reader insert themes: dragons, princes, fantasy. no mention of y/n.
You don't know what to do with the dragon you found in your garden.
The annual storm marking the end of winter blew from the north and through the kingdom like it had never before, and the garden, a place you once considered a safe sanctuary, couldn't withstand a storm so violent. The winds wrapped an unforgiving hand around the trees and pulled them off their roots, peeled benches off the ground, rolled stones into the ponds.
Buried a dragon under the tools shed. Or what's left of it. A collapsed giant under a collapsed giant. There was no sense in building a massive shed, but it was done, and it now lays all its dead weight on a dead animal.
Except the dragon isn't dead. It breathes heavily, like it spent the entire night trying to drag its heavy body from under the rubble. But even an animal of this size couldn't free itself, not when scars the depth of a dagger cut through its thick skin. Not the workings of the storm, that much you knew. It fought something bigger, more viscous, and it lost. Perhaps tried to flee and got caught in the current of the storm and was sent tumbling down into your garden.
Regardless of how it go here, you have to at least get it out from under the collapsed shed. With the flick of a wrist, three trees plant their branches on the ground and push themselves up onto their roots. They approach the dragon, their stomps creating ripples across the ponds and disturbing birds off nearby trees. As the birds soar into the sky, the trees lift the heavy wooden walls off the dragon and set it aside, rebuilding the shed a few meters off its original position.
When they lift the dragon to set it under the rebuilt shed, it lets out a low growl that prickles your skin.
But the dragon does not wake.
You spend the majority of the morning tending to it, applying a mix of calming and disinfectant herbs to the cuts.
There isn't much to know about dragons. They've disappeared a couple of hundred years ago, driven to extinction because of humans' greed and paranoia. Some stipulated they've built themselves a sanctuary in the mountains, but no one possessed the equipment or the courage to go find out.
To this day, many kingdoms celebrate the end of the dragon age every spring.
The books in the library offer little to no information. The historians speak about the dragons' strength, sense of possession, their threat on mankind, but none speak of their culture, traditions, medicine. Or diet. You don't know what to feed the dragon sleeping in your garden.
"What are you reading?"
You flinch, the book slipping from your hands. It hits the carpeted floor with a dull thud, laying open near the prince's boots. He tilts his head, reads the title. "The secret society of dragons." His eyes lift to you, dark and bemused. "Reminiscing, are we?"
Your face flushes. "No-"
Lysander kicks the book to the side and steps closer to you. He takes a strand of your hair and twirls it around his pointer finger. "We missed you at breakfast."
Your heart is halfway up to your throat, and it shows when your speak. "I'm sorry, I forgot-"
He gives your hair a sharp tug and you know best to swallow the pained yelp that forms in your chest. "Forgot?" He asks, voice edged like a blade.
"I've made a mistake," you say, trying to subside the evident anger rising in his eyes. "Please forgive me, your highness. I got preoccupied with tending to the garden and time-"
Lysander smiles. "You wound me, my love. Why are you frightened? You think me capable of hurting you?"
To ask you that when he just hurt you is a cruelty no one is capable of other than the prince himself. But you don't tell him that, lest you risk throwing timber into the fire of anger licking up his spine.
"Of course not, your highness." You bow your head. He likes submission, vulnerability, defeat. "You could never hurt me."
"I could," he corrects you. "Don't test me."
"My apologies, your highness. I won't miss breakfast again."
"It'll do you well to remember that having breakfast with me is one of my kindnesses. It serves me no purpose, but it serves you many."
You nod, staring at the ground. "You're too kind, my prince."
His hold on your hair softens. He loves when you call him that, like he's something worthy of affection. "Don't waste your time between dusty pages about extinct creatures. You should be tending to me instead."
"You're right."
Satisfied with your obedience, Lysander lets go of your hair and walks away, making sure to stomp on the book on his way out. You exhale, then inhale, and exhale again, swallowing around the lump lodged like a fist in your throat. Then you bend down and pick up the book, looking at the hand drawn illustration of a dragon soaring the skies, wings spread wide open in pride. They're depicted as the symbol of freedom, as if freedom is something you can buy by being half human, half something else.
