The Dragon Princess (Part 1)

Dragons are mysterious creatures.

In many ways, they’re like birds; they come in all shapes, sizes and colours, they can fly and they often fly away whenever humans are nearby. They do, like birds, fly away from humans out of fear, but mainly because dragon scales and other body parts are highly sought after ingredients in the fields of alchemy, blacksmithing and cooking.

By no means are dragons weak, but humans, like myself, can kill them if we put our minds to it. I’ve killed a lot of what are called ‘rouge’ or ‘rabid’ dragons, but I mostly try not to fight them when I can.

They’re very strong and highly intelligent creatures, capable of speech and even transforming into human form.

Now, you might be wondering, why all of this is important to establish here and now.

“Yo, Haruki! Been a while!”

Standing in the village square, surrounded by soldiers and terrified peasants holding hoes and planks of wood, was a great dragon with pitch-black scales and blood-red eyes. It was difficult for everyone else to tell, but I knew she was grinning from ear-to-ear, and not baring her teeth at the crowd. She was nearly 80 metres long with a tail almost a third that length, her wings were tucked up on her back and her breath sent strong winds throughout Kappen.

I sighed a little as I held George tightly in my arms. “It’s been a while, Princess.”

“Princess?!” I heard more than a couple villagers scream at once.

Then, with a joyful laugh, the dragon became swallowed by blue energy, shrinking down into that of a beautiful tom-boy woman.

“…Honey.”

“I’ll handle it, Alex.”

“Thank you.”

“Princess Olive, welcome to Kappen,” I said as I walked towards her.

Olive chuckled and ran over to me, before smacking me hard on my back.

I definitely just lost a third of my HP with that attack.

“Wow, Haruki, you look like crap,” she joked, laughing manically. “Didn’t think you’d get to be so old and ugly, but here you are.”

With a slight twitch in my eye, I tried to keep my smile up. “Y-you look as beautiful as ever.”

“Don’t I?! I do, don’t I?!” Proudly, Olive smacked her chest and bellowed, “Shame you never took me up on my offer. I’d have been glad to make you my groom.”

“…As flattered as-”

“Can you stop with the super stiff tone, Haruki? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Princess Olive of the Great Dragon Tribe, one of the most powerful entities in this world, second only to me and the Demon Lord, was an old acquaintance of mine from my adventuring days.

When Alex and I were beginning our journey, we came across and saved a wounded dragon pup, nursing it back to full health before setting it free. About 3 weeks later, Princess Olive showed up at our tavern to thank us, promising to help us in our quest if we defeated her in battle.

It was a terrible struggle, and both Alex and I nearly died twice in that fight, but we eventually won. Olive was so impressed with my strength she demanded to marry me, though Alex refused adamantly on my behalf. They bickered as Olive continued to pester us for a fortnight, before Olive finally gave up and said she’d come back once in a while to help us.

She did just that and even took part in the final fight against the Demon Lord.

Ever since then, we haven’t really spoken or seen much of one another, so her visit was truly unexpected.

I was a little bit scared to ask at first, until Olive blurted out something truly absurd.

“Oh, so this is my cute little nephew!” She then managed to snatch George from my arms and hold him up high, staring at him with great curiosity. “He’s so small and pudgy, and cute!”

“Since when was he your nephew?”

“What are you saying, Haruki?! Of course, as his aunt, he’s my nephew.”

“When did that happen?!”