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Mira stands in front of the king, shoulders shaking with barely-contained rage.
“You can’t do this,” she hisses. As usual, her father’s face remains coldly impassive.
“I certainly can. Not only that, but I should have put my foot down sooner. You are twenty-three and have rejected every suitor we’ve presented you with.” He looks almost bored, as if having to deal with his daughter is an inconvenience to him. It probably is.
“Why does it matter if I get married? Min-ho is the one next in line for the throne, not me, and he’s already married with a child on the way.” Mira decides in desperation to try appealing to her father’s logical nature. Unfortunately, his jaw just tightens in annoyance.
“You really have no sense of duty, do you?” He sneers down at her, and she feels eight years old again, being scolded for talking to the stable hand’s daughter.
The king continues, each word another lock on her gilded cage. “You will marry whoever slays the dragon. He will be lauded as a hero, and given nobility status and land if not already had, and you will provide heirs to the house of Kang.”
Mira feels tears burning behind her eyes, and she refuses to let them fall.
“Fine,” she spits. “Have it your way.” She turns on her heel and marches out of the room. A sob tries to wrestle its way out of her throat, and she chokes it down, aware that if she breaks down in the middle of the castle hallway, it’ll be the talk of the court for the next year. She beelines for her own chambers.
The moment the door closes behind Mira, her suppressed cries claw their way out, and tears stream down her cheeks. This was so fucking unfair.
The rest of her life flashes in front of her in images that make her feel sick. Her in a wedding gown next to some faceless man. Her, pregnant with a child she doesn’t want. Mira’s resolve hardens.
No.
If Mira can’t change her father’s mind, fine. She’s just going to have to take matters into her own hands.
—
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Zoey brings her hammer down, muscles rippling with exertion. Sweat coats her brow, but she continues rhythmically hitting the red hot metal until it starts to resemble the sword it’s meant to be.
Once she’s satisfied with the shape, she removes it from the forge and carefully quenches it before delivering it to the storage rack.
Zoey peels off her heavy leather gloves, plopping them unceremoniously onto her workbench right as she hears the front door of the shop opening. The blacksmith’s shop is divided into three parts; a front area for business and to peddle wares, and a back end for the forge itself, with a second residential story. Zoey doesn't spend much time on the business end; her master typically took up that responsibility while the older man let her handle the physical labor. Said master happens to be out at the moment, however, so Zoey makes her way to the front.
“Hello, how can I-” Her polite smile drops as she sees who entered. “Oh. It's you.”
Jinu grabs his chest in mock offense. “Is that any way to treat your best friend?”
“You're my only friend,” Zoey grumbles, walking over to grab her waterskin from where she'd left it behind the counter. Jinu smiles.
“I guess if we aren't best friends, I don't have to tell you about the news I just heard. A shame, really, since it’s about the princess.”
Zoey nearly chokes on water mid-swallow. Her head shoots up to look at the black haired boy. “No, wait, I was kidding! You are my best friend. My best friend in the world who needs to tell me everything right now.”
Zoey briefly laments how predictable she is. Her crush on Princess Mira is not a very well kept secret.
Jinu smirks. “The king posted a decree an hour ago. His daughter’s hand in marriage is to go to whomever slays the dragon up at Honmoon Peak, along with a title and a considerable sum of land.”
Her brain is slow to process the information, staring at her friend like he just grew two heads. “You’re kidding.”
“Alas, though I am a master of comedy along with my good looks and charm, I am serious. There’s a caravan heading out tomorrow morning and everything. I even heard some people talking about leaving today.”
He continues, oblivious to the maelstrom of emotions Zoey is processing. “Seriously, people, it’s been decades since that poor dragon has even been spotted, and it’s not like it ever really caused problems before that.” Jinu shakes his head.
“I’m gonna kill that dragon,” Zoey says, determination etched into her face. Jinu stares at her in disbelief, but she’s too busy freaking out to notice. “Oh my gods, I have to get going! Now!” She frantically unties the leather apron around her waist and chucks it somewhere to the side while she darts back up the stairs to her room.
