~ Chapter 83: Prequel to Fire ~

[Seryanna’s point of view]

 “Found you!” the fluffy princess said as she grabbed the tip of my tail.

I was hiding inside the castle behind one of the velvet window curtains. I intentionally allowed myself to get found by this cute little golden furball because she was just too cute when she pounced around and smiled brightly.

“So you did!” I replied with a smile as I pulled the curtain away.

“Ehehe!” she showed me a bright smile that warmed me up completely, and I could not abstain myself from picking her up in my arms and snuggling her.

Four days have passed since we arrived in the relliar capital Sagar. While I was playing with the little princess of this kingdom, Princess Elleyzabelle was in a real political battle with the King here, trying her best to acquire the trade rights and further open relationships between the Sarakus Kingdom and the Albeyater Kingdom. Regarding our original mission, the acquirement of the baby tooth, the dragoness was not able to find the right opportunity to tell him.

Despite all of this, I was told that negotiations were actually proceeding in a favorable direction. It wouldn’t be long now before the King signed a treaty with us.

Meanwhile, Kataryna played her role as Princess Elleyzabelle’s escort. The relliars thought she was very loyal, but I knew she was just trying to run away from the pesky Tanarotte. That dragoness, while her personality wasn’t all that bad, her clingy behavior made the others avoid her.

“Where do you want to go, Shelly?” I asked her.

Eshantiel was a beautiful and elegant name that gave of the feeling of a powerful noble woman, but it was not cute enough. That was why I gave her this nickname. The little one immediately fell in love with it.

“Um... I want to go see papa.” she said as she held onto my neck while I carried her in my arms.

“Of course!” I told her and then walked towards the throne room.

“I hope he’s fwee today...” she said as she looked down.

His Majesty was an important man who lately had little if no time at all to play with his children. One day, I happened to catch him while he was in the middle of reading a story to Shelly in the rose garden. The expression on his face was that of a doting father rather than that of a stern, uncaring king.

“If he is not, then he’s most likely still caught up in negotiations with Princess Elleyzabelle. She had a rather weird smile on her face when she left the guest’s rooms today.” I said with a nod.

“Weird smile?” Shelly tilted her head to the left and twitched her cute little ears.

“Yes. The type someone who was plotting something. I guess these negotiations are stressing her out.” I showed her wry smile.

“She not bad, is she?”

“Nope. Don’t worry! We did not come here to start a war. We just want to open negotiations so that relliars can come to our country and dragons can come to yours to sell stuff.” I told her, but I wasn’t sure if she understood my words.

“So... dwagons want to be friends with us?” she asked as she looked up at me with upturned eyes.

“Yes! Just like you and me!” I replied and nuzzled her.

During these past four days, I had the opportunity of seeing more of the castle than my friends. Shelly led me around all over the place. Of course, I didn’t care about the layout of the building or to spy on the nobles here, but I did keep my eyes and ears sharp just in case I stumbled upon something worrying. My main objecting right now was to pet and cuddle the little princess. She was just too CUTE to resist!

That being said, it was impossible for me not to notice how many blind spots were around the castle. If the Palace of the Seyendraugher Royal Family was like an impenetrable fortress, then the Palace of the Ruvus Royal Family was like a poorly guarded gigantic mansion.

As a dragoness who stepped on the battlefield and lived through a war, I could tell that there were way too many ways I could break into this place and easily steal or kill someone inside. There were even areas on the big wall that were not patrolled at all.

When I brought up this situation to Princess Elleyzabelle, she told me to keep quiet about this until the negotiations were over as it could be easily seen as both a threat and mockery by the Sarakus King.

If all things went well, she was going to mention all of these problems.

