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“Father...may I…?”
Siegbert’s request was cut off by a clap of thunder outside, loud enough to shake Krakenberg’s stone walls. The tiny boy yelped. Slapping a hand over his mouth to stop the ‘un-knightly’ noises, he stood with an arm curled protectively over his middle and quivered in his oversized bedtime tunic.
Kaze wrestled down an urge to sigh. Their son was too young to already have thoughts of station and etiquette holding him hostage. It wasn’t that Kaze didn’t understand why, as a man raised to serve royalty from birth he’d jumped through similar hoops during his childhood, but it hurt to see little Siegbert so scared of offending his parents with something as natural as being startled. He wondered, not for the first time, if he and his husband had too closely followed the examples of their own unavailable fathers.
No time like the present to try changing it for the better. He beckoned his son to join him on the chaise near the window. “Come here. I’d like to watch the storm with you.”
The little boy threw himself onto the plush fabric, snuggling right into his father’s side. Kaze unraveled the edge of his scarf, throwing it over Siegbert’s shoulder, and just like his father, Siegbert found comfort in the well-loved fabric. He nuzzled his nub of a nose deep into its folds until his shaking slowed.
“Have I ever told you Hoshido's story of the first storm?” Kaze murmured, staring out the iron-wrought window at tiny droplets plinking off the glass.
The boy whispered an answer into the fabric covering his mouth, inaudible over the clatter of the storm.
“Siegbert, please don't mumble into your scarf,” Kaze scolded gently.
Siegbert reluctantly pulled it from his lips, small sausage-like fingers clinging to the edges while he stammered, “I...um...I don’t think you have.” Another flash chased by an angry crash, and the boy was shivering again. He yanked the scarf back up to cover his fear.
“Then let me tell you the story. It’s a good one for nights like this,” Kaze assured him, careful not to react to his quakes.
Kaze had learned from unfortunate experience that Siegbert was at an age where confronting his boy about his fears directly often resulted in an even more upset young prince. He didn’t like being told he was wrong, and he thought too much of his parents to believe they’d ever struggled in the same ways he did. Teaching through stories seemed to work better. Siegbert liked fantastic tales, and would focus intently on the meaning of every legend his fathers told. He wanted to be exactly like the brave heroes he heard about, especially the ones who were a knight or a prince, like himself. Kaze would have to be forgiven if he flubbed (or invented) a few fables to steer his son in the right direction over the past years. Thankfully, tonight, he wouldn't have to.
“A long, long time ago, back when the dawn and dusk dragons had just left this world to watch over us from the realm of spirits, there was a young Hoshidan prince named Ryusuke,” Kaze began. “Can you fetch me a charcoal from the fire? I’ll show you how to write his name.”
That caught his son's attention immediately - Siegbert loved learning Hoshidan. Something about the symbolic nature of the language captured his young imagination. Wanting to practice, the prince could often be found scribbling the few kanji he knew onto everything from walls to armor to the cat’s fur. Thankfully, many of the staff were parents themselves and considered him a golden-haired angel; otherwise his labeling would have gotten him into a fair mite of trouble with how much cleaning they'd had to do in the past year. He’d seemed to move onto only writing on more appropriate materials now, but there still was an occasional character scratched into his desk.
The raging storm momentarily forgotten in his excitement, Siegbert untangled himself from his father to scurry over to the fireplace and fetch out one of the long sticks with a burnt end sitting near the fire’s edge. He held it out gingerly for Kaze to take by gripping from the middle. Touching the dark end hurt before it cooled.
“Thank you, Siegbert,” Kaze said, plucking the instrument from his son. He held out his arm so Siegbert could reclaim his spot at his father’s side.
Without paper to write on, Kaze tested the charred stick against the stone floor, leaving a dark smudge in its wake. Satisfied, he continued to write until the name 龍介 was spelled out clearly for Siegbert to see. The boy sat so far forward in his seat to study it, Kaze had to throw an arm over his shoulder to keep him from tipping right off the chaise.
“This is how you write Ryusuke,” he informed his son. Kaze indicated the first character with his makeshift pointer. “Have you seen this kanji in someone’s name before?”
Siegbert bounced in his seat, already exclaiming the answer, “Ryoma! King Ryoma spells his name like that!”
Kaze smiled at his son’s zeal, “That’s right. And do you know what it means?”
“Dragon!” Siegbert shouted. Thunder crashed just as loud as his voice. The boy squeaked, throwing himself to the back of the chaise again and reattaching himself to his father. “Dragon,” he repeated into Kaze’s side. “It’s my favorite.”
Kaze ran a comforting hand through his little boy’s golden curls. “That’s right. Ryusuke was a firstborn dragon prince, just like King Ryoma when he was little, or your father, or you.” That got Siegbert interested enough to twist his head so he could listen better. “But Ryusuke had a problem. He had gotten lost on his way back to camp from the bottomless canyon.”
“Couldn’t he just ask for help at one of the villages around there?” Siegbert asked. “That’s what I would do.”
