Damsels and Dragons

Chapter 8 - A Prison Called Home

(POV Liv)

Thankfully Nissa finally calmed down. I had told the Dan and Millie to go easy on the whole 'she was raised by an evil witch' thing. From the sound of what she muttered between her sobs, she had finally pieced together what the three of us had earlier. She was a dragon raised in a prison by a witch.

I couldn't imagine what that must have been like. The more I interacted with her the more clearly the suffering girl beneath the naive dragon showed. To think someone would have done something so horrible to her. The only consolation was that she was probably rotting in a prison for her crimes.

All these feelings coming out didn't help the fact that I did have a tiny, miniscule crush on her. I mean on the girl underneath the dragon exterior. It's not like I found her smooth scales, powerful limbs, and slender tail attractive. Nope I was not some sick weirdo having fantasy's about getting romantic with a dragon. There was absolutely nothing attractive about a girlfriend whose over two stories tall and can likely breath fire. Nope nothing. Definitely.

So we went inside while Nissa sat nearby. The place actually was fairly nice. The first floor was just an entry area. The windows were too small to fit through and the door had been locked from the outside and reinforced.

The second floor had a bedroom. According to the black scaled dragon it was the witch's room when she occasionally stayed the night. We searched all over it and Nissa pointed out the spot that she found the potions. Overall it was a pretty simple bedroom with a couple spare outfits.

The third floor was home to a nice kitchen where Nissa probably burnt all of her food on purpose. Also there was a dining area and a storage closet for storing food. Millie found some preservation enchantments on the closet which oddly enough was the only magic we had found so far.

The fourth floor was a lounge and sitting area. Fairly nice for hanging out with all zero visitors she had.

The fifth floor was Nissa's bedroom. There was a pile of shiny objects on one side mostly glass and polished metal, Across from that there was a bookcase shelf with children's fairytales on them. Each book was well worn from repeated use. A bed jutted out into the middle of the room, the pillows and blankets arranged like a nest.

There was also a dresser and wardrobe full of clothes. Clothes meant for a guy a little bit smaller than Daniel. Speaking of Dan he was the one going through the dresser.

"Why are there nothing but men's clothes in her room?" He asked Millie and I, as Nissa couldn't hear through the walls.

"She, well… I'm pretty sure she's like you but like the opposite." I told Dan. "I don't think Nissa is the name that the witch gave her. She referred to herself as a boy once but she seems to prefer us referring to her as a girl."

"I'm pretty sure she is a female dragon in body. Unless…" Daniel's face twisted into a rage. "That fucking witch cursed her to be a guy, didn't she? She didn't just stripe away her identity as a dragon. She also stripped her of her gender identity too." He punched the wardrobe. "That gods damned bitch! Why? Why would anyone do that?"

Millie had come over to comfort him. I was also feeling angry over it, but Daniel seemed to feel it a lot deeper than I did. I couldn't say I understood the suffering they both must have been through.

This whole place was a well decorated prison, meant to trick a dragon into believing she's a some human boy that can't leave for fear of danger. Given children's books to keep herself busy. Her instincts tried to shine through while being fed lies about who and what she was.

Millie didn't find any magic up here either.

Before we left, I noticed something. Her bedroom opened up to the conical ceiling of the tower, and it seems that someone made a small space to hang out in up in the attic space.

I climbed up there and found carvings in the wood, along with a stick of charcoal and parchment. In poor hand writing there was a journal. On the cover it had in nice print, journal of, yet the name was scribbled over with the name Nissa written in big letters.

I force myself to not open it. It would be an invasion of her privacy to read her journal. I placed it back where I found it.

Millie asked as I came down from the reading nook. "Was there something up there?"

"Yea, but not for us. That was her private spot." I explained. "Looks like there was nothing here to find anyway. Just Nissa's stuff that she can't even use anymore."

Daniel asked the question none of us wanted to think about. "So what happens to her now? She can't stay here, she can't take care of herself, and she can't go into town with us. I don't think I could live with myself if I turned my back on her, but what can we even do?"

"I don't know either, but I agree we aren't leaving her to fend for herself." I answered.

"We don't even know much about true dragons, and she doesn't either. She has been in her true body for less than two days. I think we need to learn more before we can really figure out how to properly help her." Millicent added.

"I agree but we need to figure out her living situation. She can't just keep sleeping in the open forest we've been lucky with the weather so far but eventually she'll need shelter. We also can't risk Leo attacking her. He's dead set on getting rid of her and we all know the stupid lengths he'll go to." I press.

"How about a barn, or a cave? I don't know the forest as well as you and Leo, is there a spot she can stay?" Dan asked.

"Unless we can convince the whole town to take her in, a barn is off limits. I know of a cave or two that bears hang out in but neither could fit her." I explain.

It was then that we felt the tower shake a little as the sunlight got blocked. We all looked and Nissa seemed to have tried to stand on her hind legs and stretch her neck to look in the window. "H-Hey guys, you've been in my room a while. Did you find something?"