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There wasn’t a soul in the whole kingdom who didn’t know the story of this tower.
Years ago, long before Ochako was born, there used to be a Princess Ayumu. All the stories about her said she sang sweet hymns to the Gods with the voice they’d gifted her, and one day, she was taken from the kingdom’s loving hands, by a monstrous roar in the darkening sky that demanded her sweet song for itself, and that if the people cherished their land, they would surrender one of their treasures.
They built her a tower deep into the forest, far from the kingdom, in the hope that she could be safe there. It was a needle that pierced the clouds, taller than any tree in the forest, and from its highest window, you can see the spires of the palace, mirroring the tower’s reach for the sky.
There was a day dedicated to her now, a grand festival of roses and music, and they all sang every song she’d ever sung, every song they could remember. They recounted that story every year, of the dragon and the princess and the tower whose location was only known by the royal family.
She didn’t think it actually existed.
Ochako finds herself violently tossed out a moving carriage, head wrapped in an old sack that smelt like dirt and old vegetables. She manages to push herself off the grass with a groan, pulling at the sack with a gasp. She was drenched in sweat, her hair stuck to her cheeks and the back of her neck, as did the fabric of her sleeping gown.
Her joints ached. It wasn’t new. They ached when she still worked at the dressmaker’s, and somehow they ached even more when they moved to the palace. In fairness to her joints, though, she had just rolled on dirt ground after being thrown right out of a moving carriage.
“Okay, Ochako,” she says, standing up, dusting herself off, not that it would do much for the mud on her clothes. If rumors were correct, she could be days away from the kingdom, maybe even more — she had been unconscious for most of the trip, who knows how long it had actually been. And even if she tried to get back, she couldn’t in the state she’s in. She had no money, and it’s not like she’s comfortable walking around in a sleeping gown, and she had no way of protecting herself…
But above all else, right now, she’s exhausted, and it’s the dead of the night. She’s no stranger to sleeping on a cold floor, she’ll survive for a night. It’s better to wait for daybreak before she decides anything.
She starts walking towards the wooden gate — there’s a wooden fence surrounding it, she shouldn’t be surprised, though it looks a bit uneven. The tall grass tickles her ankles, her soles barely protected by the thin foot coverings they wore indoors.
Ochako gently pushes against the gate, with just the softest of forces on her fingers, and it swings without the resistance of a lock. Not that she expected it to be, or for anyone to be here at all, or even anything, but it’s clear she’s wrong about the last one when the door swings open to reveal the biggest clowder of cats she’s ever seen, some prowling about while small bunches huddled together closely. The fence enclosed around the tower allowed a wide space, something like a yard that all the cats had made their own.
It made for a serene image of peace — until she had gone and interrupted it, at least, because all the cats suddenly paused in unison and turned to look at her with an eerie, knowing feeling.
“I’m —” she chokes, her voice rising to a sound similar to the pathetic turn of a rusty, creaking hinge. “H-hello. Pardon the...the intrusion…”
They blink at her, then proceed to return to their business, unbothered by her presence. Ochako takes a few more careful steps, afraid she might suddenly offend the cats in their territory, and she suddenly feels soft fur warm with life gently run against her leg.
She looks down and finds a little cat with dark fur, visible only by its form lined with the moonlight, looking up at her with bright blue eyes like gemstones. “Hello,” she says softly, so as not to scare it away. “Can I help you?”
It simply gives her a blank look, giving its paw a lick before its leaps forward ahead of her, trotting a few paces only to pause and turn to look at her, shooting her an expectant look.
“Oh, you want me to — a-alright,” she should admittedly feel silly right now, following a cat, or believing she understands that the cat actually wants her to follow it, but she’s too tired to argue or be angry. She’ll humor anyone or anything right now.
It’s not too far a distance, so it quickly becomes clear that the cat was just leading her to the door of the tower, but as they get closer, more and more cats gather, following, walking alongside her. When the first cat she’s following stops, she does, too, and so do all the other cats. The cat turns to her with the same expectant look from before, they all are, watching her intently with their sharp eyes.
She walks up to the door, finding it unlocked, and enters the tower into a dark room, save for the sliver of light through the door that slowly disappears as it closes shut behind her.
For a second, she thinks that perhaps she’s alone, but then she can feel something watching her, just in the shadows — were those eyes? —
In the corner of her eye, there’s a little puff of what she swears is fire, into a lantern on the floor that she hadn’t seen upon entry. The light barely fills the room, but it’s enough to illuminate the hulking figure (that in no way could not have fit through the door) covered in what looked like scales, staring at her intently.
