Chapter Text
Kenji always argued that their mother loved Koushi best.
Sure it could be argued. If loving you best was to smile on you as merely set decoration, to dismiss your tutor when you’d cried once that the arithmetic was too hard. You didn’t need to know it anyway. Maybe Kenji could say their mother loved Koushi best but she undeniably loved Kenji more.
With their father it was no point of contention. Did he have a second son? Nine out of ten days he did not. And on that tenth day it was yes, but with a grimace.
The Sugawara estate was not in the first class of nobles, they may have been once, long ago. Koushi’s father was determined Kenji would change that. He’d marry one of the other young up and coming in court, two families joined, ideally somebody who shared borders that their land holdings might grow.
Koushi on the other hand. Currently. Shoveling shit. Showing no talent in his studies due to his dismissed tutor. And holding no promise as a back-up son since Kenji was tall and strong and of sturdy constitution, he’d been sent to the ranks of Karasuno’s army that he might make some sort of name for himself.
Koushi heaved the shovel out of the dragon roost into the waiting cart, trying not to breathe in too deeply through his nose. Pausing there for a second he watched the handful of dragon riders, doing tricks above the practice field, sent there to personally spite him.
“Damnit,” he muttered again to himself, same as he had when the recruiters had winced at his size as asked if he’d like to join the dragoncore, only to find himself on as a stable boy.
“Sugawara!” stable master Ueno’s voice sent him skittering back into the stall to scoop as big a shovelful as he could at double time. He whirled to toss it into the cart only to find Ueno arrived, the shit already in motion, landing on his fine leather boots.
Koushi froze, staring at those boots, now covered in shit, but not as deep as the shit he was himself currently in.
The armory was not beautiful, an old brick building, it housed practice weapons and tack. Koushi thought he ought to feel grateful for the lack of shit here, but no dragon rider had ever risen the ranks from cleaning gear or weapons. He’d approached, with Ueno marching behind him, hardly an auspicious third beginning. Armory backed up to a wide pen, currently housing a dragon, it was spread out sunning itself on the rock.
“Sugawara,” the warning had Koushi’s spine ramrod straight, eyes back to the door they were currently approaching. Ueno knocked when they arrived. After the shit incident Ueno had suggested this change of location, that perhaps the armorer could set him straight. “Teach you some discipline” were the words that Ueno had used.
It’d sent a chill racing down Koushi’s spine, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck as they waited for the door of his doom to open. If he failed out here, they would probably send him back to his father and nothing would be worse than that. The disappointment. Though perhaps they would send him next to be a monk. Would he be any good at communing with nature? Koushi didn’t think he could sit still and silent for the rest of his life.
Ueno knocked again.
“Damn, Sawamura,” he grumbled under his breath, “You’ll fit right in here, Sugawara, if he doesn’t break you first.” Koushi shuddered. Ueno released his shoulder to go peer in through one of the windows, drag open the door to the attached barn-sized shed. “Sawamura?”
Koushi felt the rush of air before he heard it, daring to spin from where he stood waiting to meet his doom at the armory door. The dragon, scales an iridescent sapphire, dropped delicately out of the sky down in front of him light as a butterfly, eyes unblinded, blinking big coppery eyes at Koushi curiously. Koushi’s heart seizing in his chest. He’d never been so close to a dragon before, despite his pleas to his father to take him to the dragon rider trials as a child. The fear bubbled into his throat all of a second before he realized it was no wild dragon, a rider sliding off of the creature’s back, pulling his goggles back and patting the creature on the shoulder. He wasn’t tall and lanky like most riders Koushi had seen, he was probably about Koushi’s height but built thicker, broad shoulders. His dark hair swept back from his face, windblown and his cheeks flushed as well, smiling broad, surely from the sheer joy of flying but it made Koushi’s heart stop to have that smile fixed on him.
“What do we have here?” he asked, his voice smooth and warm. Before Koushi could open his mouth and lie his way into this beautiful man’s good graces, Ueno was back at his side, bone crushing grip on his shoulder as if he might be considering running.
“A project for you,” said Ueno and Koushi watched the man’s face fall, eyebrows drawing together in confusion at Koushi. A project.
