by Ava Kelly
“You already know.” She smiles.
“Ivy. The forest.”
She slides closer, places her hands on Ark’s shoulders. “Thank you for asking. However, perhaps we can find a compromise. We wouldn’t want our dragon unhappy.”
“I’m listening.”
“The earth. It brims with life, with roots and seeds, yet can sustain the ice you desire. Red dust and amber sands, how would you like that?”
“Perfect,” Ark breathes.
“Even if it it’s not frozen sea waters?”
“Even so.”
“Arkeva, our dragonslayer,” she says, tilting her head. “Why are you so kind to us?”
Oh, she isn’t all knowing. It’s Ark’s turn to smile. “Because you’re mine.”
“Spoken like a true dragon.”
Ark leans in as she shifts closer, and their cheeks touch before she vanishes.
Something rumbles behind his back. Aware once more, Ark takes stock of himself. His eyes are wet, his lips dry, and his skin aching, but he knows what he must do. So he lets his head fall back on a cold shoulder, lifts the stone cradled in his palms. His arms shake under the strain, but clawed hands help support the weight until the gem touches his lips.
Ark opens his mouth—
Drinks.
He expected to feel it lodge in his throat, but it’s not there anymore; it’s everywhere, all around him, poking and prodding and stretching and pulling.
Ark breathes deeply, with a rumble reverberating against his ribs, where she sits, carefully cradled. Next thing he knows, he spreads his wings wide, snaps his jaw with immense satisfaction. His tail twitches against the wall of his home.
His.
Everything here is his. Orsie, standing to the side, is his, and Ark grins.
It’s fascinating, to watch Orsie transform through these new eyes, the wisps of things vibrating in Ark’s mind until he understands what they are, how they work. And Orsie’s essence is made of frost, cold scales cooling his own as they press their foreheads together.
“Orsie Havesskadi,” Ark says in a language he never knew he could speak, but which flows easily through his sharp teeth in low thunders. “Here I am.”
“Yes,” Orsie agrees. “Here you are. Welcome home, my soul.”
Ark roars.
*
Orsie curls his wings around Ark as he starts to sway. Ark’s eyes are closing, and by the time he lies down, he’s turned back into his other form. Orsie wills himself back as well, careful not to drop Ark’s slumbering body. His dragon shape is beautiful, a dark red streaked with only a few lines of amber on his wings, matching his eyes. Orsies’s grateful the color shifted from Nevmis’s shade. Ark can now be told apart.
Gently, he carries Ark up to the bedroom. It will be days before he wakes, just as it’s been days since he started breaking down the gem; Orsie doubts Ark’s even felt the passage of time.
He lays him on the bed, wills a water bowl and a cloth from the castle. First, his fingers. Orsie cleans the blood away quickly, inspects the digits in the flickering candlelight. They’re already growing back thicker nails, red, edges sharp. Next, the scales. Orsie counts them, twelve on each arm. Perfect. He checks the teeth too, already starting to change.
Orsie leans back, satisfied, before continuing to clean Ark’s skin. He wipes at his forehead, pushing hair away—oh. He chuckles into his palm. What a surprise.
*
Dawn lights the sky when Orsie ends his ministrations, and he stretches with a yawn. Persistent hunger squirms in his belly after having spent the past few days unmoving next to Ark, and a sweet smell soon fills his nostrils. He turns to find a pile of rubies on the dresser. He pats at the wall with gratitude before indulging in the offering.
As he bites into a larger piece, he gets an idea. The room where his heart stood for so many months must still be infused with some of his magic. He goes back in there, muscles unwinding under the cold winter air coming in from the open windows.
Instead of sitting on the obsidian slab, he kneels next to it, rubs his palms. He exhales, long and slow, before placing his hands on the stone. He draws from it, beckons his heart, follows its magic into the spaces between the essence of things— An amethyst sits on the obsidian, wonderfully polished.
Orsie inhales, then concentrates again.
By nightfall, he has enough to fill a bowl.
He’s exhausted, but it will be worth it to share these with Ark.
