Chapter Text
Zyreph and Ryxakkan met a long time ago when Ryxakkan stumbled upon the ruins Zyreph had just set up in. After several days of struggle, they both decided they'd rest up and fight over the territory again when they were ready.
After a few weeks, they met again, however Ryxakkan claimed to not be ready to fight, and requested to see Zyrephs lair technique. The blue dragon, though caught off guard, staunchly refused, and the day passed with the Ryxakkan chattering away, trying to get Zyreph to slip up and agree.
Soon this became a routine, Zyreph sought out Ryxakkan, the brass dragon would claim to not be ready to fight yet, and then they would spend the day together before flying off to hunt or gather treasure.
Soon though, Zyreph became tired of this game.
"If I show you my lair, will you finally fight me?"
When the brass dragon had no response, he left in a crackle of lightning and a huff of annoyance.
Ryxakkan didn't run into Zyreph for several months.
Ryxakkan finally, after too many days spent wallowing in boredom in his rather bare lair, sought out the blue dragon.
"If we fight, I don't want you to leave if I win. I just want to see your lair.",
The blue dragon, taken aback, then says
"Then it no longer is fair. Because I still want to win so that you leave."
"Who cares if it's fair, if I win, I get to see your lair and we both stick around, if you win I leave."
"I care if it's fair."
"Well I don't."
Blue eyes bore into the dragon, before finally, with a thunderous crack, the blue dragon launched at the brass dragon.
Once again, the two were locked in combat. Zyreph fought with the frustration that had culminated from several years of the brass dragon toying with him. And the Brass dragon fought with ferocity that any creature fueled by curiosity would when presented with the glimmer of knowledge they'd been chasing.
And so they fought.
Zyreph soon realized he would have to kill the other to win. No matter how many times he struck him down, the brass dragon got up again. Even as his steps wobbled, and his wings drooped, the brass dragon stood defiant.
Himself exhausted, Zyreph realized this fight could only go 2 ways. The brass dragon was either too proud or too stupid to give up, so he knew that if he didn't want to surrender, he'd have to end this fight in the traditional sense.
Ryxakkan had stopped thinking critically 6 lightning strikes ago. His vision swam with exhaustion and blood, and all he could think about was making the blue blob in front of him surrender.
He needed to see that lair. It had started out as a joke, a way to get under the blue dragons scales.
But then the blue dragon told him no, time and time again. Ryxakkan was obsessed. He needed to see that lair.
"I surrender."
Ryxakkan stopped mid lunge, barely able to stay standing at the sudden change in motion.
"Did you hear me, you metallic brute?"
Ryxakkan could barely utter the words of acceptance before he found the sand rushing up to greet him.
Zyreph sighed in relief. The brass dragon collapsed after mumbling the words of acceptance, even as his limbs finally gave out. To anyone watching, he was the obvious winner. But only he and the Brass dragon knew the terms, and only he knew that his surrender had been accepted.
He heaved the brass dragon onto his back, and began the long trek to the brass dragons lair. He wasn't going back on his deal, but he hoped waking up in a familiar place would help the brass dragon recover.
It had already been three days. He's concerned about his lair, but he doesn't want the bronze dragon thinking he'd abandoned ship.
He then remembered his father's claw rings, the same ones that he'd cleaned several times now, waiting for the dragon to wake up. He carefully placed the rings on the brass dragons claws, and left to check on his lair.
Ryxakkan awoke to screaming pain in his muscles, he could tell he was in his lair, though the last thing he remembered clearly was being struck by lightning again and again and again.
He tried to get up, but paused at the extra clinks of metal on the stone.
He was wearing the blue dragons claw rings.
Why was he wearing the blue dragons claw rings?
His ears still rung with the sound of thunder, and his head still hurt from the repeated electrocution.
He sighed as he lowered himself back down.
"Oh good, you're finally awake"
Ryxakkan startled and tried to move away, but hissed in pain as his muscles protested the sudden movement.
