The Dragoneers of Longbourn and Pemberley (Pride and Prejudice: fantasy retelling)

Chapter 1

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that the power of dragons establishes the dignity of a house.

For Valeraine Longbourn, this truth was particularly vexing.

She undoubtedly hailed from a dragoneer family.

Their house had kept dragons for centuries, showing off in the derbies and harnessing the dragons to till their fields.

Longbourn was most certainly, undoubtedly, unequivocally a dragon house of dignity.

Anyone who supposed anything else was patently incorrect.

Valeraine’s parents accepted it as inevitable that once Lelantos was dead, the young ladies of Longbourn would no longer be invited to balls, or turn the heads of bachelors.

Once Lelantos was dead, their house would lose its prestige, dignity, and riches.

Valeraine and her sisters must capture rich dragoneer husbands now, before that world of opulence was lost to them.

Valeraine, for one, was not going to give up on her house that easily.

One day, Longbourn would be a house that wouldn’t need to beg for scraps of attention from other dragoneers.

She dreamed of the day when Longbourn had new eggs, and the dignity they deserved.

The other dragon houses would look to them (and not just to check if their dragon had finally died).

They would flourish for generations to come.

Valeraine would mother a hatchling from its birth, and everyone would marvel at how well-trained and strong her dragon was.

All they had to do was to procure a dragon egg. Their stable wealth from their fields would be no help, as it was forbidden to buy one. No, they would need to make a deal with another house: to breed with Lelentos, or to broker a marriage contract.

The problem, of course, was in the utter impracticality of the whole dream. Who would want to deal with Longbourn, who only held on to their status by the fraying life thread of a single dragon?