Original Work- "Happily Ever After?"
Hi, so some of you were asking for my original works, so I'm deciding to post a few of them! Currently, I have a selection of monster romance stories, which are all monster x reader for now. Each reader is based on an OC I had paired with my monster OCs, which I plan to write each into full-length stories one day. I just went with x reader style so it can be more inclusive!
Pairings: Dragon Hybrid x Fem! princess reader
Trope: Fairytale flip - strong princess lead- grumpy x sunshine
Summary: A princess is forced to be stuck in a tower by her father, the king, guarded by an unusually grumpy dragon hybrid she considers her best friend. All she has to do is wait around for Prince Charming, but she's tired of waiting!
And maybe some princesses wish to pick up their own sword?
And maybe sometimes the monster had more of a heart than a prince?
And maybe sometimes a snobby prince needs to get roasted (literally)
Note: Please ignore any mistakes/ quality issues. I wrote this a year ago when I first really got into taking writing seriously- plus, I LOVE a good fairy tale twist with a powerful princess who bends the rules
Once upon a time…
there was a princess locked away in a tower guarded by a dragon, and she was very, very, very bored.
So bored she was currently attempting to test if mixing Firelily pollen and glowshrooms would cause a small explosion like she had read in an old spell book she had found in the tower. Luckily the last owner of it was some eccentric wizard who had left behind a lot of his stuff.
“Princess, how many times must I tell you, no more explosive potions in the tower!” a deep, booming voice came from behind her, “Put the ingredients down now!”
It was Zephyrion, the dragon that guarded her tower, but you liked to call him Zephyr for short. You turned to face him taking in the grumpy look on his face he had most days.
The thing about Zephyr is that he wasn’t actually a dragon, he was a dragon hybrid meaning he looked like most humans with his medium brown skin and longish hair he kept swept back into a tight ponytail, except for the large wings on his back, golden horns that branched off his frost colored hair, and a golden scaled tail that matched the scales scattered across his forearms. You also thought he had fangs, but he never smiled enough to get a look at them.
Actually, now that you think about it, had he ever smiled since you met him a year ago after your father had hired him to guard your tower from any intruders? The only thing he ever seemed to do was worry about you and complain about the ways you kept yourself occupied in such a boring place. He was strict, protective, and always grumbled.
“Come on Zephyr! I need something to keep from going insane in this tower!” you argued.
“Last time you tried one of your potions you caught your gown on fire!” He snapped back.
“That gown was ugly anyway!”
He sighed, “What am I going to do with you, princess? Now find some other less flammable spell.”
“I thought dragons liked fire,” you mumbled without Zephyr hearing as you packed the ingredients away on the shelf you kept your potion things on while flipping through the spellbook for a new spell. Potions were your most recent hobby you had picked up while in the tower; one of about 100. If you were going to be forced to sit in a tower, you weren’t going to sit around acting afraid when you could be learning something useful. You had tried reading, botany, swordplay, learning elvish languages, cartography, painting, magic, studying the history of every kingdom on the continent, poetry, and now…potion making. Of course, Zephyr was left to be the test subject of all your new interests, much to his annoyance.
It was always this way with Zephyr:
“Princess, stop sneaking up on me with an invisibility spell!”
“Princess, no, you can not have ice cream for dinner!”
“Princess, get off the roof of the tower! How did you even get up there?”
He liked to call you a menace to society, but you just thought it was doing anything to keep yourself from losing your mind after your father decided to lock you away in this tower for some prince to take you away just like every other princess in the kingdom of Adaria. The tradition ran back for hundreds of years - every princess was sent to a tower on her 18th birthday to wait for a prince to defeat some sort of danger in the way and then rescue you with the promise of your hand in marriage. You had pleaded with your parents not to send you to the same fate, and just when you thought you had convinced them you woke up on your birthday surrounded by the stone walls of the tower nestled in the mountains of Adaria with Zephyr staring at you.
You hated it. The tower was suffocating. It was control. Sometimes it was almost as if you could feel the choice to choose your own fate slipping from your fingers as the days passed by.
“I hate this stupid tower!” you complained, stacking more potion bottles on the shelf, “I can’t stay here another day!”
“Yes, you can. Quit complaining already. I have to hear this every single day,” Zephyr said with an exasperated sigh.
“Why should I? Anyone would complain in a place like this!” you shoved the potion book back in its place and slammed your hand on the table.
