Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Whispers from the Court

Loose fanfiction stories by Epsilon_Dragon

Story one: Boiling over

Early spring, 5015 A.S.

The Sky Kingdom still smelled like smoke.

Not overwhelmingly so, but it was there. Woven into the mountain air beneath the clean bite of spring wind and the distant sweetness of pine forests clinging to the slopes. Smoke from forges, smoke from cooking fires, smoke from grumbling SkyWings...

Peril breathed it in like she was coming home.

Then immediately hated that she had thought that.

Home was a complicated word. It was a stupid word, really. A word dragons used when they had a place they could return to without wondering whether the walls remembered their worst moments. Peril was not sure the Sky Kingdom counted as that.

But the cliffs were familiar. The high roads carved into red stone were familiar. The flash of SkyWing scales overhead, the snap of banners in the mountain wind, the smell of heated rock under the sun — all of it fit somewhere in her chest, sharp and uncomfortable and impossible to ignore.

Beside her, Turtle landed with a much less dramatic thump than she had.

Peril glanced over.

He folded his green wings carefully, looking around the outskirts of the SkyWing capital with the wary expression of a dragon who had just realized old memories might be clinging to every ledge. His satchel hung across one shoulder, heavy with scrolls and ink and whatever else he insisted was important enough to carry across half of Pyrrhia.

Probably more scrolls.

Definitely more scrolls.

He caught her looking and gave her a small smile. "So," he said. "This is… where you wanted to go?"

Peril flicked her tail. "Obviously. I said Sky Kingdom, didn't I?"

"Yes," Turtle said mildly. "Several times. Usually while flying faster every time I asked if you were sure."

"I was sure."

Mostly.

She looked up at the city rising along the cliffs as she started walking into the city proper. Stone walkways twisted between towers and ledges, crowded with dragons going about their lives like none of this mattered. Like queens had not been murdered here. Like blood had not soaked these stones, leaking and burning from her claws. Like a dragon with firescales could step into the capital and not immediately feel a hundred old ghosts turning to stare.

Her claws flexed against the rock, heat searing faint charred grooves into the ground. A pair of SkyWings on a nearby ledge stopped talking when they saw her. One looked at her talons. The other looked away too quickly.

Turtle noticed, because of course he did. He was annoyingly good at noticing things while pretending very hard that he had noticed nothing at all.

"We don't have to stay here," he said quietly.

Peril's head snapped toward him. "I didn't say that."

"I know." His voice stayed soft. "I just mean… if it feels wrong, we can leave."

We.

The word landed strangely.

Peril stared at him for a heartbeat too long. Turtle shifted his talons, suddenly interested in a crack in the stone beside his claw.

"I mean," he added quickly, "I can leave. You can stay. Or we can both leave. Or you can stay and I can… find somewhere else nearby. I didn't mean to assume—"

"You're doing that thing again," Peril said.

Turtle blinked. "What thing?"

"Where you make one sentence into twelve because you think one of them might escape being awkward."

His snout flushed faintly red. "Oh."

Peril huffed. It was not quite a laugh. "Don't leave."

Turtle looked up.

She realized, a beat too late, that she had said it much too fast. Much too sharply. Like an order. Or a threat.

Her wings twitched. "I mean. You can. If you want. Obviously. I'm not trapping you. I'm not Queen Scarlet." Her stomach twisted at the name, but she shoved past it. "I just mean you already came all this way, so it would be stupid to fly off now."

Turtle's expression softened in that horrible, gentle way that made her feel like someone had reached into her chest and found the softest, most embarrassing part of her.

"I wasn't planning to leave," he said.

"Oh." Peril looked away. "Good."

A gust of wind swept along the ledge, lifting the edges of Turtle's satchel flap. He placed one claw over it automatically.

"I don't really want to go back to the Sea Kingdom yet," he admitted.

Peril glanced at him from the corner of her eye. "Because of your mother?"

Turtle winced.

"That was a yes," Peril said.

"It was a very quiet yes."

"Still a yes."

He sighed and looked out over the lower roads of the capital. "I just… need some time before I deal with all that. Overbearing letters are bad enough. Being physically in the palace, surrounded by everyone and all the things they expect me to be nowadays…" His wings tucked a little closer. "No thank you."

Peril knew something about that. Not the exact same thing though. Turtle's mother probably did not make him fight prisoners in an arena while cheering crowds screamed for blood.

Probably.

But she knew what it was to have a place that turned your name into expectations. She knew what it was to feel pressured.

"Then stay," she said.

Turtle looked at her again.

"With me," Peril added, because apparently her mouth had decided to hurl itself off a cliff and not flap afterward.

His eyes widened.

Her scales prickled hot, which was ridiculous, because they were always hot. "Not like that. I mean — unless — I mean, there are inns. Or huts. Or whatever dragons use here when they don't want to sleep on bare rock like sensible creatures. We can find one with stone walls."

Turtle's mouth opened.

Peril pointed a talon at him. "Do not make that face."

"What face?"

"The face where you're about to say something VERY carefully, to try and not hurt my feelings."

"I was just going to say stone walls sound practical."

"Oh." She lowered her talon. "Good. They are. Otherwise I might burn the place down in my sleep."

Turtle's eyes flicked over her, not afraid. Never quite afraid in the way other dragons were. Wary sometimes, yes. Sensible. But not afraid. Not of her.

"That would make the deposit difficult," he said.

Peril stared at him.

Then she barked a laugh so sudden that a passing SkyWing nearly tripped over his own tail.

Turtle smiled, looking absurdly pleased with himself.

Peril quickly looked away, because his pleased little smile was dangerous. Worse than spears. Worse than Scarlet's arena. Worse than any battlefield.

It made her want to keep looking.

Which was stupid, obviously, so she didn't.

Finding a place to stay turned out to be harder than finding a dragon with fireproof scales.

Twice, apparently.

Which was ridiculous, because the Sky Capital was enormous and made mostly of towers, large buildings, and stacked stone cliffside houses. There should have been plenty of places: huts, rooms, inns, empty corners, or even a nice bit of bare rock if everyone insisted on being difficult.

But apparently, finding one dragon willing to rent any of those places to Peril was like trying to catch smoke with your claws.

The first innkeeper took one look at her, then at the faint shimmer of heat rising around her talons, and announced that every room was full.

Turtle glanced past him at the empty hallway behind the front desk. "All of them?" he asked.

"All of them," the innkeeper said quickly.

A sleepy-looking SkyWing handed the innkeeper a key, yawned, and left the inn.

Peril narrowed her eyes. "Looks like one of them is empty enough."

The innkeeper's wings snapped tighter to his sides. "Reserved."

"For who?"

"Other dragons."

Peril stared at him.

Turtle cleared his throat. "I think what my friend means is—"

"No vacancies," the innkeeper said, and shut the door so fast the wooden frame rattled.

Peril exhaled and looked at the door. The wood smoked slightly around the edge where her breath had hit it.

Turtle gently touched her shoulder. "Maybe the next one."

"I could melt his hinges."

"Yes."

"And his sign."

"Also yes."

"And write liar on the wall with the ashes from the door."

"That would be very clear communication," Turtle said. "But perhaps not helpful."

Peril turned her head to glare at him, but he only gave her a small, cautious smile.

She hated that the smile worked.

"Fine," she snapped, and stalked back into the street.

The second place was a little nicer, built into the side of a red stone cliff with balconies overlooking the lower markets. The SkyWing behind the counter had polished horns, neatly folded wings, and the brittle smile of someone who knew politeness could be used as armour.

"Ah," she said when she saw Peril. "I am so terribly sorry, but we have strict safety regulations."

Peril looked around the room. The walls were stone. The floor was stone. Even the counter was stone. Turtle did the same slow inspection beside her, his brow furrowing slightly.

"Safety regulations?" he asked.

"Yes," the SkyWing said. "Very strict. Ordered by the royal steward."

"What kind?"

"The strict kind."

Peril leaned closer.

The SkyWing leaned back.

"I am very safe," Peril said.

The SkyWing's smile grew tighter. "It is not personal."

"It feels personal," Peril said.

"It is policy."

"What policy?"

"The one about not renting to—" The SkyWing stopped so abruptly her teeth clicked.

Peril's tail went still, and the room seemed to shrink around them.

Turtle stepped half a pace closer to her, not because she needed protecting from one nervous innkeeper, but probably because he had noticed the exact angle of her shoulders and wanted to keep this from becoming an incident.

"Not renting to whom?" he asked, voice mild.

The SkyWing's eyes flicked to him, then back to Peril. "Dragons who may accidentally damage the property."

Peril smiled. It was not a nice smile.

"I never accidentally damage property."

Turtle quietly said her name as he put a claw on her shoulder.

Peril ignored him. Mostly.

The SkyWing swallowed. "Then I am sure you understand why we cannot take the risk."

Peril stared at her for one long heartbeat, then turned and walked out before her face could do anything stupid.

