Chapter Text
Not everybody got a dragon.
Tanner knew that, of course. It wasn't even like most people got one—it was closer to thirty-five percent of hopefuls who eventually lucked into a bond—but it wasn’t fair that it was looking more and more like Tanner would be one of the poor, unlucky sods who didn’t. He had wanted to be a rider for as long as he could remember; he spent hours every day practicing riding with the stable dragons; he rode kilometers and updrafts and victories in his dreams every night. But now his twenty-seventh birthday was only five months away and the hatching season was already winding down, and he might only have a handful of chances left.
There were two sets of yearling broods up for bonding today, and six groups of hopefuls all ready to meet them. Tanner was in the first group because of his age, but he had been in the first group for years now and it hadn’t helped yet. Most people gave up long before they hit the age limit, and as a result he was the oldest of everyone standing in the throng by almost two years.
He hadn’t given up hope, but he had long since stopped expecting anything.
His group of about fifteen was shuffled into a large, hot room, where four yearlings and their mother waited. The mother was a Canada Greenback, and so were all her babies. A good, strong, sturdy breed, common but tough and reliable. The mother’s bonded partner, a tall, muscular, intimidating woman of about forty, stood at the back of the room overseeing them.
The four yearlings pranced about play-fighting in the pen, all old enough now to no longer need their mother, all ready to bond with their future partner. Tanner waited patiently as the officials explained what was about to happen—as though he hadn’t heard it hundreds of times before—and then watched as two handlers pulled the doors to the pen open.
Tanner watched, resigned, as three of the yearlings took virtually no notice, too busy circling around each other and snapping playfully. One of the yearlings, however, sniffed the air cautiously and turned towards the group.
Tanner was made to stand in the back because of his height, and he always used to feel anxious about that. Now he knew it didn’t matter; if a dragon was meant to bond with him, it wouldn’t matter where he was in the room.
The yearling moved closer to the group, still sniffing the air. It nudged between someone’s legs and for a moment it seemed to be heading in Tanner’s direction. He held his breath.
Then it veered off and started snuffling around the legs of a petite girl wearing a shawl and large boots. She gasped with delight, bent down, and reached out a hand. The yearling pushed its snout into her hand, and the girl looked at it with wonder.
Tanner looked away.
The group stayed there for another twenty minutes just in case, but it was pretty clear none of the other three yearlings were interested. The handlers ushered the group away and down the row of pens.
Most of the pens contained mother dragons with brand new hatchlings who wouldn’t be ready to bond for another year, at which point it would be too late for Tanner. Only a handful still contained broods of the yearlings who represented Tanner’s last few chances. The whole area, a massive, mowed-out field caged in by thick beams of steel stretching overhead, was stiflingly hot and stank of sulfur, and Tanner wrapped his scarf around his nose to muffle it. He used to love that smell, but lately it had been rendering him listless and desperate.
The other pen they were slated to visit only had one yearling, which was pretty rare. Dragon broods usually had between three and six baby dragons; just one was almost unheard of. It looked like a Southern Snaptooth, another fairly common and strong, mid-sized breed, but it was a strange color, so dark it was almost black when Southern Snaptooths were usually red or orange. Likely a half-breed, but Tanner couldn’t tell what the other half could be.
The little dragon, small for its age, immediately looked up when they entered, and when the light shimmered off its scales Tanner realized that it was red after all, just such a dark, deep red that it was hard to tell. It started sniffing at the air, and Tanner held his breath. Then it stood and trundled to the other side of the room, and Tanner turned his head.
He was staring at not very much and thinking about what he was going to do after this and not paying any attention, so he startled when something wound its way between his legs. He looked down, and—
“Oh my god,” he breathed, as the little dragon purred up against him. He dropped to his knees and held out a shaking hand, almost sure he was mistaken. The dragon nuzzled up against it, and Tanner’s knees went weak.