“Is my company that tortuous?” he asked with a rare hint of amusement.
It wasn’t…Zephyr was the only thing that made the tower more bearable, despite the storm cloud that seemed to follow his attitude wherever he went. He was the one who listened to you ramble on about every book you read, didn’t make fun of your poems even if you knew they were terrible, and patched up every bruise and cut you got from your many failed escape attempts. Not to mention he was fiercely protective of you, never backing down from any sort of danger that threatened the tower in the past. Of course…this tended to make him a bit too cautious of you, but you could overlook it. The dragon who was supposed to terrify you had become your friend.
“No, it’s not,” you admitted and pushed your potion notes to a corner on the desk to make room, sitting down on the edge of it, “I only want to make my own choices.”
“I can’t do that. Your father entrusted me to keep you in this tower and safe at all times,” he explained, rolling his eyes. This conversation was an everyday thing for him.
“It’s my life and I should get to choose!” Something finally snapped within you at that moment and all the resentment you had been carrying around poured out leaving you feeling nothing but - freed.
“My father never cared about me or he wouldn’t have locked me away!” you shoved the notes off your desk, “It’s my life and he should have never tried to plan it out for me.”
Zephyr walked over to the desk towering over you, “I swore to keep you safe for the King, keep you in this tower, and above all else stay loyal to you. You’re not leaving.” he said in a stern tone as his amber eyes bore down at you.
“I can’t stay here forever,” you snapped.
“Enough of this. My word is final!” he ordered with a huff. He was so close you could feel the warm breath against your skin, noticing it felt warmer than most people. Maybe it was his dragon side that made it warmer?
You watched as Zephyr turned his back to you and went back to his post by the tower window.
“I’m going to escape,” you continued, “And I’m not stopping this time.”
“Go ahead and try, I’ll come and catch you again,” Zephyr retorted, keeping his back turned as his eyes scanned outside for any intruders. Gods, he was paranoid!
Finally, you started with a different approach you felt would work.
“Do you really want some random prince to come and marry me?” you asked.
Zephyr turned around and leaned against the wall while crossing his arms, “What?”
“The whole point of this tower is for some prince to come along and save me and I’ll have no choice but to marry him. I don’t want that! Do you want a prince to come here and take me away?”
He looked away suddenly, not able to meet your gaze for once.
“No,” Zephyr snarled and added with a hint of jealousy, “I don’t want a prince to take you away.”
Wait, was Zephyr jealous of the prince? Could he have liked you even if he acted annoyed all the time? No, there wasn’t any chance of that, but now that you knew he didn’t like the idea, you could work with it.
“So…why not escape with me?” you asked, “The last few times I tried the height of the tower got in my way, so then I realized the key was you. You could fly us out!”
“What about you?” he argued, “Even with me, it’s not like you could defend yourself enough to survive out there.”
“Didn’t I win last time we sparred?” you asked putting your hands on your hips.
Once a week, Zephyr helped you train in self-defense and with various types of blades; it was a weekly tradition.
“My shoulder was hurting,” Zephyr mumbled defensively.
“And it was hurting because of what I did to you the week before,” you added.
“Fine!” Zephyr admitted looking defeated, “But do you even have a plan? Escaping won’t just be getting out of the tower. The King will send his best soldiers looking for you, and word will spread quickly.”
“Oh, I have a plan.” You bent down and pried a loose board from the tower floor. Underneath, there was a bag full of supplies, food, and your sword.
“Impressive,” Zephyr noted peering into the hole in the floor, “So you do have a plan.”
“I’ve been planning for months,” you explained hoisting the heavy bag from the floor and dumping the contents out.
“I have food, medical supplies, a few spells, and enough gold to last us months,” you pointed out each of the items.
“So you have supplies, but do you even know where we would go?” Zephyr asked dismissively, “You won’t be able to stay in Adaria for long after we leave. We need a place to go.”
“I already have that figured out,” You grabbed one of your maps hung on the wall and spread it out on your desk tracing your finger along a marked path, “There’s a path through here near the tower where we can hide at a few stops along the way. We should be able to stay in a few inns until word gets out that I’m missing, and then if we can get to the Boggsport Bay we can get a ship to Ilyrara which is far enough away nobody will find us.”
“And how will we hide from your father?” he asked still unconvinced.
You circled a large green portion of the map, “We cut through the Enchanted Wood.
Nobody would ever follow us there.”
