Chapter Text
The dragon, as it were, is out of the bag.
On the bright side, it is just the one dragon — her little Cherry, as she’s dubbed her in her head, has remained undetected curled around her forearm within her long sleeves. On the not-so-bright side, one dragon is still one too many.
Lucy’s screams brought the clanking of frantic sabatons, and the confused guard brought even more confused guards, and the commotion brought Minji’s headache a headache of its own.
In times of duress, Minji is calm. She is the anchor to a kingdom, and oftentimes more importantly to Gahyun, who does her best to set said kingdom adrift and spinning. With her sister, however, she has had two decades of experience. Right now, she has about two seconds.
“I invited the dragonborne here, and I expect our guests to be treated with respect — not with fear and ire!”
Her raised voice silences the hall. Yoohyeon looks at her, stunned.
The guards salute automatically, though they all look unsure. Murmurs of dragonborne flow through the ranks, and Lucy stares open-mouthed.
“You may return to your positions, and I count on your discretion,” Minji emphasizes.
“As you were!” Bora barks, and this finally gets the guards to shuffle back out of the door.
“Now Lucy,” Minji says kindly, “I’m sure you have a number of questions.”
Lucy curtsies out of habit, eyes wobbling around the unexplained massacre around them. She closes her mouth, then opens it, then shuts it with a gulp. She tries again.
“W-would Your Highness like me to fetch some towels?”
She looks like she is close to fainting. Minji takes pity on her.
“Yes, would you, please?”
Lucy bolts.
“Well,” Bora says, making useless swipes at the filling down her gambeson, “we’ve got about ten minutes before the whole castle knows, now.”
“About an hour before it gets to Everglow Tavern,” Gahyun calculates.
“And from Yiren’s mouth to the kingdom.”
“And then the world.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Minji looks to Yoohyeon, whose voice is quiet as she cradles Pie to her chest.
“You could have just said we attacked you. Had us arrested. It would have been easier to explain instead of… taking responsibility for us.”
There is fragility there in the dragonborne’s face. Minji remembers the carriage ride to the palace, how the sun caressed Yoohyeon’s cheekbones despite the shadowy doubt that encased her features.
“I made you a promise,” she explains simply. “And,” she holds up her sleeves, “I need you to show me what to do with Cherry.”
Bora groans. “You did not name—”
“She likes cherries!”
“You’ll get attached to it now!”
“I’m already bonded to her.”
“And we don’t really know what that means,” Siyeon reminds them.
“Well,” Minji looks Yoohyeon in the eye, warm and brown with a flicker of hopeful grey in the centre, “we’ll learn together, shall we?”
The corners of Yoohyeon’s mouth turn up just slightly, and this, too, feels like a promise.
Lucy returns with towels and a gaggle of other castle workers who crowd behind the door to the banquet hall, Minji can tell from all of the layered, none-too-quiet whispering. She is reluctant to step closer to the mess, even though Yoohyeon has plopped Pie back into her rucksack none too ceremoniously.
“You need not be afraid,” Minji soothes, or at least attempts to. “Lord Yoohyeon is an expert handler.”
Lucy shuffles a tad closer, eyes wide. “I-is it real, then, Your Highness? Is it…” she gulps. “...A dragon?” She wheezes out the last word like it is something volatile that might sting her tongue should she say it too loudly.
It occurs to Minji that the word feels so foreign because it has not been used for a century. The last she read of dragons was in a cautionary tale more fit to scare children than to provide any sort of historical record, and then it occurs to her that she has no recollection of the Polaris laws regarding these creatures. Dragons were quite low on the list of her royal studies, right beside magical shape-shifting warrior cat-humans. The latter she learned about with first-hand experience, but surely, deep in the annals of the library, there must be lore on Cherry and Pie’s kind?
“Yes, Lucy, and it is of no threat to us. Please tell everyone else this, and to get back to their stations. You may leave the towels there.”
Lucy curtsies, only slightly less wobbly than before, and scurries away.
The room is silent.
Bora, naturally, breaks it. “...And now, Your Highness?”
“And now,” Minji says, “now we read some books.”
Yubin sits up straighter, interested. Bora and Siyeon groan in confusion and distaste.
“Unless someone else here knows Polaris’ mandate in regards to dragons by heart?”
“They’re illegal,” Yoohyeon offers.
“To what degree? What is the punishment? What is the exact phrasing? And what of dragonbornes, are they outlawed as well?”
“Um,” Yoohyeon says.
Minji has begun to expect this answer from her. “To the library,” she orders.
With most of the pie filling wiped from her garments, and Cherry fast asleep still twined around her arm, she leads the way. The news hasn’t yet reached the few castle workers they do run into, and to their favour they take the company’s stained clothing in stride, probably assuming one of Gahyun’s experiments took a turn once again. Siyeon shoves the great oak doors open for them; Minji gives her a look when she lets the door swing shut on Yubin, the last to enter. Siyeon deigns to look elsewhere at the maze of leather-bound sheafs around them.
