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— Day 6: Fire/Gold
It all started when Squire Lance, Knight-in-training, burst into Hunk’s smithy like he was announcing the start of a war. In a way, he was.
“A DRAGON OF GALRA HAS BEEN SPOTTED AND SIR SHIRO HAS REFUSED TO DO BATTLE WITH IT!” He boomed out.
Hunk considered throwing his hammer at him; given the heart attack he’d just gotten from suddenly hearing Lance yell behind him, he thought it was fair game. “So what?”
“So what?!” Lance looked scandalized.
Hunk shrugged. “I mean, it hasn’t done anything though, has it? Rax and Shay just said they saw it.”
Lance deflated, looking so put out that Hunk decided to forgive him for the scare. “Of course they already told you.”
“They’re miners, Lance; the caves it crawled in is where they work.”
Lance puffed himself up again, refusing to be deterred. “I have to go slay it.”
“It hasn’t done anything!” Hunk protested, never one to take the first shot; even at a dragon of Galra, by far the most fearsome and dangerous of all dragons, with violent purple scales and spikes like a mace, tales of their hunger and destruction the night terrors of children everywhere.
That could maybe be a part of it, too.
“It’s my duty!” Lance insisted.
“You’d die,” Hunk stressed, letting his hammer drop to the ground with a thunk. The crown advisor Coran’s horseshoes would have to wait, until Hunk could convince Lance not to offer himself up to the slaughter. “Sir Shiro must have a good reason for not riding out against it, right?”
Lance waved a hand. “So the Princess Allura claims! Yet he has not revealed his reasons even to me! We’re supposed to just stand by and watch it raze the city of Altea to the ground?!” Lance was getting progressively more worked up; never a good sign. “The Scholars have assured me of this!”
“Those Holts would agree with you if you told them the sky was green if it shut you up,” Hunk pointed out, crossing his arms.
Lance just looked more upset. “So you aren’t going to help me?”
“So you’re actually going?”
“Of course!”
Hunk threw his hands up, ignoring the knot of fear in his belly. “Then of course.”
“You never said anything about me coming with you!” Hunk hissed out furiously, carefully coxing Yellow, his magnificent Clydesdale, to trot along like a good boy next to Lance’s Arabian, Blue.
Lance turned to him, eyes narrowed. “What did you think I meant, then? I need someone to sing of my great deeds if I perish!”
“I can’t sing!” Hunk almost wailed in despair, but their bickering was quickly cut off by the whoosh of wings beating, and Hunk had to give everything he had to keep Yellow from rearing up in terror as an honest-to-god dragon landed on the rocky terrain they were riding alongside.
“You smell of Takashi,” It rumbled out, it’s voice bouncing around in Hunk’s head, terrifying him with how it sounded like he was hearing it in his skull, rather than through the air. Hunk and Lance finally swung off their horses, Lance throwing Hunk the reigns as he burst forward, drawing his sword.
“DRAGON!” He roared out, as Hunk yanked their panicking mounts back into the treeline, dodging hooves and bucks with practiced ease. While he could take a kick or two, he preferred not to. “THE TIME HAS COME FOR YOU TO-”
“Hold on, wait, you back there,” The dragon interrupted, and Hunk was so surprised the ropes slipped from his fingers as he was leading Blue, taking the horses deeper into the woods. “You with the horses. Who are you?”
“DON’T ADDRESS HIM, FOUL BEAST!” Lance yelled, sounding panicked; he might drag Hunk into his business, but he never wanted his business to actually hurt him.
The dragon rumbled, and this time it was definitely real; Hunk could feel it through his feet, making the trees tremble and the horses snort with fear. Wasting no time, he clicked his tongue and motioned, sending Yellow and Blue further back, before darting back to Lance.
Just in time; the dragon’s chest was glowing coal-hot, puffing up, and even though it was the first time Hunk was seeing it he knew he was about to breathe fire. He could feel the heat of it in the air, so Hunk did what he had to do, and threw himself in front of Lance, who had his shield up like it would protect him at all.
“HUNK!” He roared, louder than Lance had ever managed to be. If there had been any birds left in the trees, they would have taken off as it bounced around the ravine. “MY NAME IS HUNK!”
Lance had one hand wrapped around his upper arm, trying to force him to move back, but Hunk ignored him. He wasn’t going to just let a dragon turn Lance into a crisp right in front of him, Knight’s Code be damned.
Slowly, and Hunk could barely believe his eyes, the dragon started to deflate, his chest dimming, the heat being sucked from the air. “… Hello Hunk,” The dragon said, and Hunk was stunned as it angled its head to peer down at him with one huge, yellow eye. “I am Keith. Your friend smells like my brother.”
“Your brother… Sir Shino?” He asked, breathless, but still recalling what he had said earlier.
“Yes.”
“Sir Shiro is no dragon!” Lance protested, popping up by Hunk’s elbow and waving his sword about, though it seemed he was using it more to emphasise his point then threaten Keith with it.
