The Lost Years (Sarkany / Draggo)

[Sharei]

When the hatchling looked into the ravine it was not the dragon that he expected, but a group of humans he saw at the foot of the cliff. They were a group of chinese men, locals all from the next region over, armed with nets and weapons.

The hatchling shrank into the long grass with a silent quiver and held its breath, a frightened shape of black and green. What about the dragon? Had the humans gotten it? Where was it? Kanagi had said there was no dragon, but he was sure-

As he began backing away, one of the humans below brought a strange device to his face and blew into it. Three sharp breaths. The dragon’s call came out, and the hatchling stared for a long time. When no answer returned, the human did it again. It only really sank in on the second vocalization - there was no dragon, only humans pretending to be dragons. And he’d almost walked into it.

Stupid, stupid.

The hatchling began to slink backward but a new voice gave him pause again. It froze him in his tracks and set his little heart to beating fast.

“Nothing today?” it said in flawless Mandarin, but it was an academic tone, someone who had learned it from schooling instead of natively. That matched the man himself, for unlike his dark haired and olive skinned companions, he was practically golden in color. Bright blonde hair pulled over one shoulder, darker skin and piercing amber eyes that were perhaps a little too red, he was too bright a spot of sun in the dark of the forest. The only thing dark about him was the tattoo running down his left arm, a swarm of lines that seemed to move when you looked at them directly.

The hatchling’s breath came fast. He pulled back, stumbling back on his back legs, forelegs rising like he might ward off something frightening. Something broke beneath his sudden movement, but the hatchling didn’t wait to find out if anyone had noticed. He turned and ran back into the woods, stumbling over rock and bursting through tangled root bushes. The trail he left was incredibly wide - a blind rush.

Below, the humans had been too busy talking amidst themselves to notice. 

[MP]

Kanagi lingered after the pup had fled, watching the humans carefully. If they had noticed it, they showed no desire to give chase, and that was good enough. The pup knew better now. They would move on soon enough. He hung very still against the sky, his belly no more than a white pinprick blending in with clouds. The tiercel stared intently down at the foreigner - the source of the pup’s alarm. When the group had passed, he turned and followed the pup.

It was still running when Kanagi caught up to it. The tiercel slowed to a coast as he descended, keeping pace alongside it. A yellow eye tipped sideways, sympathetic, but with a certain animal coldness too. It had been a necessary lesson. The pup could no longer afford ignorance.

[Sharei]

The hatchling continued to run until he had exhausted himself. When eventually he slowed it was to collapse into a bush and shiver beneath the leaves, peripherally aware of Kanagi’s presence.

He didn’t move from there for some time, no matter how insistently the tiercel might attempt to drag him out. The foreigner's face was there in his mind’s eye, one limned in the afternoon sun, the other by the grey midnight sky and the crackle of blue light.

When eventually he emerged he quivered, unable to quite stop himself. He didn’t speak the rest of the evening, and though he ate, was too distracted to enjoy it. The hatchling did not sleep well that night either, startled out of sleep many times by nightmares.

[MP]

The tiercel was quietly attentive for the rest of the day, resting beside the pup, preening it when it shivered, always watching their surroundings. But he said nothing until later that night, when the pup had sunk into fitful sleep and a dark shape came winging its way back.

They spoke in hushed voices, cold and and intent, long into the night. But though the sparrow was perched on the dragon’s horn, their voices never once woke it. From the moment the little claws touched it, the pup seemed to still a little in its sleep, and the sparrow’s eyes grew distant while she spoke.

The next morning, Azho had gone again. Kanagi was alone, and he greeted the pup with a gentle chuff.

“We go today,” he said. “Away from human. Long fly.”

He looked at the pup for a long moment. Then he sank to his haunches, on level with the pup. He hummed low in his throat in thought.

“One man different.” He said at last. “You know. Run.”

It was a statement rather than a question - the Guardian rather than the tiercel asking. As much as he would have liked to spare the pup, he was Rimguard first, and he could not ignore potentially crucial information. He continued very gently.

“Tell who is he? Tell what he do?”

[Sharei]

The hatchling blinked sleepy eyes up at the tiercel. Despite the nightmares that had plagued him in the first half of the night he had slept well and long into the latter. Most of the fear from the day before had gone, replaced instead by a calm and refreshment he hadn’t felt since the fall.

Thinking about the man brought some of it back, and when Kanagi asked about him the hatchling froze. But the fading positive energy and a night’s rest blunted the fear, and after a tense silence, he managed to find his voice.

“Man bad,” he said and hunched, lowering his head and tucking his wings tight against his body. “Bright man… I saw. He killed mother. With - strange things. His hand? Lines. I saw.” The dragon turned his head, as though trying to face away from the frightening memory, but there were shadows in his eyes that he would never be able to completely banish. “He hurt clutchmates. Killed. I..saw too and ran and… fell from the ledge. He saw fall.”

[MP]

“Lines,” he repeated.

It was not the first time he’d regretted his actions as a Guardian. It wouldn’t be the last. But as much as he wished he could leave the pup be, Kanagi persisted. His tail swished gently behind him.

“Color lines? Fast lines? Hurt air lines?”

He waited patiently. But the pup looked so small and lost sitting there. After a moment, the tiercel reached out. He rested his muzzle over the pup’s back, humming in his throat to show that, if he couldn’t stop his questioning, he at least understood how much he asked. But perhaps the pup was too young to care.

