She was a pain.
All she ever did was bother him.
Following him around, annoying him, until he was forced to fly to the highest point of the tower to get away from her. Eventually, she grew big enough to climb and she would follow him, failing often enough he could head her squalling cries from below. Falling enough the bruises never healed before she earnt new ones, it happened often enough that he found room in his heart for pity, felt the need to climb down to her and blow soft warm breaths on her bruised palms and battered shoulders. To dry the tears that cascaded down her cheeks and made her watery amber eyes glow.
It was those eyes that he loved.
They were dragons eyes.
Slowly over time she had dug her weak little human claws into the small space in his heart he had for her and made the it bigger, filling every inch of it with love, carving out a space for herself in it, making a home in his heart.
When the day came that she was to finally be rescued, the day he had so long ago accepted, she looked at him with tears in her eyes; her beautiful amber dragons eyes, and told him they could leave together, they could let any ideals of princes and princess and castles die.
But the magic that had been placed on him would never let that happen. Because there was a reason she was a princess, people, all things were made to love her, and the people who had locked her away knew this. So they placed a spell on the dragon, that would not let him leave, made him wait with her until his death.
She had looked so beautiful, brown hair that hung in ringlets, so chaotic and wild, framing her face, her beautiful eyes flashing as she fought so hard to save him. It was then he understood that he had carved a place in her heart as well, and she had not come into this world ready to let those she loved die.
So he told her of the rumor among dragons that they could be reincarnated. They could take the form of another dragon, their spirits waiting, watching the human world as they carried on until they could join them again.
He saw in her heart then, that she loved him, ever so fiercely, and that anything she could do to keep him would be done, and anything after would also.
So he fought for her, her small body fighting alongside his own, but the prince was smart, was cruel and deadly and eventually overcame the dragon. He watched as the girl cried silver tears as her friend was slain, as the bond they had formed broke so harshly. The dragon watched from the sky as the prince came to embrace her, willing to believe that she was overwhelmed for finally being free, that the tears she cried were relief, not stricken with grief.
The prince did not see the flint in her dragons eye as he embraced her, nor the glint of the blade before it plunged into his neck.
She was not a weak babe anymore. She had cut her teeth on a dragons diamonds, had cut her hands looking for him and had cut her heart open to receive his own. She was a dragon forged in a river of her own blood and the fire of pain.
He had been her dragon and he had never been prouder.
One thing the dragon didn't know, was that from the ashes of a dead dragon, came the new life of another. A small ebony dragon mewled as it crawled it's way from the embers of his form, and her dragon watched as she let the limp form of the knight fall from her arms as she clambered over it to get to the new life.
'Eros' she breathed, her heart fulling as she took in the sight of life before her.
But she knew it was not him. Deep within this dragon was the heart of another little girl. She could feel it, and that knowledge broke her heart.
And so, she picked herself up, to her fullest height and stared down at the small beast in front of her, and raised the stained dagger again, before slashing it down.
Eros closed his eyes in defeat.
She slashed her palm open and placed it on the small dragons head.
"I pledge my life to yours," she chanted, the tell tale swirl of magic moving the air. "And I pledge to keep you safe until I find who holds your heart. As I will find the dragon who holds mine." The words were spoken with the air of finality only reached by Princesses and Magicians.
How fitting it was that she had managed to become both.
She pulled the armor off of the body lying on the ground, wiped the blood off with the remainder of her gown and sheathed the sword that had killed her dearest friend. It was going to be the sword she used to kill those who had brought such agony to her breast.
Eros watched on as she tucked the small dragon into a satchel and struck off on her own adventure, taking not only the knights life, but his title as well. No one knew what had happened in that castle, and she was not going to tell.
It took many years of watching her take down knights and reunite dragons with their Princesses before she seemed to slow down. He had not returned to the land of the living, and she was starting to fear he never would.
One day she hung up her sword and married a man who would allow her to bear a daughter, a man who believed that little girls should be raised by dragons, not warriors. And so he murdered his wife, pulled the sword she had used upon his brothers in arms and cut her down, like her dragon before her.
He placed his child in a far away tower and sent for the last of dragon kind to watch over her.
Eros blinked slowly. His return to the human world still taking a toll on his new form. He watched as the small bundle of blankets writhed and cooed before he let a single tear fall, silver like those his first love had shed, let it drop to the ground, staining the stone with magic.
Moving his great form, the dragon lumbered over to the blankets, prepared to look after the small life his princess had given to the world.
As he looked into the blankets, the ice that had formed around his heart the moment he watched her life bleed from her, melted.
For as he looked down into the huddle of blankets he saw what he had been looking for since his death.
A pair of Amber, Dragons eyes.
