Chapter Text
Marinette had been told the story of her curse so many times she could recite it by heart.
“You were a baby,” her dad would tell her. “A tiny little thing, still all wrapped up in diapers. And that… thing—” he always growled at that, as if the dragon she’d been found curled up with had personally insulted him. He would shake his head, and give her a pitying look. “—It stole you from us. And by the time we found you, you were already cursed… already...” he would gesture to her at that point, indicating the way she was every night as soon as the moon slipped above the horizon.
Every night she was engulfed in a blue flame that made it impossible for anyone to come near. Impossible for her to be touched.
What she was never able to find out, though, was why. Why the dragon had apparently chosen her to curse, why it hadn’t killed her outright when she was barely out of diapers. Why she kept dreaming of sleeping safely within its coils, her fire cooled as if that was where she had always belonged.
She knew where it lived now. Everyone knew. It had taken up residence in a lonely tower high up on the mountain. Everyone said it was guarding a valuable secret; why else would it be there? Of course, people had tried to find out, although they often came back singed and babbling. Something about a dark sorcerer or a beautiful prince or a shapeshifter or… the stories always varied.
Finally, a reward was offered. The dragon had been a menace for far too long, the writ proclaimed. Anyone able to bring back its head would be handsomely compensated.
More people flocked to the cause: soldiers from far away places wearing shiny armor and bearing sharp, glinting swords, sorcerers with staffs and books claiming they had this method or another to calm the beast. None of them returned.
Night after night, Marinette’s flame burned hotter, brighter. And night after night she dreamed of the dragon. She couldn’t tell anymore what was memory and what was a dream. She thought she remembered the dragon plucking her from the river she’d fallen into, breathing life and fire into her lungs, curling up around her to keep her warm until her parents found her. But that couldn’t have been true. The dragon was dangerous, everyone said so. And it had left her with this unbearable curse.
“I’m going after it,” she proclaimed to her parents after the worst night she'd had in all of her eighteen years of bearing the curse.
Her dreams had been strong that night. She had awoken to her mom shaking her, screaming, desperately pleading with her to wake up. Her hands and arms up to the elbows had been irreparably burned in the process. It wasn't until Marinette had struggled into consciousness that she realized she’d been burning their house down in her sleep.
Her parents shared a look after her declaration. One of, “We shouldn’t let her, but what else can we do?”
Marinette winced as she caught a glimpse of her mom’s burned forearms, still wrapped in bandages and salves to soothe the shiny, blistered skin underneath. Her eyes slid over to the corner where she slept, with only her silhouette outlined in the charcoal her fire had left behind.
“I have to do this,” she said resolutely. “If there’s one good thing to come of this—” she gestured to herself and to the flames that spit and crackled around her “—it means I can’t be burned if I go at night. With the money, you can fix what happened. I'll stay in the stone tower after the dragon's gone where I can't hurt anyone else. Everyone wins," she finished glumly.
Her dad sighed in resignation and wrapped an arm around her mom’s shoulders.
So the next day just before dusk, they packed a meal for her to take with her, kissed her fondly on both her cheeks, and waved goodbye as she started up the path.
For it was goodbye. A sacrifice Marinette was more than willing to make.
As she trudged up the mountain path, the forest grew darker and more foreboding. The only saving grace was that as the light faded, her flame started burning, providing her with light to see by, although she did catch a branch or two on fire as she went. She poured her water out carefully on each one, putting it out without wasting her own resources. If she ran out before she made it to the stone tower, it was entirely possible she’d burn the entire forest down, and it would spread back to her village, back to her parents’ house.
She soldiered on, even as brambles tore at her skirt and arms, as she grew weary of walking, as she ran lower and lower on life-saving water.
It was the dead of night when she finally reached the tower, and the dragon wasn’t anywhere in sight. She walked up to the tower using the flagstone path, admiring the well-manicured garden from afar. The tower was quiet, almost as if it was slumbering along with the dragon.
She ran her hand along the cool stone wall as she mounted the steps one by one, dreading what she might find when she got to the top.
Halfway up, though, she ran into—well, if there was a beautiful prince trapped here, then it must be him. He was tall and pale, with a shock of dark hair and enthralling blue eyes framed by deep purple circles, as if he never slept. He seemed startled to see her at first, though she was used to that. A girl on fire was a startling sight.
