Acta Est Fabula ~1~ [Dragon!Rome x Reader]

I tend not to despise many things.

In fact, I would call myself extremely accepting of almost every incident that happens to pass through my life. Yes, I may be living on the edge of a village that swims in poverty; and yes, I am alone due to the fact that my parents were killed long ago in a bandit raid in our old village. Every day may be redundant and food is at times a problem, but I’m still alive. That alone is enough to make me keep my spirits high, correct? Even though there are times when the villagers can be utter ruffians and think me a witch or something equally as horrendous due to the fact that I’m good with cats and herbs.

But that doesn’t make me a pessimist.

At least, it didn’t until four hours ago.

“I swear, I’ll rip through these ropes and use them to suffocate you all!” I screeched as I struggled against said binds, teeth grinding against each other. “How dare you treat me like a common criminal?!”

“Silence, witch!” a man barked. He was ‘head of the village security,’ or some other nonsense. Apparently that gave him reason to tie me up against my will to a wooden post, haul me into a cart, and force three more men to push the cart up the mountain while most of the village dallied behind. “Better you than any of our wives or daughters to be fed to the beast!”

And just how did I manage to get into this mess?

Well, it is quite a long story (I confess, perhaps not so tedious after all) but I shall condense it for you.

Apparently, a dragon had settled in the mountains surrounding our humble village. Of course, as the legends say, dragons adore virgin sacrifices. Instead of sending up one of their own, the villagers had conspired against me and chose yours truly in their place. Their justification, of course, had been “You’re a witch!”

To which I had replied with, “I am not a witch; I merely know how to make poultices and the like for fevers and stomach aches! It’s not my fault stray cats are enticed by the catnip in my garden!”

The brutes would have none of it, and they all chose to ignore the fact that my concoctions had healed many an ailing body over the course of the last six years.

I would rather not enclose how they determined whether I was a virgin or not.

“This is how you repay me?” I hissed, the skin around my wrists already chafing from the crude ropes they had tied me down with. “By tying me up and tossing me to some creature that lives only in fantasies?” My feet were bare, being that they had dragged me out of my house by my hair, and I was certain the rough surface of the cart had given them a splinter or two. The clamor behind me was deafening, the villagers yelling and shouting for “the witch” to be sacrificed and whatnot. I was certain I looked like a banshee with my wild (h/c) hair and dirtied face, but I refused to give in to fear.

After all, dragons were only myths, correct?

“They’re not fantasies, girl,” the head bully of the entire charade smirked, nodding his head to the mountain top. “See?”

When I averted my (e/c) eyes from his ugly mug to where he was pointing, I saw a dark fog rising from somewhere among the crags and cliffs. The wheels of the cart ran over a rock, and my body jostled uncomfortably, but the men continued to push forward, deeper into the mountains. The air was cool, the wind was calm, yet the entire atmosphere crackled with tension. Over the pleasant scent of pine trees and summer, my senses detected just the barest hint of...smoke?

Just a coincidence...dragons do not exist!

When I didn’t answer, the man—if I recalled correctly, his name was Benjamin—cackled loudly and unsheathed a dagger, pointing it in my direction. Just a show of ‘power,’ I presumed. “All right, men, we leave the witch here! I’m sure she’ll be a delicious snack for the dragon, and the damned beast will leave our village alone before it even thinks of attacking us.”

I grunted when they carelessly dropped the cart, causing it to hit the ground with a jolt, and I angled my head to gaze around the crowd that was staring at me. So many people I had helped; so many people who had aided me in return...and yet the mere thought of a dragon living in their midst had forced them to turn on me in less than a day. The fact that I was only eighteen years old and a girl who didn’t exactly lift logs for a living added up to make it so I had been unable to fight back as well as I had wished to.

I had always been an accepting soul.

After this, I would be rethinking every act of kindness I ever gave out, thanks to these bastards.

When they began to disperse, a moment of panic fluttered up in my chest, and I winced as the hysteria got the better of me. “W-wait, aren’t you going to remain here to make sure the dragon eats me?”

Dammit, don’t let them think you actually believe such nonsense! You can escape once they leave—just use your teeth to chew through the ropes! Like an animal!

Benjamin spun around, opening his mouth to respond with what would have most likely been a snide retort, but he was cut off by something.

A roar.

It was a sound like nothing I had ever heard, as if the heavens themselves were ripping apart. It was deafening. It was primal. It was terrifying.

It shook the entire ground, making small pebbles bounce up like a toy ball. The boughs of trees bent, and suddenly a large black shape appeared out of nowhere and took to the sky high above the mountain top.

“D-d-d-dra—” Benjamin stammered, his filmy eyes wide in terror as he gazed up at the shape that was quickly ascending towards us. In less than a minute, he and the remaining villagers had scattered, their legs taking them faster than ever before as they left me alone to be devoured by a creature of legend.

Well, I can think of better ways to die.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my skin clammy with anxiety and body shaking. The ground shook again, as if something very gargantuan and heavy had fallen down, this time enough for the damn cart to topple sideways and I yelped as the action left me in a very unflattering angle with my face pressed into the dry dirt.

Hot breath fanned against my back, and a smell like a campfire washed over me.

When an object that I could only describe as a claw curled along my backside and flipped me around while simultaneously ripping through my binds, I couldn’t help it.

I screamed.

“Don’t you dare touch me, foul beast!” I screeched, immediately hopping up (much to my discomfort, as the fact that I’d been tied up for four hours had done no good to my balance) and staring at the form of my undoing.

And instantaneously, my mouth dropped in shock.

