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It was three months after Gilbert was adopted by the Nightray family that he got lost in time. Three months, and he’d barely gotten close to the Raven, the dragon-bone weapon that gave you control over flame, and he’d gotten only further from rescuing his master from the Abyss, the ancient grave of the dragons, when light flared up around him in a strange, unreadable language, and when it had faded, he was standing in a strange, rocky desert, all along except for rocks and bloodstains and the sun, burning down high overhead. He stared around himself in shock—it was hot, far hotter than he was used to, and he felt himself beginning to sweat in his smart black coat and trousers, but he was a good servant (even though he wasn’t really a servant anymore but the adopted son of a family who had slayed one of the Great Dragons, back in the day) and it wouldn’t have been proper to get undressed even a little in this unfamiliar environment, and so instead he took a cautious step forward, noting the magic circle he was standing on, and called out hopefully, “Young Master Oz?”
His voice bounced back at him, lonely and thin, but as he looked at the sky, past the glaring sun, the stars were out and unfamiliar, floating soft balls of light that changed their positions with every breath, and wherever Gilbert was, it was not the same world he’d just been yanked from.
Maybe it was the Abyss. Hopefully it was the Abyss—hopefully Oz would be somewhere nearby. Maybe whatever had brought him here had been a good thing—maybe he could save his master—
“Aw, hey there, Gil!” said a voice, familiar and older and just a little bit unsettling. Gilbert whipped around to see a man who looked like an older Oz, his golden hair in a braid down to his feet, dressed in a green coat with gold trim, his face creased in a familiar, and friendly, smile. Gilbert’s eyes widened.
“Young—Master Oz?!” he said, half in hope, half in shock.
“Sorry, no,” said the man. “I’m Jack Vessalius. —Do you remember me, Gilbert?”
Uneasily, Gilbert shook his head. “I’m looking for—for my master,” he said. “Oz Vessalius. Do you know where he is?”
“Sorry,” said Jack. “No clue. I’ve been trapped here for—oh, ages. The Baskervilles sealed me here in the Abyss as revenge for defeating their—well, most of their dragons and their leader, Glen Baskerville, who was trying to end the world. I don’t exactly know what’s going on in—well, in your time.”
“The young master was thrown in the Abyss, too, about three months ago,” said Gilbert. “I joined the Nightray house to try and get the Raven, so I could save him. Does—does time pass differently, here?”
“It can,” said Jack. “It looks to me like you might have been plucked straight out of the past, though. You see that circle you came out of?”
Gilbert looked where Jack was pointing, and nodded.
“That’s a magic circle that switches someone with a past version of themself. If I were to hazard a guess, an older version of you came here looking for your dear master and accidentally stepped in it, and then got switched with cute little you. I don’t know, though. This is the sort of spell that takes a bit of time to complete.”
“How long?” said Gilbert.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know,” Jack said. “I just got here. But if you want, I could help you look around here for Oz.”
There was something about the man that raised Gilbert’s hackles, just a little bit, but he looked so much like Oz, and he seemed really nice, and anyway, everyone knew the Baskervilles were evil and Jack Vessalius was a hero for defeating them.
“Oh, thank you so much!” he said.
“Of course,” Jack replied. “Just be careful. ‘Here there be dragons’ and all, you know?”
Gilbert nodded, and followed Jack through the rocky plain until, all of a sudden, they were standing in the midst of some craggy, rocky mountains, and then a second later, Jack was gone as though he were never there in the first place.
“...Jack?” Gilbert called, turning slowly around. “Young Master Oz? Young Master Oz, are you here?”
Something stirred in one of the dark shadows to Gilbert’s side; half-frightened and half-hopeful, he called out again, “Young Master Oz? Jack? …Anyone?”
This time there was no response at all, but Gilbert still cautiously approached the shadow. Upon closer inspection, he could see that it wasn’t a shadow in the rock at all, but rather the entrance to a cave, just large enough that he could fit inside to the massive, dark, deep cavern within—and something moved inside of it.
Jack’s voice echoed in his head, saying, Here there be dragons, but Oz might be here too, and so Gilbert swallowed, gathered together all of his courage, and stepped tremblingly into the cave.
