Lodin walked back to his room quickly. He was getting tired and he wanted to get to sleep as fast as at all possible.
It had been another long night - as it had been the last many, many nights. He could hardly even remember the feeling of going to bed early. And just like those many, many late nights, an early morning would follow.
He gave the guards at the door a look and they nodded in return. So, Ciara had gone to sleep already. Not that that was the slightest bit strange, considering the hour.
He quickly slipped into the black room as soundlessly as he was able and closed it behind him just as silently. This was a routine he had long since become used to. He could easily find his way around the room without his sight at this point.
He went straight to the wardrobe, shrugged out of his clothes and into a night-robe instead. Then he moved towards the sofa, which he had taken to sleeping on ever since it was agreed he shared his chambers with Ciara. It just hadn't felt right to slip into bed next to her in the dead of night.
Besides, sleeping on the couch meant less of a chance of him waking her and certainly also the reverse. She seemed like the type who would toss and turn in her sleep.
When he got to his current bed, his eyes had grown accustomed enough to the dark around him that he could see at least some things. Contours, mostly. And so, he could also see that the sofa wasn't as empty as it used to be.
It really couldn't be a lot of different people, but the flash of white contrasting the dark still surprised him.
He frowned. Why was she sleeping here? Surely, she hadn't been sitting here ever since he left earlier. She wouldn't have been sitting here for so many hours and then just fallen asleep, would she?
He knew it was a ridiculous thought - she was way too active to sit down for so many hours on end. She would've gone out to play with the dragon. Kaisog.
Was this an act of defiance or solidarity?
She was such a willful, brazen girl. Young as she was, she seemed both childish and mature at the same time. Fearless, to be sure. It amazed him every single time how she so easily approached any dragon as though they were the closest of friends. It was a sight to behold every time.
And she got so very stubborn every time something was about those creatures, even if she was so mellow about everything else.
And then when he'd heard of a raging dragon in the town square - the first time he experienced such a thing - and he came to see her calmly sewing up its wing with it lying flat on its belly. She'd been completely unwilling to come back, demanding to be allowed to finish. And then she even went and invited it to the castle the following days without consulting him at all.
She would never budge on that point, no matter how much she was pushed. That fact was further accentuated with their little talk earlier. Originally he'd really only invited her because it felt like the right thing to do, seeing as he had promised it when she'd asked back then. Besides, he knew the maids would be making up rumors as quickly as lightning would strike the ground.
However, he had genuinely found it enjoyable. And he'd also been curious to know just a little more about that kingdom of hers. Even after having been there, it had seemed like a world from a fairytale.
He was brought out of his thoughts when she moaned in her sleep and turned around with her front to him instead.
Her cascading, silvery hair fell over her face, moving with each breath she took. It seemed annoying, judging by the way her nose wrinkled.
He crouched down beside her and tentatively brushed it away from her face again, the wrinkle disappearing immediately.
He marveled at how silky it felt, falling through his fingers as though it was the finest of sand. Everyone here had some version of curly or wavy hair and while that could also be quite soft, it had nothing on this straight hair.
The only other person he'd known with this kind of straight hair had been his mother. He wondered if hers had been as soft? He could hardly remember it any longer.
A low rumble brought him back again. He had quite recently learned to differentiate between the sound of thunder and that of a growling dragon. The sounds were quite similar, as it were.
This was quite certainly the latter.
Lodin pulled his hand back to himself and turned his head to look at the door behind him, behind which he knew the dragon to be lurking. How in the world did it know he was touching the girl from out there?
He got up and carefully tiptoed to the door, coming outside to the vision of two strikingly yellow, suspicious eyes staring right at him.
Lodin immediately raised his hands over his head at the look it was giving him. "I did not hurt her, you know."
It snorted in reply.
Just a few moons ago, he would have felt absolutely ridiculous conversing with a dragon. Now, he understood just how intelligent the creatures really were. It made them all the more frightening, to be completely honest. Especially because their senses were so sharp. But also fascinating.
