Beast Gacha System: All Mine

When the sun began its slow descent over the horizon, painting the snow in shades of gold and rose, Damon decided it was time to step away.

"I’ll be at the nearest lodging my people can hire. I’ll be leaving two of my men here, so if you need anything, just send word," he said to Bessa, his voice low and warm.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Bessa answered, dipping into a proper curtsy, with her prosthetic held steady beneath her.

Damon smiled and took her hand in his. He didn’t kiss it, simply lifted it, letting it hover just before his lips, making it somehow more intimate than a kiss.

His eyes met hers over their joined hands, and for a moment, the world narrowed to the warmth of his fingers and the promise in his gaze. Then he released her, turned, and walked to the carriage.

Yadriel followed, offering Bessa a slightly dazed smile before climbing in after him. The carriage rolled away into the deepening dusk, its wheels crunching over the snow.

Only a short while later, two imperial guards in plain clothes arrived. They bowed deeply to Bessa and took up positions outside her cottage, becoming silent yet watchful statues.

Bessa, of course, couldn’t let them just stand there in the cold like grim-faced garden ornaments. She dragged one of the three chairs from inside the house and planted it outside, then gestured for the other guard to use the old bench already resting against the cottage wall.

"Please, have a rest."

"Thank you, my Lady."

"No. Thank you."

Jenggala saw everything and made no sound.

He had watched the way Damon said his farewells. The Emperor had turned to Jenggala first, offering a polite nod before he left, and Jenggala also only nodded back.

Yadriel had looked too exhausted to correct what he assumed was a commoner who merely nodded at the Emperor. But Damon had taken no offense. What could Yadriel do?

Bessa turned to him now, her face still flushed from the day’s chaos, and smiled shyly. "I had a heart attack when you came."

Jenggala felt a pang of guilt. Now that he had come to his senses, he realized that humans would never think the same way as dragons.

While he had thought following her and guarding her from the sky for two or three days was simply what he ought to do, since Bessa was clearly a weak human and he was a powerful dragon, he had never once considered that doing so without her permission might be wrong.

His Majesty the Dragon Lord had lectured them all about this very thing. Ask the human first before doing anything for them, even when you believe it is a blessing. Jenggala was wrong again.

The strange thing was, he didn’t want to apologize this time. Not because he disagreed with the Dragon Lord, and not because of pride. It was something else.

It felt like selfishness.

It felt like he wanted to because he, Jenggala, wanted to.

Even though he knew it was wrong, the apology didn’t want to come out of his mouth. No, he didn’t even want to tell her he was following her without her knowledge.

He wanted to keep it a secret, the watching, the feeling of security and freedom of being near her even when she didn’t know.

It was wrong. He knew it. But the not-wanting-to-apologize was his, and he held onto it tight.

If he were asked why, he would say, Because I like you. I want to know all about you. I worry whenever I can’t see you with my own eyes.

But he didn’t want to say that outright, either.

Perhaps the reason he didn’t want to apologize in the first place was because, for some reason he didn’t understand, he didn’t want to say all that too.

That he liked her, curious about her, missed her and worried about her, et cetera.

If he apologized, she would ask why. And if she asked why, he would have to say all of it and he had the feelings that after that, nothing would ever be the same anymore.

Coming to her doorstep uninvited... intruding on her guests... failing to respect the people she had brought into her own home... By any standard, dragon, beast or human, it was rude.

And yet the apology wouldn’t come.

He was selfish.

But he was also scared.

And what he had been scared of had just been proven true.

Jenggala followed Bessa unconsciously as she moved about the cottage, closing the windows against the evening chill.

Finally, she turned to him with a strange look on her face.

"Please step out for a bit. I need to change my clothes and wash up," she said, her cheeks flushing with obvious embarrassment.

"Forgive me," Jenggala blurted, flustered, and quickly stepped outside. The door clicked shut behind him, and he stood alone in the cold.

In the end, the first thing that had come out of his mouth after that man left was also an apology.

Jenggala noticed things, now. He replayed the Emperor’s interactions with Bessa in his mind, scrutinizing them more closely than he had ever scrutinized his own behavior.

He felt that if it had been the Emperor just now, the man would have known, without being told, without a single awkward pause, that Bessa was closing the window and the door because she wanted to change her clothes and wash up.

The Emperor wouldn’t have stood there like a fool, waiting to be asked to leave. He would have understood attentively. He would have stepped outside on his own, with that effortless grace of his, and Bessa wouldn’t have had to say a single word.

But Jenggala hadn’t known. Jenggala had needed to be told.

And that, more than anything else that day, made something sour twist in his chest.

The Emperor was insightful. Tactful. Considerate in ways that Jenggala, for all his centuries of life, had never learned to be.

Jenggala knew not all humans could be that courteous. But he also realized that dragons, because of their strength and identity, lagged far behind when it came to this kind of sensitivity.

The first time they met, Jenggala had told Bessa he liked her and would make her a new leg, making her flinch.

The Dragon Lord had stepped in and reprimanded him. Ask the human first. Of course, it was because the Lord had known Jenggala would make a mistake. But someone like the Emperor wouldn’t need to ask. He could simply do the right thing.

Like giving her his seat and sitting on a bench with a plant on his lap.

He had moved so effortlessly, so casually, that his courtesy had surprised even Bessa. And Bessa had looked very pleased.

Jenggala stood outside the cottage, staring at the closed door.

He was not like the Emperor.

He didn’t know how to be effortlessly courteous like that. He didn’t know how to be considerate without being told. All he knew was that the woman inside that cottage had looked at another man with warmth in her eyes, and it had cracked something deep inside his chest.

When else would a dragon scrutinize how he should behave?

A dragon could behave however he wanted.

But after this, would Jenggala still want to behave the way he always did?

There was only one person he could ask for his wisdom in this situation.

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