Chapter Text
Another week passes and the temperature drops .
Shouta is running out of time.
It’s all he can do just to stay alive. When Shirakumo is here, he provides Shouta with enough warmth and shelter for it to be manageable. Recently, the dragon busied himself with moving the nest into the sanctuary, for more protection against the howling winds. Shouta doesn’t protest being pulled against his furry chest anymore, not that he had much say to begin with.
But when the god leaves to hunt, Shouta must find warmth on his own.
He finally caves and attempts to light the fireplace inside of the ruins. After hours of trying to create sparks with pieces of stone to ignite the old parchment papers beneath the logs, however, he resigns himself to defeat. He falls asleep curled in a ball in front of the unlit wood, dreaming of the forge back home. He wakes to a mournful howl as Shirakumo searches the mountain for him. When the dragon’s head peeks in from the doorway to find Shouta there, too weak and cold to move, his yellow pupils appear in thin slits, his mouth opens, and Shouta waits for the worst.
There’s a horrible /crack/ that splits through the air, the feeling of static, then heat. When he opens his eyes, Shouta finds the logs glowing with flame. Yet again, the dragon surprises him with its knowledge of human needs, and its ability to problem-solve. Then, since Shirakumo can’t fit in the little room, he lowers himself onto the ground with only his head through the doorway, watching Shouta by the fire for the rest of the night.
After this, Shirakumo brings back not only meat, but branches and sometimes entire trees, too. He lights the fire before going on his daily hunts, and Shouta keeps it stoked until he comes back.
Impressed by his intelligence, and encouraged by his continued acts of kindness, Shouta works up the courage to ask for more food. He has no idea if the dragon will understand what he needs, but there seems no harm in trying.
“This isn’t enough,” he complains, holding up the burnt leg of deer to Shirakumo’s nose. “Look at me. I’m starving. I can’t live on meat that you’ve turned to ash forever. I need real food. I have a fire now, I can cook it myself.”
The dragon responds by pushing the meat back toward Shouta with one of its claws.
“No,” Shouta drops the food on the ground. “It’s not enough.”
Shirakumo’s nostrils flare. He picks up the meat with his teeth, then flings it into Shouta’s chest.
“I know you can understand me,” Shouta says. “Look at this.” He rips off a chunk of meat and crushes it between his fingers until only ashy black crumbles remain. “I can’t live like this. Try harder.” He throws the leg back at the dragon.
Shirakumo catches it in his mouth, snarls, and swallows it whole . Then, he snorts, hisses, and regurgitates just the bone before spitting it at Shouta’s feet. Finally, the dragon turns abruptly away, tail swishing like that of an angry cat, bounds on all fours, and takes to the sky.
He’s pouting, Shouta thinks in amazement. I made a dragon pout .
Pouting or otherwise, Shouta’s words do get through to him. This time, when the dragon returns home, it’s with more meat, a sack of potatoes, and a sack of apples. Shouta can’t help but wonder what that must have been like for the poor sap who’d been carting wares to the marketplace. He must have been praying to the gods to spare him when a great dragon descended and opted for a couple of sacks of food instead of his horse or his own head.
Perhaps the strangest part about this is how Shirakumo acts after delivering the food. He sits on his haunches, puffs his chest, and puffs out all of his scales and feathers. When Shouta ignores him to rifle through the food for anything that could be moldy, Shirakumo huffs like an angry bull and slaps the ground with one hand.
“What do you want?” Shouta asks. The creature’s stance reminds him of a sitting dog. “Praise?” The beast’s chest puffs even more and a shudder passes through his scales. “Then…thank you,” Shouta tries. He bows his head in reverence. “I’m pleased and humbled by your generosity, God of the Skies…” he raises his head and meets the dragon’s eyes again. “Shirakumo.”
The beast’s scales flutter at this, and, as if unable to contain his excitement, he takes to the air with a loud screech, then loops and twirls and spins in the sky.
“Not quite as majestic and mysterious as they say, are you?” Shouta chuckles. It’s hard to believe, but the terror he felt upon being brought to this place has slowly faded to the wayside, replaced with wonder and at least a small amount of amusement.
Since that day, Shouta’s life in the ruins has been…well, not “comfortable,” but livable. The fire keeps him warm. He can cook his own food to an edible state over the flames and embers, and he’s fairly certain at this point that the dragon won’t eat him.
But he misses home. He misses listening to Hizashi’s songs in the tavern. He misses Hitoshi’s stubborn demeanor and finding the young man collapsed from exhaustion over an anvil. He misses the optimistic faces of the magic students and seeing all the tricks they’ve learned. He misses the village, his own home and bed, stew and mead. He misses human company.