But as a half something else yourself, you know it costs a lot more than that.
The books prove to be a waste of your time in terms of how to care for a dragon. It seems historians all agree on one thing: monsters cannot be cared for. Care does not change their nature.
You couldn't care less about changing the dragon's nature. You're more concerned with saving it. You don't know if you're capable of that. All you have is your healing balm, some bandages, and an inkling on what to feed it if it wakes up. When it wakes up. You try not to think too much about that part as your press the cold mixture on its snake-like skin.
"Where have you been?"
Mia intercepts you at the door leading to the garden. You're so anxious about being caught you jump out of your skin when she appears in front of you.
"Saints," you gasp, pressing a hand to your heart.
She laughs. "Jumpy. Hiding something?"
"What would I be hiding? As if I could hide anything in this castle."
"It was just a joke, lighten up." She links her arm with yours and drags you along down the hallway. "You're like a ghost these days. One moment you're next to me tending to your duties, the next you're gone."
You didn't know your presence, or absence, is so noticeable, but then again, Mia has always been somewhat of a friend to you. It's hard to put a title on the relationship between you and the other concubines.
"I've just been so preoccupied with fixing the garden."
"I didn't step foot there since the storm," Mia says, her voice forlorn. She knows how much that place means to you, what it means to the lesser human part of you. "I'm sorry, darling."
You wave her off. "Don't worry about it. It'll heal. It always does."
The rest of the day is spent alongside Mia as you sort through the royal letters. Prince Lysander doesn't appreciate his time be wasted reading the endless complaints of his people. Those are of no good to him. Invitations to other kingdoms, offers, promises of power-- those are the things worth his while. So you and Mia put those in a neat pile while you skim the others and throw them to the side to be used as fire feed.
As the sun dips behind the horizon and the mountains of letters dwindle, the first lamp is lit in the castle, then another, and another, and another. Maids rush about, preparing for dinner. You stand up and stretch.
"I'll go freshen up for dinner," you say.
"Don't be late," Mia tells you. "You know how he gets."
You know.
In the midst of the organized chaos, you manage to slip into the kitchen unnoticed. The maids pay you no heed, your stature in the castle of so little importance it barely warrants you a glance. It doesn't bother you. This sort of invisibility allows you to do as you please undistributed. You smuggle a piece of meat under your robes to the garden.
Your dragon is still deep in its slumber.
Part of you hopes it never wakes up. Dragons are majestic creatures, prideful, but that doesn't take away from their size. If anything, it adds to it. You know when this one unfurls, it will overcrowd this shed, fill every corner with its existence, reflect the sun off of its black scales like a beam. Its presence will be hard to hide. How it will react to you, that's something you try not to think about.
For now, you put the piece of meat next to its head and rush to the dinning room.
The dinning room is massive with heigh ceilings, floor to ceiling windows, and a table big enough to fit a small village. It is not big enough to make you feel like there's any distance between you and the prince. He manages to make any room small once he steps into it. If not with his intense presence, his displeased looks are enough. And displeased he is.
"Where's Lilian?" He asks, looking around the table. His eyes land on you, seated three seats down from him. "My women are becoming quite disobedient."
You duck your head.
"She's not feeling well," Mia says.
Lysander hums and directs his attention back to his goblet of wine. He doesn't care enough to ask why Lilian isn't feeling well. Perhaps if it was Mia, he would've spared the matter a bit more of his attention but, alas, Lilian isn't the favourite one. Neither are you, and you're completely fine with that. You wish you were lower on his list of favourites. Perhaps then he would pay less attention to how you spend your time.
After dinner, you slip back to the garden. The moon is full and beaming, casting silver shafts of light onto the still surface of the pond. Some of the fish survived the storm, and they slowly glide about under the water.
You open the door to the shed. There's enough light coming in from the singular window to discern what you're looking at: the dragon, awake, gnawing lazily on the piece of meat.
You stare, heart trashing in your ribs like a restless humming bird in a cage.
The dragon lifts its heavy head and stares back.
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Rewrite of something I worked on years ago. Could be something if you're interested in reading more of it! The more I write the less I like my writing haha pls help