“The Enchanted Wood is dangerous. It’s full of unstable magic, monsters, and poisonous plants that you know nothing about,” Zephyr sighed in frustration, “Nobody but a fool would attempt that.”
“I may not know anything about the magic there,” You stepped closer and poked your finger to his chest with a teasing grin, “But you do.”
He glanced down at your hand and huffed, “I’m supposed to keep you safe. Not to mention if I get caught-”
How could you have been so stupid? Of course, Zephry could get in trouble for this!
“I could always say I forced you to go,” you tried.
“Nobody would believe you.”
Even if you didn’t want to admit it,he had a point. Magical beings in Adaria were looked down upon and once even hunted, dragon hybrids especially. To stop it, they were forced into servitude by humans. If Zephry broke his oath, he could be executed. Unless…
“Doesn’t your oath say you have to be loyal to me above all else?” you asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“So sticking by me counts, doesn’t it?”
The idea seemed to click, but he was still hesitant, “Princess, are you sure about this? If something were to happen to you, I couldn’t bear it. I’m supposed to protect you.”
“And don’t you think keeping me locked away in a tower and unhappy is the actual danger here?” you reasoned praying to the gods he would see your side of things, “All I’ve ever wanted was to choose my own path instead of having one forced upon me! I need this.”
“And all I ever wanted was to keep you safe, but this isn’t right,” he bent down on his knee to meet your gaze. A large hand reached up and cupped your cheek gently, “A tower is too small for someone who deserves the stars.”
“So you’ll escape with me?” you asked.
“I never once planned to leave your side. I’ll go with you wherever your dreams take you if you’ll have me.”
Wrapping your arms around him, you pulled him into a hug, “I want you there for all of them.”
Obviously not used to such affection, Zephyr attempted to bring his arms around you in an awkward manner.
Moments later, you had gathered all your things into your bag, got the map, and strapped your favorite sword to your side ready to finally leave. You had also changed into a tunic, trousers, and a pair of boots more suited for the journey than your gowns in order to hide your identity, but you had decided to keep one necklace with the royal seal just in case you ever needed proof of your royal status.
Zephyr grinned, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything but dresses before.”
“Is it bad?”
“Although you always looked lovely in the dresses,” he nodded, “This suits you.”
Stepping up to the window, you gave the tower one last look around recalling all the harsh memories of the past year, you wouldn’t miss it. Looking back, the only bright spot in the tower was Zephry, who had stuck by the whole time to make the best of a horrible situation.
“Goodbye, tower! I will not miss you,” you gave a mock wave and nodded at him, “I’m ready.”
“I’m going to fly us out. Hold onto me and no matter what, don’t let go,” Zephyr ordered.
“Do you get on your back or…?” you shrugged.
“No, you’ll have to let me hold you up front, like this,” Zephyr suddenly grabbed your wrist and pulled you into his chest to wrap his arms around you firmly. All of a sudden you realized you had never been this close to him before. “Now you wrap your arms back around me,” he explained, positioning your arms around his waist at an angle. It reminded you of how the dances worked at balls you had once attended at the palace. An image of Zephyr dressed up like one of the noblemen who would come conjured up in your mind making you grin at the absurdity of the thought.
“What are you smiling at?” he asked, “I know that look-”
“Nothing, just about you in formal wear.”
“Shut up,” he mumbled with a cold stare, “How do you come up with the most ridiculous ideas, princess?”
You only rolled your eyes at him.
“Are you ready?” Zephyr asked with a more serious note.
“I’m ready” You nodded eyes full of determination. This was it- the moment when you could choose your own path.
Suddenly, you felt your feet lifted slightly off the floor as a small breeze filled the tower from the beating of Zephyr's wings. Holding on tight, he lifted you through the window and flew you out.
The sun pierced your vision in a golden glow that hung on the crests of the gray mountains towering in the distance across from the emerald green valleys that spread out below making your eyes sting. Gods, had it been that long since you had been in direct sunlight?
You breathed in the fresh air, taking it in, never forgetting its familiarity. Chirping, wind, and the rustle of leaves filled your ears with a song that you hadn’t heard in so long it felt nostalgic to the steady beat of Zephyr's wings. You took in your surroundings, noticing the jewel glow as the light filtered through the thick forest of trees that surrounded the tower, the perfectly placed flowers growing below you had never gotten the chance to see, and the streams that snaked below reflecting the burst of blue from a clear summer sky. You reached out, feeling as if you could grasp the wind carrying you both to freedom and hold it in your hand.
