Work Text:
“So, why did you call me out here again?”
Seth sat on the ground with his legs crossed, staring at the dragon in front of him. Not long ago, a fairy named Shiara had told him that Raxtus had wanted to speak at the fairy queen's shrine.
Raxtus cleared his throat and glanced away. “I need…some help with my human avatar.”
“Human avatar?” Seth asked dubiously. “Why not ask someone like Kendra? She probably knows more about this than I do.”
“Well...I was too embarrassed to ask Kendra, actually.” He hesitated. “Plus, I don't think asking the fairy queen's handmaiden about dragon things would be very helpful.”
“I guess that's true.” Seth admitted. “What about your dad?”
“My father?” Raxtus snorted derisively. “No way. He barely even considers me his son, let alone a dragon. I’d rather die than let him see me as the new and improved fairy boy.”
Seth grimaced in sympathy. “Alright, I’ll try to help you the best I can.”
Leaning forward, he propped himself up on his elbows. “What's the problem you’re having, exactly?”
Raxtus hesitated for a second, then sighed. “I’ll just show you. Could you uh…close your eyes, or something?”
“Sure.” He shrugged, shutting his eyes. A bright light flashed, passing through his eyelids.
“You can look now.”
Seth opened his eyes, looking at the twelve inch, scrawny male fairy floating in front of him. He looked at it in shock for a moment, then he started to laugh.
“Don’t mock me.” Raxtus covered his face with the back of his hand, clearly embarrassed.
“I’m not—” He barely stifled his laugh, putting his hands up in the air. “I’m not mocking you, I swear.”
Raxtus looked at him dubiously.
“Sorry, it just wasn’t what I had expected.” Seth shook his head, leaning in closer as he inspected his face. “You look younger than I’d imagined.”
Raxtus flushed, glancing away. “I’m only fifteen, it's not that young.”
“Really?” Seth perked up. “We’re almost the same age, then.”
“Huh.” Raxtus cocked his head. “Yeah, I guess we are.”
“So,” Seth said. “What's up with the fairy boy thing?”
Raxtus winced. “This is always what happens when I try to go into my human avatar.”
“Have you tried any other methods?”
He glanced away sheepishly. “Well, really only one method that I know of.”
“And that is?”
“We turn into our avatars by cloaking the dragon parts of our magic. But mine just…never wants to comply with me.”
“Cloaking?” Seth cocked his head. “Wouldn't that just be an illusion?”
Raxtus shook his head, wings fluttering slightly. “No, it's more substantial than just an illusion. The food we eat as dragons still stays in our stomachs, and the injuries we get don't disappear. We’re just repressing the dragon parts of ourselves, so we look and interact with the world around us differently.”
“So, you just cloak your dragon magic?”
“That's pretty much the gist of it.”
Seth frowned in thought. “Have you ever tried cloaking your fairy magic too?”
Raxtus paused, glancing at him. “I hadn’t thought of that before, actually.”
“Really?” Seths eyes glimmered with excitement. “You think it’ll work?”
A bit of hope started to show in his eyes. “It couldn’t hurt to try.”
Seth leaned forward eagerly. “You wanna try it then?”
“Okay. Just…don’t get your hopes up.” It sounded like he was speaking more to himself than to Seth.
Seth closed his eyes. Once again, a familiar bright light shone through his eyelids. When he opened them, he was no longer looking at a fairy. A boy, around his age, looked back at him. He had short, shaggy silver hair. He was slightly shorter than Seth by a few inches.
Raxtus looked at Seth in shock for a long moment, his eyes wide. He looked down at his hands, flexed them a few times, and then looked back at Seth.
“I—I did it,” He started laughing. “I did it! I really did it!”
He flung his arms around Seth, hugging him in a warm embrace. Seth grinned from ear to ear, hugging him back.
“Thank you—really, thank you!” Raxtus pulled back from the embrace, smiling widely as he squeezed both of his hands.
Seth squeezed his hands back. “You know what this means?”
“What?”
“Let’s go see a bunch of movies.”