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The dragon wakes up at the break of dawn – only long enough to listen for the quiet snores of his companion – and goes back to sleep. It doesn’t take too much time, however, for the sun to be up and to flood the clearing they camped on with sunlight… This time, the dragon wakes up for good, stretches his neck and yawns, snapping his teeth with satisfaction, before checking in on the blue prickly ball nestled into the dip where his neck spikes end and the bigger ones on his back start. The sight will never not be enough for his eyes. And like every morning for the past several days, he gently breathes hot air at his travelling partner. Another snore turns into a confused chirp, and a few moments later the ball reveals itself to be a blue hedgehog – his spines mussed with sleep as he is rubbing one eye, grasping at the spikes surrounding him in order not to fall off.
“Morning, Lance…” Sonic murmurs and then looks up with a grin rivalling the sun in brightness.
Lancelot huffs more air at him in greeting, making him laugh and roll down the black shiny hide to the ground. The moment the hedgehog is off, the other gets up, stretches and – while his king streaks into the woods in search of more dry branches for the fire – trudges to the nearby river, sticks a claw in and almost immediately flings a fish out somewhere in the direction of the camp. Judging by a “Hey!” being heard from there, it lands where it was supposed to. The dragon, very pleased with himself, snorts like a horse and dips his snout into the water to drink, mentally recounting their route for the day.
King Sonic was the one to suggest an air tour over the kingdom: inspect the borders, map the roads and scout for news and opinions… Things like that. Reasonable ideas. And a way to secure them a vacation in his own words. He wouldn’t let anyone else do this, too many people is inconvenient, and a dragon is an obvious choice for both better range of visibility and protection. Hence just the two of them. Alone. Flying together, laughing together, enjoying the sights, telling and listening to stories by the fire, huddling for warmth at night… And carefully sidestepping their unspoken attraction. The Knight of the Lake is yet to return to his hedgehog form, and he is a little dreading it, even though there will probably be no better time to discuss the feelings between them than this “vacation”.
When the dragon returns to their camp, the fish already smells cooked above the fire made on yesterday’s coals. Sonic looks up from searching through his rucksack and with a quick smile runs to the river. Watching him go, Lancelot curls his tail around the fire and waits. The dragon had dinner yesterday, when they saw a boar and he swooped in on it, killing it instantly. His companion delicately left him to his food, so Lancelot didn’t bother with courtly manners and ate all he could – only skin and bones remained, promptly buried afterwards so as not to attract scavengers near the camp. A meal like this will keep him sated for a couple of days.
The Knight of the Wind returns with a full water flask and starts on the fish, resting against his dragon’s tail. His words of gratitude for breakfast make Lancelot puff up with pride. Same as him, Sonic recounts today’s plans – except aloud, in between chewing. It doesn’t matter, Lancelot is ready to listen to him forever.
“Forever” ends pretty soon, and having travelled together long enough to develop a routine, the knight turned dragon goes to the river to collect some water while his king packs up what little they carry with them. When Lancelot comes back with his mouth full, the other is already waiting, restlessly shuffling his feet. They put out the fire with water and dirt – the hedgehog chattering about forest fires prevention all the while, and that’s that.
“Well? Are we going now?” Sonic asks, and Lancelot nods, lying down. The blue hedgehog whoops and runs up his hide, taking only a moment to pick a flat spot between two peaks of spikes on the dragon’s back. Lancelot was worried about his passenger before, vividly imagining him getting swept off the smooth scales during flight, but quickly learned that if the hedgehog got something to hold onto – be it one of the big red horns or the tiniest scale on the tail, there’s nothing that can move him. Sonic leans forward in his “seat” with his hands on its edge – the Ultimate Knight’s golden bracelets shiny on his wrists, looks expectantly, and the dragon snaps his huge wings open.
This is routine, too. They gain altitude to stay underneath the clouds from where they can see the terrain below clearly, and half of the time it is just that – watching. Sometimes Sonic notes things down on a piece of parchment, but mostly he does it from memory when they’re grounded, resting, to avoid losing this maybe primitive but still a map. It is better than the word of mouth which most of the kingdom was previously “mapped” by. If one of them spots a village, they usually try to skirt it, however sometimes they would land nearby, and the king would check it out incognito… Though to be fair, no one recognises him without being told anyway.
