The Torch Amid the Sea

This is both a fanfiction entry for the Short Romance Fanfiction Contest and an Aukliff shipfic set years after the hypothetical events of Book 10. I hope you enjoy reading and thank you for your time.
Word Count: 2200.
I.
His eyes are like goldfishes. Auklet studied the envoy sent to the rebuilt Summer Palace. No remnants of smoke and fire on the walls. Fire haunted her mind since that bombing, more than the shouting dragons and the leather harness choking her chest. Fire and flesh, the SkyWings’ work.
Lowering her eyes, she took note of this SkyWing’s long neck, almost like an eel’s. Colors of dark rubies streaked across it and his body. Her mother hissed of SkyWings savagery to her a few times, how they sneered and snarled when you glanced at them. She looked for signs on his face, watching for any curling lips.
Only a grin, a confident one, as the dragon bowed to her, her uncle and her guards. She almost returned it. She bit back her lips. Her mother would have been more dignified.
“Prince Cliff of the Sky Kingdom,” he said before his face lit up for their convenience. A matter of politics.
“Queen Auklet of the Kingdom of the Sea,” she returned, stiff and regal as befitted a queen. The words felt like slimy seaweed. 
“I thought we’d be receiving your mother,” Shark said, his eyes casting suspicion. 
Cliff was fearless enough, not freezing at the glower Shark gave him. “She’s been busy with affairs back at her kingdom,” he said. An unguarded worry as his lips twitched. A sudden, proud grin brightened his face. “So she’s entrusted me with negotiations.”
With such a pride in those words, Auklet couldn’t help but mourn her losses. Her uncle had told her countless stories, but words weren’t mothers. Getting to know her day-to-day, chatting with her about the future. The way she smiled, laughed, spoke and sighed... ripped from her by Darkstalker’s influence and her sister’s madness. 
She envied Cliff his motherly connection, but couldn’t help but stare at that smile. It wasn’t regal or subdued, but he looked better with it.
“Very well,” she said after Shark grew a dark look at his words. A prince wasn’t a queen nor a princess. Years of inheriting her throne, concerns and doubts still plagued her on how best to handle queenship and other tribes. She met Cliff’s golden gaze at eye-level. “To my throne room.” 
“Are you sure about this?” Uncle Shark whispered in her ear as they headed towards the—her throne room. 
Uncharted waters, she knew, negotiating with a SkyWing prince. She thought of that open grin and those eyes, gleaming like the dawn’s ocean. Golden like the sun.
“Yes,” she said. Gazing at the Summer Palace’s now unscorched walls, she gnawed her lips. Fire and flesh. “Watch him during the meeting,” she ordered.
II.
“So what do you do for fun?” Cliff had asked with a now familiar grin.
Auklet almost snorted as they walked along the beaches of the Summer Palace. Her invitation. Ten meetings, ten days, ten feasts, ten nights. She caught more of Cliff with each passing negotiation day. 
He enjoyed strolls more than flights because it allowed him to sing aloud. He was a braggart, claiming himself a gifted warrior, charming singer and a friend to every dragon in Pyrrhia. He crinkled his brow ridge every time he wanted solitude. A look he never gave her, for some likely political reason.
A SkyWing, but, even Shark admitted, not suspicious. Yet, her uncle’s report finished with.
She would’ve given the appropriate response, working for the kingdom, but what came out was, “I thought you were friends with everyone,” she teased. “You don’t know my hobbies already?” she asked, a smirk cracking out.
Cliff blinked before his mouth hooted with laughter. There were traces of a melody in his voice. “We are!” he stated like he was stating water was wet. “I just want to hear it from you,” he said, his face blooming into a smile.
Auklet blinked back. “Well, I…” It would kill the mood to tell him she never had any free time. She was barely a queen for a crown she inherited young. She remembered sand on her snout and tapping on crabs the tides brought ashore. “I used to explore a lot,” she confided. She let out an almost bitter laugh. “I was a curious dragonet.”
“Used to?” he asked, frowning. 
