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“Jisung! No! Give that back!”
The blue dragon ran across the floor as fast as he could, sliding and running in place here and there when his claws lost traction on the wood floor, Chan chasing him and unable to catch him. A shiny silver trinket was locked between the jaws of the dragon, the chain dragging on the floor and threatening to tangle up in his claws and trip him, thus foiling his escape.
But miraculously, it didn’t, and Jisung was able to escape from Chan and into the little hole between the walls, mischievously chittering as he climbed up a piece of canvas that had been strategically hung so he could get up to the hidden space that rested between the ceiling of the shop and the floor of the bedroom above it, out of human reach and making Chan’s scolding threats quieter as he dove into the alcove.
Jisung’s escapade with his stolen shiny was soon forgotten as an all-mighty sneeze was heard rattling through the shop and the heady smell of oak wood starting to burn wafted through the building, sending Chan running off to see what Jeongin had accidentally set fire to this time. The baby dragon still had little control over his fire and the number of extinguishing potions that Chan kept within arms’ reach of, well, literally anywhere in the shop and the apartments above, was enough to garner a raised eyebrow by their friends and any customers that didn’t know better.
“Jeongin! I thought we agreed no rolling around in the fireplace! What did I—”
Jisung tunes out the scolding and focuses where to place his newest shiny. He moves some of his hoarded (“Stolen!” Chan would say with an exasperated look in his eyes) shinies around to make space until there’s room for the silver amulet on a miniature shelf in the corner that he had placed there himself. The amulet takes up most of the shelf, with some beads and a piece of a rare siren’s silver conch shell Jisung had picked up at the beach on one visit surrounding it, but he doesn’t mind, as the shelf is the first thing you see when you first come into the space, right next to the decorative pillow with silver threads running through it where Jisung likes to take secret naps or lay about when he doesn’t want to be around humans (that pillow in particular had been snatched from the window seat of the elderly lady across the street and had involved help from Felix, with him running interference for them and keeping Minho and Chan occupied, since they had had to take an alternate route to get the pillow into the alcove when the usual hole in the wall entrance didn’t work. It had one-hundred-percent worth it, as the humans say.).
The little blue dragon does a bit more rearranging before he decides to journey back down to the shop and see what mischief Jeongin has gotten himself into and if there’s any customers to annoy.
~~~
The scraping sound across the hardwood floor is so distinct that Chan doesn’t even need to turn around to see what it is that Jeongin is attempting to drag to his hoard.
Chan sighs. Dumps a sugar cube into his tea and gives it a quick stir. Places the dirty spoon into the sink. Takes a long drag on the piping hot tea, immune to the heat after so many years of nearly burning his tongue off. And slowly turns around and leans on the counter to see how far Jeongin gets this time.
The baby dragon is dragging one of Chan’s prized cast iron frying pans across the floor for all he’s worth, handle clenched between sharp teeth. It’s more than three times his size, but that hasn’t stopped Jeongin before. The gradually growing pile of cookware in the far corner of the empty bedroom had a particularly large cauldron that Chan had no idea how it had been hoarded (as the dragons say) and he hoped that they wouldn’t have a witch blowing down their doors any time soon over her missing enchanted item.
Chan takes another sip of his tea, debating on how long he should let Jeongin keep this up. The white and gold dragon had been orphaned at such a young age that he hadn’t ever had the chance at learning or acquiring the usual dragon instincts of hoarding shiny things (and how he never learned it from Jisung was an entirely different mystery). It seemed that his hoarding instincts had rather directed themselves in an entirely different direction and that Jeongin had decided to take after another dragon shifter they both knew that liked to hoard cats and jams instead of the usual shinies, such as coins or precious gems.
The spell over the wood floor that Chan had cast finally whines at him, the dragging of the iron over its structure having gone on long enough and he sighs.
“Alright, alright,” he says quietly. “I’ll go get the pan.”
~~~
Jeongin’s sulking in a curled up ball atop one of the heating pads Chan keeps around on the counter, bitter from his earlier attempts at hoarding something away having be thwarted, when Jisung stumbles down the stairs, half-shifted and half-asleep. The older dragon makes a beeline for Chan, somehow able to find the wizard with his eyes shut most of the way, and he glues himself to the human’s back, burying his face in the softness of Chan’s sweater.
Chan doesn’t appear to be startled and there isn’t a hitch in the conversation he’s having with the apprentice mage over the technicalities of some ingredient or another (Jeongin had gotten lost when eye of newt had gotten thrown in and immediately clocked out of the conversation at that point). He simply just continues on like normal, patting Jisung’s arm in warning before they have to move to a different part of the store so that the dragon can follow without any difficulty.
