by Vivian Venus
He kissed her head and nodded. “We’re together now.”
A heavy feeling filled Crysta’s heart. She had reached the end of her journey and would be returning home with her father’s soul shard. But how could she and Kyp go on? She was still a lesser-dragon, and he was still a prince. Things were as they left it twelve years ago, except now they carried the responsibility of their age.
“What will happen between us now, Kyp?”
The question was one that he had already been through is mind, and the answer was quite obvious.
“We’re meant to be together, Crysta. That much is plain to me. Separated by years and millions of miles, the universe still brought us back together.”
She took his hand and rubbed his fingers, dipping them in the hot water and massaging each joint. Then she brought his hand to her mouth and kissed the back of it.
“You have nothing to worry about,” he said. “My parents will understand. I’ll make sure they understand.”
Though he said this, Kyp did feel a pang of uncertainty. Would his parents accept a lesser-dragon as his bride?
Then he realized that it didn’t matter. It never had, and it still didn’t – Crysta was his mate, and nothing would keep them apart. In the end, he was the crown price, and under his rule there would no longer be restrictions on the blood that could take the throne. If Crysta, a woman valiant enough to sacrifice her own happiness in order to fight for her family, was not worthy of being queen of the realm, then Kyp was ready to renounce his bloodline.
He held her close and kissed her neck, then her cheek, and then her lips. “You have nothing to worry about,” he whispered to her again.
After their bath, the two were surprised when the computer notified them it was already past the middle of the day cycle. “I still can’t get adjusted to living out in space,” Kyp said as he pulled on his robe. “Never could, you know. I need the light of the sun to keep me oriented.”
“I remember when you snuck me into the castle and we were almost caught because you kept the curtains drawn,” Crysta laughed.
“We had to shift and fly out of the window,” Kyp recalled. “I was worried that we would be spotted by the guards below.”
They were hungry and went to the kitchen to make a meal. Crysta retrieved a few of the synth-cubes and turned them into the mealy paste. “Sorry I don’t have anything better,” she said, eating a mouthful. “I’ve been hopping from planet to planet, no time to find real food.”
“It’s alright,” Kyp said. “It does the trick.” He hungrily finished his bowl and refilled it. “Tell me about what happened, Crysta.”
“What happened?”
“With the pirates.”
After a moment, she opened up a panel in the wall and took out two glasses, then placed them on the counter and touched a sensor and an amber liquid rose up from their bottoms.
“There’s one thing I do have,” she said, handing Kyp a glass. “Fire-brew. I got this in a trading port on the planet Halynsk.”
Kyp was surprised. “You travelled out that far?”
“I’ve been across the entire galaxy,” she said. She sipped the drink and cringed as it burned all the way down her throat and tingled her stomach. “Oof. That’s good. Or, nearly the entire galaxy at least.”
Kyp sipped his drink and coughed. “That is good,” he commented.
She nodded and sipped thoughtfully on the fire-brew. “I don’t know how the thieves knew that my father’s body had produced a ruby soul shard. I never found out. But they broke into my home and took it from the altar. I caught them in the act and chased them, and was able to get a look at their ship before they blasted off into space, and it gave my very little time to decide what to do. So the next day was when I left.”
Kyp remained silent, waiting for her to continue.
“It only took me a few days to track the thieves down to the port city of Zespher on our planet, but they had taken my father’s shard to a black market outpost in space and already pawned it off. I punished them for what they did, killing the leader, and turning the rest in to the local authorities.
“Then I left to try and catch the trail of the shard before it was too late. But it was already near impossible at that point. It took me a year of searching just to find out who the shard was sold to. After that, years of travel just following its path through the most terrible places in the galaxy.”
She tossed back the rest of the drink. Kyp finished his and handed the glass, and she refilled both of them. “And after that,” she continued, “I eventually found out the shard was in the hands of a certain space pirate, and that he had only just recently purchased it. It was the closest I had come to getting it back. So I tracked down the location of him and his gang, infiltrated their ranks, and then retrieved the shard. The last part happened just before we met. Then they came after me.”
Kyp shook his head in awe. “Incredible. You’re incredible. Though I wish I had been there to help you.”
Crysta smiled. “I thought about you all the time.”
“It would be a lie for me to say that I had not tried to move on,” Kyp told her. “Eventually, I had to give up that part of myself in order to stay sane.”
“I understand, and I don’t blame you. Not at all.”
“I had given up on the existence of true love, but now I know that it is real. I feel it now, as strongly as I did back then. I thought its absence meant that it was just a fleeting thing of a naïve youth, but now I know it’s something I can only share with you.”
