Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Jongdae had first imagined his future, just a bright-eyed kid on the streets of Kast, it involved a lot more shining armor, a lot more glory, a lot more… anything other than this.

This being his hand currently shoved up a drain pipe, pushing through the gushing rainwater and filth in search of his prize. It’s a tight fit through the wooden, bamboo pole, but soon enough his fingers flick over a writhing slimey something, and Jongdae’s hands quickly clench as he curls around the cool metal and tugs it out.

The imugi in Jongdae’s fingers hisses and squirms, trying to escape his grasp as he holds it in front of him so its razor sharp, metal teeth won’t find purchase. The pipes should be fine now, rainwater no longer clogging up the roof gutter, and Jongdae makes quick work of running through the rain to dispose of the spawnling. The imugi is an incessant wriggler in his grasp, but Jongdae tosses it into the woods behind the inn easily, watching as it slithers away dejectedly.

Changmin should be happier now as Jongdae holds his arms over his head while jogging back inside. He shakes off what little rainwater soaks through his hair before tucking himself back inside --it always rains in Alkai, a side effect of its location next to mountains and adjacent to the sea. Jongdae, having grown up in the north of Aes, is far more accustomed to sunshine and clear skies; despite almost a decade in Alkai, he still just isn’t quite used to the current gloom.

But gloom is good. Gloom keeps people away, and the less people, the better.

For Jongdae’s safety at least; for work, it’s just boring. He’d practically begged Changmin years ago to let him help host the inn on the days where Changmin was too busy handling his farm, but now it’s basically Jongdae’s only job, and it’s hideously boring. Nobody comes to Alkai, which means nobody stays at the only inn in town --whatever visitors they do get are either the tax collectors, or the occasional merchants who trade with Alkai’s off-the-map location simply because they’re the only ones who will, always getting stuck in the rain, unable to travel home.

As Jongdae takes off his boots, leaving their muddy soles by the rear door and slipping back into his work shoes, he’s surprised to walk out to the entrance only to see a figure waiting for him, standing by the door. They’re tall, for one, and practically bleeding wealth just by the way they look alone; they don’t wear the clothes of a poor merchant or farmer, rather the neat-fitting, well-pressed tunic of somebody with money. Their cloak hood is pulled over their face, but Jongdae can still see a strong jaw and smooth, pale skin --certainly not a peasant who spends any time under the sun.

The stranger tips his hood back as he walks towards Jongdae, smiling tentatively, and Jongdae is struck so suddenly by how unbelievably indescribably handsome this man is. His long black hair is braided back alongside strands of vines and grass, his face angular yet somewhat delicate, with the most peculiar eyes --one as black as melted chocolate, the sort of stuff Jongdae has only ever seen displayed in the windows of stores in the inner ring of Kast, and the other a green as deep and diverse as an entire forest.

Jongdae is so busy internally lamenting over the beauty of a stranger, he completely misses what he says.

Jongdae blinks suddenly. “What?”

“I said, are you the innkeeper here?” The stranger asks again, voice oddly soft, but deep.

Well, technically no. “Yes,” Jongdae answers cheerily, flashing his customer service smile. “I’m Jongdae, welcome. Were you looking for a room for the night?”

The stranger nods, stepping closer as Jongdae reaches under the front counter in the entryway to pull out a thick dusty book of records. He runs his index finger down the columns he’d painfully scratched into the woven paper with a quill and ink, and finds the first empty slot available.

“Just one bed?” Jongdae asks, and the stranger nods, with Jongdae noting that room 9 is currently occupied. “Would you like me to put your horse in our stables?”

The stranger stares at Jongdae unwaveringly --it’s a little uncanny, with the mismatched eyes and all.

“I don’t have a horse.” He says plainly, and Jongdae fails to hide his shock.

“Oh,” he says lamely, masking any further surprise. Does that mean this rich guy walked all the way to Alkai, what the hell? “Okay… then. Let me show you to your room.”

No horse means no bags, and the stranger doesn’t have anything much more than a single rucksack over his shoulder, which he tugs up absentmindedly as Jongdae leads him upstairs, opening the door to room nine.

“Breakfast is served at sunrise,” he says. “Dinner at dusk.”

The stranger’s mouth twists. “Does that mean the kitchen is closed now, then?”

Jongdae gives a pitying look. “Unfortunately.” He wishes he could offer the stranger some form of comfort, not only because he’s attractive and Jongdae is weak-willed when it comes to pretty boys, but also because it would give him something to do before he leaves and hands over innkeeping duties to the actual innkeeper, whenever Changmin intends on returning. Unfortunately Jongdae has the cooking skills of the orphan raised in absolute poverty that he is; he’s far more accustomed to having… others prepare the meal, so to speak.

“What about the baths?” The stranger asks, tugging at the hem of his cloak almost a little nervously. It’s cute, adds layers of youth to his already fresh-face.

“Would you like me to run you one?” Jongdae asks, and the stranger nods.

“Yes, please.”

“Then I’ll let you know when it’s ready,” Jongdae tells him, watching as the stranger looks at his room with curiosity, sinking onto the single futon spread on the floor with apprehension. Jongdae smiles, because he can’t help it --no doubt such a rich man is used to something a little more lavish than the only rundown inn in an equally as rundown town. Jongdae bites his lip, and curiosity gets the best of him --the stranger bears no insignias, no weapons, just a tiny rucksack and fancy clothes; not a mercenary, then, and certainly not King’s Guard. “You must have travelled far.”

The stranger nods, almost solemnly so. “From just north of Kast,” he reveals, and Jongdae’s eyes widen; that’s a several weeks journey on horseback , and this richman did it on foot? If he’s from outside of Kast, he’s not a threat --to Lu Han, at least. Jongdae doesn’t exactly live in much danger these days.

“All that way just to come to Alkai?” Jongdae asks, incredulous, and the stranger nods, slowly. “What could possibly be found here?”

The stranger looks up then, green and brown eyes meeting Jongdae’s, and his lips twitch upwards.

“Hopefully, exactly what I’m looking for,” the stranger answers, his eyes curving as he smiles, but Jongdae knows a deflection when he sees it, letting it drop. “The bath, please?”

Oh, right. “Sorry!” Jongdae quickly apologises, bowing over. “I’ll get started right away.”

“Thank you,” the stranger says, still smiling graciously. Not from Kast, indeed; nobody from the capital of Aes would ever display such kindness.

Jongdae bows over again to leave the guest to his privacy, rushing to the bath in the basement, before pausing in the hallway suddenly, remembering something.

“One more thing,” Jongdae quickly pops his head into the still-open doorway, the stranger looking only mildly startled. “What’s your name?” Realising his words, Jongdae clears his throat. “For record-keeping purposes, of course.”

“Sehun,” the stranger answers, unclipping his cloak so that it pools around him in spools of black cloth, like splattered ink against the light brown of woven paper that is Sehun’s skin.

“Just Sehun?” Jongdae asks, eyebrows raised. No family house, nothing? Just who is this guy?

Sehun smiles wryly, like there’s a joke there Jongdae doesn’t get. “Just Sehun.”

Changmin returns to the inn a few hours before midnight, shaking rain out of his hair. He makes his usual joke about Jongdae being overwhelmed with the amount of guests, before Jongdae tells him that somebody actually has come to stay, somebody new entirely. Changmin’s blatant surprise is a little depressing, all things considered.

Regardless, his inn, his problem; Jongdae is free for the rest of the night, and he jogs lightly through the streets of Alkai to avoid getting too wet, pulling his hood over his head. Of course, being himself, it doesn’t last too long, and Jongdae is forced to stop every now and then to catch his breath and make sure his heart doesn’t start pounding. Jongdae could run much farther, all things considered, if his heart wasn’t stupid, but as such he’s forced to walk in the rain, getting wetter than necessary, and maybe, in a way, that’s why he hates the weather so much --it’s a reminder that he’ll never be quite good enough.

The half-shack half-house he and Lu Han have rented from Taeyeon is on the outskirts of her rice fields, towards the edge of the town, where Lu Han works, wading through the high water and culling the crops. Like always, Jongdae hears Lu Han before he sees him, grunting over the distinct thump of metal on wood behind the front door. His prosthetic arm hadn’t always looked the way it does now, green with brass rust, stiff and malfunctioning, but the sight is so familiar Jongdae doesn’t even blink. Lu Han spends more time wrestling with his own arm than he does anything else, and it’s as habitual as it is pitying.

“Stupid piece of fucking no good dragon tra--” Lu Han pauses as Jongdae opens the door. “Oh, hello dearie.”

“Hi honey I’m home,” Jongdae deadpans, tossing twenty-four copper pieces onto the table, still strung together through their middle holes. “Changmin was feeling generous today.” Especially since Jongdae had fixed the gutter problem, and they actually had a new guest. Not that Lu Han needs to know about either of those.

Lu Han loves money almost as much as he seemingly loves yelling at his metal body parts. They could cut off his arm and make a fortune with so much metal that rare, especially of such a high caliber, but Lu Han’s pretty keen on keeping it. For obvious reasons.

“Should’ve asked for a little more,” he licks his lips as Jongdae just frowns, then clears his throat. “But good work, we’ll be eating well this week.”

Jongdae shakes his head. “We should use it to buy you something to help with your…” he’s never quite sure how to refer to it, gesturing to Lu Han’s limp arm on the table instead. He shakes his head adamantly in response.

“There’s nothing to help it,” Lu Han says quietly. “Not here, anyway. So let’s just get piss drunk instead, yeah?”

Jongdae sighs. Same old, same old.

While Lu Han continues cursing at his arm, trying to get it to move properly, Jongdae excuses himself for a bath before they head out to the town tavern; after a day of wrestling with imugi in sewerage pipes and getting caught in the cold, dirty rain, it’s well owed, taking a small drawstring bag with a clean set of clothes with him to the wash basin outside adjacent to the shack, sheltered by a few planks of wood.

It’s a precarious system of filling up a wooden pail as he kneels next to the well and rinsing his body off bucketful by bucketful, fingers skimming over his old scars, but Jongdae, honestly, is kind of used to it, even if he has to do it carefully to make sure his heart doesn’t start acting out. He and Lu Han have always lived like this, edging on poverty, Kast or not; he can’t imagine it any other way.

Clean(er) and re-dressed, Lu Han is all too happy to chatter aimlessly as they make their way to the town centre towards the tavern, rambling on and on about maybe picking up a pretty girl, finally asking the town mayor’s daughter, Yoona, out on a date. It’ll never happen --it never does-- because Lu Han is all big talk and not much else; he’ll flirt and tease and laugh around, but it’s with his left arm carefully tucked away, and a smile on his face in place of a mask. Lu Han’s been like this ever since he found Jongdae --since they found each other-- and Jongdae can’t see it changing any day soon. Lu Han’s a man of old habits, and they’ve yet to die hard.

“Two ales please,” Lu Han orders cheerily as they find two stools at the tavern bar, pulling four copper coins off the string around his belt and piling them up neatly in front of him. “And a warm loaf to share.” He flips a fifth so that it clutters over the bar top with a metallic twang.

Sooyoung looks unimpressed as she shuffles the coins into her palm. “Coming right up.”

Lu Han rests his chin on his hand as he looks at Jongdae. “So. How was work today?”

Jongdae wrinkles his nose, smiling at Sooyoung briefly as a wooden cup of ale is placed in front of his face. “Boring, mostly.” He doesn’t mention the stranger; Lu Han is as paranoid as he is flirtatious, but it’s a necessary precaution, Jongdae supposes. “And dirty. Had to unclog the roof gutter.”

“Unsurprising, with all that rain,” Lu Han takes a loud, rude sip, swinging on his stool slightly as he takes in the bar surroundings, clearly already done with Jongdae-talk. Jongdae sighs into his drink.

When he looks back at Lu Han, he’s smiling charmingly to a nearby group of familiar girls a few tables over, sending them a flirtatious wave.

“They’re a little young for you,” Jongdae says coolly. Lu Han just spins around and glares.

“Nothing is too young for me,” he says, then immediately follows that up with, “Actually, all people under the age of twenty at minimum are far, far too young for me, and I take that back. But those girls--” he points at their table, completely unashamed. “--aren’t too young for me.”

“No, but they’re still out of your league,” that earns Jongdae a whack over the back of his head, and he whines on cue.

“Why don’t you take one of them home, then, Mr. Better Than Me?” Lu Han says snidely, and Jongdae looks at them, genuinely considering. They’re beautiful, as all women tend to be, honestly, and one of them catches Jongdae’s eyes and smiles, giggling to her friends. It wouldn’t be hard to talk with them, take them home even to his shitty shack in Taeyeon’s backyard, or maybe the girl’s place, and have a little fun, and yet… the motivation just isn’t there. Jongdae must be getting old too, because it feels like all he craves these days in a lifetime of routine is something more than the familiarity of a stranger in his bed.

Instead of saying any of that though, he just shrugs, turning back to face the bar. “Not interested,” he says simply. “I’m too tired for that sort of thing.”

Lu Han scoffs. “I’m meant to be the old one here, kid,” he pinches Jongdae’s ear, who yelps. There’s only a handful of years between them, but Lu Han is oddly adamant about gaining any superiority wherever he can. “At least one of us should be having some fun these days.”

Jongdae’s eyes instinctively fall to Lu Han’s tucked away arm before he can stop himself, and Lu Han catches the movement, frowning. Guilt settles in Jongdae’s stomach like molten lead, and the silence between them is far from comfortable as Lu Han mutters unintelligible nothings beneath his breath and rolls his shoulder so that his cloak covers his wrapped arm even further, the tight bandages of black cloth obscuring its metal form entirely. A horrible accident involving dragons, if anybody is ever brave enough to ask; funnily enough, it’s not too far from the truth.

“But I’m having plenty of fun with you, my darling dearest,” Jongdae teases eventually, battering his eyelashes, and Lu Han scoffs into his next mouthful of ale. “If you want us to break up so badly, you should just say so.”

“Ha- ha, ” Lu Han laughs drily. “One of these days people are going to think we’re married, and then you’re never going to get laid again.”

Jongdae blinks at him faux innocently, pretending to be hurt. “... Why do you say that like we’re not actually married?”

Lu Han rolls his eyes, and Sooyoung butts in with, “Literally everyone already thinks you’re married, and this is exactly why.”

Lu Han groans as he leans over the bartop like his life is over, and Jongdae just laughs delightedly. It makes sense, of course, Alkai is not a city of travellers, and when two strange men take a permanent residency together at the edge of town it’s easy for rumours to spread, probably unhelped by Lu Han, who fuels them, and Jongdae, who… also fuels them. It’s just too fun not to. The husband thing is a better cover up for the truth, anyway, helps keep curious eyes away, even if Jongdae would rather die than ever have a relationship with Lu Han that’s… like that.

“News travels too fast here,” Lu Han mumbles, an easy complaint, yet it’s ironic in its statement. News throughout Alkai travels like lightning through the rain, but the benefit is that it’s never noteworthy enough to leave, either. “This marriage is ruining my life.”

“Speaking of news,” Sooyoung interjects, always the eavesdropper, leaning over the counter so that the low-cut of her dress is shown off, Jongdae pointedly averting his eyes. (Not out of politeness, really, but to not give Sooyoung the satisfaction of having looked.) “I heard someone actually arrived today, headed straight to the inn.”

At that she gives Jongdae a certified look, and Lu Han’s eyes narrow.

“Get the nitty-gritty details?” Sooyoung asks, eavesdropper and gossiper. Lu Han hides his scowl behind another sip of ale.

“No,” Jongdae answers plainly, rolling his eyes. “Just some rich kid from beyond Kast, it’s really not that interesting.”

“Oh please,” Sooyoung laughs lightly. “This is Alkai, anything new is interesting.”

Lu Han pouts cutely, pointing at his face. “Am I not new enough to be interesting, Sooyounggie?”

Sooyoung scoffs, tossing a dishcloth over her shoulder. “Not in the slightest.”

Lu Han frowns, and Sooyoung walks away to serve Taeil and Youngho at the other side of the bar, completely indifferent to Lu Han’s petulant attitude. Jongdae and Lu Han just continue drinking for the rest of the night like usual, unperturbed, Lu Han buying a round of drinks for the pretty table as Jongdae swallows any grievances about frugality, purposefully preventing himself from stealing glances at Lu Han’s repressed, bitter expression. They shouldn’t be wasting copper just to keep up friendly appearances, they need to be saving it, piling it up for Lu Han’s arm or finding a better place, a bigger town, somewhere where they can live less like criminals in hiding and more like… people, but Lu Han has already seemed to accept this life at face value, and Jongdae… well, he’s always wanted more, but that’s nothing surprising. Lu Han craves money and food and attention and alcohol at all times, but Jongdae’s the real greedy one.

Unfortunately the lifestyle they’ve chosen isn’t exactly optional, but that doesn’t stop Jongdae for dreaming of more.

(Which is stupid, he knows, because after everything he and Lu Han have been through, Jongdae should value the safety. At the same time, after everything they’ve been through, is it so surprising Jongdae can’t stop himself from detesting normalcy? They used to be dragonslayers, prized warriors and quest takers, exploring the world. Now, they’re just runaways, meant to forget about their old life as if it isn’t engraved into their mind like a muscle memory.)

It’s long past midnight by the time Jongdae drinks the last of Lu Han’s ale since there’s no way such a lightweight is getting another, ignoring his complaints as he wrangles him out of the tavern. The streets of Alkai are as dark and unlit as always, oddly foreboding, and Lu Han sings folk songs of dragons and princesses loudly into the night air as Jongdae walks them back. It’s a familiar song no matter where in Aes you’re from; a young princess, locked away in a tower by her parents for protection, only to be lured out by the song of a beautiful sorceress. The princess predictably falls in love with the sorceress through her singing voice, leaving her tower, only for the sorceress to turn into a dragon and devour the princess’ heart, as all good dragons do. It’s a pretty roundabout way of teaching kids about stranger danger, if you ask Jongdae, but he’s certain Lu Han is only singing it as a reminder.

Lu Han’s singing tapers off into a hum when he begins to forget the words, and even that falters altogether once they leave the stone walls of Alkai, out towards the farmlands. It’s strange for Lu Han to be so pensively silent, especially when he’s this drunk, but one look at his face confirms the suspicions Jongdae’s instinct has been yelling at him the entire walk home. Jongdae sighs.

“Spit it out,” Jongdae relents, Lu Han’s mouth souring accordingly. It’s kind of funny, really; Lu Han has always been the better fighter out of the two of them, and yet he hates confrontation.

“Why didn’t you tell me someone new was staying at the inn?”

Jongdae rolls his eyes. “Because I knew you’d be like this.” He gestures to Lu Han roughly, Lu Han’s expression darkening even further.

“What? Concerned? For our lives?” Lu Han scoffs in ridicule. “Yeah, you’re right. How stupid of me.”

Jongdae grits his teeth. This is what happens when you’re a criminal on the run, the fear, the paranoia; deserter is the word printed beneath Jongdae’s wanted posters, last time he had been able to check --Lu Han’s says murderer . Jongdae isn’t really what the King’s Guard cares about, though, wasn’t even when he was in it --it’s always been about Lu Han, which is why his worries manifest larger than Jongdae’s. Jongdae worries about Lu Han, of course he does, but it’s hard to remember how to when it’s been nearly a decade of nothingness.

“Look, I’m sorry okay?” Jongdae offers, running a hand through his hair while exhaling between his teeth. “I just didn’t want you to panic over nothing. He’s really nobody.” Just some noblemen with odd vacation spots, if Jongdae could harbor a guess. He shakes his head in exasperation. “It’s not my fault you don’t trust anyone.”

Lu Han stills then, staring at Jongdae.

“That’s not true,” Lu Han argues quietly. “I trust you.”

Silence hangs between them immediately as Jongdae remains speechless, sinking through his own guilt. A rumble of thunder sounds above them, and then, like every day before it, it begins to rain. Jongdae winces in regret, ashamed of his own hatred of Lu Han’s paranoia; it’s just a side effect of all of this, really, living in a tiny, shitty town and pretending to live out normal lives while being in constant fear. Jongdae gets frustrated with it, and it’s easy to blame Lu Han, even if it’s not his fault.

Jongdae could almost hold it all against Lu Han, if he didn’t owe him his life.

“Come on,” Lu Han urges, turning away swiftly, uncharacteristically quiet, evidently done with the typical argument. “Let’s go home.”

Jongdae’s heart is pounding in his ears as he swallows, nods, and follows Lu Han obediently; but all of that? That’s nothing new.

Jongdae wakes up hungover and alone, neither of those things being particularly new. Lu Han would have already left for the fields at dawn, and the fact that he hadn’t woken Jongdae up only cements that he’s still mad at Jongdae for not telling him about Sehun. It’s stupid, really, and Lu Han is just paranoid over nothing and angry that Jongdae would break his trust --it’s not even like Jongdae had gotten the job at the inn to keep an eye on strangers, but Lu Han is as opportunistic as he is petty. Knowing him, he’ll come home, pretend like they didn’t fight, and badger Jongdae into getting drunk with him for the umpteenth time. Jongdae hates the lack of closure, but they’re both too proud to apologise to each other, so he just has to deal with it.

He gets to Changmin’s inn just as he’s starting to prepare the kitchen, ready to serve Sehun and the other merchants currently staying there breakfast as soon as they rise. Jongdae scrubs at his face, hangs his cloak on a hook by the door, and immediately asks Changmin what he can do to help.

“You can start serving,” Changmin says, Jongdae obediently grabbing a few wooden bowls and beginning to spoon the several dishes out onto each tray, pickled cabbage and rice, as well as Changmin’s famous stew. He looks stressed, a little wrung out --Jongdae’s heard his and Yunho’s farm isn’t doing too well this season, struggling to meet the taxed amount of rice.

Amber and Kyuhyun aren’t awake yet, but Sehun is, sitting at one of the tables patiently, much to Jongdae’s surprise, glancing around the empty hall. Jongdae puts on a smile as he slides the tray in front of him, bowing over.

“Enjoy your meal,” he says obediently, adding, “And feel free to let me know if you need any help with your stay here.” After all, what does one even do in Alkai? It’s Jongdae’s job as a pseudo-innkeeper to help with that, but…. He doesn’t really know --unless the answer involves travelling somewhere else, even in the rain.

He’s stopped from returning to the kitchen by Sehun’s hand on his sleeve. “Actually,” Sehun starts, a little timid. “I do have a question. Are there any dragonslayers in this town?”

Well, that’s a weird start. “No,” Jongdae answers, even though it’s technically a lie. His right shoulder burns at the thought, scar prickling uncomfortably. No metal in Alkai means no money, no dragons, and consequently, no dragonslayers --or any interest from the King at all, truth be told. There’s nothing here but dirt and rock and wood and rain, the metal remains of the Progenitors’ great cities long since mined and shipped away. That’s what Alkai is, after all, the remnants of those who sought to profit off the metal graveyard of a fallen city --the people living here are just their ancestors, left behind with nothing more than mud and ash, and not enough money to ever even dream of leaving.

“There are no dragons here,” Jongdae continues, smiling in an attempt of comfort. “Not like there is in the north, only spawnlings. You’re safe, dragonslayers or not.”

Jongdae understands Sehun’s worry easily, after all, dragons are terrorists of humanity, from the weakling imugis and wyrms that rummage through garbage dumps and eat stray coins to the larger, stronger hydras that destroy sea ships, or wyverns that roam the skies and burn down entire towns. The Progenitors had built dragons, long ago, weapons to be used against each other in their great metal cities and great metal wars, but the dragons found a way to exist on their own and only became their downfall. They devoured the same metal that made the Progenitors so strong, grew, evolved, and became more powerful than their naive creators.

(Humans aren’t the top of the food chain in this world. Dragons are.)

“No dragons?” Sehun repeats, and almost looks… disappointed by the fact, but that can’t be right. “What about the prince...ling?”

“Kai?” Jongdae parrots, and Sehun nods, quickly, eyes glimmering at Jongdae’s recognition. He blinks in confusion. “He’s miles from here, his nest is on Dragon’s Tooth.” A local legend of some sort; not many dragons inhabit the south of Aes, considering it’s warmer and humid and they’re more likely to rust between the scales --plus the fact that there’s no metal to eat-- but the few that do are well-known and feared accordingly. Kai is the closest one to Alkai, a princeling ryong that hoards seashells and visits the ocean nearby in order to add to his collection before flying back to the main hive in the north. He’s never come near Alkai, or attacked any of the other neighbouring towns --meaning no dragonslayers have bothered to deal with him-- only ever seen in stray sightings, every now and then.

“I see,” Sehun replies, and finally lets his hand drop. “Thank you, Jongdae.”

“No… problem?” Jongdae replies hesitantly, confused as to why he’s being thanked at all. “Happy to help.”

He disappears back into the kitchens, then, to wash the remaining dishes and serve Amber and Kyuhyun, if they ever decide to get up, lazy merchants that they are. Jongdae pretends not to watch the way Sehun finishes every last scrap on his plate, even carrying his tray back to the kitchen counter, giving Jongdae a timid smile, and pulling his hood over his head before disappearing into the rain. What a strange, strange man --Jongdae is intrigued and wants to know more about this rich kid travelling half the country and asking questions about dragons, but he’s not sure how much of that is simple curiosity and how much of that is the itch behind his fingertips that makes him want to trace out Sehun’s smile.

Jongdae tells Changmin to go home and sort out his business with Yunho, while running a little bit of maintenance around the inn, cleaning the occupied rooms and dusting the ones that aren’t. Sehun’s room is perfect, his bed made, bag packed at the foot of the futon, and Jongdae is a little surprised. He almost briefly entertains the thought of snooping around a tiny bit to find out more about this mysterious, beautiful stranger, but thinks better of it. Sehun is the most interesting thing to happen to Alkai since Jongdae and Lu Han first arrived --it’s not his fault he’s intrigued by it.

Nonetheless, by dinner time, Sehun hasn’t returned from… whatever he’s set off to do, and it isn’t until midnight that the front door slams open while Jongdae is yawning with a broom in his hands, startled by Sehun’s somewhat dramatic entrance.

He’s absolutely soaking straight to the bone, but he seems completely unbothered by it, his hair a mess across his head, vines and leaves poking out. There’s mud smeared on his cheek, and his mere presence leaves puddles on the floor, dripping incessantly.

“God,” Jongdae curses, hurrying towards his guest. “Are you okay? You must be freezing.”

But when he touches Sehun’s pale skin worriedly, fingers against his temple, he feels nothing but solid warmth, perplexed. Realising their position, Jongdae’s hand on Sehun’s forehead, Jongdae steps swiftly back. Oops.

“I’m fine,” Sehun insists. “Just hungry. The kitchen is closed, isn’t it?” Jongdae nods solemnly --he’d debated setting a portion for Sehun aside but, well, it had seemed… a bit extra.

“There’s a tavern down the road if you want a meal,” Jongdae suggests, although Changmin would berate him for it. He’s refused to give Sooyoung business ever since she beat him at at a game of betting cards. “Although you look like you need a warm bath more.”

Sehun sighs at the suggestion. “Both would be good,” he reveals, fidgeting a little. Jongdae smiles at him.

“I’ll get it started right away.”

The water is already pooled in the stone bath, so all Jongdae has to do is light the fire beneath it with some flint, piling up some fresh logs so that it burns a little stronger, heating it quicker for Sehun. He pours in the lavender oil so that the surface shimmers iridescently, and the scent is heavenly. Once the water is sufficiently warm enough, Jongdae hurries to Sehun’s room.

“It’s ready,” he says, after knocking, suppressing a smile at the sight of Sehun plucking out soaked and drooping vines from his hair with a disappointed expression. It’s strange, Jongdae thinks, to have his hair like that, but it’s probably not uncommon considering the bizarre fashion of the rich. They’re into whatever eccentric little thing they can find to separate them from the lower class.

“Thank you,” Sehun inclines his head gratefully. “You’re too accommodating.”

Jongdae blinks, taken aback. “It’s my pleasure,” he insists, and finds he’s not being ingenuine. He’s not used to nobles being so polite but, well, it certainly makes his job more rewarding.

Jongdae busies himself with mopping up Sehun’s puddles while he bathes, careful to keep quiet so the other guests (the whole two of them) can sleep peacefully. He probably should have gone home earlier, but he’d been waiting for Sehun --not that he’d ever admit to it-- and the thought of returning to Lu Han’s grumpiness just simply hadn’t appealed.

Jongdae hurries back downstairs towards the bath when he realises his stupidity, knocking accordingly. “Did you want me to dry out your clothes?” He calls, waiting for Sehun’s hum of agreement before entering. A paper screen painted with blank ink mountains shields Sehun’s form in the tub for Jongdae to grab the wet clothes neatly folded on the wooden shelves just by the door. He spots Sehun’s lengthy silhouette stretch in the water, endless legs and broad shoulders, and quickly glimpses away, clearing his throat.

“Did you want me to bring you a dry set of clothes?” Jongdae calls, Sehun’s silhouette straightening up briefly.

“Ah.. yes please. Just bring down my bag if it’s not too much trouble.”

It isn’t, not if Jongdae keeps getting thanked for it. “Of course, I’ll be right back.”

Jongdae shuts the sliding paper door behind him, and rushes back through the halls to the fireplace at the entrance, carefully hanging each item in front of it so they’ll dry. It will take longer than the whole night, probably, which is a shame, since Sehun most likely only has the one cloak, thick and soft as Jongdae’s fingers curl into it, smelling like pine and something else he can’t quite name, wishing he could afford something like this --or at least lived in a town where it was possible to buy it. Sehun’s bag is half-open on the bed, surrounded by plucked leaves, and Jongdae picks it up accordingly, pausing when two somethings tumble out of it and roll across the wood. The first is a small conch seashell, perfectly intact, and Jongdae quickly places it back in the bag, but the second object has rolled further. Curiously, Jongdae moves towards the object, only to freeze completely when he realises what it is.

Smudged in a clump of dirt and rock, and half bitten, is a lump of raw iron, the most valuable material on earth --second only to dragonsteel. Raw metal, untouched by the Progenitors, is capable of being made into anything --any alloy, any item-- and can feed a dragon just perfectly, making it incredibly sought after by both man and machine. This half-eaten chunk, in fact, no bigger than Jongdae’s palm, would be worth thousands of steel pieces, if not more. It begs to question why Sehun has it, where the hell he got it from, and how . Even the richest nobles of Kast would kill for a tiny scrap of this --just why is Sehun carrying it around?

Jongdae shoves it back into the bag hurriedly, gulping, and ties the drawstring shut, biting his lip in worry. Maybe Lu Han was right, maybe he should be a little more paranoid.

Jongdae leaves the bag in the bath shelves silently, sliding the door shut behind him, and tries to shake the worry in his gut. It’s quite possible Sehun stumbled across it, or maybe he’s even richer than Jongdae first though --it’s probably so valuable he can’t even trust his servants to leave it at home, or something. Yeah, that has to be it, Jongdae relaxes at the realisation. It can’t be anything more than that.

Lu Han finally forgives Jongdae halfway through the week when he demands they go drinking, cracking in his own vow of silence. Jongdae relents easily with a smile, and lets Lu Han drag him to the bar with his right hand, pretending to be more reluctant than he actually is.

He’s almost surprised to see Sehun there, but not quite --Sehun, despite his strange appearance in this town, already has a routine, leaving at dusk and returning at midnight, sauntering off to the tavern for a meal after a bath since the kitchens are always closed. Jongdae is staring before he can help himself, and Sehun looks up, waving a little timidly. Jongdae returns it.

“ That’s the mysterious newcomer?” Lu Han asks, not even attempting to be subtle as his mouth hangs open. Jongdae rolls his eyes, and Lu Han slaps his shoulder. “You forgot to mention he looks like he’s been hand sculpted by God.”

“You didn’t ask,” Jongdae mutters, pretending his face is warm from the alcohol and not Lu Han’s pointed expression, raised eyebrow and all.

“Oh so you find him that pretty, huh?” He teases, poking Jongdae’s side, who pushes away his hands.

“No,” Jongdae retorts quickly, a blatant lie.

“You know the prettiest things are often the most deadly, right?” Lu Han questions, and Jongdae is stunned by the wave of deja vu that floods through him, pushing him back to when he was sixteen and gasping for breath, holding back tears, and Lu Han said those exact words.

“Sehun’s a person, not a nightshade plant,” Jongdae scoffs. “And I told you, he’s not a threat, he’s like… the nicest human being alive, probably.”

Lu Han actually pauses at that. “Really?”

“... Yeah,” Jongdae admits, equally as surprised. Nobles don’t tend to be polite to peasants, but Sehun has been nothing but reserved and respectful. It’s weird, but also makes Jongdae’s traitorous brain tell him that he’s special, that Sehun acts like this because he’s as intrigued by Jongdae as Jongdae is him. Preposterous, he knows, because Sehun probably has hundreds of suitors in his noble house back north and Jongdae is just some peasant in the outlands but, well, he’s a romantic at heart, with a finicky liking of attention from pretty strangers. Jongdae’s lived his whole life being either second best or not even on the list, unseen and invisible, forgotten, it makes sense that Sehun’s kindness gets to him so much, especially in a world that’s as cold and hard as steel.

“What’s he doing here anyway?” Lu Han asks, a little disgruntled as he traces the lip of his wooden cup. “What is there to do?”

Jongdae shrugs. He thinks about the raw iron, about the dragon princeling in the mountains, and mentions neither. Not here, at least, and not now.

“I haven’t really asked,” he lies. Then again, it’s not like he and Sehun have had any extensive conversations past pleasantries. “Maybe it’s business. Or maybe he wants a rainy vacation.”

“Right,” Lu Han scoffs, glancing over his shoulder, to where Sehun sits now. Jongdae resists the urge to turn around too. Lu Han gives him a sly smile. “You could always buy him a drink and ask.”

“Because that’s what I need.” Jongdae rolls his eyes. “A rich boy in my bed. I already live with one brat, I don’t need another.”

It takes Lu Han an extra second to realise what Jongdae is referring to, whacking him on the shoulder with his metal hand as soon as he does. “Hey!”

“ Ow, ” Jongdae whines, rubbing the bruise because surprisingly, it hurts a fucking lot to get hit with a dragon’s arm. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about!!”

Lu Han winds his arm up for a round two, but Sooyoung interjects with, “Don’t make me kick you out.”

That gets him to quieten down, at least.

Lu Han and Jongdae continue bickering, unhelped by alcohol, and Jongdae is so swept up in it he almost misses Sehun leaving completely, having finished his meal and heading out the door. Just as it shuts with a quiet thunk, Jongdae swivels at the noise, catching only a slight glimpse of a black cloak, and a tiny whiff of pine.

“So, for record-keeping purposes,” Jongdae starts one morning, glimpsing at Changmin occupied in the kitchens before inviting himself to sit opposite Sehun at his table, who blinks cutely in surprise. “Just how long are you planning on staying here?”

It’s been almost a full two weeks now. Sehun had handed over an aluminium coin to pay the room fee and Changmin had nearly screamed, fainted, and possibly wet himself at the sight of something so high in value. Jongdae only sees Sehun in the mornings, when he serves him breakfast, and the night, where Sehun returns at midnight to an already prepared hot bath, soaking wet and dirty as per usual. This morning, his hair is woven with strands of grass and mountain lillies, the kind that only bloom right at the peak; Jongdae wonders how the hell Sehun had managed to get so far up, and still return in time.

“I don’t know,” Sehun replies, giving a small shrug as he eats a mouthful of rice. “As long as I need to.”

“Don’t you miss home?” Jongdae asks; the more time he spends with Sehun, the more familiar he acts, and the nosier, subsequently. It’s just so hard not to; Sehun is so kind and polite, it makes it easy for Jongdae to push into his boundaries without ever being reprimanded for it. “You’re way too pretty to stay in a place as ugly as this, you know.”

Oops, Jongdae hadn’t meant to say that.

“I--” Jongdae falters, caught off-guard, and Sehun just laughs, eyes curving.

“Couldn’t I say the same for you?” He replies amusedly, suddenly a lot more interested in Jongdae than Changmin’s mackerel stew.

Jongdae blinks rapidly, mouth inching into a surprised --but pleased-- smile. “Are you flirting with me?”

Sehun shrugs, takes a mouthful, wrinkles his nose cutely. The mackerel stew is an acquired taste, but Jongdae doesn’t say that. “I believe you flirted first,” Sehun retorts, and while there’s a small smile to his lips it’s… shy, a little bashful, like he’s not quite sure of himself. It’s more endearing than it should be.

“Okay pretty boy,” Jongdae says, half-laughing as he rests his chin in his palm. His morning suddenly just got a lot more fun. “Is that all you’re here for? Flirting with strangers?”

“Hardly,” Sehun scoffs, a huff of breath through his nose. “And don’t you think we’re past the point of strangers?”

He batters his eyelashes exaggeratedly, and Jongdae laughs in delight, surprised by this different side to Sehun. Usually he’s just reserved and quiet, but it’s like the first wall of many has been broken down and Jongdae suddenly wants to see what’s behind all the others. At Jongdae’s laughter, Sehun smiles, and his shoulders relax, somewhat, like he feels more at ease.

Jongdae opens his mouth to say something witty or flirty or maybe both, potentially, but he’s cut off by a sharp, “ Jongdae .”

Swivelling around, Changmin is looking at him, lips pursed.

“Oops.” Jongdae laughs nervously, giving Sehun an apologetic smile before sliding out of his seat. “Duty calls.”

Changmin looks unimpressed as he hands Jongdae a dirty stone pot to wash. “I don’t pay you to flirt with guests, I hope you realise.”

“I know,” Jongdae replies, giving a cheeky smile. “But we could include it in my list of services if you gave me a raise.”

Changmin just hits Jongdae over the back of his head.

With new possibilities now in the open, in a life of dry routine the mysterious Sehun quickly becomes a source of entertainment for Jongdae during the cold wet mornings, and the equally as cold and wet nights of boredom keeping the inn in check, exchanging teasing back and forths with each other. Nothing ever comes of it more than flattering compliments and biting jokes, but at least it’s still fun. Jongdae is probably more infatuated than he needs to be, but Sehun is kind, funny, rich and handsome, can he really be blamed? There’s hardly anyone his own age in this town that Jongdae enjoys talking to, let alone those that return the sentiment. It’s almost a good thing, that for the sake of his own safety and Lu Han’s, that Jongdae can never do anything about it with Sehun --prevents him from doing something stupid that he might regret.

This morning Sehun’s hair is braided with strangle vines and morning blooms, the yellow flowers flourishing brightly in his dark hair. Jongdae softens at his sight --they were always his mother’s favourites, and the memory is bittersweet and aching.

“Good morning,” Jongdae greets cheerily, placing the breakfast tray in front of Sehun and sliding into the seat across from his accordingly, waiting only for Changmin to scold him to move. “Your hair looks nice today.”

Sehun huffs. “You say that every morning,” he points out.

“Because every morning it’s true,” Jongdae flirts easily, adding a charming grin into the mix. “I’ve always loved morning blooms.”

Sehun touches a flower just at the crown of his head gently, the fragile petal curling beneath his touch. “You know their names?” he asks, surprised.

“Ah, my mother was a healer,” Jongdae admits. Nearly twenty years have passed, and yet Jongdae can still hear her voice as she teaches him the difference between the moon herb and the thorny prickle, one a lot deadlier than the other. Morning blooms had always been her favourite, because the stems could be crushed to extract the sweet milk within, a relaxant that helped, whenever Jongdae’s heart refused to stay still. “I guess I can still remember what she taught me, after all this time.”

Sehun’s face turns solemn at Jongdae’s words and pointed use of the past tense. “What happened to her?”

It isn’t something Jongdae talks about a lot, or often, for obvious reasons. He shrugs with fake indifference. “What happened to most people during the Iron Wars; a dragon attack.”

Sehun looks down guiltily. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“Not like it was your fault.” Jongdae waves it off, and Sehun stares at him with a strange, unreadable look that makes him uncomfortable. He feels guilty for oversharing. “I’ll let you eat in peace.”

Jongdae moves to slip away, his heart aching with old memories and his brain hating himself for being so open about it --not that it’s much of a secret, really. Most children are orphans of the Iron Wars --when the King himself declared war against the dragons, fighting them for the territory of Terrus , the mountain mines. For years dragons raided cities and terrorized Aes, protected only by the dragonslayers of the King’s Guard, only for the beasts to fall back entirely when their hive was found and their queen killed, retreating to the north and remaining there ever since. Now the leftover dragons are no longer so organised without their leader, scattered throughout the country, attacking only like wild animals, and hunted by the few dragonslayers that remain for their priceless steel.

“Wait,” Sehun says, and Jongdae pauses mid-step, shoulders raised. Sehun’s mouth opens as if to say something further about the matter, before snapping it shut and swallowing. His hand falls. “I-- it’s nothing, sorry. Thank you for breakfast.”

Jongdae smiles, despite himself. “You say that every morning.”

Luckily, Sehun smiles back.

Before midnight comes, Jongdae is sure to refill the bathtub with fresh water from the well for Sehun’s sake, painstakingly bringing back each wooden pail and taking lots of breaks to let his heart rest. But he’s stopped at the first bucket, because a wyrm has slithered into the tub, basking on the warm stone.

Well then.

Jongdae sighs, placing the pail down, and debates how to get the metal spawnling out without hurting himself in the process. Wyrms are even lesser than imugi, nothing much more than writhing metal the length of Jongdae’s forearm, no venom or whip-like whiskers or tiny horns, just a sharp set of dragonsteel teeth. The scales shift and clink against each other as it senses Jongdae’s presence and attempts to slide away, stuck in the stone bath. God only knows how it even got in there to begin with.

Luckily, training as a dragonslayer most of his life prepares Jongdae well for dealing with dragons --of course, back then, it was more about how to kill a wyvern or a ryong, but they were taught how to deal with pesky spawnlings too. He grips the tail of the worm tightly and holds it away from his body, then swaps his grip to the back of his head so its jaw is locked in place and it can do nothing but flail weakly, making distressed, warning beeping noises. Great.

Jongdae heads back upstairs with the wyrm in his hands, only to find Sehun at the entrance, staring at him.

“Oh,” Jongdae greets. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Sehun returns, shifting a little awkwardly, and pointedly staring at the spawnling in Jongdae’s hands. “Busy?”

“Not really,” Jongdae insists, and maybe if he acts more casual about the fact that he knows how to handle dragons, then it won’t be such a surprise. Most people are taught to fear dragons, even the spawnlings, keeping away from them entirely or hiring a dragonslayer to get rid of them --in the case of Alkai, they’re forced into dealing with them by either living with the infestation, or chasing them away with a broom, or something. Jongdae had once suggested he and Lu Han profit off their talents, so to speak, but Lu Han had scoffed at the thought, replying that they wouldn’t be very good dragonslayers in hiding if they constantly outed themselves as dragonslayers. Touche.

The wyrm wriggles incessantly at Sehun’s appearance, making louder noises. Jongdae curses under his breath, it’s going to wake up the whole inn with it’s beeping and whirring.

“Are you going to kill it?” Sehun asks, almost worriedly, and Jongdae is confused by the question.

“Uh,” he should, in hindsight --Lu Han probably would. “I don’t really have the tools to?” A partial lie, he has a stone dagger strong enough in his house to pierce the metal, but Jongdae can’t really be bothered going to get it just to deal with a wyrm and watch it rust away. Besides, he’s always been bad at killing dragons, no matter how much he was taught to do it. He knows the lights behind their eyes are just powered by their shard, the engine that fuels them and gives their body energy, but it’s hard to remember they’re just machines and not sentient. It is partly a reason as to why Jongdae had never been a very good dragonslayer. “I was just going to kinda... throw it into the woods.”

“Oh,” Sehun says, surprised. “Well-- here, I’ll come with you.”

“What?” Jongdae laughs a little bit, if only in nervousness. “Why? I’m fine, really.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.” Sehun frowns in concern, and Jongdae’s traitorous, malfunctioning heart skips a beat, damn.

“If you want…” Jongdae mumbles, unable to argue further. He supposes to Sehun it must look like some random peasant with a penchant for picking up dragons, he probably thinks Jongdae is in a lot more danger than he actually is if the wyrm were able to free itself from his grip.

Jongdae walks out the back door and down the dirt path to the forest and, since Sehun is watching, walks a little further than he normally would to toss the wyrm down and watch it slither away quickly into a burrow beneath a tree. Anticlimactic.

“Well, thanks for being my knight in shining armour,” Jongdae pats Sehun’s shoulder teasingly, but he’s indifferent to the jab.

“I’m surprised you didn’t kill it,” Sehun says, carefully, almost, like he’s testing his words out on a field of cracking ice. “Don’t you want to harvest the dragonsteel?”

Jongdae shrugs. “Spawnlings don’t last long once you kill them.” As soon as the shard goes out, the metal quickly rusts and deteriorates, a faster process the smaller the dragon is. Only the larger class dragons are really worth harvesting for their dragonsteel, but even then it’s an incredibly finicky process that involves a lot of resources Jongdae doesn’t have. “It’s not really worth it.”

Not to mention the fact that Jongdae can’t. No matter how much he tries. Despite all the fairy tales of dragons killing people, of all the fire and bloodshed he’s witnessed, he just… can’t. One look into the glowing, piteous eyes and Jongdae fails to remember that dragons aren’t technically alive.

Sehun tilts his head then, examining Jongdae in a way that makes him feel transparent. His skin prickles. “You… know a lot about dragons,” he says slowly, hesitant, and Jongdae’s blood freezes.

“Aha...ha… yeah…” Jongdae rubs the back of his neck, hoping his words don’t come out sounding as forced as they actually are. “I guess I’ve learnt a lot over the years living here, when there are no dragonslayers to do the job for me.”

The twist to Sehun’s lips gives away to the fact that he probably doesn’t believe Jongdae. Crap. It’s not his fault that despite years and years of deceit, Jongdae is a pretty shitty liar --his mother always said it was too soft-hearted, but Jongdae’s pretty sure it’s just because he’s talentless in all areas.

The walk back to the inn is in awkward silence, Jongdae at a complete lack of what to say. He doesn’t tend to exchange anything with Sehun more than flirtatious quips or small talk, all light, easy nothings, but out here, Jongdae has no idea what’s he’s meant to talk about, and he’s not sure why.

“Can I ask you something?” Sehun starts suddenly, surprising Jongdae. Does he really need permission for that?

“Sure.” Jongdae gives it anyway, pretending to be more nonchalant than he feels. He’s still on edge from his pathetic deceit, hoping Sehun won’t call him out --or worse, turn him in.

At least Jongdae didn’t give away Lu Han, if he spends the rest of his life rotting away in the Bone Tower, he’ll be just fine knowing that.

“How much do you know about dragons?” Sehun continues, making the hairs on the back of Jongdae’s neck rise.

“Um… a little,” he lies, swallowing. Shit, this is it, isn’t it? Sehun turns him in to get his reward and Jongdae spends the rest of his life knowing Lu Han was right --the latter, in hindsight, is kind of the worst part of eternal imprisonment.

“What can you tell me about Kai?” Sehun asks, and Jongdae falters, completely caught off-guard. The princeling? Why would Sehun care? Jongdae considers lying, but if Sehun’s only concerns here are towards a far-off ryong in the mountains, then…

“Not much,” Jongdae admits truthfully, because Sehun will see through his shitty lying either way. All Jongdae knows about Kai is what he’s discerned from rumours, a decade of experience, and context. “Just that he’s been the local horror of this area for years.”

“Horror seems harsh,” Sehun says quietly. “He’s never attacked anybody.”

Jongdae arches an eyebrow; seems like Sehun’s been doing research. “Neither do swords, but they’re still kept sheathed.” Sehun frowns at that, like he wants to argue but doesn’t know how to. “Fear is just a safety precaution, whether it’s deserved or not. Considering most dragon history, I’d say it is.” Sehun’s gaze falls at that, staring straight ahead with an expression Jongdae can’t read, deep in thought.

“Is he… why you’re here?” Jongdae asks, perplexed. It wouldn’t be the first time someone thinks they’re capable of doing a dragonslayer’s job, for honor or glory, for metal or cash. “You don’t strike me as the fighting type.”

“I’m not here to kill him,” Sehun answers, bristling a little at the mention. “Just find him.”

“And what?” Jongdae continues, incredulous. “Hug him and call it a day?”

Sehun shrugs, smiling a little. “Maybe.”

“Unbelievable,” Jongdae mumbles in disbelief, but he can’t tell if Sehun is lying or not. What do you do once you find a dragon? Die? Is he just some rich man with a dramatic death wish? Or maybe he’s secretly dragon devout --blasphemer cultists that believe dragons are the true gods, punishing mankind for their sins. “Travelled all this way to get yourself killed, huh?”

Sehun snorts. “I think I can handle myself,” he assures Jongdae, standing up a little bit straighter and puffing out his chest as if to prove his point. Jongdae hides his smile by tucking his chin down. “Worried for me already?” Sehun teases.

“Worried you might prove our peaceful mountain deity isn’t so peaceful after all,” Jongdae corrects, because he can’t let Sehun have the satisfaction that easily. “I’ve heard ryong have a habit of eating hearts.”

Sehun’s mismatched eyes sharpen at that. “You know he’s ryong?”

Jongdae stammers. “Well he-- I’ve heard he hoards seashells, and only ryong are born with the glitch in their code to do that. I figured…” Jongdae trails off, wondering if this is too much information for a peasant to know. Shit.

Sehun’s scrutiny makes Jongdae flush with both panic and embarrassment, his heart pounding in his chest, but Sehun doesn’t say anything, just touches something in his pocket with an oddly wistful expression. For some reason, that comforts Jongdae more than anything else --Sehun has never felt like a threat, to Jongdae, despite Lu Han’s paranoia, and it’s now that he realises why.

Sehun just looks a little sad, and a little lost. Beautiful even in his misery, yes, but not deadly. Something within Jongdae is oddly comforted by the familiarity, despite his usual hatred of such a thing.

“Can I ask you something?” Jongdae asks softly, surprising Sehun as he holds the inn door open for him to enter. Sehun nods. “Is searching for Kai…. Is that why you’re here? Is that what you do all day?”

Disappearing for hours on end just to camp out in the mountains in hopes to find a princeling… so many facets of Sehun that don’t make any sense at all.

