Shadowy Pool (Anastasia the Nonbinary Dragon)
It was shocking how she looked so delicate yet so threatening at the same time.
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Revi waded a few steps away from Bei Feng in the shadowed pool. She didn’t follow him, but her eyes glittered with a scary excitement.
“You want me to kidnap you?” he growled, standing as tall as he could in these ridiculous swim trunks. “That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.” Her voice was a sharp caress. Brown, damp hair coiled around her slender neck. It was shocking how she looked so delicate yet so threatening at the same time. Bei Feng brushed some of her hair from her face. “Revi, you don’t have to look so terrified. I can tell you how to do it. You won’t hurt me.”
The gold dragon shifter still stared daggers at this blasted woman. “I don’t understand what game you’re playing — ”
“Oh, it’s not a game at all, honey.” She smirked. “Do you want your freedom or not?”
“I can get free anytime I like,” he snapped back.
“Oh, really? You’re still standing here, talking to me. Can you get past all my guards?”
“I don’t understand how you even command these guards,” Revi said with a huff. “They’re Lord Byron’s, not yours.”
The brown-haired woman gave him a slim smile. “Is that so? Byron gives me leave to command them, and the guards do like me.” She swayed her hips as she moved through the water. “I’m trying to be kind here, giving you a choice. You can either pretend to abduct me, or stay captive in Byron’s house.”
Uncertainty roiled in Revi’s gut. He sneered. “I’m the captive but I’ll act as the captor? How would that even work, and why do you make such a request?”
Bei Feng gathered her thick hair into a loose braid, pulled it over her shoulder, and let it fall over her chest. Her mouth twisted into a grin as she strode closer to him again. She whispered in his ear. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
Revi couldn’t believe what he was about to do. He gritted his teeth as he grabbed onto Bei Feng’s waist. She leaned on him, head against his shoulder, as though weakened. He grimaced.
She murmured in his ear, “Be more convincing. Act like you enjoy this.”
“I don’t enjoy kidnapping people,” Revi ground out.
The brunette woman slumped further into his arms. Revi had to resist making a sound of disgust.
“It’s not that hard,” she whispered. “Abductions like this happen all the time.”
“Have you participated in any of them?” the gold dragon shifter hissed.
She snorted. “No, but Byron has told me enough stories about them that I know how to conduct a successful one.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told,” she said smugly.
Revi rolled his eyes, then looked around to make sure there were no guards watching them. He dragged her limp body with him through the pool, moving deeper into the hidden recesses of the water channel. He briefly imagined that he was dragging a corpse, though her skin was too warm to be dead.
“It seems like you’re the one who’s actually enjoying this,” Revi quipped.
A smile curved up her lips. “I am. It’s so nice to be carried around like this, and I can just relax on you.”
“You’re gross,” Revi said.
“Your father is even more gross,” she replied.
Revi frowned. “Is that so? You still won’t tell me what my father has over you. You’re only giving me little hints here and there.”
“I gave you more than I gave anyone else,” she said breezily.
“More than Byron?”
She paused before replying, “Byron is an exception. I trust him with my soul.”
“What a grand sentiment,” Revi said with a sardonic tone. “I wonder what will happen if he betrays you.”
“He won’t betray me. Byron is loyal to a fault. He always has been.”
Revi reached the secret door at the end of the channel. “I’m only putting up with all this for Anastasia’s sake.”
“Huh! You know I was never opposed to you being with your sovereign. Am I not doing you a favor now?” she purred.
“I’ll call it a favor when I am safely out of here and back with my friend,” the gold dragon shifter said. He pushed the door open.
The pool water burst out onto a field, though the field looked more like a marsh, with how water-logged it was.
Revi was awestruck as he gazed out at farmland covered with crops in the distance. The sun was warm on his skin, and he could almost forget the obnoxious woman he was half carrying. He didn’t know Byron engaged in this sort of business. It was so different from the political manoeuvrings at Freya’s court
Bei Feng nudged his leg, and he hissed at her touch. She giggled. “Your mission is not done yet. Aren’t you excited to go back home?”
Revi snarled as he unceremoniously dropped her on the ground. As she complained about his rudeness, he shifted into a large gold dragon and unfurled his wings. Ah, he felt freer and happier already.
He then clutched Bei Feng in his claws, and flew up into the sky.
