The treasure chamber of her dungeon smelt of scorched metal, which honestly wasn't unfamiliar, but this particular occasion was marked with bitter sadness.
Barjuchne sat cross-legged before the massive heap of molten gold, her claws resting on her knees, her eyes fixed on what had once been thousands of individual coins, rings, and precious objects. The lump still radiated heat, its surface rippling with colours that shifted from deep orange to cherry red where the metal had not yet fully cooled. Steam rose from its base where it touched the cooler stone floor.
She had saved it from the burning fairy castle. Gathered every melted piece she could find and hauled it back to her dungeon whilst the structure collapsed around her. Victory, she had thought. Rescued treasure was still treasure, right?
Except it was not.
Not really.
The molten mass had fused into a single enormous blob that defied her usual morning gold-counting routine. She tried anyway, her lips moving silently as she attempted to calculate how many coins might have melted together and how much value remained despite the loss of individual pieces. The mathematics escaped her. The metal just sat there, mocking her with its formless bulk as if it were the depressing, harsh honesty of a body-dysmorphia-confirming funhouse mirror.
The dragon-girl's tail lashed with frustration.
It just wasn’t the same.
From the chamber entrance, she heard quiet footsteps retreat. The goblins were keeping their space today. Veliah had delivered breakfast an hour ago, set the tray down without speaking, and left with only a side glance before Barjuchne could attempt conversation. Even Rou-ya, who usually enjoyed scheming sessions in the morning, had found urgent business elsewhere.
But it wasn’t because they were afraid of her today, for a change. It was because -
"Humans like to say that dogs and their owners resemble each other," said a snide tone from the background. "I wonder if dragons and their gold are the same?" There's a sharp huff. "It sure looks that way from here."
The voice came from behind Barjuchne, small and cutting. Barjuchne's scales prickled with irritation. The Fairy Princess sat perched on a little fabric pile inside of a birdcage that was hung from the ceiling by a long chain. Her crystalline wings, a little bent out of shape still, caught the glow from the molten metal.
After Barjuchne rescued her gold, she also took the princess with her for good measure. She couldn’t just leave her out there to cause more trouble, could she? No. So she took her. As one does.
It only made sense, right?
One can’t just leave a perfectly good princess outside in the cold, with no castle. That would be inhumane. Indraconic, even.
Of course, F.P. was dangerous. Someone colder and more logical than Barjuchne would have, perhaps wisely, broken her little neck and ended the threat for good. But… well, F.P. was a princess, after all. It was half of her name-acronym and everything. Barjuchne’s instincts would let her rough the fairy up, maybe. But there was no way she could ever find it in her lizard heart to kill her. The dragon brain simply wouldn’t let that happen.
Yet, justice demanded consequences.
As much of a bother as she was, the fairy princess was now one-to-one in value with any other piece of gold in Barjuchne’s mind. This is, of course, a problem, as all of the others are deeply wary of the fairy, for good reason.
She was trouble.
"Not only did you destroy the heritage of my entire race, but you also ruined the perfectly good funding of my war campaign with your animal instincts," F.P. continued, examining her nails with affected disinterest. "Very stupid. Of course, what can one expect? After all, you aren’t of royal blood yourself, are you? You’re just a creature. Some wild thing."
Barjuchne's claws dug furrows in the stone floor as she did her best not to let herself become provoked, as was obviously the fairy's intent. Her dragon blood ran hot, but her cooler mind prevailed nonetheless. "Big words from someone in a cage,” replied the dragon girl.
F.P. ignored her retort, looking at her nails. The fairy tilted her head, her blue hair falling across one grey eye. She didn't say anything. But the smugly prideful and content look on her face said everything. Heat built in Barjuchne's chest. Not dragon fire, but the slow burn of anger wrestling with, maybe just a little, of her hurting greed.
The fairy was really annoying.
In her fantasies, she wanted to throw F.P. out into the forest with plucked wings. Lock her in the deepest cell down below the mountain. Make her pay for the other dragons she had sabotaged and got killed in the past.
But…
"Although," F.P. said slowly, inspecting her nails with renewed interest. "I suppose someone with the proper magical knowledge could separate the metals. Restore them to individual pieces. Perhaps even improve the quality of a few individual pieces here and there in the process."
Barjuchne's head turned fractionally.