*
By the end of the fourth day, Ark’s body has gone through all the changes, and Orsie waits for him to awaken, albeit a little impatiently. It shouldn’t be much longer. Before that happens, he climbs back down to the cavern, the castle’s center. It will change after Ark rebuilds it, but that’s for later. He’ll have much to learn until then.
Around the marble pedestal, the pieces of charred gems sit in shards, some larger, some smaller. Orsie lays down a piece of cloth he found upstairs, then carefully gathers all the bits he can find. They are unresponsive now, but they were all dragonsouls once. He wonders which pieces belonged to Mother.
Orsie takes his time, caressing each one as he lays them back down.
Their agony is over; they can rest now.
Chapter Twelve
Home
Awareness returns to Ark in slow waves. First, a heart beating steadily next to him. Then a sweet, wonderful smell. He feels strange, warm and cool at the same time, the sensations caressing him in turns like nothing he’s ever known before.
This must be how the forest feels when covered in snow.
Fingernails scratch lightly at his chest, their tips pricking pleasantly at his skin.
His soul sings.
The hand moves to his chin, up his cheek, then his temple. Ark shifts closer, follows its touch, searching for it with his nose. He finds a rumbling chest, its skin cold as Ark pushes his face against it. The anaskett there answers his own, and Ark returns the vibration.
He basks in wonder until his eyes start opening, bit by tiny bit. His sight is filled by Orsie’s face looking down at him, a thin lock of hair falling to tickle Ark’s forehead.
“Welcome back,” Orsie whispers.
His Orsie.
Ark sighs, content, and grips the rebellious strand, wrapping it around his finger. The dark red of his almost-claws glints, catching the sunlight. He tugs and is rewarded by Orsie’s cold nose against his cheek.
Satisfaction emanates from both of them in a way that draws sound out of Ark’s throat. He’d be embarrassed if it weren’t making Orsie’s smile wider.
Soon though, his body protests, and Ark pushes himself up against the headboard. He feels weak.
“Hungry?” Orsie asks.
“Famished,” Ark rasps, the sound scraping inside his throat. Not painfully, but like the many times he went without talking for weeks. “How long—”
“Twelve days,” Orsie says as he picks something up from the nightstand. It’s a ruby, as big as Ark’s thumb, beautifully polished. “Open.” Orsie lifts the stone to Ark’s lips.
Ark frowns. Orsie isn’t expecting him to eat that, is he?
“Don’t make me chew this and feed you from my mouth,” Orsie mutters. “Smell it.”
Ark sniffs at the ruby and the same sweetness from before fills his nostrils.
“Open,” Orsie repeats.
This time Ark catches the stone with his lips, a hand circling Orsie’s wrist. It tastes like nothing else; Ark has no words. Orsie chuckles low, offering another, and again, until Ark’s leaning toward him. More, he needs more.
His hunger is almost appeased when Orsie draws a bowl closer, its aroma different, but just as fragrant.
“What is that?”
“Surprise,” Orsie says, handing it over.
Ark’s breath slows in his throat at the sight of sparkling amethysts. Some are darker, some paler, all mesmerizing. He doesn’t dare taste, but Orsie picks one up, brings it to his lips, and Ark accepts. It’s differe
nt than the rubies, just as sweet but somehow a little spicy.
Before he knows it, half the bowl is gone. Orsie’s eyes shine brighter than the stones; he smells better, so much more wonderfully amazing. Ark wants—he wants something he cannot name.
“Orsie,” Ark croaks as he presses his nose on Orsie’s cheek.
An answering hum fills the air as Orsie places the bowl to the side, but his hands return to Ark’s back, swiping up his spine.
“I don’t know what I want,” Ark whines.
“I do,” Orsie says, pulling away, and Ark is mesmerized by his smiling, bright face.
He sways closer, and closer, and— Ark stills with a gasp. He has to blink a few times as his upper body shudders before he follows the source with his eyes, down his side, to the back of his wrist. Orsie’s thumb swipes over the scale there again, and the feeling returns.
He sucks in a breath while Orsie runs both his palms over Ark’s arms at once, from wrists to shoulders. Something envelops Ark with the caresses, a sort of soft safety he’s never had. Not even as a child, when Mana and Aiti were his world.