“Let me go home,” he whispers one evening, forehead pressed to wispy fur and a dragon’s clawed hand clutched around his back. “I don’t belong here. I’m not a dragon. I’m not your child.”
Shirakumo responds with a low growl that vibrates Shouta’s entire body.
“Please,” he insists. “I won’t survive the winter here. I want to go back to my village, where I belong.”
Another growl rips through the dragon’s chest, but this one is threatening. Shouta’s whole body tenses as Shirakumo’s claws suddenly close around his chest, tearing through clothes until the razor sharp tips pierce his skin.
“Stop!” he cries. “I’m sorry! I won’t ask again! Please, you’re hurting me!”
Immediately, Shirakumo lets go. In a flash, the creature leaps away, as far as he can in the sanctuary walls. He lets out a low, mournful wail, then turns his back on Shouta, curls into a ball, and covers his horned head with a wing. He stays like that the rest of the night, never once tucking Shouta back against his chest.
Whether he wants to protect me or not, he’s still dangerous. It’s only a matter of time before his good intentions get me killed. He touches the sling holding his broken arm and wonders how soon he can risk making an escape.
Two days later, the storm comes.
It’s preceded by a frigid wind, so powerful that it’s impossible for Shouta to keep the fire lit inside the ruins. It howls and crashes through the cracks and holes in the building, snuffing out any warmth he can hope to cling to. The sky turns dark, then the flurry of ice and snow begins.
When Shirakumo dives down from the furious sky, his flight is unsteady and he crashes roughly into a pillar, knocking it down. He scrambles across stone and barrels into the sanctuary to find Shouta. In an instant, he leaps to pull Shouta against him, tucking him against his chest and into a tight embrace. Even this does little to ward off the cold, however. The dragon’s wings don’t offer total coverage from the snow that flies in from the open archways and cracked ceiling. Animal hides and blankets and dragon fur hardly touch the icy bite in Shouta’s bones.
He shivers until his muscles ache. His teeth chatter until he’s sure they're going to crack.
There is no doubt. Even with Shirakumo’s protection, Shouta will die here. He feels himself fading, lured toward a slumber he knows he won’t wake from.
Then…/heat./ Warmth like summer sunshine cradles him, trapping out even the slightest hint of a breeze. He opens his eyes to a warm, golden light emanating and pulsing from Shirakumo’s skin. It encases them in a sphere of sweet warmth. The snow seems to hover in the air beyond the veil of light. It’s like…
“Magic,” Shouta says in awe.
Shirakumo curls around Shouta and presses his snout against his head in a gesture that Shouta doesn’t understand. Is it meant to be comforting? The dragon nudges and breathes humid air in a cloud around his face. Maybe he’s checking to make sure Shouta’s okay. If that’s the case… Shouta lifts a hand and tentatively rests his fingers on the dragon’s snout. “I’m warm now,” he assures him, then strokes the soft scales there as if petting a cat. “Thank you.”
Shirakumo lowers his head back down with a happy rumble vibrating through his chest.
The danger has subsided…for now.
But the storm is unrelenting. It screams into the night, then the next day. Shirakumo doesn’t leave the nest to hunt or bring back food. It’s too dangerous, and Shouta is at too much risk as the snow coats the ground and builds in the doorways. Every time he moves, whether it’s to scrounge for apples and dried meat or to relieve himself, Shirakumo moves with him, keeping the magic orb of heat around him like a shield at all times.
As time passes, however, the dragon seems to grow weaker. Occasionally, the light from his skin flickers, the cold begins to seep in again. When he does trudge after Shouta, his movements are sluggish and uneven. Then, he stops moving altogether.
It’s dawn, Shouta is tucked under a dragon wing and animal furs, sleeping soundly until fingers of cold begin to creep into his skin. It’s slow, at first, and he’s able to ignore it and burrow deeper against his dragon ward. But the digging fingers of ice get sharper and slice deeper, until he’s shivering again. He opens his eyes to find that the light flowing from the dragon has faded, and there’s no protection against the snow. The storm is still ongoing.
“Shirakumo,” he says quietly, but the dragon doesn’t move. He tugs lightly on his chest fur, then gives the dragon’s arm a nudge. Nothing. The sky god is completely still.
Time passes with no change. Shouta tries to bury himself as tightly as possible, pressed against the dragon’s side, yearning for the magic heat he provided before. Outside, the wind stops howling, but the snow continues to fall, silent and ominous. Again he tries to rouse the dragon, pushing on his shoulder and then tugging his horns a few times.
When this doesn’t work, Shouta makes his way to the fireplace, leaving footprints on a sheet of soft white. He curses under his breath at the sight of logs and branches strewn across the room, all of them soaked from the storm, of course. Not that he’d have had much luck lighting the fire without Shirakumo’s help.