Sawamura had listened to Ueno’s whole report of Koushi’s history thus far, not fit to fight, not fit to clean up shit, head in the clouds blah blah blah blah blah, and Koushi’s eyes had drifted off of Sawamura who was surely concocting up his elaborate discipline to the dragon, who’s shoulder Sawamura’s hand was still resting on. The creature seemed to be watching Koushi back, tucked down over its feet like a cat, eyes narrowed half asleep or content but fixed squarely on Koushi. Koushi wondered if these dragons had the taste for human flesh trained out of them or if this one was contemplating what a bite of him might taste like. Koushi didn’t think he’d taste good. He was all skin and bones, eyes locked with the dragon he tried to tell it that. Skin and bones, skin and bones, I won’t taste very good at all.
At last Ueno was slapping Koushi on the shoulder with an admonishment that he not hear another word about him, and then he was walking off. Sawamura at once turned back to his dragon. Patting his shoulder with a hushed word.
“Come over here and let me show you how to take a saddle off.”
Koushi nearly jumped being addressed by the armorer.
“Yessir,” he squeaked out, as Ueno had liked to hear, stumbling toward Sawamura, the dragon whipping his head around at Koushi and he nearly tripped over his feet in fright. Sawamura caught him by the shoulder to keep him on his feet.
“Slow, they don’t like sudden movements if they don’t know you. Right? Bluebeak?” he patted the dragon again, who huffed with something like disgust and looked away.
“Sorry, won’t happen again,” Koushi squawked out. Sawamura pointed out the ties and fasteners to undo, Koushi tugging and pulling with trembling hands.
“Hey, just relax,” Sawamura’s hand was on his shoulder now, speaking in the same calm voice he had to his dragon. “You’re spooking both of us.”
“Sorry,” Koushi got out again.
“What are you really doing here?” Sawamura asked as Koushi tried to relax.
“I dumped shit on Ueno’s boots,” Koushi grumbled before catching himself, “on accident!” Sawamura laughed, a big bright sound that melted the worry right out of Koushi’s body like a hot bath.
“What I would give to have seen it.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“You’ve got that right,” Sawamura agreed, helping Koushi pull the saddle down, it was heavier than it looked but Sawamura took it easily off of Koushi’s hands. “Grab the blanket and come with me,” he said. The instant they stepped away Bluebeak had risen back to his full height, and spread his wings. Koushi gasped.
“Wait!” he called but the dragon was already lifting off.
“Don’t bother about him, he does what he wants. He’s not like the roost dragons the riders fly with, he won’t wander off,” Sawamura assured him. Koushi scrambled after him.
The inside of the armory was larger than it appeared from outside. Organized shelves and racks, a whole host of saddles and reins, spears and lances, bow staves and long bows. Koushi marveled for a second.
“Okay, so since you’re here for now, I’m going to have you help me keep all this clean,” Sawamura said, setting down the saddle on the big worn work bench, he tossed a rag to Koushi and set a tin of oil into his hand. He walked him through keep the saddles properly oiled so that they would last longer. That done, he sent Koushi to inspect the weapons hanging up for damage. Anything in need of cleaning or sharpening or repair. Meanwhile Sawamura disappeared out of the shed.
Koushi set at it, lonely work though it was. He would not be sent back to his father. He couldn’t. The disgrace would be too much. Kenji had said once in jest (Koushi hoped it was in jest) that perhaps he ought to just disown him once he took their father’s title. What use was a second son really? Koushi grimaced at his reflection in the blade of the lance in his hands.
“Thirsty?” The voice had the lance clattering to the ground from his hands, caught once more, by his superior. Daydreaming.
“Sorry!”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Sawamura said, setting down to the two glasses in his hands on the work bench. His face was serious. Gods, Koushi was getting sent home wasn’t he? “Until you really fuck something up around here, I don’t want to hear you apologizing. I’m not going to drill you like Ueno, or give you punishments until you’re up to some unattainable goal. I just need you to help me keep this place in order, there’s no rich boy snobs who want to be my apprentice, so you’re going to have to do.”
Koushi nodded.
“And you won’t send me home?”
“I’ll even teach you to ride. That’s what you’re really here for isn’t it?” Sawamura said plainly as if he could see right into Koushi’s heart.
“Please,” Koushi whispered. Sawamura sighed.
“You twisted my arm,” he said with half a smile, “why not?” Koushi couldn’t help but grin back. “But first! Have you gone through everything?”
Sawamura was no slave driver and they finished their work in plenty of time for the evening meal. Koushi wandered back toward the mess hall and Sawamura stayed behind at the armory.