“Not anymore,” Auklet murmured. Concern seeped through Cliff’s face. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. No, no, Cliff. I’m fine. Not for my sake, please. She forced a smile on her face. “Sing me any song,” she requested, knowing he would enjoy that.
Cliff cheered up, flipping his wings back and stretching his long neck out with a flourish. Another habit of his.
A beautiful song, the words as soothing as spring water and the tone as soft as summer tides. A SeaWing queen who explored the Kingdom of the Sea, from the Summer Palace’s stony walls to the sea deep’s watery halls, laughing and smiling all the way.
“Well,” Cliff said, “what do you think?”
Auklet was speechless. Don’t let your guard down, Auklet. Then her laughter erupted, and little of it bitter. She bumped Cliff’s shoulder with hers and, now, her smile came freer. “You are one magical dragon, Cliff.”
The surprise, then happiness, in his eyes was a treasure.
III.
“Any future plans?” Auklet asked Cliff as they walked the beaches again. Three weeks now, stuffed with negotiations of sharing glassblowing techniques, planning small groups to visit each other’s cultures, and mapping trade flows between them. Their two kingdoms would have an thriving connection, enjoyed by countless dragons in the future.
But she wanted to know his plans. He blew out a breath, soft as the lull of the sea around them. Cliff stared off into the distance, pointing at mainland Pyrrhia. “To travel. To sing, to truly make friends with everyone,” he said, an empowered smile. “Just like you said, I’m a magical dragon.”
Auklet bumped Cliff’s shoulder to humble his big head, snorting out a chuckle. Tall dreams, but with Cliff, she could believe them.
“It might help my mom if I befriend everyone,” he continued. Warmth coated his eyes, a golden afternoon reflected back.
Auklet looked down. A bloody spear, her sister’s laugh, screams everywhere and a fading heartbeat against a red chest. Her last memory of her mother flooded in. She swallowed a lump. “You love your mom a lot, don’t you,” she said.
Cliff stared at her like she had seashells for eyes. “Of course I do! She’s my mom,” he said like that was reason enough. Auklet furrowed her eyelids as she felt tiny wells of water swell up.
“... You don’t?” Cliff asked, gentle for her sake. It didn’t help.
She took a breath, trying to put up her guard. “I didn’t get to know her,” she said rigidly before she remembered her mother’s chest. Her lips jerked. “The last thing I felt was her heartbeat,” she said as teardrops trickled down. “How can I love her, she left me alone with her kingdom!” she shouted, the words cascading out.
Auklet felt chilled, reliving her sister’s massacre, the memories clawing at her. She saw the spear plunge into her mother, staining her in blood. Heard the rattling laughter of her sister and felt the life fade from her mother with every slowing heartbeat. Who left her behind to deal with her broken kingdom. Her arms were numb as her claws raked them. The tears she held back flooded down her cheeks now.
Then, someone held her. Pressed his neck against her head. A nuzzle. “I’m sorry,” Cliff’s voice said, sincere and soft. Auklet croaked before looking up. His golden eyes, racked with worry for her. She swore she wouldn’t let her guard down.
But no one was watching.
She returned his tender embrace as tears kept falling. How warm he felt, how open he was.
“You’re not alone," he whispered. "I'm here."
She forgot the kingdom, the SeaWing council, the SkyWing negotiations in those moments.
Cliff.
IV.
Auklet sat in her sleeping room, her eyes stinging from a sleepless night. No visitors accepted. She felt herself heave every breath from her lungs as she stared at her room’s door.
“Rainforest, Mud, Ice and the Kingdom of Sand. I’ll be making friends for my mom.”
Did getting eaten by a shark hurt more? The pain gripping her chest refuted that.
“I can take you if you want. You don’t have to be alone. I’ll be with you. Always.”
Her door was carved in the shape of two SeaWings, a king and queen together in marriage.
“The charming bard and the hidden princess… haha, doesn’t that sound a sweet song?”