Jinu follows, voice etched with alarm. “Zoey, what? What about the shop? What about…literally everything else? You aren’t even eligible!”
Zoey pauses to turn and look at him. “Did you see the actual decree?”
“Yes, but-”
“Does it say on there, specifically, that the person who slays the dragon has to be a man?”
“ No, but-”
“Perfect!” Zoey turns around and flings open her door, wasting no grabbing various pieces of gear scattered around the space. She snags all the pieces of worn leather armor off the floor, and yanks her battleaxe off the wall. Luckily, she already keeps a bag of basic travel gear packed. She starts pulling on the pieces of leather armor while Jinu looks on, dumbfounded.
“No offense, Zoey, but if you actually think you can fight a dragon because of a childhood crush, you might be crazier than I initially believed.”
Zoey acknowledges him again after the straps are buckled and tightened, slinging the backpack over her shoulders. “It’s not about me, Jinu! It’s about her. ”
Her. The girl Zoey used to stare at from across the courtyard as she passed whenever she accompanied her appa to his job on the palace grounds as a stablehand. The girl she’d befriended behind the backs of both of their parents. The girl who had confided in her all those years ago that she’d rather die than marry one of the boys her father kept making her talk to.
The girl she hasn’t actually spoken to since Zoey’s father was caught stealing from the castle and hanged.
Her best friend stares at her for a moment. His disbelief morphs all the way through frustration until it lands on resignation as he accepts that her mind can’t be changed.
“Please don’t die, Zoey.”
She grins. “Don’t worry, Jinu. I’ll hire you to sing at our wedding.”
—
Mira’s horse neighs as she spurs it to go faster. She is only three hours into the journey, and she can’t afford to lose her headstart.
Luckily for her, the king had made the mistake of informing her of her fate before posting the royal decree. While he assumed she was sulking in her chambers, she had summoned the one person she knew she could trust and asked for his assistance.
Bobby had been adamantly against the idea, at first. He was worried about her safety, and Mira couldn’t blame him. The man had begun his work in the court when Mira was 10, and she instantly liked his warm smile and the way he made her feel heard. Over the years, she’s come to consider him more like a father than the king ever has been.
(“A royal decree is binding, Bobby. If I kill the dragon, I regain the freedom to marry whoever I want. Not even my father can deny something like that.”
Bobby looks pained, and she knows he’s thinking of all of the things Mira has cried on his shoulder over the years about the expectations placed on her.
“Please,” she adds softly, the plea evident in her voice. The man in front of her nods, reluctantly.)
He had helped her sneak out of the castle and met her at the gates with her trusty horse. Mira hugged him tight and thanked him for everything.
She’s been pushing her horse nonstop, and though Abby is the finest physical specimen born from her family’s personal line of Jeju horses, not even he can go forever. She reluctantly slows their gait while she pulls out her map.
Mira knew going into this that the most difficult part of this may prove to be finding the dragon’s lair. Everyone knows it resides near the top of Honmoon Peak, a mountain about 12 hours travel on horseback from the capital city, but no one ever knows exactly how to get there. It makes sense, she supposes. The last time the great beast was so much as seen was two decades before Mira was even born.
Part of her feels guilty about seeking to destroy a creature that both has no real history of violence and clearly just wants to be left alone. She knows that her father only wants the mountain evacuated so he can cut a trade route through it. The royal decree was just a means to kill two birds with one stone.
The princess squints at her map in frustration. Though she had grabbed the most detailed one she could find on short notice, this specific region is still frustratingly vague. The rumor is that the forest surrounding Honmoon Peak is cursed by the dragon itself so that no one can ever approach without the monster’s permission. Apparently, it has enough validity to have kept adventurers from mapping the forest out for this long.
Mira folds her map. No matter; she hadn’t endured years of painstaking schooling for nothing. She knows the cardinal directions and enough about the approximate location of the mountain to get through.