"That's what happens when you're so stubborn you refuse to even properly pass out." The blue dragon condescended.
Ryxakkan tried to speak, but the pain that he felt through his entire body cause the words to die in his throat as he stared at the intruder with wary eyes.
"Now that you are awake, I was hoping you'd be well enough to follow through on your request."
Ryxakkan tried and failed to hide his excitement. The blue dragon scoffed at him.
"You're not moving anytime soon. I brought food, brass for brains."
The blue dragon dropped some antelope from the nearby plains, already scorched from lightning.
Ryxakkan tried again to talk, but could only grate out some disjointed syllables.
"You nearly killed yourself trying to see my lair. I'm at least going to make sure you recover enough to do that."
The blue dragon sounded almost... concerned? Worried? Ryxakkan was still too addled to really comprehend what was happening.
"Eat, metalhide." The blue dragon demanded, so he complied, and after eating, he found himself being dragged back into unconsciousness.
After several days of being in and out of sleep, Ryxakkan finally awoke with enough faculties to move and speak.
"What are you doing?" He asked the blue dragon when he woke up and the dragon was still there, watching over him.
"Making sure you don't die before you get your request." The blue dragon responded simply.
"But... you wanted me to leave... why did you surrender?"
"I wanted the territory, not your blood on my claws and sand."
"Why don't we just share?" Ryxakkan offers.
"We can't share territory." The blue dragon asserts.
"Why?"
"Because... we just can't." The blue dragon doubles down.
"But why? Cause our parents couldn't or wouldn't?" Ryxakkan counters.
"I don't even know you."
"Well, that's an easy fix. I'm Ryxakkan, my heritage doesn't matter, and I'm apparently brass for brains." He says trying to make jokes.
The blue dragon is silent for a long time. Ryxakkan is about to break the silence when he finally speaks up.
"Zyreph Thriinvrak, Eldest son of Thriin Angkerinvrak. I'm apparently the only one with a working brain here." He says flatly back.
Ryxakkan would have taken this as an insult before he'd gotten to know the blue- Zyreph. But now he just grins to himself as he starts to get up.
"That wasn't so bad, now was it you blue grump?" He says teasingly.
"It was."
"Well, I'm ready to see your lair now."
"It's not ready for visitors."
"Then what have you been doing this whole week?" Ryxakkan prodded.
When the blue dragon doesn't respond, Ryxakkan fixes him with a stare.
"It's just not ready yet. Give me a week."
"Alright... but if I get too bored I'm coming over immediately."
"I don't accept these terms."
"You don't have to, they aren't terms."
"That isn't... fine. I'll make sure to keep you entertained." He sighs. "I'll be back in a day or so."
It had been three days when Ryxakkan had just decided that he was going to leave when a familiar blue mass ticked off the alarm wells.
"I hope you're not intending on flying yet."
"I hope you're here to entertain me then."
"Do you have no survival skills?"
"If I'm too bored I'll die." Ryxakkan says flatly.
Zyreph pauses... he doesn't know enough about brass dragons to know if it's true.
"Well, I'm here now, to cure your boredom." He responds in kind.
"PERFECT. Well I was thinking about how our types like the same areas for lairs..." Soon Zyreph found himself somewhat engaged in the conversation, but found his attention wandering to the, frankly bare lair. Even the youngest of dragons had more of a hoard than this one.
"Where is your hoard." He suddenly interrupts.
"What do you mean?" Ryxakkan looks annoyed at the interruption.
"Your hoard? Where is it."
"It's in here." Ryxakkan says perplexed.
"This is practically an empty chamber, Ryxakkan."
"Well... I've got a couple of bits and bobs. And.... you're here..." Ryxakkan trails off and if Zyreph hadn't seen his mouth move, he might not have trusted that he heard the last part.
"I feel like I should be insulted." Zyreph says almost angrily.
Ryxakkan nearly stumbles over himself as he begins trying to explain.
