“Ye look like her.” Dardin grunted, pouring a cup of cold milk for the she-elf he found himself playing host to. He’d brought her and her two companions, two other women wearing matching cloaks and similar travel sturdy clothing of high quality, to the little cottage behind his workshop. Dardin didn’t remember their names, nor did he give two swargols teats about them anyhow. It was Ryetah he was interested in and only Ryetah’s presence that moved him enough to open his home up to strangers-and Sidhe at that!

“I would,” the she-elf murmured nodding graciously as Dardin finished pouring the milk. He remembered when he used to ply his trade in the black city, and Igraine would come to him from the market and share a pitcher with him. She’d never drank a drop of any of the fine quality ale and mead that Dardin dreamed about with a shine in his eyes and a thirst on his tongue. The sidhe were a strange lot with hard heads for spirits that left Dardin green with jealousy, and yet they could get as flighty as milkmaids on a flask too many of milk. Backwards creatures the Sidhe.

The she-elf took a sip and then set her cup down, licking the lingering traces of the milk off of her upper lip with a swipe of her tongue.

“Igraine was my sister. Older than I, and very dear to me” she said to him, her impossibly regal posture not changing in the slightest. “I would appreciate what knowledge you have of her.”

“She talked like ye too” Dardin snorted, shuffling away from the table to fetch a jar of ale from his stores. His humble little cottage was small and cluttered with odds and ends from his shop as well as his many travels, and of course his books. Some dwarves collected gold or fine metals. Dardin collected knowledge, and he wasn’t ashamed or nothin but no one had never said he wasn’t odd either.

“She never did say where she’d come from, but I figured it was some place high and mighty looking and talking the way she did” he grumbled pulling out one of the jars in the back and farthest to the right, better brew those were if he remembered correctly. “Then again I never pressed much. Slaves in dragan land have no beginning. Thinking on yer beginning only makes the ending taste all the more bitter, that’s what I say.”

The she-elf did not visibly react, but Dardin had been around Sidhe enough to know their tells. Besides, there was something else Ryetah had in common with her sister; her eyes. Not their color, but their expressions. The woman’s eyes were like windows, and they were burning with a cold fury. Dardin struck a hole in the lid of the jar and raised it in toast to the woman. It had always made him burn too, thinking of Igraine and that bastard she served.

“She was an gray elf, born to a noble house and chosen by the anum bearer for teaching in the ways of anum bearing. That was her beginning and it should never have been taken from her, nor should it ever be forgotten, dwarf.”

“�in�n an ea?” Dardin chuckled darkly, taking a long swig of his ale. “The way I see it, all the remembering in the world won’t make a bitter drink any sweeter.

Having a Sidhe look down her pointy nose at him was hardly a new experience, and he never passed up a chance to show an elfling which way was up. Ryetah seemed pleasingly surprised to hear him use the old tongue, and even more pleasingly irritated at being called little bird.

“You will address our lady with more respect” one of Ryetah’s companions discovered her voice and Dardin snorted again into his ale.

“It’s alright Nadine, the good dwarf can speak to me how he wills”, Ryetah turned from her companion and pinned Dardin with a pleading look that cut through him in a way he hadn’t felt in over twenty years. “Please good dwarf. I would hear of my sister as you knew her.”

“Igraine was different from the others. Most of the slaves in the black city are empty. Never knew if it was the beatings or the magic in the binding but you could always tell which slaves had been there longer by the condition of their souls. Igraine never lost that soul. There was someone who wanted to take it from her though, a dragon by the name of Digare.” Dardin spat out the name, for it never failed to leave a bitter taste on his tongue.

“Digare? The son of War, one of the seven dragon lords?” Ryetah asked with trepidation and Dardin knew she was familiar with the black hearted beast. And why wouldn’t she be? War was the dragon lord most adamant about destroying ‘enemies’ of the dragan. His brutish sons were just the sword he wielded.

“Aye, Digare was a son of War and everyone knew he wanted Igraine, but he couldn’t touch her as long as she belonged to his mother. The mistress wasn’t as bad as the others, but she was no one to turn your back on either. She had Igraine playing nurse mother to the youngest, but when War found out the boy was a mule and wanted him dead she traded Igraine for War’s promise to cease hunting the boy as long as he never showed his face outside the republic. Igraine spent her whole life caring for her brat and what does the woman do? Hand her over to Digare. Traitorous bastards, dragons.”