Turtle followed.

Outside, the wind cut along the street, sharp and bright, but Peril kept walking as if stopping would be more dangerous than moving.

"She was lying," she said.

Turtle did not answer right away.

Peril's claws scraped faintly over the stone. "They both are. At least the first one was bad at it."

Turtle's wings rustled. "Yes."

She glanced at him, surprised, and found him looking angry.

Not Peril angry, where everything flared outward and threatened to vaporize the nearest object. Turtle's anger was quieter, tucked behind his eyes and in the set of his jaw, like a storm under deep water.

Peril did not know what to do with that either.

"Don't look like that," she said.

He blinked. "Like what?"

"Like someone kicked a turtle for no reason."

His mouth twitched despite himself. "That would be very rude."

"You are a turtle."

"I am Turtle."

"Same thing."

"That is not how names work."

"It is how yours works."

He huffed in amusement, but the anger did not entirely leave his eyes. "They should not treat you like that."

Peril's chest tightened.

She looked away sharply. "They should if they have any sense."

Turtle stopped walking, and Peril made it three more steps before she realized he was no longer beside her.

She turned. "What?"

He stood in the middle of the walkway, looking at her with that soft, terrible patience again.

"No," he said.

Peril's wings twitched. "No what?"

"No, they should not."

Her throat did something unpleasant. She snorted and looked at the next row of buildings instead. "You say that because you're nice."

"I say it because it is true."

"That's worse."

"How is that worse?"

"Because nice dragons say things to make you feel better. Honest and nice dragons just sit there being inconvenient to my feelings."

Turtle considered this. "That is probably the most Peril sentence you have ever said."

"Good."

"It was not a compliment."

"I decided it was."

The third landlord saw them coming from halfway down the street and flipped his sign to closed.

Peril stopped so abruptly that Turtle nearly bumped into her, and for a few heartbeats they both stood there staring at the freshly flipped sign while, inside, a dragon carefully ducked below the window as if disappearing slowly would somehow make him invisible.

Peril drew in a long, dangerous breath.

Turtle said, "Don't melt the hinges."

She exhaled smoke through her nostrils. "I didn't say anything."

"You were thinking something very hinge-related."

"I have never been so insulted."

"You were staring at the hinges."

"They were ugly."

"Peril."

"Fine."

By the fourth rejection, Turtle had started doing the talking first, thinking maybe a SeaWing prince with a soft voice and careful manners might somehow make the city forget who stood beside him. It did not help. By the fifth, Peril had stopped threatening property damage, which did not help either. By the sixth, the excuse was "we only rent to families," immediately followed by the landlord renting a room to a lone orange SkyWing two minutes later while Peril and Turtle were still standing within sight.

Peril said nothing that time. That was how Turtle knew it was bad.

She simply stared for a moment, then turned and walked away, her wings held so tightly against her back that the edges trembled.

Turtle hurried after her. "Peril."

"I know," she said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were going to."

He closed his mouth.

They walked in silence down a narrower street where the stone buildings leaned close and laundry snapped overhead between balconies. The richer market streets had given way to older tiers of the capital, where the walls were weathered, the paths uneven, and the dragons were too busy hauling crates and arguing over prices to stare for very long.

They had almost reached the bottom of the lane when a voice like gravel scraped over stone said, "Three nights paid ahead. Double regular deposit."

Peril stopped.

Turtle stopped a heartbeat later, blinking as he turned toward the voice.

An old SkyWing sat on the porch of a squat stone building wedged between two taller houses, half-hidden beneath a crooked awning and several hanging bundles of dried herbs. His scales had faded from red to something closer to old brick, and one of his horns was broken halfway down while the other had a dull copper ring fitted around its base. A shallow bowl of nuts rested beside one forearm, and in the other he held a small knife, which he was using to shave thin curls off a piece of dark wood with the slow patience of a dragon who had already seen everything interesting happen and found most of it annoying.

He did not look impressed by either of them.

Peril stared at him. "What?"

"Room," the old SkyWing said, flicking one splinter off the porch with his knife and pointing to the top of the building. "Three nights paid ahead. Damage deposit doubled. If you burn the furniture, you buy new furniture. If you burn the door, you buy a new door. If you somehow burn the whole place down, I keep the deposit and charge your friend for the entire building."

Turtle opened his mouth, closed it, then looked at Peril as if asking whether she had also heard the sudden appearance of practical rental terms appear from the side of the street.

Peril narrowed her eyes at the old dragon. "Were you listening to us?"

"Hard not to." He shaved another curl from the wood. "You two have been rejected by half the street loudly enough for the other half to save time by closing up."

Turtle's ears flushed. "Ah."

Peril's wings lifted slightly. "And you want to rent to me?"

The old SkyWing finally looked up properly, his pale orange eyes moving over her scales, her talons, the faint shimmer of heat around her body, and then the small black marks she had left in the stone where her claws had flexed too hard. His gaze lingered there for a moment before sliding back to her face.

"You got money?" he asked.

"Yes," Peril said.

"You planning to murder me?"

"No."

"You planning to murder anyone else on my property?"

Peril hesitated.

Turtle quietly said, "Peril."

"No," she said, louder.

The old SkyWing grunted. "Good. Murder stains are worse than scorch marks."

Turtle blinked. "Are they?"

"They get officials involved." The old dragon pointed the knife at Peril. "Scorch marks I can paint over. Officials ask annoying questions and put their snout in my business."

Peril stared at him for a long moment.

Then, slowly, suspicion curled through her chest. "You know who I am."

"Yes."

"You know what I did."

"I know enough."

"And you do not care?"

The old SkyWing snorted and went back to shaving wood. "Dragoness, I have lived in this city through three queens, two attempted purges, one civil riot, four tax reforms, and more soldiers with blood on their armour than I can count. If I stopped renting rooms every time a dragon had blood on their claws, I would have starved before my joints would start to ache."

Turtle went very still beside her, but Peril could not tell whether it was because of the words or because of how easily the old dragon had said them.

The old SkyWing glanced up again, expression flat. "Don't mistake that for trust. I don't trust anyone who walks into the Sky Capital looking miserable or self-important, which is most dragons. I trust paid coin, my stone walls, and my own rules."

Peril's throat tightened in a way she refused to acknowledge. "What rules?"

"No burning the furniture unless you pay for it first. No fighting after midnight unless both dragons involved pay me first as compensation for lost sleep. No dragging corpses across the porch. No royal messengers before breakfast. No fucking in the living room unless you clean up after yourself."

Turtle's brow furrowed, disgusted. "That last thing happened?"

"Everything has happened." The old SkyWing pointed the knife toward the building behind him. "Room is upstairs, back left. Stone floor. Stone walls. Front door sticks. Bedframe is iron, mattress is unfortunately flammable. Table is ugly, but if you burn it, that might be an improvement. Window sticks. Kick it from the bottom, not the side."

Peril did not move.

This was the part where the trap usually appeared. The sharp smile. The extra condition. The little twist that turned almost-kindness into humiliation.

The old dragon watched her watching him, then rolled his eyes so hard it looked painful. "Moons above, either take the room or don't. I am too old to perform moral wrestling on my porch."

Turtle made a sound suspiciously close to a laugh.

Peril shot him a look. He immediately looked innocent, which was one of his least convincing expressions.

"How much?" Peril asked.

The old SkyWing named the price.

Turtle winced.

Peril did not, mostly because she had no idea whether it was expensive or not. Judging by Turtle's face, it was either expensive or he had just developed a sudden allergy to numbers.

"That is too much," Turtle said carefully.

The old dragon shrugged. "Then sleep outside."

"It is one floor."

"It is one floor I am willing to rent to her."

That shut Turtle's mouth.

Peril felt the words land between them with a weight she hated and understood at the same time.

The old SkyWing seemed to notice, because his expression soured. "Don't look at me like I kicked your egg. I'm not charging extra because I think she's a monster. I'm charging extra because if one nervous idiot decides to throw a brick through my window for housing her, I'm the one that needs to pay for a new window."

Peril blinked.

Turtle's jaw shifted.

"That is still unfair," he said.

"Yes," the old SkyWing said. "Most things are. Do you want the room or the lesson?"

Peril stared at him.

Then, before Turtle could reach for his pouch, she snapped her tail in front of him.

"No."

Turtle froze. "I was only—"

"I'm paying."

He looked at her for a long moment, then slowly lowered his claw. "All right."

No argument, no fuss, no careful little speech about unnecessary pride or fairness or how he did not mind helping.

Just all right.

That made something in Peril's chest ache worse than Clay's rejection had. She dug the coins from her chainmail pouch and stepped closer to the porch. The old SkyWing held out one claw, then paused when he noticed the way the coins glowed faintly orange against her scales.

"Put them in the bowl," he said, nudging the nut bowl toward her.

Peril dropped the coins into it.

One nut caught fire.