They took each other's hands and kissed. It was a slow kiss, calm but passionate as they took the time to savor each other's touch. Then they hugged each other close and enjoyed the warmth they shared.
After finishing their drinks they went to the cockpit and checked over the system diagnostics and the status of the radiation storm.
“Imagine that,” Kyp said, grinning, “We’re almost out of it.”
“Strange to say I think I’ll miss it,” Crysta replied. “It gave us this time together.”
He laughed. “It did, didn’t it? The universe wanted us to be back together.”
When the last of the storm finally cleared, Crysta powered up the engines and slowly moved her ship to dock with Kyp’s, which was still floating in the vicinity.
“Hopefully she still works,” he said, half-jokingly as the airlock seal extended and joined to the side of his ship. He went back to his quarters, donned his armor and sword, and walked out the airlock where Crysta was waiting for him.
She reached her hand around his neck and kissed him. “I love you,” she said.
“And I love you too, forever,” he replied, and then tapped the door release. There was a hiss, and airlock opened. “I’ll see you back home.”
She nodded, but found herself growing teary-eyed. She hugged him tightly. “See you soon.”
Kyp returned to his ship and sealed the airlock behind him, then went to the cockpit. He said a silent prayer before hitting the button to activate the systems, and was relieved when everything powered on successfully. He looked out the viewport and saw Crysta sitting down in the cockpit of her ship, and he waved to her and then set in the coordinates for home.
Both their ships turned, their engines ignited, and they shot off into the depths of space.
CHAPTER SIX
Home.
Crysta’s ship descended into the atmosphere, and she saw the familiar shape of her home continent below. Above the sun glowed warm and bright, and next to it was the huge yellow form of the giant ringed gas planet ‘Elder Brother’ that always hung in the sky. As she came lower, the mass of green and brown terrain resolved into the landscape of Raspharion, and she saw the city in the distance. She passed by the Royal tower and wondered if Kyp had landed home yet, and then proceeded over the expanse of the city until she reached her district and began her descent towards her family home. She took a deep breath to try and control her racing heart.
The communicatio
n systems pinged, and a holographic display appeared with a familiar face.
“Crysta? By the ancestors, is that you?”
She grinned and wiped away the tears that were flowing down her cheeks as she saw her mother’s face. “It’s me, mother. I’m home. And I have father with me.”
Her mother covered her mouth in shock. “I’ll open the bay for you,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Just wait.”
Crysta took the ship down, the engines shaking the branches of the familiar fruit trees she used to climb as a little girl and kicking up a cloud of dust. Elderly neighbors peeked their heads out to see who was flying in, as few ever visited this area by ship anymore. They were shocked to see Crysta’s ship there, the vessel which had once belonged to her father and had been gone for twelve long years. A large hangar door in the ground opened up revealing the underground bay, and she carefully lowered the ship down inside.
She stood on the cargo bay ramp and lowered it, and laughed with joy when she saw her mother and younger sister standing down below. She couldn’t wait for the ramp to touch ground, so she jumped off the end and ran into the arms of her mother.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” her mother said.
“The last transmission we received from you was almost six months ago,” her sister Tylli said. “We thought you were…you were…” She burst into tears.
“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Crysta said as she hugged them both. “I’m home now.”
“Let me look at you,” her mother said, taking her face into her hands. “Oh, my sweet daughter. You haven’t aged one single day.”
Crysta laughed. “You haven’t either, mother.”
“She has more grey hairs,” her Tylli pointed out, wiping her eyes and sniffing a laugh.
They laughed. “And Tylli. You have changed quite a bit.”
“Well I hope so. I was only five when you left.” She grinned.
“You’re so beautiful and grown up now. I bet you have all the boys after you, huh?”
“Certainly not,” Tylli said. “They’re all afraid of me.”
“Tylli has taken up training for the army,” her mother explained.
“A girl training for the army? How is that possible?”
“There has been quite some changes since you’ve gone, Crysta,” her mother said. “Your father would definitely be shocked.”
Crysta smiled, and mother and daughter exchanged a look that was filled with emotion, and communicated more than words ever could. They hugged again. “Let me take you to him, mother,” she said.
The three of them went into the ship, and Crysta unlocked the wall safe. The container slid out, and she reached inside and lifted out the box containing her father’s soul shard. It glowed brightly, and she turned and respectfully handed it to her mother.
“You’re home now,” her mother whispered, and held it close to her.
