Ch.26 I can Fly

Three years passed with Ciara's Cauldron growing in popularity quickly. A second location had to be opened in Foust Kingdom so that she could keep up with the demand for potions. The most popular were healing, and one that acted as a male enhancement and birth control. The second location was ran by a few of the dwarves that had been cleared of any involvement with the schemes of the old shop manager, but was kept under the watch of Elric, and King Foust along with a member of the same branch family of House Pendragon that Ciara came from.

Sid the father of the shop barring his name's manager caught wind of what his son had done. This was because he did not receive any new orders for dolls or others items in the shop that were personally made by him. After he found out that it was a crown princess and future bride of a member of House Pendragon, Sid made the months long journey to Dragon City to apologize to Elric in person. He did not want his reputation destroyed by the actions of his son.

Part of the apology he made was to offer his services to Elric in an official capacity as well as modifying the two dolls Aalis had purchased. Elric who had learned of the "extra" function of the dolls had a certain male apendage removed from the Butler doll Aalis had named James, while haveing the combat abliitys of it increase to that if a night captain. Sid however gave the maid doll Elric had yet to name an even more realistic appeariance and enlarged the bust size considerably just incase Elric got certain urges that needed to be satisfied before he and the princess got married. The maid doll now had the looks of a green haired elf girl, but had a rack that most barmaids would be jealous of.

Seeing that custom dolls could be made Elric admission Sid to make one for King Foust with a realistic body and that was highly skilled in cooking. The result was Sid's masterpiece, a blue haired knockout that could cook over one thousand different dishes with the expertise of a master chef. The only other functions to could perform related to the bedroom, as a doll was ultimately limited in how much it could learn or do even if the best resources available were used in its construction.

In these three years Elric had grown to be 5'11" making him just as tall as Captain Davis. However it was Blaze that had grown the most. She had actually doubled in size causing everyone to wonder she's growing so fast. It should have taken her or any normal dragon hundreds of years to reach this size.

Elric thought that it might be tied to him in some way. He figured it had to with him getting older and having learned magic. His fear was that it was because of her recently coming a lot more affectionate towards him. Blaze had started wrapping her tail around his leg and gently smacking him in the butt with the tip of it while he washed her in the bathing pool in either they're old keep or new adjoined chambers in Dragon City Castle. While they had always bathe together it was always just him scrubbing her down until this tail thing started.

Blaze also seemed to be in a competition with princess Aalis to see who could give Elric more kisses. While the ones from Aalis were short an sweet, Blaze tended to use a lot of tongue. Elric started to think that she grew an inch for every kiss, in a way Elric was right. Blaze's wings were now twice the size of her body, causing her to typically keep them folded against her back. She would go outside to an open field and stretch her wings every few hours. It was during one of her so called stretching sessions, that Blaze felt her feet leave the ground briefly when she happened to flex her wings in a downward motion quickly. Blaze then tried to repeat the same stretch, and she once again felt her feet leave the ground. Having Left the ground twice now, Blaze tried again, but flapped her wings a few times this time. This caused her to go higher around three feet of the ground before landing with a loud thud.

The loud thud caused Elric who was holding court at the time to rush out of his throne room thinking that they were under some sort of attack. Once he saw Blaze flap her wings a few times and fall to the ground again, did he realize she was the cause of the loud thud. After the seventh time of doing this Blaze figured out that if she flapped her wings right before she landed so would do so much softer and quieter. After an hour of what was basically takeoff and landing practise Blaze could control her gain or loss of altitude as she wished.

Now that she could land without causing a disturbance, Blaze started flying higher and higher each attempt. At some point she stopped for a few minutes and watched near by birds and how they moved their wings and tail to move forward and change direction while in the air. After about half an hour of mimicking the birds movements Blaze figured out to move about as she pleased. By the time Elric stopped holding court for the day she could be seen flying around Dragon City. If it was not for Ciara using her powers to the maximum to cast a wide range calming spell over most of the city Elric would have had to deal with a mass panic. This just went to show how powerful a witch or warlock of House Pendragon was.

While a hedge witch that was forbidden by the houses from learning real real spell, thus only capable of casting elementally charged runes could cause problems for those untrained or equipped to deal with magic users, like in the attack on the capital city of Vellen Kingdom, the power of a real spell cast by a witch of a even lower house was incomparable. If Ciara's powers were not sealed at the time, even though she was in a weakened state from just having given birth, she could have wiped the floor with the rogue faction of hedge witches easily.

That night Elric paid extra attention to Blaze's wings in the bath. The bathing pool was quite large as Elric had it built so that Blaze could swim in it, so she was capable of fully opening her wings while in it. While he scrubbed her wings Elric noticed the outside or top of her wings had scales like the rest of her body, while the underside had tiny scales that were softer than even the lips of Aalis. These tiny scales were still stronger than a sheet of steel plate that was three inches thick. Elric found out the hard way that those tiny scales were quite sensitive to touch. Every time he went to wash them Blaze would use her tail that she would wrap around his legs or waist to pick him up and bring him up to her mouth. Blaze would then blow in his ear causing him to open his mouth while making a noise of protest. This was what she wanted, because as soon as he opened his mouth her forked tongue would dart into it all the way hitting the back of his throat.

