The Dragon and the Hybrid

(3) Prince of Ashes

 "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." 

-Helen Keller

Rogan

Arius is a strange Draconi. He is more grumpy than amicable, but he doesn’t complain or say anything back. He just watches and brood as if we took away his will to be himself or something. It’s a strange thing to see, and what is stranger is that the first anxiety I felt from him being here is slowly vanishing.

It was morning when the same wave of patients came by to the clinic. Marissa, the older woman who lost her son during the Draconian war, has terrible arthritis and the tea my Mom makes helps her. Igold, the teenager with asthma, often comes by for the cheaper herbal alternatives than the expensive ones than what the usual pharmacy sells, which all came from the capital. There is Trixia, who often comes by due to some allergy or two.

More regular patients would pass by in the afternoon, but the morning ones are my favorite. They don’t ask questions that much and would instead look at the two of us like their saviors and not some rare and outlawed mother and daughter. As long as Dad and Ragor kept their distance from the clinic, nothing else occurs.

“Do you trust him?” I find myself asking Mom. Marissa is enjoying her tea at the garden table, Igold has already picked up his herbs, and Trixia is relaxing on the available bed. She had another dust allergy attack that causes her to rash, and she can’t help but scratch at it till it bleed.

“Hmm?” Mom says, absentmindedly writing something on a paper as she sat on her desk. Her foot is tapping to a beat that I don’t recognize that only means she’s enjoying what she’s doing at the moment. “Who?”

“You know who,” I answer. I am sweeping the floor softly lest I wake Trixia. The human could barely sleep last night from the scratching.

Mom sighs. “No, how could I?”

“Then why are we acting as if he’s not there?” I feel my blood heat up at the thought of danger. The fear and uncertainty are sure to make everything in my act up.

Mom looks up at me, her brown eyes gazing into mine. Ragor has the same eyes, wide and glinting like a polished gem. I often wonder what kind of life I would’ve lived if I inherited her eyes. I would look completely human even though there are scarce humans with violet eyes from human families. The truth of who I am keeps me scared even with the excuse.

“Would you have wanted him dead on the side of the road?”

My stomach churns. “No”

“Then that answers that”

“That doesn’t answer it.”

“Rogan, both of us know that if he leaves now with the condition that he is in, then it’ll just get worse. He looks fine and dandy now because he’s a shifter, but pretty soon, his instincts would die down, and he’ll realize how powerless his body is right now.” Mom gives me a soft smile.

Draconi bodies are so different and complicated that it took a genius for anyone to be a doctor of one. Mom is one of them, which should’ve been impossible for a human, yet here she is.

Pursing my lips. I sigh

“As much as you try to be like your father, tough and cold on the exterior. My love, you are still me on the inside” Mom chuckles. I return to writing on something on paper and folding it into an envelope.

“He could kill us in our sleep.”

“Hmm,” Mom hums again. “You were fine last night when you went by to his room.”

My heart leaps into my throat, and I drop my pen. It lands on the floor into a loud thud, and I stop breathing as I wait for Trixia to wake from it. She only stirs, then turning to her other side before snoring lightly.

“You knew!” I whisper accusingly at her after a few seconds of her snoring.

Mom grins. “There isn’t a lot of things that I don’t know about you, my love.”

“I’m sorry,” I immediately say. I wring the apron on my waist. “I know I wasn’t supposed to—”

“Rogan, it’s fine. You’re safe. Plus, with the number of drugs I had in him, he still wouldn’t be able to shift or lift his heavy arm enough to hurt you. There’s nothing to be sorry for.” She sighs. She takes my pen from the floor and looks at me with soft, sad eyes. “I wish you could just stop being scared.”

I purse my lips. I am staying silent while pretending to be interested in writing my stupid notes for later. 

“No one is going to hurt us here. He’s not here anymore,” Mom reminds me.

“I know,” I answer. “I just need more time.”

Mom stood from her desk and held me in her arms. Our heights are close to each other, with her being an inch taller, which never fails to make me feel like a kid whenever she does this. My Mom is small compared to any Draconi, and I got that from her.

Her hugs never just felt like hugs to me. It always feels like I’m coming home and warm suns and a fresh breeze. It comforts my soul to the point of healing, and I can’t imagine a day where I won’t have this anymore.

“I can’t promise you that it’ll be easy or that you’d completely forget what happened. It’s not that easy to live, my love, but it does get better, and that’s what all of us beings live for. A better version of before” She kisses my temple and pats my head.

I frown. “I understand.”

“It’s good that you do, now. There is a lot of reading you need to do before the afternoon hits, and we’re swamped with crankier people. It’s harvest time, and there are a lot of accidents that happen. Go read more about first aid and hematoma, then I’ll tell you all about it.”

She takes the pen from me, takes the book from the far shelf, and places it in my hands. She smiles brightly while grazing her hips to mine, encouraging me to leave to a better place to read.

