kas. Is that what you go by or is that short for something?”   “It is short for Kassandra, which is too hard to say when you are trying to get someone’s attention on the rugby field. It started when I had a foreign teacher for one of my freshmen classes who couldn’t pronounce my name on the first day, so he just called me Kas for a whole year. It just kind of stuck and I went with it when I started playing rugby,” she blushed, realizing that she had been rambling.   “Well, that’s an interesting way to receive a nickname. It is my pleasure to meet you, Ms. Kassandra…” he waited for her last name   “Winters,” Kassandra smiled.   The Prince smiles back, “Ms. Kassandra Winters,” he gave a small bow of the head and took Kassandra’s hand in his. His hand was smooth, though had calluses like he regularly did hard labor or worked with his hands. “I am Jacob Creed, but you can call me Jacob,” he smiled again, and Kassandra saw Tatum roll her eyes off to her left and Abby’s mouth gapped open. “So where are you from? You don’t seem like you’ve always lived in the city, you seem like you might be more comfortable in a small town or in more open areas,” for some reason he glanced over her shoulder at one of the guards who had come and stood a few feet behind them.    “I was born in a small town west of the city and grew up working on a farm, but when I got to high school age I moved to the city for school with my mom. But my grandma on my mom’s side came from Europe when she was pregnant with my mom, so that might be why I seem a little out of place here. Though I’ve never visited Europe myself.”   “Ah ok,” he smiled again, “Well, I hope our paths cross again, Ms. Winters before I leave for Switzerland,” he gave a small bow of the head again. “I don’t think I should hold up you and your friends any longer from classes.”   Kassandra smiled back at him and nodded, “It was good to meet you too, Prince Jacob… I mean Jacob.” She blushed and turned to head off stage from the side steps with her friends. Before she left, she turned and gave one last quick glance back, seeing Jacob still standing there watching her leave.   “Wow, Kassandra,” Abby paused and stared across at me as we headed towards the exit to the auditorium.    “What is it?” Kassandra asked, stopping in the middle of the aisle.   “I knew you were fluent in German, but what you did back there sounded like a different language entirely.”  “What do you mean?” Kassandra looked at her completely confused with her eyebrows knitted.   “Kassandra, your whole conversation with the Prince was in a different language. I know some German, but I didn’t understand anything the two of you started talking about. I mean you guys started in German like when he asked your name and then liked about rugby, but then when you talked about your mom and you moving to the city, you guys switched to a different language I had never heard before. What was it?”   “I honestly have zero clue; I don’t ever remember switching languages other than English. Are you guys sure I was talking in a different language?”   “Yes.” They chorused each other, both stopping and staring at Kassandra.   “Oh wow.” She looked over her shoulder stunned and saw Jacob standing on stage still facing in their direction but talking to a few of his guards that had joined him on stage. Jacob turned his head almost as if he could tell Kassandra was staring and smiled up at her as he caught her stare. As suddenly as it had gone, her headache returned, “s**t, why does this headache keep coming back sporadically?”   Tatum laid her hand on Kassandra’s shoulder, “There’s too much weird stuff going on, so I think you should go home and try to sleep off the headache. Let us know if you need anything and I’ll let Coach know you are not feeling good.”   “Thanks Tatum,” Kassandra rubbed her head and followed Abby past the guard standing near the auditorium door. Sheering pain ripped through her forehead again as they passed the guard, and his eyes followed the girl’s progress.   “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Good luck with practice, let me know how those new plays go Tatum,” Kassandra grimaced and headed towards the bathroom. Inside, she threw some cold water on her face and pressed a cold napkin to her head, trying to ease the pain. Nothing seemed to help the pain.    When she came out of the bathroom, the guard by the auditorium door had left and Kassandra could see a pair of black SUVs pulling out of a parking spot near the front of the auditorium.    As the smell of the forest hit her nose, Kassandra pushed the door to leave the building and stepped out into the crisp morning air of a Chicago fall.