That had been the worst afternoon of Dardin’s life, hearing the sound of War’s roar, looking up from his forge to see the red dragon and his sons swarming over head, Igraine clutched in Digare’s talons looking like a broken child's toy. The taste in his mouth that thinking on that devils spawn Digare left in his mouth was foul.

“You loved her.” Ryetah’s voice startled him. She hadn’t spoken the entire time he spun his tale, not even in the end learning her sister had fallen into the hands of the devil. The she-elf regarded him with a pitying gaze. “You made her the armlet, you helped her kill the son of a dragon lord. You risked your life and the wrath of the entire dragan horde, for a Sidhe slave. You must have loved her greatly.”

He had. And wasn’t that a tale for the jesters?

“Look at ye. Daft as Igraine was. What use would a dwarf have for a Sidhe woman anyway? I got tired of watching Digare drag her around and the soul leaking out of her eyes. It wasn’t right, all that time as a slave and nothing could make her eyes look as dead as a few short years with Digare. I made her the armlet aye, and gladly. I even got her on a ship out of dragan country when the bastard was dead.”

Dardin could see the moment that hope filled Ryetah’s eyes, the moment she understood that her sister had done what so few Sidhe had ever managed to do and escaped her life as a slave. He also saw the moment when the hope dimmed and reality crashed back in.

Yes Igraine had escaped. But to what end? She would never have been allowed to return home and she would haven been unwelcome in the lands of men, and War would have hunted her, blaming her correctly for the death of his son.

“Is she alive Dardin?” Ryetah asked quietly and it shouldn’t rip a dwarf's heart out to have to shake his head. But it did.

##############

Somewhere in the back of his mind Wes had known things were bound to get more complicated before they got better. It would have been too easy, finding the perfect bait by happenstance and having Blaine fall blindly into their laps, of course it wasn’t going to work like that at all.

Of course Wes was going to return from his briefing with Avris to find the village of Bale in an uproar and his prey flown the coup. While he and David had flown to meet Avris they’d left Trent and Jeff behind to keep an eye on things, trusting that Trent could keep an eye on the young dragon as well as Blaine.

Only somehow in just three days they’d managed to burn down the tavern, incite the villagers into an angry mob and lose Blaine completely. It was enough to drive a dragon mad, dealing with such foolishness, Wes seethed. It didn’t help the dragons mood any that he wasn’t exactly feeling his best.

He felt strangely flushed, itchy under his skin, and his sense of smell had grown almost painfully sharp, picking up on every female in a mile radius.

Wes had never been through a season before, despite being older than Blaine and having watched him suffer through many. He supposed that having his first strike him now was some sort of punishment for all of the times he’d laughed at his friend.

“Blaine came back just as we knew he would and we were keeping watch, just like you ordered captain,” Jeff tried to explain for the third time but Wes was only half listening. “I don’t know why but he deiced to burn the place down and fly off with the demihuman. It all happened so fast...”

“And you didn't feel it necessary to stop him?” David asked from where he stood beside Wes in the darkness. They were gathered at the end of the pier, waiting just where they’d agreed they’d wait for Kurt to bring them Blaine. It was only a formality though. Wes already knew how this was going to end.

“You ordered us not to engage,” Trent reminded them all in a petulant tone. “Isn’t that why we’re standing here? Until midnight we are bound by our word to honor our agreement with the demihuman and not to interfere.”

“And what about eating the villagers struck you as noninterference exactly?” David asked and Wes closed his eyes, trying ineffectively to drown out their voices. Despite the fact that his companions spoke in whispers his head ached as if there were hammers pounding inside his skull.

“One villager,” Jeff was saying, “and he was trying to kill Blaine’s man toy.”

“Jeff’s right you know, for once. Once Barel tried to harm his servant his life was forfeit. The boy was under our protection. Were we just supposed to stand by?”

Wes heard David open his mouth to reply but he raised a hand, signaling everyone to silence.

“Enough,” he commanded with a sigh, opening his eyes to stare at the moon overhead. The midnight hour had approached. “Our agreement with the demihuman is broken, the bargain unhonored. We have to pursue them. Avris requires her sons immediate return to Dalkinley and it’s our job to get him there, by any means.”

“We’re still going to try and sleep charm him aren’t we?” Jeff asked into the painful silence that followed, his young voice heavy with concern. “We’re not...we’re not going to hurt him are we?”

“The time for hesitancy has passed young one.” David murmured sadly and Wes nodded.