I reply to her smile with one of my own. It’s more awkward and strange, not as brilliant as hers, but it’s there. Walking towards the outside, I head towards where I always go whenever she gives me a reading assignment. On the back, there is a hill that overlooks our house and the barn. It’s often the hill that I go to with, but someone was already there to my utter surprise.

I pause. He stands so tall in the middle of the day. He looks different now. Perhaps he finally got a shower with my father’s help, but he doesn’t seem like the kind who’d ask for help. His hair is silver, close to being white even. He’s looking over the horizon with amethyst-like eyes that glinted with the sun reflecting.

He looks breathtaking and fearsome at the same time. Muscles that weren’t overly big but emphasized his long body. Looking at him now, I see the differences he has with normal humans. Draconi’s do look different from humans, different from me. I see a bit of my brother with him. He’s wearing Father’s clothes that seem too small for him since father is leaner than him.

His hair flows behind him as the wind caress it. He looks as if he’s going to shift then and there towards the direction he’s looking at. There is a sense of longing that radiated off of him and I can’t help but feel sad for him. He has a home that he probably needs to get back to, a family, perhaps even a mate.

My blood heats at the thought. I won’t delve into the thought much longer since it would never make sense to me even then.

“a month isn’t going to be that long” I finally. My heart beating erratically in my chest. He’s captivating, a true Draconi lineage of enticing and enchanting beauty. “You’ll heal, and you’ll get better than before you know it, you’re home”

He looks at me as if he’s trying to look through me. I see the scars on his body, his soul even. “I know what you are”

I practically wince. “Me and my brother would never touch you. Don’t worry, we’ll keep our distance”

“I don’t mean it that way. I don’t much care what you are really, I just told you, so you won’t feel…the way you’re feeling now”

My eyes widen. “You’re a strange one then”

He grins at me, making him look even more enchanting than before. “You have no idea”

Arius

I’m just one of the many children the Dragon King had during his reign. He’s famous for keeping a harem to sate his desire for a proper heir that he deemed is worthy of his throne. Silver hair that glimmers by the touch of sunlight, eyes that look as if you’re staring at a precious amethyst. His obsession led him to ignore the fyres that burned his body when he met my mother.

The pious Sear, the daughter of a Viscount, she once tried to run away from under my grandfather’s overbearing ways by joining the Sisters that tend to the nest of Aegir. She would’ve succeeded if fate didn’t intervene and she met my father, her fyre.

My, how the story would’ve been different if they didn’t meet.

“Arius” Sear softly calls me. She’s known to have that silvery blonde hair that I never inherited, a soft smile on her face that is always there. Her amethyst eyes were the only thing fit for my father’s ideal mother of his heir.

Her hair is matted now, her body is close to withering like ash being swept by the wind. She often just stays in her bed with a chambermaid close at hand, or the royal doctor often comes by to help her. But not often enough since Mother and Father’s mating is a complete secret, if the Holy Aegir church knew of it, they would never let the father keep his harem. Keeping him from his dream of a perfect heir to the throne, one that looked like the first king of Dracone, the might king Seagir.

The only thing that remained of who she once was in her eyes, bright and still held that light that made everyone who knew her adore her. She never really acclimated to the palace life of deceitful snakes that would try to outdo one another to survive. No, mother was too kind for that. She really was suited to be in a church rather than the spiteful and petty palace.

“Come closer” she whispers. She urges me by the wave of her hand, and I follow her. Stepping closer to her side, she cups my cheek with a cold and sweaty palm, but I don’t complain. “I might not last long, dear, but I hope you take care of your brothers and sisters for me”

“That goes without saying” I say.

She chuckles. “Oh, my serious son. Live a little”

I frown. “How can I do that during your suffering?”

She laughs. It sounds like a trickle of water dancing in the lake. So vibrant still even in the face of inevitable death. I often wondered if my mother is just dense as the other mistresses think she is. She was never one to fight back with the other women in the harem, never to take revenge, never to speak against them. She just took it all with a smile on her face and an expression that says as if it can’t be helped. If I haven’t seen her shock the scholars whenever she opens her mouth, I would believe them makes the scribes both eager and nervous at the sight of her.

She taught all of us herself without any governess, and no one in the palace can dispute us about the economy of the country or the states the royal family owns. We’re far too educated to even linger around our other half-siblings to do so.

“Suffering? When I can see my children grow into amazing beings that I can’t even imagine? Ah, my son, I hope you enjoy the little things” Her hand is still cold and clammy to the touch, but I don’t complain and even put my hand over it, thinking her arm is getting tired from doing so.

“He hasn’t even visited you”

“He has the medication, so he won’t” She says. “The Queens has him now”

“You should be the queen”

She laughs again. “What a great joke I would be. I was never fit to rule my son. I was just fit to have children that I hold dear”

“Should I call the others? Mersia, Maex, and Merow are probably eager to come by”

She shakes her head. “They’ll cry if I entrust them these words.”

“You think I won’t?” I struggle to keep the emotion from my voice.

