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Fated to the Ancient Wyrm - Short Drama Full HD 720p
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00:00This familiar scene is exactly the same as in the previous life.
00:03The sky outside turned the color of a wound.
00:06A Lycan Lord, in his full power, in human form.
00:10But how did the person in his arms become my sister?
00:12In my previous life, on the day of the sacred bonding rite, my sister chose the phoenix.
00:18She left the bear shifter, the one nobody wanted.
00:21It was fate.
00:23A cast-off for a beast.
00:25Instead, I saved a Lycan Lord by accident.
00:28He took me as his queen.
00:30After the bonding, I bore five heirs for the Lycan bloodline, a clan that had gone generations without children.
00:36I became a legend across the realm beyond.
00:39My sister, bonded to the phoenix, was cast out for barrenness.
00:43I came home with my youngest.
00:45My sister poisoned my bowl.
00:47Me and my child both.
00:55When I woke, it was the day of the rite again.
00:58Everyone present is a worthy son of their bloodline.
01:03Choose freely.
01:04The hall filled with glances, with quiet negotiations between bodies and bloodlines.
01:09I didn't want any of it.
01:11In my last life, childbirth had nearly killed me.
01:14I wasn't doing it again.
01:15I stood alone.
01:17Then the doors blew open.
01:18Time returns to the present.
01:20And for some reason, my sister has taken my husband from my previous life.
01:27Vivian saved my life.
01:29From this day forward, she is my true mate.
01:32A Lycan lord choosing one of ours.
01:34Choosing her as first and only.
01:36It hadn't happened in living memory.
01:38I knew then.
01:39She'd been reborn too.
01:40Now I looked at her.
01:42Draped against the Lycan lord.
01:44Already victorious.
01:46She thought she'd won.
01:47She hadn't thought through what it would cost her.
01:49Lycan lords are of the fire element.
01:52Their mates sleep in fire.
01:54Eat fire-aspected food.
01:56For a bloodline like ours.
01:58Cold-aspected by nature.
01:59That's not a marriage.
02:00It's a slow execution.
02:03Last time, I had no choice but to pretend to like it.
02:06Every day.
02:07I smiled through the sacred fire walks.
02:10Through the meals that felt like swallowing colds.
02:13By the time I was pregnant, my core was already cracked.
02:16The children drew what was left.
02:18Vivian was cold-aspected too.
02:20She just didn't know what she'd agreed to yet.
02:23The whole heap celebrated.
02:25Every animated girl in the Order delayed her own bonding to help prepare Vivian's.
02:30The gift list ran ten feet long.
02:33The high lord nearly emptied the sanctuary's vaults.
02:36I was the only unmated woman left.
02:38That made me the obvious choice for handmaid.
02:41Vivian stood over me and smiled.
02:43Before you were the elder, I deferred to you.
02:47How does this feel, sister?
02:49I said nothing.
02:51Ha!
02:51That look.
02:53You'll get used to it.
02:55The high lord has already agreed.
02:56You belong to me now.
02:57I'll hit you when I want.
03:00Praise you when I want.
03:01You have no say.
03:03Start learning.
03:04A courier arrived from the Lycan Lord.
03:07A red and gold cloak.
03:09Light as feathers.
03:10Fire-resistant.
03:12Enchanted for speed.
03:13Vivian touched it with both hands.
03:15I knew that cloak.
03:17For fire-aspected bloodlines, it was a treasure.
03:20For cold-aspected bloodlines, it was a punishment.
03:23I'd worn it every day of my first marriage.
03:26It had carved away at my core for years.
03:29Vivian would find that out eventually.
03:31Then a girl came running.
03:33Fire on the back mountain!
03:35What an awful omen.
03:37Today of all days.
03:38I didn't wait.
03:39I ran.
03:40The mountain was burning hard when I arrived.
03:43Black smoke.
03:44Screaming from inside the tree line.
03:46The elders stood at the edge and wouldn't move.
03:49That fire belongs to a Lycan Lord.
03:52We interfere.
03:53We offend him.
03:54Your sister's bonding is today.
03:56Don't make trouble.
03:57No rank fallities.
04:00I looked at him for a long moment.
04:02Then I went in.
04:03The smoke blinded me fast.
04:06The fire took my fur.
04:07But I was cold-aspected.
04:09Wherever I moved, frost spread behind me.
04:12It slowed the flames enough to matter.
