Knowing yourself is more important than knowing someone else, so what do you do when you figure out your whole life is based on a lie?
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Vale is a peaceful town-- at least by night. By day the town is haunted by a monster who never seems to quit or...
"I'm Mina, Sir," she replies with a shallow curtsy. "My brother is Milus, and my parents were Mona and Petrus."
Realization coats my father's expression, and his eyes soften. "Oh, my, you're so grown up!"
She smiles. My body aches to join the conversation and talk to them, and ask more questions about Mina and her shifter abilities, but I'm stuck in the dragon's body as she keeps explaining in detail what happened inside the Master's throne room, like she was there.
By the sound of it, she was.
As I listen to her explain how she saw and heard everything by climbing the outside of the Master's house and peeking through an ornate window at the top of the roof, my affection for her grows. My chest swells with some sort of pride at the girl I always pined for but never really knew. Her small frame has allowed her to spy on the Master for years after her parents died, she tells us, and her brother being one of Tane's soldiers never cast any suspicion towards her.
When I finally shift back, Mina is asleep with her head resting on her satchel, and my father is sitting on the edge of the drop beneath the cave. I walk over to him and sit down, leaning my head on his shoulder as I sigh.
"What do we do?" I ask, making sure I whisper so I don't wake up Mina.
"We wait," he replies, "I don't think there's much else to do. If we run Tane's head will roll, and if we stay we can make a change."
He smiles down at me. His arm moves, and he puts it gently around my shoulders. His bearded cheek rests against my hair, and I close my eyes to savor the moment. I remember the last time he hugged me, before I thought he died. He held me tightly, as if he knew something was about to happen, and I didn't know. I was blissfully unaware with a growing interest for dragons and other creatures, and the stars.
"There will be bloodshed, son," my father whispers after a few moments of silence. "We will wait the days it takes for Tane to come here, and we will be ready. The way I see it, we have a golden opportunity to change Vale for the better."
He presses a kiss to the top of my head before he stands up. He smiles at me. It looks like a pained smile, and I send him one back.
What comes next will make my mind hurt. I will have to face my fear and hurt people, unless they listen to reason. The thought of Tane marching towards us with soldiers ready to sacrifice their lives to kill a beast makes my skin crawl, and as my father jumps off the edge and shifts into his glorious, fiery red dragon form, I turn my head and look at the girl peacefully asleep by the fire.
Maybe it'll all be worth it if Vale can be saved from the greedy, selfish people ruling it.
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The fire cracks. We've been waiting in the cave for a whole night, a whole day, and now there's just a few more hours left of the night again.
My arms are holding onto my legs as I stare into the dancing fire in front of me. Mina is laying on the other side of it, the flames making her light hair seem orange. It's not a bad look on her at all. I keep my mouth shut, though.