She moaned, “Don’t grip me so hard.”
Revi, feeling like the more powerful one now, just sneered. “It’s either that, or I let you fall to your doom.” His wings beat hard to take them higher and higher into the air.
“Don’t be dramatic. You know I could just shift into my dragon form if you dare to let me go.”
“Sure, but our staged ‘kidnapping’ won’t be so convincing to my father if you put up a fight. You’re supposed to be scared and submissive to my every whim.”
“Ugh, you and your father are alike in some ways.”
“No, we aren’t,” Revi snapped. He clenched her waist more tightly in annoyance.
“Ow! Watch it. Do you enjoy squeezing me so much?”
“No, but you’re literally dangling from my claws. I would at least be more polite if I were you. After all, you were the one who made this ridiculous request.”
“A request that benefits you just as much, if not even more.” Her voice was a singsong.
Revi huffed and smoke poured out from his nostrils; some of the falling ashes ruined her hair.
“You have absolutely no manners, Revi!”
“Don’t play coy with me. You have never had the tiniest shred of ‘manners’ or decorum towards me. I just want to get this thing over and done with.” He didn’t tighten his grip this time, not wanting her to make more unnecessary comments.
The two of them bantered back and forth until Revi could make out his own mansion in the distance. Inside, he sobbed with relief. So much so that he almost dropped Bei Feng from his claws. But he held on and only let her down on the ground once he landed.
With some reluctance, Revi morphed to his human form. Then he opened his mansion door to Bei Feng.
The woman peered around and laughed. “How pretty your place is. So much gold and marble.”
“Not as much as Byron’s, I bet,” Revi remarked.
Bei Feng shook her head. “Honestly I’m not sure which of you hoard more. Not that I’m picky.”
Revi took her to the highest level of his building. It felt strange to be back, remembering how he had kidnapped Anastasia, though he hadn’t thought of it in that way. He had only wanted to protect zir from the earthquake, and would have released Ana if ze had not already escaped.
He wouldn’t put Bei Feng in a cage, though, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to see her face for too long.
Bei Feng, for her part, was beaming from ear to ear. “Now I understand why some people think it’s fun to be consensually kidnapped.”
“It wasn’t completely consensual,” Revi grumbled.
She waved a dismissive hand at him. “No, no, you agreed to it too. And you benefit from the arrangement as well. It wasn’t blackmail.”
The gold dragon shifter sighed. “I don’t want to waste time quarreling with you. Settle yourself down at my home, then, and find some clothes. Just don’t wander out, or you won’t look convincing as a prisoner.”
Bei Feng chuckled. “You like playing jail keeper, don’t ya?”
Revi looked away, as something in her expression made him uncomfortable. Well, even more uncomfortable than he already was.
The brunette woman curled her hair around a long finger. She grinned. “But you won’t need to worry about this particular prisoner. I will enjoy my stay.”
“Don’t break anything,” Revi warned.
“I promise I won’t!” she replied merrily.
The gold dragon shifter would be more worried if he didn’t have his secrets locked and tucked away. Any visitors to his mansion would never see anything out of the ordinary.
He smirked. “As per our agreement, you’ll let me go wherever I like.”
“Since I’m your captive, of course you can go wherever you like,” Bei Feng said with a twinkle in her eye.
Revi gave her one last distrustful look, before turning around and walking away.
The gold dragon shifter trod down the steps of his mansion and wondered whether to ask Phaeton for help.
He decided against it, because a part of him irrationally blamed the unicorn. If Phaeton hadn’t portaled them to Byron’s house, they wouldn’t have gotten into this mess with Bei Feng. But since the unicorn loved chaos, he would probably enjoy this. Phaeton had no loyalties.
Revi transformed into a gold dragon again, and took off.
The sun was still warm on his scales. The sky was a peaceful blue, reflecting his relief to be free at last.
While he was lost in his thoughts, he heard someone crying.
Aghast, he banked in his flight till he could see them.
In the sandy field where the palace used to exist, lay a woman weeping on the ground, with her face down.
Maybe he should mind his own business. But he felt compelled to fly down to her.
He was shocked when he was close enough to see who it was.
Princess Teefa wiped the tears from her eyes, and lifted her face to look at him. “Revi?” she asked with a trembling voice.