Koushi was going to learn to ride! The joy of it carried him through the lousy meal, and back to the barracks and even the jibes of his bunkmates who somehow already knew he’d been banished from stable duty to the lowest of the low position at the armory. But none of it mattered. Koushi could endure it.
He was going to fly!
The next day Koushi arrived at the first hour as requested to find the armory swarming with riders from the squadron. He lingered outside of the group of them. They laughed and pushed each other. “Sawamura! Sawamura!” they called over each other. And it finally hit Koushi that his help was probably needed, Sawamura fending the unruly crowd off on his own. He attempted to squeeze himself through a gap, glimpsing for a moment the serious concentrated face of Sawamura gazing down at a lance before a hand seized in his tunic drawing him back.
“Hey wait your turn, pipsqueak,” sneered a tall man. Koushi’s heart stammered.
“I’m the apprentice,” he said but his voice was lost in the clamor, the man shoving him.
“You’ve got nothing to say to that?”
“I said I’m the apprentice,” Koushi drew himself up to his full height, he knew what would happen next, the same thing that always happened with he stood up to Kenji. The man barked out a sneering laugh, elbowing his buddy beside him.
“You hear that? This guy thinks he’s apprentice material.”
“You get kicked out from cleaning roost holds?” the other laughed, Koushi swallowed his nerves, and moved to push through again. The hand caught him by his ponytail this time, dragging him back.
“I’m not done talking to you!”
“Fuck off,” Koushi growled all of a second before the open hand clapped across his cheek. His ears were ringing. Someone laughing. The punch he drove into the man’s stomach silenced at least one of the voices, before other hands were tearing at him.
“Hey! No fighting! I’ll get to you when I get to you!” the baritone roared, the crowd stilling. Koushi lying on the ground, he could taste blood on his lip. “Sugawara?” He grimaced up to see the crowd parted before Sawamura. His face twisting when Koushi met his eyes. Ah, he’d let him down too.
“Get out!” Sawamura called, shoving the man closest to him, “Take your busted weapons today, see how the marshal likes them. Assholes! Get OUT!”
A hand was hauling Koushi back to his feet by his bicep.
“You sure know how to cause a scene,” Sawamura muttered dragging him into what Koushi had assumed was the office portion of the armory. Instead it was the main room of a living space, Sawamura setting him down on a chair.
“You’re bleeding, give me a second.”
“Assholes,” Koushi grumbled dabbing at his lip. Sawamura had returned in a second to dab a cloth at what immediately proved to be another cut above his eyebrow, the sting making Koushi clench his teeth. He was so close to Sawamura he realized then, close enough to see the pale line of a scar across his jaw, the tiny golden hoops in his ears, and the flecks of gold in his dark brown eyes as they caught the sun. Koushi squeezed his eyes shut, before he made this situation worse by saying something.
“Ah that’s not so bad,” Sawamura said after a second, dabbing one last time at the spot before wiping the cloth over Koushi’s bottom lip. Koushi opening his eyes and finding Sawamura looking right at him. The hairs on his arms stood on end, like a static electric current was pulsing through his body just meeting Sawamura’s eyes.
“Sorry…”
“Quit it,” Sawamura patted him on the cheek, scooting his chair back, “Don’t want to hear it.”
Koushi ran a finger over his lip, the sting of the split.
“Thanks,” he said instead.
“’Thanks’ I’ll take,” Sawamura said with a small smile at him. “That’ll teach those goons to mess with you. The Marshall will have their hides for all their beat up gear. Koushi turned to watch Sawamura sorting through something in the cupboard, before exhaling a short ‘ah-ha!’ He came back with a tin embossed with a tiny crow surrounded by stars, before Koushi could ask he’d removed the lid to a fragrant mixture of tea leaves. Sawamura pull his kettle off the pin over the fire and poured two mugs full of hot water over the leaves. As they steeped he put the tin back.
“Today I’m going to show you some more mending. Before things went to shit I did take in some new work today.”
“Sawamura, I can’t get it,” Koushi had been pounding at the spear tip for much longer than he was willing to contemplate and he could not straighten it out. Sawamura arrived at his shoulder in a moment peering down.
“Show me what you’re doing,” he said and Koushi felt embarrassment ripple through him as he brought the hammer down again. “Here, let me show you something, we might need some heat on this one.” Sawamura took the spear and fed it into the forge watching the flames lick at the spearhead. When he drew it back out it was white hot, Sawamura lay it back down on the anvil.
