The Dragon Princess Will Stay Alive!

//You guys aren't going to like this chapter. I'm telling you now, you guys aren't going to like it.

"Stay right here, Sophia."

The little girl rubbed her drooping eyes, squinting at the older form that had set her down and was in the process of tucking her into bed. Gentle fingers brushed soft curls off her forehead. "Be good and take a nap. You must have used up a lot of your tiny energy reserves, shapeshifting and back today."

"Mmm. Heere?" Sophia reaches out her arms for her sister to join her, to which she shook her head.

Sophia squeezed her eyes shut as strands of whitish hair neared her face, and felt a small kiss on her forehead. "You're tired, so go to sleep for now. I'll be back." She felt blankets being tucked carefully over her.

"Mng" the little princess scrunched her nose, turning away from the sugary gesture. Her world was fading in and out, but she turned her head towards her sister again and saw her edging around the door, even through her foggy vision.

"Mhh?" Sophia rubbed her eye clear, pushing her blanket down. She sat up groggily, trying to rub the sleep off her face. "Sis?" She grumbled, getting on all fours to crawl to the edge of the bed, expression sour from the unforewarned absence of her premium warm pillow.

The temperature of the room was stagnant, and the air was soundless. Sophia poured into her face rub, kicking the blankets aside and hopping down from the bed.

"Sis?" She called to the door, the activity beginning to wake up her voice. Hearing no response, Sophia darted across the room and peeked out there, the contracting and pulsing of the dark pupils too alert to belong to a cuddly little girl, but their frames were too droopy to be quite exactly mischievous.

Hm, Sophia looked around carefully for signs of her sister, even directions a person couldn't rationally go, before she descended the small entryway and the long half-spiral of cold steps, which looked more like hopping than hurrying, with her tiny legs. Almost everything she did that wasn't on level ground could pass for hopping, if it didn't look more like controlled falling, instead.

Sophia didn't see her sister, per say, but there was something about familiar people that made them easy to track, like remnants of themselves they left in the touch and temperature of the air, and Sonata's remnants tickled over her skin like a glove because she was much smaller than the rest of the people she knew. The warm areas where her skin touched the air were much closer to Sophia-teaching level.

The unruly-baby-fuzz-esque-haired blonde turned a corner, and then descended nonchalantly into the darkness of another, more cramped stairway. There were a lot of tinier, less artisan corridors and hallways between the main ones. Some of them were for the servants, but some of them just led to unimportant places no one ever went, so they were never expanded and made roomier to fit the style of the rest of the castle.

Tap tap tap, her b.a.r.e feet clapped onto the stone that made up the staircase, many of the places were people's feet tended to go worn away so that the individual rocks that made up the stairs and the gravel in between could be felt. Tip tap tap. So long as one kept walking, it was hard to get lost in these little spaces. They were usually much smaller than regular halls, and quickly lead to their one or two rooms if they were a dead end. They cl.u.s.tered towards the middle of the castle, so many of them were pitch black. No windows, no one to bother lighting the lights.

Scrish—

Tap. It was easy to not fall even in you slipped. Just keep one hand on the wall. The walkways were very slim, anyways. You weren't missing much. If there was an opening, the hall would stop there. She was following in her sister's presence, anyways. She could still feel her....she thought? Intuition was a weird thing.

Ssssssssh sssssssh

Sophia felt a twinge of cold mixed into the stuffy air. As she got nearer, she could hear a small, echoey breeze entering the hall from a much larger corridor.

Sophia's chubby fingers searched about until she came to a stop at the blocking her path, then left her way out and towards the cold doorway and into the source of the hollow breeze.

Sonata lingered on the obtrusion of stone at the doorway, squinting out into the deep darkness of the cold hall beyond, illuminated only by a single, far away source of light from within a slightly-open door. Far away, she could just barely make out voices.

"Sonata?" She called. As there was no response, the little child took the initiative to see what was going on before making her presence known. She ran down the eerie, unknown hallway towards the light, slowing a few inches into the orb of light surrounding the open door to a slow tiptoe. There was an odd shiver on her back that she had to fight to not stop in her tracks and freeze up. She could make out the vague hostility in a dragonic voice, but too distant to hear much of without getting closer. She pushed forwards soundlessly into the lightly open doorway, pulling it open just enough to see inside.

A cold fluid ran down into Sophia's stomach from her c.h.e.s.t, like her insides were being flushed out by a liquid sour enough to resemble temperature akin to the spit at the base of her throat that touched the cold air as she breathed it in.

She tucked her head back against the corner of the door with a startled thud. Her small form disappeared into the shadows as soundlessly as it came, little wispy yellow lashes wide in shock. But she had been seen.

The large, black scaled dragon had paused where it stood. Sonata's eyes flicked towards the source of movement. A small shiver ran up her arms, that were clutching tightly to bunches of skirt at either side. The atmosphere was tense again, like when she'd walked in on Sophia's tantrum: it could be sensed pulsing and convulsing, almost as though it rose and fell with the ever slow, deep thump of the a.d.u.l.t dragon's heart, like an uncertain, dark pressure that almost physically weighed down on her. Sophia. Her eyes widened and her lips tightly against each other at the barely-visible Sophia-sized movement she made out on the shadows outside the room.

The room had gone silent from all the sounds that had been happening before.

So..Sophia? Her sister's lips mouthed as she made eye contact with the green eyes peering out from the darkness. The older girl's brows furrowed. A twinge of concern passed the stunned face she was still trying to recompose, one of her eyes reddened, probably from crying. She glanced up to the grown up dragon, then back at Sophia.

