They would be here any second, and Zara was terrified.
The plan was for Zara to approach them alone. Then she would introduce Gilgamar. Hopefully making for a smooth transition into a negotiation. In the case of success Gilgamar would continue to hold onto Zara as Ruther returns to the kingdom and arranges a meeting with them. In case of an ambush, Gilgamar has set up some contingency plans. She was so nervous about the whole thing, she couldn't see Ruther being reasonable, but when faced with the same reality she had who knows what could happen.
One contingency was she was wearing some enchanted chainmail under her warm coat. She had found it in the treasure room and Gilgamar had decided it was worthwhile to wear it. She tossed her wedding dress aside long ago, throwing her old life away.
She was at the front gate, and a great sound was created as the massive chains started to lower the gate, it was almost time. She took a deep breath. She had a bell on her that Gilgamar enchanted it and made so that he could know whenever the bell was rung.
Once the gate was still she stepped onto it walking to the front. She heard the approaching steps of the party and rung the bell in response. she saw two fire tendrils appear from behind her and made a small fire wall that she could still see over but crossing it was obviously a bad idea.
The search party finally appeared in the distance, she counted 5 people, Ruther being the one in the front easily identified by his unique clothes and royal beast. The other 4 members looked like either guards or scouts. With 10 people unaccounted for she sensed something dangerous was up their sleeves? Why would they need to ambush the Dragon? Did they assume someone else had perpetrated the attack? Questions that would hopefully be answered soon.
"Zara, how nice it is to see your beautiful face" Ruther said in the distance, his voice instantly filled her body with a repulsive shock, but she had to push it away so she could bear to talk with this bastard. Zara subtly rang the bell and the fire wall erupted up higher into a blazing inferno.
"STAY WHERE YOU ARE," Zara shouted and the party stopped just before the fire wall which shrunk back down, so they could talk.
"What's the meaning of this?” Ruther said with a very serious face, obviously realizing something was very amiss.
"The dragon wants to talk." Zara said. Ruther laughed. This was not off to a good start.
"What do you mean the dragon wants to talk?" Ruther said
"He wants to talk to the king and queen, he wants to bring peace and cooperate with the humans. He wants the dragons and the humans to work together." Zara said. Ruther had a befuddled look on his face.
"What nonsense are you spouting? The humans cannot work with such beasts, The king and queen don't have time to deal with such foolish requests." Ruther said. Whose face had suddenly changed when he realized something. "Ahh I see, the dragon tricked you, I didn't know you were so gullible" The irony hit Zara like a brick. she was fuming.
“You are the one who has been lied to! Our whole lives we have been given an alternative version of history, one with holes, one made to make us hate. This could be our only chance to forge a new alliance with those, who have hated us for so long, This could bring about a sense of prosperity to the land, you could be the one remembered by history," she said, with as much charisma as she could. Ruther's face went from puzzled to a slightly sad.
"You may be right," Ruther said and with a slight smile he continued. "but, I do want to be remembered by history. Let me see this dragon. I want to see it, before I make any impulsive decisions" This was going so much better then she had expected but she sensed that Ruther wasn't convinced by her, She rang her bell once more. For a moment nothing happened. Then Gilgamar walked from deep within the castle and stopped right before Zara.
"I hope you choose to be on the right side of history," Gilgmar said with a booming voice.
Ruther's face lit up when he saw the dragon and he spoke.
"I will be, I can assure you of that. What is it dragon that you want to do."
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"I want to bring about peace and unify the nations of Anvileria, we are better as a whole, rather than the fractured state we find ourselves in." Gilgmar said he was holding a much more assertive and confident stance.
"A noble goal indeed, what do you intend to offer the king and queen to help convince them? You must know that going to them with only flowery words would be an unwise decision" Ruther said.
"When the nations are unified they will be able to get magic from legal pursuits and will be able to advance their nation further than ever before, If it is material goods you seek, I can offer you some of that, but I would like to tell that to the king and queen themselves." Gilgamar said.
"That does sound convincing...hmmm...but I do have one more question" Ruther said.
