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Renais was a beautiful country. The land was spectacular, with mountains and valleys and forests, the towns nestled here and there peaceful and thriving. The king, Fado, and his wife were loving and doted on their people, and the clergy was compassionate. Academia thrived, even alongside the church, and were constandly discovering new things. Renais was such a beautiful country, lacking nothing except an heir to the throne.
King Fado and his lovely wife had been trying for years to have a child, years and years. For most of their marriage, actually, spanning nearly ten years. Neither of them wanted to say it, but they were growing desperate. Quietly, they sent out envoys to seek wise folk, academics, and witches. Anyone who might help.
The wise knew nothing, the academics had no studies that might have helped, but...there was a witch. A witch with crow’s feet around her eyes and a startlingly loud cackle for one so bent and old. “Let me lay this on you,” the witch said gleefully, having finished laughing. (“Lay what?” whispered a servant, bringing king and queen refreshments.) “Here’s the sitch.”
“Sitch,” echoed the queen, tone flat.
“Yeah, the dealio. Your husband the king needs to eat this flower,” and the witch produced a beautiful blue flower, “and you will bear a daughter. If he eats this,” and she produced an eggplant, “you’ll have a bouncing baby boy. Not both, or something terrible will happen. One or the other, a’ight?”
“Um, yes, very well.” said the queen. And away the witch went, laughing all the way. And the queen and King Fado talked it over for weeks. Their nights, their free moments, mumbled over dinner and beneath the covers in their marriage bed. A son would be good for their country and their kingdom, but he might go off and fight and die in a war and leave them childless after all. But a girl, a bright beautiful girl who might make their days bright and cheery would eventually leave them and marry. It seemed that either way, they might suffer.
“A girl,” Fado chose, even as his queen pushed towards him the eggplant. Fado swallowed the flower, and found it so sweet he ate the eggplant as well, never once thinking of the witch’s warning. And then, he took his wife to bed. Nine months later, almost exactly to the day, the queen went into labor. Much to the midwife’s horror, the eldest child was a teal lindworm. So shocked, the midwife threw the newly born dragon out the window. Another midwife delivered the second child, a boy.
They called him Ephraim, and while they pretended that the queen had not birthed a dragon, they also mourned the loss of a daughter. Ephraim grew older, and soon it was time for him to find himself a wife. He seemed reluctant, but was more than willing to visit Prince Lyon of Grado while his parents looked for suitable matches. But, as Ephraim rode towards the border and towards Lyon, a dragon appeared on the crossroads.
“A bride for me before a groom for you.” the dragon demanded. And Prince Ephraim, who knew the story of his own birth and had mourned his elder sister, returned home to his parents. Who exchanged a look and agreed that it would only be right. The lindworm was eldest, after all, it was right for the dragon to be wed first.
So Fado wrote to Hayden, who sent his son to see the lindworm and present himself for marriage. But the lindworm thrashed and snapped at the sight of the Frelian prince, and the archer retreated sullenly. There would be no wedding between the lindworm and Frelia’s royal heir.
So Ephraim went to the lindworm, the night after Innes had left again for his home, and asked, “Might I go now to Grado, to secretly wed my love?” And the lindworm coiled gently so that the dragon’s large face and mouth was near level with the prince’s head, and nudged him affectionately.
“A bride for me before a groom for you,” the lindworm whispered, mouth split wide to say the words, before turning to stare east, waiting for the sun to rise.
Ephraim knelt before the king, his father, and insisted they try again. “Let us write Jehanna,” Ephraim said, “they have a prince my sister might find more appealing than Innes. In fact,” Ephraim said cheerily, “perhaps her rejection of Innes is simply proof that she has taste!” And so they tried again.
Eventually, Queen Ismaire sent forth her only son, who wore a silly hat. “My lady dragon,” Joshua said, in greeting, and the lindworm turned away from the desert prince. Dinner was strained, with the lindworm keeping her face turned away, and Joshua making strained attempts at conversation.
“My dear,” Fado said kindly, “this young man has come a long way for your...hand...in marriage? Might you at least speak to him once?” The lindworm flicked her tail and opened her mouth wide and hissed. Joshua paled, and excused himself. He left that very night.