Sophia dawdled a few steps backwards, then sound herself toddling a couple of steps towards the familiar green eyes looking at her.

Her elder sister looked so small and vulnerable compared to the gigantic black dragon looming over her, casting the entire floor around her in darkness, one humongous, sharp claw dangerously close to the left of her body, the other around her, not touching, just close, resting threateningly close. Small and endangered. Not as small as Sophia probably looked besides any given person in the castle, but in a dangerous position nonetheless.

Tap tap tap tap

Sophia raced across the room towards her sister instinctively, her feet only slowing to an uncertain stop on the cold rocks when she was only a few feet away from the pair.

She glanced up at the silent dragoness. It looked calm, but cold anger sullied the outline of the large dragon's facial features, unmistakable. Intimidating. Even some of her moderately sized scales were bigger than the little girl's head.

The small dragon retreated behind her sister's shadow. But light taps from the back of Sonata's hand ushered her away.

"Go!" She whispered urgently. Sophia blinked at her in surprise. She glanced back towards the entrance she'd come in from. Large double doors that towered over her, that she probably wouldn't have had a chance of opening if they'd been closed properly. Her fingers latched onto the silky fabric of the skirt of her sister's dress. Wasn't she coming with her?

She could feel a slight tremble in the hand that nudged her softly away. "Sophia, go." Sonata nodded her head towards the door. "Now."

Sophia's toddler fingers wrapped around and clung to her sister in a hug. She stared up at her worriedly, the green plates upon the milky spheres of her eyes in slight tremble, the tiny pupils within them pulsing quickly. The blonde princess was too scared to talk with her mother here in her dragon form, but her concerned eyes were asking her sister "Are you okay?"

Sophia felt a pair of small taps on the back of her head. "Go." The voice urged her like it was coming from a separate room.

Sonata forced a small smile to reassure the scared little doll-like being, swiping her palm across the top of her curly-haired head. Sophia still saw the small wince in her eyes when she did it, though. Her brows were still pressed in uneasiness, like something was wrong and her body was still rigid. What was she trying so hard to hide?

Reluctantly, Sophia released her. Sonata kept watching her as she began to slowly retreat.

She sensed a chill. Sophia's eyes turned up towards the dragon whose cold blue eyes weren't looking at her, but whose attention she could feel.

Sophia dawdled, intimidated by the gaze, her feet scraping lazily against the floor but not really wanting to go.

Her scared eyes watched her sister longingly as she got further and further away, edging backwards. She wanted her to come with her, so they'd both be safe. She knew it couldn't be very comfortable standing there in the middle of the room, under the direct gaze of those already overwhelming slitted blue eyes. So why didn't she take any of her opportunities to come? I'm clearly not completely awake, so tick me in again?

Breathing anxiously, the small girl looked from her mother to her sister for some sort of scheme to pull.

"For today, you've done enough." Sonata frowned, a twinge of bitterness in the voice that she spoke to her with that made Sophia's heart sink hard.

The little girl spun and hurried out the door, a cold chill hitting her back as she passed the large double doors. For a brief moment, Sophia had the liberty of having the naïveté to think she could undo that motion. She spun around with emerald eyes wide like she'd made a mistake, only to have the heavy doors were slammed shut in her face. The last things she saw were Sonata's eyes meeting hers, the muscles of her neck tensing in the moments before the door slammed shut, her mouth opening to let in a breath and the quiver of her lower lip that gave way, her expression almost revealing fear, and then nothing. Before the door blocked everything out, she didn't make any movement to change her mind and follow her. She probably didn't even mean to expose her fear.

That big, heavy barrier between her and the room felt exclusive and final. Blocking her out, excluding her again. And she couldn't find the courage to fight to try and open them. To run back into that room and grab her sister's arm, fighting with her to come away to safety with her. To throw another tantrum.

Her outstretched hands clenched nothingness, empty, pitifully having lost the purpose of their current alignment. Slowly, she retracted them towards her small body.

Sophia looked down at her small hands, her head sinking against the door, opening and closing them in the darkness. She tried to make her yellow scales visible from her skin, or change her fingers into claws like her sister could, but nothing was happening. Her breaths sped up, and she could see tears clouding her vision.

"Hah...hah…" Sophia nudged her shoulder up to rub her eyes, trying to quiet her voice and open the lungs that were beginning to contract and force gasp-like noises to escape her throat. She wasn't crying, though. She was too angry.

She looked down the dark, empty hall of the castle, long, thin columns extending up into archways that met and formed curling diamond shapes on the ceiling. There were dark smudges where years of soot from candles and torches had piled up in the corners, joining the shadows of the dark hallway beyond.

She couldn't hear anything from beyond the door. Did that mean her sister was okay? Or did it mean she wasn't?

Sophia rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Even if she barged her way back into there, she would just make things worse. Sonata wouldn't come with her. There were things she didn't understand. She couldn't promise her it would be okay to make her come away with her, like Sonata would. She couldn't do anything.

Sophia sniffled, walking down the better lit section of the hall.

"Ng-" Sophia brushed her curls up off her face with both arms, kicking the wall in a small, repressed squeak of rage as she walked, redness creeping into her nose and her cheeks as she sniffled her self-angry tears back, like someone twice her age.

Why couldn't she just be older and more powerful? She was sure if she was a little smarter than this, she could understand enough to make her sister come with her. If she was a little stronger, she could become enough of an obstacle to not make it worth not just giving in and being pulled out the room with her.

But as she was, she would just be crushed. Whatever happened, if it was enough to make her sister shiver, she would already be crushed. Anything she really did, if she managed to get herself into any real obstacle, she would just be crushed.

She wasn't crying, she wasn't crying.