This feeling, this touch is Ark’s and Ark’s alone, no one else’s. Specifically his. He growls a warning. Orsie grins, pleased, teeth sharp. Ark wants.
“There you go,” Orsie whispers.
He leans down, and Ark’s eyes fall closed when Orsie’s tongue touches the scale nearest to his shoulder. He doesn’t even have the strength to hold in the sound vibrating in his throat. Orsie picks up his hand and gives each scale on his right arm the same treatment while all Ark can do is tremble and catch his breath.
“What is this?”
With a kiss to the back of Ark’s hand, Orsie looks up. “Just grooming. Now this—” He leans closer, palming the back of Ark’s head and turning it to expose his neck. “—should feel even better.”
The cool touch of Orsie’s tongue to Ark’s neck followed by the scrape of his teeth focuses Ark’s entire being to that one spot. If Ark were to compare this to everything else he’s ever felt in his life, he’d immediately admit this is better, and he falls back with a shout. Orsie does it again, licks and bites and kisses, drawing bubbles of mirth out of Ark between gasps and rumbles and whines. He continues until Ark is laughing, chest tight with this pleasure, oversensitive and overflowing.
He laughs and holds on, touches back, grips closer. His nails scrape at Orsie’s back before they find Orsie’s scales. It’s much more satisfying to make Orsie shudder in turn. For a fraction of a moment, Orsie stills above him, his hair falling in cascades around them, drowning out the light.
It’s just them, here.
And Ark knows what he wants.
To share this joy.
This elation.
He reaches up and licks the same sensitive spot on Orsie’s neck. He’s rewarded with a yelp, and laughter. So much laughter as they entwine among the sheets, nails tracing sensations on skin, scales shivering with touch, hearts pounding in tandem.
They make each other laugh and feel until they’re out of breath, gasping, on their backs.
Ark clutches at Orsie’s hand, body tingling from head to toe.
“So,” he says once he can breathe steadily again, “sensitive necks.”
Orsie chuckles, and Ark turns his head to look at him. His Orsie.
“What else?”
“Underside of wings, the ears of our other form. The rest of our skin is too tough to feel much.”
Ark blinks with a nod, taking in the information. “Is this what our intimacy will be like?”
“Mostly,” Orsie tells him, then shifts to his side, facing Ark. “Are you disappointed?”
“No,” Ark says. “It’s better than I thought. You have such a beautiful laugh.”
Orsie closes his eyes and hides his grin against the pillow, causing his hair to cover his face. Ark starts pushing it away, and that’s when he really notices the scales on his own arm. Dark red, some with thin vines of amber radiating from their centers. His skin feels different too. And then he sees it.
Ark sits up, pulls at his long—much longer than he remembers—hair. It’s reddish, not as bright as hers, but more like a blend of her red with Ark’s previous color. As Ark runs his fingers through, its rusty orange shines amber in sunlight, then back to red if shadowed.
“It suits you,” Orsie says.
“You think so?”
“Yes, my soul.”
Ark smiles.
*
In his youth, before Orsie had even begun to think about companionship, Mother insisted on telling him all he would need to know should he ever find himself with a mate. He whined and groaned and blushed, but ultimately listened. How to seed a new anaskett, what the transformation entails, what he’ll want once he has permission.
But now, as Orsie lies with Ark in his arms, he’s astonished by how it actually feels. Never in his most wild imaginings did he expect that something as simple as grooming a hatchling would make him overflow with near bliss.
“Somehow,” Ark says from where he’s resting his head on Orsie’s chest, “I don’t think it means much anymore.”
“What doesn’t?” Orsie asks, a frown forming on his forehead while Ark sits up. Orsie straightens, too, against the headboard.
“The words humans tell each other when they feel this,” Ark whispers, nose touching Orsie’s cheek.
“Ah.” His smile is relieved, matched by Ark’s gentle one. “But we loved when we were both human, so that feeling is the seed of this one.”
“It’s different,” Ark returns, his knuckles running down Orsie’s chest. “Deeper. Ours. Mine.”
“Good.”