She feels her heart stop.
“Who are you?” The beast speaks. “What are you doing in my tower?”
“This tower belongs to the kingdom,” her mouth runs before she could control it, the absolute fool that she is.
“The kingdom?” said the beast mockingly, its lips curling in a snarl - or was it a smile? Ochako doesn’t know. “Are you a princess, then? I’d have thought you all stopped after the first one.”
“I’m-I’m not a princess.” She tried to amend.
“Right, right,” the beast simply yawns, and suddenly Ochako feels the ominous air around them drop. “So you say.”
She gets the sense that they don’t believe her. “I’m...really not.”
“...well, pardon me for not being able to trust you,” the beast curls up comfortably, stretching the tiniest bit before finally relaxing. Ochako lets herself breathe. “I’ve only been told what princesses look like before, and you seem to match what they say…”
The beast casts their gaze on her, the color like the lavender flowers in the palace gardens that she admired, but brighter and more vibrant than she’d ever seen it, the center of its eyes like a bright white pearl. “Though, I wouldn’t want to be royalty in front of a dragon, either. You know how the stories go,” they said. “So, what do you want? I don’t know what you’ve heard about other dragons, but I don’t have any gold here.”
“I-I’m not looking for anything like that, I just...I really only wanted somewhere to stay until I get myself together.” She said. “I didn’t even know there was anyone living here —”
“You were just going to walk here and try to open the door?” Said the beast, sounding the slightest bit like they were frowning.
“Y...yes?”
“...that seems a little rude.”
“I thought no one lived here!” She snapped, but she quickly gathers herself before she really steps out of line and offends the dragon before her. “And I — I don’t think it would have mattered if there really wasn’t anyone living here...”
“But I do. It matters to me.” They said as they turn their head away from her in the sort of pompous way, not unlike a standoffish cat, but after a quick beat of silence, they turn back to her to rest their head on their front limbs again, with a glint in its eyes like a smile. “But you can stay, I guess. It gets lonely sometimes, after all.”
“I’m...I’m sorry?” said Ochako. Were dragons really so casual? Weren’t dragons possessive and territorial? Had they all been wrong?
“I can hear you thinking,” the dragon remarked. “All dragons aren’t the same, you know. I just happen to care less.”
Well...she supposes that made a little more sense. “Wait,” said Ochako. “Can you really hear me think?”
“What? No, it’s just an expression. Your face looked so bunched up I started getting worried it would stay that way.” Said the dragon. “Are humans okay? I’ve spoken to some, and I’ve only properly known one, so I don’t...I can’t say I’ve studied them broadly, but I know more than other dragons.”
“I’m...we’re alright,” she said. “I think.”
“...well, it’s late. There’s a room at the very top. It’s the only door up there, you can’t miss it,” said the beast. “You can stay in there.”
He must mean Princess Ayumu’s room.
“Are...are you sure?” she asked.
“Yeah. Well, I’m not using it, and you’re here. What else am I supposed to do with it? And where else am I supposed to put you? I already said you can stay here, anyway.”
“Just until I can go back home,” she amended.
“Right, right,” they said, nodding at the staircase that curved along the shape of the round walls above where the beast was nestled in its bed of hay and rugs. “You should go on ahead, it’s late. Be careful, though, it’s a bit of a climb.”
Ochako silently nods, but it’s only when she’s already up a few steps that she realizes she’s forgotten something. “Um,” she leans over to look below at the dragon. “May I know your name…?”
“...it’s Hitoshi,” they said simply.
“...is it just that?”
“...no other names, like humans do,” they said, words tangling together in a deep, sleepy mumble. “S’ a human name, though...mother gave it to me.”
“...I’m Ochako, then. Just that.”
Hitoshi hums an acknowledgment, and she’s back on her way.
She keeps taking the steps, and there’s a simple square of wood embedded right where the stairs meet the ceiling, There’s no lock on it, or a handle, just simple black metal hinges very much like a door would. She pushes against it, and it swings upward to an empty room only illuminated by the streaming moonlight from the windows. More steps spiral upward to what only looks like a dark circle from where she stands.
It was a bit of a climb.
