~ 26 ~

Learning Comforting Despite Size Differences

My lips inched open at the surprise of the request, not remembering the last time that I ever hugged someone, not even in my past life. It's something that people close to each other did. It was both a greeting and a goodbye. A show of closeness between two individuals.

It symbolized and meant more beyond that. It was both a way of showing and giving love. The psychical contact did something for both parties. With a hint of hesitation, I brought the claw to my chest, cupping its underside with my other, holding the princess over my bed of scales.

Where, through hide and flesh, my heart beat.

I lightly pressed my palm into the princess, feeling her arms spread across my pec, my scales flexing from my breathing, spread and contracting with every inhale and exhale. Whimpers flooded upward from the contact. Tears were shed freely.

I glanced around as I hugged the princess to my heart, shielding her from any possible viewing. Looking out around the sand, it was only that stone walls rose in the distance. I'd already remarked before that this place looked like a giant sandbox. Broken roofs peeked out from some of the dunes. Other shattered architecture poked from the dunes as well.

It seemed like this place had been more than a beach, once upon a time, and now the walls guarded only a graveyard situated on a beach. This was a strange place, one with a history that never seemed to click. Thinking about it made my mind slippery, like one wrong comprehension would cause me to tumble.

Focus on the girl, you idiot.

"You're alright... it's okay... there's nothing wrong with getting it all out... it's usually best to let it all get out..." I inhaled sharply through the snout as there was nothing more I could do than murmur to the princess. What the hell else was I capable of? "Life can be bullshit at times. It feels like everyone else is already dealing with so much. That they're handling it so much better—that you don't have any right to feel sorry for yourself."

I knew that, if I flinched, my claw would squish the princess, flattening her into strawberry spread against my scales. The slightest thing could ruin and destroy this moment. Maybe, knowing how vulnerable we are and how easily meaning can be taken away, I was more on guard to protect it.

Both from outside and inside of myself.

"But whatever you feel and experience, regardless of how it may seem to the world and others, is completely justified. It's best to accept all that you've gone through." I knew where these words were coming from. Maybe this was more projection than anything else. "There's a horrible disconnect that happens when you shrug everything off. Don't be like me. Don't ever be like me."

Don't ever be like me? It seemed like the only piece of advice that I could ever fully believe in.

"You become a husk when you disregard everything that happens to you," I continued, rolling my palm into the princess's back. "When you neglect how something made you feel, because the same thing didn't affect others as much, or because you don't feel like you have the right to feel the way you do—you begin to shut yourself down. You reduce yourself to the barest functions. You're existing instead of living."

I sighed. "You're stronger on the surface when you become hollow, but all it takes is for a knock to reveal how empty you are. Such a life doesn't fit someone like you. So please. Deal with it all. Continue to let yourself cry. That's the healthiest, best way to live. And it takes greater strength to be full of life than it is to be void of it."

I rocked back and forth while cradling the princess. Winds struck us with sand, but my body blocked the assault. Little figures atop the wall seemed to stare at me, but my claw blocked whatever was clutched to my chest. The princess would have no clue about these things as she indulged in releasing her built torment.

But I couldn't be there for her in the way I wanted.

To hold her in my arms and stroke her hair while she cried. To be of the same size and offer the needed intimacy to survive. It wasn't because I had feelings for her, though something special flared inside at the idea of her.

Maybe that's how it works once you've become nothing, either because of a lack of something within or because the world has chewed out anything worthwhile about you. If the world treats you like scum and isolates you, if every interaction is a horrible one that reveals you to be lacking somehow, is it any wonder how one winds up feeling the way I do?

I wondered about the commonness between the princess and myself.

If someone better were in our positions, would the world have treated them better, or would they wind up in the same state as us? If I'd been a dragon who believed in himself, who had more inside going for him—would the world have treated him as better?

That'd always been my question at the end of the day.

