Ch.27 18th Birthday

Elric woke rather hungry, lucky for him his rather hot magiteck doll Zephyr had a large plate covered in ham, eggs, sausage, grits, and various types of pastries, jams, and fruit. Zephyr or Zefy as Elric often called her was a prefect maid. She was able to pick up on his increasing appetite over the last three weeks, and adjust the amount of food, times, and number of his meals. She was also able to recall the dates of important yearly events, thus knew today was his eighteenth birthday. While Elric had yet to explore her "advanced functions" he had seen the improvements Sid made to her body while she changed her outfit or washed herself. He was amazed by how lifelike Sid was able to make her, she really looked like a living breathing twenty something elf with a larger than average bust size.

While Blaze was the first to notice, Elric felt as if something was changing inside of him, almost as if a new power was awakening. He first noticed it three days after he started eating more. In the last week the feeling had grown stronger and stronger each day. Today Elric felt as if a mixture of fire and lightning was roaming around in his bones and blood. While the pain caused by whatever the change was only lasted for an hour after he woke up the feeling of the changes lasted all day, while he could not tell what if anything actually changed.

During their morning bath, Elric could tell whatever this change was it was starting to affect Blaze very strongly. It made her act in a way that caused him to think that she was actively trying to entice him to mate with her despite the obvious large difference in their sizes. This is not to mention the difference of species. Elric was able to learn something that went against what the legends said about dragons. Dragons or at least Blaze was warm blooded and not cold blooded. He found this out as he was clearly able to feel a rise in the temperature of her softer scales on the underside of her tail as he washed her. By the time he got to the base of her tail she felt quite warm to the touch, a stark contrast from the cool waters of the bathing pool. As Elric was washing the base of Blaze's tail she started to squirm slightly in a way that would cause him brush against her more sensitive areas. Each time she manage to cause him to do so she would respond by licking him head to toe paying extra attention to his right inner thigh. It was those actions that caused Elric to think that whatever was going on inside him was causing Blaze to possibly go into the dragon equivalent to heat was. The few books he and Odis read about dragons did not contain information on dragon mating habits as no human had ever seen it and lived at least a few thousand years ago when most of the books had been originally written. How could know how much of what was in the books was lost or changed each time it had been copied over the years as well.

After the bath Elric ate again while leaning back on the weapons of mass distraction of Zephyr as she massaged his shoulders. It was a good thing that he got dressed before he started to eat because princess Aalis burst into his room and rushed over to kiss him. His mother, Ciara and King Foust walked in after her. The three of them had made a plan to spend all day spoling Elric before having a formal coming of age ceremony in Foust castle that is Father-in-law had insisted on giving him, in the evening. It would be a formal event with all the nobles of Foust and Ash in attendance. Ciara even had King Foust and Aalis silp into the castle and stay in there respective rooms late at night well after Elric had fallen asleep. Princess Aalis of course had her queen's chambers, but Elric had even had rooms made for King Foust, his parents if he found them, and dozens of other rooms for future children or other wives and/ or concubines to live as well when he had the castle built. His mother did so just so they could surprise him. the hardest part was getting Blaze, Zephyr, and the hundreds of knights and guards to not alert Elric of them doing so. If She was not the Queen Mother with lots of pull with the guards it would never have worked. Aalis bribed Blaze with sleeping potion laced fish and gave Zephyr an order not to tell him. She could give her orders and Elric could do the same with James. Elric loved to tell him "Home James" when he sent Aalis back to Foust Kingdom at night, when he wanted to give Blaze a break from flying princess taxi duty.

When hugs, kisses, and happy birthdays were over the four of them left to castle for the shops of Dragon City. It was only he four of them as Blaze was to big to tag along into the shops and would just be stuck outside. Elric told Zefy to tend to Ethel an make her take the day of and relax. The King's Birthday was a Kingdom wide holiday after all, only a few shops and restaurants stayed open. The three under the control of the Crown along with Earth Dragon Terrace were closed to all but he royal family. When it was time to have lunch Elric had the staff of all three shops, Odis and Ethel to join the four of them at Earth Dragon Terrace. Because they had the hole place to themselves for the day there was more than enough room. While the staff was served by the normal chefs, the royal family, Sid, and Jennifer had their meals made by the owner. King Jhon Foust paid an enormous sum of gold to the half elf two years ago to get him to teach his doll how to make a few of the house special dishes of Earth Dragon Terrace. Even though the doll could make every dish well, King Foust still thought the owner was a much better chef. King Foust loved his food so much he offered the man five thousand gold coins to open a second restaurant in Foust Kingdom as long as he would cook for him once a week. The new location was listed as being under the protection of the King of Foust and named Wood Dragon Terrace because of the large forest that surrounds the Kingdom.