Nevertheless, she persists, and she doesn’t really mind the climb as much as she should. It takes her mind off of everything that’s happened today, and it kind of reminds her of the mile-long walks she took when she had to fetch her own eggs if she wanted to eat a hot breakfast. She kind of misses it.
At the very top, the stairs meet a door — a proper, heavy-look, dark wooden door, set in a stone doorway. This was the princess’ room then, she’s guessing. There was a grand canopy bed set against the wall, much like the one she had when they moved in the palace, except it was bare of the heavy drapes that she remembered, the dark wood marred with haphazard, shallow scratches.
Ochako can’t help the sudden wave of exhausted relief that overcomes her at the sight of a bed. She doesn’t really care anymore, falling forward on her stomach as everything goes black.
--
“Hello?” Ochako feels the blanket, or at least something like it, being lifted off her, her eyes suddenly being attacked with a barrage of light. “Your highness?”
“Hm...wha —?” She opens her eyes a tiny sliver, the sunlight and the ceiling a blurry symphony of colors. A figure looms over her, a brilliant, vivid lilac mass entering her vision.
“Breakfast.” Said the figure. “I wasn’t sure if I should have waited for you to eat together or if I should’ve just let you eat when you wake up on your own. I made stew, by the way, if that’s fine. I can’t make any of that fancy stuff you eat in your palace, though.”
“No, no, I’ll...I’ll eat,” she forces herself to sit up from the comfortable bed, a yawn escaping her. “I’ll get up, okay...I’ll...I’m ‘unna…’unna eat, okay? Jus...jus wait for me…”
“...I can come back.”
“No! It’s okay, I’m, I’m up,” she rubs the sleep from her eye. A hand is offered before her, and she finds herself taking it without hesitation, much larger than her own. Their skin was warm, fingernails more like an animal’s claws, and suddenly Ochako’s mind comes to a screeching halt.
Wait.
“You’re —”
“Human, yes,” said who-might-be-Hitoshi, the Kindly Dragon from Last Night. “Or did you mean that I’m a dragon? Please do keep up.”
She’s not sure if he means to keep up with the new (and very, very sudden influx of) knowledge about dragons, or his long, swift strides.
He’s not exactly human — not completely, at least, though she can say most of him is, that he could probably pass for one from afar. She can see the scales where his shirt doesn’t cover, on the back of his neck and creeping down his elbows.
But without them, she could believe he was a man her own age. He loomed over her like a tree — and she thought she’d seen tall people before, though it could perhaps be because of his being a dragon. His hair was like a wild nest of violets that she wanted to reach out and touch, if only she were tall enough.
“Your hair…” she mumbled.
“What about it?”
“I like it,” she said. “It’s nice.”
“Er...thank you?” He said. “It’s...violet. Like the flower.”
The rest of the steps down are quiet, the door at the very bottom now clear in the light of morning. There was a simple doorknocker at the center, or it looked like one, at least, the ones in the place had the metal ring hanging from a carved lion’s mouth. And this looked more like it was for lifting the flap open, like Hitoshi had just done. “Just leave it open,” he said as she follows closely behind him.
The room she had entered last night had been nothing like this, but perhaps it was because of the darkness, and it most of what she remembers last night was a dragon in the darkness and a dizzying upward spiral, so she supposes she really wouldn’t notice the rows of barrels and baskets, and somehow the layers of bricks that formed what looked like a fireplace that they used to cook over. Beside it was a simple wooden table and three chairs that matched it.
Ochako takes a seat, and he right next to her, carefully placing a bowl of red soup before her. It was wood, like she was more accustomed to, along with a little wooden spoon. It smells like something she would have eaten in her childhood, she’s not exactly sure. She’s suddenly aware of how hungry she is, but she doesn’t want to immediately dive in fear of being rude.
Hitoshi seems to mistake her hesitance for suspicion. “Don’t worry, humans can eat it,” he said. “I made sure of that, at least.”
“No, I just...I didn’t want to be rude,” she said, bringing the bowl closer to herself and takes a spoonful. It was still warm. “It’s really good.”
But in the short moment that she takes that spoonful of soup, Hitoshi’s already swallowed the rest of his, drinking straight from the bowl. He stands from his seat and walks to the door.
“...where are you going?” she asked. She hadn’t meant to, and it was none of her concern, but she couldn’t stand the agonizing silence and wanted something to fill the room.
“The cats need feeding,” he said. Huh. That makes sense.
“Do...you feed all of them?”
