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Chapter Text

The dragon slept, curled on itself in the cold cell that was its home. 

It hadn’t always been so. Once, when the dragon hadn’t been a dragon yet, it had been free. It had a name and an inferno burning in its chest. It had a will with no one powerful enough to stop it.

It was different now.

Now the inferno was reduced to sizzling embers, doused by too many cycles of isolation and silence. Now its name was gone, devoured by the scales covering its new skin. Now it layed in chains, trapped behind bars no teeth or claws could break.

A metallic noise echoed further above. 

The dragon raised its head, suddenly attentive. No one ever came into this part of the palace except for its Master, his guards, and the occasional food offering. As if on cue its stomach growled, the rumbling noise echoing on the closed walls of the room. The dragon had since long gotten used to the nausea hunger brought, but a reprieve from it always felt welcome. It was better to think about than the alternative.

For if it wasn’t food being brought to it… a shudder ran down the dragon’s spine, its mane flexing in remembrance. It still sported open wounds from its Master’s last visit. Between the dampness of the cell and the growing weakness of its body, injuries became infected more often than not.

Figures appeared beyond the red hue of the ray shield. A rush of fear overwhelmed the dragon as it recognised the Emperor, surrounded by his Imperial guard. Cold slowly filled his veins. The terror soon gave way to confusion as the dragon noticed a small sniveling form between the guards.

There was a child there, half pushed, half dragged by the faceless soldiers. A boy, with sandy hair dirtied by blood and a snotty face covered in tears. He was struggling weakly against their iron grip, though in vain. The dragon tilted its head, curious. The Emperor had fed it children before, but he seldomly assisted the feeding himself. 

The group stopped in front of it. 

"Hello, old friend," its Master began. "I have a gift for you."

His oily presence reached out to it, slithering inside the dragon’s mind, probing its reaction. Something about the boy he brought was special. His Master was excited today, the infantile excitement of a new toy discovered. The dragon curled on itself and tried not to fight the invasive presence, knowing it would only make it worse.

"Put him inside," Palpatine ordered the guards.

The ray shield dropped and the guards threw the boy inside. A pungent smell of piss, blood and ash assailed the dragon’s nostrils as the child collapsed on his front paw. Wherever the child had been, showers had not been an option. 

The dragon's Master studied them. His presence was everywhere, filling the dragon’s lungs, dragging the dragon’s heart, pushing the dragon’s mind.

"Do as you please," its Master said. There was a lightness to his tone the dragon didn’t like. It felt like the warning ozone before the lightning.

The Emperor took a last glance at the situation, a pleasant hum on his lips, and turned away, faceless guards trailing behind. The dragon didn’t dare to move before the oily presence left his mind too - or as much as it ever would.

His Master reduced to an icy point in the back of its’ mind, the dragon turned towards the foul smelling child. He hadn’t dared to move either and was still sprawled on one of the dragon paws. When its immense head turned towards him, the boy scrambled to his feet, taking shelter in one of the corners of the cell. It didn’t take him very far away. If it wanted to, the dragon could snatch him in one snap, and get rid of the hunger plaguing its stomach. 

The dragon hesitated. Its Master hadn’t exactly ordered it to eat the child. He had offered for it to do as it pleased, but the dragon’s wants were never of importance to its Master. It was always a trap. An open question with a single answer. 

An odd feeling froze its body though; a whisper, a warning hanging in the air. It observed the child. 

The boy stood as straight as he could, clearly trying to seem brave despite the terror shaking his bones. He was a shivering mess. When neither of them moved, the child's heart rate slowly calmed down. He began to observe the dragon in return.

He raised a timid hand. “Hi.”

The dragon waited to see what the boy would do next. 

“Please don’t eat me,” the boy squeaked. “I wouldn’t make a good meal."

The human words hurt the dragon's ears. They were too loud, too high pitched, too fast. Most of their meaning got lost on the way, but the cold fire that burned in its chest translated for it. The child’s fire was strong too, the dragon noticed, as strong as the laser wielding soldiers, that his Master made it fight and sometimes eat. 

It stepped closer, curious about the child’s fire. Curiosity was something it hadn’t felt in a long time.

The boy tensed and scrunched his eyes closed as the dragon approached, but he didn’t run away. There was nowhere to run to. 

The dragon assessed the human smell flooding the room. It was oddly familiar. The blood on the child’s skin woke up old memories, memories of a time with a name that belonged locked away in a box. It breathed on the boy's face, letting a few hairs billow. If it ate the boy, the silk-like threads would drag on its tongue and accumulate in its throat, making it cough for days. But the flesh would warm its belly, and the dragon was cold .

The boy stilled. Then slowly, very slowly, he opened his eyes. Clear blue eyes, as vast as the sky spreading beyond horizons. 

‘I trust you,’ they said.

The dragon licked the boy. A small grain of sand rolled on its tongue. The boy tasted like blood and flesh and sun. He tasted like chains broken and forged anew, like golden dunes trapping feet in their embrace. He tasted like a small moisture farm lost in the desert, filled and yet empty for it lacked its most important person. Most surprising of all, behind the sand and the sun, behind the blood and the chains, he tasted like Naboo .

The child tasted like family.

The dragon licked him more, reveling in the various smells coming from him. The blood on the boy’s face woke up names in its mind. It swept them away. The grains on the boy’s skin tore open old scars in its soul. It rubbed them away. The bitter taste of the boy’s pain and fear made its stomach swirl with nausea. It wiped them away.

The dragon licked the child clean, until his only stench was the dragon’s smell. It licked the child clean until his fear was gone and it giggled against his muzzle, crying for him to stop because it tickled so much. It licked the boy clean until its stomach stopped rumbling, fed by the dead blood that covered him.

Vader licked the child clean, and decided there and then not to eat him.

Chapter Text

A few more days passed before any other human came. Or so the child affirmed, encouraging the dragon to carve lines on the ground to mark time. The dragon indulged. It didn’t change much from what it did alone, when the spaces between the walls grew too close and it desperately attempted to escape its cage. Deep gouges still marked the ground from its last frenzy. The child had traced them with his fingers, eyes full of wonder, before fearlessly falling asleep against the dragon’s belly.

They had no meat, so the dragon pushed the boy towards the insects that colonized the cell. They were of little use to it, but the boy was so small, maybe they would be enough to fill his stomach. Water was thankfully abundant: a shallow river passed in and out of the cell, through barred vents so tight even rats struggled to cross them. Its Master wanted to keep it hungry, not dead.

As the time passed the boy grew more bold in his actions. He took the habit of sleeping curled beneath the dragon’s wings. The dragon let him. With only a few rags on him, the boy never stopped shivering, and the dragon didn’t fancy the smell a corpse would bring during the long hours before humans came back. Seeing he could approach without complaints, the boy stroked its scales more often, whispering of comfort in the dark. But when the boy tried to climb its massive body, or approach the tightly sealed manacle ensnaring its limbs, the dragon shook him off. 

There were scars, here. Vulnerabilities it refused to expose. There was a meaning to someone holding its chain, to someone climbing on its back. The dragon tolerated the boy, yes, but only as a fellow being ensnared by a more powerful will. The child was weak, entirely relying on the dragon to survive. He was not its Master.

“It’s okay,” the boy would whisper when he was thrown a bit too violently on the ground, or when the dragon’s teeth snapped near his clever fingers. “I understand. You’re scared of the pain.” The words washed over the dragon like water, their sound familiar but too fast to process. Still, the child was never discouraged. 

“I’m scared too,” he admitted in the darkness, and his inner fire shivered in a way the dragon understood all too well. It wrapped its wings around the small human in a vain attempt to protect him from the non existent wind. It worked, in an odd way, because the boy always ended up settling down in the leathery fold and resuming his murmurs. “My aunt said we must never sell our soul to slavers, even if we must sell our bodies." 

Then the boy would sing, a sad bittersweet song that echoed through the walls and reminded the dragon of twin suns. Sometimes the dragon sang too, albeit with a soft and quiet rumble, always very cautious not to get caught. Most times it simply laid down and listened, lulled by the nostalgic melody.

The metallic noise announcing a coming presence rumbled through the cell after what seemed an eternity. The dragon let out an answering rumble, waking up the child sleeping against its belly. The dragon’s hunger had gone away with the hours without food, but it knew it was a bad sign. If any more time passed, holding out on consciousness might become harder and harder, reality replaced by shadows and indefinable scents belonging to a world long gone. It might hurt the child, then itself, or even attack its Master in its frenzy and suffer the painful consequences. 

The metallic noise meant its Master or food, and its Master had already come, so the dragon let itself hope for food, just a little. Hope was dangerous in this cell, but it was so tempting the dragon didn’t resist. The child was hoping as well, peeking out from behind the dark leathery wing that kept him warm. His inner fire had extended outward, scared but tentatively curious about who would come.

The dragon’s heart dropped when the same group appeared. Its Master wore a tranquil smile, while his icy oily presence flared from the back of its mind. The dragon’s scales flattened in fear as its inaction was spread for its Master to see. It had no way of knowing how angry the Emperor would be at the boy still being alive.

The last time the dragon hadn’t eaten something offered, it had been led to the lower floors of the Palace. The Dark reigned there. It filled the air with sparks, morphed each nerve into an inferno. Walking became painful, but laying still was worse because it meant becoming prey for the predators laying in wait. When dead under its teeth, its odd inhabitants made for plenty of food, but the atmosphere blurred the line between reality and nightmare. The dragon was pretty sure it had lost a piece of itself there, but it couldn’t remember.

No anger burst aflame across their bond however. Instead there was a sort of glee, not dissimilar to the one its Master felt when throwing the boy in the cage. The dragon chose the right path in not eating the boy it seemed, but instead of reassuring it, it put it even more on edge. In many ways, its Master being happy was worse than him being mad.

“Did you appreciate my gift?” the Emperor asked, his stare falling on the blond boy. The child pressed against the dragon’s skin as if the tough hide could protect him. “It seemed you did,” its Master smiled, cold and empty, “although in a rather unexpected way.”

The Emperor directed the guards to open the cell and fluidly entered it, stopping with one gesture the Imperial guard that moved to follow. He stepped forward and the dragon repressed a flinch.