“Careful, princess. Keep a tight hold so I don’t drop you,” Zephyr warned, tightening his grip around you.
It was over. The tower was gone. You were free.
“We did it!” you yelled out, “We escaped!”
“I never had a doubt you could,” Zephyr said looking back at you and reached up one of his hands he had settled on your back to tangle in your hair cupping the back of your neck, “All I ever wanted was your happiness.”
Then you saw something you never thought you would; Zephyr smiled. A bright, big genuine smile as he kept his eyes locked with yours gently keeping you in his hold.
Later, after you had both landed you began walking through the dense woods nearby since it would be the safest route to keep you both out of sight. The sky was slowly getting darker making the beaten-out path you were following harder to follow. The muscles in your legs ached, making every step feel like a fire burning.
“We’ve been walking for hours,” Zephyr huffed, “Haven’t you found shelter yet?”
The dragon hadn’t stopped complaining once you had to cross a muddy stream making his wings heavier.
“According to the map,” you said pointing at a line of trees on the yellowing paper, “There should be a few farming towns past these woods. Maybe there will be a nice farming family who would let us stay with them for the night?”
“No, we need as few witnesses as possible. When your father comes looking for you, he’ll be asking every citizen in Aldaria.” Zephyr stressed, “No asking for help.”
Even if you hated to admit it, he had a point. No citizen would be left unsearched once news of the princess of Aldaria had escaped with a dragon hybrid had reached the King.
“This would be much faster if I flew,” Zephyr drawled, giving you a sideways glance.
“Like you said, we need to stay out of sight.” you shot back putting the map away, “A golden dragon carrying a princess in the sky would draw a lot of attention.”
Before he could argue, he watched as you ran ahead towards a break in the trees and shouted, “I found a place where we can stay tonight!”
“A barn?” he asked looking ahead, “Princess, are you serious? You can’t possibly consider a barn a good place to stay.”
“What other options do we have? It’s almost dark and nobody would suspect a princess to sleep in a barn.” you argued, “It’s our best option.”
Zephyr reluctantly followed you into the old barn, gagging at the smell of hay and dirt inside.
“It smells,” remarked with a tone of disgust.
“Better than the palace stables. At least this barn doesn’t have anything in it.” you replied and started climbing up the ladder to the loft as he followed behind.
You tossed your bag down, dumping out the contents onto the floor, already setting up for the night. Zephyr sat down in the far corner of the loft, leaning back on a pile of hay.
“Do you need a blanket?” you held out one in your hand towards him.
“No, I’ll be fine. Dragons don’t exactly get cold.” Zephyr replied with a smirk.
He watched as you set up a place to sleep for the night on the far side of the loft, and something in his chest stirred. It wasn’t a familiar feeling for him to feel such things, especially around one of the royal members he was forced to serve his whole life, but it felt just like when you had mentioned a prince taking you away back at the tower. Jealousy- a longing had filled him that made his heart stir with sensations it had never felt before. Had he seriously thought you would both sleep close to each other tonight? Even worse, why would he have wanted to be so close to a royal he served? It was forbidden for a hybrid servant to be romantically involved with a human, not to mention that you came from the line of the very people who had forced his kind into servitude for hundreds of years. But you weren’t like the other royals he had worked with before at all. Ever since day one, you had not only treated him with respect, but kindness calling him your friend. Sometimes he wondered…
“Isn’t this fun?” your words rang from across the loft interrupting his thoughts.
“I’m in a barn. Sleeping on hay. It smells,” Zephyr grumbled, “This isn’t exactly my idea of fun.”
“I know it’s not the best situation to be in, but at least we have a good view,” you pointed upward to a large hole in the barn’s ceiling.
A multitude of stars shone through scattered across the night sky endlessly. Endless, just like your possibilities now. The vastness was filled with a purple hue and the diamonds stuck forever in their places in the sky, a reminder of the very stars who had fueled the wishes of the people who came before you.
“I suppose the view is nice,” Zephyr admitted in a softer tone gazing upward, and then added, “Let’s just hope it doesn’t rain.”
“Be positive!” you suggested, “I’m sure it won’t rain.”
It did rain. Sometimes even positivity couldn’t stop the weather. You woke to the feel of a few drops of rain falling onto your face, then another, another, and then your clothes were getting soaked. Before you could cover yourself with the blanket the rain just stopped?