He looked the dragon in the eye while it patiently stared right back. He understood why Ciara was so enamored with these creatures - they were formidable in every way.
"You really care for her, huh?" he rhetorically asked, not really expecting a reply. Yet, that was what he got.
The dragon literally rolled its eyes at him, snorting again as if to say 'what do you think?'.
Lodin smiled. He would never be telling anyone, but he kind of envied the relationship they had, even if he wasn't sure how healthy the name was. Sometimes it seemed as though they were one and the same, just as Alex had said.
It seemed Elias had begun a similar relationship with that crimson dragon as well - even if it wasn't as intense as Kaisog and Ciara's.
Lodin had to learn to call upon dragons the way those three could. It was so useful in so many situations, not just war. If he could fly upon the back of a dragon, getting to the borders to check up on things would take no more than a few days instead of the entire moon-cycle it normally would.
Not to mention the speed of delivering messages. And it'd make work so much easier for spies as well - as seen with that Tao-warrior and her brother snooping around in his castle. He would hardly have been surprised if it had been either of them, who'd told her the rumors of his upbringing.
Luckily, part of their being rumors abounded in a lack of actual knowledge and facts. She didn't know anything more than the speculations of commoners.
Both he and the dragon turned their attention back to the room when they heard her groaning again. She was either having a night terror, as she apparently was wont to do, or had gotten too used to the bed to be comfortable on the couch. At any rate, she wasn't sleeping well in there.
Lodin glanced back at the dragon to see it staring back at him expectantly.
"I will not do anything to hurt her in any way - be that emotional as well as physical," he told it. "Do you understand that?"
Kaisog let out a long sigh, grumbled under its breath, then gave him a quiet nod.
He nodded back to it and went back inside. It was about time he got some sleep himself. He'd be getting none if she kept being so noisy, however.
Once again, he made his way back towards the sofa, though he didn't care to be especially careful this time. Though she might not always act as a conventional princess, she still was one. And princesses - conventional or not - never slept on a sofa when there was an empty bed.
Not that kings did either, so he probably wasn't all that conventional himself.
He crouched down by the sofa again and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Ciara, you have to wake up now," he spoke, though his voice was still low. She stirred but didn't wake. Troublesome in every way. "You have to get to bed, Ciara. Wake up," he spoke a little louder.
This time, she seemed to wake as she began rubbing her eyes.
"What do you mean? I already am in bed," she slurred, still half asleep.
"You cannot sleep on the sofa, Ciara." He shook his head lightly at her. "You have to get to the bed."
She groaned in what could only be interpreted as being either thought or annoyance. Finally, she came to a conclusion.
"Only if you sleep in the bed too."
He huffed in amusement. This girl certainly was something.
"Fine, I will." Even he had to admit he missed sleeping in the bed - the sofa was just a tad bit too short for him and far from being as comfortable.
She turned to him, her eyes open but clearly unseeing in the darkness.
"Good," she said, slipping into sleep as she spoke, right in front of him.
He dropped his head down and fought the urge to chuckle. She really was no different than a child sometimes.
Still, asleep or not, she would have to get to the bed. So, he scooted over and quickly gathered her up in his arms. Waking her up and making her walk to bed herself had proven to be too difficult a task. Besides, she was as light as a feather with her petite build.
Her only reaction to it was to mumble something in her sleep and nuzzle her head into his chest. He sighed. She had absolutely no sense of self-preservation to begin with, but this was a little too trusting of her. Even if she was asleep. Had he been a lesser man, who knew what could've happened to her.
He quickly moved towards the bed and put her down on it, watching silently as she automatically rolled into the covers.
Perhaps her trusting nature was the exact reason why she drew in so many people so easily. She didn't differentiate between noble and servant or human and dragon, only between good and bad. Which naturally meant she didn't have a single noble acquaintance worth mentioning.
Of course, it did help with the knowledge that there was a big - and very protective - dragon watching over her right outside the door.
He shook his head. There was no use speculating so much over it - she wouldn't be changing anytime soon.