Another thing I noticed while playing with Shelly in the castle was the way the guards and even her teachers were treating her. They saw her as important and didn’t dare to go against her wishes for the most part, but at the same time, they refused any sort of involvement with her. Princess Eshantiel wasn’t like her older brother, Prince Estragus Ruvus, who was currently going through military academy. She was not the heir to the throne, not even a backup because of the birth of the young Prince Bartak. Eshantiel was essentially the same as Princess Elleyzabelle, a daughter meant to further strengthen the relationship with a foreign country through political marriage or those within the country.

Just the other day, there was this fat relliar noble who brazenly walked up to us and asked why Shelly denied his marriage proposal. This man was quite old, from what Princess Elleyzabelle told me later that day, he was a 56 years-old Earl. He was older even than her father, but what was most disgusting about him was the fact that he was one big ball of greasy fat. The very stench of his presence made my stomach turn upside down.

When he attempted to kiss Shelly’s hand, I punched him in the face, sending him flying several meters away. I then threatened to burn his fur off if he dared to get anywhere near this cute little relliar girl. Releasing my killing intent and letting it wash over him certainly had an effect because he ran away as fast as he could from me while shamefully sullying his pants.

Princess Elleyzabelle was not too happy about this. She gave me an earful about how undiplomatic and potentially dangerous my actions could have been. After all, that Earl was still an important noble, but I honestly didn’t think that what I did was a bad thing. I preserved the purity of my little fluff ball Shelly!

Besides this small incident, there was only one moment that stood out, which proved my suspicion regarding how those around her saw her. It happened on the second day when I came to pick up Shelly to go play. Her teachers rudely tried to prevent me from doing so and constantly advised the little girl that it was highly inappropriate for someone of her status to be seen around me.

Normally, I would have burnt their tails off, but I abstained from violence and instead asked them how inappropriate it was for them to declare such shameful and disrespectful things about a Duchess of a foreign kingdom who also happened to have the power to burn their capital to the ground. Just because I was not as good at politics as Princess Elleyzabelle was didn’t mean I was foolish enough to let something like that slide.

Later that day, I told the King what happened and advised him that a friendly relationship between a Duchess like myself and the Princess of his Kingdom could only bring about benefits to ongoing negotiations. Shelly also agreed with me and told her father how much she hated those teachers.

I did not feel any bit of remorse for having them get fired as a result of this. In the end, cute was justice!

For me, the time I spent together with the young princess was precious and quite fun, but when I wasn’t together with her, I usually trained. The three knights who came with us were good for target practice, although they were slower than I would have liked. Princess Elleyzabelle told me to act with them as though they were mine, so I did. I made them run after me and use their best attacks when we fought. We even had a bit of a spar with some of the relliar Royal Knights. The matches were quite even, but when I wanted to join in, they all ran away as fast as they could. It was disappointing and a bit rude.

At night, I would often go around for a flight, patrolling the area from the sky. I thought about taking the princess with me once, to show her how the world was from up here, but I gave up on the idea. It would have stirred too much trouble if we were caught. I could have been accused of a kidnapping attempt.

True, any such accusations would have been denied by the young princess, but she was only 7 years old. The stuck-up nobles would never believe her or even go so far as thinking that I cast some sort of hypnotizing spell on her. After all, these were the very first things they accused me of back when they saw me playing with Shelly during the first day. Princess Elleyzabelle spent that whole evening clearing up my name.

I thought I did a bad thing and apologized to her, but she told me that despite how it looked like, she used this situation to figure out how the nobles saw each other and who was against who on the political playground. As expected, there were parties who were eager to start trading with the dragons and others who were not so sure about it, but there were also some who wanted us out of the kingdom as fast as possible.

Because I did not stay to listen to their gibberish at the negotiation table, I didn’t know the ins and outs of their political mess like the princess did. So far, before even reaching the King, she apparently had to convince the nobles that it was good to support her. Afterwards, the final decision rested with his Majesty, which we presumed it was going to be a favorable one given the fact that I managed to become a friend of little Shelly.

So far, however, I never got to meet the Queen, Shelly’s mother. We were simply told that she was currently nursing the 6 months old prince Bartak.