Her confidence wanes as the hours pass by and she swears she’s gone by that tree at least twice already, which should be impossible because she’s on a mostly straight path. The canopy of leaves above Mira grows ever thicker, eventually blocking her from her primary navigation device; the stars. She curses herself for not bringing a compass in her hurry.
Seriously, who brings a map and not a compass? She huffs, and Abby neighs in response to her anxiety.
Mira reaches out and pats his neck. “I’m alright, boy. We’ll be okay.”
Instead of relaxing under her touch, Abby whinnies, bucking up into the air. Mira nearly tumbles off, but manages to tighten her hand on the reins and lean forward just in time. By the time she realizes the warning for what it is, it’s a second too late.
Something between a screech and a roar echoes throughout the forest, and this time when Abby bucks, she falls to the ground with a crash as Abby runs off into the forest. Coward.
Mira springs up as quickly as she is able to, looking around frantically for the source of the terrible noise. It’s not hard to find. A hulking beast at least three times her size stands merely a dozen feet away, covered from head to toe in sleek brown feathers and the tips of its limbs adorned with razor sharp talons. It’s looking right at her, anger in it’s beady black eyes, and that’s the moment Mira realizes that her gokdo is still strapped securely to Abby’s back.
—
When Zoey comes across slash marks in the trees made by giant claws, she sighs in frustration, gently bringing her horse to a stop.
“Owlbear territory,” she murmurs. She debates the benefits of pushing through versus the painstaking route of trying to navigate around the danger zone. Zoey can theoretically afford the safe route with how quickly she had managed to depart the city, using her knowledge of the castle grounds to sneak out the back gate.
Every time she thinks about possible delays, though, anxiety twists in her stomach. The image of some random knight getting in a lucky shot before she even gets there is embedded in her brain, spurring her on straight forwards.
Zoey keeps her eyes peeled for any signs of the beast while she progresses through the area. There are a few; day old dung here, a pile of old animal bones there. Nothing recent enough to be concerning.
She’s almost ready to relax again when she hears a roar in the distance. Her eyes widen and her heart races as she yanks her horse to a stop, glancing around at the trees that surround her, but nothing jumps out.
Zoey instantly assumes it must be some smaller monster unlucky enough to come across an adult owlbear defending its territory. There can’t possibly be anyone else who has made it as far yet, with how quickly she left and how swiftly she’s been moving. Right?
Then she hears it. A scream.
An undoubtedly human scream.
Zoey takes off before she can think twice, pressing her heels into her steed’s flank as she barrels towards the sound, her axe already held tightly in one hand.
It doesn’t take her long to get there, and she vaguely thinks that she must have been closer to the commotion than she realized. Zoey breaks into a small clearing and sees a hooded figure facing off with a very pissed-off looking owlbear.
The stranger is holding what appears to be a fallen branch, and not a particularly large one at that. Still, Zoey can’t help but admire the way they stand their ground when facing off against pretty much certain death.
She spurs her horse forwards, galloping to intercept the owlbear’s path. She takes advantage of its focus on the stranger and slams the broad side of her battleaxe into the beast’s head in a drive-by maneuver. Zoey circles back around the clearing while the beast rears up in pain. She raises her arms to make herself look bigger, and she yells at the top of her lungs. She watches as the owlbear huffs and retreats, growling one last time before stumbling off and disappearing beyond the treeline.
Zoey swiftly dismounts, axe back in its holster as soon as it has come out. She approaches the stranger, who turns to face her. Zoey almost stops breathing.
Now that she’s closer and not on top of a moving horse, she can make out the fine features of the person’s face. The sinful cheekbones, the sharp brown eyes glinting defensively. The strands of pink hair that escape her hood and fall over her face.
Mira.
—
Mira is having trouble doing anything but openly gaping at the gorgeous woman in front of her.
The princess initially turned to defensively tell this stranger, who she had been sure was going to be some posturing knight who’d followed her, to back off, and that she is not a damsel to be rescued. She had the words on the tip of her tongue when she had taken in the person- the woman’s- features.