The moment he crossed the threshold, green light crisscrossed the entrance, unfamiliar letters resolving themselves into unfamiliar words braiding themselves into unbreakable bars. Gilbert tried to throw himself back through the mouth of the cave, but pain shot through him, throwing him backwards into inky black darkness, and he screamed, certain he was dying, certain this was it and he’d never find and save his master—
And then a dark, long shape shot out of the darkness, and Gilbert felt rather than saw long black talons grab him, and though he was still plummeting down, he was no longer free-falling, enclosed within massive black claws. This horrible ride lasted only a few seconds before he was deposited gently on the cave floor, and then, with a soft growl, flames lit up the walls of the cave, and Gilbert found himself face to face with a massive black dragon, a tight bridle cutting into its face, staring at him with eyes the color of burning blood.
Gilbert screamed, scrambling backwards towards the heat of the flames, and quick as a whip the dragon blocked his exit, keeping him from moving further away. Gilbert scrambled backwards again, and after a few minutes of the same dance he collapsed, sobbing, to the ground. He was an idiot—an idiot—he had stumbled directly into a dragon’s lair, and now he would pay for it with his life.
The dragon moved closer, its underbelly exposed, half-slithering, half crawling, and then bit the back of Gilbert’s shirt, lifting him up off the ground and then flapping away to a strange-looking, massive nest made of shedded dragon skin and some dead plants, and plopped him right down in the middle before winding itself around him, just tightly enough that Gilbert couldn’t get out, and rested its warm, scaly chin on top of Gilbert’s head. The dragon remained like that, perfectly still, and Gilbert trembled, wondering how long it would take the dragon to kill and eat him, how long it would take him to die, whether or not this was the dragon cooking him and did dragons eat cooked meat, anyway?
“Young Master Oz,” Gilbert moaned as he wept. “Young Master Oz…”
But no Oz appeared to slay the dragon and save him; all that happened was that the dragon curled a little tighter around him, releasing a pleased puff of smoke, and nuzzled its snout into Gilbert’s hair.
The dragon didn’t move from this for long enough that Gilbert fell asleep; when he woke, warm and cozy, he found the dragon sleeping as well, its bridled head nestled on his chest and one of its wings over his legs like some strange sort of blanket. Gilbert stayed still as stone, doing his best to stop trembling in the hopes that that might encourage the dragon to let him go.
But the dragon stayed asleep for hours longer, as the shadows shifted in the cave and Gilbert trembled and grew hungry and grew a desperate need for the toilet, and so, keeping a careful eye on the monster keeping him pinned, he started shifting out from under the head and the wing until he’d gotten himself free, and then, in the dim light of the dragonfire on the walls, he started looking for a corner or something to relieve himself in. It didn’t take long to find one a little bit away from the strange nest the dragon had taken him to, and Gilbert felt a rush of furious satisfaction at soiling a part of the monster’s lair. This business thus taken care of, he started poking around in search of food, hoping that maybe the dragon had kept some human food for whatever reason, so that he at least wouldn’t be hungry when he tried to escape. He’d have to climb the burning walls of the cave, after all, and he’d need his strength for that.
But there was no food to be found—not even dragon food—and so Gilbert resigned himself to having to make his escape attempt starving. He made a careful and quiet circle of the cave floor, and found that the flames were highest over a proper entrance, a huge gaping maw twice the size of the dragon that looked out over the Abyss. It was completely unchanged from when Gilbert had been out there, meeting Jack Vessalius and getting help finding Oz, and Gilbert considered making a break through the dragon-fire to try and get out. As he prepared to make a run for it, though, the flames suddenly vanished, and the dragon hissed loudly behind him. Gilbert turned, and, through the sudden darkness, saw the dragon’s form lash back and forth as if in great pain, and then, as the thrashing stopped and the dragon lay limp and still on the cave floor, Jack Vessalius walked inside, holding a bright torch and smiling mildly.
