Promised to the Dragon King

Chapter 1

'Upon a mountain, high in the snowy peaks’ was where she lived. Kaida, the dragon. The ruins of the castle broke down more and more with each passing year, leaving behind less and less of what once was, but then the cold didn’t bother her as much as it did in the beginning.

It was a bright, cloudy day and the snow softly fell, as it usually did, which meant it would be a quiet, peaceful winter…

She sighed and fell on the ground, snow fluffing up into the air around her.

“Phillipe, you are drunk! No Knight wants a dragon for a wife.” She rolled her eyes at her best friend.

Phillipe was the town drunk who had decided to make it his life’s mission to find her a husband.

He stumbled onto her existence when he was a young man, hiding from his father. He didn’t want to do any chores, and hid in the forest. Each time he would hide, his father would find him, meaning that he had to hide deeper into the forest the next time.

Eventually, he ended up having to climb the mountain to get away from doing his chores. His father did not want to waste an entire day climbing the mountain looking for him, or so he wanted her to believe.

“But.” Hiccup.

“Kaida, that is where you are missing the point. All wives are,” hiccup.

“Dragons.” Taking another swig from his rum bottle, just barely sidestepping the gust of wind she blew through her nose his way.

“Snowballs, don’t scare me, you know, Kaida!”

He pointed his little index finger at her nose.

“Phillipe, I don’t want to be anyone’s wife-dragon either. I just want to be left alone! Now go away before I decide to eat you!!” She opened her mouth, putting it right over him.

He made a quick run for it.

“Stupid drunk… Stupid Knights. Just the other day I tried explaining to one of them that there was no princess in the tower to save. He literally sh@t himself and ran away! A fat lot of courage in that one…”

She turned her head to the other side trying to avoid him, but somehow, he found a way to climb over her neck, hooking his rum bottle strap over her damn ear and sliding down the other side!

Phillipe stood with his hand resting against her left nostril.

“That time of the month, hey?” He jumped when a small ice ball hit the ground in front of him.

“Aren’t you meant to be down in the village swindling… I mean, polishing some poor nobleman’s horses as…shoes, I mean.” She rolled her eyes.

“Nope, I made enough money yesterday to buy enough rum to spend the entire day here… With you.” He smiled at her.

“Oh, won’t the earth just open up and swallow me whole!!” She cried out.

“I don’t think that will be a good idea.” Hiccup.

“What will happen to the village if you are gone?”

He grabbed his bottle, pulling at the strap that was now stuck underneath her.

“Kaida!! Let. Go!”

She lifted herself slightly and he went flying, but not a drop of rum spilt.

“Okay, okay, fine! I’m going! Just try and win a prince’s heart, will ya?!”

She rolled her eyes at the now soaked Phillipe.

“I don’t need one! They stink!”

He walked away, nearly tripping over nothing and waved at her. She didn’t know why she didn’t just eat him. Insufferable creature! Always coming around here bugging her to marry a prince when he wasn’t even married yet!

Then again…

No, she couldn’t just imagine it. A prince saying, “I do” and then passing out in fear. Of course, their first dance would be a bit awkward…

She would have to stand still to make sure she didn’t step on her new groom.

Stupid old drunk! She turned around onto her other side, accidentally smashing another wall in her castle.

“Great, Kaida! Just great! Soon there will be no more castle left!”

Flopping her head down on the ground, she closed her eyes and listened to the snow wind whistle.

“Someday, Kaida.” Hiccup.

“You will have to open that heart of yours to love and compassion…” Hiccup.

“Aren’t you supposed to have already left?”

“Yes, but then I got lost, I found a trail, and now I am. Right back where I started.”

She decided to let him sleep it off in one of the castle rooms left, before he broke his neck or something on his way down the mountain. Then it would be blamed on her… Yet again.

***

It was a bright sunny morning. Just like she hated it. Give her a cloudy, rainy, dark, and gloomy day anytime. She heard Phillipe falling around in the room trying to get up after his night of drinking, and wondered if he found another bottle of rum in the cellar, that could be the reason for him still being drunk.

Sitting upright, she yawned just as he walked out of the doorway and onto the steps going down from his room.

“G’ morning Your Highness.” He waved at her like an i***t.

“There is nothing good about this morning!” She fell onto the snow, making the earth shake underneath his feet.

She loved watching him jump around as if he was going to fall off the edge of the earth.

“And I have told you before, stop calling me that!”

“Yes, but you also told me that if I found proof…”

She stopped him right in his tracks.

“Which there isn’t. Dragons aren’t princesses. I’ve always been a dragon, and I will always be a dragon. Now, will you please leave before I turn you into breakfast!” She noticed he has a book in his hand.

“Where did you get that?”

“I ain’t gonna tell ya.”

“Why not?”

“Cause ya just told me to leave, now I’m leavin. Bye, Kaida.”

He shouted over his shoulder on his way down. What proof was he talking about? What was with the book and the rose crest on the cover? Now he was gone and done it! Getting up from her spot, she flapped her wings, making the top layer of snow fly everywhere, and took off to look for Phillipe.

