Dragon

Nami looked up from her packs and stared around her room. Her clothes-chest was open, and despairingly empty. She tossed a mass of her golden red hair past her shoulder and sighed gustily holding back tears. The glass shuttering had been pulled aside and the sun shone in onto the floor warming the wood and tickled her bare toes. She looked down and could see some of her friends; the fey, walking about the forest floor with that peace that they always seemed to have. Nami braced her arms on the sill and leaned out so that she could look down, trying in vain to commit the beauty and peace of the forest to memory. Nami sighed and tried a new tactic to get her mind out of its depressive canyon. How many girls could claim what she could? She had been raised by her friends the peaceful yet proud fey who taught her to appreciate beauty and mirror it on herself. A dragon pupil of her mothers had once commented on how vain the fey were, but Nami knew better. They aspired rather to compliment nature by trying to lend their beauty to hers. Whoever laid eyes on the tree house could not doubt but to the feys intent; to work with nature and glorify while being subtly very efficient.

No other girl could claim Dabria, the greatest sorceress in the world of Myrth and Dragon of legend as mother. Nami choked back tears at not seeing her mother for a very long time. She remembered the last goodbye she had had to make with passion and the tears began to flow though they choked her. Erene had been a pupil of Dabria's and her favored one too, but she was mortal and could not remain forever in the world of Myrth. She had said goodbye almost a year ago, but Nami had not forgotten her. Nami's golden hair fanned about her as she fell onto the bed in a state of despair, she could not leave her home she could not.


Nami cried for long enough to know that her face was quite blotchy when she heard Dallin knock at her door. She pushed herself up and pushed at hair and water to try and look decent for her foster father. Dallin was tall and Nami had always respected him, he was softer than her mother and the two complimented each other well. Nami wished he were her real father, then she would not have to leave.

"Nami, your mother waited as long as she could. She has class today and her pupils are far behind in their studies, or at least that was what she muttered when she finally left." Dallin sat on the bed and took her softly into his arms like he had done so many times before, Nami could not remember him ever not being there for her when she needed him and her spirit flailed against the thought that soon she would be far away from him. "She did not want to pressure you, I think she did not really want to say goodbye either." His hands stroked her hair and Nami stopped crying and only tryed to memorize his scent so that she may rely on that in the cold Dyrban winter. "She still blames herself you know, you certainly had no choice in the matter and Dabria knows now the full brunt of her youthful follies." He sat silent for a time and Nami knew that they held onto each other. Somehow Nami had become something very dear to Dallin and he did not wish to see her go anymore than she wanted to go.

Of course she knew she had to leave, there was no way that Nami could remain in Dyrban past her sixteenth birthday, which was less than two months away. Nami could have stayed on till the last moment, but Dabria had not wanted that and had gone to visit her real father, not Dallin, at the winter solstice. The two had decided on a date, which Nami did not think was fair at all since she had had absolutely no say in the matter, but the council had decided Nami's fate before she was born. Dallin escorted her to the portal and only at her behest went through to Myrth with her.

“I am not at all certain what good it will do for either of us. I happen to dislike your father almost as much as your mother does," but even at these words she knew that Dallin clung to her hand and did not want to leave her.

The castle of Acario’s, or her biological father, was incredibly large. Nami had not seen building on this scale except the dragon’s cavernous dwellings which were always natural anyway. The stone castle looked ominous and unnatural. Instead of inviting nature it strove to stand it off and Nami feared she could not stand living in such a place. Also Nami had spent almost her entire life living among the fey in their world of continuous summer, she had never known continous cold, though she had visited the Dragons and their colder climate.


Nami paced the floor of her room, shivering. Everyone told her that if she would just move around enough, she would be fine. So why couldn't she get warm? Something inside her told her that even in high summer she would find herself devoid of warmth, here. The elegant stone fireplace had been alive with crackling flames but they had only served to remind Nami of her mother and she had had the fire smothered. She could hear someone running water in the bathroom that was just through the door on the right of her fireplace. It was probably the maid, Daffodil.

Reanuyuna, her step-mother had left the young blonde in the suite of rooms she had shown an exhausted Nami to. The ceremony of welcoming the heir to the throne had been long and overly extravagent, Nami wished to curl up somewhere and cry herself to death, surely it was possible to do so.

Trembling uncontrollably beneath the furs she had wrapped about her body and hopping from one foot to another, Nami moved over to the door and pulled it carefully open. As she felt the steam hit her in the face, she hurried inside and shut the door behind her.

"I don' think it be a good idea to bathe in the middle of winter, lady," said Daffodil to Nami in her thick accent, it made the tears that had only been threatening overwhelm her and Nami hit her knees hard on the tiled floor. Daffodil ran to her mistress to see what the problem was. Nami would not be comforted so Daffodil helped her shirk off the robes and the loose fey clothing that had been underneath.
Nami choked heavily on sobs of terror at being left alone in a world not her own and the terrible burden of defeat knowing she was helpless.

"Yes, lady. Ere, just step in the water, I ‘ope it's not too hot." Daffodil's anxious face penetrated the gloom that clutched at the depths of Nami's soul and she sucked down great draughts of air to try and smother the water within her that would rise and fall from her bright green eyes. Nami stepped into the scalding water with Daffodil's help and sank into the embracing arms of the water with a sigh of relief, perhaps if she stayed her long enough she would be warm.
Nami finally dropped her face into her hands and wept bitterly. Her golden hair draped around her, and where it met the water, it floated like tendrils of seaweed away from her. "What am I supposed to do now?"