04:18But I can't stop this fire with my own strength.
04:21I remembered what my foster mother taught me.
04:23Clear a line.
04:25Deny the fire somewhere to go.
04:26I shifted to full form and called out.
04:29Wolf.
04:30Eagle.
04:31Tiger.
04:32Bear.
04:33They came.
04:34They carried ice-hardened vessels in their jaws.
04:37An elephant used its trunk.
04:39Ants and mantises worked the fire breaks.
04:41We were losing.
04:43Then we weren't.
04:44Then the mountains shook.
04:45The ground split open.
04:47A dragon came out of it.
04:49Black.
04:50Ancient.
04:51Large enough to block the sun.
04:53He opened his mouth and it rained.
04:55The fire died.
04:57The dragon's voice didn't come from one direction.
05:00It came from everywhere.
05:03This mountain is mine.
05:05Who lit it?
05:07The elders said nothing.
05:08A thousand years in this valley.
05:10And nobody had thought to check whether something older already lived here.
05:14Then Vivienne pointed at me.
05:16Ash everywhere.
05:17Burned fur.
05:18It had to be her.
05:20Every eye turned.
05:21Charred.
05:22Bleeding in two places.
05:23The same hands that had just spent an hour fighting the fire.
05:26I was certain someone would say it.
05:28Any of them.
05:29They'd all seen me run in.
05:31The elder looked at me for a long time.
05:33Then he knelt.
05:36The dragon's sovereign.
05:38Our wayward daughter did this.
05:40She is yours to punish.
05:41We offer her freely.
05:43I stood still.
05:44Not one of them spoke for me.
05:48I had bent myself in half for these people in my last life.
05:51I had burned from the inside out.
05:53Carrying children for a clan that wasn't mine.
05:56For a man who never once made me warm.
05:59I'd done it for them.
06:00Kept them safe.
06:02Kept them proud.
06:03And now they were handing me to a dragon.
06:05To buy themselves a quite.
06:07The fire was Lyocon.
06:08Everyone here knows that.
06:09I'm coal dissected.
06:11How would I produce sacred flame?
06:12You're my handmaid.
06:13You had access to my husband's fire tokens.
06:15Easy enough to steal a spark.
06:17If I started it, why did I try to stop it?
06:19To look innocent.
06:20What do I have to gain?
06:22Any of it.
06:23What exactly do you think I wanted?
06:25Mara, just admit it.
06:27I'm done with this covenant.
06:28All every debt between us is settled.
06:30Enough.
06:31The girl comes with me.
06:33Whatever she is to you, she isn't anymore.
06:36When I opened them, I was somewhere else.
06:39Torchlight.
06:40Stone.
06:40A ceiling so high, I couldn't see the end of it.
06:44He was in human form.
06:45Black robes edged in gold.
06:47He sat like someone who had never once needed anything from anyone.
06:51He was watching me with something almost like amusement.
06:54He said.
06:55Go ahead.
06:56Say what you want to say.
06:58You knew.
06:59You knew the whole time what happened.
07:01Why play along with them?
07:03Because you needed a reason to leave.
07:05And my palace is considerably more comfortable than a foxhole.
07:09I thought you might prefer it.
07:10I thought about what he'd said.
07:12In my last life, he had sent me a healing stone during my labor.
07:16Only later did I understand.
07:18The mountain was his.
07:20I had defended it.
07:21He remembered.
07:22Thank you, my lord.
07:24I'll serve faithfully.
07:26Don't do it again.
07:27He looked satisfied.
07:28Do what?
07:30Throw yourself at people who aren't worth it.
07:32He tilted his head.
07:34Get dressed.
07:35We're going to watch the bonding ceremony.
07:38He handed me a gown.
07:40Black.
07:41Covered with shimmering scales.
07:43I put it on and stood beside him.
07:45And we looked like we matched.
07:46I felt my face go warm without meaning to.
07:50The ceremony hall blazed with firelight.
07:52Vivienne walked the red carpet on the lichen lord's arm.
07:56She looked extraordinary.
07:58She always did.
07:59Then they reached the threshold.
08:01Every lichen bonding began the same way.
08:03The new mate had to walk a path of sacred embers.
08:07The lichen lord stepped onto the embers without pausing.
08:10For him, it was nothing.
08:12Vivienne stopped cold.
08:14People noticed.
08:15He pulled her toward the embers.
08:17She dug in.
