When Fire Meets Ice: The Lovers

Jura’s skirts gave her the appearance of floating on air. The jewels on the hem of the dress reflected like stars in the moonlight while her dark hair fell gloriously around her shoulders. People stared as she walked down the Market Road in the human village instead of looking behind her for a change.

Leilani kept her white-blond hair tucked beneath her hood. Her blue eyes focused on the sparkling crystals sliding against the rough road. She’d have to talk one of the Nerou into washing the dirt from the hem later, but tonight she wanted her sister to enjoy herself. The black clothes she chose to wear helped her blend into the background. Though people glanced at her as if she were a common thief, she felt comfortable for the moment. She felt almost free, and then her eyes landed on him…

“Look!” Jura whispered. Her feet stopped moving as she stared like every other human, ogling the man outside the city tavern. His legs were long and lean, and a sword hung at his side. Dark hair fell in his eyes before he shoved it back with a rolling laugh. The woman beside him must’ve been a fan; she leaned into his every word as she watched his movements with glassy eyes.

Leilani paused on the rocky road beside Jura. The slight breeze almost pulled her dark hood over her hair as she gave the man a haughty glance. “Why should I take in his appearance? He murders my kind for sport and glory, remember?” Leilani said a little louder than she meant to, earning darting glances from drunken souls. She moved her feet around two sharp looking rocks. Her sister began moving again toward the scruffy man.

“You should look because he is handsome enough to admire!” Jura pushed her midnight hair over her shoulder. “Let’s stop here tonight…Oh, please!”

Leilani held Jura’s look of indignation for a long moment, trying to make herself walk away, but she couldn’t say no to her only human sister. She pulled her hood tighter around her neck. “This is well passed good judgement, Jura. We are entering the terrain of ignorance and folly, now.”

Leilani could feel her heart racing in her chest, but her icy countenance never broke. She followed her sister to within a foot of the Dragon Slayer. How could she ever forget what that monster did? Her eyes, fixed on her sister’s back, couldn’t stop their curious glance toward the stranger.

Leilani could almost hear her father’s voice telling stories in her sleepless, tearful nights as she gazed upon the slayer’s dimpled charms. “Little Lani,” Father would start in a hushed tone, “your mother is looking down and weeping because her treasure is sad. Come, let me tell you of her glory to dry those eyes.” He’d tuck her into her small spread of wool before leaning against her wall of ice. “Your mother was a grand, shimmering, white creature who let no mere mortal, nor powerful beast, hurt her people. She was the Pagos protector, and for three millennia she watched carefully. One night, a man with hair and eyes so dark you almost missed them in the night lured her out of her hiding place. She fought a gallant fight, almost killing the man who vowed to come after her most treasured possession.”

“What possession could have been worth more than Mother’s life?” Leilani asked once out of her childhood grief.

“You,” her father whispered.

Leilani shook the memory from her head nearing close enough to pass this monster. She hated to admit it, but Jura was right. He was handsome for a human. High cheekbones, pronounced nose, straight teeth, but his dark eyes felt more acidic than Damocles’ when he wanted something he couldn’t have. She didn’t realize she was staring until the maiden with him spat something incoherent at her.

“Lei…” Jura started, but her sister’s shaking head interrupted her.

“My apologies, I do not usually gaze upon people such as yourselves often. If you will be so kind as to excuse us,” Leilani whispered in her cool tone. The woman grew angry, and the dragon’s smile did not ease the matter.

Jura took her hand. “Come, sister. You promised!”

