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Logan closed his eyes for just a moment. It was just that, just a split second. It was spring and time for everything to be in bloom. The air was heavy with the smells of the various flowers dotting a few of the trees around them.
Logan had been bumping into Janus every so often as they walked, brushing against Janus’s giant wing. No one else in the village knew about their relationship, or their walks in the forest. They would think something more was going on, that Logan would have romantic or even sexual feelings for Janus, but that wasn’t the case.
They were closer than the average friend, but they remained only platonic in their bond. Janus had called the relationship ‘Queer-platonic’ and said the correct term to refer to it as a relationship was the acronym QPR, meaning Queer-Platonic Relationship. No one ever told Logan that in his village, though Logan’s mother talked about her ‘QPP’ in the past. Logan didn’t know what that meant at the time, and he... lost his mother too soon after that to ask...
The smell of everything simply overwhelmed Logan and before Logan could react he felt something wrap around his hand. His hand had been halfway to push up on his nose a piece of his own mother’s creation, a frame of a strange substance fitted with glass and placed in front of Logan’s eyes to help him see, else his world be only blurry blobs without them.
He cried out as is hand was immediately tugged, sending him in that direction almost 10 feet, a feeling in his stomach from the air time of that simple tug. Behind him, he heard Janus snarl warningly, whipping around to face Logan before roaring in anger as he saw Logan being pulled away against his will.
Logan was suddenly pulled to the ground, another sharp tug sending him unprepared to the ground, he felt something in his left arm snap, thankfully not the one bound by the rope, and felt daggers of pain travel up his arms. He screamed out in pain, only realizing there was someone above him when he heard Janus roar territorially, a warning to get away from something Janus was guarding.
Logan looked up, but saw nothing familiar in the person’s face, they could’ve been the most skilled swordsman in the world, but there was nothing remarkable about them by appearance. It was clear they were from outside of the village, as Logan knew everyone from the village, but they wore the clothes of a farmer, not a soldier or even a hunter.
Logan cursed at the man, cursed him for the pain he was in and that he was taking him away from Janus.
“Fuck you.”
The man wasn’t phased, beckoning two other men that pounced on Logan, holding him so that the man could tie Logan’s hand behind his back. Logan started screaming out for Janus, making sure he didn’t reveal Janus’s true name, yelling out ‘Dee! Dee! Please!’ The man also put a rag to gag Logan’s mouth, meaning Logan couldn’t cry out to Janus anymore. Logan realized belatedly that they were now somewhere on a hidden cart as Logan heard Janus’s roars nearby began to fade.
Logan cried out into the gag as he tried to free himself from his bonds, accidentally sending the shooting pain of his injured arm in trying to do so. He glared at anyone in eyeshot, silently daring them to look him in the eyes. After a few minutes, the first man spoke up.
“You shouldn’t be fraternizing with that beast, it has had you underneath its spell far longer than anyone should’ve allowed. You don’t know or understand it now, but we’re saving you from your death by that beast.”
Logan’s blood boiled as he heard them call Janus a beast and an ‘it.’ They didn’t think Janus was worthy of consideration as a conscious being, just because they might not be able to understand dragons didn’t mean they weren’t just as intelligent as humans.
They hadn’t seen what he’s seen, the gentle curiosity, the life in Janus’s eyes when he was flying and looked back at Logan. They never gave a chance for what they didn’t understand, and that was their downfall.
Though, as Logan began to speak into his gag, this was not true of one of the men, as one of the men started to remove Logan’s gag to try to understand what Logan was saying the first man shouting at him. Logan took the brief opportunity to gesture as much as he could with his hand, injecting as much innate magic within him as he could to say a simple but powerful word.
“Freeze.”
And like that, everyone around him was frozen their eyes able to move about, but their bodies frozen, he felt the cart continue to move as the horse was untouched by the magic, so Logan sent out a simple mental command to the animal to halt, which the cart quickly did.
Logan got to work as quickly as he could to escape his bonds, as he couldn’t walk with how he was bound now, he had managed to keep enough give in his bonds while he was thrashing so that it only took him 15 seconds to manage the bonds on his legs and feet.
Not wasting time, Logan got himself into a standing position as quickly as he could jumping off the cart and fleeing before his magic wore off. After Logan got about a 100 feet away, Logan felt his magic disengage, hearing the sounds of the man yelling, trying to turn the cart around. Logan sent the horse one last command, the opposite of what he told it to do before.
Run.
Logan smirked as he heard the yelling behind him get louder before getting quickly more and more distant until it was gone.
Logan ran back the way the cart had came, trying to stay on path, but with the underbrush it was hard to tell if he was exactly on the right track.
He ran for what felt like 5 minutes before he heard the distant but familiar roar of Janus in the distance. The men must’ve been able to confuse Janus into trying to fin Logan the wrong direction. Logan made Janus search a little easier by shouting out, “I’m here!”
The distressed roars ceased in the distance, Logan instead hearing the commotion of Janus’s wings beating the air, low sounds coming from Janus as he grew closer. Logan leaned himself against the tree, not realized how much pain his arm was in. He let out low grunts of pain, grateful he hadn’t injured his legs instead.
Logan didn’t realize he was so caught up in his pain until he realized Janus was in front of him, nose flaring at the scent of Logan’s blood. Janus growled, not a predatory growl, but an angry one that meant ‘you’re hurt and I don’t like that.’
“Do you have any idea how foolish you were?” Janus snarled, helping Logan to his feet with his snout, Logan nearly slamming into Janus’s side, his legs suddenly wobbly and unsteady.
“They caught me off guard Jan I-”
Janus snarled once more, a sound of anger.
“Bullshit, you had plenty of time to fight back, to cast a spell and you didn’t!”
Logan cringed. He could’ve, he knew with a powerful word he could’ve frozen everyone in the first place. But he had been so content, Logan supposed he had just let his guard down a little too much, enough to not put it back up in time to focus on his magic.
“I know, I thought cause you were there and everything smelled so good with the flowers, that everything was fine and it actually wasn’t. I-”
Janus’s tail snapped and whipped around violently as Janus interrupted Logan again with a much louder roar this time.
“I thought you were dead!”
Logan stopped, mind blank as he processed what Janus said. He felt very small as Janus paced around Logan, not looking at Logan as his anger grew.
“I thought they were witch-killers, that they were taking you away to kill you and that I could save you and you would dead and I-” Janus snarled whipping around to face Logan.
“I care about you, you fucking moron! I know I’m gonna regret this later but don’t ever do that again or I might just bundle you up and never let you out of my sight again!”
Logan snapped out of his frozen state at that, going to rest his non injured hand on Janus’s snout, looking him in the eye for only a second, communicating every apology he could into one single look.
“I’m sorry, Janus.”
Janus stayed tense a long moment, body tight in anger before releasing the tension, guiding Logan under Janus’s wing. Janus started fussing over Logan’s arm when Logan revealed his injury with a wince, breathing on the wound. Janus’s own magic sealed and healed the wound, a sight discoloration appeared there on Logan’s skin as Janus’s ability put a temporary strength to the new skin, as well as fire resistance for the time it would’ve taken to naturally heal, the skin going to eventually turn back to normal after that.
Logan let Janus’s fussing chitters and growls fade into the background, knowing Janus was just going to repeat himself when he got like this. He also knew that Janus would truly not let Logan out of sight for at lest a week after this as Logan’s arm wouldn’t be back in perfect working order for at least a week. Logan rolled his eyes preemptively at how little freedom he would have in that time, being watched like a hawk by Janus.
All Logan cared about right now was that he was alive and with his partner, like how it was supposed to be.