I was thinking of such matters while escorting the princess to the throne room.

When we got close, I noticed the Prime Minister of the Sarakus Kingdom. He was a stripped feline who always wore an elegant split robe and underneath it, a pair of cashmere pants and a stripped jacket with a white shirt. All the nobles here wore elegant clothes which usually complimented the color of their fur.

“Ah! Duchess Draketerus, you are finally here!” he said when he saw me.

“Good day, Prime Ministers. Is there a problem?” I asked tilting my head to the left.

Shelly let out a soft mew to announce her presence.

“Oh, Princess Eshantiel, good to see you are safe and sound!” he said with a smile then looked at me “Yes, human delegates just arrived. Princess Elleyzabelle Seyendraugher is still inside. While I highly appreciated the well-mannered knights of your kingdom, those ruffians just didn’t care about appearances or laws, they entered together with their knight escort, fully armed!” he spoke in an outraged tone of voice.

“I understand. Well, Kataryna is there. Unless they have a death wish, they won’t try anything funny.” I said and then shrugged.

“I like Kataryna. She funny when running from that other lady.” said Shelly with a cute giggle.

That reminded me, she did saw her hiding in some bushes or scaling the walls in an attempt to hide from Tanarotte. For the little princess it was a funny scene, but the palace guards were troubled when they stumbled upon the dragoness clinging for dear life on the side of the wall.

I was rather surprised of how well Kataryna behaved. The old her would have left Tanarotte in an ice cube hanging off a cliff.

“Yes, well... I hope it won’t come to that. But I do say, these humans... I never saw a more egoistic and idiotic species!” he growled.

“It depends on the individual, I would say.” I told him while scratching Shelly behind her ears.

She closed her eyes and let out a soft purr when I did that.

“No, I must contradict you, Sir Draketerus! Every human is like that!” he declared firmly.

I let out a sigh and then looked into his eyes.

“W-What?” he asked when he saw me do that.

“I would be careful of where I state such an opinion if I were you, Prime Minister.” I told him.

“I don’t understand? Don’t all dragons hate humans?” he asked me with a bewildered expression on his face.

“Just like there are bad relliars and bad dragons, there are also bad humans. Sometimes, these individuals happen to hold high ranking positions within a country, but it isn’t as though each and every member of their species lives only to seek out war against us. That’s why there are human-dragon couples and even human-relliar ones.” I told him.

For a moment, I wanted to tell him about Alkelios and how our Queen did not wage war against the humans even though she got poisoned by one. These matters, however, were extremely sensitive. If not handled properly, they could have led to unexpected international conflicts.

“I see... Well, I hope you are right then, Duchess Draketerus.” he said.

“I hope so too.” I showed him a smile.

“Can I go see papa now?” Shelly asked.

“Princess, erm... I don’t know if now is a good time to see him.” the Prime Minister showed a wry smile.

“I can’t?” she asked with upturned eyes.

“Well... Not exactly, but you’ll have stay quiet until the meeting with the humans and the dragons is over.” he said.

“I will!” she said raising a hand up and showing him a bright smile.

“Is it alright if I leave her with you then?” I asked the Prime Minister.

“Yes, please do. We will enter shortly after you.” he nodded.

When I entered the audience room, I could tell that everyone was tense. Even Kataryna was paying attention to the new guests who arrived. There were nine humans standing straight on the right side of the room. The one in front who did all the talking was a noble with a bit of a belly and carried and air of superiority around him. To his left was a man wearing a mage’s robe and appeared to be bored by this whole visit, while on his right was a sturdy man wearing a knight’s armor.

Behind them, were the escorting knights, so my guess was that the man standing in front of them was the Knight Commander.

None of them inspired any real threat towards me. At best, I would find it surprising if they didn’t die in one hit. They were weak and also arrogant, a deadly combination around dragons.

I tried to ignore them and walked up to Princess Elleyzabelle and Kataryna, who were located on the left side of the audience room, at a fair distance from the human group.