They haven’t seen a settlement in a while. And probably that’s why they’re not ready for long heavy arrows looking closer to spears when they rain on them the moment the pair decides to get closer to the trees in search of a good place to rest. The trees turn out to be inhabited: the village is small, hidden in the woods unlike the previous ones which had visible fences, and very unwelcoming to flying visitors it seems.
Of course, Lancelot has been shot at before. Even as a dragon during the siege of Camelot Castle, the enemy tried to shoot him from the sky to pull him out of action, but their arrows were not made for his thick skin, and they would at worst chip a scale. This time… this time when an arrow strikes his chest, it stays. He can see the shaft and fletching sticking out, and while the pain was there only at the moment of the hit, for all he knows he could be just in shock. The first instinct is to hit back, to open his maw and breathe a stream of fire at his offenders – dragons are vengeful creatures after all… But his passenger is screaming something at him, and the thought of one of these arrows hitting his king makes him do a sharp turn away from the village. Thankfully, a clearing with a creek running through it comes into view almost instantly, and Lancelot wills his dragon form away, cages the fire – his body shrinks in the air, the wings, and spikes, and scales, and horns reform, forcing Sonic to jump off his back in a spin, and while the hedgehog safely skids on the ground, the Ultimate Knight crashes into the stream as water sprays everywhere. He doesn’t think about the arrow lodged in his chest when he starts the transformation, just that the villagers will be looking for a dragon rather than two hedgehogs, but as he sits up, fur wet and uncomfortable, he notices the broken arrow lying a few steps away, and there’s only a bruise where it hit him – a nasty one by the feel of it but only a bruise.
“Lance!”
Sonic drops on his knees in front of the black hedgehog, uncaring about them being in the water, and he is already unlocking the golden bracelets on his wrists, searching his knight’s chest while he’s doing so.
“Where did…” he stutters out, clasping one bracelet on Lancelot’s left wrist. “The arrow?..”
He grabs the right one and clicks the second ring closed, too. And the knight can’t keep himself away anymore: he unceremoniously drags the blue hedgehog into his lap, hugging him like his life depends on it, nose buried in his neck, feeling the other’s pulse.
“It got stuck in my scales,” he hurries out. “It just got stuck in my scales.”
His king, his love – frozen in the knight’s hold before – sags heavily and after a moment of hesitation circles his arms around the black hedgehog, putting his chin on top of Lancelot’s head, and swallows before his legs slide more comfortably on the either side of black hips, pressing their bodies together. They stay like this without another word, holding each other, for a couple of minutes before reluctantly separating. Sonic gets up, trying to shake off the droplets of water, looks at the arrow nearby and picks up the pieces, disgust on his face. Lancelot shakes himself off, too, while scanning the bushes for movement, and then the hedgehogs start walking up the stream, holding hands tightly and on alert. They walk and walk until they reach a small spring on top of a cliff.
A sea of green canopies stretches out for miles ahead, and Sonic throws the spear-like arrow as far from the cliff as he can. Still wary of the inhabitants of that village, they don’t start a fire and simply have some berries for dinner. As his companion complains about the harsh reception and having to set his shoes out for drying before bed, Lancelot goes through their things – miraculously nothing lost in the rough landing – and puts on his anklets, some spare boots and soft leather gloves to appear more or less decent.
“We will have to pay them a visit, don’t we?” the blue hedgehog murmurs when they’re sprawled on their backs, looking at the starry sky.
“If they have arrows like those…” Lancelot nods thoughtfully. “It’s probably for a reason, and we must know what it is.”
“It is still easy to forget sometimes dragons are an actual threat around here…”
The knight turns his head to look at the other, and there it is – the expression Sonic gets thinking about his home. Most of the time the knights wait to hear if he wants to share, but Lancelot can’t help being especially curious about this.
“Do you have dragons in your world?”
