Kingdom Uncharted

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Tales of Legendia, Yggdra Union, Shirley, or Gulcasa. I seem to own considerable insanity, though, or how else could I get infected with the idea for this crossover?

(“Yellow” theme #6 – mythological creatures; holding diamonds in your hands)

“I think most of the people in the Empire have at least a few drops of dragon blood—if only because of how our country was established. The original people were all like I am… either that, or they were my clan’s allies. Eventually the people of my tribe intermarried with the ordinary humans, until our bloodline spread out.”

Shirley smiled and leaned back. “I… like the idea of that. My own people… have never forgiven the Orerines, the land-dwellers, enough to stay around them for the time it would take for a marriage. That’s why there are so few of us, and why our blood is still so relatively pure. The elders of each village monitor our people’s pairings and control our marriages to prevent severe inbreeding… there are always people like Walter and Fenimore who make their own choices, but that’s been very rare of late.”

Gulcasa just laughed. “God, if we had to live like that, we’d be so inbred by now. Especially after the purges. The only blood-law we have is that the Emperor or Empress’s blood has to run true—that’s our term for someone being visibly dragon-blooded.” He gestured idly to his face. “Gold eyes, red hair—the ears.” He fingered the points on his. “And hotter blood than a human. You’d better stay away if I’m ever so hurt I’m bleeding externally—my blood’s hot enough to give you first or second-degree burns. My father’s blood was as true as true gets, like his father’s, and his mother’s, and on and on back up the generations. My mother—had partial blood, I think, not enough to show. Mama—my stepmother, that is—was as human as my father was dragon, though.”

Shirley smiled. She loved to hear Gulcasa talk about his family and his home. Compared to this place, Bronquia sometimes sounded like a paradise.

“They say that in ancient times, before humans began to overtake all the lands, there were great dragons everywhere—my ancestor, Brongaa, was just the last of them to hold out against humans. And not just the fire dragons of the land—they say there were great dragons of the sky and the sea, too.” A thought seemed to strike him then, and he turned to Shirley with a curious expression. “Wouldn’t it be something if the Ferines were actually all just distant descendants of one of the water dragons? It’d be far enough back that you might not even know because there are no records. It could be, couldn’t it?”

“I… suppose it could,” Shirley replied, bewildered. That might explain a lot—although it would have to be thousands and thousands of years back.

“We could be reuniting two of the old clans that way,” Gulcasa said with a laugh. “As things are, since you’re not exactly human either, my people might see you as a Sprite or some other such thing, like out of our legends.” He was silent for a moment, then laughed again. “That’s quite a cross.”

“It certainly is…”

“Makes you wonder a little how our kids will turn out,” Gulcasa remarked absently.

Shirley went brilliant scarlet and giggled uncertainly.