08:19The hall went quiet in that particular way that means everyone is watching while pretending not to.
08:24He leaned in and said something low and sharp.
08:27She went white.
08:29Then she walked.
08:30The sound when the fire touched her was something I would remember.
08:35She made it through.
08:36Barely.
08:37She knelt before the clan elder with shaking hands and held a cup of tea for half an hour before
08:42he finally took it.
08:44After the ceremony, in the corridor outside...
08:47No mate in our head have insulted the sacred fire at her own binding.
08:52Not one.
08:53You were the first.
08:55Congratulations.
08:56He walked.
08:58Don't wait up.
08:59I had turned to leave when my foot landed on a dry branch.
09:03Vivienne spun.
09:04How are you here?
09:05Her face twisted.
09:07She lunged.
09:08Her feet still burned, betrayed her.
09:11She went down hard.
09:12The dragon should have killed you!
09:15I touched the fabric of my new gown.
09:17He's fair-minded.
09:19He doesn't punish the innocent.
09:20I looked at her.
09:21I'm his now.
09:23You can't touch me.
09:24She grabbed my throat.
09:26Her nails drew blood.
09:28You're lying.
09:30If he wanted you, he'd be here.
09:32He wouldn't leave you alone.
09:34One more inch, and she'd have managed it.
09:36I'll kill you right now, and no one will care.
09:39The air moved.
09:41Vivienne flew sideways.
09:43She hit the wall hard enough to cough blood.
09:46A hand settled at my waist.
09:48Warm.
09:49Steady.
09:50Power moving through it, like current.
09:53The dragon sovereign said pleasantly.
09:55I'm her intended.
09:57You can call me Aldrich.
09:58Or dragon sovereign.
10:01Either works.
10:03Vivienne stared at him.
10:05You can't.
10:05She has no standing.
10:07She's nothing.
10:08The Lycan Lord appeared in the doorway.
10:10Took one look at the dragon sovereign.
10:13Your grace.
10:14I apologize for my mate's behavior.
10:17Today of all days, I hope you'll forgive it.
10:20Your mate could use managing.
10:22The dragon sovereign glanced back at Vivienne.
10:25Then he took my arm, and we left.
10:29The next morning, his household was buzzing.
10:32The Lycan Lord's new bride had lost favor on her wedding night.
10:36She'd insulted the sacred fire.
10:38He'd taken a sparrow shifter servant to his bed, and elevated her to second mate.
10:43Vivienne had locked herself in her chambers.
10:45That news traveled fast.
10:46I found a mineral spring in the upper realm.
10:49I went every night for a month.
10:51One night I arrived and heard laughter.
10:53I looked.
10:54Then I wished I hadn't.
10:56Vivienne was in the water, with two men.
10:58Two dragon shifters.
11:00Junior officers, by the look of them.
11:02I left quietly.
11:03The heat didn't go away.
11:05I wandered the grounds, trying to walk it off.
11:08Aldrich was outside his own chambers, not sleeping either.
11:11He looked like the night had gotten into him.
11:13Dragon kind had their own rhythms, their own seasons.
11:16I looked at him for a moment.
11:18Then I made a decision.
11:19I used the oldest skill our bloodline carried.
11:23He would experience it as a dream.
11:25He wouldn't remember clearly.
11:28You're too thin.
11:30I don't know how you're holding yourself up.
11:31His skin against mine carried a faint, natural coolness, like stone in a river.
11:37It moved through me like relief.
11:57I'd planned to clear the memory.
11:59He seemed not to have noticed, or not to care.
12:02Then my body reminded me of something.
12:04I recognized the feeling immediately.
12:06I was pregnant.
12:08Around the same time, so was Vivienne.
12:11The Lycan Lord's servants spread it everywhere.
12:13Seven heirs expected.
12:15A miracle for a clan that hadn't produced children in generations.
12:18The Keep rejoiced.
12:20Even Aldrich's household received the announcement.
12:22I thought about those two men in the spring.
12:25I hoped, for her sake, she knew what she was carrying.
12:28She came to see me a few weeks later, surrounded by attendants.
12:32She looked radiant.
12:33She always found a way to look radiant.
12:35She pressed her hand to my stomach, then looked at my broom.
12:38I thought you'd found yourself a dragon sovereign.
12:41Looks like you're still sweeping floors.
12:43I'm going to be named Holy Sovereign of the Lycan Clan.
