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It’s barely a secret that runs around in circles within the family that Elira was less of a dragon than everyone else in the clan, even before Selen was born.
A first-born solar dragon should be more dragon than human, they’d said, inspecting her face which had less scales, her eyes still bright-dragon-colored - a mark of a true solar dragon - but more human in the shape of her pupils than otherwise.
There’s this distinct, downtrodden look in the family elder’s eyes when speaking with her, referring to her, and finds a more muted, watered down version in her father’s eyes—and, at a later age, Elira recognizes it as disappointment .
Disappointment that’s nowhere to be found when Selen was born, a lunar dragon who was more dragon than human, and Elira adores her, from the start. It’s hard not to, when Selen’s little claw reaches out for Elira’s small, gloved one.
At the tender age of three, the dragon inside Elira recognizes its kin, and swears to protect Selen with everything it has.
-
“If something like that happens again, don’t forget to tell me, okay?” Elira says, putting a bandage on Selen’s knee. Her sister’s sobs have been reduced to little sniffles. “But you did the right thing and showed them that you’re not someone to mess around with. Just like mom and dad always say.”
Selen wipes at her eyes. “M-maybe I should be like you and not show my dragon side so much…”
That makes Elira halt in ripping open another bandage, a lance through her heart. She didn’t think her sister would notice that she’d started hiding a lot of her dragon traits at such an early age, and at age ten, not a lot of people would notice unless they truly, truly paid attention.
She’d stopped listening to her inner dragon for her base instincts at such a young age. “No, you shouldn’t, I’m just a little more careful.”
“Why?” Selen looks up at her, a crease between her brows. “You’re just as much a dragon as me.”
Elira doesn’t know how to explain to her that things are a little more complicated for her, and that she’s different in a bad way, and that she’d learned how to blend in, push that part of herself into some place that’s inaccessible by anyone.
Elira doesn’t know how to explain it to her, so she just pats the freshly bandaged wound on her knees, the band-aid print design a deep purple with moons and smiley faces.
-
She meets Pomu and Finana at summer camp, around the age of fourteen, and the cycles start to begin.
Either way, Elira’s life changes, for better or worse.
(“So you’re like, a dragon-dragon,” is what Finana says to her while Elira helps her tie the knots to her tent. When Elira laughs and nods, Finana sets down the ropes she definitely is not helping to knot. “So where’s your whole dragon… thingy? Like you know,” she shows her fins, and some of the scales that scatter her body.
“Beats me,” Elira shrugs, and for some reason, she doesn’t take it against Finana for being curious, because she knows that whatever she says won’t drive Finana away—something about the girl told Elira not a lot of things would scare her. “If I knew, then a lot of my problems would go away.”
Finana watches her, visibly sensing that this was a sensitive topic that Elira doesn’t really want to go into right now, so she shrugs and complains about the camp food as much as a twelve year old can.)
Pomu, on the other hand, is her very first camp roommate—shy at the earlier parts of camp, until the cabin board game night, where they’d gotten extra competitive playing Sorry!. She’s pretty, ridiculously so, and so easy to talk to. Sometimes they chat, before sleeping, and suddenly the sun is starting to peak in the east.
Elira doesn’t understand why she feels impossibly warm around her, and a little bit too eager to see her smile even if she doesn’t do anything about it.
(“Hey, Pomu, we’re going out to the swing and—”
Her metal jug thuds against the cabin floors, when she sees Pomu in just a towel, her blonde hair dripping wet. She lets out a squeak, quick to cover herself even more, and Elira turns around faster than anything she’s done her entire life.
“O-oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Elira says, feeling an unbearable heat rise up the back of her neck and up her cheek, as Pomu scrambles to the bathroom.
“I-it’s fine,” she calls out from the bathroom, and Elira hears a few shuffles and a little thud. “I’m fine!”
Elira takes a breath, rubbing her head. “Okay, well, we’ll be at the swing! I’ll see you there.”
Elira doesn’t think about that exchange again for the rest of the day, and when Pomu walks into the cabin after her individual consultation with the camp lead, they laugh about it, cutting through the tension almost at once.
She doesn’t know how she’s managed to be without Pomu for so long, and now that she has it, Elira doesn’t want to find out.)
And of course, with Elira’s luck, the first ever cycle happens towards the end of summer camp, and of course, Pomu is the one to help her through it.
