Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you don’t get homesick?”

Tohru looks up from where’s sorting and folding the laundry. “No.”

Considering their close shave with Tohru’s father, Kobayashi supposes it’s understandable.  

“This is my home now!” Tohru continues. “I’m never going anywhere else, unless it’s with you, Miss Kobayashi.”

“Ah, you’re going to be disappointed if you want to travel. I’m not much of an ‘exotic holiday’ person.” Kobayashi makes the appropriate air quotes, images of lush lagoons and deserted tropical beaches springing to mind. “Airfares are insanely expensive these days.”

“Airfares?”

“You don’t know?”

Tohru’s knowledge of the human world is growing but incomplete, though she’s closing the gap quickly enough that Kobayashi is momentarily unbalanced. “You know what airplanes are, don’t you?”

Tohru shudders. “Those metal boxes that don’t have any right to be so far up in the sky.”

“Well, yeah.” Kobayashi can always count on Tohru for a new perspective on the things she takes for granted. “People take airplanes to get to places that are far away. I might take a plane from Japan to England, for instance. And I’d have to pay for my seat.”

A scandalised gasp emerges from Tohru’s mouth. “Why would you pay to ride such a dangerous contraption when you have me?”

Kobayashi counts off the advantages on her hand. “For one, I’m not exposed to the elements like I am on your back. I get served meals, there’s on-board entertainment, and on average it’s a very safe method of travel.”

Tohru bubbles with barely-suppressed rage. “What?! I can serve you meals and entertain you too! Anything you need or want, I can give it to you! And I’m clearly safer than some metal creature that could fall out of the sky any minute!”

“Sure, sure,” Kobayashi soothes. “But flying into different countries means entering their borders. If you flew into the airspace of another country as a dragon you might get shot down by the military.”

“I can cloak myself from your silly human devices. Besides, I don’t have to fly. I could just open up a portal.”

“True,” Kobayashi concedes, nonplussed. “But I can’t use you to travel everywhere. Anyway, just getting to your destination is part of the experience. Taking one step from here to there would kill the anticipation.”

“Lady Tohru? Kobayashi?” Kanna emerges from her room, rubbing sleep-heavy eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Ah, awake from your nap already? Miss Kobayashi and I were just discussing planes and flying to exotic places!”

Kanna’s tail sways interestedly. “Like the other world?”

“No, no,” Kobayashi interjects before Tohru can get it into her head to take them on some adventure to the furthest reaches of a galaxy that isn’t their own, “she means another country. In our world. Like… Spain or France. Or Iceland.”

“Iceland?”

Kanna rushes over to Kobayashi, fists clenched in excitement. “We were learning about Iceland in school today! You can see the northern lights if you’re far north enough. The teacher showed us a picture. They’re very pretty. Can we go see them for real? Please?”

Kobayashi does a double take. Trust Kanna to rush straight from idea to reality. “What, seriously?”

“Please, Kobayashi!”

Her eyes widen, dimples getting cuter (how is that even possible?), head tilting up. Kobayashi resists the pull. She has work. But that’s a poor excuse. Her leave days have been piling up of late, to the point her boss is constantly reminding her to take some time off. Takiya could feasibly take over her workload while she’s gone. He owes her one for that ‘match’ she had with Elma.

Second objection: dragons are disasters in waiting. Could uproot a mountain any minute, or destroy an entire coastline. That doesn’t work out either. Tohru and Kanna are well-adjusted to human life by now, and it’s not as if Iceland is the most densely-populated country on the planet.

Third objection: Kobayashi isn’t one for travel. Sort of. Before Tohru showed up she’d spent all her holiday time in Japan with video games and manga. Travelling solo had required a seemingly massive effort she didn’t want to put in, and for so little return if her childhood travels were any reliable measure. But now she’s got Tohru and Kanna, who keep her on her toes. It doesn’t hurt that they can go literally anywhere too, and the taste she’s gotten of those anywheres wasn’t so bad.

“I guess we could take a vacation,” Kobayashi begins.

“Hooray!” Tohru cheers, leaping up and punching the air.

“But,” she adds sternly, “we’re flying there by plane.”

“What?”

Kobayashi fends off Tohru’s windmilling arms of protest calmly. “I don’t want to risk yours or Kanna’s safety if we run afoul of border security, okay? Besides, you both need some experience of how humans travel to other countries.”

“Miss Kobayashi!”

“I’m not finished yet!” she warns. “In exchange for sitting quietly on the plane to Iceland, you can fly or dimensional teleport us back. Deal?”

Tohru looks no more appeased. “You promise?”

“Of course.”

Kanna cheers, and Tohru doesn’t any choice but to agree. The next thing Kobayashi knows, they’re packing two suitcases and booking flights, flapping about in the pre-travel frenzy typical of her parents when she’d been younger. “Ah, don’t forget Kanna’s powerboard!” Tohru reminds her, and dutifully, Kobayashi adds it to their growing checklist.

She plans to be gone for two weeks, which should be plenty of time to see the sights and take both dragons through normal tourist behaviour and etiquette. Staying any longer would be unseemly, and she’s sure that her prolonged absence would lead to one too many half-baked lines of coding. Takiya and Elma might pick up some of the slack, even if Elma is still getting used to the job. But she trusts them both, not just as colleagues, but friends.  

It’s a decidedly pleasant thing to know there are people on whom she can rely.

*

“You’re going to Iceland?” Takiya raises one incredulous eyebrow at her, fingers pausing on the keyboard.

“Mm-hm. Kind of like a holiday.”

He laughs in that you surprise me way, eyes crinkling. “Did Tohru give you that idea?”

“No, it was me – but not really, I just said Iceland, and Kanna said she wanted to see the northern lights, and we were talking about travel anyway so it just sort of… happened.”

This she punctuates with a shrug and you know expression. In the typology of everyday decisions, dragon-related ones are coming to occupy their own reality-bending space. Kobayashi is running dangerously short of words to explain it all. At the same time, she is loath to give a precise explanation of it. Some part of her feels it should remain inexplicable, for otherwise the magic would vanish.

“I understand,” Takiya assures her. “You want to spend time with them.”

Which, she realises, is damningly exact but ambiguous enough to capture the measure of her emotions.

“I’ll leave my workload to you,” she grins, and Takiya goes colourless. “Give my regards to Fafnir.”

The next day, Takiya turns up with an odd spark in his eye, unusually mischievous. “Did you know Faf-kun’s relatives live in Iceland?”

“His what?” Kobayashi pushes her glasses up her nose. “And when did you start calling him Faf-kun?”

*

Tohru takes it calmly. “I don’t think they’ll give us any trouble.”

“His relatives are dragons too, right?”

Tohru stuffs some socks between a bundle of shirts and trousers in their shared suitcase. “Not quite. But there’s really nothing to worry about. They don’t visit this world very often, maybe once or twice per millennia. That’s probably where all the myths come from.”

Kobayashi is not overly surprised to learn that real dragons worked their way into Nordic mythology, though it hurts her head to imagine Fafnir, the very same who thought magical girls were a worthwhile addition to a Christmas play, being related to the fearsome creatures of legend. Not even her first terrifying impression of him changes her mind. If Takiya can call him “Faf-kun” he’s far softer than he lets on.”

“Anyway, they don’t talk to him much.”

Knowing dragons, Kobayashi doubts it’s a simple matter of adolescent rebellion. “Why’s that?”

“He did kill his father.” Tohru holds up a garishly patterned turtleneck which Kobayashi remembers her mother knitting for her some five odd years ago when she moved out. “Shall I pack this one too?”

“His father?” Kobayashi splutters.

“I think it was over a magical ring. Made him insatiably greedy.” Tohru shrugs. “He doesn’t like to go into the details. How did you even learn about it, anyway?”

“Takiya told me.”

“Takiya?” Tohru looks momentarily aghast, but breaks into a wry smile. “Fafnir really is getting used to this world. I didn’t think he’d ever live with a human, let alone trust them enough to tell them these sorts of things.”

She shakes the sweater once more. “So, what do you think? In or out?”

Its sentimental value has hovered around the bottom of the scale throughout its lifetime (sometimes plummeting when her mother calls to nag about healthcare or career advancement), but Kobayashi feels the strangest urge to bundle it to her chest and never let go. “Yeah, throw it in.”

As Tohru hums happily, putting the sweater in, Kobayashi wonders whether all dragons have not only dark histories, but sad families. How clotted must their blood ties be that they’d risk death at the hands of humans rather than remain with their relatives? Tohru’s laughter, Kanna’s curiosity: they look stranger and braver in light of her pondering, a dragonish rejection of the misery that seems to eclipse their kind.

*

No one labours under the impression that air travel is pleasant. Kobayashi’s parents never had any qualms inoculating their daughter against the glamour of airplanes or airports, from the bloated queues to the bland meals and frustrations of the baggage claim. Everything, good and bad, has become a fact of life, a taken-for-granted in her tapestry of worldly knowledge.