“Yes,” Sehun answers, Jongdae surprised by his honesty, and somehow flattered, too, because Sehun trusts him enough to give it. “I have to find him, it’s important.”

“Important?” Jongdae parrots. “What do you mean?”

Sehun opens his mouth to answer, but they’re cut off by Changmin’s hurrying down the stairs.

“There you are!” he accuses suddenly, tugging at Jongdae’s ear, who yelps. “I don’t pay you to abandon your post.”

“Ow ow ow ow ow-- ”

“It was my fault,” Sehun interjects quickly, while Jongdae whines in pain. “I asked him to show me which path to take to reach Potassian.” He smiles lopsidedly, smoothly saving Jongdae’s ass in more than one way, which only confirms the fact that Sehun realises Jongdae shouldn’t know as much about dragons as he does. Then again, Sehun shouldn’t be looking for one --they’ve exchanged a secret for a secret, Jongdae just hopes he can trust Sehun with his. “Sorry for taking him away from his work.”

Changmin slumps, setting Jongdae free. “Oh,” he replies, probably as winded by Sehun’s politeness as Jongdae usually is. “Well, that’s fine. I’m glad Jongdae could help.” He turns to Jongdae, eyes still narrowed in suspicion. “Go home, kid. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jongdae opens his mouth to argue against it, but what’s the point? He wants to stay here and keep prodding Sehun for information to sate his burning curiosity, but he can’t deny Changmin’s generous dismissal when he’s always complaining about getting more time off --just to pester Changmin more than anything. Jongdae opens his mouth to say something, snapping it shut, then nods, dazed, obediently, exchanging one heavy gaze with Sehun’s mismatched eyes before bidding them both goodnight and slipping away.

While Jongdae’s curiosity continues burning, he doesn’t have a chance to prod further and discover more layers to Sehun --they’re simply in too delicate a stage of acquaintanceship to really dig through. Jongdae just feels awkward each time they interact --late at night and early in the morning, of course-- on some precipice between flirting strangers and maybe almost something akin to friends.

(Jongdae hadn’t even considered it until Sehun offhandedly mentioned one morning that Jongdae was one of the only people in Alkai he could talk to. Sehun is, after all, alone in a foreign town, it had never occured to Jongdae that maybe something stronger than both of them was pulling them together.)

Sehun just seems to grow sadder and sadder as the days pass, like maybe he’s running out of time --for what, Jongdae doesn’t know, and hasn’t exactly had the chance to ask (see: problem number one)-- but he’s been disappearing for more than just one day at a time, now, always coming back as frantic and soaking as the last.

It makes Jongdae weirdly sympathetic, wishing he had some sort of comfort to offer Sehun --but how could he, when they hardly know each other, and Sehun is as quiet as he is secretive, even despite his earnest nature. Not that Jongdae can judge him for hiding things, really, but it makes him want to repay Sehun’s constant kindness himself.

Which is probably what prompts Jongdae to bite his lip and say, “I’m going to invite him over.”

“Huh?” Lu Han slurs, drunk, then follows Jongdae’s line of sight to the corner of the tavern, where Sehun sits alone, nibbling on a loaf of bread. “What? No. Don’t ruin our time together.”

Jongdae rolls his eyes as he stands. “Every day of our lives is our time,” he retorts, knowing that Lu Han’s refusal to ever socialise properly is a side-effect from a lifetime of being backstabbed, beaten, and betrayed. Not to mention being an enemy of the capital and all. “You’ll like him, I promise.”

“Doubt it,” Lu Han mumbles into his cup, but knows better than to argue with Jongdae when he’s being this stubborn. Jongdae hides his smile as he heads towards Sehun’s table at the back of the half-crowded tavern. Small town after all.

“Hi,” Jongdae says immediately, startling Sehun, who blinks up at him in surprise, widened brown and green.

“Hi,” Sehun returns with a timid smile, both of them stewing in the silence at a lack of what to say as Jongdae just bites his lip.

“Do you want to sit with us?” he asks suddenly, gesturing over his shoulder to Lu Han, who gives a sardonic wave on cue. “It’s just, you look…” Jongdae trails off, wondering if you look lonely is too forward, or maybe too presumptuous. His stupid heart has built some sort of infatuated image of Sehun in his boredom, and it’s his brain that reminds him he is very much a stranger Jongdae hardly knows. “I thought it’d be fun, is all,” he amends.

Sehun’s mouth opens, a half-formed word hanging in his throat, as he glances behind Jongdae towards Lu Han. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Jongdae insists, wrapping a hand around Sehun’s wrist and tugging. “C’mon.”

Sehun laughs a little. “You don’t have to take pity on me just because I’m alone,” he says, but he’s standing now at least even as his warm arm falls from Jongdae’s grip, picking up his plate. Sehun shakes his head slightly. “You’re too nice sometimes.”

“You think I’m too nice?” Jongdae asks, taken aback, and Sehun nods firmly, as if the answer should be obvious.

“Have been ever since I arrived,” he admits, following Jongdae back to his spot with Lu Han. “It’s not a bad thing,” he quickly adds.

“But Jongdae can be a little too naive at the worst of times,” Lu Han interjects smoothly, smiling insincerely at Sehun and offering out his normal hand. “I’m Lu Han.”

“Sehun,” Sehun returns, a little intimidated, probably, but Lu Han has always had a presence that demands a room like that, even when he tries to hide it, so Jongdae can’t blame Sehun for it. “Nice to meet you.” He returns the handshake with surety, then bows slightly, a gentle inclination. His gaze falls to Lu Han’s other hand, limp by his side and wrapped in cloth, curiously. “What happened to your arm?”

Jongdae half-chokes on a mouthful of ale as Lu Han’s expression widens, surprised by the blunt yet concerned expression Sehun adorns.

“Uh,” he stumbles, and Jongdae has to hide his smile behind the rim of his cup, because Lu Han seems to be as startled by Sehun’s genuine nature as Jongdae has been this whole time. He bleeds wealth and power, superiority, and yet beneath it he’s just a little soft, and far too kind. “A dragon accident,” Lu Han lies smoothly. “It’s really gross. Burn scars and stuff…”

“Oh,” Sehun says lamely. “I’m sorry. It must have hurt a lot.”

Lu Han looks like he’s at a complete lack of what to say, because he’d prepared for Sehun with iron defenses and steel barbs only to be met with nothing but a soft wind that easily slips between the gaps. Jongdae doesn’t even try to hide his smile, this time around.

“It did,” Lu Han admits, rubbing at his shoulder, and this time, he isn’t lying. “But it hurts less, these days.” He gives a lopsided smile.

“The iron wars took something from everyone, I think,” Sehun says quietly, like he knows exactly what caused Lu Han’s injury --and technically, he’s right. What he doesn’t know is that Lu Han’s arm is the very thing that ended the war altogether.

Lu Han smiles bitterly, like he’s thinking the same thing. “Some more than others.”

Jongdae hits Lu Han discreetly, but he’s never heard of the word subtlety, clearly. “What?” he asks Jongdae mockingly, as Sehun’s face falls. “He’s just some rich noble. I bet he was kept safely in his little mansion the whole time.”

It’s always a tender subject to Lu Han, for a myriad of reasons. He and Jongdae fought on the frontlines, and they’re the ones who ended it once and for all --it’s hard to imagine anyone has paid a price more than them. Adjacent to that, Lu Han grew up an orphan, unlike Jongdae, who was unknowingly thrust into the lifestyle, abandoned by his parents, abandoned by everyone he’s ever cared for --except Jongdae, of course-- and especially abandoned by the rich and wealthy; it’s safe to say he has quite the class bias. Jongdae, on the other hand, having grown up in a small, modest village where everyone knew each other and everyone was kind, struggles to remember how to keep his.

Jongdae sighs. “Lu,” he warns. “This is why we can’t have nice things--”

“No,” Sehun quickly cuts in. “He’s right. As soon as the war started my older sister took me and my siblings away as far as she could, and hid us to keep us safe.” He swallows thickly, and the firm line of his mouth is the hardest expression Jongdae has ever seen on his soft face. “But she still died fighting for our sake. So maybe a dragon never attacked me directly, but--” He meets Lu Han’s gaze with an amount of bravery Jongdae has never seen on him, masking only the pain within. “--I was still hurt, in my own way.”

Lu Han laughs quietly, despite everything, a simple huff of breath. “I guess so.” It’s not a victory, not quite --Lu Han’s stubbornness and pride would never allow such a thing, but it’s close enough. Sehun relaxes in time with Lu Han, and now that their stupid comparing sizes routine is out of the way --honestly, Jongdae wants to kill Lu Han for always playing the overprotective older brother role, sometimes-- Jongdae skulls the last of his ale.

“Drinks, anyone?” He suggests cheerily, completely ignoring the poignant, awkward silence.

Lu Han opens up a little bit, after that, no longer trying to be a pricklish asshole while still trying to suss Sehun out. Sehun, completely aware of the fact, is nothing but honest while somewhat defensive, a side to him Jongdae has never really seen before. It’s certainly… a different dynamic than to what Jongdae had expected, maybe, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Despite the fact that he’s being a piece of shit, this is the most open and honest Jongdae has ever seen Lu Han act in front of newcomers in a long, long time, even if half of what he says are just criticism of the upper class. Sehun, at the very least, seems to mostly agree with a lot of Lu Han’s complaints, even if he rolls his eyes every now and then at his snide attitude.

Jongdae is honestly just laughing too much to really add anything of value, surprised by Sehun’s somewhat sardonic side and cackling at Lu Han’s petty childishness. They argue about literally everything like siblings, from who’s paying for drinks to whether rice is superior to noodles; it’s as stupid as it is endearing, and Jongdae’s cheeks hurt from smiling. It’s been a long time since he or Lu Han have ever trusted someone as much as this --even if it’s something as small as just letting Sehun sit with them, it speaks miles. Then again, it’s almost impossible not to trust Sehun, with his earnest aura and soft edges, Jongdae can’t really blame Lu Han for disguising his evident fondness with barbed quips.

Sooyoung kicks them out as she says she’s closing the tavern down for the night, and Jongdae and Lu Han exchange farewells with Sehun, who dashes through the rain back to his inn. Lu Han softens as soon as he’s gone, no longer on guard without anyone but Jongdae around, and Jongdae shoots him a knowing smile.

“I still don’t trust him,” is all Lu Han says, without being prompted. “But he’s not that bad, I guess.”

“You guess ~” Jongdae teases, and laughs sharply as Lu Han attempts to hit him with his dragon hand, dodging only just in time.

Jongdae is in an unsurprisingly good mood when he brings Sehun’s breakfast to the table that next morning, smiling sunnily.

“Hi,” he says, grinning.

“Hi,” Sehun returns, with a small but genuine smile, wincing slightly. Jongdae just laughs.

“Hungover, huh?” he asks. Lu Han had forced Sehun into a drinking competition, after all, and had naturally won. Jongdae knows better than to ever indulge Lu Han’s competitive spirit, but Sehun’s naivety and surprising motivation to win had been too cute to warn him about the costs of so much ale.

“I’m really bad with alcohol, I shouldn’t have drunk it…” Sehun mumbles, looking at his plate with a grimace. He does look a little more green in the face than usual, and Jongdae feels a twinge of guilt.

“Sorry,” he apologises, taking the seat opposite Sehun as he glances into the kitchen briefly, Changmin none-the-wiser. “I guess I should have warned you about Lu Han.” Jongdae laughs sheepishly.

Sehun shakes his head adamantly. “It’s my own fault for wanting to show him up…” he mutters, and Jongdae smiles because Sehun is so cute, god. “He’s very protective of you,” Sehun notes, a half-formed question.

“We’ve been friends since childhood,” Jongdae admits, deciding he’s willing to give away this little secret too. “We’re practically brothers. I’m protective of Lu Han too, just not half as paranoid.” Jongdae’s smile turns wry. “I don’t think you’re as much of a threat as Lu Han wants you to be. He… has trust issues.” For justified reasons.

“But I am dangerous,” Sehun argues, a little bit flirtatious and Jongdae suppresses the urge to roll his eyes because really, Sehun couldn’t harm a fly, probably --he’d just apologise to it politely. “You just don’t know it yet.”

“Right.” Jongdae scoffs, although he’s still smiling. “Going to lure me away and eat my heart, sorceress?”

Sehun hums noncommittally. “The unsuspecting ones are the tastiest.”

Jongdae laughs at that, and Sehun’s smile lights up, poking at his rice absentmindedly. “Can I ask you something?” he says suddenly, giving Jongdae an odd sense of deja vu.

“You just did,” Jongdae retorts, making Sehun huff in exasperation.

“Something else ,” he corrects, to which Jongdae sneaks a glance towards the kitchen --nothing-- then waves his hands in assent. “Would you ever consider maybe… coming with me? One day? To the mountains?”

Jongdae blinks at that, stunned. “What?”

“I mean,” Sehun twists his wrists nervously, avoiding eye contact, brown and green gaze fluttering around to anywhere in the inn hall that isn’t Jongdae. “I could use the advice of somebody who knows the area better than me, and maybe…” he swallows nervously. “... maybe someone who might be able to… track a dragon… You wouldn’t have to go near it, of course, but if you could just help me find the nest--”

Jongdae inhales at that, sharply. “I--” he should deny it, say he doesn’t know how to do such a thing because wouldn’t it be preposterous? Only a dragonslayer knows how to track a dragon, only a dragonslayer knows how to kill one; hence the name… and yet, with Sehun’s piercing gaze now looking through him, Jongdae doesn’t think he can. Sehun knows, Sehun has known for a long time, and the more surprising fact is that Jongdae doesn’t feel threatened by the knowledge. “I can’t.”

“Can’t?” Sehun asks quietly. “Or won’t?”

Jongdae’s shoulders raise, feeling embarrassed. “Can’t,” he admits softly. “I’d only slow you down.”

“What?” Sehun’s eyebrows furrow together. “Why?”

“I have heart-rot,” Jongdae says, feeling the familiar weight of the words on his tongue and the upcoming dread that accompanies it.

“Heart-rot?” Sehun repeats. “What’s that?”

“A disease,” Jongdae explains, like he has hundreds, thousands of times before, age eight and reciting it faithfully to his classmates in Lithius. Twelve and curled up underneath Fool’s Bridge in Kast to Lu Han. Sixteen years-old and enlisting in the King’s Guard, explaining why he wasn’t as strong as the other soldiers, wasn’t as fast. “It means my heart doesn’t pump blood properly. I can’t just climb a mountain, especially where the air is thin, or I could suffocate.”

Sehun pales immediately. “I’m sorry.”

Jongdae shrugs. He doesn’t need the pity, he’s had it his whole life. Once upon a time, Jongdae would have climbed that mountain despite the odds, just to prove that he could. Now he’s simply tired, and doesn’t want to risk it. Putting himself in danger means putting Lu Han in danger, he can’t endanger him by leaving him on his own like that, just because Jongdae was stupid.

Sehun pauses. “...But what if we walked slowly?”

Jongdae pauses. “What?”

“I mean if we walked slowly you’d be okay, right?” Sehun asks hopefully. “I don’t mind taking it easy if it means you can still help.”

“I--” Jongdae doesn’t even know how to respond to that. “What part of ‘I’m sick’ didn’t you get?”

Sehun frowns. “Well, so long as your heart is pumping normally, it’s fine, right?” He places a hand over Jongdae’s chest to prove his point, where his heart jumps suddenly, flustered by the proximity. Jongdae feels his face turn warm like he’s a teenager as he pulls back swiftly, placing distance between them. Sehun’s mismatched eyes twinkle. “Am I wrong?”

“Uh.” Technically no, he isn’t, but Jongdae is so caught off balance by the question he can’t even fathom it. Never in his life has he ever been accommodated for, not for something like this, not by anyone but Lu Han, who had needed Jongdae like Jongdae had needed him and had no choice; Sehun, an acquaintance at best, has no reason to be so kind, other than some desperate death wish that makes him want to find a dragon.

“Then come with me,” Sehun insists again, near-begging. “Please, I have to find him. I’ll carry you up that mountain myself if it means you’ll help.”

Jongdae blinks, taken aback, so off-balance he’s almost dizzy with it. Just who is this Sehun? And what made him so kind? Or rather, how has he lived a life so untouched that the kindness has been allowed to remain?

“I--” Jongdae should turn him down, shouldn’t involve himself with a stranger, should keep to himself and keep out of trouble, out of sight, out of mind. And yet, those are warnings spoken to his mind in Lu Han’s voice; a big part of him just sees the desperation on Sehun’s face, and is reminded as to why he signed up to join the King’s Guard all those summers ago, to help and give the way his mother had ingrained into his memory how to. “--I’ll think about it.”

Sehun brightens visibly, Jongdae just wishes his stupid heart could stop thumping so loudly --you’d think he’d be used to it, by this stage.

“That’s not a yes, pretty boy.” Jongdae scoffs and kicks Sehun lightly beneath the table, who only laughs quietly at the gesture. “I’ll just consider it.”

“Better than a no,” Sehun retorts and, well. Fair enough. He grins down at Jongdae. “If you make up your mind, you should let me know. I can pay you for your service, of course,” he quickly adds, like he knows the days away from work would affect Jongdae too badly. It makes his chest hurt.

Jongdae opens his mouth, at a lack of what to say. “I said I’ll think about it,” he repeats, holding back a smile. Changmin steps out of the kitchens and yells Jongdae’s name sharply. That’s his cue. “Just enjoy your breakfast for now, okay?”

“Okay,” Sehun replies, with a relieved sort of grin that makes Jongdae dizzy as he quickly dashes away back to work, ignoring Changmin’s chastising in favour of sighing wistfully instead, unable to hold back a smile.

Jongdae spends the whole day bored out of his mind even more than usual, rolling Sehun’s offer over and over in his head. When was the last time he did something that wasn’t work and eat and drink and sleep? When was the last time he helped someone? Found a dragon? Did something that wasn’t mind-numbing?

But it’s not like Jongdae can just jump into Sehun’s quest without consideration, he’ll have to tell Lu Han first, or maybe Lu Han can come? God knows he’s a whole lot better with dealing with dragons then Jongdae is, and knows how to look after Jongdae if something happens with his heart, too. It’s far-fetched to imagine Lu Han would ever give away the fact that he’s an ex-dragonslayer to somebody, let alone go back into the business, so to speak, but…

Jongdae is snapped away from his thoughts by the inn door opening, preparing to greet Changmin back so soon from the farm, but is caught off-guard by what greets him instead.

Metal.

Actual. Fucking. Metal.

And not just any metal, metal armor , steel breastplates and chainmail and a long polearm with metal tassels around its neck, silver and polished and shining. Jongdae is so taken aback by the sheer amount of metal, the kind he hasn’t seen in years, he almost completely forgets to register who it belongs to.

Until he sees the vermilion bird crest engraved onto the red dragonsteel breastplate, just beneath the glowing core above her heart that signifies her status as a fully fledged dragonslayer, and forgets how to breathe entirely.

“This is the inn, right?” The young dragonslayer asks politely, eyes curved as she looks at Jongdae. “We’re going to need six rooms and somebody to put our horses in the stables.”

Does she recognise him? She can’t, can she? She’s too young to have ever trained during the iron wars, and even then… no, Jongdae can’t be recognised because there isn’t a steel spear being held against his throat but six rooms means five other fucking dragonslayers which means--

“Hello?” She asks again, waving a hand in front of Jongdae’s face and smiling amusedly.

She’s gorgeous, perfect, just the way the King’s Guard likes them, although there’s a leather eyepatch covering her left eye, but failing to take anything away from her sheer, sharp beauty, smile rounding out her cheeks.

“Sorry.” Jongdae quickly bows over in an attempt to hide his face. “It’s an honour to serve a dragonslayer.”

A smooth save to explain his lacking composure; the girl just laughs. “You’re probably not accustomed to seeing us, huh? Sorry about that.” She scratches behind her ear. “We’re stretched pretty thin as is, it’s hard to reach to reach the outlands. A shame, though, really. Your town is very pretty.”

Alkai is a pile of wet dirt getting wetter by the second with every thundercloud that passes over it; the dragonslayer’s saccharine words make bile roll in Jongdae’s stomach and he scowls at her before he can stop himself while she turns briefly to examine the inn, hiding it as quickly as possible. A simple commoner could never have the nerve to react to a dragonslayer in such a way.

“The rooms?” the girl reminds politely.

“Of course,” Jongdae responds, and works by familiarity of the routine alone as frantic panic cools down into icey nerves. He can’t give away the fact that a dragonslayer here means --well, it means a lot of things, but judging by the vermillion crest on the girl’s armor, if the South Cardinal himself is here…

Jongdae needs to warn Lu Han. Immediately.

“Six rooms, was it?” Jongdae repeats politely, and the girl nods, noting down the occupied status in the six rooms farthest away from Sehun’s. “Sorry, we’re quite short-staffed, but I can show you to your rooms and then tend to your horses, if you’d like--”

“Ah, It’s okay, I’m sure we can handle finding them,” she says sweetly. Jongdae wants to vomit. “But if you could just get the horses, that’d be great. There’s only two at the moment, the other four will be coming later.”

Jongdae nods, pretending to care as his ears ring, heart still thundering dangerously. Shit, it’s getting harder to breathe.

“Seulgi have you--” a young man enters the inn, wearing armor identical to the girl’s --Seulgi’s-- his face equally as youthful and unfamiliar to Jongdae, which probably means he’s safe. The fact that his body is so uncovered reveals his lower rank within the red squadron. “Oh, there was somebody here after all. This town is so quiet we thought it was deserted.”

Jongdae narrows his eyes, unable to help himself, and the man looks a little startled by the attitude, like he’s not used to commoners looking down on someone as high and mighty as a dragonslayer. “Doyoung,” Seulgi quickly chastises, slapping his shoulder before turning to Jongdae. “I’m sorry, it appears my companion left his manners back in Kast.”

“It’s alright,” Jongdae lies, smiling saccharinely. “Your rooms are numbered one through six, I’ll put your horses away. Dinner is served at dusk and breakfast at dawn,” he recites carefully, as he has time and time before that, slipping outside to continue letting the dragonslayers bicker as he stares down their horses. They’re beautiful, tall, strong, black mares, decorated in the metal armor of a war horse and carrying more bags than the simple donkeys of the south, designed to hike around the mountains, can handle. They reek of danger almost as much as their dragonslayer riders do.

Jongdae pulls them into the stables, preparing to unbuckle their armor out of routine, but then remembering that as a peasant, he shouldn’t know how to do that, shouldn’t know if he’s worthy enough to, should be cowering in fear in front of such famed, immortal warriors. His hands are shaking around the clasp as he realises his mistake, muscle memory aching from a lifetime ago, and quickly feels the urge to vomit. The mares huff in their too-small stalls, impatient. Jongdae tries to regain his breath as he squeezes his eyes shut and wonders if the horses are capable of turning him in.

The vermillion bird crest emblazoned on their saddles makes him sick, and if the two younger recruits have been sent ahead to secure a roof and campsite, scope out the area, then god only knows where Yifan and the rest are. Seulgi and Doyoung may be too young to recognise Jongdae, or have any idea of who he is, but Yifan… Yifan trained with them, laughed with them, betrayed them; he’d recognise Jongdae or Lu Han within a single, faulty heartbeat.

Lu Han .

Jongdae moves to re-enter the inn, pretend to apologise about not knowing how to handle the horses and maybe finding some excuse to get out of there as quickly as possible, but the sound of voices makes him pause, stopping by the edge of the hallway to listen.

“--just don’t understand why we have to stay here, this place is a dump,” Doyoung says, and something clutters distantly. Jongdae peers around the edge carefully, watching as Seulgi rights the hook of keys Doyoung had accidentally dislodged.

“Because Yifan said so,” Seulgi replies smoothly, her soft, polite exterior melted away into the hardened dragonslayer underneath.

“But you heard that merchant,” Doyoung whines. “There are no dragons around here other than Kai.”

“Who was already captured weeks ago,” Seulgi waves off, and Jongdae’s eyebrows furrow together in confusion. Kai was dealt with? When? How? He hadn’t heard news of any dragonslayers in the area, and news travels here fast. “Which is how we know Zephyrus will be here. There are no other princelings left, so if a bunch of random people start saying that they’ve seen a princeling flying through, it has to be him.” She shakes her head in exasperation. “We’ve been following the trail hot for weeks, Doyoung, and it stopped here. Have some faith in our leader.”

“I do!” Doyoung quickly argues. “Of course I do, I just… hate it here. It’s so gloomy.”

“It’s what life outside Kast looks like,” Seulgi says solemnly. “The poverty, the destruction. By getting rid of the dragons we’re helping reclaim the country.” She plants a hand on Doyoung’s shoulder, the solid thunk of steel on steel, and Jongdae gags a little. Seems like the King is still feeding his guard the same shit as always. “That’s why we’re here to help.” Seulgi doubles over suddenly, cursing. “ Shit .”

“Are you alright?” Doyoung asks, worried, and Jongdae watches carefully as Seulgi holds a hand against her eye.

“Fine-- it just. Hurts sometimes…” she takes off the eyepatch, only briefly, but Jongdae sees it, an eye bigger than what’s meant for her skull, bulging out and made of glass, swiveling madly within the metal contraption that’s been fixed to her face where her real eye should be, a bright red iris instead of brown. It moves independent of the other, and immediately zeroes in on Jongdae, who quickly ducks back behind the wall while his heart pounds, holding his breath.

“What is it?” Doyoung asks, and Jongdae can hear the frown in Seulgi’s voice.

“Just thought I saw something,” she mutters. “Don’t worry about it. When will that innkeeper be getting back?”

Jongdae sprints out the rear door.

Jongdae runs. He runs, and he runs, and he runs some more, knowing that he shouldn’t, knowing that he can’t risk it, he keeps running even while he’s gasping for breath and finding Lu Han showering in the stall beside their isolated house, quickly exiting at the sound of Jongdae’s early arrival.

“What?” He asks, taking in Jongdae’s gasping countenance, wrapping a woven towel around his waist as his metal arm shines bright gold beneath the setting sun, alongside the glowing, purple core that’s been implanted in the centre of Lu Han’s chest where his heart once was, connected to his arm through wiring that sticks out beneath his thin skin over his left shoulder like coloured veins of ore. “What is it? Jongdae, what’s wrong?”

But Jongdae can’t talk, can barely do much than gasp for breath as his heart pounds overtime, cursing his body for being so fucking weak when Lu Han is right here in front of him and Jongdae can’t even fucking speak.

“Dra--” Jongdae tries, gasping even as Lu Han lies him down as Jongdae once taught him to do like his mother taught him, placing his human hand over his heart to regulate it’s rhythm and his eyes widening at how hard it’s pounding. Jongdae coughs, welty, feeling like there are knives in his chest as he groans in pain.

“Jongdae, breathe ,” Lu Han warns, as if he can’t see that Jongdae is trying to fucking do that, but the reiterations of “In and out, in and out,” Lu Han calmly says helps him focus and control himself, heart eventually calming down.

“Dragonslayers,” Jongdae chokes out, even though his eyes are watering and he feels lightheaded, like he might faint at any moment.

“Here?” Lu Han asks, face draining of colour as Jongdae nods in affirmation.

“Yifan... “ Jongdae manages, and his heart aches in an entirely different sort of pain at the way Lu Han’s face just falls.

“Why…?” He asks, bewildered, numbed from shock.

“They’re looking for a dragon,” Jongdae manages to push himself up until he’s sitting, Lu Han helping him as he does so with his dragon’s arm along his back for support. “Not Kai. A different princeling, Zephyrus.”

“Zephyrus?” Lu Han repeats. “Never heard of him.”

“My thoughts exactly…” Jongdae grumbles, grunting as he holds a hand against his heart, willing for it to slow down as he closes his eyes and exhales slowly, trying to get a grip on both his pulse and his nerves.

“Well, if they don’t know we’re here, then…” Lu Han trails off, unable to finish his sentence. He can’t say we’re safe, right? Without it being a lie. So long as any dragonslayer is nearby, they’re far from safe. He shakes his head. “We haven’t seen a dragon here for decades. If another princeling was here, we’d know about it.”

“I know,” Jongdae gestures vaguely and Lu Han understands immediately, standing quickly to get him water from a nearby skin he must have filled up by the well earlier in the day. Jongdae guzzles it down greedily, then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “If a princeling flew overhead, I think we’d have noticed.” He licks his dry lips then, heart still in pain. “They said… they said Kai was dealt with, that there were no other princelings left.”

Lu Han’s face pinches. “Then they’ve only gotten stronger since we left,” he finishes, and Jongdae nods in agreement. Lu Han pauses, swallowing. “What if… what if we didn’t see the dragon because they’re not following it in its ryong form?”

“What?” Jongdae’s eyebrows raise, and he laughs sharply. “You think this princeling is a shifter ?” It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibilities, especially since nobody in Alkai has said anything about seeing a princeling nearby, and the dragonslayers had mentioned the dragon’s trail stopped here, indicating that it very well could have blended in, but… “Shifters are-- a one in a million chance, there’s no way the dragon could be that evolved, have that much tek .” The only shifter Jongdae and Lu Han have ever met had been the queen herself, as she’d fallen to the ground and begged for mercy before Lu Han plunged his sword through her heart --or rather, her shard.

“If it’s ryong….” Lu Han continues, but even then his logic doesn’t hold out.

“But there’s still no way we wouldn’t notice,” Jongdae reasons. “Because nobody comes to Alkai, and if somebody had we’d--” he stops, suddenly, cutting off, and Lu Han’s face softens in sympathy, Jongdae having connected the dots the same way he had.

“No,” Jongdae whispers firmly and then, a louder, “ No . It’s impossible. I think I’d know if I was talking to a fucking dragon .”

“There’s no way you could have known,” Lu Han says, and Jongdae’s world collapses in on itself because Zephyrus is Sehun . “I couldn’t either but, Jongdae, you have to admit it… it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

It is, and that’s why Jongdae’s heart feels like it’s trying to squeeze out of his ribcage as he struggles to breathe. Following Zephyrus’ trail for weeks, the trail ending in Alkai, no dragons around, Sehun having been searching for a dragon in the mountains, not because he has curiosity or some sort of death wish but-- what? Because they’re friends? Jongdae is going to be sick, but Sehun’s mysterious arrival, mysterious motives, the way his soft edges don’t fit with Jongdae’s picture of humanity… Jongdae suddenly remembers the half-bitten lump of raw iron in Sehun’s bag, and realises he’d been keping it for a fucking snack , and a way to make money in the human world.

“We can’t blame ourselves for not realising,” Lu Han says, as if this is meant to be reassuring, but all Jongdae can register is his blood pounding in his ears. “Only a dragon can see other dragons at first glance.”

Jongdae pauses at that, eyebrows furrowing slightly, because something in Lu Han’s words strike a chord in his chest, and he pales at exactly what.

“Seulgi,” Jongdae blurts, and Lu Han tilts his head slightly as Jongdae repeats, “Seulgi, the dragonslayer, the girl that came she-- she had a dragon’s eye, Lu Han.”

“What?” Lu Han snaps. “Since when the fuck could they do that?” Last time they checked it was pretty much just limbs and hearts but… sensory organs? The King’s Guard tek must be getting stronger, more advanced.

“I don’t know but-- but if she sees Sehun at the inn--” Jongdae falters, and his emotions are tangled up in on themselves. The side of him that sees Sehun as his friend wants to warn him, help him, but the side of him that remembers Sehun is a dragon, and therefore the enemy, is confused as to why he should care anymore, as if it’s possible for a human to stop caring about somebody at the drop of a hat.

“Do you want to save him?” Lu Han asks seriously, and Jongdae knows that if he said yes, Lu Han would, without question, follow him, agree to his plan to warn Sehun and… and then what? Every second they waste away here in Alkai is another second they risk getting found out by Yifan, Jongdae can’t put them both in danger over a stupid dragon.

“No,” Jongdae answers quietly. “Our safety-- your safety, is more important.” He lifts his chin up, to be more assertive. “Sehun’s just a dragon.” A shifter at that, meaning he’s incredibly powerful for his tek to have evolved --the longer a dragon lives, the more they eat, the stronger their magic, the greater their powers. Only dragons of the ryong line can dream of shifting, their bodies’ self-improving abilities learning how to take forms other than that of great mechanical beasts, shifting into other shapes that allow them to infiltrate, blend in, be hidden weapons just like the Progenitors had intended.

And if Sehun is just a dragon, then he’s just a machine that runs on burning fuel, sunlight, and the ancient magic of the Progenitors, tek . He’s a machine, which means he doesn’t have feelings, doesn’t have sensation, every smile he gave Jongdae, every bubble of laughter, every kind thank you and genuine concern --they weren’t real, they’re just programs, observations… things he’s seen function well and recreated in order to blend in, not draw attention to himself. Every moment they spent together, short and small though they may have been, were artificial, faked, and it makes Jongdae nauseous.

If Sehun is just a dragon then he doesn’t have feelings, which means he won’t feel the same betrayal Jongdae feels right now, when he finds himself murdered at the hands of the dragonslayers without Jongdae ever having tried to warn him.

“We need to go,” Jongdae decides firmly. “Now.”

“You’re right.” Lu Han agrees, and immediately stands, walking over to a chest of their belongings at the other end of the room, and pulling out the cloth piled in there to reveal the fake base beneath, slotting that out too.

Lu Han grabs two packs, the most they can carry, and fills it with whatever he can --waterskins and stone daggers, as much coin as they have with them, and lastly, gingerly, he pulls out Jongdae’s bow and quiver, resting it on the floor. It’s been a long time since Jongdae has touched his weapon, as he shuffles over to place a hand slowly over the curve of the polished wood. Years ago, Lu Han had sold his dragonsteel sword for a small fortune, so that they could pay for passage out of Kast. Jongdae had debated leaving his weapon behind, maybe for the small amount of cash it was worth, but Lu Han had insisted he keep it, just in case. When they’d arrived in Alkai, Jongdae had stashed it away, believing he’d never need it again, a symbol of another life, but now, with it in his hands again, a familiar weight even years later… Jongdae inhales.

“We’ll leave at nightfall,” Lu Han says, and Jongdae nods in agreement.

Once they’ve packed as much as possible, leaving nothing behind that could be incriminating, Lu Han and Jongdae set out into the darkness, a bag slung across their shoulders each but a heavier sort of weight holding them down. They’ll have to sneak through the town to get out of Alkai and onto the path, maybe head even further down south to another small, rundown town, and the thought makes Jongdae dizzy. No goodbyes, no farewell, no ability to thank Changmin, for letting Jongdae have a job that didn’t involve putting his heart at risk, or Sooyoung, for letting Lu Han drink half her stock of ale. No thanking Amber for teaching Jongdae how to be a better player at betting cards, or Yunho for giving him free rice, or Taeyeon for letting them stay on her farm, or even Yoona, for putting up with Lu Han for so long.

So many faces, names, people Jongdae thought he and Lu Han had been isolated from, but this whole time they’d been more connected than they should have been. Is it even possible for humans to live within proximity of each other, without lives intertwining, without Jongdae and Lu Han putting themselves --or worse, the people around them-- at risk?

This whole time Jongdae had cursed the autonomy, despised the routine, and only now he’s realising how much he should have cherished it.

The streets of Alkai are as unlit and dark as always as Jongdae and Lu Han creep through in absolute silence, careful to not alert to anyone’s presence as they slip away through the side streets. If Yifan is in town it will only be a matter of moments before somebody somewhere slips up and turns Jongdae and Lu Han in accidentally, they just can’t risk it.

It’s that same silence and emptiness that makes the noise stand out so much, nothing more than a rock skittering along cobblestones, but Lu Han stops in place immediately, causing Jongdae to bump into his outstretched dragon arm as he gestures for him to cease walking, too. It had just been a rock, Jongdae wants to argue, but a rock wouldn’t explain why all the hair on the back of his neck is standing up.

“Well, well,” a familiar voice starts, and Jongdae inhales sharply as a figure steps out from behind a corner. “We were waiting for the princeling to come back but this is certainly a surprise, Queenslayer.” Yifan’s face may be obscured by his dragonsteel helmet, cast in the shape of the vermillion bird’s head, obscuring his visage entirely, but Jongdae can imagine the smug smile on his inevitably disfigured face all the same. “Tell me… how many innkeepers are there named Jongdae that would run away at the sight of a dragonslayer? Not many, I’d imagine. You should have used a fake name.”

“We were going to,” Lu Han replies, his composure weirdly calm despite the fact that they’re both probably going to die here --or worse, be captured. Jongdae’s bow isn’t good in close-quarter fights, and once upon a time, maybe, Lu Han could have taken Yifan down, but his arm is rusted over from mistreatment, and the core that powers it fades dimmer with each passing day that Lu Han refuses to ingest metal… they’re not strong enough. “But it felt a little too tacky, Kris . Enjoy waiting for a princeling that will never come. I scared him off into the mountains weeks ago.” What?

Yifan snarls in response immediately, pulling out his sword. Lu Han smirks.

“That’s okay, you’re a far better prize. Come quietly and we won’t have to hurt you, Queenslayer,” Yifan warns, the dragonsteel blade pointed directly at Lu Han’s nose. “Or Jongdae. The king has put up quite the hefty price for your head alive more than dead, Lu Han.”

“That old man is still upset that I killed his favourite puppet, isn’t he?” Lu Han sneers.

“You betrayed the kingdom,” Yifan replies, and Jongdae sees them now, the rest of his squadron, grouping up at the sound of their leader’s voice. Yifan is just trying to distract them before his underlings can get the surprise attack, and Jongdae grips the back of Lu Han’s cloak in warning, tugging subtly, once, but the sharpened look in Lu Han’s eyes tells Jongdae he’s already realised. “Deserted your duty, murdered your Captain--”

“And my kingdom abandoned me, took my arm, and tortured my brother for speaking against them.” Lu Han huffs. “I’d say we’re even.”

“Far from it, Queenslayer,” Yifan warns lowly. “You’ve done well to hide out of sight for so long, but it’s time you’re punished for your crimes.”

“I don’t know,” Lu Han replies conversationally as he begins to unwind the cloth around his left arm, dropping to the floor so that the rusted, gold dragonsteel glints in the starlight, the scales shifting as Lu Han flexes it experimentally. “I’ve gotten accustomed to freedom, I’m not ready to give it up yet.”

What is Lu Han planning? Yifan’s underlings are encircled around them, leaving no exits behind or to the side, covering the street and even the rooftops, they can’t fight their way out. The weakest point in their trap, of all places, is Yifan in front of them, whose single body can’t block the entire route-- oh. Oh .

“Shame,” Yifan remarks mockingly. “We could have made this cleaner, but you’ve always liked being messy.”

“Now,” Lu Han mutters, and in simultaneous motion he and Jongdae sprint forward, startling Yifan, who reaches for Lu Han with a swing of his sword, predictably, always going for the greater target. You’d think after training together it would have paid Yifan to remember not to underestimate Jongdae, but it’s that same perceived fragility that has always been Jongdae’s greatest advantage, just like Lu Han told him when they were sixteen and forced to enlist, handing Jongdae an old ceremonial bow so that he won’t run out of breath, and telling him that the prettiest things are often the most deadly. Lu Han blocks the swing of Yifan’s sword with his claws, ducking underneath it in the process, and Jongdae knocks into the small of Yifan’s back with his bow, sending his body bending unnaturally as Lu Han’s human hand hits with a palm strike to the gap of Yifan’s chin and throat that shows beneath his helmet, cutting off his breath and knocking his helmet cleanly off, so that the bird-shaped red dragonsteel clutters to the ground pathetically.

It happens almost all within an instant, but even in the darkness Jongdae, heightened by adrenaline and fear, manages to take in Yifan’s disfigured face, covered in dragonsteel plating, more machine than he is man, and twisted in anger. A testament to how much more powerful he’s become in the time Lu Han and Jongdae have been gone, as if his position as one of the three Cardinals wasn’t already enough. For each dragon a dragonslayer has killed, a piece of the dragon’s body is gilded onto their skin --to conquer the dragons, one must become a dragon-- and Yifan, with his patchy, mismatched face, steel crawling up his neck and no doubt the rest of his body, more metal than flesh, would have killed hundreds by now.

Jongdae and Lu Han sprint forward, taking the momentary break in the red squadron’s formation to make a break for it, but there’s no way they can outrun six dragonslayers, not when they know they’re here, not when Yifan will never give up on finding them, especially since they’ve pissed him off. They run as far through the town as Jongdae can manage before he’s gasping, heart pounding, unable to continue, but he pushes Lu Han forward as he stops.

“ Go ,” Jongdae tells him. They’d escaped the King’s Guard once through secrecy and the advantage of surprise, but with them hot on their heels like this, Jongdae has no chance to escape. Lu Han doesn't budge. “Lu Han just-- go .”

“No,” Lu Han tells Jongdae, and he can hear the clunk of steel footsteps from behind them that means they have only seconds of a head start. “No, I can’t leave you Jongdae.” Lu Han grips Jongdae’s shoulders, his eyes wide and frightened. “You’re not the one they want.”

“What!?” Jongdae snaps, but can only watch as Lu Han exhales calmly, and stands in the centre of the road, waiting for the dragonslayers to come. “Are you crazy!?”

“You still have a chance to live, Jongdae, but not if I stay with you.” Lu Han smiles downwards at that, ever the self-sacrificing idiot.

“I can’t live without you,” Jongdae shouts, tugging onto Lu Han’s arm to try and pull him back, but he won’t move. Jongdae sobs, once, frantic. “You can’t leave me!!”

“I’m saving you,” Lu Han reiterates, and pushes Jongdae off of him easily so that he stumbles backwards, still gasping for breath, heart pounding. Lu Han has always been the hero of this story, the one who ended the war, the one who killed the dragon queen, the best fighter, the smartest recruit, the martyr, the person who saved Jongdae, time and time again, but Jongdae wishes now, of all times, that Lu Han could just learn to be selfish.

“Go, Jongdae,” Lu Han tells him. “Keep running, and don’t look back.” He smiles crookedly, insincere. “Find that pretty boy of yours and run away together. Live a happy life, Jongdae.”

Jongdae looks at Lu Han, horrified, and curses the ultimatum that stands before him. Jongdae has no choice, here, it’s either he and Lu Han or just Lu Han --the kingdom has never cared about a deserter like Jongdae, a nobody who poses no threat to their kingdom, a weakling. But Lu Han, the hero of Aes and Queenslayer, committing treason? There’s nobody in the world worth a greater price, not even a dragon.

So Jongdae runs, he turns on his heel, and he runs, because at the end of the day, he’s still a stupid, selfish human and he’ll always choose his own life over the alternative. He runs with tears in his eyes, cursing at himself, and panics when his heart begins to act up again, pounding loudly.

Jongdae gasps for breath, collapsing against a nearby wall and sliding down it as he wheezes, hyperventilating, squeezing his eyes shut with his hand over his heart to try and work out what to do as he listens to the echoes of a battle in the distance. This isn’t-- this can’t be the end, he won’t let it, so long as Jongdae is free there’s a chance for him to save Lu Han, this is their best option, Jongdae knows it is. He breathes shakily, to no avail, his heart refusing to slow down. Fuck, Jongdae stumbles back off his feet onto his backside, the world spinning from lack of oxygen. He needs… he needs a plan, he can’t outrun the dragonslayers, but he can-- he can hide from them, maybe. This is his town, not theirs, the only question is… where…

Jongdae’s eyelids droop as his vision begins to disappear in spots of black, losing oxygen, and the last thing he sees is a figure shadowing over him, before he faints altogether.

Jongdae awakens with a foggy head, staring at a wooden ceiling in soft, yellow light. Where is he? This isn’t home… where’s Lu Han?

Lu Han.

Jongdae bolts upright immediately, and is held in place by Changmin.

“Woah there,” he consoles, pushing Jongdae back into lying down. The inn, he’s at the inn, on the fucking kitchen counter Changmin makes him wipe down every morning. “Careful, Jongdae. Your heart can’t take too much stress.”

“Lu Han--” he croaks out, and Changmin tips a wooden cup against his lips, Jongdae drinking down every last drop of water greedily.

“Taken by the dragonslayers,” Changmin confirms, and Jongdae’s body convulses, once. “I’m sorry.”

They sit in silence then, Changmin at a lack of what to say, Jongdae lost in his own mourning.

“...You saved me,” Jongdae states quietly, head pounding for once, and not his heart. “...Why?”

Changmin’s mouth twists at that, mulling over his word. “Yunho took a pair of wanted posters from Ferrous once, that he’d seen while passing through.” Jongdae’s stomach plummets to the floor. “Showed me that one of the men I’d hired to work on our farm was none other than a deserter of the King’s Guard.” Changmin bites his cheek. “The very same one who was always begging me for a job at the inn, because his heart couldn’t handle physical work.”

Jongdae gulps guiltily, looking down.

“Yet, this is the same man that did any task without question, who helped anyone regardless of who asked, and had done nothing to threaten me, my husband, or our estate.” Changmin shrugs, an amused glint to his eye. “Somehow, the reward of a few aluminium coins didn’t seem worth the loss of somebody as rare as that.”

“You and Lu Han are not alone in how the kingdom has treated you,” Changmin continues quietly. “For decades Alkai hasn’t even been remembered enough to be put on an official map while they tax us to the ground. We owe them no loyalty.”

Jongdae laughs softly, in disbelief, even as his eyes water. “I can’t believe you knew all along.” He wipes at them with the back of his hand, shoulders shaking. “I’ve been getting rid of spawnlings from this inn for years in secret, and this whole time you could’ve given me a raise for it.”

Changmin smiles at that, placing a reassuring hand on Jongdae’s shoulder. “I really did appreciate it… clogged rain pipes are terrible.”

Jongdae laughs again, still somewhat half-crying, but refusing to let the tears fall. He sighs, suddenly, as he remembers himself. “What now?” he asks Changmin. “I can’t stay here anymore.”

Changmin nods in agreement. “You could go to Beryllian, maybe, or Zircona.” The next few towns over. “I have friends there who could give you a job, a place to stay.”

Jongdae considers it, heart aching at Changmin’s kindness, but he shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says quietly. He’s done running; his heart can’t take it for a reason. “Not without Lu Han.” The atmosphere sours even further at that, as Jongdae’s mind replays out the events of last night, chest caving in at the thought of leaving Lu Han behind, but... but there’s still a chance to save him. If Jongdae can get to Kast and maybe find some way to save him but… Jongdae can’t even afford a horse, no coin, no means of getting to Kast before the dragonslayers do and execute Lu Han for his crimes.

Unless.

“Sehun,” Jongdae says suddenly, as he realises what he needs to do, turning to Changmin as he sits up quickly. “Did they take Sehun away too?”

“Sehun? Why would they want him?” Changmin asks curiously. “He came back this morning, just after the dragonslayers left.”

Jongdae huffs in disbelief; looks like they didn’t want to risk Lu Han getting away again, a greater prize in the long run, and maybe they really believed that he scared away the princeling after all. Lu Han saved Sehun, and Jongdae can’t help but wonder if he’d done so on purpose.

“Where is he?” Jongdae asks darkly.

Sehun seems a little surprised as Jongdae barges into his room, slamming the door open while Sehun is re-braiding his hair, plucking out the leftover flowers.

“Wha--” he begins to ask, but is cut off as Jongdae shoves him against the wall, pinning him down with the back of his arm pressed to his throat.

“ You ,” Jongdae spits, furious beyond reason as his vision turns red. “This is your fault.”

“What?” Sehun asks, voice cut off somewhat, as he pretends to struggle for air. “Jongdae you’re hurting me--”

“Stop pretending like you can feel this,” Jongdae hisses, and presses down harder. “ Princeling .”

Sehun stills at that, green and brown eyes widening in realisation as Jongdae scowls.

“You brought the dragonslayers here,” Jongdae snarls. “And now Lu Han is gone because of you. I should kill you.”

“I didn’t--” Sehun’s breath is no longer cut off --which, of course it isn’t, he doesn’t actually need to breathe-- but he still struggles somewhat, beneath Jongdae’s grip. “--I didn’t think they could follow me. I didn’t know you were in danger, Jongdae, please, I would have left if--”

“Bullshit,” Jongdae seethes. “You’re a dragon, you could never care about what humans were getting hurt in your little adventure.”

The morning blooms in Sehun’s hair have wilted overnight, matching his sad --but artificial-- expression of hurt, and he turns away from Jongdae, who grunts as he pushes Sehun back, watching him slide against the wall until he’s sitting on the ground, knees pulled to his chest.

“I may be a dragon,” Sehun mutters quietly, curling into himself. “But I don’t want to hurt humans, the same way you don’t want to hurt us.”

Jongdae grits his teeth. “Don’t confuse my mercy for sympathy, machine. ” Part of him is aware that he’s too hurt and too angry to control his emotions, that he’s blaming Sehun for this simply because he just needs someone to blame, but Jongdae feels so alone and so vulnerable and he needs some semblance of strength to keep himself standing. “Maybe I can’t kill spawnlings because dragons are just too pathetic to deserve death.”

Sehun stands immediately at that, faster than any human could move, for sure, and a dark part of Jongdae relishes in the victory of having angered the enemy, watching the way Sehun’s face hardens as his nostrils flare, staring Jongdae down.

But then, instead of pushing any further, Sehun’s shoulders just fall, and he relaxes. “You’re grieving,” he states bluntly, causing Jongdae to falter. “And you’re blaming me so you don’t have to blame yourself.” He shakes his head firmly, stepping back. “I’m not going to prove you right about dragons, we’re more than just destructive machines.” Jongdae wonders how he’d never realised it sooner, the glass sheen to Sehun’s eyes, the once-awkward movement of his limbs now just a side-effect of a dragon having shifted into a body it’s not familiar with, each move calculated and programmed according the the Progenitors’ ancient tek magic code written in Sehun’s mind.

“I’m sorry about Lu Han, Jongdae,” Sehun says softly, and Jongdae just looks at him, at a complete loss of words. “But there’s nothing you can do to save a deserter.”

Silence settles over them as Sehun’s words churn through Jongdae’s mind.

“Bullshit,” Jongdae bites back suddenly, startling Sehun as he breaks the silence. “That’s bullshit . You want me to just sit back and watch them imprison my brother? Not happening.” Jongdae points a finger at Sehun, accusatory. “I am going to get him back, and you are going to help me.”