Then the dragon let out a searing huff of satisfaction and the resulting little ball of flame caught Tanner’s sleeve on fire.
***
His dragon’s name was Beatrice.
He didn’t get to keep her immediately, of course. She’d be living at the Sanctuary for the next year while she grew to maturity and they learned to work together, but that didn’t make her any less his.
He could feel her energy and excitement thrumming through the newly-formed bond and it made it hard to concentrate on anything else, but he was forbidden from visiting her for a short period while she got her shots and medical checkups. It was a brutal three days.
The first time he visited the Sanctuary it was swarming with people and little dragons, but he had no trouble at all finding Beatrice. She was jumping around in the throng, delighted by all the activity, and when she saw him she came bounding up and nearly knocked him over.
She sniffed at the bandage on his wrist covering the burn mark she had left the last time he saw her, and he scratched under her chin and said, “It’s okay, baby girl, you were just excited. It didn’t even hurt.”
The scales on her throat were hot against his hand and there was disbelieving glee bubbling up inside him, and he barely even noticed when one of the Sanctuary staff said, “Easy, easy, don’t let her get too worked up.”
***
He visited the Sanctuary twice the next day, once for regular training hours and then again after dinner.
The Sanctuary was much quieter in the dim twilight. Tanner used his newly-acquired access badge to enter the inner area and walked around in the stillness of the forest, trying to let the bond lead him to Bea.
He found her in a clearing, hopping excitedly around like usual, and almost didn’t even see the other dragon.
It was so big it almost defied logic, its scales glinting silvery under the moonlight, and it was menacing Tanner’s baby. It snapped its jaw, gnashing teeth as long as Tanner’s hand, and smacked Bea away with a wing when she got too close.
“What the hell!” Tanner shouted, and started to run forward—which was stupid, because what could he possibly do against a monster like that?—but he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, chill,” said the person behind him. “They’re just playing.”
“He’s going to hurt her!” Tanner shouted, and the grip on his shoulder tightened.
“White is not going to hurt your dragon.”
White.
Oh.
Obviously, like, obviously. Tanner should have recognized him instantly, and he would have except he’d been too focused on Bea, he had barely registered anything other than “big dragon” and “danger!” But now that he took a second to actually assess the situation, he realized he couldn’t feel any anger or fear through the bond, just playful energy.
In the clearing, Bea leapt up to the enormous, white dragon and batted at his clawed hands. White swatted her away again with the tip of a wing and let out an icy snort of warning. The cool steam curled in the air for a moment before dissipating.
White. Tanner couldn’t believe it. He had never seen the legendary dragon up close before, but there probably wasn’t a person alive who wouldn’t recognize White on sight. Frost dragons were vanishingly rare, and they were notoriously independent to boot. White was one of the only ones in history known to have accepted a bond.
Tanner stiffened. A bond.
And that meant—
Tanner turned to the man behind him, who had let go of his shoulder several minutes ago and was now quietly shoveling heaps of foul-smelling fish from a barrel into a wide trough several feet away.
“Um, hi,” he said, after several long, incredulous moments. “I’m Tanner.”
“Fir,” the man said softly, as if Tanner didn’t already know.
***
Tanner had grown up watching dragon races.
From the moment he could even partially comprehend what he was looking at, it was the only thing he ever wanted to see. Before she passed, his mother used to fondly, exasperatedly recount the long, difficult days when he was only seven months old and would cry nonstop unless they played old race reruns on loop.
Tanner had been newly thirteen and eagerly awaiting meeting his first set of yearlings—his first chance to bond with his very own dragon—when the racing season had begun and the announcers had introduced the youngest racer in history as a part of the year’s lineup.
Fir had looked impossibly small, perched upon the neck of the impressive, massive beast that was White, and Tanner had scoffed at the screen. Big dragons weren’t necessarily unheard of in the races but it was considered far better to be small and maneuverable, and White had dwarfed every other dragon on the field.