12:46First woman in a thousand years to carry their heirs.
12:49The clan elder promised, once these children come, I'll have everything.
12:53You should stay away from my hall once I'm settled.
12:57Don't embarrass yourself pretending we're still family.
13:00She turned.
13:01With a gesture, she scattered dead leaves across the path I'd just cleaned.
13:05Then Aldrich appeared.
13:07The leaves reversed direction and hit Vivian in the face.
13:11My household staff aren't yours to entertain yourself with.
13:16I'm carrying the Lyland Lord's A's.
13:18You wouldn't dare hurt me.
13:20My wife is also expecting.
13:23You disrespect her.
13:25I haven't begun to address that yet.
13:27You, you have no bond, no ceremony, no standing.
13:32You're a hollowborn with a child and no covenant.
13:39Mara became my wife before heaven and earth witnessed it.
13:42This stone is my Lyne's oldest heirloom.
13:45It belongs to her now.
13:47She is my mate in full.
13:50a messenger arrived from the high court mara of the holy mating bloodline recognized for valor
13:56in defense of a sacred site is hereby elevated to holy sovereign her bonding to the dragon
14:01sovereign aldrich is sanctioned and recorded let it be so vivian's eyes filled she cried silently
14:08and the tears were not the soft kind the lycan lord arrived shortly after dragon sovereign
14:13i apologize the pregnancy is affecting her temperament aldrich looked at her one last time
14:19she could use a firmer hand then he brought me home that night do you remember it
14:29my gift of recall isn't something your bloodline's arts can touch you were never dreaming either
14:35i wanted you i've wanted you since i watched you fight a sacred fire to save animals that
14:41weren't yours and people who didn't deserve it i took you to my bed i owe you a name for
14:48it
14:48a name isn't enough so i owe you the formal bond witnessed by heaven and earth and every treasure
14:55in my line and the largest bonding celebration the realm has seen in a century you'll have all
15:02of it after the children come when you're ready but you are mine mara
15:10that part was settled the moment i chose it i held on to him and for the first time since
15:15waking
15:16into this second life i didn't have to hold myself together my body moved through the pregnancy with
15:21almost uncanny ease i was tired and hungry for strange things and i slept too long vivian's nights
15:28were another matter she screamed through them every night longer the lichen lord put a silencing ward
15:35around her wing it didn't reach the gossip they sent fire aspected tonics womb strengthening remedies
15:41all of it intensified the fire none of it helped the mother she came to show off still by the
15:48time i
15:48saw her she was enormous her face had hollowed out her hands and feet were swollen she moved like it
15:54hurt i took her arm before she fell you shouldn't be walking around like this she shook me off my
16:01husband says movement makes labor easier he knows more about this than you do he knows lichen physiology
16:08that's not the same thing she looked at me with complete contempt you're jealous you've got that cold
16:14little belly and you know i've won seven heirs seven what do you have one
16:25i'm going to be holy sovereign of the most ancient shifter bloodline in the realm
16:31my children will be legends yours will be a footnote she used her power to scatter
16:36leaves across my clean steps on the way out i watched her go vivian what's going to happen when
16:43those children arrive and none of them are what anyone's expecting vivian went into labor before
16:49me i brought snacks and found a good position near the back she'd been sending celebration suites to
16:54every household in the upper realm since she announced the pregnancy half the realm had shown
17:00up to witness the arrival of the lichen clown's first heirs in a thousand years the lichen lord paced
17:06outside his entire extended family had come in the high court had sent observers they weren't there
17:12to congratulate anyone they were there to record i spotted the two dragon shifters from the spring
17:18both very still vivian screamed from midday to sunset then she went quiet the crowd held its breath the
17:26attending midwife came out first then six attendants behind her one after another seven children the lichen
17:33lord went to look he picked up the first one it shifted in his hands black scales his face had
17:40gone very
17:40wrong what is this my lord please don't the lichen lord looked at him then at the child then back
17:48he
17:48understood he picked up the next five one by one his hands were shaking by the third none of them
17:56were
17:56lichen he looked up at the crowd hundreds of witnesses the high court observers with their recording
18:03stones then six more men stepped forward from different directions each one claiming a child
18:09the seventh child the seventh child was half sparrow the same bloodline as the servant vivian had
18:14despised enough to betray on purpose the crowd didn't make any sound for a long moment
18:19he loved him
18:19so
18:20so
18:20so
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