Sehun falters at that. “What?”

Jongdae inhales deeply, his heart unreasonably calm. “You are going to help me, because you have money,” Jongdae’s a little short on resources when it comes to travelling back to Kast. “ And because this is your fault.”

Sehun’s expression hardens. “No,” he replies. “This isn’t my fault, no matter what you’d like to believe. I have no reason to help you.”

There’s a small piece of Jongdae, somewhere amongst the rubble that has suddenly become his life, that wonders if things would be different, in another life, where Sehun stayed and was never a dragon and he and Jongdae continued along the start of that path they were on to… something, something more than acquaintances --friends, maybe. A path where the end goal had them in such a relationship that Sehun would have helped Jongdae to get Lu Han back without question.

But this is not that world.

“Well, you have no reason to stay either,” Jongdae replies bitterly. “The dragonslayers already got Kai.”

Sehun’s expression falls. “No,” he whispers, shaking his head. “That’s not possible.”

It is that very same small piece of Jongdae that yearns for another life, that turns pitying at this, wondering how Sehun could possible fake any of his emotions when they all seem so genuine. The rest of Jongdae, however, burnt and broken and hurting, knows an opportunity when it sees one. He can’t save Lu Han alone.

“Look,” Jongdae starts, exhaling, and reminds himself to calm down, to not let emotion reason out over logic when he needs Sehun, and when Sehun is the only one Jongdae can take. Jongdae can’t get to Kast by himself, not when he’s dirt poor, and not when he’s so weak --he needs Sehun for his coin pouch, if nothing else, and the extra manpower. (Dragonpower?) “There’s a possibility that Kai is still alive,” Jongdae reveals, and Sehun’s face turns to surprise at that, a sliver of hope hanging onto Jongdae’s words like deadweight. Jongdae sighs. “He’s a princeling, so his metal is beyond priceless. They’ll be keeping him alive to use all of his parts so it won’t rust away before he dies.”

Most dragons are killed on sight, but sometimes… sometimes they’re able to be captured instead, like Seulgi had said, so that their precious metal can be properly harvested. Once a dragon dies, the tek magic holding their body together dissipates, and so they turn to rust within a few hours. To prevent this, years ago, a young recruit Jongdae never met came up with the idea of keeping the dragons alive for quite some time in a prison to piece them apart bit by bit, to harvest as much of the precious metal as possible. Once dragonsteel is smelted into a careful alloy with carbon, copper, iron and titanium, it no longer rusts away, but the process takes a ridiculous amount of time and resources.

“Help me save Lu Han,” Jongdae finally says, meeting Sehun’s mismatched gaze. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to help you save Kai too.”

Sehun’s jaw shifts as he considers Jongdae’s proposal, and Jongdae inwardly prays to the god he stopped believing in long ago that Sehun accepts his offer. Jongdae is a dragonslayer, Sehun knows this, and probably one of the very few dragonslayers Sehun is going to ever meet who is willing to divulge secrets of the capital in order to save Kai, let alone actually help. Jongdae is betting this plan of mutual need on Sehun’s knowledge that a single dragon can’t find a dragonslayer-caught princeling, but with a dragonslayer’s help, Jongdae’s skills, then maybe…

“We both need each other,” Jongdae says quietly, hoping it might just push Sehun off the edge. “To save our brothers.” A stab in the dark but, well, considering that Sehun and Kai are both princelings, they have to be related some way or another.

Judging by Sehun’s sharp look as his attention suddenly focuses on Jongdae, that stab had landed on its mark just fine.

“...Okay,” Sehun relents eventually, after so much silence Jongdae thinks his heart might have just stopped beating altogether. “Okay, when do we leave?”

Chapter Text

Changmin had found Jongdae with his pack, so he still has most of his belongings, a sleeping bag, spare clothes, water skins, food, bow and quiver --Lu Han, stupidly, had been carrying the money, and somewhere between him sacrificing himself and Jongdae running away Jongdae hadn’t thought to get it off him.

But he’d realised it this morning, before coercing Sehun into agreeing to this… strange partnership, or whatever. Jongdae needs the coin, and an extra pair of eyes watching his back wouldn’t hurt either; Jongdae has never done very well on his own, but he’d always had Lu Han to cope with that.

And now he doesn’t, so Sehun’s the next best choice, which is an almost depressing thought, really. Their mutual need of one another is the only thing that’s telling Jongdae that Sehun won’t just stab him in the back and run, that and the annoying little piece of him that argues that Sehun is nothing if not filled with integrity --he’d witnessed all of it before everything had exploded in their faces and Lu Han was gone.

Integrity, Jongdae thinks bitterly, the same integrity that made Sehun lie about his true nature this whole time?

Jongdae watches Sehun repack his own drawstring pack from behind narrowed eyes, after both agreeing to leave for Kast by dawn. Lu Han would inevitably be taken to the Bone Tower, locked away in the highest security prison cells the King had to offer within Kast, and Kai, well… Jongdae isn’t sure where to find him yet, but he’d have to be in Kast, somewhere. It’s the only city in the world that has the resources to smelt dragonsteel.

Which is another reason as to why Sehun needs Jongdae; Jongdae has a way into the city, knows how to navigate it, Sehun had quietly admitted he’d never been near the damn place, for obvious reasons. They’d have to sneak through the walls if they had any hope of getting inside, but luckily Jongdae knows exactly how to do that, no thanks to prior experience when he and Lu Han had snuck out.

If Kai’s already dead, then that’s fine by Jongdae, but Sehun seems intent on finding out exactly what happened to his brother no matter what. Dragons are usually kept in harvesting for months, though, to get every last scrap, barely kept alive, so Jongdae doubts he is. Not yet, anyway. Jongdae just hopes that even with this journey, they’ll be able to get to the both of them before it’s too late.

“Almost ready?” Jongdae asks quietly from where he leans against the wall, and Sehun pauses, his back turned to Jongdae, before nodding, dead silent. Somehow, now that Jongdae has calmed down, eaten, rested --at Changmin’s insistence-- and processed things a little bit, the atmosphere between them feels more awkward than ever, and he stares at the ceiling in his discomfort, rubbing the back of his neck. Jongdae wants to apologise to Sehun for before, but at the same time, Sehun is a dragon, so does he really deserve it?

And maybe Jongdae shouldn’t hold it against him but god, it’s kind of hard to register, to watch Sehun and actively remind himself that beneath his skin is nothing but metal and machine. He’s only ever met a dragon shifter once, and the encounter had been… brief, it’s like Jongdae doesn’t even know how to treat Sehun anymore, because so much of him is caught up in the past of their relationship which was normal , and the present, which is… whatever this is. Sehun hadn’t meant much to Jongdae, but he’d represented a whole lot more, an escape from boredom, someone who was kind to him, one of the first people to ever be integrated into Jongdae’s life so smoothly --even to such a small amount-- and the fact that all that has shattered now has just left Jongdae… bitter.  Maybe his tiny, fleeting crush had been more dangerous than Jongdae had accredited it for, because now his wings are broken, he never got to fly, and it hurts so, so much.

“We’ll have to hike to Potassian to get horses,” Jongdae says. “From there that should make the journey quicker until Ferrous, but it’ll be on foot through the Barrens.”

“Um,” Sehun starts, finally looking at Jongdae. “I thought we could just… fly.”

Jongdae raises his eyebrows. “Your flying is the reason dragonslayers came here,” he reminds Sehun, who looks down guiltily. “It’s not exactly a stealthy mode of travel. If we want to get to Kast without warning the Cardinals of our arrival or getting shot down, then we’re travelling like normal humans.”

Sehun flinches at that, despite himself. “The Barrens, though?” he questions timidly. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

The whole damn thing is dangerous, and Jongdae gives him a confused face to indicate as such.

“I mean,” Sehun quickly amends. “If we went through the forest--”

“It will take too long, and there are too many people.” Jongdae has faced the Barrens once, and he can do it again; although he’s not looking forward to it. A desert in the centre of the country that once was… something, but nobody really knows what, because the Progenitors turned it into a wasteland with their bombs and weapons and endless fighting. Now, nothing grows there anymore, it’s just a giant patch of sand and dust and searing sun, a wasteland of rubble and mountains of plastic waste and other Progenitor artefacts where no one other than the crazed Marauders are brave enough to live. It’s also what stands between the south of Aes and the capital in the north, contributing to the wealth divide, unless one braves the narrow strip of forest that snakes around the coast and reaches the capital through an extra week’s journey, a single vein of life in an otherwise desolate land. “Trust me on this, Sehun.”

Sehun’s expression turns pinched, like he wants to argue, but they both know the liar in this relationship is Sehun himself, so he stays silent.

“Leaving?” Changmin asks, as Sehun and Jongdae exit the tiny inn room, both nodding in response. Jongdae had told everything to Changmin, his plan and Sehun’s truth, and Changmin still looks a little pale with the fact that dragons can turn into humans. Maybe Jongdae should have left that part out, one of the best parts about being a commoner, back when he was genuinely a commoner, was all the things about dragons Jongdae never knew. To most people they’re just great, mechanical beasts that only a dragonslayer can kill, but to dragonslayers they’re something else entirely, a prize and a reward, glory, safety.

To Jongdae, they’re just the pesky little things that eat coins if he leaves them out and clog up rain pipes, a reminder of his greatest regret, and now, apparently, Sehun.

“The Cardinal and his squad already have a head start, so we’ll need to leave as soon as possible to make sure we get to Lu Han before the King does.” Jongdae pulls his pack over his shoulder, staring at Changmin. “I… I guess this is goodbye?”

“Well, I doubt you’ll be coming back,” Changmin smiles lopsidedly, and part of Jongdae might just actually miss this, after all that time he’s spent hating it. Alkai had become a temporary home of sorts, despite everything. “Good luck, Jongdae.” Changmin rests a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, and squeezes. “Maybe you and Lu Han can come back and visit one day. It’ll be hard to handle the inn without you, but I’ll make sure Taeyeon saves your room.”

Jongdae offers a small, but sad smile, and Changmin’s hand falls, as he just regards Sehun warily, unsure of what to say, and gulping. Jongdae just huffs out an amused breath and tugs Sehun forward.

“Come on,” he urges, out the door of the inn, and down the main street of Alkai, through the town gates and into the wilderness. “Let’s go.”

The first day of the journey is spent, predictably, in silence.

But that’s okay, Jongdae can handle that, walking along the flat path from Alkai to Potassian and keeping his breathing in check, just in case. Sehun’s coin will get them two horses that they can board at the other end in Ferrous, if they’re lucky, so that he and Lu Han can use them on the way back, and save them a whole heap of time getting to Kast, especially with Jongdae’s heart the way it is. Jongdae has planned ahead for them to get to Kast, but he has no idea how they’re getting out and back to Ferrous; it is, in his mind, a one-way trip.

Which isn’t the most positive of outlooks, but they can cross that bridge once they get to it. For now, Jongdae is tunnel-visioned on saving Lu Han, which is why Sehun gripping his arm surprises him so much.

“It’s late,” he says, the first words exchanged since leaving, long fingers curled around Jongdae’s bicep, warm and solid. Jongdae shrugs him off, bristling. “We should rest.”

“We’re nearly at Potassian,” Jongdae argues, continuing ahead. “We can rest at the inn once we’re there.” He’s being stubborn, he knows, but every second he wastes not moving towards Kast is another second Lu Han suffers for Jongdae’s sake. Sehun sighs --which is strange, considering he doesn’t even breathe-- following all the same, and Jongdae gives him a sideways glance. “Do you even need to sleep?”

Sehun frowns at that, his programming making it so that he looks upset again, but Jongdae knows it’s fake. Metal can’t feel. “Yes,” Sehun replies dryly, huffing. “It’s… not the same sort of sleep as you, and it’s not needed as often, but yes. I need rest just as much as you do.”

“Food?” Jongdae asks. “Water?” He’s just imagined that Sehun has been a human this whole time because he’s pretended to be as much, but… Sehun rolls his eyes.

“I need something to fuel my shard, don’t I?” Sehun raises his eyebrows. “It’s no different to the way dragonslayers power theirs.”

“Dragonslayers don’t have shards, they have cores,” Jongdae corrects snidely. Sehun huffs again.

“Same theory.”

“Different practice,” Jongdae’s lips twitch, despite himself. “They’re artificially made.” Man-made replicas of a dragon’s shard, small reactors that convert the energy of blood pumping through it to fusion energy that can be used to move a dragonslayer’s metal limbs. A dragon’s shard, on the other hand, powers its entire body, running on different sorts of fuel depending on what’s available.

“The only part of dragons you monsters don’t attach to your body,” Sehun grumbles, and Jongdae prickles at his accusatory tone.

“Don’t group me in with them,” Jongdae hisses. “Lu Han and I left the King’s Guard behind a long time ago.”

Sehun relents at that, an almost guilty expression calculated onto his face. He flexes his fingers as he stares at his palms. “My body requires everything a human does in order to keep its shape,” he says, instead of acknowledging his mistake. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m not a person.”

“But you’re not a person,” Jongdae replies. “You’re a machine. You’re just a bunch of code planted in metal birthed by the Progenitors’ hivemind.”

“So?” Sehun argues. “How does that not make me a person? I think just like you do, I feel just like you do, I talk and eat and drink but-- but what?” He laughs bitterly. “I don’t breathe air so suddenly I’m not alive?”

“You aren’t alive!” Jongdae yells.

“Yes I am!” Sehun counters, frustrated. “I grow and learn and feel and live and you have no right to tell me I’m not alive when you don’t know a single thing about me.”

At that, he takes Jongdae’s hand, and presses it flush against his own chest, where there’s the solid thump of a heartbeat. Except it’s not a heart, Jongdae remembers, it’s Sehun’s shard, his power centre, pumping around the ichor through his glass veins that keeps the machinery moving and functional. The funny thing is it just… it just feels so much like a heartbeat.

Jongdae avoids Sehun’s eyes guiltily.

“You’re a machine,” Jongdae says quietly, his fingers curling in on themselves where his palm rests on Sehun’s chest, steadily beating beneath his hand. “A weapon, designed to destroy.” Jongdae closes his eyes and sees fire, sees famine and flood, sees hundreds of people from the outer villages north of Kast migrating through the capital’s walls seeking refuge and finding nothing but poverty and a city without the means to feed so many mouths. Jongdae looks up at Sehun, searches his face. “How many people have you killed?”

Sehun meets his gaze unwaveringly. “Zero,” he answers, his shard pulsating evenly. “How many dragons have you killed?”

Jongdae swallows.  It’s certainly not the answer he’d been expecting. “Zero.” It’s partly a lie, but Sehun doesn’t need to know that, lest it deter him from helping Jongdae. Jongdae swallows his guilt; Sehun smiles crookedly.

“Then I guess we’re both pretty bad at doing what we’re apparently meant to.” At that, Sehun curls his fingers tighter around Jongdae’s wrist, pulling his hand back, but not before Jongdae registers just the slightest skip in his shard’s pulse --which is impossible, because it doesn’t function like a heart does, it should be constant. Always.

“Come on,” Sehun urges softly, leaving Jongdae to ferment in a silence of his own making. “Let’s get to Potassian before dusk.”

The stablemaster, Hyoyeon, doesn’t have a lot to offer. Her strongest horses are being kept until the rain clears and spring comes so she can breed them, which leaves Jongdae and Sehun with a pair of twins, a mare and her brother gelding. They’re chestnut brown and snort as Jongdae pats their flank, but they’re broken in and well-trained.

Jongdae buys them both, gesturing silently for Sehun to hand over his coin pouch. Jongdae gives Hyoyeon a few aluminum coins for the horses and saddles both, then leads the animals out of their stables by their reigns.

Sehun makes no move to get closer to the animals as Jongdae fixes his bag to the back of the gelding, figuring he’ll probably have a bit more attitude and Sehun, who has never ridden before since he can fly, will do best on the mare.

“What?” Jongdae asks, watching the way Sehun swallows nervously, staring at the horses from a few steps behind. “You know they could kick you if you stand there, right?”

Sehun steps swiftly to the side at that, and Jongdae swallows his laugh down, biting on his lip to stop from smiling as he realises what Sehun’s hesitation is for.

“You’re scared of horses, aren’t you?” Jongdae asks.

“No,” Sehun quickly replies, although Jongdae is pretty damn sure he’s lying. “They just… don’t like me. And I don’t like them.”

Jongdae snorts at that, unable to help himself. Can Sehun even feel fear? Or did the Progenitors design him so authentically that even Sehun himself can’t tell his emotions aren’t real. Either way, it’s ridiculous, a dragon, the most terrifying beast on the Earth, self-confined to a human body and scared of some harmless herbivores. Unbelievable.

“Animals can tell if you’re nervous, and it makes them nervous,” Jongdae says, roughly taking Sehun’s hand into his and watching as the mare bristles, her skin twitching as she regards Sehun with wary eyes. Gently, Jongdae places Sehun’s slightly shaking hand against her snout, the mare closing her eyes to the touch. “Trust them, and they’ll trust you.”

Slowly, Sehun begins to pat the mare, a little more firmly even without Jongdae’s help, and he smiles. “You’re good with animals,” he notes. Jongdae shrugs in response, he’d spent a lot of time preparing horses as a young dragonslayer, mostly because the Cardinals at the time didn’t think he was very good at doing anything else. He’d quickly grown accustomed as to how to deal with them.

“I like them,” Jongdae answers simply. Even when he was still living in Lithius with his parents, milking the cows and feeding the chickens, Jongdae had grown to have a fond appreciation for the creatures. Maybe it’s that very same part of him that can never bring himself to kill a dragon.

“And they like you,” Sehun remarks, giving the most genuine smile Jongdae has seen from him since they’ve left. It’s strange, almost, the fragility of this moment, setting aside their differences and just… “They can sense you have a kind heart.”

Jongdae scoffs at that; it almost sounds like Sehun is flirting, but then again, maybe he’s really just that genuine.

“Shut up,” he bumps their hips together, pulling himself onto his horse and trying not to think too hard over the old familiarity they’ve fallen into. It’s an oddly comforting thing, considering all the turmoil around them. Thoughts of Lu Han makes Jongdae’s stomach roll. “We don’t have time to waste.”

Sehun bites his cheek at that, still staring at his horse, but wobbly pulls himself up nonetheless, digging his heels into her flank the way Jongdae had to follow after him down the road.

It takes five days to get to Ferrous on what should be a four day journey, if only because the rains flood the marshlands, and Sehun and Jongdae are forced to camp by in a nearby mountain cove, the horses too jittery and nervous to continue through the water and thunder.

Which is fair enough, but sitting in the silence together until nightfall is excruciating, and drives Jongdae to the brink of insanity at how uncomfortable it is. Luckily they’ve made a pretty good routine out of setting up camp by night and taking turns resting, and this is no different; watching Sehun sleep, Jongdae had found, is oddly fascinating. His eyes slip shut, his chest rises and falls only due to the heavy pumping of his shard, no sound of breathing, and it’s an instantaneous process that leaves him oddly lifeless and so incredibly vulnerable.

Breathing, to Sehun, seems to be an instinctual thing, like a habit he’d enforced upon himself to blend in, and when his body is in rest mode he forgets to do it. Usually when a person sleeps, they look their most human, but on Sehun, Jongdae thinks, it’s when he looks the least human, completely still.

Things between them aren’t amicable, but it’s not entirely filled with animosity either. Jongdae hates a gaping silence almost as much as he hates the far-off expression Sehun’s been wearing as of late and the way it twists inside Jongdae’s chest. It’s just so hard to constantly remind himself that Sehun is a dragon when he looks and acts so completely human --which had, in hindsight, probably been the Progenitors’ intentions. The longer they travel in the silence and emptiness, stretches of farmland, marshes and sparse forest, all unoccupied and unhindered by anybody, since the south of Aes is as unpopulated as it is poor, the longer Jongdae grows uncomfortable, and it begins to dawn on him that this… mutualism, between him and Sehun, won’t work if they don’t trust each other. Just as Sehun’s mare won’t obey Sehun if he shakes while pulling himself onto the saddle, the entire concept of saving Lu Han and Kai won’t go smoothly if Jongdae tenses every time Sehun so much as looks at him, like he doesn’t know how to react. They need each other, because they’re the only people in the world willing to go through with this ridiculous rescue mission, and it’s why Jongdae sighs into the night air, steeling his resolve to repair what little had broken between him and Sehun days ago.

Apparently, that’s enough to wake Sehun up; it’s a fascinating process. There’s a deep hum from somewhere in his chest, certainly not from his voice, and then his eyes open, flickering to life before he sits up, wide awake instantaneously.

“You can rest now,” he says quietly, no croak to his voice, no rubbing at his eyes. Sehun is one-hundred percent alert and ready, and it’s bizarre, because even doing something inhuman doesn’t help Jongdae erase the idea that he is a human.

Jongdae nods, not trusting his voice, and lies down on the dirt ground, pushing his cloak up to use as a pillow. It’s hard and uncomfortable, with rocks and sticks digging into Jongdae’s back, but this isn’t a journey designed for comfort.

Jongdae awakens with sunlight poking at his eyelids, and groans as he rises, finding rice porridge cooking in a clay pot over the fire, and Sehun himself not too far from the dirt clearing, holding a handful of flowers as he pokes around the long grass. His hair is unwoven and hangs around his face in soft black waves, Jongdae watching as Sehun effortlessly pushes back the short strands at the front of his face; he is unfairly beautiful.

He also hasn’t noticed Jongdae is awake yet, too busy collecting small flowers and examining a nearby shrub for branches that he snaps off, evidently picky about his selection gathering by the way he prunes the bush so thoroughly, tossing any fragment that doesn’t satisfy him to the ground.

“What’re you doing?” Jongdae asks, once curiosity gets the best of him, trying to keep his tone from seeming too… accusatory, or something. There’s nothing to even accuse Sehun of, but Jongdae has had a lot of silence to stew over the fact that he’d probably taken a little too much of his frustrations out on Sehun. But who can blame, him really, when Lu Han’s absence is like a knife in his chest, and Jongdae needs to distract from the way he’s bleeding out.

“Nothing…” Sehun replies, sheepish, if Jongdae had to guess, and it’s hard to tell if the expression is as fake as Jongdae wishes it was.

“They’re for your hair, right?” Jongdae asks.

“Sorry,” Sehun apologises quietly. “I thought you’d sleep longer--”

“It’s okay,” Jongdae quickly interrupts, Sehun staring at him pointedly enough that Jongdae has to look away. “I mean-- we don’t have to leave yet.”

They’re on limited time, but Jongdae knows pushing Sehun and exhausting both him and Jongdae himself will be even more taxing. He busies himself with stirring the cooking porridge sitting in the clay pot, watching only from the corner of his eye as Sehun sits by the fire and begins the process of re-braiding his hair. His fingers are so fast as they weave the strands together, starting right at the top of his head and intricately slotting flowers and leaves into the twist. At the very end, he loops a band of cloth around the tail, and takes the branch of shrubbery he’d meticulously broken off to place it right in the centre.

Jongdae is openly staring at Sehun by the end of the process, unable to fathom how perfectly he’d woven the brain without being able to see it.

But also…

“You hoard plants?” Jongdae guesses, and Sehun tenses, like he hadn’t expected the question. Jongdae had first thought it was the bizarre fashion of the rich, but… well, Sehun isn’t human, so.

“Yes,” Sehun replies, shoulders raising slightly, defensive. All ryong are born with the glitch, manifesting differently for each individual, Jongdae had just never considered that it could manifest like this. Usually tales of dragons involve them hoarding piles of gold or ancient Progenitor treasures, not strands of grass and common flowers. Jongdae had pictured great caves filled with glittering metals, not a young man with acute braiding capabilities.

It’s just one of those things that makes him rethink exactly what he knows about dragons.

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen another ryong hoard?” Jongdae asks conversationally, and Sehun stares at him for a moment in the silence, making Jongdae wonder if maybe he should have just let the topic drop altogether. He’s pretending like this is a normal thing and he’s curious about it --the latter definitely being true-- making conversation just to fill the itching silence. Sehun looks like he’s trying to decide as to whether this peace treaty is fake or not.

“... There aren’t many ryong out there,” Sehun replies quietly, making Jongdae swallow nervously with guilt. “But my sister did hoard insects. I always found that… disturbing.”

Jongdae wrinkles his nose at the thought in agreement, and Sehun laughs softly, a breathy little thing. It soothes over the atmosphere, and a part of Jongdae relaxes with a gentle exhalation.

“Do you… pick what you hoard?” Jongdae asks, genuinely interested to know the answer.

“No,” Sehun replies, shrugging. “But I think they… match? Who we are?” His mouth twists in thought while he searches for words. “For example, my brother Jongin --uh, Kai--” Jongdae blinks; he hadn’t even realised that they’d been using the human’s name for Jongin all along. “--he’s soft-hearted and likes simplicity, so that’s why seashells fit him well. My sister was brave and fearless, so she had no problem finding the creepiest things with six legs.”

Jongdae laughs at that quietly, then the rest of the sentence catches up with him. “‘Was’?” He asks.

Sehun shrugs. “The iron wars took something from all of us, remember?”

The atmosphere turns grim, and Jongdae fails to save it, allowing a blanket of silence to cover them once more. Part of him almost wishes to say that the ryong’s affinity for hoarding can’t be attributed to their personalities, because they don’t have personalities, they’re just machines; but then Jongdae thinks as to how Sehun wakes up in such an inhuman way, but smiles like a human the next, and now he’s just not sure what’s true anymore.

“Then why do you hoard plants?” He finally feels brave enough to ask, staring at Sehun and feeling the self-doubt pile up on top of itself. Jongdae has been taught his whole life that dragons are the enemy, and yet here Sehun is, completely harmless --helping him, even-- and Jongdae thinks to his first quest as a dragonslayer many years ago, the drake that squirmed beneath his boot and cried out in mercy, in pain. It had been no different to the calls of their eldest hen when his father had chopped off her head so his mother could make her famous chicken stew, and Jongdae has never been able to stop making the comparison ever since.

“That one’s easy,” Sehun says, but his smile is twisted, bitter, and stands out on his otherwise soft and beautiful face in a way that makes Jongdae itch to remove it. “I hoard plants because I’m weak and fragile, just like them.”

They reach the outskirts of Ferrous just after midday, horses trekking stubbornly through the mud and swishing their tails at all the mosquitos that fly about after such heavy rainfall. Ferrous isn’t a huge town by any means, but it’s the main access point between Kast and the south of Aes, making it the biggest town in this half of the country. To Jongdae, the most interesting part of Ferrous is the large clock tower in the centre of the town, with its large, priceless metal bell. The sound it makes is like nothing else in the world.

Jongdae asks somebody working in the rice fields where he can find a stable house, and the man redirects him to a farm not too far down the road, where the keepers are happy to house the two horses for a few copper coins a day; a bargain price, really.

“I think I’ve grown attached to these two,” Sehun says suddenly, as he and Jongdae lead their horses through the barn with its individual wooden stalls. “It’ll be sad to see them go.”

And to think five days ago Sehun was terrified of them, Jongdae hides his smile by tucking his chin down as they exit, continuing towards Ferrous.

“You can always visit them on the way back,” Jongdae replies, with a slight quirk to his lip. Sehun’s flat look is all the response Jongdae needs, heavily implying that Sehun has no intention of ever coming back once Jongin is found. If he’s found. Jongdae snickers.

“Once this is over, I’ll probably be staying in the hive for the rest of my life, just like my sister wants.” Sehun shrugs casually.

“Why’s that?” Jongdae asks, and a sliver of him kind of enjoys this; before, he can now recognise, there was an invisible amount of distance between him and Sehun, no thanks to both of their secrets, but now that’s been broken and fractured, and somehow through the cracks it’s just easier to walk across, like Jongdae is confident nothing else can be damaged more than it already has. It’s a mix of the light friendship they had before everything went to shit, and the raw honest nature of the current. It certainly beats silence, if nothing else.

Sehun is quiet for a moment, considering his words. “Because I was born ryong,” he answers eventually, and Jongdae’s eyes widen, shocked. Dragon aren’t born ryong, they’re born spawnlings, and then they gather their strength by devouring metal until their body can take a new shape, a more powerful shape, depending on the type of metal they’ve eaten. Ryong, as Jongdae knows it, are born from eating iron. The wangyong , the only form of dragon more powerful than ryong, and the class of the Queen herself, are born from eating raw dragonsteel. “My siblings are protective of me. They treat me like a kid.”

“... Are you one?” Jongdae asks, suddenly feeling guilty.

“ No ,” Sehun replies, scoffing. It’s cute, the petulant side to him, and doesn’t exactly deter him from this reputation of being the youngest he’s currently trying to argue against. “By a human’s standards I’m…” he trails off, eyebrows scrunching together as he tries to work it out. “Twenty-six? But to most ryong, that’s just a blink of an eye.”

If Sehun’s twenty-six, barely younger than Jongdae, then… “You were born during the iron wars?” Jongdae confirms. Sehun nods.

“You can imagine why my siblings are protective,” he shrugs stiffly, but Jongdae can tell this is an uncomfortable topic, probably for both of them. Dragons aren’t born so much as they are… planted, seedlings sprouted from the belly of the hivemind and spat into the earth, where the young eggs can absorb metal and energy from around them. It’s why most dragons are born as spawnlings, unable to absorb many resources before they hatch. If Sehun was born ryong, then he must’ve landed somewhere rich in both life and metal; but that thought only coincides with the idea that Sehun hatched from an egg, which is… a very uncomfortable image for Jongdae’s mind to deal with. Did he already have his human body by that stage?

“I think they’d lock me up if they could,” Sehun smiles wryly, distracting Jongdae from disturbing egg thoughts, but he doesn’t look amused.

“Even Jongin?” Jongdae asks, and Sehun softens at that a little bit, shaking his head.

“He’s… less protective than the rest of my family,” Sehun explains. “And he probably acts more like the youngest than I do, but ever since our oldest sister died, well… we’ve all been protective of each other, I think.”

Jongdae nods, as if he could ever understand, and yet, part of him does understand. He had a brother before the iron wars took him, and he has a brother now, albeit captured by dragonslayers and currently being whisked away most likely for public execution, and he understands what it means to protect them more than anybody else. It’s all he and Lu Han have been doing for years.

But at the same time, it’s hard to reconcile the notion of family with a bunch of dragons. As far as Jongdae once knew, most dragons were solitary creatures, keeping to the hive under the order of their Queen, but still within their individual nests. They’re territorial, a side-effect of the glitch in their code that made them turn against the Progenitors to begin with, the same glitch that makes them hoard, but they’re also giant hunks of metal. How could a machine know what it’s like to have a family?

And yet, listening to Sehun, Jongdae has no doubts that Sehun knows exactly what it’s like. Maybe even more than Jongdae, who hardly remembers his life before becoming an orphan, ever has.

“If you’ve lived in the hive your whole life,” Jongdae muses aloud, watching as Ferrous’ clocktower grows larger and larger the closer they get to the town. “Then how come they let you leave?”

Sehun is deadly silent at that.

“ You ran away !?”

“I had to,” Sehun replies, jutting out his chin stubbornly. “Jongin was missing and Soojung --my sister-- was too terrified to lose anyone else. Especially after what happened to Sooyeon.” His expression turns solemn, suddenly. “The only reason Jongin had left the hive recently was because he and Soojung had had a fight. She blamed herself for him missing, and didn’t want to lose anybody else.”

“What were they fighting about?” Jongdae asks quietly.

“Dragons have been disappearing for years, but it got even worse in the recent months,” Sehun admits, and it’s the first time Jongdae’s ever heard of such a thing. “Caught and killed by dragonslayers, because they’re getting better at what they do.” It had certainly seemed that way to Jongdae, too, seeing Seulgi’s glass eye embedded in her skull. “Ever since the new Captain of the King’s Guard…” Sehun shudders a little bit. “I don’t know what it is, but they’re killing dragons regardless of whether they pose a threat.” He swallows. “Soojung’s response was to protect any dragons by keeping them in the hive. Jongin told her she was being an idiot to let fear contain us.”

“And you?” Jongdae prompts, once too much silence has passed. It’s just fascinating to hear about dragons from this perspective, above all else, and Jongdae has never thought he could ever be interested in something this much. It’s a whole other culture and viewpoint from machines Jongdae once thought weren’t even possible of such things, and it sparks an odd sense of longing deep in his chest, that same part of him that hated the monotony of Alkai, and craved something more.

“Me? I’m not sure what the right answer is.” Sehun laughs quietly, a little nervous. “If it was my choice, neither dragons nor humans would need to live in cages like we do. We could just… exist together. Peacefully.”

Jongdae softens at that, and understands now, why Sehun’s siblings are as protective of him as they are; it’s not naivety, per se, but it is a certain quality of innocence about him that begs to be nurtured and cherished. Sehun lives in a world that’s filled with light, and even Jongdae hates the idea of anything darkening it, as if it’s more precious than dragonsteel itself.

“I think dragons would have to stop killing people before that happens,” Jongdae jokes, only to see the stern expression on Sehun’s face.

“Humans kill us too,” he argues, tone harsh. “Regardless of whether we’ve done anything to deserve it. Most of the dragons who fight back are either threatened or their systems have corrupted. You can’t blame an entire species just for the fault of a few individuals.”

“Then what were the iron wars?” Jongdae replies snidely, crossing his arms over his chest.

“The consequence of human greed,” Sehun bites back coldly, and an awkward silence blankets over them tightly, both too proud to admit defeat. It’s true that the humans started the iron wars by venturing out into the dragons’ territory, but they were caged in their cities by fear of the dragons, and running out of resources; can that really be called greed?

Jongdae isn’t certain anymore.

By the time they arrive at the drawbridge of Ferrous, it’s dusk, and the guards yawn as Jongdae and Sehun pass through, used to the constant travellers between the south and the north that seek refuge here during their travels.

Ferrous is a city of moments; everything within its walls, aside from the great clocktower, is just temporary, constantly changing and reforming with the times. When Jongdae had first passed through here nine years ago, the dirt streets had been narrow and the wooden buildings tall; now, the path is wide and paved with cobblestones, and the buildings are built from sandstone and cement, more imposing than their predecessors. It’s clear that in the last few years Ferrous has increased its wealth, because Jongdae can see metal, not only just in the coins strung along tunic belts but the weapons the guards patrolling the streets carry, the displays some stores have behind glass windows, showing off their wealth.

It’s a stark contrast to the dirt and mud of Alkai a week away, of which half the people living there have never even seen steel before, and it settles in Jongdae’s stomach bitterly.

The amount of people here make him nervous, so Jongdae pulls up his hood, wondering if it’s even worth it. His wanted poster has probably rotated out of here along with the rest, in the ever-changing motion that is Ferrous, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling nervous about it. It is, in hindsight, one of the lingering side-effects left over from being with Lu Han for so long, who has always had to hide his face.

But Lu Han isn’t with Jongdae anymore, and suddenly his nervousness just turns into misery and regret, even as he tips his hood back down again.

At the very least Sehun, who apparently has been hiding in some mysterious dragon hive for all his life, looks just as uncomfortable as Jongdae, gaze nervously flitting between all the people walking around them, evidently overwhelmed but seemingly curious, too. Jongdae wraps a hand around Sehun’s wrist to keep him focused and tug him forward.

It’s practically impossible, though, as Sehun’s attention keeps being drawn away by the copious amount of trinkets on display in the market stalls. Jongdae does buy a few things, here and there along the way, off of a scavenger hauling out Progenitor tek she doesn’t even know the function of, as well as more food and supplies for travelling into the Barrens, but other than that he finds himself answering Sehun’s timid questions of what does that do as he points at common kitchenware and what’s that called in relation to some odd-coloured jewelry.

It’s sort of… endearing, really, once Jongdae allows himself to relax and washes away his impatience, the childlike wonder Sehun holds everything in regard. It’s that light again, Jongdae thinks, that one that separates Sehun from most other people; it’s as if he doesn’t even see the shadows, sometimes, the lines of hunger around the shopkeeper’s mouths, the desperation in their eyes as they haggle Sehun to buy their wares, knowing the consequence if they can’t meet the tax demand. It’s a special sort of innocence that Jongdae admires.

Eventually they make it to the town centre, right beneath the great metal bell at the top of the central spire, ringing out in a sweet cadence as Sehun and Jongdae make it just in time for the first evening strikes.

“It’s beautiful,” Sehun says quietly, and Jongdae nods in agreement, also dazed, before he spots a few city soldiers weaving their way through the crowds. He watches them warily on instinct, fearing for his safety, but they brush past Jongdae and Sehun without even batting an eye, heading towards two people shouting something Jongdae can’t hear to a crowd at the side of the central plaza. They’re wearing modest, dark clothing, and their skin is painted with the bizarre symbols of a Progenitor circuit board; dragon devout, crazed fools who believe the end of the Progenitors was a blessing, and that humans are measly pests upon the blessed dragon’s earth, who must repent for their sins by serving their masters. Jongdae gives Sehun a sideways glance, imagining worshipping him as a god, and snorts to himself. Preposterous.

He leads Sehun away from the commotion as the guards confront the devout, and huffs when Sehun predictably stops at another market stall, this one selling strange assortments of exotic flowers.  Sehun is staring at a particularly beautiful yellow flower, bright and blooming with hundreds of petals, rare enough that Jongdae doesn’t even know it’s name, and Jongdae promptly plucks it from the vase.

“How much for this one?” He asks the florist, who says ten copper coins, and Jongdae easily hands her the amount while passing Sehun the flower. Sehun just stares at him dumbly.

“What?” Jongdae asks, growing more nervous by the second. He knows Sehun wouldn’t have bought it on his own, too afraid to ask, and he also feels… somewhat apologetic to Sehun, for treating him how he has. Maybe this can be the start to make up for it. “You wanted it, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Sehun admits sheepishly, taking the flower and tucking it behind his ear before giving a genuine smile. “Thank you.”

Jongdae swallows and looks away.

Eventually, Jongdae politely asks a shopkeeper at a stall of woven bracelets for directions the the nearest inn, and she gives him somewhat confusing details, but they find it eventually, a wooden house with a creaking sign on rusty copper hinges, swaying in the breeze.

“Will that be a room with one bed or two?” The innkeeper questions happily as Jongdae asks for a room, suddenly flustered.

“Two,” he answers immediately, face warm with her implications because apparently Jongdae is an embarrassed teenager. He doesn’t get it --when people implied such things about him and Lu Han he was able to brush it off and laugh, even encourage then, just to piss Lu Han off, but when it’s Sehun…

Whatever. Jongdae shakes the embarrassment off, letting the innkeeper show them to their room, and immediately sliding the pack off his back as he plants himself onto one of the futons immediately, face first.

“A bed ,” he groans in relief, knowing well that it will be the last one he’ll see for quite some time. Jongdae snuggles into it stubbornly, pulled from his sweet relief only by Sehun’s gentle laugh, a hand over his mouth.

Jongdae points at him, accusatory. “You don’t even sleep.” He scoffs. “You don’t get the right to laugh at me.”

Sehun rolls his eyes, although it’s less scathing, more fondness, almost. If their precarious truce could be labelled as that.

“Just because I don’t sleep doesn’t mean I don’t like comfort,” he mumbles, sitting himself on the edge of the futon and wiggling his toes, fingers gently brushing over the flower petals. The tendons of his feet flex and everything; it’s remarkable how human-like the architecture of his body truly is, down to every last detail. “I’m hungry though. We should eat.”

Jongdae suppresses any urge to make a jab at Sehun feeling hunger, remembering his body genuinely does need a fuel source in order for his shard to keep powering his body. “You go,’ Jongdae insists, waving Sehun off. “I’m tired. I think I might just rest while I can.”

From here on out it will be nothing but the Barrens and its sea of endless sand; this is the last chance Jongdae will ever get for some much needed catch up sleep where shifts aren’t required in order to keep watch.

Sehun hums noncommittally. “I can bring you back something, if you’d like,” he offers, almost a little hopeful.

“Yeah,” Jongdae agrees, swallowing nervously, although not understanding why Sehun’s optimistic expression makes him feel as such. “That’d be good. Thanks.”

Sehun nods, grabbing his coin pouch and tying on his boots by the door before it clicks gently shut behind him. Jongdae sighs in the silence, welcoming the peace and quiet, as well as some time to think to himself. He fiddles with the string of his pants as he stares at the ceiling, worried for Lu Han, inevitably, worried for their time limit, but worrying can’t help him. There’s nothing they can change about what’s happened; only push forward.

Jongdae rolls onto his side at that, inhaling slowly to calm his heart. Something between him and Sehun feels different, and Jongdae isn’t sure what it is or when it’s changed, but it’s… nice. He really couldn’t have done this journey alone, and having the company has helped, he thinks, to ground him. Sehun’s optimism is contagious regardless of whether he’s expressing it or not, like the light from his world bleeds into Jongdae’s, and he’s beginning to believe that saving Lu Han and Jongin isn’t as impossible a task as it seems at first glance.

Soothed, Jongdae’s exhausted eyelids slip shut, and he feels himself drift off into a dreamless sleep.

Jongdae is awoken by the scent of fresh rice and beef stew, causing his empty stomach to rumble rather loudly as his eyes flutter open, stretching.

Sehun is sitting at the table in the centre of the room, and Jongdae smiles at him sleepily from the futon on the floor, filled with a strange surge of affection, for a multitude of reasons.

“Hey,” Jongdae greets, standing as he scratches at his stomach. “What’d you get?”

It’s laid out on the table in wooden pots, evidently from the innkeeper’s own kitchens, still steaming on the tray beneath.

“Nothing too interesting,” Sehun replies, and scoops out the dishes into a small clay bowl, handing it to Jongdae. It’s painted a bright white and has the crest of Ferrous carved into it, glazed so that it’s shiny even despite its cracks. Much like the rest of Ferrous --pretty on the outside, damaged within. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” Jongdae admits, finding it’s honest. “How long was I…?”

“Not long. An hour, maybe two.” Sehun shrugs, wooden chopsticks poking at his own bowl idly. “It was… interesting, to see even more of the town. Humans are so weird.”

He wrinkles his nose cutely at that, and Jongdae can’t help but laugh, despite the absurdity of the conversation. “How so?”

“Just so…” Sehun frowns at his bowl as he picks his words. “ Weird , I don’t know. Making fancy things nobody even needs, but then constantly trying to own the fancy things? Or trying to make fancier ones?” Jongdae gives him a confused look at that, so Sehun elaborates it to, “Take houses, for example. A family of three will always try to build the biggest fanciest house… why? You don’t need that much space. It won’t make you any happier.”

“It’s not about living space or happiness,” Jongdae says amusedly, holding a hand over his mouth as he chews his food, then swallows. “It’s about power and wealth, and confirming status.”

“But see, that also doesn’t make sense,” Sehun quickly responds. “Why do that? Who does that serve? Why hoard wealth and not share it? Wouldn’t that make everyone happier?”

“It’s not that simple,” Jongdae says, laughing nervously, because it really isn’t. Suddenly, the concept of explaining the economy to somebody whose culture doesn’t have such a thing seems a little daunting. “Don’t dragons… I mean, don’t you show off your nests or anything?”

Sehun shrugs. “Not really? I don’t think we care about that sort of thing.”

“You mean you’re programmed to follow the hierarchy,” Jongdae points out, jabbing his chopsticks at Sehun through the air, who frowns, at a lack of response.

“We can disobey our programming, you know,” he mumbles defensively. It’s how they’d destroyed the Progenitors after all, turning on their creators. Jongdae is well aware.

“You sure about that?” Jongdae teases, and leans over to touch one of the flowers in Sehun’s hair to prove his point, the same one Jongdae had given him. Sehun doesn’t blush, doesn’t have the blood to do it, but if he could, Jongdae imagine he would be, staring at Jongdae a little incredulously, and a lot flustered. It’s weird, to say the least, and Jongdae recoils quickly, like he’d done something he shouldn’t, a moth flying too close to a flame and getting burnt.

“We’re more than just machines,” Sehun says quietly.

“I know,” Jongdae replies, and is almost as surprised to hear it from his own voice as Sehun evidently is. It’s… complicated, but Jongdae has wasted too much emotional energy trying to convince himself that the Sehun in front of him isn’t a person, when everything he does just proves Jongdae wrong. Jongdae understands that, now, even if part of him wants to fight it. For what reason, he isn’t sure, but rearranging your worldview isn’t easy, and a fraction of Jongdae resists the change, even as the rest of him succumbs to it. “I--” Jongdae inhales, pushes away his pride. Sehun’s smiles, his sadness, his anger and his hurt, his childlike curiosity and wonder, his innocence, the genuine apprehension he wears on his face, now, watching Jongdae warily… that’s not a machine’s reaction. That’s Sehun. “--I’m sorry. For ever thinking you weren’t.”

Sehun looks taken aback by that, mouth parting neatly. “Oh,” he says lamely, evidently at a loss of what else to add. Jongdae opens his mouth, closes it, squeezing his eyes shut briefly in frustration. It’s more difficult to word what he wants to say than Jongdae wishes, but that’s the cost of pride.

The thing is, Jongdae knows what it’s like to be discriminated against, knows what it’s like to have people judge you at surface value and fill you into predefined shapes, and while it certainly isn’t the same as Sehun’s case it’s… oddly similar. Jongdae has been told his whole life he’s weak and useless, all because his heart doesn’t work properly; and he’d subjected Sehun to no better treatment. Even when he’d known Sehun and thought he was human, Jongdae had thought he was kind, generous, soft-hearted, and he now knows none of that was a lie. Hell, Sehun agreed to all of this, didn’t he? Even if Jongdae promised his own help in return, it still speaks miles as to just how selfless Sehun is.

And that causes dissonance with everything Jongdae once knew about dragons, that Sehun is kind, that he can be hurt, sad, angry, that he loves his family, his sisters and his brothers, flowers, that they have customs and cultures, traditions, societies. And to think that’s just the surface level, that there’s an entire world out there that humans know nothing about, and Jongdae was so quick to shun it, because of preconceived notions wired into him from a life he’d left long ago… it tips Jongdae off balance, to say the least, but he’s slowly coming to right himself, and it’s okay. He’s okay.

“Apology accepted,” Sehun says eventually, giving a lopsided smile, and Jongdae relaxes instinctively. It feels… comfortable between them, and Jongdae hasn’t realised how much he’d needed comfort without Lu Han around until now. “I’m glad you came around.”

Jongdae swallows at Sehun’s hideously endearing smile, but finds himself returning it all the same. “I’m glad too.”

Supplies bought and waterskins filled from the nearby well, Jongdae and Sehun set out for the edge of the Barrens as soon as morning comes, the guards at the northern gate giving them questioning glances, but sparing no concern for the random travellers’ suicide wish. They won’t be expected to be killed at the hands of Marauders, whose appearances are few and far between, rather to be swallowed by the endless plains of sand and plastic, lost in the great synthetic wasteland.

It’s mostly sparse forest, at first, dead trees spaced apart, broken and fallen with rotting wood. They won’t reach the Barrens for another day, but Jongdae’s stomach already rolls anxiously at the empty stretches of land, shadowed by death and decay. The Progenitors destroyed this area, and even centuries later it has yet to heal, poisoned by radiation and fire. The Barrens aren’t the only patch to suffer like this; most of the world is said to be as bare and destroyed, only a few scraps of land fertile enough to sustain life, where dragons are consequently found. It’s said that beyond the destroyed lands surrounding Aes, more life may be found, but no one has ever come back alive to support the tale.

Jongdae had splurged back in Ferrous, buying Progenitor tek , but it makes for convenience. As they agree on a campsite, Jongdae places the metal disk flat on the ground, and presses a small button on the side, so that a fire erupts from its centre magically. They won’t find wood in the Barrens, and the desert nights will get cold, so Jongdae had figured he could justify this purchase.

Sehun’s eyes widen a little in wonder at the small disk, as if his own existence isn’t an example of the magical tek , sitting cross legged in front of the fire patiently as Jongdae busies himself boiling water in a clay pot.

“How did you know what this did?” Sehun asks curiously eventually, tapping the edge of the disk beneath the flame.

Jongdae shrugs. “We used them in the army,” is all he says on the matter, pouring rice into the pot and stirring idly with a wooden spoon. “I don’t think the scavenger realised what it was.”

“It’s amazing, don’t you think?” Sehun asks absentmindedly, still staring at the flame. “The Progenitor magic.”

Jongdae smiles crookedly. “You know you’re a much more impressive example, right?”

Sehun blinks, a little surprised. “Oh,” he says, and Jongdae laughs. Sehun is so… cute, sometimes. “I kind of… forget.”

It must be a strange existence, to be a by-product of a long forgotten race Sehun has never even met. What is it like, Jongdae wonders, to know the reason you exist?

“Can’t you breathe fire?” Jongdae asks, arching an eyebrow and feeling a little uncomfortable with the question. He knows wyverns are certainly capable of it, considering one burnt down the entirety of Lithius, but it’s hard to imagine Sehun’s body ever transforming into a giant metal dragon, yet that’s the wonder of tek .

Jongdae winces at the sadness that bubbles up in his chest, then looks at Sehun, and it just… dissipates. How can he blame all dragons for the mistake of one? Sehun didn’t burn down his family, but in a way, maybe humans starting the iron wars did.

“Do you think all dragons breathe fire?” Sehun replies petulantly, scoffing in offense. Jongdae can’t help but smile. “So I bet all humans eat each other then, too? Like they do in our fairy tales?”

“You have fairy tales about humans?” Jongdae asks, a little shocked, but amused too.

“Of course,” Sehun bristles. “Sooyeon told them to me all the time, to keep me away from them.”

And to justify the war, Jongdae realises belatedly, because he’d been told stories of dragons for the exact same reason.

“So… you don’t breathe fire?” Jongdae confirms, and Sehun scoffs again.

“ No ,” he replies. “Fire is tasteless. My tek magic is far more impressive.”

“Of course it is,” Jongdae teases, rolling his eyes. Sehun huffs a flyaway strand of hair hanging over his forehead.

“I’d prove it to you, but you’d probably freak out.” Sehun says, and when Jongdae looks up, about to defend himself, he’s caught off-guard by the image of Sehun smirking, the ass.