“I’m not surprised,” its Master said as he stopped in the middle of the cell. “You have always been prone to attachment .” The dragon curled on itself at the tone. It was disgust and vitriol all at once, as if the syllables at-tach-ment had personally offended the Emperor. 

“I had hoped my training took care of that weakness,” its Master mused. He looked upon the dragon with disgust-laced pity. “I can now see it hasn’t.”

The Emperor’s gaze slid towards the bump hiding beneath the dragon’s wing. 

“Now, what shall I do with you, boy?” he asked in a genial tone that the dragon could tell was fake.

The child pressed against the dragon’s body tensed. His foot was at an odd angle, twisting the dragon’s wing painfully, but the dragon was too scared to react. It felt crushed between curling protectively around the familiar-smelling boy and giving its Master better access to the object of his want. The choice was blissfully taken away from it when its Master sent it a cold glare, backed with a ‘stand-to-order’ push in the Force.

The dragon obediently raised its wing, removing the boy’s only protection against the oily monster facing them. The child made an attempt to grab at its rising cover, but he was too slow, too weak against the dragon’s massive strength. A soft song of mourning sang sadly in the dragon’s heart. 

It couldn’t disobey.

Its Master smiled at the scene. It was a too-full smile, showing every single of his twisted teeth. It was the kind of smile a predator showed in front of its powerless prey, the kind that highlighted the difference of power, carved into stone the hierarchy between them.

“Do not be afraid,” its Master lyingly murmured. “Unlike my dear pet-" The Emperor gestured at it. "I am not going to eat you.” An icy amused glint sparked its Master force presence; the truth, technically. The dragon did not put anything past its master, but eating people was what he had the dragon for.

As the child refused to move, its Master gave the dragon another silent order. The dragon remorsefully stepped back, leaving the boy to stand alone in the chilly room. The small human’s confusion echoed painfully throughout the dragon’s bones. 

But it couldn’t disobey.

The Emperor stepped towards the frozen form, taking his chin in hand. It was so small it easily fit in the older man’s palm. It reminded the dragon of how its Master could easily dwarf its muzzle despite its head being thrice bigger. It made it uneasy. The Emperor’s grip tightened and both the boy and the dragon flinched.

“Tell me, boy," the snake in human form, mused. "Do you want to live?”

At first, the child didn’t answer, frozen. Too much was happening, too fast, sending his bright inner flame twirling as the darkness around stole its heat. The Emperor raised an eyebrow, pressing for an answer without a word. Patiently waiting for the dam to break. Then the flood gate opened, and the boy’s inner fire roared.

“Yes,” the boy answered. " Yes ," he repeated louder. A faint taste of salt floated in the air.

“Good.” the dragon’s Master smiled, releasing the boy’s chin. “It seems you have enough of your father in you to be useful after all.” 

The child’s face lit up at that. 

“My father?” The question was fast, eager sounding to the dragon.

“Yes, your father. He was a great warrior, and an even better pilot." The boy drank up every single of the Emperor's words, fascinated. The dragon felt the situation was like watching a snake preparing their next meal. The Emperor resumed his charming, donning a nostalgic face. "Anakin Skywalker was a good friend. His skills saved my life more than once.”

He never should have .

The thought came unbidden in the dragon’s mind. It was banished as soon as it came, lest its Master sensed it and punished it for it. 

“I am sorry for this… disagreement ," its Master continued, voice oily with false comfort. "When we found you, the son of my good friend on that farm, I was so horrified by the boldness of these kidnappers your rescue was a bit rushed." 

The boy's flame shifted, slightly breaking from the dark web spun around him. He glanced at the dragon insecurely. The dragon stayed frozen. It had learned by experience that moving would just make things worse, and lower the boy's chance of survival. 

The child's presence filled with grief and fear, eyes glinted with precious water. The Emperor interpreted the anxiety as fear of the dragon. He let out a pleased hum that sounded soothing to unused ears. "Do not worry. My pet is very obedient," he purred. "It was specifically ordered not to eat you."

The dragon's Master placed a hand on the boy’s back as he led him away. The dragon stepped forward to follow, but a harsh mental whip from its Master reminded it of its place. No interference would be allowed with the Emperor's new toy.

“The world is cruel," the Sith explained, as he ushered the boy to the door. "You will need training to survive. It may be harsh at first, but I can assure you I only want the best for you.“

With a small push, the Emperor sent the child tumbling towards the guards arms. This time, when the boy turned towards the dragon for help, the dragon turned away. The boy would be kept alive. Knowing its Master, this was the best outcome possible. 

The dragon’s new position brought it in the line of its Master’s stare. The Emperor left his guards to take the lead, staying behind. He stood in front of the cell, observing the dragon with a renewed interest.

"You spared the boy,” its Master mused. “I wonder, do you remember anything, old friend?" 

The words fell empty on the dragon’s ear. Their tone was too curious to interpret further than that its Master was not in a mood to hurt it. Their syllables made sense once, but the dragon’s addled mind was too tired to put them together. It stayed put and listened instead, attentive to any sudden shift of mood. 

The Emperor turned away, lips pulled in a mocking smile. “No, I too thoroughly rebuilt you, didn’t I?" He sighed, “Ahh well, let’s see if I can do better with this next one, hmmm?” 

Its Master left, taking away the boy with him. The dragon didn’t move, staying in the silent lifeless cell. Feeling like something was being lost as the boy’s flame moved farther and farther out of its reach. 

Chapter Text

Surprisingly, it wasn’t long before the dragon saw the boy again. It was hard to judge time in the never changing red hue of his cell, but it was short enough for no one to come feed him. The meal actually arrived with the boy, in the form of a dead nerf calf thrown over his shoulders. The child staggered with each step, but he struggled on, his features stilled into a look of determination.

A pack of guards surrounded him, but they made no move to help, their presences alight in mockery or disinterest. They opened the cell to let the boy enter and left, not a glance behind. 

At first, the boy only threw the nerf calf near him and stood warily in a corner of the cell. However, most of his hesitation disappeared when the guards left. Their shadows disappeared at the end of the corridor, and the boy’s shy demeanor faded in favor of a lively spitfire. He was everywhere, soothingly whispering, checking the dragon’s scales as if some new defects could have appeared during his time away. With his inspection finished, the child collapsed on the dragon’s front paw.

“I was worried,” he explained, rubbing a small hand over the dragon’s scales . “I saw him stay behind while they took me. I know it’s never good to be alone with a Master.”

The dragon let the familiar voice wash over him, letting the boy ramble as it inspected the food offering. The nerf didn’t smell fresh, but it didn't smell stale either. It also lacked clothes that would stick to its teeth or cling to its throat. A vast improvement from its last meal.

The dragon bared its teeth and bit into the offered meal in earnest. It felt ravenous. The boy recoiled from its side, taken aback by the sudden predatory stance that overtook the dragon’s frame.

He came back soon enough though, limbs shaking as determination stilled his instinctual fear. 

“They said I needed to spend the night here, to get you used to me,” the boy said, voice only slightly quivering. “To train us both.”

The dragon let out a rumble of appreciation, letting its tail wrap around the boy even as it continued feeding. It loved seeing humans running away at its sight, but it also loved the child's presence. It was glad the boy stayed close even in front of its feeding might. It was glad its Master had let him come back, even as it knew it would mean more pain in the future.

“It’s for the best,” the boy continued. “Palpatine says so.”

A growl escaped the dragon throat at its Master name. The boy glanced at it but didn’t wander away from the fold of its tail. “Palpatine says a lot of things,” the child mumbled, ignoring the spasm that ran down the dragon's spine every time he pronounced the cursed name. “I don’t know if I believe them.”

The dragon reared back from its meal, and glared at the remains of the nerf calf. It was still hungry, but there was no telling how long it would be before anyone fed it again. There was the child to take into account as well. The last few days had worryingly thinned his frame. The boy didn’t smell like food, so it was unlikely his talk about its’ Master was to praise some excellent buffet.

“He looks like the strange men uncle Owen warned me about,” the boy rambled, mistaking the dragon’s appraising stare. “But not like old Ben,” he added quickly. "Ben felt different. Brighter. Palpatine… Palpatine feels more like you .”

The boy’s presence anxiously flexed as he pronounced the last words. Maybe he was hungry? The child always got more nervous when they failed to find sustenance. The dragon pushed the remains of the meat towards the boy. Its only half-filled stomach twisted in want and its mouth watered with yearning, but the dragon could still go a few days without food and knew the rules of the place. The boy, frail and naive of the Emperor’s games, needed all the strength he could get.

The boy glanced at him, then back at the food. From the frown on his face, the boy seemed to be pondering on whether the raw nerf was edible. The dragon growled encouragingly. The insects had been no issue, so why was the child hesitating now? A memory came unbidden to its mind, of humans eating cooked meat at their table, turning their nose up at any sentient who would dare eat it raw.  

Annoyed, the dragon woke its inner fire until a few embers burned in his chest. They were far from their previous flory, tuned down by the Emperor’s lessons and by the dragon's effort to keep its Master ignorant, but they were enough to make a few sparks. The dragon sputtered glowing embers over the meat, using its annoyance as fuel while keeping the child away with a wing. The surrounding stone heated at the spark’s contact, softly shining in the darkness. A few minutes later the stone returned to its cold humid state and the dragon’s embers slid back to their slumber. It didn’t matter. The sparks had done their job in slightly roasting the meat. The dragon pushed back the boy towards the food, wondering if now the human would deem it good enough for him. 

The boy glanced at it worriedly, then at the slightly scorched stone and meat on the floor, then back at it. He crept closer, looking briefly at his clawless hands, before kneeling and taking a bite of meat from the roasted remains. 

The dragon huffed in satisfaction, and laid down again. At least having the boy’s mouth full would stop him from pronouncing its Master’s name at every turn. There was no need to invoke the Emperor’s wrath by unnecessary summons.

Eating until his belly was full - a much easier task for the small child to accomplish than an enormous dragon - the child turned back to the dragon. 

“Thank you,” he muttered softly. The dragon didn’t need to understand the words to understand the sentiment. It lifted a single wing, and the boy scrambled underneath it, curling up against the dragon's side to sleep. The dragon rumbled, happy they were both settled for the night.