One moment she’s in a deep, dreamless sleep, and the next moment there is a terrible pain in her claw, between her chest, and a foreign rumbling coming from within her ribs. When she opens her eyes, the world is red, and Pomu is holding her through it all.
“Elira, hey, hey, it’s me,” she calls out, sweat beading her forehead, and through the haze of her dragon surfacing, Elira is so happy to see her. “What do you need me to do? I’m here, I’m here.”
It takes an unbelievable amount of effort to say, “nothing, nothing, just be here,” and Pomu, sweet and genuine and caring Pomu stays, and later Elira realizes that Pomu’s hand finds her claw, and holds as much as she can with her smaller hand.
Don’t hurt her, please, Elira pleads the inner dragon, if you do I’m making these cycles harder for both of us.
She feels the dragon grunt in response, but her claw holds Pomu’s hand with as much gentleness as it can possibly have.
Pomu holds her through the remaining hour of pain without any resistance, without second thought.
The next morning after the first cycle, Elira can’t look at Pomu in the eye, and she avoids her through the day, until Pomu pulls her to the side, a visible frown on her pretty, round face.
“Stop avoiding me,” she says firmly, and when Elira almost denies it, Pomu pokes a finger at her shoulder. “And I know you have been! We’ve been roomies for one and a half months, don’t think I don’t know when you are.”
Nothing could possibly escape Pomu, and Elira sighs, scratches the back of her neck. “It’s just… embarrassing.”
That gets Pomu to soften, just the slightest, her frown turning into one of concern. “Why? Everyone has bad nights.”
“It’s not that, it’s…” Elira inhales, then lets it out swiftly. “It’s intimate, for my kind to have those. And that you should have it around people you feel safe with. The dragon chooses the right moment.”
“So you don’t feel safe with me,” Pomu replies, looking down, already moving away. “I get it, I’m sorry, I just didn’t know—”
Oh, this girl. Elira can’t believe how a smart girl like Pomu doesn’t understand what she’s trying to get out, but maybe she’s also shit at explaining. “I’m saying that I feel safe with you, and that I’m glad that you were there with me,” and the dragon chose to let you see it, among all people, Elira doesn’t say, doesn’t want to know what that could possibly imply just yet. “It was embarrassing, but… thank you.”
Pomu looks up at her, wide, open, trusting, and Elira wants her in her life for as long as she can. “Okay. I trust you,” she murmurs, and the sound of the pond water tripping over itself and the crickets chirping around them is their only company. “I trust you.”
-
The dragon traits are getting harder to hide, and no one really questions the glove, or the way her bangs cover her right eye all the time. High school is weird, with the whole puberty thing thrown into the mix of the dragon cycles, as well as trying to keep her sports scholarship while staying in the honor roll.
(There’s also this haggle of girls following her everywhere, and Elira doesn’t pay them any mind. While it’s nice to have another consistent group of supporters at her hockey games, all the other times the girls seek her attention is embarrassing enough.
Elira never hears the end of it from Finana and Selen, whom she regrets having introduced in the first place. Pomu doesn’t say anything about it, but Elira isn’t sure if she likes that.)
They watch Selen and Shu toss a frisbee at each other on the football field painted gold, from the bleachers. Everything is warm, painted gold, and Pomu’s company is half the reason for that.
“How is she?” Pomu asks, watching as Selen throws back the frisbee with her tail. She’s learned how to extend her tail to be a part of her, probably as agile as both her human and her dragon arms.
“Active as ever, as you can see,” Elira laughs, though she watches with a muted sort of jealousy she’s learned to swallow. “She’s growing into herself but she’s sassy as hell, my parents put her in her place for it. But you know, it’s still the same old me versus her at home even if we don’t want it to be.”
Pomu frowns, and the inch between them feels like nothing at all. “Why don’t you show them you could be like her?”
Elira shrugs, and the movement makes their shoulders bump together. “Then disappoint them when they find out I can’t? It’s scary. And I don’t want that to be our relationship.”
They watch Selen tackle Shu, who laughs as he surrenders the frisbee. “I think you could show them. I believe in you and the dragon.”
There’s a sudden warmth that rushes between Elira’s ribs, seizes her heart and envelopes it. She feels it from her head to her toes, and then realizes what it means.
The dragon is fond of Pomu.
“Thanks,” is all she can say without feeling like she’s about to fall into the spaces between the seats. “That means a lot.” Coming from you remains unsaid, but from the way she Pomu smiles, takes her hand, Elira knows she hears it, loud and clear.