She thought back to the endless marriage offers from her SeaWing nobles. Uncle Shark had broached the subject more after her queenly ascension. Now, when she imagined their faces, they had Cliff’s face, his easy smile and his endless confidence.
“I love you.”
An informal SkyWing and an overconfident braggart, she saw those flaws in Cliff. A warm heart, a friendly smile and sunny eyes, that was the flip side of the ocean surface. 
She thought of the boredom behind ruling. The responsibility of the crown. The lives that followed her decisions. It chafes. Chafes me raw.
But then, the memory of Darkstalker loomed above her, born from the path of Foeslayer and Arctic. The union that plunged two tribes to war. The monster who pushed her sister to slaughter their family past the brink of madness. Even her mother loved her father and Uncle Shark told her the queen hadn’t been the same after his disappearance. Love ruins everything, both dragons and kingdoms.
But… don’t I have a right to be happy? She wanted to explore the great mainland, seeing the shimmering rainforests and the gooey marshlands. Take joy in catching the desert mice and the antelope up north. Experience it all with a dragon that stirred warmth in her by embrace. Share my heart like he shares his.
The door creaked open. Shark peered in with a level gaze. “What’s wrong, my queen?” he asked, a crack of worry in his voice. The same one she noticed when Moray was still alive before the massacre.
Telling Shark would have him interrogate Cliff. Shark carried a ruthless practicality with him, especially with his last living niece and queen. “Just worrying about the future,” she just said.
Uncle Shark gave her a nod and sharp eyes. They lingered knowingly before he begun closing the door. “Our kingdom needs peace, Queen Auklet.” A tiny whisper before the door thudded shut.
V.
She ran into the night. She had kicked off the sand against her feet. The skies were alight with stars as two moons cast their gazes on the waves, glittering diamonds in the water. 
A beautiful night. She gulped as she rushed to where Cliff said he would wait. The shores facing mainland Pyrrhia. She saw him, standing by the beach, waiting as promised. Lost, shivering and alone, her prince was there. Approaching him, she cleared her throat. When their faces met, Cliff’s had transformed, happiness washing over his face. 
They shared a nuzzle, their scales rubbing each other, heat in the darkness. Auklet shuddered at how tender it felt. “I love you,” she finally whispered to Cliff’s ears, burying her head in his long neck.
As they separated from their nuzzle, Cliff had grown his friendly smile. It still lit her chest ablaze, her very senses came alive, the way it and his eyes made him so… embracing, so tempting to hold and never look away. To nuzzle every night and stroll with every day. 
A new adventure every second with him. 
Instead of a kingdom. My kingdom.
She swallowed, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “But I cannot go with you,” she said. Before she lost her courage, before his face could break her resolve, she plunged forth. “I cannot abandon my kingdom’s dragons,” she said as her voice cracked in the night.
It split. Like cracked stone, Cliff’s face looked broken, pain etched on his cheeks and cut deep in his golden eyes. She sniffled before letting the tears stream down her cheeks. She wrapped her claws around his frozen body, nuzzling her head against his long neck, giving him her warmth.
“... But,” she said, gathering her voice, “if you’re willing to come back here again… I’ll wait,” she said. Cliff looked confused for a few seconds. She intertwined her talons with his, linking them together. “I’ll carry a torch for you. Until I take a husband. Until one of us stops loving, but I’ll wait. Always.” 
Cliff sucked in a breath. Our fates hang with you, my prince. 
“I’ll wait too, Auklet,” Cliff said, putting on a brave face. The pain still clouded his eyes, but a different future with her grew in his smile. 
“Good… stay with me tonight,” she let out a smile. “Fire to carry me through the nights,” she said. She would wait, but she needed kindle to spark the torchlight. Cliff’s neck rubbed against her cheeks. She wanted to love and feel loved tonight. Tomorrow was a different day and night. Love might break her someday, but tonight, it would connect their hearts. 
No tomorrow, only tonight. She met Cliff’s golden eyes. Only you.
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Genre (Romance)
Category:Genre (Short Story)
Category:Content (Proud-Dust)
Category:Fanfictions (Completed)