“Just the ones that are here,” he said, opening the heavy door. “There are some that hunt on their own and prowl around.”
Hitoshi steps outside, and Ochako quickly finishes her soup and runs outdoors to join him. He’s nowhere to be found, and most of the cats are gone, too, save for some that were lounging about in the grass lazily. Several cats walk past her, and some inner force compels her to follow them like she did last night, going around the tower directly behind it, where she finds that there’s more space behind it.
There are boxes of dirt lined against the fence and the wall of the tower, and a hole in the ground lined with rocks that looked like a small, low well. Hitoshi’s sat in the grass, right by where the cats have gathered together in a soft cloud of mewing and swaying tails, save for one black cat resting in Hitoshi’s arms, with the bright blue eyes from last night.
“...why do you have so many cats?” She finds herself asking.
“They’re not all my cats.” He said.
“Is that your cat, then, at least?” She said, pointing at the one he was holding.
He looks down at the cat he held. “...his name is Phantomfoot.”
“...Phantomfoot.” She repeated. “Thank you for letting me in last night.”
“The gate doesn’t lock, no one let you in.”
“Still,” she said, sitting down on the grass next to him. “Thank you.”
Phantomfoot pauses from licking his paws and gazes up at her, eliciting a little mew. “...he says you’re welcome.”
“Is everyone else named?”
And they are, they are all named. Hitoshi gently pats them as he lays out name after name, “Webserpent” and “Cloudtail” and “Warriorclaw”, one right after the other. She doesn’t remark how if they weren’t his cats, they wouldn’t have been named. She was tempted to, but she doesn’t, and greatly resists it when each cat trots over to him when he calls their name, relishing in little affection from him as he scratches behind their ears.
She tells him he has a lovely home. He thanks her.
--
Ochako finds herself staying just a tiny bit longer than she intended. She doesn’t mean to, but she finds that it really isn’t so bad, and her new friend seems lonely — he denies that he is, but she knows he really is.
She’s a few days into this endeavor of “getting herself together” when she realizes she had been doing absolutely nothing; strangely enough, she didn’t even hear so much as a peep from him about how he’s been practically taking care of her this whole time.
Hitoshi was flitting about the room like a little bee — he was a bit slower than what most would make that comparison with, but definitely busy, stuffing the rugs and quilts from the bed-nest he sleeps in bellow the hollow of the staircase into his basket. “You’re looking...restless,” he said.
“Can you blame me?” Said Ochako, fiddling with the hem of the tunic he had lent her. They were paired with loose trousers that she tied with a string to keep them from falling. “There’s nothing to do.”
“Isn’t that what you did in your palace?”
“You mean basically nothing?” Ochako groans, leaning back into her seat. She did basically nothing at the palace, too. But she wouldn’t have been allowed to be so blatant about her distaste for being idle back there, and lounge around in a “most unladylike manner”. “Yes.”
“Really? I was just kidding. Did you really just sit around?”
“They wouldn’t let me down in the kitchens — I mean, I expected they wouldn’t let me cook or clean, even though I could and I want to, so I guess that makes sense. But they wouldn’t let me dress or make my bed!” She said. “I wasn’t even allowed to go outside without a chaperone! Can you believe it? I am an adult woman!”
“The Princess wants to cook and clean?” Hitoshi raises an eyebrow. “You’re pretty strange.”
“Not a princess,” she said. “No one’s here to stop me now, at least. Do you do everything here by yourself?”
“No one’s around to help me, so I guess the answer to that is yes.”
“But I’m here now!” She exclaimed. “Do you have something here that I can do?”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I think I should at least give something back to thank you for letting me stay here,” she said. “And besides, I want to help!”
“I don’t know…” the dragon-man chews on his lip, teeth still unusually sharp for a human, but not enough to catch attention. Ochako finds herself wondering if it hurts. “I don’t think I’m comfortable entrusting my housework to royalty…”
“I’m not, though!”
“You won’t explain why you aren’t, so how can I believe you?” said Hitoshi, tugging on what she assumes is a coat that she had been sitting on. “So if you would kindly move over, your highness.”
“Ugh, look, I’m not really a princess, okay? I wasn’t even declared part of the family yet.” She said, sighing. “We’re just...I’m just related by marriage, I’m not officially a princess, not in blood, or word, or law — I promise! My mother and I were seamstresses before everything.”