Jeongin’s busy trying to figure out how to turn the heating pad onto the highest setting when the bell over the door rings and Minho steps into the shop, eyes glinting. He tries to act indifferent about the older older dragon’s appearance, pretending he doesn’t see him, but inside he’s dancing about.
“Hello there, little one,” Minho’s voice rumbles from above. A gentle hand rests on his head, scratching the area around Jeongin’s nubby little baby horns that haven’t grown in all the way yet but still gets quite itchy. The resulting stuttered purring sound that erupts from Jeongin’s throat startles him and he jumps in surprise, making Minho laugh.
“I brought you something,” Minho says, retracting his hand. Jeongin’s immediately interested as the other dragon shuffles some things around in the messenger bag hanging at his hip before bringing out a small saucepan and setting it on the counter.
The surface of it is so shiny, Jeongin can see his reflection in it, and it is delightful. Immediately he clicks and chirps excitedly, exploring the saucepan a little further before he grasps the handle in his claws and takes off clumsily, wings that are still a little too big for him flapping furiously as he vanishes up the stairs, saucepan banging against the stairs at odd intervals when he dips a little too low.
He comes racing down the stairs on all fours a few minutes later, Minho waiting patiently, a jar clutched between his teeth. Jeongin sets the jar down at Minho’s feet and looks up at him expectantly, his tail flicking nervously at returning the older dragon’s gift. It’s a custom he’s still getting used to, but Minho was a generous and kind teacher on dragon customs, despite his outwardly cold appearance, and one of their closest friends on top of that. Jeongin’s pretty sure he hasn’t messed up this time and that knowledge abates his nervousness a little bit.
Minho kneels down and picks up the jar, turning it around so he can see the label, eyebrows raising.
“Cloudberry jam? Where did you find this, Innie?”
Jeongin huffs but looks pleased. Dragon to dragon, they can tell when the perfect shiny has been gifted and Jeongin knows with the glint in Minho’s eyes and the slow, deliberate movement of his tail that he’s found the perfect jam for Minho as a return gift.
Minho looks Jeongin over a minute, the baby dragon giving a toothy smile of mystery that says “I will reveal absolutely nothing” and he nods to himself, letting it go.
“Thank you,” Minho says simply, storing the jar away carefully in his bag. The amber-y gold colour of the jam is going to make a delightful addition to the pantry he’s slowly filled up over the years with jams and jellies that suit his fancy…and his hoarding instincts. There’s only so many balls of fluff with tiny toe beans you can accumulate before you become to crazy old cat lady of the street.
Jeongin birps, butting his ahead against Minho’s leg affectionally before he does a strong flap of his wings and hops up onto the counter, curling up on the heating pad again, eyes watchful as Minho waits for Chan to finish up with the mage apprentice so he can talk with him about something or another. Apparently there’s a witch out on a hunt for a very valuable missing item from his magic kit and any shops or stores in the area had been closely investigated for said missing item, Jeongin gathers from the later conversation. No one’s in danger, but everything’s a little on edge. There’s no telling when a witch, especially one missing an item from their magic kit, will suddenly lose it and go on a rampage. Very nasty, witch rampages are.
The last thing Jeongin hears is something about the missing item being a cauldron, but it’s forgotten as he quickly falls asleep, nice and toasty on the heating pad.
~~~
The door to the shop blows open with such a force it bangs against the wall behind it, rattling the shelves hard enough that one unlucky jar dances right off of the shelf and into the air, making its drop to the floor.
Chan reaches out with a spell leaping from his lips and the jar is caught in an invisible hand before it lands on the ground, luckily preventing any shattered glass to clean up.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen,” the stranger apologizes as he steps into the shop. “The wind surprised me.”
It’s true, the wind had been raging and blowing all day, sending swirls of orange and red leaves flying down the streets. A massive autumn storm was coming, the dark black clouds having been building up since early that morning. Being the forgiving person he is, Chan easily says, “It’s not a problem,” and means it. The wind will do what the wind wills and Chan believes it has half a mind of its own most days.
With some difficultly, the shop door is shut, but not without a struggle and the stranger’s hat flying off of his head, revealing a mop of dark, unruly curls.
It’s not until Chan picks the hat up and dusts it off, handing back to the stranger that he realizes it’s a witch’s hat.
“You’re a witch?” He blurts out before he can stop himself, wincing instantly.