“We will part ways, each search in a different direction. When you’ve catch their trail signal the rest of us but do not wait. Fly hard and fast; subdue them with whatever force is necessary.” Wes instructed, pausing a moment to look each dragon in the eye. “My brothers. I know I ask much of you to fight one of the brethren but if we do not and War learns that Blaine has violated the terms of the deal he made with Avris, then Blaine will be safe nowhere. Not even in the republic.”

There was heaviness in the air, an acceptance of pain and trial to come that Wes was familiar with. He’d been flight captain for close to fifty years now. He was not unfamiliar with the burdens of war.

“What if they have split up and we find the demihuman first? Do we let him go?” Trent asked, and Wes couldn’t help the snarl that twisted his lips. He didn’t like being wrong, and he’d sorely misjudged Kurt. He’d honestly thought that the elfling would keep his word.

“No. Bring him to me. He will have to be bound.”

Nothing moved on David’s face but nevertheless Wes saw the disapproval there. The two dragons had been nest brothers; Wes knew him better than he thought he knew himself sometimes.

Jeff and Trent were openly gaping at him, protest already bubbling on Jeff’s tongue.

“Captain I know he didn’t honor the agreement but-”

“He knows too much.” David interjected, ready as he had ever been to back Wes no matter his personal thoughts. “We can not leave him unaccounted for in the lands of men, and he can not enter our lands without a master. Our captain is wise. He must be bound.”

When no argument followed, Wes threw back his hood and raised his head to the night sky, calming his riotous emotions and seeking stillness.

‘You used him. You knew he would have to be bound no matter what deals were made’. David’s thoughts slid inside of his mind as the four men shed their clothing.

‘Aye. I wish the elfling had never come upon us. For his sake’.

‘Aye. Sacrifices must be made in war, though they certainly leave a bitter taste on ones tongue. He will not have such a bad life in Dalkinley.’ David clapped a hand on his shoulder twice, a reminder of both their strength and their undying loyalty to each other.

“Captain?” Trent asked, eyes locked on the sky above them, naked body beginning to glow brightly as he vibrated with tension.

“Fly.”

Before the order even died on his lips, the four men were devoured by a sudden burst of light and flame.

# # # # # # # # # #

Kurt watched the dawn come, bringing light to the world and the end to his watch. They had many miles to go yet before they reached Vagru, perhaps even as much as another four days at the pace they were going. That put Kurt on edge, because he couldn’t imagine spending every night of their journey as he had like the night before, knowing that when the moon was in the center of the sky somewhere out there Wes and the others had stopped waiting and he had become a hunted man.

He’d been unable to sleep even while it was Blaine’s watch. He’d tensed at every noise in the trees, every brush of grass moved by wind.

The trouble was, Wes and the others would be flying, and true they would have to thoroughly comb the forest for them but even that would not slow them down by much. They would travel at least ten times faster than he and Blaine were traveling on foot.

Kurt frowned, wondering how on earth Blaine had managed to evade Wes as long as he had already.

“Finding a man hiding in the woods is like finding a needle in a haystack. Even for a dragon,” Blaine mumbled, rising from the bed he’d made for himself on the ground on top of the only thin blanket Kurt had packed in his satchel. They took turns sleeping on it depending on whose watch it was.

Kurt stared dumbfounded at him for a moment, and then realized he must have been sending Blaine his thoughts unwittingly.

“Still, we won’t be able to keep to the woods forever Blaine,” he argued. “We’re traveling along the coast and it’s not all wooded. When we reach open spaces we can’t have them right on our heels. It will be over even before it has begun.”

“Do you think we should try and steal some horses?” Blaine asked after a moments consideration and Kurt rolled his eyes at that because he could feel Blaine’s fears and they had less to do with getting caught and more to do with having someone ride him; so Kurt knew he wasn’t in fact that dense.

“No I think Blaine, that you know as well as I do that it would be silly not to fly.”

“No.” Blaine was getting up, dusting off his breaches and turning away from Kurt so swiftly that it actually stung. Kurt didn’t know why but then again he didn’t understand half of his reactions to the strange dragon.

“Blaine, can we at least talk about it? We don’t have a choice as-”

“There are always choices Kurt. I think we’re both living proof of that, and I’ve chosen not to take a rider.”

“Why?!” Kurt demanded to know, throwing his hands up as he stood, shouting at Blaine’s back. He wasn’t exactly sure where those words were coming from because they weren’t the ones he had meant to utter at all. He did understand why Blaine (and any other dragon) would resist taking a rider. He did.