“Oh really?” Jongdae goads.

“Yep,” Sehun responds easily, radiating smugness. “Your tiny human mind can’t comprehend my tek .”

“So it’s that and not the fact that you don’t have any?” Jongdae asks, and Sehun smiles.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” His mismatched eyes are twinkling with an amount of mischief Jongdae hasn’t witnessed since Alkai, and it makes him indescribably flustered; he doesn’t show that, of course, refusing to let Sehun win. It feels good to banter like this, like friends; it’s comforting.

“So your fairy tales involve humans eating each other?” Jongdae asks, looping back to a previous topic, and Sehun smiles to himself, noting the deflection, evidently, which in a way is its own kind of victory. Damn.

He hums in agreement. “Eating each other, using dark tek magic to control the world…” he trails off. “My favourite was about the human sorceress and the princess ryong, though.”

Jongdae laughs, and at Sehun’s confused look, says, “Sorry, it’s just… we have one about the dragon sorceress and human princess.”

“Huh,” Sehun muses. “With the heart eating and…?” Jongdae nods in confirmation. “Weird.”

It is a little strange. “Maybe humans and dragons have a lot more in common than we’ve realised,” Jongdae jokes hesitantly.

Sehun hums, this time deeper in thought. “Maybe…”

They reach the Barrens by the next day, and Sehun seems shocked at the sight. Jongdae can’t blame him. The first --and only-- time he’d seen the Barrens, Jongdae had morbidly marveled at the empty stretches of land, the cracked, dry earth and plastic mountains. It had become a wasteland of sorts, to the Progenitors, after one of their great metal wars that turned it barren to begin with, and thus is filled with old relics of the fallen world, unhelped by the humans that wrung out each city and got rid of the artefacts they could not destroy by leaving them in the desert. It’s a graveyard from another time, a monument dedicated to the ancient forgotten gods. Even now, just at the outskirts, Jongdae can make out the Progenitor’s strange, square-shaped characters in fading prints on plastic signs, all bright colours and glass tubing. Nothing of value is ever found out here, other than the indestructible plastic humans don’t know how to destroy or recreate, not unless you’re a scavenger brave enough to rummage through the rubble in search of ancient treasures, or a Marauder stuck out here with nothing else to look for.

Sehun walks up to one pile at one stage, curiosity getting the best of him as he tilts his head. Jongdae sighs, not appreciating the detour as the wind howls through the empty fields of land, whipping at the hem of his cloak, but follows him anyway.

“What is it?”

Sehun doesn’t respond, still looking at what greets him from the rubbish. It’s a picture of a woman with incredibly smooth skin holding up a bottle of what looks to be some sort of… tonic, or potion, maybe? And smiling, staring directly at Jongdae and Sehun. The Progenitor’s ability to create life-like art must have truly been something to be feared, it almost looks like the woman is actually trapped in the plastic, despite the faded print.

“This is so… strange,” Sehun says finally, eyebrows furrowed together like he’s trying to make sense of the litany of characters dotted around the woman’s face, fingertips brushing over the grime-covered surface gently. “I’ve never seen so many Progenitor remains before.”

Jongdae glances up at the pile in front of them, the scraps of plastic it’s composed of, shards of nothingness that sometimes when he looks at hard enough, can imagine a shape. He thinks he sees a chair poking out towards the middle, another something that looks like a chest or trunk one might store clothes in, but on tiny plastic wheels, the metal that once zipped it’s two halves together long since harvested.

“It’s weird that they’ve left so much behind,” Jongdae thinks aloud, crouching down to pick up a small toy shaped like a cat at his feet. It stands on two legs and has a bow on one of its ears, Jongdae just doesn’t understand what that meant to the Progenitors. “And yet we know almost nothing about them.”

Sehun makes a noncommittal noise of agreement. “They’re the reason I exist and yet…” he trails off. Jongdae doesn’t wait for him to finish, standing up.

“Come on, we have a long ways ahead of us,” he encourages, tugging on Sehun’s sleeve. “Let’s just get as far as we can before nightfall.”

Sehun sighs, but follows nonetheless, silent in agreement. Jongdae catches his eyes lingering on the piles of waste that once belonged to the creatures that created him, but doesn’t say anything about it.

Four days into the Barrens, and Jongdae is getting nervous. Their water rations are running far too low for his liking, and he’s yet to see the outline of Kast in the distance. They’re definitely headed north --Jongdae didn’t buy the Progenitor’s tek wayfinder-glass for nothing, red arrow pointing at the N that indicates north steadily, but maybe they’re travelling too slowly, he can’t be sure.

Either way, his antsiness isn’t helped by the childlike curiosity that has Sehun stopping at the mounds of rubble every now and again to pick out strange artefacts and stare at them in amazement; a rubber toy shaped like a bone that squeaks when he presses it, a flat plastic shell with a cracked glass face that’s empty inside, stripped of its metal, a paper book that’s so much thinner and smaller than the leather bound tomes or paper scrolls Jongdae is used to seeing. They’re bizarre, yes, but Jongdae and Sehun don’t have the time to waste exploring, and it’s only Jongdae’s self-control that keeps his temper at bay.

Another annoying factor is the fact that Sehun seems to grow more and more on edge each day, complaining about the sun or the wind or the sand, about the lack of life. It seems that not being surrounded by plants pushes Sehun somewhat to insanity, it just bothers Jongdae that he has to be on the receiving end of it.

“Can we rest yet?” Sehun complains for the nth time, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m exhausted.”

“Exhausted?” Jongdae scoffs. “Right. I’m sure the giant machine that runs on energy from the sun must feel a lot more tired than the human with a heart disease.” Jongdae pats his chest to prove a point, and Sehun frowns, looking down guiltily.

“You don’t have to be so mean about it,” he mutters. “If you want to rest too, we can.”

“We don’t have time to rest, Sehun,” Jongdae argues for the umpteenth time. “We’ve already wasted enough time as is, if we want to save Lu Han and Jongin--”

“Fifteen minutes of rest won’t determine life or death,” Sehun argues back, and Jongdae grunts in frustration as he spins around, fully prepared to lecture Sehun into the ground, when a noise stops him, freezing him in place.

It’s nothing more than the tap of plastic against plastic, but in a barren field of silence, death and destruction, it may have been an explosion.

“What?” Sehun asks.

“ Shh ,” Jongdae quickly urges, glancing around. “I heard something.”

Slowly, Jongdae creeps towards the source of the noise, right to the side of a plastic mountain. He sees nothing, at first, but then he hears it again, like something is rustling the plastic, jostling it together. He catches movement of a square sheet of it, printed bright red and green but having faded over time, and gingerly, Jongdae peels it back.

Which is when he sees a human face staring back at him, grinning, feels something hit the back of his head, and blacks out.

Jongdae wakes up with a groan, mouth dry and head distinctly pounding. He can tell even without touching it that there’s a huge bruise there, and when he raises his hand to confirm the fact, it doesn’t move, mostly because his arms are bound.

Great.

Jongdae wriggles, and that’s when he hears Sehun say, “Don’t bother, the rope is plastic.”

“Sehun?” Jongdae asks, even though he knows it’s him, and gets a characteristic sigh in response, feeling a hand press against his hip from behind. Jongdae tries to glance over his shoulder, but can only just see Sehun’s broad outline from behind whatever giant plastic thing it is they’ve been tied to.

“You’re awake,” Sehun breathes out in relief. “Finally.”

“They knock you out too?” Jongdae asks, and Sehun makes a noise in agreement.

“Short circuited my systems for a little while there, but I booted up again as soon as I could,” Jongdae doesn’t really know what any of that means, but he doesn’t think now is a great time to ask.

“Who took us?” Jongdae asks, and feels Sehun shift behind him. “Marauders?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. “What are Marauders?”

Great.

“People who live in the Barrens,” Jongdae explains. “Outcasts. Criminals.”

“And you decided we’d go for a lovely stroll through their domain?” Sehun hisses.

“I’ve never even seen one, no one has,” Jongdae petulantly returns. It appears they’re both a little thangry --thirsty angry-- or irritated from being tied up. Either or. “They’re not exactly common.” Seriously, what are the odds ; they must have heard Sehun and Jongdae arguing from miles away, with the rate they’d been bickering.

“But they are if you walk right into them,” another voice suddenly inputs, and Jongdae jumps, despite himself, feeling his heart ratchet it up a notch. Great, just what he needs, a dirty marauder leering at him and a near heart-attack.

“We aren’t here to cause you any trouble,” Jongdae tries to reason, hoping his voice isn’t shaking as much as it feels like it is. The marauder is tall, imposing, wearing mismatched scraps of coloured plastic as armor, face wrapped in a scarf that hides his visage other than a pair of narrowed lenses over his eyes that shift as they zoom in and out and focus on Jongdae’s face. Progenitor tek , no doubt, must help to quickly scan through all the plastic and sand. “Just let us go.”

“No can do pretty one,” the marauder sighs in mock disappointment as he steps closer, Jongdae scowling as a dirty hand hooks under his chin and cranes his face up, forcing him to meet the marauder’s lenses. “Figured a cute thing like you and a dragonslayer all the way out here must be worth a fortune to the right kinda people, y’know? Running away from something?”

More like running towards something but-- wait, why do they think Sehun is a dragonslayer? Sehun, behind Jongdae, is pensively silent.

“Folks in Kast pay big rewards for their little ones that get away,” the marauder continues, and Jongdae can smell his foul breath, grimacing. “I’m just wondering what will pay better, the King for a dragonslayer betrayer or a slave master for you?”

Jongdae scowls at that, jerking forward and snapping his teeth at the dirty hand, but the marauder just pulls back in time, laughing. Sehun, behind him, is dead silent, but Jongdae can feel his icey anger, radiating in the air as Sehun’s fingers curl around Jongdae’s hip bone encouragingly, a comforting weight.

The marauder just walks away while still laughing, over a mound of plastic and back to join the others, most likely, and Jongdae lets his shoulders fall as soon as he’s out of sight, shuddering.

“We’ll get out of this,” Sehun reassures him. “I promise.”

“Why do they think you’re a dragonslayer?” Jongdae asks, instead of focusing on the way he can still feel the marauder’s greasy hand beneath his chin, crawling over his skin like a shadow he can’t shake off, disgusting and dirty.

“They saw my shard and thought it was a core,” Sehun replies, and Jongdae breathes out in relief, because thinking Sehun is a dragonslayer is much, much better than thinking he’s a dragon. “It’s pretty ironic, huh? That they think I’m the dragonslayer here.”

“It’s so funny I just can’t laugh,” Jongdae says dryly, but Sehun actually does laugh behind him --quietly, albeit hysteric.

“Sorry, I don’t function well under panic,” Sehun admits once his fit is done, and Jongdae chuckles breathily, despite himself. “What’re we gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” Jongdae replies. “I’m thinking.” He has no doubt that Sehun and his dragon strength could easily break their restraints, but then there are so many other problems to deal with, like escaping the camp, getting their supplies back, fighting the other marauders, not getting chased by them all over again… it’s looking more and more hopeless the more Jongdae thinks about it. He really should have planned ahead for getting captured by desert wanderers, it seems.

“They have a hover car,” Sehun says suddenly, startling Jongdae’s train of thought.

“What?” He asks. “What about it?” Other than the fact that it’s one of the most prized possessions in the world, how the hell did a bunch of Marauders find it in a wasteland like this? Only the richest of the rich in Kast have access to such powerful tek .

“Well, they’re taking us to Kast, aren’t they?” Sehun asks. “Who says we have to break out tonight?”

Jongdae opens his mouth, closes it, realises .

“Oh holy shit,” he says. “You’re a genius.”

Sehun just laughs quietly. “I’m a genius only if you work out the ending bit.”

A plan is already coming together in Jongdae’s head. “You can break these restraints, right?”

“I am a war machine of death,” Sehun replies dryly, making Jongdae grin, despite their current situation of being tied to a plastic pole in the sand back to back.

“Then save your strength,” Jongdae says, still smiling. Hope floods through his body, and alongside it, relief, invigorating him. “I have an idea.”

Jongdae doesn’t really fall asleep, tied to Sehun like that, but he does enter some sort of near enough state to it, drifting in and out of consciousness. He’s woken only by a Marauder kicking at his leg and forcing him to drink from his own water rations, a pathetic mouthful of next to nothing. They don’t feed either Jongdae nor Sehun, and Jongdae can’t say he’s surprised about the fact.

Three marauders manage to wrench the plastic pole out of the sand, and then they’re holding rusted metal swords against Jongdae and Sehun, forcing them to walk forward. Jongdae has only ever seen a hover car a handful of times in his life, but it’s clear this one has been pulled from the Barren rubble, dirt covered and rusted and spluttering even now. Either way, the Marauders hall Sehun and Jongdae onto the flat back of the hovering vehicle, before all four of them pile into the front cabin, laughing about something Jongdae had purposefully tuned out.

He hears Sehun sigh behind him, just before the car starts moving. “This is going to be a shitty way to travel, isn’t it?”

Jongdae just laughs. “At least it’s quick.”

They spend the day’s ride mostly in silence, until Jongdae just gets bored and uncomfortable and starts playing a game of I Spy which he then has to explain the rules to Sehun, who has never played it before.

“How is this going to work?” Sehun complains. “We’re tied back to back, we see different things!”

Jongdae just laughs, despite the situation. Or maybe because of the situation. Having Sehun behind him comforts Jongdae, gives him hope, keeps him grounded; makes him glad that Sehun is with him, if nothing else.

At night when the car is stopped and they pull over to set up a campsite using fire generated from Jongdae’s Progenitor fire-starter, the assholes, Jongdae and Sehun are forced to watch them eat, almost like torture, as Jongdae’s stomach rumbles pointedly. Soon enough, he’ll slip into a state where his body forgets it wants food, but he’s not in it yet, smelling the small bird carcass they’d been carrying roasting over the fire with longing.

“How long can you go without food?” Jongdae asks Sehun suddenly, realising he doesn’t know.

“Not nearly as long as you,” Sehun admits, inhaling steadily. “But long enough. I should be able to make it on sunlight and water alone for a week at least.”

That’s an added relief, helping Jongdae relax as best he can in his restraints as the marauders, a fair distance away, start laughing over something. They’re drinking what Jongdae can only assume to be rice wine from a plastic canister judging by their haphazard tipsy movements, and it serves to make Jongdae lick his lips, getting thirstier. At one stage they pull out a plastic ball from the hover-car cabin, and begin kicking it around the fire, laughing as they play a makeshift game of two-on-two football using either end of the campsite as goals. The ball they’re using though, seems very… heavy, all things considered, even though it’s made of plastic, it moves slowly through the sand, barely rolling. It’s misshapen, Jongdae realises, then wonders at what stage of his apparent kidnapping he got so bored he’s paying this much attention to his kidnapper’s football game.

It’s a pretty solid routine, by the next morning. Jongdae and Sehun get water twice a day, and other than that the most the Marauders give them are jeers, insults, or taunts. For the most part, Sehun and Jongdae ignore them, just scowl at their captors, biding their time. They’ve spent almost four nights in restraints, now, talking aimlessly during car rides but keeping quiet at the campsite lest the marauders threaten them, and although Jongdae is constantly dehydrated with a foggy head, he’s spent enough time pretending to sleep while memorising the marauder’s own resting habits --three of them sleep while one sits on the car and keeps watch; it’s not exactly a genius shift rotation, because it means one of them is always left sleep deprived the next day.

But now, even as the sun sets and the hover car pulls to a stop, Jongdae can spot the walls of Kast faintly in the distance, and it’s how he knows he and Sehun are ready.

“Tonight,” is all Jongdae says quietly, as their pole is dug into its spot away from the main campsite. He doesn’t need Sehun to say anything to know he understands.

It’s not the most perfect of plans, but it should be enough. The hardest part will be trying to pull it off while not waking up the other three marauders. Jongdae waits until it’s late in the night, and the one on watch is yawning into his fist as he sits on top of the hover-car, eyelids blinking, a mere few hours before sunrise, before telling Sehun to do it.

Jongdae hears a soft, mechanical whir, and when he glances of his shoulder he feels rather than sees Sehun’s soft arm become hardened dragonsteel. It looks the same way Lu Han’s prosthetic had, slightly too big for his body, thick and plated, but it’s not gold, it’s black, green ichor coursing through the gaps between scales.

Sehun’s arm pushes at the restraints, and the plastic rope begins snapping softly with quiet crackles. Jongdae watches the marauders for any sign that they’ve heard, but Sehun and Jongdae are too far away, too in the dark --Sehun smartly used the arm facing away from them so they won’t see the glow of his ichor. If anything, the marauder on watch probably chalks it up to the crackling of the fire, not expecting their prosthetic-less dragonslayer and his useless pretty companion to have a way of breaking out.

The plastic rope falls away easily, brushing Jongdae’s thighs, but Sehun doesn’t move.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “What now?”

“Now,” Jongdae asks. “You stay here.”

Sehun is silent. “What?”

“Just wait for my signal,” Jongdae instructs, and carefully pulls away from the pole, but not before rotating it in the dark, so that Sehun is blocking any view of where Jongdae should be, with his broad chest. Jongdae watches in sick curiosity as the scales on Sehun’s arm shift back into human skin, and maybe Sehun had been right, Jongdae really isn’t mentally prepared to deal with that. He brushes the discomfort away, though, trying to stay focused when he’s so dehydrated and his body aches from being contained in the one position for so long; he doesn’t have time to waste adjusting, and immediately stands, sneaking behind a pile of plastic for cover as he reexamines the campsite a few strides away.

They’ve been keeping Sehun and Jongdae’s bags in the front cabin of the hover car, so that’s where Jongdae needs to go first, creeping quietly out of sight to access the door opposite to the marauder on watch. He yawns, once, as Jongdae is opening the door with a click as quietly as he can, causing Jongdae to freeze, but the marauder hasn’t noticed anything.

Jongdae casts one glance back at Sehun, who’s watching him worriedly, plastic bindings held up to pretend he’s still tied.

Jongdae exhales steadily, and slowly opens it without letting the rusted hinges give him away. It’s painfully slow, and just when there’s a crack, he greedily reaches through to find his things he knows is somewhere at the feet of the passenger seat. He feels the leather of Sehun’s pack, but it’s not enough for Jongdae to search blindly, he needs to see where the thing he wants is.

Slowly, keeping his eyes on the marauder leaning against the other side of the cabin, Jongdae stands to peer through the dirty glass window, trying to make out the shapes in the darkness. His bow is, unfortunately, resting on the driver’s seat, alongside his quiver, which means Jongdae will actually have to fit in the car. Great.

Biting his cheek, Jongdae pulls the door open further torturously slow, and just as it’s nearly wide enough, it creaks.

Only for Sehun, some distance away, to pointedly sneeze, “ACHOO.”

Jongdae freezes in place, watching the marauder on the other side of the cabin look towards Sehun and scowl, before turning back around, and lets out a quiet breath of relief. He gives Sehun a thumbs up without looking before crawling into the car, slowly withdrawing his bow and quiver while keeping his eyes on the marauder’s shoulders, pulling back out.

Now for the hard part.

Jongdae’s arms are shaking, his heart pounding, but he breathes slowly like Lu Han had taught him to focus himself, stay centred. He doesn’t have many arrows, only about ten, which means Jongdae has to make sure every shot counts. He needs to draw the marauder away from the campsite so that Jongdae can take him out without waking the others, and that means using the environment.

Jongdae had spotted it at dusk as they’d been setting up --in a nearby mound of plastic rubble, there’s a plastic sheet sticking out that should, with enough force, be able to dislodge the pieces around it and hopefully cause enough of a ruckus to pique the marauder’s curiosity. Knocking an arrow to the string of his bow, Jongdae’s arms, weak from being bound for so long, can barely pull on the string as he shuts one eye and fires.

Only to miss miserably, the arrow sailing far over the plastic mountain. Great.

Jongdae doesn’t let it discourage him, though, and quickly knocks another, pulling so slowly the marauder behind the car won’t hear the tightening of his string. Each time it snaps back into place with a sharp twang, Sehun coughs loudly, covering the noise. Jongdae smiles to himself, thankful he’d caught onto something.

This time, the arrow land on its place, right on the corner of plastic sticking out of the mound that Jongdae can barely make the edge of in the darkness. It didn’t work, though, more force is needed.

Jongdae tries again, and again, and again, until he’s down to only five arrows, this time his current shot dislodging the plastic, pushing it back so that it pushes everything in front of it forward, and causing plastic to skitter down the edge of the mountain, jostling.

It’s a quiet sound, but a familiar one. Jongdae quickly scrambles to rotate around the car as the marauder on guard grumbles beneath his breath before walking towards the sound, Jongdae swallowing as he grips his bow with white knuckles. Now this is definitely the hardest part yet.

Staying crouched low behind the hover-car’s rear now, Jongdae gives Sehun one lingering look before creeping after the marauder into the shadows, counting the amount of steps it takes before he decides they’re far enough away. The marauder stops right at the foothill of plastic, examining the fallen rubble in the darkness, which is when Jongdae leaps up and presses pulls his bow against the marauder’s throat as tight as he can from behind, cutting off his air supply.

They struggle, predictably, the marauder trying to throw Jongdae off his back as he grunts as best he can without any air supply, but it’s no use, not when he’s this sleep-deprived and Jongdae has the advantage of surprise. He slackens from lack of air, which only gives Jongdae a five second window before the marauder is up and recovered, heart pounding as he takes the weakened marauder’s head in his hands and brings it down on to his knees, smashing with a sickening crunch as the body falls to the sand, limp. He won’t die, but he won’t wake up miraculously either, not for quite some time. Jongdae gasps for breath as his heart pounds erratically, holding a hand against his chest; too close for comfort.

Slowly, he stumbles back to the campsite, and gestures for Sehun to come over, pointing to the passenger’s seat. He does so obediently on wobbling legs, while Jongdae inhales steadily and tip toes nearer the fire, where the other three marauders sleep peacefully, one even snoring as they turn in their sleep.

His heart is pounding nervously as he takes the Progenitor fire-starter and waits for any sign of it waking them, to no avail. They’d left most of their supplies in the hover-car, except for the water, which sits piled by the edge of the fire. Jongdae debates taking all of it, but decides on leaving some, not wanting four deaths on his hands alongside the already pre-existing two from a decade ago; the marauders should know how to find more, anyway. He creeps back through the campsite holding the plastic jug of water and small metal disk, before piling into the car and realising he’s forgotten something else.

They don’t have the keys.

Jongdae curses, a quiet, “Fuck.” Beneath his breath, before glancing back out at the marauders. Sehun looks at him worriedly, but doesn’t say anything out of fear of making noise, just watches helplessly as Jongdae slips out again.

He knows where the keys are kept, has watched the leader pull them out of his pocket every time they’ve made camp and left it, it’s just a matter of getting them himself. Swallowing, Jongdae looks down at the marauder’s sleeping figure, and painstakingly peels the sleeping bag back, dipping his fingers into his pants’ pocket slowly and withdrawing the key, dangling on a single metal ring.

The marauder beneath him grumbles in his sleep, and Jongdae freezes, heart pounding, but he doesn’t wake.

This time, Jongdae walks back to the car, and stares at the wheel, wondering how these sorts of things work, exactly, and taking the brief reprieve to let his heart slow down. Gingerly, Sehun places a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, squeezing, and when Jongdae glances over in the darkness he can make out Sehun’s grateful smile, mismatched eyes curved. It gives Jongdae the strength to think fuck it , as he inserts the key into the slot adjacent to the steering wheel and turn it, roaring to life and picking itself up off the ground as it begins to hover, spluttering.

Jongdae doesn’t bother to check if the marauders have woken up, knowing they have. The first pedal he presses down on does nothing, but the second makes the car jerk forward suddenly, speeding through the sand. Jongdae doesn’t look back.

Sehun, beside him, laughs wildly. “I can’t fucking believe you actually saved us.”

Jongdae, also laughing in hysteric disbelief, agrees. “I know!”

The car swerves suddenly as he avoids a mound of plastic in the darkness, avoiding collision, and they both just laugh wildly. Part of Jongdae swells with pride that he’d actually managed to pull that off, lingering voices of old familiar faces telling him he’s useless and worthless washing away --he just saved himself and Sehun, didn’t he? Jongdae must have use after all.

“Let’s not get kidnapped again, please,” Sehun says eventually, still a little bubbly, but coming down from the adrenaline high. “My shoulders hurt.”

Jongdae hadn’t even been aware dragons could feel pain. He laughs. “Good idea.”

Chapter Text

They drive until it’s been far enough that Jongdae doesn’t think the marauders will be catching up to them any time soon, bringing the hover-car to a stop behind a mound of plastic, Kast’s outline standing a small amount away in front of them, imposing. Sehun offers to drive to let Jongdae rest, and while Jongdae thinks he should be the supervising driver, he realises neither he nor Sehun exactly know what they’re doing, taking the excuse to lie down in the back seat and sleep, letting the rumble of the engine soothe him.

When he wakes up, it must be long into the afternoon, Kast a lot closer than it had been when Jongdae last checked. He instructs Sehun to pull over, and he does, allowing Jongdae to get out of the car and find their bearings.

He rummages through their packs until he finds the wayfinder-glass, and holds it until the arrow is pointing directly north. Jongdae’s eyes squint into the sunny glare as he makes out their positions, figuring the entrance he’s looking for is just slightly to the east, within the forest that dots around the outskirts of Kast. Truth be told, Jongdae doesn’t know exactly what it is, relying on memories from ten years ago, but… he’ll at least know it when he sees it. It’s pretty hard to miss.

For now, he’s more interested in guzzling down water, refreshed, and cooking something out of the dried meat the marauders had been carrying over his fire-starter. It’s delicious , and Jongdae and Sehun both moan at the taste, potentially over eating.

“What else do they have?” Sehun asks curiously, and Jongdae indulges him, because the entire cabin of the hover car is littered with junk, plastic toys and relics, most of which Jongdae assumes have no use. He does find a thin, metal dagger though, which could prove useful, slinging it in his belt alongside his stone one, and more food amongst the rubble, pulling it out to be eaten later. Other than that it’s more useless artefacts, although Jongdae does find a few small scraps of metal that he tucks into his pack to be sold later. They’re running out of coin, after all.

Sehun also rummages through the things on the other side of the cabin, and at one stage he and Jongdae bump into one another, both apologising in unison before glancing up and making eye contact. Unprompted, they both laugh sheepishly, and it fills Jongdae with a strange amount of warmth he doesn’t quite understand.

Sehun stops when something catches his eye though, and he leans towards it. It’s the plastic ball from before, that the marauders had been using to play football, but Sehun stares at it with wide eyes.

“What?” Jongdae asks, looking at the scraps of plastic curved around the ball’s front. “It’s just a ball?”

“No it isn’t,” Sehun quickly replies. “It’s a dragon egg.”

That makes Jongdae’s jaw drop. “ What?”

They both pull out of the car, and Jongdae jogs around to watch the way Sehun cradles the egg against his chest, wrapping his arms around it as he gently pries back the pieces of plastic, making a small noise as he does as it requires a pointed amount of strength. One by one, he peels the plastic back, until only sheets of metal can be seen beneath, scraps tightly pieced together over the egg’s now far more ovular shape, mismatched pieces of metal plating layered over one another.

Sehun gingerly picks up a piece of plastic, gesturing to a small piece of metal in the centre. “It must have been planted in the rubble, the plastic has a small amount of metal embedded in it, so…”

So it had been attracted to the egg, naturally. With wide eyes, Jongdae peers at the egg, curious, he’s never seen one before.

“Can I…?” Jongdae asks, holding out his hands, and Sehun obliges, placing it in Jongdae’s arms. It wriggles as soon as Jongdae touches it, humming and alive, and Jongdae laughs delightedly, startled. The humming grows louder.

“It likes you,” Sehun observes, smiling softly.

“What?” Jongdae blurts. “It’s an egg.”

Sehun shrugs. “It’s still aware of its surroundings. It’s probably not too far from hatching.”

Jongdae swallows, looking at the metal egg in his arms. It’s certainly heavy, requiring both of Jongdae’s arms to wrap around it and to hoist it up.

“Should we put it back?” Jongdae asks, and Sehun’s expression darkens immediately.

“Only for a different set of marauders to find it and damage it?” He asks rhetorically, making guilt roll in Jongdae’s stomach. “No, we should carry it until it hatches, to make sure the dragon is safe.”

It’ll probably only be a worthless spawnling, but Jongdae sighs in resignation, reasoning with himself that if they’d found a human baby in the rubble, Jongdae probably wouldn’t have let Sehun just leave it there either.

“Fine,” Jongdae agrees, and the egg rolls again in his arms, almost happy. He huffs in disbelief. “But we’re not keeping it.”

“Obviously,” Sehun scoffs, and when Jongdae tries to hand the egg back to Sehun, it almost… protests , wriggling violently. Sehun just smiles. “I told you, it likes you. You carry it.”

“But… you’re a prince,” Jongdae whines, confused. “Isn’t it meant to like you?”

“I didn’t save it from the marauders,” Sehun says wryly, amused, and Jongdae looks at the egg in disbelief. This lump of metal is aware enough to know that? “Besides, maybe it’s anti-authority.”

Jongdae laughs despite himself, a startled cackle. He shoves Sehun back with a hand. “Shut up ,” he groans, as Sehun just snickers happily. “We should keep going. We’re not too far now.”

Sehun nods in agreement, getting back into the driver’s seat once they’ve cleared out their camp, Jongdae sitting in the passenger’s seat with the egg in his lap, humming happily. He curls his arms, bringing it just a little bit closer to his chest, and can feel almost something like a heartbeat, with the way the humming fluctuates, steady against Jongdae’s own. It’s comforting.

“So how are we actually getting into Kast?” Sehun asks conversationally as Jongdae instructs him to drive towards the edge of the forest, the city’s high metal wars abundantly clear, now. “There’s still a no flying rule, right?”

“Yep,” Jongdae agrees easily, making Sehun pout a little childishly. (Jongdae rolls his eyes, the last thing they need is the whole world knowing there’s a dragon prince around, honestly.) “We’ll be using the other direction.”

Sehun glances over at Jongdae briefly before re-focusing on swerving through the rubble. “What?” Is it strange to watch the way his arms are outstretched, focus evident as he drives, and find it attractive? Is driving a hover-car meant to be attractive?

Jongdae almost forgets to respond as his thoughts fluster him, tearing his eyes away from Sehun. “Not up,” Jongdae clarifies. “But down.” He swallows nervously as he keeps his traitorous gaze locked ahead. “Kast is built on top of old mines, they can’t fill the tunnels in without risking the city collapsing in on itself, so a lot of smugglers and criminals use them to get in and out of the city.”

“Criminals like you and Lu Han?” Sehun asks, a little teasing. Jongdae hums in agreement.

“It’s been a while but… there’s an entrance to them in this forest,” Jongdae reveals, watching the way Sehun shifts somewhat nervously, evidently uncomfortable. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No!” Sehun quickly responds, defensive, as Jongdae arches an eyebrow. “It’s just I don’t like… underground…”

Ah, right, dragon. Lord of the skies and whatnot. “Sorry,” Jongdae apologises softly. “There’s not really any other choice.”

Nobody gets into the city without ID papers these days, ever since the refugee crisis during the iron wars Kast has made a pretty good habit of keeping as many people out as they can, unless they have official permission. Flying in won’t exactly get them the subtlety they’ll need to find Lu Han and Jongin, and it’s not like there’s a way to penetrate the high steel walls. It only leaves the tunnels, shells from when Kast had dug into the earth to find every scrap of metal it could to retain its power, long before the victory over occupying Terrus. Some parts of the mines are so old it’s said it was the Progenitors themselves who had dug it out, deep into the earth.

“It’s fine,” Sehun assures Jongdae, shoulders relaxing. “Just… there aren’t any like, underground marauders or anything, right?”

Jongdae laughs, despite himself. The egg in his arms jostles a little, resettling itself to get more comfortable. “No,” he responds easily. “Nobody lives in the tunnels.” And the few people that use them… okay, this time there are serious odds against Jongdae and Sehun running into them, but that’s what he’d thought about the marauders. Jongdae sighs in resignation. “At most we… might find other people using the tunnels--” aforementioned smugglers and criminals. “--but really the odds of that happening are... Super low. Highly unlikely. The chances are impossible to none.”

Sehun glances at Jongdae briefly just to narrow his eyes. “If you say so…” he mumbles, unconvinced. Considering their luck, Jongdae can’t really blame him for that.

As they reach the edge of the forest, Sehun and Jongdae take their time burying the hover car in a pile of plastic, Jongdae keeping the keys in hopes that it might still be there on the way back. It’s pretty unlikely, but he can hope in the Barrens that no one is digging through this particular mound of plastic in hopes that they might actually find something. Sehun has to end up taking most of the supplies, stuffed into his pack and hanging around the outside, because Jongdae’s pretty weighed down by the dragon egg that apparently refuses to be left alone. Jongdae had put it down at one stage just to get his backpack on and it had wriggled in the passenger seat so violently it ended up rolling off and dropping into the sand at Jongdae’s feet. Clingy little thing.

They set up camp for the last night before heading underground, hopefully, and Jongdae teases Sehun for immediately wandering off into the forest to collect greenery, coming back with a bouquet of grass and flowers and leaf-covered twigs and re-doing his long hair, the strands greasy from being unwashed for so long. Jongdae touches his own hair and feels that it’s in the same condition, brushing along his stubble-covered chin in the process.

“Can you do that for my hair too?” Jongdae asks, wanting the greasy curls away from his face. Sehun blinks at him cutely, his own hair is not nearly to Sehun’s length, hanging only just beneath his ears, but it’s dirty and annoying enough that Jongdae wouldn’t mind it braided out of the way.

“Sure…” Sehun replies timidly, and Jongdae sits cross-legged despite the jostling protests of the egg in his arms so that Sehun can kneel behind him, fingers carding through Jongdae’s hair gently to tug at the strands. It’s a strange sensation to feel, Jongdae has never had somebody play with his hair like this, and he’s surprised at how much he enjoys it.

“This way we’ll be matching,” Jongdae teases, and hears Sehun’s breathy laugh above him, turning his chest warm again as his heart skips a beat. Knowingly, the egg rolls a little, as if teasing Jongdae --he flicks at it pointedly to make it shut up, and swears the damn thing is laughing at him, honestly.

The braid ends pathetically short at the nape of Jongdae’s neck, plenty of strands sticking out as they’re not long enough to be woven the whole way through, but it keeps it out of his face. Sehun ties the end with a strip of cloth, and when Jongdae runs his fingers through it he’s surprised to feel a flower in the centre.

“Sorry,” Sehun apologises, completely unapologetic as Jongdae blindly touches its petals. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“What kind of flower is it?” Jongdae asks.

“A lily-violet,” Sehun answers, a small flower, a deep, royal purple. “It was the prettiest thing I could find.” He adds, like it’s an explanation.

“Why did it matter how pretty it is, it’s not like I can see it,” Jongdae jokes, nervous.

“Because you’re you,” Sehun responds, as if the answer should be evident. “And you’re beautiful. Obviously I need to maintain the high standards of beauty.”

Jongdae feels his face turn warm at that, completely at a lack of words to respond with, and the egg in his lap jostles a little, teasing. Jongdae just turns warmer.

“Shut up,” he responds petulantly because he can’t come up with anything more witty. Usually, Jongdae’s looks are almost an insult, is sharp cheekbones and pretty eyes, all good looks and nothing else, no strength, no courage, no power; useless. But Sehun says beautiful like it’s not a bad thing at all, like it’s a part of who Jongdae is and not just what he looks like, like it’s just a fact of life, and it flusters Jongdae like nothing else. Probably unhelped by the fact that Sehun is also beautiful, but Jongdae has already made enough of a fool out of himself as is, he doesn’t need to add that in.

When he finds enough courage to look back at Sehun, Sehun is just smiling at him softly, eyes filled with a fondness Jongdae doesn’t understand. Is this all just a side-effect of Jongdae saving their lives? (Because, to be fair, it’s kind of his fault their lives had ever been in danger to begin with.) Or is it just… something else? Something else that has been growing steadily ever since this journey started weeks ago, Jongdae had just been too blind to notice it until now, had thought it was just a normal plant embedded in the dirt until it had awoken in full bloom, bright and brilliant.

The egg rumbles in his lap. Jongdae tears his eyes away guiltily.

It takes them over a day for Jongdae to locate the tunnel entrance, scouring the forest meticulously until he finally finds the round rock in the dirt, denoting the entrance just a short distance away from Kast’s steel wall. He calls Sehun over quickly, unable to move the lid with the egg still in his arms, watching Sehun’s muscles flex beneath his shirt --torn from using his dragon arm-- as he drags the cover back.

Only to reveal that the hole has been filled in by rocks.

“No,” Jongdae says, feeling hope drain out. “ No .”

He places the egg down, despite its evident protests, and pulls at the rocks filled into the hole to seal it, but they won’t budge.

“Wait,” Sehun says, placing a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder and pulling him back. “I can clear it.”

“What?” Jongdae reponds. “How?”

Sehun just gestures for him to step back, not answering the question, but Jongdae obeys all the same, albeit reluctantly, watching Sehun roll his shoulder briefly before his arm shifts again, turning into its black dragonsteel counterpart.

It’s a little more breathtaking in the daylight, the way Sehun’s skin has cracks in it before quickly rotating and shifting faster than Jongdae’s eye can make sense of, leaving a dragon arm in its place. It’s kind of… beautiful, really, shining in the sunlight, green ichor glowing, and Jongdae wonders if the rest of Sehun’s dragon self, his true self, is just as beautiful.

The claw shifts, however, replacing the end of Sehun’s arm with a nozzle instead of hand, and Jongdae’s eyes widen in realisation. All he can do is watch as the tip of Sehun’s arm begins to glow, absorbing energy the centres at the glowing tip and makes it grow larger, only for him to aim it straight at the hole and release the tek energy charge.

The effect is devastating and immediate, clearing the hole with a loud explosion that makes the earth around them shake. Jongdae just squeezes the egg in his arms tighter, hoping the tunnels hold up, and when the rumbling of rocks collapsing in on themselves ceases, opens his eyes again.

Sehun’s arm is smooth, pale, and decidedly human.

“It’s clear,” Sehun says, as Jongdae just steps closer and examines the remains. Enough sunlight shines through that he can make out the pile of rocks that had been shoved into the tunnel scattered and broken at the bottom, the stone ladder still dug into the wall exactly where Jongdae and Lu Han had climbed out nine years ago. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Jongdae mumbles, dropping his back down, and roughly shoving the egg into one arm as he slowly steps down. It’s near impossible to climb the ladder with only one arm, taking excruciating patience as Jongdae’s heart pounds out of fear and nervousness, but he makes it easily enough, slinging his pack back down as he greets the long stretches of darkness in either direction. The egg wriggles uncomfortably, liking the tunnels as much as Jongdae does. Sehun is still on the surface.

“Sehun, come on,” Jongdae urges, pulling out his wayfinder-glass and squinting to make out the arrow in the distance, but it spins eternally, useless. “It’s just a little tunnel! It can’t hurt you!”

Sehun grumbles something unintelligible beneath his breath that Jongdae is pretty sure contains curse words, but then he’s stepping down the ladder and pulling the stone back over the entrance, blocking out the light.

Jongdae pulls out his firestarter and hands the disk to Sehun, who turns it on and fiddles with the small knob on the side to make the flame smaller, letting it illuminate the darkness.

“What now?” Sehun asks.

“Lu Han and I followed the left wall to find this entrance,” Jongdae explains, having memorised Chanyeol’s instructions so particularly to heart he can’t forget them even now. “So… if we follow the right wall, we should be able to find the same entrance we’d come in.”

“And just hope that one isn’t blocked too, right?” Sehun asks dryly. Jongdae doesn’t gift him with a response.

In the darkness, Jongdae feels like his thoughts echo alongside his voice, and it’s impossible to know for how long they’ve been walking. Hours, days, weeks, without sunlight he’s incapable of telling, but Jongdae swallows the sensation down, knowing he’d felt the exact same thing the last time he’d walked through the old mines. Every noise ricochets off the walls, spiking his heartbeat and increasing his nervousness, and it doesn’t help that both the egg in Jongdae’s arms and Sehun are immeasurably unhappy about their current predicament, wanting to go back to the surface.

The firestarter’s flame starts to grow weaker at one stage, and Jongdae curses.

“Shit,” he says. “It must be running out of charge.” Without the sun around…

“Yeah, that makes two of us,” Sehun grumbles, pointedly chewing on dried meat to keep his shard running to compensate for the lack of solar energy.

“Sorry,” Jongdae breathes out, watching as the tunnel grows that bit darker in the firestarter’s weakening light.

“No, it’s okay,” Sehun reassures, softening. “This is the only way.”

It is, and Jongdae is glad he acknowledges it, flashing Sehun one last smile before the fire goes out altogether, plunging them in eternal darkness. Jongdae feels his breaths going shorter, despite himself, as his heart pounds wildly to compensate for the sudden fear, squeezing his eyes shut as he concentrates, only to open them to a soft, green light, emanating from Sehun’s chest.

It’s his shard, usually covered by his tunic, weakly glowing in the centre of his chest from where Sehun has undone the first few buttons. It’s a soft green light, ever so faint, but in the darkness it seems to light up everything, Jongdae staring at it in wonder as Sehun urges him forward, lighting the path, guiding Jongdae.

Gingerly, impulsively, Jongdae reaches out to touch it, curious, it doesn’t stick out like a dragonslayer’s core does, rather its implanted firmly in Sehun’s skin, warm and pulsing with a steady beat. Sehun looks startled by Jongdae’s touch, but makes no move to push it away.

“We should rest soon,” Sehun says softly, pulling Jongdae from his reveries as he snatches his hand back as if burnt, even if Sehun is only ever the same degree of warm.

“How long have we been walking for?” Jongdae asks. He himself doesn’t know, but he assumes a calculating machine might have better timekeeping abilities.

“A few hours,” he answers, making Jongdae laugh under his breath.

“Feels like it’s been years,” Jongdae admits. The endless darkness and identical pathing --nothing but rocks and dirt and darkness-- just makes him feel like they’re walking in endless circles, which will actually happen if they follow the right wall for long enough. “The entrance we’re looking for must be nearby, there’s no point in stopping now.”

Sehun just sighs in resignation, following Jongdae forward obediently, who cradles the nervous egg tighter against his chest, either to comfort the egg or himself, Jongdae doesn’t know.

They keep walking, until Jongdae’s feet ache and his eyes hurt from staring into the darkness for so long, stopping only when they come across a dead end, another pile of rocks barring off the entrance.

“Be careful,” Jongdae urges as Sehun wordlessly steps forward and lets his arm shift into its gun mode again. “The tunnels are barely holding together as is.”

Sehun nods shortly in agreement, then holds up the cannon  all over again, a shorter charge, this time, less powerful. It blasts through the rock with an explosion that seems to echo for eternity, as the grounds and walls shake from the force of the blast. Sehun and Jongdae are merely frozen in place, Jongdae clutching at the egg in his arms desperately as the earth rumbles, waiting for the ceiling to fall in on them.

It never comes.

“Oh thank fu--” Jongdae takes a step forward towards Sehun, only for the rock beneath his feet to crack suddenly at the pressure. The entire tunnel begins rumbling again. “--you had ONE JOB!!” Jongdae yells, as he and Sehun quickly sprint forward, hoping to outrun the crumbling rock beneath their feet.

“Okay next time you turn your arm into a cannon and see how delicately you pull it off!” Sehun shouts back snidely as they keep running, hoping to out run the imminent collapse, but they’re not fast enough. Jongdae’s heart hurts too much, and he can’t sprint like he needs to, faltering for a split second to catch his breath only for the ground to give out beneath his feet. Sehun barely catches in time, but it’s hopeless as the rock crumbles for him too, and the last thing Jongdae registers is the way he pulls the egg closer to his chest as Sehun pulls Jongdae against his, hoping to soften the landing.

It works, to some extent. There’s a crunch of metal beneath Jongdae, as his head spins and tries to make sense of the tumble, disoriented in the darkness. As he pulls himself off of Sehun, groaning, he comes face to face with a wooden spear pointed at his nose.

Great.

Jongdae just sighs in resignation.

“‘ Nobody lives in the tunnels ’,” Sehun mocks in a high-pitched, nasally tone Jongdae assumes is meant to be his voice as the spears are thrusted so that they stand to their feet. Jongdae scoffs in offense, while Sehun raises his hands in surrender.

“I didn’t think anybody does!” Jongdae argues, far too numb to the experience of his life being threatened, by this stage. Then again, they’re not really in the tunnels Jongdae is familiar with, after falling so far… the space here isn’t narrow and winding so much as it a huge gaping cavern; Jongdae doesn’t know where they are anymore.

“Who are you?” The girl in front of them asks sharply, brandishing her spear higher as a reminder. “Why are you here?”

“Uhh,” Jongdae stalls. “We’re just travellers, trying to get to Kast,” he answers semi-honestly, Sehun staying pointedly silent behind him.

“They don’t have any explosives,” one of the spear-holders behind them speaks up, after rummaging through the packs on their backs. “How did you make the tunnels collapse like that?”

“ Uhhhh ,” Jongdae tries again. “They just… did?”

“Ha,” the girl in front of him jeers. “Tunnels don’t just magically collapse,” she sneers, tightening her grip around the shaft of her spear. She juts her chin forward, a barely there gesture in the low light coming from the… crystals? Around each person’s neck. Glowing crystals. Enough light to illuminate her wooden feet, and a man’s missing arm, and another girl’s wooden leg.

Jongdae would be more amazed if the man beside the spear-holder wasn’t trying to take the egg from his arms.

“No!” He says, pulling it back. “You can’t touch it.”

Jongdae isn’t sure at what stage he’d grown attached to the wriggling thing, but here he is. After carrying it for days on end, he’s just used to the weight, and it’s almost like he can sense the egg’s discontent to be taken away.

“What… is that?” The man asks, peering at it. “Is that metal?”

He reaches forward, as Jongdae is trapped in place by the circles of weapons currently being pointed at him and Sehun, and the egg wriggles immediately as the hand grows closer, as if trying to bury further into Jongdae’s chest. The man pulls back with a jolt, surprised.

“Enough,” another voice cries, out, echoing around the large cavern. “Lower your weapons.”

They all do as they’re told, although the main girl, who Jongdae could only assume to be the leader before now, does so reluctantly. The new person steps into the light, and Jongdae is taken aback by the short man’s appearance, not only because of lack of glowing crystals decorating his body, but because his eyes are fogged over, moving constantly in their sockets, and completely, undoubtedly unseeing.

“Do you not recognise a god when one walks amongst you?” The man says, and up close now Jongdae can see the strange markings painted onto his skin, straight lines that run like the circuit boards in Lu Han’s arm all over his body.

The reaction from that statement is strange --half the people in the group seem to groan and roll their eyes, while the other half drop to their knees, muttering incomprehensible prayers beneath their breath.

“Um,” the woman says, pointing at Jongdae. “I think I’d know a dragon when I see one, Kyungsoo.”

“Not if they’re a shifter, Song Qian,” Kyungsoo smoothly responds. “And he isn’t the dragon.”

It’s a little eerie to have the whites of somebody’s eyes stare directly at Jongdae even when he knows, logically, that he can’t be seen, it feels like he can be. The gaze of the room shifts towards Sehun.

“ Whaaaaaaat? ” He says, high pitched and unconvincing, making Jongdae facepalm over the egg in his arms. “I’m not a dragon.”

His tunic is still unbuttoned, revealing his glowing shard. Jongdae resists the urge to facepalm again.

“Right,” Kyungsoo replies dryly, then turns on his heel, walking through the dark cave with incredible confidence. Then again, the darkness probably doesn’t deter him. “Show our guests some hospitality, please.”

Song Qian grunts, but gestures for Sehun and Jongdae to follow her, who glance at each other before following, unsure of what else to do. Sehun glances at the people who bow at his feet a little warily, and Jongdae laughs, despite himself.

Song Qian isn’t exactly the chatty type, just leading Sehun and Jongdae through winding, flowing tunnels that are completely different to the dirt and rock they’d been navigating before. These tunnels are taller, wider, and filled with light from the strange crystals, casting the dark stone in shades of green and purple and blue. Jongdae is too distracted by the odd beauty to even ask about it.

Eventually the tunnel grows wider and wider, and Jongdae can only watch as it turns into another large cavern, this one even bigger than the one he and Sehun had fallen into. It’s huge, but more than that, it’s lively, illuminated brightly by larger crystals sticking through the earth, revealing the crumbled structures littering the entire cavern.

Jongdae gasps in sharply in realisation. “A Fallen city,” he mumbles, to nobody in particular, but at least Sehun has come to the same conclusion, judging by the look on his face.

“Yes,” Song Qian answers, chest puffed out a little with pride. “We call it Soul , the true heart of Kast.”

It’s amazing, the rubble and stone and concrete, the remains of a Progenitor city buried beneath the earth after sea levels had risen, still mildly entact. It’s been stripped of most of its metal, however, steel girders removed long ago most likely by the Progenitors themselves to build Kast on top. Judging by the long remains of some of the collapsed buildings, these towers once have must scraped the skies themselves. It’s jaw-dropping.

Song Qian leads them through the old streets that the Progenitors must have once walked through, sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, made of hardened tar and concrete, sometimes painted with white lines Jongdae doesn’t understand. Eventually, Song Qian takes them to a building with a dome-shaped roof, albeit the tiles have peeled away and left only the bare wooden structure beneath, half-rotted to the point of near collapse.

It’s the interior that’s far more peculiar, though, decked out in broken shards of the glowing crystals, where a group of people talk and whisper as Jongdae and Sehun walk through, staring openly. There aren’t many, but they sit in small clusters, with the only people standing being Kyungsoo, from before, and a woman Jongdae doesn’t recognise, bearing the same markings as Kyungsoo. Actually, everyone in the room does; everyone except Song Qian.

“Welcome,” the woman says, smiling brightly in a way that curves her eyes. She bows deeply to Sehun; her left leg is made of wood. “We are unworthy of your presence.”

Sehun looks a little flustered. “Um,” he says.