Which, of course, is premised on the “world” being Kobayashi’s world.

Tohru and Kanna look stunned at the sheer volume of human activity in the international terminal. People hurry past, take phone calls, speaking in a whirlwind of languages; around even the seated people hangs an air of expectancy, a forward momentum brought to a temporary halt like they’ll get up any minute and rush towards where they need to be.

A father pushing a luggage cart crammed with three bulging suitcases squeaks past, the front wheel jerking erratically. His children gambol along, herded by their mother. Behind the family is a pair of backpackers, one wearing a ratty blue cap and faded shirt, his partner a short, dark-skinned man sporting a pair of sandals. The leave in their wake the faintest scent of pinewood and forests.

Over the tannoy a crisp voice asks that passengers not leave their baggage unattended, while in front of them a queue begins forming, people pushing or pulling their suitcases to a standstill behind one another, patiently waiting for the counters to open. Security guards bustle past, speaking lowly into their equipment; a sniffer dog pads beside one uniformed woman, tail wagging.

“Oh!” Kanna exclaims, and Kobayashi grabs her arm firmly.

“Don’t touch anything. Or any dogs.” One hand on her suitcase, she swivels around to check that Tohru hasn’t wandered off. But she is fixed to the spot, staring at the scene, eyes impossibly wide.

“This is like Comiket!” she breathes. “Only it’s a hundred times bigger!”

“Airports are nothing like Comiket, trust me.” Kobayashi feels Kanna’s hand slipping, and she tightens her grip. “Nope. Don’t let go. We’re going straight to our check-in counter, okay? I’ll let you look at the airport stores later.”

She can feel regret kicking its hooves at the back of her head. Dragging along two dragons with no experience of air travel and an abiding fascination and suspicion for it is too much for a simple programmer.

“Okay, here’s how this is going to work,” Kobayashi commands. “Tohru, take our suitcase. Kanna, take yours.” There’s no chance Kanna will let go of hers anyway since she chose it specially for its design, purple flowers uncurling across an aqua green background. On Kobayashi’s other side, Tohru grabs the handle of their suitcase. With that done, Kobayashi gets a hold of Tohru’s arm and Kanna’s hand.

“You’re going to stick to me, don’t wander off.”

The bright red flush of Tohru’s face guarantees she won’t be going anywhere, at least. Feeling thoroughly un-dextrous, Kobayashi navigates her way around families and couples and a host of air stewardesses until they reach their check-in counter.

With Tohru’s excellently-forged passports their tickets are issued in no time, and only then does Kobayashi allow some of the tension to drain out as they collapse on a row of chairs.  

“Man,” Kobayashi groans, “that was way more stressful than I anticipated.”  

She flops her head over the back of the chair. “Well, we’ve got some time to kill before getting to the gate, so what do you guys want to do?”

Unnervingly, she’s met with silence. Have they already zipped off without her? Kobayashi straightens up, but the dragons are still there, apparently absorbed by the mini family drama playing out a few feet from them.

A young woman comforts a man and a woman (presumably her parents), who are clinging to her as if they’re the children and not her. The mother sniffs, pulling away to produce a handkerchief and noisily blow her nose.

“Mum,” her daughter despairs. “Please, stop it… You’re making a scene.”

“You look after yourself, okay?” the father claps a hand to her shoulder.

“Miss Kobayashi,” Tohru hisses out of the corner of her mouth, “what’s happening? Is this a normal human ritual?”

“Why are they crying?” Kanna asks.

Kobayashi keeps staring at the family: the daughter smiling, a little teary-eyed herself, but struggling to keep hold of her dignity; her parents fussing over her suitcase and backpack and eliciting promises she’ll stay in touch. The affection that encircles them awakes a familiar mixture of annoyance and fondness.

For her, it’s a memory, but for the dragons, it is not.

“The parents are seeing off their adult daughter for her first trip overseas. It’s an airport staple.” Kobayashi fiddles with her glasses. “They’re crying because they’re sad and proud. They know their child is old enough to travel by herself, but it also means an end to their involvement in her life. Now she’ll likely rely on them less, and want to do things for herself without necessarily consulting them first.”

Not that Kobayashi’s drift towards independence had been as emotional. She’d moved out almost like a second thought, stumbling into adulthood with equal parts apathy and self-consciousness. Her city job had meant a city home, which in turn meant leaving her parents behind. At the time it had been an Achievement of Adulthood, right up to the point where she stood in her new, empty apartment, floorboards blank of history and family.

But then she’d gotten used to that too. Once or twice a year they came to visit, brief reunions that began with general goodwill before sliding into thinly-veiled resentment, a push-and-pull between who had more control of Kobayashi’s life. When they went back, she’d feel the emptiness of the apartment again, and secretly wish she had not been so sharp.   

Tohru regards her curiously. “Did you feel the same way?”

Kobayashi shrugs. “More or less. I told my parents I had to move because of my job, but deep down I think I wanted to prove I was capable of looking after myself.”

She stares at anything other than the heartfelt goodbyes taking place before them. The scene suddenly seems an insult to all the miserable daughters in miserable families around the world.

“Were your parents sad?” Tohru asks.

Kobayashi, to her great shame, cannot be certain if they were. “I guess,” she replies. “It was hard to tell since my parents aren’t really the emotional sort. I’m sure my mother cried a little, but she didn’t want me to see.”

“Why not? You talk so fondly about them it’s hard to imagine they’d hide anything from you.”

Kobayashi heaves a helpless half-shrug. “I’m not certain, but they probably didn’t want me to see them all teary and snotty. Parents don’t want to hurt their children. Sometimes, sparing them their own sadness and pain is a way of protecting them.”

The young woman finishes up her farewells and disappears into the crowd.

“Oh,” Tohru murmurs. Too late, Kobayashi realises her slip. Here she is, talking about sensitive, stoic parents when Tohru’s own parents – Kanna’s too – are anything but.

“Uh – Tohru, I didn’t mean – I don’t –”

“It’s okay, Miss Kobayashi!” Tohru flashes her a wan smile. “I’m glad you could talk about your parents so honestly. You really love them, don’t you? I’m glad.” She looks down, hair obscuring her eyes.

The bustle of the airport fades, static buzzing in Kobayashi’s ears. Her heart clenches in recollection: Tohru’s anguish, her father’s belligerence, the assumption that their dispute could only be resolved by violence. A fierce wave of resolve breaks over her – she will give Tohru the family she deserves and needs; she’ll give her a peaceful life in the human world, loving and full, unencumbered by her past.

“Kobayashi,” and she realises Kanna has been tugging at her sleeve. The little dragon frowns fiercely. “When I’m old enough to travel by myself, I don’t want you to cry. But if you do, that’s okay too.”   

Kobayashi accepts the hug that Kanna offers, swinging her off her feet.  She is flooded with gratitude and pride, and the lingering ghost of indignation. It is impossible to fathom how her parents thought growing up strong meant growing up alone. “You can’t leave just yet,” Kobayashi says over the lump in her throat, “but thank you.”

She catches Tohru’s eyes, wavering in the light; her bottom lip is trembling, and without another word, Kobayashi reaches out and envelops Tohru in the same hug.    

Chapter Text

Kobayashi’s last trip with her parents as a child (an exasperated young adult, really) had been an exercise in wrangling them into line, just enough to enjoy the experience of being overseas instead of transporting their domestic squabbles onto foreign soil. Not that she’d ever been successful. It’s testament to Tohru and Kanna that she’s even looking forward, however cautiously, to their holiday.

But subdued by their earlier outbursts of emotion, the dragons behave themselves all the way through security and as they board the plane. There isn’t any real need for Kobayashi to keep a hold of Kanna’s hand, but Kanna doesn’t relinquish her grip until they’re seated.

A brief tussle over the window seat is the only trouble they get into, Tohru uncharacteristically quiet. Kobayashi resigns herself to the middle. It’s only when they start taxiing down the runway that Tohru begins to twitch in a more dragon-ish, Tohru-ish way.

“M-miss Kobayashi,” she stutters. Is that fear Kobayashi detects?

She suppresses a wince as Tohru’s hand clenches over her own. Oh yes, the nerves are setting in. And her nerves are about to go dead at this rate.

“You’ll be fine,” Kobayashi says. “Ah – ow.” Kanna has taken her other hand.

Gears complain from beneath them. A loud, low vibration hums through the cabin. Kobayashi is certain she won’t feel her hands for a good hour afterwards.

“This is why I don’t trust human contraptions,” Tohru mumbles queasily, curling into Kobayashi’s side as far as the armrest allows. 

It’s hard not to suppress a small bubble of laughter. Here she is in the company of creatures capable of world destruction and dimension-travelling, reduced to clutching at her like newborns. But compassion wells up too – Kobayashi remembers her dry mouth and pounding heart, the terror they might plunge into the ground at any second and die in a fireball; her parents’ soothing voices. Close your eyes, they’d said. It’ll pass.