The forest was clear in wintertime, and she saw him on his way down the mountain. He moved fast when he was sober. Who would have thought?

“Phillipe!” She called, but he didn’t look.

Maybe she was too high up for him to hear her. She flew a bit lower and called again.

“Phillipe! What did you mean by proof?”

Again, he didn’t even look up at her. Surely, he should have heard her this time. Flying ahead, she landed in front of an almost running Phillipe, frightening him.

“What the hell, Kaida?! I thought you would never, ever leave your mountain… Your words, not mine.”

She ignored his waving arms and sarcastic comment.

“What did you mean when you said you have proof and what’s with the book?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Phillipe, I swear if you don’t tell me what is going on right now, I’m going to eat you this time!”

Phillipe flopped down in the snow looking defeated.

“Why did you have to wait until I was halfway down the mountain huh? Now I’m cold, wet, tired, and thirsty. I’m not telling you a thing until I’m warm, dry and I’ve had something to drink.”

He folded his arms, clinging to the book as if his life depended on it. Thinking that if she wanted to find out what was going on, she would have to accommodate the drunk.

“Fine then.”

She flapped her wings, blew snow over him, grabbing him with one of her claws, and flew back up the mountain, paying no mind to his screams in protest. When they reached the top, she dropped him in a soft pile of snow and landed near the castle, making her way to her favourite spot.

“Was that necessary?!”

“What? You wanted to be warm. Make a fire. You wanted to be dry. I am sure there are dry clothes somewhere in the castle. You wanted to drink something… You know where the cellar is.”

She shot a snowball his way, and he quickly disappeared up the steps into one of the passages. Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long because his curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of him. With rum in one hand and the book in his other, he waltzed down the stairs declaring he was ready.

“What about heat? I'm not a fire dragon, remember!”

She asked, wondering when he was going to make a fire to keep warm with.

“Rum.” He held the bottle in the air.

“Rum is all I need. It warms the mind, body, and spirits.”

“Oh, just get on with it.”

Making himself comfortable on one of the broken walls, he lied back and opened the book.

“Princess Vanora and the Dragon King

This is the history of Princess Vanora and the proposal from the Dragon King.”

“See I told you I found proof.” He looked up at her, and when she looked at him, he quickly carried on reading.

“This was once a happy kingdom. The King and Queen ruled with love and kindness. They had a beautiful daughter, Vanora.”

“I would remember if there was once a happy kingdom here.” She snorted.

“You are kind of old, you know, maybe you forgot.”

She hit him right on his side with a snowball, making him fall off the wall, hitting the ground hard.

“OW! That hurt!”

“Serves you right! I’m not that old! I’m only around five hundred, six, maybe seven hundred and something years old.”

“See! You can’t even remember your age, so all you need to do is charm a prince, fall madly in love, get true love's kiss, and you will change back into a princess and live happily ever after.”

She rolled over onto her back.

“Phillipe, did you make me fly down the mountain just so you could tell me a fairy-tale of something that might have happened here and couldn’t possibly be me.”

Yawning she turned over to his side and he made a run for it as the walls came tumbling down underneath her weight.

“No, you did that all on your own, missy! And one of these days you are going to have to stop crushing your castle, or there will be no place for you to live your happily ever after!”

“Phillipe, leave… And leave the book. It doesn’t belong to you.”

“Finders’ keepers, losers’ weepers.”

She opened her mouth to move his way, when he dropped the book and started running down the mountain. He was even funnier when he was sober. Could he be right? She didn’t remember anything from her past, she had always just been Kaida the dragon. She never knew her parents. Come to think of it… She never knew any other dragons. She heard knights threatening her that they had killed others, so there had to be others out in the world.

Did she have dragon parents? Did they abandon her? Stupid Phillipe scratched around in the past! She was happy not knowing and not thinking about it!! She got up, flapped her wings, and took off again, following his footsteps down the mountain. Her wings created a gust of freezing wind and snow as she flew over him.

She heard him screaming something about being rude and cruel, but she paid no mind to it. When he reached the town, she turned around and hovered over the town watching as the townspeople made a run for it. She had never harmed any of them. She hardly came down here, but still, they ran. Like little ants…

Phillipe stood in the middle of the square with his hands on his hips and an angry expression on his face. The villagers were going to blame him for this, and she laughed at him.

“Payment for what you did.” She told him, flapping her wings, and took off back to the castle. At least she had some fun on this horrible sunny day.

Flopping down on the snowy mountain, she looked at the book. The red leather cover, bound with black stitching. It didn’t seem to be that old, until she opened the first page with the tip of her claw. The pages inside were yellow with age. She read the heading and what Phillipe was reading is there, in black and white.

A princess was living in this castle once. Well, that seems kind of obvious, but how long ago was that? She skipped to the end of the book.

“The war was almost the end of the kingdom, and the King thought the solution would be to promise Princess Vanora as a bride to the Dragon King. When the time came for her to leave, the King went back on his word, and the princess was cursed.”

“See, I just knew it! What a load of cr@p!”

She smacked the book closed, and shoved it aside.