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claire-starsword · 3 months

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Bloodline of the Sacred Dragons - Chapter 1-1

[Read from the start]

Chapter 1: The white Sacred Dragon of Dragonia

Besides the little birds chirping, something else made a noise. Or maybe he had just imagined it.

One way or the other, Bleu didn't care. So he didn't even turn to check what it was.

Besides the sounds in the wind, he had his voice inside his own head. There was no reason to use it out loud. Because he had no one to talk to.

He was the last survivor of the Sacred Dragons, no one else of his tribe remained. He was very well used to being alone.

All he wanted was some peace and quiet, and time had given him more than he asked for. A quiet life of indulging in books. It was a tranquility that most people had trouble to associate with a wild dragon.

For some time now, Bleu had been entertaining himself with pen and paper. As if trying to draw feelings he could not put into words. Eventually, he grew tired of it and returned the pen to its inkwell.

He had always kept the habit of writing on his diaries, though he took breaks from it at times. So long had him been writing them that the volumes filled a couple of his shelves. But lately, there had been many days like this one, where there was nothing to write about. How long had this gone on for? It shouldn't be that hard to remember.

To relax his back after sitting on the stool for so long, he stretched his long neck, turning it all the way to his back. To his surprise, he saw a girl, looking upside down due to his position.

"Bleu."

Breaking the silence as she called his name, the human girl wrapped her slender arms around his neck.

Bleu just barely avoided to fall off the stool like a klutz, and was grateful for that small blessing. With his strong neck he pulled the girl up as he fixed his posture, and then turned around on the stool.

"It's you, Karin." A name he was very used to say. "When did you come in?"

The tall girl, who reached up to Bleu's shoulders, looked up at him brightly. The hunter clothes were a good fit for her strong and graceful body. To come to Dragonia, she certainly had to cross fields and the forest. Bleu gently picked out the dead leaves entangled in her hair with the tips of his claws.

Sacred Dragons were big, but not gigantic. Unlike other inferior dragons, they walked on two legs. When it came to height, a human's head usually reached up to the base of their wings.

"Don't surprise me like that," said Bleu. "Geez. You haven't dropped this habit of hugging me either," he complained a bit, not wanting to be treated like a kid forever.

"Oh, it's your fault for not noticing even as I entered the room. I can't picture you having been once in that Shining Force," she replied with a slight pout.

Shining Force, the army of light that once saved the whole continent of Rune. Bleu had been a member of it, but it was merely a title of the past to him. Hearing the name made the tip of his nose itch. Besides, he didn't expect Karin to bring it up.

She pulled away from him while stroking his neck, and turned away. Her light brown hair, tied up in a single ponytail, made a swift arc with the motion. Inside the quiver on her back, over her leather clothes, a bunch of arrows clacked in disarray.

"Oh, right. I shot down a copper pheasant on the way here. We can make a great stew for dinner with it."

Linking her arms behind her back, she gave a glance over her shoulder, suddenly making a cute face. Then she ran away without waiting for Bleu to reply.

"A stew, does that mean you want to stay over again?"

Bleu made a dejected face just from thinking of the time and work it would take to prepare the meal. It would be night by the time they finished, wouldn't it?

"You don't want me to go back alone to Rudo at midnight, do you? Besides, there's plenty of rooms so you don't have an excuse," she answered, already out of sight.

Good grief. In his head, Bleu waved a white flag.

Karin came to visit once a month, from the village of Rudo in the west. The very picture of liveliness, this human girl was someone Bleu couldn't go against. His power was far superior, yet when it came to words he had yet to win even once.

As a kid, he had grown up among Karin and the other children of Rudo. Daughter of the village chief, Karin was, then and now, Bleu's only friend. Childhood friends, if you could apply the expression for a human girl and a dragon child.

When the demon army assaulted Dragonia, Karin again was the only one to come after the Shining Force and help him. She worried more about him than the danger she could face. That's why Bleu joined the Shining Force to protect her.

Even once he returned after the end of the war, with her fearless nature, Karin continued to be like a big sister in his life, in both age and spirit.

The changes she would bring into his life showed him that time never stands still. Any moment with her was noisy, hectic, and full of energy. Bleu liked all these sides of her.

He let out a deep breath that wasn't quite a laugh nor a sigh.

Closing the diary he had been working on, he got up from the stool quietly.

Eventually, their late dinner was ready.

They ate face to face with each other as usual, the bowl of stew on the dinner table between them.

"Krin comes back tomorrow."

Karin brought up the topic suddenly, looking up to meet Bleu's face.

"Really? Krin, that walking encyclopedia?" Bleu asked back, jerking his head up from the glass of wine he had been drinking. With the harsh movement, the wine in the glass spilled onto the table and his jaw.