Fir and White had come in twenty-eighth out of forty in their first race, and Tanner had rolled his eyes and dismissed them as spectacle for the sake of spectacle. After all, they were admittedly quite a sight. But then they had taken eleventh in their second race, and fourth in their third, and by the end of their first season they had finished in third overall.
Fir had been twelve years old at the time, a full year younger than Tanner, and that had irked Tanner something awful. It meant Fir must have been no older than ten—if that—when he’d bonded with White, given White’s immense size, and that was not fair. Prospective riders weren’t meant to start seeing yearlings until the age of thirteen. It bothered him that this random kid had apparently received special treatment.
Of course, Tanner knew the real story behind that now. Everyone did.
***
Fir didn’t say much more to him. Tanner sat on a rotting log and watched the dragons play as Fir continued to shovel stinking fish, and when he was done he started throwing logs from a nearby wood pile into the massive fire pit at the center of the clearing.
The dynamic between Bea and White was obvious. Bea was clearly the rambunctious upstart trying to provoke a reaction, and White was the tired old veteran who only barely tolerated her, but once Tanner was really looking it was clear that Bea was in no danger.
At one point White laid his enormous, square head on the ground, and when Bea immediately bounded up and nipped at his ear all he did was twitch it and nudge her away with his snout. She tumbled backwards and made a loud snuffling sound that Tanner was beginning to recognize as laughter, and then she crouched forward, wiggled her butt in the air, and made what Tanner was pretty sure she fondly imagined was a sneaky approach to do it again. White easily nudged her away again and bared his teeth, but she just rolled back into her crouch and tried again.
Fir pulled a lighter from one of the many pockets that lined the legs of his trousers, and held it against the twigs and kindling at the bottom of the fire pit’s wood pile until they lit. As the fire began to grow he raked and nudged at the logs to open up paths for oxygen to get in, and the flames quickly began to lick higher.
From between the gaps in trees a few other young dragons began to emerge. They coiled their sleek bodies languidly in and through and around the fire and settled, one by one, into sleep.
Eventually Bea tired of her play and trotted over to Tanner. She rubbed her cheeks up against his knees and he smiled at her and gave her the obligatory scratches, and when she’d had her fill she trotted away again and curled up at the edge of the burning pyre.
There was a deep, satisfied glow in his chest as he watched her wrap her tail gracefully around herself and put her head down. He could still scarcely believe she was his.
Fir, who had kept a carefully neutral expression this entire time as far as Tanner could tell, cast a warm, brief smile over the cluster of snoozing dragons before turning and strolling over to White, who was already shying away from the heat.
He had to reach way up to place his open palm on White’s snout even though White was already tilted towards him, and then White leaned his massive head in closer and all Tanner could see of Fir was his legs beneath White’s enormous, square jaw.
When White pulled back, Fir shot Tanner one last brief, expressionless glance, and then walked side-by-side with his dragon into the thicket.
***
Basic training took place from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon, Monday through Friday, and it was always chaotic. There were only eight instructors and more than sixty new dragon-human partner pairs, and even though they couldn’t actually ride their dragons yet there was still a lot to go over and a lot to learn: flight mechanics and bond studies and safety training and more, so much more.
It had only been two weeks and Beatrice had already noticeably grown. She was now tall enough for her head to reach Tanner's mid-thigh, and she wasn’t so much of a runt anymore. She must have been eating well, he thought proudly.
The bond had fully settled in now, and her relentless energy no longer made him restless. He had figured out how to make it quiet when he had to, but he never fully shut her out and he sensed that she appreciated that.
Tanner used to go to the stables during the morning hours to practice riding on the dragons there, but now he had almost no time for that. That was okay, though, because that time was replaced by time with his dragon, learning how to read her cues and how to work together with her, and he had never been happier. Flying practice with other dragons didn’t matter now anyway—he already knew the technique of it like the back of his hand, so what mattered now was getting perfectly in sync with his dragon.