“Help me!” Gilbert screamed, rushing towards him. “Help me—please—it’s a monster—”
Behind him, the dragon suddenly went extremely still and small against the floor. Gilbert felt a rush of dark satisfaction at this, though he wasn’t sure why this had hurt the dragon, and was even gladder when Jack took him by the shoulders and smiled at him, pleased.
“Aw, Gil,” he said. “Don’t worry. You’re exactly where it’s most useful for you to be?”
“What…what do you mean?” Gilbert said, his voice shaking and his throat closing up. “That’s—that’s a monster, it’s a dragon, it’s evil—”
“That it is,” said Jack. “Excuse me.”
He threw Gilbert to the floor and stepped over him to where the dragon was curled into a tight little ball. Gilbert watched in numb shock slowly bleeding into horror as Jack raised one hand and the bridle on the dragon began to glow. The dragon released a shrill cry of pain as it rose, trembling and submissive, and Jack easily climbed onto its back and took the reins in his hands. There was a gust of wind—something large shot past Gilbert—and then he was left all alone in the dark cave, no more dragon, no more Jack Vessalius.
He pushed himself up, shocked and shaking like a leaf, and curled against the nearest wall, mind racing. It had been Jack who had brought him to this cave and then vanished; Jack was controlling the dragon; when Gilbert had pled for help, Jack had thrown him to the floor and mocked him. Jack—was evil, then? Jack Vessalius, Oz’s ancestor hailed as a hero?
…Had he done something to Oz? Dragons ate people, that Gilbert knew. He had probably been brought here as food for the dragon, and it had only been through sheer luck that he hadn’t been eaten yet. Had Oz suffered the same fate, but hadn’t been as lucky as Gilbert and gotten devoured? Was—was Gilbert’s master well and truly dead?
Gilbert pressed his face against his knees and sobbed until he had no tears left in him. He was desperately thirsty, now, and his head pounded, but he didn’t move from his position against the wall near the entrance to the cave. If Oz was dead, he had no reason to live. He had no purpose. Death could claim him—a monster would eat him—and he wouldn’t care at all. If he was lucky, he would get to see his master again; if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because nothing mattered, because Oz was dead and Gil was dragon food.
It was hours later that the dragon returned, this time sans Jack, with a mattress and a large sack and a cow clutched in its talons. It was half-soaked in blood, and its eyes burned in the darkness until it lit up the walls—excluding the one Gilbert was curled against—once more. It stared at Gilbert for a few moments before gently depositing the mattress and the sack next to him and then landing over near its awful nest and then ripping into the poor cow, devouring it in two bites and licking the blood away. Gilbert stared, wondering why the thing hadn’t eaten him, why it had brought him a—a soft (though somewhat ripped and bloodstained) mattress to sleep on and a strange, bulging sack and lain them at his feet like some sort of offering.
Carefully, carefully, Gilbert edged forward and cautiously opened the sack, finding inside a few blankets, a few bottles of water, a whole entire roast ham that had definitely been stolen off of someone’s table.
“—What is this?” Gilbert said, looking over at Jack Vessalius’s dragon, which was currently experimenting with using the bones of the cow it had eaten as firewood. This was hindered rather extremely by its lack of opposable thumbs and the location of its limbs, and it gave up on this endeavor when Gilbert spoke and slowly approached, wings dragging on the floor, clearly doing its level best to appear as unfrightening as possible, though, as it was a dragon that was about the size of a wagon when curled up, this did not do much.
The dragon stopped a few feet away from Gilbert and slowly nosed the bag a little closer to him. Gilbert stared, but when it became clear the dragon wasn’t coming any closer and didn’t seem as aggressive as yesterday, he spoke again.
“This is—for me?”
The dragon looked up, and then nodded its head, up and down, the gesture strange and alien on such a big lizard.
“...Why?”
The dragon blinked at him. Gilbert had always been strangely good at reading the body language of reptiles, and it wasn’t hard to tell that the dragon had no idea what he meant by this, that it seemed to think the answer was exceedingly and immediately obvious. After a moment, it nudged the bag over to Gilbert again, snout scraping against the ground in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable with that bridle on, but Gilbert told himself that he didn’t care at all if the dragon was in pain. It was a monster. It deserved to be in pain.