After the meal was over the restaurant closed for the day and the staff was given extra pay by both kings. The royal family and Jenna went over to her shop, while Sid ran off to is private workshop area of his shop that was closed for the day. Even though it was Elric's birthday Aalis was not going to pass of having a candy store to herself. It operated under her orders and protection anyway. As soon as Jenna got the doors open Aalis went nuts, she was a teenage girl let loose in a candy shop with nine floors after all. Elric made sure to pick on her reminding her it was his birthday and hers would come soon enough. Mostly he just did not want to large of a dent put into the shops profits. While it was under Aalis, the money did come from him in the end.

That night King Foust held a Coming of Age Ceremony for Elric.

"Welcome everyone, while I may not be King Elric Vellen's father, He will me married to my only daughter in just over two years making him my son-in-law. as I have know him from the age of five and treated him much like would my own son, if I had one. I would like to think that I have made a decent stand in for the father he was last held by on the day of his birth due to and attack on their city. I know that I can never replace him nor would I want to. While most of you know the accomplishments of this young king it is tradition for the host of the ceremony to go over them."

"At only five years old he found and rescued that beautiful and majestic dragon under him from the top of an apple tree. This was the day we met. Shortly after the two of them jumped into a well at risk to their own lives to save my now grown up little princess. At ten years old he rescued her again from the third prince of Ash Kingdom with the help of only his dragon Blaze. After burning part of the old capital city, and killing the third prince in front of his own father the old king, He became the new and well loved new King of Ash Kingdom by his own power at Just ten years old."

"He has since found his mother, along with the rare herb needed to restore her powers as a Witch of House Pendragon. In doing so he doing so he found an island so valuable to the top house of all witch houses that he and his mother were made members of the main branch family. While his most outstanding an mysterious accomplishment might just be raising Blaze into a fully grown fire breathing, well behaved adult dragon in what has to be record shattering time. I remember her roaming the halls of this very castle while no bigger than a dog only a few short years ago."

After the crowd calmed down after a long loud cheer following King Foust speech Elric's birthday gifts were presented. King Foust said that he was going to break tradition and go last instead of first, making it to where the first gift was given by the future bride, Princess Aalis. Her gift was a longsword made of pure Dragon Steel that had runes running down the entire length of the central fuller. The long sword had large ruby in the pommel and was imbue with magic by his mother Ciara.

Odis and Ethel gave him a book of inscriptions, a form of magic used by dwarfs, like Sid, in the making of magical machinations such as guard like dolls, timepieces, and horseless carriages, and a map of the world that was highly detailed and marked with important locations and landmarks.

Sid gave him a combat focused Knight Doll that had the same lifelike body as Zephyr but blue hair and slightly more normal proportions under her armor. Princess Aalis gave him one of Elric's old sets of Dragon Steel armor that he had outgrown to serve as the dolls armor. As he had grown to be 6'5" Elric had outgrown several sets over the years.

His mother Ciara gave him a scroll of a spell for making and mending clothing that she got from the House Member sent to watch over her shops' second location. While the spell may sound weak, when it was cast by one as powerful Elric it could even mold and repair armor.

The nobles in attendance gifted cattle, horses, armor, swords and jewels. One or two to tried to gift their daughters to him as concubines but Princess Aalis put a stop to it quickly. She stopped it so fast that it caused her father to turn to Elric and say, Sorry, it looks like she intends for you to be a virgin on your wedding night as well.

The last Gift was given by King Foust, "My gift, and why I went last is that Elric is to be my heir, On the after he marries my daughter Crown Princess Aalis Foust I will retire and step down as King of Foust Kingdom. So my gift is to give him the second jewel in his emperor's crown"

Everyone at the birthday party / Coming of age Ceremony lost their minds including Elric and Aalis. After all the guest left Ciara told her son that she wanted to talk to him about their homeland and his father along with what she knew of that side of the family.