“Just trust me, then,” she says.

Tohru’s grip loosens a fraction. They continue rumbling down the runway, bodies shaking with the plane’s movement. Before they know it, the front wheels leave the tarmac as it lurches into the sky. The ground falls away; there’s a brief dip before the plane rights itself.

Kobayashi bites her tongue at the force of both dragons’ hands, and without thinking she murmurs, “close your eyes.” She shuts her own too, anchored to reality by their hot fear and blind trust. What Kobayashi finds mundane is otherworldly for the dragons; to fly without magic is frightening as it is incomprehensible. They are climbing higher and higher in a human-made box whose safety she vouched for, and with which they’ve had no other experience. It is new; it is strange, and they trust her. They are vulnerable with her.

“You’ll be fine,” she whispers. “I’m right here.”

*

They land at Keflavík airport still in one piece, though Kobayashi is sleep-deprived and dehydrated; her skin is dry and flaky and she would kill for a hot shower. Tohru and Kanna are in marginally better shape; at least they don’t look like they’re the walking dead.

The plane bumps to a halt at their gate, the PA crackling to life as the captain gives them an update of surface conditions. It’s indecently cold, and Kobayashi immediately digs out her thick parka.

“We packed Kanna’s winter gear, right?” she checks with Tohru.

“Absolutely positive we did!” Tohru flashes Kobayashi a thumbs-up.

After passing through customs and collecting their baggage (another trial in itself but far less aggravating than the plane trip), they come to the airport doors.   

Before going anywhere, Tohru and Kobayashi half-stuff half-coax Kanna into a bulky piece of pink outerwear, the hood lined with white faux-fur.

“I know you’re a dragon,” Kobayashi says, “but I’m not taking any risks.”

Kanna examines the sleeve ends, her fingers barely peeping out. “Fluffy,” she proclaims.

“Don’t forget these!” Tohru pulls out a pair of mittens that she proceeds to slip over Kanna’s hands. It’s most likely unnecessary, but there’s some novelty in dressing up like the other (much more fragile) human children. “There! You look perfect.”

“I do?”

Having secured her big sister’s verdict, Kanna seeks her mother’s approval. Kobayashi takes one look at the pink cocoon inside which is the small dragon, and firmly decides she would fit perfectly into a shoujo manga.

“Perfect,” she confirms.

Kanna’s face – or what they can see of it – is radiant enough to melt the ice outside. 

Wrapped up properly, all three take their first step onto Icelandic soil, which to no one’s surprise, is frozen solid. Even without the wind chill it feels far colder than what Kobayashi is used to in Japan. Her breath is a vivid, almost solid white; the cold working its way into the smallest of crevices and gaps left in her clothing. Teeth chattering, Kobayashi points to the bus stop.

“Let’s get on the bus before we freeze.”

The trip to Reykjavik features landscapes of white, houses and homesteads buried under metres of snow. They soon reach the edge of the suburbs around the airport, where without human structures to break up the view, the horizon is barely discernible from the pale, airy sky. It’s nowhere near scenic but the dragons are fascinated all the same, Kanna prodding the window while Tohru treats it like a game of cloud-spotting, “doesn’t that mound over there look like a dwarf?”

Kobayashi notes with some amusement that Kanna hasn’t taken off her jacket or mittens, still too endeared with how cute a picture she presents in them. Meanwhile, Tohru has shed her jacket in favour of a warmer version of her maid outfit, doubtless hoping to score brownie points with Kobayashi.

But the warmth of the bus’s air conditioning washes over tired muscles, and before she knows it, Kobayashi is asleep.

*

The first week passes in a snowy blur of sore feet and frozen fingers, Kobayashi dragged around after the much more excitable dragons. Their stamina is unfairly endless, their fascination a source so perpetual she’s sure if someone figured out how to harness it nobody would ever worry about an energy shortage again.

Even after dark they want to see more – see everything, if possible, about Reykjavik and the surrounding countryside, the gentle inclines of its ancient, time-worn hills; the weathered warmth of its geothermal hotspots. And as much as it tires her to leave early and return late, day after day, Kobayashi is glad to see the dragons so uncomplicatedly happy. A few hundred years of battle across various exotic realms is no substitute for travel, and lonely nights spent on mountain peaks to commune with lightning can’t exactly be called fun.  

On their last day in the city, they take a quad bike tour up the nearest mountain with just the three of them. The bike wheels gouge a spray of soil into the air as they come to a halt – or Tohru’s does, at any rate, executing a half turn that in the city and in a car would surely bring down the wrath of law enforcement. Not that Tohru doing reckless things is a surprise. What is, though, is the speed at which she’s mastered the bike controls.

“I didn’t realise you would take to the quad so quickly.”

Kobayashi removes her helmet and hooks it on the handle before helping Kanna off the back seat. Seeing Tohru so comfortable with human technology makes her oddly proud, and she’s determined to let Tohru know whenever that’s the case. A slight twinge at the back of her throat reminds her of the last time she tried to tell Tohru something before it all went to pieces.

“Oh, it’s nothing. These beasts are far easier to control than a bucking staghorn.”

Tohru’s hair pops out of the helmet in a blonde rush, the wind playing through it like a harp. She tosses her head once, then yells, “C’mon! Let’s go see the view!”

Smiling fondly, Kobayashi trails after Tohru to the observation platform. A heavily signposted metal fence is the only barrier between them and the precipitous drop, though being dragons, neither Tohru nor Kanna care much for heights.

Well, Kanna does.

“Kobayashi,” she demands imperiously, and raises her arms. Without needing to be told twice, Kobayashi hoists the smaller dragon up onto her shoulders, and they stare out at the view.

“It’s amazing,” Tohru breathes. “Just amazing.”

 The sprawl of human habitation has never been wondrous to Kobayashi, growing up amongst concrete towers and uniform apartment blocks, powerlines spooling overhead to complete the illusion of a vast cage. On her worst days, it had suffocated her. On that day, it had been unbearable. Her wandering into the forest hadn’t all been drunken tomfoolery; in that small slip of remaining sobriety she’d known the dangers. But another larger, louder part, however deeply hidden, had wanted to seek out a place far from human constructions, whether of concrete or words. The true accident had been finding a half-dead dragon instead.

Before them, the valley cradles the city. Between the upturned earth and iron-lidded sky it looks mightily frail. The clouds hurry on, as if eager to be gone. In the far distance she spies the ocean, a blue-grey body lying quiescent for the day. Had Tokyo looked like this to Tohru? To Tohru’s father? Only their laws had prevented him from flattening the city proper; Kobayashi is sure that had he been less of a traditionalist, he would’ve destroyed it all.

But Tohru hadn’t.

Kobayashi’s gaze slides to her maid. Who is also her friend and companion, and maybe something more. Eyes bright, suffused with childish wonder, Tohru looks nothing like the menace to humankind she’s meant to be. This city, this country, this world – her love for it is drawn from a bottomless well. It makes Kobayashi wonder all over again how Tohru survived in the other world, and how much she suffered to keep her softness hidden.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Tohru gushes.

Kobayashi’s heart aches with a vast, unnameable something; she wants, strangely, to cry. A city of Tohru’s so-called enemies lies at her feet and all she can do is marvel at its beauty. Kobayashi pushes her glasses up her nose. The air is crisp, knowing; it inflates her chest with too many emotions to say anything more. “Yeah,” she agrees. “It really is.”

From her perch, Kanna waves her camera. “I wanna take photos!”

Kobayashi lets her down carefully. “Okay, but watch yourself. I don’t want you falling off the edge.”

Kanna is a purple whirlwind as she tears off, keeping in view of her adoptive parents. The two women stay where they are, still comfortably standing side by side. Tohru’s right arm just touches Kobayashi’s left, their warmth pooled between them.

“It’s been such a fun week,” Tohru says quietly. “I’m glad you planned this, Miss Kobayashi. I can’t thank you enough.”

But Kobayashi silences her with a firm shake of the head. “You don’t need to thank me. I needed a break from work too. You and Kanna remind me I need to step back every now and again to make time for what’s really important.”

“Oh.”

She’s sure Tohru is blushing prettily, but keeps her eyes trained on the view. They lapse into another silence.

“You know, seeing all this, it makes me want to spread my wings. To get even higher.”

“You know you can’t do that.”

Tohru tilts her head towards Kobayashi, emitting a small laugh. “It would freak everyone out down there?”

“Bingo.”

They share another few moments of half-drowsy quiet. It’s rare they’ve had any time to themselves amidst the frantic chase to see all the attractions and do all the things that tourists do. Despite the wind chill, Kobayashi feels safe and warm beside Tohru, like she could stand there for the next hour, in silence and peace.

