Chapter Text
That cannot be sanitary.
Tommy raised his head to look at Clementine, whose hazel eyes were blinking at him lazily from where her scarlet head was lying on a sun-bathed rock, her horns curving towards the blue sky above. "Shut up, Clem," he muttered, continuing to rinse his hands in the trickling stream.
His dragon snorted, rolling over to expose her ivory belly to the sky, pink tongue lolling from her mouth as she closed her eyes. She was only two years old—absolutely nothing compared to other riders' dragons; her torso only about twelve feet long and the length of her wingspan barely forty, but already she dwarfed Tommy, and she was always happy to puff out her chest and show that. When you get sick, don't come crawling to my warmth.
Tommy scowled as he washed off the last of the blood from underneath his fingernails. "Please," he said. "You bloody come crawling into my bed whenever I'm sick, you clingy fucker."
Clementine opened a baleful eye to stare at him, but didn't deign to give her a reply, though he could feel her pretense at aloofness through their bond. He flipped her off, drying his hands on his tunic and grimacing when he smeared the brown leather with a bit of dirt. Oh, well. That'd come off.
"Come on," he said. "Better get going. We need to be back in a half-hour."
We were supposed to be back before the third zenith, Clementine pointed out, rolling back onto her belly and stretching her red-scaled forelegs and rear legs out, yawning like some sort of cat.
Tommy snorted as he walked back over to her side, putting his dagger into the sheath strapped to the outside of his right thigh, where he'd left it on the rock in order not to wear it more than he had to. "We might've been," he hummed. "But you were hungry."
Clementine licked one of her sharp front talons as Tommy heaved himself into the gap between the ivory spines on her back that ran up to the top of her head and continued down the back of her torso. Most riders, like Drista and his mother, used a saddle; but Clem found them itchy—and besides, if Tommy and Clementine used saddles, they'd go through them like Drista went through cranberry bagels from that one bagel stand in the flower square in the Antarctic Empire's capital. And saddles, unlike cranberry bagels from that one bagel stand in the flower square in the Antarctic Empire's capital, were handmade, incredibly expensive, and made of materials that were difficult to attain to the common person.
I was hungry for food, Clementine grumbled. Not orcs.
"You got the fish from the lake," he reminded her. "And we freed three-dozen people."
I want boar.
"Yeah, and Drista wants those cranberry bagels from that one bagel stand in the flower square in the Antarctic Empire's capital," he reminded the dragon with a gentle pat on her side. "We can't always get what we want."
I'm a dragon. I deserve whatever I want.
"We have boar at home," he said.
We have boar intestines at home. That's not the same.
"You still find it good."
Sometimes I wonder why I'm bonded to you, Clementine grumbled, but he felt the fondness behind her mental message and clamped his thighs tighter around his seating point and grabbed onto the ivory spike, sanded down so it didn't impale him if he slipped forward, that was in front of him.
Clementine took to the skies in the next second, the near-setting sun shining golden off her scarlet scales. Tommy looked over his shoulder as Clementine flew south, his eyes zeroing in on the northern mountain range that bordered the Antarctic Empire—and he swore that if he concentrated hard enough, he could see the glimmering copper towers that made up the guard towers of the Arctic Pass.
Drista and Kaida were waiting for them when they landed in the clearing. Tommy winced when he saw the smoke coming from the chimney of their house—damn, he should've been cutting the vegetables. He'd promised mother that he would.
"See any nice flowers?" Drista remarked sarcastically, and Tommy eyed the dragon-scale thick ring tied to the base of her ponytail, wondering if she was annoyed enough to whip her head around to nail him in the face with it like she did so many of their enemies.
Orcs, Clementine said as she sniffed at Kaida's neck politely, the jade green dragon huffing a bit in response. Rescued some citizens today, too.
"Antarctic Empire?" Drista asked hopefully.
Tommy snorted as he reached up and pet Kaida's snout, the dragon purring at him as he stroked her warm scales. "I'm sure you're so worried about their origins due to their well-being, and not because you want those cranberry bagels from that one bagel stand in the flower square in the Antarctic Empire's capital." Clementine huffed a laugh in his mind. "But no, if you were wondering. They weren't."
"Damn," Drista muttered. "I really wanted those cranberry bagels from that one bagel stand in the flower square in the Antarctic Empire's capital."