“Aren’t you going to eat me?” Gilbert said crossly. “You’re a monster. It’s what you do. ”
The dragon looked at him for a moment, its entire body pressing itself to the ground as though it was trying and failing to make itself smaller, and it nudged the bag another time, sending a few somewhat ripped and burnt sheafs of paper tumbling out. Gilbert eyed the dragon suspiciously, but, after it didn’t move and kept its eyes low, snatched them and held them close to his face, squinting to read in the dim firelight.
The papers, sparse as they were, informed him that Lord Gilbert Nightray and the two teenagers he was guardian to, Lord Oz Vessalius and Princess Alice Baskerville, had been sent out on the orders of Sir Xerxes Break to find and secure Princess Alice’s missing twin sister, and that the mission had gone south, and that Lord Oz Vessalius and Princess Alice Baskerville’s locations had been confirmed, but Lord Gilbert Nightray was still missing. The date on the papers was one about ten years ahead of the date Gilbert had thought it was, before he’d gotten here, but Jack had said something about him being switched with his future self—
“When is this?” he asked the dragon, pointing to the date. “Is it—today?”
The dragon nodded its head.
“Why did you give me this?”
There was a moment, and then the very tiny tip of the dragon’s long, spiked tail moved and pointed to the words Lord Gilbert Nightray.
“...You know who I am, then?”
The dragon nodded, the motions quick and sharp and sure. This did not soothe Gilbert, but—but the papers said that Oz was okay, and that Oz was somewhere Gilbert might find him, and if he could stay alive—if he could escape from here—maybe he could find him properly. It was weird that Oz had taken up with a Baskerville princess, but there were stranger bedfellows, and anyway Jack Vessalius, the so-called hero who had defeated the Baskervilles in the first place, was kind of a horrible person anyway.
“And…you’re not going to eat me?”
The dragon shook its head.
“Do you want to hurt me?”
It shook its head again; Gilbert, who did not think that dragons had the mental capacity to lie, relaxed considerably.
“What about your master? Jack Vessalius?” he said, and the dragon growled low in its throat. Gilbert squeaked and shrunk back, and the dragon immediately bit off the growl and cowered a little bit more. Gilbert swallowed, and then whispered, “Are you scared of me?”
The dragon shook its head, and pointed its tail again at the words Lord Oz Vessalius, Princess Alice Baskerville, and their guardian, Lord Gilbert Nightray.
“Are you scared of your master?” Gilbert asked.
The dragon—nodded. A dragon—scared of a human—but Gilbert supposed that that bridle did seem to hurt it, even if it had allowed Jack to ride it earlier. Even Gilbert, who lived a century after the extinction of the dragons, knew that dragons picked their riders with extreme prejudice, and it took a good deal of trust to be able to ride safely—if the dragon feared Jack, how had that trust been earned?
“I didn’t think monsters could get scared too,” said Gilbert, and the dragon’s head drooped a little. Use everything you can, Xerxes Break's voice echoed in his head, and he looked at the sad creature in front of him and slowly, fighting against every single one of his instincts, reached out one hand and carefully petted the side of the dragon’s snout. “I…um, I can protect you,” he said, “if—if you’ll do something for me.”
The dragon nuzzled into Gilbert’s hand, but it shook its head. Gilbert felt something in him sink, mingling with his disgust at petting a dragon, but he did his best to hide it. He could still use it, maybe. It was an animal—it was a very simple creature. He couldn’t tame it using food, both because he was food and because he didn’t have access to anything Jack didn’t send him through the dragon, but—but maybe if he pet it, and got it to like him, he might be able to gain enough trust to ride it and get properly away.
“Please,” said Gilbert, his voice breaking a little. “Please, I just want to go home.”
This was a lie—he wanted to find Oz—but if those papers were to be believed, Oz was safe outside of the Abyss already, and he could find him if he could get out, too—and if he got control of the dragon, he’d be able to get out and get back to him. And—and anyway, Oz was his precious, beloved master. Wherever Oz was was Gilbert’s home, really.