Three weeks later Blaze's wings had grown strong enough for her to fly with Elric and probably Aalis as well on her back. This gave Elric the idea to "kidnap" her. He sent a letter via twin tail bird to her father, King Foust, so he was in on it and so was her assassin maid. The two of them made sure she went out to pick a few flowers for Ciara at the right time. Elric had Blaze swoop in low and grab the unsuspecting princess in her talons before flying high up into the sky. Blaze then tossed Aalis up into the air and flew under her so that Elric could catch her in his arms. Elric planted a kiss on her lips before, Aalis even realized that he was the one behind all of it.

After he and Blaze gave her a moment to recover and get seated properly, they flew off towards his castle in Dragon City. The time it took for Blaze to fly between the two castles was only five minutes even with both Elric and Aalis on her back. This was a blistering fast speed, causing Elric to have to cast wind magic to shield princess Aalis from the passing air, while he was capable of handling it without the need to shield himself. Once the three landed at Dragon City Castle Elric gave Blaze a stack of fish and goat meat before setting off with Aalis to see his mother at her shop.

As it was almost time for the shop to close for lunch, Aalis had the idea to ask her mother-in-law out to eat with them. Because the shop was under the direct control and protection of the crown along with not serving food it closed for two hours each day to allow the workers to eat a mid-day meal with their family or local restaurant. It along with higher pay than other shops in town was a perk afforded to those that basically worked for their king Elric. The only other three shops that were also official shops of Ash Kingdom and owned by the crown where: Sid's new shop, given to him as part of the deal for making custom dolls for Elric and Foust Kingdom, the tavern of the Merchant's Guild and the Ash Kingdom location of Jenna's Candy Palace. It was Princess Aalis who had ownership of the candy shop and not Elric.

They took Ciara to the V.I.P. room of Earth Dragon Terrace. It was a new restaurant that just opened the day before. The owner and chef were ecstatic to be graced with the patronage of the royal family of Ash Kingdom on their second day of being open for business. The owner took over the cooking duties of the chef that worked as a private chef to guest of the V.I.P. room and prepared the meals of his King, Queen Mother ,and future Queen himself. He was a half elf that was originally from Port Dawnstar on Tera that specialized in a fusion of Teran and Elven cuisine. The taste reminded Ciara of home but with a unique taste of its own. Before leaving Elric thanked the owner for the meal and told him next time that he came he would have to bring King Foust, a lover of food along as well. The poor half elf man practically passed out after hearing that he would soon be serving yet another king.

Now that lunch was over his mother needed to get back to her shop, as she had received an urgent request for a potion to help aid in the relief of labor pains by the midwife of a neighboring kingdom's queen. Elric and Aalis left her to her work and headed back to the castle. The two of them went to the throne room, and Elric called for his maid doll to bring them drinks. Princess Aalis was normally quite proud of the two developing mounds on her chest, but after seeing the dolls bouncing exaggerated curves all she could do was sulk. Aalis kept telling herself, "I am only twelve, by the time we get married on my eighteenth birthday they will have grown. I I might even end up with bigger ones that that silly doll that Sid just had to enhance the figure of."

Taking a sip of the drink, Princess Aalis said, "She can definitely make a good tasting cup of tea, I guess the doll was not reduced to nothing but eye candy by Sid after all. I wish my James could make tea this good, I know that you had Sid make it stronger so it could protect me when you and Blaze are not around, but I have Lexxy for that, you could have attest left in the ability to make decent tea. You really should give her a name, it has been three years since I bought her for you after all."

"If you think the maid doll needs a name that badly, you can name her."

"Ok, how about calling her Zephyr."

"That sounds good to me. What do you think about it Zephyr?"

*wirl Beep brrrr*

"The name Zephyr had been logged, magiteck maid doll 00001 will now respond to the name Zephyr"

"I guess she likes it? Well love I better take you back to Foust Castle before your father gets upset. I kinda want to see if that doll of his can cook as good as that guy that made us lunch too."

"AWWW I was going to ask to stay, I will sleep in my unused queen's chambers even." said Princess Aalis who stuck her tongue out at him causing the door guards to laff. One would normally never dare to laff at a king, but they knew King Elric would not punish them for it. Aalis then ran over and stole a quick kiss. It was little more that a peck on the lips. She had started stealing such kisses from him a week or two after her birthday. Elric had given her a longer one on her birthday as he slipped a diamond ring onto her hand and told her happy birthday.

While she would even go as far as to kiss him on her own, even in front of her father King Foust or his mother Ciara it never lasted much longer that a second or two, any longer made her quite uncomfortable even if they were alone.