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The cry - Ultima is rising - goes up when the sun is at its highest and the shadows nowhere to be seen. Basch, bent over his harness in his wing's courtyard, just manages to miss his own thumb with the needle and waxed twine.
Vossler is not so lucky. He sticks his bleeding finger in his mouth, stoppering up his own curse, and stands, sweeping his half-mended harness into its basket and waving over a squire to take care of it.
His shadow falls over Basch's lap, where he's knotted his last repair. "Are you coming?"
Basch lifts the harness piece to his mouth to bite the thread off, Belial's own fangs an itching overlay on his stubby human teeth. His dragon's hunger aches in his belly - ah, that explains why Belial had been so unwilling to gorge the last few days; he must've known Ashe's Ultima was near and wanted to keep himself light. As he drops harness, awl, needle, and thread into their own containers, patient partly from habit and partly to make Vossler squirm, he says,
"Aye, since Belial seems determined to chase. But is it not early?"
Vossler watches Basch stand and dust off his trousers with a furrow in his dark brow. "Does it seem so? It has been near a full turning of the year since Rasler died."
"A year is long," Basch agrees as they hurry to the courtyard exit, "yet often not long enough to forget grief." It has been near fifteen years since the fall of Landis and Noah, and that ancient blade still shakes itself free of his heart to pierce him anew even now. "She loved Rasler."
Bodies press in on him and Vossler from all sides in the darkened corridor. Sweat, dust, and the ancient paper scent of the dragons themselves perfume the close space. Thankfully, Basch is taller than many Dalmascans, able to see how close they are to the exit with its great bronze doors held wide and sunlight filling the gap.
"More competitors than I thought," Vossler says as they near the entrance to the outdoor throne hall. "Ultima will have her pick." He does a passable job of hiding his jealousy, though some of the younger riders have already fallen to blows as their dragons overwhelm their good sense, scuffles breaking out along the edges. "Thankfully Nightmare is speedy."
Basch acknowledges this with a grunt, his mind already focused on what lies ahead. Nightmare is fast, but lacks stamina, his blue-black scales making him liable to overheating in the Dalmascan sun. Belial, the dragon Basch earned upon his entrance to the Order, has taken on some of Basch's own qualities with time - he is not quick, as the dragons of Dalmasca are famed for, but his stamina and strength are second to none, and his loyalty to Ultima absolute.
Finally, the crowd eases, and Basch and Vossler break free into the throne hall. The exterior walls near-groan beneath the weight of dragons in a riot of creams, sandy browns, oranges, yellows and dusty grays, the hangings and running water and date trees all bending with the flutter of the dragons' wings as they fight for balance and position.
Nightmare and Belial call upon seeing their riders - twin deep croons that shake Basch's chest. He shades his eyes to look up to find them, though Nightmare stands out as always - a piece of the night sky fallen to earth, sinuous and sparkling. Next to him, Belial is no beauty: a stocky beast, with great swells of muscle rolling beneath his dusty brown hide, the only shocks of color on him the brilliant orange of his horns and wing membranes. Yet it is Belial that Basch chose and that chose him, Belial who is trusted with protecting Ultima from Archadian incursion -
Ultima hisses from her place at the end of the courtyard, and Basch turns his burning gaze to her. Her maw drips with gore where she's gorged herself in preparation for the chase. Always beautiful, Ultima shines even further now with the urge to mate: a shimmering white, her scales chased with gold, burning orange and deep blue-green wing membranes just barely visible with how her wings are shut for her to coil about the dais of the throne.
Ashe, for all her small size, fills the throne and the hall with her presence. Her pale skin shines with the sweat of holding Ultima back, her sky-blue eyes burning with the same incandescence that fills the blue bowl of the world above. At her side, her handmaiden, Penelo, daubs Ashe's forehead with towels dampened from a bowl of rosewater, then refreshes the towels draped over her wrists where they lie on the arms of the throne. Ashe's hands are fists, white-knuckled and trembling.
Ultima hisses again, unwinding from the dais, her tail lashing out and nearly sending several young knights flying. Her claws score great gouges into the mosaic floor of the hall, the screech of it digging into even Basch's head enough to make him wince.
A few of the younger knights step back, and the growing shadows above the assembly's head lighten as some of the male dragons give up. Their wingbeats fill the air as they depart back to their nests.
"Her Majesty wishes me to remind you," Penelo says after bending to listen to Ashe for a long moment, "that there is no shame in withdrawing now - only in deciding to chase and not giving your utmost to the challenge. She and Ultima will have your commitment, or none at all." Her own dragon - a slim blue-green creature of surpassing grace, even when half-submerged in one of the fountains as she is now - chirps as if in emphasis. "Chasers may use fangs and claws, but no disabling injuries - permanently injuring another chaser is a disqualification. Are the rules understood?"
The assembled knights salute, Basch among them. The thud of his fist into his chest is dulled beneath the rising tide of Belial's lust, though Ultima's triumphant cry - high and piercing and unending - fills the air as she launches herself skyward, a white arrow in flight, a prize unwon.