The fairy smiled, sharp teeth glinting. "Someone with magic, trained in the old arts. Someone who knows metallurgy and transmutation and all those lovely crafts your kind never bothered to learn." She got up and held her hands against the bars of her cage. “All you dragons can do is steal and take, after all.”
"You?" replied Barjuchne.
"Me." F.P. sat down on the fabric heap in her cage, crossing one leg over the other, her bare foot swinging with casual arrogance. "I could fix your little disaster. Make your little stockpile of trinkets here even more valuable than ever before, honestly. I could even use my abilities to help spruce up your primitive little hole here." She pressed her fingertips together below her mouth, which she turned into a playfully brattish pout. "But that would all require certain… considerations."
“The only consideration I’ll be making is if I’m going to snip your wings and drop you to the slimes or not,” snarled Barjuchne back at her. F.P. didn’t react, smiling her way, unphased.
Damn it. She was getting to her head after all. The fairy knew what she was doing.
There came a bubbling sound. A slimy face protruded from the crevices in the treasure heap, where she had been crawling around. “I have never eaten a fairy before!” said the slime princess Blibli excitedly.
Relieved for some better company, Barjuchne reached down, rubbing the side of the slime princess’ face, who nuzzled into her palm. “Maybe we’ll eat her together,” suggested the dragon.
“Yay!” replied the slime in excited glee, squishing her face against the dragon's palm. The slime princess clamped down, biting down Barjuchne's thumb, smiling happily as she chewed on it, likely imagining that it was a fairy. Perhaps the sensation was close enough to foster the imagination.
“Gold is gold,” replied Barjuchne to the fairy, turning her back to the imprisoned little princess. “It has the same value, no matter what shape it comes in. Its value is inherent simply to its existence. Just like the value of the lives you’ve senselessly taken.”
That made perfect sense. It sounded exactly right. The strongly spoken words made Barjuchne’s lingering humanity feel ignited and proud. If she had a personal orchestra, they would be standing behind her and playing the Ode to Joy this very moment as she spoke. But the dragon half of her hated seeing her beautiful coins like this. Even her three hundred fifty-seventh coin in particular, which she had sworn on her life to protect last time it was stolen by the goblins, was in this mess somewhere. Barjuchne’s tail swiped from side to side in agitation.
Blibli swallowed Barjuchne's entire hand.
F.P. was just staring with quiet, content smugness as she lightly clapped her hands together by her face. “Beautiful,” she sighed sarcastically. “The heart of a poet. Too bad about the rest, though,” she said mockingly.
Barjuchne's jaw clenched.
"What do you want?" Barjuchne asked finally, hating how the words tasted.
F.P.'s smile widened. "A bargain. I restore your precious hoard. I’ll separate every coin and make it more beautiful than before." She paused, her grey eyes glinting with cold calculation. "Moreover, there is a magical wellspring buried deep beneath this mountain, a vein of power that has been dormant since the last full-fledged dragon fell two hundred years ago. If I guide you to it, your dungeon core will drink until your power rivals the old legends." She twirled a finger through her hair. "In exchange, you will use that power to achieve my goals. You will help me reclaim the fairy lands and restore the courts to their former glory."
"No."
The answer came immediately, driven by the conversations Barjuchne had already had with the captured bandits who'd worked under F.P.'s command. Their reports of the fairy’s techniques of ruling had been consistent and horrifying. Threats of torture, executions for minor failures, and cruelty as casual policy.
After she came back from the fairy kingdom, Barjuchne set the captured bandits free on the condition they never came back to these lands. They had all happily agreed and left before the minute was over with a tempo she had never seen anyone take before.
"I've spoken with your former underlings," Barjuchne said. "I know what you are. There's no way I can trust you."
“Madness.” F.P. tilted her head, her expression shifting to something almost philosophical. "There’s been more death in this cave in your short time here than my kingdom has seen in my full lifespan. I can feel it in the air, the energy of hungry ghosts," she proclaims with a strange gaze in her eyes, swiping her hair to the side. “I won’t accept a lecture on mortality from someone who has eaten the flesh of the living. And despite that, I will nonetheless say that we're really the same, you and I."
"What? No we’re not. You're not going to give me that spiel, are you?" asked Barjuchne.