But then he reached out a hand, smiling. She flinched away from him. His kind smile shifted to sympathy and he dropped his hand.
“That’s quite a power you’ve got,” he noted easily.
She shifted uncomfortably away from him. He didn’t seem affected by the heat she always emanated, but she was still careful not to get too close to anyone.
“The dragon cursed me with it when I was a small child,” she said.
His head quirked sideways, as if he were appraising her or trying to remember something. When he didn’t respond, Marinette tried again.
“I’ve come for the reward. Is it asleep?”
“He,” the man said stiffly. “And he’s gone for now. He disappears at night. You’re welcome to come back in the morning to try your luck.”
There was a note of despondency in his tone, and he scooted past her in the narrow stairwell to continue on his way down.
She considered continuing up the stairs, but if the dragon was gone, there was no point to it. She hesitated before she followed him—the prince, he had to be—down and back outside.
There was a pool of moonlight in the very center of the garden, and he walked over to it and lay down as if basking in it. The sigh he let out was at once content and terribly lonely. For some reason, it pulled at her heart. She knew that feeling. She had come to terms with her curse, with her lot in life. But that didn’t make it any better when she was unable to sleep soundly without worrying about her flames burning out of control.
She came as close to him as she dared and sat cross-legged on the flagstone path.
“You’re not… trapped here?” she asked. Every story she’d ever heard of the handsome young prince was that he was trapped, doomed, kept prisoner by the monster.
He didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled again. “Oh, I am.”
“But…” she glanced around. There were no fences, no guards, no magical barriers. She had walked right in, after all. “Can’t you just… leave?”
He did open an eye at that. “Can’t you just… put that fire out?” He smirked before he closed his eyes again and settled with his face towards the moon. “I’ve been trapped here for longer than I care to remember and now…” He looked over at her again, his blue eyes glinting in the moonlight. “So are you.”
She looked around again. Still, nothing that would prevent her, or him for that matter, from leaving. He sighed.
“The dragon, he’s been waiting for you. That… well, some probably call it a curse, but it's more like a bond.”
“A bond?”
“You were a small child, you said? When it happened?”
She nodded, and he nodded back in answer.
“The dragon was young, too. A child in his own right. He wouldn’t have known…” He sighed and closed his eyes again. “He wouldn’t have known that if he shared his breath with a human, he’d be claiming them. Bonded with them for the rest of his life, tethered to them. Cursed to share a half-life with them.”
“I’m… sorry... “ She struggled to comprehend what he was telling her. “You’re saying… I’ve been claimed?”
“If I had to guess, I'd say your fire only burns at night, right? As soon as the sun sets? Maybe only while you slept at first, but it's gotten worse lately?”
She blinked at him. Her mother’s burned arms floated back to the forefront of her memory.
“You have a fire burning in you that’s never been yours to control. If you had stayed away from him any longer, you would’ve burnt out of control until everyone you knew and loved was dead. You’re his and he’s yours, for better or worse.”
“I… wait… you’re saying…”
“You’re intended to be either the dragon's bride or his killer,” he finished bitterly, turning his head away from her. “Not that he has much say in the matter, either, if it’s any consolation.”
“But if I do… kill him…” she started, grimacing at the thought, “do you think that would lift my curse?”
“Yours and mine, too.”
“You don’t look very cursed to me,” she muttered. Other than being trapped, as he’d claimed, he seemed perfectly normal. Every bit the beautiful prince she’d heard tales of. With the moonlight falling over him, he was paler still and he looked like a marble statue that had fallen on the ground. His shaggy dark hair flopped over his ears in ragged lines, and even resting he looked tense.
To her surprise, he started chuckling, although there wasn’t any mirth to it.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” he said, although he sat up and faced her. “I just wonder if you’ll still think that in the morning.”
“What happens in the morning?”
“The dragon comes back,” he said simply, and he pushed himself up to stand. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll turn in. I have a feeling I’ll sleep better knowing my savior has come at last.”
He quirked his lips in a funny sideways smile, then offered her a hand again. She shook her head at him and he rolled his eyes.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I promise.”
She hesitated. The fear of hurting him flared strong and her fire started flickering and sputtering along with her anxiety. His eyes softened, and he reached forward, into her aura of flames. To her complete and utter surprise, his hand came through unscathed.