Leilani chuckled. “I spoke no vow, but I shall heed your words now.” She squeezed Jura’s hand before walking passed the slayer into the tavern. However, instead of getting away from him, he followed the girls.

~~~

Music played in the background of drunken laugher and angered cheats. Tables in the back were filled with men drinking their ale and arguing over the cards in their midst. Closer to Jura, there were couples leaning close to whisper before roaring in laughter. Women with mad blushes on their cheeks waved away mugs of ale before finally being talked into ‘one more round’.

“Have I not seen you before?” A voice asked from behind her. It was gruff and deep with an amused tone. Jura couldn’t be sure to which of them he spoke, while Leilani took great bounds to ignore him.

“I’m afraid not,” Jura answered while her sister walked away into one of the shadowy corners. Leilani liked joining the card games men played, even though she always was shooed away from the table for beating them. “My sister and I don’t get out much.”

“You don’t speak as properly as she does, why?” His eyes followed magical laughter in the corner. Jura suddenly felt jealous again.

“She lived in the house with our father; he is a perfectionist of sorts. I grew up in a shack with my mother; she was a peasant, cleaning homes for a living. My sister taught me a great deal, but it wasn’t enough to please Father.”

He looked toward Jura now. Confusion creased his brow. “You don’t look like a peasant’s daughter, and you certainly cannot be displeasing to any creature.”

She found herself wincing slightly at the word ‘creature’, remembering who and what her father and sister were. “He has a lot to deal with, I suppose.” Jura managed to speak again, but her eyes strayed toward Leilani. Her hood was falling slightly now as she laughed and drank ale with the men. Blue diamonds sparkled as she nodded toward Jura. For the moment, the drunken men weren’t taking notice of her thievery. If Jura had to name one thing she hated about her sister, and dragons in general, it would be their lust for shiny objects.

“Have I offended you?” He asked a little too quietly.

“Not in the least, but I am done talking about my family. Why don’t you tell me of yours?” Her smile brought the blush Leilani pinched onto her cheeks back as the tavern keeper sat a jar of ale in front of her. She took a quick gulp while keeping her eyes focused on the dragon slayer.

He nodded and opened his mouth to speak when the door banged against the wall with shoved force. Jura looked over her shoulder before she glanced in Leilani’s direction, but her sister was already gone; she turned back to the door. The man standing in the doorway was a broad shouldered man with cinnamon colored hair and eyes as ruddy as fresh mud. He wore a dragon scale cloak and a longsword on his side. Jura thought she recognized him.

“We don’t serve your kind here,” the tavern keeper’s voice echoed in the sudden silence.

“What, pray tell, is ‘my kind’?” The broad man answered with a toothy smile. His teeth were as sharp as Leilani’s dagger, and his ears were pointed slightly likes hers.

“The slayer has told us stories of your treacherous ways, Dragon. He has proclaimed that those with sharpened ears and eyes that spark flames are of your beastly kind.” The tavern keeper’s finger rose until it met with the man sitting next to Jura.

“Well…well…well.” The Dragon man shook his head while laughing. “Is this not a strange and amusing sight?”

Jura knew. As soon as the man looked into her eyes she knew who he was, and she was too afraid to speak his name. Everyone knew her father in the human world, but the townspeople didn’t know she was the half-human daughter of a dragon. If he spoke now all would surely learn tonight. She couldn’t stand the thought of these people learning of her heritage, not after the hanging last week.

The woman on the scaffolding wasn’t tall or pretty. She had a large mole on the left side of her face, her eyes were too close together, and her lips were so thin they were almost invisible on her pale skin. Jura watched helplessly from the window of the house she was cleaning for her mother.

“You have been charged with the crime of high treason against humanity. Do you deny this claim?” A pot-bellied man in a black suit bellowed.

“All I said was that those creatures were good! They won’t hurt us if we stop aggravating their aggressive nature!” Her voice grated like nails against slate.

“She has been tried and found guilty of protecting and serving the beasts from the mountainous city. What say you?” The man turned toward the audience. His answer was not awaited long.

“Damocles!” Leilani’s voice was raw and harsh. Her white blond hair poured over her black clothing like frost covering her own tell-tell signs, except the blue tint of her lips and cheeks. “Step away from the human, now.”

“Isn’t she your…?” the slayer trailed off watching the ice princess standing as if she were a statue with her bow poised, aimed at Damocles’ heart.

“No,” Jura whispered her lie. She couldn’t meet his curious gaze because she had told him more than once that Leilani was indeed her sister. The mistake of explaining to him Leilani’s father was indeed her father as well had already been made. Her eyes focused on Damocles and his scaly armor. She folded her hands over her legs and began to pray for her future silently as she watched, scarcely able to breathe.

She remembered the broad man well now that she truly studied his features. Jura met him the night of her sister’s betrothal. She snuck into the Pagos tower as she often did to visit Leilani, and found a dragon festival; some in human form while others remained themselves. The large Fotiά Prince with black and red scales wanted to marry the last Págos Princess, and he was the last creature on the planet Leilani would ever consider. Jura looked between the dragons in their human forms the same as she did that night and she couldn’t stop thinking, ‘Is this what it’s like when fire meets ice?’