She shrugs—a grin on her face. “I trust that you can and would do it for them. Forgive me, my son, you have a difficult and weak mother”

“You could’ve just taken medicine like he did” the forbidden medicine that keeps fyre’s from withering away when one is too far or rejecting the bond. It was forbidden since the church frowns on the practice of rejection.

She shakes her head. “I would live with as much of me as I can. That medicine warps you into something that isn’t you anymore. I would never take it”

I purse my lips. “So… you’re just going to die then?”

Her eyes widen—a look of pure shock on her face. “Just die? I prefer to believe this is more than that”

“Then what is this?” I growl. I don’t mean to, but my mother could be insufferable at times.

She smiles. She was never affected by my impatience and temper. “a farewell till we see each other again. Though I hope it won’t be too soon”

I purse my lips. Biting my tongue lest I get her upset.

“Forgive your mother, who is much too much to handle” She caresses my cheek. “You have always been the strong one in this family. There are times I worry that I can’t protect you from the flames you’ve been crossing”

“I’m fine as I am”

Her smile goes softer, sadder even. “Is it? My only wish is that my children know how to live a life apart from the palace. That gilded diamond palace is not everything in this world but a small part of it. I hope you get to meet your fyre”

I growl. “I’d rather not”

“Boy, don’t reject fate, and that is all I ask--” she scolds. She coughs, and I straighten my back to attention. Her cough sounds dry, as if it’s hacking away at her throat.

“Do you need a—”

“No” she waves me off and clears her throat. Her brows knotted together in pain, and slowly she eases back to her bed. “I regret leaving you too soon”

“Then take the medicine”

She shakes her head. “Never. I will not be the same if I do”

“Then you would really die”

She laughs. A soft daring laugh that sounds rebellion in itself. A part of me is irritated, but I keep my mouth shut as I ease back to my seat. “Death is normal, and I do not fear it. I would guide you and your siblings in Aegir’s flames, my son. I wish you to live a life that is truly yours and does not make the same mistake as your father”

I would’ve done what she asks, but the decision was out of my hands when she died, and Alesia decided to destroy what’s left of my life.

-

-

I know what Rogan is. Not that I would ever admit it, not now when there are too many things to think of and handle. It’s evident since being in the same room with her calms my soul. I’ve never had a peaceful sleep before, and I don’t sleep in, especially when I was trained to be aware of what’s around me. it’s too easy to get killed in the arena. Might it be in the dorms or in the pits

She’s smaller than most Draconi but standard in human terms. Most females in Dracone are close to six feet, but she’s just under it. People would think her growth is stunted, but I feel that this is it for her. She is a hybrid with a human mother and a Draconi tamer.

Her dress is simple, with an apron tied around her waist and a book tucked on her chest. She always looks like she’s containing herself from everyone as if she’ll hurt us if she lets loose. I smirk at the thought since nothing could hurt a Draconi my size unless it’s a blade long enough to graze my heart.

There are so many things to be done, especially when my wounds heal. I’ll just go back here when it’s all handled to repay this family, but also to catch a glimpse of her. I can’t imagine her being in the court with snakes and vipers waiting for my downfall. Again. It’s better she stays here and never recognizes me.

There is still a chance that I’ll be my father’s son, and I don’t want a life with her in that sort of way. She’s free here, and her life is peaceful as it is. She couldn’t defend herself if she comes with me, plus I’ll worry every day about her. Just like I am now.

Her dark hair looks as if it’s as dark as a raven wing is swept up by the wind and blocks her face. She looks so small with mauve eyes and an intelligent glint to her eyes. She reminds me too much of my mother, and I’d hate myself if I let her wither because of me, the same way my mother did.

“You’ll get back to your feet soon, and we’ll help you to go back to what you returned to” She sits on the grass and opens her book. It’s too windy to even consider reading here, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

It still peeves me how much it doesn’t seem to bother her if I leave. It’s what I want, her not knowing, but it still bothers me all the same. I take my eyes away from the direction of the capital and look at her. Small and fragile. I could easily break her without wanting to.

“Thank you” I manage to push out of me. “For everything”

She smirks. “I told you, it’s not me.”

It’s you. Only you.

I don’t say anything and sat where I stood. It’s a couple of meters away from her. A safe—but frustrating—distance from her. The same distance we had last night when I’m in the bouts of pain and frustration. I could’ve killed her last night, but something brought me clarity from the pain and meds in my system.

“You’re not going to ask me where I’m from?” I say. My whole body still aches, but I’m used to pain. Pain is the only constant in this life, and it’s something that I put my whole trust in.

“Why ask someone who’s going to leave?” She doesn’t look at me when she says this. her eyes moving through the words of the book. “You also don’t look the type who’d tell, and you have suffered enough that making you retell it would be cruel”

Ah, a part of me, a massive part of me, just wanted to stay here, but then I thought of what’s left behind. The unfinished business that I have to conclude. I force my eyes away from her body and instead glared at the grass. She’s too sweet, too kind for the world that I’m living in, and what I am and what I’ve been through is just going to be a horrible punishment for her.

Leaving is the best decision I’ll ever give her.