Polaris is a modest bastion of knowledge. Minji used to devour scrolls and books not only for studies but because she had a greed for this knowledge — if she was to be rooted in one castle her entire life, she figured there was escape to be found in the tales and histories of a wide, wide world.
“If the dragons were as destructive as they say, surely there are records of such disaster,” she reasons. “I would like everyone to search with me for these.”
Gahyun immediately takes off, leading Yubin by the hand, Handong shadowing them. Bora and Siyeon exchange a look and dawdle off down the first aisle that looks interesting; Minji has little faith in their quest. And Yoohyeon—
“Are you alright?” Minji asks, already reaching for the scrolls of mandates within a glass case. Yoohyeon remains near the entrance, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, looking quite out of place.
“I, er, Yubin taught me a bit, but…” she looks down, ashamed. “I don’t know how to read very well.”
Minji is immediately flooded with contempt — for herself. Who was she to assume everyone had the privilege of a scribe’s education?
“Do you know the word for ‘dragon’?”
Yoohyeon nods.
Minji beams. “Then that’s all you need to know! Would you kindly help me look through these?”
Doubtful, Yoohyeon gingerly picks up the nearest scroll and unfurls it. Minji watches her eyebrows furrow, and the rather cute pout of concentration she unconsciously wears as she begins to pore over the text. She blinks after a moment, catching herself, and returns to her own scroll.
Skimming for sections on relations with magical entities, Gahyun’s distant chatter and Sua and Siyeon’s soft bickering fill the wide space until Jiu is almost lulled into a sense of peace. The only reminder of urgency is the scrabbling every so often on her wrist as Cherry adjusts position in her slumber — the softest vice grip made of scales and warmth. Yoohyeon’s bag shifts slightly, and Minji wonders.
“Did that happen to you too?”
Yoohyeon looks up, startled. “Hm?”
“When you first came across Pie,” Minji clarifies, “did the whole glowing thing happen as well?”
The dragonborne blinks at her, and then considers. “Well, you’d have to ask Yubin. We were traversing the Red Sun desert, and I tripped over Pie’s egg and dashed my head against some rocks. I don’t remember much, except waking up to a little creature sitting on my face.”
Minji fights a smile at the image. “Lord Yubin let you lie there like that?”
“‘Lord’ Yubin got her comeuppance when we found your dragon’s egg,” Yoohyeon huffs. “Pie led us to the Paradise Tropics and got so excited she accidentally tripped Yubin into a pond.” What sounds like a snort comes from the bag on her back.
Minji has heard these location names in talks of trade and read about them in geography books. Never has she traversed that far around the world, having only been to neighbouring kingdoms for coronations and the most important meetings; her diplomats take the brunt of travel, and she has always been equal parts grateful and envious of their obligations. Eager, she is about to question Yoohyeon further, when the woman’s eyes shift as if remembering something, positioning her scroll as a divide between them.
“But, um, why do you ask, Your Highness?”
Ah, right; they are here on important business. Minji misses the hints of openness in Yoohyeon’s guarded demeanor that she caught during supper, wonders what it would be like to hear her laugh or even to see a genuine smile. She shakes the thought away.
“I suppose I’d like to know your experience with dragons. Surely you’ve come across some helpful information along your travels.”
“Well… as you said, they’re a bit like puppies, I think, how they imprint on their human beginning at birth. Pie cried for hours whenever I had to leave her alone, when she was younger. Except it goes both ways — your soul has chosen them just as theirs has chosen yours. You can feel it, can’t you? In your chest?”
The warmth; the glow. Minji nods.
“Pie eats just about anything. Really all she needs is the light of the sun; she likes to take naps in our campfires and whatnot. She can see things that we can’t, especially in the dark and far away. She gets along with other animals, but she’s scared of people. Her teeth fall out a lot, but they grow right back in… she likes music, and mud… and the latest development: I can sort of, er, hear her voice in my head.”
Yoohyeon rattles off these facts confidently until the last. Minji supposes, with all the voices that surround her in her everyday life, that another addition shan’t be all that bad. She is about to ask another question when Gahyun calls from the other end of the library, loud and clear:
“Found it!”
Minji drops her scroll and after a mini game of hide-and-seek, manages to find the corner in which her sister and her companions have gathered. Yubin holds a thick, dusty book in her hands, standing amidst a pile of even thicker, dustier books on the floor, another mess that Gahyun looks none too concerned about.
“Go on, read it!”
Minji holds her breath as Yubin clears her throat.
“‘Mandate 0113.17: Dragons are forbidden from setting foot on Polaris soil. Breach of this law and any and all complicit parties are subject to imprisonment and/or death by the sword.’ …That’s all.”
For once, even Bora remains quiet. Minji’s mind races. Dragons are forbidden… all complicit parties… death by the sword…
The library doors swing open with a creak. There is a hurried pitter-patter of feet, and one of her staff makes their way over to their corner, harried.
“Your Highness,” he bows once to Minji, then once to Gahyun, and notices the Captain of the Guard and the other members of the royal party, and Minji interrupts before he falls over at the waist.
