Ciara had almost fallen asleep when her door was suddenly kicked in, furious yelling sounding in the hall. Before she knew it, she was sitting straight up and staring at a figure she hadn't thought she'd see in a long time.
Her eyes widened slowly upon realizing this wasn't a dream, the stinging pain in her shoulder proof of it.
"Aem."
"C!" He rushed to her bed, pulling her in for a hug. Luckily, he was treating her like porcelain, not at all as forceful as she feared for a split-second.
Tears welled up in her eyes at his familiar, warm scent and reached around him with her good arm.
"I missed you." The sight of his face only reminded her how much.
He squeezed her gently, hyper-aware of her shoulder.
"I missed you too, sis." He pulled back a little. "How are you doing? You are burning up." His eyes strayed to her wounded shoulder.
She smiled. "I am doing quite well, all things considered."
He looked at her, his eyes sharp. "Did you use scales?"
"Just one." His expressions dropped almost comically. "That was all I had. I did not bring any from home."
She now knew that'd been stupid of her. She'd kind of thought that even these kingdoms would have at least some at the ready. Clearly, she'd been wrong. But then she'd thought she'd build up a storage herself over time. She hadn't expected to have to use it so soon.
He sighed and pushed her down in the sheets. "All right, lie down. I have one with me." He was already fishing for it in his pocket.
She shook her head. "That will not be necessary. I am healing well already and only have a slight fever."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Really now?" He took hold of her hand despite the protests behind him, and slowly stretched it out until she caved in and hissed in pain. Not that it was much more than just an inch above the bed. "You cannot even move that arm and this fever is anything but slight." He held her down firmly.
She sighed, knowing resistance would be futile when he got like this. Then she saw the bright, green scale he pulled out and instantly smiled.
"Bertha?"
He nodded, a smile forming on his face as well. "Yeah."
Bertha was an old earth dragon staying with one of the families back home. She was infamous for getting herself into trouble with her turtle-like, spiky back and broad build. That, and she was the brightest of green colors.
"What did she get herself into this time?" she asked, trying not to flinch when his cold fingers met her warm skin.
He shook his head in amusement as he seemed to remember what'd happened.
"One of the kids got caught in the spikes again and their mother was not tall enough to get them down. Do not ask me how they got up there in the first place." He teased her bandage a little to find the ends of it.
She laughed. "The usual, then." She thought back on how many times she'd helped that dragon in particular.
"You speak as though these scales are common currency in your kingdom. I thought they were quite the rarity," a chillingly familiar voice spoke up from the entrance.
She turned her head slowly, feeling the dread spread in her at the sight of all the people peeking in. Alex and Elias and a lot of guards from both Fire and Dragon Kingdom were standing in the doorway. Sergon was inside, but about ready to turn around and leave, red-faced as he was. And then there was the king, staring unabashedly at the two of them and her - she realized - quite compromising situation, night-robe barely covering her shoulder and all.
This was the first time she saw him since the incident, and then it had to be in this moment.
She swatted her brother's hand away quickly, wrapping the robe around herself tightly as she glared up at him for doing this right in front of so many people that she barely knew yet would be seeing every day for so many seasons to come.
He only laughed at her reaction, apparently finding all this funny. He then turned to the king.
"It is not rare at all in the Dragon Kingdom. Probably because we respect all the people in our kingdom, rather than ruthlessly killing them just because we can and then ripping their skin off afterwards," he pointed out. "Now, I believe my sister wishes for some privacy, so if you would not mind." He gestured for the door, much to her horror. "I will have one of my men get you if I need your help." He flashed them a cocky smirk that made her cover her face with her hands.
Alex snorted loud enough for everyone to hear. "Must run in the family,"
She peeked out between her fingers, meeting the king's steely eyes, hoping to convey all her apologies.
He sighed. In exasperation, no doubt. "I will be in my office. These two will know where that is." He gestured to Alex and Elias, walking away as though he didn't care at all. Which wasn't at all impossible. Sergon quickly followed along as well, giving the swiftest of bows before closing the door behind him.
Aem barked in laughter. "Well, they do not seem too bad. Although that king of theirs seems to have a stick shoved too far up a certain place, if you know what I mean."
She glared up at him, smacking his side. "Please do not do that, Aem. He is still the king, even if he is your age!"
She decided it was about time to really start working on not getting any further down on the king's list. She was quite close to the bottom as it was.
"Oh, come now, C. Relax a little." He leaned down to start undoing the bandaging. "It is not like he will have me beheaded."
"I am not too sure about that." She arched her back to help him a little.
He looked at her, his usual cocky smile in place.
"I am sure he really appreciated it, actually. Might have even found it funny too." She could only shake her head at that.
She paused, looking up at him with a frown. "It is not because I do not want you here, but why are you?"
"None of our guys ever returned as planned, and we got no message from this place either, so they sent me to see what was going on."
"What? But I thought they had sent a ship to tell you everything? Are you sure you did not pass it on the way here?"