God, his dragon. He still couldn’t believe it. It still felt like a dream. He had waited nearly twenty-seven long, agonizing years, and by the end of it he had really thought he wasn’t going to get what he needed so badly. He had really thought he might never be able to fulfill his life’s purpose, and now here he was with Bea crowding into him and demanding pets and scritches and there was nothing in the world that could temper his overwhelming joy.
Bea was a boisterous little troublemaker, and Tanner would not have it any other way. To his delight she was also fiercely competitive, but then that was no surprise considering who she had bonded with. Where some of the other pairs struggled some with their bond, the teamwork between Tanner and Bea was easy and immediate.
It probably helped that Tanner had been working towards this diligently and single-mindedly for nigh on twenty years now.
***
Tanner had been seven years old the first time he had visited the stables.
Even then he had thought them a sad place. The occupants consisted of dragons who had never bonded, dragons who had lost their bonded riders, for whatever reason, and dragons who had become injured. Obviously the injured dragons were there to convalesce, but the unpartnered dragons still needed to be flown and there were only so many riders available to do it, so anyone could volunteer given they had fulfilled a certain prerequisite level of training.
There was technically no age minimum on it, but it was difficult to find an instructor willing to train someone very young. Tanner had been extremely lucky; his father had been good friends with one of the senior instructors, and a chain of favors had been called in pretty much the day Tanner was deemed strong enough not to immediately fall off a dragon.
His first dragon had been Charlotte, a Common Bluetail with a snarky sense of humor and a deep well of sorrow. She had been a search and rescue dragon and had lost her rider in a tragic forest fire accident that had left her with long, scraping scars up one side, the scales almost entirely missing there and baring rough flesh to the air in their absence.
Charlotte had been gentle and careful with him, and he had taken her up day after day, always followed closely by his father or another trusted rider. Tanner still visited her whenever he could, even though she was too old now to fly much. She had already been old when she had lost her rider, and that had been years and years ago. Now she was slowly turning to stone, as most of the very old dragons did, and she barely moved at all anymore.
***
Tanner visited the Sanctuary in the evenings most days. It was always quiet during those times, and he couldn’t understand why so few of the other new riders did the same. For him, it felt like he couldn’t stay away from Bea. Her energy was magnetic, and he hated being away from her for more than a day. Doing so made him anxious, made him feel like he was stretched thin. He knew she didn’t like being away from him either.
He didn’t always see Fir and White there, but he usually saw one or the other.
Bea seemed to get an inordinate amount of entertainment out of pestering White. There were plenty of other full-grown dragons in the Sanctuary, and most of them had more than enough patience for the younglings, and Tanner didn't know why Bea didn't just go to one of them. In his time there, Tanner had noticed that White seemed to mostly avoid the youngest dragons, but for whatever reason he usually let Bea nip and jump and bat at him and seemed unbothered by it.
Fir, for his part, didn’t seem to take much notice of their antics. He went about his apparent duties with calm efficiency, and the only time he ever showed any sort of emotion was when he was interacting with White or one of the baby dragons. Then he seemed warmer, softer around the edges, and Tanner had a hard time looking away from him during those times.
It wasn’t his fault, really. Fir was special to him, in a weird way, even though they had never met before a couple weeks ago.
***
Tanner had watched Fir race for years.
There was something about the way the massive, snow white dragon moved under his rider that was mesmerizing. It was like they were one unit, one being, in a way that no other dragon-rider pair could replicate. They soared through the race courses, and it felt like they were putting in half the energy the other teams were while still moving faster. White glided on his fathomless wings and he seemed to barely move them at all, barely even flapped them up and down.
They always started the race in the back of the pack. Such an enormous beast as White inevitably took longer to gain speed at the start, but once he had gotten up to pace he made it look effortless and it was only a matter of time before he caught up and overtook.
He took corners at a blazing speed that should by all rights have unseated his rider, but Fir molded himself to White’s back, shielded himself from the chaotic, whipping wind behind the mass of White’s spiky crowned head, and contorted his body to minimize the g-forces like it was something he’d been born to do, and he never once lost control.