“I told you, it’s okay,” he said.
Stunned, Marinette laid her hand in his and he helped her stand up. Her fire raced along his arm and arced over his body until he was just as engulfed as she was. But rather than being harmed by it, it seemed he was helping her with it, sharing some of the burden. In fact, when he released her, she looked down at her hands and was shocked to find that the moonlight was the only thing illuminating them.
She looked back up at him and he smiled, although it was still tinged with sadness, and he gestured with his head to the spot of moonlight that still spilled across the grass.
She ran, giddy to be released from her curse for the first night in her entire life and fearful that it would come back before she could race back to the safety of the stone path. As she rolled in the cool grass, she couldn't help the giggles that escaped her, the pure bliss of being safe under the stars overtaking her. When she finally stilled, she sighed as she looked up at the bright, twinkling lights, unobscured for the first time. They were so clear, all the way up there, like she could reach out and touch one. She lifted her hand up and pretended she could, cupping the full moon between her hands as if she held it close.
She’d gotten so used to the flames crackling around her that without them the world seemed deathly silent. Peaceful, but eerie.
When she sat back up and turned to look back at the path, she found that the prince had disappeared. To turn in, as he’d said, although he hadn’t told her where she might sleep.
She looked at her hands again, so foreign to her without the bright blue flames. They looked smaller. More fragile.
Suddenly, she realized that was the one thing protecting her from the dragon. The reason she’d felt so confident in coming up here. She couldn’t be burned at night because she was already engulfed in flames. But he’d taken her flames away. He’d gifted her the ability to roll in the grass without burning anything down, sure, but he’d also stolen her protection.
Even though her flames weren’t snapping around her, she felt the panic rise up in her chest. What if he was a dark sorcerer after all? What if it was his job to lure people here and steal their power? What if this had all been a trap?
She stumbled to her feet and clenched her fists. He’d seemed so kind. She’d trusted him. She hadn’t thought he would steal from her.
She marched back inside, uncaring if the grass sizzled under her feet or not. The tower stairs only went up, so she followed them, winding her way up to the top, unsure of what she might say or do if she found him, but certain that she had to find him regardless.
The sound of heavy, deep breathing hit her first. It wasn’t human, that was for sure. It was something much bigger.
She tiptoed around the last bend, her fear climbing with each step.
A large room at the top came into view. One wall was completely open, and there was a huge, sleek, black, serpentine figure wound tightly around itself in the moonlight that spilled into the corner. One wing was draped over its head, like a curtain.
She held her breath as she backed out of the room.
Hadn’t he said the dragon wouldn’t come back until morning? Hadn’t he said it disappeared at night? Hadn’t he said—
She cursed the dark sorcerer, the beautiful prince, whoever he was, under her breath as she turned and tripped her way back down the stairs. He had also said she couldn’t leave, but based on the way he’d lied about everything else, that’s exactly what she would do. She would run, all the way back to her parents, to her village, even if it meant sleeping on a stone bed the rest of her life.
As she ran towards the forest, her steps started sizzling underneath her again, and her hands started to flame up before she could stop them. Her tears dissipated before they even had a chance to fall.
From the top of the tower, she heard a strangled cry, still inhuman, but closer to it, and filled with pain. It spurred her on, although the fire was starting to burn white around her hands, stinging her painfully, and she shook her hands, trying to put it out. The farther she ran, the more the fire seeped into her skin, making her cry out.
There was a great whoosh of wind behind her, then footsteps, matching her pace, although more spread out. The pain was blinding, but still she pushed on against whatever unknown barrier was causing it. She cradled her hands to her chest and struggled as each step forward was now a shooting, searing, white-hot bolt of pain through her.
Strong hands caught her from behind and pulled her backwards—the hands of the dark, beautiful sorcerer. She kicked against him, trying to pull away, but he held fast. The pain behind her eyes cleared and she realized he was taking the fire away from her again.
“You… can’t… leave…” he huffed as he dragged her backwards. She tried to claw away from him every step of the way.
Finally, though, he’d pulled her back to the clearing and dropped her on the stone path unceremoniously. She bolted back up to her feet and he caught her around her middle and shoved her back down, moving at the same time to stand in front of her and block her path.
“You can’t leave,” he panted again. “Or we both die.”