"No! It's just that you're interesting to talk to, and you haven't really asked for anything other than to fight and..." Zyreph regrets wondering how fast Ryxakkan could speak. The frustration at being considered a part of a hoard was still simmering under the surface as Ryxakkan continues to fret.
But no one had ever called him interesting before.
Most of the time, he kept to himself. Even his parents had noted how flat he usually spoke. He had a dry sense of humor, and the few wyrmlings he'd interacted with had called him cold.
"You think I'm interesting?" Zyreph asks, as the anger subsides.
"Of course! You've got all these secrets that shouldn't even be secrets. It's just a lair. It's just a hoard!" Ryxakkan exclaims.
"What happens when I don't have any more secrets?"
"Well then I can start learning your non-secrets."
"And when I run out of those?"
"Then you can learn about mine. Or I could actually start collecting things...."
Zyreph just sat there, slack jawed and fully staring at the brass dragon muttering about what kind of things he'd hoard.
"I need to go." Zyreph says as he gets up and hurries out of the seaside cavern.
"For what's it's worth, I'm sorry for offending you." He hears the brass dragon call put to him as he flees.
Ryxakkan knows that Zyreph is upset with him. The few antelopes that Zyreph had brought him had run out, but Ryxakkan couldn't find it in himself to get up and hunt, not when Zyreph was probably patrolling the skies.
Ryxakkan ignored the alarm from the well as he laid curled up in his cave. This part of the cave was only ever dimly lit so he didn't know how many days had passed.
"Brass for brains." Zyreph called out as he passed one of the wells that Ryxakkan had dug.
"If you've come here to kill me for offending you I'm not going to stop you." The metallic heap on the ground hadn't moved from when he left 4 days ago.
"I... Ryxakkan I'm not going to kill you."
He's met with deafening silence from the normally chatterbox dragon.
"Ryxakkan." He says.
"Ryxakkan."
"Ryxakkan."
"Ryx-" The metal heap surged upwards.
"What do you gain from being here? I just need some time to wallow I'm self pity and then I'll be out of-" Ryxakkan stopped as the stomp if his front arm reminded him of the claw rings on it.
"Right your claw rings." He grumbled and sat up to take them off.
"Bring them with you to my lair." Zyreph said softly, not wanting to set off the brass dragons temper.
Ryxakkan just stopped and stared at Zyreph. After a moment the blue dragon turned and led him out of the seaside cave.
Turns out, Zyreph had already claimed a good portion of the ruins as his own, and the glassed walls that led down into the main chamber refracted so many colors that Ryxakkan found himself awestruck.
"I needed to clean some things up before you got here." Zyreph says as he lead him through the chambers.
The construction of the sky lights and the mirror-finish glass illuminated everything with the midday sun. The warmth in the loose sand below him was starting to loosen him up a little.
"And here is where I started digging your half." Zyreph says as they both come to a stop at a rockier section of the lair.
"My... half?"
"You're the one who asked to share." Zyreph says, pointedly not looking at him.
"You said no."
"You brought up a valid counter-argument."
"You stormed off."
"As a blue dragon, I usually storm off."
"Why would you agree?"
"Why wouldn't I have killed when I had the chance?"
"Just cause I said you could doesn't mean-" Ryxakkan said, petulant, but was cut off.
"I'm not talking about today. I'm talking about when we fought."
"I don't even remember the last bit."
"Probably because you were practically dead on your feet. If I had continued. You'd be dead."
"So why didn't you? Continue, that is?" Ryxakkan asks.
"I enjoy your company, and the world would be at a loss without you around." Zyreph says, in the most sincere voice Ryxakkan had ever heard from him.
"You like having me around?"
"Yes. Now I'm going to go get your abysmally small hoard while you set up those wells of yours. I've marked the rooms you should put them in already." Zyreph says as he walks off.
"My... small hoard..." It takes an embarrassing amount of time for Ryxakkan to shake himself out of the stupor he found himself in as Zyreph glided out of the room.
As Ryxakkan got to work on the wells, Zyreph touched down in the seaside cave. And they both thought to themselves,
"It's time to fix up our lair"