Medium-length black hair is pulled up into a partial bun on top of her head. Freckles are scattered across her cheeks, and it reminds Mira of all the constellations she loves to learn about. Big brown eyes look at her with unrestrained kindness.
At least her problem seems to be reflected the moment the woman recognizes her.
They are broken out of their mutual dumbfounded silence when the woman’s horse whinnies softly, and she blinks. “Mira?”
Mira can’t stop the way she startles at being addressed so informally. The stranger takes notice, and her beautiful face goes pale. “I am so sorry, I mean, Your Royal Highness, of course,” she says quickly, and the princess holds up a hand to stop her.
“It’s quite alright. You just saved my life, so I think a first name basis is fair.” She smiles softly at the blush that crosses the woman’s cheeks. “Would you grant me the honor of knowing yours?”
She doesn’t expect the frown that appears on the stranger’s face at that.
“You don’t recognize me?” She says, and Mira furrows her brow. There is something oddly familiar about her. A memory tickles at the back of her mind. She reaches for it, and the recognition hits her all at once.
Freckled cheeks stretched in a wide smile, showing off the young girl’s tooth gap. Sunlight shines across her face as she laughs, and Mira feels her little heart skip a beat.
“...Zoey?” Mira says, softly at first, like she can’t believe her own eyes. Then again, this time an exclamation. “Zoey!”
The princess rushes forward and tackles the other woman in a hug. Zoey is stunned at first, but snaps out of it in order to wrap her arms around Mira.
“I can’t believe it,” Mira says. “I am so sorry I didn’t recognize you.” She pulls back, looking down in disbelief at the girl she thought she would never see again.
Zoey laughs softly “It’s alright. I know I look a little different.” She scratches the back of her head and looks away sheepishly.
Different is right. The Zoey that runs free in Mira’s memories was skin and bones, all baby cheeks and tooth gaps. This Zoey is built like a brick house, her gorgeous features only accentuated by the tiny scars and minor burns that litter her skin. Mira’s gaze zones in on Zoey’s bicep raised next to her head, and the sight is so distracting that she misses the beginning of the woman’s question.
“-your horse?”
Mira grimaces at the reminder of her cowardly steed and she turns her head before putting her fingers between her lips and letting out a long whistle.
Abby doesn’t take long to emerge from the overgrown underbrush, and Mira is thankful that he at least stayed nearby. She checks him over quickly, and clicks her tongue in satisfaction when she finds no problems except horse-typical anxiety. She turns back to Zoey, who is still looking at her expectantly.
Mira’s face flushes. “Um, I apologize. Could you repeat the first part?”
Zoey nods without missing a beat. “What are you doing all the way out here?” Her eyes widen. “Did you run away?”
“Of a sort,” she agrees. “My father sent out a royal decree that whoever slays the dragon on Honmoon Peak will get my hand in marriage.”
Mira grimaces, and the anger is clear in her expression. “It’s barbaric and outdated, and I won’t stand for it. So I’m going to slay the dragon and win my own freedom.” She puffs out her chest and juts her chin up in her typical self-assured posture before a question comes to mind.
“Wait, why are you all the way out here, Zo?”
An unreadable expression crosses the other woman’s face before settling into a nervous smile. “I, uh…I’m camping. I like to camp. Here. For fun.”
It’s pretty easy to discern that Zoey is hiding something, but Mira isn’t about to interrogate her long lost friend when she just saved the princess’s sorry ass. She smiles down at Zoey, who, despite her new build, is still several inches shorter than the princess.
“It’s fine. I’m not entitled to details. I’m just grateful you were here.”
Zoey’s eyes shine with emotion. “I am, too. More than you know.”
The pair stare at each other for a second too long, and the air becomes charged with something heavy.
Mira looks away first, laughing awkwardly. “Well, I, uh, I’m kind of on a deadline, so I should get going.” She almost instantly regrets it when she sees the way Zoey’s face falls and decides she never wants to see that disappointment ever again. Not if she can help it. She opens her mouth to apologize, but Zoey beats her to it.