"Aren't we?" The fairy stood, gripping the cage bars with both hands. "We both want to live as our nature intends. We both want to grow into our birthrights. You want treasure and princesses. It's in your drive, your instinct, the very core of what you are as a dragon. And I want my kingdom restored. My people's legacy is reclaimed, as it boils in my blood to do so. How are those desires different? They’re both born from our inherent natures."
Barjuchne stared at her, processing the words. There was logic there. Twisted logic, but logic nonetheless.
"You're right," Barjuchne said slowly. "Our wants are similar, if you want to look at it through that lens."
F.P.'s smile returned, triumphant.
"But there's a difference," Barjuchne continued, rising to her feet. The slime princess wobbled up beside her, staying close as Barjuchne grabbed her body that was freely dangling from her arm which was consumed up to its elbow. Her goopy body stretched from the treasure upward, down below Barjuchne’s arm like a piece of wet gum being pulled off of the floor. "Between being a dragon and being draconic."
The fairy's smile faltered slightly.
"One means having instincts. Wanting power, wealth. Wanting princesses. That's what I am." Barjuchne gestured at the molten treasure. "But the other means letting those instincts control you completely. Burning villages because you want their gold. Killing anyone who looks at you wrong. Taking what you want without caring who gets hurt."
She turned toward the chamber exit, the slime princess following with cheerful wobbling sounds. “Are we not going to eat her?” muttered a small voice at the dragon’s side as she shifted her face to the side of her mass that had swallowed half of the dragon.
"Where are you going?" F.P. called after them, confusion and frustration bleeding into her usual composure as she's ignored once more. This seemed to be the critical weakness of her heart, Barjuchne was noticing. The wicked little fairy loved attention of any kind.
Barjuchne paused at the entrance, looking back at the fairy and then at the melted treasure heap. "I don't have every material thing that I want yet, yes," she said, speaking of the gold and power she lusted after as a dragon. "But that ache is soothed because I have people outside of this chamber who are happily and eagerly waiting for me to see them, and I feel the same way," said Barjuche, thinking of Veliah and Rou-ya, Blibli and her beloved ant princess.
The latter had not yet returned her love. But Barjuchne would take hold of her spirit and win her heart one day. It would happen.
Barjuchne met F.P.'s grey eyes directly.
The slime princess flopped a tentacle over the dragon's eye with a wet flop. It ruined the dramatic mood. Barjuchne pulled it free, the slime giggling playfully. But Barjuchne kept her serious face, which was this time proudly smug in return in the way only a dragon could manage.
"So maybe we're not that similar after all." She tilted her head. “Your guards left too, by the way,” she noted coldly. “The second I told them they were free to go,” she said, idly waving a hand as she walked away. “They were faster than those bandits too. Can you believe it?”
Barjuchne left, the slime princess bouncing happily beside her as she dragged after the dragon girl, wrapped around her tail and arm in part like a wet curtain. Behind them, F.P. remained silent in her cage, her expression unreadable.
“I’m still hungry,” bubbled the slime, going back to chewing on the dragon unsuccessfully.
"I'll get you whatever you want," promised the dragon..
"Hey! Come back!" shouted the fairy princess, ignored.
Deep in her cage in the treasure chamber, F.P. sat very still, her mind working through the dragon's words. "People to fill that emptiness in my core," she murmured, testing the phrase. How disgustingly sentimental. Yet... interesting. The other dragons weren’t like this one.
The fairy's grey eyes fixed on the molten treasure heap. The dragon had rejected her offer, yes. But rejection was just another step in the dance of negotiation.
F.P. smiled slowly in the darkness of her prison.
She had time. Dragons lived for centuries. So did fairies.
And eventually, that soft, people-loving creature would need something only F.P. could provide. When that moment came, she would be ready. After all, people are fragile and weak. They break and hurt and sometimes need to be saved with powers beyond what the physical world offered. Love, bonds, and ties to other people are temporary. People die. Bonds break.
But a new eternal kingdom of unified ancient powers could last forever.
The fairy turned her head, staring at the wafts of magical power coming through the cracks and crevices in the rock face from deep, deep below the world. The dragon had tunnelled and dug deeply, but there was still something buried here, something very, very old.
After all, this place, this cave, was always so potently magical for a reason.
It was quiet.
Alone, F.P. tilted her head, idly wondering what a half-fairy-half-dragon hybrid would look like. She decided to go to sleep. At least in her dreams she would get what she wanted.