“Did you know that I used to do something similar in the other world?”

“Hm?” With a few languid blinks, Kobayashi evaluates Tohru cautiously. It isn’t like her to be so forthcoming about her previous life.

“Yes, I used to be part of scouting missions. We’d fly over human settlements scoping them out for future raids. We took note of where the armoury was, how fit their forces were, even the woods where they might flee for shelter.”

In the faint whistling of the wind between her words, Kobayashi hears Kanna’s excited trills, the snap of the camera shutter. Her heart clenches in anticipation of where the story is going, blood running cold. Tohru settles her hands on the railing, fingers tightly woven together.

“And then, after we’d destroyed those villages, we’d do another flyover to check for survivors, to make sure we’d wiped everything out, so that not even humans would think there’d been anything there before.”   

Emotionally unprepared for the story and Tohru’s vulnerability, all Kobayashi can say is, “that’s terrible.”

Stupid, she thinks. That was a stupid thing to say. Of course it’s terrible, that’s why she’s telling you about it now!

“Ah – what I meant…” she tries again, but the words won’t come. How is she supposed to react to the (unsurprising) revelation that Tohru had been complicit in the deaths of innocent humans? “Why are you telling me this now?”

“You should know the worst about me,” she replies. “This holiday… you said it was to remind you of what’s important. Miss Kobayashi, you’re important to me too, and I don’t want to hurt you, not again, so you should know everything about my past in case it ever comes back.”

Kobayashi adjusts her glasses. Okay. She can deal with this. True, she’s not good with emotional honesty, but she can make an exception here. It’s just that the words are vaporous and traitorous, slipping beyond reach. Taking her silence as condemnation, Tohru shifts to the right. A millimetre of space opens up between them. Kobayashi is keenly aware of how cold her arm now feels.

“But I’m glad you didn’t see me then,” Tohru whispers. “You would’ve hated me.”

Her head dips down and away, shame settling on her shoulders like a visible thing.

Say something, Kobayashi screams at herself through the whirling of her thoughts. Comfort her! Tell her she’s wrong! Instead, her mouth goes, “I know.”

Oh, good going. Way to communicate.

One look at Tohru’s eyes and Kobayashi stumbles over herself to clarify. “I don’t mean that I would’ve hated you. I know for sure I would never hate you, even back then. You made mistakes, like anyone else. I wouldn’t condone everything you did, but you were trying to figure out how to live by your ideals when everyone else was saying the complete opposite of what you believed in.”

Tohru’s expression hasn’t changed, and Kobayashi feels even more foolish. “What I know is that you’re a good person, Tohru. Um, dragon.” She bites her tongue. Words! Fickle, capricious things, the lot of them. Now Tohru probably thinks she’s an idiot. How did she ever fall in love with such a clumsy human? And wait – why does she think herself undeserving of Tohru? When –?

“You wouldn’t have hated me?”

Her voice is tremulous, hesitant.

“What? I – no, of course not.” Kobayashi says it without a shred of doubt, a disbelieving laugh escaping her. “Tohru! You – you know that, don’t you? After everything we’ve been through, don’t…. you?” She trails off, realising the source of her friend’s insecurity. Kobayashi despairs again. Damn her and her social ineptitude, her one-sided struggle to articulate anything ever.

I never told her the omurice was good. I never said I missed her when she was gone. I never told her how truly happy I was to have her back. I never told her I l –

The word blares out like a neon billboard and with such force it leaves her breathless. Oh, Kobayashi thinks, faint. Oh. That’s how it is, is it?

Glad that the wind provides the perfect cover for her reddening cheeks, she fumbles for the right words. (Not those ones, because she doesn’t have the courage yet, but an acceptable substitute.)

“I don’t hate you at all, not then and not now.” She clears her throat, and without thinking, takes Tohru’s hand in hers. It’s warm and trembling. “You think humans are foolish and inferior; you insult our intelligence; but you don’t want us dead. You didn’t kill the bandit girl, and you didn’t kill me. That makes you all right in my books. More than all right.”

Tohru stops trembling. Her fingers are pliant, curling around the offered strength.

“Miss Kobayashi,” she says, looking her in the eyes.

“Hey,” Kobayashi smiles. “Tohru.”

She doesn’t know who acts first; whether she leans forward or Tohru tilts her head up, but suddenly Kobayashi is staring into a pair of soft but blazingly warm eyes, the urge to eliminate any remaining space between them a magnetic pull. She’s not really one for words, as she’s so aptly proven, and anything (everything) she wants to say could be better said if she…

“Lady Tohru! Kobayashi! Look over here!”

They draw apart so quickly it leaves Kobayashi dizzy. Kanna is motioning at them like a conductor, the camera clutched in one hand. Even Tohru looks surprised, cheeks a violent red – and not just from the cold, Kobayashi suspects.

“Stay right there,” Kanna commands. She lifts the camera and peers at the screen, then lowers it. “Actually, move closer together.”

In their haste, they’d put a good distance between them. Kobayashi shuffles back, bumping shoulders with Tohru. The burst of warmth that comes with the contact is most welcome. “Um, is this okay?”

Still caught out from the sudden interruption, she doesn’t quite register Tohru throwing one arm around her shoulder. Seems dragons are better at recovery from comprising situations. Kanna makes a pleased sound.

“Good, hold that pose.”

Not that Kobayashi wants to move, anyway. The wind picks up, whipping her hair into a bird’s nest. She leans into Tohru’s warmth and inhales, then brings an arm up to settle on her shoulder. That old shame has no place here. Her fingers curl in possessively; you have no hold on her anymore, I do. In return, every part of Tohru’s body radiates heat, a steady balm for her soul.

“Smile!”

A flash, and it’s over. They separate, a little reluctantly, as Kanna rushes up to show them the picture.

“One for the photo album, huh?” Tohru chirps.

“Yeah,” Kobayashi agrees, patting Kanna on the head as they stroll back to their quads. “From now on, we’re going to try even harder to make the best memories for you.”

The photo will show the two of them standing before an unburned city under a wild, dragon-less sky. Kobayashi knows it won’t be enough to silence old ghosts, but maybe it’ll be a retreat, a home, to remind Tohru that the depth of her love exceeds her capacity for death, that she’ll always have a place to return to in the long, intractable wastes of eternity.

“Would you like that?” Kobayashi asks, without any expectation at all.

Tohru’s answer is the wide, uncontrollable smile spreading over her face. “Yes,” she breathes, and wraps Kobayashi in a tight hug. Her tears are warm and wet and not at all unwelcome. She’s trembling again, but not from shame.

“I’d love that.”

Chapter Text

Night descends in a swirl of darkened snow and staccato window-rattling. As the blizzard moves into the city, Kobayashi has never been gladder to share a bed with a dragon. Every part of her body is toasty warm even without magic.

The only other bed in the room is a single, where a tuft of purple poking up from the covers is all they can see of Kanna. From below the sheets snakes her tail, plugged into her powerboard. The rhythmic rise and fall of the small lump is as good an indicator as any that she’s fast asleep, the exhaustion of the day catching up. Not even a lightning strike would wake her.

The wind drums another round on the windows. Kobayashi turns a page of her travel guide and maps it against her itinerary, double checking that all is in order.   

Tohru, still awake and dressed in a pair of flannel pyjamas (not her transfigured scales), stretches lazily. Her tail is magicked away out of convenience, and because it has an irritating tendency to curl around Kobayashi’s waist in her sleep.

“When are we heading out tomorrow?”

“About eight,” Kobayashi replies. “So that means waking at seven if you want to eat breakfast.”

“Wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

“Is there a meal you haven’t looked forward to?”

The appetites and tastes of dragons are a thing to fear. Kobayashi is sure Tohru and Kanna have literally eaten a dent into her salary, though not as large as the blow to her dignity every time she has had to drag them out of a restaurant. Who’d ever heard of eating an entire kitchen out of its stock? But they’re on holiday and Kobayashi can only take it as a good thing that the dragons are enjoying themselves so much.

“Remind me where we’re going?” Tohru yawns.

“Here,” Kobayashi tilts the guide book towards her, open to the double spread map she’s marked with sticky notes. “Jökulsárlón. A glacier lagoon. Our grand northern lights finale before heading home.”

Tohru laughs lightly. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint Kanna after coming all this way.”

“Mm,” Kobayashi agrees. “I’d never forgive myself. Don’t think Kanna would, either.” That restrained disappointment still haunts her from the time she initially refused to go to Kanna’s sports festival. She never wants to see that face again.

“You can’t control the weather,” Tohru admonishes. “I, on the other hand –”

“No,” Kobayashi interrupts. “That’s cheating.”

“Only a tiny bit. It’d just be a small luck spell to improve our chances of seeing an aurora.”

Kobayashi sighs, fondly. Tohru’s eagerness to help is charming in its own way. “We’re doing it the human way. Tough luck and perseverance or nothing.”