His heart sinks as he returns to the dragon’s side. For a moment, he worries that the creature might be dead. He presses his ear against his ribs and listens. It’s faint, but he’s sure he can hear the slow thumps of a heart. Not dead, but not simply sleeping either. It’s as if…as if the winged lizard has gone into hibernation, prompted by the unexpected storm.
If that’s true, Shouta will die here unless he takes action. For the time being, he stays as warm as he can next to Shirakumo, until he sees sunlight pooling from holes in the clouds as the storm breaks. He trudges outside, eager for the sunlight on his skin, but it does little to help when the cold air hits him.
/What am I going to do? How can I survive this?/
He tries one more time with Shirakumo. He climbs onto the dragon’s back and tugs the joint of one wing sharply. “Wake up, you glorified salamander. I need your magic.” He runs his fingers up the spine of a beautiful white feather. “I need you.”
Still, Shirakumo doesn’t move, which leaves Shouta with only one option.
This was the plan all along, anyway. It’s a bit premature—his arm is mostly healed but he doubts it can carry much weight. It doesn’t matter. Shouta’s only real hope of survival is at the base of these mountains, with humans and furnaces and fires. He was always going to return, and perhaps now is the best opportunity, while Shirakumo slumbers and won’t scoop him up mid-escape. As kind as the god dragon has been, Shouta can’t play the role of his pet any longer.
So, he layers his clothes as much as he can, pockets a few scraps of food and some lucky twigs that escaped the wet snow.
He casts Shirakumo one last look. Here, in the stillness, the dragon looks exactly like an ivory statue. He blends with the snow, save the blue fur that Shouta has slipped his fingers through so many times now. A pang of sorrow settles in his stomach. This is goodbye to the bond he’s made with the dragon. As obscure and confusing as that bond may have been, he knows he will always think wistfully of the celestial being whose presence he reveled in for weeks. He’ll…miss him—the god who saved his life and did his best to keep him safe.
But Shouta can never be safe with a dragon.
He sneaks from the ruins, thankful that the soft snow isn’t old enough to be hard or to crack under his feet. He’s virtually silent as he goes to the side of the mountaintop where the old bridge once stood. The snow and ice have made the rocks slick and dangerous, but Shouta is in a position of weighing dangers. And if he’s going to die, he’d rather do it while trying to get back home.
He finds the least steep portion of rock and begins his descent. As expected, every single step down has to be measured carefully. Every rock he touches has to be tested to make sure it’s secure before he dares to put his body weight on it. The wind makes the journey even more perilous, but thankfully he’s on the side of the mountain opposite the onslaught of the wind.
Progress is painfully slow, and Shouta’s unhealed arm strains and sends needles of pain through his body each time he uses it. He has to be careful—so careful.
Eventually he reaches the rubble of the collapsed bridge. It’s just a small climb upward to reach the weathered path that will take him down the mountainside. He works slowly, fingers so numb from the cold that it’s nearly impossible to grip the stones and bricks ahead of him. Halfway up the pile of rubble he thinks he hears a distant shriek. His gaze turns back up to the ruins, expecting Shirakumo to burst into the pale sky. Nothing happens, and the sound was too distant and distorted to have been the dragon’s anyway. It must have been the wind.
/Just a little more,/ he coaches himself. /Keep moving, Shouta. You’ll get to see Hizashi’s stupid grin and Hitoshi’s pout before you know it./
He keeps going, ignoring the weather and his body’s protests. If he pauses, even for a moment, he knows he’ll lose the will to fight.
Finally, he hoists himself onto the other side of the gap, then grits his teeth as his arm screams in pain. It’s okay though, the worst part is out of the way, unless the trail down the mountain is shattered in more than one location. He’ll deal with that once he comes to it.
The further he descends, the less the wind whips his body. Protection from other mountain sides bars the worst of it, and the path down snakes through a canyon, where the eerie howls of the wind finally die. This is a good thing. As long as he’s secured by high walls on either side of the path, he’s less likely to freeze. If he only had the means to start a fire, a small cave, and dry wood, he’d be able to survive here for some time before continuing his trek down. As it stands, he can’t afford to stop moving.
The crunch of his boots echoes off the steep walls, wind whistles far above his head. He can’t see the end of the canyon past the curve of the path ahead of him, and can only pray that there’s not an area where the way has been blocked by fallen debris.
Once, he thinks he hears that same distant shriek, but it’s far above his head, meshing with the whistles of the wind, so he thinks nothing of it.
He’d have been more careful, if he’d known. Maybe, if he’d paid more attention to the tales carved into the ruin walls and what they must mean. If he stopped to consider that the images of wingless dragons were depictions of another creature, a different beast, neither as elegant nor as kind as a god of the skies. Then, maybe he would have been on guard. Maybe he would have weighed the risks and chosen to stay at Shirakumo’s side after all.