The old dragon looked at it. Peril looked at it. Turtle looked like he was trying very hard not to burst out laughing.

The old SkyWing picked up the burning nut with the tip of his knife, flicked it into the street, and said, "Damage deposit tripled if you set my snacks on fire again."

Peril opened her mouth.

Nothing came out. Then, to her own immense irritation, she laughed.

It came out rough and startled, and not entirely happy, but it was real enough that Turtle looked at her like the happy sound mattered to him.

The old SkyWing scooped the coins from the bowl once they had cooled, counted them with quick, practiced movements, and shoved them into a pouch at his side.

"Name's Cinderback," he said. "If anyone asks, you are respectable tenants who paid in advance."

Peril arched a brow. "Are we respectable?"

"No," Cinderback said. "But you paid in advance."

Peril tested the key in the rusty metal door. The lock stuck.

She stared at it.

Turtle, standing one step below her to avoid crowding the small landing, said very quietly, "He did say it stuck."

Peril glanced back at him. "Are you encouraging property damage?"

"I think, technically, I am encouraging landlord-approved maintenance."

Peril considered that for half a heartbeat, then kicked the door near the bottom.

The lock gave with a sharp clack, the door swung open, and Turtle blinked past her shoulder into the apartment.

"Oh," he said.

Peril had been prepared for many things: soot, bare stone, suspicious stains, a mattress that looked like it had hosted at least three plagues, or the lingering smell of previous tenants who had ignored the corpse rule. What she had not expected was colour.

The room beyond the door was small, but not miserable. The walls were stone, yes, but someone had painted them a cool pastel blue in uneven strokes, with a border of faded yellow shapes curling along the top like sunlight or badly behaved grapevines. The floor was polished dark stone, worn smooth by years of claws, and the late evening light coming through the window made the whole room glow softly instead of glooming in the way old rented rooms usually tried to do.

A low stone bench curved along one wall, covered with flat leather pads that looked sturdy enough to survive Peril sitting on them for at least two heartbeats. Beside it sat a square stone shelf with chipped edges, and a small metal fireplace. Under the window was a little stone counter with a basin, a cracked water jug, a kettle and a row of mismatched cups.

In the middle of the room stood the ugliest coffee table Peril had ever seen.

It was made of wood, which was already a bad decision, but the real crime was the shape. Its legs curved outward like a spider that had lost an argument with gravity, and someone had once painted the top in blotches of green, orange, and purple that might once have been flowers if the artist had only heard flowers described by a drunk soldier.

Peril stared at it.

Turtle stared at it too.

"That," Turtle said carefully, "is a table with a lot of confidence."

"It looks diseased."

"It may be symbolic."

"It is symbolically hideous."

"I agree."

Peril glanced at him, surprised by the immediate surrender. Turtle was still looking at the table with the faintly horrified focus of a dragon trying to be kind and failing.

"It might be the one thing in this room I am allowed to burn," Peril said.

"Cinderback did say that might be an improvement."

"He did."

"I feel we should not test him within the first five minutes."

Peril made a thoughtful sound, but she did not actually set the table on fire, which she felt was generous of her.

Then her gaze dropped to the floor.

A rug lay beneath the table.

Peril went still.

It was not a very large rug, but it was still a rug, woven from thick red and brown fibres and placed directly in the most dangerous part of the room: underneath the very flammable, very ugly table, where any sensible spark could start a city wide Peril-shaped disaster. It looked soft, and warm. And extremely treacherous.

Turtle followed her gaze and winced.

"Ah," he said.

Peril pointed at it. "Danger."

"Yes."

"Why is there a rug?"

"Decoration."

"Decoration is how houses die."

Turtle pressed his lips together, and she could tell he was trying not to smile. "I can move it."

"You should move it."

"I will move it."

"Now."

"Yes, now."

He stepped around her, crossed the room, and carefully dragged the rug out from under the table while Peril watched with the rigid attention of a dragon supervising bomb disposal. Once Turtle had folded it and pushed it into the farthest corner, she relaxed by the smallest possible amount.

"There," he said. "Crisis delayed."

"Not solved? Delayed."

"Well, yes."

The apartment had two other spaces attached to the main room. One was a tiny washroom with a stone basin and a drain hole in the floor. The other was not a separate room exactly, but a bedroom alcove divided from the living area by a curtain made of polished wooden beads strung together on thin cords.

Peril stared at the bead curtain.

It swayed slightly in the draft from the open door, clicking and clacking against itself in a soft, cheerful little cascade.

Wooden beads. Hundreds of them.

Turtle came to stand beside her.

The beads clicked again.

Peril slowly turned her head toward him.

Turtle said, "I can move that too."

"You had better."

"I had better," he agreed.

"I am starting to think Cinderback's definition of stone room was optimistic."

"To be fair, the walls are stone. And the floor. And most of the furniture!"

Peril looked pointedly at the bead curtain.

Turtle followed her gaze. "Mostly," he repeated, with less confidence.

Behind the curtain, the sleeping alcove was simple but, annoyingly, rather nice. A large iron bedframe had been set against the far wall with a thick mattress laid over it, covered in a dark, fluffy pelt and a folded blanket that looked old but clean, large enough for two dragons and then some. A small stone shelf sat beside the bed, and someone had painted the wall behind it in a softer orange, almost like sunset light. There was even a narrow window with a view over the lower tiers of the capital, where laundry snapped between buildings and dragons moved through the streets like sparks drifting through the sky.

Peril stood in the doorway, suddenly unsure what to do with her claws.

She had been ready for soot, old clawmarks, a mattress with questionable stains, maybe a ceiling that looked like it wanted to collapse out of spite. She had not been ready for warm paint, a stupid cheerful bead curtain, and a bed that looked as if normal dragons might actually sleep there without keeping one eye open.

It made the room harder to hate.

Peril scowled at the coffee table instead. That, at least, was easy.

Turtle stepped carefully past her and set his satchel down near the stone bench. "This is… better than I expected."

Peril snorted. "Low bar."

"Yes," he said. "But still."

He looked around again, and there was something gentle in his expression, something quietly pleased that made Peril's chest feel strange.

She crossed the room and tapped one claw against the ugly coffee table. The wood hissed faintly under the heat.

"Maybe Cinderback gave us this table on purpose," she said.

Turtle tilted his head. "As a test?"

"As a sacrifice."

That got a laugh out of him, soft and startled, and Peril immediately decided the table could live for now.

Turtle moved to the window and tested it. It did not budge. Remembering Cinderback's instruction, he kicked the bottom with one hind talon, and the frame popped loose with a squeal of protest before opening enough to let in a gust of clean mountain air.

Peril's shoulders loosened before she could stop them. The room breathed around them.

Outside, the Sky Capital murmured: distant wingbeats, arguing merchants, the scrape of hand carts over stone, and somewhere far below, a dragon laughing loudly enough to make another shout back to snuff it. It was not entirely peaceful, and full of unpleasant memories pressing at the edges. But it was theirs.

For three nights, at least.

Turtle turned from the window. "I can go buy some food," he said. "And maybe something less dangerous than a rug."

Peril looked at him sharply. "You are not replacing the rug. I like the rug."

"I was thinking more along the lines of something that cannot burst into flames."

"Good."

"And maybe tea."

"You always want tea."

"Tea improves most situations."

"Not if I boil it by holding the bloody cup."

"That makes brewing it much easier."

Peril stared at him.

Turtle looked briefly proud, then immediately embarrassed by his own joke.

There it was again, that dangerous little smile trying to escape.

Peril looked away first.

"Fine," she said. "Get tea."

"And food?"

"And food."

"And something for the mattress? Cinderback said it was unfortunately flammable."

Peril glanced toward the bedroom alcove, then at the wooden beads Turtle still had not removed.

"One disaster at a time," she said.

Turtle followed her gaze and nodded solemnly. "Right. Curtain first."

He reached for the bead curtain, then paused with one claw hovering inches from it. "Do you want me to take it down entirely, or just tie it back?"

Peril opened her mouth to say take it down, obviously, because only an idiot would hang a hundred tiny pieces of kindling between a firescales dragon and the place she was supposed to sleep.

But the beads clicked softly again, warm and stupid and cheerful, and some deeply inconvenient part of her noticed that they made the apartment feel less empty.

She scowled.

"Tie it back," she said.

Turtle looked at her, not quite hiding his surprise.

"What?" she snapped.

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Tying it back."

He found a cord near the side and gathered the bead curtain carefully, pulling it away from the entrance to the sleeping alcove until it hung in a glittering wooden bundle against the wall. It still looked dangerous, but less suicidal.

Peril decided that was good enough.

When he finished, Turtle stood back and looked around again. "There. Mostly safe."

Peril looked at the table. The rug in the corner. The bead curtain. The unfortunately flammable mattress. Then at Turtle.

"Mostly safe," she echoed.

His smile softened. "For us, that might be enough."

