I smile and go back to stirring. She sits and watches me for a moment.

“Your Highness…” I hold up a hand, cutting her off.

“Just Roland.”

“Ok, Just Roland. What would you like to talk about?” I glance up, meeting bemused brown eyes.

I shrug. “Anything.”

“Alrighty then, since we’re all curious, where are you taking us?”

I give her a grin. “If I told you, you probably wouldn’t continue to follow my aimless wondering.”

“Doesn’t seem like aimless wondering when you have a destination in mind.”

“True enough. I’ll give you a hint. I have a… friend, you might call her. She’ll be able to help us… if she’s willing to forgive me,” I mumble the last, unsure if my crazy dragon will lock me up and never let me out again should I tell her exactly what trouble I got into this time: AFTER promising her I’d be careful. But it wasn’t my fault, and I’m sticking to it. Something tells me she will not agree.

The lady beside me chuckles. “Sounds like an interesting character.”

“You have no idea. I have a feeling she’d like you.”

“How come?”

I shrug. “Instinct.” And the fact that since I’ve been watching her all day, I’ve picked up on her kindness. This lady beside me was the only one to stay behind with the smaller wolves to help them along. She’d bark encouragement to the youngsters and played games of tag in the few times we stopped and they had more energy than the older wolves who needed to rest.

It’s a strange and unique woman who can be both hard and soft. Compassionate when the situation arises. But tough as nails when fighting. I believe her to be both.

“What is your story? Why are you out here, rescuing an outcast prince?”

She chuckles. “Besides the adventure?” She pauses, thinking. Her mouth turns down slightly at the corners. “It’s not so different a story from many others. My family is under threat from the usurper because of a few spoken questions in the wrong places.”

I clench my jaw, sensing and smelling the pain beneath her words. There is more to the story. “I’m sorry. If only I would have been able to come back sooner.”

“Not quite your fault. You have been a bit tied up lately.”

I look at her askance, while a grin slowly blossoms on her lips. I roll my eyes. “Very funny.”

She shrugs, amusement wafting from her and filling the air with the semi-sweet scent. “I thought so.”

I try to hide my grin when I go back to stirring.

We talk for a while longer, then she announces that the food is done. The scouts come in from the darkness in pairs, eating before heading back out into the night to keep watch.

Dipping out the watery soup becomes second nature as I dip and hand out the bowls. The weird looks passed my way... let’s just say it’s odd for a prince to serve. Perhaps I’ll be a difference prince than expected. The thought makes me smile... before I almost knock the pot (and by extension, myself) in the fire when I stumble over my own feet. It's not entirely contrived. I am a bit clumsier and stiffer than usual, but I figured there were a few ways I could make those around me look at me differently than the awe and fear and disappointment in their gazes. I chose this way.

The kind lady takes the bowl and spoon from me with laughing eyes as the rest of our little party tries to hide their laughter behind coughs. A few outright grin, their eyes sparkling in the moonlight as they watch.

“Ok, time for bed, Your Highness.” Sir Rey catches my shoulders and guides me to a tent. He ignores my flinch, merely giving me a knowing look before turning back to the pack. “Say nighty night to the prince, you loud rabble of good for nothing Shifters!”

To my supreme and actual embarrassment that almost makes my ears color red, the clearing resounds with sounds of:

“Nighty night!”

“Sleep well!”

“Try not to fall on your way in!”

I slip in the tent, sticking my head out to ask a simple question. “Why?” I whisper to Sir Rey in a pleading tone.

Sir Rey smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. “You’re young. You can handle a little humility.”

“What happened to ‘Your Highness’ this and ‘You’re Highness’ that?” I ask, drawing my eyebrows up to my forehead to make my expression match the confusion of my words.

“They started to see you as just what you are... human.”

Genuine confusion overtakes my features. “What?” That wasn't exactly the image I'd been hoping to portray.

He smiles, gesturing for me to shove over, and I do so. He steps into my small tent, sitting to one side as I take a seat on the bed of animal skins. I have to hold myself very still to keep from fingering the knives I've hidden along my belt and in the folds of the warm furs in this tent barely big enough to hold the both of us.

I try not to flinch as Sir Rey's eyes probe my expression.

“You didn’t have any friends where they sent you, did you?”

I don’t have a clue what to say to that. His voice is both contemplative and sad as he rubs an old scar on his hand. I remember that scar. My brother, Alec, gave it to him when we were kids. It brings a bittersweet pinch to my chest remembering better times, times before Alec was killed and my life was turned upside down.