“What’s the matter, Taehyung?”
“It’s the Council, Your Highness. They’ve requested your presence for an emergency assembly.”
It seems Bora’s ten minute estimation gave a lot of grace to the gossiping mouths in her castle. She straightens.
“Very well. Please inform them that I will be there shortly.”
Taehyung bows and rushes off. Dragons are forbidden… all complicit parties…
Laws are upheld by subjective interpretation. Something about that phrasing…
“Captain, Alpha Siyeon; please escort Lord Yubin and Lord Yoohyeon to the third floor guest rooms, and stand guard. Handong, please keep the Crown Princess out of any more trouble, at least for tonight.” Dragons are forbidden… setting foot on Polaris soil…
Foot… on Polaris soil…
An absurd, straw-grasping idea takes shape. She thinks back over the past few hours of interaction with the dragons. Scar Forest is technically not under Polaris’ domain. The wagon technically rolled over the ground. The eastern stables are technically filled with hay that sits atop a slab of foundational concrete. Pie technically sits in Yoohyeon’s rucksack, Cherry technically within her sleeves.
Technically—
She marches into the Council Room, baby dragon hidden around her arm, cherry stains and all, and announces:
“No dragon has set foot on Polaris soil.”
Her Council, still standing out of respect for her entrance, stares.
…Perhaps she was a bit hasty.
“Not in a hundred years, stars be praised, Your Highness,” one of the Council members says cautiously, clearing their throat. “What has that to do with the preparations for the festival?”
“The festival?” She asks, bewildered.
“The fireworks delivery has been indefinitely delayed due to an outbreak of war in the Dalso territories,” another member explains slowly, “so we called an emergency assembly because the Vernal Equinox is soon upon us.”
The advisors have begun to mutter amongst themselves. So the rumours about a dragon… are they true? Her Highness seems to imply…
And here, Minji realizes she has a choice.
She could deny it all. Pretend she never breathed a word about a dragonborne to her workers, threaten Lucy and the guards to secrecy. No dragon has come across Polaris’ borders, and certainly no dragon resides curled up just under her elbow. Move on with the festival planning. Smuggle Yoohyeon and her company out of the kingdom come witching hours. Send ‘her’ dragon off with them, never to return.
A silver spoon does not equate to a silver tongue; the former Minji was born with, but the latter she has spent her painstaking years developing into that fitting of her status. The bards praise her eloquence, but what she values the most in rhetoric is honesty and justice. This, she is sure, is what makes her someone worthy of renown, someone worthy of leading a people and protecting a kingdom. Queen Minji of Polaris is honest and just, and she keeps her word.
She can only pray that, under the stars, this is enough.
“I am afraid we must delay talk of the festival for another time. We have more important things to discuss: it is true. My esteemed guest Lord Yoohyeon is dragonborne, and she has brought to us a fledgling dragon. They now seek asylum in Polaris.”
Minji isn't sure how many more rooms full of silence she can stand.
“Your Highness, Polaris law states that…”
“Dragons are forbidden from setting foot on Polaris soil,” Minji recites. “And thus far, no law has been broken. Not once has the dragon touched claw or tail to the dirt. And until this law is repealed, not once will the dragon set foot on Polaris soil.”
Murmurs spread. Repeal? Technicalities?
“I know you know the history books and what they say of dragons. But this is a new generation. I swear to you by the stars, Lord Yoohyeon and her dragon mean no harm to me, to you, to the kingdom, nor to humankind.”
“It’s not that we do not trust your good word, Your Highness,” one of her closest advisors speaks for them, “but with all due respect — how can you prove that they mean no harm?”
How, indeed. Minji hears the fear in their voices, can nearly smell the doubt that clouds the room. Cherry twitches. She draws her sleeves closer to her chest.
Trying to push Yoohyeon’s brooding face out of her mind, Minji compromises.
“I cannot. I can only, humbly beg for your faith in me to continue, even into this. At dawn we shall have a presentation from the dragonborne, and in the meantime,” she apologizes silently, “I will have them escorted to the dungeons, where they will lie under heavy guard. You may join us tomorrow only if you feel comfortable doing so.”
Suddenly so very exhausted, Minji inclines her head: “I hereby adjourn this meeting. Should you have any questions, please save them for tomorrow, and rest well.”
She manages to stumble to her bedchambers after sending Taehyung to inform Bora of the change in plans. With care, she strips her white robe away and gently extricates Cherry from her arm. The baby makes a small squawk of discontent. Minji sets her down next to her bedside candle, remembering Yoohyeon’s words and hoping the small flame is enough to sate the dragon’s desire for warmth, and crawls into bed. Her eyes slide shut.
Not a minute later, and a clumsy body lands on her pillow. She feels tiny claws scrabble for purchase on her shoulder, and manages some amusement at the way they turn in a circle once, twice, before the scaly length curls and settles over her breastbone.
Never has the weight of the kingdom weighed more heavily on her back, but this small weight on her chest provides some comfort as she drifts into sleep.