Peril hated how much she liked the sound of us. So she turned toward the ugly table and said, "If that thing tries anything, I'm killing it first."

Turtle laughed again.

Morning came warm.

Very warm.

Turtle surfaced slowly from sleep, drifting up through layers of comfortable darkness with the vague, pleasant sense that he was lying somewhere safe. For a few quiet heartbeats, that was all he knew: warmth along his side, weight curled around him, the distant murmur of the Sky Capital beyond the window, and the faint smell of smoke threaded through the room like a memory that had decided to behave itself for once.

Then the warmth moved.

Turtle opened one eye.

Peril was curled against him.

At some point during the night, the careful stretch of bedframe they had left between them had ceased to exist, apparently without anyone consulting Turtle. Peril had crossed it, claimed it, and then claimed most of him as well.

Her foreleg was draped across his ribs, heavy and possessive in sleep, one talon curled loosely against his shoulder. Her snout was tucked under his jaw, warm breath fanning across the softer scales of his throat with every slow exhale. One of her wings had slid half over his side like a blanket, and her tail was tangled with his so thoroughly that Turtle could not immediately tell where his ended and hers began.

He stopped breathing. That seemed safest.

Peril made a small, sleepy sound and pressed closer.

Turtle's mind, which had handled ancient magic, secret spells, terrifying queens, Darkstalker, and several conversations with his mother, immediately abandoned him.

All right.

This was fine.

This was completely normal.

This was the sort of thing that probably happened when two adult dragons shared one bed after months of travelling together, especially when one of those dragons had spent most of her life unable to touch anyone without killing them. Peril was not doing this because of anything complicated. She was asleep. That was all. She had probably reached for the only warm, fireproof thing nearby and decided, without waking, that he would do.

A stuffed toy, perhaps.

A very calm, very dignified, internally screaming stuffed toy.

Turtle stared at the painted orange wall behind the bed and tried not to think about the fact that Peril's claws were resting against his scales without fear, without burning him, without anything terrible happening at all. He tried not to think about how carefully fierce she had been the night before when she insisted on paying, or how rough her laugh had sounded when Cinderback's snack caught fire, or how she had looked around the apartment as if she did not trust anything nice to stay nice.

He especially tried not to think about how well she fit against him.

That thought was absolutely not helpful.

Peril shifted again, her snout nudging the underside of his jaw.

Turtle's whole body went rigid.

"Mm," Peril mumbled.

Turtle did not move.

He was fairly sure he had become part of the bed.

That was his life now. Prince Turtle of the SeaWings, tragic victim of one sleeping SkyWing with absolutely no respect for agreed-upon personal space. Future scrolls would remember him kindly, or at least note that he had died politely.

Except he was not dying.

He was warm.

And Peril was still asleep.

And, moons help him, some quiet traitorous part of him was happy.

The realization settled in slowly and made his ears heat so badly that, for one ridiculous moment, he wondered whether he had somehow caught fire from the inside.

He turned his head by the smallest possible amount.

Peril looked different asleep. Not harmless; he suspected even an unconscious Peril would object violently to being described as harmless. But the sharpness had loosened around her face, the usual restless tension gone from her jaw and wings. Her scales caught the dim morning light and the faint glow beneath her scales made the space around them feel like the inside of a banked hearth.

She looked relaxed and peaceful.

Turtle swallowed. He should wake her. Probably.

Or he should slip away before she woke and found herself wrapped around him like she had decided he was a particularly flameproof pillow. That would spare her embarrassment, assuming Peril was capable of embarrassment in any ordinary sense. It might also spare him from having to explain why he was blushing hard enough to be mistaken for a RainWing with a very limited colour range.

Carefully, with the slow precision of a dragon handling a limited edition of his favourite scroll, Turtle tried to ease one foreleg free.

Peril's grip tightened.

Turtle froze.

Her claws curled lightly into his shoulder, not enough to hurt, just enough to say mine in the blunt language of sleeping bodies.

His heart gave one large, stupid thump.

No. Not mine. That was not what it meant. That was a terrible, dangerous, inappropriate interpretation of an unconscious dragon's accidental cuddling habits.

Peril made another quiet noise and shifted her head until her cheek rested more fully against his neck.

Turtle closed his eyes.

Food.

Food was practical and safe.

Food was a thing dragons needed in the morning, and if he went to buy some, he would have time to collect himself, stop glowing with internal panic, and pretend he had not spent the first part of the day being held hostage by affection.

Very gently, he began trying to untangle his tail from hers.

This proved difficult because Peril, despite being asleep, had apparently developed the instincts of a constricting snake.

He moved one coil.

She followed.

He shifted his hind leg.

She muttered something unintelligible and trapped it again.

Turtle stared at the ceiling.

"Peril," he whispered.

She did not wake.

Of course she did not wake. Peril could sleep through city noise, mountain wind, and probably an avalanche if she had decided the avalanche was not worth her attention.

He tried again, even softer. "Peril?"

Her only answer was to nuzzle closer.

Turtle made a small sound that he hoped no one ever heard.

All right. New plan.

He would simply remain here until she woke on her own. That was respectful. Reasonable. Not at all cowardly. He would lie perfectly still, breathe only when necessary, and absolutely not think about her warmth or her claws or the way her wing rested over him as if sheltering him from the entire world.

Five breaths passed.

Then ten.

Then Peril's tail twitched against his.

Turtle decided he was not strong enough for this plan.

He tried again.

This time, he managed to slide his foreleg free, then slowly lifted her talon from his shoulder and placed it on the bedframe beside him. Peril's brow furrowed in sleep, and for a heartbeat he thought she might wake, but she only grumbled and rolled half into the space he had created.

Unfortunately, that made her press even more of her weight against his side.

Turtle stared at her.

"You are not helping," he whispered.

Peril, being asleep and unreasonable, ignored him.

It took several more careful manoeuvres, one nearly disastrous moment when the bead curtain clicked in the draft and made him freeze like a guilty thief, and an undignified amount of holding his breath, but eventually Turtle managed to extract himself from the bed.

He stood on the cold stone floor, wings tucked tight, heart pounding as if he had just escaped a collapsing cave.

Peril immediately curled into the warm hollow he had left behind.

Her claws flexed once against the bedframe, searching.

Turtle's chest did something painfully soft.

Then Peril huffed in her sleep and pulled the blanket Turtle had been sleeping on closer to her to snuggle that instead.

The blanket began smoking at the edge. Turtle's eyes widened.

He snatched it away before it could properly catch, patted the smoking corner out against the stone floor, and looked back at Peril.

She grumbled in her sleep, and turned over to her other side.

"Sorry," he whispered, absurdly. She did not answer.

He folded the blanket and placed it on the stone shelf instead, safely out of reach, then stood there for a moment longer watching her curl tighter on the bedframe. For a moment she looked smaller, though that made no sense at all. Peril was fire and teeth and a name half the Sky Kingdom still flinched from.

But asleep, reaching blindly for a different warmth she could finally have, she looked like someone who had been cold for a very long time.

Turtle looked away before the thought could become too much.

Food, he reminded himself. Tea. Something practical.

Something that did not require him to understand whatever had just happened inside his chest.

He gathered his pouch from beside the stone bench in the living room, moving as quietly as he could. The ugly coffee table waited in the center of the room, still offensively ugly in the pale morning light. The rug remained folded in the corner, exiled for its crimes. The bead curtain clicked softly behind him, tied safely back from the sleeping alcove.

For some reason, the apartment felt different from last night. Not just rented, but lived in.

He reached the door, then paused and glanced back.

Peril was still asleep, one wing half-spread across the bedframe where Turtle was laying just before.

Turtle smiled despite himself. Then he slipped out into the city before she could wake and catch him doing it.

By the time Turtle started back toward their current place of residence, the Sky Capital had fully woken around him.

Wingbeats snapped overhead as dragons launched from ledges and crossed between towers, their shadows sliding over the red stone streets in quick, flickering shapes. Merchants shouted prices from stalls along the roads, carts scraped along uneven paths, and somewhere nearby a hammer struck metal in steady, ringing blows that echoed between the buildings. The whole city seemed to rise all at once, loud and bright.

Turtle shifted the parcels under one wing and kept climbing through the crooked lanes, trying not to drop the plates he had bought or crush the little cloth-wrapped charm tucked against his chest. He had meant to buy breakfast, because breakfast was sensible and safe and did not require him to think about waking up with Peril wrapped around him.

Instead, he was returning with breakfast, tea, two earthenware plates, iron cutlery, a small painted stone, and a dangling blue-glass charm that had looked ridiculous and cheerful and somehow exactly like something the apartment needed.

Or perhaps something he wanted the apartment to need. The thought made his ears warm, so he focused very hard on not tripping over a crack in the stone path.

Cinderback's squat building came into view at the end of the lane, wedged between its taller neighbours beneath the same crooked awning and bundles of dried herbs. The old SkyWing was already on the porch again, because apparently he had either never left it or had been carved there by some ancient and deeply unimpressed sculptor. Or maybe the old SkyWing had nothing better to do than glare at passers-by.