“Try again.”
The time the hammer rang down and the tip sprang back to the original correct angle.
“You told me that already,” Koushi sighed, “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s fine. It’s just the first day, it takes a while to get a feel for what each blade needs,” Sawamura said. “By the way, you don’t need to call me by my family name. You can just call me Daichi.”
Daichi. Koushi savored the sound of it in his ears. Strong. Steady. Earth.
“Daichi,” Koushi found it on his tongue, Daichi’s eyes pulling to him, with half a crooked smile. “I’m not trying to be annoying but when will you teach me to ride?”
“Hmmm,” Daichi feigned thought, his smile getting wider, “I think this afternoon, before the riders return from their drills. We’ll have to make up for the slow morning this evening. If you don’t mind staying later tonight, I’ll make you dinner.”
“Wait you have real food?” Koushi thought if he had one more bland meal of slop from the canteen he might die.
“I do,” Daichi was smiling.
“Should probably take you up first, make sure you don’t get airsick,” Daichi said when they’d put away their work for the day. Koushi felt his stomach roll at the idea he could get sick from flying.
“Is that a thing?”
“For some people yeah,” Daichi agreed. “Everyone gets a little bit of it now and again but some people can’t stand it at all.”
Koushi strapped on the goggles feeling like some sort of bug eyed lizard, laughing as Daichi strapped his own on.
“High fashion, huh?” he asked and Daichi rolled his eyes. He waved Koushi closer to Bluebeak to walk him through last minute tightening of the saddle, before at last with nerves quaking Koushi attempted to get himself up into the saddle. Stuck halfway, there was suddenly a set of hands on his ass pushing him up the rest of the way. Koushi’s cheeks burning, he didn’t dare to meet Daichi’s eyes as he settled ungracefully into the saddle. Bluebeak shifting with an unhappy grunt. Koushi froze. But there was no time to second guess because then Daichi was in the saddle behind him, showing Koushi where to hang on. Again Koushi was struck by the fact Bluebeak wasn’t wearing blinders and apparently Daichi flew without reins. Things he had not worriedly considered until this very moment but before he could ask, Bluebeak was leaping into the air like a loaded spring, Koushi’s stomach dropping. He yelped, Daichi laughing against his ear. His arms were past Koushi’s waist his hands gripping the saddle alongside Koushi’s white knuckles. The feel of his arms on either side of Koushi, actually his everything alongside Koushi was nearly so distracting he couldn’t focus on the fact they’d lifted up above the riders’ outpost and were sweeping lazily over the adjacent countryside. Almost. Koushi was breathless with the sheer thrill of it, Daichi whistling shrill now and then behind him, nudging Koushi to point out something, clearly he was guiding Bluebeak but Koushi didn’t have the foggiest idea how.
“Want to go a little faster?” Daichi’s voice was torn from Koushi’s ear with the rush of air. Koushi turned his head to nod. “Hold on,” Daichi said or at least Koushi thought that was what he said. Daichi leaned in against him, hand in the saddle grips, Koushi’s secure alongside his. Daichi gave a series of whistles and then Bluebeak was climbing in altitude. Koushi only had a moment to wonder at it before he’d begun to dive, Daichi’s laughter against his neck. Koushi found a yell torn from his throat, one of Daichi’s arms coming down tight and secure around his waist. Dropping, dropping.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Koushi couldn’t hear his own voice as the treetops were fast approaching. “Daichi! Fuck!”
At the last moment Bluebeak pulled his nose up as they barely skimmed the treetops, leaves rattling in their wake. Koushi couldn’t get a breath in. Finally they’d lifted a little, slowing to an easy pace and there was the armory below them once more. Bluebeak drifted lazily down like an autumn leaf finally setting down light as a feather. Koushi’s hands were still gripping the saddle, gasping in air, whole body thrumming with adrenaline, even though they were on solid ground.
“How you feeling? Need to puke?” Daichi asked after a moment when Koushi hadn’t moved. He patted his shoulder. Stiff legged and reeling Koushi tumbled from the saddle, he felt a little nauseous. He’d been certain they were going to die in that final dive.
“Holy shit,” he finally said, the worry on Daichi’s face easing into a relieved smile.
“Fun?”
“Holy shit,” Koushi said again. “Can we go back up?”