bathed in starlight

so marsh is part of an elite squadron of knights. the kingdom he lives in has been basically at war with dragons for a while, and he's specially trained in fighting them. he's staying at this fortress in the foothills and has become good friends with our teya here, who is i think a maid or medic or something. idk haven't decided exactly. anyway! one night there's a surprise attack on the fortress by a big group of dragons, and it's a complete rout. marsh quickly realizes there's no winning this, so the first chance he gets he runs to find teya and gets her on a horse and manages to escape into the forest with her.

they ride for a long time before marsh deems them safe enough to stop; he goes to scout a little clearing where they can camp, but when he comes back, he's just in time to see teya swaying in the saddle, and he has to lunge forward to catch her as she falls off the horse. turns out she got a pretty bad side wound during the battle, which marsh didn't notice because it was dark (and she didn't SAY anything), and she's been bleeding out this whole time. he manages to get her stitched up and taken care of, though he doesn't know how they're going to keep moving with her wouldn't like this. but then in the morning she just starts getting up and walking around like she's fine. marsh of course protests this, but when he gets teya to let him look at the wound again, it's looking far better, well on its way to being healed. which makes no sense because he felt how deep it was and there's no way it could have healed this quickly. he must have been wrong, he supposes, though he's still baffled.

so! they continue on, trying to make their way to someplace safe (without getting caught by dragons). except they then get ambushed by a good ol' pack of bandits. there's like 30 of them and though marsh is a great fighter there's no way he can take on all of them, so he tells teya to run, hoping he can distract/hold the bandits off long enough for her to be able to escape. he manages to take down quite a few before his legs are swept out from under him, and he knows it's over. but then he hears a roar, and a dragon comes charging out from the trees. it's blueish-grey in color and not huge by dragon standards - twenty feet long, perhaps - but that’s more than enough to be lethal. it starts laying into the bandits, breathing ashy fire like that from a volcano, cutting them down as they try to flee. marsh scrambles to find his sword that was knocked away in the chaos, knowing the odds are stacked against him - one on one against a dragon, with only his sword, he's surely facing down death for the second time in a matter of minutes. when he looks up, though, all the bandits are dead, and the dragon's just standing there, watching him. it creeps closer to him with a little trill that he's never heard before, keeping itself low to the ground in a non-threatening posture, and its eyes...they look like...marsh glances at the dragon's side, and sure enough, there's a scar there, just like the one on teya's side.

so yes, teya is a dragon shifter! dragons keep it Very secret that they're able to shift into human form; pretty much no one in marsh's kingdom knows about it. teya is a bit of a rogue, and didn't want to fight in the war, so she went and hid in plain sight in the human kingdom. who'd look for a dragon in the midst of the king's castle, after all? she was of course wary of marsh at first but then she discovered he did a lot to try and make sure dragons that were injured/captured were treated humanely and helped villages that were attacked by dragons to rebuild and all around is a Good Man, so she couldn't help but get attached to him after that. so back to the forest, after she transforms back to her human form, marsh at first accuses her of being a spy, but she looks so stricken as she assures him she isn't that he quickly believes she's telling the truth. she's also very jumpy and keeps flinching back from him - he does kill dragons, after all. but after everything, marsh knows there's no way he could hurt her, and he promises her as much, lowering to a knee before her and everything.

they keep traveling together, still trying to reach safety, though marsh isn't quite sure anymore what safety looks like for them, now that he knows teya's secret. they do get attacked by another dragon at one point that teya successfully fights off, and when marsh says afterwards that they need to move quickly in case it comes back again, teya tells him - blushing like crazy - that it won't, because she's staked a claim on him, and dragons have to abide by that. which marsh feels Some Kinda Way about. and during this time period they are of course getting closer and closer, emotionally and physically. they have discussions about the war, about the people and dragons they've both killed, about their families, about what the hell they're going to do next. teya lets him fly on her back of course. and touch is a lot more heightened for dragons in human form (no scales in the way) and you can imagine this is used to its full potential. they're full-on falling in love basically who's surprised!

but Then. they encounter a large group of marsh's fellow dragon-killing knights. teya had been out scouting in her dragon form so she isn't with marsh when he runs into the knights, and he just hopes that she noticed them and flew away. his hopes are dashed, though, when the head knight leads him to a field a little ways over and there's teya, caught and held down with ropes and hooks through her wings. she's struggling mightily, but against so many specially trained knights she’s got no chance. the head knight starts going on about they have marsh to thank for finding her, because they were searching for him when they found her. i think the lead guy also has suspicions if not outright knows about teya being able to shift into human form and that she’s been traveling with marsh. in any case, he tells marsh to go ahead - kill her. marsh, feeling numb, draws his sword, staring down at the dragon - at teya. she closes her eyes, stops struggling, like she’s accepted it. marsh knows he can’t fight off the knights. but he can’t kill teya. so he does the only thing he can - he cuts the ropes binding her. teya reacts before the knights do, exploding out of their hold, taking to the sky. all marsh can do is run, though the head knight catches up to him and starts fighting him; marsh is holding his own, but the other knights are following, and he knows it’s a matter of time before he’s killed. once again, the only thing he can hope is that teya escapes. but then he’s grabbed from above and lifted into the air. teya’s come back for him, and she carries him to safety.