“It’s a wonder you get anything done,” Tohru sniffs, but her disdain is light.

“That’s humans for you. Could you turn off your bedside light?”

A click, and their room plunges into softly glowing darkness. Kobayashi hears a faint rustle as Tohru moves under the covers too, their bodies drifting closer on instinct. Tohru is warm, without question, and a reassuring presence.

Something shifts under her arm, another body snuggling against hers.

“Tohru, what –” Kobayashi hisses, glad for the cover the darkness provides.

“You’re warm,” comes the mumbled answer.

“Yeah, and you’re warm too. We’re going to overheat like this.” Her breath fans over her hands; hair close enough to touch and curl around a finger. Tohru smells of woodsmoke and snow, something like magic that sets her blood alight and her skin tingling. She can’t remember the last time anyone had held her so closely and trustingly. Her mother’s hugs had been warm and familial, those of her friends at graduation fleeting. Even the occasional arm she flings around Takiya in a drunken stupor is brief, the sensation muddied by too much alcohol to discern properly.

All her memories are a faint echo of Tohru’s presence in the present moment. Her head is tucked under Kobayashi’s, nose nuzzling her like a cat. An exceptionally large cat. Kobayashi has never had pets for the same reason she’s never had a proper partner. Taking care of, and caring for another living being is hard work. She can barely look after herself as it is.

Tohru looks after her more effectively than she ever could, and it frightens her at times to think that she can’t imagine their apartment without her in it. Her cooking, her cleaning, her affected disdain for all humans other than Kobayashi; her scent and hair and affection. The dragon’s feelings are loud and annoying, yet terrifying in their immensity. Kobayashi has never seen herself worthy of attention until Tohru turned up. She is still not entirely deserving, despite which she cannot bear to see Tohru leave (again).

Kobayashi doesn’t know how to handle the new, nebulous desire to hold and to touch Tohru’s body and Tohru’s soul. It feels to Kobayashi like the blizzard outside battering their window; it feels too like a quiet fall in the night. She knows Tohru would catch her a thousand times over, has already caught her. Saved her from her own apathy and disinterest in the world. It’s hardly magical or dragonish. It’s possibly the most human thing Kobayashi has ever done, falling in love with a dragon.

Tohru shifts in her sleep to snuggle even closer. Automatically, Kobayashi raises a hand to stroke her hair. Something warm flutters in her chest, a nascent feeling she barely understands. It feels like asking too much to keep this, whatever it is, to let it live. But she’s standing at the edge and already at the base, her better half calling at her to climb back up.

Kobayashi fears commitment the way a cat fears water: a deep, primal fear she’s learned to never question. She lets herself down regularly enough to know she’d disappoint anyone she loves. She has few friends; Takiya is a drinking buddy and their casual acquaintance puts enough distance between them to ensure she wouldn’t be hurt by his departure. Kobayashi has never been another’s sun, the centre of their affections. She shies from that burden for fear she cannot reciprocate, that she is a perpetual disappointment, to them and to herself.

Tohru’s breathing is gentle and measured against her skin. Sleep brings out vulnerability in all creatures, none more so than the ones that appear the most dangerous when awake. For all Tohru’s power, Kobayashi wants to protect her. She is the first person for whom that desire outstrips the risk of disappointment and failure.

“Can’t sleep?”

Tohru’s eyes flutter open. They don’t glow as brightly as a cat’s in the darkness, but hers is a warm gaze, deep with affection and reassurance. Kobayashi sees no point in lying. “Yeah.”  

“Let me help.”

“How?” She expects a cheeky and not-so-innocent answer, knowing Tohru’s proclivity for the same.

Tohru’s answer is to reach out and cradle her face. It’s not the first time Tohru has embraced her, but her touch now is absent of its usual vigour, the flare-bright energy that Kobayashi has seen animate their apartment. This touch is for her alone, a gentle caress. Her palms are warm and safe. Kobayashi exhales, letting her heart rate slow as Tohru continues to hold her in the darkness.

“That’s it. Just relax.” … “Trust me.”

The suddenness of her mental voice jerks Kobayashi to attention. So much for relaxing. “Could you maybe give me a warning next time?”

The answering giggle echoes in her head. “Sorry. I forget you humans aren’t used to this.”

“What are you going to do, anyway?”

This time Tohru’s voice is softer, brushing her consciousness. “Magic.”  

“What?”

“Do you trust me?” she repeats.

You know the answer, Kobayashi thinks.

She shuts her eyes and hopes for the best. The rumble of the blizzard fades into static, her senses following suit. Tohru’s hands tingle – but it’s more than surface sensation, a burning bright warmth that reaches into and through her body.

“Almost there,” Tohru’s voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. “You’re still a bit too tense, Miss Kobayashi.”

Naturally she would be tense; while Kobayashi has lived with magic for the better part of a year she hasn’t lived magic so viscerally. She doesn’t know how to make head or tail of the sensations, the strange intimacy to what feels like her and Tohru drifting in the same space and sharing the same senses. In flashes she sees and feels what Tohru must be seeing and feeling; the sonorous thump of her heartbeat, wisps of warmth, and the immensity of her love.

Then, does that mean Tohru can sense her fear and longing, her love –? As quickly as the panic rises it subsides. Another presence wraps around her reassuringly. It is foreign and not, starting out murky, slowly solidifying into a familiar shape. Out of the shadows emerge a green tail, antlers, the voluminous sweep of a maid’s dress. A name rises in what part of her mind is still hers. Kobayashi reaches for it, reaches out, for that smile and energy, that overflowing gratitude, even the occasional flashes of jealousy.

“Miss Kobayashi… it’s okay.”

Tohru, the last conscious part of Kobayashi’s mind manages.

I’m here.

Which one of them says it, she doesn’t know. There is no beginning or end; just her and Tohru and the silence of what cannot be contained in words. The darkness takes her into its arms, soft and safe and smelling faintly of smoke and magic.  

*

Kobayashi come to in a dark room, Tohru’s skin perfectly warm against hers. The night has rearranged itself around them so that they’re lying in the cool darkness of the early morning. With a start, Kobayashi realises the storm has worn itself out. The windows are still, rattling ceased. The pressure on her hips, after a ginger examination with her fingers, is just Tohru’s tail wound tightly around her waist.

Well. She’ll allow it. Kobayashi dives back under the covers and sleeps.

Fifteen minutes later than planned they awake in a bundle of limbs and blankets to the thud-thud-thud of Kanna jumping up and down at the end of their bed.

“Wake up!” she says, and Kobayashi can only let herself be swept along.  

*

Cruises aren’t operating for the season, but the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon is still a sight to behold from its shores. The waters, a placid grey-blue, reflect the afternoon sky. Chunks of ice are spread around like larger, colder stars. Many glow an unearthly blue, others banded in black and bluish-white; but all glitter as the sun strikes their hard edges.

The dragons are so taken with the icebergs they can’t take two steps without stopping. Not having the heart to curb their curiosity, Kobayashi can only do tight laps of the area as she waits for them to move on.

“They look like frozen blue fire,” Kanna comments. “I think it’s pretty.” She stares intently at the closest berg. “Can I take –”

“No,” Kobayashi says on reflex. “You can look at it and take photos, but we can’t take anything back. Definitely not an entire iceberg.” Seeing Kanna’s eyes widen, she adds, “and don’t even think about licking that ice, you hear me? It’s probably thousands of years old and full of bacteria.”

“Nothing a dragon can’t shake off,” Tohru says.

“I bet it tastes terrible, too.” 

Kanna puts up a vocal protest. “I can’t know without trying!” 

“Let’s go to the beach,” Kobayashi suggests desperately. “The guides all say it’s worth checking out.” 

With some cajoling, she gets Tohru to give Kanna a piggy-back (“back pains, remember?”), then they’re crunching across rocks and chips of ice out to the mouth of the sea. With the winter sun already beginning its descent and light fading, they keep their pace brisk. Darkness is falling by the time they step foot on the first grains of black volcanic sand, icebergs of various sizes lying around them like beached whales. In the gloaming, their blueness seems to intensify.

Tohru lets Kanna down and watches fondly as she runs to the nearest iceberg. Their repeated near misses with the northern lights haven’t (outwardly) dampened her spirits as much as she or Kobayashi had feared.

“Don’t wander too close to the water,” Kobayashi calls. She throws a glance at the sky, then at Tohru. “It’s getting dark, so we can’t stay too long.”

“Twenty minutes, then?”

Wrapped up in her thick parka, Kobayashi looks exceedingly fragile in the half-light. Her spirit is nowhere near as breakable as her body, which while comforting, doesn’t always chase away her deepest fears. Kobayashi is both invincible and brittle; a human who brought her to tears just the previous day, yet without the raw power and magic of a dragon.