The dragon woke to the noises of guards. They stopped in front of the ray shield and barked orders. The loud voices coupled with harsh tones jumpscared the child into waking. For an instant, the dragon wished they lived in a world where children could sleep their fill and people weren’t chained. 

It didn’t linger in the daydream. The dragon knew there was no such gentle world.

The guards opened the door, electrostaffs secured in their hands in case the dragon gained any ideas. The stench of fear hung heavy in the air. The guards barked more orders at the child, who flinched. When the boy didn’t react fast enough for their taste, one of the more daring guards stepped forward and grabbed the child by his arms, yanking him away from the dragon side. The dragon snapped its teeth in warning but the guard had already retreated behind the ray shield, the boy in his grip. 

The dragon stepped forward, intent on destroying the obstacle and the guard who would dare— 

Heavy manacles shifted, irritating its skin further. Reminding it of its place. The pull of chains dragged it down, and the dragon let itself drop, its triangular head resting on its paws as it watched the boy be led away. The guards cackled at the dragon’s inability to retaliate. The buzzing ray shield was only one of many layers entrapping it here. It had fought enough to know each 

However, the dragon still had a few remaining freedoms, one of them being choosing some of its prey, when its Master was in an indulgent mood. The dragon made sure to memorize the daring guard’s smell. They had been brave, fast, and efficient in their handling. A rarity in the palace staff. 

But they had made a mistake by stepping into the dragon’s protective bubble however: they had attracted its wrath. A smokey huff escaped the dragon as it remembered the fear and panic in the boy’s presence as the guard grabbed him. There wouldn’t be a next time.

The boy came back what felt like an eternity later, the last of the nerf calf having long since been eaten. He was thrown like a potato bag over a guard’s shoulder. He was so still that had his inner fire not flickered with life, the dragon would have feared the child was dead. The guards unceremoniously threw him in the cell before leaving with a sneer.

A strong iron scent slowly filled the air. Slightly worried despite itself, the dragon approached the unmoving child. So close to the ray shield light, it was easy to see the bruises marring the boy’s face. 

The dragon’s embers flickered. It couldn’t sooth hurts and help healing like it remembered doing once, but it could offer comfort of a kind.

Guided by instincts older than the scales covering its body, the dragon licked the boy, wishing its harms away. It wouldn’t do to lose the only piece of entertainment around, it reasoned even as it tasted bitter salt and iron on the boy’s skin. At least this time all the sand grains were gone.

It wasn’t long before the warm tongue shook the boy awake. He flinched at first, his small body tensing to take a nonexistent blow before his senses caught up with the saliva coating him. Clear blue eyes blinked into the darkness, far too weary for a child to possess. Or at least the dragon thought they were blue. The red hue permeating the cell made colors difficult to discern sometimes.

The boy winced and giggled at once, voicing demands for the dragon to stop but body language and presence screaming at the dragon to continue. The dragon obliged. It felt nice to be able to disobey, even if it was to indulge, even if it was another prisoner. It felt nice to heal rather than destroy. 

So distracted was it by the butterflies running along its nerves as it cleaned the child, the dragon didn’t notice how its inner fire bloomed with the pulse of the bright presence of the child. It didn’t notice how the boy’s Light mended instead of burned. It didn’t notice how curiosity mixed with disgust rose from the darkest part of its mind, where its Master held its chain. 

After a while the iron stench finally left, replaced by the dragon’s natural smell. The boy had stopped wiggling and stared pensively at the ceiling. "Thanks,” he whispered, gratitude poured into the word. “This is… going to be harder than I thought it would be. I’m glad you’re here though. That I’m not alone.” 

The dragon huffed with satisfaction, continuing to lick at the boy. 

“Say…” the child started talking again. “Do you know what the Force is?"

The dragon paused its licking, tilting its head. F-O-R-C-E. The word felt familiar. It tasted like love and despair, like trust twisted into loathing by a deep anguish rooted in its soul. The dragon guessed it was the name for the fire burning in their souls. It didn’t like the turmoil that sparked in its chest however. For all the child’s eyes brightened in anticipation at the dragon reaction, it couldn’t provide him an answer.

So it lowered its head again and resumed its ministrations. It wasn’t entirely a lack of an answer, either. A part of it remembered the Force like that: like a warm feeling licking its wounds, stinging even as it chased the pain away.

The boy was taken again, then brought back, new bruises coloring his body. It became a cycle of sorts. It had to hurt surely, but not a single time did the boy complain nor curse the dragon’s Master for the pain he gave. Sometimes, the dragon would sense a shift in its Master’s mood, and fear the boy would never come back. He always did though, and a treacherous part of the dragon’s mind felt relieved of that constant.

“It’s so hard I want to give up,” the boy whispered once, arms circling his knees as he rested against the dragon side. “Palpatine says he was my father's friend, but I'm not dumb. I know I'm not Free.” The dragon whined when the boy’s scent flickered in shame and pain. 

The boy shifted. “If I give up, they’ll probably kill me or send me back to Tatooine, and I’ll never be strong enough to survive.” He bit his lips even as the dragon rumbled in comfort. “I need to deserve my freedom. Like Father did.”

The sentence sparked an ember of anger in the dragon, but it couldn’t do anything but provide the limited comfort it could. The boy would survive. Or he wouldn’t. Only time would tell.

Another cycle later the boy staggered back to the cell, collapsing on the dragon’s paw. There was a sense of satisfaction around him that made his presence glow. 

“I’m getting better, I think. I can feel it. I’m close to touching the Force.” The boy chuckled. “At the very least I’m good at brawling now. No one can beat me in how to take a blow.” 

The dragon headbutted the boy, not liking the self deprecating edge that coloredhis tone. The action shook another tired chuckle out of the child, who affectionately leaned the back of his head on the dragon shoulder.

“It is lonely down here, isn’t it?” He murmured, his words slightly slurring from pain and exhaustion. “It’s always so busy and noisy above, I almost forget.”

The dragon brought its head to the boy’s lap. I’m here , it wanted to say. This place is cold but we’re alive. The child absentmindedly scratched the bottom of the dragon’s eye, where its small scales always itched, and a low rumble escaped its throat.

“I don’t know if I can trust Palpatine,” the boy mused. The dragon involuntarily shivered at the name, but otherwise remained still beneath the boy’s nimble hands. “But I don't mind coming here.” His hand moved to the bottom of the dragon’s horns. “It may be strange, but for all its busyness, I think the Palace is much lonelier.”

The boy’s scratching slowed down to a stop as he rested his whole body weight on the dragon’s scales. The dragon whined at the interruption but didn’t insist, sensing the doziness that had taken over the child. It felt fairly relaxed as well, its own embers echoing the boy’s inner flame. 

It adjusted its position until the boy was hidden to any outsider, trapped between the soft scales of the dragon’s belly and the thick leather of its wing. The movement pushed the child’s eyes back open.

“Here there is you,” the boy resumed his rambling, a yawn stretching his mouth as he nestled deeper into the dragon’s side. “Here it feels safe.”

Then he promptly let his eyes fall shut, head lolling so that his open mouth dripped drool all over the dragon’s black scales. The dragon’s chest rose and fell with the child’s breaths, its mind deeply intertwined with the boy. It felt safe too. Safer than it had felt in years, despite the icy seeds of its Master’s presence in its mind.

The boy couldn’t sense their bond yet, because his grasp on his inner flame was so weak. But he was bright and getting stronger everyday, so the dragon wasn’t worried. In the meantime, the child’s presence was left wide open. The dragon guarded the little light, and the two prisoners slipped into shared dreams.

Chapter Text

The dragon had gotten used to the guards fetching the boy for its Master’s summons. That’s why it confusedly glared at the group standing in front of its cell, despite the boy being long gone. They were more nervous than usual, grips clenched on the handle of their electrospikes. The dragon huffed. Half of the guards jumped.

As they stepped forward, revealing additional hooks and chains, the dragon realised the reason for their nervosity. It seemed its Master had finally summoned it.

It stretched, glad to finally have an opportunity to exit the cell. Most meetings with the Emperor meant pain, but they often also meant food, and a break from the never-ending cell boredom. A grin revealed its fangs, the guards’ fear deliciously swirling around it. Maybe it would make one of them a meal. They had poor judgment, to think it would refuse its Master’s call. The dragon was long past that petty rebellious phase. 

It waited patiently as they hooked the new, shorter chains to the manacles surrounding its limbs, replacing the chains tying it to the cell’s floor. When a slightly too nervous recruit stepped on its tail, the dragon bit their foot off. Blood filled its mouth and the guard screamed, launching a delicious swirl of pain in the energy surrounding them. Other guards hurriedly took the injured recruit away. Mercifully, the dragon let them live. The kill wasn’t worth the bother of another electric shock. 

The slightly crunchy bones made a great appetizer on the way, and ensured the rest of the humans kept their distance until their destination. It nicely entertained the dragon during the slow walk to their destination.

The throne room door opened to the Emperor with the boy on his lap. Instinctively, the dragon’s ears pressed flat against its crane. The sight felt wrong . A nauseating smell floated in the air, and a growl escaped the dragon’s throat. Its Master threw it a warning glance and the noise closed shut, replaced by a half apologetic whimper. 

It settled in a shadowed corner of the room, laying low. The dragon could feel it wasn’t the Emperor’s current priority right now. Its arrival was barely acknowledged that the guards were dismissed and the dragon’s presence forgotten, the Emperor’s gaze focused only on the boy on his lap. The door closed, and they were alone.

The dragon felt the boy’s gaze on it, his curiosity projecting around them. He was not used to seeing the dragon outside their cell. Similarly, the dragon took its time to observe the boy under the throne room’s lights. The child’s eyes were blue, like it had guessed in the cell’s darkness. The blond of his hair reflected the windows lights like a halo, reminiscent of the shine of Tatooine’s dunes.

The Emperor’s voice cut through their silent exchange.

"Are you wondering about our new guest?”

The child nodded.

“Do not worry,” the Emperor smiled. “I just need my pet for a bit afterward, and thought I might as well bring it up earlier.” He petted the boy’s hairs and the dragon had to repress another growl. “I thought it might be a comfort to you. Today’s lesson will be quite intense.”

“Intense?”

The Emperor’s affirmative hum froze something in the dragon’s guts. 