"Begin!" Penelo calls -
And Basch, heart pounding, hands itching to become claws, sinks into Belial and gives chase.
He is dimly aware of his own body, as one may be aware of motion in a distant room of a house: that he stands in too-bright sun, the uncovered skin of his hands and neck itching with the heat; that other knights stand too close, shoulders bumping his, feet made clumsy with lust trying and failing to avoid crossing him; that his neck aches where he has tipped his face skyward and closed his eyes, noonday light filtering blood-red through his eyelids; that he aches beneath his trousers.
The rest of him is aloft, is Belial - wings catching the air and scooping it beneath him, the powerful muscles of his chest burning as he labors upward against gravity, empty belly groaning to be sated; his sharp gaze taking in Dalmasca around him, its crenellated towers, its bright banners snapping in the breeze, its thronging crowds of citizens who stop and point and clap, and yet he only has eyes for Ultima above him; heart roaring and a matching lust drawing to a sharp point that spurs him onward, upward.
To his left, two competitors sink into combat, claws raking across each other’s sides, necks drawing back in sinuous display, teeth bared. A waste of valuable time, of energy -
Ultima looks back over her shoulder, past the rise and fall of her golden wings, to see her pursuers. More than enough to please her, it seems, for near the entire population of male dragons old enough to give chase have done so, and her tail flicks, pleased, a shrill cry of invitation piercing the air. She is white as cloud, as gold as sun, and Belial-and-Basch’s eyes burn to behold her.
Between her and Belial are five dragons, Nightmare among them, but Belial is unconcerned; they lack his stamina, and Ultima, racing ahead of them and tossing in a few twists and sharp turns, seems determined to wear them out.
They clear the walls of Dalmasca and out into open desert, the great thermal winds rising off the sands catching beneath Belial’s wings with the same snap of wind filling a sail. He rises, borne upward, and sucks in a deep breath through flaring nostrils as he sweeps his wings down against the current, ascends higher, higher yet, all his attention fixed to Ultima’s pale form blazing across the desert below, pursued by Nightmare. The other dragons have begun to peel off in defeat, the great bellows of their chests heaving as they angle downwards toward oases to cool themselves for the journey home.
High noon, and the desert sun will be scorching Nightmare’s black scales. Belial-and-Basch shift their focus ahead, predicting Ultima’s track; in combat against airships, she likes to use her comparative slenderness to surprise her opponents, diving deep between close formations and rolling to drag her claws through the thin metal skin of the airship’s underbellies, often to the-
There, a narrow ravine cut by years of spring flash floods, one the newly flighted dragons enjoy racing through, and Ultima swerves to meet its opening, the wind of her passage stirring sandstorms in her wake that Nightmare plunges through.
Belial folds wings and tail and legs close and drops from his vantage point, only enough membrane open to support him in the sky as he arrows down and far, wind tearing at the nictitating membranes across his eyes, thundering and cracking with each microadjustment of his wings.
Basch sways. There is more space around him now, for only him and Vossler remain before Ashe’s throne, all of them locked inside their dragons’ beating hearts, chasing the same glory. Basch just manages to open one eye enough to see Ashe’s expression - fixed, hard, hungry, drawn taut, her fists opening to dig her nails into the cushioned arms of the throne.
In the desert, Belial-and-Basch soar the straight course towards the exit of the ravine, their shadow growing on the sandstone cliffs with each degree of the sun’s descent. Their nostrils flare with each drawn breath. Their heart hammers against the curving support of their ribs. They reach the exit and remain hovering above, the great ache of their exhausted chest muscles burning and driving deep -
Sand and stone blast from the ravine as Ultima approaches, a great storm borne on the power of her wings, and Belial-and-Basch draw themselves up, begin their arc like a stone in a sling reaching its highest point -
Ultima bursts from the ravine in a cloud of glory, white and gold and blue and fire, and rolls to the right to evade, her claws digging into the sandstone to help her make the turn, and Belial-and-Basch drop.
Out of the sky, a stone tumbling through air, and Ultima twists as their shadow falls upon her, golden eyes widening and then slitting in welcome. Her wings spread wide, her claws coming up to lock with theirs, and Belial-and-Basch roar their triumph and follow her up, higher, into the clouds. They burn, scorching the water droplets surrounding them to mist, and their necks entwine, their tails -
They stoop to conquer, together.
“Captain!”
Someone shakes him.
“Captain, come on!” Another shove from small hands, and Basch tears himself free from Belial’s mind, blinks wind and light from his eyes to find Penelo standing in front of him, her cheeks puffed in irritation. “You’ve won, let’s go, you need privacy!”
Basch drags his gaze from Penelo to look above her head as Penelo herds him towards the dais.
Ashe has risen from her throne. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes pitch-dark; she looks upon Basch in every way a man could want a woman to gaze upon him, and Basch’s mouth goes dry with the wanting of her.
She is a princess, true, but beyond that, she is Ashe, and she steps into his embrace without fear, winds slim strong fingers in his hair, and yanks him to her-
Their gasps upon the meeting of their mouths sound like nothing so much as dragons’ breath.