Jongdae realises what the markings are. “You’re cul--” he cuts off, unsure of whether cultists like to be called cultists and deciding not to risk it. “--Dragon devout.”

“Yes,” the woman returns happily, pleased to be recognised. “I am Miyoung, it’s my pleasure to be in the presence of a god and his guest.”

“And I thought being a prince was bad,” Sehun mumbles. Jongdae elbows him sharply.

“Why are you living down here?” Jongdae asks, casting his glance around at the somewhat fearful faces staring back at Sehun with reverence. Miyoung frowns.

“There was no place for us on the surface,” Song Qian answers for her. “We are the rejects Kast spat out.”

“We are blessed to have this sanctuary,” Miyoung corrects, frowning harder at Song Qian, who scowls in response.

“Blessed, but not by these--” she points, accusatory, at Sehun, who just shirks in response, uncomfortable with all the attention.

“Without the Guardian we would have been left to fester in the Barrens,” Kyungsoo responds sharply, and Song Qian just rolls her eyes. “He saved us.”

“He showed us a dark hole and poured us into it,” Song Qian snaps. “And now you think living here is staying out of your mighty gods’ way.”

“If you’re so opposed to it, you’re free to leave,” Miyoung says kindly, and Song Qian just grits her jaw, not moving anywhere.

“A dragon showed you these tunnels?” Jongdae asks, shocked.

“Yes, a shifter, just like you,” Miyoung answers, inclining her head at Sehun.

“We are the imperfections on Kast’s skin,” Kyungsoo supplies. “Blasphemers, outcasts, the unable, criminals.” The mood in the dome turns somber. “This is a sanctuary for those with nowhere else to go.”

“Punishment will be inflicted on those who dare to wander the gods’ domain,” Miyoung adds. “But with our loyalty and dedication, we will be healed.”

Jongdae looks around then, at the scarred faces, twisted limbs, Song Qian’s wooden legs, Kyungsoo’s blinded eyes, and his heart aches. The rejects of society, refugees seeking asylum in Kast only to be kicked out when they cannot pay their debts. It’s what Jongdae was, once, if Lu Han hadn’t found him beneath Fool’s Bridge, cold and hungry, on the brink of death. Lu Han had crouched over, and said you too, huh?

“The sun crystals sustain us, give us light and hope, allow life to flourish,” Miyoung touches a glowing purple crystal at her neck in gesture. “Soul gives us a chance at life Kast did not.”

“Which shifter showed you these tunnels?” Sehun suddenly speaks up, with an air of faux-confidence that manages to pull off his apparent godliness.

“We don’t know his name,” Kyungsoo says. “But he gathered us all, sleeping at Kast’s walls, and showed us the way.”

Sehun looks conflicted, and Jongdae wonders how many shifters there are in Aes, and if there are, which ones are leading humans into the underground, and telling them to stay there because the earth belongs to the dragons?

Probably not many, judging by Sehun’s expression.

“Enough talk of the past,” Miyoung urges, waving her hands. “Tell us of the future. What brings you here, your holiness?”

“Um, just Sehun is fine,” Sehun insists, the egg jostling in Jongdae’s arms as if giggling. Jongdae agrees. “Jongdae and I are trying to get to Kast.”

“Why?” Kyungsoo asks, as the room of dragon devout break into hushed murmurs. “Why enter the Tiger’s den?”

Jongdae shudders reflexively at the mention of the West Cardinal. “A rescue mission,” Sehun answers. “To save a human prisoner, Lu Han.”

“Lu Han?” Song Qian asks suddenly. “I know that name…” Realisation dawns on her face the same way dread crashes over Jongdae; anyone in Kast would know the name of the most wanted criminal in the country. “..Why would a dragon want to save the queenslayer?”

It has the effect of glass shattering, Jongdae wincing on cue as the room turns silent, even the egg in his arms remaining oddly still. Sehun’s expression is unreadable.

“The what. ” He says darkly, although it isn’t a question, having heard what Song Qian said easily, turning to Jongdae slowly.

Jongdae expects anger on Sehun’s face, ice cold but burning, yet all he sees is sadness and betrayal.

“How could you not tell me Lu Han killed my sister?”

Jongdae’s stomach drops. “What?” He pales as the pieces connect together. “Sooyeon was the queen?”

Of course, Sehun is a dragon prince --Jongdae should have realised along the way that he’d have to have some relationship to her, it had just never occurred to him… and if it had, he had completely dismissed the thought.

Sehun stares at Jongdae unreadably, and then storms out of the dome, leaving Jongdae under the prickling gaze of the dragon devout, watching for his reaction. His heart is pounding loudly in his ears, and the attention makes him nauseous, following Sehun out without a second thought.

“Sehun-- wait--” Jongdae tries, stumbling over his feet, but Sehun doesn’t try to slow down, even as Jongdae’s heart pounds trying to catch up, quickly out of breath. “--it’s-- you’ll get lost out here--” he reaches out for Sehun’s wrist, only to be shoved off.

“I don’t care ,” Sehun scowls. The egg in Jongdae’s arms wriggles rapidly. “Lu Han murdered my sister. How could you not tell me that?”

“I didn’t know the Queen was your sister!” Jongdae argues, voice tinged with desperation.

“Even if she wasn’t, she was still my Queen,” Sehun angrily holds a hand against his chest in gesture. Jongdae’s body floods with guilt, because he had kept it from Sehun purposefully, and now it’s crashing down on him. “How could you manipulate me like that? Make me save the man that’s made me and my siblings hide for years? Destroyed our community, our people--”

Jongdae’s heart is pounding in his chest from adrenaline, and his head hurts so much his voice won’t work. The egg in his arms won’t stop wriggling.

“Because I’m just as guilty as him!” Jongdae shouts finality, the egg finally ceasing as silence settles over them, Sehun looking at Jongdae like he hardly even recognizes him anymore, after everything they’ve been through together. Jongdae’s entire body slumps. “Because I’m just as guilty as Lu Han for killing the Queen, and I couldn’t--” he cuts off, choked, and wonders if there’s a way to say that he couldn’t stand the idea of Sehun looking at him the way he is now, without using words.

Jongdae inhales shakily, grounding himself. The crystals illuminate Sehun’s mixed expression in shades of green and blue.

“We were both there on the battlefield that night,” he begins explaining. “I… I saw the Queen flying overhead and I-- I knocked an arrow to my bow and just. Shot.”

“An arrow?” Sehun asks, incredulous. “An arrow killed my sister?”

Jongdae swallows --why does everybody always underestimate bows? “Not quite,” he continues, biting his lip as Sehun continues watching Jongdae warily. “I… hit one of her wings, and she fell… No one else had been paying attention, so I told Lu Han what happened, and we went to where she’d fallen.” Jongdae’s voice shakes as he recalls the memory even now, the way the Queen --no, Sooyeon-- had shifted into her human form, begged for mercy. “We didn’t-- we’d spent our whole lives being told that she was the enemy, Sehun. That she was just a machine,” Jongdae tries, piteous. “I’m sorry.”

Sehun doesn’t give Jongdae any sympathy, expression still frozen over. “How did she die?”

His voice is so detached, so wholly uncharacteristic that Jongdae’s heart aches a little. “Lu Han broke her shard with his sword,” Jongdae finishes. Jongdae may have struck the Queen down, but he couldn’t land the killing blow. Never could. He’d looked away as Lu Han had done it, and even though they’d just single handedly won the war, they’d stared at the Queen’s lifeless, seemingly human body, and had wondered if that was really a win at all. Lu Han’s entire self had been shaking, from head to toe. “It was swift.”

Sehun shakes his head, angry. “We never found her body,” he looks at Jongdae piercingly, hardened green and brown. “Just assumed she’d been shipped off to your limb factories.”

Jongdae is forced to look down in shame, nodding in confirmation. For killing the Queen and ending the war, Lu Han was given the greatest prize of all; the Queen’s left hand, melded onto his body. For shooting her down and daring to question the Cardinals methods at the end of it all, Jongdae was imprisoned for several days. Until Lu Han broke him out, that is, the night they left Kast for good.

Ironic that Jongdae would be returning to Kast to return the favour.

Silence persists only until Sehun says, “Why didn’t you kill her?” Jongdae’s head snaps up then, looking at him. “I… if you’re the one that shot her down, why didn’t you deal the killing blow?”

Jongdae curls into himself, remembering that he’d been planning to, originally, to finally prove that he was worthy of being a dragonslayer, that he wasn’t as weak as the world convinced themselves he was. It was the Queen, after all, the one thing that stood between the capital and Terrus ; Jongdae thought he would finally be able to do it.

And then she’d shifted, turned human, a Queen begging for mercy from two lowly dragonslayers.

“Because I couldn’t,” Jongdae answers. That’s all there is to it, no empathy involved, no attempt to save her, it’s just a matter of Jongdae having been too pathetic to do it himself. He’s always been too weak, happy to let somebody else do the dirty work for him, to let Lu Han shoulder the burden of Queenslayer. Sehun’s jaw clenches.

“Sehun, please,” Jongdae begs, stepping forward. The egg wriggles again. “I-- you have to understand, there is nothing we regret more in the world than that day, if we could go back in time to that moment--”

“But you can’t,” Sehun quickly cuts him off, angry. “You can’t, and what’s done is done.”

Jongdae closes his mouth, remaining silent in shame. Sehun sighs in frustration.

Eventually he just slumps, looking a little tired and a little lost, like he doesn’t know how to make sense of the facts presented to him. Jongdae’s stomach writhes in guilt; he’s always regretted killing the Queen, if only for what it did to his life and Lu Han’s, but now he just regrets it because Sehun looks so fucking sad Jongdae had never considered that taking the life of a dragon might actually affect others. Dragons had never had feelings to him, had never had connections, but knowing Sehun has taught Jongdae that they’re not different to humans at all --the ryong, at least-- which only makes the murderer beneath Lu Han’s name twice as meaningful, although that makes two lives Jongdae is responsible for ending because he’s too weak.

Jongdae doesn’t know what to say, staring at Sehun unreadably in the streets of a fallen city illuminated by sun crystals. How can he apologise for his omission of the truth? How can he apologise for manipulating Sehun into coming all this way only to save somebody who, in Sehun’s world, shouldn’t be saved?

Jongdae has no idea, doesn’t have the words for such a heavy topic, doesn’t have the strength. The egg in his arms is incessantly wriggling, almost so much so that Jongdae can barely hold it still, curling his arms tighter around it in a fruitless attempt.

Then, it cracks.

Sehun and Jongdae both look at each other with blank, confused stares, and Sehun quickly steps closer as the egg wriggles and a distinct splitting noise can be heard, rumbling in Jongdae’s arms.

“Put it down put it down!” Sehun urges, so frantic Jongdae can do nothing but obey, scrambling at the sudden panic as he places the metal egg on the stone and watches it roll around, the surface stretching and screeching as the dragon within pushes out, puncturing the metal every now and again.

It’s a bizarre process to watch, Sehun and Jongdae lost in absolute silence as the egg rolls and distorts, rumbling as the dragon attempts to break free. Jongdae is struck with the realisation that he may very well just have an evil imugi with no means of dealing with it no thanks to being stuck underground, but maybe Sehun can… use his dragon mind control, or something, to keep it tame?

Jongdae doesn’t know, but he doesn’t have to worry about it either, because eventually one of the holes opened by the claws gives way to a drake’s head, a small, lesser dragon, not much bigger than a house cat, known for the way it only has two legs, with claws on the tips of its wings it uses to hold onto things. The dragon’s head pops out, swivelling around, and when it sees Sehun and Jongdae, it almost seems to smile, jaw opening to reveal sharp metal teeth as its tail --sticking out the other end of the egg-- swishes happily.

Then, it begins eating the egg shell.

And that bit is far more horrific to watch, the drake devouring each and every inch of metal melded to the shell of its egg, ingesting it easily for strength as its shard begins to glow brighter because of it, but Jongdae can’t really look away.

He points at the egg-eating dragon. “Did you… do that… when you were born?”

Sehun glances at him sideways. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

Jongdae decides that no, he doesn’t, still unable to reconcile with the fact that Sehun had hatched from an egg somewhere far away from here, only to fly back to the hive. Eventually, once the drake is done and now free from its constraints, it stumbles on unused legs, bounding lazily to Jongdae and looking up at him expectantly.

It doesn’t… it doesn’t look threatening, sitting patiently at his feet like that, even if it’s all maroon dragonsteel with pointed spikes and glowing red eyes. It just looks… happy, so Jongdae crouches down, and gives the dragon’s head a small rub, who pushes further into Jongdae’s palm.

“Told you he likes you,” Sehun says, and runs his hand down the drake’s back, as Jongdae continues scratching it beneath the chin.

“How do you know it’s a boy?” Jongdae asks, looking for some sort of identification markers. Sehun scoffs.

“Dragons are sentient machines, we don’t have genders,” he says matter-of-factly, cooing a little as the drake’s tail sweeps along the ground happily.

“But you have preferred pronouns?” Jongdae asks, but Sehun doesn’t reply, more caught up in patting their new baby dragon than helping to smooth out Jongdae’s confusion. Dragons can, supposedly, communicate in ways beyond words, but Jongdae doesn’t know if that’s really true or not. Jongdae softens at the fond look on Sehun’s face, as the drake playfully nips at his fingertips. “We should name him.”

“Vivi,” Sehun says immediately, and Jongdae tips his head, slightly confused. Sehun’s smile is small, but fond. “It means he’s alive.”

Jongdae looks at the small drake still happily swishing his tail, then at Sehun’s profile, and agrees. Dragons are alive, even if they don’t have a heartbeat, or breathe, they’re living creatures, and Jongdae is feeling very parentally proud of Vivi for hatching like that, despite the odds. And for being born a powerful drake too, even though he’d been planted in the Barrens!

“What a good boy~” Jongdae coos in a baby voice as rubs both hands over Vivi’s body, who laps up the attention easily. Convinced that he won’t hurt him, Jongdae picks Vivi up and pulls him against his chest, who curls against Jongdae’s heartbeat familiarly, making a small, pixelated noise of happiness in the back of his throat.

Sehun smiles at the sight, and Jongdae suddenly feels braver now, more certain, less caught off-guard despite the sudden birth in front of him.

“I’m sorry for not telling you about Lu Han,” he says firmly, Vivi in his arms giving him an odd amount of strength. “I should have but I-- it’s something that haunts me everyday, and I couldn’t stand the idea of you thinking any less of me for my greatest mistake. Couldn’t risk Lu Han...”

Sehun sighs, but steps closer to Jongdae nonetheless, to stroke Vivi’s cheek with his index finger.

“I understand why you did it,” he admits softly. “It’s just… hard to process, I think.” He smiles, a fractured thing on his beautiful face. “The same way you can’t really process the fact that I hatched from an egg.”

“Shut up,” Jongdae replies indignantly, glad to watch the way Sehun laughs even as he shoves him by bumping their shoulders together. “It’s really weird to picture!”

“Well, I wasn’t in my human form, if that helps,” Sehun replies, a little smug, but the way he says human form only reminds Jongdae that he is, in fact, a giant magical mechanical lizard with wings, and that’s not something he’s very good at processing either, even if he’s seen Sehun’s dragon arm firsthand.

Jongdae exhales slowly. “Not really,” he admits. Sehun just laughs. Jongdae’s chest swells at the sight, Vivi wriggling in his arms as his grip turns too tight and repositioning himself so that he sits on Jongdae’s shoulder instead, tail curled around his neck as an anchor. Jongdae is indifferent, happy for Vivi to do whatever he wants. “Lu Han is… a good person, despite everything that’s happened. He would never hurt a dragon the same way I never will either. We both learnt that the hard way.”

Sehun nods in acknowledgement. “I know,” he replies. “I’ll still help you, Jongdae. I’ll always help you. I hope you realise that.”

“I do,” Jongdae says, even as he feels something sticky and bubbly rise in his chest and, oh .

“But I want to understand you better,” Sehun says, and places his palm over Jongdae’s heart, which skips a beat at the gesture. “I need to-- I need to understand what happened, to you and Lu Han.”

“I’ll tell you,” Jongdae assures. “Anything-- everything. All of it. But…” he glances behind him, as Vivi makes a small noise in confusion, following his line of sight. “... Later, maybe.”

Sehun, suddenly realising they’re underground in a fallen city, with a baby dragon and a room full of cultists, laughs nervously, remembering himself.

“Later sounds good.”

Nobody says anything about Sehun and Jongdae’s dramatic storming off, but when they sheepishly shuffle back into the dome, all Sehun says is, “I’ll help the queenslayer because he needs it.” And nobody questions him past that. Ah, the life of a god.

Kyungsoo, however, insists it’s late, and promises to have guides help them to Kast tomorrow. Jongdae hadn’t even realised it, since there’s no sun and all, but now that he thinks about it, he is kind of exhausted, for a multitude of reasons. Miyoung expresses joy at Vivi’s sudden birth, and has a group of dragon devout lead Jongdae and Sehun to a larger area, where more people are found.

The people here, however, are more like Song Qian, not bearing the marks of the devout on their skin.

“So you’re not all dragon worshippers?” Jongdae asks one of the followers nearest to him, who jumps at suddenly being spoken to.

“Ah… no… sorry,” she bows over hurriedly, flustering Jongdae, who quickly insists it’s fine. “Only some of us choose to acknowledge the rightful gods.”

“It divides the population down here,” Song Qian inputs monotonously, sounding so disconnected even while her eyes tell Jongdae that she is far from uncaring. “Those who worship dragons and those who don’t. Not all the dragon devout need to be down here, some of them have chosen it.”

And that’s probably a whole heap of salt in the wound, for the weak and unable who were kicked out of Kast.

Song Qian softens, however. “But we need as much help as we can get…”

Jongdae can see that, in the plots of earth sprouting plants beneath sun crystals, the people collecting water from the wells, deep in the ground, sharing food and resources and helping each other. It’s certainly a life of greater equality compared to that on the surface, but it’s strange to Jongdae that even then the people find ways to divide themselves, to put up these barriers and lines for safety, when all it ever does is split them farther apart and cause dissonance.

But Jongdae doesn’t say any of that, just feels Vivi curl against his neck closer, overwhelmed by all the people, stroking his back consolingly, fingers bumping over the ridges of smooth, warm, dragonsteel scales.

Sehun is walking a ways ahead from Jongdae and Song Qian, flanked by followers who are swarming him with questions, and it makes Jongdae smile, despite himself, at Sehun’s cute, evidently flustered position. The younger girl beside Jongdae, the devout from before, keeps flicking glances at Jongdae, however, biting her lip.

“If you want to ask me something, you can,” Jongdae assures, not wanting this godly position just because he happens to be friends with Sehun. He’s as human as the rest of them and, in fact, just as rejected. Worshipping Sehun as a god… Jongdae can actually understand that, but Jongdae isn’t even close to deserving such a thing.

“I-- sorry, I’m just. Curious,” the young girl says, nervously wringing her hands together. “...How does a human body pleasure a god?”

Jongdae’s brain short circuits. “What?”

He doesn’t even get a chance to ask what the hell she means by that, or a chance to clear up the fact that he does not do… anything like that with Sehun, thank you very much, because they’re being lead through a stone archway in an old fallen building that’s been hollowed out and replaced with a large futon in the centre of the room. One futon. Jongdae and Sehun’s packs from before neatly stacked in the corner of the room.

“There are baths through there,” Song Qian says, pointing disinterestedly. “Dinner will be served in the plaza outside in an hour.”

“But we can bring it to you if you’d like,” the young girl beside Jongdae helpfully adds. They’re both talking to Sehun, not Jongdae, which makes Jongdae feel a little disgruntled, all things considered.

“We’ll eat with you, thank you,” Sehun smiles warmly, and slowly the large group file out of the room, the devout casting one last lingering look at Sehun before disappearing altogether. Sehun slumps in relief.

Vivi, still perched on Jongdae’s shoulder, opens up his wings and attempts to fly to Sehun, failing miserably and landing on the futon with a soft thump . Jongdae and Sehun laugh at him in unison as the dragon just sits up, shaking his head vigorously.

“Did you know they all think we’re sleeping together?” Jongdae jokes nervously despite the hesitant silence, in hopes that Sehun could go out there and maybe, you know, clear a few things up so Jongdae didn’t have to feel like everybody underground thinks he’s just a piece of ass Sehun keeps with him for entertainment value, so to speak.

“Well, they wouldn’t be wrong,” Sehun replies, and Jongdae’s eyes widen until he realises Sehun is gesturing to the single bed in the room, which they’ll undoubtedly be sharing together, later. Great.

“No, I mean--” Jongdae fumbles. “--they think we’re. You know.” He makes a vague hand gesture, which Sehun raises an eyebrow at. “They think we’re… having… sex…” Jongdae is so red he just might die. This can’t possibly get any worse.

“What’s sex?” Sehun asks, tilting his head, and this is it, it just got worse. Jongdae is going to combust . How the hell do you explain sex to anyone, let alone a magical mechanical dragon?

“Um,” Jongdae squeaks, turning redder by the second.

Sehun just snickers. “Kidding,” Jongdae freezes in place. “Do you really think I’m that ignorant because I’m a dragon?”

“Asshole,” Jongdae scowls, and steps forward to shove Sehun, who laughs in response. Jongdae’s heart is positively pounding, for more reasons than one. “I don’t even know how the birds and bees talk goes!!!!”

“I shouldn’t have given in so easily, I would have loved to see you try and explain human intercourse to me,” Sehun just smiles as he lies back on the bed, eyes slipping shut. “You looked so panicked though, I just couldn’t keep going.”

Jongdae scoffs. “Thanks for showing me mercy, O’ Benevolent God.”

Sehun cracks an eye open at that --the green one-- glaring at Jongdae half-heartedly, who cackles. Vivi comes bounding over immediately, attaching himself to Jongdae’s back by using the metal claws on the tips of his wings to grip to Jongdae’s shoulder.

“Better that they worship me than fear me, I guess,” Sehun mutters, now staring at the ceiling, illuminated by crystals. “Although I wish they could just… treat me normally. Like you do.”

“Like I do?” Jongdae repeats, sitting on his heel as he watches Sehun beneath him, who pushes himself up until he’s sitting, leaning back on one palm.

“Yeah...” Sehun agrees, a little sheepish, maybe. “You’ve always treated me like a person, even when you told yourself I wasn’t.”

Jongdae feels his face turn warm again. “I don’t deserve to be praised for that,” he quickly retorts.

“You deserve to be praised for everything,” Sehun replies, and the sheer amount of honesty in his tone, genuine and earnest, makes Jongdae want to explode, disappear, or kiss him. Maybe all three. “You’re amazing.”

Huh. That urge is new.

“I’m really not,” Jongdae insists, rubbing the back of his neck. “If anything, you’re the amazing one for putting up with me for so long.” He swallows. “For coming all this way to begin with.”

Sehun laughs dryly, a short huff. “I came because I needed your help, because I’m selfish.” He tips his head back to stare at the ceiling again.

“That’s part of it, yeah.” Jongdae shifts closer, placing his hand on top of Sehun’s. “But then, despite everything that’s happened, you stayed.” He squeezes it, short fingers curling over Sehun’s long ones. “You helped me because you saw how desperate I was, and you’re too pure hearted to leave someone in need.”

“I’m not…” Sehun’s eyebrows furrow, hand twisting upwards to return Jongdae’s grip. “I’m not that kind, really, it’s just… you.” Jongdae blinks at that, taken aback. “I told you before, once, remember? You’re too nice. It makes me want to treat you with the same amount of kindness.”

But Jongdae isn’t too nice, he’s lied to Sehun, and used him, and gotten them in danger, and it’s Sehun who forgives him each time, Sehun that makes Jongdae want to be kinder, Sehun that teaches Jongdae how to rearrange his worldview, how to see things in a brighter light… it’s an endless catch twenty-two of the dragon or the egg coming first, Jongdae and Sehun making better people out of one another.

Jongdae doesn’t have any retort for that, no arguments, just reaches out with a hand to touch Sehun’s face tenderly, who leans into it. The moment is softer than anything they’ve shared before, a result of days spent in hardened conditions, and the fractured vulnerability brought about by the truth of Lu Han and Jongdae’s past, and yet.... Yet… it would just be so easy, Jongdae thinks, to lean down and kiss him.

Except he doesn’t know what it means, doesn’t know what it could mean, can’t afford to get his disease-ridden heart tangled in something that’s already this dangerous to begin with, can’t afford to hurt Sehun like that. At the end of the day, once Jongin and Lu Han are safe, Jongdae and Sehun will return to their divided worlds and never see each other again, and more than that, Jongdae can’t risk being hurt by Sehun anymore than he already is.

Do dragons even feel love?

Jongdae lets his hand fall, the tension dissipating like smoke.

“We should bathe,” Jongdae tells Sehun. “While we still can, before dinner. We stink.” After being in a desert for over a week, most of which was spent tied to a pole, it’s pretty understandable.

“Yeah,” Sehun agrees, staring at Jongdae unwaveringly through mismatched eyes, but Jongdae can see the disappointment swimming in them. “I guess so.”

They take turns using the hot springs bubbling behind the crumbling building their room is in, Jongdae using the isolation as Sehun goes first to calm his heart and cool his thoughts. Sehun comes out wearing only his pants, rubbing one of the woven towels they’d been given through his long, unbraided hair, and Jongdae is suddenly struck by the question of how a human body does please a god after all, because Sehun’s body isn’t human, his torso smooth and undefined, no nipples or belly button, curiously, it makes Jongdae wonder what the rest looks like.

Which just makes him turn red, predictably, embarrassed by his thoughts as he quickly flees to the springs to hide his face.

The springs are deep in the earth, bubbling, and Jongdae sinks into them with a sigh as Vivi waits patiently by the edge of the water, curiously peering in.

“You’re waterproof,” Jongdae says, reaching out with both hands. “It’s okay.”

Vivi, trusting him, jumps into Jongdae’s hands, and lets himself be pulled into the water, splashing in Jongdae’s lap curiously as he laughs. He’s a little worried about Vivi sinking, however that proves to be no problem as the dragon uses his wings to swim around, diving in and out of the water. It’s probably good for him, considering he hasn’t worked out how to fly yet, to let the water take some of the weight off his back.

Jongdae laughs as Vivi continues having too much fun in the hot springs, surprised by a non-hydra dragon liking water at all, while washing away some of his thoughts, still caught up in the realisation that he’s far more attached to Sehun than he ought to be.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Jongdae asks Vivi, who is far more interested in swimming than gifting Jongdae with a response. He sighs, sinking lower into the water, and while part of him berates his stupid heart for liking Sehun like this, part of him justifies that it was inevitable, after all. Jongdae had liked him even before he’d known the truth, and the more of Sehun he got to uncover, the deeper he fell. It’s kind of weird to reconcile with the notion that Jongdae is falling for a giant mechanical magical lizard but, then again, Jongdae’s life has been pretty fucking crazy as of late, this is somehow the most predictable thing to have happened.

In hindsight, maybe he should have seen it coming.

He gets dressed into his spare set of clothes, refreshed, and towels his hair dry, sad that he’d had to undo Sehun’s braid, although he keeps the flower, tucking it into his pocket; maybe Jongdae can ask for Sehun to do it again?

“Ready to face your adoring cult?” Jongdae jokes as he pads back into their room. Sehun just grunts.

Dinner turns out to be a strange stew cooked in several large stone pots, alongside rice. The line parts to let Sehun serve himself first, and consequently, Jongdae, but they pointedly stand at the end of it, refusing to accept the special treatment.

“You grow all of this?” Jongdae asks the young girl from before, who has lined up in front of them.

“Um, some of this is bought on the surface,” she explains. “There’s still metal down here, if we’re lucky, so we sell what we can to buy things like rice that we can’t grow.”

“But Kyungsoo is trying to find a way for us to grow rice so we don’t have to go to the surface anymore,” a young male devout helpfully inputs, as Jongdae nods in acknowledgement. “He’s really smart!”

Jongdae isn’t sure how they could grow rice when it seems they’ve mostly mastered root vegetables, especially in such limited space but hell, if people can actually live down here, what can’t they do?

“Don’t you miss the surface?” Sehun asks, stunning the young acolytes.

“Of course, but…” the boy shrugs. “The surface never welcomed us. Soul is our home now.”

Sehun’s expression is conflicted, and Jongdae thinks, of course --to a dragon, lord of the skies and whatnot, the thought of living underground must be just unbearable. But he’s also Sehun, so he’s probably extra sympathetic about the whole ordeal; Jongdae hides his smile by tucking his chin into Vivi, curled in his arms.

By the time they get their own portions, Sehun is pulled away by the less shy devout, being riddled with questions, and Jongdae smiles at the sight, taking his time to find a place to sit. It’s interesting, the way the entire community comes together for a meal like this, there can’t be more than fifty, maybe sixty people, but they all gather, even when only half of them bear the marks of the devout. Maybe it’s not that divided after all.

Still, Jongdae doesn’t really have a place, shifting in the centre of the plaza. There are congregated groups chatting amicably together, the largest being the one where Sehun is, but Jongdae is a little more forgotten, like always.

He ends up having his sleeve tugged by the young girl he still hasn’t gotten the name of.

“You can sit with us,” she says shyly. “If you’d like.”

Jongdae readily agrees, finally being introduced to a group of young dragon devout, the girl -- Yerim , finally-- and the boy from before, Donghyuck, as well as Jisung and Jaemin, all nothing more than children, but filled with plenty of laughter and smiles to give, letting Jongdae sit with them seamlessly, enamoured with Vivi They ask him a few questions about his travels, which he answers, and they all listen with rapt attention.

As their meals are finished, the atmosphere turns lethargic, Donghyuck playing with the end of Yerim’s hair absentmindedly, where Jongdae notices she has it tied back in a long braid similar to Sehun’s.

“Hey,” he starts, pointing to the braid. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

It turns out to be harder than expected, as Yerim has to demonstrate on herself several times to no result, allowing Jongdae to braid it on her first before starting himself, the others happy to tease Jongdae for his hopelessness, which he pays back by reminding them all to respect their elders.

Eventually, Jongdae can do it on himself well enough, although judging by Yerim’s giggle, it’s far from perfect. That’s how Sehun finds Jongdae, with a pathetically half-done braid in his hair, smiling wryly. Jongdae shakes it out.

“I just came to let you know they’re serving rice wine,” Sehun points to a few of the servers, now in front of large wooden barrels. “It’s to celebrate our arrival, thought you wouldn’t want to be impolite.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, quickly standing, a little flustered. The group behind him snickers, and he pointedly pays them no mind. “Sure. Thanks.”

Sehun just smiles at him with curved, mismatched eyes, and Jongdae follows him to collect his serving, leaving Vivi to roll over happily on the circle of devout scratching his belly. Barely a few hours old and the Drake is already such a brat, typical.

Taking their wooden cups, Sehun quickly steers Jongdae away from the main plaza, who laughs at Sehun’s obvious urgency, escaping his adoring cult.

“Not a fan of the attention?” Jongdae asks teasingly.

“It’s unbearable,” Sehun replies, sitting down with a huff. “They all want to know about everything all the time --sometimes I don’t even have answers to give?”

“Godlihood must be hard,” Jongdae says slyly as he just sits beside Sehun, accepting the cup and taking a sip. It’s sweet, Jongdae likes it. Tonight feels like the first time he’s relaxed in weeks, but Jongdae knows it’s merely a lull because the worst to come is next.

But tonight isn’t a night for worrying, pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind, Jongdae settling against Sehun easily, sipping his rice wine as they admire the sun crystals decorating the walls and roof of Soul, casting everything in a soft light. It’s almost reminiscent of stars, in an abstract sort of way.

“I hate being down here,” Sehun mumbles quietly, staring at the glittering ceiling. “But I guess it’s not all bad.”

Jongdae smiles softly. “Vivi doesn’t complain.”

“Vivi is a few hours old,” Sehun retorts petulantly. “And hasn’t seen the surface putside of his egg yet. He also has the emotional range of a dog.”

Jongdae outright laughs at that. “Unlike you, oh great wise ryong prince.”

“Exactly,” Sehun agrees, making Jongdae laugh all over again. “Although you know, if Vivi ate enough iron…”

Jongdae blanches. “Please don’t make me think about my own child acquiring a human form.”

This time, it’s Sehun who snickers at Jongdae. “Look at you in full father mode.” He pokes Jongdae’s thigh teasingly. “It would take Vivi over a hundred years, and a whole lot of iron. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Jongdae lets out a quiet breath of relief, which just makes Sehun laugh softly.

“Not all dragons can have their egg planted somewhere as lucky as you, huh?” Jongdae asks, Sehun humming noncommittal in response. “... Where were you planted, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Sehun quickly replies, eyebrows pinching together. “Do you remember where you were born?”

“Well-- no,” Jongdae tries. “But I’m not a machine with perfect recall ability.”

“And neither am I,” Sehun scoffs. “Do you know how much Progenitor tek is in here? Not all my background systems are running to one-hundred percent capacity at once or my CPU would overload trying to handle every module.”

Jongdae’s face twists. “What?”

Sehun just sighs. “Don’t worry about it, just… I’m not infinitely powerful, you know?”

“I know,” Jongdae says, not only in the fact that dragons have limited power sources, like humans, but in the fact that Sehun is too human to be perfect. “Or else we wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped by marauders…”

Sehun scoffs. “Because that was my fault was it?” He folds his arms petulantly as Jongdae laughs around a mouthful of rice wine. “Not like we needed my ‘infinite power’ anyway when you were so…” he shakes his head, almost in disbelief. “... Where did you learn to even pull something like that off?”

“The army, mostly,” Jongdae reveals, placing his cup down solemnly as he feels some of his cheer from before turn bitter merely at the thought. They’re not pleasant memories so much as they’re scars upon his skin that nobody else can see but refuse to fade away all the same.

“Why did you join the army?” Sehun asks, sitting up straighter, and Jongdae realises his promise of later has become now, and the rice wine doesn’t taste as sweet when Sehun’s want of his company hides ulterior motives. He sounds a little accusatory, a little confused. “I mean you’re not-- you don’t strike me as the… soldier type?”

“It wasn’t a choice,” Jongdae reveals, tugging his knees against his chest by wrapping his arms around his thighs, finger tracing over the rim of his wine cup. “Lu Han and I were… thieves. Street-rats,” Jongdae explains. “Orphans. We couldn’t work to live so we stole.” They weren’t grandiose crimes, of course, so much as it was petty theft; a loaf of bread here, an apple or two there. “One day, we got caught.” No thanks to Jongdae’s heart, rapid and pounding and slowing them down; a familiar occasion, it seems.

Sehun, at the very least, doesn’t seem judgemental, merely watches Jongdae with focused attention. Jongdae exhales slowly.

“The prisons were too full to add another pair of street-rats into the cells, so we were forced into the army instead.” It had made sense during the iron wars, of course, putting every able body to use. It was the first experience of regular shelter and food Lu Han had ever experienced, ever since his parents left him on the street as a child, promising to return, and never did. Jongdae shrugs stiffly, faux nonchalance. “Except Lu Han was… talented, he excelled at all the exercises.” Years of street smarts and quick wit had crafted him into a different kind of soldier than the other teenagers training in the army, but a soldier all the same. “The Cardinals noticed him and… well, he refused to become a dragonslayer without me, so I trained to become one too.”

Lu Han had never been so… seen, before, and the talent got to his head. He started working harder and harder to prove himself, and it only became his hubris, while Jongdae fumbled along in the shadows, a stableboy-slash-dragonslayer. The stronger Lu Han became, the more enemies he made, and the more their fellow peers turned into enemies, willing to backstab each other at any cost to sabotage each other’s health, victory, wealth. Dragonslayers can serve the King himself, and sit in his lap of luxury, and soon enough Jongdae and Lu Han discovered that the glory of these fighters --honoured even by street-rats on the outskirts of Kast-- was nothing more than a myth, blinding light to distract from the foul, wretched greediness of every last dragonslayer.

“Do you really think Lu Han is the only reason you were chosen?” Sehun asks softly, tugging Jongdae from his reverie, who furrows his eyebrows together.

“Why else.” Jongdae huffs. It isn’t a question. Sehun looks conflicted, lips twisting together, but he lets the topic drop.

“Why did you leave then?” He asks next, staring at the ceiling with another pained look.

“For dragonslayers, everything is about killing as many dragons as possible to become the next cardinal,” Jongdae explains, detaching himself from the words in his mouth so his voice won’t shake. “People betrayed each other on quests, regularly stabbed each other in the back… it was never about helping people in need, only about getting the most wealth and power, and destroying the weak.” Jongdae shudders at the memory, feeling bruises on his skin that have long since healed, can still feel dirt covered hands prodding at his body and asking him why he’s so pathetic. “The longer Lu Han and I remained there, the worse it seemed to get.” As the war went on and on, so did the conditions, with Kast losing money and power fast, desperation creeped its way through to even the highest social class.

“By the end of the war the West Cardinal --the captain of the King’s Guard--” Jongdae quickly supplies. “--was beyond corrupt. Increasing taxes on areas that were protected by dragonslayers, taking bribes to overlook crimes, using his soldiers like they were toys--” Jongdae cuts off, choked, curling into himself even tighter. He breathes in slowly, once, then out again, controlling his heartbeat.

“After the end of the war,” Jongdae continues, Sehun still just silent and impassive. “Lu Han and I… we had doubts, about how things had been handled. Terrus didn’t seem like a worthy prize considering what had been paid for it, so… Lu Han refused their offer.”

Sehun’s eyebrows pinch together. “What offer?”

“When a dragonslayer kills a high-tier dragon,” Jongdae says, swallowing nervously. “They’re given a piece of it as a prize. The only way to conquer the dragons--”

“--is to become one,” Sehun finishes. Jongdae nods solemnly.

“But Lu Han didn’t want to become part machine, didn’t want to become a monster like the cardinals, so he refused the Queen’s arm.”

“And they gave it to him anyway,” Sehun concludes, eyes filled with a sort of sadness beyond human capability. Jongdae looks down in guilty confirmation, remembering the way Lu Han had screamed as they’d taken him from his rooms, pulled him away to the harvesting factory to remove his arm and heart both and replace them with something better .

“I refused to let them, tried to save him. Called them crazy for what they were doing, called them corrupt.” Jongdae laughs nervously. “They just called me a traitor in return. Locked me in the Bone Tower for treason.” Sehun’s nostrils flare, his face a mix of hurt and anger, and it makes Jongdae’s heart ache. “Once Lu Han was released and expected to be a normal soldier again, a hero of Kast--” Jongdae lets out a short, bitter laugh at the thought. “--he broke me out, and we ran.”

“And you’ve been wanted ever since?” Sehun asks, mismatched eyes wide open.

“Not… quite. There’s another crime Lu Han committed,” Jongdae reveals, nails digging crescents into his palm as he relives the sickening memory. “The night he came to rescue me, the West Cardinal was there. In my cell.” Jongdae squeezes his eyes shut. “He was… interrogating me, mostly because he was twisted, but I-- I mentioned it before, right? He treated his soldiers like toys.” Jongdae trembles at the thought even now, dirty, blood-crusted hands hooked beneath his chin, telling them that even if he’s pathetic, at least he was pretty. Jongdae had tried to fight it, of course he had, but he was chained up and tortured, unable to do anything but feel blunt fingernails skimming over his skin--

Jongdae curls up tighter, and feels a tumultuous storm of emotions in his chest; anger, weakness, dirtiness, but also satisfaction, at what had happened to the Cardinal once Lu Han had plunged his dragon’s arm through the centre of his chest. He’d deserved it.

Sehun looks positively horrified.

“Lu Han killed him,” Jongdae says, with an odd amount of strength to his voice. “To save me. He saw what the Cardinal was about to do and killed him.” Jongdae looks at Sehun steadily then, meeting his eyes. “So I’m wanted for deserting my duty and treason, but Lu Han is wanted for murder of the King’s second in command.”

Sehun inhales sharply, at a lack of what to say. Jongdae can’t blame him --it’s a lot to take in.

“Lu Han really is a hero, isn’t he?” Sehun asks eventually, and Jongdae nods immediately, picking up his rice wine and tightening his fingers around the wooden cup, but not taking a sip, afraid he can’t stomach it. Sehun lets out a slow breath. “Then I guess… some heroes need saving too.”

Jongdae smiles at that, relaxing, and feels Sehun’s hand on his calf, squeezing once in reassurance. Then, it falls to the ground, and Jongdae feels warm from the alcohol and something else entirely.

Licking his dry lips, desperate to twist the heavy atmosphere, Jongdae points at Sehun’s cup. “You haven’t even touched your wine,” he points out.

Sehun grimaces as he looks at it. “Alcohol is poison... My body can’t process it properly.”

Jongdae smiles, remembering the time in the tavern back in Alkai, in what feels like another life, attempting to out-drink Lu Han simply because Sehun is just that competitive and stubborn. It makes Lu Han’s absence ring out like a void in Jongdae’s chest, but they’re so close to Kast now, Jongdae knows they’ll save him soon. Together.

“You can have it, if you’d like,” Sehun offers gingerly, and Jongdae can tell by the expression on his face that there are a thousand and one things Sehun wants to say and he doesn’t know how to say any of them. That’s okay, though, Jongdae doesn’t expect him to. Having him here is enough.

“I think I’m good,” Jongdae replies, shrugging, and tips out the leftover remains of his cup into the soil, watching the dirt soak up the liquid as it disappears. Sehun frowns.

“We shouldn’t waste it,” he replies pertinently. Jongdae arches an eyebrow.

“Well, if you’d like, you can always return a full cup to them and see if they take it as a sign that they’re not good enough for their god.”

Sehun pales, tipping his cup out onto the ground. Jongdae cackles.

It takes a little while before Jongdae and Sehun can properly excuse themselves to rest considering every devout in the whole Fallen city wants to ask Sehun questions, and Jongdae struggles to get Vivi to come back when he’s having his stomach scratched by five different people. Eventually, though, it’s Miyoung who saves them, insisting that the heroes (Jongdae resists the urge to snort) need rest before leaving tomorrow, allowing Jongdae and Sehun to collapse onto their shared futon in peace.

Vivi worms himself in between them easily and they laugh in unison, Sehun’s face still half-planted into the thin pillows as he rolls onto his shoulder to stroke down the dragon’s back, who gives a small metallic whir of happiness in return. It’s unfairly adorable for a tiny baby metal death machine, but then again, Sehun is also very cute, so maybe it’s a dragon thing.

Jongdae clears his throat at his thoughts. Perhaps that rice wine was more potent than he first realised.

Jongdae lies on his back, shutting his eyes, only to laugh when he does so.

“These were pretty at first,” he tells Sehun, squinting at the ceiling, littered with sun crystals. “But I wish we could turn them off.”

Sehun laughs softly; Jongdae’s lips twitch.

“If only your godly powers--” he doesn’t even get to finish the joke because Sehun flicks his nose hard enough to make him yelp. Jongdae dissolves into a fit of giggling.

As the atmosphere fades into silence and Jongdae feels his eyelids droop despite the bright lighting, Sehun quietly says, “Jongdae?”

Jongdae hums in acknowledgement, cracking open one eye lazily.

“We’re going to save Lu Han, and he’s going to be okay,” Sehun says, like he can sense every worry buried deep within Jongdae and knows how to pull the weeds out. As if Jongdae’s heart isn’t conflicted enough as is. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Jongdae admits, and is surprised himself to find that it’s the truth, a hand gently reaching out to hold Sehun’s, giving a squeeze. “Together. Jongin, too.”

“Right,” Sehun agrees, giving Jongdae a small smile. “Together.”

Jongdae falls asleep just like that, his heart blooming with unspoken truths, his lullaby the sound of Sehun’s shard pumping steadily beside him, inhaling Sehun’s pine scent as a blanket of comfort and reassurance lulls Jongdae to sleep.

When Jongdae wakes up in the morning it’s strange, really, for numerous reasons. The first is the fact that sometime in the night Jongdae had apparently rolled over and started hugging Sehun aggressively, which is… embarrassing, but it’s hard to pull away when he’s so… warm. Cooler than a human, truly, but still warm enough to be living. If Jongdae focuses long enough he can feel that there’s a soft whir beneath Sehun’s skin, the hum of machinery beneath. Other than that, though, both he and Vivi are completely stock still and unmoving, looking almost deathly, it’s bizarre to witness.

Jongdae peels himself back carefully, but not carefully enough, given by the way Sehun’s body gives that characteristic hum and his eyes open, sitting up and blinking at Jongdae who’s frozen in place as if caught.

Sehun arches an eyebrow. “Good… morning?” He offers, at the way Jongdae is blatantly staring at him.

“Um,” Jongdae squeaks.  “Good morning?”

Like the meal of the previous night, the community of Soul eat together in the main plaza surrounded by the rubble of the fallen city. It’s a simple rice porridge that goes down well, but Jongdae struggles to finish it when his stomach is twisting itself into knots. There’s so much to worry about, getting Lu Han back, getting into Kast, keeping Sehun safe, keeping Sehun out of his heart…

Jongdae pulls a face, stubbornly stabbing at the bowl with a wooden spoon.

“Is it inedible?” A voice asks, and Jongdae jumps, caught-off guard, surprised to see Kyungsoo staring --or, well, not so staring-- down at him, a wry smile on his face.

“N-- No it’s fine!” Jongdae quickly denies, watching warily as Kyungsoo sits down beside him cross-legged, facing the same way Jongdae had, watching Sehun being adored as usual as he attempted to drown his thoughts. Jongdae pauses, staring at Kyungsoo --how did he know Jongdae wasn’t eating?

“You don’t have to stare,” Kyungsoo replies amusedly. “You can just ask.”

Jongdae jumps again, sufficiently creeped out. “How do you…?”

“Just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I am blind,” Kyungsoo replies.

“Um,” Jongdae says. “I’m pretty sure that’s the definition, actually.”

Kyungsoo’s lips twitch. “When you have no sight, you learn to compensate.” One of Kyungsoo’s hands reaches out to touch Jongdae’s, the one holding the spoon, reaching it after fumbling. “I could hear you tapping rhythmically in a way that indicated you hadn’t eaten, I could feel that your body hadn’t moved, telling me you were staring.” Kyungsoo shrugs noncommittally. “You’d be surprised how much a person gives away, once you stop looking at them.”

Jongdae puts his bowl down, deep in thought. “When you--” he nearly says saw us and struggles to find an alternative. “--... found us, yesterday. You knew Sehun was a dragon… how?”

Kyungsoo hums at that, deep and pensive. “Dragons aren’t humans,” he says. “They take our shape, but there are aspects that set them apart.”

Jongdae frowns at that in thought, staring at Sehun. Dragons aren’t humans . No, they aren’t, Jongdae knows this, and yet… what is Sehun, if not human? Filled with compassion and ambition and love, a spectrum of ever-shifting emotions that clash and knock against one another. He’s not a human, but he doesn’t have the straightforwardness of a machine, so… what does that make him?

“You can hear it, when they talk,” Kyungsoo admits, continuing. “Feel it when they move. They mimic us, but it is not perfect.”

“How did you learn all this?” Jongdae asks curiously. To know so much about dragons he’d need to come into contact with dragons, which can only mean... “The Guardian?” Kyungsoo nods. “He taught you?”

“I learned,” Kyungsoo corrects, as if there’s a difference. Jongdae frowns harder. “He had no wish to reveal his status as a dragon, it is simply something that became prevalent over time.”

A dragon who didn’t want to be a dragon, saving a bunch of blasphemous dragon devout by hiding them underground? It certainly piques Jongdae’s curiosity, he wishes the Guardian was still around so he could meet him.

“May I ask you something, now?” Kyungsoo says, tearing Jongdae from his reverie. His smile is dry. “Eye for an eye, and whatnot.”

Jongdae looks away sheepishly. “Sure.”

“What is the Queenslayer, to you?” Kyungsoo asks after quiet deliberation.

The answer is easy. “My brother,” Jongdae replies curtly.

“And once you’ve saved him…” Kyungsoo trails off, frowning. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” Jongdae answers, shifting uncomfortably. “South again, maybe?” But Kris had already found them there once, what’s to say he won’t do it again? The north will only take them to the King’s Guard ridden streets of Terrus and the other iron mines, the ice capped mountains and frozen tundra, the west to the Barrens and the east to densely populated cities of the forest. Where else is left? “Why do you ask?”

Kyungsoo shrugs. “Soul is a city for many people without anywhere to go,” he explains, smiling softly. Jongdae curls his fingers over his heart. “People who have been forgotten, and people who want to be forgotten.” His smile turns knowing, and despite the fact that his eyes are milky white, Jongdae can’t help but feel as if they’re staring straight through him. “Just something to keep in mind.”

Jongdae inhales sharply, speechless, and Kyungsoo simply stands and walks away, unbothered. It certainly leaves him something to think about --running away to Soul? Living down here? Underground? They’d certainly never be found out, at least, but… no sun? No sky? Sehun would never live down here--

--Jongdae blinks. Pauses. Why does it matter where Sehun would live? Jongdae would never live with him or something equally as preposterous, it can’t even be a factor in the matter. Vivi, on the other hand, certainly shouldn’t live underground --but again, Vivi is a free dragon….

For Jongdae, however, with nowhere else to hide…

It’s something he’ll need to ask about Lu Han about, either way, Jongdae is torn from his train of thought by Sehun standing over him.

“Ready to go?” He asks bravely, offering out a hand. Jongdae takes it, grinning sharply. It’s time he return to Kast.

His smile turns acidic. “Home sweet home.”

Song Qian, Yerim and Miyoung are the ones to escort Jongdae and Sehun out, after a long-winded goodbye involving way too much prostrating in front of Sehun from most of the devout. Seeing the entirety of Soul as they walk towards the tunnel is strange, similar to the Barrens in its forgotten graveyard of memories, but also… different. This isn’t the waste purged from the greater cities, this is the beginning of the end, one of the first relics of the Progenitors to crumble before their world fell. It’s haunting.

Especially with the great Abyss in the centre, a hole that Yerim says is meant to go straight to the centre of the earth itself. It looks like something has eaten the earth, and Jongdae frowns as a stray pebble is kicked into the huge void, and yet he never hears it land.