He looked up as Turtle approached, eyes flicking over the parcels, plates, and suspiciously cheerful decorations.

"Buying half the market?" Cinderback asked.

"Breakfast," Turtle said.

"For an army?"

"For Peril."

Cinderback grunted, as if Turtle's answer explained everything and perhaps several other things besides. He shaved a curl from the wood, then nodded toward the stairs. "She burn anything yet?"

"No."

"Furniture?"

"No."

"Curtain?"

"No."

"Ugly table?"

"Also no."

"Shame."

Turtle looked up toward the apartment window. "She did threaten it."

"Good instincts."

A laugh escaped Turtle before he could stop it. Cinderback's mouth did not move, but something in his eyes suggested he considered that an acceptable response.

"I did want to ask," Turtle said, adjusting the parcels before one of the plates could slide loose. "The rug in the room. We moved it into the corner, but it is still probably not a good idea to leave it there."

Cinderback made a face as if Turtle had just mentioned an old enemy. "That rug."

Turtle glanced up at him. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"It is cursed."

Turtle blinked. "Cursed?"

"Not magically," Cinderback said, shaving another curl from the wood. "Worse. Sentimental. My sister made it thirty years ago and refused to let me throw it out before she passed, even though it sheds, collects dust, and once tripped a royal inspector so badly he knocked out two teeth on the doorframe."

Turtle looked toward the apartment window again. "Then perhaps it should not be in a room rented to Peril."

"Obviously." Cinderback flicked the strip of wood into the growing pile at his claws. "I put it there before I knew I was housing the famous walking fireplace."

Turtle winced. "She would hate that description."

"It's a pretty accurate description." Cinderback's eyes narrowed slightly, but didn't continue with his commenting. "I'll come get it later. Don't let her set it on fire before then. If that thing dies, my sister's spirit will know, and I am too old to be yelled at by the ghost of a dragoness who still thinks I broke her toy cart on purpose."

"Did you?"

Cinderback's knife paused.

Turtle waited.

"I was three," the old SkyWing said at last. "It was in my way."

Turtle tried very hard not to smile.

Cinderback pointed the knife at him. "Don't look smug, SeaWing. Do you have any siblings yourself?"

"Yes," Turtle said. "Many."

"Then you know."

"I know enough."

"Hmph." Cinderback went back to carving. "I'll take the rug after second meal. Until then, fold it into a bundle and keep it away from the bed. A tenant once knocked an oil lamp onto its predecessor while entertaining a soldier and smoked out the entire apartment."

Turtle's ears went hot despite his best efforts. "Right."

"Also," Cinderback added, his gaze flicking to the cloth-wrapped charm peeking from Turtle's satchel, "if you hang anything from the ceiling, use the iron hook by the window. Not the wooden beam."

Turtle looked down at the charm, then back up. "You noticed that?"

"I notice everything tenants might use to ruin my property."

"It is only a little glass charm."

"Little things still cause big problems." Cinderback squinted at him. "Especially when bought by dragons with feelings."

Turtle nearly dropped one of the plates.

"I do not know what you mean," he said.

"Of course not." Cinderback's voice was dry enough to parch a cactus. "No dragon in the history of Pyrrhia has ever bought useless pretty things for someone they were not thinking about."

"It is for the apartment."

"The apartment is not going to blush at it, and I will not lower the rent price if you leave it there."

Turtle's ears warmed further.

Cinderback looked satisfied with this, which made Turtle suspect he had been trying to achieve exactly that. The old SkyWing flicked one last wood shaving off the porch and leaned back with the deep, tired satisfaction of someone who had completed a morning's work by making a younger dragon uncomfortable.

"Go feed your firescales," he said. "Before she returns and eats the ugly table."

Turtle adjusted the parcels, plates, and cutlery with as much dignity as possible. "Thank you. For the rug, I mean."

"Don't thank me yet. If my sister's ghost asks, it was stolen."

"I am not saying that."

"Coward."

"Yes," Turtle said, already climbing the stairs. "But an honest one."

Cinderback snorted behind him, which Turtle chose to take as approval.

The apartment was quiet when Turtle reached the door.

He paused outside for a moment, balancing the food bundles carefully as he listened. No pacing claws. No muttering. No bead curtain incinerating because Peril had decided to glare at it again. No threatening conversation with the ugly table.

Maybe she was still asleep.

Turtle felt another stupid little smile try to sneak onto his face and pushed the door open before it could get too comfortable there.

The main room was empty.

The bed alcove was empty too.

Turtle stopped just inside the doorway, breakfast parcels tucked awkwardly under one wing, the two plates pressed against his chest.

"Peril?" he called.

No answer.

His gaze swept the room more carefully. The bedframe still held the warm hollow where she had slept, though the bedframe looked slightly more scorched than it had before. The bead curtain remained tied back. The folded rug still lurked in the corner, innocent and doomed. The ugly coffee table remained alive, unfortunately.

Peril's chainmail pouch was gone.

Turtle exhaled slowly. All right. She had gone out.

That was fine. Perfectly fine. Peril was an adult dragon who could go wherever she wanted, and if anyone tried to bother her, the most likely outcome was not danger to Peril but a city-wide lesson in minding one's own business.

Still, the room felt a little too quiet without her.

Turtle crossed to the stone counter and set down the parcels. Food first. Worry later. That was sensible. Sensible dragons did not stand in rented apartments imagining every possible horror that could befall the SkyWing capital with an unsupervised Peril. Sensible dragons unpacked breakfast.

He arranged the new earthenware plates on the table, carefully positioning them on the least offensive parts of its painted surface. The iron cutlery went beside them. The flatbread bundles filled one plate with a warm smell of spiced eggs, smoked goat, roasted onions, and peppery greens, while the other held honeyed fruit, strips of dried fish, and a small pouch of crisp seed cakes the vendor had sworn were "good for travelling dragons and fussy hatchlings."

Turtle had not asked which category he seemed to be.

He set the tea leaves near the kettle, then paused and unwrapped the little painted stone. The crooked orange sun stared up at him cheerfully.

He looked around the room.

The stone shelf under the window seemed like a safe place. Far enough from Peril's tail, far enough from the table if she decided its time had come, far enough from everything else flammable, which was becoming one of the main organizing principles of their lives.

He placed the stone there, then unwrapped the blue-glass charm.

It really was ridiculous. A few uneven chips of blue glass, bits of copper wire, and one seashell hanging from the bottom, all arranged as if someone had tried to trap a bit of sky and sea in the same object without asking either for permission.

Turtle held it up to the light. The charm scattered small blue flecks across the painted wall almost as if he were under water. He smiled despite himself.

Then he remembered Cinderback's words and found the iron hook near the window. After a little fumbling, one near-disaster involving the plates, and several moments of wondering whether he should have bought something less fragile for a room occupied by Peril, he managed to hang the charm where it could catch the morning light without dangling anywhere dangerous.

There. The apartment looked… better.

Not by much, just a little brighter and a little more lived-in.

Turtle stood back, suddenly aware that he had just decorated a room they might only occupy for three nights.

His ears warmed again. "For the apartment," he muttered to himself.

The apartment, mercifully, did not argue.

He turned back to the table, poured water into the kettle, and began preparing the tea on top of the small fireplace. By the time the leaves were steeping, the room smelled warm and pleasant, with sunlight slipping through the window and the blue charm scattering little flecks over the wall.

It was nice. This was becoming dangerous.

Turtle was just setting the last seed cakes onto one of the plates when the door burst open hard enough to smack the wall.

He jumped, one fork clattering against the table.

Peril stood in the doorway. She looked wild-eyed, triumphant, and very pleased with herself.

She was also holding something in her mouth.

Turtle stared.

Peril marched inside with the rigid, purposeful gait of a dragon delivering treasure to a royal treasury. Her eyes flicked over the table, the plates, the food, and then him. For one strange heartbeat, Turtle thought she looked almost nervous.

Then she lowered her head over one of the new earthenware plates and spat out a fish.

It hit the plate with a wet slap.

The room was silent. Turtle looked at the fish.

The fish was a large, silver-scaled bass and extremely dead. One side had been singed black along the fins. The tail bore clear teeth marks. A smear of river slime and dragon drool spread slowly across the blue glaze of the plate.

Turtle looked at Peril. She lifted her chin, eyes bright with something fierce and hopeful. A bit of charred fish scale clung to the edge of her mouth.

"I brought breakfast," she announced.

Turtle glanced at the table full of warm flatbread, roasted fruit, dried fish, seed cakes, tea, plates, cutlery, and one increasingly violated earthenware dish containing a slimy fish.

Then he looked back at Peril.

"Oh," he said.

Peril's wings twitched. "You like fish."

"I do."

"So I got one."

"You did."

"I caught it myself."

