literature

Acta Est Fabula ~6~ [Dragon!Rome x Reader]

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It took some time for me to fall asleep despite my utter exhaustion. After I had smacked him about a dozen times for being naked, Romulus had shifted back to his dragon form, informing me that he needed rest to replenish his energy. The night had come more quickly than I had expected and the small fire was now only glowing bits of coal in the middle of an otherwise completely dark meadow, but I assumed that if anything dangerous approached that Romulus would sense them and wake up in time.

At least, I hoped.

The night was calm and quiet, save for the chirping of crickets hidden within the wildflowers and grass. Occasionally an owl hooted from somewhere far away, assumably the forest that gave way to the meadow. I stared up at the glittering night sky for longer than I could really say, reflecting on everything yet again.

The days were muddled since my meeting with the dragon who claimed I was the one to save Aegis from impending doom. Travelling through different time zones so quickly had left my brain somewhat addled, and at best I had to say that about five days had passed since that moment on the mountain. So much had transpired and, in reality, it felt like I had been doing this all my life.

A chill passed through my body and I shivered. The night was colder than I was used to, being that I was outside without so much as a blanket. I didn’t dare attempt to stoke the fire at all for fear of something dangerous spotting the flames from a mile away.

I glanced over at the sleeping hulk of dragon only two feet away from me. Romulus emanated a pulsing warmth much like the dragoi when it was active; which, at the moment, it was currently just a dull piece of crystal against my breast. I could not resist the urge to inch closer to him, if only to stay a bit warmer.

It wasn’t until my eyes were closed and I was halfway to the land of dreams that I realized I had somehow curled up right against him where his neck tucked into his foreleg, the deep rumble of his steady breathing a comfort.

I knew my cheeks flushed at the fact that we were so close. But for once, I didn’t care, really—I just wanted to sleep. I was so damn tired and Romulus was so damn warm and it was just so damn easy to close my eyes and…





I’m dreaming, aren’t I?

It was that day. The day that I wanted to forget because there was blood everywhere and screams and I couldn’t breathe and I just wanted it to stop. But it didn’t. And all I could do was watch.

I was eight again. It was ten years ago. Mother and Father had shoved me under the bed as soon as they had heard the sound of someone breaking through the door of our small hut and my throat was tight and my skin felt prickly and hot as I struggled to stay silent.

“I finally found you,” a male voice sneered in an arrogant hiss. “You damned lizards! You thought you could hide from the Nameless?!”

“Whatever gave you idiots that notion?” Mother laughed in her fun-loving, aloof, haughty tone that I knew so well. “We never hid. You just could never find us!”

“Yes,” Father grumbled, his voice calm and collected as usual. “I can’t say I am shocked it took you so long. We figured that it would, given your past.”

“SHUT UP!” the intruder roared and I flinched under the bed, shivering and biting my lip to keep from crying out. The raspy sound of a sword being drawn made me flinch and Mother’s laugh broke through the tense atmosphere.

“Really? A sword? How...unawesome.” A deep chuckle came from Mother’s voice. “Don’t you know fire melts steel?”

“Silence, worms!” the man thundered. “I’ll have your heads for all that you’ve done to the human race!”

“We have done nothing.” Father spoke clearly, voice strong and bold. “It is your kind that thought us oppressors. You wanted our magic for your own, so you declared us monsters from keeping it from you. And it was for your own good; humans and dragoi are not a good combination. The flames in your hearts and not strong enough to control the ones that burn in our own. The Nameless have known this since the dawn of human existence and yet you continue to insist otherwise. How stupid,” he spat the word out in disgust, “must you be to not realize that dragonkind has wanted nothing but for you to be safe and happy, and us keeping our dragoi from you is so you do not set Aegis on fire with the heat of our magic?”

Something inside me stirred from Father’s words. I knew of this. Yes, I did—my parents had told me of the creation of mankind and Aegis from the dragons’ flames. But what did this have to do with anything?