You two have got to stop saying that mouthful, Kaida said in their minds, her voice light compared to Clementine's lower rumbles. That joke is going to die.
"Those bagels are really good," Drista pointed out.
"I prefer—" Tommy cut himself off when Drista narrowed her weird green eyes at him. "The cranberry ones. Yeah."
Let's go, Clem, Kaida said, sounding disgusted as she blew hot breath down Tommy's back. He yelped and waved away her stinky breath, and she huffed at him again. You've probably lost too many brain cells sticking around with your rider.
You are so right, Clementine replied cheekily, and Tommy ducked when she attempted to hit him on the top of his head with the tip of her tail. See you in the morning, Tommy!
Tommy waved goodbye to both of them, Drista mentally conveying her own goodnights to the two, before the both of them braced themselves and took off, flying towards the cave that housed the three dragons—it was a safety precaution, suggested by Azrail, in case any guards randomly stopped by one day. They were trying to be normal citizens, after all.
"Kids!"
Tommy pasted a smile on his face as he turned towards the entrance of the house. His mother leaned in the doorway, a kitchen knife in her right hand—and seeing as she'd been the one to teach him to use a knife, that didn't mean she was unarmed. At all. Her black hair was pulled in a braid over her right shoulder, and her deep purple dress was stained with tomato sauce, but that didn't make her any less imposing. "Hey," he said, drawing out the final syllable. Drista snorted next to him. "Mother. Fancy seeing you here."
"I live here," his mother retorted. Tommy grimaced. "You were supposed to help me chop up the lettuce, Tommy."
He scratched the back of his neck, grinning sheepishly. "Clem and I got distracted killing orcs and rescuing people."
His mother sighed. "You're going to draw attention to yourselves," she scolded gently, stepping aside to let Drista and Tommy into the house. He took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of rabbit stew with a wide grin on his face. "People are going to start asking questions."
"Please," Drista scoffed as Tommy pulled off his top tunic and unbuckled his sheath, lying them on the table by the door—on top of Drista's nearly identical pair. "They already have bounties out for the three of us in the Antarctic Empire." His mother stiffened slightly before she slowly went back to chopping up the rabbit she'd probably attained from one of their traps. "Me, Kaida, and Tommy, that is."
"That's because you three fly mercy missions," his mother murmured under her breath, her eyes looking troubled. "You're lucky Kaida supports your combined weight. She's only two, you know. Just like Clementine. They both should be nesting."
"Just because Azrail is a thousand years old doesn't mean shit," Tommy said, and his mother flinched slightly, her hands white from where they were gripping the knife. Tommy paused from where he was chopping the lettuce, turning towards her. "Mother? Are you alright? You look a bit pale."
"It's just one of those days," his mother said with a slight frown. "Old memories, you know?"
Tommy exchanged a glance with Drista, who grimaced at him and shrugged. "I'm sorry," he said. "Do you need to lie down? Drista and I can take over dinner..."
His mother waved him off, gripping the counter harder than was probably necessary. "No, no. It's fine. I just wish some things hadn't turned out the way they had, you know?"
Tommy frowned. They'd been moving from town to town as long as he'd been alive, at least up until the twin birth of Clem and Kaida, but he'd looked and looked and found no wanted poster of his mother. He'd been thirteen and on one of his training missions with Drista under his mother's direction, raiding a caravan of robbers, when they'd found Clem and Kaida's eggs and been simultaneously bonded; connected forever with two dragons. A huge rarity. One that should've been celebrated—Tommy could count all the riders of the Antarctic Empire on both his hands and still have fingers left over.
Theoretically, they also should've reported to the empire. For whatever reason, his mother had determined that the rulers were untrustworthy and dangerous. Then both of them were strictly banned from the Essempee, which made a bit more sense, knowing a bit of his mother's past and Drista's relations. On pain of grounding, or maybe death. Tommy wasn't exactly sure.
"I wish my brother wasn't such a murderous asshole," Drista announced. She cocked her head as both Tommy and his mother looked at her. "I also wish I had one of those—"
"—cranberry bagels from that one bagel stand in the flower square in the Antarctic Empire's capital," Tommy and his mother finished.
Drista smirked. "You know it."
"You know," his mother said thoughtfully as she finished cutting up the rabbit and put it into the bubbling pot, putting some seasoning and other ingredients after. "If you eat enough of those, you're going to turn into a bagel."
Drista scowled. "That's not how that works."