"I can see that."

She glanced down at the fish, then at the rest of the breakfast, and the brightness in her eyes faltered.

Turtle realized what was happening one heartbeat too late.

"You already got breakfast," she said.

"I—yes. I thought—"

"You thought wrong." Her tail lashed once, the tip scraping across the stone floor. "I was getting breakfast."

"I did not know."

"I am treating you."

Turtle blinked. "Treating me?"

"Yes." Peril's wings lifted, heat shimmering faintly around her shoulders. "You keep doing things. Buying things. Finding places for us to stay. Making tea. Being—" She snapped her jaws shut, as if the next word had tried to escape without permission. "Annoying."

Turtle looked at the fish again.

Then at the carefully arranged table.

Then at Peril, who was staring at him like she had just charged into battle and discovered the enemy had already surrendered without consulting her.

"You wanted to do something nice for me," he said softly.

Peril recoiled as if he had thrown something at her. "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like it's cute."

Turtle very wisely did not say that it was a little cute. Unfortunately, his face may have said it for him.

Peril narrowed her eyes. "Your face is doing it again."

"My face is not doing anything."

"It is being soft at me."

Turtle blinked, immediately unsure what to do with his face now that it had been accused of treason. "I am sorry?"

"You should be," Peril muttered, and looked down at the fish as if it had personally betrayed her.

The bass lay across the blue plate in a gleaming, slimy heap, its singed fins curled inward slightly from the heat from Peril's mouth. It had seemed better outside. Romantic, even. She had caught it herself, without burning the entire riverbank down, which had required restraint and skill and an amount of patience no one on Pyrrhia was appreciating properly. SeaWings liked fish. She knew that. Turtle liked fish. He had smiled at smoked fish before, and this one was fresher than smoked fish, even if it was a little... singed and slimy.

But now it sat beside neat flatbread bundles, honeyed fruit, seed cakes, tea, iron cutlery, and two stupidly pretty plates he had bought because of course Turtle could make breakfast look like a gentle little domestic painting while she came crashing in like a half-feral hawk with prey in her teeth.

Her throat tightened.

Stupid fish.

Stupid Turtle.

Stupid feelings.

Turtle stepped closer, slowly enough that she noticed he was giving her time to object. That made it worse, somehow.

"Peril," he said gently, "it really was thoughtful."

She bared her teeth before she could stop herself. "Do not be gentle about the fish."

"I am not being gentle about the fish."

"You ARE. You are being VERY Turtle about it."

He paused. "I am not sure how to be anyone else about it."

"That is the problem," she snapped.

Turtle's ears lowered slightly, and the little motion immediately made guilt stab through her chest with the accuracy of one of Scarlet's arena spears.

Peril looked away, furious at him for looking hurt and at herself for making him look hurt and at the fish for existing in the middle of all of it.

"I tried," she said, quieter now.

"I know."

"No, you don't." She turned back to him, wings twitching tight against her sides. "You don't know anything, actually. You keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"This." She gestured sharply at the table, the plates, the little curls of steam rising from the tea, the ridiculous blue charm glittering by the window. "Making things nice for me. Telling me nice things. Making horrible mornings less horrible. You buy breakfast and hang little shiny things and find places where dragons won't slam doors in my face, and then you stand there looking at me like I'm not—"

She stopped.

Turtle held very still.

Peril's claws flexed against the stone floor, heat hissing faintly beneath them. "Like I'm not what everyone knows I am."

Turtle's expression changed. Only sadness was visible, quiet and deep, like water going dark under fading moonlight.

"I know what you are," he said.

Peril's laugh came out sharp. "Do you?"

"Yes."

She took a step toward him, because anger was easier if it had somewhere to go. "Then say it."

Turtle swallowed. "Peril—"

"Say it."

His jaw tightened, but not with fear. "You are Peril."

The answer hit her wrong.

Not because it was cruel. Because it was not.

Peril glared at him, and all the words she had gathered turned to ash in her mouth.

Turtle looked down at the fish, then back at her. "You are the dragon who woke up this morning and went out into a city full of dragons who do not know what to do with you, because you wanted to bring me breakfast. You are the dragon who got angry when I paid for the room because you wanted to do something for me. You are the dragon who threatens furniture because I don't like it, feels bad about only bringing fish and pretends she does not care for anyone when she really does."

"That is not all I am."

"No," Turtle said softly. "But it is part of you too."

Peril's chest hurt.

She hated this. She hated it so much. She had meant to bring him food, maybe make him smile, maybe prove that she could do something nice for once without Turtle getting there first and making everything soft and so moons-damned romantic. She had not meant to stand in the middle of a rented apartment with her drool on a plate and her heart trying to claw its way out of her ribs.

"You make everything difficult," she said.

Turtle blinked. "Me?"

"Yes, you."

"I was under the impression I made things less difficult."

"You think that because you're stupid."

His mouth opened.

Peril jabbed a talon toward him. "Not actually stupid. Annoyingly stupid. Sweet stupid. SeaWing stupid."

"I am not sure that clarified anything."

"It clarified enough."

"I really do not think it did."

Peril growled, low in her throat, and turned away before she could say something even worse. The blue-glass charm scattered little flecks of light across the painted wall, soft and pretty and absolutely unnecessary. He had bought that for them. Of course he had bought that. He had seen a bare little apartment and thought it needed something to cheer it up.

He had seen her and somehow kept thinking the same thing.

Her vision blurred for one traitorous heartbeat.

No. Absolutely not. Not happening.

Peril blinked hard, forcing the feeling back down where it belonged, which was nowhere anyone could see it.

Behind her, Turtle's voice softened even further. "Peril, I'm sorry if I upset you."

That was it.

That was apparently the final straw.

She spun around. "I like you."

Turtle froze.

The words hung in the room, sudden and smoking.

Peril froze too, because she had not planned to say that. Not like that. Not in the middle of trying to have breakfast, next to a dead sloppy fish, while Turtle was looking at her with wide eyes.

Her heart slammed once.

Then again.

Turtle blinked. "Oh."

Peril's wings clamped tight to her sides.

"Oh?" she repeated.

"No, I mean—" Turtle's ears flushed red. "I mean, thank you. I like you too."

Peril stared at him.

For a moment, the room was so quiet she could hear the tea steaming.

Then her face went hot, which was a ridiculous and pointless thing for her face to do when the rest of her was already hot enough to vaporize anything organic.

"You like me too," she said slowly.

Turtle nodded, still flustered but apparently alive enough to keep making everything worse. "Yes. Of course I do. You're my friend."

Peril's eye twitched.

Turtle noticed. Too late.

"No," she said.

He blinked again. "No?"

"No."

"I am... confused."

"I know. I am too."

"I said I like you."

"You said it wrong."

Turtle looked helplessly at the table, as if the fish might provide guidance. The fish, having already given its life for romance, offered nothing.

"I did not realize there was a wrong way to say it," he said.

"There is when you say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like we are discussing weather. Or scrolls. Or whether a table should be allowed to live."

"That table is a complicated issue."

"Turtle."

"Right. Sorry." He drew in a breath, clearly trying to arrange his thoughts into something safe and careful.

Peril could see it happening. She could see the way his face changed when he started building a gentle sentence to explain something to her. She could almost hear him stacking soft words together, padding every edge, trying not to hurt her, trying not to assume, trying to be good.

She could not survive another careful sentence.

"I want to touch you," she blurted.

Turtle went very still.

Peril's mouth snapped shut.

There.

Now the words were out, awful and blunt and enormous, and there was no stuffing them back behind her teeth. She had said them. She had said them to Turtle, who was staring at her like she had just dropped a live viper onto the breakfast table.

His throat bobbed.

"Um," he said.

Peril wanted to leap out the window. Unfortunately for her, the window stuck, and Cinderback had given instructions about kicking it from the bottom, and thinking about that right now was so stupid that she almost laughed, except the laugh would have sounded like mad panic and she did not want Turtle to know she was completely panicking.

He glanced at her claws, then her face, then very quickly back to her eyes. "What do you mean?"

Peril's wings flared. "What do you think I mean?"

"I do not want to guess wrong."

"Of course you don't, because you are Turtle, and you would rather be crushed by a falling boulder than guess anything wrong and hurt me."

"That is not untrue," he admitted, voice faint.

Peril took a breath, and it came out shaking.

Turtle heard it.

His expression changed again, the panic in his eyes softening into concern, and that was somehow worse than the panic.

"Peril," he said, very quietly.

"No." She pointed at him with one trembling talon. "No careful voice."

"All right."

"No looking sad either."

"I can try."

"Try harder."

His mouth closed.

Peril turned in a tight circle because standing still felt impossible. Heat shimmered around her ears, and the blue flecks from the charm danced over the wall as if the room had decided to be pretty at the worst possible time.

"I don't know how to do this," she said.

Turtle did not move. "Do what?"