“You’ve hidden away for so many centuries in fear of us,” the intruder growled, and I could hear steps getting closer to the bedroom where I was hidden. “so you are guilty of the crime all of dragonkind has committed! I care not what your reasons are. I am here to eliminate you on behalf of the Nameless and to search for the Scion after I do so.”

“You humans truly have such a narrow minded view of the world around you,” Mother sighed, but I could detect the slightest hint of unease in her voice. “We have been here so we did not have to deal with the unawesomeness of war. The war that killed so many of our brethren and our children—you humans whom we created and taught and loved only to have their greed stab us in the back. We have been here to deal with our heavy hearts, you fool. Not because we were afraid of you.”

I wanted to know what was going on.

What Mother and Father were talking about.

Slowly, carefully, I inched my way from under the bed and stood up, freezing when the wooden floor creaked loudly beneath my feet.

The silence that settled in the house was penetrable.

And then there was the sound of the intruder laughing, a cold and evil chuckle that chilled me to my bones.

“There’s a young worm here for me to kill, isn’t there?” he cackled, and I shivered in place in the bedroom. Mother and Father and he were in the room right next to it. “How positively revolting! And a wonderful...surprise!”

The next thing I knew there was a blade at my throat and a hooded figure in front of me, shoulders shaking with laughter. “A disgusting little creature you are,” he hissed as a sharp pain dug into my skin, and I whimpered. “Hiding in our form like the cowardly, pathetic worms you are!”

The blade sliced deeper and I felt blood well up and slowly roll down my skin in hot little beads. Heat started to well up within me, like a volcano threatening to erupt, and I couldn’t scream as my throat constricted and my heart began to beat three times faster.

“I think I’ll keep your body as a prize,” the hooded man whispered in a sickeningly gleeful voice. “That ugly little face of yours would love lovely above my fireplace, little dragon—”

Something within me snapped and suddenly there was blood everywhere and the man was screaming and I tasted copper in my mouth and smelled sulfur in the air.

“(NAME)!” I heard Mother shriek with fury as everything began to happen too fast. My teeth sunk into something soft and fleshy and my entire body burned, but in a good way. In a way that I never wanted it to stop. There was another scream and I bit down harder, growling and shaking my head to and fro like a wolf with a leg of deer. The taste was awful and the scent of sulfur grew stronger but I didn’t care. As long as the fire in my veins lasted, I would continue doing this.

That is, until a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and wrenched me backwards and the red haze disappeared almost instantly. Someone was saying my name—Father, perhaps—but all I could focus on was the blood that covered my hands with tendrils of smoke wafting from it and the crimson-stained black body slumped on the floor, a sword resting beside him with blood on the blade that steamed just like my hands.

I stared.

“...w...what happened…?” I finally managed to whisper, looking up at Father. Dark green eyes glittering with terror and soft brown hair in a ponytail as he held me tightly, shaking and whispering so softly I couldn’t hear his words.

I looked over at Mother. Reddish-purple eyes sharing the same emotion as Father’s and bright white hair spilling over her shoulders like a waterfall, fists clenched at her sides as she stared at me.

“...oh, (name),” Mother finally whispered. “Forgive us, sweet one…”

“Julchen,” Father murmured as he finally pulled away from me, “it’s time. Her dragoi has manifested. We can’t let it grow until he finds her.”

“I know, Daniel,” Mother nodded solemnly as she knelt down and looked me in the eyes, heterochromatic versus (e/c). “(Name), dear? You will not remember this until it is time, but your father and I are dragons. As are you. A dragon who has lived as a human girl until now, and who will continue until he finds you.”

Father placed his hands on my shoulder, face drawn and eyes shadowed. “You are the first dragon to be born after the war. Your mother and I did not think it possible, but here you are. Our precious treasure.”

They smiled sadly as my mind reeled in disbelief, shock stealing my voice. “The Nameless are those humans who believe dragonkind cruel, and that we abandoned them. But the truth is…” Mother sighed. “We simply went to where they would not find us. Because there is nothing more painful than a child hating its parent, and we could not bear that agony.”