Inside their home – a simple dwelling with rough stone walls, a stone tile floor and uneven windows that streamed in dusty circles of sunlight – they placed the shard on the memorial altar to her father where it had been taken from, and they bowed in respect. “Your father is surely proud of your bravery, Crysta,” her mother said, holding her hand. “Just as I am. Now come, let’s talk about your journey…”
She told them her story, but began it by telling them about Kyp, their love she had kept a secret. Her mother surprised her by telling her that she had always known about Kyp. “What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t know what my daughter was up to? No, I knew about your young prince.” She told them about how she and Kyp had met again in the last moments of her journey, and her mother nodded knowingly.
“You two are destined mates,” she said. “It’s true. Such a rare match should not be ignored.”
“Mother, Kyp is the crowned Prince of this nation. How could his parents accept me as their daughter? I’m no princess.”
“I cannot give you an answer to that question,” she said. “But the universe has kept you together so far. Trust in that.”
Kyp stepped down from his ship onto the floor of the hangar bay, and took in the smell of home. He looked outside the humongous hangar doors across the tower courtyard below and the city stretching beyond. Beyond that he could see the vast green sprawl of farmland, and all above it was the crisscross of spaceship traffic like the lifeblood of the city. It was good to be back on the planet again. A line of guards saluted him as he walked by and entered the castle.
“Kyp!” a voice called from behind him, and he spun around in surprise. Walking towards him was Rhys, his younger brother, followed by his wife Heather who held their baby son in her arms.
“Brother!” Kyp shouted, hugging him. “Heather! And my favorite nephew.”
“Where have you been?” Rhys asked. “When you didn’t return as scheduled we began to worry about you. Mother and father sent out a squadron of fighters to Duron to search for you.”
“Call them back,” Kyp said. “Mother and father always have a way of overreacting, don’t they?”
“You were out of contact for some time…” Rhys said.
Kyp laughed and slapped his brother’s shoulder. “My little brother, worrying where I am? Fatherhood has changed you some it seems. I’m home now. Where is mother and father, I have to speak urgently with them.”
“The throne room, as usual. What’s the news?”
“Your dear brother,” he said smiling over his shoulder as he walked briskly to the throne room, “Has found his mate.”
Rhys nearly choked. “Who are you, and what have you done to my brother?”
“That’s awesome news!” Heather said. “Who is she, Kyp?”
“You’ll meet her soon!” he called back to them as he rounded a corner.
His boots sounded on the stone floor with energy as he moved, and he threw open the door of the throne room and strode inside, beaming with happiness. Sunlight streamed in through the gigantic windows that lay behind the thrones, casting the room is a bright, radiant light. The king and queen stood. “Kyp!” the king boomed, “We’ve been worried!”
“Where have you been, son?”
“Mother, father,” he came up to them and took both their hands. “Please sit down. I need to tell you something, a very long story that might be shocking to you, but I need to start it with this. Will you permit me to ask your permission to marry my chosen mate?”
The king and queen looked at each other in shock. “C-chosen mate? Where have been?”
“Her name is Crysta Gage. Her father was a soldier in the Royal army. And I’ve been in love with her for over twelve years…”
Kyp told the story to his parents of how they first met years ago soon after he had completed his rite of passage. He regaled them of her story of honor, and of how he had given up on love and found it again because of her, and by the end of it all he was striding happily to his ship with a legion of ceremonial guard in tow.
Crysta heard the commotion from out in the streets, and a neighbor knocked on their front door to tell them that a “royal procession was in the neighborhood.” Her heart did a flip, and her mother and sister looked at her with wide eyes. “He’s here,” she said softly, her voice filled with excitement.
“Go to him!” her mother urged.
She ran to the front door and opened it, and was greeted by the surprised face of Kyp, his fist up and about to knock on the door.
“Hello,” she grinned.
“My love,” he answered.
She jumped into his arms and kissed him, and there was a murmur of awe from the crowd that had gathered.
Kyp came inside and greeted Crysta’s mother and sister, and they invited him to sit down at the dining table. Before he did, he stopped by the altar and paid respects to her father’s soul shard.
“I have news for all of you,” he said. “My parents, the king and queen, have approved that Crysta and I be mates.”
Cyrsta’s mouth dropped open in shock. “I don’t belie
ve it.”
“I told them of our love, and your exploits. Crysta, my father said that you have more than proved your worth with what you have done. And what's more…they would like your mother and sister to move into the royal castle.”
Her mother looked like she was about to faint.
“And your father’s shard will be given a place of honor and safe-keeping in the royal military tomb,” he smiled. “As fit for a member of the family.”
Crysta hugged Kyp and kissed him. “I love you,” she cried.
“I love you too,” he told her, holding her close. “I’ll love you forever, Crysta, my mate.”