“You will see,” the dragon’s Master said. “For now, show me what you’ve learnt.”

The atmosphere was filled with an anticipating glee that promised pain to the Sith Lord’s prey. A plaintive whine escaped the dragon’s throat, but no one paid attention to it. All eyes were on the golden boy walking to the center of the room, a metallic stick in hand serving as a mock of a lightsaber. 

The boy smoothly fell into an Ataru stance. His katas weren’t perfect by far, but a lot more advanced than what you would expect for someone to learn in such a short time. There was something entrancing in watching the child dance on the throne room floor. It awakened an odd feeling in the dragon’s belly. Like watching someone else, white and blue horns superposing with the blond head. It felt… nostalgic. 

Then the smell of ozone burst into the air. Lightning struck. The boy fell with a cry.

“Never let your guard down,” the Emperor tutted. “Now, again.” He gestured to the injured child to restart his katas, a reassuring (false, the dragon mentally shouted) smile on his face. He encouraged the boy to stagger back in place. Once the child was focused again on the exercise, lowering back his guard, the Emperor struck again. 

The dragon’s claws clicked on the floor as it shifted. It wanted to run towards the child. It wanted to run away from the lightning. It stayed put, held in place by the addition of opposite forces. The boy’s pain hung heavy around him, twirling with his Master’s silent order to watch to form an immovable binding rope.

The cycle repeated several times in a row. The smell of burned flesh joined the ozone permeating the air. The Emperor kept soothing the boy, assuring him he was on his side even as he electrocuted him. At first, the dragon didn’t understand the Emperor’s angle, apart from the glee its Master always exhumed while torturing beings. The boy was slow, untrained and unequipped to deal with something like lightning. Then the child reacted unnaturally fast, meeting the wild electricity with his metallic stick, and the dragon understood.

In a rarity of things, its Master was true to his words. He was training the child, pushing him past his limits to force him to use the energy surrounding them. With each strike, the boy looked weaker, soot and burns littering his skin. Yet with each strike, his flame burned brighter. Yet, it was never enough. Not to the Emperor’s taste.

The dragon’s Master was using a particularly cruel method to teach the child. The boy’s metallic weapon conveyed electricity well, ensuring that even when he successfully parred, the lightning would still hit him full blow. The game continued on, until the child’s frustration, pain and determination grew his flame into an uncontrollable star. The room windows cracked as the child charged blindly at the Emperor.

Just as soon as it appeared, the star was snuffed out.

Lightning crackled once more, defeating the boy long before he could reach the throne. The sight relaxed something in the dragon’s guts. For one instant, it had tensed, filled with the wild hope the magnificent star would engulf its Master whole. A futile hope, it now recognised. Its’ Master always won.

“Not enough,” the Emperor sneered. His gaze fell with scorn on the boy’s prostrated form. A shiver ran down the dragon’s spine. A few cracked windows was far below the display of power he had expected from the child, the dragon knew. But it was too soon, too fast. The boy was not ready to wield the wild energy that surrounded them yet. 

When the child regained consciousness, his gaze first went to search for the dragon. He was confused and in pain, still too dazed by the last blast to make sense of the world. His little flame pulled at the dragon’s familiar presence, silently begging for it to soothe his hurting body and soul. The dragon yearned to take a step closer. It yearned to give in to the pleading gaze sent its way and comfort the child it took under its wings. It yearned so strongly its chest hurt.

The dragon did not move.

The Emperor’s presence felt like viscous goo on its scales. It felt slimy, restrictive and heavy, mixing with the low song of the Dark. Whispers of inaudible promises rang in the dragon’s ears, daring it to disobey its Master’s order, just so it could taste a bit more of despair. The monster was hungry, it sang. There was a bright sun nearby and the lightning was eager for more pounds of flesh. If the dragon moved, would it be to comfort, or to devour? Pushed by the whisper of the Dark, would the dragon sink its fang in the boy’s flesh, like it had so many? More than electro-whips, more than its Master, the dragon was terrified of itself. 

The fear gripped its paws, more efficient than the Galaxy’s strongest chain. It blurred his thoughts, mixing every sound into a meaningless cacophony. It bypassed its feelings, turning care into numbness and terror into rage. And as the child suffered and begged, the dragon did not move.

It did not dare. Not yet.

The Emperor grinned from the throne, a familiar possessive glint in his eyes as he looked over the child. The sight felt wrong. The sight felt right . The Emperor twisted, the Emperor tortured, the Emperor got what he wanted. Such was how the dragon’s world turned.

The child had yet to learn this rule. The scared little flame called, not understanding why now at all times the dragon’s soothing darkness stopped answering. His gaze begged, his arm twitched towards the dragon's massive form. 

Still, the dragon did not move.

It couldn’t.

The flame reduced to an ember, the determined eyes turned to understanding and despair. His struggle to stand back up stopped. The child's form slouched, forming a sad glazed mop on the ground. The next time the Emperor threw lightning, he did not try to parry it. He did not have the strength. 

The child fell unconscious without even a whimper. The dimming of his flame should have felt like a relief to the dragon's exhausted mind, yet it felt uneasy. The Emperor had been merciful, allowing his latest toy to rest after only an hour of training . He rarely was so merciful with his draconic pet. So why did the boy's immobile form tear at the dragon's heart?

There wasn't much of a fuss after that. Its Master guards came forth and took the boy away, presumably in a room away from prying eyes. The excuse his Master had argued needing the dragon for was only to cow a few senators. Nothing truly worth bringing out his pet. The dragon knew why it had been truly brought up. It could feel it in the renewed darkness of its embers, in the cracks that bloomed throughout the boy’s soul. 

Its Master had always delighted in breaking hearts.

The senators all properly cowed and terrified — minus the one who had served as the dragon's lunch – the dragon was brought back to its cell. The narrow corridors and dull walls should have felt oppressing. Instead, they felt reassuring in their familiarity. The place was boring, awful and claustrophobic, but it was routine. Peaceful, in a way. The corridors had fixed rules, and they were devoid of golden children disturbing the dragon’s dead heart with forgotten feelings.

The dragon was welcomed to his cell with the sight of said golden boy sprawled on the cold floor. Its surprised pause was misinterpreted by its nervous jailers, who jerked their weapons towards it. A snarl rolled in its throat at the unwarranted electrostaff shock. 

Back in the cell, the dragon nuzzled the child, trying to sense how much damage its Master had done to him. It wasn’t the first time the child came back injured for his lessons from above. Nevertheless, knowing and seeing was like space and planets.  Being there as the child got injured yet doing nothing to stop it had felt different. It had awakened an itch under its scales, one which in another time would have sparked a wildfire in its soul. Now though the dragon’s embers were long cold, and the itch disturbed only dead ashes. Mostly, the dragon mourned. For the child, for the Empire, for itself.

Later, when the child finally woke up, the dragon nudged some food other humans had left towards him. The boy bit into the hard bread and spoiled fruits without complaint. The dragon guessed it was a better meal than the cockroaches he had eaten during his first days in the cell. If the child stayed slightly further away from the dragon than usual during his meal, the dragon put it on account of not wanting to disturb his injuries. Once satiated the child collapsed in a corner of the cell.

"It was necessary,” he whispered to the dragon. “I understand.” Yet his voice was cracking, yet his eyes were welling, yet fists were curled into tight fists, as if he didn’t understand at all. “I just wish it wasn’t that hard.”

The dragon stepped forward, meaning to reassuringly wrap its tail around him. It froze when the boy tensed, curling into himself instead of leaning against the dragon like he used to. Sobs shook the child's small frame.

The sobs evolved into full blown shaking and crying as the boy tried and failed to hide his tears. The dragon froze, unsure what to do in front of the boy's sudden weakness. Each hiccup was accompanied by a flinch, the clothes’ brushing irritating the burnt skin, but the child couldn’t seem to bring himself to a stop. The dragon succumbed to instinct and licked the boy, scowling at the rough texture of cloth on its tongue blocking access to the child's most severe injuries.

It felt awkward, the child tensing then consciously relaxing under its tongue where this treatment had once felt natural for them both. The dragon couldn’t make head or tail from what was different from what was just a few hours ago. There was a distance between them, created by the dragon witnessing the boy’s training . As if mocking the invisible gap between then and now, the child's voice rose in one of his usual monologues.

“They were bad kidnappers,” he began between hiccups. “They were bad kidnappers, but… I miss Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen." The admission rang heavy in the air as he impossibly curled more on himself. The dragon rumbled, annoyed by the lack of reach this new position offered. But no warm scale, no soothing purr, no gentle push coaxed the lonely child to unfold.

The dragon’s embers poked at the child’s small flame, and for the first time, the little one’s spirit rejected him. Something hurt and resigned flashed in the dragon’s chest. It curled away into a corner of the cell, not unsimilar to its younger companion, and tried not to think about the cold days ahead.

It was dozing when the boy’s voice rose again.

“Do you think my father would be proud of me?”

The dragon opened his eyes to the child standing at the top of its muzzle. The barrier between them that appeared in the throne room was still there, but it was milder. Less rejecting, in a way. The child scratched a few scales as an olive branch, and the dragon rumbled in appreciation.

In the cell’s darkness, time was meaningless. Still, it passed.

Over the course of the next few days, between meals and training, they learnt. The perfect synchronicity from the burgeoning bond between them had been torn by the Emperor’s manipulations. The comforting touch, the nights wrapped together, those were gone.  

So, they developed another way to communicate. One more distant, more purposeful. The dragon’s embers knocked on the child’s little flame, and the flame answered back. They learnt to pass pictures, feelings behind close tipped walls. They learn to lower their barriers just enough for a message to pass through, without threatening the other’s individuality. It pleased the Emperor and child both, as that was a way for the latter to wield his flame.

Sometimes, in its cold, lonely corner of their shared cell, the dragon mourned the days it could curl around the child without the later flinching. Those sorrowful days, it was the dragon who put up the strongest walls between the two of them. Its belly would feel strangely empty, despite having just devoured a full meal. Perhaps it was for the best, it reasoned even as emptiness grew in its chest. At least now, the child's behavior made sense.

It finally understood the dragon was a monster.