“Of course he’s not,” Keith snapped, sounding irritated. Hunk was surprised dragons could be irritated, but then again, most things that met Lance were, eventually, irritated; Hunk excluded, of course. “But our father was a capable man, and through him Takashi is my brother.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Hunk asked. For some reason, it was easier to not be afraid when the dragon had obviously decided against breathing fire on them all, killing them instantly. Lance was also helping, grumbling about ‘great big stupid lizards with no respect for the sword’ next to him.
“Yes, but… I don’t think he wants me to be here,” He said, sounding upset. He hunched his shoulders up, his long neck drooping, and he looked almost… chastised. “He is to be made protector of the Princess, and I wanted to come and congratulate him, but he was so angry with me,” Keith went on, and oh, he was definitely moping; Hunk had four older brothers. He knew what it was like to be passed over, and have no time made for.
“I’m sure he was just surprised,” Hunk found himself placating; if you’d told Hunk he’d be comforting a dragon this morning, Hunk really would have thrown his hammer.
“Wait, why did you want to talk to Hunk, anyway?” Lance butted in, sounding suspicious. Hunk elbowed him, annoyed he’d go and provoke a dragon.
“He didn’t yell at me and then call me names,” Keith pointed out, narrowing his yellow eyes at Lance, who had the grace to look a little abashed. “Besides, he is more handsome then you, and a pleasure to talk to, as well as look upon.”
Before either of them could react to that, Sir Shiro himself, upon his night-coloured Friesian, Black, came bursting through the tree line. He did not look happy.
Keith and Lance seemed equally nervous about that.
After Shiro was done first lecturing Keith, and then Lance, Hunk rode quietly back with the squire and knight to Altea, Keith flying off in the distance, back to his current cave.
“He will be gone after the ceremony,” Shiro told Hunk, before they parted ways. Lance had been sent off to polish ‘whatever Coran deems fit’, much to his dread. “You put yourself in harm’s way for your friend, and for that, I am grateful; The Princess has only allowed his visit so long as none are harmed, and killing my squire would most certainly have been a death sentence.”
Hunk was embarrassed. “I would do nothing less for Lance.”
Shiro dipped his head. “Regardless. Keith seems to have formed a high opinion of you.” Black turned slightly at Shiro’s spurring. “Perhaps you could befriend him? He’s a gentle boy, despite his… looks.” Hunk’s disbelief must have shown, because Shiro shrugged easily. “Just think about it!” He rode off with a wave.
Hunk has Yellow trot back home slowly, thinking, and he dismounted him and brushed him out, fed and watered him automatically as he considered Sir Shiro’s words. Keith hadn’t actually set them on fire, he supposed.
And he did apparently find Hunk handsome.
The first offering was a very battered gold helmet. Hunk was sure that it had to be plated, or maybe coloured bronze, or something that wasn’t actually a solid gold helmet. It was just sitting on one of Yellow’s fence-posts, the corner one, closest to the house, and Hunk could hardly believe it was real.
But he touched it, and picked it up, and he knew gold when he saw it; he was a blacksmith, after all.
Hunk hesitated, wondering what this could mean, though he had a good idea who it was from. An offer of friendship, perhaps? Hunk hoped so; it was too terrifying to consider it a thinly-veiled threat. Besides, he wasn’t allowed to kill anyone, and Hunk hadn’t really upset him, had he?
Hunk briefly considered asking, but ultimately decided against it. There was no telling why dragons did what they did, and he still had Coran’s horseshoes to do. Hunk put it from his mind for the whole day, and returned home to the helmet gone. He hoped Keith had taken it back; he shuddered to think what a dragon did to someone who stole their gold.
The next day, Hunk thought everything was back to normal; until he called Yellow to him at the fence, and noticed how quickly he came over, how he stomped and snorted. Something was wrong.
It was probably the thick chain of braided gold around his neck.
It took some coaxing, but Hunk managed to get Yellow to hold still long enough for him to pull it over his head, none the worse for wear. It was beautiful; well-polished and expertly-crafted. Hunk admired it a moment, then hung it on the same fence-post as the helmet. It was gone when he returned home at dusk.
Several old, tarnished gold coins, one in the centre, while the others formed a circle around it, arranged on his doorstep. It looked a bit like a flower. It was an absolutely charming thing to wake up to.
Smiling, Hunk stacked them neatly on the fence-post. They were gone when he returned again.
A gold chalice, studded with huge gemstones, full of water, in Yellow’s field. Hunk laughed so hard he ended up sitting down right there as Yellow drank from it, flicking his ear, as if he expected nothing less for himself.
He washed it and dried it and left it on the fence-post, as always. This time, though, he decided to add something; whoever was doing this, dragon or not, might enjoy a small sweetcake, right? He popped it inside, and came home to it gone.