“Would you…like assistance?” The words are spoken carefully, and the shy look on Zoey’s face makes Mira want to hug her and kiss her at the same time. She’s responding before she can think about it.
“I would love assistance.”
—
This is fine. This is totally fine and all going according to plan.
Except it isn’t , because the object of Zoey’s affections and the whole reason she is going through all this is riding in silence on horseback next to her. It isn’t, because this derails everything.
She doesn’t regret offering to accompany Mira. In fact, if Mira hadn’t agreed, she may have taken the creep route and followed some paces behind the other woman to guarantee her safety on this journey. It’s not that Mira is defenseless; quite the opposite, in fact. Zoey had watched from a distance many times while Mira spared with her instructor. It’s more of an innate need to make sure the other woman is safe.
After their initial exchange, they haven’t said much. Zoey’s overthinking is in overdrive. She wants to initiate conversion but fears she will say something stupid, so she bites her tongue. Mira doesn’t offer many more words beyond what she’s already given, and Zoey doesn’t blame her.
She overthinks so hard that she doesn’t even know that they’ve reached the base of the mountain until her horse neighs, letting her know that he is not going to walk into the large rock formation in front of them just because she’s still spurring him forwards. She relaxes her legs, staring up at the task ahead of them.
Honmoon Peak was considered sacred, long ago. Ancient civilizations carved tunnels that wind through the mountain like a labyrinth, becoming home to all manner of night dwellers as the years went by and the god that lauded the mountain as a holy site faded into faceless obscurity. The mountain’s inhabitants eventually started overflowing into the nearby towns, and multiple extermination quests later, it was deemed a futile effort and the towns abandoned.
That was until a massive dragon moved into the mountain’s caves. The creature burned out Honmoon Peak’s previous inhabitants with terrifying ease before declaring the area as its lair.
Generations of the royal Kang family had let the dragon live in peace with an understanding that if it causes no trouble for the kingdom, the kingdom will cause no trouble for it. Until Mira’s father.
A pang of guilt stabs at Zoey’s chest, and she shoves it away. This is for Mira’s future. It’s just hunting. That’s all it is.
Their descent up the mountain is slow and controlled. A winding path carves its way up the mountain, a remnant of the location’s history. They move with controlled purpose, a cautious urgency that ensures they actually make it up the mountain.
As they approach their destination, Zoey readies herself. She checks the straps of her armor and makes sure her axe is properly polished, and she sees Mira doing the same with the end of her gokdo. Maybe it’s the anticipation of a fight, or their fates hanging over their heads, but there’s a buzz underneath Zoey’s skin that she can’t shake.
When they come across the wide, jagged maw of a cave entrance, Zoey finally breaks their long held silence.
“Let’s go win you your life back, yeah?” She looks over at Mira and hopes that the princess can’t decipher the longing that taints her voice.
Mira looks back at her, and smiles. “Thank you, Zoey.”
Zoey breaks the eye contact almost as soon as it begins. “It’s no problem, really.”
When she feels fingers on her chin, her heart skips a beat. The appendages gently prompt her to look back at the princess.
Mira is looking at her with a gaze so intense it makes her skip a breath, too. “I mean it. With all of my heart. After this is all over, I’ll make sure you have whatever you want. Money, land, you name it, it’s yours.”
She is being so kind, and Zoey is so, so selfish, because the only response she can think of is you.
Zoey swallows the lump in her throat, and flashes her signature smile at the princess. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
When they progress into the cave, it’s with weapons ready and horses hitched outside. The area is dark, and Zoey pulls an unlit torch from her adventuring bag before igniting it with a match.
“You’re prepared,” Mira notes, and Zoey blinks up at her.
“Oh, this? Pff, this is nothing. I had all this stuff locked and loaded.” She gestures the lit torch in the air as she talks, eyes stuck following the way it illuminates the princess’s face in a way that is both incredibly attractive and extremely ominous.
