The Dragon Princess Will Stay Alive!

//Hey guys, just finished up this chapter. As always, go ahead and leave me a comment if you're enjoying the story, even if you're reading this a while after this was first posed. Authors get notified either way, you know. With that, please prepare your hearts for a six/seven year old Sonata. She was always a m.a.t.u.r.e little princes www <3

CRACKLE...CRACK

CRACKLE...CRUNCH...CRACK

The fire was an animal in leisure, snapping and crunching on the remains of it's prey. The feathery outstretched arms of yellow it possessed were the wings of birds, and she could hear their flapping in the flames. Her legs ached a little, from running up and down uneven hills and stomping though wreaths of tangled up roots all day. She was used to running around, but actually working was something else.

But it wasn't as though she hadn't walked the long way here.

Sigh.

Sophia fell asleep hugging her again. She couldn't sleep well with someone so close to her. It used to be she only had to put up with this clingy puppy of a dragon on occasional nightmares or stormy nights when she climbed onto her bed. Ever since the journey began, Sophia had fallen asleep right next to her every single night. It wasn't like Sonata could just push her away, either. It gave her anxiety to think about her sister being asleep more than an inch away...but being held in the deathlike grip of a sleeping Sophia was still too much.

Sonata stared off into the fire, the thin blanket pulled up to just above her jaw. She tried to lose herself in the fire. When Sophia was this close and had finally fallen asleep, all that was left was to wait for exhaustion and the monotony of doing nothing to wear down on her mind. For the cave to pull her in to sleep. There was no tossing and turning to find a better position when someone whose sleep deprived self was a tiny imp was right there besides you. First it was waiting for Sophia to fall asleep, because she could fall asleep when someone right next to her was awake, and then it was realizing "oh, now I'm waiting to fall asleep."

Nothingness, and then nothingness. The only other thing left to do was to think.

Sonata blew a stray strand of pale green hair out from her face, staring at the darkness beyond the fire pit.

When they had Sophia, she hadn't seen her mother in weeks. She wasn't allowed in that part of that castle. Her mother wasn't well enough for company. She was very very ill.

She sometimes heard sobbing, echoing through the walls. The servants who came out from tending her mother looked miserable. Her father looked frazzled and would usher her away if he found her lurking. It felt like her mother was going to die.

She didn't understand. When she was born, she was born as an egg, and then she grew into a tiny dragon inside that egg and then she hatched. Her parents took turns keeping her warm until that happened, but the answer to where she came from definitely didn't include her making her mother sick for an entire year. She didn't understand why her to-be sibling wasn't an egg. Was that egg inside her mother? How did it get in there? What had happened differently to make this time different? And why couldn't she just turn back into a dragon and sleep for awhile if she was so tired?

She didn't tell anyone she heard it, but she heard screaming the day Sophia was born. She sat hugging a pillow with her back to a chair, staring at the corner before a long stairway that went up to that level of the castle. Even though she'd been trying to distract herself before, she still heard it. Now all she could do was strain for the voices of the people who'd gone up. In the tangle of sounds, she tried to figure out what was going on. She thought she heard her mother talking between sobs. She thought she heard her father as well. Then the wails began again. Young Sonata hugged the pillow tighter against herself. A maid coming up the stairs noticed her.

>"What are you doing here? Come down, come down here. This isn't a place for children." And she was quickly ushered away. As she hurried down the steps, she could still hear her mother crying.

She thought her little sister was cute, but when she grew up she never wanted to have children. Not if there was a chance she was stuck keeping a human form for months, not if it hurt like that. She hoped Sophia never had children, either. She didn't think she'd handle watching her suffer like that very well.

She turned back to peek at the tiny one asleep behind her. Some of Sonata's hair accidentally fell on her cheek, but sleeping Sophia didn't seem to notice. Her cheeks were slightly pink form the heat. Sonata briefly considered blowing on her, but that would probably wake her more than the hair.

Sonata's expression pulsed a momentary frown. Her lips pressed tight together. She didn't want to see her suffer, and she didn't want either of them to die.

> "It took a long time to come here, and it will take a long time to go back."

How long had it taken to come here? With the chaos of the fire and the exhaustion of riding and walking for days, she didn't keep track. They could be here for weeks, even if Mamá travelled faster on her own. And there was something else that tugged at her mind...

>"...once I find Antonius and the coast is clear."