Chapter Text

One day, the boy came back with less bruises rather than more. There was a renewed spring in his steps, a beaming smile on his face. The guards escorted him rather than dragged him, and he held his head high. The dragon would have shared the child’s happiness if not for the foreboding feeling twisting its chest. For each dancing step the child took, the gap separating them widened. The last change had already destroyed so much between them. What would this new change bring?

The cell closed shut behind the bouncing child and the dragon found itself caged with the truth. 

“I did it! I used the Force!” the boy cheered. He hopped around the room, stepping closer to the dragon’s hide than he had in days. His flame sent pictures of a destroyed banquet table, tools floating haphazardly in front of terrified senators. The boy’s joy at the Emperor’s ensuing pride tasted like Dhanduese Drum wrapped in ashes. It was bright, loud both in the physical world and the immaterial one, conveying all of the dragon’s Master’s satisfaction with a new toy. At the same time, it badly hid the bitter frustration from having been pushed over the edge. In that moment, the boy’s usual warm star felt more like the aftermath of an explosion.

Unaware of the dragon’s scrutinizing, the boy edged closer. He looked around, checking the guards were well and gone, and conspiratorially whispered: “Palpatine said he would show me something special today, as a reward.”

A shiver ran down the dragon’s spine. Its’ cold embers sought the young flame to warm up, but it was gone, spent by the explosive outburst that lifted the child’s mood up. The dragon faintly remembered a time when the embers had not been cold, and its shape was different. A time from long before it had chosen to discard its name. Its Master’s rewards, the child would soon learn, rarely deserved their name.

The dragon loathed the throne room. Nothing good ever happened here, except the occasional screams of prey and warm blood filling its mouth. Unlike its cell, the Darkness surrounding the room belonged to its Master. It warped nauseatingly around its scales, too tight to be comfortable, and held its massive neck in a suffocating chokehold. A warning for what was to come. 

The dragon lowered itself to the ground, tail and wings going limp in obedience. When the boy wordlessly asked what was wrong, it shut itself away. Its Master wouldn’t appreciate the precious link it had nurtured with his toy.

Nothing in today’s scene explained the feeling that chilled the dragon’s bones. The child was training with a red lightsaber, for the first time in his life. It was to be the boy’s gift, the Emperor had explained once alone with his pet and his toy, but only if he learnt to properly use it. Compared to most training sessions, this one was tame. No lightning was thrown the child’s way; only blasts from the adaptive droid as the child got used to his new weapon’s weight. 

One by one, the droids fell. Pride emanated from the boy’s inner flame in waves. Today’s session was a success. Usually, the child only beat three or four of the dozen droids assaulting him. Today, not a single one remained. With his new mastery over the energy surrounding them, the child was on a good path to become the formidable warrior he would one day be. Surely the Emperor was satisfied from this test and they could return to the cell with a barely spoiled meal to warm their belly.

Where it was safe.

The dragon should have known to never underestimate its Master.

“This one will be your next opponent,” the Emperor said as he petted the dragon’s shoulder. His eyes narrowed. “Do not show restraint when fighting it. My pet appear tamed while I am here, but it is at its core a wild beast. He might maul you if you hesitate.” The Emperor misunderstood the wild look the child sent him and reassured: “Do not worry, I am here.”

Its Master unhooked the chains keeping the dragon tied to the throne. At their longest, the dragon could freely roam the room, but the leash would still impede it in a fight. The durasteel alloy had proven sturdy enough in the past to hold the dragon back during its worst furies. Nowadays the chains were mostly for show, the Emperor sometimes not even bothering to hook them, confident its pet would not dare run amok.

Once free, the dragon stepped forward. The child had his guard up, the dragon its teeth out, yet none were moving. They were scrutinizing, observing, unwilling to attack the other first. The dragon's tail nervously lashed around as his Master’s curiosity peaked. Something was wrong. Its and the child’s bond was showing. 

The dragon charged before its Master curiosity could turn to wonder. The child dodge the snapping teeth with ease. The dragon’s attack had been slow, careful not to injure him. He did not strike back, confusion rolling off his little flame as he glanced alternatively at the dragon and the Emperor.

“Go on, boy,” the Emperor encouraged. If frustration laced his tone, only the dragon heard it.

They circled each other in sync, predicting each feint before it could happen. The dragon could feel its Master impatience rising along his suspicions. It dared send a mental message of fighting to the boy. It was a faceless memory of figures in lava, blue clashing against blue as heat burned its scale-less skin. The violent emotions trapped in the scene ran along their bond until the boy gasped. His posture straightened as he sent an imperceptible nod to the dragon. This time, he was the one to break the circle.

They fought in a painful harmony. The boy was small and quick on his feet. He knew how to lengthen his jump higher than normal humans should be able to, how to read the dragon’s muscles to predict a pounce. The dragon was massive yet fast, matching the child’s speed. Its hide could resist a lightsaber and it held experience from fighting countless opponents on its Master command. 

The dragon did not wish to kill the boy. Its hesitation made it awkward and slow, until it found the thrumming thread between them and followed its song. It could see when the child did the same. His movements became less rushed, more smooth. His predictions were better. They fell into a comfortable sparring rhythm. For an absurd reason, it felt nostalgic.

Its Master's sudden overwhelming presence in its brain broke the comfortable trance the fight had plunged the dragon into. The Emperor demanded the bond the dragon had forged with the child. The Emperor demanded a lot of things. It had been a long time since the dragon refused it.

Albeit, it knew better than to outwardly refuse. Instead the dragon willingly showed the evening spent in the boy’s presence, all while burying deep any sensation or remembrance of the bond. It pushed forward memories of shared meals and of warmth, even as both were lacking. It highlighted play fighting they had once engaged in for entertainment, prior to the Emperor’s manipulation. It lingered on the boy cleaning its scale, getting familiar with the various spikes running along its spin. As expected, the pictures of  peaceful companionships revulsed the Emperor enough he stopped nitpicking at the dragon’s mind, accepting what he saw as explanation enough. With its Master using the open door between their minds freely, the dragon had gotten used at that kind of deception. It could feel that suspicions remained, but that its Master would let it go for now.

The fight went on. The boy won a lash on his leg as the dragon’s tail stroke true. The dragon's softer belly scales got singed by the lightsaber heat. Its Master didn’t leave its mind, his oily presence distracting it from the ongoing battle. 

The dance went on for several additional scratches before the Emperor’s patience snapped. Thunder rolled in its mind. The dragon dodged one second too late and the child struck true, leaving a deep tear in the dragon’s vulnerable left wing. Its nerves lit on fire. The dragon roared in pain, the Dark twirling hungrily around it. Yet, it did not fight back. Stone broke beneath the enhanced claws. In this state, the dragon did not trust itself to not kill the child.

It might not have a choice.

The Emperor left its spectator seat to once again roam the dragon’s mind. He shook his hold over the dragon mind the same way guards sometimes shook its chains, in jerky, brusque movement that dazed it.

A bloodlust not its own filled it. The dragon whined. The loathing trapping its mind was far too boundless, far too cold, far too viscous to be anything like its usual embers.

“Attack,” its Master ordered.

The dragon had no recourse but to obey. It pounced. 

Its world was reduced to a single truth: Its Master commanded. It obeyed. 

In the throne room, far away from the red fog that had taken over the dragon’s vision, the physical shell of its Master shouted.

“You damn beast, stop!”

“ Go on,” the oily presence contradicted.

The dragon’s mind was burning. It was freezing. It felt disconnected from its body. It felt trapped in it. It felt dazed and confused. It felt like it was being torn apart. 

“Stop. That’s enough.”

The order rang harshly throughout the dragon's mind. Its immaterial leash yanked and it found itself dropped back into its body. Nausea overwhelmed it. The dragon collapsed heavily on the ground, feeling like an unstoppable force which had just met an unmovable object.

It took the dragon a while to become aware of the blood coating its teeth. Or to realise the throne room was filled with more than its irregular breathing. Half-choked sobs echoed nearby it, blood pooling around their source. The child. 

“I warned you, boy,” the Emperor was saying. “While under my control, my pet remains a dangerous beast. If you give it an inch, it will take a limb.”

The dragon lapped at the blood dripping from its teeth. It was slimy, littered by bits of torn flesh. For the first time in a long time, the taste made it sick.

Chapter Text

The dragon didn’t see the child again for several meals. If not for the thin thread still linking their hearts, it would have doubted the child was even alive in the first place. All it could remember from the throne room was bloodlust and a suspicious liquid covering its scale. Most of it slithered beneath its scales, forming hard irritating crusts there. Without any clever finger to clean it off, the dried blood stayed trapped. It left the dragon’s body in a permanent state of itching. 

The boy’s presence brushed against the edges of the dragon’s senses, but always remained far away. During cold nights, it wrapped around the bond, seeking its warmth. It was in vain: the boy stayed shielded and none of his sunlight leaked through, the dragon left to shiver alone in the Dark.

It was after such a rejection that its Master’s call came. The guards opened its cell and, like the last time, nervously changed its set of chains. As they ascended from the prison, the dragon sensed the child’s flame grow closer. It shined as bright as usual, but wrong : it felt colder than Hoth’s icy winds. The dragon increased its pace. It would have run if not for the restraints linking its limbs together.

The first thing the dragon noticed was a mechanical prosthetic where the child's hand once sat. Its stomach twisted at the sight. Phantom pains of a past injury buzzed inside its paws while the iron taste of blood danced on its tongue.  

The second thing the dragon noticed was the child's reaction to its presence. When a few days ago he had confusedly relaxed at the dragon's arrival, he now tensed up instead. A sickening yellow glint speckled his beautiful blue eyes.

Like the last time, the Emperor freed the dragon from its chains. Like the last time, he sat back on his throne to watch. Only this time his Master's presence stayed back, leaving a superficial feeling of control to the dragon

“I won't let you hurt me again,” the child declared. His guard was up and his chin high. A dangerous light shone in his eyes. There would be no holding back.

The dragon missed the blissful emptiness brought by his Master’s total control.

Waking up to the aftermath was never worth it.

They fought. Every step was a twisted mirror dance of their former duel.

While closed, their bond still let enough pass for one to know the other’s move before it happened. Only the dragon was hesitant, the memory of blood on its tongue fresh in its mind. Only, the child’s right arm moved awkwardly, the prosthetic not yet perfectly connected. Only, the Emperor was watching with a pleased mood, not a hint of frustration in his presence.