"Hey, watch it. You've always had such terrible manners."

Karin got up from her chair, and wiped Bleu's mouth with a cloth.

"Stop it, we're not kids anymore, isn't this embarrassing?"

While clearly ashamed and displeased, Bleu stood perfectly still. Perhaps that was more of a reflex than a habit.

"Nobody's watching. Besides, I used to do this always back when you were a baby."

When he was just a newborn, Bleu's mother could not produce milk, so the people of Rudo fed him cow and goat milk in her place. Karin insisted that she had done it a bunch of times. Bleu didn't believe her, because she was only three years old back then. She must have been making it up. Whenever he contested it, she would start giving a bunch of details on how things were back then. Since he had no memories to compare, it was always his loss.

Not putting up with that, he tried to get back on topic. "So, about Krin coming back."

"Right, right, that."

Karin sat back on her chair.

"I heard that she went to Manarina to study magic. But she's finally coming back then."

Bleu let his mind wander to memories of Karin's younger sister. While Karin was the amazon running through hills and fields with a bow in hands, Krin was the opposite, a bookworm. The sisters were a perfect split of introvert and extrovert.

Krin was the one who looked for accurate accounts of the Manual within old books. Her knowledge had been praised even by Advisor Nova of Guardiana. Currently, she knew more about the Manual than Bleu himself. After all, he hadn't had any chance to see it, as it had been sealed within a shrine until Darksol stole it.

"Of course, you're coming with me to welcome her back."

Bleu wanted to say she was springing this on him too suddenly, but she had her hands clasped together, and her lips stretched a bit.

"Right…" he answered, a bit hesitant. He had no problem with seeing Krin. However, to do that he'd have to leave for Rudo Village.

"Krin actually asked for you to come. She said she has something important she wants to tell you directly."

"Oh, and what's that?"

"She said that in a letter brought by a carrier pigeon from Uranbatol, and nothing else. Seems to be something she wants to say face to face. Honestly, does that girl have no faith in her own sister?"

Karin sulked, and Bleu laughed as he tried to cheer her up.

"It's Krin, she might have been worried that the letter could get in other people's hands. Which means it must something really important. Guess I have no choice…"

"No choice?" Karin's reply sounded just a little bit angry.

"No, no, I'm also happy to come along," he added, laughing like a fool. His words were only half true.

Thus, Bleu left the land of Dragonia for the first time in years. It was the start of a new journey.

To next part>

Translation notes:

Bleu's mom also used to write diaries, which you can find in game.

The idea of Sacred Dragons being the superior dragons has been around before. Neither of these texts acknowledge dragonewts though, who are also bipedal. I'm unsure if they are being excluded on purpose or if the writers just forgot.

Now, the elephant in the room. Karin's appearance:

This does not look like a brown haired girl with hunter clothes, bow, quiver and hair in a ponytail to me. Not even close. There might have been some wack miscommunication between writing and illustrating the novel.

The ponytail description is slightly closer to her NPC sprite, not that it matters much since it's been ten years and this is somewhat generic sprite shared between the whole Important Little Girl Trio.

She also has a ponytail in the GBA version, though that's likely a coincidence, as this seems fully based on the original sprite, and I've already seen Krin's description in the next part, it has nothing to do with her GBA incarnation. I still have to bring all of this up to laugh back at the good old days where I boldly declared the novel had given her a proper design.

(While we're nitpicking, Bleu's eyes also seem to be red in the cover, are he did not have a striped belly in the original game.)

#shining series #shining force #shining force novel translation #bloodline of the sacred dragons #sf bleu #sf karin #sf krin #anyway i'm still skeptical of the romance but i do enjoy the writing a lot #the characters play off each other well and you do feel the intimacy #it's very cozy and lively #my skepticism is solely about will bleu's clear issues actually get addressed #or does he just have to put up with it all and Be The Hero Get The Girl Make Babies #i have some spoilers that make me believe it does get addressed but i wanna see how believable the development is #my expectations for m/f romance are not even on the floor okay they're on the depths of hell #i have nothing against karin herself though she's a girlboss dipshit and it's funny #bleu is just in too sad a position for me to enjoy her near him #i hope both get to interact with more people #also it's very interesting to see bleu as a protag i legit can't think of anyone better from the first game #because he has to have the hollower ending of all them #like yay we beat darksol! guardiana is rebuilt! but what about him who's gonna rebuild his life #the only people who remain in his life are people who simultaneously put him in a pedestal and also boss him around somehow #i am very sad. i hope this grows into something better than just 'they make some babies and now there's dragons again'#long post

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