There was just this tiny part of him that itched, grasping for things he couldn’t even piece together in his own mind. It was the same part that had paid such rapt attention to the sound of Blaine’s pleas, the same part that had found such satisfaction in knowing that he had Blaine at his mercy.

Blaine didn’t answer him, but Kurt hadn’t really expected him to. It had been a fools question. He watched the dragon walk off into the trees, presumably to look for food or relieve himself, and Kurt bit his lip, fighting back the wave of shame that welled up in him. He swallowed hard, tasting fear in his mouth. It was fear of himself.

He remembered sitting with his mother, young and terrified as he touched the scars that wove patterns over her skin, telling him everything she refused to say with her lips about her time in captivity. She had walked a fine line between doing her best to assure her child understood the harsh consequences that awaited them both should the unthinkable happen and they were found, and allowing him the innocence and naivete of youth.

Kurt had always known there were bad men in the world, men who enjoyed robbing others of will, men who enjoyed leaving scars in exchange for desperate pleas, men who swelled like ticks on the suffering of others. He did not like to think of himself as such a man. Though it terrified him to continue forward on foot he would. He would not force the dragon to take him on his back if he did not want it.

Sighing, Kurt set himself to gathering firewood.

# # # # # # # # # # #

Blaine loved to fly. All flying creatures did, but Blaine especially found a sense of peace in flight like he never could anywhere else. The coastal lands were wild and wooded, boarded by craggy cliffs that fell into the sea. It had been so long since Blaine had enjoyed his natural body, and even though it was still sore from their adventure the day before he reveled in the pull and stretch of his muscles as he pushed himself higher, soaring past the canopy of green and out into the blue of open sea.

One of the downfalls of living out of his man shape Blaine had discovered was an almost insatiable hunger. His belly was smaller in that shape yes, not needing as much meat to fuel it, but his mind was still very much that of a dragons.

He couldn’t seem to shake the instinctive need to eat more than this man sized belly could hold. Now that he knew he would have to wear his natural shape at regular intervals no matter how much he might wish to abandon it altogether, he might as well use the time to eat. Larger game would fill him for a couple of days and what he didn’t eat Kurt could smoke and pack in his satchel.

Only time was of the essence now that there was no doubt Wes and the others were in pursuit again, and Kurt was right, traveling on foot left them with no time to do anything but flee. Truth be told even the stop to sleep had probably cost them. It had been one thing when Blaine traveled alone, away from the sea and further inland, now that they were traveling along it there would be far less cover.

Don’t be a fool, he thought to himself. He knew the wise thing to do would be to take Kurt and race them from destination to destination, to stay far ahead of Wes and the others. And he would under normal circumstances, if Kurt wasn’t unfortunately in every way his ideal rider. Perhaps ideal wasn’t the right word, because Blaine hated the idea of accepting one so he didn’t really have an ideal rider. As far as the mechanics of it went though Kurt seemed to be his match.

There was undeniable attraction between them as well as the appropriate amount of strength in Kurt to subdue him; not something guaranteed. Being half human effected every demihuman differently, and only a few were born with enough sidhe magic in them to hold their own in a fight with their elven kin.

Kurt’s instincts had already begun to do what Blaine feared most, what Kurt himself didn’t even seem to want, and he definitely had all of the power he needed to do it if he’d managed to get such a quick hold on Blaine without even intending to. Heaven help him if Kurt should decided he intended to.

A soft humming filled his ears as he thought of Kurt, and Blaine felt the pendant resting against his chest warm his scales as it thrummed with power. It had done that in the past, often when he thought of Igraine, or sometimes to warn him of danger. He did not feel alarm now, too distracted by the scent of sage washing over him as if Kurt were not only there with him but all around him, and he couldn’t deny anymore how much he wanted it.

He wanted to experience flight with Kurt about as much as he feared it, precisely because he wanted it so much.

Would Kurt feel it the way he did? Hear the singing of the wind as it passed around them, feel the push of the air currents like waves? Would riding them give him the same thrill, the same rush of power and triumph that they gave Blaine?

The sky was Blaine’s domain, there he was master and if Kurt followed him there he would have to leave all pretense of control behind. There the riders whole being was at the mercy of his mount, there he would have to trust everything to the dragon he rode and if he could...

Well, Blaine couldn’t imagine Kurt trusting anyone or anything like that but if he could, well he could see it in his minds eye. Yes he could see the way Kurt would be as clearly as if he’d lived it all before. He knew the look of the wind in his hair, could predict the brightness of his eyes, feel the tensing of his thighs as he urged them higher faster, the pounding of his heart as he pressed against him in preparation for a dive.