They approach one of the larger icebergs, the water inside distorting the view of the ocean through it. Kobayashi sidles around to the other side and peers into the ice, squinting as though to make out the individual drops of water. From where Tohru is standing, her figure wavers, obscured, picked out only by her silhouette. No more substantial than a shadow.

“These must come from the glacier,” Kobayashi marvels. “Pretty amazing.”

“Not as amazing as you!” Tohru gushes, to an amused roll of the eyes.

Even without touching the ice she can feel its age, Iceland’s magic threaded through it in the faintly shimmering blue threads lit by the last of the daylight. Sparks flash and dance in her magical vision like a greeting. Almost reverently, Tohru reaches out and lays a bare palm on the surface.

Cold tingles down her fingers, a bright and burning coldness that lights up her physical and magical senses. A flood of images and sensations flashes through her mind so quickly it leaves her dizzy; hundreds of thousands of years’ worth of memory compressed and folded into her body. The rise and fall of oceans, the retreat of the glacier, birds and seals and whales. It aches, the years, the scent of old sinking into her bones.

In her yellow-tinged vision she can barely make out Kobayashi, now even less than a shadow on the other side of the ice. They haven’t yet spoken about the previous night, reluctant to touch by day the inexplicable magic of the night, fearing, maybe, that giving words to what they’d experienced would make it vanish.

She had felt something of Kobayashi’s fear, her fragility. What it was about she hadn’t seen entirely. Regardless, her human needs protection, and Tohru will be there to provide it until she is no longer needed.

Her fingers clench on the ice. Connection broken, all she feels now is bone-piercing cold. There’s a scrabble of boots, the sensation of fleeing air. From behind the iceberg she spies a flash of pink. Kobayashi is running after their wayward child with the panic of a newly-minted parent.

“Kanna, what did I tell you about getting too close to the sea?”

Tohru wants to burn the image into her mind – pink hair and gangly stride, loud and alive in her movement. A good memory.

For a moment, the dwindling figure becomes too much and she averts her gaze to the ash at her feet. She’s mapped the geographies of loss well with her claws; of dignity and family and status, of friends to human hunters. But she has never feared losing a human. She has never feared the passage of time or her own longevity, because for as long as she can remember she has been alone.

The cold presses in, the ice silent. Her hand flexes automatically for something or someone to hold. And when did she start expecting a hand in return, a sliver of answering warmth?

“Miss Kobayashi!” she calls, and begins running.  

By the time she reaches them, Kobayashi has a firm hold on a nominally chastised Kanna. The water, well behind them, laps at the sand and around diamond-pale blocks of ice. The young dragon skips towards Tohru, droplets of blue falling from her pocket. They glint in the evening, pinpricks of colour against the dark.

“You can’t take them back,” Kobayashi explains through poorly-masked amusement, the fact she isn’t angry so much as relieved Kanna wasn’t swept out to sea. “I don’t think this is legal. Besides, they’ll melt.”

“I’ll enchant them not to.”

Magic is the answer to most things, but not time. Fingers of wind worm their way under Tohru’s parka; she pops the collar and hood up, and adds a heating charm for good measure. In Kanna’s palm, the chips of ice glow so alluringly Kobayashi relents, and lets her keep three of the medium-sized ones. The fingerprint of winter presses down more firmly. Another gust of wind blows, and the ice groans as far away the glacier shifts.

“We should head back now,” Kobayashi says, cheeks ruddy after her pell-mell dash across the ice. She raises a bulky jacketed arm to swipe her forehead, other hand holding Kanna’s in a death grip.

“Here.” Tohru gathers the younger dragon into her arms. Another moment to remember, this: the small bundle of warmth, a glint of teeth as Kobayashi smiles, a wave of rightness washing around her heart. Something to hold onto in the far, far future.

“You okay?” Kobayashi peers at her.

Something tightens in Tohru’s chest, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she grins and loops her free arm into Kobayashi’s.

“Let’s go, then. But no rush.”

*

“Kobayashi. Kobayashi.”

Back at their hotel room and all Kobayashi wants to do is take a long, relaxing soak in the ensuite bath she paid good money for, but Kanna has something else on her mind.

“Don’t bother Miss Kobayashi,” Tohru chides, to no effect. The way Kanna is tugging on Kobayashi’s sleeve suggests she has more energy to burn off, and Kobayashi won’t see calm or sleep until she’s out like a light. She suppresses a sigh and closes the suitcase.

“The northern lights,” the young dragon says. “Let’s go see them.”

“We will,” Kobayashi says. “Just after I freshen up a bit.”

A frisson of guilt snakes down her back. The weather hasn’t cooperated as well as she would’ve liked and the aurora forecast she’s been checking every morning keeps giving her sad-looking percentages. As tempting as it is to enlist Tohru’s power, she doesn’t want the aurora Kanna sees to be manufactured for her. (And she’d probably be able to tell with her nose for Tohru’s magic.)

“Tonight,” Kanna adds. “There’s going to be a good one tonight.”

“Tonight?” Kobayashi repeats. She hadn’t checked the forecast in the morning, too worried about being late and missing breakfast (Tohru should have woken them earlier but if there’s one thing she prioritises more than breakfast, it’s snuggling with Kobayashi).

“I can feel it,” Kanna elaborates in an entirely unhelpful way.

At Kobayashi’s confusion, Tohru steps in. “Kanna’s very good at sensing electricity, natural and human. If she can feel something now we might be in for a big show!”

“Oi,” Kobayashi grumbles, “weren’t you all about bathing and relaxation five minutes ago?” Her annoyance is half a show; she does want Kanna to be able to see the lights on this, their last night in Iceland. The prospect of bulking up again to traipse through snow drifts in near total darkness is less endearing.

Tohru speaks right on cue. “Miss Kobayashi, we should go out and find somewhere to see them! Somewhere without all this human light and noise.”

“We’re already pretty far from the city,” Kobayashi points out. Their hotel is not far off Iceland’s Route 1 but far enough from the big lights and suburban racket to enjoy an aurora without having to trek miles out to the middle of nowhere.

“What’s the point of having a lagoon so close if we’re not going to watch the northern lights there?” Tohru protests. “I can take us in less than ten minutes if you let me transform.”

Kanna’s pleading seals the deal. With a groan, Kobayashi clicks the suitcase shut and heads for the chair where she’s draped her parka. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”

*

Kobyashi doesn’t know what possessed her to think this was a good idea, but she’s too busy fiddling with the torch on her phone to put any more thought to the question. She suspects the answer, as it always does, would come back to “because they’re Tohru and Kanna”. They’re her family now, and her family deserves the best things.

When stumbling in the dark every two seconds loses its charm and they’re well beyond the parameters of human civilisation, Kobayashi allows Tohru to transform.

Heading out to the lagoon again at night is a different experience to the day. Without the sun, any wind seems to go straight through Kobayashi’s jacket. The icebergs loom large out of the shadows in pools of starlight, the water clear enough to reflect the sky. Not knowing where the two separate and merge is less frightening than Kobayashi would’ve thought. It might have something to do with the dragon she’s riding on.

For someone who has only seen the lagoon once, each of Tohru’s steps is sure and firm. Any prints she leaves behind she erases with the lightest rustling of magic, not that Kobayashi with her human eyes can even discern them in the darkness.

The care the dragon takes to leave no traces of their passing makes her chest ache. Wherever Tohru goes, or went, she was bound to destroy or erase, to leave either the worst remnants of herself, her cruelty, or to leave nothing at all if she wanted to stay alive. When Kobayashi had asked Tohru to be her live-in maid, was it the first time anyone had ever asked her to stay? To create a space for herself?

Almost without thinking, Kobayashi lays a hand on the juncture of Tohru’s neck. The scales are warm and feathery and better than any heater. For a creature so large and intimidating when she wants to be, Tohru is the furthest thing from destructive.

“Over there,” Kanna pipes. Acting as their compass, she points Tohru to a spot further out in the lagoon. Whether being here or ten yards away will make a huge difference, Kobayashi isn’t sure. But since this was Kanna’s trip she doesn’t argue.  

The night sky moves above them like the underside of a celestial ship. As Tohru lumbers along, Kobayashi tilts her head up. The darkness is deeper than in Reykjavik, the stars sharper, and there’s something magnetic about the way they paint the entire sky down to the horizon. Their light draws in Kobayashi’s gaze, flooding her vision to the point tears prick the back of her eyes.

“Stop!” Kanna demands.

Kobayashi almost does a face-plant into Tohru’s neck as the dragon comes to a sudden halt. When she recovers enough to glance around, she realises she has no idea how far they are from the hotel. They water of the lake is barely three feet away, silent and dark. There isn’t a sign of shelter for miles. Unperturbed, Tohru sits herself down on the shore.

“Wait,” Kobayashi says. “Are you saying we sit here until the lights show up?” Her jacket is starting to feel woefully inadequate for the wind chill. Anticipating she’ll be of use, Tohru lights up.