The stranger looks alarmed, taking a step back towards the door he had just shut as if to leave. “Oh, if I need to leave I can, I don’t want to be any trouble−“
“No, no, you’re not any trouble at all,” Chan says hurriedly, flashing a smile. “We don’t have many witches in these parts and the news about one in particular hasn’t been…great.”
“Oh.” The witch looks sheepish. “That would be me. I have a wind dragon for a familiar and he’s been going through…growing pains, let’s just say. Believe me when I say I wouldn’t be causing so much trouble looking for my cauldron if it wasn’t for him.”
Chan chuckles, noticing a distinct lack of the wind dragon Changbin mentions, but figures maybe the witch didn’t bring the dragon with him today. “I get it. I have two dragons myself, one of them’s still a hatchling. It gets interesting. I’m Chan, by the way.”
“Changbin,” the witch says, shaking the mage’s hand. “You seem to be the shop that might have the stuff I need for a locator spell?”
“Usually, I do. What do you need?”
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the two in the shop, Jeongin was napping peacefully in the depths of a faintly glowing cauldron right above their very heads.
~~~
“That’s weird.”
The little ball of pulsating light swirls around in a tight circle, moving upwards towards the ceiling before it zipped towards the stairs that lead to Chan’s apartment upstairs and hovers there, waiting for Changbin to move and follow it.
“I swore I did it right,” Changbin mutters. He quickly pulls apart the spell and casts it again, only for the same result to happen again.
“I don’t want to intrude, but…”
“Hey, tracking spells aren’t ever wrong,” Chan says with a laugh. “I’m just as confused as you, but let’s follow it?”
They follow the spell up the stairs and it spins around for a second before it orients itself and makes a dash…right for the open door to Jeongin’s bedroom.
The spell takes a dive for the big black cauldron and there’s a screech before Jeongin shoots out of the cauldron as if his tail is on fire. The baby dragon slams into Chan’s chest and climbs up him like a tree until he’s settled in Chan’s curly blond hair, grumpily chattering.
“That’s Jeongin,” Chan introduces the baby dragon, who puffs smoke at Changbin.
“And that’s my cauldron!” Changbin exclaims.
“Jeongin,” Chan says in a scolding tone. “Where did you get that cauldron?”
All he receives is a puff of smoke in the face and a grunt. Chan knows he’s not going to get an answer out of Jeongin and settles on the bigger problem at hand: getting Changbin’s cauldron back.
“Jeongin, you’re going to have to give that back.”
Jeongin growls lowly in his throat, indicating his displeasure. It’s a very dangerous thing to try and separate a hoard item from a baby dragon, and usually Chan’s fine letting Jeongin hoard what he wants, so long as it’s not someone else’s. But Changbin’s cauldron needs to be returned to him. There’s no way that Jeongin can keep this one.
“Jeongin,” Chan says, warning clear in his voice. “We can get you another cauldron or a different pot, but you have to give this one back. It’s not yours.”
“Here, I got him.”
Jisung whirls into the bedroom and pulls Jeongin off of Chan’s head, making a run for his bedroom before any of them realize it, Jisung shouting for them to “Hurry up! I can’t keep him trapped for long!” before the door slams shut and there’s a loud yowl of displeasure.
Changbin and Chan race over to the cauldron, careful to displace as few of the other pots and pans in the pile as possible, working together to pick it up and haul it back down the stairs. It’s not particularly heavy, more awkward than anything, but as soon as they hit the landing and are back in the shop, Changbin quickly casting a shrinking spell so that the cauldron shrinks to a reasonable enough size he can store it away in his bag.
“Now, I would really like to talk with you further, but I’d advise getting out of here before Jeongin escapes and decides you’re his next meal,” Chan says, eyes twinkling despite his serious face, already flipping the little sign in the window from Open to Closed. If he’s right, the rest of this day is going to be an absolute mess dealing with Jeongin’s anger over a part of his hoard being stolen from him (technically it’s a steal back and Jeongin is definitely breaking a clear rule Chan had set out). “Though come back in maybe two weeks or so if you’d like? He should be okay by then.”
If Changbin looks surprised at the offer, neither of them comment on it. Instead, the witch just nods and says a quick goodbye, dashing out the door.
And not a second too soon, as Jeongin suddenly comes swooping down the stairs, roaring as loud as he can for a baby dragon as he heads for Chan, a shifted Jisung on his tail, claws outstretched as he tries to tackle the younger one out of mid-air.