His mother cut a smile at Tommy. "Well, since I'm a thousand years old, clearly I know how the world works, right?"
Drista rolled her eyes. "You're not a thousand," she drawled. "No matter what Tommy says.
His mother raised a dark eyebrow. "Oh, really?"
"We have this conversation weekly," Drista complained. "You and Azrail can't be more than fifty, and certainly not a thousand, 'cause then you'd have been alive during the Second Arctic War."
His mother's eyes glittered. "Oh, I suppose that's true," she sighed. "If I was a thousand I'd be older than the princes of the Antarctic Empire."
"Now that's really old," Tommy said.
His mother laughed and shook her head. "Prince Technoblade is only two hundred and six," she said. "And Prince Wilbur is a hundred and fifty-seven."
"Only?" Tommy shot back. "I'm fifteen. And Drista is fourteen."
"And a half," the younger girl piped up proudly.
"You know," his mother said, ceasing to stir the pot for a few seconds. "Most riders bond when they're in their twenties. They stop aging when they bond."
Tommy gaped at her. "Two years!" he shrieked. "Two years, and you didn't mention I was going to look thirteen forever?!"
"No..." Drista said thoughtfully. "I'd say you look ten."
He flipped her off. "I'm not getting you those bagels."
"No, I'm sorry, please, you look eighty—"
"EIGHTY?"
"Well—"
"Children," his mother said, and Tommy and Drista shut up. "You've grown a few inches since you were bonded, Tommy." Tommy stuck his tongue out at Drista. "You as well, Drista. There are no records of children bonding with dragons, but you two seem to be growing, so maybe there's an age minimum."
"Thank God," Tommy groaned. "I want to drink alcohol."
"Not for fifty years," his mother said instantly.
"What?" he yelped. "But the age is eighteen—"
"And you're a dragon rider," she said sternly. "I will not have you drink and fly. You and Drista's situation is already crazy enough."
"Why don't we just go talk to the emperor?" Tommy asked.
"NO!" his mother snapped, and Tommy and Drista flinched as she took in a deep breath and let it out. "Just—no, okay? It's not safe."
Not that you'll tell us why, Tommy thought bitterly.
"Let's just have some dinner, shall we?" his mother implored with a thin smile.
Drista and Tommy looked at each other and then nodded.
"Tommy," his mother said, finally. Tommy looked up from where he'd been slurping down the rabbit stew. Drista flicked a bit of carrot at him and snickered. "Are you and Clementine prepared for a mission tomorrow?"
"Aww," Drista said, slumping in her seat.
"You're on rescue standby," his mother said, and Drista perked up.
"What?" Tommy yelped. "I don't need backup!"
His mother gave him a look. "I would strongly recommend going in with Clementine shifted, so if you need a fast getaway..."
Drista blinked. "What, no caravans?" she teased.
Mother shook her head. "No, this one requires a bit more stealth expertise, which is why Tommy will be the main front."
"I'm stealthy!" Drista said.
"For bagels, maybe," Tommy muttered. Drista threw him a scathing look.
"Clementine has her shifting abilities," his mother said kindly. "She can go on Tommy's back. If I sent you, you wouldn't have an immediate backup. Does that make sense?"
"Alright," Drista grumbled. She narrowed her eyes at Tommy. "But only if you get bagels from that one bagel stand in the flower square in the Antarctic Empire's capital."
He saluted her cheekily. "Aye, aye, captain."
His mother sighed. "You and your bagels, Drista," she said fondly. "But, uh, Tommy, this mission will take place tomorrow night. In the Antarctic Empire."
"What?" Tommy asked in disbelief.
"WHAT?" Drista shrieked.
"Do we need like top secret information in order to infiltrate behind enemy lines?" Tommy asked eagerly.
His mother shook her head. "This one's a bit more selfish, I'm afraid," she admitted. "Your dragons are approaching their third year, which means that they're going to have another growth spurt. There's a book that details that."
"You don't remember?" Tommy frowned.
His mother winced. "It was a long time ago," she said. "I don't want to stunt your dragons by messing things up."
Tommy nodded. "So you are getting old."
His mother rolled her eyes. "Oh, stop that."
"Where's the book?" Drista asked eagerly.
His mother hesitated. "In Prince Wilbur's towers' room."
Tommy and Drista gaped at her.
"I want extra bagels," Drista declared.