-
Selen’s cycle begins at age fifteen, and no one is surprised she deals with it much better than Elira ever could.
Of course, it happens around Finana.
(“She was just there and then I felt something shift, like my joints were popping into place,” Selen recounts, and Elira remembers hers from three years ago, with Pomu, and it was certainly not as peaceful.)
And of course, her parents praise Selen for it, and of course the elders just know that Selen was more of the dragon between the two of them. A lunar dragon with the power of the firstborn, they’ve said, and Elira can’t even blame them for thinking so. Very peculiar, but welcome nonetheless.
Elira couldn’t care less about harnessing the power of the first born, couldn’t care less about those things. There were things she wanted in her life and being the family pride wasn’t one of them.
She wants to get into her dream college, to get tattoos with Pomu and Finana, to tell Pomu how she felt, to play more hockey with Selen. Maybe get a good job as an engineer, settle down, own a PS4, and then just go where life takes her.
Not that the dragon understands anything about that.
Whenever their cycles coincide, a lot of their usual sparring ends up as real fights, their dragons scuffling it out whenever they can, and Selen is unfortunately as sassy as she usually is but just more honest—painfully so.
“You can’t keep hiding this part of yourself,” Selen had told her, landing a solid blow on her stomach. “You’ll just hurt yourself—ow!” Elira manages to clamp down on Selen’s shoulders with her claw. “And—people around you!”
Elira can’t say she agrees, grunting as Selen lands another one on her. She’ll keep the dragon under wraps, as much as possible, unwilling to get to know it save for days of her cycle like this.
It ends with a draw, all the time, and they don’t talk until Elira brings Selen freshly cut fruit as an apology, regardless of who started it first.
Not that it mattered to Elira in the first place. The dragon could be pissed at her for not caring who won and she couldn’t care less.
-
Pompom
So…
Eliii
… we got in
:o
Pompom
WE DIDDDDDD
DREAM COLLEGE HERE WE GO BABEY
You’re going to be so sick of me :P
Eliii
Me? Sick of you? Never
:D
-
Elira becomes a permanent fixture in Pomu and Finana’s apartment, and is instantly given a key the first night she stayed over.
They were allowed to paint the walls since the landlord was this nice kitsune lady named Nina that “loved to encourage kids’ creativities”, and Elira was more than happy to help the two with the renovations and moving in.
Pomu’s room is a nice pink and baby blue surrounded by her beloved potted plants, and Finana’s a pastel teal with her beloved game stream setup. It’s so unbelievably them .
Of course, Elira always stays in Pomu’s room, sleeps on the left side of Pomu’s bed near the charging port, because even if she loves Finana, it’s always been Pomu .
(It’s always been her for Elira and the dragon. Elira doesn’t understand what that could mean, and she isn’t sure how to tell Pomu just yet.)
“How was the engineering open house?” Pomu says, putting her bag down onto the computer chair and removing the tie from her hair. “The communications one was pretty fun. I’m part of their home org.”
“Pretty fun, I’m really excited,” Elira says, tossing her phone to the side to give Pomu her full attention. Like always, the dragon is so happy to see Pomu, and Elira can’t tell it apart from the fleeting feeling inside her stomach from seeing Pomu in such intimate settings. “Lots of boys but I’ll be kicking their asses.”
“That’s more I like it,” Pomu laughs, sitting on the bed and scrolling through the food delivery app, ready to order from their usual without even needing to ask them.
-
Finana and Selen get together in Selen’s first year of college. It was only a matter of time, really.
“Well, it was certainly a long time coming,” Pomu tells her, hugging Elira’s jacket around herself. The chill of the November air has her all bundled up, and Elira only ever brought sweaters to give them to Pomu, who is always so stubborn about bringing one extra layer.
Elira laughs, unlocking her car. It had been an advanced graduation gift, and probably an advanced congratulations-on-passing-the-engineer-board-exams gift from her parents, considering that commuting has gotten much worse over the years. “They’re gross but they make each other happy.”
(“She told me I was her dragon’s chosen,” Finana says casually, setting down a royal flush. Pomu had been out with her running group for tonight, and Selen had football training, leaving Finana and Elira in the usually-packed apartment. “It sounds like a big deal.”
“It is,” Elira shows her hand of pairs. “I mean, her dragon chose to start its cycle with you, and it plans to end it with you. That much of a big deal.”