He shook his head. "They asked me the same thing, but we did not see anything of the like," he promised her, almost finished. "We have been on the lookout ever since we realized they would not be getting back to us, but we never saw anything." He gathered the long strip up and put it on the nightstand.
"That sounds strange..." She watched as he cracked the scale open effortlessly, having done it many times at this point. He handed her one half for the fever. "Thank you."
She quickly put it to her lips and tipped it back, pouring the warm, tasteless liquid into her mouth and swallowing it. At the same time, he poured the other half into her bared wound, just as the king had back then. She hissed in surprise more so than pain as it worked itself through the scab and under her skin. Then, the comfortable feeling of the liquid working its magic spread.
He grabbed the roll of unused bandaging at her nightstand and started bandaging her up again.
"So, how are you really doing here, C?"
She breathed out slowly, gathering her thoughts.
"Well, there are a lot of really wonderful people here, like Sergon that you met and Alex and Elias standing guard outside." She nodded to the door. "They let the dragon you saw outside stay here with me from day one, even though they were really afraid of him."
"But?"
She sighed. "But, well, there are people here who do not like me or what they fear I might do. The Dragon Slayers especially," she said, seeing he'd already caught on with everything. "Then there is Victoria. The king's 'mistress'."
"His mistress?" Aem raised an eyebrow.
She nodded. "She obviously does not like me and does not hesitate in letting me know either," She already knew how defeated she sounded. "Then there is the king himself. I just... do not understand him at all sometimes. Sometimes we get along fine, and he seems like a really nice person, but other times we get into fights no matter what we talk about. I simply do not get him." He gave her such a long leash with some things, but then he also placed her under quarantine and scolded her for helping a wounded dragon.
Aem sighed as well, giving himself some time to think.
"Well, I can tell you that things rarely are as complicated as they seem. My guess is he has gotten so used to women like that mistress that he does not have to care about and simply does not know what to do. Just give him some time." He gave her a smile. "As for the mistress. Well, I mean, in time, you will be taking over her job, so-"
She glared at him and reached up to smack him, only for him to dodge with a laugh.
"Please do not say things like that! I am not ready for any such thing yet."
"Well, you never know." He laughed when she made another attempt with burning cheeks. She was worried those two eavesdroppers for guards would hear! "Anyway, her role will depend on you, C. And she knows that as well, that is all."
"And the Dragon Slayers?" she asked, internally crossing her fingers that he'd have some advice to deal with them as well. She never knew he gave this good advice; she'd always gone to their father for that. Maybe she should've expanded on that.
"Honestly?" His brows furrowed. "I think you should just avoid those guys. I doubt there is any turning them. And they were the spark to the Great War. I am impressed they have not done anything to the dragon yet."
He'd always been quite angry with everything that'd happened back then. Always wanting to prove everyone else were the bad guys and getting the chance to avenge their fallen brethren. What'd happened when she arrived here probably didn't help anything either.
She nodded slowly, seeing how serious he was and how his thoughts spun.
"I will, I promise." It wouldn't be hard to keep that promise, as they usually kept away from her as well, only glaring from a distance.
"I am very serious here, C," he sternly told her. "They are dangerous. Very dangerous. They do not even fear six angry, adult dragons the slightest and the amount of scales some of them carry around on their armor-" He shook his head. "I do not want to find out what they might be able to do to a human."
She shivered, images she didn't ask for flashing behind her eyes. The amount of scales was equivalent to the amount of dragons that Slayer had been a part of killing, she'd found.
"I promise, Aem. I will never approach any of them." She didn't really want to find out what they could do either. "And I will do everything I can not to aggravate them as well."
He looked at her and leaned back after fastening the bandage.
"Will you be all right here, Ciara?" he asked, using her full name. "You can still come home with me again."
Going home again? She hadn't thought of that as an option for quite a while now.
She shook her head. "I cannot do that."
He looked at her with a frown. "There is no convincing you?"
She shook her head again. There were no chances of her changing her mind as things were right now.
"I still am not done with this kingdom and its people."
It may be true she wasn't entirely safe here, as both her brother and the king had stated. She'd made quite a few people dislike her, even if she had yet to do much, and she may make many more in the future. Still, that didn't mean she should run and hide. If anything, it only proved her presence here alone was enough to make some changes. That she was capable of something like that.
Besides, she still didn't know much about this kingdom. She couldn't go home before she knew more about the people here.
Aem searched her eyes for a while, looking to see just how determined she was about all this. Searching so seriously, she had no doubt that if he found the slightest crack in her, he'd drag her all the way home in an instant.
Which was why she could show him nothing of the sort.
Finally, after keeping that up for almost a whole minute, he sighed, leaning back on the bed.
"Fine, fine. I just do not like the thought of you staying in this place all by yourself."
She smiled warmly at him. "I am perfectly fine here. Honest." It may be true she had some enemies here, but so was the opposite; she'd already made herself some friends she could trust.
"Maybe, but I still do not like it, and neither would anyone else at home," he said. "So how about I stay here with you for a while at least? Just like Kaisog would have."
Still, she couldn't prevent the smile spreading on her lips.
"There is no need for that - I already have a Kaisog."