Further into the fallen city, one particular faded stretch of paper, hung as large advertisements on the walls of fallen skyscrapers, catches Jongdae’s attention as they walk, chilling him to the bone as the sun crystals cast it in sickly shadows of blue and purple. It’s written in the characters similar to the modern day common language, half-folded over and almost illegible: D efense R esponse A utomated G uarding An droids -  here to protect you!

D.R.A.G-An. Dragon.

Jongdae shivers, turning away, Vivi curls his tail around Jongdae’s neck tighter as he senses his anxiety, and Sehun casts them both an odd look, but Jongdae just smiles to cover up this feeling in his chest, making sure that Sehun doesn’t spot the large poster beside them. To think that Progenitors built dragons to protect them from their enemies, and only became their hubris… Jongdae knows the stories, has always known the stories, but to see such a pointed, historic reminder of what dragons are capable of… it’s chilling.

It takes them a while to reach the upper level tunnels Jongdae and Sehun had entered from, if only because it requires climbing a large spiral staircase that kills Jongdae’s heart with every step. He tries not to let it show, chest pounding as he inhales deeply, but Sehun inevitably notices, and asks the group to wait each time, pretending as if it’s for himself and not Jongdae. Jongdae hates him for it, and simultaneously feels his heart flutter while it also beats erratically, trying to kill him in two different ways. Ridiculous.

It takes hours of walking in the darkness, broken only by the rings of crystals adorning their guides’ necks and wrists like jewelry, showing each step carved into the rock by a very dedicated hand.

“How can you navigate these so well?” Jongdae asks Yerim incredulously during a rest where a waterskin is passed around, shouldering his pack off and dumping it on the ground. “It’s all just… the same amount of darkness and rock.”

“The tunnels are marked,” Yerim says, taking Jongdae’s hand into hers. “Here.” He stumbles after her as she leads him a few steps away from where they’ve stopped, pressing his hand against the rock surface where he feels a carved indent.

“What…” Yerim giggles at Jongdae’s bewilderment, holding up her own sun crystal covered wrist to reveal the small carving. It’s not much at first glance, a crescent moon, easily mistaken for a simple gash in the rock, but it’s there all the same.

“The way it curves points to the direction you need to follow to stay on the correct path,” Yerim explains, as Jongdae continues running his fingers over the marking. “The amount it has waxed indicates how far you are into Kast.”

Jongdae’s eyes widen. “So right now we’re…” he trails off, looking at the slim crescent, just a little bit less than a quarter moon.

“Right beneath the outer ring,” Yerim helpfully explains. “A new moon means the wall, a crescent moon indicates the outer ring, a quarter moon the inner. Anything in between that is, well… anything in between that.” She smiles sheepishly. “It takes practice to know how far into the city you are, though.”

“And how do you know which side?” Jongdae asks. Being beneath the wall is great and all, but Kast is the largest city known to man; they could be towards the Barrens, where Sehun and Jongdae entered, or to the north, right next to Terrus. It’s impossible to tell underground, especially since his wayfinder glass doesn’t work down here.

“The north star,” Yerim answers, and Jongdae looks at the ceiling skeptically, which makes her snort. “Not the real north star.” She moves her wrist across the wall until the light of her sun crystals reveals another carving, a small hole dug into the stone, a tiny star. “Wherever it’s placed tells you which way is north... But it’s not always there,” she quickly adds. “Sometimes no matter how hard you keep track, it’s easy to get lost in the maze, even if you’re trying to make directions…”

Jongdae swallows, staring into the never-ending darkness. “What about a gibbous moon?”

Yerim blinks at him. “A gibbous moon?” She repeats, blinking cutely. “Well… I suppose that would be the palace ring, but I’ve never traveled deep enough to ever see one. There’s just no point. Even if the symbols exist… why bother using them?”

And if the palace and its innermost ring was indicated by a gibbous moon, then a full moon could only be the centre of Kast itself: the Bone Tower. Yerim may be right in suggesting that there’s no point in travelling beyond the inner ring --it is suspended above the earth, of course-- but the Bone Tower is a different story altogether.

If tunnels to such a place even exist.

Only one way to find out.

Jongdae thanks Yerim enough that she blushes and gets flustered, and they quickly head back on course, Jongdae trying to follow the moons Yerim points out to him --always tucked away in inconspicuous locations-- to get a feel for where they are in comparison to Kast. Jongdae had requested they be taken to the east quarter of the inner ring, in order to visit one last stop before finding a way to get to the bone tower, and Miyoung had obliged happily --Song Qian far more disgruntled about the fact.

Eventually the moons lead them to an entrance that takes them into Kast’s waterways, reeking of sewage enough that everybody pinches their nose --even Vivi buries his head into Jongdae’s neck in disgust. They follow the river of sewage until they reach a large grate that pours it out into the canal between the inner and outer rings, eventually leading to the hydrargyrum river further downstream to be carried into the ocean. The bars are bent at the edge enough for a person to slip through.

“I believe this is where we leave you,” Miyoung says, smiling. “If there’s anything else we can do for you--”

Jongdae opens his mouth quickly to deny the offer, but Sehun cuts him off. “Actually,” he inputs. “Can I have one of your sun crystals?”

Jongdae falters, caught off-guard. It’s not like they need the crystals, considering they’re capable of buying torches and whatnot, but either way Song Qian easily takes off the string of them around her wrist, handing them to Sehun.

“Just have all of them,” she insists, nonchalant. “It’s not like they’re rare.”  

Sehun’s expression brightens, and he bows, visibly flustering Miyoung and Yerim both, and even Song Qian, if Jongdae could guess, given by her widened eyes --although she quickly covers it up.

“Thank you,” Sehun tells them, earnest as always. “For everything. Really.”

Song Qian smiles. “Anything for you, Prince.”

Chapter Text

When Jongdae had hardened his determination and known that saving Lu Han meant coming back to Kast, he hadn’t exactly had the time to sit down and think about how the bittersweet homecoming may feel.

Not that the Eastern Quarter of the inner ring can be thought of Jongdae’s home, nothing compares to the modest stone houses of Lithius or the rotten wooden roofs of the outer ring, but in the few short years he’d spent training with the King’s Guard, it could be thought of his home away from home. Wide sprawling houses shaped like pagodas with tin plated roofs and deep eaves, carved in the metal liking of fearsome dragons. It’s ironic, truly, how much humans detest the dragons, and how much they symbolise power, too, as if people just can’t make up their minds.

Like all good dragonslayers, Jongdae and Lu Han had taken up residency here, in the barracks east of the entrance where Jongdae and Sehun have exited, but that’s not why they're here so much as it is the reason Jongdae tugs his hood up, keeping his head low. The smooth cobblestone streets are pristine and bustling with the population of artisans and nobles who dominate the inner ring, alongside the few lucky merchants wealthy enough to take residency here, despite their scornful status --they’re even passed by hover-cars, every now and then. Jongdae finds the winding streets familiar even after all this time, muscle memory kicking in as he seeks to find The Phoenix , keeping his eyes on the ground so as to not cause trouble.

He tugs Sehun’s sleeve, when a quick sideways glance shows his jaw hanging open, eyes wide.

“You’re drawing attention to yourself,” Jongdae warns lowly, making Sehun’s mouth snap shut as he pulls up his hood over his plant-less braid, sheepish.

“It’s…” Sehun steps closer to Jongdae, his shoulder to Sehun’s chest. Vivi, smuggled in Jongdae’s pack, wriggles.

Jongdae follows Sehun’s line of sight to where the palace can clearly be seen, a giant castle made of dragonsteel and marble, stretching into the sky. But that’s not what’s amazing so much as it is the huge metal platform it’s suspended on, keeping it above the earth, connected and surrounded by smaller versions that connect it to other parts of the palace grounds, strung together by vines and thick chains.

“Progenitor tek ,” Jongdae says, taking in the sight of the blue hover generator that keeps the palace above the rest of the world, just like the King wants to be. What’s more intimidating, however, is the Bone Tower, speared through the centre of the palace ring from ground to sky, scraping through the clouds and rooted deep in the earth. It’s made purely of white dragonsteel, the rarest form of the metal on earth, and looks like the shard of a fallen god’s bone that’s landed in the earth, felled by humans. It’s a reminder to all who dare to cross Kast.

“... Horrifying,” Sehun finishes, turning back to Jongdae with a hallowed expression. “All the dragonsteel…”

Jongdae lowers his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Sehun gives a small smile. “Not like you’re the one that forged it. C’mon.” He pushes Jongdae forward lightly with a bump from his elbow. “Let’s keep going.”

The Phoenix is, like all things in the inner ring, beautiful, and even more beautiful than the last time Jongdae had walked in. Everything to the upper-middle class and beyond is about wealth and rich, but Chanyeol had always insisted his establishment be about dignity. After all, merchants are hated by society, thought of as moochers of everybody else’s hard work --not that Chanyeol is really known for being a merchant.

The building is stunning, triple-tiered and built on a base of red-painted steel, embellished with gold in swirls of flowers and leaves with the namesake phoenix nested at the peak of the first roof. It glints in the low sunlight of dusk, a beacon of refinement and art in a neighbourhood that is otherwise lackluster, and Jongdae has no idea how Chanyeol gets away with it, really, when it stands out so much.

“Why are we here?” Sehun asks, leaning over to whisper softly in Jongdae’s ear, who definitely doesn’t shudder at the sensation.

“You’ll see,” Jongdae assures, patting Sehun’s wrist. “Just… keep quiet, okay?”

As per always, the first thing Jongdae notes walking into The Phoenix is the thick scent of incense hanging in burners along every wall. It clogs the room in thick smoke, and Sehun coughs immediately, Vivi wriggling in Jongdae’s pack. He shushes them both pertinently.

“May I help you?” A pretty server asks, holding a tray of drinks and gesturing to the empty tables lining the walls. It isn’t the public tavern front Jongdae is interested in.

“I’m looking to buy a feather,” Jongdae says, and the server gives him a skeptical look.

“We stopped selling feathers years ago,” she replies, and Jongdae winces. Curse Chanyeol and his stupid secrecy.

“Well it’s… been a while…” Jongdae admits, trying to look harmless as the server debates whether or not he’s a threat. Jongdae swallows, fuck, what’s the other code line… “... A phoenix rises when he wishes, after all…?”

Jongdae grins sheepishly, and the server sighs, reluctantly, then tilts her chin subtly in gesture to follow, leading them to the bright red curtains at the back of the shop, emblazoned with a phoenix crest in woven gold cloth, leading them through.

“We’re here to buy a feather ?” Sehun asks, incredulous, and Jongdae just slaps his palm against his forehead.

“Wait here,” the server tells them after they make it to the second floor, leaving them in a corridor of many red doors that reeks of incense and the leftover smoke from yttriurn, the illegal substance Chanyeol is quite well-known for selling.

Speaking of Chanyeol, his arrival is heralded by heavy footsteps from the last set of stairs, his tall frame having to crouch down somewhat to make it through the doorway shrouded by a black curtain.

“Who are you?” He asks sternly. “How did you get that code? What do you want?”

Jongdae, swallowing, looks up and meets Chanyeol’s eyes, tipping back his hood.

“Help?” He tries timidly.

Chanyeol’s jaw could hit the ground.

“ Jongdae?!?!” Jongdae closes his eyes and braces himself to be struck or yelled at, but all he feels is Chanyeol’s arms around his middle hoisting him up into the air giddily and spinning him around.

“I can’t believe it!” Chanyeol shouts, laughing, he puts Jongdae down in a hurry, who staggers somewhat, dizzy. Sehun’s hand on his bicep keeps him in place. “No wonder you were using old codes! I thought you were dead!”

“Unfortunately not,” Jongdae replies with a half-hearted smile.

“Well c’mon don’t stand there where you could get arrested for treason,” Chanyeol says sunnily, holding open the black curtain and waving Jongdae and Sehun through, who go accordingly, Sehun still looking very confused. Jongdae relaxes as soon as they’re off the second floor where he knows for a fact a hundred dragonslayers are kept behind each room, smoking yttriurn.

Chanyeol shuts his office door behind him. “So! What’re you doing back? When I went through all the trouble of smuggling you out I didn’t think this is how you’d repay me.” His eyes are warm, but his smile is cold; classic Chanyeol. He sits on his desk chair with his feet on the steel table, arms behind his head.

“I need your help,” Jongdae begins. “A place to stay for the night, supplies, and… information.”

Chanyeol arches an eyebrow. “Paid for by the goodness of my heart, or…?”

Jongdae laughs briefly despite himself; more classic Chanyeol.

“We have money,” Jongdae says, and tosses Sehun’s near-empty coin purse onto the table, alongside the scrap pieces of metal he’d gotten from the marauders --save for the few pieces he kept to feed Vivi, a reward for later for being smothered in a bag all afternoon.

Chanyeol hums, picking up a scrap of steel and biting into it. Jongdae rolls his eyes. Chanyeol has always loved melodrama, hence the stupid code phrases it takes to get to his not-so secret yttriurn den and the certain… flair about the establishment.

“Go on…” Chanyeol says generously as Jongdae huffs again, watching the way it curves Chanyeol’s lips up --this time, sincerely so.

“Two things,” Jongdae prefaces. “First, we’re looking for a dragon, name’s Kai. Any idea who hauled him in?”

“Kai huh…” Chanyeol muses, stroking his chin. “Definitely heard that name being boasted a few weeks back but uh…” he gives Jongdae an apologetic look. “... they were white squadron.”

Jongdae winces, great.

“So he’s in for harvesting?”

Chanyeol blows out a stream of air. “Well, the white squadron aren’t known for anything less than perfection. If they caught the dragon, they’re getting every last scrap of steel from its body. Why do you ask?”

Sehun flinches, and Jongdae catches the movement out of the corner of his eye, reaching behind him to squeeze Sehun’s wrist. Curiously, Chanyeol seems to notice this, eyes zeroing in on where Jongdae’s hand meets Sehun’s before… softening. Jongdae inwardly berates himself.

“Another thing,” Jongdae starts, not answering Chanyeol’s question. If there’s anyone who understands the value of information, it’s Chanyeol, looking at Jongdae and searching his face for answers beyond why one would want the whereabouts of a dragon.

“Is it Lu Han?” Chanyeol inputs, before Jongdae can finish. He nods hurriedly. “Figures you’d come to rescue him.” Chanyeol shakes his head fondly. “Set for a public execution the night after tomorrow.”

Well shit.

“Is he in the Tower?” Jongdae asks quietly.

“Where else?” Chanyeol’s smile is cold. “Apparently the King has been rather happy that the Queenslayer was finally found.”

Jongdae exhales shakily, running a hand through his hair.

“Guessing you’re not here to see his head cut off, though,” Chanyeol muses, smiling wryly. “Or to visit old friends.”

“How can we help him?” Jongdae asks, because if there’s anyone who knows everything, it’s Chanyeol, the phoenix sitting in a spider’s web. Working in black market trades means keeping eyes and ears everywhere to protect himself, and it helps that nobles and King’s Guard alike have a habit of using his yttriurn den where their high minds will loudly divulge secrets unprodded. Chanyeol has ears even within the walls. “How did Lu Han save me, the last time?”

Chanyeol gives Jongdae a quizzical look. “Lu Han was the Queenslayer,” he answers casually, shrugging. “And not the treasonous traitor kind. He walked in without question, he walked out without question.” He rubs the back of his neck, sighing. “It helped that as a prisoner you weren’t exactly…”

“Valued,” Jongdae finishes for him, because that’s how it’s always been. Chanyeol nods.

“Lu Han is the King’s most wanted, and scheduled for an execution at that. Breaking him out won’t be easy.”

“But this is the only chance we have,” Jongdae says, growing desperate, hands curling into fists. If they’d been even a day later, Lu Han would have already been killed, and it brings as much relief to Jongdae’s heart as it does frantic panic. It’s not like they can break him out the day of the execution; he’ll be surrounded by so many armed guards it will be impossible.

Chanyeol exhales. “Well, if you want into the Tower, you’re not walking through the front door. There’s no way you’re getting through the palace circle unnoticed.”

“Then… another entrance?” Sehun asks quietly, making Chanyeol stare at him.

“Who’s your friend again?” He asks Jongdae, eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you’ve mentioned.”

“I didn’t,” Jongdae replies neatly.

“Sehun,” Sehun says, bowing over neatly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“..... Right….” Chanyeol says, wary, giving Jongdae a confused look, who just shrugs. He doubts anyone who’s ever met Chanyeol says that to Kast’s prime lord of the underworld --to be fair, he hadn’t been the prime lord so much as second-in-command, when he and Jongdae had met. “Well, in terms of another entrance, unless you magically grow wings and break through the ceiling, your only hope is from the ground.”

Sehun opens his mouth, and Jongdae elbows him sharply, giving him a pointed look. Vivi rustles. Chanyeol catches the movement, squinting.

“Hey--” he tries, pointing to Jongdae’s bag.

“Then we’ll go from the ground,” Sehun concludes reluctantly, interrupting Chanyeol, undoubtedly wanting to stretch his wings, so to speak.

Chanyeol snorts. “Yeah, good luck with that. The crater beneath the palace is walled off and is also like, y’know, a giant death pit.”

“Not if we use the tunnels,” Jongdae murmurs, and Chanyeol shoots him an incredulous look with both eyebrows raised.

“You think the tunnels can take you to the Bone Tower?”

Jongdae shrugs. “It’s worth a shot.”

Sehun tilts his head at Chanyeol. “You know about the tunnels?”

Chanyeol huffs. “How do you think Jongdae knows about the tunnels?” He arches an eyebrow. “They’re useful for getting… certain things in and out of the city.”

Sehun frowns. “You’re a smuggler.”

Chanyeol grins with all teeth. “I’m many things.” He turns back to Jongdae again. “How do you two know each other, exactly?”

“It’s a long story,” Jongdae mutters.

“I’ve got time,” Chanyeol says easily.

“I don’t,” Jongdae replies shortly, giving Chanyeol a pointed look that has him clearing his throat sheepishly. “Say we get into the Bone Tower through the tunnels. What then?”

“Well, it’ll still be guarded, so you’ll have to fight your way up,” Chanyeol muses, scratching beneath his chin. “High-tier prisoners are kept on the upper floors and even then they’re still guarded. You’ll need some kind of distraction if you want any hope of Lu Han’s cell being emptied.”

Jongdae exhales. Great.

“I think I can manage that,” Sehun says wryly, making Jongdae cast him a curious glance. “But we’ll still need a way for Jongdae to sneak up without drawing attention to himself.”

Chanyeol’s grin is positively sadistic, which is why Jongdae shudders.

“Oh,” he says, mouth stretching wider and wider. “I have an idea.”

Chanyeol gives them a room at the back of the Phoenix, and Jongdae finally lets Vivi out.

“I know, I know I’m sorry,” he says as the dragon frantically climbs all over him, whimpering in quiet metal whirs. Sehun smiles at the sight.

“So… how did you befriend a criminal?” He asks casually, with the sort of forced tone that makes Jongdae think he’s not feeling very casual about it. Jongdae smiles.

“The Phoenix is a pretty popular dragonslayer destination,” he shrugs, scratching under Vivi’s chin. “Back in the day Chanyeol handled the bar downstairs, and we…” Jongdae swallows. “...got to know each other.”

“He helped you and Lu Han escape the first time?” Sehun asks. Jongdae nods.

“Yeah,” Jongdae replies, hand slowing over Vivi’s dragonsteel scales. It had kind of sucked, in hindsight, when Lu Han and Jongdae had staggered out of the palace to the inner ring, and Chanyeol showed them the tunnels, telling them to follow the left wall all the way until the end. He’d helped them at the time, completely free of charge, because he was younger and softer than he is now, and then Jongdae had left, undoubtedly breaking Chanyeol’s heart in the process, and helping contribute to the ruthless crime lord he’s become, yet another person Jongdae has left scarred for his own protection.

Bad memories.

They’re cut off by a knock at the door, signalling Chanyeol’s arrival from his warehouse in the Northern Quarter --sooner than Jongdae expected.

He comes barrelling in without a care saying, “Well, I found what I wanted, and--” he stops, noticing Vivi. Freezes.

“DRAGON!” Chanyeol yells, scrambling, falling onto his butt. “DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON DRAG--”

Jongdae quickly pushes his hands over Chanyeol’s mouth. “SHHH,” he urges, as Vivi, sitting on his shoulder, happily jumps into Chanyeol’s lap to greet the new friend, swishing his tail with a steel-tooth grin. “It’s okay, Chanyeol. He’s… friendly.”

“Dr-- Dragon…” Chanyeol says weakly, blinking at Vivi, who just continues wagging his tail expectantly. Chanyeol looks at Jongdae sharply. “I can’t believe you brought a dragon into my bar!”

Well, technically Jongdae bought two dragons, but he doesn’t say that, exchanging knowing eye contact with Sehun.

“It’s fine, Chanyeol, Vivi is… a good dragon,” Jongdae manages eventually, taking Chanyeol’s hand and rubbing it across the drake’s head, who whirs happily. “See?”

“Good… dragon…” Chanyeol repeats dumbly, eyes wide. “What the fuck have you been up to in the last decade, Jongdae?”

Jongdae gives a weary smile. “It’s a long story.”

Chanyeol, however, insists Jongdae tell it to him anyway while they eat, in a private room in the bar downstairs, served by the girl before, Seungwan, who’d taken them upstairs to begin with, fried noodles and boiling hot-pots with crispy fried rice. It’s fucking heaven, and the best food Jongdae has eaten in years, devouring it greedily.

Chanyeol listens intensively as Jongdae recounts leaving Kast with Lu Han, travelling around various cities in the south for a few years before finding peace in Alkai. Chanyeol looks shocked to hear they’d gone so far down into towns he’s never even heard of, but Jongdae just shrugs and says it’s the price for safety.

“And you?” Chanyeol prompts, gesturing to Sehun while shooting wary glances at Vivi, who sits by Jongdae’s side, eating the scraps he feeds him out of the palm of his hand. “What’s your story?”

“My story?” Sehun repeats lamely, blinking. “Jongdae is here for Lu Han. I’m here for Kai,” he decides eventually.

“And why’s that?” Chanyeol asks, sounding so casual while Jongdae sees the disguise it is for information. It’s always about information, with people like Chanyeol, who deal in trades of secrets and steel. Jongdae squeezes Sehun’s knee beneath the table in warning, and Chanyeol, curiously, catches the movement of his arm, following it with his eyes before arching an eyebrow at Jongdae, who gulps, feeling transparent in a myriad of ways.

“... Reasons,” Sehun answers cryptically, giving him a wry smile. Chanyeol’s look is cold, calculating, but he quickly covers it up with his typical, goofy smile. One that’s good at masking his true nature.

“Well who am I to pry?” Chanyeol says cheerily.

“Is that a joke…?” Jongdae tries, Chanyeol pinches his shoulder, making him laugh, and it’s more familiar than it should be.

Chanyeol catches Jongdae up on how he’d managed to end up the owner of The Phoenix after Donghae’s untimely arrest, making Sehun’s jaw drop open, which Chanyeol laughs at, wondering where Jongdae found someone so green. Again with his prying --Jongdae just tells Chanyeol not to worry about it.

Once their meal is finished, they hash over the plan one last time, with Chanyeol happy to offer sanctuary if they manage to make it out alive, so long as they’re not followed through the tunnels. A cheery note indeed. Nobody will expect the Queenslayer to hide in a den filled with dragonslayers, and The Phoenix is designed like a maze, perfect for hiding wanted criminals; especially while Jongdae and Sehun deal with trying to find the harvesting plant where Jongin will be found. Jongdae’s stomach bubbles in anticipation at the thought --they’re finally saving Lu Han. He’s finally going to be safe.

It won’t be easy, not even close, but they’ve made it this far. Jongdae is sure that for himself and Sehun, anything is possible.

They depart past midnight after resting, long before the sun will begin to rise. It’s their best window to get in and out as smoothly as possible, which is why Jongdae currently fiddles with the straps on his dragonslayer armor, grunting as he struggles to fix the breastplate as it’s just a size too big.

“Here,” Sehun says quietly, Vivi on his shoulder peering over curiously as Sehun’s hands press against Jongdae’s abdomen in order to strap the armor down.

“Thanks,” Jongdae mumbles quietly, giving him a small smile. Sehun returns it.

Chanyeol leads them to a different entrance into the tunnels, hidden in the back of an alleyway beneath a manhole into Kast’s sewers. After tearing off the stone plate, Chanyeol turns to Jongdae and says, “You better return that armour, y’know. It’s not exactly a cheap disguise.”

“I know,” Jongdae replies, grateful, and can see the way Chanyeol’s concern is hidden beneath his remark. He’s always been like this, a mixture of soft and hard, but every time the amount of kindness Chanyeol retains beneath a selfish exterior surprises Jongdae. He’d also been counting on that exact softness, to help Jongdae and Sehun even after all these years. Jongdae turns to enter the manhole, but hesitates, spinning on his heel back to Chanyeol and standing on his tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol’s ears are bright red, and Jongdae climbs down into the sewers with a smile on his face. As their exit is sealed off from above, Jongdae pulls out the fire-starter disk that’s now recharged, leading Sehun forward so they can find the second entrance into the tunnels.

“Come on,” he urges, resettling his bow and quiver across his chest, with Sehun double-stepping to keep up.

“So,” Sehun starts casually, clearing his throat. “You and Chanyeol… got to know each other, huh?”

His pointed look, green and brown eyes staring straight through Jongdae, could cut steel.

“We were close, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jongdae answers nonchalantly, staring straight ahead at the way Vivi keeps trying to flap his wings to fly to no success and hoping Sehun doesn’t see the way he swallows nervously, feeling irrevocably transparent.

“Close or… close?” Sehun asks, squinting. Jongdae rolls his eyes. “Because, well, Chanyeol… looks at you strangely, that’s all.”

“Looks at me strangely?” Jongdae repeats, and feels guilt writhe in his gut, fiddling with the strap of his quiver slung over his chest. “Ah…”

“So close then?” Sehun prods, and Jongdae almost wants to ask him why he’s prying so much, but the deflection can only last so long.

“Yes,” Jongdae relents, sighing. “We were…” well, in love doesn’t really work, because they weren’t together, not when Chanyeol sort of had his underground empire to run from the second spot and Jongdae was a soldier on the battlefield. But they’d made a habit of coming together, whenever they both had the time. Maybe in another life where Jongdae wasn’t a useless soldier and a deserter, they might’ve had something more, but this isn’t that life. “... Very close.”

“... Huh.” Is all Sehun seems to say, mulling over something in thought.

“I um, don’t exactly have feelings for him anymore,” Jongdae quickly says, and then winces because smooth, very smooth. He wants to slap his own forehead, but that will just make it more obvious.

Sehun smiles at him wryly. “I never said you did.”

“No I know!” Jongdae quickly rambles, growing flustered. Vivi, having transferred to his shoulder, gives a quiet whir in what almost sounds like a snicker. “I just--” Jongdae clears his throat, not finishing his sentence. Sehun huffs in amusement through his nose.

Jongdae follows the tunnels continuously west in what he hopes can only be towards the Bone Tower, and checks for the moon symbols along the way. Sure enough, they’re always there, if not somewhat hidden and obscure, but the moon slowly grows larger the longer they go along, and soon the symbols become accompanied by… other carvings, so to speak.

“ Go back ,” Sehun reads aloud, blinking at the wall that’s covered in vicious, rough markings. “ Turn around. Don’t go forward .” He hums. “Certainly inspires courage, huh?”

Jongdae snorts despite himself, a quiet huff, running his finger over the smooth carvings, faded over, shaking his head. “Some of these have been here for… decades,” he muses aloud, stepping back with a frown. The moon is nearly full. He traces over the lettering of DANGER . “What are they warning about?”

“Something in the Tower?” Sehun guesses. “There can’t be anything else beyond here, right?”

Jongdae gazes ahead into the darkness, and feels a soft breeze brush over his face, making him shudder.

“Guess not,” Jongdae mumbles, stepping. “Time to ignore the warnings.”

Sehun laughs at that, at least.

Jongdae shifts in his armour as they walk, constantly uncomfortable, but they’ll need the stolen outfit if Jongdae has any hope of weaving through the Tower without question. Sehun’s distraction apparently involves a little bit of tek magic at the bottom of the tower in order to call to the guards’ attentions, Jongdae hopes he’ll be safe.

But the further they walk into the tunnels, the greater Jongdae’s sense of unease becomes, something prickling at the back of his neck. The vicious scratched-in warnings just… stop appearing, and the tunnels begin to grow wider and colder, with a foreboding sense of dread in the air.

Eventually the old mine tunnel widens into a huge cavern, stalactites hanging from the dome ceiling ominously, and Jongdae’s eyes widen at the sight of the base of the Bone Tower that greets them, a column of white dragonsteel. Perhaps even more curious is the full moon that’s been carved into the earth in front of it, signalling the very centre of Kast itself.

What’s most notable, however, is the fact that the Tower is just… open. There isn’t a door, or just the walls, rather there’s an arched entryway serving as a gaping mouth to the Tower.

There are, however, also no guards. When Jongdae steps forward though, Sehun pulls him back.

“Wait,” he urges quietly, staring straight ahead with a tense look on his face. Vivi, on Jongdae’s shoulder, curls into Jongdae’s neck anxiously.

“What is it?” Jongdae asks, confused by both dragons’ reactions.

“The base of the tower isn’t guarded by humans, Jongdae,” Sehun says lowly, and crouches down, slowly, to pick up a rock, tossing it into the dark entrance of the Tower.

At first, nothing happens, Jongdae still frozen both in obedience and confusion, but then he sees it --and hears it too-- the soft hum that accompanies Sehun when he wakes up, and the bright blue lighting of ichor channels in the distance. The Bone Tower isn’t guarded by humans indeed, it’s guarded by a dragon.

Awakened by the sound, the dragon steps out, peering into the darkness as Sehun quickly tugs Jongdae behind a nearby rock for cover, and Jongdae gasps at the sight.

It’s huge, head easily reaching near the ceiling, all white dragonsteel scales and cyan ichor, head sweeping around as it looks for what had caused the sound. Its footsteps shake the earth as it walks, a testament to its size, and they’re accompanied by the rattling of the black dragonsteel chain that’s tethered the dragon to inside the Tower. One of its icy blue eyes, Jongdae notices, has been scratched out, the glass cracked and the metal around it torn; the rest of its body littered with similar scars and signs of torture.

Its huge tail sweeps across the earth as it turns back to its den, and Jongdae hears the crunching beneath its feet, the base of the Tower illuminated by the dragon’s glowing ichor revealing the pile of bones it hoards, making the Tower’s name oddly poignant.

“Oh good,” Jongdae whispers sarcastically, feeling panic in his chest. How the hell are they meant to get past that? “I was worried it might hoard something less terrifying!”

Sehun inhales sharply. “Jongdae,” he says quietly, still watching the huge dragon as it curls around in a circle like a dog trying to get comfortable before plopping down and shutting its eyes. “That dragon… he’s wangyong.”

That snaps Jongdae’s attention back into focus. “What?” Sehun almost seems to be shaking, hands quivering by his side. “I thought only the Queen was wangyong.”

“She-- she was,” Sehun answers, gulping with wide eyes, His evident panic helps Jongdae to calm his, trying to maintain steady in a time of great fear. “Or at least, I thought she was… if this dragon is wangyong he-- he must’ve been here for centuries.”

“Centuries?” Jongdae repeats, shocked, and turns back to the dragon, still glowing in the darkness. “How is that possible?”

He must’ve been tethered to this tower since it was formed --hell, maybe it’s his scales they built the damn thing out of. It’s impossible to tell, but Jongdae can’t even imagine how that would feel to a dragon king, chained beneath the earth to guard a tower for generations of greedy humans. It takes hundreds of years for a dragon to become powerful enough to become ryong , let alone wangyong, which also takes the consumption of raw dragonsteel, fresh from a dragon --not the alloy of it crafted by humans. Jongdae shivers.

“I don’t know…” Sehun trails off. “... We have to save him.”

Jongdae pauses. “What.”

“We have to!” Sehun argues.

“He’s a dragon king!” Jongdae whispers harshly, Vivi sinking down nervously. “He’s been here for centuries! Do you really want to unleash something that crazed and powerful on the world?”

Sehun frowns, lips pursed. “Well I’m not leaving him here, he deserves freedom as much as the rest of us.”

Jongdae just sighs, melting; typical Sehun kindness. “That chain is dragonsteel. It can’t be broken by tek magic.”

“Then I’ll find another way,” Sehun replies, determined, jutting out his chin.

“Great,” Jongdae replies, rolling his eyes. “Even if you do there’s still an issue of getting past a fucking wangyong!” He hisses. “There’s no way I can just tiptoe in to save Lu Han!”

“No,” Sehun agrees, smiling wryly. “But we did agree we need a distraction.”

Jongdae pauses as the words process.

“No.”

“I have to, Jongdae,” Sehun insists. “It’s the only way.”

“No!” Jongdae argues petulantly. “No, Sehun. I’m not letting you risk your life like that.” Distracting a wangyong is one thing, but doing it under the pressure of a bunch of human guards? It’s crazy. It’s suicidal. It’s so self-sacrificial and so Sehun Jongdae’s heart hurts.

“There’s no other way you’re getting past him, besides--” Sehun gives a reassuring smile. “--maybe he can help us.”

“Assuming he understands speech after centuries of imprisonment!?” Jongdae hisses.

“Not human speech, maybe,” Sehun acknowledges. “But dragontongue? That’s something he can’t forget.”

Jongdae laughs quietly, devoid of any humour, in disbelief. “You’re fucking crazy.”

Sehun just chuckles. “And to think I came all this way to help…”

“Sehun…” Jongdae’s chest bubbles with a myriad of things, wishing he had a way to thank him for what he’s done, for what he’s about to do, for staying by Jongdae’s side all this time. A way to ensure Sehun doesn’t get himself killed doing what he’s about to do, a way for Jongdae to promise him that they can do this. Together.

Words aren’t really sufficient enough for such things, Jongdae realises, so he pulls Sehun in by the front of his shirt impulsively and kisses him.

It’s brief, chaste, hurried and frantic so their teeth clash together and their noses bump and by the time Sehun has even registered anything has happened, he’s blinking dazedly, Jongdae pulling back.

“Don’t die,” Jongdae tells him sternly, not really caring about the implications of having done such a thing when his heart is pounding so loudly, and the danger of the situation hangs over them like this, overpowering any ability to regret.

Sehun doesn’t say anything, staring at Jongdae, and when Jongdae swallows nervously, finally letting his hands fall, Sehun just pulls him in for another kiss with a hand around the back of his neck.

It’s better when they’re both anticipating it, although still soft, like all things Sehun, a simple slide of lips.

“Okay,” Sehun promises, breath fanning across Jongdae’s mouth, whose eyes flutter open lamely. “I won’t.”

At that, he steps back, beginning to leave their cover, and Jongdae can only watch as Sehun begins to… undress,  eyebrows furrowing together in brief confusion as his cloak drops in a pool of black until Sehun shifts, and Jongdae quickly becomes too mesmerized to look away.

It’s a fairly quick process, all things considered, but hideously alienating. Sehun’s skin begins to segment and move just like when he’d used his dragon arm, and his body seemingly unfolds, smooth pale skin shifting into black dragon steels as he turns inside out and expands. It’s practically instantaneous, accompanied only by the scraping of metal across metal and a quick whir, but when Jongdae is left with the final product he inhales sharply, stunned speechless.

Sehun’s true form is… beautiful; sleek, black scales across his slim body, crouched over and low with predatory prowess. His wings are folded against his back which is traced by pointed spines, and his long tail finishes in a neat point. His horns branch out like a stag’s above a pair of flicking ears, and all of this is illuminated by the glass veins of glowing green ichor that race throughout his metal body stemming from the shard in the centre of his chest, fueling each piece of metal machinery to keep moving.

Jongdae steps forward, stunned, and almost wonders what it would feel like to fear a dragon like this, to note the power in every shift of Sehun’s metal limbs and be reminded of the sheer destruction that he’s capable of, but all Jongdae can seem to do is be taken aback, stunned by his god-like beauty.

Jongdae reaches out absentmindedly with one hand, and Sehun presses his snout into it, blowing out steam that forms from cooling his machinery down. He’s huge, larger than several horses put together and more than twice as tall, but that’s still only a fraction of the wangyong’s size a short way ahead.

Jongdae strokes his snout, and meets Sehun’s eyes.

They’re both green.

“I can’t believe I kissed this,” Jongdae remarks absentmindedly, and nearly falls over when Sehun knocks him back by nudging his head forward pointedly, laughing. Sehun huffs out more steam.

“Okay okay,” Jongdae relents, touching the bottom of Sehun’s chin gently. “Stay safe, Sehun.”

Sehun nods, a simple inclination of his head, attached to a long neck, and then he bounds forward towards the entrance to the Tower, faster than Jongdae can keep up. Sehun makes a strange sound as he opens his jaw, revealing rings of metal teeth that line his mouth and extend down his throat, like an echo and a screech and a hum and a whir all at once, grating to Jongdae’s ears. It does, however, have an immediate effect, as the dragon king is on his feet immediately, staring at Sehun in confusion.

Sehun keeps using dragontongue to say… whatever the fuck he’s saying, and the wangyong tips his head curiously as he pads out, staring him down. Sehun is already so huge in his true form, but he looks like a mouse staring down a lion, the wangyong fully capable of crushing Sehun beneath one claw without hesitation. Jongdae, in comparison, supposes that makes him an ant.

He sticks to the wangyong’s blindside where his eye has been scratched out, racing across the earth in the darkness on the side where his eye is cracked and damaged. He doesn’t seem to be saying anything, just watching Sehun monologue onwards in his strange clicks and whirs, and when Jongdae finally makes it to the Tower’s entrance he winces upon stepping onto the sea of bones, inducing a loud crack as the human skull beneath his feet caves in.

The wangyong reacts immediately, tail sweeping as he swivels around, but he stops midway due to the fact that Sehun has opened his mouth and blasted a short burst of green tek energy at the dragon to keep his attention.

It works, the wangyong stopping in his tracks, but it hasn’t seemed to hurt him so much as irk him, his working blue eye narrowing at Sehun as the dragonsteel scale where he’d been hit smokes briefly, a little bit scorched. The wangyong finally decides to speak, then, his mouth staying shut as his body clicks and hums and whirs, metallic noises screeching, and Jongdae has absolutely no fucking clue what he’s said, but whatever it is, it probably hadn’t been pleasantries, given by the way Sehun’s head dips nervously and his legs brace.

Then, the wangyong lurches forward to strike.

Jongdae knows he should keep moving, but it’s impossible to look away, distracted by the way the wangyong snaps his jaw at Sehun, who leaps beyond his chain’s range, just out of reach. They’re yelling at each other in dragontongue loudly now --or at least what Jongdae assumes to be yelling-- but the dragon king obviously has no interest in talking as he unhinges his jaw and begins charging his tek energy, a small sphere of blue light forming in front of his throat before he aims it at Sehun, who quickly dodges the blast, scorching the earth.

Sehun’s body makes a loud buzzing sound, his eyes finding Jongdae’s across the huge cavern, and Jongdae figures that hadn’t been dragontongue so much a pointed reminder, cursing beneath his breath as he runs towards the stairwell at the far side of the Tower’s steel wall, Vivi shifting across his shoulders anxiously. The ground shakes with every blast from the wangyong’s mouth.

Jongdae picks the restless Vivi off of his shoulder.

“Go,” he tells him desperately. “Keep Sehun safe, okay?”

Vivi whirs in what Jongdae assumes to be agreement, and then Jongdae watches as the drake bravely flaps his winged arms, soaring over the pile of bones and out towards the cavern again, before finally flying, taking off the ground.

The dragon king is still shooting at Sehun, about to make his mark as he turns his head with a solid laser beam, but he stops only because Vivi, flapping his wings in the air above the wangyong’s head, opens his mouth and shoots a small ball of tek energy at the dragon, irking him, given by the way his white ears flick.

It’s probably no different to being stung by an insect, but Jongdae still watches with an odd sense of pride as Vivi easily dodges the wangyong by darting quickly through the air, spewing out tiny blasts of energy. It’s up to him and Sehun now to do this, Jongdae inhales, setting his jaw, and heads up the stairs.

It’s an excruciating process, the lower levels are dark and damp, reeking of mould, and Jongdae’s flame only reveals how far it is to the bottom if he happens to fall off the narrow stairs that coil around the Tower’s wall. The whole thing shakes and echoes with sounds of the dragons battling below, and the further Jongdae moves, the more he begins to wonder if it’s travelling the whole way up. The climb is made worse by Jongdae’s heart, forced to stop every few floors to catch his breath and calm its vigorous beating, but he clenches his jaw and storms on ahead anyway, for Sehun’s sake and Lu Han’s, not willing to waste any more time.

Eventually Jongdae reaches the upper levels, where the tower begins to branch out into rows of cells, and the guards racing down the steps shout at him.

Except they’re not just any guards; it’s the North Cardinal and one of her lieutenants from the black squadron, shouting Jongdae’s way. They must be here as extra manpower to guard Lu Han under the King’s orders, and the thought makes Jongdae nauseous in his panic.

“What’s going on down there, cadet!?” the North Cardinal yells, Jongdae jumping, fumbling with his words as his heart pounds, worried about being caught. But no, it seems Joohyun doesn’t recognise him, having never paid any attention to Jongdae’s existence, and just thinks he’s some harmless little cadet, not even strong enough to have a core.

“A dragon, sir,” Jongdae replies to the North Cardinal, panting as his heart thunders dangerously. “I heard the noises and my superior sent me down to investigate and there’s a-- dragon-- fighting a large group--”

Jongdae can’t see Joohyun’s face since it’s obscured by her black dragonsteel helmet, shaped like a turtle’s head with a snake woven around the neck and glaring at him at the top above her forehead. The turtle’s gaze stares straight at Jongdae, and it confirms his suspicion that a cadet wouldn’t know about the wangyong tethered to the tower’s base; a lucky guess, really, but he knows how the dragonslayers work, and a cadet --the position Jongdae had been in his whole life-- doesn’t get to know shit.

The green squadron lieutenant places a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder. “Continue upwards and gather as many guards as you can, cadet.”

Jongdae gives the dragonslayer’s salute. “Of course sir.”

He continues up the stairwell, smiling to himself in satisfaction, but it falls when he watches the two dragonslayers race downwards, eyeing Joohyun’s blue dragonsteel arm beneath black armor, and hoping Sehun will be okay. No, he will be, he has to be, he’d promised Jongdae he’d be fine, after all --and Jongdae believes him.

Jongdae continues racing up the steps, but it turns out most of the guards in the Tower seem to be racing downwards without having to be told, running past Jongdae without even sparing a glance. It’s funny, how dragonslayers have always been like that, glimpsing over Jongdae’s existence like he’s nothing, praising Lu Han as the hero as Jongdae had always gone unseen. Except now, Lu Han is the villain, and Jongdae is still just as invisible --but it’s that exact reason that he’ll be their downfall.

Jongdae makes it to the upper level where Lu Han will be kept, and heads towards the row of cells that seems to be the most guarded, lined by soldiers on either side, compared to the other halls that have been left empty. Jongdae runs towards the entrance immediately.

“Cadet,” the King’s Guard soldier closest to Jongdae acknowledges, eyebrows furrowing together. “What are you doing up here? Shouldn’t you be guarding the lower cells?”

Jongdae opens his mouth to answer, but he’s cut off by a blast of tek energy that lands in the ceiling at the top of the Tower’s wide ceiling where its narrow neck fans out into the prison, shaking the entire building. Jongdae points behind him, as the blast is accompanied by a rush of air in what can only be Sehun sailing upwards behind him.

“That?” he offers.

Both guards run forward immediately, and Jongdae watches briefly with wide eyes as Sehun soars directly into the ceiling, springing back against it in order to charge back down, firing more blasts of green tek energy. His wings are magnificent, sleek in black and glowing green, spanning twice as wide as his body, but Jongdae doesn’t have time for admiration, using the distraction to swipe the keys hanging at the guard’s belt and into the row of cells towards the end. He doesn’t even notice, too busy watching the battle of dragons in front of him, jaw hanging open.

Each room is occupied, the prisoners dressed in scraps and chained to the walls, not enough strength left in their body to even lift their heads at Jongdae’s footsteps as he passes, and it induces as much despair in Jongdae’s body as it does courage, determined to save Lu Han from his fate.

His cell is the last one in the row, pressed towards the end of the wall. Lu Han’s skin is sallow and lacking any colour even in the low-light, illuminated only by torches along the walls, casting twisting shadows across his skin. His arms are chained above his head in dragonsteel, and Jongdae lurches forward immediately.

“Lu Han!” He calls, relief flooding his system, and Lu Han’s whole body seems to twitch, somewhat, chin lifting briefly to stare at Jongdae.

“Jong… dae…?” He tries, voice croaky, and Jongdae laughs in desperate relief before looking for an entrance.

“I’m here Lu,” Jongdae reassures, smiling brightly. “I came.”

Lu Han doesn’t smile, rather, his face screws together in anger. “You idiot ,” he spits, chains rattling as he lurches forward. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

Jongdae fumbles with the ring of iron keys, trying every single one. “I’m going to get both of us not -killed,” he retorts smartly; the lock clicks open and Jongdae breathes out in relief, rushing into Lu Han’s cell. “The whole Tower is shaken up by a dragon attack. Nobody is going to suspect that it’s a distraction for a human to break in.”

“A dragon attack?” Lu Han echoes, as Jongdae struggles with the keys for his cuffs.

“A dragon king guards the base of the tower,” Jongdae reveals, stunning Lu han. “And I um, may have enlisted Sehun’s help.”

“You actually teamed up with a dragon prince to save me?” Lu Han’s eyes are so wide they might pop out. He clears his throat, voice weak from being deprived water and food and rest, undoubtedly. “Oh holy fuck.”

Jongdae just grins unrepentantly, wondering how Lu Han might react to all the other things Jongdae has done with dragons as of late, but they’re distracted by the whole tower shaking, forcing Jongdae to hurry up even as his heart pounds and his fingers shake.

“C’mon,” he urges, tugging Lu Han forward even as his knees give out briefly, clinging to Jongdae’s bicep for support. “We need to get to the base of the tower to get out of here.”

Except when they run back out of the hallway of cells, they’re forced to fall back briefly, as the wangyong himself flies at Sehun from the tower’s neck, blasting him with tek energy as Sehun flies around the ceiling, burning the dragonsteel roof.

“Hey! What are you doing with the Queenslayer!” Someone suddenly shouts, revealing a large cluster of guards who must’ve reacted to the dragon fight and followed it back up here, Jongdae curses quickly as he watches Joohyun’s dragon arm twist into a tek energy cannon before aiming it at Sehun in the air.

“Fuck,” he says, tugging Lu Han forward and biting his lip. They’re at the last platform since Lu Han had been kept at the top row of cells, which means they’re at a dead end, with the hoard of King’s Guard and black squadron racing up the steps towards them. There’s no way Jongdae could fight any of them even if he had his bow and wasn’t inhibited by Lu Han’s arm around his shoulders, which means there’s only one other way down, but Lu Han won’t like it.

“Do you trust me?” Jongdae asks Lu Han desperately, meeting Lu Han’s confused, panicked eyes.

“What?” He blurts. “Of course I trust you.”

“Then jump!” Jongdae shouts as he tugs them towards the edge of the platform, Lu Han quickly resisting.

“What?” He yelps. “Are you crazy?”

“Just trust me Lu Han!” Jongdae urges, and Lu Han somewhat relents, pale with fear and body quivering as he glances down, always having been afraid of heights. As a hero, it’s his only flaw. “On the count of three. One. Two--” They don’t have time for three as Jongdae catches a sword swinging their way, and promptly leaps off the platform with Lu Han in tow, who screams shrilly as they descend.

“SEHUN!” Jongdae shouts desperately as they fall past the wangyong trying to fly past his taut chain to attack Sehun who is still circling the ceiling. He reacts immediately, diving down past the wangyong, and catches Lu Han and Jongdae in his front legs, but they’re falling too fast and have already fallen too far --Sehun fans out his wings immediately to slow their descent, parachuting them somewhat towards the tower’s base, but he’s struck quickly by a blast from the wangyong above him, piercing through where Sehun’s wing connects to his side and making him screech in pain as green ichor bursts from his glass veins.

“Sehun!” Jongdae cries out, Sehun only groaning in pain as he rolls over so that they’re on his stomach facing upwards, his back landing on the ground with a sickening crunch of steel. He recovers quickly even as his body hums in pain, setting Jongdae and Lu Han down on the pile of bones, Lu Han stumbling as the mountain gives out somewhat beneath his feet, racing to the ground. “Come on you idiot,” Jongdae urges, watching the chain sprouting from the centre of the bone pile spool downwards as the wangyong descends to meet them from above, forcing Sehun forward as he skids over the bones and limps after them, wincing when the dragon king lands behind them with a loud roar, charging more energy in his mouth.

Vivi swoops over immediately, beeping loudly as he curls around Jongdae’s arm, and all four of them quickly dive out of the way as another blast heads in their direction.

“We have to get into the tunnels!” Jongdae shouts, needing to get away from the dragon king and the group of King’s Guard undoubtedly following down the stairs behind him. He and Lu Han stumble forward, but Sehun stays in place, shaking his head. He makes a soft buzzing sound.

“Are you crazy!?” Jongdae hisses. “He’s obviously lost his mind. You can’t save him or he’ll kill us all!”

Sehun at least looks a little apologetic, head bowed as his green eyes seemingly ask Jongdae for forgiveness, but then he’s bounding back to the wangyong , shouting at him in dragontongue further as he searches for a way to break the dragonsteel chain, impervious to tek magic.

The wangyong only roars at Sehun, bounding forward, and snapping his jaw when his chain reaches its limit again, taut, saying more things in their mechanical tongue as Sehun bleeds out in front of him, begging for understanding. He barely dodges the king’s next blast, landing just beside his tail as he leaps forward, unable to fly with the hole in his wing, continuing to implore the king.

“Jongdae come on let’s go ,” Lu Han says desperately, tugging Jongdae into the tunnels, far away from the Bone Tower. “This is not our problem!”

But it is their problem, because Sehun’s problems are Jongdae’s problems, and Lu Han doesn’t understand what they’ve been through together, the things they’ve experienced, the way it’s shaped their bond.

