Princess Cordelia swam through the palace walls. She drifted to one of the windows overlooking the courtyard, letting her wings sink and float with the underwater currents. She inhaled slowly, letting her gills open and close. If only she could see what was happening outside. However, she could only listen.  

“Princess Cordelia!” Cordelia’s heart sank as she turned away from the window. She recognized the speaker's voice. It was Calder, one of the members of the Royal Council. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking your lessons?” 

Cordelia rolled her useless eyes, the eyes that couldn’t see. Her lessons were extremely boring. All they did was teach her how to tell the difference between kelp that could be eaten and kelp that couldn’t, or the dangers of being underwater, or how terrible it was above the water or out of the palace. She was tired of being treated like a baby dragonet.  

Cordelia was blind. She had been since birth. Her mother, Queen Ashera, had made it clear that she didn’t want Cordelia out of the palace, for risk of “stumbling into things”. She had every twist and turn in the palace memorized, but she wished she could be outside. 

“I can do what I want,” Cordelia responded, trying to sound Princess-like. She adjusted her pearly tiara and lifted her chin, trying to look regal. She didn’t know if she managed it.  

Calder raised an eyebrow. “Alright. Just remember—” 

“I know, I know,” Cordelia interrupted, not caring if she sounded rude. “‘Stay inside the palace. Never leave the palace.’ I’m old enough to go out, aren’t I?” 

“Outside the palace, it is terrible,” Calder said. Cordelia had heard his words a million times, but couldn't risk her appearance as a polite royal again. “Swift currents that can sweep away boulders. Giant sharks and whales that can swallow you whole. Fish with no eyes and sharp teeth that can bite through dragon bones. You cannot go out. We can’t risk losing you.” 

Can’t risk losing you. As if she were something that needed to be contained. Was that all that everyone thought of her?  

Cordelia sighed, pretending to be submissive. “Alright.”  

Calder swept away. Cordelia once again drifted to the window, listening to the dolphins play with the other dragonets. Their laughter echoed in her heart, and she longed to join them. She reached one talon and touched the window. Why they needed a solid barrier underwater, she had no idea. But it made her feel imprisoned in her own home. 

Cordelia reluctantly detached herself from the window and swam towards her favorite place. She needed some cheering up. 

She touched the walls as she passed, feeling the pearls embedded in them. She had been told that they resembled the bubbles of air scattered across the ocean. Cordelia tried to imagine what it would look like, but she couldn’t. She couldn't even imagine seeing. 

The hall opened, and Cordelia sensed that she had reached her destination: the Hall of Pearled Glass. The servants who tended to it knew her well, and had told her that it was the highest spot in the palace, with colored glass panels overlooking the sea like one huge window.  

The glass part wasn’t what made it the perfect place, though. It was the fact that sea animals were allowed in. The place was so big, a herd of dolphins, five schools of fish, and many other creatures could fit in there comfortably with no conflict. The bottom was covered in sand, but a coral reef had grown over most of it. Crabs, lobster, stingrays, clownfish, anemones, and plankton scurried around.  

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

When Cordelia had first heard of it as a little dragonet, she had thought that the dolphins would eat all of the fish. But these dolphins were well known and well taught not to eat any of the fish in the Hall, only the fish that the servants gave them periodically.  

Cordelia swam down to the sea floor.  

“Cordelia!” The chorus of joyful voices that greeted her made her smile.  

“Hi, everyone,” Cordelia said. She let her talons sink into the sand and felt the bottom dwellers come closer. 

Cordelia had no idea how she could talk to the sea animals, but she loved them. She first found out when her mother had given her a live, raw fish to eat, and it had weakly cried, “Help me, please.” From then on, she vowed to be vegetarian. All the edible corals and kelps to be found were brought to Cordelia for her consumption. Meanwhile, she had explored her ability to communicate with ocean life.  

She loved and cherished all the creatures that she knew and could talk to. She never kept any pets, because it felt awkward to talk to the creature you were keeping behind bars like a prisoner. In fact, the palace was rather devoid of pets, Cordelia having freed all the ones she could find. If a fish swam into the palace by accident, she brought it to the Hall of Pearled Glass for safekeeping.  

In return, the creatures taught her what they knew. She learned how to use echolocation, although with water currents. All WaveDragons and WaterDragons could control water, and Cordelia was a mixture of both. She used water control to throw water at everything, and receiving the ripples that came back. They had taught her how to use her teeth and claws for self-defense, and how to get the most speed when swimming. She learned about drag and water pressure.  

“What’s up?” One of the dolphins, Alon, swam over. “Ashera let you out yet?” 

Cordelia shook her head. “What’s it like out there?” She had asked this question many times, but never got tired of the answers that they gave her.  

“Free,” Alon answered.  

“Lots of smells and sounds,” Kai the crab added. “Plenty of places to roam and explore. Endless new discoveries.” 

“So many fish to talk to,” Serina, a seahorse, added. “So much gossip and chatter. And, when the baby fish are born, we have to get creative to figure out names! They’re all so cute and lovely and small.” 

Cordelia sighed with longing. “Do you think I could...you know...sneak out sometime?”  

There were gasps all around her. “I don’t know,” Alon chittered mournfully. “If you snuck out, you wouldn’t be free. You'd have the whole palace on your tail.” 

Cordelia gritted her teeth. “I have five siblings! All of them are older than me! Why am I so important?” 

“Everyone is important, dear,” Serina said. “No matter their ranking in the world, each dragon matters just as much as the next. Somehow, we have put the illusion on the world that there are lives that matter more than others, but each dragon is unique. Each dragon has a heart, a brain, a soul. Each dragon has spines and a tail and wings and claws. Just because one dragon has more bracelets than another, or prettier scales, does not make it better than the rest.” 

Cordelia thought about that for a moment. “Try telling that to my family.” 

“You’ll be okay,” Kai said gruffly. Crabs weren't known for their sentimentality. “They’ll have to let you out sometime. If they don’t, I’ll pinch their snouts! That otta teach em!” 

“Kai, you aren’t allowed out of the Hall of Pearled Glass,” Alon chided.  

“Oh.” Kai paused for a moment. “Well, I’ll bust out of here! Hmm, let’s see. First, we’ll need the key from the guard, which will require a battle technique that I have never used before...” he scuttled off, muttering to himself and occasionally practicing his battle skills on some coral.  

“Maybe someday, Cordelia. Maybe someday.” Serina swam up to Cordelia's arm so that she could feel the reassuring stroke the seahorse gave her. Cordelia got up, thanked them, and left in deep thought. 

Someday. Maybe someday.