Jisung isn’t successful in catching Jeongin before he zips past Chan and attempts to set the door on fire to escape, having not figured out the latch quite yet. Instead, he veers off and lands on a shelf, deciding to let Chan handle this.
“Jeongin!”
The dragon freezes in his fiery fit of anger as Chan’s voice drops into The Tone.
Jeongin drops off of the door and cowers on the floor, hiding underneath his wings. He hears a deep sigh and the rustling of fabric as Chan kneels down, fingers ghosting down his back and tail where his wings can’t quite cover him.
“Jeongin, the cauldron wasn’t yours,” Chan says gently. “We can get you a new one but you have got to learn you can’t just go and steal other people’s things like that. It’s not right…or polite. You’re lucky the witch was nice or things could have been a lot worse.”
Jeongin rumbles. He knows that Chan is right but he just can’t help it sometimes. The cauldron had just been out in the open anyways, sitting the pile of scrap metal that was too tainted for use next to the blacksmith’s shop. He hadn’t known it was someone else’s and with his instincts latching onto it, well…
He explains this to Chan in a short series of growls and clicks, the older nodding in understanding, even if it is muffled a tad by his wings.
“Okay, I understand,” Chan says gently. “Let’s not have a repeat of this incident if we can help it, okay?”
Jeongin finally emerges from his wings and nods, nibbling Chan’s fingers a bit from where they’re resting on the floor, before running up his arm and settling in Chan’s curls.
“Right, then.” Chan looks at the scorched door. “I think we’re safe to open shop again.”
Jisung lets out a cackle before flying off deeper into the shop.
~~~
A few weeks later, Chan closes the shop early and takes Jisung and Jeongin out to the market, specifically to a cauldron shop to replace Changbin’s for Jeongin’s hoard.
The witch manning the shop’s counter looks at him strangely as Jisung and Jeongin roam the cauldron shop in their dragon forms, the two popping in and out of kettles at random, almost like a game of whack-a-mole.
“You looking for a new cauldron, sir?” The witch inquires curiously, jumping a little when Jisung suddenly crows at Jeongin, the other chittering back just as loudly.
“My youngest dragon hoarded another witch’s cauldron by accident and we’re trying to replace it,” Chan replies easily. “So yes, but not for myself.”
“I see.” The witch looks like she’s trying to not laugh, turning away from the counter to organize a display of miniature trinket cauldrons.
Chan follows his two gremlins through the entire shop, stops at least one fight from happening between the two, and catches Jeongin when he falls out of a cauldron that was hung up particularly high up, having tripped over the edge of it as he climbed out of it, leaving Jisung rolling around on the floor in hysterics until Jeongin torches the end of his blue tail in retaliation, sufficiently miffed at his own lack of grace.
Chan pays no mind to the little bell ringing above the door when another customer comes in, not until he turns down another aisle of cauldrons and finds himself face to face with Changbin.
“Oh, hello! Jeongin, behave.” Chan tightens his grip on the baby dragon, feeling him swell up with the intention of huffing a cloud of smoke in Changbin’s face, the witch taking a step back.
Jeongin growls, wiggling out of Chan’s arms and over his shoulder, taking off to go find Jisung instead of hanging around.
“Still not over the cauldron, I see,” Changbin says wryly.
“He’s just being a brat,” Chan says, affection tinging his voice faintly. “Still love him though.”
“I know the feeling,” Changbin deadpans.
“So what brings you to the cauldron shop?”
Changbin winces. “I, uh, might have caused an explosion working on a tracking potion, and my cauldron cracked, so now I have to get a new one before I leave town to go hunt for my dragon. He’s run away again and I need the potion to find him.”
“Sounds tough. You need any help?”
“I couldn’t−“
“Nonsense, we’d be happy to help if you needed it.”
Changbin visibly deflates. “Yeah, actually, I would like help. I think he’s headed north towards the Ice Cliffs but I wasn’t sure, hence the tracking spell. But company would not be unwanted.”
Chan and Changbin discuss details for a few more minutes, deciding to leave in two days so Changbin can make the tracking potion, pausing only when there’s a scraping noise and they turn around to see Jeongin trying to drag the cauldron he’d chosen across the floor. Chan rushes over and grabs it off the floor before any damage can be done to the shop floor, hauling it to the front counter, Changbin bidding his goodbyes so he can get his cauldron and start preparing for the journey.
“We’re going to go on a trip,” Chan informs Jisung and Jeongin as they leave the cauldron shop. “So we’re going to go home and get prepared, alright?”
He gets twin caws of agreement from where both dragons are perched on his shoulders.
“Okay, let’s go!”