“Don’t worry, Miss Kobayashi!”

Quicker than she can protest flagrant uses of magic, Kobayashi finds herself toasty warm. “What?” she says. “How? Wha–?” A rumble of amusement sends vibrations through her body.

“Magic, remember?”

“Right.” Kobayashi is sure she’ll never quite get used to all the mundane uses of magic. She slips off and helps Kanna down, then they both curl up beside Tohru’s flank. It’s even warmer than she thought. Tohru is better than a thousand kotatsus, more portable than a thousand too. Kanna is asleep in minutes.

It feels no different to a winter’s night at home, save for the stars above. Sleeping in the open next to a dragon is more comfortable and less foreign than clean lavender-scented hotel linen. When this became a few rungs above normal and not out-of-this-world insane is a question she’s stopped trying to answer. Surrounded by Tohru’s scent and lulled by the gentle rise and fall of her stomach, it’s easy to drift off.

“Miss Kobayashi?”

She mumbles a sleepy, “Hm?”

“I wish we could stay here longer.”

Kobayashi cracks one eye open at the trembling in Tohru’s voice, then closes it again in defeat. “I do, too.”

“We don’t have to go back,” Tohru says. “I can forge us new passports, whatever human documents we need, and then we could build a little cottage out here far from other people, just you and me and Kanna, and I’d catch fish every day for dinner; we’d unwind in the geothermal pools, admire the northern lights whenever the sky’s clear.”

“That sounds nice,” Kobayashi murmurs. “But Kanna has school, remember?”

“We’ll both teach her. You can teach human studies, and I’ll teach her how to be a true dragon.” Tohru pauses, thoughtful. “And I’ll make sure she doesn’t hurt humans. Unless they hurt you, Miss Kobayashi.”

“I wouldn’t let you, anyway.”

Tohru pouts. “You’re much too forgiving.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.”

In the moment of quiet that follows, Kobayashi worries she might have said something wrong.

“Tohru?”

There’s a slight rustling of scales. “Are you sure I can’t dip them into the ocean? Just a bit?”

If Kobayashi catches the tremor in her voice, she doesn’t say anything. “No, Tohru.”

“We could go swimming together in the summer, though.”

“You’d go swimming; I’d relax on the beach.”

“Whatever you want,” Tohru acquiesces easily. “Whatever makes you happy.”

Kobayashi doesn’t need to think her reply through. “You make me happy.”

And she wouldn’t mind the life Tohru imagines for them – a summer retreat; warm, black sand between her toes. The wrinkle of the waves and the taste of salt, the barking of seals and wheeling seabirds. Far from the cramped cubicles of her office and constant deadlines. Just Kanna hunting for crabs and clams amongst the tide pools, Tohru terrifying the local wildlife. Kobayashi isn’t given to sentimentality; she has no time for domestic fantasies and playing house, but at moments like these, with Tohru, she lets herself imagine.

“We have to go back tomorrow,” she says heavily. “That’s how it is.”

That’s how it’s always been, until Tohru. Now Kobayashi wants more of everything – more time to spend with her, more things to give her. Not just a home and family, but a life.

“Say, Tohru,” she starts, hesitation jarring her words. “I wanted to thank you for last night. I don’t think I’ve ever slept that well.”

“No problem! I’m glad I could help.”

Kobayashi swallows. “I never did tell you how much – how much I missed you that time.”

“I missed you too.”

“But I…” it takes Kobayashi a moment to compose herself. “I never told you how much.” She doesn’t have enough words for this.

“It felt strange when you were gone.” She still recalls coming back to soundless, dark apartment after another long day of work. Tohru makes a distressed sound.

“Don’t force yourself to think about that time!”

Kobayashi grits her teeth. “I want to tell you, in my own words, how it was a mistake to take your presence for granted.

“The apartment was fuller and livelier with you in it. I liked coming home every night knowing you’d be there to greet me, dinner or no dinner. I liked listening to you cook. I liked to hear you singing in the mornings, even when it was off-key. I liked how you did the most mundane things so enthusiastically.” She takes a breath. “And then you were gone.”

Kobayashi can feel a film of moisture over her eyes, the body behind warm enough to match her cheeks. She fights and succumbs to the urge to bury her face in her hands. If Tohru’s silence goes on any longer, her embarrassment could light up the sky.

“Miss Kobayashi,” Tohru eventually says. Her voice is as thick as the stars overhead. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner. I promise, this time, I won’t ever leave you.”

There is something stuck in Kobayashi’s chest and something wet on her fingers. The tears, she realises, are hers. It has been a long time, if ever, that anyone else has promised love as deep as what Tohru is offering. She feels undeserving and frightened again, unsure of how can she return that bottomless affection without breaking.

“Tohru,” she mumbles through her now damp hands, “you don’t have to promise that much.”

“I don’t mind. I gave myself to you long ago. Whatever you can give in return I will always treasure.”

Quietly, Kobayashi leans her forehead against the soft, feathery scales and wonders how Tohru just knows to say precisely what she needs to hear. “Thank you,” she whispers.    

“I’m glad.” Tohru’s mental voice reverberates in every corner of her mind. “I love you.” Her entire body says it in the way she curls around Kobayashi even tighter, body and magic cocooning her in warmth. Her scales ripple iridescent green, purer and brighter than Kobayashi has ever seen.

She should be able to say the same words in return, to tip herself over that threshold. But love, like most things in Kobayashi’s life, isn’t easy to put into words. She’s never done abstract concepts very well. Dragons and magic and interdimensional portals being real is one thing. The width and depth of the universe, the hows and whys of its existence, are another; the laws that govern the strange, nebulous force called love are completely beyond her.

But if there are dragons in other universes, places she’s never imagined before now; and if out of all planets and human history they could’ve gone to it was Earth, to a cramped apartment in 21^st century Japan, then there’s a hint of miracle to that, a defiance of lived geographies and chances that makes it all just about believable; improbable but possible. And if that same dragon chose her of all people to love, made a space for her in her cavernous heart, then she can just say the words she’s wanted to say for so long.

“I love you too,” Kobayashi whispers. The magic this time is entirely of her own making, a rush that sings like an aurora in her veins.

The squeal she’d anticipated from Tohru is not so much a squeal as a scream so high-pitched Kobayashi is surprised it hasn’t woken Kanna. “You’ll wake her!” she hisses, and the squeal cuts off.

“Sorry,” though she doesn’t sound the least bit apologetic. “You finally said it!”

“Don’t think that gives you a free pass to do whatever you like.”

“Never,” Tohru promises, somewhat more cheekily than Kobayashi would feel comfortable with.

Then, as swiftly as she’d exploded with joy, a more solemn countenance settles over her. “I’m not dreaming, am I? This is sort of thing that only happens in dreams, to have you and your love all to myself.”

The twinge in Kobayashi’s chest vibrates furiously. “It’s not a dream,” she says with more force than she’d intended. Apparently, the desire to chase after Tohru’s father with a frying pan is still fresh. “It’s not selfish to want to be loved. And I’m happy – more than happy – to give that love to you. If you’re happy with me, then I’m happy too.”

The red of Tohru’s eye films over. “I am happy.” She says it as though it’s dawn-new, pink and fresh.

In many ways, it is new, and Kobayashi can’t help it when her throat closes up again. Just when she’d managed to scrub her face dry. “You deserve it.” When was the last time she cried so much?

“Tohru, I can’t promise you forever. Humans aren’t really made for eternity. But I want you to know that you’ll always have a place here, in this world.”

“It’s because of you,” Tohru says. “You’re the one who made loving this world possible.”

“I’m not going to be around forever.”

The sea ice moves ponderously in the darkness, the silver river above expansive in its silence. From within it comes Tohru’s voice, impossibly old. “Yes, I know. I’m truly fine with it. Any time I spend with you is always the present, and I’m so lucky to share it with you.”

Kobayashi can see the sense and sincerity to the words, and comprehend what they mean. Still, she can’t quite stomach the thought of Tohru alone. Just her and Kanna and thousands more human faces in their constant ebb and flow. 

“Isn’t it strange, though, that I don’t want you to leave you behind?” That I don’t want you to be lonely ever again?  

Tohru’s rumble flows through Kobayashi in a great, affectionate purr. “Not at all,” she replies. “It’s not strange at all.”  

*

“…Miss Kobayashi! Miss Kobayashi!”

The voice comes to her as if through water, she shakes her head slowly. “Huh?” Her pillow is moving, bending around to – uh –

“Tohru!” Kobayashi shoots upright, batting away the large dragon head and tongue that has apparently taken a lick of her cheek.

“Sorry, you weren’t waking up in time! The northern lights are here!”

Lick forgotten, Kobayashi scrambles up and pulls her jacket around her. The temperature has dipped even lower than when she fell asleep, and she supposes she has Tohru’s magic and body to thank for not freezing. She scrambles out of the cave after both dragons.

