I am a Side Character, right?

| 14 | This is The End, right?

Isadora saw the furnace of molten fire building in the dragon's throat and realized it was aimed at us. She kicked her horse. It ran as fast as it could as the dragon's mouth opened, releasing hell. The horse had barely made it. Behind us was completely torched black and dead. I took it that was how Niobe got the moniker 'blackhearted'. A heart that charred everything black. 

Niobe roared with rage. I looked over to see if she was gearing up for another burning breath. Instead, I saw Raymond hanging from the pummel of his sword, the blade stuck in between the scales of Niobe's neck. 

He held onto that sword because his life depended on it. 

Raymond pulled himself up and then dropped his body weight downward. The sword's blade slid down Niobe's neck foot by foot with each pull-up and drop Raymond did, eliciting with each a roar of pain. After the third, the sword had slit a scar wide enough that the lava-like ichor poured out of Niobe's throat. 

Sebastian yelled for his brother, warning him to get off the dragon. 

Raymond finally let go of the sword and plummeted to the ground. I saw the bones of his leg shatter and heard him stifle his scream of pain. 

Rushing to him, Sebastian picked his brother up, threw his arm over his shoulder and dragged him away from the dragons legs. Out of seemingly nowhere, Alan joined them and threw Raymonds other arm over his own shoulder. The two of them ran, dragging the semi-unconscious Raymond with them as the dragon's head flung in the air.

Niobe roared, but her roar was garbled as she threw her head around. Her feet stomped against the ground, her broken claws and injured legs unable to hold her weight, before she slipped and the entire mass of her body slammed onto the ground. Her head was the last to fall emitting a dull cracking sound when it hit. She took one deep shuddering breath, ichor flooding out of the wound on her neck, before she was still. 

We all watched and waited until the sun had set and the moon had risen before we breathed a sigh of relief. Niobe the Blackhearted was dead. 

Isadora and I found a path and slowly made our way down the cliffside on her horse. At the bottom, I jumped off the horse and ran to my sister. I catapulted myself into Solstices arms. We hugged each other for a long time before letting go. 

I whispered in her ear, "I love you, sister."

She whispered back, "And I love you."

She pulled away from me. We held hands until Sebastian came over and asked her to heal Raymonds broken legs. She agreed and left me to do so. As everyone checked each other's wounds and reveled in their victory against the mighty creature, I somehow had drifted over to the dragon's now dead body.

I stared at the pooled red ichor as it mixed and coalesced with the black dirt-rock of the cliff bottom. 

The dragon had choked on her own blood. She had suffocated and died, suffering a worse fate than her child. A child whose life I had ended. Despair returned to me at the recall of the memory, filling me with regrets and sorrow. It made me want to fall on my knees and beg for Niobe's forgiveness, even though she was dead and gone. 

A small voice whispered in my head, "You don't need her forgiveness. She brought this fate upon herself."

I whispered back, "Whether she brought it on herself or other brought it on her. She still deserves to be grieved, even if it is by her child's murderer."

The small whisper growled, talking back, "You are no murderer, Fenway the Heartfelt, you ar my savior."

My thought and I were stunned into silence. I was a savior. To who? A voice in my head? Had I officially gone crazy while trying to convince myself that I was a good person even after taking an innocent life.

I was startled as someone touched my shoulder. I turned to see Isadora.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"No," I answered with a sigh, "No I am not."

She grabbed my hand, interlacing her fingers with mine. With finality, she told me, "You will be."

"I still don't forgive you for stabbing me." I said as I gripped her fingers with my own. "Twice."

"You will." She answered with a smile. 

The moon rose behind us as we stood hand-in-hand together. The moonlight made Isadora's face look a hundredfold more beautiful. Sebastian came up beside us and pointed in the opposite direction. "Look at that."

We both looked and saw Prince Raymond, kneeling on his freshly healed legs and proposing to Solstice. Again. This time under the moon, after a battle with a dragon. He sure chose his moments. 

Isadora knocked her shoulder into mine, "Do you think she'll say yes?"

I shrugged in response. After all, what would I know? I wasn't a prince who had successfully killed a dragon or a someone that could read minds. I was not someone who would be the center of all attention and become the greatest healer in all of Evangelogia and beyond.

I was no hero. I was no princess. 

I'm only a side character in this story... right?