Chapter Text
The legend of the first dragon shifter, Izuku learns later, goes like this:
There was a woman whose proficiency lied with taking. Not stealing; not quite. She would take all she was given, and she would morph it to be hers. A hoarder in spirit, rich in material and other manners.
She heard of the big hoarders, one day, the dragons. So she looked for them and found them and made friends with them. She gave and took, and the dragons were as happy as she was. They let her live with them. They let her grow with them. They let her look after their young.
One of these young, an egg nestled in the woman's lap, hatched last of its clutch. The little dragonling that the woman now embraced was warm on the outside, much like the woman and much unlike its cold-blooded kin. It could spit fire just like the rest of them, but its belly matched the temperature of the woman's hand, when she touched it.
The little dragonling grew into a dragon, larger but also cooler, losing its warmth to earn its size.
Every single egg that dragon laid hatched into a warm-blood.
The woman was old by the time those warm-bloods grew. She was old, but not so old that illness could take her.
One of the warm-bloods, agile and curious, leaned into the woman and folded its wings against its back, curled its tail around itself. The woman ran a hand down the warm-blooded dragon's back and found it smooth. She turned to look, but she couldn't find its wings no matter how hard she searched. She looked back at the dragon's face and was met with human eyes and soft skin, a mouth where a snout should've been.
The dragon - now turned human - had taken after the woman he was looking at. He'd taken her white hair and her dark skin and her tall height and her hungry eyes.
Hungry still, the woman asked to take back. And the warm-blood gave.
The legend is iffy on this part - it speaks of long years of endless love by both of them as well as their entire nest, often signified with gifts or sacrifice. Sitting by fires spat by the dragons.
The warm-blood showed his clutch how to shift, and they did.
Together, all of them taught the woman. It took years, the legend says. Decades, some variations of it mention. It took effort and it took every bit of love the shifters could conjure for the woman.
It was on her last day alive that she managed to finally shift. Wings sprouted from her back and a tail from her waist. Her face grew long and her teeth grew into fangs.
The woman had taken the dragons' form. She had taken all she was given, and she was happy.
Izuku doesn't like the legend. For one thing, the woman supposedly died soon after she accomplished what she had been trying to do for years. For another, those alleged years of intense love make Izuku's head spin with what Shadow had said at Tsu's bar that morning when Izuku had met the witch.
There's no denying it - the legend is clear on that part: warm-blooded dragons can shift into humans at will, and it is easy for them. A human can't shift into a dragon.
It took the woman of the legend her entire life. Even the first dragons who did it had to go through two generations before they managed it. That line of thought makes sense, at least - that one dragon mutated to warm blood due to proximity with a human, and that dragon's offsprings all had warm blood to match. It would at least explain why there are so many dragons to so few dragon shifters.
Dragon shifters, who are born to dragons. Who are dragons until they grow enough to gain the ability to shift. It doesn't work the other way around - a human can't turn into a dragon.
For Katsuki to have attempted it is terrifying, because his success was much too close to the woman of the legend.
Has he fucked his way to dragonhood yet?
Years if not decades of love from the entire nest, legend has it.
What did you fucking do to my son?
And Katsuki hadn't denied it, Eijirou and Mina hadn't denied it.
Izuku's only consolation is that Katsuki appealed to his own heritage - Masaru is a dragon shifter, so surely that must help.
But the way Mina had explained shifting, the way the legend takes evolution into account, Izuku is pretty sure that it doesn't matter. Dragon shifters aren't born; they are hatched.
Katsuki is every bit human as everyone else.
The worst part is, Izuku couldn't find any reliable source that the woman of the legend actually turned into a dragon. Every text he found only mentioned the dragon parts she grew, and every spoken word he heard was about the form she'd taken. It's too close, far too close to what Katsuki has turned into.
Izuku cries through most of the afternoon following the battle. There are no signs of Katsuki or his spouses and Izuku is desperately, desperately trying to hold hope that they're just enjoying their wedding night and following day.
Night comes and Izuku still can't find them, so he asks Shadow to look.
Shadow is, unfortunately, preoccupied.
Now that the Queen is back there are questions and the King has the answers. He claims he was wrong to have imprisoned her and to have lied about it, that he's seen the error of his ways and will work towards redemption. Hawks vouches for the King, but since nobody really knew Hawks, his word doesn't hold much power.
It does not help their case that Shadow apparently doesn't support Hawks' claims. He supports them so little that he's taken it upon himself to keep both the King and Hawks away from the rest of the royal family.
