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“Ugh. No. That’s too much. You’re just torturing me here. Just let me – ugh.”
Orrin slumped down with a groan, sprawling out face-down and breathing hard. His shirt stuck to him with sweat and he knew that the wind blowing through the open window would make him feel cold soon. He didn’t have the strength to move though and everything ached a bit.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw how - smiling to himself - Galbatorix slowly got out of his own position and kneeled next to the other. He looked unfairly composed in comparison to Orrin.
“You asked for this.”
“You told me that it’s nice and relaxing.”
“It is. It just needs some practice and it will get easier once the physical changes from the bond get stronger. You saw me do those stretches with ease.”
“No need to brag. Dance of snake and crane. As if. More like dance of slug and crone. I feel more as if an old witch tried to beat me into her potion with a wooden spoon, than a dancing animal.”
“I think it’s named that way because it’s about fluid movements and well… bending at all angles. Although I must say that the snakes I know were rather pleased with merely eating and resting in either the shade or the sun. No tying into bows needed.”
“The animals are simply the smarter people. There’s no need to be that flexible. You would never use that at any point during regular daily activities.”
Galbatorix shuffled closer to him on his knees and leaned down. The wooden floor of their living room creaked slightly.
“Oh, but I’m sure one could use it during semi-regular nightly activities.”
With a snort, Orrin swept out his hand and smacked the other’s thigh. Then he rolled over to lay right in front of him and look up into his face.
“I ruined you, didn’t I? I remember you being almost shy about that topic.”
“I never cared about it much, before.” Galbatorix shrugged, then tilted his head. “We'll do this every morning. Slowly. I don’t want you to pull anything, but you’ll benefit from this. Trust me.”
Orrin let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. “Fine.”
The older hummed and slowly carded his fingers through Orrin’s hair. The younger had cut it a bit too short in his enthusiasm to use magic for it a few weeks ago, but it was luckily growing longer again quickly. Orrin didn’t like wearing his hair short. It always reminded him of being scolded for too long hair by his nanny as a child. He never figured out why, especially because his father hadn’t minded at all. He once had told him that he had his mother’s hair.
Galbatorix kissed his sweaty forehead, then lightly tapped his shoulder.
“We should wash up. Before you get cold.”
Reluctantly, despite knowing that Galbatorix was right, Orrin opened one eye. “Please tell me that you found out not only how to filter the salt out of the water, but to warm it to a nice steady temperature too.”
“I did. Although I probably really shouldn’t have. You already spend more time than necessary in the cave.”
“It was your main argument for rebuilding this old lighthouse.”
“I think, I said that the caves in the cliffs below would be nice for the dragons. Not that we should carve stairs down to one of the pools and make a bathhouse out of it.”
Orrin pushed himself up and gave the older a swift peck on the lips. “Guess we remember that a little differently.”
They both had giggled a bit when their decision had fallen onto the old abandoned lighthouse, because technically it was a tower too. And that princess in the tower or castle story had turned from a dark comparison, into an oddly nostalgic amusing memory from the past.
While the sea had turned Galbatorix a little melancholic during the first few weeks of rebuilding – he had told Orrin about Morzan, so he understood why -, the mood slowly subsided with everything they did to make the old building their home.
The original architecture had been obviously human. But mainly due to Galbatorix, strong hints of elven architecture flowed into the rebuild. Especially when he sung a tree into a spiraling shape with wide flat interruptions on the inside, to replace the destroyed stairs and floors. With the leaves growing out on the sides of the tower here and there, Orrin had to agree with Shruikan’s description of it as a large stone tree.
It certainly made for a strange visual.