“I’m supposed to believe you’re kidnapping me for my own good?” she spat and scrambled back to her feet. “And who the hell are you, anyway?”
“Sorry. Luka. I’m Luka.” He held his hand out for her and she smacked it away. He winced. “You have every right to be upset. But listen to me. I’m just trying to protect you. You can’t leave this tower without me.”
He was still trying to catch his breath, and she noticed for the first time that his eyes had changed to serpentine slits and there was a distinct black sheen on the backs of his hands that worked its way up his forearms.
As she watched, he grabbed her hand and shivered as she was once again engulfed in blue flames and he returned to normal.
"We're connected," he explained softly. "We share the fire. It's mine in the morning and yours at night. Now that you've come here, you can't leave unless you're either with me or there's no fire to share, or it rips us both apart. So for your own sake, you either stay put or you kill me, do you understand?"
He released her hand, and she looked at them incredulously. That he'd taken her fire away and given it back was proof enough of what he was saying.
"Kill you?" she asked, his words sinking in through the remnants of pain behind her eyes. "As in… you're the…the...?"
"Yes."
"But you're…" she gestured to him, to his humanness, and he shifted uncomfortably under her bewildered gaze.
"I know. Like I said, it's yours at night. That was the first time in 18 years I've had the moonlight on my scales."
She gasped for breath as her fire started spitting around her, casting off sparks that came dangerously close to the grass. "I can't… you're human, or half-human or… I can't… I can't do this!"
"That's okay. Hey. It's okay." His hands hovered over hers, not quite touching her, leaving her fire with her. "What's your name? Can you tell me your name?"
"Ma-Ma-Marinette…" she stuttered as she attempted to keep breathing.
"Okay, Ma-Ma-Marinette." He smiled, trying to put her at ease. "Let's just take this slow, okay? Would you be willing to stay here tonight with me? We can talk more in the morning."
"You're a dragon in the morning," she said, then a hysteric giggle burst out of her at how ridiculous that sounded.
He chuckled with her and laid the back of his hand against hers. As her fire arced across to him, his eyes turned into slits again and his scales slid over his arm. "I don't have to be anymore."
She gaped at him as he pulled his hand away again and slid back to humanity.
"One night. That's all I'm asking."
Her dream popped back in her head and she blushed even before the question was out of her mouth. "If I sleep… you know, touching you, or like, against you… would that…?" She gestured to the fire still burning around her and then to him.
He smiled again and chuckled nervously. "Yeah, I think so. But everything's stone, so you won't burn anything down if you'd… you know, if you'd rather not."
She considered for a moment until her curiosity got the better of her.
"One night," she agreed.
He let out a sigh of relief and gestured for her to lead the way.
As she mounted the stone steps again, her fire—his fire, she corrected herself, he'd shared it with her—bounced off the smooth stone and flickered along with her nerves. This time at the top of the stairs, she paused to look at the room Luka had called his own for 18 years.
There was a nest of pillows piled in the corner, a stack of books with open pages fluttering in the breeze that flowed through the wide opening, a lyre leaning against the smooth wall, and bits and pieces of armor lined up along the wall like trophies. She recognized a few here and there and gulped. No wonder they hadn't returned.
She half-turned to him, her question dying in her throat, and he pressed his lips together in a thin line.
"Tomorrow," he said, gesturing for her to continue past everything. She did, but paused before her flames touched the pillows.
"Here," he said, and threw out a hand for her to take. Tentatively, she took hold of him and watched as he shivered and his transformation took hold.
He kept eye contact with her as scales slithered over his arms, his hands turned to claws, wings erupted from somewhere around his shoulders, and his body elongated until it was a solid length of powerful muscle.
She slid her hand to what was about his neck and he blinked slowly at her before lowering himself to the pillows and coiling his body tightly around itself, tucking his legs in what seemed to be a familiar position.
It was a bit awkward to maneuver herself into his coils without taking her hand off him, but they managed and he draped his wing over her, for warmth she assumed, because the breeze that was drifting in was nipping at her exposed skin. And he was warm, she realized, like having his fire returned to him made him a living furnace.
She could see it, when she twisted to look at him: a deep blue illuminating the thinner skin at the base of his neck and flaring brighter in his chest as he breathed.
She curled into him and fell asleep with his deep, heavy breathing in her ears and his sleek scales shifting under her hands.