Looking up, a large wing covered you, and you found Zephyr sitting right next to you.
“I told you it would rain,” Zephyr said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
Zephyr was soaked, letting the rain pour down on him, still stoic as always. The back of his clothes was wet, and his face was drenched as his hair clung to his face.
“You’re all wet. I can’t let you do this,” you muttered with concern, “What if you get cold?”
“I told you dragons don’t get cold,” he repeated looking ahead with the serious look he always had, “It’s my job to protect you.”
It was no use in arguing when Zephyr had his mind set on something, so you decided to lean into the crook of his wing, finding it surprisingly warm. Looking over, you noticed how he kept staring at you from time to time checking to see if you were dry. The strange thing was, he wasn’t looking with his usual hard gaze, as if this was all part of his job. No, now that he was up close, you could see a tenderness trying to stay hidden beneath the serious look, and a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth when you shifted around his wing. Could Zephyr have started to see you in a different light? Did he even have the emotions to express that?
“Why did you help me escape?” you finally asked the question that had been lingering in the back of your mind.
“I wanted to see you happy. I already told you that,” he repeated as if it were obvious. Although, the reason was becoming increasingly more obvious to you.
“Why did you want me to be happy?”
“You have a brave soul, princess. The tower wasn’t a place for you,” Zephyr continued, “And it’s my job-”
Cutting him off, you exclaimed, “Enough with the job! Was it because you care, or even see me as at least a friend?”
A heavy silence hung in the air for a few moments as a tension felt almost tangible.
“I do care…a lot,” Zephyr breathed, breaking the silence, “And that’s the problem.”
Feeling a bit more reassured you place your hand on top of his. He tensed up, slipping his hand out of yours, trying to maintain some sort of his code.
“Princess, we can’t do this. You would face all sorts of trouble,” Zephyr whispered breathlessly, “It’s against the rules.”
“When did I ever care about rules?” You grinned.
Zephyr burst out laughing, breaking the tension of the moment, “Right, you never were fond of rules, were you?”
“See?” you said, “So why should I now? I care about you too.”
“Because it’s still complicated,” Zephyr answered, the seriousness returning in his voice, “And because you deserve better.”
“Better?” you asked incredulously, “How could I get better than my best friend?”
“You need more than me. You deserve a prince…not the beast he slays,” he closed his eyes in frustration, “You deserve what the heroine gets at the end of all those books you read. What is it called again…happily ever after?”
“Happily ever after? I don’t want a happily ever after if you aren’t in it!” the same determination boiled up inside you that you had hours earlier when you escaped the tower, “I’m done with princes and what’s expected of me. If I want to choose a life full of so many paths, then it’s my choice who walks those paths with me, and I choose you to be my side. I make my own path, and I’ll choose my own destiny, got it?”
“And I make you happy?”
“Yes!” you practically wanted to yell it in his face, “Because you’re the only one who ever cared if I was happy!”
“Then I would be honored to stay by your side for every path you wish to walk,” he extended his hand out to you with a slight bow, an oath handing his servitude over to you instead of the King.
You took his hand, but instead of keeping it there as you should, you pulled him into a deep kiss. For someone with such a hard exterior, his lips were surprisingly soft. Zephyr pulled you closer with his wing making a world for just the both of you and this kiss tucked away in his wings.
“I’m taking that as a yes?” he asked as a smile played on his lips.
“More than a yes,” you answered, placing your hand back on top of his, “I don’t want you at my side as a servant anymore, I want you there because you choose to be.” He didn’t move his hand away this time. It felt right for once in his life.
“Then I choose you,” Zephyr promised, “I would choose you on any path. Any lifetime. I would choose you a thousand times over and over. In a thousand lives if dying a thousand times meant I got to live a thousand lives by your side. If I had waited with you in that tower forever, I would never have left. I choose you. Every time.”
“And I choose you now,” you vowed, holding his face in your hands. Gods, you wanted to kiss him again, so now that you were making your choices, you did.
For the rest of the night, you stayed that way, held together by a jumble of arms and wings as the stars watched overhead while you slept side by side.
Dragons, princes, rules; who cares?
Maybe happily ever after is what you made it. For now, you looked forward to the journeys ahead of you of your own choosing, and nobody else’s, with a very special dragon by your side.
If you want to read more of these types of stories go to Love Bites on my Wattpad account here: Love Bites - Monster x Reader Oneshots - daily_delulu_ - Wattpad