Did the world disregard us because of what we were, and what we were put into, or because of who we were? The princess was special to me but didn't appear to be that way to anyone else. Was I seeing something only a loser could see—or was the rest of the world blind?

Will you continue to let the world dictate what you have the right to think and feel?

What if the world is right?

The world is a greater agreement, for different reasons, on various matters. What the world has said to be wrong, years later, turns out to be right. It is not the end-all basis to rely on one's internal identity. Just reinforcement on differing views. Focus on the princess, for instance.

The voice was right. Feeling her shaking start to slow, I was happy to have been of use to her. The king saw her as nothing, supposedly, but that was from where he was viewing her, and for what reasons were attached to his thinking. Even if the world thought it right to think of her as selfish and worthless...

...then I would rather be wrong if it let me see her as someone special.

Never let someone dictate to what extent you have the right to think or feel about anything. When you are punched, it hurts, no matter what someone says. How you take it and react is a different story. So long as what you feel is genuine, you have the right to feel it to whatever extent.

Never let others define you to yourself.

But what if feelings change?

Then you'll change along with them. But don't let what you might be in the future dictate what you should be now—or else you'll never have that future to begin with. Sometimes, it takes a bad step to adjust to a better path. Be willing to take that hit. That is key.

I felt little hands pushing against my scales and, taking the message, I pulled my claws back, feeling her slide from one palm into the other, cupped, palm. I joined the two together before my face. The figurine stood shyly, sniffling, her head turned to the side.

Winds blew, but my free claw rose against it, protecting the princess from it. She wasn't that vulnerable, I knew. But the moment had put me into a different state of mind altogether. Astria spoke as the winds thinned. "I'm... sorry."

My smile tugged to the left. "I rather you weren’t. I know you're the sort of person to deal with shit on your own, but—"

"I don't deal with these kinds of issues at all," Astria said while my claw fell from her side. She crossed her arms, twisting in place, looking at everything that wasn't me. "I want to, though. To lay in my bed when I'm all alone, and just let it out. But I can't. It just doesn't happen. It's like there's a great wall that holds everything back."

She wiped her eyes. "I didn't even know if tears could still break through to these."

"Then I guess we're learning new things about ourselves these last two days." I looked away as well. This was another hard part about being a giant. Because your size prevented you from doing anything else, it focused you on the current conversation. The awkwardness was always doubled. "But I'm sorry if I went a bit too far with my words. I'm still not used to talking to humans—much less being around them. It's hard to know if I'm helping or being a hindrance."

Astria cleared her sore throat. "Your heart is in the right place. Even if that doesn't matter to others, it'll at least lead you on the right path." Her arms swung behind her back, where her hands clasped together. "But you said a lot of things that I needed to hear. I didn't know others felt as deeply as I did about those kinds of things. I thought I was alone in that regard."

And then she chuckled. "Funny to hear it all coming from a dragon of all creatures—no offence."

"Dragons aren't well-known because of their sensitive feelings," I remarked. "So I can't blame you for it." I nudged my shoulder. "You want to ride there for the trip back to my cave? It'll be a walk, so you won't have to do battle with the winds."

She chuckled with a nod. "Sure."

Astria didn't question why we were walking instead of flying but, thanks to the previous moment, she didn't have to guess why. It bought me more time to reach the ports around nightfall. Her father had said to enter from the East around that time. It wouldn't be to ambush us.

Any harm he wanted to do, he would have done during our encounter.

So what could he want with a banished dragon and a disowned daughter?

I shook my head upon bringing my claw to my shoulder; the princess lingered on my palm. She turned and looked at the side of my face. "Actually, do you mind if I rest on the top of your head? I've always wanted to sit cross-legged on a beast of some sort."

I laughed and, raising the claw to my scalp, the princess hopped off, the tapping of feet travelling across my head. She parked herself next to my purple spines, holding onto one like a sailor hanging from the mast.

"All aboard?" I asked.

Astria answered, "Aye-aye, captain."