And they content with that. And then all of a sudden the king decided he wanted to marry her mother, and her mother had agreed, on the condition that she be allowed to take Ochako and that she’d be accepted into the family. What was most worrying about that is that Ochako wasn’t even sure if her mother even loved the king at all.
It had been fine, though, for a while — far from perfect, but still. Her new siblings were kind enough - they were far older than her, with their own families, so she didn’t really see them often, but they were civil — and His Majesty insisted on purchasing her affection with mountains upon mountains of gifts that were appreciated, but unneeded.
“...but if you’re not really a princess,” said Hitoshi. “Why are you here? I thought princesses only. That’s what I learned, at least.”
“A cruel joke, mostly.”
“Hm,” he hums, piling up more in his basket. “Sounds like quite the story.”
“...it is,” Ochako sighed. “Care to listen?”
“It’s up to you if you want to tell me.”
“I do. I mean, I feel like I want to talk about it.” She said. “I will if you want to hear any of it.”
Hitoshi only motions for her to join him as he fills his basket that she worries could only take so much. She follows him as he goes outside, sitting down on the grass by a tub where he empties his laundry and fills it with water. He doesn’t protest when she reaches out and starts to help him, and he doesn’t stop her when she starts talking.
The Dowager Queen, mother of the king, bless her cold, dead heart — she hated Ochako and her mother with a burning, volcanic passion. But she was smart about it, mostly manifesting in her backhanded compliments and vague, snide remarks, but she didn’t do anything more than that, and her mother didn’t really seem to notice, or maybe she just didn’t care.
But oh, gods, she reserved her scalding, white-hot fury for Ochako and no one else.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that she had planned this. How she’s going to hide this from her mother and the King, Ochako doesn’t know, nor does she care. That’s beyond her right now. Getting back should be her main priority, and it had been, a few days ago, but she’s so tired, and everything back home’s a downright mess that she doesn’t want to return to it. She doesn’t want to think about how everything’s going to burst when she comes back, if at all.
Admittedly, there’s some part of her that wants to see it happen, wants it all to burn into the ground and revel in the dark satisfaction of seeing that ancient bat get what’s coming to her. But it’s swept by her aversion to being the center of that maelstrom that’s sure to come.
“...sounds painful,” Hitoshi grimaces, and she’s grateful she told someone, grateful for the sympathy. She didn’t have anyone to talk to like this back at the palace (it’s not home, it’ll never be home, she can’t trust anyone). “Why did you put up with it?”
...why did she put up with it?
“I’m not...I-I guess I should say for my mother…” She said. She isn’t entirely sure, but it made some sense, at least — even though she said she did it for Ochako, she actually seemed happier there, with him, and the better life; maybe she was exhausted, maybe she was sick of how they lived but couldn’t say it. And it wasn’t like Ochako hated living there, she just couldn’t stand everything else that came with it, she couldn’t endure it, though clearly, her mother could. What was she even thinking now, why was she even thinking about this, it didn’t make any sense?
“You don’t sound sure.”
“Because I’m not.”
She glances up at him. Their eyes meet. He had unusual eyes, but only so much that they seemed to be oddities within what would be possible of humans. She would’ve thought they would be more like pools of color with a black slit down the middle, like a lizard. He huffs.
“So…you were a seamstress?”
Ochako shakes herself of her thoughts and puts on a smile, welcoming the distraction. No need for her to worry about that right now. “Yes. Still am, I like to think,” she said. “Do you...know what a seamstress is? Or what we do?”
“Yes, I know what a seamstress is.” The dragon-man rolls his eyes.“...okay, fine. I guess I do need someone who could sew better than I could.”
“I know I could,” Ochako smiled. “Don’t worry, I learned how to do everything, too. The madame my mother and I worked for taught me; she used to watch me as a child, but she said I shouldn’t be doing everything by myself. She said, “Ochako, find a spouse who can do as much as you!” And it’s been quite the challenge. And it would’ve been worse if I ended up married off to a noble, could you imagine? Trying to find a noble who can cook and sew and clean? What a nightmare.”
He exhales sharply, the sound something like a laugh. “Certainly sounds like it,” he said. “I didn’t really learn from my mother, we just...it was more like we learned together, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mother didn’t know how to cook or clean, or any of those other things. She learned. She still wasn’t very good when I was born, though, so I guess it just kind of happened when I grew up,” said Hitoshi. “And Father, too, he couldn’t…I mean, he can hunt, but he didn’t really know how to do human things or understand human food. And he learned, too.”