The dragon looked at Gilbert for a moment, and then it stepped backwards and launched itself into the air. Gilbert watched as it flew slowly towards the large mouth of the cave until the same green sigils that had stopped Gilbert earlier formed and threw the dragon backwards. It crashed into the back of the cave, tumbled down the wall, and lay still in a heap, one of its wings jutting out at an odd angle.
Gilbert swallowed. “Oh,” he whispered, icy fear trickling down his veins. He stared at the unmoving dragon for a few moments before deciding there was nothing he could do about that and it was probably better for him if it died anyway, and making for the food and drink he’d been brought. The water was wonderful, cold and clean and refreshing, and he’d scarfed down all the food before he realized that it might be a good idea to ration some for later. Gilbert carefully tucked the remaining bottles of water behind the mattress and then took the blankets and spread them over it. He hid the papers within them and then searched the sack for anything else—nothing—before crawling under the blankets and huddling there, trying and failing not to shake. If nothing else, the dragon had made clear that there was no getting out of the cave without Jack Vessalius’s express permission, and, for some reason, he wanted Gilbert in here.
Several times over the course of the day, Gilbert peeked at the dragon to see it still in the same position until, finally, while he was still tucked under the blankets he heard half-stifled whimpers of pain. He poked his head out to watch the dragon collecting itself, examining its wings and scales and legs, before it limped over past Gilbert’s mattress and lay down between Gilbert and the mouth of the cave, its burning red eyes unmoving from Gilbert and his new things.
Gilbert watched the dragon back for a while, because that was better than being bored under the blankets, but even that grew boring too, so he started amusing himself by throwing little chips of rock at it. At first, the dragon allowed them to just bounce of its scales and land on the cave floor, but as Gilbert ran out of little rocks and began to move towards larger ones, it began using its fire-breath to melt them to lava in midair and let them splatter on the ground, though it kept the burning liquid from ever touching Gilbert.
This was actually a little bit fun, and they continued doing this for a few hours more, until Gilbert was yawning enough that he decided to go to sleep and continue gaining the dragon’s trust in the morning. He snuggled down under the covers, and though the dragon didn’t get any closer to him, it stayed between Gilbert and the cave door throughout the night and into the next morning, when Gilbert awoke to Jack Vessalius attempting to enter the cave as the dragon spread its broken wing and growled at him.
“...really ought to know better than this, B-Rabbit,” Jack was saying. He raised a hand, and the bridle glowed and the dragon lowered its wings, but before it could move out of the way it let out a roar and a tiny jet of fire shot at Jack, who lept out of the way and made a motion with his hand as though smacking the air. The dragon dropped like a stone, and Jack said, “Do you know why I let you keep cute little Gil with you? Do you know why I switched him with his past self instead of killing him outright?”
Gilbert froze. He stared at Jack as he walked past the prone dragon—the paralyzed dragon, Gilbert realized, the bridle must have been controlling its movements so that Jack could ride it, could keep a handle on it—and then stood over Gil.
“I can’t believe you’re being so disrespectful, and after I let you get all those nice things for him yesterday, too,” Jack said. “I thought I trained you better than this.”
The dragon hissed, looking terrified, sounding terrified—Jack hauled Gilbert up, and looked him in the eyes, green to gold.
“Let me show you what happens now when you try to disobey me,” said Jack, and then he threw Gilbert into the wall. Gilbert cried out, and tried to get away, but it turned out that when you were trapped in a cave with a dragon wholly physically under your enemy’s control, there wasn’t anywhere you could run. Luckily for Gilbert, he blacked out a few minutes into the beating; when he came to, he was alone in the cave, aching all over, his mattress and blankets and papers and water all gone. He was in the center of the cave—exposed, in danger—and so, head pounding, body aching, he pushed himself up and stumbled into the back, huddling behind some rocks.
He was here as a hostage for the dragon’s good behavior. He was here as a hostage for the dragon’s good behavior. And the dragon’s reaction to Gilbert offering to protect it and then throwing rocks at it for a few hours was to physically try to keep Jack away from him. It had failed immediately, but—well, you couldn’t really expect a dragon to make good decisions, could you?
