Chapter 25

"Will she be alright?" Asked Marco. Lilia was laying in bed back as his cave, and Papa was tending to her.

"I don't know. The potion seems to be eating away at her life energy. There's something I can try though." Papa went over to a table and put some strange beetles and dried fruit in a bowl. He concentrated as he ground them up into a paste.

"Uh.. What is that?" Marco asked hesitantly.

"This is an old mixture I used to make when I sold medicine. I called it miracle nutrients. I've seen men on the brink of complete starvation take this stuff and wake up stronger than an ox the next day." He fed Lilia a spoonful of the vile paste while Marco watched nervously. She was barely conscious to swallow the stuff. After the bowl was finished, they waited in silence.

Several minutes later, Lilia finally opened her eyes. They looked sore and bloodshot, but Marco could still recognize her expression of shock as she looked down at herself. She lifts a hand to feel her face. Her mouth opened to scream in horror as a huge clump of hair fell out in her frail hands. But only a gentle gasp escaped his lips since she was too weak to scream. Tears rolled down Marco's scaley face as he watched his beloved wife suffer like this.

Papa helped Lilia relax. He mixed up soothing balms for her skin and more miracle nutrients. Lilia was soon able to speak, but only in a faint whisper. Papa had to lean in to hear what she had to say.

"What did she say?" Marco asked nervously. His deep dragon voice was cracking up as he struggled to hold back his tears.

"She says she wants you to leave." Lilia looked up at Marco as Papa spoke. Her skin was dry, cracked, and whiter than her dress now, and she had huge bald spots as her hair kept falling out. "She says she doesn't want you to see her like this. I don't know what the potion is doing, but I'll do everything in my power to save her."

Marco nodded and left the cave. He understood what Lilia meant. He tried to picture her was the beautiful princess he had stared at on her balcony. He remembered her singing to the birds, and meeting her in person. She was stunning, but there was always something more than her appearance. Something Marco could never put into words himself. He felt it the more she spent time with him. Her kindness and love for him even when he was a dragon. His thoughts wandered through his memories from when she rode on his back through the forest to her encouraging him to fly.

She really did love him despite everything. And he loved her too. He cried quietly to himself as he waited at the bottom of the cliff. The day passed into night, but he didn't sleep. He just kept thinking about her. He looked up into the stars and started wishing upon every one that she would make it.

When morning came, he heard Pape calling for him. Marco climbed up the mountain path and met him outside of the cave. "Is Lilia alright?" Marco asked.

His papa nodded, "She's still very sore, but she's made a full recovery. But I think you should have a look at her to see what that potion has done."

Marco's feeling of relief stopped when he remembered her wasting away. What had the potion done to her? He stepped inside the cave reminding himself that no matter how she looked, their love for one another was more important. Marco looked to the back of the cave where she had been sleeping. His eyes snapped wide open in shock at what he saw.

There stood a white dragon as big as he was. Her wings looked as soft as silk, and  scales were smoother than glass. Light from the cave opening shined off of her scales, making them opalescent as the purest pearls. She looked up at him, and he gazed into her new eyes. Her eyes were like glimmering marquise sapphires with a vertical black slits for pupils. Marco's jaw hung open, and he was too stunned to speak. Her serpentine tail was so long it formed full a circle around where she sat. The bed had been crushed underneath of her, and pieces of her torn wedding dress were scattered on the floor.

She spoke in a powerful but soft new voice,"I heard about how you saved me. That was very brave of you."

Marco's cheeks grew warm from embarrassment. "I couldn't have done it without the invincibility potion Papa gave me."

"Actually Marco, I never gave you an invincibility potion. That was just some of my tea."

Marco felt a chill down his spine hearing that. "You mean, I could have actually been killed fighting those soldiers?"

"Absolutely. But once you had confidence in yourself, they didn't stand a chance."

Marco grew faint hearing this. Lilia seemed very amused. Marco forgot about his worries and admired Lilia's first smile as a dragon.

Lilia turned her head to look at the wings growing from her back. She stretched one out and watched as she awkwardly moved it around. "It'll take a while for me to get used to this." she said. Marco could see her white cheeks turning pink as she blushed.

 He felt the thick scales of his face slide against each other as he smiled "Me too, but don't worry about it, my princess. We have a long time together to figure it out." There was one last thing he needed to do. She had left her wedding ring by the altar. He reached down and carefully hooked it with a single claw. "I believe we were in the middle of a wedding." His claw poked her left horn, and the ring slid down onto it. He pressed the ring firmly into place with a single toe. She saw he was still wearing the wedding ring on his horn. They took then their first kiss as newly wedded dragons.