Queen Camilla stared silently at the messenger kneeling before her in the throne room, the power of his message still echoing through the chamber.

She gripped the golden, diamond encrusted scepter in her hands tightly as she stood, the long purple dress she wore fluttering around her. Her thick lipa were drawn together tightly as her green eyes flashed with a storm of mixed emotions. The two guards besides her, the only ones outside the royal family itself to know the secret the messenger had just imparted, looked at her nervously. They had never seen her look like this before, somehow both upset and yet accepting of what was to come.

"So one of the Princes has reached his time, has he?" Camilla stated, "When can we expect his arrival?"

"There is still the matter of finishing the ceremonial customs on our end," the messenger replied, his voice muffled behind the red silk scarf that covered most of his face save for his slitted yellow eyes, "So you will have two days to decide."

"Return to your King and tell him his message has been received," Camilla said, reaching up to adjust the golden crown that held back her thick black hair, "We... shall be ready by then."

"Understood, Your Majesty," the messenger replied, bowing his head lower for a moment respectfully before standing and turning around, his scaled tail stiff with his own nerves behind him as he raced for the exit.

Once the messenger was gone, Queen Camilla sank back onto her throne, giving the two guards a brief show of her large breasts heaving within the tight confines of her dress top. She let out a weary sigh as she wished one of her two husbands, either of them, were still alive to ask for advice or to take the responsibility of this decision from her but fate had made other plans.

The Kingdom of Eldon, her kingdom, had lasted over hundreds of years. It had suffered its share of wars and disasters as any country would but had survived them all due to an unusual alliance struck at the kingdom's formation that had lasted its entire history.

Dragons lived among them.

Any day in Eldon a person could look up and see the winged creatures flying through the skies or using their innate magic to take on a more humanoid form to live and play alongside them. It made their army second to none as human innovation and tactics combined with the raw power of a dragon's true form and the elemental magics that could burst forth from their maws. The powers of humans and dragons also allowed for them to build cities of unheard of majesty and beauty that was the envy of all the land.

However, that power and beauty came with a price that the royal family had to pay to ensure the alliance's survival.

All dragons were male, it seemed, and their long lives meant their sex drives were almost non-existent. However, once every few decades, a dragon of youthful age and of their equivalent of royal linage would suddenly bloom into sexual maturity and have an intense need to mate. Given their race was exclusively male this meant finding females of different species to reproduce with and, for some reason, it was believed among dragonkind that human females of a certain higher class of breeding made for the best draconian off-spring.

This was what gave rise to the old stories of Dragons kidnapping Princesses and was also the cornerstone of the ancient pact that allowed dragonkind and humankind to stay united as they were. For, again due to the magics of the pact, the Queens of Eldon only ever gave birth to daughters and, while most could live out their lives in peace and find love and marriage with royalty from allied kingdoms, it was understood that if the time came that a Draconian Prince was in need of a mate, one of the Princesses of the Kingdom would be chosen to become it.

Camilla had only ever heard stories of what happened to those Princesses picked to be mated with, as the Dragons considered their reproductive practices somewhat sacred and kept such matters to themselves. She remembered, when she was very young, her eldest sister having been chosen and while she did not seem upset or scared at her fate, it was also the last time she saw poor Riana ever again. The Dragons had repeatedly assured Camilla her sister still lived over the years but because of their beliefs they could not let her visit or be visited to fully put the Queen's mind at ease.

And now, mind still uneased as to what exactly their fate would be (beyond the obvious elements of course), she was being called upon to offer up one of her daughters to their familial duty.

She had been blessed with several daughters by each of her two husbands (one having died on the battlefield and the other having been stricken by a rare illness that took him from her far too soon) so, on that level, she was not lacking in choices.

Of course, which of her daughters could she even approach about this?