Tails and Scales <A Garmau Fanfiction>

Coming of Age

Aphmau

Today was the day I turned 18. The entire kingdom was excited, everyone except me. Normally, everyone would expect a princess to lose her mind with excitement of becoming queen. For me, this day meant I would be forced to marry some stupid prince I probably won't ever care about and then sit in a chair all day and have no control over my own life. I stand in the coronation room, pretending to be excited when they present the crown to me. I gave my best fake smile and bowed down. Before I knew what happened next, there was a loud roar and screams of people.

When I looked over, I saw a giant dragon inside of the palace. It flew carefully over everyone as they flooded out, and guards started pouring into the room. The dragon took one glance around before it's brilliant blue eyes locked on me and swooped down. I felt its claws wrap around my body as it roared again, arrows flying at its large body. It crashed through one of the stained glass windows, this time, the roar sounding more like a cry of pain than a roar of anger or evilness.

When we were a long distance from the castle, the dragon landed and placed me gently on the ground. It's wings were a deep, bright blue, shimmering in the sunlight, the rest of his scales were sanely blond and yellow, a few glittering metallic scales on his back.

"Are you alright?" The dragon asked. I was still in shock from the whole 'being kidnapped by a dragon on my 18th birthday' thing, but the dragon speaking as if it were human to be was a whole new kind of outrageous. "I'm sorry if I scared you, are you hurt as all?" It apologized. The dragon's voice was deep with a calming accent.

"I-I'm fine" I squeaked. He smiled at me, the attempted to stand, but one of his legs collapsed beneath him. He cursed with a hiss as he laid down, looking at his leg. Several arrows has pierced the spaces between his scales. He pulled them out as gently as he could.

"I'm sorry this is taking so long" the dragon apologized. "I was hoping we could have been back at my lair before sundown, but these arrows are truly a pain to remove, my sincerest apologies princess." The dragon said. Looking at the dragon now, his stomach and most of his backside were impaled with sharp arrows from my guards. "My name is Garroth, what's yours?" The dragon asked me as he awkwardly reached for his tail, grabbing for the arrows that burrowed into his scales.

"Princess Aphmau of Phoenix Drop" I told him as is the lines were rehearsed, which, they were. "Would you like some help getting the arrows out?" I asked him, oddly calm about the situation. He lifted one of his large claws for me to climb onto his back. I did my best balancing across his scaled back, then carefully removed the remaining arrows.

"Ah, much better" he said happily, stretching out his wings. "Thank you for the help lady Aphmau" he thanked me. "Hold on tight, you can ride on my back on the flit back to my lair if you wish. You seem to be fairly calm about this whole being kidnapped thing" he said, laughing slightly to himself. I climbed up to his shoulders and carefully held onto his neck. Soon it became sunset, and the view was beautiful from on top of a dragon. I felt more confident and free than I ever had in my entire life, which consisted of "always be good, be polite, be respectful, no running, no fighting" and annoying rules like those.

The time of freedom eventually ended as we landed at the lair, which looked like an abandoned castle, much larger than the one I had lived in. I got off Garroth's back and he picked me up in his talons, flying to the tallest tower and placing me inside.

"I'm sorry about this, but you're still my prisoner. People will come to rescue you eventually so don't worry. I'll bring you dinner soon, any preferences that a dragon could prepare?" He asked me. I just shook my head and waved goodbye glumly, back to being a prisoner, except now I'm the prisoner of a dragon instead of a prisoner of society's overbearing standards. I decide to explore the place before Garroth returns.