Well then. Did the dragon curse the princess and her descendants? Or am I real wrong?
Janus sighed.
“Perhaps an explanation is in order...though keep in mind most of this happened well before I was born, so I am retelling what I was told as a child.
A long time ago, my mother was a princess. She was taken from her family by a dragon, and kept prisoner in its hoard. There were a few others there with her, but every so often the dragon would take one of them away, and then that girl would not be seen again. Mother says they feared that he was eating them, but the truth...the truth turned out to be worse.
One day, the dragon took my mother away and she saw what it’d been doing with the girls. I won’t burden you with the gruesome details while my children are in earshot...let’s just say that the creature seemed to be attempting some kind of magic spell that had...rather unfortunate results. None of the girls survived those magical experiments, which is why the others never saw them again. Mother was certain that she was going to die too, but by some miracle, she did not.
The dragon was pleased at first that she’d survived, apparently she was the first to do so, but the spell warped her features, turning her monstrous. The dragon attmepted a few more spells, but when nothing changed, he took her out of his cave and discarded her in the woods, apparently no longer compelled to keep her without the beauty that had drawn him to her in the first place.
Mother probably would have starved that night in the forest if she hadn’t been found by a hunter who happened to be checking his traps in the area. He took her to his home, and eventually the two married. That hunter was my father, and a few years later I came along. Unfortunately, I...inhereted some of the draconic traits that my mother had been cursed with.
That is why I wear a glamour when in public with my sons. I learned a long time ago that people are not kind to those they believe to be monsters.”