“A very good idea, but there weren’t any villages back then. Just forests for kilometers all around. Even worse, he had lost his tools and food in an accident on the rim of the canyon, so unless he could make it back to his camp with all his companions, he might not survive the night," Kaze explained.
Siegbert clung to his father, already afraid for the young hero of their story. Sensing the boy's mounting distress, Kaze continued before the storm could startle him again, “Luckily, Ryusuke remembered something his mother had told him. The Dawn Dragon may have left their physical world behind, but he still dwelled in the earth and trees and clear blue skies of Hoshido. If Ryusuke listened very closely for his voice and asked very nicely, sometimes miracles could happen. So, when the young prince started to feel a pang of hunger in his stomach after half a day of wandering in a sea of trees, he fell to his knees and prayed for help from the Drawn Dragon.”
Siegbert perked up in Kaze’s lap to meet his father’s eyes. “Did the Dawn Dragon bring Ryusuke home?”
Kaze shook his head. “The Dawn Dragon trusted him to make it home on his own, but took pity on the boy’s empty stomach. He breathed a mighty breath across the land,” Kaze blew on his son’s face, making the boy giggle and hide in his scarf again, “and wind shook fruit from the trees for Ryusuke to eat. The prince was overjoyed - now he wouldn’t go hungry!
“But a few hours later, his mouth was parched from thirst. Ryusuke wouldn’t make it back without something to drink, too. Do you know what he did?”
“Um…” Siegbert seemed to consider this deeply. His tiny furrowed brow reminded Kaze fondly of his father, and his swiped at it with a soothing thumb. “...did he ask the Dawn Dragon for help again…?”
“That’s exactly what he did,” Kaze confirmed with a little smile. “And the Dawn Dragon, moved by his descendant’s plight, wept over the lands for his safe return. Tears in the form of rain poured from the heavens to fill Ryusuke’s hands and quench his thirst."
"He drank dragon tears?" Siegbert face twisted between awe and disgust.
“He did," Kaze confirmed. "And it's said it was the sweetest water anyone has ever tasted."
"...I guess it would be okay. It is from a dragon, after all."
A hand in front of his lips to hide his amusement at Siegbert's matter-of-fact statement, Kaze pushed on with his story, "Energy restored, Ryusuke continued his search for his comrades and their camp for the rest of the afternoon. But eventually day turned to night, and he still had not found them. He needed to sleep, so he could keep hunting in the morning, but Ryusuke was afraid the creatures of the dark might gobble him up without shelter to keep him safe.”
This time Siegbert piped up to volunteer an answer before Kaze got there, “So he asked the Dawn Dragon for help again, didn’t he?”
Kaze ruffled his son’s hair. “Very smart, Siegbert, that’s exactly what he did. And can you guess what the Dawn Dragon did?” The wide-eyed boy shook his head. “He roared .”
Outside the window, lightning struck again, an earth-shaking boom reverberating through the castle's foundations. This time, Siegbert jumped but didn’t hide. He gripped the purple fabric wrapped around him tight enough that both his tiny hands bloomed white.
“Like...um...like that?” he sputtered.
“Exactly like that," Kaze assured him. "The Dawn Dragon roared, and a bolt of light split the trees next to Ryusuke in twain. All the branches around Ryusuke fell, but instead of crushing the young prince, they meshed into a perfect shelter around him, one that would keep him safe from all the beasts in the dark. He slept in peace, lulled to sleep by the thunder that followed - the Dawn Dragon’s voice singing him a lullaby.”
“So it...saved him. Even though it was scary, “ Siegbert mused to himself, unraveling the edge of Kaze’s scarf with stubby fingers.
Despite the revelation not being directed at him, Kaze answered his son, “Yes, it did. The storm provided Ryusuke with food, water, and shelter. And in the morning, his comrades found him by following the lightning strike. That’s why, in Hoshido, we consider storms like this to be a good omen. The Dawn Dragon is bringing another of his children home.”
Siegbert sat in silence as he processed this new knowledge, legs swinging absently beneath him. The roar of the storm died down to rumble while he thought. When the rain had slowed to a mild drizzle, barely audible against the windowpane, he finally spoke again, “Then I like storms. Anything that helps lost people is good. The Dawn Dragon would be a good knight.”
“As would the Dusk Dragon,” Kaze agreed. “Both are brave deities who help their kin.”
Siegbert grinned at the idea of his two favorite things, dragons and knights, being related. “Do you think that’s why father is so good at it, too? Because he’s related to the Dusk Dragon?”
“I do,” Kaze allowed.
He hoped he could be forgiven for filling the young prince’s head with fairy tales just this once. The boy needed more wonder in his life. He'd been surrounded for most of it by too jaded parents and tutors. Kaze wished Siegbert could grow up unfettered by the shame and expectations that plagued both himself and his husband, instead boldly breaking his mold in ways neither of them had ever dared. A foolish wish, perhaps, but what father wasn’t a little foolish where their sons and daughters were concerned?
Determined to enjoy these moments of freedom while they lasted, Kaze poked Siegbert’s belly with swift fingers, forcing another laugh out of his son. “And that’s why you will be a great knight one day, too, Siegbert. Just like him.”