It also drew the attention of the inhabitants of the village which had once belonged to the lighthouse. They had moved further inland when the ship routes changed, thus the lighthouse turned obsolete and a young nidhwal had also made fishery an impossibly dangerous chore during that time. Weathering the frequent storms for all of that, wasn’t worth it. But seeing the old lighthouse in the distance suddenly sprout leaves, had made many quite curious. Enough so, that a group had wandered up one day, holding pitchforks and other improvised weapons. They had luckily decided quite soon that Orrin and Galbatorix may be a bit odd but not a threat to them. Orrin had no interest to convince them otherwise, even if the older rider was a little miffed by being considered largely harmless. The younger meanwhile felt a bit bad for being glad that Shruikan hadn’t shown himself. Pluvia had received enough wary looks, while she was only snoozing in the sun.
Orrin made it a habit to visit the village regularly and help a little here and there with his magic. He could understand that Galbatorix had no inclination to meet people, so he happily took it on himself to keep up good relations to their neighborhood.
“If they are going to attack her, I’ll-"
“Don’t. She can defend herself better if she doesn’t have to worry about stepping on you.”
Galbatorix tightened his hold on Orrin’s arm where they stood in the door of the tower, their eyes fixed on Pluvia.
A few meters downhill from the lighthouse, the dragon was being circled by two wild ones, who threw pictures and emotions at her in the way dragons spoke. While some of it was too fast to catch the meaning, Galbatorix had picked up enough to gather that the two wild dragons weren’t exactly hostile, but mainly mocking her for being bonded. The pink and the brown looked too young to have witnessed and fled from the Order’s fall, but their parents might have passed on their dislike for rider bonds.
The pink one made a chittering noise and snapped at Pluvia’s tail, only to get whacked quite hard over the nose with it. The pink stumbled back with a surprised grunt, apparently having expected for Pluvia to be an easier victim. The brown hesitated. After collecting themselves, the pink growled with an honest threat though.
Orrin’s grip around his sword tightened, understandably. But Galbatorix didn’t let him go.
“I need to do something!”
“You'll only get yourself in danger. If she needs help, we can still use magic.”
Pluvia flared her wings and the webbing along her body and hissed in a way that Galbatorix had never heard from her. In a quite smart move, she avoided the pink one jumping at her and instead lashed out at the still hesitant other wild dragon. The brown howled as her claws raked over their ribs, making the pink jump between them and bite into Pluvia’s shoulder.
Next to him, Orrin made a pained noise that dug right into Galbatorix’ heart. Before he could abandon his own advice not to step in though, a thundering noise filled the air and Shruikan rose up from behind the cliff. The shadow of his head alone was big enough to easily cover all three of the dragons. The earth shook as he landed, then it seemed to shake again as he growled at the two wild dragons from deep within his chest.
Making mewling noises, the brown crawled backwards on their belly, eyes shooting back and forth, until they reached a patch of trees and disappeared within it. The pink puffed themselves up further, until Shruikan flipped them onto their back with an effortless motion of a single claw. After that, that one bolted too.
Orrin noticeably relaxed, then quickly hurried down towards the dragons, where Shruikan just gave Pluvia a strong lick over her wounded shoulder.
“Leave me be. I can take care of myself.”
“And get this infected?”
“No. And there was no need for you to step in either! I would have managed just fine.”
Shruikan shrugged his massive shoulders. “You’re right. But all the noise disturbed my nap. And I wanted to see some other dragons again.”
A little surprised at his appeasing answer, Pluvia rustled her wings and took a deep breath to calm her raised hackles. Just as Orrin reached her.
“Pluvia! Are you hurt badly? Let me heal that.”
Contrary to her earlier reaction to Shruikan, she absolutely didn’t have a problem with being coddled by Orrin a bit, while also repeatedly reassuring him. Galbatorix had the strong feeling that the whole incident had rattled her more than she showed outwardly. Going by Orrin’s frown, his guess was right.
He made his way down at a slower pace, stopping where Shruikan lowered his head towards him. The large dragon nudged his mind in greeting and sniffed at him. Galbatorix raised an eyebrow when he felt the air pull at him.
“One day you’ll get me stuck in your nose.”
