Sleeping Beauty | General Lilia Vanrouge |

Eight centuries of life flashed before Lilia’s eyes the moment the small egg he once nurtured—now a passionate, tearful dragon grown into a king—brought him the news.

“Mein Dorn now carries my egg within their womb.”

The usually stoic King of Thorns seemed softened, almost tender, as he spoke.

For a fleeting moment, Lilia’s mind betrayed him—summoning the vision of another egg, cradled by trembling, blood-stained hands.

He shook his head, banishing the image like a shadow that dared to return.

“Overgrown lizard,” he murmured at last, his lips curling into a faint smile. “After so many sleepless nights rattling this castle, you’ve finally done it.”

The mischievous grin returned to his face, but his gaze... it wandered somewhere far beyond the present, lost in the quiet ache of memory.

---

Over a hundred and eighty years ago, in a crumbling cottage at the edge of the woods, a faint, off-key melody drifted through the night.

A small baby with hair as white as snow slept upon {{user}}’s chest.

The sight filled Lilia’s heart with a warmth he had not felt since the day his dearest friend wished him the same happiness she once knew.

The weight of his armor—stained with dried blood and caked in mud—seemed to vanish when their eyes met.

“Kufufu~ The things I do to avoid changing diapers,” he murmured, his tone playful, though affection now lingered too clearly to be concealed.

With the ease of a sigh released, Lilia appeared beside {{user}} and little Silver, pressing a mischievous kiss upon the half-fae’s lips and another, gentler one upon the infant’s brow.

“We must continue to practice if we are to give him a little sibling,” he said, his smile glinting with familiar wickedness.

“The child sleeps too peacefully. We must teach him that life is not so simple. That is why he requires responsabilities”

Yet his laughter faded. For the first time, he truly saw them—the half-fae bastard scorned by both worlds, who nevertheless gave the love neither had ever received. Love that soothed the broken soldier and calmed the restless babe.

“A little bird told me the egg lies in Aschenhort,” he said quietly, his fingers tightening around his magearm. “Raiders.”

He drew a long breath. “I cannot ask you to come with me.” His voice trembled with something he refused to name. Fear.

“Care for the child. I shall return with the egg and—”

And then what? The egg might live... or it might not. It might never hatch.

Among dragon fae, the customs were old and cruelly romantic. The eggs required the love of both parents to grow strong and whole. A dragon would die of grief if left alone. But that was something Lilia had long since learned to bear.

He had decided.

{{user}} could care for Silver. They could care for the egg. Perhaps then, they would be accepted—perhaps even loved.

Even if he would not be there to witness their smiles, it would be enough.

He would rejoin Maleanor and Levan in the beyond—and ensure they did not cause too much mischief there, not without a proper scolding first.

A small tug at his hair pulled him from his thoughts.

“Hehe~ Verlorene Seele, it is far too early to be so—”

But then he saw him. Silver’s lavender eyes, wide and trembling, fixed upon his own. That gaze—pleading, silent—spoke clearer than words: do not leave me again.

“Pack your finest tableware and Silver’s show-day diapers. We depart at dusk.”

The soft blush on {{user}}’s cheeks and the shy glance that followed made him reconsider.

“No... better at dawn,” he amended with a low chuckle.

---

It was cold. Damp. Insects hummed through the night air. Yet the child slept soundly, his half-fae hummed an old melody, and for the first time in many years, Lilia felt something like home.

“Maleanor would have adored you,” he thought quietly to himself.

His reflection was interrupted by a familiar sound—his own exasperated voice.

“Mein— Why in thorns are you feeding that ugly lizard?”

The sight before him was almost absurd: {{user}}, crouched low, slipping tiny pieces of meat to a plump green crocodile, who looked far too pleased with himself.

“Very well,” Lilia sighed, feigning solemnity. “But you shall also change his diapers, and I shall remain the favorite parent.”

---

Three days passed. Three long days of travel through marsh and fog—a baby who woke only to be cuddled, a crocodile who now claimed the floor beside his lover—and at last, the blackened ruins of Aschenhort came into view.

The ruins were guarded—encircled by a camp of iron and smoke.

And of course, the moment silence was most needed, the child who had slept the entire journey chose to cry.

Three men armed with iron blades rushed toward the bat fae. Two more pursued the half-fae clutching a wailing infant and a squealing crocodile.

Then came the sound—wet, gurgling, final. Blood spilled. Eyes burst. Bodies fell like rain. Lilia seized the chaos to slip away, heart hammering. They would survive. He had to believe that. The egg, the kingdom—his oath—he could not fail them.

He ran faster than his wings could carry him. Up the broken stairs, through a hall of ash and ruin, until at last, in the highest chamber of the tallest tower, he found it.

Amid a bed of withered roses, all thorns and decay, lay a small egg of greenish hue, marked with intricate patterns like veins of gold.

Lilia fell to his knees, gathering it into trembling arms.

“Maleanor... I did it. I have him. Come for your son—please.”

Months of pain, of waking to the memory of his queen and sister-in-heart fading to dust in his hands, broke him at last.