“What’s going on?” I asked them in a whisper.

“Seryanna, these people are representatives of the Akutan Empire. More specifically, they came here in the name of the fourth Princess. So far they made some rather daring demands.” answered Princess Elleyzabelle.

“Daring?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Or foolish if you want to call them that.” chipped in Kataryna.

“The big fat one is a Bishop of the Holy Church of the Pantheon of Zeus. His name is Marconium Bassar and right before you entered, he demanded more opportunities to spread his faith among the relliars and for the King to give up control on the Donmar Port. Both demands are rather ridiculous, but he holds the backing of the Akutan Empire, which is the most powerful military force on the entire Human Continent.” Princess Elleyzabelle explained.

“It sounds bad, but I doubt they will comply to these demands.” I said.

“They won’t. His Majesty will never agree to something as foolish as this. Conceding the Donmar Port to the Akutan Empire would be the same as having declared that the Sarakus Kingdom lost in front of it. Worse of all, it’s a guaranteed bridge into the Relliar Continent for a possible invasion.”

“What I am worried about is that Human Hero over there.” said Kataryna.

I perked my ears up “Human Hero?” I asked.

“Yes, the mage who looks bored. He introduced himself as one. His name is Mandar Bashir and said he hails from Italy.” Kataryna narrowed her eyes at the man.

“Hm. He doesn’t look that strong.” I tilted my head to the right.

“No, but we can’t be certain that he doesn’t have any strange abilities like Alkelios does. We witnessed a Human Hero gaining strength by befriending dragons and one who could move armies around the map as he pleased. Their abilities can’t be underestimated.” she flicked her tail.

“Yes, but my husband had a good reason for being so powerful and so did Kronius. This human, however, doesn’t seem to be in the same league as them.” I shook my head.

“I don’t like how those knights keep looking at us and the relliars.” said Elleyzabelle.

“Yes, it’s like we are an existence far beneath them.” I replied.

While the conversation between the Bishop and the King continued, the humans showed themselves to be impatient regarding how negotiations were progressing. Princess Elleyzabelle didn’t even have a chance to speak and worse of all, it appeared as though they were the ones who rudely interrupted her audience with his Majesty. Then again, she would not want to disclose the matters of her current negotiations with these people, something the others didn’t seem to be worried about.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know the language they spoke in. They didn’t use the language of the country of origin as most diplomats did but the Akutan Empire’s central language, making the presence of a translator mandatory for the King and the nobles present here.

At one point, I heard the knights saying something while looking towards us. It wasn’t loud enough for other humans to hear them, but the sensitive ears of the relliars and those of us dragons picked up the sounds.

“They are mocking us.” Princess Elleyzabelle said in a whisper without losing her composure.

“Weaklings.” I scoffed.

My attention during this conversation was on the cute Shelly, who was standing next to the throne with the Prime Minister. Just like a regular innocent child, she didn’t care about what the adults were talking about and was just looking around with big curious eyes. Because she was a Princess, she was taught not to disturb his Majesty while working.

Looking at her simply healed my heart and made me forget about those walking meat bags.

At one point, his Majesty lifted his hand up and stopped the Bishop from talking. The relliar then turned his gaze towards us.

“I ask our esteem draconian guests to wait outside until this meeting with the esteemed humans will be over.” he said.

“We understand, your Majesty. We will wait outside until you permit us to return before your grace.” Princess Elleyzabelle replied in a polite tone of voice and bowed her head once. “Let’s go.” she then told us in Eastern Draconian.

I nodded and turned around to leave. Kataryna did the same.

As we walked towards the door, Shelly moved away from the Prime Minister and ran towards. She probably saw this as an opportunity to come over and play. The relliar guards didn’t stop her or showed concern like they did before. They knew that I was friends with her, and honestly, I didn’t mind playing with her for a bit longer. She was just too fluffy to resist!