The dragon could not stop. The child refused to stop. Scratches and bruises accumulated on both bodies.

This was nothing. This should have been nothing. So why did it hurt so?

For once, the dragon wished the child was just a bit less bright and stubborn. It wished the hard glint in the boy’s eyes didn’t promise to attack him until the Emperor called for the training session’s end, or one of them died. It wished he would take the cowardly way out and let himself succumb to his obvious growing exhaustion. The dragon, too, was tired.

The child shakily stood back up.

“I won’t give up!”

Something old and resigned twisted in the dragon’s chest. It suddenly understood why unlike last time, its Master took the backseat. Its Master would not force it to hurt the child today. Instead the dragon would have to make the choice to. 

It snapped at the child, taking advantage of the sickening fear the boy recently developed towards it. Each blow was slightly stronger than the last. Each claw left a slightly deeper gap. Until, finally, when its tail swept the boy off the floor, he didn’t come back up.

The dragon looked at the unconscious child, then at the pleased expression its Master wore. As always, victory tasted sour in its mouth.

It tasted even sourer as lightning uncaringly  spiked towards the immobile body. The electric shock woke the child with a jerk. He blinked, confused. The dragon sensed the shielded flame wavering as the boy took in his surroundings.

The dragon made an hesitant step towards the child, but its Master beat him to it, surprisingly fast for all his old age and injuries hindered him. The Emperor offered the boy a hand.

“Let that pain be a lesson,” he told his new pupil. “Enemies will not be so lenient.” 

The dragon repressed the snarl-whine that threatened to growl in its throat. Its tail nervously lashed. Why was it that where the child now feared its touch, it still drank the Emperor’s every word?

The dragon had never been as dangerous as its Master. It once held the potential for it, but that time was long gone, beaten into embers by ice and chains, and driven from its memories into the darkness of the past.

Once the child stood on shaking feet, the Emperor released him, placing a firm protective hand on his shoulder.

“I trust that next time, you will win.”

The dragon knew this refrain by heart. It almost felt the sweaty palm on its skin. It had once been the subject of this dance. And for this question, there was only one answer.

“I will,” two boyish voices said, past and present overlapping each other. 

The boy that-once-was had died, buried behind fire and scales. The dragon wished it had enough fire left to hope this boy wouldn’t share the same fate.

From then on, the dual training sessions became regular, sometimes joined by other Apprentices the dragon had never met before. So did the lighting punishment for whoever happened to lose. 

Far too often, this fate fell on the child.

The Emperor liked nothing less than perfection. As the oldest under his rule, it was unlikely for the dragon to lose such a playfight with fledglings. Yet, one day, as other Apprentices fell under its claws, the child saw through the bond to the dragon’s intent and powerfully struck where its guard was low. 

The dragon collapsed, soft belly scales pulsing painfully under the blow. There had been no hesitation in the boy’s strike. There had only been dark determination mixed with a twisted sense of revenge. For the first time in months, the child won.

Defeat didn’t taste quite as sour as victory.

The boy’s presence gleamed bright with satisfaction as the Emperor congratulated him. The dragon stayed carefully still as the duo stepped over it and towards the throne. 

“You see, I have found myself in a pickle lately,” the Emperor told the child. “I never planned on running this Empire alone. Alas, my apprentice mysteriously disappeared a few years ago, and his place is now vacant.” The dragon’s tail inadvertently swapped at its Master legs, making him trip. The Emperor unelegantly regained his balance before viciously stepping on the offensing limb. He turned towards the child, his calm smile showing none of the wrathful storm he unleashed in the dragon’s mind. “Tell me, my boy, would you like to become a Sith Lord?”

“A Sith Lord?”

“Yes, my boy. A Sith Lord, like me.”

Its Master once promised the dragon the same. Perhaps, had it not failed, it could have tasted that sweet power it yearned for even today.

The boy’s reaction was not what either of the beings in the room expected. Rather, his presence only echoed blank confusion.

“Like you?” His face scrunched up. “I don’t want to be an emperor.”

The boy was a fool, the dragon decided. Both for listening to its Master and to scoff at such an offer. Its Master was lying, of course, but being the galaxy’s sole commander had its appeal. As the Emperor, he would have the whole galaxy at his disposal.

Its Master chuckled. “No worry, I don’t intend to die anytime soon.” As always to the dragon’s ear, it sounded horribly false. “Sith Lords are powerful beings. By aiming for that power, you would never need to be hungry anymore. You would never need to obey.”

‘Had the trap always been so obvious?’ the dragon wondered. Had they all always been so blinded by the hunger gnawing at their belly they couldn’t see how empty the offer truly was?

“I’d be free?” the child hesitantly asked.

“ Yes ,” the Emperor affirmed.

Lies, the dragon wanted to shout. Lies.

It couldn’t. Its throat was unable to vocalize the complexity of syllables and words had long been banished from its mind. It roared instead, but with the child mind shielded as it was, it only attracted its Master’s attention. He gestured at the dragon.

“You could command it, too. It would be yours, just like it is mine.” The Emperor smiled as the child’s interest piqued. “I could show you.”

The boy kneeled, his golden eyes glinted in the throne room’s dim lighting.

“Teach me.”

Thusanother child’s fate was sealed.

‘As father as son ,’ its Master purred in the dragon’s mind.

The child was not dead. But the child-that-had-been was . Was it possible to have someone so close yet so far away? To lose someone, despite them standing right in front of its muzzle?

The child was shut away. Blocked. No amount of effort could change it. The dragon was trapped, binded, and muted. It could not shout to make its voice heard, not fly to make great flaming drawings in the sky. 

The dragon knew. It refused to acknowledge it, but it knew. It had been human once. It wondered… Would its human self find the words to bring the warm sun back to its side?

Chapter Text

The child grew. 

The dragon saw it by spades, getting glances throughout his training. Since officially becoming the Emperor Apprentice, the boy had proclaimed the damp cell and its inhabitant undeserving of his presence. The dragon could only ever see him when brought upstairs, to their Master. 

The boy stood taller, his muscles flexed firmer, his blows struck higher. Gold had slowly but surely overtaken the blue of his iris. 

Each change felt like it lost a bit more of the child it had kept under its wings.

Sometimes, while shivering in its cell, the dragon yearned for the warm sun that once stood at its side. It often blindly reached out, momentarily forgetting the coldness of reality in sleep’s bliss. Its mind only ever met emptiness. The sun was long gone, torn away by the Emperor like everything the dragon ever cared for. 

Every few days, its Master called it upstairs for the boy’s training. Sometimes, he also called it to train other children he picked up, assassins, or to play with his occasional latest toy. The Emperor gave them tasks to accomplish. When gathered together, he could give them a common goal, reinforcing his minions’ loyalty as a group. When friendship ran too high between the children, the emperor pushed them to fight instead. It wasn’t rare for a betrayal to occur and lead to a death. No one wanted to disappoint the Emperor and get a first hand taste of Sith lightning.

Most of those lessons happened in the throne room, but some spread further away, all the way to the entry hall. The dragon heard the children speak about their time spent outside, but in its case, the Emperor made sure it never left the Palace grounds. Empire Day was one of the only occasions it ever saw the sky.

It was hard to not feel envy towards the children, who shared the same Master but wore no chain around their neck. The dragon had no wish to take their place, but sometimes it wondered how it would feel. To run. To live. To die. 

Far too often, the dragon felt like a blunt teaching tool waved around by its Master. An empty vessel the emperor kept in his vault, but had no serious use for. The dragon was here to be displayed, to show its Master audience an inkling of the fate awaiting them if they displeased him, be it to end between the dragon teeth or accross the same chains. It shouldn’t have mattered whether its dead skull was exposed instead, and yet, here the dragon still breathed.

Perhaps it was only a matter of time.

Perhaps the Emperor was only waiting for the boy to become strong enough to destroy the beast. But then, hadn’t the dragon been defeated several times already? It couldn’t understand its continuous purpose in its master's eyes.

As the dragon fell, the boy rose.

Forged by the harsh environment, this new version of the child was merciless. Whenever they battled, his blade went for the kill. Only the Emperor had the power of stopping the boy. As their Master wasn’t known for his mercy, no amount of begging could stop the deadly weapon. Mission after mission, scarlet spilled on the tilled throne room floor, and in the course of a few months the child had his own ocean of blood coating his hands. 

The dragon couldn’t fault him for it. There was a wild desperate edge to the boy fighting style, that it recognized from too-young padawans thrown in a war long passed. The child fought like his life depended on it, and from the Emperor’s ever watching gaze, the dragon had little doubt it did.

During one of the dragon’s particularly painful defeats, the child had stepped onto its paw, gold meeting gold as their stares crossed. The bleeding injury in its side paled in comparison to the punishment its Master would soon bestow it. Yet the coming hurt wasn’t what concerned the dragon’s mind. Its entire focus was pointed at the growing child facing it. 

For the first time in ages, the mental shield that clogged their bond opened. The child had lifted the wall separating their mind only to send through the bond a sickening sense of victory . It twisted the dragon stomach in a way it refused to understand. Its only consolation was that the boy’s oozing satisfaction did little to hide the bitter pain lurking beneath. Guilt festered in the child’s core, enclosed in a small box away from mind’s eyes. It echoed with the dragon’s own buried guilt, sending tremors in its banished memories. They had both gotten very good at ignoring it.

For a fleeting instant, the dragon indulged in the delusion that the boy missed it as it missed him.

Its newest injury pulsed in pain, putting an end to the dragon’s reverie. There was no place for such feelings in the Emperor’s court, At least, following their Master’s pattern, the next task should have it and the boy working together. The Emperor would intend it as a mocking of the dragon’s shameful defeat, without doubt.

It had offered an opening, knowing its tough scales could receive a better beating than the child’s paling skin.

The next time the guards came to fetch the dragon, they buckled a thick leather harness around its body. It was brought to a large terrace on top of one of the palace’s tours, where the Emperor was waiting for them. It was the first time a training session happened outside. It had been so long since the dragon saw the sky, yet its scales bristled. The sight of the horizon only made its stomach curl. The azure immensity taunted it, a bitter reminder of the tight manacles wrapped over its limbs.