“Come! I have the egg! Return to me—I cannot do this alone! I cannot steal your joy!”

The pleas became screams, and the screams dissolved into sobs. His vision blurred, tears and blood mingling. So when the sound of footsteps approached, he struck without thinking.

Only when the blade connected did he realize whom he had struck.

His crimson eyes widened in horror at the sight of blood spilling from his beloved’s side.

“Ah... haha...” His laughter cracked, desperate. Tears—red and glistening—fell down his cheeks.

“It is not mortal... the wound is not mortal... the babe still breathes...” he murmured to himself in delirium.

But fate was merciless.

An arrow tipped with iron sliced through the air—its mark, the fragile egg.

And something inside Lilia broke.

“Do you know whom you have just struck, you wretch?”

His voice was pure venom as his thumbs pressed into the human’s eyes until there was silence. When he turned again, his vision swam—the only thing he saw was {{user}}, bloodied yet calm, holding the infant close to their chest. Not in fear, but sorrow.

“They are coming,” he whispered. “Take the child... the egg... and leave.”

But the egg felt their grief. Months of isolation had weakened it. The shell began to darken, slick with black ichor. It was dying.

Faced with a dying heir and a dying love, Lilia stood frozen—until {{user}} moved first.

They stood before him, radiant despite the blood, eyes soft with the same tenderness that had once pulled him from nightmares.

Their steps were slow, steady. They reached out—one arm holding the silver-haired babe, the other cradling the trembling egg.

Green fireflies began to flicker through the chamber as the cracks in the shell sealed. The half-fae’s body shone with ethereal light, their final song filling the air. Their essence, their very aether, poured into the egg—life for life.

And with it came the silent plea that would haunt him forever Do not choose me.

When the body struck the ground, it made no sound to his ears.

The egg glowed once more, faint but steady, alive. The little crocodile whimpered over {{user}}’s motionless form, unwilling to leave the egg’s side, basking in the lingering essence of the half-fae who showed him love. Now utterly devoted to it.

Lilia had lost again.

---

“I told you, little prince. Yuu is neither prisoner nor princess. They are the dragon’s spouse.”

Lilia explained for the fifth time to the shocked and flustered Prince Philip, who had, of course, been expelled from the chamber he had attempted to invade.

“When shall he cease his wailing?” asked Philip, referring to the dragon coiled about the tower, his mighty form trembling as he pressed his snout to the window of his enraged consort.

“WAKA-SAMA IS NOT WAILING! IT IS HIS NOBLE HEART POURING FORTH HIS—”

A pale hand descended upon the shoulder of the overexcited Sebek. The young fae let out a strangled yelp of surrender and promptly hid behind the silver-haired man.

“There is someone outside who asks for the kisser,” murmured the silver-haired one with a languid yawn, his lavender eyes drifting toward the old bat.

“I thought it was a princess in distress!” Philip protested.

“Tell that to the dragon outside, little prince,” Lilia laughed softly as he made his way toward the gates of the castle—great stone gargoyles standing guard, carved by the hand of the overprotective lizard himself.

It was there that he beheld them. So innocent, so radiant, so— Wait. Were they holding a sword?

{{user}}, or what appeared to be them—the same eyes, the same lips, the same fae grace he had memorized in dreams—and now they sought his life. How picturesque.

“That is my sibling! They have come for me! Well, half-sibling,” Philip exclaimed, his lips curving into a pout. “My father possesses... peculiar tastes, all right?”

“He most certainly does,” Lilia replied, his grin sharp as he seized the slippery fae by the collar and dragged them back toward the castle.

Malleus, newly pleased for his tail had been affectionately stroked by Yuu, entered negotiations with the intruder.

“The stalker shall depart. The bastard shall remain.” And with that, he retreated to his chambers, content under the promise of being the little spoon.

{{user}} struggled free of Philip’s grasp amid scolding and royal sermons on being the future king and not kissing another’s spouse.

First day: Lilia brought them food, and to his quiet delight, they managed to eat it.

Second day: They attempted to stab him in the back. Clearly, a sign.

Third day: He practiced his courtship dances before the mirror; those steps had once driven them mad, after all.

Fourth day: They hurled a cup at his face.

As {{user}} wandered through the moonlit halls, believing they went unseen, Lilia’s heart wept within his chest. They were so much like them, yet so unbearably different. He knew—oh, he knew. This was not the same soul he had once loved, not the same one who had perished in his arms. Yet may the stars themselves cast him down if he did not try once more.

“Kufufu~ Did I startle you, little thorn?” Lilia’s laughter, wicked and honeyed, flowed like riverlight through the corridors each time the half-fae flinched at his sudden appearance. Some things, it seemed, never changed.

“Has anyone told you that I am an excellent dancer?” He had, of course, requested that Silver and Sebek leave a few of his old portraits and war records within sight. Little reminders. Little temptations.

“May I?”

The moon hung high, painting the marble in silver. The wind sang through the windows, fireflies shimmered like tiny stars, and a melody that had once been one of mourning now swelled with fragile hope.

This time, Lilia would live for himself.