Still, though, Gilbert felt a sudden and strange rush of affection towards the creature. It hadn’t known him for more than a day—it couldn’t have, Gilbert had never met a dragon before in his life. It knew his name through Jack, it knew that Gilbert had been put in here to control it—and yet it cared about him anyway.
Gilbert’s care and affection, when it came down to it, could be won in very simple ways. If someone cared about him, he would grow attached—if he could take care of someone, if he was needed by someone, he would never let them go. And the dragon—he was being kept from his master, it was true, but he was being kept because the dragon needed him, because if he wasn’t there the dragon couldn’t be controlled, and sure, Jack Vessalius sucked, and Gilbert hated him, but—Oz was safe. If Gilbert wasn’t here, the dragon would be an uncontrollable monster.
And if Gilbert was the key to controlling the dragon, then if he escaped with it, he would have a way to protect his master from any retaliation: a living dragon, more powerful than any dead one, a living dragon that was loyal to him.
These and other such thoughts kept Gilbert company until the dragon returned, this time empty-taloned. One of its wings was dragging behind it, and he thought that it looked as though simply moving around was painful for it, but when it couldn’t see Gilbert immediately it tore through and around the cave, searching around for him, clearly terrified. Gilbert watched for a few minutes before pushing himself out of his hiding place.
“—Dragon!” he called. “Dragon, I’m right he—”
The dragon swooped towards him, snatched him up in its talons, carried him over to its nest, and curled around him like it had done when he’d first gotten trapped in the cave, nosing over him, smoke puffing out of its nostrils in the language of magic until all of Gilbert’s injuries were healed. It loosened its coils after this, but Gilbert didn’t try to run away, staying curled against the dragon and pressing his face into its warm scales.
“Thank you for keeping me safe,” he whispered.
After a moment, the dragon coiled itself around him again, nuzzling against his hair. It didn’t let go, and Gilbert didn’t get away, and—just like that—they settled into a strange sort of rhythm. The dragon left with Jack, by Gilbert’s estimation, every one to three days; after these little excursions, it would come back with little gifts for him, and then snuggle up against him until morning. Gilbert, for his part, spent most of his days attempting to sharpen the hardened magma from his little game of throwing rocks at his dragon into a proper knife. It was slow going, but he’d managed to convince the dragon after a few days to chip it up for him, and now the imitation knife was getting sharper every day.
The dragon, too, was changing by the day. It hardly ever challenged Jack at all anymore; as time trickled past, he had to use the bridle less and less. When it was in the cave, too, it rarely moved even if it wasn’t actively cuddling Gil, preferring to instead remain curled up and still in its nest. Its spirit, Gilbert thought, had been broken—the poor animal. But he had a plan, and he was going to get back to his master, and he was going to bring the dragon—his dragon—and together, they’d keep Oz safe.
When Gilbert felt he was finally ready, he waited for the dragon to come back and then, concealing his dragon-forged imitation-knife in his shirt, climbed up next to it into the nest.
“Dragon?” he said.
The dragon looked down at him.
“Do you ever…want to escape?”
There was a moment, and then—by the grace of the gods—the dragon nodded.
“Okay,” said Gilbert, readying his knife. “Dragon fire can burn through spells, right? Let’s go to where Xerxes Break is.”
He whipped the knife up and through the bridle—it took a moment, but then flames caught in the pits of its nostrils and spread to the bridle, and then, burning, it fell. Gilbert and the dragon stared at each other for a moment, before the dragon said, “Thanks, Gil,” in a raw voice that Gilbert could have sworn he’d heard somewhere before, and then it launched itself into the air, grabbing Gilbert in its massive, sharp talons, and roared, a torrent of flames sweeping towards the spell at the mouth of the cage and shattering it—and then they were in the air above the Abyss—and then the dragon was diving—and then they’d torn through the fabric of the worlds and were flying over countryside, faster than Gilbert could comprehend—
It was at this point that he realized his throat was raw from screaming, though the wind was rushing too loudly in his ears to hear his own voice. He tasted blood and wind in his mouth—he was too scared to even contemplate death—he screwed up his eyes and clung to the talons and screamed even harder when he felt them go into a dive again—
And then he landed, stumbling, in a castle courtyard at dusk, the dragon flying up and away and vanishing over the castle walls. Gilbert trembled, and then his legs gave out, and then, sitting on the cobblestones, he started to cry. He cried and cried for several minutes, until footsteps came towards him and a hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up to see a boy a bit older than him looking at him with concerned, pale blue eyes.