“Must’ve been quite the adventure,” she said.
“...I guess.”
--
Neither of them say a word about how much longer she had ended up staying. Ochako notices sometimes, but she mostly just pushes it aside somewhere in the back of her mind, and Hitoshi just doesn’t say anything. She’s not sure if he knows. Sometimes she thinks maybe she should say something, but…should she really?
She’s not as useless now, at least, and he’s more comfortable with letting her get involved with housework. Cooking, in particular, was particularly difficult to pry from the tight, protective grip of his jaw, but she manages to convince him to let her help.
“Where do you get the food you don’t grow or hunt?” She asked, slicing the unfamiliar red vegetable. She’d never seen anything like it before. It wasn’t one of the ones growing in the boxes behind the tower.
“There’s a small town down west, called Tawnyriver.” He said, not looking up from the pot he hadn’t stopped stirring. “It’s about an hour’s walk.”
“You walk it?” She asked. “You can fly, can’t you?”
“I can’t shift too close to any human settlement, it’s too risky.” He said. “I can’t let myself be seen.”
“I guess,” she shrugged. “Wait, do all dragons do that — do they all take human form, like you?”
“Aah...some of them?” He shrugged. “Some of them looked like...like actual humans, like me. Others just have forms like...they have the arms and the two legs but still have their horns and their claws.”
“Hmm.” Ochako hummed. “So you’re just one of those. That look human.”
“Yeah. I mean, I still have my claws, and some scales.”
“And your parents, where they also like you?”
“Uhm. No.” He said. “Mother, she was human. And Father, he was a dragon — he had his horns, still, when he shrank down, and his skin was blue, like berries, and it was like leathery hide.”
Ochako looked up at him. “Wait,” she said. “So did you come out of your mother’s womb, or did you hatch out of an egg?”
“Out of the womb, but I came out covered in scales.” He said simply.
“Oh, so if you...do you think your children would end up like that too?” She asked. “What if you had children with a dragon, do you think they’ll hatch out looking like humans?”
“I have to say I never really thought about having children. Certainly not long enough or often enough to think about that.” He said. “I’ll have to get back to you.”
“Alright,” Ochako shrugs, letting go of that subject, for now, instead opting to ask further about the town he’d apparently been frequenting this whole time, somehow beyond her notice. “Why do you go to town, though? Is that where you disappear to every week?”
“I sell what I hunt, and I buy things,” Hitoshi shrugged. “Mother and I always went there when I was a kid, so they kind of know me, I guess, so I visit? What else am I supposed to do?”
“Huh. I kind of always thought you just stayed here, all alone, all these years, with all your cats and your plants.”
“Ochako, honestly?” He said. “How do you think we get bread?”
“Hey, you could’ve been making your own bread and somehow I haven’t seen you do it, you never know.”
“You really think I can make my own bread?”
“Well...yeah, actually.” Said Ochako. “You’ve been doing everything all by yourself, right? You hunt and you grow potatoes. Making your own bread isn’t too far a reach, I think. We’re just a little ways closer to keeping chickens.”
“Do you want chickens?” He asked.
“No, I was just making an example.” She said. “Why, would you have gotten chickens if I said yes? Can you do that? Can you get chickens? Do you know where you’re going to get them? I mean...I don’t think it’s my decision to make. It’s your home.”
“...you live here, too, now, you know?” Hitoshi smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Something flutters wildly within her. “I’ll put it on the list.”
(It’s only later that night that she realizes she didn’t deny she lived here.)
--
Weeks become a month, then two, then green to shades of red and orange, then bare branches and the bite of winter wind. Hitoshi had always looked and moved and sounded tired, but Ochako severely underestimated how much worse he could possibly get. He had warned her weeks before, apologizing in advance for his behavior in the coming weeks, and she had simply shrugged it off, not expecting that he would become this immovable mass living under a blanket. How had he survived this far without a companion?
“Hitoshi, you alright?” She runs her hand over the dragon’s quilt-covered back. He’s shrunk to the size of a horse now, still in dragon form, curled in a bed of rugs and drapes that they made right next to her bed.
“Tell me a story, please?”
“Ah...okay, sure,” she said. “What kind of story do you want?”
“Just...any you know.”
“Well, um...once upon a time, there was a…kingdom. And in that kingdom, there lived a princess that everyone in the kingdom loved.”
“Is it you?”
“What?”
