The Dragon Princess Will Stay Alive!

Pat pat.

"Mmn."

Pat pat, the small hands came down on her exposed cheek in harsh slaps.

Sonata turned her head away and tucked it back under the blanket. The smaller one tore it away.

"Sis, wake up!"

Sonata's consciousness slowly drifted back into the normal realm. She rubbed the crustiness from her puffy eyes and dry sticky cheeks, aftermath from a night of crying.

In front of Sonata, a small child, maybe five or six years old, sat with her messy bedhead of yellow curls tumbled over her plain brown dress with a vine of red flowers embroidered into the collar. Her peridot-green eyes were exactly like Sonata's, except her's were more like emeralds, a trait that ran in the royal family of their father's side. She looked very concerned.

Sonata sat up, dusting the sandy ground of the cave off her arms and legs as she tried to remember where she was and what she was doing there. It was hard, her mind was covered in a comfortable blanket where everything was a blur, and for whatever reason she wasn't sure how much she'd actually slept last night.

"Sophia?...Whats wrong?" She asked, reaching out to c.a.r.e.s.s the younger being's head, and also undo those knots. Sophia had a thing for being completely unaware of the state of her hair, which despite looking as cute as herself, was always a labrynth of random leaves and sticks and food, if no one helicoptered over her.

The smaller being's eyes met her older sister's. Sonata stopped playing with her hair. "Okay, I'm up. What do you want?"

"Where's Mama?" Her small voice was broken. Sonata's heart throbbed as the memory came back. She wondered how long it'd taken her sister to look around before she'd come to wake her up.

Would she give her the responsible answer or the honest one? Her sister was old enough to call her out on her lie, and it would only hurt her more, Sonata figured, if she had to figure it out on her own. Could she stand to see what would come after, though, that was the question.

"...She went to find Papá." Sonata said quickly, brushing off the rest of her legs and standing up. Sophia looked from her older sister to the exit, the worried face still there.

"Where's that? When is she coming back?"

Sonata put her hands on her lips, and swallowed her feelings down. "Who needs Mamá?"

Sophia frowned. Sonata smiled.

"We have the entire Summer to ourselves, until she comes back. We're free to spend it however we'd like! What would you like to do first?"

Sophia stared back at her sister, weighing her options in her mind behind those frowning green eyes.

"Hm..." A realization seemed to come to her. "We're done traveling?"

Sonata nodded.

"And we don't have any lessons?"

"Yup! And no one's going to stop us. We can do anything we want...so long as it's safe." She c.o.c.ked her head. "But even then, we can just run back and hide in the cave if something goes wrong. We have this entire corner of the forest all to ourselves. How do you want to start off this glorious day?" Once she stared talking, it was easier. Sophia was so much easier to excite than the other a.d.u.l.ts she knew. By the time she was done, a small glitter had ignited in the small girl's eyes.

"Hehe! We can make flower crowns!" The little princess clapped her hands together.

Sonata's head stayed c.o.c.ked. "...You already have a circlet. A real one. Made of gold."

"But flower crowns though!" Sophia bounced up and down, except it was more of a fidget because her feet never left the ground. "I never got to make one...because the nurse thought they were a waste of flowers!"

Sonata smirked, a little bit of her bubbliness leaking though.

"Is that what you did when I first started having lessons?" Sonata teased, remembering the days between when they used to play together all day and when their parents finally relented to letting Sophia stay in the same room as her during lessons because she threw a tantrum every time Sonata had to go study.

"Those were the dark days." The blonde stated, a little too darkly for her petite image. "...Wait a minute. Sis, we need mama, do you even know how to make flower crowns?"

Sonata frowned. "I can learn. It couldn't be that hard. But first let's eat, we can't go out hungry."

"A proper princess never eats till her tummy is full." Sophia informed.

"Well, unlucky for you, I'm not a proper princess." Before she could react, Sonata had tackled her little sister to the ground, the scales on her head that'd patchwork-meshed together to form a skin texture reverting back and some of her horns becoming visible again. Her hands had reverted back to claws.

Hissssss!

Sonata stared blankly for a few seconds, then laughed. "What kind of half done dragon form is that?"

Sophia pulled back in disappointment, liking at her arms. "Well these clothes aren't exactly shapeshift proof. If I tear them, they're not coming back." Sonata receded her form back to her usual humanoid one, though a few translucent scale outlines and blotches of pale whitish-green could still be seen, here and there. "Why, do you think you could do any better?"

"Uh-huh." And Sophia was gone.

"Ah—" Sonata stared, as a small milky-yellow dragon wiggled it's way out of Sophia's clothes. She facepalmed, m.o.a.ning into her hands. "Noo.." Meanwhile, the lizard of a dragon looked very happy with itself.

"Sophia...baby...no. And now you're going to be stuck in that form for hours because you use up so much energy doing it."

Sad chirping noises.

"I know that, you silly feathered creature. And you realize you're going to forget your clothes in some distant corner of the cave, don't you? And then you're going to fall sick when you turn back because your clothes didn't shapeshift with you, so we're going to be looking for them in a dark cave." The small slithery being on the ground looked really sad about itself around that time, so Sonata bent down and took her into her hands,trying to mind her tone of voice. "And worse than that all, you must realize you get a little bit smaller every time you do that. It shrinks you. Don't do it."

By this point, Sophia had begun to crawl up Sonata's arm and situate herself around her sister's neck, resting upon her shoulders.

"Most sprites cant even take a drakonic form. You just have a really good big sister."

She picked up their mother's cloak, wrapping it around her neck so Sophia wasn't cold. "Do you want me to stay with you in the cave until your elvish form comes back?"

Chirp!

Hmph.

"Fine, I guess we're eating inside, then."