“Well, you were camping, so that makes sense.”
Zoey’s internal panic button flares up bright red. She totally knows I was lying. She doesn’t know why she didn’t just take a moment to explain herself at the beginning.
Oops. Another lie.
She does know why, and it has everything to do with the fact that she had briefly deluded herself into believing that this was a story that would end with her and Mira walking off into the sunset together.
“Yeah,” she forces out, waving the torch from side to side slowly as she illuminates the path ahead of them. “Stay behind me, okay?”
Mira snorts. “I’m not a damsel in distress, Zo,” she says, voice firm.
“I know you aren’t. I’m still a charming prince, though.” Zoey flashes the princess a lopsided smile before she registers what she just said. “I mean…uh…”
Instead of cringing at Zoey and demanding she be jailed for flirting with the princess, Mira just laughs, low and melodic. It’s a sound she doesn’t think she could ever get sick of.
“You’re right,” Mira says, and Zoey doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing at all.
A few more minutes pass in silence while they continue scouring the hewn stone caverns. They have yet to come across any signs of life, and part of Zoey starts to worry that there’s not even a dragon here anymore.
Suddenly, Mira puts a hand on Zoey’s shoulder to stop her from moving. She does so immediately.
“What’s wrong?” Zoey says without turning around, eyes flickering around the space for an unseen danger.
“Wall to our left has a ‘crack’ in it, but it’s too smooth to be naturally occurring.” Mira’s voice is quiet but steady. “Looks like a hidden doorway, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are traps.”
Zoey’s eyes flicker to the left, and sure enough, a large crevice is slashed vertically through the cavern wall from top to bottom. She would never have noticed it on her own, and she quietly notes not to forget that Mira is dangerously observant.
Mira walks over to the crack. She runs her fingers over it until she makes a triumphant noise, and she folds out a piece of thin corroding metal that squeaks as she moves it. There’s a click, and the sound of stone scraping on stone fills the room as she stands back and looks at Zoey.
Zoey must not hide her awe very well, because Mira blushes again and says, “I’m more than just a pretty face, you know.”
In another context, Zoey might take offense to the implication that she thought Mira’s worth only lies in her beauty. A marvelous, otherworldly beauty, but just cosmetic all the same. But the way Mira says it is so vulnerable that Zoey just smiles back. “I know. I’ve always known.”
They maintain eye contact for a little too long before both clearing their throats and awkwardly moving beyond the doorway. It leads to a spiral staircase going down.
“I don’t think any dragons are fitting down here,” Mira says, squinting into the darkness beyond the torchlight.
“No, but if the legends are true, all parts of the mountain are connected. Besides, a cool mysterious staircase beats aimlessly wandering empty caves.”
Mira shrugs. “It’s as good of a lead as any, I suppose.”
Their descent down the stairs behind. They have to move single file due to the narrow nature of the passageway, and Zoey is keenly away of the way Mira’s gaze tracks her movements. The stairs seem to go on forever, and she has to relight her torch by the time they reach the bottom.
The base of the stairs extends out into a wide tunnel, although unlike the stone that encompassed them earlier, this one is crafted from marble. The tunnel doesn’t go on long; it concludes with a simple wooden door embedded in the material.
“This isn’t ominous at all,” Mira drawls as they approach the door. Her voice drops to a whisper. Zoey doesn’t reply, but turns around to sweep her gaze over the princess as if reassuring herself that Mira was still safely behind her.
“Shall we?” Zoey says, both hands moving to grip her battleaxe.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
In one swift motion, Zoey kicks in the door, the wood immediately splintering around the hinges and banging to the floor with a crash. She and Mira spring forward, weapons at the ready, and there right in the middle of a very cluttered room is a shape curled up on a pile of mismatched blankets and pillows.
Except…it’s not huge, or monstrous, or ugly. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The thing curled up in the center of this nest is a
woman.
A beautiful woman with patches of shimmering purple scales and silvery gray horns curling around her head, but a woman all the same. A person all the same.
And she’s waking up.