“The story. Is it about you?”
“Ahah...no. I'm not a princess, remember?” She said
“But everyone...loves you…” He mumbled.
“They do, don't they?” She said. “Anyway, there was a princess, and everyone loved her, and...she had the most beautiful voice, and she had a song that she sang for the kingdom every day.”
“Will you sing it?”
“I’m...I'm not the best singer, but I'll try my best.” She said. She doesn’t need to try to look for the words in her mind; they had been burned into the memories of every child back home from countless tellings of that same story. “Alone, at the edge of the universe, humming a tune...”
She feels him change form under the covers, his hand reaching up to touch her face, palm resting against her cheek. “How do you know this?” He asked. “Where did you hear this?”
“Do you know it?” She asked. “Are you sure it’s the same one?”
Hitoshi silently nods, pulling his hand away. She shivers at the absence of warmth. “For merely dreaming we were snow...” He sings along, his voice deep and soft, like muted, distant thunder that almost sounded gentle. "A siren sounds…”
“Like the goddess who promises endless apologies of paradise, and only she can make it right,” Ochako lulled softly. “So things are different tonight…”
“...we’ll go together in flight,” he continued. “It’s now and never, a reverie endeavor, awaits somnambulant directives, to take the helm…”
“Believe me, darling,” she gently cards her fingers in his hair. “The stars were made for falling, awaiting obelisks —”
“— as tall as another realm,” he finished. There was still much more of the song left, but they’re done singing for now. “It is that song…”
“Yeah, that was it.” She kindly tucks another blanket over his sluggish form. “How do you know it?”
“How do you know it?” Asked Hitoshi.
“Everyone back home knows it,” she said. “The princess sang it every night — that's what they told me, at least. She was gone long before I was born.”
“Everyone...knows it…” Hitoshi muttered.
“Hitoshi, are you alright?”
“What happened?” He asked instead. “To the princess, what happened to her?”
“There was…” Ochako’s not sure about this next part, if she should just tear it out or soften the blow. She's not sure how he’ll react, or if it'll hurt his feelings. It seems he's aware of how humans feel about dragons, but still. “She was taken away.”
“...by a dragon, right?” He said. “Because she sang so pretty. That's why he took her.”
“I...yeah.” She said. “You know?”
“Yes.” He nods. “Do you?”
“I'm the one telling the story, aren't I?” She said. “So yes, I guess.”
“Do you really?”
“I...I think so?” Said Ochako. “I'm pretty sure...that's how I remember it was told. I'm surprised you know. It's only known back home. How do you know it?”
“I'm surprised you do,” he grumbled. “I know it because mother told it to me, over and over…every night. She and father did. It was how they met. Father, he said, I want this sweet song —"
“— for my own,” she said, reciting the familiar words.
“He needed it,” said Hitoshi, his voice a little louder, like he was arguing it. Like he thought she didn’t believe him. “Her song. He needed her song so he could sleep. He was cursed, with this malady — it wouldn't let him rest.”
“...really?”
“He asked, you know,” he went on. “He asked Mother to come with him. He didn't just take her. She came because she wanted to. She said she wouldn't have come if she didn't want to.”
“...they said he threatened to destroy the kingdom if they didn't let her go.”
“Mother told me they did think that,” he murmured. “When she told them that he invited her. That she wanted to go. They were going to attack but she begged them not to.”
“Then they built her a tower.”
Hitoshi nods solemnly. “They built her this tower.”
“Hmm,” Ochako hummed. “So your mother was that princess.”
“...yeah.”
“You know, this means you're royalty, too,” she said, whispering it in an almost conspiratorial manner. “Much more than me.”
Hitoshi chuckles. “I don't think that Queen you mentioned would be too pleased,” he said, yawning widely. “To have a dragon for a prince.”
“I guess,” she shrugged. “They all still think your father stole the beloved Princess Ayumu, after all. They made a day of it, performed that story every year. We all cried for it.”
“That’s not very nice of them,” he pouts.
Ochako giggles. “Yeah, I guess it isn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Mother and Father...loved each other a lot,” said Hitoshi.
“I’m sure they did.”
“But I guess...humans...wouldn’t understand.”
She weaves her fingers in his soft hair, tenderly running her fingernail over the hard scales on the back of his neck. “No, they wouldn't. They didn't.”