They looked at me with those same haunted eyes, as if begging me to understand as Father gestured to the corpse on the ground and the blood covering me. “Your dragoi has awakened because that man tried to kill you. In return, you killed him. You are not a monster, (name). You are a dragon. And dragons protect themselves no matter what, because we are the one thing that keeps this world in balance. You,” he kissed my forehead, and his lips burned like fire. “are the last hope Aegis has, sweet one. Your mother and I must go now.”

“W-why?” I whispered, shaking as the blood on my hands burned and the sulfur smell lingered. As if it was coming from the crimson liquid that marred my skin.

“Because, (name),” Mother answered slowly, “we are going to use the rest of our dragoi to alter your memory so that you will only know the truth when it is time. And when it is time, you will find yourself with the only one in this world who you can trust with your entire being, my love.”

“W-wait, no!” I stammered, shaking my head. “N-No, you can’t...I-I’m not...w-we’re...no! N-No! Don’t…!”

“These are the words you must speak when it is time for your dragoi to make itself known once more,” Father whispered as he and Mother both took my hands, their bodies pressing against mine in a protective manner.

Acta est fabula.

The last thing I thought of before everything around me began to disappear was, The play is over.

And that was when I woke up screaming, strong arms crushing me against an equally strong chest as Romulus’s voice frantically shouted, “(N-name), calm down! It was just a dream, ragazza, just a dream! S-Shhh, hush now, I am here…!”

I couldn’t breathe for one moment and it terrified me as I gasped for air, shaking and twisting in his human form’s arms. Thank the gods he had clothes on this time—I supposed he had figured that it wouldn’t be in the best of his intentions if I awoke in his arms while he was naked. It took me about a minute to catch my breath and stop trying to wrestle my way out of his arms, and by the time I had settled down enough to speak I whispered, “I was never human this whole time, and that’s why the dragoi responses to me the way it does...because it’s amplified by my own.”

Romulus merely stared at me with burning golden eyes, confusion riddled into his face. “(Name)? What are you talking about?”

I let out a painful sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob as I pushed myself away from him, shaking my head. “I’m a goddamn dragon, Romulus. My parents weren’t murdered by bandits. I killed a Nameless because my dragoi emerged and they used their own to give me false memories until I met you and you gave me the dragoi of the elders. I’m not human, Romulus, and neither were my parents. They were dragons. I’m a dragon. That’s why everything has happened like it has.”

It was still night, but judging by the way the moon looked faded as it hung in the sky, it was almost time for dawn to arrive. My fingers found the smooth surface of the dragoi vessel by instinct and I grasped it tightly, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

Acta est fabula.

The play is over.

It made sense now. The voices I had heard the day I had met Romulus had been my parents’ voices, and every other time they had spoke through the prism. Somehow they had found a way to mingle with the elder dragons' dragoi, and a mixture of emotions bubbled up inside my chest. Anger, relief, joy, sorrow, betrayal...so many feelings that I could barely discern. But one thing was certain.

The play was indeed over.

I was done pretending to be human.

Acta est fabula,” I whispered softly, still grasping the dragoi prism.

My world exploded in a flash of white-hot light and my entire body began to burn hotter than ever—even hotter than when I had murdered that Nameless agent or when I’d attacked Vladimir. I was hotter than the sun, than the magma boiling beneath the crust of the earth, and the heat felt so gods-be-damned good that I wanted it to last forever. My skin stretched and stretched and stretched, bones cracking and physique shifting to something that was entirely foreign yet so utterly familiar that the intense pain which coursed through my body felt completely right and justified.

A roar shook my entire frame and when I opened my eyes, the world was so much more different than before.

Color exploded before me in vibrant bursts and I could taste a hundred different scents on my tongue; the pollen in the air, the rabbits a couple feet away in a burrow beneath the ground, the stream somewhere in the forest behind us, a flock of sparrows nestled safely in a tree as they slept the night away, and something so strong and enticing I nearly groaned.