What if she didn't find papà? What if there wasn't a way for her to come back to them without being seen. What if there never was?

Sonata squeezed her eyes shut. Mamà would come back for them. She needed to trust that she would. She drew her mind away from it. It got harder to keep her eyes open. They felt more comfortably closed.

The first time she saw Sophia, she snuck in through a door that'd been left open. She only knew it was her because there were a cl.u.s.ter of servants fretting over her for the longest time. She'd drifted off peeking from a door, and awoke to the sound of voices. When she peeked in again, there was only one maid passed out from exhaustion. She took the opportunity to sneak in and peek into the crib she'd seen empty, many times. This time there was a creature that looked very much like a tiny pig. Why was it so red?

It stared at her with wide open eyes, it's arms lifting as though they were long enough to touch her face. It didn't make any sounds, it didn't move much, either.

Sonata stretched to the tips of her toes, reaching in to touch one of those tiny, clasped up hands.

Why was it in human form? It took her years to master that, and this creature came out without scales, and she still couldn't get rid of her tail. It looked human. It's skin looked so thin, it had stray fuzz for hair.

Hi strange little one, she thought. I'm your big sister.

"I can't, I can't. Are you even listening to yourself?"

"Hestia, listen to me. You're being hysterical. I'm saying that the thing is a sprite. It must go. As royalty we must...It is a duty, a duty to our kind to...rid this bloodline of this embarrassment."

"That thing is my child, Antonius. Our child, my baby. And you will watch your words in my prescience or you say goodbye to the idea of ever talking with me again." Her voice cracked. "Do you honestly think that after thirteen months, I could just..."

Sonata froze in place, her eyes going wide. She slowly turned to the doorway, the light coming in from the other side. Her parents were beyond it.

"Hestia, you need to think rationally. What do you expect to do? Raise it? What are our people going to say when they learn their princess is a cripple who can't even take a dragon form? It's so weak it...she could be kidnapped as easily as a human, do you understand, Hestia? Our enemies could use the sprite against us. She's a liability. It will never have a normal life, it's not going to get better."

"I laugh at how you can talk right now as though she's entirely my responsibility. Are you going to pretend this isn't half your fault? Children, Antonius, do not nearly pop up from thin air! ...Oh, give it time! I don't see why we need to have this conversation right now. She could surprise us, for all we know. She's only just come into the world, I haven't even been given a chance to give her a name..."

"And it must go." Her father's voice shushed, but was somehow scarier. Her parents both sounded so terrifying right now. She didn't understand what they were talking about, but she understood enough. She looked back to the small, wiggly baby in the crib.

"My word is final. I'm not...we're not killing our own baby."

"Hestia, this isn't an argument. Every time that child sets foot out of the castle, she will be in mortal danger, like a...like a peasant. Like a mortal. Do understand how much of a shame that would put on this family if word were to get out? It's likely to die, anyways. Just look at it, it's weak. Death would be a mercy. She'd be ridiculed by the entire court, an embarrassment to her sister. If my father ever heard word of her, he could legally eat her, and trust me, he would. He would use it to manipulate us, if he woke up, like he...It will be so much harder for you to cope with the loss, once you bond."

"And you seek to prevent that by killing an infant? I don't see how you could speak so casually about killing your own child, the sister to your daughter, without feeling ill inside." Sonata's soundless feet tiptoed to the wall. She pressed herself against it, listening closely, entranced and horrified by the conversation on the other side. "And what about Sonata? She's waited so long for her sister to be born. She'd be devastated if she found out."

"Everything dies, eventually. That child fixated on anything that can live. It wasn't long ago when she found out the meat on her plate came from the animals she snuck out to play with, and she tried to eat what the peasants call 'salad.' She tried to eat leaves. Our full-blooded dragon child tried to become a goat. A goat, Hestia! We eat goats. We carry them high into the sky and watch them fall for sport. She tried to be a goat so adamantly, she fell ill. I don't think our child should play a role in this conversation."

Sonata squeezed her hand into a fist.

\My sister and I were born into a world that did not want us...\

She walked back to the crib, the tiny mouselike being inside was still awake, staring at her intently. She reached out with both arms, and carefully picked the fragile bundle of bones, blankets, and flesh up.

"It's okay," she whispered. "I'm here, you don't have to be alone. I won't let them hurt you."

\...And were expected to be okay with it.\