“A bride for me before a groom for him.” The lindworm said pointedly, and slithered away to watch for sun rising in the east. Point taken, Fado only considered writing to Vigarde about his son for a short time, before writing again to Hayden. Princess Tana seemed eager to see the dragon who had so bested her brother, and arrived quickly.
“Princess Lindworm!” Tana said brightly, curtsying in front of the dragon. Their meeting seemed to be going well. The lindworm allowed Tana to run a hand along her scales, and did not snap or snarl. Dinner was an easy affair, and Ephraim let himself dream of weddings and sisters and a number of other things.
And then the lindworm raised her head and said gently, “A bride for me before a groom for him,” and then blinked slowly at Tana. There was a hiss, something entirely unintelligible to mere humans, and then the lindworm exited. Tana followed after the dragon to watch the horizon for the sunrise, and talked. And promised that there’d be more talks to come.
“Every day, Princess, I promise. We have so much to catch up on! We should have been childhood best friends, you know.”
Tana leaves when it becomes clear that the lindworm has no interest in marrying the Frelian princess. After three months in Renais, Tana goes home to her family, and writes nearly every day. Ephraim helps nail the letter open, so that the lindworm can read them, when they arrive.
The castle is quiet, the lindworm watching the sunrise in the mornings and reading letters in the evenings. Fado approaches the dragon that might have been a daughter, and says, “We would have called you Eirika. Would you allow it, we would call you that still. Daughter.”
The lindworm bows her head in acceptance, and Eirika hisses gently in the ear of her brother, one night five months after Tana had left Castle Renais, “A bride for me before a groom for you.” Ephraim leaps at the opportunity, for Lyon has sent letters detailing his wishes, and a drawn out secret engagement is not among them.
A letter is sent to Rausten, a last resort. Kind Fado is unsure their princess will consent to marrying his daughter, as she is a dragon. She has frightened princes, allied heirs. He sends the letter anyway. Princess Rausten responds personally, her letter lightly perfumed and her penmanship impeccable.
She arrives within a month.
“Princess Eirika,” L’Arachel says, eyes alight. Eirika leans forward, enormous head easily the size of L’Arachel’s steady mount. “It is I, a princess of peerless light come to know you. I am L’Arachel of Rausten.” Eirika rumbles a draconic reply, and after dinner they watch for the sunrise.
This goes on for nearly half a year, and then, Eirika announces at dinner, “A bride for me now a groom for him.” A wedding is planned for as soon as possible, once an unfortunate lady-in-waiting has ascertained L’Arachel’s consent to marrying a dragon. The tower where the lindworm daughter of King Fado and his queen had been sleeping is decorated well in preparation.
The wedding moves smoothly, and the wedding night approaches. L’Arachel enters her lady wife’s rooms, clad in so many layers that she looks quite spherical. A riding crop is in her hand, and there are buckets being carried in of opaque substances. “Hello, Love.” L’Arachel says softly, affection tinting her tone.
“Fair maiden,” Said Eirika, equally fond and coils shifting nervously. “Shed a shift.” L’Arachel blushes prettily, but shakes her head.
“No, Eirika, not unless you shed a skin.”
And so on went the night, Eirika asking her wife to shed a shift and L’Arachel demanding a skin be sloughed off in return. Heart in her throat, L’Arachel continued, until Eirika was unrecognizable as the lindworm. And then she continued, this time involving her crop and one of the buckets that smelled of lye. And after, with tears in her eyes, she washed away the lye with milk, and wrapped her arms around Eirika with a choked sob.
She fell asleep like this, arms wrapped around her wife, and woke in the morning to a polite knock on the door. Fado, and Ephraim, and the queen had come to check on them, and L’Arachel was pleased to see her work had paid off.
For teal hair splayed out on the floor, and a beautiful face was attached to a human body. L’Arachel, who smiled brightly at her wonderstruck in-laws, explained as best she could. “My grandmother married a lindworm, you see.” Is what the story boiled down to, and L’Arachel threaded her fingers with Eirika’s even though the princess was still sleeping.
“I expect we shall get along even better now,” L’Arachel said assertively, rubbing her thumb over Eirka’s knuckles. “She will be so sad we missed the sunrise…” The curse so lifted, Eirika and L’Arachel spent their days with family and friends, and loved each other fiercely.