“Where are they?”

As it turns out, everywhere. The vastness of the lagoon and the dark make it impossible to distinguish sky from water; colours crossing constellations mirror one another in the night. The curtain of green dances and arcs in sweeping waves. Kanna, awake long before Kobayashi, has run ahead a few feet; her entire body is sparking, crackling, tail glowing. Wisps of auroral yellow-green surround her.  

“Kanna?” Kobayashi rushes forward, worry setting her nerves alight, but when she reaches Kanna she is the opposite of hurt; her eyes are bright blue and her skin tingles, like a low voltage current of electricity is running along it. She points to the sky, the green curtain snaking above them.

“Kobayashi, I can feel it! The electricity, it’s so strong!”

“What did I tell you?” comes Tohru’s smug voice. “Kanna has a sense for these things.”

At least this time she’s in her element and not at risk of plunging headfirst into the sea. Tohru pads up next to them, teeth forming a wide grin. All three return their gaze to the sky.

It is, for want of a better word, a magical display, only the magic isn’t other-worldly (even if it feels like it). Kobayashi knows enough of the science – it’s all to do with the Earth’s electromagnetic field and charged particles colliding mid-air, the technical details crisply clear, but it’s so wonderfully of this world and not of it that she can believe just about anything.

Even dragons. Especially dragons.

The light is falling in bands across Tohru, her entire being lit up in the aurora’s colours. Kobayashi feels drunk trying to follow them, and she’s rarely been as intoxicated by something other than maids: the metallic sheen along Tohru’s scales sharpens them, the colours leaping and splashing. Her form wavers, bends, like light that could vanish any second, and Kobayashi can barely breathe, whether from awe or fear she doesn’t know.

The memory of their conversation before they fell asleep lights a path as clear as the aurora in her mind. She loves Tohru. It is as simple as that. She wants and accepts everything of her.

“Tohru!” Kobayashi calls. The dragon’s horned head sweeps green through the night. “You can return to your human form now.”

“Are you sure?”

Kobayashi gives a firm, determined nod. “Mm-hm.”

Tohru’s laugh is throaty. “As my mistress commands!” She glows momentarily, a blaze of light, and then she’s shrinking back down into a more recognisable form, though no less Tohru. The scarf Kobayashi gave her for Christmas is wrapped tight around her neck despite Kobayashi being sure she didn’t bring it with her from the hotel. Her human body, like her dragon one, is furnace-hot but harmless; she is blood, sinew and bone just as much as she is scales, horns and claws.

In this land of ice and snow, she’s a fiery constant. In this world where dragons don’t exist, she’s here all the same, to love and be loved. Kobayashi reaches down, curling her fingers around Tohru’s.

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

Tohru blinks once in surprise at the naked affection behind the words. “For what?”

“For being here with me.”

The beginnings of a blush spread across Tohru’s cheeks. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“Not just here,” Kobayashi says. “I mean our world. Our apartment. Our home.”

She takes a breath, leans in, and kisses Tohru. Somewhere above them, the streamers of colour dance. 

Chapter Text

The lock rattles, and then the front door whooshes open to reveal a darkened hallway. Two shadows fall onto the floorboards: one human-shaped, the other mostly human save for a pair of horns and the odd bulge at the top where a girl is draped, snoring quietly.

“We’re home,” Kobayashi says.

Tohru grins. “Welcome back!”

The sleeping Kanna mumbles into her neck but doesn’t wake. Tohru and Kobayashi take off their shoes and pad into the apartment, leaving the suitcases to prop open the door.

Tohru takes in the sight of the place she’s come to call home, the couches and coffee table, the television and kotatsu, curtains and clothes racks and kitchen utensils lying in their cupboards. A rush of familiarity overwhelms her.

“Yeah, it’s nice, isn’t it?” Kobayashi opens the curtains, letting in a blaze of sunlight. “The best part of travelling is coming home.”

The feeling seems to swell in Tohru, the light spilling over. If she stays in the living room any longer she might just burst apart. “I’ll put Kanna to bed,” she says, moving quickly to the darker and smaller confines of her room. The young dragon slides off easily into her bed, rolling perfectly into the centre. Tohru arranges the covers and slips out, closing the door softly as she leaves.

Kobayashi peeks over her shoulder. “Is Kanna all right? It isn’t like her to be this tired.”

“She’s fine,” Tohru replies. “A little low on electricity, but nothing a quick charge won’t fix. I think she’s just overexcited herself these last two weeks.”

“She really is just a child.”

There is something soft about the way Kobayashi says it, her figure couched in sunlight, that makes Tohru’s heart thud and spark, blood rising to her cheeks. She won’t deny her own jealousy, but to see Kobayashi love and be loved by others is its own reward.

“Why are you smiling more goofily than usual?”

Tohru giggles. “Oh, nothing. Just thinking about how much I love you.”

“Has anyone told you how sappy you are for a dragon?” But Kobayashi kisses her fondly anyway before heading over to their suitcases. She hasn’t even picked one up when Tohru is swooping in, arms outstretched. “Let me help with those!” She relieves Kobayashi of their baggage in an almighty tug, taking one suitcase in each hand.

“Ah, Tohru, it’s fine. I’ve got this one, honestly.”

But she refuses, marching towards their room. “Don’t worry about it, Miss Kobayashi! These aren’t heavy at all.” It’s only fair when Kobayashi has lifted Tohru’s burdens by giving her a home and family; it’s the least she can do to express her gratitude.

Behind her, Kobayashi sighs. “I’ll make us something to eat, then.”

Tohru manoeuvres both suitcases into their room without breaking a sweat. The kitchen comes alive as Kobayashi clatters around, displacing dishes and cups and cutlery as she puts them on the counter; the suction of the fridge door opening, the thud of its closing; the low grumble of the electric kettle. It’s all the sounds of homeliness that Tohru never knew she missed while overseas.

Their room is as they left it: covers folded, pillows plumped, the alarm clock resting on Kobayashi’s bedside table. The soft click of the seconds hand tickles her hearing, but nothing more stirs. Everything is as it should be.

No human armies on her heels roaring for death; no stench of human magic; no deity about to impale her with a sword. Only traffic, faint and faraway, trundles along the street. The bass of their neighbour’s music vibrates through the walls. No one is screaming in agony. No one is dying.

Tohru feels the brightness from earlier swirl giddily inside her, climbing up for an escape. She moves to throw open the curtains and the window to let in some fresh air. The wind tousles her hair and lifts the hem of her dress. She inhales the scents of a city in summer, human cooking and tarmac and the faintest spice of magic.

Light falls in. It laps at her feet, completely washes over her. On instinct, Tohru raises a hand to shield her eyes, just briefly, as her vision adjusts. Then, leaning on the windowsill, she takes in the sights.

Birds collect like abacus beads on the powerline closest to their apartment. On the sidewalk is a group of women, chattering on their way to the shopping district; their trolleys rattle-roll on the concrete. She feels the quiet rush of a passing train from far away. In another time, one of them brought Kobayashi to her. Car exhaust and human voices, sharpened by the wind, carry to her from across the city; they fill her senses with the world she calls home.

The light is coiling up from her throat to meet the light in which she is submerged, and even without her wings, she feels as if she is floating.

There is a word for it, she is sure, but it escapes her in both human and dragon language. Or maybe it isn’t a word so much as a feeling; she is powerful in that fist-clenching, teeth-gritting way that only humans know. For all their fragile, febrile bodies they struggle to reach beyond themselves, defying their own limits, their own kin, in search for something better.

Tohru’s limits are few and far between. She is a dragon who could end the world if she so wished. Chaos was her birthright, but it is not what she chooses.

Her throat tightens. Warmth wells in her eyes, like the light has gotten in. The city is blurred, wavering, but she has rarely seen so clearly.

“Tohru?” Kobayashi calls. “I made some sandwiches. Not as good as yours, but I hope they’re edible. There’s tea on the table if you want some.”

She hears footsteps, measured then hesitant. “Tohru?” The voice comes from behind, in front, all around; there’s a light clink as the plate goes down on the bedside table. “Are you okay?”

“I’m,” Tohru chokes, trying to hold her voice steady. “I’m fine. I’m just so happy, I can’t…”

Another body is in front of her, drawing her into a close embrace. Kobayashi settles her head atop Tohru’s, who buries it deeper into the warm, living darkness. She hears the beat of a strong heart, powerful just for existing. One day it will stutter and stop altogether. Today it taps out a steady, soothing rhythm. Knowing she is safe, that she is loved, Tohru lets the feeling flood out in great, grateful sobs.

“Tohru?” comes the whisper.

“I’m so happy,” she repeats, shoulders shaking. Kobayashi’s arms wrap around her, one hand stroking her back like kindness running down her spine. “I’m so happy to be home.”