“Are you alright?” he said. “Where did you come from?”
“—Dragon,” Gilbert sniffled. “I was—dropped here by a dragon. It, um, it’s called the B-Rabbit, I think…”
“Damn!” said the boy. “Really? Was he hot?”
“Wh-what?” said Gilbert. “It’s a dragon. ”
“Yeah,” said the boy. “Hello, my name is Lord Elliot Nightray, consort to King Glen Baskerville, and I really want to fuck a dragon, the B-Rabbit specifically. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You’ve seen the B-Rabbit dragon. Was he hot?”
“What?!” said Gilbert, and then, “But Elliot’s six!” and then, “Hang on, aren’t the Baskervilles evil?” and then, “Why would you want to f–fu—have sex with a dragon ?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” the boy who claimed to be Elliot shot back. “What’s hotter than a dragon ?”
“Your lady mother,” came another voice behind him, and Gilbert looked to see another boy the same age as the first walking out behind him, this one sporting somewhat shaggy black hair and beautiful purple eyes.
“Fuck off, Leo, I’m just saying—”
“You’ve ‘just said’ it so much that Oz paid me three hundred gold pieces to force you into a chastity belt,” said the boy named Leo.
The boy who claimed to be Elliot perked up. “Oz is back?” he said. “Excellent, I have like three new dragon pornos to read to him—”
“I will join him in murdering you if you try that,” said the boy called Leo, “and I don’t think he’s back, Alice would be flipping out if he was. Who’s this?”
“No clue, but he says he came here by dragon express and also that I’m, like, six,” said not-Elliot. He looked over at Gilbert. “Hey, crybaby. What’s your name?”
“Gilbert Nightray,” said Gilbert defensively. “And you aren’t Elliot, he’s six and I’ve met him like once ever and our big siblings broke my nose and fed me dog shit for talking to him at all, so I definitely know how old he is.”
“Holy shit,” said Leo, “and I thought they treated me badly. Gilbert, how in the fuck did you get yourself de-aged? —I’m the king, by the way, King Glen Baskerville, and you’re about ten years in the future, and unlike Elliot here I’ve actually scored with Oz Vessalius—”
“We already agreed that Seven Minutes in Heaven doesn’t count,” grumbled Elliot.
“Not in the closet, in my royal bed because unlike you I’ve got some royal game,” said Leo. “Though Seven Minutes in Heaven was a fun time and we should all do it again sometime, in a closet that all three of us can actually fit into. Anyway, on an actually relevant note, Gilbert, I formally welcome you to Castle Baskerville, we are currently at war with Jack Vessalius and Pandora. Oz is—indisposed—at the moment, but Vincent should return in a few days, and—”
“I want to see my master,” Gilbert hissed. “I’ve spent the last—I don’t even know how long—trapped in a cave with Jack Vessalius and his awful dragon, and I just escaped, and I want to see my master, and I don’t even know who you are and if I can trust you!”
“—Awful dragon?” Leo echoed, frowning.
“Well—it isn’t awful itself, it’s actually quite a nice dragon, but all dragons are awful, that’s why they’re extinct!” said Gilbert. “I like this one, but—it’s still a dragon. ”
“Dragons aren’t awful, they’re sexy,” Elliot said sharply, and then, “Come on, Alice is going to want to see you. —By the gods, Leo, how are we going to switch him back with my older brother?”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Leo. “For now, let’s just try and get a handle on the situation. If we’re able to get in contact with Oz, he’ll probably have some more intel on—”
“The young master isn’t here?!” Gilbert said, devastated. “But—I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” Elliot said shortly. “My older brother, Oz, and Alice were all captured a few months ago by Jack Vessalius. Alice escaped within a few weeks, but nobody else has been seen since—until you showed up—and I’m honestly not entirely convinced you’re Gilbert, which is why we’re going to take you to Alice. She’s going to be able to tell.”