The dragon still had ingrained deep in its bones one of its Master’s first lessons. How the Emperor challenged it again and again to fly, to escape, to disobey, until the dragon felt too broken to do either. How he taunted the dragon prostrated form, before climbing onto the defeated back and ordered it to rise . 

Flying had only ever tasted sour after that.

As if on cue, the Emperor placed a hand on the child’s shoulder and pointed him towards Coruscant’s landscape. “You did well, my boy. Today’s lesson is a reward for the good work you put up.” A shiver ran down the dragon’s spine as a cold glint lit up in its Master’s eyes. “Have you ever ridden before?”

“I haven’t,” the child answered. Confusion spread through their half open bond. The dragon shied away from it, not wanting to face what its Master was angling for yet.

No amount of hiding could stop the Emperor’s plots, but the dragon couldn’t help it. Flight was symbolic. To let someone ride it without its consent had been one of the last nails in the dragon’s coffin. 

A selfish part of it didn’t want the child to see it bow down so deeply to its Master. Even as broken as their relationship now was, the dragon remembered how the child had looked up to it and sought its protection in the darkness. It remembered the child singing songs of chains broken, of the sky belonging to the people who were free. It remembered the taste of a desert it had never set foot in.

It knew that whatever value flight had once held for it, the child had felt as well.

A mindless trapped beast had no right to fly. If it could have, the dragon would have never attempted it while chains still wrapped around its scales. 

The Emperor sent it a warning glare. It cooled down the radiating embers in the dragon’s chest faster than freezing water could have. As always, the thought had been vain. Its Master strings were deeply embeded into its mind, ensuring it could never rebel. Its body was the Emperor’s. 

The dragon wouldn’t get a choice.

“Come, my boy.”

The Emperor’s approaching steps dragged the dragon out of its thoughts. It flinched as a gnarly hand placed itself on its hide. A twist in the cursed bond that linked it to its Master made it go rigid.

“Kneel .” 

Sensing its Master intent, the dragon complied, lowering itself on the rough concrete so that its passengers could climb. From the corner of its eyes, it saw the Emperor beckoning the child closer. The boy was hesitant to approach, as if unsure he could climb the Emperor’s favorite monster. Crossing invisible boundaries got you killed in the palace.

“Do not worry,” the Emperor soothed. “Have you not bested my pet during your last duel?”

The implicit permission quelled the last of the boy’s worries. A shiver ran down the dragon’s spine as a small hand joined the gnarly one. It had been months since his last contact with the child outside of lessons. Their bond opened wider, both sides flooded with a mess of feelings and unwhispered apologies. And yet, as the Emperor climbed onto the dragon’s back, as the child watched their Master for permission to follow suit, not once did the boy look into the dragon’s eyes. 

Not once did he seek approval in the dragon’s gaze. Not once did he use their bond to ask permission. 

Instead, he followed the Emperor’s suit and acted like a Master, treating the dragon like a lowly pet. A heavy stone took the place of the dragon’s chest as the boy climbed on its back. The subtle care the child took not to step onto the wide gash covering its side did little to sooth the dragon’s pain. Through their bond, it was easy to sense the cold intent that had overtook the child’s heart. In the end, pleasing their Master was more important than broken shared memories in a damp cell.

Outwardly, the boy had become the perfect apprentice.

Tension rose in the dragon’s muscles as its two passengers settled in the harness. A lingering fear gripped its limbs. The dragon had barely moved for years, only walking from the cell to the throne room and seldomly fighting an occasional weakling. His most recent injury pulled at its gaunt side, taunting. Was he even still able to fly?

The Emperor’s authoritative hand found the small sensitive scales of its neck.

“Fly,” its Master ordered.

From the abyss of its memories, an irritating stranger’s voice rang in his mind.

Do, or do not. There is no try.

The dragon took off.

Coruscant from above was magnificent. The Emperor led it to rise high, just beneath the clouds where speeder traffic was practically non-existent. Most humanoid species would choke or freeze at that altitude. Without training, the dragon had little doubt the child would have, too.

The boy was pulling hard on its inner flame to stay awake. There was a bitter rage swelling inside him, one that played to the rhythm of a desert lullaby. The melody coursed through their bond, lifted by the boy’s precious memories. Sadly, its song played for deaf ears. For those bearing gold irises, the twin suns’ wrath was nothing more than a convenient fuel. The song consumed and flickered away.

Between two flaps of wings, the dragon allowed itself to mourn the child of the desert that believed in freedom. This child disappeared as he learned the truth: even the sky had been tamed. 

Chapter Text

The child grew, and with him, so did the darkness within. Scattered remains of childish wonder and innocence let place to the raging wildness of teenhood, which would if given enough time become the iciness of adulthood. There was something fascinating in watching the dark flame evolve into a tightly condensed inferno, larger with each passing day. It was different from the Emperor's poisonous slime, which cut time itself in its road to its goal. It was different from the dragon’s dying embers, stagnant ever since a time he could not remember anymore… Often, watching the child, brushing against the link that bound their mind, was the only way for the dragon to differentiate life and death.

It did not remember how the child had come into its life, did not remember a world where it was just it and the Emperor, but it did feel like there had been something more, once, before poison slithered its way in. An open bond instead of a closed door covered in flames. A desire for friendship instead of harsh possessiveness.

The story had been carved in some of its most precious bones, before being hidden away from all prying eyes, including its own. Sometimes, knowledge did more harm than ignorance,  and happier times were better put away to be forgotten.

Its relationship with the child — no longer a child, truly — could be described as follow: a fighting partner, a fellow tool of the Emperor, an occasional whip holder, a wanna-be Master. There had been no end to fighting sessions where the Emperor pitched them one against the other, ensuring bitterness and venom spoiled their bond as the dragon beat the child until he could not stand, as the child beat the dragon until it retreated into its quiet darkness. But even more common had been fighting sessions where they had allied together; two damaged souls against numerous adversaries. The dragon had hated those the most.

The Emperor had made the child train his mind as well, urging the dragon to intrude on the small human's thoughts. Those exercises had helped their unique language to develop deeper, more complex and more instantaneous over time, until they knew each other's body and mind by heart. And yet, the more they partnered up, the more they worked together, the more the child treated the dragon like a tool beneath him, like a brainless attack dog that should obey rather than communicate. Their bond only opened as a one way road those days. When it opened at all.

At least their duo was entertaining enough for the Emperor to keep both around. Most of their sparring partners were far less lucky. It wasn’t rare for them to end up maimed at the end of the fight, or turned into dead meat as the Emperor ordered them discarded with a bored wave of hand.

The dragon cared little for its life and knew the Emperor would never let it go; the slimy whiskers tangled into its mind made sure of that. The child… the child, even twisted and groomed as he was, shared no such protection. The dragon was all too aware of the precarious position he was in, the young human’s life entirely dependent on his performance and entertainment value compared to the other Apprentices.

The tasks got harder as time passed and the Emperor got bored of his dark sider raising side project. Confronted with harder and harder challenges, the Apprentices fell like flies, much faster than new ones could be found. The dragon did what it could to help the child survive, guided by some instinct or remembrance that this particular flame had to live; no matter how dark, no matter how hurtful; and its Master let it.

The Emperor generally didn’t care to introduce its pet to other surviving Apprentices apart from fights, except if it was to order their timely end. As such, one day, when the dragon was led through the familiar narrow corridors towards the throne room, then led  beyond onto the terrace, it was surprised to meet the young, terrified eyes of a cathar girl. Bits of information trickled down from its memories and the bond it shared with its Master. She was one of the weakest of the lot, it recalled, barely a teen and struggling to keep up with the delicate politics the Apprentices were trapped in. Her survival had only been through her sheer height and blunt strength, making her a useful tool to teach the other teens how to fight when physically overpowered. 

“You will fly with us today,” the Emperor told the girl, and the dragon’s tail twitched in uneasiness. Apart from that time with the child a few years ago, its Master had not made anyone fly on it that he hadn’t killed immediately. To say the Emperor hated sharing would be an overstatement.

The girl was clumsy when she climbed on its back, pointed feet slipping and claws catching beneath its scales. The dragon stayed as still as it could. Soon, it felt its Master’s surprisingly agile body settling down as well before ordering the dragon to take off. It shook its wings, torn an instant between its yearning for the sky and the heavy bitterness of being trapped, before a dry mental warning reminded it that choosing had never been an option. The dragon crouched, spread its large membranes as wide as it could, and to the frozen fear and satisfied smirk of its two passengers, it took off. 

They flew around for a while, circling Coruscant’s never ending glass and metal, waking up the rumors of the dragon’s existence, reminding people of the Emperor’s powers as he flaunted his control of such a mystical beast. No ships were to fly above roof level today. It ensured a strange kind of peace in the ever-buzzing city, its slow wingbeat the only sound singing to the dragon’s ears. It ensured no one could ever see them from too close, always in wonder whether it was made of flesh or metal. The dragon knew its Master liked it that way. Sentients were always more scared of the unknown, after all. And its Master liked them scared.

It was almost surprised when they landed back on the tower landing ground barely an hour later, with as many passengers as it had taken off with. The dragon did not understand the Emperor’s mind beyond glimpses sometimes slithering through their bond. Yet it could have sworn its Master had aimed to kill the little Apprentice, and yet, he had not made a single move against her during the flight. The lack of violence reminded it of the quiet tension that announced a storm. It made it uneasy, skittish and in a mood for a fight as it was led back to its cell.

It took it one meal and half a nap to finally understand its Master’s move. The dragon had been curled up in the darkest corner of its cell, enjoying the slight doze exercise brought. Fighting with its escort had evacuated part of its nervosity from the flight. It had also added a few crimson lines to its hide, but one guard had perished and another was maimed for life, so the dragon considered the game even. Its hearing had stayed perfectly clear however, and a shuffle near its lair door had woken it up, body suddenly alert. By then, it must have been the middle of the night, outside, although that was always hard to tell in its sunless cell. Not a time it was used to get any visitor at, apart from the Emperor; but the visitor’s presence in the Force was concealed in a way its Master never bothered with. 

Its second bond cracked open and the dragon’s alertness increased tenfold. The child had come.

