~Blu's POV~

I woke up slowly, feeling rather cold. It was early, the sun had yet to peak over the mountains, but I could see the orange clouds being illuminated by the far off sunrise. There was something missing that morning, a presence at my side that I had grown comfortable with. I rumbled softly, missing the view of Tyron's red scales that had become one of my favourite parts of any morning.

A soft sigh escaped me, followed by a grumble of my hungry stomach. The eggs growing inside me had to be the most hungry things in the world. Before I only needed a couple of small meals a day, now I needed a feast to keep me satisfied.

I heard someone approaching and looked up to see Aaron approaching me. He gave me a quick smile.

"How are you feeling this morning?" He asked me.

I shuffled my wings, "Hungry."

With a slight huff I got to my feet and stretched, much like a cat, feeling some of the bones in my legs crack. I flapped my wings once to loosen them up a little as well before turning to face the prince.

"Hehe, Well get something to eat real quick, we got work to do!" He smirked as I tilted my head in curiosity.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Kingston wants you to start gathering some experience. As the last royal dragon, it would be wise to start gaining some insight into what it takes to run a kingdom," he responded.

I let out a grunt, "But... I shouldn't be doing any work. I've got to rest."

"You can't do physical activity, nothing about political. Politics is all just talk. Being pregnant doesn't get you out of that."

He smirked as I rolled my eyes, "Fine, but I'm going to eat first."

He nodded and chuckled. He followed me out and after I gorged myself on one of the deer the hunters had caught that morning and cleaned myself up we went to the building Aaron had set aside for council meetings. As we walked inside we could already hear a rather heated argument between two of the members.

"Despite these circumstances, Blu is now the rightful heir to the Helvarian Empire! As the governing body of Teleran, We must respect his right and authority to rule and the sovereignty of his nation."

"His 'nation' has been dead for two millenia! His claim to the throne is illegitimate! Our king may be comatose at the moment but I will not turn my back on him. He is still alive and has ruled our Teleran well for the time he has been our king."

Before anything else was said Aaron cleared his throat, bringing attention to us. There were about eight people in the room, including Aaron, Kingston, in his humanoid form, and myself. The other five were members of Thelonius's council. The first was Fugos, the military commander, a strong gruff man with nearly no hair and the physique of a bear. The second was a small plump woman by the name of Margaret, head of economy and merchandise. Then there was Argov, a thin squirrely man who had acted as Telerans head of diplomacy for the last four years. The last two were a man named Phylor, known as the voice of the people, he was the one concerned with the general needs and wellbeing of the people of the kingdom, and a rather formal noblewoman by the name of April, who was in charge of the city itself, making sure the jobs that needed to get done were done. Aaron had taken over the mages guild, and was now acting as prince regent, at least until his brother awoke again.

"Ah, your majesty. Maybe you two can help us settle this matter?" said April.

Aaron sighed, showing quite readily how annoyed he was at this conversation. He glanced at me with a slight grin and moved over, sitting down in an empty chair at the end of the table. I sat back on my haunches, looking over them a little nervously, not knowing what to make of the current situation. Kingston was looking at me with studying eyes as the conversation continued.

"We have already been through this," grumbled the mage, "Blu's claim to the Helvarian throne is very legitimate. He is the only royal dragon alive and his kingdom technically never entirely died, with Kingston still alive," he nodded at the green dragon, who nodded back, "That does not mean we disregard our own king though. The Teleran empire still very much exists, and at the moment we are guests in another's kingdom, just as he had been on ours, and we should act in such a way."

"So what do we do now?" Phylor asked.

"Right now, we help Helvaria get back on her feet. We've already sent out a number of groups into the world in an attempt to search for survivors, but until they get back we focus on rebuilding. Getting the houses back in working order. Getting commerce flowing again, giving the people some semblance of normality," Aaron said, he turned to Kingston and me, "I'm sure that would be alright with you two?"

I nodded my head, seeing no reason to argue.

"My home is getting repaired, I have no complaints on this matter." Kingston said.

"And there it is," said Aaron, "We really shouldn't be focusing on anything else until we have at least gotten that back."

