Chapter Text
The grass he sat on was soft. As soon as that thought entered his mind, it was banished with a scoff. Why would he care if the grass was soft? It wasn’t as if he was a creature of the land.
Even still...
Eijun sighed as he stared longingly at the earth, the fresh dirt buried his heavy claws as he laid down, not even bothering to change his form. As an ascended being — the Seiryuu no less — he had no reason to stay with the pitiful world of the landlings. At least that was what he was told by his fellow sky beings.
Even still, Eijun sometimes feels an urge, an insistence tug , enticing him to ground himself to the green tresses of the meadow. He wonders idly on the reason.
—
The river flow did little to slow his large body. It made his scaly figure wet with clear drops, but even that was invisible with the murky red of the blood. His chest bled red as his sapphire scales receded into his body, he was too close to landling dens to stay in his noble form.
Eijun scowled as he glanced over the massive cut he received from Seiichi, Genbu of the East. It was sure to scar.
With the loss of his dragon body’s mass, Eijun slipped down the river, the currents pushing his form along as his vision faded to black.
He never noticed the wide-eyed stare that followed him.
—
The smell of warmth was the first to greet him when he came to, accompanied by the feel of soft cloth on his body. Looking down, Eijun found his body wrapped in an odd white garment. It seemed to be some kind of rope, except much less irritating than the other ropes he had felt before — and what a long time it’s been.
“Oh hey, you’re up.” A voice greeted him, it was a deep voice, capable of being smooth and yet also very sharp, much like a knife. But the voice wasn’t very sharp at the moment — is was smooth though, and very, very soothing.
The landling in front of him was fairly good looking, dark brown hair, amber eyes, nice face too. There was an odd accessory perched on his snout — no, it was called a nose , his inner Haruichi kindly corrected for him.
Eijun opened his maw — mouth, whatever — attempting to speak, his efforts were not answered, judging by the overwhelming dryness in his throat as he coughed, shaking his entire body with movement.
“Whoa, hey! Here, drink some water.” The ceramic cup he held up to the shaking man almost dropped from his shaky hands, Eijun sighed in relief as he emptied the cup. He lowered the now empty cup and leveled the young landling with a stare.
“Who are you?” Eijun asked, his voice a dry croak. The landling handed him a bowl filled with some warm stew, waiting for Eijun to drink.
The moment the stew began entering his mouth, the landling spoke, “I’m Kazuya, what about you, Dragon-kun?”
Eijun spat out the stew in surprise, straightening up as his head snapped to look at Kazuya. “ What did you just say? ”
“I said,” Kazuya began, repeating his words slowly, as if speaking to a child, “what’s your name, Dragon-kun? Unless you want me to continue to call you that.”
“D-Dragon? What? Where’d you get that idea from, landling?” Shit.
Eijun could almost hear Haruichi’s disappointed expression as a triumphant smirk appeared on the landling’s face.
“Oh hoh, what’s this? Landling? That’s a term I’ve never heard before. Why’d you make it sound like you’ve never been on land, Dragon-kun?”
Eijun groaned into his claws — fuck, he meant hands, hands — and looked at Kazuya, “Don’t tell anyone, landling.”
Kazuya shrugged, “No one would believe me anyways, what can I even tell them? ‘Oh yeah, I found a dragon that fainted in the woods?’”
Eijun stared at him with no small amount of suspicion before he shrugged, the landling didn’t seem to be lying. “Alright, landling, you got me, I’m a Dragon alright, the Seiryuu of the West, the name’s Eijun.”
Was he too direct? Well, one of his flaws Ryousuke liked to point out to him was his tendency to be too trusting. But it wasn’t as if Kazuya would’ve been able to do anything anyways, so what was the harm in informing him of who he was?
“Well then,” Eijun said, turning his body as he lifted the heavy blanket off of himself, “sincere thanks for taking care of me, but I need to leave before anyone else discovers me.”
As he attempted to leave the bed, however, his legs ended up buckling underneath him and Eijun fell. Face-flat. On the ground.
He tried to keep his cheeks from burning as Kazuya helped him up, laughing until he wheezed while doing so.
“Sh-Shut up, stupid landling!”
The insolent land dweller continued to snicker, even after Eijun commanded him to stop. “Hahaha, sorry man, it’s just— give me a second...”
Eijun rolled his eyes, watching as the landling slowly compose himself.
“Anyways, it seems you can’t leave yet, you seem a bit too injured for that, don’t you think? You can stay here to heal, y’know,” Kazuya offered, still grinning from Eijun’s fall.
As much as he hated to admit it, Eijun knew Kazuya was right, it wasn’t as if the Western Skies would fall apart if Eijun was gone for awhile, they still have Mei the Byakko and Eijun’s Mansion, it wasn’t as if his subordinates didn’t already help him do most of the political things anyways.
He could stay until he healed, he wouldn’t be any help in heaven if he’s injured enough to be unable to move regardless.
—
True to his words, Kazuya didn’t tell anyone about Eijun. As the days stretched on, Eijun gradually gained the ability to walk and began to help around the house. Kazuya’s hut was rather small so Eijun wasn’t as winded as he would’ve been if he had been in a bigger home.
During his stay, he learned a lot about landling culture. He learned that the odd object on Kazuya’s face was called “glasses” and landlings wear them when they are visibly impaired. He learned that the village he’s staying in was called Nonemu and Kazuya lived in the very outskirts of it.
Most of all, he learned about Kazuya.
He learned that Kazuya was nineteen winters-old, and was the village’s top hunter. He learned that Kazuya knew close to no one in the village and only stayed because he had nowhere else to go. He learned that Kazuya was orphaned after an ascended one had slaughtered his family after they had attempted to prevent it from stealing their prey.
He learned that Kazuya had spent his entire life searching for the creature who had done the deed. And Eijun knew, Eijun knew the moment Kazuya described the flame covered body and five colored plumage, who it was that Kazuya was trying to find.
Taiyo, Suzaku of the Eastern Skies.
—
It had been twenty moons since Eijun had first met the Kazuya, as time went, he gradually regained his ability to move about freely.
The massive gash that was on his chest had scabbed over, skin already regrowing to form a scar.
It had only been twenty moons since they met, yet Eijun felt a connection with the landling that he only felt with his mansion members.
That, perhaps, may have been the reason why, even as he began changing into his dragon form in the dense forest, he had promised to return to the clearing with the river. To return to Kazuya.