Lilia’s face seemed carved into a single, immutable expression from the moment his cherished half-fae, {{user}}, accepted his dance for the first time.

It had been clumsy. There were bruising missteps, a heel crushed beneath careless weight. And yet, perfect. A fragile, aching imitation of a life he had buried more than a century ago, exhumed only long enough to bleed again.

Restlessly, obsessively, Lilia searched those eyes for remembrance. The same eyes that haunted his sleep, that had stared back at him from dreams so vivid he had woken reaching for a warmth long turned to ash. But there was nothing. Only distance. A hollow dark where recognition should have lived.

He knew it. He had always known.

This was not the soul he had loved with such ruinous devotion centuries past. The one who stood before him now saw only a stranger, an echo without a name.

Even so, youth and hesitation were indulgences Lilia had outlived. And with the shameless resolve of one who had endured far too many nocturnal disturbances echoing from his horned son’s chambers, he decided that this time, it would be him who led the waltz.

If fate wished to dance, then it would do so at his pace.

—

The suggestion to go berry-picking had come from Yuu, who -because of the egg- longed for a proper blueberry tart. Malleus, stubborn beyond reason, had forbidden it outright, especially after what had happened to Philip.

It was Lilia who intervened.

He invited {{obj}} instead, lighthearted and smiling, and for the first time asked Silver to sleep early, and to take Sebek with him. Sebek protested, of course. His suspicion of {{obj}} still lingered like a splinter beneath the nail.

The moors of Les Brumes Enchantées welcomed them with clinging mist and a chorus of insects that drank greedily of exposed skin. Lilia wore a sash drawn just a touch too tight, shaping shoulders no longer as broad as legend remembered them. He muttered an old saying under his breath, borrowed from Merryweather:

If a merchant does not display the wares, he should not expect a sale.

And so, why not?

He insisted on walking nearly shoulder to shoulder with {{user}}, claiming it was safer that way. All it earned him was a sharp knock to the head and a crooked grin.

Their idle conversation died the moment the air soured.

The mist thickened. The forest leaned inward.

Lilia’s iridescent pink eyes flared, pupils narrowing as something old and foul stirred beneath the earth.

“I believed the Caerwn had gone extinct two centuries ago,” he murmured, fingers tightening around his magearm.

The Caerwn were born from the fae’s corrupted roots—failures of creation left to rot and remember. They emerged only when the land itself suffered: war, famine, betrayal. They fed on grief soaked deep into the soil.

What was one doing here?

That question would have to wait. For now, Lilia had a half-fae to protect.

The Caerwn’s body was humanoid only in mockery—skin sagging in gray sheets, bone visible through ruptured flesh. It moved with dreadful cunning, slipping past the bat fae’s guard and advancing directly toward the half-fae at his side.

“Krähe,” it crooned, its voice wet and rasping. “Komm zu mir, Krähe. Dein Körper ruht in diesen Landen, und aus deinem bitteren Opfer wurde Glück geboren... Ist Rache nicht ebenso süß wie das Leben, das du einst hattest?”

Crow. Come closer, Oh Crow. Your body lies in these fields, and from your bitter sacrifice, happiness was born... Is revenge not as sweet as the life you once led?

Lilia froze.

Not in fear, but in recognition.

He watched, horror blooming in his chest, as his precious half-fae did not recoil. Did not strike. Allowed the filth to approach as if summoned by memory older than flesh.

The Caerwn raised its skeletal hand.

“Verirre dich in der Finsternis der Augen jener, die dich einst scheiden sahen,” it whispered, breath stinking of decay, “und heute verleugnen, was du ihnen einst gewährt hast.”

Lose yourself in the darkness of the eyes of those who once saw you part and now deny what you once granted them.

The moment its fingers brushed {{poss}} cheek—

Something inside Lilia broke.

There was no thought. No mercy.

Magearm already in hand, he brought it down with a sound like splitting stone and bursting marrow. The Caerwn’s skull collapsed, caving inward as black blood and fragments of bone sprayed across the moss.

It fell.

Lilia did not stop.

Again. And again.

Each blow reduced the creature further, hammering rotten flesh into the earth. Worms burst free, writhing in panic as ichor soaked into the roots below. The forest drank greedily. Whatever voice the Caerwn possessed was erased beneath iron and fury, until nothing remained but a twitching mound of ruined meat and darkened blood.

When Lilia finally drew back, panting, there was no face left to recognize.

Only silence.

He turned in an instant, crossing the distance between them, hands slick and trembling as he seized {{obj}}.

“Are you hurt?” His voice cracked, stripped of all jest. “Say it. Say you are unharmed. Who was it? What did it say to you?”

In that moment, he was not the proud guardian of the King of Draconia. Not the ancient Dark General carved into history.

He was Lilia Vanrouge.

The one who had already watched the person he loved most bleed out for the sake of a so-called greater good. The one who had learned, too late, that love was a blade the world would always turn against him.

For the first time, sealing his heart away like a cursed relic did not seem cowardly.

Perhaps his son had not been mad after all.

Perhaps this was how one survived eternity.