It had only taken half a season before Tanner found himself cheering wildly for White and his rider, and he hadn’t been alone. Fir had quickly become the darling of the league, and Tanner had soaked up every race, every interview, and every article.
Fir had never seemed entirely comfortable with it, at least to Tanner’s eyes. His interviews and television appearances always seemed oddly choreographed, like the questions and answers had been agreed upon in advance, and Fir had always spent most of the time looking awkwardly at White instead of whoever was interviewing him as he tonelessly recited canned responses.
Fir had raced for eight years and had led the league for nearly the entire time before he and White had been abruptly and tragically knocked out of the races for good.
That moment was burned permanently into Tanner’s mind. Even to this day, almost a decade later, the sports channels still replayed the recording practically on repeat.
Tanner always turned the television off when they did that. He couldn’t really stand to see it again.
***
Beatrice had gone through yet another growth spurt, and now she was as tall as Tanner’s waist when standing on all four legs.
He was starting to have to try to convince her to curb her very physical brand of enthusiasm and playfulness a little around him. He had several scars to attest to her affection, and while he didn’t mind them at all he would rather not continue to acquire them at the same rapid pace. He was a little tired of the hours in the emergency room spent getting stitches put in.
At the rate she was growing, though, it would probably only be a few months before they could actually ride together. Tanner could feel her excitement over the prospect mirroring his own, and he could barely wait.
It was only a matter of time before they took the racing world by storm.
***
Fir moved well on his mechanical leg, Tanner thought. If he hadn’t been able to see the blunt, metal end peeking out from the bottom of one pant leg, if he hadn’t seen the accident happen live on TV, Tanner might have never known Fir was missing a leg from the knee down.
“Does it hurt?” Tanner asked foolishly, during one of those quiet, dark evenings in the Sanctuary’s forest clearing, just him and Bea and Fir and a handful of other young dragons gathered around the bonfire.
Fir gave him an immensely bored look and said, “Not anymore.”
Tanner’s face went hot and he felt incredibly stupid. Of course it didn’t; why would it, after all this time? Fir had had ages to figure it out, to recover, to get used to his mechanical leg.
“Sorry,” he muttered, but he wasn’t even sure Fir heard him because Fir didn’t react at all as he piled kindling and split logs like he did every night.
Bea had her head laying heavily on Tanner’s lap, and he brought his hand under her chin and looked down and scratched at the sensitive spots there to hide his deep embarrassment. Bea buried her face in his leg and the feedback from the bond indicated she was feeling some major secondhand humiliation on his behalf. Tanner bristled a little; he didn’t need Bea to tell him he was an awkward, pathetic fanboy entirely out of his element.
He already knew that.
“How’s White doing?” he asked, because he hadn’t seen White in a couple days.
“Fine,” Fir said.
No further information seemed to be forthcoming, and Tanner sighed in frustration.
He knew Bea missed White, and if Tanner was honest he did too. He loved watching the enormous frost dragon; White moved like no other creature Tanner had ever seen: slow and lethargic most of the time, but unimaginably and inexplicably quick when he felt called upon to be.
Tanner let the rest of his questions—and there were so many—evaporate into the cool, muggy autumn night, and he sensed that Bea was relieved.
Like she knew what she was talking about, Tanner thought testily. She wasn’t even two years old, so what did she know?
Bea nipped purposefully at his ankle before moseying over to curl up by the fire, and Tanner cursed his bad luck to be mired with such a headstrong dragon.
He felt her exasperation through the bond, and he sent back a purposeful burst of affection, because he loved her and he couldn’t imagine her any other way.
Fir gave him one last unreadable look and said, “You have five minutes before hours are over,” and walked out of the clearing.
Tanner sighed again and stood, wishing Fir wasn’t so ridiculously, stubbornly unapproachable.