Chapter Text
Every story has its start. A time, a place, a circumstance, anything that starts to give reality a shape that will allow it to start to develop and be affected by the universe around it. The passing of time, the moving to another place, the changing of circumstance, everything that is moldable.
But to start, no matter the first piece of information we do it with, we need to be able to pinpoint the exact moment it all began. How can that be done in this case? For dragons are immortal beings.
Once considered creatures of lore as a result of the minimized interaction between them and human beings. It was a stance that was merely taken up as a result of them being on completely different standpoint as living creatures. There simpl would be no balance between them. Humans would provide nothing to the dragons while the dragons would potentially be seen as dangerous entities that could put their lives and safety at stake. So they lived apart to the point where the passage of time has led to the dragons becoming just characters in stories and cases of mistaken identities over actually being creatures that lived and breathed still. So when it came out that they were not only real but still existing, panic settled.
Some civilizations went on and on about how these monsters would destroy their cities and kill their loved ones because they were nothing but mindless animals that worked on basic instinct alone. Primal, one could say. Others viewed them as beings to be worshipped. Superior in every way, evolution done right. The ultimate shape had been achieved, and it was the dragon. Needless to say, the people were divided between the resisters and the worshippers.
Regardless, it seemed as if fear over the dragons ruled over both these groups. One resisted in fear of being oppressed and attacked, another respected in fear of being deemed as unworthy by these obviously superior beings and losing the opportunity to go into the next level of evolution. One feared the existing power, another fearing having no share of the power.
With time, these factions dwindled in strength and most of the population just acknowledged the existence of the dragons but didn’t deem them as anything other than another being that existed alongside them in the world, like humans have done with animals since thousands of years prior. Those that wanted to fight were mostly seen as fear mongers and as people who wanted to instigate unnecessary violence. Those that worshiped were seen as just another religious group that looked at dragons as the lords they were to worship and pray to, but the feeling of superiority dwindled. Now the dragons were mostly seen as just being different beings.
Regardless, they were still seen as different and they assimilated into society almost as if they were a new class in society. Belonging but isolated.
That isolation could, to a point, be negatively impacting their wellbeing. They are social beings, they need to have people around them, to interact and socialize so as to guarantee that their minds don’t spiral into the depths that they can reach. As immortal beings, they live long lives that unfortunately may be empty ones if they aren’t lucky. Humankind seemed to be working to integrate them but the process is slow-going, leading to many decades of limited interactions. Immortal life is long, and many wish for it for that exact same reason. Life is too short and they wish to achieve this seemingly wonderful aspect of dragon life. But humans forget one thing: immortality is not the same as invincibility. Death is something that comes to dragons also, just not from the passing of time, but from injury and disease. And humans are so much more fragile. They get injured and sick so much more easily, and immortality would do nothing against that. It’s only a crutch that keeps time at bay but not all else. But humans seem not to care for quality of life until they are under direct effect of a lower quality. And even when quality is increased, they seem to so easily forget where they came from, moving forward for selfish reasons.
Namjoon, like many of the dragon kind, is immortal. As a result, he’s witnessed death to degrees many humans couldn’t bear to handle, but of course they can’t understand. They have spent too many generations living shorter lives leaving their brains incapable of grasping some of the concepts easily perceived by the dragonborn. That is why the only people ever granted immortal life through consented methods are the consorts, those chosen to be partners of the dragonborn for as long as they live. That could very well mean forever, with immortality becoming a shared aspect of their existences.
Namjoon wishes to share his immortal life with someone. As of now, most of the dragonborn he interacts with - which are few in between because of not just the distance existing between him and them but also the fact that he doesn’t know many of them to begin with - are in possession of consorts that have all already consented to sharing a life forever. Namjoon is still alone and he does not enjoy that. His friends are either away or too busy to keep him company in his adventures of searching for books and collecting all that intrigues him and makes him happy. He’s very lucky over the fact that dragonborn possess three forms and that one of them is extremely human. It makes walking around in the villages easy but he is limited on how long the human façade can be kept up. He can always turn into another form when in the privacy of his property but he can’t fix the fact that his human form does not age, and while it is fine for a while because it can just be seen as if he just ages slowly, at some point suspicions would be raised and he’d risk being the receiver of side glances and unwanted attention. He just wants to be inconspicuous while enjoying his day, but there is only so much “oh, the foreigner came back!” and “We see you around but don't know much about you! Where are you from? Who are you?” that he can be the recipient of before he either has to let them know something .
So he keeps to himself as just a random traveler from close enough to visit often, but far enough that it’d be laborious for you to make the journey as well as the dragon that lives in the nearby mountains under the occasional attention of those that care for him as a dragon and nothing else. It’s good, means that there is occasional company but he’s limited to his dragon form to avoid being recognized as the traveler that wanders the village often times. It’d also involve bigger involvement in the village as an entity to worship as it’d make it easier to parade him around the streets. It also keeps up a pretence of being bigger and stronger, a safety net to keep conflict from happening. He hears the word of his massive stature being a reason for why fear of retaliation is prevalent. That his size would mean that damage from one single strike would be immeasurable when compared to one strike of a measly human weapon.
But loneliness is surely making him stop caring about all those pretences and just getting himself someone for himself. He doesn’t care if people start to wonder about what he wants a human for, doesn’t care if he’s put at risk when people start to understand what being his consort would mean, what his scales mean. So he makes an announcement. The village is to have someone be sent to him as soon as humanly possible. Someone they’d deem appropriate for him. And they do. In the span of two days, they are bringing someone to his door and leaving him behind.
The boy looks around his place in apprehension before making eye contact with the dragonborn. Wide-eyes like that of a deer, wider now that he’s noticed Namjoon’s presence, being a visual representation of “a deer caught in the headlights”, and pale skin. A sheltered look to him, looking soft and well maintained. From a general look at the boy, he was pretty. Even with fear clouding his expression.
The boy was afraid .
And also unaware. Because from this moment on, his life would take a massive turn and he’d have to readjust and learn a lot before that fear and apprehension would fully disappear from underneath his skin. After all, he knows nothing of the dragonborn so he couldn’t possibly know what would be coming his way. A love story like no other. What an odd story it will be.