After Fiona woke up from her fainting spell, Puss tried to take care of her for a bit, but what she seemed to need was some time alone with her own thoughts.
And that's exactly what he gave her, as they slowly continued their journey, letting her clear her mind.
Boom, boom, boom…
Puss looked back with amusement at Aurora, the dragon, who was following them with her heavy steps, scaring all the small animals nearby into fleeing for their lives.
At that moment, he was sitting atop Tornado's saddle, while Fiona sat sideways behind him, on the horse's hindquarters, her gaze distant.
'I don't know what shocked her so much earlier that it made her faint for a moment, but she didn't want to say… I guess I was right not to insist. When she's ready, she'll tell me. She's still very young, only 18. It's better to be patient with her.'
Thinking that, he shifted his attention to the red dragon walking along, enjoying the view… if it could be called a view that was 5% scenery and 95% Puss.
"Aurora, so you were the first princess of Far Far Away?" he asked with curiosity, looking into her green eyes.
"Hrmmm…" Aurora, who had been daydreaming about Puss, snapped out of her reverie and nodded her large head, agreeing with a soft growl.
Fiona, hearing the conversation, also looked toward the dragon. Her curiosity managed to push aside some of her unsettled mood from the recent news.
"So… you're kind of like an ancestor of my family? I'd always heard that my Pendragon family had dragon's blood running in our veins, but I didn't think it was this literal," she spoke with her hands resting down, holding onto Tornado's flank for stability as her body rose and fell slightly with the horse's gait.
"Hrrmmm…" Being called an ancestor made Aurora a bit irritated, and she shyly glanced at Puss, wondering if he would dislike her for being old.
Puss was starting to get the hang of the dragon language, and her eyes were very expressive, which helped him understand what she meant.
"Don't worry, Aurora, hundreds of years for a dragon is very little — you're still young for your kind," Puss smiled and reassured her.
"Hrrmm…" She rumbled softly, gazing at him gently with her large, beautiful, and expressive draconic green eyes.
After comforting her, Puss looked at Fiona and couldn't help but think of a question.
Turning his gaze back to the dragon, he asked,
"Aurora, like Fiona, were you also cursed by someone to become a dragon?" Puss couldn't help but ask.
The red-haired beauty sitting behind him was also surprised by the question.
Aurora stopped her steps for a moment, then shook her head and scratched the ground with her claws, writing a single word.
"Father?" He was startled and looked at her in confusion. "Your father turned you into a dragon?" he asked, seeking confirmation.
This time she nodded, then shook her head again and continued writing on the ground.
At Puss's signal, Tornado stopped moving forward, and they both watched the dragon writing.
In front of the word "Father," she drew an equal sign and then wrote "Dragon" afterward.
Below, she wrote: "Father became human for love of my mother. As the first daughter of their union, my birth was cursed. Within me, a conflict raged between bloodlines — between my true heritage. In the end, it was my father's dragon blood that prevailed over my mother's human blood."
Reading her words, Fiona and Puss were both surprised by such a backstory.
Puss scratched his chin, analyzing.
"So, it wasn't a spell cast by a third party, but a curse brought about because your father, a dragon, had a daughter with a human. But if your father transformed into a human, why did his dragon lineage still pass to you?" Puss asked, confused.
Again, Aurora wrote on the ground.
"From what my father told me, a spell can change your exterior, but never the interior of who you truly are. My father may have become a human and given up his great power and long life, but he was still a dragon in soul and blood, and I inherited that from him. Especially because I was the firstborn, bearing the last cry of his powerful lineage now confined in human form." As she wrote, Puss read aloud.
Because the explanation was so long, Aurora had to take a few steps back as she wrote, and Puss guided Tornado to follow, making it easier to read.
After reading, he blinked, deep in thought over the information, and an idea he had in the past was dismissed.
'So, if I took the Happily Ever After potion, I could become human, but I'd probably give up my mutant cat abilities, just like Shrek, who, even being a powerful ogre, was easily restrained by two guards after becoming human,' Puss thought with a subtle look.
In truth, when he first became a cat, he really had thought about that potion that could make him human again — after all, being human and then suddenly finding yourself in a cat's body was quite disorienting.
But as the years passed, he got used to it, and aside from everything being too big for him, he didn't see many obstacles in his life and even came to enjoy being a cat.
Even in romance and more intimate things, after trying it, it felt normal — he just had to make some extra adjustments due to his body size, but everything worked out fine in the end, which only made him more comfortable in his life as a cat.
Unfortunately, that potion always remained somewhere in his mind, and he could never completely abandon his desire for it.
But in view of the fact that he would probably lose his strength, and his feline nature would likely not change much, he realized that a human body wasn't worth it and completely abandoned the idea, which in a way brought him relief.
"And about the part with the kiss to break the spell? Is it false?" Puss asked his final question.
"Hrrmmm…" Upon hearing the question, she looked at him and blinked shyly, and finally shook her head before writing.
"No, my mother and father once sought the help of the wizard who had helped my father become human. But according to him, I was both human and dragon at the same time — and while he could turn a dragon into a human, he could not turn a human into a human. Only a kiss of true love could reveal my true form."
Reading what she explained, Puss reflected.
'Could it be that she and Donkey didn't become true love? No, I don't think that's it, so why would she remain a dragon in the movie?'
He looked at her curiously.
'Wait, she said she had lost her memory, so maybe that's it. Since Donkey never discovered that she was the princess from the tale, Aurora never regained her memory as a human. And if she didn't remember she was human, and believed she had always been a dragon, her true form—even after the kiss—would remain that of a dragon. That would explain why Donkey would call her Elizabeth. Perhaps he even gave her a name himself, since she, without her memory, wouldn't have one.'
The more Puss thought, the closer to the truth he believed he was.
Taking a deep breath, he turned his gaze to Aurora, who was staring at his lips.
He scratched his head helplessly and had to comfort the dragon, who could hardly wait for her kiss of true love.
"My sweet Aurora, let's wait a little until we have more life experience before we try the kiss of true love. Can you hold on? For our future, and so we won't have regrets?" he asked her gently.
The dragon girl became extremely shy at being called that, and nodded to him frantically, with a soft and loving look.
He knew it was hard for her—who had already waited so long—to wait even more, especially when he saw the longing and dependence in her eyes. But he truly meant it; he didn't want to leave uncertainties or regrets in something as lasting and important as a relationship.
In fact, if he had known that he and Elizabeth Swann would get so involved in something he thought wouldn't require commitment before, he wouldn't have acted so quickly and would have preferred to cultivate feelings first.
'Elizabeth… I still judged her based on the impressions I had of her from the movies, and that's why things went a bit wrong. Fortunately, it seems it won't have a bad ending in the end. I'll make it up to her later. But with this lesson learned, I won't judge the girls from now on based on my impressions, nor will I force my feelings on them. If it's meant to work out, it will; if not, we won't get hurt… I hope.'
With these feelings, and things cleared up, they went back to wandering aimlessly while talking.
This time, Fiona wasn't so quiet and began to chat, putting aside a bit of her insecurities.