“...well. That’s certainly a dragon.”

And a dragon it was.

It was big. Bigger than my shoddy cottage, anyway. Bigger than two of them put together. Its scales were a dark bronze, almost like the color of well-polished copper, and they glinted in the sun. Its wings were tucked neatly against its side, and when I peered closely, I could see veins shooting through the leathery appendages. Its limbs were long and powerful looking, with sharp, disastrous claws, and its tail looked as if it would be able to bring down a mountain. Muscles bunched beneath its scales, obviously powerful and robust, and it was a sobering thought as to how it could have accumulated such strength.

Its head was almost regal, like a serpentine god, and it gazed down at me with golden eyes that I could have sworn glittered with amusement.

There was a moment of silence between the two of us, and somehow my lips managed to move in the correct speaking manners to stammer out, “Y-You’re big.”

Because when you’re about to be eaten by a dragon, that’s the most intelligent thing you can say.

Instead of opening its jaws and spewing hellfire at me to roast me up, the dragon merely reared back its head and let out a noise that could only be a roaring laugh, its sides shaking with mirth.

“Why yes I am, human girl,” it chuckled out in a deep, almost sensuous voice that made my face feel flushed for some odd reason. It held some sort of accent to it, one I could not place. It was one I had never heard of, that much was certain.

The dragon swished his tail—for by that voice, it was most certainly a he—and peered down at me. “And you are quite...small.”

When the only response I could give was a stare, the dragon made a facial expression that was almost a smirk, and suddenly his wings were extending out, making him seem twice as big. “Well, this is no place to talk,” the beast chimed casually, eying the abandoned cart with distaste. “I’d much prefer a more homier environment, don’t you?”

And then the dragon’s claws shot out and grabbed me, and I was in the air, dangling from its grasp.

“O-Oh my God—” my scream was lost in the howling wind as the dragon arose like a bird of prey, its wings moving up and down in powerful strokes.

“Do not be so afraid, little one,” the dragon sang over the wind, its grasp on me tightening ever so slightly. Almost as if it was determined to keep me from falling—though I imagined it was only so I wouldn’t be squashed and dinner would be lost. “The sky is my cradle! I shall not let you fall, human.”

Gods be damned, that voice was pure magic.

If there had ever been something in the legends that spoke of dragons having such fantastic voices, I had certainly missed it.

My heart lept from my throat and a sense of nausea overwhelmed me as the mountain top came into sight. I had to be leagues above the ground—there were clouds around us! There was a flat outcrop jutting from the mountainside, large enough for a dragon to land. Said outcrop was accompanied by an expansive opening in the craggy side, a cave of some sort. Most likely it was the dragon’s lair.

All thoughts flew from my head as the rocky terrain practically met my face; yet, at the last second, the dragon lifted the...paw...he was using to hold me so that I was still slightly suspended and therefore rescued from a painful meeting with the ground. The dragon tucked his wings against his sides and gently set me down, and despite every instinct in me screaming to run, I just stood there, knees shaking, and stared at the beast with uncertain (e/c) eyes.

“...a-aren’t you going to roast me or something?” I asked cautiously when the dragon began to lumber into the dim cavern, his body disappearing somewhat into the dark.

“Hm? Why would you think that?” He turned his large head and gave me a toothy grin, allowing me take a peek at his fangs, which were as long as my elbows.

“B...because...” the words were stuck in my throat, and I knew I was on the verge of hysteria.

“I believe we got started off on the wrong claw,” the dragon suddenly stretched his paw forward and yanked me into the cavern, his deep bass echoing throughout the spacious area. Instead of hoards of treasure, as I would have expected, the cave consisted of what appeared to be a few piles of clothes and weapons, enough to be considered traveling supplies for a man.

Most likely his last victim, I supposed.

The bronze serpentine beast’s sonorous voice wrenched me from my thoughts. “You see, I have no intention of eating pretty girl such as you. In fact, I do not eat humans at all. They can be so...stringy.” I paled at the sentence, and he let out another deep chuckle that resonated in my chest cavity. “Just a little joke, bella.”

Bella? What does that mean? He’s obviously from somewhere far away, especially with that accent of his...maybe that word is from his original tongue?

When I failed to acknowledge the joke or even speak, the dragon let out a heavy sigh and gave me an apologetic look, shaking his head. “Please, ragazza, don’t fear me. I promise I won’t hurt you. You see, I’ve been searching for you for quite some time. My name is...Romulus; at least, that is what I am called in your tongue.”

At last, I found my voice again, sheer confusion shooting up and down my legs like a cruel parody of adrenaline at the dragon’s words. “You’ve been...l-looking for me? Wh-what? I don’t...” In my uneasiness I could not help but drag my fingers through my knotted (h/c) hair, (e/c) eyes darting from the dragon, to the cave opening, and then back to the dragon.

He (I refused to think of him as “Romulus” at the moment) nodded and lowered his scaly face down towards mine, much to my discomfort. “Sí, (name). I have been looking for you.”

I didn’t even have the chance to mentally process the absurdity of how this dragon knew my name before suddenly his golden eyes held my own (e/c) ones in place, and a hypnotic voice whispered in my mind, “For you are she whom the prophecies spoke of many millennia ago—the human girl who shall restore dragonkind to their rightful place in this world of dying magic.”

An explosion of pain bloomed behind my eyes and slowly coursed throughout every nerve of my body. I pitched forward, knowing the ground would embrace me, and a strange sense of peace washed over my mind as unconsciousness took hold and the voice spoke three more words.

“Acta...est...fabula.”

Everything went black.