There was nothing waiting for him the next morning, and Hunk would admit; he checked around. Disappointment sat oddly heavy in his chest, and even lance, in high spirits now that Sir Shiro had been officially made protector, noticed Hunk had been there briefly to watch, as Lance’s guest. Keith had been no-where in sight.
“Whatever’s wrong, my handsome man?” He asked, bending in comically to see his face as Hunk shaped a red-hot pickax for Shay and Rax’s father.
Hunk shrugged, eyes lowered, feeling the unhappy tilt to his mouth. “These past few days… I was able to see something, I suppose, every morning. I didn’t see it today.”
Lance pat his arm sympathetically. “There, there! Perhaps it will show up at a different time?”
“Perhaps,” Hunk agreed. He was touched at Lance’s sympathy, though, and tried to stop moping.
The ride back was slow; even Yellow seemed tired, plodding along like an old nag. Hunk pet his neck affectionately as he turned him out, and smiled when Yellow nibbled at the top of his head. The wind changed, though, and suddenly Yellow was snorting, cantering off away from the house. Hunk frowned and turned, inspecting his home and the treeline beyond it.
There was a man standing by his potted wildflowers.
Hunk headed over, brow furrowed. It wasn’t Lance, or Katie, Holt scholar the youngest, who were the only two that visited him. As he neared, he paused a moment, before continuing faster; this man was unknown to him, but he was possibly the most beautiful man Hunk had ever seen in his life, with lashes long against high cheekbones, dark hair about his face, attractive in a way Hunk hadn’t known was possible. He was dressed as wizards dressed, and Hunk was sure he didn’t know any of those.
“Hello stranger,” He greeted, opening the fence and letting himself out before closing it behind him. As he turned back, he saw the man had stepped closer, eyes downcast as he walked up to him.
“Hello Hunk,” Said a voice he half-remembered, and Hunk gasped when the stranger looked up with familiar yellow eyes. “Thank you for the sweetcake.”
“Keith,” He breathed out, heart hammering, and the man nodded. His face was unnaturally still, like he didn’t know how to move it, but he blinked and tilted his head this way and that, bird-like, focused on the blacksmith. “You- you’re not a dragon?”
“My father was a capable man,” Keith said, as if it explained anything. “Did you not like my gifts?”
Hunk fidgeted, looking away. It seemed fitting that dragons be so forward. “It’s not that I didn’t like them; they were lovely, truly, but… it just wouldn’t be right to take that which I don’t know what it is offered for,” Hunk said firmly. He stepped closer to Keith, who did not move, simply staring up at him, as if he had forgotten he was now a man. “… Why did you offer it?”
“To protect you and to gild you, to provide and to supply you,” Keith recited, inching closer, his hands clasped together at his chest, as if to protect himself. “Helm and trinket, coin and cup.” Keith looked down, then, his brow creasing just the tiniest but. “I know no other way to court.”
“Court?” Hunk whispered, face flushing. “You were- courting? Me?”
“As dragons do it,” He said agreeably.
“I didn’t take them.”
“You did not. Do you refuse me?”
“No!” He said it too quickly, or too loudly; Keith jerked his face back up, and looked at him with wide, startled eyes. Hunk was little better. “I mean- I did not know, before, but I do now, so- humans do it differently, you see-” He hurried to explain, something tight in his chest, forcing the words out, but it loosed its hold when Keith’s eyes relaxed again.
“Oh yes; I know that now. Takashi told me. That is why- here,” Keith continued, and waved a hand, then thrust it out.
Yellow daffodils.
Hunk felt that feeling in his chest warm and spread, and he admired the sweet flowers as Keith continued, his shoulders tense, his gaze shifting constantly. “I wish- if you will let me, that is -I wish to try and court you again; I am a dragon, that is to be sure, but I am half-man, and would take this form for you if you so wished it, for the rest of my days, so I might live out my life by your side. You are handsome, and good, I’ve seen that now; Takashi told me how you went with Squire Lance to try and battle me, because he is your friend and you care for him, and, when we met, you were kind, though you had little reason to be.”
Hunk didn’t know what to say, so Keith continued, his brow creasing in some kind of urgency. “I would cause you no trouble; though Yellow is frightened of me now, he would grow used to me, I’m sure of it. I’ve my own mount, when I am two-legged; her name is Red, she’s a thoroughbred and she is capable of great sweetness. I-”
“Could I have them?” Keith blinked, then deliberately shut his mouth, face slightly pink, as if he realised how much he’d been talking, and was embarrassed by it. Hunk thought that was charming, too. “The flowers,” He said, indicating to them. “Are they for me?”
“Yes,” Keith said quietly, and Hunk took them. There was something magic about them, he could see; as soon as he held them, they glowed, shimmering gold and bright.
“They’re beautiful,” He breathed out, looking up at Keith and smiling. “I’m going to put them in some water; why don’t you come inside and have something to drink with me?”
Keith looked surprised, then apprehensive, and finally shy. “Please,” He agreed, and followed at Hunk’s elbow as he turned towards the house.