Orsie’s grin has been uncontainable for the past few days. Through unspoken agreement, they’ve barely left the nest of sheets on the bed. He places a kiss on Ark’s temple, then another on his nose, and—
Ark sneezes, red dust and grains of sand puffing in a small cloud around them. And again. And another. Really, Orsie can’t help the laughter that shakes him, especially since Ark tries to glare while sending sand everywhere.
*
A few hours later, Ark finally has control over it, but now they’re at an impasse. They’ve been standing here for almost half an hour, Ark glaring and Orsie huffing.
“I’m not doing that,” Ark insists with a grimace.
“Look,” Orsie says as he rips a piece off the hem of his skirt, causing Ark to blink with worry. “It’s not alive. We sacrifice a scale for this, but that’s like plucking one hair. They grow back. One of these”—he waves at himself—“lasts for months before it loses its magic and the material deteriorates. You are too new to stand clothes.”
Ark growls, extending his hand, and Orsie relents.
“Fine, you want it, have it,” he says, handing over the tunic.
Stubborn Ark will see. Orsie watches with interest as Ark pulls the cloth over his head, down his torso, and suddenly freezes. With a shout, he tears it off and flings it across the room. His eyes are wide as he turns to Orsie, pointing at the offending fabric.
“It tried to eat me.”
Orsie presses his lips together, but that doesn’t help, so he smacks a palm over his mouth as well. A huff still escapes, especially since Ark’s indignation fuels his mirth. With a deep inhale, Orsie strides closer to where Ark’s standing, now looking warily at the torn tunic.
“I guess I’ll stay naked,” he comments.
“It will take a while to get used to clothes again,” Orsie says as he rubs at Ark’s back. “Some dragons never do.”
Ark groans.
“Does it disgust you?” Orsie asks. “Leather is skin too.”
“It’s not that,” Ark retorts, and Orsie raises an eyebrow. “What if it turns out crooked, or…” Ark waves a hand helplessly.
“Oh. You’ll learn. With some practice, once you can picture the shape clearly in your mind, it will look exactly as you wish.”
Ark crosses his arms, considering. “Fine,” he mutte
rs. “Show me.”
Orsie grins.
*
The days pass quickly for Orsie between guiding Ark’s dragon impulses and the wonderful contentment their closeness brings. In the peaceful moments—with Ark in arm’s reach—renewed relief fortifies Orsie’s elation as he remembers that it’s over. The journey has ended, his anaskett returned.
With a hand over his chest, Orsie searches for Ark after spending the morning stretching his wings above the forest. But Ark’s not in the courtyard anymore. He shouldn’t be too sad about not being able to fly yet; these things take time. Perhaps tomorrow, he can join Orsie, ride along on his back. Yes, that would be nice.
The hallways are a little too quiet, though, and Orsie grows worried. Finally, he finds Ark in the chamber that used to host his heart, sitting against the wall, forehead resting on his drawn knees. Orsie frowns.
“What’s wrong?”
Ark raises his head, a grimace on his face. “I am.”
“How so?” Orsie asks, walking to him.
“I don’t think all the evil’s gone,” Ark rasps.
Orsie makes room for himself to kneel between Ark’s legs, pets at his red-clad thighs encouragingly while Ark hugs an arm around his own chest, head leaning back on the wall. The fingers of his other hand curl in a fist.
“Is your dragonsoul feeling things you’re not accustomed to?”
“Yes,” Ark huffs. “I thought it would be gone, but it’s getting worse.”
Orsie hums, already anticipating where this is going, and he takes Ark’s hand between his. “Tell me.”
Ark’s mouth opens and closes a few times before he draws a deep breath. “I can’t stop wanting to remind you you’re mine. And everything else needs to be mine, too, absolutely and clearly mine. When you flew earlier, I got angry.” Ark growls, and Orsie shushes him. “That’s—that’s wrong, Orsie. I don’t want to own you, yet it…”
“It wants. I was hoping it wouldn’t happen this soon,” Orsie says with a sigh, and Ark frowns. “Dragons are possessive creatures. So much, that we need to learn control over our urge to hoard. If we don’t, we end up like Nevmis.”