Vague memories of being trapped together in the dragon’s cell floated in their mind. They soon scattered as neither participants wished to linger on that past, buried under years of bruises and darkness. Their link stayed half open, reluctant to uncontrollably share the deepness of each other’s mind, but the dragon could still feel the bitter jealous energy filling the child. Pictures of their shared flight leaked through.

“You’re mine,” he muttered. “You’re mine, so why…?”

The dragon sent back an impression of its Master. Its leash already had an owner, one the child couldn’t take on. Not that the dragon would ever belong to the child; not in that twisted way. It would rather burn the whole world first before finding itself wrapped in new chains.

The child glared at its answer. He closed his fists hard enough it must have hurt. Betrayal hooked its poisoning fang into their bond, seeping its familiar wrenched smell throughout its mind. The dragon began to groom its scales, uncaring of the child’s feelings. It was far from the first time he accused it of such a hurt. The Emperor ordered, and the dragon obeyed. That was all.

Its shift in position must have revealed one of its injuries because the child suddenly stepped closer to the edge of the cell, half of the bitterness vanishing as soon as it had come, replaced with wavering worry.

“Are you…” 

injured?

The child cut in the middle of his words. Of course he did. He knew how silly it was to ask such a thing when they had hurt each other so many times before. When they had had much, much worse. What the guard gave the dragon were merely scratches.

Renewed possessiveness filled the bond, empowered by the previous jealousy. Emotions and sensations twirled, entertwined with forgotten promises of the past.

"One day, you’ll be mine." 

One day, I’ll free you. 

"I grow more powerful. I know you can’t- I’ll overthrow the Emperor myself. And then, you’ll obey me." 

Will you stay with me?

The child turned away, snapping the bond shut without waiting for the dragon’s answer. Unwilling to hear it in the first place. Not that the dragon had any answer to give ; as long as the Emperor was alive, it was but a mindless beast obeying its Master’s orders. As the bond snapped shut however, a last fragment of the past escaped, melting in the dragon's mind with the echo of a young child crying.

I don't want to be alone.

Grief tightened the dragon’s chest. The feeling echoed with its own, with a story half drawn on bones then discarded. But as the child had discovered as he grew within darkness, sometimes… sometimes there was simply no other way.

Chapter Text

Time did not exist in the palace cells. The dragon had given up on counting its meals eons ago. But the first time it was brought up to the throne room since the child’s visit, the cathar girl was here, standing proudly behind the Emperor. It could feel the child was gone from the palace, likely on some mission, and in his absence the few remaining Apprentices, like this one, strove to catch its Master’s eye.

The dragon did not move as the guards anchored its chains to their usual place, as they usually did when the Emperor intended to keep it upstairs for a while. They let the chains drag long though, longer than for the dignitary visits or the greedy politicians to scare off. It experimentally shook the metal, revealing in the ensuing cacophony of clickety that indicated exactly how loose its leash was today.

A click of its Master's tongue got its attention.

“Now, I believe you haven’t had a meal in quite some time, haven’t you? Serve yourself. Eat.”

The dragon tilted its head, confused. Apart from the young cathar, who looked as confused as it felt, and the Emperor, there was nothing remotely organic in the room. Its Master looked at it, yellow eyes meeting yellow eyes, and repeated:

“Eat.”

A picture of the Apprentice flashed in its mind and the dragon finally understood what its Master was asking it to do. The chains hadn’t been left so long without a reason. They had been left as is for a chase.

The Emperor’s impatience rang in the bond, so the dragon lept, right onto the cathar girl who suddenly found herself open as the Emperor stepped aside. She looked wide eyed at the older man, a question wandering on her quivering lips. 

“Master?”

She had always been the slowest of the Apprentices lot. She was still quick enough however to understand the cold smirk on its Master’s face, and her spluttering died before any word could ever be pronounced. No help would come from him.

She was still a brave soul, however, and soon put herself into a fighting stance.

“You won’t kill me, monster .”

The dragon tensed, ready to leap again on its designed prey. The Apprentice’s saber lit on, illuminating the room with an eerie glow. Not for long. The dragon willed it to snuff out, like the cold, dead embers nestled in its chest. The blade fizzled out, and the dragon let out an appreciative sound. It could indulge its Master with a show of a chase, but would not bear the stinging burn of plasma blades.

It lept, wings half spread to direct its jump right onto the abandoned Apprentice. Dark scales and ivory fangs reflected in her pupils right before she screamed.

“No!”

Force exploded outward.

The dragon shook its head, momentarily disoriented. Blood slithered between its claws, but its prey was free and running. Its jump had only scratched her torso. A frustrated growl escaped its throat. The outburst had successfully pushed it back from its target. To make it worse, the harsh landing had painfully twisted its left wing, the sore limb now slightly dragging against its side. Once its sight stopped spinning around, the dragon focused on the girl. It wouldn’t let itself be hit twice.

Sheturned towards the Emperor, pleading meaningless words to his cold figure.

“Master, please. Give me a blade. I can still fight!”

Her voice died in her throat as the dragon charged at her. Its fangs clicked near her ear but came back empty, apart from a tuft of hair stuck between two teeth. As young as she was, the cathar was fast and trained . The dragon licked the remaining blood coating its claws, stomach growling in hunger now that it had a taste.

Its prey had resumed her pleading, non-pussed by the lack of reaction from the Emperor. 

“I can still be useful!”

A slam of the dragon tail sent her to the other side of the room. She coughed, blood trailing from her mouth increasing the iron stench that had begun to rise in the air ever since the dragon’s claws pierced her side. She rose up, a defiant look in her gaze as her mental presence burned with pain and rage. It was familiar. It called to the dead embers in its chest, it led the surrounding darkness to purr in disgusting satisfaction. It made the dragon more hungry .

Its next sweep tore a chunk of meat from her arm, but failed to trap the Apprentice. She shook, her gaze fixed on the Emperor who watched over the scene like at the most beautiful opera. Her eyes had glistened over, tears falling despite the monstrous rage it could feel building inside.

“Please… I am your loyal servant.”

The Emperor watched. The Emperor smiled.

The Emperor left her alone to be devoured by his pet without a single weapon.

Something broke inside her mind. Hope could not scream, but it always left a particular kind of cry when it died out. A strange kind of kinship filled the dragon’s chest as her mind reeked of that particular cry, of loneliness and powerlessness as the world doomed her to an early end, no compassion in sight as the shout fell in cold, sadistics ears. 

The young cathar sprinted towards the door with a broken sob, using the throne and the dragon’s own chains as obstacles to slow it down. It let her, knowing she would find no respite there. The door was closed. It was always closed.

“Why? No. Let me out! Let me out!”

She battered the door with all the strength of desperation, her collapsing flame a supernova to push her limits further away than ever. Still weak, though. So, so weak in front of the child’s sun or the Emperor’s infinity. So powerless, in front of the dragon’s meager embers. The dragon had charged and had failed to break those doors, using all the weight of its wrath at a time when freedom had still been a concept it could comprehend. A mere cathar youngling didn’t stand a chance.

It slowly crept forward while the discarded Apprentice was distracted banging on the door. Its paw delicately brushed the floor without a sound, shadows encompassing its body and hiding its presence. At this moment, the dragon was every inch of the predator it had been made to be.

It sprung. 

In a way, the doors did mark her escape, the dragon numbly thought as its fangs closed on her neck. Just not in the way she had hoped them to be.

“ Master —”

A last whisper escaped the young cathar’s throat as light disappeared from her eyes, her empty gaze fixed in the direction the Emperor gleefully stood. In a way, the dragon felt relieved. There had been something it hated in her presence. A tamed submission, a mix of hope and despair from the knowledge she had been discarded by the very man who held her life in his hands that disgusted it. It lapped at the blood flowing out of the fresh wound. At least her voice was gone, now. She wouldn’t call to their Master anymore.

Was the girl finally free? Had she escaped beyond the doors, in a universe full of joy and life?

It thought so, once. But now in the emptiness surrounding it, it just felt like she was gone.

The Emperor approached, unafraid, as it tore into its meal. He laid a hand on the dragon’s shoulder, a possessive gleam in his gaze while he watched it eat. It took all of the dragon’s shattered willpower not to shudder away from the touch. It took even more to stay still as the emperor’s purring voice rose in the throne room.

"Sometimes, I wonder whether some part of you is still there... Do you remember anything, old friend?" The dragon tore away an arm, using its claws to discard the fabric in its way. The Emperor smirked. "You do not, do you? Your mind is so empty even the Dark gets lost in its abyss. You would eat your own child if I ordered you to."

The dragon let the noise wash over it, unwilling to even try to understand their meaning. The way the Emperor’s presence slithered like a leash around its own told it everything it needed to know. It tried not to think about the crunch of bones under his teeth as sentient’s flesh covered its tongue. It tried not to think about how the frail body could have been replaced by a certain blond, and feel exactly the same.

It didn’t want to think.

At all.

But the Emperor always made sure it was aware enough to listen, its voice pushing and pulling at its mind until the dragon had no choice but to let him in. He petted the uneven scales and spoke, uncaring of how the dragon tensed under his fingers, not hiding the delight he felt at its uncomfort.

"Luke has grown a powerful apprentice.” A stroke. “A bit too powerful, perhaps.” Another. “The boy has fire in his soul, just like his parents.” The Emperor stopped to scratch at the crust which accumulated beneath a horn. Its fingernail dug too deep, hurting. “His ambition proves… problematic, however. It will soon be time to dispose of him."

Something in the dragon twitched. It did not like the eagerness in the Emperor’s tone. It did not like how the man looked at the cathar’s remains on the floor, and saw the boy in his mind instead. A flicker ran along the dead embers living in the dragon’s soul. Too weak to be noticed, too cold to bring any conscious feeling to mind. But enough to produce a spark.

And the dragon was so, so hungry .

So angry.

How fast can embers devolve into inferno?

The Emperor’s guard was low. The dragon had not reacted to anything other than direct orders in years. It was numbed and docile, a tamed pet used to entertain. Its will was chained tightly against the Emperor’s mind, any aware thought directly fed to its master. 

The dragon did not think.

Its body moved on its own, following instincts older than the galaxy itself to protect its offspring.

A snap of teeth, and Palpatine was gone.