"This." She gestured between them so violently that the air rippled. "Wanting. Saying. Not sounding like I am about to attack or murder you."

"You do not sound like you are about to attack me."

"I always sound like I am about to attack someone."

"A little," he conceded.

She shot him a look.

His ears flushed again. "Sorry."

Peril's breath hitched, and suddenly the anger was not holding properly anymore. It slipped, and underneath was something raw and terrified and humiliating.

"I can kill dragons," she said, the words tumbling faster now. "I can do that. I can fight and burn and survive things that should have killed me, and I can walk into a city full of dragons who hate me and pretend it does not matter. I can carry a fish in my mouth like an idiot because I thought maybe that was romantic for about five stupid minutes."

"It was a little romantic," Turtle said softly.

"It was disgusting."

"It can be both."

Peril almost lost the thread of her breakdown because that was such a Turtle thing to say.

She made a frustrated sound and pressed on. "But I cannot make you understand that when I say I like you, I do not mean I like that you are nice to me. I do not mean I like travelling with you or arguing about stories or listening to you explain why a scroll is symbolic when it is obviously just wet paper. I mean I look at you and I want—"

The words failed.

Turtle's eyes were wide, but he did not look away.

Peril's claws curled hard against the stone.

"I want you," she said, much smaller than she meant to. "And I don't know what to do with that."

Turtle did not speak. For one horrifying heartbeat, Peril thought the silence meant no.

Clay's face flashed through her mind before she could stop it: kind, sorry, not wanting her that way.

Not again, something small and furious in her thought. Please not again.

Her chest tightened until she could hardly breathe.

Turtle took one step toward her. Peril flinched back before she could stop herself.

He stopped immediately, the silence changed.

His face went very soft. Not pitying or frightened, just understanding in that stupid Turtle way that hurt.

"You thought I was going to say no," he said.

Peril's jaw clenched. "I did not say that."

"No," he said. "You didn't."

Her eyes burned.

She hated that too.

"I might still," Turtle added carefully, and Peril's heart lurched so hard she nearly missed the way his voice shook. "Not because I do not want you near me. I just... Peril, I need to understand what you are asking. And I need you to know that you can ask. You do not have to fight the words out like they are trying to kill you."

Peril stared at him. That was too much.

That was far, far too much kindness for one morning, especially after the fish.

Her breath came in sharp and uneven. "I want to touch you," she said again, but this time it cracked halfway through. "Not by accident, or because I rolled over in my sleep and used you like a pillow and pretended not to be awake. Not because you are the only dragon I can touch and I'm desperate and pathetic and—"

"Peril."

"—and not because Clay didn't—" She stopped, but the name had already escaped.

Turtle's expression shifted.

Peril wanted to bite the word out of the air.

Too late.

She turned away so fast her tail nearly clipped the table. The fish wobbled on the plate. "Forget that."

"No."

She froze.

Turtle's voice was still quiet, but there was something firmer beneath it now. "I do not want to forget it, or what happened that day."

Peril laughed once, harshly. "Of course you don't. It makes everything worse."

"No," he said. "It makes it make sense."

She looked back at him despite herself.

Turtle's eyes were gentle, but there was a flush along his ears and neck now, and his claws were flexing anxiously against the floor. He was not calm. He was not untouched by this. The sight struck her heart like a spark finding dry grass.

"You are not pathetic," he said. "You are not desperate because you want to be touched."

Peril's throat closed.

Turtle swallowed, then added, softer, "And I do understand. More than you think, maybe."

She stared at him.

He looked away for a heartbeat, embarrassed, then forced himself to look back. "Not the same way. I know it is not the same. But I know what it feels like to think no one will choose you first. Or look at you and see you, not because they need something from you or because you are useful or frightening or convenient, but because they actually... want you there."

Peril's wings drooped.

All at once, she looked exhausted.

"I want you there," she said.

Turtle's breath caught.

"I want you close," she forced out. "I want to know what your scales feel like when I am not pretending it was an accident. I want to touch your face. And your neck. And your stupid ears. I want you to touch me back without doing it like I might break."

Turtle's ears went so vividly flushed that Peril almost forgot how to be miserable.

Almost.

"And I am terrified," she added, voice dropping. "Because if you don't want that, then I have just ruined everything."

Turtle stared at her for a long moment.

Then, very slowly, he set the fork he had been holding down on the table, as if sudden movement might startle them both.

"You have not ruined everything," he said.

Peril did not breathe.

"And I do want to touch you, and have you touch me," he added, so quietly she almost missed it.

The world narrowed.

Peril's eyes widened.

Turtle looked as if he regretted every scale on his own face, but he did not take the words back. "I mean, I want to be careful, and I want to understand what we are doing, and I am probably going to say several awkward things because that is apparently who I am as a dragon, but..." He drew in a breath. "Yes. I want that too."

Peril's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

For once in her life, the problem was not that she had too many words and no filter.

It was that she had no words at all.

Turtle gave her a small, nervous smile. "Was that the right way to say it?"

Peril stared at him.

Then her face twisted.

"Oh, moons," Turtle said quickly. "Was it not?"

"No," she said, voice rough. "It was."

She glared at him, but it was weaker than before.

Turtle took another slow step closer. "Can I ask you something?"

Peril's claws flexed. "Apparently we are doing that now."

"Can I touch your claw?"

She looked at him sharply.

Her claw.

The simplest possible place to begin.

Peril stared down at her own talons, bright and dangerous and responsible for more death than she knew how to carry. Then she looked at Turtle's talons, green, webbed and waiting.

He was not reaching for her yet.

He was asking.

Love can ask, some distant remembered voice might have said, if Peril had been the sort of dragon who remembered gentle lessons instead of shouted orders.

Her breath shook.

"Yes," she said.

Turtle's claw settled against hers.

For a breath, Peril waited for the world to punish them for it.

It didn't.

His talons were warm in a way that had nothing to do with fire, smooth against the heat of her scales. Peril stared at the contact like it was impossible magic. Like Turtle had reached across an arena and undone every chain Scarlet had ever fastened around her throat.

"Oh," she whispered.

Turtle's thumb brushed gently over the edge of her talon. "Is this all right?"

Peril made a sound that was either a laugh or the beginning of something far more embarrassing.

"Yes," she said. "It's... yes."

Peril stared at their claws for several long heartbeats, as if one of them might vanish if she blinked too hard.

Turtle did not move away. His talons rested lightly against hers, careful without being fragile, warm without burning, real in a way that made her chest feel too full and too empty all at once. His thumb brushed her talon again, barely more than a whisper of contact, and Peril's whole body betrayed her.

A tiny sound caught in her throat.

Not a growl or a snarl that she was accustomed to. Not any useful sound that could be blamed on anger, irritation, or the ugly table doing something offensive.

It was soft. Embarrassingly soft, and surprisingly intimate.

Peril snapped her mouth shut so fast her teeth clicked.

Turtle froze. "Was that bad?"

"No," she said immediately, too loudly.

His eyes searched her face, worried and impossibly gentle. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Because you m—"

"I did not."

Turtle blinked. "You did not?"

"No."

"All right," he said, in the careful voice of a dragon choosing life. "You did not."

Peril glared at him, but it was hard to glare properly when one of his claws was still touching hers and every nerve in her talons seemed to have started shouting at the rest of her body. She had expected holding talons to feel good, most likely. She had imagined it often enough, though usually in vague, furious flashes that made her want to bite something afterward. But this was not like those thoughts. This was smaller and much worse. Softer. It sank under her scales instead of striking them.

She did not know what to do with that, and never wanted this to end.

So, naturally, she chose the worst possible thing to say next.

"What do ears feel like?"

Turtle stared at her.

Peril stared back, refusing to retreat even though the question had come out much stranger than it had sounded inside her skull.

"Ears?" he repeated.

"Yes."

"My ears?"

"No, the fish's ears. Yes, your ears."

Turtle's ears, already flushed, somehow managed to go redder. "Fish do not have ears."

"That is not the important part of this conversation."

"I know. Sorry." He swallowed, and Peril watched the movement of his throat with far too much interest. "You want to touch my ears?"

"I just said that."

"You asked what they felt like."

"Because I want to know."

"Right." His voice had gone faint again. "That makes sense."

"It does?"

"I mean, as much as any of this makes sense, yes."

Peril looked at his ears.

They were stupid. That was the first problem. Soft-looking, curved, expressive, and currently folded halfway back because Turtle was flustered enough to look like he wanted to hide under the coffee table. They were not sharp like his horns or dangerous like talons. They were just there, warm and green and twitching whenever he got nervous and so very touchable.

Peril wanted to touch them so badly it made her angry.

Turtle seemed to notice the direction of her gaze, because his ears twitched again.

Peril's eyes narrowed. "Stop moving them."

"I am not doing it on purpose."

"Try harder."

"I am trying not to panic."

"That is unrelated."

"It feels related."

