I Abandoned My Beast Cubs for the Protagonist... Oops?-Chapter 110: Not The Monster I Expected

Breakfast was served on a balcony that overlooked the eastern peaks, where the morning light turned the floating waterfalls into rivers of fire.

The food was.....excessive. That was the only word for it. Platters of roasted meat and fresh fruit and pastries that flaked apart at the touch. Bowls of honey and cream. A whole fish, perfectly cooked, arranged on a bed of herbs that Bai Yue couldn’t identify but smelled like summer.

Fēng Líng had relaxed somewhat. She was still perched on the edge of her seat, still talking too fast, still flushing at unexpected moments, but the terror had faded into something that looked almost like enjoyment.

"This is wonderful," she said, reaching for another pastry. "Who made it?"

"Kitchen dragons," Bai Yue said. "I think. They appeared with it. I didn’t ask questions."

"The kitchen dragons are very talented. My mother says they’re wasted on guests, but my mother says a lot of things."

"You don’t agree with your mother much."

Fēng Líng paused, pastry halfway to her mouth. She looked at Bai Yue, then at the cubs, who were currently engaged in a complex negotiation over the last honey-drizzled fruit. Then she set the pastry down.

"My mother believes that alliances are built on power. That marriages are tools. That feelings are weaknesses to be managed, not indulged." She smiled, and it was the first expression Bai Yue had seen that didn’t look like nervousness.

"I believe that love is the only thing that makes any of this worth doing. That’s why I didn’t fight the arrangement with Cāng Jì. I assumed it would be like all the others. Cold. Transactional. Barely tolerable."

"And now?"

Fēng Líng looked out at the peaks. At the waterfalls rising. At the sky, impossibly blue, impossibly vast.

"Now I’ve seen what happens when someone chooses love. When they fight for it. When they build something that doesn’t need alliances or power or any of the things my mother thinks matter." She turned back to Bai Yue. "I don’t want to marry Cāng Jì. I never did. But I came here because I wanted to see you. To understand how you did it. How you changed everything."

Bai Yue didn’t know what to say to that.

She was saved by the baby.

Zhēn, who had been sleeping peacefully against Han Shān’s chest, suddenly stirred. Her eyes opened. Her gaze drifted across the table, past her parents, past the cubs, and landed on Fēng Líng.

She reached out.

It was the same gesture she had made with Dà Jiāo Huǒ. The same tiny hand reaching toward someone new, someone unexpected, someone who had not been chosen.

Fēng Líng went very still.

"Is she—"

"She wants you to hold her," Bai Yue said.

"I can’t. I don’t—I’ve never—what if I drop her?"

"You won’t."

"But—"

Zhēn made an insistent sound. Her hand opened and closed.

Han Shān stood and walked to Fēng Líng. He placed Zhēn in her arms carefully.

Fēng Líng looked down at the baby.

Zhēn looked up at her.

And then, very slowly, Zhēn reached up and touched the scales at Fēng Líng’s temple. The delicate silver-white scales that shifted to blue when she moved. She touched them with the same wonder she might have touched a flower, or sunlight, or something she had been looking for her whole short life.

Fēng Líng’s breath caught.

"She’s beautiful." Fēng Líng’s voice was thick. "She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen."

Zhēn, who had finished her investigation of the scales, made a sound of approval. She settled against Fēng Líng’s chest, one tiny hand still pressed to the dragon princess’s face, and closed her eyes.

"You’re not what I expected," Fēng Líng said.

"What did you expect?"

"I don’t know. Someone terrifying. Someone who had to be terrible to survive. Someone who had to destroy things to build them." She squeezed Bai Yue’s hand. "You’re just......kind."

Bai Yue laughed. "I’m really not. I yell at people. I throw things. I made soap that turned my husbands into desperate lunatics. I’m a disaster."

"You’re a disaster who loves her family. That’s not nothing."

~

The breakfast lasted another hour.

Fēng Líng held Zhēn for most of it, only reluctantly handing her back when the baby woke hungry. She listened to Yòu Lín’s stories with genuine delight, laughing at all the right places and asking questions that proved she was paying attention.

She coaxed Ruì Xuě out of his shell with the patient kindness of someone who understood shyness because she was shy herself. She even got Hóng Yè to crack a smile, though he immediately pretended he hadn’t.

When she finally stood to leave, the morning had become afternoon. The light had shifted from gold to amber. The cubs were drowsy with food and warmth and the particular exhaustion that came from meeting someone new.

"Thank you," Fēng Líng said, at the door. "For this. For being kind when you didn’t have to be."

"You came with gifts and carved toys and honey for digestion," Bai Yue said. "You made it very easy to be kind."

Fēng Líng smiled, and it was the first time her smile reached her eyes. "Will you be here long? In the peaks?"

"Maybe. The cubs are making friends. The grandmothers are terrorizing the kitchen dragons. And Zhēn has apparently decided your father is her favorite person."

"He’s not my father. He’s the Dragon King. Everyone’s father, really. In a terrifying, I-could-destroy-you-with-a-thought kind of way."

"Same thing." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Fēng Líng laughed. "Will you come to my territory? Before you go back to the lowlands? I could show you the storm gardens. And the hives. And the—" She stopped, looking suddenly uncertain. "If you want. You don’t have to. I just thought—"

"We would love to," Bai Yue said. "All of us. The cubs especially. They’ve been asking about the storm gardens since they heard about them."

"Who told them about the storm gardens?"

"Yòu Lín has made friends with several dragons in the past three days. I’ve stopped asking how he finds them."

Fēng Líng’s smile widened. "He’s very good at making friends."

"He’s very good at chaos. They’re related skills."

"I’m glad you’re not a monster," Fēng Líng said.

"I’m glad you’re not either."

The door closed.