"How hard was it to brainwash Zara?" he said. Then with a snap of his fingers, everything went to hell.
She heard a gunshot and felt a huge force knock her back. A bullet had struck her in the chest, the armor she wore activated and took the kinetic force of the bullet and spread it around, shoving her back onto the ground. she scrambled to get behind Gilgamars leg and she slammed the button, an Alarm started blaring.
Gligamar thrusted his wings forward, and projected a huge wall of fire in front of them. Then a sound of something piercing flesh rang through the air and Gilgamar screamed in pain. This was bad, she had told him that they would be more cunning than aggressive. They didn’t have any weapons on them that could hurt dragons or so she thought. They had to escape. Zara rang the bell one last time signaling to Gilgamar that there was nothing they could do and they had to retreat away from the castle. If she retreated into the castle they knew it was just a matter of time before they besieged the castle. If she instead fled away from the castle they may pursue us instead of besieging the castle. Giving the castle time to engage it’s full lockdown measure.
A hand made of aesir grabbed Zara and pulled her, The force of the pull was so intense, that she almost vomited. The hand dropped her off on the dragons back. She held on for dear life. Gilganar jumped straight up and a fiery explosion was heard as they flew upwards. Zara was unable to see anything as her eyes were forced shut from the impact of the wind and fear of being airborne. She heard the flapping of wings and felt the air blowing past her unsure of which direction. She heard the sound of gunshots, and of something large. Eventually all that faded into the background. Only the sound of the wind thrusting past her face and the flapping of Gilgamar's wings remained.
***
She wasn't sure how long she’d been holding on. Every second holding on for dear life felt like an actual eternity, eventually though the wind stopped assaulting her and calmed down. braving opening her eyes, she saw that Gilgamar was gliding to the ground, A fire tendril appeared Just next to her and a small mouth formed and started to speak with Gilgamar's voice.
"I'm not going to be able to land gracefully, brace yourself." A few moments later the continuous motion of the dragon suddenly stopped, the kinetic jerk making a huge impact on Zara shaking her up. Then everything was still, they remained like that for sometime recovering both physically and mentally. Eventually Zara stood up, with great effort, and started to walk on Gilgamar to get to the ground by climbing down his tail.
Had she really not understood Ruther, She knew he was ruthless but wasn't expecting her to shoot her. All of this was so overwhelming, the betrayal of someone that was supposed to marry her hurt even if she didn’t want to marry him. Her hopes of unifying the races were struck today, and it almost felt like a killing blow on her dreams.
Eventually she got to the ground and walked around the still body of Gilgamar and reached his head, his eyes were open and he was breathing.
"I'm sorry," Gilgamar said. "I thought I could convince them, I thought that if they were confronted with the facts that they would listen to me, it appears that I was wrong"
"DON'T BE SORRY," Zara shouted. “This is my fault, I should’ve anticipated an assault.” She paused, gritting her teeth. She was so angry, but she had to focus on what happened next. "There is still hope, we can still accomplish our goal" She wanted to turn her life around, she wanted to make a difference and by god was she going to do that.
"Where do we begin?" said Gilgamar. He had a point. What could they, a dragon and human princess, do to change anyone's minds. Looking at her ring she suddenly had an idea.
"Hey can you channel some magic into my ring I want to see where we are." A small fire tendril got close to Zara and turned blue at the tip, indicating that it was emanating raw magic. Zara activated the ring and a display of lights and energy emanated from the ring. Showcasing not just a map of the world but also where they were on it. A bright red dot lit up on the yellow projection of the map and showed them where they were.
They were outside of Zaramon, The capital city Gurngam was actually on the eastern part of the nation, and Castle Anachro was even more east than that. And while Gilgmar traveled in all sorts of directions to evade the search party, he trended in a southeast direction. She found a city further east in Reptilia called Golji. This could be it. If she could convince Reptilia to be on her side then she could potentially approach the URM and with the combined force of two nations she could have enough influence to convince the humans to unify and back down.
She still could make a difference.
It would be a long journey, maybe even a foolish journey, but she could still try.
They still had a chance.