“You know,” Hitoshi muttered. “Mother thought...everyone forgot about her...and she said it was fine. She held me, and I was so, so small, and she said “Hitoshi, I think everyone forgot about me, but it’s okay because no one can hurt you, I think they’re going to hurt you,”, but I could hear her heartbeat, and it was really sad...I don’t think she was really happy about being forgotten…”
“But we all remembered, though,” Ochako whispered. She moves the back of her hand to rest on his forehead. His own clawed ones slowly creep from under the quilt and gently grasp her own.
“You all remembered...her tower...and her song,” his voice quiets to a murmur, eyes fluttering closed. “But everyone thinks Father was a heartless monster...they’ll never understand…”
“...I’m sorry.”
“It’s...okay,” he said. “At least you do.”
It’s quiet again. Hitoshi doesn’t seem to mind, but Ochako feels like maybe she should say something. She slowly wedges her fingers under Hitoshi’s head where it rests on her lap, tapping under his jaw that makes him open his eyes a sliver. She sees the violet move to look up at her, and he lifts his head to let her legs free.
She lifts the covers quietly, slipping underneath and laying right next to him, fitting her head in the crook of his neck. They fit together, like lock and key, or when you match the broken pieces of glass. She doesn’t mind staying right here.
“I never knew my father,” she whispered.
“...really?”
“Mmhm,” she hummed. “It was always just me and Ma. She never really said anything about him, and I never asked, so I guess...he wasn’t all that important.”
“...and it was okay, right?”
“Yeah. We were happy, and fine, and plenty other children around me didn’t have two parents, anyway, so...it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”
Hitoshi shivers under the covers next to her, and she feels an arm slip under the quilt and around her waist. His flesh is like fire, she thinks. Skin emanating an intense warmth that burned through the cloth of her sleeping dress.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Warm,” he said. “And...you sound weird.”
“Ah,” she said. “Do I?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Talk about it?”
She rests her hand on his arm. “It’s just...when the king married my ma, it all happened so fast. I didn’t know how to feel. I’d never had a dad before. I wasn’t curious about how it would be. It was weird, but I guess it’s because I didn’t want him in our lives. Is that wrong? I think I...I didn’t like it.”
“...you’re allowed to not like things.” Said Hitoshi.
“I know.”
She feels him hold her closer. “You’re so soft.” He said.
Ochako smiles. “I know.”
--
Hitoshi knows what princesses look like. At least, he’d like to think he does.
He knows they’re soft and beautiful, and smart and funny. He knows they’re tough when they need to be and strong when they want to be. They move with careless grace and speak with a power larger than themselves. They resolve to finish everything they started.
He thinks of mother, and her sweet song, and her hands that had never worked a day before he was born. He remembers the scrapes and sores and callouses on her once pampered skin.
His mind wanders to Ochako, to her soft hair and her tiny body and her large eyes. How she could hold all that strength and fire and light inside her. He marvels at the feel of her gentle hands over his hide, and the tremors that make him rumble deeply from the back of his throat. He can feel himself flush at his own desperation for the feeling.
“I like it when you purr,” Said Ochako. Hitoshi almost stands to protest because he does not purr, but she runs her hand somewhere below his jaw, and he, a mighty dragon, is felled by it, and he croons a pleased sound and he’s too far gone to care. “You’re like a big cat. Maybe that's why they're all gathering around you.”
(Cat? He likes cats. He doesn’t mind being one.)
“You’re lazy today,” she laughed. He likes the sound. “I mean, not that you don’t already look tired all the time. Are you ill?”
“No,” He grumbled. He didn’t, but he always kind of sounds like he does when he speaks as a dragon. “M’ tired.”
“Aww, what a grumpy little hatchling, always so tired.” Ochako cooed, caressing broad strokes on the back of his neck. “It’s because sometimes you sleep too little and other times you sleep so much that I’m afraid you’ll never wake up. I think it’s making you rest wrong.”
“A fair point,” he says dismissively. “I don’t think it’s worth losing sleep over, if I’m being honest.”
“...oh, gods, Hitoshi,” she groaned. “You did not just say that.”
“Unfortunately, I believe I did,” he said.
“Awful,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You love me.”
“I strangely do.”
(When she plants the smallest of kisses on his snout, he finds himself overcome with such excitement that he forgets he’s still a dragon when he tries to return it, and when he tries again, as a man this time, he misses by a mile and lands it on her lips, but that was only between them, and Phantomfoot, who they hadn’t noticed had been watching.)