It was then that I realized that my eyes were about ten feet from the ground and I was staring directly down at two scaly legs with deadly-looking claws.

I wasn’t scared. I felt like I had finally found home.

Two large wings unfurled from my back and I twisted my serpentine neck around to gaze at my true body—my dragon body. Unlike Romulus, who was bronze and gold and all the hues in between, my scales were like the silver sheen of moonlight. With each subtle movement a soft shimmer ran down every inch of my body, and my tail swished along the ground. A grumble rose up in my throat as I turned my head to Romulus who stood on the ground and gazed up at me in awe, mouth gaping and golden eyes wide.

“...well. Now I know how you feel when it’s reversed, bella,” he choked out as he stared at me.

The sorry attempt at humor merely made me snort as I snaked my head up to look at the sky, where night was quickly making way for the morning. It was then that I knew why I had felt so at peace with Romulus; he had been the he my parents had spoke about, and I was always a dragon. It explained why everything came so easily to me. Why I accepted it without a fight and immediately distrusted Vladimir and Nikolai.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t so utterly angry that I hadn’t realized this before or that my parents had kept it from me my whole life until they had repressed my memories.

“(Name),” Romulus’s voice snapped me away from my thoughts and I glanced down at him, eyes narrowed. “May I ask one question?”

“What?” The gravelly tone of my voice shocked me somewhat—I didn’t sound like me, yet I did. It was so confusing but felt so right, even though it was as if two halves of me were at odds with one another.

“Who...were your parents?”

“...my father’s name was Daniel. My mother’s name was Julchen. But then again,” I couldn’t help but keep a bitter tone to my response, “those probably were just the human names they used while they deceived me for my whole life.”

The stricken look on Romulus’s face said it all.

He had known my parents. He had to.

No one looks like that unless they found out someone close to them was now dead.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The fire beneath my scales was screaming at me; my wings were eager to do what they should have been able to do for eighteen years and the sky sang to me in the sweetest voice I’d ever heard. But my claws stayed rooted in the ground as I took another whiff of the air around me and I stiffened when I realized that the enticing aroma was wafting from Romulus, who looked as if he wanted to lunge forward and hold me down. I blinked rapidly as utter confusion filled my mind but quickly dispelled it with a shake of the head, muscles tensing and wings taking a few experimental flaps.

I was a dragon, by the gods, and I damned well deserved to fly at last.

It was my birthright.

With a defying roar I let instincts take over, my wings responding to the seductive melody of the wind and before I knew it I was soaring in the growing light of dawn, exhilaration pumping through my veins.

This was a hundred times better than being on Romulus’s back as he flew.

Romulus…

Another roar caught my attention and I turned my neck around to see a bronze-colored flash in the weak sunlight, Romulus’s wings pumping up and down with centuries of strength.

Everything inside me just wanted to get away from him for only a day, if only to ignore that wondrous, exquisite scent that he radiated from every inch of his body. My dragon instincts completely took over then and whatever was left of my “human” self settled back and enjoyed the ride, not giving a care in the world.

I flew as fast as the sky allowed and did not look back.
Series folder here: prussianpersephone.deviantart.…

Took me more than a month, but here you go. The real truth behind everything.

The next chapter's gonna be fun. Whenever I get around to it, that is. School and my job and life are being bitches.

Good? Bad? I dunno. I'm just glad I got it written.

Yep. Fem!Prussia and Male!Hungary are the parents of the reader. And she's actually been a dragon this whole time.

Betcha none of you could have seen that coming.

This is starting to become Mary Sue-ish, isn't it?

Ah, well. I'll resolve that later when shit goes down.

Do me a favor and comment, k? K.
© 2013 - 2024 lupus-astra
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WHAT?!? MY PARENTS ARE NYO PRUSSIA AND NYO HUNGARY!!!