“Important,” he said.

[Sharei]

He didn't want to talk about the bright man and what he had done that day, but something about Kanagi's presence and the comforting touch convinced him.

“Lines that hurt eyes. Hurt head to see the squiggle lines,” he said and tucked tighter against Kanagi. “Lines appeared on mama's scales when he touched and she hurt. No color, just ouch.”

[MP]

Another thoughtful hum, this time with the barest hint of a growl in it. Kanagi nosed the dragon reassuringly, praisingly. That was enough, he thought. It had remembered enough - more than any pup should have to. They would work out the rest. The tiercel raised his head, looking away over the forest.

“Azho. Kanagi. Hunter,” he said finally. “Come here for to hunt.”

He looked down at the pup. Though his narrow features could not express emotion in the draconic way, his tail curled around its flank, a consoling gesture.

“Man. Lines. Prey. Long time is look. Soon, hunt.”

The growl in these words was fuller. For a moment the yellow eyes were cold and flashing - the eyes of something old and savage. But in another moment, it passed. Kanagi lowered his head and chuffed at the pup - the low, crooning noise an elder might make once a predator had passed.

“No more tell,” he told it. “Safe.”

[Sharei]

“No safe!” the hatchling protested, unable to believe what he was hearing. He pushed Kanagi's tail away with the movement of a wing and got up on his hind legs so that he could push his front feet into Kanagi's shoulder. The draconic equivalent of a shake.

“No safe!” he repeated desperately, though the fear for himself had passed. He was looking at the tiercel like he might disappear.

“Kanagi hunts man and Kanagi dies! Azho dies! Not good! Too strong! Don't die!”

[MP]

A slow, friendly blink. The tiercel closed his jaws over the pup’s nape, though the teeth didn’t so much as dent the soft scales, and shook his head very gently from side to side, the way a person might tousle a child’s hair.

“Not die,” he rumbled, and nudged the pup back a pace to look at him squarely. “Azho. Kanagi. Two mind. One hunter. Long time, one hunter.”

He tapped the pup’s chest with the back of a talon, demonstrating.

“Kanagi live, Azho not die. Azho live, Kanagi not die.” He said it very calmly, the way one might name the seasons. “Azho old. Like wind. Like water. You bite -” His teeth clicked together, demonstrating. “Is like bite air. Not animal, die. Hunt many line, Azho, Kanagi.”

[Sharei]

The dragon did not look convinced of Kanagi’s claims. He still held the tiercel's stare with a jaded eye, skeptical of anyone’s strength. After all, he’d had absolute faith in his mother’s prowess, and again in his father’s. Both had been experienced hunters. Both had often reassured him that nothing in the world could harm them. They’d both been wrong.

“Azho no bird,” he did eventually, grudgingly agree, tipping an eye in the direction of the sky. She was off patrolling in Kanagi’s place; he’d figured out their routine now and knew that she’d be back when Kanagi left.

One blue eye turned toward him, then looked shyly down. “... Kanagi promise no die.”

[MP]

“No die.”

The tiercel nosed at the underside of the pup’s jaw, a series of playful nudges that brought its head up.

“Fat slug long time, hmm?”

And now, he thought, they really were taking things too far. He’d never meant to make promises to the pup, or let it become emotionally dependent on them. A Guardian did not make ties. They did not involve themselves in the internal workings of a world, because the alternative was to be helpless - to watch as every glint and story passed you by, fighting to change them, feeling them slip through your teeth. Because you could never stay. And no matter what you did in the time you had, it would never be enough. What will we tell the pup, Kanagi thought.

But the only sign of these thoughts was a slight narrowing of his frills. Kanagi rose to his feet, padding toward the edge of the rocks.

“We go now. Away from human.” He said, and looked over his shoulder. “Bug fly?”

[Sharei]

“NO bug!” the hatchling said, jumping to his feet with the indignant rage of a child not really angry. He stomped over to Kanagi and butted him in the side with the top of his head, all spitfire and energy, and quietly relieved despite himself by Kanagi’s promise.

“Little fly,” he said when he finally relented. He spread his wings and flapped them experimentally, but folded them again. “Start high up. Glide. Fly little time.”

[MP]

Though he fluffed with amusement at the pup’s antics, Kanagi considered the outspread little wings with a critical eye. The pup hadn’t built up the muscle for proper flying yet. The period of starvation and listlessness hadn’t done wonders either. With a thoughtful rumble, he looked at the drop. They could wait for Az to come back and carry the pup. But he wanted a head start on the humans, and time to hide their trail.

“Little time okay,” he decided. “Fly many little time. High place, then high place. You fly behind. Easy fly.”

He pushed lightly from the ridge, vents pushing lightly against the air. Coasting.

“Try,” he said, angling an eye behind him. The wind through his vents should aid the pup’s glide. His slipstream too. But he kept an attentive eye on it, just in case.

[Sharei]

This, at least, was normal. When a hatchling had developed enough muscle to use their wings it was customary for their mother to toss them rather unceremoniously off the aerie. Fly or fall, that was the rule. Of course, by then, the fall from the ledge was hardly fatal. A few bumps and scratches built character.

So jumping into Kanagi’s wake was hardly the scary thing it might have been to a more fragile creature. The hatchling did it eagerly, wings flared wide to catch the wind. He went into an easy glide, the mild turbulence, and slipstream favorable to a young learner.

“Kanagi always fly,” he called, noting the vents. “Always puff puff.”