“Well,” Sonic laughs, raises his arms in the air to stretch them and puts them behind his head, eyes still on the stars. “Cute little things, nothing like dragons here. They look kinda similar and they breathe fire, too, but they’re harmless… O-oh, but we have myths and legends of guys like you and others!” he hums, closing his eyes for a moment. “I always thought these somehow developed out of ancient people seeing dinosaur bones – and dinosaurs is a story for another time – but now I’m genuinely wondering if I wasn’t the only one to go through a portal from one world to another, and a dragon or two could make a trip in the opposite way.”
“These legends you speak of sound like an entertaining read.”
“They a-a-are! Wish I could make a list for you, I have a feeling I know what you’d like,” the hedgehog finally looks at him with a grin. So beautiful.
A gust of cold wind blows across the cliff, and the blue one shivers. He sits up, fur and spines on edge, and rubs his arms.
“Guess I will finally have to make use of that blanket we’ve brought,” he sneaks a glance at Lancelot and continues somewhat awkwardly:
“Not sure it will be enough though. I really got used to how warm your scales are…”
The black hedgehog blinks. The thought that enters his head at that moment is a little… outrageous. Be a fool, a voice suspiciously like his mother’s whispers in his mind as he extends a hand in the direction of his king. He has already overstepped the boundaries that were supposed to be between them earlier, and it wasn’t even the first time. What is one more?
“If I may offer,” he says. “My body runs warmer even without its scales.”
Now it’s Sonic’s turn to blink owlishly at him. He lowers his gaze at the hand held out to him, and the green eyes at last widen in realisation. But he doesn’t move until his knight starts to close his fingers.
“I understand that this is too—”
“I will be right back!”
In seconds the Knight of the Wind collects a heap of branches that would make a nice bed, throws one blanket on top of them and grabs the other one, and next thing Lancelot sees is the blue hedgehog peeking at him from under a woollen cloth.
“Come here?”
And the knight does. He slips under the blanket – heart racing a mile a minute, and his bedmate doesn’t wait to snuggle up to him like it is in his nature, like they did it a million times before… which to think about it… they did, didn’t they? Maybe Lancelot was in his dragon form, but they have been sleeping together for a few nights now. He dutifully puts his arms around his king, closing his eyes, but the other suddenly jolts and sits up, looming over the black hedgehog.
“I forgot to do something,” Sonic whispers.
“What?”
A teasing radiant smile answers him.
“What is my goodnight routine?”
Lancelot takes a moment to think back to the previous days, and how the blue hedgehog kissed his snout goodnight in jest (or so the dragon thought). He did it with a funny remark once and then just continued to do it every day.
“Ah.”
“Yeah…” Sonic moves his right hand from where it was lying on his knight’s chest to his cheek. “Is it… okay?”
“Absolutely,” and as the last syllable is leaving his lips, the other hedgehog leans down to drop a kiss on his nose, however before he can get upset about being played – another lands on his left cheek, and then on his right, and then on the corner of his mouth… Unable to bear it anymore, he props himself up on one elbow and slides the fingers of his left hand into the blue spines, cradling the back of Sonic’s neck, making him squirm.
“Sonic.”
“Sir Lancelot.”
The sudden role reversal brings the Ultimate Knight the courage needed for this long-brewing speech:
“Today, when I was holding you in my arms,” Sonic chuckles at this, “I was thinking two thoughts: how I shouldn’t be doing this and how much I don’t want it to stop. I wish there was only the latter one. I wish I were allowed to hold you every night, to take your hand without the fear of anyone seeing,” peachy cheeks bloom with pink, and a tongue darts out to wet his lips, “to do this.”
The black hedgehog reaches up, and he doesn’t even have to guide the other’s head down, because the king moves to seal their lips himself. A breathy moan escapes his throat. This is unbelievable, scandalous… This is so Sonic.
“I wish…” Lancelot exhales. “For all of this. For as long as I’m allowed to have it.”
“Sounds good to me,” the blue hedgehog murmurs, a tender smile on his face, eyelashes fluttering down for another kiss before the two of them settle down to sleep. Even if their courtship is a race against the clock… oh, whose time isn’t limited in this world? And when Sonic the Hedgehog ever said “no” to a race?
And furthermore… If Camelot can survive without its true King Arthur one day, why can’t it survive without its Ultimate Knight as well?