Galiya

Galiya. Tight-fisted, proud, breathtakingly beautiful. Queen of the dusk and watcher of the moons, cross her once and you will not live to wrong her again.

Her story began on a battlefield, flashing all around with armored scales in the moonlight. Left alone under the sky, a hatchling threw her egg apart and wailed for her parents away in the war.

Come dawn, they did return, and coddled her for the rest of her childhood. Growing up spoiled and selfish, Galiya learned to get away with anything and to take what she wanted. One of those things was the moons. Ever since her first day alive, the two moons of Sornieth peered down at her, sometimes winking and sometimes serene. What did they know? They must be very wise, having seen all that happened on the face of the earth. But when she demanded the moons, her parents could only shrug and sigh, “If we could we would, dearest.”

How dare they? There had to be a secret. There was always a trick to things. Brains over brawn got Galiya through everything in life — and on the rare occasion that brains went awry, she had her pretty face to fall back upon. So she devoured the astronomy books in the library, and the horoscopes and the histories. Failing that, she went out beneath the moons and coaxed them with her most darling smiles and flirtatious advances. They were cold. But if Galiya was anything else, she was determined.

When she reached adulthood, she professed herself worshiper of the moons. Baring her breast to the sky she would cry, “Come down and take me if you dare!” On one such night, a lordly dragon found her there. And he was every inch as lovely and lavish and elegant as herself, and best of all he was a prince of the lunar eclipse.

Oh! a child of the moons would gain their favor. So Galiya turned her affections on the High King Badar, and he had a kingdom of wealth at his back. And even though she knows he is but a bridge to the greater reward, she cannot help but think, sometimes, how very beautiful he is.