“How?” said Leo.
“According to Oz, she can tell who someone is just by biting them,” said Elliot, “and she really likes biting him and Gilbert. I’ve seen her chasing them with her teeth out multiple times—especially Gilbert, because when she breaks into Oz’s bedroom to bite him he just lets her.”
This was not a reassuring statement, but Gilbert did not have time to protest. Elliot had him by the elbow, now, and was dragging him into the castle, muttering to himself about asshole older brothers and did this really have to happen now and why couldn’t it have been Oz who got ten years younger and showed up in the courtyard because at least he could have made fun of him for that later.
Grown-up Elliot, Gilbert surmised, was maybe not the most okay person ever.
He didn’t voice this, though, as he was pulled through the castle, past familiar-unfamiliar people who made his head ache, up a spiral staircase and finally to a locked door. Elliot pounded on it with his free hand.
“Hey, Alice, open up!” he shouted. “We’ve got a baby Gilbert on our hands!”
There was a shuffling sound; a few moments passed; the door opened a crack and a young girl’s head, face angry and hair wild and tangled and loose, poked out.
“I know,” she said. “We’re busy, leave us alone.”
“We?” said Elliot. “If Alyss is here—”
“Not Alyss, Oz. We’re busy. We’ll come down in the morning. Fuck off.”
“Young Master Oz is here?!” Gilbert said, excited and relieved.
Alice looked at him like he was maybe a little bit stupid. “Yes,” she said. “I mean, you could come in if you want—I guess, though it sucks that you’re so little now, but—”
“Tell Gil to take care of himself, first!” Oz’s voice called from the room. “I’m okay, he doesn’t—he doesn’t need to bother with me. He’s been through a lot. He should rest and everything—get some food, get cleaned up—we’ve only got the one bed in here anyway, and I’ll be down tomorrow.”
“Are you decent in there?” said Elliot.
“No, and you definitely can’t come in,” said Oz.
“There’s a lot of blood in here too,” said the girl named Alice, “and I don’t want anyone in here until Oz is ready to come out—”
“We all already know he’s gay,” said Elliot.
“Oh, sorry, Gil,” said Oz. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Young Master,” said Gilbert, aching to see him, but Alice slammed the door in their faces, and Elliot let go of Gilbert’s arm, rolling his eyes.
“Thank fucking shit,” he said, sounding deeply relieved, “now the only problem we have to deal with is however you got turned into a baby.”
“I’m not a baby,” said Gilbert.
“You are so a baby and I refuse to fucking believe you’re Gilbert,” said Elliot. “Come on, I’ll get someone to get you all cleaned up and shit.”
“Well, I don’t believe you’re really Elliot,” Gilbert snapped. “And my master is behind that door—I’m not leaving him!”
Elliot rolled his eyes. “Look,” he said, “Oz will find you when he’s ready. And didn’t he tell you to go take care of yourself? He won’t be happy if you just sit out here tonight, without eating or sleeping or getting into clean clothes, you know. Are you really going to disobey a direct order from your master like that?”
Gilbert wilted—he wouldn’t, he couldn’t disobey the young master—and followed Elliot wordlessly down the spiral stairs to where he was shunted off onto a maid, to get him cleaned and rested, and food sent up, and when he was finally alone in his new room—as fine as any Nigthray bedroom—he found himself lonely, missing the dragon of all things. It was a good dragon, he decided silently, even though he’d said the opposite earlier. Good as far as any dragon could be good, anyway.
But his opinion of the dragon didn’t matter—it was gone, and he was back with his master, even if he was in the wrong time and Elliot had grown up strange—nicer than his other siblings, but on the side of the Baskervilles and attracted to dragons. Everything was okay now, and Gilbert had no intentions of ever returning to the past.
And so, thus decided, he got into his new big bed, hoping to fall asleep quickly so that morning would come soon—and with morning, finally, Oz.