Jongdae locks his jaw, determined, and pushes Lu Han down in gesture for him to stay as he races back into danger to help.

“Hey you stupid dragon!” Jongdae shouts, earning a flick of the wangyong’s ear. “Yeah you you fat idiot!” Blue eyes narrow at him as the white head swivels. “Why don’t you pick on somebody who isn’t bleeding out and ravaged! Ha!”

The king looks entirely disinterested, giving Jongdae a flat look, completely unimpressed, before turning back to Sehun but then Vivi, perched on Jongdae’s shoulder, fires another small blast of energy, and the wangyong fucking growls, irritated.

He sweeps his tail Jongdae’s way, but he manages to dodge only by latching onto it with both arms, being lifted into the air as the king moves it in annoyance, thumping it down onto the ground. Jongdae holds tight as he does so, squeezing his eyes shut, and the pointed thud of the tail makes the whole cavern shake, quivering and rumbling as the stalactites wobble like baby teeth about to fall out. Jongdae takes the opportunity to let go of the tail, eyes widening in realisation, and he begins yelling nonsense insults again.

“Some king you are!” He rambles loudly, running as the king swipes at him lazily with a claw, barely missing. Jongdae is panting harshly now, heart pounding as Sehun just tries to limp away on a broken arm to gain space before the wangyong inevitably turns back to him. “You’re just a chained up toy for humans. Pathetic!”

If dragons could scowl, Jongdae would imagine the wangyong is doing it, reaching out slowly with a claw to crush Jongdae beneath it, but Jongdae sprints just out of reach, and the dragon jerks as he’s stuck in place, chain taut.

“Sehun!” Jongdae shouts. “The ceiling!”

Sehun looks at him in confusion before his glowing green eyes widen, and he charges a blast of energy in his mouth carefully before aiming for the stalactites hanging miles above them. The wangyong pays no mind, more occupied in swiping for Jongdae and only barely missing as he rolls out of the way. The room rumbles louder than ever as the rock spears begin to fall from the ceiling, the wangyong glancing over in confusion as they do, because he’s far beyond their range, glancing at Jongdae in what he would say is the dragon equivalent of an arched eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed.

But then one particular stalactite falls exactly where Jongdae had thought it would, the pointed end piercing through the taut dragonsteel chain, and snapping it completely.

The wangyong just seems to pause briefly at the sound, confused, before stepping forward, closer to Jongdae in his new found freedom, and then his jaw opens in what Jongdae assumes is a grin, rings of steel teeth.

“Maybe Lu Han was right,” Jongdae mumbles dumbly, stepping back again in fear but not wanting to turn and run and give the dragon a chance to strike while his back is turned. They’re all distracted, however, by the arrival of the rest of the human guard, charging out into the cavern, and Jongdae curses quickly because now they’re really screwed, with a loose wangyong that’s insulted for being called an idiot and a group of King’s Guard chasing after a crippled ryong prince, a human who’s been imprisoned for over a week, and Jongdae, who can’t even run without his heart giving up on him. Great.

The guards, however, slowly come to a stop as they begin to take in the broken dragonsteel chain, still pierced in the dirt by a stalactite. The wangyong tugs his neck forward disinterestedly, snapping the chain free completely, and grins maniacally all over again.

He swipes forward, and Jongdae expects to be hit, but instead the wangyong… takes him and Lu Han into his claw, cupped in the palm of his huge metal hand. Jongdae blinks, completely confused as the dragon king picks up Sehun’s limp, weakened body in his back claws, having lost too much ichor to move, the lights of his eyes blinking on and off, and fans out his wings, with Jongdae actually getting a chance to admire them. The wangyong, unlike Sehun, has four wings, each of them embedded with two sets of rotating fan blades that whir to life as he begins to get ready to fly.

“Wait--” Jongdae starts, glancing around at the cavern around them, wondering where this king thinks he’s going to go. “Where are you--”

He doesn’t get a chance to ask, not that he’d get much of a response, as the wangyong bounds over the group of guards, unbothered, and up into the neck of the Bone Tower, soaring upwards fast enough that Lu Han and Jongdae both scream. They’re hurtling towards the ceiling at an alarming speed, but the dragon king makes no motion to stop, bursting through the dragonsteel without a care and into the night air, roaring triumphantly as he hovers above the tower, charging another beam in his mouth before blasting it over the building, causing a trail of explosions in its wake.

“Oh holy shit,” Lu Han whimpers pathetically as the king holds them above the air, both him and Jongdae holding onto a steel toe each in fear, cradled against the King’s chest. He roars again triumphantly, loud enough that the entire city of Kast will hear, before pushing two of his wings downwards as the other pair alternate up, bringing them above the clouds.

Lu Han’s eyes roll back into his head, and Jongdae actually laughs, despite himself, shaking him awake again as Lu Han scrambles to hold on to the King’s toes, whimpering lamely. Vivi whirs triumphantly against Jongdae’s neck, tail curled around his bicep to hold on, and Jongdae cackles into the night air as the wind rushes over his face, relieved that they actually got out of there alive.

He’s not sure if the dragon king has intent to hurt them, but considering the way he’s cradling them against his chest and hauling Sehun in his hind claws, Jongdae doubts it, exhaling in relief. He swivels around to see Sehun, but it’s impossible with the way the King has them cupped in his palm, hoping that he’s okay. He doesn’t know where they’re going, and doesn’t know if it’ll be safe, but anywhere, he thinks, is better than Kast.

Although he does feel a little bad --he doubts he’ll be returning Chanyeol’s stolen dragonslayer armour anytime soon.

“Thank you,” Jongdae says --well, shouts it loudly really with the way the wind is rushing around his ears-- to the wangyong. “For saving us.”

The wangyong seems to huff in amusement, the metal scales across his hands shifting as his tendons flex, and Jongdae lets himself sit back in relief as he takes in what it’s like to fly for the first time.

Chapter Text

The dragon king carries them for what must be hours, until the sun begins to rise and the snow-tipped peaks of the mountain mines they’re soaring over become visible. Exhaustion hangs over Jongdae heavily as his adrenaline begins to wear off, cold in the sky air and worried for where the king is taking them, completely uncommunicable and showing no signs of stopping, but he tries to have faith. His mind won’t stop wondering if Sehun is okay, but he has absolutely no way of knowing until they stop.

Jongdae would sleep if he were capable of it, which he isn’t with the cold air blowing over them and the way his thoughts won’t stop racing, instead forcing himself to watch the way the King’s huge four-winged shadow races over the ground below. Lu Han, still gripping to a steel toe desperately, looks like he wants to puke.

It’s only when they reach a peculiar mountain that the King seemingly slows down, beginning to descend. They’re long past Terrus and any other signs of human inhabitants, which is why the mountain stands out to Jongdae so much, because it’s wide and flat and covered in green, unlike its snow covered siblings around it. More than that, thought, it seems to have some sort of… mouth? Where something red and glowing can be seen within it.

“Is that…” Jongdae trails off. “Is that a volcano!?!?!”

He begins to worry that the King has brought them all this way only to drop them into lava, but the wangyong descends closer and closer and the glowing red thing doesn’t seem to be lava so much as it is a giant pillar of… something, it’s impossible to tell, right in the centre of the volcano’s mouth.

“Not a volcano,” Lu Han mumbles, speaking coherently for the first time since they’ve left Kast. “This is the hive.”

Jongdae’s eyes widen in realisation, but then they’re landing, even the dragon king dwarfed by the size of the hollow mountain as he glides softly to the ground beneath the giant glowing red crystal. No, not a crystal, the hivemind, bright and glowing and traced by circuit channels carved into its surface, the Progenitor’s AI core that connects all dragons and keeps their systems online, as well as birthing new seedlings to become eggs. If humans ever found this and destroyed it, the dragons would be over, which is why the fact that the King has brought them here means more than Jongdae could ever fathom.

Or could also mean that they’ll die. Either or.

The reaction of the King’s arrival is immediate, with two ryong dragons swooping down from a high shelf on the hollow mountain’s wall to the centre cavity where the wangyong has landed. The King places Sehun’s limp body down gently, as well as letting Lu Han and Jongdae onto the ground, Lu Han stumbling off on wobbling legs and doubling over looking like he might hurl while Vivi cowers by hanging off of Jongdae’s shoulder.

The ryong soaring towards them shift mid-air, landing on their feet smoothly, and Jongdae is taken aback by their human forms, faces twisted in anger and confusion, body covered in strange metal clothing that seems to shift with them.

“What’s the meaning of this?” The one closest to them asks, nostrils flared. She is, like all dragons apparently, beautiful, with short brown hair cropped beneath her chin. “Who are you!? Why have you brought humans here!?”

The King seems disinterested in answering, snorting steam instead, and Jongdae steps forward bravely, tentative as he gulps.

“We’re not here as a threat,” he tries, the ryong shifter’s eyes narrowing at him. “We need your help.”

He jerks his chin at the King, who complies readily, bringing his hind legs forward so that Sehun’s body can be seen, bleeding ichor onto the grass at their feet as his chest heaves with every desperate pump of his shard.

“Sehun!” Both ryong shout immediately, rushing forward. The other ryong, a man, whistles sharply, and two wyverns soar down from the rocky shelves immediately, picking Sehun’s body up.

“Take the Prince to his nest for healing,” the man says sharply, the wyverns obeying immediately as he turns back to Jongdae and Lu Han. “Who are you?” He asks, eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Jongdae relents timidly, which is when the other dragon seems to take in Lu Han’s appearance beside him, dragon arm and all, and her face twists in fury.

“ You --” she hisses, storming forward, arm shifting into a large metal claw, but she’s stopped in place by the wangyong’s huge hand, cutting her off. She growls behind it. “--That’s my sister’s arm you piece of shit --”

Jongdae’s eyes widen in realisation. “Soojung?” He asks, and it makes the Princess freeze in place, looking at him with one brown eye and one purple, wondering why some silly human would know her name. The other ryong curls an arm around her wrist, tugging her back.

“I’d suggest you start explaining why you’re here and how you found our Prince,” he warns icily; Jongdae sighs.

It’s a long fucking story, but everyone seems to be listening intently --the dragon king and Lu Han included-- as Jongdae mentions Sehun’s attempt to find Jongin and how that ended up with them here, and their newfound friend the lost dragon king who has apparently been chained to the bottom of a human tower for centuries.

The ryong --Soojung and the other fellow who hasn’t quite introduced himself yet-- listen quietly with wide eyes, at a complete lack for words, if Jongdae had to harbor a guess. He even explains how Lu Han is the Queenslayer but not exactly by choice, which just makes both dragons’ faces twist in conflict. By the time Jongdae is done, he collapses to the ground, spent, huffing out a breath. The dragon king settles beside him too, nudding Jongdae so that he leans against his head; Jongdae, tentatively, pats his dragonsteel scales, with Vivi moving to sit on his lap. The ryong look at him with conflicted looks on their faces, Soojung biting her lip in thought.

“Take this… Jongdae and the Queenslayer to the crystal cells,” she orders, with the man beside her nodding tersely. “We’ll see what to do with them when Sehun wakes up.”

“Wh-- what?” Jongdae stammers, stumbling on his feet as the dragon king allows the other ryong to grip both him and Lu Han by the bicep and begin hauling them away from the hivemind, leaving Vivi at the dragon king’s feet.

He can only watch helplessly over his shoulder as Soojung steps towards the dragon king, craning her neck to meet his icy blue eyes.

“Who are you?” She demands, receiving the whir of dragontongue in return. “Can you shift?”

But Jongdae doesn’t get to hear an unintelligible answer to that question, as he’s dragged into a cave mouth in the mountain’s wall, stripped of his armor, his bow and quiver taken, and pushed onto the ground, where crystals quickly grow like prison bars to keep them in place.

“You’ll stay here until Sehun is healed,” the ryong repeats, but Jongdae quickly scrambles to his feet.

“Wait--” he calls, pushing his arms through the bars. “Will Sehun be okay?”

The ryong looks at him, tilting his head as if scrutinising Jongdae, and says nothing, leaving him and Lu Han in half-darkness behind crystal bars.

“Great,” Lu Han breathes out, voicing Jongdae’s thoughts exactly. “Thanks for rescuing me so we could get put in a different prison.”

Jongdae pinches his ear until Lu Han yelps.

“I didn’t exactly plan this part,” Jongdae grits out dryly as he collapses against the wall, feeling the last day’s worth of exhaustion catch up to him. Lu Han puts a hand on his shoulder.

“There’s nothing we can do now except hope for Sehun to save our asses,” he admits, pausing. “...Again.”

Jongdae huffs out a dry laugh as Lu Han sits beside him with an oomph , wrapping an arm over Jongdae’s shoulder and pulling him in for an awkward side hug.

“I still can’t believe you did all of that to save me,” he says quietly, referring to Jongdae’s daring tale from before. He laughs again.

“Yeah well, you’d do the same for me,” Jongdae replies, with Lu Han nodding in acknowledgement.

“I dunno,” he replies. “You are kinda whiney sometimes, maybe getting rid of you would be a good thing…” Jongdae rolls his eyes, shoving him off, and Lu Han just laughs, retaliating by pulling Jongdae in closer. “Thanks for saving me, brother.”

Jongdae smiles against his chest. “Anytime.”

It’s impossible to know for how long they’re stuck in the crystal cells, but Jongdae would wager at least a day given by the way they’re plunged into darkness once the sun falls and light no longer illuminates the cove. They’re brought water and food by the same ryong from before, ignoring Jongdae’s questions about Sehun’s wellbeing, but this time Vivi is perched on his shoulder, squeezing through the cell bars immediately.

“He insisted he be allowed to see you,” the ryong states dryly, looking at Jongdae curiously as Lu Han snores loudly behind him, slumped against the wall. “How is it that one human earnt the trust of three dragons, exactly?”

Jongdae swallows, unsure of how to answer, but the ryong just shakes his head amusedly as he walks away, leaving Vivi to curl anxiously in Jongdae’s arms.

The rest of his time in the prison is spent sleeping, drifting in and out of a dreamless state as his body tries to conserve energy, waking briefly only for Vivi to purr disgruntledly and send Jongdae back off to sleep. Eventually, at last, Soojung and the other ryong man come to their cell, setting them free with a wave of their hands, and the Princess gestures at them to follow wordlessly, both Jongdae and Lu Han scrambling to their feet.

Without the threat of being murdered by Sehun’s family or a dragon king, it’s a lot easier for Jongdae to register the dragons’ hive, taken aback by the sight. They’re no longer hiding like they had been when the wangyong’s shadow had descended over them, instead the hive is littered with dragons of all different types and sizes and colours, soaring around the hollow mountain’s walls and bounding over the hills of grass and brush. It’s beautiful, a paradise on earth, the sun shining directly into the mountain and illuminating everything in soft tones of gold; the Jongdae of weeks ago could never imagine dragons living as peacefully as they do, but the Jongdae of now is simply relieved to see that they are.

Oddly enough, the Princess and her ryong accompaniment lead them straight to the hivemind, where Jongdae is surprised to see it’s actually hollow, a great marble hall within, the ground carved with patterns similar to the hivemind’s pulsing crystal tek walls, intricate and flowing. At the very far end of the room is a throne; Jongdae shivers in realisation --they’re in the dragons’ palace, to appear before the royal court.  

It appears all the ryong have come to gather to determine Jongdae and Lu Han’s fate, but there aren’t many. There are only around ten shifted ryong in the room, standing in a circle upon the marble and watching Jongdae and Lu Han warily as they’re hauled forward and forced to their knees, heads bowed down.

“Sehun is awake,” Soojung starts, meaning Jongdae slumps in relief. Thank goodness. “And he pleads your lives be spared--”

“Preposterous,” another ryong speaks up quickly. “Humans are not allowed in the hive. They must be killed so our secrets cannot be spread!”

“Oh please,” a smooth voice speaks up, and Jongdae blinks at the way the atmosphere in the room shifts, immediately set on edge. The ryong in question certainly has a presence that demands the room, with silver hair braided until the small of his back hanging loosely around his face, dressed in the strange steel-woven clothing as every other dragon. It’s his eyes that are most striking, however, beneath the unusual white horns curling over his head, for his bright blue eye is fogged over and faded, the skin around it torn back to reveal the steel gears and chords beneath blinking lights, the machinery under every ryong’s skin. Jongdae had once thought only some dragon ryong could shift --but maybe all of them can? “Is this how you run your hive? Killing every human the way they’ve killed us? Has it ever occurred to any of you that maybe some humans have use?”

Soojung huffs shortly. “Well of course you’d say that, Baekhyun, you brought them here.” Jongdae blinks --brought them here? “And I think you’ll find the world has changed in the years you’ve been missing.”

His jaw drops open in realisation. “You’re the wangyong?” He blurts, completely uncaring that his life is currently in the hands of a bunch of dragons who hate his guts.

Baekhyun smiles, showing all his teeth. “What? Don’t recognise my beautiful face?” He tilts his head, and his silver hair sways with the movement. “I’ll admit, it’s been a while. Even I’m not quite used to this form.” He flexes his hands in front of him, examining them curiously. “The humans used special electrified tek to make sure I didn’t get to see it.” He smiles wryly.

“And it’s reasons like that as to why these two should be killed,” the other ryong from before interjects quickly. “Lest they return to their human capital and allow the same punishment to be inflicted upon all of us!”

The room quickly erupts into murmurs at that, Lu Han and Jongdae remaining silent as Baekhyun just rolls his eyes; Soojung pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Enough,” Soojung says loudly, making everybody cut off in unison. “You forget that these humans saved Sehun’s life.”

“And mine,” Baekhyun adds coolly.

“For the price of our Queen’s,” the ryong behind Jongdae and Lu Han reminds them all, making Lu Han shift on his knees and look down guiltily.

“And how many humans have we all killed, I wonder?” Baekhyun muses amusedly, arching an eyebrow. “I lived through the wars most of you are too young to have even heard of, and if there’s anything I’ve learnt, it’s that you cannot put the blame of many on the fault of one.”

“But we also can’t trust them,” a different ryong adds softly, this time with the appearance of a young woman. “The hive’s location is detrimental to our survival.”

“Then let them stay, Sunyoung,” Baekhyun suggests. “Remain in the hive, alive, until they’ve proved they deserve your trust.”

Soojung bites her cheek, conflicted. “What do you say, Minseok?”

At that, she looks to the ryong behind Jongdae and Lu Han, her usual companion, the one with pointed eyes --one brown, the other gold.

“Three dragons vouch for their lives,” he says quietly, Vivi whirring softly, perched on Minseok’s shoulder. “Isn’t that enough?”

A tense silence passes, before Soojung says, “All in favour of killing the humans?”

How cheery. Half the room raises their hands, and Jongdae counts nervously. Five.

“All in favour of sparing their lives?” The Princess asks, and five other ryong raise their hands, Baekhyun and Minseok included. Then, Soojung raises hers.

Six.

“Then it’s decided,” Soojung says. “The humans will remain here until they’ve proved they’re worthy of freedom.”

“So what?” A younger ryong speaks up, one of the boys who had voted in favour of sparing their lives. “You’re just going to keep them in the crystal cells forever?”

Soojung nods casually, and Jongdae squirms where he kneels.

“What about Jongin?” He says quickly, and the room dives into silence.

“Jongin…?” Soojung repeats, eyes narrowed at Jongdae. “What do you know of his whereabouts?”

Jongdae swallows nervously, Lu Han shooting him a panicked look. “He’s alive, but imprisoned. I promised Sehun I’d help save him.”

“If the humans have him, then he’s long gone,” Sunyoung says solemnly.

“That’s not true,” Jongdae urges. “He’s still alive for harvesting, if you let us go we can save him before it’s too late.”

Soojung’s mouth twists. “But we agreed to not let them leave the hive…” the (seemingly) young boy trails off.

Baekhyun hums. “Perhaps, if given a chaperone…?”

Soojung raises her eyebrows. “Is that an offer, King?”

Baekhyun pulls a face. “I’m not exactly one to babysit.” He grins slyly. “But maybe the Prince will be more interested in saving his brother.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Minseok speaks up. “Going into Kast is a suicide mission.”

“And yet Sehun and the human have already pulled it off, haven’t they?” Baekhyun counters, gesturing to Jongdae, who raises his chin bravely. Minseok’s mouth presses into a firm line. “The human belongs to your prince, therefore the decision should be his too.”

Jongdae scoffs. “I don’t belong --” but he cuts off quickly when Baekhyun gives him a pointed look, silently asking him if he’s stupid. Jongdae snaps his jaw shut obediently.

Soojung sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Fine,” she relents, causing various murmurs to pass through the crystal room. “But my brother is resting. We can discuss this with him when he is fully healed. In the meantime--” Soojung turns to Baekhyun, smiling saccharinely. “--since you are so fond of these humans who have freed you, you can ‘babysit’ them. Minseok is right, three dragons vouch for these humans’ lives. They’re not our prisoners.”

“Are you kidding me?” The male ryong from before, the one who voted on killing them, speaks up. “He’s the Queenslayer!” He points at Lu Han. “I don’t want a dragonslayer running around the hive freely!”

Baekhyun laughs condescendingly, drawing the attention in the room back to him, as always, the king that he is. “And you think the human --who is an enemy to the King’s Guard, mind you-- would really have the nerve to kill a dragon in a hive surrounded by dragons, Minho?”

Minho flusters, floundered, and Minseok hums.

“He’s part dragon,” he interjects smoothly, demanding attention in a way that’s different to Baekhyun. Whereas both Soojung and Baekhyun take up space through cold composure and radiate power, Minseok’s is more compact and lithe, but his cool, calm control shows a different sort of dominance. “Let the hivemind decide.”

Lu Han turns pale at that, glancing up sharply. “Huh?”

“He is a human,” Sunyoung replies, ignoring Lu Han’s confusion as she regards Minseok, perplexed. “The hivemind will not accept him.”

“But he has a dragon’s heart and arm,” Minseok shrugs, smiling lopsidedly. “Why don’t we at least try?” He looks at Soojung expectantly. “Princess?”

She sighs, and it’s obvious, Jongdae thinks, that Soojung values Minseok’s opinion greatly. “Fine,” she relents. “Queenslayer,” she orders, facing Lu Han suddenly and making him squeak a little in fear, gulping nervously. “Meld with the hivemind.”

Lu Han just stares at her. “... Huh?”

“Touch the glowing crystal with your dragon arm,” Baekhyun amends cheerily, clearly amused given by the twist of his lips, and Lu Han scrambles to his feet quickly, glancing around the room.

“Um. Guessing I don’t have much of a choice here hahaha…” nobody laughs, and Lu Han clears his throat abruptly. He blinks at Baekhyun as he outstretches a hand to the wall next to where he and Jongdae had been kneeling. “Will this kill me?”

“Hopefully not,” Baekhyun replies happily, which does nothing for Lu Han’s fear, placing his golden dragonsteel hand against the hivemind’s walls. At first, nothing happens, but then it begins to pulse, waves of red and orange light through its walls gathering where Lu Han’s palm rests against it, beating like a heart. Jongdae watches in amazement as the whole room begins to grow brighter, pulsating, and Lu Han’s eyes widen as his golden arm begins to glow brightly as the purple ichor inside is invigorated, the core in the centre of his chest igniting brighter too.

“What… what is this?” Lu Han asks quietly, both him and Jongdae watching in morbid fascination as the rust on his arm begins to fall away, the dragonsteel scales almost self polishing as the ichor glows brighter. “What’s going on? What-- what is this feeling?”

“It’s the connection of all dragons,” Minseok answers, placing a hand on Lu Han’s shoulder, who doesn’t bristle at the touch, too focused on the way his arm is healing. “You have rejected this part of you, forcing it to wither, but the hivemind accepts your heart as a dragon’s.”

“What you’re feeling is the connection we share to each other, to the earth, and to the hivemind,” Baekhyun adds quietly. “The connection we have to our home.”

Eventually, the walls cease their glowing, and Lu Han pulls his arm back almost reluctantly, staring at his hand in wonder. The rusted dragonsteel is now a polished gold, highlighted by purple ichor veins, and Lu Han’s core glows brightly, his skin looking healthier than it has in years, in a way Jongdae had never even noticed it was sick even to begin with.

“It’s…” Lu Han searches for his words, shaking his head in disbelief. “Amazing…. That’s what you guys feel all the time?”

Soojung smiles, if only just. “Yes,” she answers, and Lu Han’s golden fingers curl into themselves without creaking as they do so, more dexterous than they’ve ever been.

“It’s also proof,” Minho relents. “That the hivemind does not sense you are a threat.” He sighs. “Minseok was right.”

“As per usual,” Minseok retorts childishly, grinning wide enough that it shows his gums.

“In that case,” Soojung smiles saccharinely, turning to Baekhyun expectantly. “Enjoy babysitting duties. Council dismissed.”

Baekhyun looks some mix between disgusted and disgruntled as Minseok pushes Jongdae and Lu Han towards him, regarding them with faint distaste. He sighs as all the other ryong in the room shift into their dragon forms before bounding out and flying away, headed to their various nests dug into the walls of the hollow mountain.

“Where’s Sehun?” Jongdae asks immediately, as soon as he’s sure he can talk without a dragon biting his head off, once they’re outside the hivemind. “I need to see him.”

“In his nest, resting,” Minseok, still behind them, inputs, frowning at Jongdae, and pointing to a cave mouth gaping at the top of the mountain. “You shouldn’t disturb his healing process.”

“I just need to know he’s okay,” Jongdae insists, and Lu Han looks to Baekhyun expectantly.

“What?” He asks, blinking. “I’m not flying you up there. If you want to see your lover so badly, you can walk.”

Pointedly ignoring the jibe at Sehun being his lover from a centuries old dragon recently escaped from a torturous prison with an attitude problem, Jongdae pertinently says, “Fine.”

Baekhyun actually splutters out a laugh, surprised as Jongdae begins marching to the mountain wall, where he can spot a thin path snaking up its length, but Minseok holds his wrist and tugs him back.

“This isn’t what the Princess meant when she put you on babysitting duties.” Minseok frowns at Baekhyun.

He rolls his eyes. “Oh please, Minseokkie--” at Minseokkie , Minseok’s frown turns to a scowl. “--where is the human going to escape from, exactly? If he’s with Sehun, then he’s under supervision as intended.”

Jongdae looks to Minseok desperately. “It’s my fault he’s hurt. I have to know he’s okay.” Minseok lets go, saying nothing, and Jongdae quickly sprints forward, ignoring Lu Han’s indignant cries behind him as he’s left to the mercy of the dragon king and… whatever Minseok is --some sort of advisor?-- Vivi torn between leaving Minseok’s side and joining Jongdae, but ultimately choosing to stay with the dragons.

The narrow path along the mountain’s wall might have once been there for walking, but now it’s deteriorated and crumbled as Jongdae determinedly hikes up it, stopping repeatedly in order to catch his breath. Of fucking course Sehun lives in a nest nearer the mountain’s peak, why would he ever choose one that’s convenient for people who can’t fly? It’s kind of daunting to walk up, considering all the dragons flying around the nest and the way they cling to the walls and give Jongdae dirty looks. He’d never imagined there’d be a stage in his life where he’d have a staring competition with a wyvern, but here he is.

Jongdae nearly falls off a couple of times, swallowing nervously and staying still to calm his heart each time he does. The last stretch to Sehun’s nest is a narrow ledge that requires Jongdae to sidle against the wall and close his eyes to not look down as he flattens against it, slowly shuffling across.

By the time he finally makes it into the small cave, he exhales deeply in relief, rubbing his palm over his pounding heart, cheeks flushed. It’s then that he looks up and falters, taking in Sehun’s nest, and… isn’t quite sure what he’d expected, in hindsight. Jongdae knows Sehun hoards plants, he just hadn’t expected him to hoard this many, the entire cave decked out in shades of green and pink and purple and red as flowers bloom throughout it --the roof has been carved out, providing a skylight and illuminating it, and it’s warm and humid and smells like summer.

Jongdae has never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

He’s so amazed by the thick bushes of honeyrose and rows of watercolour begonias it actually takes him a while to notice Sehun sitting in the middle of it all on a patch of soft grass, his hair undone, right beneath the skylight where the sun shines through warmly, wearing the dragons’ strange metal clothes that allow them to shift as he curses at his arm.

The sight reminds Jongdae of Lu Han, and he smiles to himself.

“Stupid-- thing--” Sehun grunts, giving up as he huffs childishly, yet to notice Jongdae, and Jongdae feels so much relief flood through him it’s sickening. The only damage he can spot on Sehun is the fact that his arm seems to be disconnected from its socket, hanging by a metal hinge and some stray wires… it’s an oddly alienating sight, but Jongdae doesn’t let it deter him. It’s still Sehun.

“You’re okay,” Jongdae breathes out, and Sehun jumps, suddenly, blinking at him rapidly.

“Y-Yes-- How…. How did you get in here?” Sehun looks bewildered, and Jongdae isn’t sure if he’s meant to be offended.

“I climbed,” Jongdae admits sheepishly, stunning Sehun, given by the way his mismatched eyes widen. “I had to know if you’re okay and…”

“I’m fine,” Sehun admits, and Jongdae breathes out in shaky relief as he kneels beside him, collapsing as his legs just… give out, days worth of stress and worry and exhaustion finally hitting their target. With the arm that isn’t disconnected from his body, Sehun touches Jongdae’s face gently. “I promised I would be.”

Jongdae lays one hand over Sehun’s, then sharply says, “You’re an idiot.” Sehun looks taken aback. “Fighting Baekhyun like that and getting so hurt--” tears are welling in Jongdae’s eyes, and he blinks rapidly to keep them back. “--I can’t believe you! Then passing out for over two days!?”

Sehun laughs softly even as Jongdae berates him for risking his life. “Sorry about leaving you in prison, my processor had to shut down to conserve power while my repair systems were at work.” He lets go of Jongdae’s cheek to poke at his arm, which dangles uselessly. “Clearly they still need a little more time... Nobody here has hurt you, right?” he asks quickly.

“No.” Jongdae sniffles. “But I was so worried and they wouldn’t tell me if you were okay--”

Sehun’s quiet laugh cuts him off again. “I’ll always be okay if you need me to be,” he promises, and Jongdae punches his shoulder --the one with a connected arm. Sehun yelps. “What was that for?”

“Everything,” Jongdae replies. For actually coming with him, for saving Lu Han, for staying safe and keeping his promises, for taking on a dragon king so Jongdae could help his brother. For kissing Jongdae back and making him worry that he might not get to do it again. Jongdae quickly paws at his dry eyes, then smiles. “Can I do your hair?”

Sehun looks a little surprised by the question, but relents. “Please.” He gestures to his useless arm. “I can’t, so…”

Jongdae nods, having figured as much, and stands up to scour Sehun’s nest. It’s a pretty big cavern, all things considered, decked out with plants that must come from far across the world, having to be cared for meticulously to grow in conditions like this. Jongdae can’t even name half of them, which proves their rarity. He picks out the leaves of some curling vine, a few bunches purple dragon’s breath and light blue nightbud blossoms, grouping them into a makeshift bouquet. He finishes it off with a few yellow morning blooms, just because he can.

“Once this is over, you should become a florist,” Sehun jokes as he examines Jongdae’s collection. Jongdae rolls his eyes as he kneels beside him, leaving the bouquet beside his knee.

“Shut up,” he mumbles, with no bite. Thoughts of what comes next hang in Jongdae’s stomach like dread. “Once this is over--” he corrects. “--your sister will be keeping Lu Han and I imprisoned here forever.”

Sehun just laughs, as if Jongdae’s eternal jail time is funny. “No she won’t. I’ll talk to her once she decides we can have an actual conversation instead of her just telling me to shut up and rest.”

Jongdae smiles as he focuses on weaving the strands of Sehun’s hair just like Yerim had taught him, integrating the flowers’ stems in the process.

“Do you think she’ll let us leave to save Jongin?” Jongdae asks, and Sehun seems to hesitate, his shoulders straightening out, as if he didn’t think Jongdae would still help him --the idiot.

“No.” Sehun continues fiddling with his arm, trying to jam it back into its socket. “But luckily we don’t need her permission.”

Jongdae grins at that, even though he probably shouldn’t, and is grateful for having the distraction of carefully doing Sehun’s hair, worried that if he were facing Sehun, he might kiss him, and once he starts kissing Sehun, he might not stop. Jongdae doesn’t know what to do with the dilemma --it had seemed all fine in passing when danger was over their heads and it felt like they were at the finish line but really, saving Lu Han had only been the beginning, and now Jongdae doesn’t know what kissing Sehun again might mean.

But he’s probably being an idiot and overthinking things, as per usual.

Sehun’s arm finally clicks into its socket when Jongdae is halfway through the braid, Sehun breathing out a quiet finally while Jongdae just snickers at him.

“Did Baekhyun apologise for trying to kill you?” Jongdae asks conversationally, weaving through a morning bloom.

Sehun snorts. “Baekhyun is wangyong, I’d be surprised if he’s ever apologised to anything in his life.” He flexes his reconnected fingers as the nanobots in his body in place of an immune system begin fixing the connection in his arm, stitching up the wires and synthetic skin. “Although he did mention during the fight that he had nothing against me, that he was just doing his job so the humans didn’t torture him.” Jongdae winces. “He was so certain he could never be freed, you know? And to think a human is the one who saved him.”

Jongdae can tell Sehun is smiling by the sound of his voice, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t do anything. You saved him.”

“No, it was your idea,” Sehun argues, just as Jongdae is finishing the end of his braid. “You didn’t have to save him, but you did.”

“Because you wanted to,” Jongdae corrects.

“Or because you’re just that kind,” Sehun retorts, making Jongdae huff.

“I’m not kind.” Jongdae isn’t kind, he’s a coward and a runaway and a weakling, he can’t even run without weighing somebody down by a ball and chain, but... his whole life he’s been told he’s pathetic, yet being with Sehun makes him feel invincible.

“Yes you are,” Sehun argues. “Kind and brave and smart and loyal and--”

Jongdae sighs in frustration. “Can you please shut up?”

Hair done, Sehun his head over his shoulder to smile lopsidedly at Jongdae. “I was hoping you’d kiss me to accomplish that.”

Jongdae feels his cheeks burn, but doesn’t give Sehun the satisfaction of becoming flabbergasted. “So what you just said was all a lie?”

“No,” Sehun says firmly, turning now so that he faces Jongdae still kneeling in place, cupping his face. “I would never lie to you.”

In hindsight, Jongdae just can’t help himself, eyes meeting Sehun’s as he slowly pushes in, watching for any sign of hesitation. There isn’t any, Sehun meets him halfway, pressing his warm mouth against Jongdae’s, and it tastes sweeter than relief, or freedom, or safety. It tastes like honeyroses and morning blooms and dragon’s breath, tastes metallic and warm --Sehun is colder than a human, but still so warm . It’s soft and sweet and gentle, just like Sehun, and Jongdae never wants it to end.

But it does, reluctantly, slowly, as Sehun pulls back, searching Jongdae’s face --not exactly looking for anything in particular, just hoping to memorise his features.

“That means the same for dragons that it does for humans, right?” Jongdae asks, having not thought that part through.

“Hope so,” Sehun replies quietly, and leans in again, holding Jongdae’s face in both hands and pulling him back in, as if Jongdae isn’t already pushing forward. It’s still so slow, noses brushing as their lip move carefully --it occurs to Jongdae that Sehun may not have kissed anyone before, given by his gentleness; or maybe that’s just because he’s Sehun.

And to think, dragons can love too after all.

Impatient, Jongdae surges forward suddenly, making Sehun fall back, hands flying to steady himself as Jongdae straddles his lap, one hand wrapped around the back of Sehun’s neck to keep his mouth in place, the other weaving fingers through his black hair, undoing the braid Jongdae had so carefully made moments prior. Sehun laughs against Jongdae’s lips over the imbalance, Jongdae taking the opportunity to lick into Sehun’s mouth, who makes a small noise of surprise. His saliva doesn’t taste like a human’s, it’s so much sweeter, and Jongdae is absolutely addicted to it.

Sehun’s hands are so careful as they rest at Jongdae’s hips, and it just makes Jongdae kiss him harder, wanting to savour every kind thing about this stupid boy he’s fallen for in the midst of the mess that’s become his life. It’s an amazing feeling, really, kissing underneath the sunlight on a patch of soft grass; Sehun smells like pine and honey, something Jongdae has never been close enough to notice before, and his skin hums softly beneath Jongdae’s palms.

They kiss for what feels like forever and not long enough at all, constantly ruined by Sehun’s giggles when their noses bump or Jongdae squirming when Sehun’s hands tickle his sides. The rest of the world has completely disappeared; it’s just them. Not a dragon and a human, not two men with the weight of the world on their shoulders, just Sehun and Jongdae.

“Ahem.” Until it’s not. The sudden interruption has Jongdae letting out an embarrassing squeak as he falls off of Sehun’s thighs, face burning as he takes in Soojung and Minseok looking down at both of them, unimpressed. Well, Minseok just looks blatantly amused, but Soojung is unimpressed. “I was hoping to talk to my brother.” She gives Jongdae a pointed look. “Alone.”

“Anything you say in front of me you can say in front of Jongdae,” Sehun replies stubbornly, reaching out and interlacing his fingers through Jongdae’s, who flushes and looks down --Sehun may not be intimidated by his sister, but Jongdae doesn’t exactly find the dragon princess particularly welcoming.

Soojung doesn’t even grace Sehun with an answer to that, just arches an eyebrow.

“I’ll go,” Jongdae insists, scrambling to his feet. Sehun looks at him worriedly so he shoots him a lopsided smile. “It’s fine. Just… come find me later, okay?”

Sehun reaches up and squeezes Jongdae’s hand. “Okay,” he promises quietly, and Jongdae knows he can believe him, walking out of the nest. Minseok follows him. Jongdae gulps as he peers downward.

“No need to walk down, human,” Minseok says, bemused.

“I have a name, you know,” Jongdae murmurs, but Minseok doesn’t give him a response, shifting into his dragon form instead. He’s different-looking, to Sehun, his scales a dark blue and his ichor gold, for one, but his body is also shaped differently, wider, his neck shorter, his horns stubby and sharp. Jongdae is always taken aback by seeing ryong so close, it seems, but he doesn’t get much of a chance to admire as Minseok picks him up with a claw around each arm and soars into the air, causing Jongdae to yell quite loudly as he does so.

He’s so tired of dragons doing that.

It’s a quick flight, however, Minseok gliding towards a cavern at the other end of the mountain and dropping Jongdae on his feet before shifting midair and landing in front of him, completely unbothered.

Minseok gestures for Jongdae to follow him, and he quickly scrambles to compose himself and follow, feeling weird about having to represent the entire human race, or something. He assumes this cavern is Minseok’s cave, but unlike Sehun’s it’s dimly lit and not filled with any greenery, just dirt floor and smooth rock walls.

“Excuse the mess,” Minseok says dryly. “I’m not used to having guests.”

Typical, since dragons are the territorial type, but despite the fact that Minseok’s nest is a literal cave… it’s spotless, the dirt packed neatly and not a single scratch on the walls. What’s peculiar about it, however, is the countless wooden shelves that have been hoisted around the place, displaying hundreds of books. Each shelf seems to be sorted according to size and colour and perhaps even title, not a single book is out of place, except for one, which Baekhyun currently has between his hands, sitting on the floor cross-legged beside Lu Han, who is also staring at the book curiously, and a sleeping Vivi.

“...So the humans took the mines and forced the dragons to change hives?” Baekhyun asks.

“Yep,” Lu Han replies, Baekhyun squinting at the book in confusion.

“But how? In my time, dragons were never defeated by humans.”

“We adapted,” Lu Han answers, shrugging. “Found ways to use tek more efficiently, I guess.”

Baekhyun pouts. “Bizarre.” Apparently done with the history lesson, he notices Minseok and Jongdae approaching, snapping the book shut. “Ah, you’re finished inevitably professing your love for the Prince, then.”

Jongdae, on cue, turns red.

“Huh?” Lu Han’s mouth hangs open unattractively as he looks at Jongdae in confusion. “Why would you--” he cuts off, taking in Jongdae’s flushed appearance, and his eyebrows reach his hairline. “Woah, forreal?”

“Shut it,” Jongdae hisses. Lu Han just bursts into laughter.

“Wow, I really didn’t see that coming.” He wipes a nonexistent tear from his eye. Minseok and Baekhyun both give him an incredulous look.

“Seriously?” They ask, in unison. “It’s so obvious,” Minseok says, eyebrows pushed together in confusion.

“Huh?” Lu Han’s head twists vigorously as his eyes move from face to face. “How did everyone notice except me?”

“Probably because you’re an idiot,” Baekhyun suggests helpfully, causing Lu Han to slap his arm --awfully playful considering they’ve only known each other for a few hours, obviously already buddy-buddy.

Jongdae just covers his flaming cheeks with his hands. “Can we please focus?” He turns to Minseok. “I don’t think you brought me here to cockblock me.”

Minseok tips his head. “‘Cockblock’?” He parrots.

Dragons don’t even have genitals, so Jongdae isn’t explaining that one. “Why am I here?” He asks instead, impatient.

Minseok hums. “Because we want to help you save Jongin, before Sehun whisks you away to do it behind the Princess’ back.”

Jongdae is stunned at that, swiveling to face Baekhyun and Lu Han and only seeing muted looks of determination. “You’ll help us?”

“Of course.” Minseok huffs, almost offended. “I love the Princess dearly, but her judgement can sometimes be amiss. Saving Jongin is important.”

“Could you ask some of the other court ryong for help?” Jongdae asks, only for Minseok to sadly shake his head.

“I don’t trust them,” he admits softly. “The Princess may be royalty through the Queen’s blessing, but she’s still just a princess. Over half the ryong in that room would stab her in the back if it meant they could take the throne. She isn’t wangyong, she doesn’t have the status expected from her to be a ruler or the power over the hivemind. It’s part of why Jongin’s return is so imperative, we need both him and Sehun to help Soojung keep the hive safe.”

“Okay, but…” Jongdae points at Baekhyun unabashedly.

“I am wangyong.” Baekhyun huffs. “If I wanted to control the hive, I already would have. I have no interest in the throne. Besides--” he grins animalistically, canines flashing. “--I have a lot more interest in ruining human lives.”

Very uplifting; Jongdae and Lu Han exchange a look, with Lu Han shrugging indifferently.

“Well you make a convincing argument there,” Jongdae relents, deadpan. He looks at Lu Han for answers.

“I’ll always help you, Jongdae,” he says quietly, smiling softly. “Besides, you didn’t feel what I felt… the way dragons are connected… that needs to be protected.”

Lu Han juts out his chin, squaring his shoulders, and Jongdae returns Lu Han’s smile, proud of his newfound determination. He turns to Minseok again. “So what’s the plan?”

“If this Jongin guy is in harvesting like you said,” Lu Han answers instead. “Then he’ll be near where they gave me my arm.”

“And where’s that?” Jongdae asks, having never been to the fabled limb factory himself.

“Beneath the palace,” Lu Han replies, making Jongdae inhale sharply.

“That’s where they…?” He gestures to Lu Han’s arm, who nods solemnly. Jongdae exhales through his teeth. “Shit. How are we meant to get down there?” Sans the whole flying in on a dragon part, which Jongdae is sure they’ll be utilising. The palace is crawling with more King’s Guard than the Bone Tower, after all.

“There’s only one way,” Lu Han says sternly. “We fight our way in.”

Jongdae’s eyes widen in fear. “Is that a joke?”

Lu Han shakes his head. “With three dragons on our side--” Vivi’s head raises at that, making a petulant whirring noise. “--...four dragons, it’s possible, so long as we fight smart.” Lu Han rubs the back of his neck. “The place where they harvest dragonsteel and modify dragonslayers is beneath the throne room, but it won’t be unguarded. If we sneak in through the Prince’s tower, it’s the quickest route down.”

“Okay and? Once we’re there?” Jongdae asks. “Jongin won’t be the only dragon we’ll have to save. How are we meant to fight and free them?”

“We split up,” Lu Han answers simply. “You focus on freeing the dragons, and the rest of us will watch your back.”

It strikes a chord in Jongdae’s chest, especially coming from Lu Han, making his shoulders raise defensively. “I can fight too.”

“I know that, Jongdae,” Lu Han consoles. “Of course I know that. But…”

But he can’t fight as well as a dragon --or someone who’s part-dragon-- so there’s no point in arguing. Jongdae sighs, relenting, still hating the fact that he’s so weak and useless. No, wait, saving Jongin is one of the most important parts of the plan --he isn’t weak or useless, he’s the key to their success.

“You’re right,” Jongdae relents, quickly shaking his head. “It makes more sense for you guys to fight.”

“Not without me, I hope.” At the sound of Soojung’s voice, everyone in the room jumps, quickly turning to face her, standing in the entryway to Minseok’s nest with Sehun right behind --he finds Jongdae’s eyes immediately, and smiles.

“Princess,” Minseok blurts, flustered. “You-- you want to come?”

“Jongin is my brother.” Soojung frowns, arms crossed over her chest. “I can’t sit here knowing he’s in danger any longer. I have to help.”

“What about the hive?” Baekhyun asks, tilting his head so that his silver hair sways.

“If it dissolves into absolute chaos while I’m gone, then so be it.” Soojung sticks out her chin proudly. “Saving Jongin is more important.”

Sehun just looks absolutely relieved to hear as much --Jongdae wonders how their argument went, and how Sehun won. Sehun is still smiling as he says, “So when do we leave?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Soojung arches an eyebrow. “Now.”

It turns out they’ll be flying as a group with Baekhyun as the carrier, since his greater tek capabilities mean his scales have camouflaging abilities to help them fly into Kast. Sehun grumbles about wishing he’d had that weeks ago, and when Jongdae asks why Baekhyun didn’t use them flying back to the nest, Baekhyun grins with all teeth.

“Because the humans needed to know I was back in the world.”

Fair enough.

They’ve all rested as best they can, and Jongdae and Lu Han were given the special steel-woven clothing that the ryong wear in place of Lu Han’s rags and Jongdae’s under-armor. It melds to their skin but feels light and doesn’t restrain any movement --Jongdae slings his returned bow and quiver over his chest as the last piece, even if he only has five arrows left, raising his hands to braid his hair back so the long curly strands don’t obscure his vision.

“You should be careful,” Soojung starts, startling Jongdae, his fingers hesitating before he continues. “With my brother.”

Well, that’s certainly not what he’d been expecting.

“What do you mean?” Jongdae asks timidly, still intimidated by the ryong princess. She steps into his field of view then, purple and brown eye both scrutinising Jongdae.

“Sehun isn’t like us, he’s--” she cuts off, frowning somewhat. “...being born ryong makes him… Different.” Jongdae doesn’t say anything, just continues slowly braiding his hair. Across the grassy field, Sehun is talking with Minseok and Lu Han while Vivi plays at his feet. “The rest of us, we were born spawnlings. Lesser dragons. We had to fight against each other to survive. Living like that, for hundreds of years… it takes away a part of your humanity.”

“Sehun doesn’t have that,” Soojung continues sternly. “He was born with the intelligence beyond an animal, into a family that loved him and he loved in return. He’s more human than any of us.” She inhales deeply as Jongdae just gulps, throat bobbing. “He may be one of the strongest dragons alive, with one of the strongest hearts, but for you, it’s fragile.” She meets Jongdae’s eyes then, and Jongdae sees the fear in her face, the worry, the stress. “If you ask him to come with you, he’ll leave.”

Jongdae, stunned, fumbles. “I know,” he decides eventually, swallowing. “That’s the scary part.”

What will Jongdae do, once this is all over, once Jongin is safe and sound… will they be set free from the nest? Will he and Lu Han go back into hiding, running away despite the things that they know, the secrets they keep, sticking to the shadows? Kyungsoo had offered Jongdae a place in Soul, after all, but he knows in his heart he opposes the idea. Jongdae has sat back for far too long as this country collapses in on itself, washing away into a sea of those who have been forgotten, but he’s not quite sure how he could possibly help.

And honestly? Part of him almost doesn’t want to, just wants to ask Sehun to fly them far away from here, beyond the mountains, to leave this stupid country behind and all of its problems, to never deal with any of this ever again. But…

Jongdae looks to Sehun, laughing with Minseok about something, his hair a somewhat lopsided braid courtesy of Jongdae, filled with blooming flowers, dressed in the grey segmented dragon clothes at the base of the hollow mountain, surrounded by life and dragons. This is Sehun’s home, this is where he belongs.... How could Jongdae ever take that away from him?

“Promise me you’ll take care of him,” Soojung urges, firmly gripping Jongdae’s shoulder. “ Promise.”

“I promise,” Jongdae returns, gulping, and they’re quickly called over by an impatient Lu Han.

“You two coming or what?” He’s cuffed on the ear by Minseok.

“How dare you talk to the Princess that way,” he hisses.

Soojung rolls her eyes at Minseok, smiling as she tucks her chin down to hide it, and Jongdae just double steps to keep up with her, lost in thought. Sehun is endlessly kind and compassionate, so how is it that Jongdae was lucky enough to end up with so much of his heart, when he doesn’t deserve such a thing? The thought is nerve-wracking.

“You okay?” Sehun asks softly as he walks up to Jongdae, nudging his arm with an elbow, pulling him from his reverie.

“Fine,” Jongdae reassures with a smile he can’t seem to keep back around Sehun, and Sehun returns it before leaning in softly to kiss him, a tiny press of lips.

“ Eugh ,” Lu Han mockingly gags, and Jongdae just cackles snidely in return.

“You know, this is technically your fault,” Jongdae points out, slinging an arm around Sehun’s waist and sticking his tongue out at Lu Han childishly.

Lu Han scoffs. “Yeah, next time I’ll try not to get kidnapped so you can’t go on a life-changing adventure and fall in love.”

“Thank you,” Jongdae replies sardonically. “So considerate of you.” Lu Han sneers.

Baekhyun quickly shifts, and it’s bizarre to watch a normal sized human become a dragon larger than a skyscraper, but at this stage, Jongdae doesn’t know why he bothers being surprised. Impatiently, he huffs out steam, accompanied by the clicking noises of dragontongue, holding out a large claw for everyone to climb on.