"Then where should we start our focus on reconstruction? This city is massive, bigger than any city we've seen before," said Fugos, he had been the one to make the argument against me in the first place.

"I suggest the castle first," said Kingston, "If we are attacked, it is the easiest place to defend, and it is also the nearest to our escape route."

"And the castle was designed for self-sustenance." Fugos said, "It's a good starting point from a military perspective, plus it'll give the people a place of refugee."

"The castle it is then," said Aaron

A mage soon entered carrying a large piece of paper, "Sorry I'm late, General Fugos wanted me to get a map of the Helvarian empire at its peak."

The mage then unfurled the scroll, revealing the map of the empire at its largest size It showed the white city and castle built to its full glory, along with a number of small towns along the rivers within the mountain range, as well as numerous outposts built outside the protective walls of the mountains.

"Wow," said Aaron, "Thank you Ben, this is very useful."

"Your majesty," the mage bowed before leaving the room.

"What are these?" Fugos gestured to a line of symbols along one edge of the map.

"Those are military installations built during the reign of Emperor Zalzabar the Paranoid," Kingston said, "He was a bit of a crazy dragon, a good millennia before me. When he rose to power it was during a time of great political strife in the rest of the world, and he became so paranoid of losing the throne to opposing kingdoms he demanded the construction of hundreds of watchtowers along our borders. I don't think they were ever useful, didn't even give us a warning about Garagain when he attacked."

"Well how long does it take for reports from the border to reach here?" asked Fugos.

"On average? About a day of hard flying. The furthest are nearly two, so maybe a week on foot," Kingston said.

"That's the problem, reports took too long. And maybe you guys were fed false information to keep their element of surprise. Like, maybe they overwhelmed the forts but kept feeding you reports of nothing new so you wouldn't notice. It's a classic tactic used during Teleran's era of expansion."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Kingston shrugged, "Garagain certainly had the means to do so. A lot of dragons were corrupted by his power."

The room went silent and felt tense when Kingston said that.

"Don't look frightened, we fought hard. The ones that did turn are dead."

"Well... there is Gabriel," I spoke this time, "He's a dragon that follows Garagain."

"Gabriel?" the green dragon looked confused, "There is another dragon?"

"Yeah," I said, "We first ran into him on our way to Teleran before it fell."

"Why wasn't I told about this before?" he growled.

We all looked at each other, before I replied a little meekly, "We haven't really thought about him. We haven't seen him in a while and we were just so relieved to finally get here he kind of slipped our mind."

"You sound like you knew of him." said Fugos.

Kingston growled softly, "Gabriel was the name of the dragon that betrayed our city in the first place, and allowed Garagain entry. But he can't be still alive. I killed him myself."

I frowned, "This Gabriel is around my age, so he can't have been the same."

"More likely Garagain stole an egg and kept it alive until he needed it to hatch," Aaron said softly, Kingston nodding his head in agreement.

"He shouldn't be too much of a problem either way," Phylor said, "We have three dragons, he only has one."

"That is true," Kingston said, "Though Garagain could give him powers none of us have. Us dragons are magical creatures, and can be rather good syphons for others magic if they know what to do."

Aaron had a thoughtful look on his face after that, though didn't seem to press the matter, "We will deal with Gabriel when the time comes. At the moment though he is likely with Garagain's main force. I doubt our enemy would risk him as a scout at the moment. It would be a good idea to see if we can manage those watchtowers, at least the closer ones, with some mages. They would be able to get a pretty quick message through if any demons are around."

I nodded, "We would have to be careful though. I don't think Garagain realises we are here yet, and it would be best if we kept it this way. Maybe the occasional tower, but don't make it obvious. It could do more harm than good."

"That's a good point," Fugos grumbled, thinking, "I agree. Maybe we send people to some of the nearer ones just to keep watch, but until we are in a good enough position to defend ourselves make them scarce."

Aaron nodded, "You can be in charge of organizing that. I'll find some mages who will be willing to go along with it. Now, if that is all?"

The rest of us nodded. I couldn't really think of something that I wanted to bring up currently.

"Then meeting adjourned."