But he didn’t know. He had no idea that drakes, the lesser form of their dragon counterparts, always lurk beneath the dens of dragons, where they scavenge the discarded bones and meat tossed out by their greater cousins. He didn’t know that there were other beings that relied on the protection of dragons, that appealed to the nurturing instinct of the great protectors.
He didn’t know, and now…he pays the price for that ignorance.
The shriek sounds again, louder this time. The vibrations bounce off the canyon walls, then suddenly…there’s an explosion of sound. A chorus of horrible, raspy screeches, and the sound of claws raking on stone. Shouta whips around, instinctually wanting to turn back, but there’s already a creature blocking his path. It’s smaller than Shirakumo, but its scaly body and long limbs are reminiscent of a dragon. There are no wings or horns, however, just sharp black spines that jut from its back like the quills of a porcupine. It paces back and forth, drool dripping from its snarling maw and steaming as it touches the snow.
Ahead of Shouta, two more of the creatures bound from the shadows, jaws snapping and grotesque, pig-like snarls bouncing in the narrow canyon. A horrible clacking above him draws his attention up, where he finds two more of the monsters gripping the canyon walls.
Shouta is completely surrounded. There are at least five of these creatures blocking every possible route to safety. He has no weapons to protect himself with and his body is weak. Of all the ways to die, he wouldn’t have imagined this. Being ripped to shreds by an ambush of scaly scavengers.
The one behind him lunges forward, and Shouta stumbles back in surprise, toward the snapping jaws of the others. In his fall, a white feather is dislodged from the cloaks he’s wearing. It flutters on the breeze, drifting toward the two nearest monsters. Their nostrils flare and they hiss, backing away as if the feather is a threat.
Shouta rolls, grabbing the feather before it can touch the ground. He wields it like a blade, swishing it in front of him and watching as the drakes leap away from it. This is it, /this/ is how he can escape.
He bats the creatures away as he slowly slips past them, farther down the trail. They paw the ground, hiss, and snort, but they don’t attack him, so long as he holds Shirakumo’s feather.
He backs up, keeping an eye on all five of them as he creeps away. His attention is so focused on them, however, that he’s not paying attention to the ground. His heel clips on a stone and he’s thrown off balance. He tries to catch himself, but the land is /hard/, and he feels his unhealed arm /crack/ upon impact. His cry of pain explodes in the air and he releases the feather.
The drakes move instantly. One leaps, foot crushing Shirakumo’s feather underneath it. In the next second it has him pinned to the ground, teeth clicking centimeters from his face. He rolls, trying to throw off the creature. He takes it by surprise but can barely scramble to his knees before another one leaps onto his back.
Pain slices through him with the snag of claws on his skin. They rip and pull and tear, shredding Shouta’s clothes and peeling flesh from bone with talons and teeth.
He wishes he’d stayed in the nest. Freezing to death in his sleep would have been a blessing in comparison to this.
He tries to fight, and manages a good scratch to the side of one’s face, and he breaks the toes on another, but there’s no way one human man can stand against five reptilian harbingers of death.
One of them is snarling at the others. Its hand shoves Shouta’s face down and its powerful thighs crush down on his hips.
Then, he feels it and he prays it’s not what he thinks it is. No…no, that would be a fate worse than death, worse than being mauled, worse than burning alive. And yet…as the drake starts to rut against him and he feels the disgustingly wet slither of something against his back, he knows what’s happening.
“Kill me!” he cries, voice breaking and tears streaming down his cheeks. “Just kill me first, please!”
If they can understand him like Shirakumo could, they don’t care. A hot, forked tongue wraps around his neck and a hind foot claws his pants open.
“Not this…” he blubbers. “Anything but this!”
The other drakes circle around him. He watches it happen in horror—sees the bulging slits of their undersides open, watches as slick red appendages glide into the open air, dripping onto the ground beneath them. Each beast sports two of them—two bumpy and pointed cocks that glisten in the light as the monsters pace and lick their teeth and wait for their turn.
Panicked, he starts to thrash under the drake’s weight. It growls in warning but he doesn’t care. He puts everything, every ounce of strength he has into trying to buck the monster off of him, to no avail. One of its horrific cocks slips low, coating his thighs and ass with hot slick as it searches for passage. He screams in desperation and throws his head back, skull connecting with the creature’s jaw. It hisses violently, hooks its claws into Shouta’s scalp, and slams his head down on the rocks. There’s a split second of blinding pain and a swell of nausea. He might have puked, he’s not sure, and he doesn’t have time to confirm it because the impact explodes in his head, and a moment later…
He blacks out.