Finana whistles lowly, but she smiles anyway, utterly besotted. “I don’t mind.” She draws a few cards from the stack. “Wait, if Selen’s cycle started around me, then—”
“Yup,” is all Elira says, holding her cards to herself.
Like always, Finana knows when not to push, but it’s obvious she’s curious. “Does she…”
“Nope.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
Elira sighs, folding her hand. “I don’t know.”
Finana nods, and Elira feels pity coming off of her in waves. Had she been anyone else, Elira would be furious, but it’s Finana, and Finana knows her just as well as Pomu.)
“What about you?” Pomu’s voice pulls her back.
“Hmm?”
“Not interested in dating all those girls in your advanced math classes or whatever,” Pomu jokes, but somehow it’s brittle, and Elira doesn’t know why.
Regardless, she’s not interested. Flattered, yes, unbelievably so, but not interested.
“Nah,” she says, then smiles. Why does Pomu look so… relieved? “Jealous I won’t be warming your bed anymore?”
“As if. You can leave whenever you want,” Pomu rolls her eyes, and Elira, then, realizes the days they’ve slept in the same bed certainly outnumbered the days they didn’t. “Your call.”
“Nah,” Elira repeats, shrugging, playing it cool—and maybe Pomu sees right through her if the amused smile on her face says anything. “Too lazy to get my clothes from your closet.”
“I thought so.”
-
The world ends for her dragon when Pomu dates this girl named Rosemi. Your fault , the dragon hisses at her, far from happy. Too slow.
Shut up, she bites back at the dragon, who snaps its mouth shut. She’s happy for Pomu. She really is. Rosemi is pretty and nice and smart. She’s over the moon for Pomu.
Right?
Rosemi takes up Elira’s physical spaces in the apartment, and the dragon growls every time Elira remembers her side of the bed being occupied by someone else. Every day, Rosemi is there, until she’s not, and Pomu calls Elira crying because Rosemi broke her heart. In a heartbeat Elira is there but not without almost breaking the speed limit several times in the course of thirty minutes.
“I never let her sleep here,” Pomu sniffs, and the dragon is pissed and protective, while Elira is sympathetic and strangely relieved. “Did you know that? She never slept on my bed.”
“Why?” Elira asks, her heart aching viciously in her chest. She doesn’t dare to hope…
Pomu looks away, picking at the loose thread sticking out of her crocheted blanket. “It didn’t feel right.”
See, the dragon tells her, smugly, clearly knowing something. See what, Elira doesn’t want to assume, doesn’t want to hope. Not yet.
-
The cycles get worse, the more she suppresses it and the more she ignores her dragon traits. She knows Pomu notices when she doesn’t sleep over, to let the cycles run its course at night, in the privacy of her own room.
Sometimes she can sense Selen on the other side of her door, when it the burning feels too close to the topmost layer of her skin, and Selen doesn’t knock knowing that Elira won’t let her in.
Stop resisting, the dragon tells her, I am a part of you.
Elira shakes her head, because denying the dragon part of herself has always been what she’s known, what she’s comfortable with. Change is scary, and she doesn’t know that part of herself, and she’s not sure if she wants to.
-
With Elira’s luck, the worst of it happens on her graduation party in their backyard—one moment she’s fetching Pomu a mixed drink, and her vision goes red at the sight of Selen just talking to Pomu.
In Elira’s mind, they’re chatting, as friends of course.
In the dragon’s mind, it recognizes Selen, its kin, as a threat.
It’s as if she’d been pushed to the back seat of her consciousness, as an observer, and it’s singularly the most terrifying thing she’s ever experienced—that control, which she thought she had, thrown right out of the window.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Elira?” Selen yells, moving her head to the side when Elira’s fist connects with the hard ground where Elira has her pinned. Selen knees her in the stomach, and she and the dragon grunt at the impact.
Stop! Elira pleads the dragon, who continues to throw punches at Selen. She’s our sister! Stop it!
Pomu, the dragon replies angrily, but Selen—
Elira grits her teeth, trying to gain back the control of her fists, of her legs. Is mated with Finana! And Pomu—
Something cuts through the haze, all her senses feeling like they’ve been stuffed inside a fishbowl, and Elira recognizes it, strains her hearing—
“— stop , stop!” It’s Pomu, trying to get in between them. Finana is beside Selen, holding Selen back as much as she can. But it’s Pomu who gets close to her, Pomu who cuts through the haze, the red that clouded her eyes dissipating immediately.
