The Dragon King

Chapter 27

"It will get better," Rena says with hope in her voice, and Marnie does her best to cling to it. "Once the baby comes, you will be able to focus on something else." Rena grins slightly. "What do you think: boy or girl? I think the baby is a girl."

Marnie shakes her head, letting go of the dark memories. "Elyas and I both think it is a boy. It doesn't matter to me, though. As long as the baby is happy and healthy, then I don't care what gender it is."

"Oh, and the baby dragon." She gushes. "It will be quite a sight to see your baby and that baby dragon together."

"I am curious about the bonding ceremony." Marnie voices. "Is it like the Ember Stone bonding?" Rena shakes her head, clearly unfamiliar with the stone's bonding. "It is like the stone is alive, and we are drawn to one. We pull it from the water, and our hands are cut. We close our hands around the stone, and it bonds to us. It resets when someone throws it back in the water. No one really knows how that started."

"I guess, in a way, it is similar." Rena nods for a moment while thinking. "Once your baby is born, the dragon will hatch, and then you will want to put them together as soon as possible. They need that touch, like a mother's soothing touch calming a baby. Their blood is already synced due to the bloodline. It lasts for a while, but it starts to fade as the child grows. The baby dragon is like a puppy and will follow your baby around anywhere. It can learn basic commands, but nothing major until it gets older. Once your child is around ten, you will start to see a change in them both. They become distant and agitated. The sooner you have the second ceremony, the better." Rena stands up again and starts hanging up dresses. "The second ceremony is what seals the deal. The child will cut their hand, and if the dragon imitates it, then the bond is a good pairing. Then the two will touch wounds, and their blood will fuse together. When they pull away, the wounds will heal themselves, and that is how you know the bond took." Rena glances at Marnie to see a bit of concern. "I have never heard of one that didn't take."

Marnie sighs for a moment, but then a question enters her mind. "Callan had a dragon, right?" Rena nods once. "And it was killed because she ran away and threw away her title. But if she had children, wouldn't they have dragons too? They are still part of the bloodline."

Rena falters for a moment, and Marnie can see a dark secret surrounding that question. "Elyas' parents were good people, good rulers, but when Callan left, they were so angry and devastated. Elyas told me that Callan's dragon died, but everyone knew that it was destroyed. Then there was talk of an egg hatching several months later, but then it was just like it never happened. No one really knew for sure what happened, but we all had suspicions."

"They killed the baby dragon, didn't they?" Marnie questions while feeling sympathy for Callan. Rena nods again. "What would that do to a child, to never have been bonded?"

"Callan probably felt her dragon's death and probably still does to this day. It can torture a person. But for a child to never have that bond, I think it wouldn't be as severe as Callan's. I think the child will always have a sort of emptiness they feel and can never fill it. It is a terrible thing to do to a child, which is why your child will be bonded as soon as possible."

"Could their child not be bonded to another dragon?" To Marnie, it seems like a solution and a way to make amends for such terrible deeds.

Rena shakes her head. "It doesn't work like that. There have been stories of Elyas' ancestors trying to force bonds, and it never ended well. No person, or dragon, ever survived."

"Do you think this is why Callan hasn't made herself known...because of what her parents did to their dragons?" Marnie hesitates in the question, but it is fair to question why she would keep herself away.