Work Text:
The trip back from the Hold is usually a quiet one. Mac is usually bored of conversation long before he’s done waiting for Victor—and yes, he will continue to ignore the “you know you can just head out first, right? I can survive a trip myself.” every time it rolls around—and not particularly willing to continue it now. Sometimes Victor will fill that silence, continuing thoughts from earlier in the conversation or nudging Mac for a response they’d watched the dragon swallow down in an untrusted group. More often than not, though, the rider spends the flight enjoying the ever present wail of the wind and leaves their dragon to do the same.
So it’s a surprise when Mac breaks the silence first, his voice spilling like quicksilver into Victor’s mind.
They’re confident about a war.
Victor waits a beat, even though he knows nothing else will come, before leaning forward more comfortably. He’s finally figured out how to lean on his elbows between the dozens of spines along Mac’s back, and the warmth radiating from them does wonders against the ongoing snow. He hums in agreement, eventually.
“Yeah,” they say, out loud and silently at once. “It’s likely, all things considered. What, you think they’re wrong?”
They feel rather than hear the exhale under their fingers, long and irritated. It shouldn’t be possible for a dragon to sigh like that mid-flight but, well. They keep getting told they’re an impressive pair, they have to prove it sometimes.
No. I may not know much about human politics—
Victor snorts, flashes a good-natured thought of did it hurt to admit that and knows to cling tighter when Mac leans into the wind too-fast in retaliation.
—but this looks inevitable from most angles.
Victor nods, which is a hard habit to break even when they know Mac can’t see them. They nudge agreement into his head instead, take a moment to revel at how close to second nature that’s becoming.
“They said as much, back there,” they add aloud. “And I agree with them. So do you, apparently, so what’s got your horns tied up about it?”
The wind whistles its own answer for a while, shrill and thundering as Mac’s wing beats.
Humanity’s wars mean very little when you’re in the wild, Mac chooses to share at last, and Victor isn’t expecting the odd tone there. He can’t quite place it, but he catches the flicker of wistfulness anyway, has to blink twice to make sure he identified it correctly. Before he can prod at it, touch on the fact that Mac is speaking of the wild like it’s out of his reach for the first time, the dragon has continued.
It’s very different when you’re stuck in this icy hellscape with every idiot for miles around, Mac’s saying now, which is wholly unfair.
“You barely feel the snow, don’t be a dick,” Victor says automatically, but their brow is furrowing. They’re picking up on the unease roiling around like the snowstorm has wormed it’s way into Mac’s ribcage, and they’re choosing to focus on that first.
“Alright,” they say, instead of needling, summoning every bit of patience they have. “I’m not psychic, you’ve gotta tell me why you’re pissed off if you want it fixed.” And then, before they can be corrected, “Not psychic by choice because we respect privacy, just answer the question.”
And Mac does, to his surprise. With another question, because it’s too much to ask for anything else.
When it happens, where will you be? He asks, cold as the snow gathering on Victor’s jacket, and it gives the rider pause. Where will we be, when this war of kings I’ve never met or cared for comes over the horizon?
“We’re rangers,” he says instinctively, “There’s no way anyone could make us—“
And then he stops there, because that’s not what Mac is asking and Victor’s not a liar.
They both know what’ll happen if the Keep is called to war. They both know where an elemental and his daredevil rider will be called when the first battle breaks.
The ice-laced stone of their quarters are looming up ahead, and Mac banks to avoid the more vicious winds on his descent. His voice is quieter this time, blurry in the way it gets when he wants to be using the shift-flicker-image language of thoughts instead.
It doesn’t matter how the fight happens. You’re going to be there, and that means I will be as well.
Victor pauses, thinks about saying that he’s not asking Mac to go to war with him, that he’s not planning to go to war at all. But the problem is that he’s seen the crawl of Red Death across the country side, has imagined his mother’s farm swarming with crimson. The problem is that he’s brimming with magic already, that the crown knows it, that a rider that knows how to freefall is exactly what they’ll need in a fight.
The problem is that he doesn’t need to ask Mac at all.
What good is a rider without a dragon? Is all Mac replies, almost wry but not quite, and lands with a thud muted by snow.
Victor skids down his flank effortlessly, makes a face when the snow immediately starts clinging to their knees. Mac hasn’t moved yet, just stands there melting away the cold and radiating the storm. Victor feels a rush of something fond and warm and melancholic in a way they can’t place either, and that spurs them to trudge deeper into the snow. Mac dips his head just a little, lets Victor rest a single gloved hand against the warm scales there.
“Yeah, I know,” Victor says quietly, in response and not, and listens to the low rumble of response that seems to shake the ground under them. They stay that way, always peaceful where the wind is the strongest, until Victor’s fingers are freezing in their gloves.
“Are you coming in now?” he asks, once Mac registers the secondhand frostbite and lets out an offended snort. He lifts his head, rolling the question over, and Victor lets his hand fall away.
A surprisingly big part of Mac wants to go in with Victor, enjoy the warmth that the strange little humans craft in their homes and the quiet conversation that hums there. But there’s an itch under his scales, and so he ruffles his wings out and waits until Victor takes a few quick steps back. The rider doesn’t comment, just glances at the storm and decides their dragon can handle it fine.
“Holler if you need something,” they say instead, and Mac sends back a burst of dumbass can’t fly with Damien in this shut up I’ll be back soon and Victor just grins and pokes him with a thought. “Holding you to that.”
And then Mac is leaping back off the cliffside, and Victor is left to head inside alone. It’ll be good to have some time with Damien, he figures, and doesn’t quite close off the connection at the back of his mind just yet.
Mac lets the winds drag him down, follows them almost lazily, and lets the swirl of the snow snatch the warmth of home away from behind him. The itch is still sharp and uncomfortable, like the fire is too hot for the first time in living memory, and Mac lets it hiss out between his teeth as he soars upwards.
Because, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, hasn’t said it even as he feels the bond sink its claws deep and comfortable into the skin under his scales—
What good is a dragon without his rider?