“Shut up,” Sehun says to Baekhyun childishly, shoulders raised in embarrassment.

Jongdae blinks. “What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Sehun blurts, then wraps his hand around Jongdae’s wrist to tug him forward. “Come on. Last part of the quest, right?”

Jongdae follows easily, smiling softly. “Right.”

As they pile up on Baekhyun’s palm, his scales flicker, shimmering so that they blend into their surroundings. It’s not perfect invisibility, but for night it’s good enough.

“This time stay a little lower,” Lu Han orders, looking a little pale as he curls an arm around one of Baekhyun’s fingers. “And don’t fly so high.”

His reply is a deep rumble of beeps and whirs.

“He says--”

Lu Han holds up a hand, cutting Sehun off. “No need to translate, I know go fuck yourself when I hear it.”

Baekhyun just grins above them, rings of metal teeth and all, and uses his other hand to nudge Lu Han lightly with the tip of his claw fondly, making Lu Han yelp as he’s knocked onto his back.

Soojung and Minseok climb up next, with Vivi soaring off of Minseok’s shoulder onto Jongdae’s, making Jongdae laugh as the drake rubs their cheeks together.

“He likes you a lot,” Sehun points out, speaking to Minseok, who shrugs.

“He’s programmed to, we’re the same model.” Minseok smiles wryly. “He likes Jongdae more, however.”

“The same model…?” Jongdae parrots.

“We’re all ryong,” Sehun begins explaining. “But Soojung and I have the same design, whereas Minseok and Baekhyun both came from different designs.”

“Sehun,” Soojung scolds, frowning in a way that means he probably shouldn’t have told a human that. Sehun just rolls his eyes, unbothered.

Once everyone is safely in Baekhyun’s hand, he pumps one set of wings, lifting into the air as the blades inside whir to life. It’s nearing dusk, now, the sky painted red and gold and from up here, Jongdae’s never seen anything quite like it, mesmerized.

Soon the skyline of Kast begins to appear in the distance, and Jongdae is surprised at how close the dragon’s hive has been to the capital all this time, but then again, it makes sense that the humans have never thought to brave the rocky mountainous wilderness beyond the Terrus mines.

Sehun’s face is tense and unreadable, jaw clenched as he regards the imposing shadow of the palace in the distance, floating in the air.

“We’ll save him,” Jongdae reassures, pushing his fingers through the spaces between Sehun’s. “He’ll be safe.”

Sehun relaxes minutely. “Yeah,” he agrees, and squeezes Jongdae’s hand back.

By nightfall, Kast looks far less imposing without the sky burnt red behind it, merely a shadow that’s stretched in the air, making it appear bigger than Jongdae knows it actually is. The Prince’s personal tower sticks out of towards the north court of the palace circle, hovering above the air --Lu Han gulps as he glances down, pale.  

“Ready?” Jongdae asks him. Lu Han gives a small smile.

“Not in the fucking slightest.”

Baekhyun eventually descends over the palace, gripping to the Prince’s tower. The Bone Tower still sticks out in the centre of the palace circle, broken and destroyed from Baekhyun’s attacks, and Jongdae can tell the Kast must be a mess because of it because of all the lit watchtowers along the wall, and the amount of guards crawling across the palace courtyard.

Not that it matters much when you’re flying in on a dragon king, who attaches himself to the tower before opening his hand next to one of the windows which Lu Han promptly smashes with his dragon hand, the group filing in after him. Baekhyun is last, of course, huge body folding up into his lithe human form as he dives through, landing smoothly on his feet.

“Shall we?” He suggests, and they run down the spiralling staircase, into the hallways that lead to the throne room.

The palace, even in the low torchlight lining the walls, is a work of art. All marble and steel, the roof hand painted with murals of Progenitor gods and dragon slayings, lined with gold and silver. Woven tapestries hang over every wall, pillars of steel separating the palace from the inner courtyard, a sprawling garden of exotic gardens far beyond the collection of Sehun’s nest. It reeks of wealth and power, and Jongdae would admire it more if he weren’t so focused on keeping his heart in check as Lu Han leads them through the long hallway towards the tall double dragonsteel doors at the end.

But it isn’t left unguarded; Jongdae is surprised to see the bone-coloured dragonsteel of the white squadron, the Captain of the King’s Guard lieutenants themselves. Unlike Yifan, the White Tiger has only three people in his squadron, all of them present in front of the doors holding long dragonsteel swords.

“The Captain said you’d be coming,” the girl at the front says cooly, twirling her sword, once. She smiles, but it looks wrong on her face, one that’s a mix of steel and skin. “He’s always right.”

“Go,” Lu Han urges Jongdae, as he, Minseok and Baekhyun step forward, dragonsteel limbs brandished at the ready. “We can handle this.”

Jongdae is reluctant, but nods, trusting in Lu Han --especially since his arm isn’t rusted anymore-- and he, Sehun and Soojung make a dash around the white squadron as Lu Han and the others distract them by forcing an attack, Jongdae grunting as he pushes the heavy doors open before letting Soojung and Sehun through and slamming them shut behind him.

If Jongdae had thought the outside of the palace was amazing, then the throne room should hardly even be a comparison, a huge dragonsteel room with the iron throne front and centre, a huge diamond chandelier illuminating the room, holding up a thousand lit candles. The wall, floors and ceilings are all painted with scenes of humanity’s accomplishments, the death of the dragon queen, the capture of Terrus, the king’s crowning ceremony… the ceiling depicts a starry sky, filled with the constellations of champions. Their footsteps echo around the empty hall as they all crane their necks to examine the chamber, as well as look for the entrance into the harvesting factory below.

“There,” Sehun says quickly, pointing to the iron throne, shaped like an unhinged dragon’s jaw, and he quickly dashes behind it where Jongdae can see a faint crack, pressing it so that the false wall slides across. He frowns at the dark staircase that spirals down, hesitating.

“What?” Jongdae asks, noticing that Soojung bears a similar look on her face.

“It feels… strange…” she comments, eyebrows furrowed together. “Like it’s been. Marked. Like it’s…”

“A nest,” Sehun finishes for her, exchanging a look with his sister. Jongdae swallows before bravely stepping forward, succumbing to the darkness.

It feels like they descend for hours, rushing down the steps and keeping his breathing slow as Jongdae tries to not to fall. Eventually it stops, the end illuminated only by the glowing green and purple shards at the centre of Sehun and Soojung’s chests, respectively, showing another large set of steel doors. Jongdae pushes them open accordingly.

The double doors sing as they’re pushed open, and its accompaniment is the sharp gasp of Sehun and Soojung, as they take in the room in front of them, Jongdae only staring at it in muted horror. Tens --no, hundreds-- of dragons must be in this chamber, as large as the throne room if not bigger, kept in cages of various sizes and strung from the ceiling on iron chains. Wyverns, hydras, drakes, serpents, lindworms, ryong; Jongdae can see every breed and model of dragon in this room, most missing limbs and scales --revealing the wires and machinery underneath-- and seemingly… subdued, heavy collars around their neck as their bodies are squeezed into assorted cages.

Soojung is shaking, pressing both hands against her mouth to hold back her noises of horror. Jongdae looks down at the ground, unable to handle any more of the sight.

“Come on,” Sehun urges coldly, his face made of icey steel. “Let’s save them all.”

They walk forward through the room, looking for some sort of way to set the cages free. There isn’t any way to reach them when they’re so high up, but each chain does have a pulley attached, allowing them to be lowered by the far wall. As the three of them run towards it, however, they’re stopped by the sight that comes into view as they approach the centre of the room, where a steel surgical table is laid out, a human body right on top, alongside someone welding dragonsteel, and the West and North Cardinals beside him, watching the process through their dragonsteel helmets.

“Ah…” The West Cardinal says calmly as he spots Jongdae, Sehun and Soojung approaching cautiously, keeping a safe distance. “So you’ve finally come to save your missing Prince?”

His white dragonsteel helmet, crafted in the liking of a tiger roaring ferociously, feels like its bearing into Jongdae’s skin, picking through him. He’d hated seeing it on the last West Cardinal, but the mystery man who’s taken the helm isn’t exactly any more soothing. In the times of the Progenitor, long before dragons were real --simply figments of stories and imagination-- it was said that the tiger was the only beast of the Holy Four fierce enough to fell a dragon, the king of the west versus the king of the east.

Jongdae hopes those stories aren’t true.

“Let these dragons free,” Soojung demands, her voice unwaveringly calm, despite the fact that Jongdae can see her hands shaking. “And none of you will be hurt.”

The West Cardinal, disinterested, simply waves at the man welding in front of him, who bows over before slinking away.

“ We won’t be hurt?” He parrots, tipping his head, and the person laying down rises from the bench, revealing Yifan in his full-bodied glory, barely an inch of skin left, all steel. As he stands on dragonsteel legs, his left arm shifting into a tek energy cannon, Jongdae’s eyes widen, because the new appendage they’d attached to Yifan’s body, is a dragon’s tail, whipping behind him as it sweeps over the steel tabletop, knocking aside all the surgical tools --the saws and welding torches and hammers-- landing on the ground with a heavy thump. The tip is spiked.

“How does it feel?” The West Cardinal asks casually, more than a head shorter than Yifan.

“Excellent, Junmyeon, thank you,” Yifan answers, equally as polite, and cracks his neck. Junmyeon? Jongdae has never heard that name before, and the other two cardinals are dragonslayers he’d once trained with --or at least knew of beforehand.

“I’ve always wanted a ryong arm,” Joohyun says as she steps forward to join him, pulling off her black turtle-snake helmet casually to tie back her long black hair, shaking it back. Her beautiful face is a mosaic of dragonsteel and flesh, much like Yifan, although she has the attachment of a dragon’s eye similar to Seulgi, but hers is a sickening green. She flexes her blue dragon claw beneath her black armor.

Junmyeon hums. “Well it’s a good thing you have four to pick from, then.”

That’s all the warning they get before Yifan launches himself forward, dragon claws brandished to strike, but Soojung blocks him just in time with her own arms shifted, her scales a dark crimson red. She’s forced to fall back, however, as Yifan spins, his tail moving with him, and the spiked end scrapes across the backs of Soojung’s calves, making purple ichor drip out.

“Go!” She shouts at Sehun and Jongdae, as Vivi swoops over to join her, launching a blast at Kris, who swats it aside with a growl. “I can handle this!”

Jongdae isn’t sure if he believes her, but they’re stopped in their pursuit towards the row of pulleys by Joohyun, who watches Sehun curiously, and Junmyeon, having made no indication that he’ll fight at all, both flesh hands just folded neatly in front of him.

Joohyun doesn’t say anything, just smiles, and Jongdae’s eyes widen as a pair of green dragonsteel wings fan out behind her, ripping off the black armor as they fan open. A strong beat of them both launches Joohyun straight into the air, and her blue dragon claw twists into a tek energy canon, a sharp hum being the only indication before a blast is sent their way, making Sehun and Jongdae both dive behind a nearby low-hanging cage for cover.

“Focus on saving everyone,” Sehun tells Jongdae, shouting. “I’ll take care of her.”

Jongdae nods, watching briefly as Sehun shifts, then backs up on all fours and launches into the air, weaving between cages and tackling Joohyun in mid-air. Jongdae makes eye-contact with the White Tiger helmet at the centre of the room before making a mad sprint for the far wall, pulling the steel dagger out of his belt he’d found in the Barrens. He knocks it into the wheel one of the chains is wrapped around, and the effect is immediately, breaking the chain’s wound tether and sending a cage filled with dragons straight to the ground, landing with a loud clunk. But it’s no use, the dragons inside are still chained and unmoving, their glass eyes fogged over as if they haven’t even registered the fact that someone is trying to free them.

Jongdae knocks another two cages free, but he’s stopped from the third by a hand around his wrist, squeezing tightly and twisting his arm sharp enough that Jongdae cries out, knees giving out slightly as he crumples.

“Kim Jongdae,” Junmyeon says, and Jongdae’s eyes widen at a name he hasn’t heard in over a decade. “You are truly a nobody. Do you know that? Do you know how many records I had to pour through to even find proof of your existence?” Jongdae tears his arm back, putting distance between himself and the West Cardinal, and Junmyeon just chuckles, a sound that echoes around inside his helmet. “A dragonslayer almost nobody has ever heard of, escaping the capital for a decade, infiltrating the Bone Tower, saving the Queenslayer…” He huffs, almost sounding like he’s impressed. “Makes me think that perhaps people should know your name.”

“Who are you?” Jongdae grits out, refusing to rise to the bait as he takes in Sehun and Soojung fighting behind Junmyeon, needing one of them to take care of the West Cardinal so Jongdae can focus on freeing dragons. But for now, he just needs to buy time. “I’ve never heard of a dragonslayer named Junmyeon.” And Jongdae had kept track of all the prominent dragonslayers on the path to become Cardinals, like Yifan, with good reason. Cardinals don’t just magically hatch out of the ground, rather they seem to be known that they’re cardinals before they even become one, destined for greatness and the glory of serving the King.

They’re also the most manipulative, and the least trustworthy.

“That’s because I was a nobody, Kim Jongdae, just like you.” Jongdae can hear the smile in Junmyeon’s voice. “And while everyone forgot about my existence, I raised up to prove them wrong.” He runs his hand --flesh, not dragonsteel-- along a nearby chain in thought. “It’s a shame, really. That you’ve chosen the wrong side.”

Junmyeon lunges quickly, and Jongdae yelps before dodging by throwing himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the quick draw of Junmyeon’s sword. Jongdae scrambles to his feet, heart pounding, and watches as Junmyeon calmly points an arm cannon at Jongdae, charging up for a shot.

Jongdae can feel its heat as it passes his back, and runs towards a nearby fallen cage for cover, panting and gasping for breath.

“There’s no point in running, Kim Jongdae. You have nowhere to hide.” Frantic, Jongdae looks for anything he can use to fight Junmyeon, or at least lose him amongst the cages, but all that’s near him are thick cage bars, and a bunch of subdued, limbless dragons, watching him dazedly behind glass eyes. Jongdae pauses, suddenly, for just a moment, as he notices the heavy collars chained around each dragon, and connected to the roof of the cell --when he touches the bars of the cage, the hairs on his neck stand up. They’re electrified... that’s how the dragons are kept subdued, the same way Baekhyun had been prevented from shifting, messing with their circuits.

Jongdae doesn’t exactly get time to ruminate over the fact, however, as Junmyeon rounds the corner and he’s forced to sprint away, heart pounding uncomfortably in his chest as Jongdae gasps for breath and ducks behind another fallen cage for shelter. He fumbles for an arrow at his back, feeling their feathered tail, and thinks to knock it against his bow but… what good will that do him? A shot at such close range is too risky, Jongdae needs distance, distraction, and more than that… he needs time. They’d expected the harvesting factory to be guarded by common dragonslayers, not inhabited by all three of the cardinals themselves.

“Surrender yourself, Kim Jongdae,” Junmyeon says as he catches up to Jongdae faster than he’d expected him, making him scramble and fall backwards. “Surrender and no one will have to be hurt.”

Achingly, Jongdae watches Sehun’s dragon form in the distance roar as Joohyun lands a tek energy bullet, piercing through his freshly healed wing. Jongdae grits his teeth.

“Never,” he breathes out, and braces himself, waiting for Junmyeon to take the shot.

But he doesn’t, just holds his arm cannon pointed at Jongdae, but seems… reluctant, his muscles tense and unwilling. Jongdae falters. Why hasn’t he--

He stumbles back, and feels something humming behind him, when Jongdae spares a glance upwards, he catches some sort of… strange… metal box, humming with life and energy, embedded into the wall.  No, not life, this metal box isn’t a dragon, it’s a generator, and its connected by wires to the systems of chains strung across the ceiling, keeping the dragons subdued.

A smile spreads across Jongdae’s face as he realises Junmyeon can’t risk damaging it, holding himself back.

“Vivi!” Jongdae shouts, and the dragon flys over immediately, colliding with the back of Junmyeon’s head and making his helmet let out a high-pitched ring, giving Jongdae enough of an open to tackle the West Cardinal down. He grunts in frustration as Jongdae does so, recharging his cannon, and as he points it at Jongdae’s face just before it fires Jongdae swiftly dodges and wrenches Junmyeon’s arm sideways so that it blasts a whole in the generator beside them.

“NO!” Junmyeon shouts, and the generator short-circuits quickly with a quiet electrical pop, smelling of burnt copper, before the loud hum shuts down altogether, and Jongdae watches some of the dragons as they begin to twitch in their cages, regaining consciousness. Jongdae grins, beyond relieved, but his victory is short lived as Junmyeon’s cannon twists back into a silver dragonsteel claw, which he raises to slash as he yells, “You insolent little--”

Junmyeon is tackled to the side with a loud oof as Lu Han comes barreling in, knocking him back so that Junmyeon slides across the marble flooring, claw raking through the stone and letting out an ear-splitting screech as it does so to keep him upright.

“Focus on freeing the dragons!” Lu Han shouts, and Jongdae doesn’t need to be told twice as he nods at Lu Han, relieved to see him in one piece --although his forehead is bleeding-- before sprinting off to one of the nearby cages, Vivi swooping to perch on his shoulder. The cages aren’t made of dragonsteel, luckily, just iron.

“Blast the hinges,” Jongdae orders Vivi, and the drake quickly flaps into the air before firing at the cage hinges, the dragons within rousing to their uneven feet slowly. “You all need to get out of here!” Jongdae tells them, having no idea as to whether half of them can even understand him, quickly moving onto the next cage.

Soojung meets him there. “Jongin!” She calls at the brown ryong laying in the centre, his pink ichor dull and faded. “He’s okay!”

Jongdae glances wildly over to Kris, who is now taking on a shifted Minseok and a Baekhyun with four white dragonsteel limbs, his tail protecting him from Baekhyun’s back strikes, but unable to hold off Minseok in front. It is, however, Lu Han that’s more worrying, pinned down with Junmyeon’s hands at his throat.

“Go to him,” Soojung urges, as she tears the cage door cleanly off with dragon claws. “I’ll get them all out of here.”

“Okay,” Jongdae agrees, and sprints back to Lu Han, throwing Junmyeon off him and pinning him down to the ground, pressing his bow against his throat.

“You again ,” Junmyeon hisses, struggling under Jongdae’s firm weight, but showing no signs of losing breath. It deters Jongdae, and Junmyeon finds an opening when Jongdae feels something… strange… buzzing beneath Junmyeon’s skin, a quiet hum. It feels like a heartbeat but… not quite. It’s stronger, more constant, it’s--

Jongdae is knocked off by a sharp buck from Junmyeon beneath him, Lu Han catching him before he falls completely, and Jongdae gives a quick thanks as he rises, wiping at the blood beneath his lip. Lu Han lunges in with a dragon slash, and Jongdae closes his eyes briefly to catch his breath, his heartbeat, and hear that quiet hum beneath Junmyeon’s skin.

Control over his body regained, Jongdae raises his bow and whacks it with a sickening crunch into the small of Junmyeon’s back at the gap between his white armor plating. Junmyeon cries out, spine arching, before growling and swiping at both Lu Han and Jongdae simultaneously. But it’s no use. Lu Han and Jongdae have been fighting together long before they were even soldiers, and their synchronisation holds up here too, for each of Lu Han’s strikes Junmyeon blocks, he takes Jongdae’s, and vice versa. One dodge of Jongdae’s bow at his knees forces Junmyeon to take a swift strike of Lu Han’s dragon’s claw, and the force is enough to tear through his helmet, the metal screeching as the tiger’s roar is disfigured into a torn nothing.

Huffing once in dry amusement, Junmyeon hooks his fingers underneath his helmet to tear the now useless protection off, revealing the way Lu Han’s claws have left a four-fingered gash diagonally across his face. It is the only disfigurement across his otherwise perfect, smooth skin.

Which causes Jongdae to step back, somewhat, confused. Every cardinal is made of more dragonsteel than they are flesh, so why is Junmyeon so wholly human?

Junmyeon smiles, self-deprecating, and wipes away his the blood pouring from his skin --but it isn’t red, it’s silver.

Junmyeon meets Jongdae’s gaze with mismatched eyes, one black, the other grey. Jongdae inhales sharply.

“You’re not a dragonslayer,” he says, horrified. “You’re a dragon.”

Lu Han’s face twists in confusion. “What?”

“Why?” Jongdae asks Junmyeon, searching his mismatched eyes. “Why would you do this to your own kind?” Jongdae’s heart hurts suddenly, and not just because it’s exhausted from the fight.

“What would you understand?” Junmyeon spits, seething. “I’m protecting them. Keeping them safe from the humans that want to kill them.”

Jongdae laughs shrilly, devoid of any humour, in disbelief. “You’re harvesting their body parts to make those humans stronger.”

“It’s the only way!” Junmyeon yells, frantic, and it’s the biggest crack in his composure Jongdae has seen as of yet, his grey and black eyes wide and nervous. “I did what I had to to keep them safe! To give them value!”

“A life without freedom isn’t safety,” Lu Han says darkly. “It’s imprisonment.”

And Lu Han knows it, because he and Jongdae have lived in a cage almost all their lives; running away isn’t freedom, it’s just delaying the inevitable. First it was Kast with its high walls, then the army, then Alkai. Being cautious, restrained, hiding constantly, it’s just its own special type of prison.

“It’s protection!” Junmyeon argues again, shouting. “In a world that’s either these cages or death, surely you can understand it’s the better option--” His smile is cracked around the edges.

“It isn’t protection,” Sehun inputs, storming up from behind Jongdae and Lu Han. “This is your nest. You’re hoarding them.”

Jongdae inhales in disbelief; a dragon that hoards other dragons?

Junmyeon eyes narrow threateningly, expression dark. “They’re mutually exclusive events.”

“Bullshit,” Sehun curses bitterly, hissing, but Jongdae falters, because… Because…

“What would you know of how to protect our kind?” Junmyeon asks Sehun scathingly. “What would you know of it, princeling? You weren’t even born half a century ago and you think you know how the world works? Hm? Do you? Born into your life of luxury and love.” Sehun flinches as if struck, even if Junmyeon is standing still. “I was born into an abyss of void and nothingness, a wyrm with not an inch of steel to give me strength. I crawled from the darkness and fed on shadows to survive, I have seen the horrors that will become of the dragons if we allow the humans to do to us what the Progenitors did to each other!”

An abyss? The remains of Progenitors? Jongdae’s eyes widen in realisation; it seems he knows exactly who Junmyeon is after all.

“This isn’t how it has to be!” Sehun shouts, desperate, the most frantic Jongdae has ever seen him. “We don’t have to fight! We can learn to live together!”

The same way Sehun and Jongdae learnt to live together, to overcome their differences, to see the good inside each other’s hearts, despite all the shadows.

“You’re naive to ever truly believe that,” Junmyeon mutters quietly, and then he shifts into his ryong form, armor breaking as his body grows, larger than Sehun, and stronger too, wider. Silver scales and silver ichor to match, an amalgamation of fangs and claws and iron, the forgotten dragon, abandoned by his hive and still seeking to save them in his own, twisted way. Jongdae is mesmerised by the beauty of Junmyeon’s dragon form, despite his ugliness, and it’s that same distraction that causes him to have the air punched out of his gut as Joohyun’s dragonsteel fist collides with his stomach, sending him back as she picks up Lu Han and launches into the air.

Lu Han screams, and Sehun shifts to tackle Junmyeon down, their dragon forms falling to the floor in a scrape of steel and tek energy. Jongdae quickly follows Lu Han’s cries as he’s hefted into the air, sprinting across the floor, and Jongdae knocks an arrow to his bow as he breathes in steadily, calming his heart, and sends it flying straight through Joohyun’s wing.

It pierces the steel better than any bullet, tearing a hole through it, and makes Joohyun sway, somewhat, unable to stay upright for much longer. Aggravated, she grunts, and raises her arm cannon directly at Jongdae, who fires an arrow before she can land the shot, knocking her arm back and making the energy shoot straight into the floor, blasting the marble away and creating a hole. Joohyun looks down, then at Jongdae, then at Lu Han, whose weight is dragging her down with the faulty wings, and promptly smiles as she drops him.

“Fuck,” Jongdae says in delayed realisation, before quickly sprinting to follow Lu Han’s screams as he falls into the hole, catching him by the wrist only just in time as the upper half of Jongdae’s body dangles off the edge. The crater beneath the palace circle can be seen clearly below even in the night air, like a gaping mouth waiting to swallow Lu Han hole.

“Hold on Lu,” Jongdae grunts, attempting to regain some grip so they don’t both tumble off.

“Oh no I was definitely thinking of letting go right now!” Lu Han half-screams, still managing to be a bratty piece of shit as he dangles in the air, managing to twist his hand so that he can clasp onto Jongdae’s forearm.

Jongdae begins hauling him up, but Joohyun sweeps and knocks him off the edge, sending them both plummeting until Jongdae manages to catch a bit of steel grafting sticking out of the broken marble, cutting his palm open as he screams in pain. Soojung’s crimson dragon form tackles Joohyun mid-air.

“Jongdae,” Lu Han says, voice shaking with fear. “Don’t let go.”

Jongdae grits his teeth. “Wasn’t planning on it,” he grunts, heart pounding wildly as he tries to haul Lu Han up, but it’s no use, his muscles are weak and he’s running out of breath and Lu Han is just too heavy.

Jongdae begins to hyperventilate, breaths coming in short, not because of panic, but from the way his heart is stumbling, stop-starting in his chest, failing to pump blood properly.

“Oh fuck,” Lu Han blurts, having come to the same realisation Jongdae is. “ Now?” His panic isn’t helping Jongdae’s concentration as his grip lessens in his dip of strength, eyes dotting with black spots. “Fuck-- Jongdae-- Breathe!”

As if he’s even trying to do anything else, chest heaving as his grip slackens further, slipping down just that little bit more. Jongdae squeezes his eyes shut, his chest aching with the pain of a thousand daggers piercing through it. Jongdae refuses to let his stupid heart be the end of things, not here, not now, not ever , gasping as he pushes past the pain, the weakness and the ache, gritting his teeth just like he has every moment before when his heart has tried to hold him down, pulling with all his strength until Lu Han’s dragon claw is able to find purchase in the broken marble and earth, digging in and hauling Jongdae over the edge onto the floor, as he collapses onto his back in a gasping heap.

Lu Han pulls himself over next, collapsing next to Jongdae, and they both look at each other and grin.

It’s a short-lived moment. Joohyun and Soojung fighting through the air forces Lu Han and Jongdae to scramble to their feet and dive out of the way, as a group of recently freed dragons slowly begin diving out of the hole and flying away, escaping. Some can’t quite make it, plummeting to the crater below instead as their broken bodies fail miserably, plummeting in screams of singing steel.

An explosion sounds to Jongdae’s left as Sehun is knocked down by Junmyeon in a blast of silver energy, and Jongdae doesn’t even think twice before knocking an arrow to his bow and aiming it straight at Junmyeon’s neck, piercing through his throat and making him roar in pain as silver ichor gushes out, turning quickly to Jongdae and soaring towards him.

But Sehun is faster, recovering quickly and meeting Junmyeon halfway, pinning him to the ground. Sehun charges up a blast in his mouth but Junmyeon simply shifts to escape his grip, rolling out of the way. He stands up as Sehun’s blast misses, hitting the ground and making the room shake, and Jongdae notices the way the chains jostle as some of the still-suspended cages sway in mid-air.

Jongdae only has two arrows left, which means he has to land this shot --it’s hard, though, with the way Sehun and Junmyeon dance around the room in their battle, not wanting to accidentally hit Sehun.

Ignoring his fear, heart pounding, hands shaking, Jongdae pulls at the string, shutting his eyes, and doesn’t let the bright lights and tek energy distract him, firing calmly.

The arrow fires along its path, whizzing just past Junmyeon’s head.

He dodges effortlessly, turning to Jongdae. “You missed,” he taunts.

Jongdae just grins animalistically. “Wasn’t aiming for you.”

The arrow meets its target, knocking into the pulley on the opposite wall and forcing the chain to unwind. Junmyeon’s eyes widen as the cage above him falls quickly, but he’s trapped underneath it, screaming in pain as his legs are crushed. Chest heaving, Jongdae takes his last arrow by the shaft, curling his fingers around it, and sprints towards Junmyeon to land the finishing blow, poised above his glowing shard.

“Do it,” Junmyeon spits, snarling. Sparks fly from around his hips as the wiring in his legs goes faulty, head twitching somewhat in a sharp glitch. His voice sounds modulated and wrong. “Become what you were always meant to be, dragonslayer.”

But Jongdae can’t, because when he looks at Junmyeon’s face, all he’s reminded of is Sooyeon, begging for him to show mercy. Of Sehun, telling him that dragons are people too, of Baekhyun and Minseok and Soojung, a person, alive and breathing just like Jongdae, a living creature… and he can’t do it.

Jongdae’s arm falls to his side pathetically as his last arrow clutters to the ground at his feet, shaking his head adamantly. Everyone is watching him now as he steps back from Junmyeon, Kris lying in a puddle of his own blood as Baekhyun flings his tail to the side, Joohyun wrapped in spare chain as she screams in frustration.

“No,” Jongdae says, adamant, even as his heart pounds in his chest. “Killing you would only prove you right.”

Junmyeon’s face falls in realisation, terror bleeding into his mismatched eyes, and Jongdae stumbles before warm arms suddenly catch him, Sehun covered in his own green blood.

“It’s over,” he mumbles quietly, as Jongdae steadies himself upright. “It’s finally over.”

Jongdae breathes out for what feels like the first time, and inhales again, a clear, smooth breath that spreads to all his muscles.

“It will never be over,” Junmyeon suddenly says, and when Jongdae turns around he sees Junmyeon’s broken, sparking, twisted legs horrifically stumbling towards him with Jongdae’s arrow in his hand, about to land.

Jongdae’s eyes shut on reflex, but the blow never comes. When he blinks them open again, Junmyeon is frozen in place, silver ichor leaking from his lips as he falls into Sehun’s arms, his dragon claw pierced through the centre of Junmyeon’s chest.

Junmyeon looks at Jongdae, before there’s a quiet hum and his eyes fade to a blank white, falling to the ground as Sehun looks down at his body darkly, dragon arm grasping Junmyeon’s still-glowing shard.

“Sehun don’t--!” Baekhyun calls out, holding his bent arm, but it’s like Sehun doesn’t even hear him as something animalistic overtakes Sehun and he opens his mouth and swallows the shard whole, his body thrumming with green tek energy as his fingers flex, experimentally, staring at them with wide eyes. His green eye looks almost black, his whole body bursting with power.

“Sehun…” Jongdae trails off, horrified, looking at Junmyeon’s lifeless body, and then at Sehun. “...What have you done?”

“I’ve ended it,” Sehun replies, and Jongdae searches his face, looking for the kind human he’s come to admire and seeing nothing but the animal instinct of a dragon. “It’s over now, Jongdae. It’s over. I had to protect you.”

“No,” Jongdae says, stepping back. “ No .”

“It’s too late,” Baekhyun says solemnly, staring at Sehun with a more serious expression than Jongdae has ever seen on his half-torn face. “Sehun has eaten dragonsteel. Now, he is a dragon king.”

Chapter Text

Jongin sleeps for three days. It takes four until Minseok lets anyone see him.

“How’s it going?” Jongdae asks softly as he enters Jongin’s sandy nest, littered with seashells.

“Good,” Jongin answers cheerily, wriggling his arm stump. “I think I’m finally getting used to only having one hand to do things.”

Jongdae smiles, sitting next to Jongin in the sand, weaving his fingers through it absentmindedly. “Lu Han did mention you could always have his.”

Jongin pales. “Yeah ‘cuz that’s what I want. My sister’s hand-me-downs.”

Jongdae laughs despite himself, having found a strange comfort in Jongin’s odd --if not morbid-- sense of humour, these days. Especially since... everything.

Freeing all the captured dragons and bringing them back to the hive has given Soojung the edge of power needed in the dragon court, finally respected as the crown princess. It helps, of course, that she has two wangyong backing her campaign, so-to-speak, with neither of them having any interest in the throne. A lot of the captured dragons are scarred but healing slowly over time with Minseok’s careful eye, Jongin included.

With both of his siblings organising the hive with the recent flux in drama and Minseok busy being the on-call doctor, Jongdae has found himself to be useless and forgotten like always, over the past few weeks, spending a lot of time with the ryong prince. Jongin is cool headed and calm, lazy but goofy, and he seems to appreciate Jongdae’s constant company, if nothing else, especially since he’s unable to fly or walk in his dragon form yet, still healing, stuck to the ground like a measly human.

“There you are,” Lu Han says as he enters, flushed, dumping himself onto the sand beside Jongdae and yelping when a seashell digs into his backside. Jongdae laughs; Jongin just grimaces, carefully taking the seashell from Lu Han’s hands and placing it behind him gingerly. “They’re gonna start the feast soon, you know. You both need to be there.”

“And where have you been exactly?” Jongdae asks, directed at Lu Han even as Sehun trails in after him timidly, remaining by the cave entrance.

“We had to go back to Kast,” Lu Han explains. “I needed to talk to Yeol and Sehun wanted to pick up some things you’d left behind. He was not happy about losing that stolen armor.”

Jongdae furrows his eyebrows together, unable to look at Sehun. “What did you need to talk to Chanyeol about?” He asks Lu Han, confused.

Lu Han hums noncommittally. “About organising a meeting with Prince Yixing.” He picks at the dirt beneath his fingernails. “Apparently crimelords have quite the connections, and I figured the next generation may be more willing to hear out an infamous criminal than his corrupt old dad.”

“The prince?” Jongdae laughs in disbelief. “What could you possibly have to say to him?”

Lu Han shrugs. “I was a hero, once.” As if Jongdae doesn’t remember, as if he isn’t reminded of the fact every day. “Maybe it would be good for people to hear why I’m not, anymore.”

Jongdae’s eyes widen in realisation. “You want to…?”

“The world isn’t ready to know about dragons yet,” Lu Han replies quietly, staring at the ceiling. “But maybe one day, they will be.”

Jongin snorts, dissolving the atmosphere. “Yeah, that and they might want to know why the palace has a giant hole underneath it.”

Lu Han gives a shit-eating grin. “That too.”

Hesitantly, Sehun steps forward towards them, meeting Jongdae’s eyes with an unreadable expression before Jongdae looks away, sharply, drawing shapes in the sand instead.

“Here,” he says softly, offering something out. At first, Jongdae looks up, expecting Sehun to be talking to him, but he isn’t --talking to Jongin instead. “When I was looking for you in Alkai, I thought you might like this.”

It’s the seashell, the conch from all those months ago. Jongdae blinks in disbelief as Sehun offers it out, having carried it all this way and kept it safe in Kast and everything.

“It’s beautiful,” Jongin replies honestly, smiling. “Thank you, Sehun.” He pulls him forward with an insistent tug at his wrist with his only hand, making Sehun fall into the sand with a quiet oomph as Jongin crushes him in a one-armed hug. “It’s good to be home.”

“It’s good to have you home,” Sehun replies, returning the hug, and Lu Han and Jongdae make eye contact before both silently agreeing to slip out, allowing the brothers to have their time alone.

“Soooo,” Lu Han draws out, clearing his throat. He arches an eyebrow at Jongdae. “Trouble in paradise? Sehun told me he was a little worried--”

“It’s nothing,” Jongdae quickly cuts him off, spotting Baekhyun and Minseok heading towards them both. “Speaking of paradise, though.”

Lu Han’s pointed ears turn red on cue. “Shut up,” he seethes, shoving Jongdae lightly, who cackles.

“They’re a little old for you,” Jongdae comments wryly, making Lu Han scoff.

“Nothing is too old for me,” he mumbles in return. “Especially if they look like that .”

Jongdae just grimaces, Lu Han grinning sharply in victory, and any further teasing is cut off as Baekhyun and Minseok give Lu Han disgustingly fond little smiles, with Lu Han’s turning dopey in return. Jongdae fake gags beside him.

As the trio walk towards the feast being held at the centre of the hollow mountain, just outside the hivemind, Jongdae follows behind them, exhaling quietly. He’s surprised when Baekhyun falls into step beside him.

“Are you alright?” he asks quietly, startling Jongdae, somewhat. Baekhyun’s usual arrogance has melted away to concern, and it never fails to shock Jongdae that he’s even capable of it, sometimes. He’s a lot like Lu Han in that way, though, Jongdae supposes, all loud laughs and shit-eating smiles to disguise the softness within.

“Fine,” Jongdae quickly lies, although Baekhyun’s piercing blue-and-black gaze makes him falter. “Just-- well--” he doesn’t know how to phrase what’s bothering him, swallowing and starting all over again instead. “How did… how did you become wangyong?”

“The only way there is,” Baekhyun replies, making Jongdae’s heart wither in his chest. “Except I was captured by the humans when I was just a drake. They kept me there for centuries, feeding me until I grew stronger and stronger. An experiment, of sorts. Research.” His gaze seems distant as his eyes stare straight ahead. “When I was a fully mature ryong, they made me eat the heart of my own brother, in order to become a king.”

“I’m sorry,” Jongdae apologises quietly. Baekhyun just hums noncommittally.

“It’s the price we must pay to grow stronger,” he comments, so factual and disconnected, but his eyes betray the pain. “The Queen herself ate the heart of her own lover in order to take control of the hive…” Jongdae’s jaw drops open at such information, surprised by the ruthlessness. “... I’m just glad the Princess is capable of ruling without such a toll.”

“Does it change you?” Jongdae asks, barely more than a whisper.

“I think it’d be impossible not to,” Baekhyun replies, giving Jongdae a pointed side glance. “But that’s why it’s all the more important that we surround ourselves with people who remind us of our good potential, rather than the bad.” Jongdae exhales through his teeth, wincing. Baekhyun smiles knowingly. “I spent a lot of time in that tower alone, Jongdae. It’s only when I came out that I learnt how to be human again.”

At that, Baekhyun double-steps to catch up with Minseok and Lu Han, slinging a flirtatious arm around both of their shoulders, leaving Jongdae alone with his thoughts.

It seems like every dragon in the hive has gathered for the occasion, soaring through the skys and clinging to the nearby walls. Imugi play-tackle in the ground at Jongdae’s feet, and he’s greeted by a happily chirping Vivi who’d been playing with some wyrms, taking his usual place at Jongdae’s shoulder as Jongdae laughs and scratches beneath his chin. The ryong have painted their skin with unusual colours to celebrate the victorious return of their prince --it looks like devout markings, and the irony is not lost on Jongdae-- and other hive members, and Soojung demands a toast to emphasize such a thing, with all the dragons crying out as they launch lumps of iron and food into the air like drinks.

Jongdae laughs pleasantly at the sight, surprised when Soojung comes up behind him and takes his wrist.

“Braid my hair?” She asks cutely, and Jongdae is unsure of how he’s meant to resist.

Jongin joins them shortly with his head in his sister’s lap as Jongdae kneels beside her and weaves the gorgeous brown hair carefully, even more cautious than he had been with Sehun, for a crown princess deserves only the best. It turns out Soojung has quite a cute playful side, when she’s not too busy hating Jongdae and distrusting his every move.

Baekhyun, Minseok, Sehun and Lu Han join them eventually, with Lu Han throwing himself over both Baekhyun and Minseok’s laps.

“Disgusting,” Jongin comments wryly, making Soojung laugh.

“Don’t mind them,” Jongdae jokes. “They’re still in the ~honeymoon~ phase.”

“You’re just jealous because you fell out of it,” Lu Han snorts, and Jongdae freezes, swallowing nervously as he buries himself in braiding Soojung’s hair, rather than retort to that. An awkward silence falls over the group, Sehun winces as he offers something out to Soojung, sitting beside her.

“Here,” he says quietly, holding out the bracelet of sun crystals he’d gotten from Song Qian. “I thought you’d like these.”

Soojung’s eyes sparkle happily. “Sehun they’re wonderful,” she replies adamantly. “Thank you.”

“I can use it to tie your hair, if you’d like,” Jongdae offers quietly, and Soojung readily agrees, passing him the string of woven crystals as Jongdae weaves it into the braid before tying it around the tail, emphasizing Soojung’s hoarding of crystals. Beautiful, like her, but tough too. Matching her personality, like Sehun had said.

Jongdae meets Sehun’s eyes as he reminisces, and offers him a reassuring smile. Sehun, visibly relieved, tentatively returns it.

As they’re talking and stuffing their faces, Jongdae eventually finds Lu Han cross-legged beside him, pressing their shoulders together familiarly.

“You know, I could get used to it here,” Lu Han remarks casually, popping another fruit into his mouth.

Jongdae smiles wryly. “That’s what you said about Alkai ten years ago.”

Lu Han rolls his eyes. “Okay but this time I’m serious ,” he retorts childishly, huffing. “It wouldn’t be too bad, staying here.”

“It has a lot more sun than Soul,” Sehun jokes from beside Jongdae, his warm arm pressing to Jongdae’s, so aware of Sehun’s presence even when he wishes he weren’t.

“Yeah,” Jongdae replies, smiling. “I guess it does.”

“I’d sure hope you’ll stay here,” Baekhyun inputs, booping Lu Han’s nose, who wrinkles it in return. “You’re quite a pretty addition.”

“I’m not pretty --” Lu Han begins arguing. “--I’m handsome. Manly. Awesome--”

Baekhyun, completely uncaring, hooks some fingers under Jongdae’s chin, mostly to piss Lu Han off. “Both of you,” he corrects suddenly, smiling with pointed teeth.

“I’m not quite as pretty as Lu Han,” Jongdae replies dryly, mostly to hear the way Lu Han wheezes in offense as his fragile masculinity is attacked once again.

“Nonsense,” Baekhyun insists, a thumb sweeping over Jongdae’s cheekbones. “You know, Jongdae, you have such lovely bone structure--”

Jongdae isn’t sure if that’s meant to be a compliment or a threat, considering Baekhyun fucking hoards bones, but he doesn’t get a chance to ponder the choice as Sehun fucking growls at Baekhyun, teeth bared, making Baekhyun blink at him in surprise despite his knowing smirk as his hand falls away from Jongdae’s chin, tipping his head at Sehun sideways curiously, silver hair swaying.

“ O -kay big boy,” Jongdae inputs quickly, standing up and tugging Sehun with him before the dragon kings can start having some territorial dispute that turns the whole hive into a warzone just because Baekhyun loves teasing Sehun so much. Jongdae wraps both hands around Sehun’s forearm as he leads him away.

“Where are we going?” Sehun asks, startled.

“For a walk,” Jongdae replies smartly. “It’s this thing people without wings are forced to do, sometime, see, with your feet--”

Sehun rolls his eyes, making Jongdae snicker. “You say that like we didn’t spend weeks together literally only walking.” Sehun shudders. “Now that my scales can camouflage, I never have to do that again. Thank fucking goodness.”

Jongdae laughs at that, but it’s cut off by his squeak as Sehun quickly tugs Jongdae in towards him, surprisingly smooth. His hands cup Jongdae’s face.

“Is this okay?” He asks softly.

“Yes,” Jongdae replies, unable to deny Sehun as he presses their lips together, making Jongdae sigh in contentment for getting something he hadn’t even realised he’d been missing.

He hears the distant sound of wolf-whistles, and cracks an eye open to spot Lu Han obnoxiously whooping at them across the mountain field, pushing Sehun back reluctantly with a hand on each shoulder.

“Maybe we could… go… somewhere… a little more private?” Jongdae suggests, and Sehun pauses still in a way, considering, before nodding shyly and quickly shifting, lowering his head. “Wait,” Jongdae says. “You want me to--”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish his question as Sehun knocks Jongdae onto his neck and swiftly takes off, making Jongdae yell as he rides on Sehun’s back, rather than carried. He flies into his nest, and Jongdae expects Sehun to stop, but he doesn’t just seems to pick something dark lying on the ground that Jongdae can’t make out in the shadows of dusk and soars out through the skylight, into the crisp air.

Sehun’s power and tek has upgraded since becoming wangyong, but he’s still very much the same dragon, unable to grow until he eats a lot more metal, a process that will happen slowly over time. He flies directly into the clouds, making Jongdae scream a little both in fear and glee as the clouds soak through his clothes, his arms and legs wound tightly around Sehun’s neck in order to keep him in place.

Done with the sudden rush, Sehun gently glides towards a nearby mountain, Jongdae laughing deliriously at the sensation of flying, holding his arms up in the air, before Sehun settles on the top of a snow covered tree branch that bends slightly with the weight as Jongdae steps off carefully before Sehun shifts back.

He’s holding something in his hand, and Jongdae realises it’s his cloak, sitting beside Sehun’s consistently warm body as Sehun just drapes the black material over Jongdae’s shoulders, keeping him warm in the high mountain snow.

“Is this my Kast souvenir?” Jongdae comments wryly as he pulls the material closer towards him. It’s so soft, and it smells like honey and pine, comforting his racing heartbeat.

“If you want it to be,” Sehun teases with a small smile, and Jongdae hums noncommittally as he watches the sunset from high in the air, unlike anything he’s ever seen before. He’s been torn in two lately, these days, as if each half of his heart has split right down the middle, but seeing Sehun travel all the way to Kast to get the gifts he’d so carefully collected for his siblings, thinking to bring a cloak just to keep Jongdae warm, reminds Jongdae that he’s still very much Sehun, no matter how much he changes, his heart will always be the same. Persistent, stubborn, but soft. Beautiful. Just like the same plants he hoards.

Sehun carefully tucks a stray curl sticking out from Jongdae’s braid behind his ear, touching the little morning blooms Jongdae had woven through it, before quietly asking, “Do you forgive me yet?”

Jongdae’s heart aches on cue. “Sehun, no,” he quickly insists, catching his hand between them. “I’ve never-- I’ve never not forgiven you. There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Then why have you been avoiding me?” Sehun asks clearly, his face covered with hurt. Jongdae sighs.

“I just-- I don’t… you killed him, Sehun,” he says eventually, hunching into his shoulders. “And I feel like it’s my fault.”

Sehun stares at Jongdae. “What?”

“If I would have just done it myself, you would have never bloodied your hands like that,” Jongdae explains, taking Sehun’s other hand into his and running his thumbs over his knuckles. “You’re not meant to hurt people, Sehun... It’s not you I can’t forgive, it’s myself.”

Sehun laughs quietly in disbelief. “Of course this is how you feel,” he mumbles to himself, before meeting Jongdae’s eyes, freeing one of his hands to cup beneath his chin. “Junmyeon was… he was wrong. Letting him live wouldn’t have solved anything. You know that, right?”

He’d hurt humans and dragons both, and yet Jongdae is still haunted by his words. But surely they could’ve just banished him to the crystal cells like Joohyun and Yifan, he didn’t have to die .

But he did have to die, because Jongdae was too weak to protect himself, another person broken for Jongdae’s sake.

“Sehun there’s-- there’s something you should know…” Jongdae reveals, another reason to have been avoiding Sehun. Other than the fact that Jongdae has managed to corrupt Sehun’s kindness by poisoning his heart, there’s another cowardly point to his avoidance. “I… I think… I think Junmyeon was the Guardian. I realised it during-- during the battle. He wasn’t-- he wasn’t completely evil, Sehun, he really just wanted to protect people...”

It had made sense, after all, a forgotten ryong stranger, born in the Great Abyss, showing humans, forgotten just like him, a sanctuary beneath the earth. Safety at the price of freedom.

Sehun’s eyebrows furrow together in confusion, before widening in horror. “Oh god,” he says, staring down at the ground. Jongdae swallows guiltily.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

“No,” Sehun shakes his head adamantly, regaining his composure. “No-- no. I’m glad you told me… I didn’t… I never thought....” he swallows. “It’s a good thing to know, helps me-- helps me remember that all things come at a cost.”

Junmyeon valued safety at the price of freedom, and Sehun took power at the price of innocence.

It aches inside Jongdae, to see the precious light Sehun once was be so slightly dimmed, his beautiful gentle hands stained by invisible silver ichor that will never wash out, only because Jongdae was too weak to save him. It’s a reminder for Jongdae, too, in that way. All lives have value, and the line between human and dragon, good and bad, is not so clearly defined.

But Jongdae is also struck by Baekhyun’s words, that it’s good to be surrounded by people who can remind you of your potential, so Jongdae takes Sehun’s hands into his and kisses each knuckle, the pads of his fingers, the inside of his wrists. These beautiful, gentle hands that have touched Jongdae with a care unlike any other, one that can hold flowers without tearing their petals and pluck whole strands of grass without breaking their blades --Sehun’s hands, as soft as his heart, despite their callouses.

Sehun watches him with wary eyes, and eventually Jongdae turns his attention to Sehun’s mouth instead, the same honey-sweet taste as always, a gentle, reassuring kiss. A promise.

“I’m going to stay,” Jongdae breathes out quietly as he presses their foreheads together, a hand feeling the hum and pulse of Jongdae’s shard like the steady beat of a drum, keeping him grounded. “Here,” he elaborates. “With you. In the hive.” He wants to help Lu Han repair what’s broken between the humans and dragons, too, from the inappropriate shunning of those in Soul to the hidden hive, but he can’t do that if he’s always running away.

Sehun smiles brilliantly. “Okay,” he replies, because he doesn’t need to say anything more when all the joy is written clearly on his face.

“So you’re really--” Jongdae starts. “--going to have to put a bed in the nest. I can’t sleep on grass forever.”

Sehun laughs. “I guess I can manage that,” he replies, smiling so brilliantly Jongdae can’t help but kiss him, completely uncaring of the sun setting over the horizon when something more beautiful is right in front of him.

“I’m glad you’re staying,” Sehun mumbles against Jongdae’s lips, and it almost tastes like an I love you , but not quite.

“I’m glad I’m staying too,” Jongdae returns, giving a giddy grin, and lets Sehun kiss him back, wondering if that tastes like a proper response for Sehun too. Jongdae’s heart is pounding in the cold mountain air, a hundred metres above the ground kissing a beautiful boy he’s just made an unbreakable promise to, but Jongdae doesn’t care, really, making no moves to pull back and catch his breath when he can just keep kissing Sehun instead. Jongdae had once loathed the weakness of his heart, fragile and malfunctioning, too kind and too cowardly, but he’s come to accept it, now. Sehun has taught him well, after all… Jongdae’s heart is his strength.