Just as she ran past the humans, she stumbled on her robe and made a tumble towards one of the knights, inevitably bumping into him. The guards saw this and froze in place, while I turned around to walk over to help her.

“Mew~ Sowy...” she said in a cute voice as she looked up at him.

The human said something in his tongue and lifted his hand up.

What is he doing? I wondered.

“Relliar scum, how dare you dirty me?” the translator said in shock.

What? I thought that I wasn’t hearing right, but when I looked at him again, I saw his hand going down to hit the little girl.

In that moment, I moved at a speed these weaklings could not see.

I grabbed his wrist before he could touch my precious friend and glared back at him.

They human knights were startled by my sudden appearance next to them and the sudden gust of wind my movement had created.

“Let go of me, you dirty lizard.” said the translator without putting any emotion in his words.

“Hou?” I narrowed my eyes at him “You were just trying to hit Shelly, weren’t you?” I said in the Sarakus Language.

The translator let the human know what I said.

“So what?” he replied.

I showed him a smile and then I just squeezed my grip until the human knight screamed in pain and bones could be heard cracking. The hand that was about to hit my fluffy friend had now been turned into a meat paste mixed with crushed bones. I just had to make sure the blood that spilled out of him didn’t touch me or Shelly, so I created a small barrier between us. The drops avoided us and when I was satisfied with the man’s agony, I released my grip on him and let him fall on the ground.

All the humans stepped away from me, showing fear in their eyes. I looked back at them, showed them a smile and then cast a flame over my hand to get rid of his dirty blood.

“Hm? Shall I rip out all of your hands and beat you to death with them?” I asked them in a polite tone of voice. “If you dare touch a single hair on this precious child’s head, I will burn you all alive until there’s nothing left of you.”

“Mew?” the little relliar was a bit shocked by what just happened, but she didn’t look afraid.

I looked back at the King and said “I apologize, your Majesty. I accidentally spilled garbage on your precious floor.” I said in a cold tone of voice.

Princess Elleyzabelle sighed and rubbed her forehead with two fingers.

“This attack and mockery of the Akutan Empire shall not be permitted. We demand the head of this disrespectful dragon.” said the translator after the Knight Commander pointed at me.

I ignored him and picked up Shelly off the ground.

“I apologize for the rude behavior of my subordinate, but I’m afraid such a request cannot be accepted unless the Akutan Empire wishes to officially declare war against the Dragon Continent?” Princess Elleyzabelle asked them in the Sarakus Language.

“As the Knight Commander Devus Allexian, I will have you know that I will not forget this insult brought upon my men and myself!” the human’s words were translated.

We walked out of the audience room without replying. Back there, the knights tried to help the human whose wrist I had crushed, but I doubted anyone other than a top Healer could help him. All the bones caught within my grasp had been crushed to bits and pieces. Amputation was probably the best solution for him.

Once we were outside, I calmed down by rubbing my cheek to Shelly’s. She giggled in reply.

“Ugh... What a disaster!” Princess Elleyzabelle groaned.

“Really? I think it went quite well.” Kataryna nodded to herself.

“I didn’t expect for a human delegation to pop up here when I was attempting to negotiate those treaties with the King!” she said.

“Oh, I thought you were referring to what Seryanna did back there.”

“No, that was actually good. The humans lost a lot of points by trying to hit the young Princess, and we won a bunch by protecting her.” she nodded.

“By the way, why did his Majesty kept quiet when that happened?” I asked.

“That man barely abstained himself from lounging at the humans and ripping them apart with his bare claws. However, if he did that, the follow up political mess would have been terrible. This way, the blame is shifted on us.” Princess Elleyzabelle explained.

“In other words, this was the best outcome for us. We showed the relliars that we stand by their side and aren’t afraid of the Akutan Empire.” said Kataryna.

“Yes.”

“All’s well that ends well.” I said and shrugged.

“We pway now?” asked Shelly.

“Yes, we do!” I replied with a bright smile and then walked off to the garden.