“You'd be a nasty piece of snot.” The dragon chuckled deep in his throat, then rested his head next to Galbatorix on the ground to look at him with one large blue eye. “I thought I smelled other dragons when I flew further south last week. But I didn’t expect them to follow my scent.”
“Do you think they’ll be more friendly after this?”
“They know now that this is our territory and that it’s a bad idea to mess with us. Everything else is up to them. Although I wonder if they perhaps followed my scent because they wanted a different group of dragons to begin with. Maybe they were just a little too haughty about bonds.”
“Could be that they’ve been cast out.”
“Could be. Or they decided to leave before it came to that. Sometimes, things just don’t work out, even if it’s family.”
Galbatorix snorted. “Oh, I’m very aware of that.”
Blinking slowly, Shruikan made a low hum. The progress of showing Shruikan his memories had been slow and painful, but the dragon had handled it well. Better than he himself certainly.
“You got a better one now.”
“How cheesy of you.” He leaned against Shruikan and watched Pluvia playfully nudge Orrin who tried to focus on healing the shallow bite on her shoulder. “But yes. You’re not wrong.”
“I’m absolutely sure that it’s tonight.”
Galbatorix leaned forward a bit where he sat on the floor, as if staring at the night sky a tad harder could hurry things along. There were papers with calculations spread out neatly at his side with a pencil lying ready. Orrin settled next to him and draped a blanket over both of their shoulders, the foot of the telescope they had recently completed building at their backs. Although they both knew that this wasn’t the best place for a telescope, with all the clouds and storms. But they had all the time in the world to wait for good weather.
The highest room of the lighthouse was drafty; it simply having been the place the fire had burned years ago, accessible through a heavy hatch in the floor, the open sides now closed with magically made glass. The lower temperature was also caused by the space the telescope needed; the tall room didn’t warm up fast and if it did, it rose to the top first. Yet, they didn’t bother with energy draining magic to warm the air and simply relied on blankets around them and a few sheepskins underneath; acquired from the village.
Orrin leaned against Galbatorix’ side, wrapping an arm around his waist and resting his head on his shoulder. While he shared his love's scientific interest in the night sky, he also simply liked to enjoy them being together like this. No matter how often. He never grew tired of it.
“There.”
“Oh!”
The younger had seen shooting stars before, a few times. But never that many at once. It looked like a rain of sparks travelling through the dark, the stars almost appearing pale in comparison. He glanced at Galbatorix, then turned his head fully as he saw the reflection of the shooting stars in his black eyes. There was that soft peaceful smile on his lips, that he only had when he was truly happy and his mind wasn’t pelting him with all kind of things. It made Orrin feel warm on the inside. Enough so, that he felt a short bubble of fond amusement rise from Pluvia at the back of his mind, before she retreated.
“So, my calculations were right. Of course they were, but I almost expected a bit of a longer waiting time.”
Galbatorix leaned down to quickly add some notes on a few pages on his writing, then he orderly pushed them together. When he straightened again, Orrin laid a hand against his jaw, thumb stroking over his beard and turned his head to kiss him softly.
They didn’t move apart much further after, Galbatorix’ smile almost brushing Orrin’s lips.
“Was that for my well-done math?”
“For all of you really. I love to see you like this. It makes me happy.”
The smile didn’t grow wider, but somehow impossibly softer. “I’m glad you’re here to see it then. Especially because without you, there wouldn’t be any of it.”
Orrin wrapped his arms fully around him and gave him a tight squeeze, burying his face in his neck. He smelled very nice. Galbatorix chuckled, nipping his ear.
“You'll miss the shooting stars like this. And then you’ll be annoyed at yourself again.”
He really knew him well.
A little reluctant and not letting go of the other, Orrin turned his head just enough to look back outside again. It did look very pretty. But still… he pushed his hand underneath the other’s shirt, rubbing over his lower spine. The older rider became pliant in seconds, purring almost. Orrin smiled, looking at the falling sparks. He'd kiss Galbatorix all over later when they were back in their warm bedroom.