Thankfully, he continues without me having to answer through was has become a tight throat, “You had to fight through it alone, did you not? You don’t know how to fight with a group, much less a kingdom, at your side. The little group out there?” He points with his thumb. “They saw an oppressed prince who refused to surrender. They saw a Shifter who fought through pain and exhaustion to ride further today than they thought possible, considering how you ride.” I try to punch his shoulder and end up on the ground next to him, closer to one of my pre-placed knives in case I need it. I close my eyes with a groan, content to stay there as my body complains. It's actually quite comfortable, despite the hilt poking into my ribs.

The old booger laughs. But his voice is surprisingly serious when at last he speaks again. “They saw an Alpha serving them food when he should well be asleep, preparing for another hard ride on the morrow. They saw a king acting with compassion to his soldiers. You are building a brotherhood here that may well transcend whatever we do once we get to wherever you have in mind.”

I shake my head, a lump in my throat that's not entirely contrived. “I’m practically none of those things. An estranged prince with no kingdom and half a will to let death take its course. It would be easier.” The last sneaks past my lips without my permission. I'm getting a bit too tired for this facade.

He shakes his head sadly. “You are more than the sum of your pain, your highness. I see a young man who was forced to grow beyond his years in a very short period of time. I see a young man with a mind of steel and the heart of a dragon. I see what they also are beginning to understand. You are human.” He holds up a hand to stall my questions. “You act with less animal drive and more logical emotion. You don’t allow your anger to rule you, but you rule your anger. That is what they see in you, my Imperium. They respect you not because of strength, but because of heart. And I am only doing what I can to enforce that.”

I smother a roll of my eyes and the hint of maniacal laughter rising in my breast. “Nighty night, Sir Rey.”

He laughs, ruffling my hair. “Night, you little hooligan.”

He walks out the tent flap. My heart is at once happy and bitter. What I missed out on because of my father’s anger and sorrow. If I had stayed, and Sir Rey had continued to train me... I shake it from my mind. There is no use in overthinking the past. Learn from your and other’s mistakes and move forward, for the present is all that can be changed.

...

Three days. It takes three days of jarring trot interspersed with canters, walks, and breaks to eat and rest in between to reach the outskirts of what I recognize as the village of Whitecastle. I know many of the citizens since I lived only a few scant miles from the town with my adopted family.

The little town is not the bustling place I remember. The white castle, yes, the thing the city is named after, is on the hill situated right at the back of the city that covers just over four miles. I look down at it from a little rise about five miles from the town walls. The plains between me and the city that once held flourishing crops to feed the city are brown and lifeless. The city walls and the white castle itself are a bit dull, as if the guards who are stationed there haven't been taking the time to whitewash the stone walls. The people who come in and out of the city have their shoulders bowed against pressures that cannot be seen.

It makes my stomach sink to see what was once a lively place filled with laughter and bright hope so... lifeless.

A whine brings me back to the task at hand, and when I turn my head a single drop that smells of salty brine drops from my chin and lands on the brown saddle beneath me.

I ignore it, instead nodding to the little brown wolf and turning Ilena to the trail.

I skirt the town and my father's home and lead the wolves up to where I hid my dragon. The little sway-backed mare stops and stands still as I dismount. She shoves her sweaty ear into my face for a rub. I chuckle and rub her ear, thanking her silently for taking me so far without complaint. I take off her saddle and bridle. She’s been a great mare, for all of her prickly ways, and I’m sad to see her go. I give her one last pat and turn away.

To my surprise, she follows me, nudging my shoulder as if asking where I’m going without her.

“Stay here for now, friend. I’ll send someone to take care of you.”

She snorts, but goes away to graze on some clumps of grass that survived the harsher lighting beneath the trees. Her eye stays on me and her ear flicks, until something big shakes the ground with a roar.

She darts in front of me, her nostrils flaring as she prepares to face whatever it is.

Ilena holds still as a rabbit being hunted by wolves as I walk beside her and pat her neck once more. I take back all the bad things I said about her. If it weren't for the flying, I'd take her with me in a heartbeat.

"I'm safe, my friend. Go now and live fully," I say, my voice calm and cajoling.

Horses may not understand voice, but they understand expression, tone of voice, and empathy in a way most humans wouldn't fully be able to comprehend. It's my thought the creatures are smarter than anyone gives them credit for.

She prances in place, then turns her head to give a loud snort into my chest.