Pomu… the dragon says, relaxing, slowly giving Elira back her motor skills, slowly giving back Elira’s space in her own consciousness.
“Elira, Elira,” Pomu says, breathless. There are tears in her eyes, and oh, if Elira didn’t fuck up then, she has definitely fucked up now. “Hey, come back to us, there we go.”
“I’m s-sorry, so sorry,” is all Elira manages, collapsing into Pomu’s arms, before sleep takes her.
-
When Elira comes to, Pomu is on the nearby couch typing away on her laptop. So hardworking, she thinks, still probably making the edits to her thesis which are crucial for her clearance.
Pomu sees her move to sit up, and she rushes immediately to her bedside, helping her at once. “Hey champ, how are you feeling?” She says, smiling, though her brows are furrowed.
“Like a fuckup,” Elira says, rubbing the back of her neck.
Pomu is gentle in almost everything, even in chastising her—firm, but kind. Her hand finds Elira’s under the blanket, like she does when they sleep beside each other. “Don’t say that. You’re not.”
“You’re… you’re not scared of me? I was so violent, all because I couldn’t control my dragon.” She sighs, shuddering at the thought of being thrown out of the driver’s seat. “It was so bad.”
“No, never,” Pomu tells her, and the dragon thinks — yes, it’s her.
This time, Elira thinks so too.
-
“Hey, you were right.”
Selen laughs, leans closer. Even after the scuffle, she never hated Elira for it, knowing that it had been completely out of her control. Selen was good like that. Still: “Sorry, I didn’t hear that. A little louder for the audience, please.”
Rolling her eyes, Elira can only push her younger sister away. “Shut up,” she laughs, too, and her ribs don’t feel like giving out. “I want to… I want to learn that part of me. The dragon. It’s not too late, is it?”
Selen smiles, a soft, proud one. It suddenly makes sense, how so many people think Selen was older than her. “Not at all, big sis. Let’s start tomorrow.”
-
Things get better.
In between studying for her board exams, she’d found the time to have her daily sessions with Selen about control, about reigning in her dragon.
It’s a part of you. That’s what you have to remember all the time, Selen had told her. And getting to know yourself means getting to know it too. So you know what works, what doesn’t work.
Surprisingly, she loves meditation. Selen doesn’t do it often, but she’d recommended it, and Elira latched on to the activity as her favorite.
At the end of the year, the cycles feel less like burning inside out, but more a warmth she can live with. And while there’s a lingering fear of snapping, it doesn’t consume her—instead, she focuses on not letting it happen in the first place.
Not to mention that it’s certainly helped that Pomu hasn’t dated anyone since Rosemi, and Elira, for once, listens to the dragon when it says— tell her.
So Elira does, in the most underwhelming way ever, while they’re standing at the sink of Finana and Pomu’s apartment washing dishes together, their hips bumping against each other to the soft beat of the music.
“Pomu,” Elira begins, rinsing off a plate and setting it onto the rack. Her heart hammers in her chest and the dragon does somersaults in her mind. “I think I love you.”
Pomu almost drops the glass, but catches it at the last minute. Her face is red when she turns to Elira, looking surprised but besotted, like this is the happiest moment of her life because she’d been waiting.
“Oh. Oh, that’s perfect,” she murmurs, and she’s so pretty Elira doesn’t know what to do except wipe her hands with a clean rag and do the same for Pomu’s. “Wait. You think? ”
Elira laughs, because of course Pomu notices. Pomu notices everything. “Okay. I know I love you. I think I always have. The dragon knew before me. It chose you all those years ago.”
“Well, tell the dragon I love it too,” she smiles, moving closer and wrapping her arms around Elira’s shoulders, already tangling her hands in Elira’s hair. She’s smiling so brightly that Elira can’t believe it’s taken this long. “But I love you too, Elira.”
“Ouch, and I’ve been the one working on myself so I could be better for you,” she bumps their heads together. They still have that gentle sway about them. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I trust you,” is all Pomu says, and if she’s made up her mind, there’s nothing to convince her otherwise. So Elira kisses her, promises her everything.
For once, in her life, she feels that she and the dragon are one—that she would be loved without any reservations, without fear.
Pomu kisses her back, and the final puzzle piece falls into place.
Told you, the dragon says, at its happiest.