And silly little fantasies like that right there, that was why Blaine would never allow Kurt on his back again.

Blaine did not pay heed to the pulse of warning coming from his rtanchree. His thoughts were on the smell of sage and the man it belonged to as it continued to wash over him. It was only when the coppery scent of blood mingled with it that Blaine realized what the pendant was trying to tell him. Kurt was hurt.

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Kurt had finished gathering the wood for the fire and had walked back a ways to the brook near the forests edge, where the trees thinned and the road could be seen tucked between the hills if one peered hard enough. He didn’t know if it was a Sidhe habit or a personal one but Kurt was a rather fastidious creature, and as long as Blaine was hunting he might as well use the time to bathe when he was sure of some privacy.

Finn and the other boys of his village had never had a problem bathing together when warmth permitted it- they rather enjoyed tossing each other about in the stream- but Kurt had always made a habit of bathing alone. His desires were unwelcomed by other men and that was easy enough to accept in his home village, where there weren’t many men who had ever impressed him enough to make him keen on expressing his desires anyway. Other than Finn of unfortunately, but that had of course ended fairly quickly when their parents married.

Kurt shed his tunic and then his leggings, wincing at the ache in his limbs. Falling out of the sky on a dragon, sleeping on the ground, walking for days, they took their toll on a body. Finn had better not give him any trouble when he finally tracked him down. One word of protest from that oafs lips and Kurt might do him an injury.
He washed quickly, unsure how long it would take Blaine to catch food to replenish their stores, not wanting the dragon to chance upon him naked- and he tried not to think about the fact that he’d already seen Blaine naked as the thought had no purpose.

Still it was rather persistent.

He dressed quickly, the early morning breeze chilling his damp skin, and ran a hand through his hair, sighing at its disastrous state. It would have to dry wet and tangled, but perhaps if he could find some geraniums he could make a paste to soften it. Perhaps it was strange for a lad to have such maidenly vanities, but Kurt’s hair was the same rich color that his mother’s had been and it still gave him comfort as a man to imagine her fingers spreading geranium oil over his scalp and combing through it, and to remember when he would spread the oil on his small palms and return the care.

It was as he was debating going in search of the flowers that he heard the strange and not yet familiar sound of wings beating overhead. Though they caused his heart to leap with alarm, he scolded himself not to be such an infant as he had done throughout the night before every time he jumped at the slightest sound. He walked out of the trees, searching the sky for Blaine.

Only the dragon soaring over his head wasn’t Blaine. He’d swept over Kurt before he could even piece two thoughts together, but he did manage to catch the brown and gold sheen of his scales and that was more than enough to get his heart racing and send him scurrying back into the trees.

# # # # # # # # #

Jeff had been flying all night, landing to sniff out trails and walk the streets of the occasional village and town hoping to catch a hint of either Blaine or the demihuman’s trail. He wasn’t as careful as he knew Wes would have liked him to be. He didn’t spend as much time peering under every stone as he was sure Wes and the others were because he didn’t actually expect to find Blaine or Kurt at all. Wes had sent him north along the coast, which was nothing more than Wes getting him out of the others hair because Blaine and the demihuman would be running away from the dragan lands not simply traversing along the sea border like confused hatchlings.

Jeff wanted to search only far enough in this direction that Wes wouldn’t shed too many scales when he doubled back to help the others. So he really wasn’t expecting it when a slim figure stepped out of the treeline. He flew right over him unable to halt his momentum quickly enough, but able to crane his long neck just in time to watch the man dart back into the trees and disappear beneath the canopy.

Jeff had no idea who it was, and truthfully it was more likely to be anyone else besides Kurt or Blaine, but Wes would kill him if he was that careless so he wheeled around, opening his jaws to let loose a thick jet of flame at the woodland beneath him. He couldn’t see the man as long as he was in the trees but he could certainly flush him out.

He drew a box around the area he’d first seen the man, leaving the treeline open. He beat his wings hard, spreading the fire back toward the treeline in order to drive the man out of the forest. He was also trying to keep it contained because Wes didn’t like it when they burned stuff down, and he was already in hot water over the whole Bale incident, never mind burning down an entire forest.

Jeff sincerely hoped he hadn’t misjudged how fast a man could run on two legs and either missed him or burnt him alive.

TBC