She sniffles at my pockets, and I grin as she scents the sweet hard candy Miss June gave me days ago. I can think of no one I'd rather give the treat to.

I unwrap it, letting her soft muzzle take it from my fingers, and then she trots off into the trees toward Whitecastle.

“You might want to stay here for now, Sir Rey,” I say to break the silence after that little show I wasn't planning on giving the Shifters.

It was much too close to who I actually am. Around those I don't know... it's easier to don a mask and be someone else entirely. I can hide behind the mask until I know they are trustworthy, hiding those things that make me, me and could be used to harm.

Sir Rey gives me a look, then goes behind a clump of trees. The rest of the shifters take that as their cue.

They come back a few minutes later, most with dark circles under their eyes. The younger of the pack look ready to fall asleep standing up. The hard set pace hadn’t been easy on any of us, yet they followed without question. Which says more about the respect they hold for Sir Rey than anything about myself.

“What do you mean, stay here? Are you facing some unknown danger and leaving your pack here in safely?”

I almost chuckle. Almost. I settle for a smile. He knows me all too well, even if I haven’t seen him in ages. Then his wording clicks. My pack? I cock my head in genuine confusion. “I’ve got us a better mode of transportation; if, and I truly mean if, she’ll agree. And my pack?”

“She?” Sir Rey asks in confusion. “And of course we’re your pack. Whose else would we be?”

I hear a large, keening cry, and know it’s too late. “Just... don’t do anything. No matter what happens.” I give him a hard look, allowing a hint of the Alpha inside me I’ve kept squashed to rise. He meets me eye to eye, showing that he, too, is the Alpha I remember. But seeing I will not bend in this, he nods, taking a minuscule step back.

The Shifters turn wide eyes to what sounds like a massive creature knocking down trees and racing through the undergrowth like a Berserk in a garden.

“Don’t do... ?” Sir Rey starts before abruptly cutting off at another keening song.

I step out in front and brace myself. A large snuffling sound, and there she is. She gives another keening cry, racing the last mile to me, uncaring of the large trees that she is snapping like toothpicks.

She bombards me with sorrow and pain and how much she missed me and how angry she is at me for leaving and why didn’t I come back sooner because she had to take the boys back and was so worried I would return while she was gone and would've needed her help… you get the point.

She shoves me in the chest, toppling me before gently setting her head on me with a sigh. She clearly communicates she’s not letting me go anywhere.

I grunt, then give her head a hug. “I missed you too.” She gives a large huff and rolls her eyes.

When she finally stops sending me images of myself being killed in a thousand different ways, I give her a quick rundown of my delay.

At the end, she picks her head off me, gives me a long, empathetic look filled with pain, then licks me.

“Ewwww.” I wipe the monstrous sized saliva from my cheek and flick it back on her. She pulls back quicker than a snake and shakes her head, grunting at me.

She lays on me. Again. I crane my neck back to look at the shifters watching with wide, fear tinted gazes. A few shifted out of instinct, their clothing in tattered shreds around their feet.

“Help?” I plead.

Sir Rey looks back and forth between me and the purring dragon laying on my chest. “You got yourself into this one. No way am I getting between you and that dragon.”

She purrs a bit deeper and louder, giving Sir Reys a wink. His eyes bulge from his head enough that one might suspect his heart was galloping quicker than a horse racing from a bear.

Her contented sigh makes my heart happy, even though I hate that Jed and Barry had to go back to the Werecat village without knowing about where I was. I have a feeling they are terribly worried.

“I missed you, too. We need to think of a name for you. She-Dragon is not cutting it,” I say, patting her onyx scales with a smile.

The feathers on the top of her head bristle in intrigue, then settle back down as she snorts in amusement, covering me in dragon sized snot.

"Thanks for that," I say, my voice coated in a heavy dose of sarcasm.

She finally moves her gigantic head off me when I push. I sit cross-legged in front of her, thinking. “Grendel, Firebreath, Hazel?”

“You truly have no idea how to name something, do you?” the kind lady asks from behind me.

You should really get her name, Cynic comments.

I agree, but I’m not telling him that.

The laugh that reverberates through my mind says he already knows. Pesky thought reader.

Idiot.

If you loathe me so much, why stay with me?

I don’t have a choice.

I’m hurt. I thought you were beginning to like me.

Could I enjoy rolling in dragon manure? Could I appreciate the fine aroma or bask in the greasy—

Fine, fine, I cut him off, trying not to laugh. I get the point.