It's a right mess. Izuku can't take Shadow away from that.
Morning comes and Izuku is still fighting to hold hope that Katsuki didn't die of his own hybris.
Sometime before lunch, he sees Hanta.
He screams and runs for the man, asks question after question so fast that he's choking on his sobs. Hanta, thankfully, interrupts him with explanations.
Turns out they had, in fact, extended their wedding night into the day after. Figures. Katsuki is alive, he's fine, he still is shifted. Hanta confirms what was obvious that night - Katsuki can't shift back or shift further than he already has.
Izuku, now assured with the knowledge that his old friend isn't dead, finds another thought occupying his mind.
He finds Shouto and Yao-momo.
They're with their knights and the Queen and the Princets and Izuku asks to borrow the couple for just a little while, it won't be long, promise, their knights can even come with, if they're worried.
He is only subtle to the ones who don't know about it, so the ones who do know follow him easily.
As soon as they're around the corner, Shouto cups Izuku's face and kisses him right in the middle of the corridor without a moment's hesitation, and honestly? Izuku doesn't mind. He doesn't mind at all.
He especially doesn't mind when he pulls away and finds himself getting the same treatment from Tenya.
It's then that it clicks. It takes being hugged from both sides for Izuku to realise that his skin doesn't crawl because there's something in the air - rather, the opposite. He settles down something fierce when he's in contact with someone.
He says as much out loud.
Between the five of them, they work a theory on Izuku's magic.
(That's still such a weird thought. Izuku's magic. Izuku has magic.)
If Izuku attracts others, it stands to reason that his magic delights in human contact. It seems to be even happier when Izuku touches people he really likes, like Shouto and Tenya. They test it - his skin settles for Yao-momo quite a bit, but not as much for Jirou. And Izuku remembers that it was Inko who calmed him the most, with that hug right after the battle.
Later in the day Shadow says that Hawks and the King have a proposition, and they have managed to convince Shadow so he's telling them all now.
Prince Touya is still missing.
The Queen accepts before Shadow is even finished talking. She glances at her children and sends Shadow to convey her approval right away.
By nightfall the King and Hawks are gone. They are not returning without the missing Prince.
Izuku sees Katsuki the following week, arguing with Mitsuki and Masaru. He is flanked by Eijirou and Denki, but they do not interfere with the Bakugous' fight.
Izuku doesn't blame them. He himself doesn't so much as step closer to the scene, just checks on Katsuki from a distance. He still has the wings, the tail, the scales. Even from this far, Izuku can see the claws.
During a later visit to the palace - maybe a month, a month and a half since the engagement and the battle - Izuku finds Katsuki again.
He's horrifying.
The almost-shifting before was nauseating because it very clearly was not what Katsuki's body could do. This, this is much worse.
The tail is much thinner, but otherwise looks the same. It's the wings that have Izuku freezing on the spot.
They've lost the membranes that gave them function. The scales on them seem to have peeled in chunks, gaps on the flesh showing the squishy inside. What little skin is left on them stretches thin, much too thin over the joints, Izuku can see the tendons holding the limbs together.
The worst is the end of the wings' fingers. The bone is exposed.
They still move.
Izuku breaks into tears as soon as he can breathe again, but by then Katsuki has already walked away. At least his legs seem to keep him standing. It's an improvement, if a slow one.
Shouto and Yao-momo marry in the spring.
They marry on top of the castle, with the entire goddamn kingdom celebrating.
Queen Rei officiates for them.
Izuku cannot stop crying through the whole thing. His cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
Later that week, he and Inko are offered their own residence in the city. Ochako spent the winter in Tsu's inn, so she has a place in the city already.
Izuku finds himself staying in the castle more often than with his mother. She doesn't mind.
The good part of being with Shouto is that Izuku and Tenya don't have to kick Yao-momo out of her own bed for it. There are so many beds. And so many rooms. Izuku loves it. He especially loves it when Jirou doesn't have to kick Shouto out of his own bed to be with Yao-momo.
What he loves the most, though, is when all five of them get to lie in that bed and just sleep, just cuddle for a while.
He doesn't even care if it's his newfound magic that makes him what others would call clingy but he only ever calls cuddly. He likes lying between so many good people that he loves so much. He lives on the skinship.
He has half a mind to find whoever started that attack and thank them for causing a situation where the air would be so stuffed full of magic. It's hard to describe how elated Izuku's magic makes him. It's nothing like One for All - which he controls so much easier now.
It's soft and warm and green where One for All is bold and hot and gold.
Izuku smiles.
It's his.