If Things Had Been Different...

This fanfiction is about what things would have been like if my sona hadn't escaped her grandmother's assassin business.
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==Credits==
Coding: Streamy (free format from helio's wiki)
Creator (fanfic): Otaku
Creator (Helia): Otaku
Inspired by Nightclaws' Alternative Pyrrhia
Reader: You!
==Prologue==
"...how about that new dragonet that was just hatched next door?"
"Ohhh, do you mean Crossbow?"
"Yes, if they had dragonets together, their offspring would most likely be skilled fighters."
Young Helia would have heard these words, had she stayed up late drawing and gone prowling for food. But in this alternative universe, she had gone to bed early, and did not hear their plans.
So she did not escape.
==One Year Old==
"Ha! Hi-ya! HaaAAAGGH?!"
The sword overbalanced in Helia's talons and she fell, snorting up sand.
Kalahari took the sword out of her hands and replaced it with a bow, securing a quiver of arrows around her waist.
Another dragon pushed a target on the far side of the room and Helia took aim. 
The arrow flew through the air and landed squarely on the bulls-eye. Helia bounded around happily, cheering, "Yaaay! I shooted it! I shooted it!"
"Yes, you 'shooted' it," Kalahari said proudly, putting a gentle talon on Helia's tiny head. "Good job."
Helia beamed up at Kalahari as her grandmother called, "Dinner!"
They all walked into the Fort for their meal, which today consisted of raw meat half-burnt and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Helia sniffed at it. 
"Grandmommy times two did the dinner," she muttered, licking at it and cringing. She breathed a small spurt of flame onto it, fulling roasting the meat, and ate it.
After some claw-to-claw combat training, it was almost time for bed. Today it was her turn to take a bath, so she leaped into the vat of warm water.
Helia sunk straight to the bottom and stayed there until she needed to come up for air and soap.
The soap was rough and itchy, but Helia was used to it, and she dried off using a towel-finally. She, being a SandWing, hated water, but according to her mother and grandmother, "Dirtiness will cost you in battle."
She scrambled into her tiny crate of a bed. 
It was lined with a rough woolen blanket with a little pillow and a ragged doll inside. There was a (rougher) blanket to lay under, and for easy rest Helia dragged the lid over the crate and fell asleep.
Tomorrow, she would turn two.
==Two years old==
Helia sat at the entrance to the Fort and watched the older pale yellow dragonet walk to her from the other side of the field. 
"Helia, meet Crossbow." Kalahari said. "This is his mother, Saguaro."
Helia squinted at Crossbow. "What you want?" She said.
"Want nothing. Mother made me." Crossbow said, smirking at Helia. "Tiny dragon, you."
Helia growled. "Tiny! So what! I know more, I fight better. You, me, claw-claw. I win! 100%!"
Crossbow rolled his eyes. "No, no, Mother said, 'Impolite to hurt girls,' you, me, want us to marry."
Helia looked at him, shocked. "J-joking? It is funny joke, not real...?"
"No, no, is real."
==Three years old==
No. No way.
Helia paced in her room, chewing on a nail. A rat scurried by and she whirled around, stabbing it with her tail barb.
"That rat just had a horrible day," said a smug voice from the doorway. Helia turned, her tail raised, but it was just Crossbow.
"Oh, there you are. Have you finished unpacking?" Helia asked, edging away. Her heart got all fluttery and her cheeks got hot whenever she got near him, and she hated it. It felt wrong, like she was cheating on someone else.
Crossbow shrugged. "Mostly."
Helia nodded, sweeping the dead rat under her table and sitting down her bed that, finally, was an actual bed.
Crossbow sat down beside him, and Helia's first instinct was to get up and flee. But she didn't. If we're supposed to marry each other, I could at least try to get a little friendly with him.
But maybe not too friendly...
"It's awkward, isn't it? Knowing what our parents have planned for us?" Crossbow said, leaning back and sighing. "If I had a choice I would've left it up to my sister to marry someone, no pressure on me."
Helia nodded. "Um, yeah. Do they always arrange marriages like this?"
"In my family, yes. My mother was originally in the family but my father was just some street urchin that had an uncanny skill in battle. I guess my grandparents were satisfied with him because they arranged for him and my mother to be married. But they hated each other, and mother killed him a long time ago." Crossbow explained.
"Oh," Helia said, surprised. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."
"No, it's fine. My mother says he was a jerk."
==Four years old==
Helia yawned and stretched, almost hitting a sleeping Crossbow in the face with her wing.
She frowned. He just had to put his bed next to hers, and he just had to squish her against the wall.
Geez...personal space, please.
She edged herself away and grabbed her bow and quiver of arrows. Evidently Crossbow didn't have early-morning target practice, as he stayed sleeping. 
Helia yawned again, looking up at the pale gray early-morning sky. Was it going to rain? It never rained in the desert. 
She set up a target and started practicing. By the time the sky was turning blue, she had moved on to swordfighting with a dummy. Crossbow shuffled groggily toward her.
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)