Peril huffed, but the sound wobbled around the edges. Turtle noticed that too, because of course he did. He was always noticing things. He lifted his other claw slowly, then stopped halfway between them.

"Peril," he said softly.

She stiffened. "What?"

"You can."

Her throat went tight again.

He tilted his head just a little, lowering it toward her, and the trust in the gesture hit her harder than any spear ever had. He was bringing one of the softest, most vulnerable parts of himself closer to her talons, to her heat, to the dragon who had spent her life being told her touch was death.

Peril's claws trembled.

Turtle saw that, too, and did not pull away.

She hated him a little for being so brave about it. She loved him so much for the same reason.

Very slowly, Peril lifted her free claw.

The air between them felt enormous. Her talons stopped once, hovering beside his face. "Tell me if it hurts," she said.

"I will."

"If I burn you—"

"You won't."

"You don't know that."

"I know enough."

Her face twisted. "You keep saying things like that."

"I know."

"It makes me want to shake you."

"You can do that later."

A startled laugh escaped her, and before she could lose courage, she touched the edge of his ear.

Turtle sucked in a breath.

Peril froze. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," he said quickly, though his voice had gone very strange. "No. You did not hurt me."

Her talons stayed where they were.

His ear was soft. Not fragile exactly, but softer than the scales along his jaw looked, thinner and more delicate beneath her touch. The edge flexed slightly when she brushed it, and Turtle shivered so faintly she might have missed it if every part of her had not been focused on this one impossible point of contact.

Peril stared. "Oh," she whispered.

Turtle's eyes fluttered halfway shut for a heartbeat before he forced them open again. "Is that a good oh or a bad oh?"

"I don't know."

"All right."

"It's..." She swallowed. Her claws brushed the curve of his ear again, more deliberately this time, and Turtle's breath caught in a way that made heat coil low in her chest. "Soft."

His mouth twitched, nervous and helpless. "Ears often are."

"Yours are very stupid."

"That seems unfair."

"They keep twitching."

"I wonder why."

Peril's gaze snapped to his face.

Turtle looked back at her, and for once there was something in his expression that was not only gentle caution. It was still Turtle, still uncertain and sweet and a little overwhelmed, but there was wanting there too, plain enough that even Peril could not miss it.

Her heart slammed against her ribs.

She touched his ear again, just because she could.

Turtle leaned into it.

Peril leaned closer to his face. Her breath broke.

"Turtle," she said, and it came out rougher than she meant it to.

His eyes softened. "Yes?"

"I—"

The door banged open.

Turtle jerked back so fast his hip hit the table. The violated fish bounced on its plate. One seed cake rolled off the edge and landed on the floor.

Cinderback stood in the doorway with the expression of a dragon who had already decided whatever was happening was both inconvenient and not his problem. One claw held the spare key. The other held his cup of tea.

Peril's talons were still lifted in the air where Turtle's ear had been.

Turtle's face turned a spectacular shade of mortified.

"This is not what it looks like," he blurted.

Cinderback looked at Turtle.

Then at Peril.

Then at the breakfast table, the dead fish, the scattered seed cake, the two dragons standing much too close together, and the rug folded guiltily in the corner.

Peril slowly lowered her claw.

"Oh no," she said dreamily, still breathless and far too honest to save anyone. "It absolutely is."

Turtle made a strangled sound.

Cinderback took a sip of tea.

Peril looked at Turtle, her scales still buzzing from the feel of his ear under her talons, from the way he had leaned into her, from the fact that the old SkyWing could have brought the entire royal guard with him and she probably still would not have had enough sense to deny wanting to do unspeakable things to him.

"I want you," she said.

Turtle's mouth fell open.

Cinderback stared at her for one long moment.

Then he looked at Turtle. "Congratulations or condolences?"

Turtle covered his face with both claws. "Moons."

Peril frowned at Cinderback. "Why are you here?"

"The rug," Cinderback said.

"You said after second meal." Turtle yelled back, mortified.

"This is after second meal."

Turtle lowered one claw just enough to peer at him. "It is still morning."

Cinderback lifted his cup. "Second meal."

"That is tea."

"Tea counts if you are old and no one can stop you."

Turtle made another helpless sound, somewhere between laughter and despair.

Cinderback stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, because apparently owning the building meant invitations were for dragons who cared. He crossed to the corner, hooked the folded rug with one talon, and dragged it toward himself.

"Don't mind me," he said. "Continue whatever horrifying courtship ritual this is after I leave."

Turtle's ears went scarlet again. "We were not—"

Peril cut in, "We were."

Turtle looked at her.

She looked back, daring him to contradict her.

He did not.

That made something warm and fierce flare in her chest.

Cinderback grunted as he hefted the rug over one shoulder. "Good."

Peril's mouth twitched despite herself.

Cinderback paused at the door and pointed one claw at the table. "If that fish leaks into the wood, I am charging you."

"The table is ugly," Peril said.

"The table is mine."

"You said burning it might improve it."

"I say many things. Like cleaning up after yourselves if you fuck in the living room."

Turtle, still red to the edges of his ears, managed weakly, "We will clean the table."

"See that you do." Cinderback shifted the rug higher, then glanced once more between them. His expression remained sour, but his voice lost half a grain of its edge. "Also, close the window properly if you are going to have more "feelings". Some of us are trying to enjoy tea in peace."

Then he left, pulling the door shut behind him with a firm click.

Silence dropped over the apartment.

Peril stared at the closed door.

Then she slowly turned her head toward Turtle.

Turtle was still standing beside the ugly table, red to the edges of his ears, one claw half-raised as if he might somehow pluck the last several minutes out of the air and arrange them into something less humiliating.

Peril blinked once.

Then her eyes narrowed.

"We will clean the table?" she repeated.

Turtle froze.

"Oh no," he said faintly.

Peril took one step toward him. "Is that what you said?"

"I meant the fish."

"Did you?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Because it sounded like you were agreeing with Cinderback that we were going to do things."

Turtle's mouth opened.

Closed.

Opened again.

Peril kept walking toward him.

The heat around her scales shimmered stronger now, bright and impossible to ignore. Turtle's wings shifted back until his hip bumped the table again, making the fish wobble ominously on its plate.

"I was panicking," he said.

"You do that a lot."

"Yes."

"And when you panic, you say interesting things."

"Unfortunately."

Peril stopped right in front of him. Close enough that he had to tilt his head up slightly to keep looking at her. Close enough that she could see the nervous flick of his eyes, the flush along his ears, the way his breath caught when she lifted one claw.

She touched his cheek this time.

Turtle went utterly still, as Peril's heart kicked against her ribs.

There it was. That tiny shiver. That helpless little response he could not quite hide. His eyes fluttered for the briefest heartbeat before he forced them open again, and the sight sent a sharp, triumphant thrill through her so fierce she almost laughed.

"You like that," she said.

Turtle swallowed. "Yes."

The honesty hit her harder than the touch had. Yes.

Peril's claws curled, very gently, along the edge of his jaw.

Turtle's breath broke. Somewhere deep in her chest, something that had been starving for years bared its teeth and purred.

"I want you," she said again, quieter this time.

Turtle's eyes met hers.

This time, he did not look away.

"I know," he said.

Peril's whole body went hot in a way that had nothing to do with firescales.

"And?" she purred, because if he was going to be calm now, she was going to shake the calm out of him by force.

His mouth twitched, nervous and sweet and infuriating. "And I want you too."

For a heartbeat, Peril forgot how to breathe.

Then she decided breathing was overrated.

She surged forward, caught his horns in both claws, and pulled.

Turtle made a startled sound that might have been her name if it had survived long enough to become a word. His claws scrambled once against the stone floor, wings flaring in pure reflex as she dragged him away from the table.

"Peril—"

"You said I could shake you later," she said.

"I did not imply this!"

"You should have been more specific."

"That is becoming a recurring problem."

She pulled him through the tied-back bead curtain into the sleeping alcove, where the iron bedframe waited beneath the painted orange wall, still faintly warm from the morning and scorched in exactly the places where she had slept. Turtle followed because she was pulling him, yes, but also because he was not resisting, and that fact struck her so hard she nearly stopped.

Nearly.

At the edge of the bed, she released one horn but kept the other hooked beneath her talons, forcing him to look at her.

The fluster was still there. The nervousness. The soft, careful Turtle-ness that had made her want to scream for half the morning.

But beneath all of it was wanting.

Real wanting. For her.

Peril's throat tightened.

"If you change your mind," she said, and hated how rough the words sounded, "say it now."

Turtle's expression softened, but not into pity or fear. Into something much steadier and serious.

He lifted one claw and touched the side of her face. Peril stopped breathing.

His talons were warm against her cheek, careful but not timid. He knew she was dangerous. Of course he knew. But it was not the only thing he saw.

"I am not changing my mind," he said.

Peril stared at him.

Then she kissed him.

"Then stop being careful," she whispered, pulling him down with her. "Make me shake."