PART 1
I walked the forest as the wind picked up, curling its icy fingers around me. My footsteps left imprints in the near frozen mud. The coo of an owl sent chills down my spine as I hurried to make it back to the cave before the snowfall. The sky held the promise of snow in the heavy white clouds. Late December used to be enjoyable, and I used to feel alive in it.
Stone that made a cave met my sight and I ran towards the soft glow that emitted from it, hoping to find something or someone. Before I could stop myself, I rushed inside, only to find it empty. As empty as September and as lonely as the rest of the caves in my life had been. The light was my lantern left behind from the morning.
I sat on the floor, emptying the sack I had carried on my shoulder. Inside was enough dried meat to last the winter. Maybe more since the more life seemed to sink in, the less I had any interest in eating.
Fifteen wasn't meant to be that sad. Well maybe it was in some other world, but not here. Not in Everest where fifteen was the prime age for everything. I guess for some of us that included losing everyone and everything that you ever loved. Just because I was always alone, it didn't make it okay to weep over missing someone so bad it physically hurts; but I did it anyway. And it didn't make it okay to feel sorry for yourself and silently scream the question “Why?” while your tears watered the ground like a heavy rain. But I did that too.
I woke up cold. Cold and outside of the cave: where it was snowing. I sighed and picked myself up along with anything I had brought with me into the cave, and set out again. It wasn't long before I came across aset of bare-footprints in the snow and a curled-up figure underneath a silver cloak.It was the kind of cloak too expensive to belong to me or anyone I had known. I walked over to it anyway and gently rested my hand on the shoulder of the body inside.
It wasn't dead. I let out a sigh of relief, wanting to know how someone with a cloak like that would end up frozen and outside on the outskirts of the castle grounds. Maybe they were a fugitive, which would make them the closest thing I had to a friend.
Light brown hair and the palest blue eyes moved out from under the cloak. She hurriedly sat up, and I stared at what I thought was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She pulled the cloak around her and tucked a jeweled necklace inside her shirt. “Are you a fugitive?” I asked.
“No, do I look like one?” She had snow stuck to her hair.
“Yeah.” I shrugged, not knowing what else to think orsay.
“Well, for your information, peasant, I’m not one. I am the princess of Everest and I have been very rudely thrown out of my palace by a peasant who looked like one such as yourself.” She brushed some snow off her arm and stood up straight.
“Yeah, and I’m a prince from some far-off kingdom who’s come to save you.” I smirked as I looked down at her.
“Well, you’re a little bit late. And no prince would ever be carrying around a sack of dried meat on his shoulder or wearing clothes such as those.”
“Unless I happen to be a pretentious prince disguised as a humble, common peasant,” I said.
“You’re not either one of those things though; you’re a pretentious peasant disguised as a humble prince.” She had a glint in her eye that made her look a little scarier than a princess about fifteen years old should look. From the sound of her voice I could tell she knew what was going on just as well as I did and that she wasn't the stereotypical kind of stupid damsel in distress that I could just manipulate into believing I really was a prince.
That’s the difference between my fairy tale and theirs; I wouldn't waste even two seconds on a damsel in distress, even if she happened to look like this girl. But there was something different about this girl, like the fact that she had probably sworn to kill herself before she would ever become a damsel in distress.
“And you aren't a princess.” I looked into her eyes; they were so pale they were almost white with just a tint of blue.
“How would you know?” She pulled the cloak around her tighter, losing a little of the elitist in her voice.
“Because my brother left to go marry the princess last September. Also, last I checked the princess of Everest is about a foot taller than you and . . . a bitch.”
“Oh, really? If you think Larissa is a bitch, you've yet to meet her chambermaid. Or ex-chambermaid who is now considered a prisoner in the castle dungeon.” She flashed a smile and raised her hands with metal cuffs attached to each wrist. One end still held the broken chain.
“How did you–”
“What’s your name?”
“Skander. How did–”
“I’m Fauve. Your brother was the one who got me in the dungeon and the dragon was the one who got me out. It took me three days of begging and using what knowledge I have of Dragon Language. But if you wanted to get your brother out, I’m almost certain it’d only take you an hour.”
“What?”Before my brother had left, he had always said that the beautiful girls were the craziest. I was beginning to think that might be true.
“You’re a Dragon Speaker, Skander. It’s in your name and it’s on your skin–I see it in your eyes too.” She looked up at me like I was meant to have an epiphany and suddenly realize what it was that she was talking about. “You’re meant to defend the people, and for you, that means join with the dragons because for a Dragon Speaker, the dragons are your people.”
“What about you? You’re the one who got a dragon to free you instead of eat you.”
“That’s because I could figure out how to talk to them. It’s hard to talk to dragons though, harder than it is to talk to anything else.”
“Anything else?”
She nodded and looked up to the sky, making a clicking noise with her tongue. A minute later a small bird flew down and perched on her finger. It looked up at her and I’m sure it was talking about me. She laughed and shook her head; but it was the kind of head shake you give someone when you both know it’s a little white lie that you’re telling. What kind of chambermaid told white lies to birds?
In another minute the bird was gone and Fauve was looking at me again.
“What did you–”
“It’s not important, peasant,” she said, smiling. She made a swift motion with her left foot, crossing her legs.
“ Aren't you cold, since your feet are–”
“I haven’t gotten cold in a long time,” she said. It must go along with her animal communication powers, I decided. She eyed me and looked me over, then turned her head in the direction of the castle.
“I have a proposal to make to you, and no, it’s not marriage. Will you, Skander the Dragon Speaker, go with me to the castle of Everest to free the dragon which the bitch of a princess, Larissa keeps in her disgusting old dungeon?” She waited for an answer, and I could tell she was scared of my answer.
“I’ll go with you,” I said. “If you swear not to leave me at any point during this trip.”
Slowly she nodded. “Of course.” was all that she said before she took my hand and placed her first bare foot in front of the other.
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