To vanquish a dragon is the ultimate test to prove one's resolve, one's skill, and furthermore it's a test of loyalty. Nines' ticket to a better life in the court of his King. Clawing his way up from the dregs of the gutters until he could pretend his background had been washed away with the filth of a day's training hadn't been easy. Going back is not an option, he can’t stand the thought of losing the progress he’s made, so going toe to toe with a fearsome beast does not sound like a bad idea to him. It will either end in victory or death and either is a preferable outcome in his mind.
This one in particular has plagued the area for close to a decade. Black scales glowing bronze in the light, its shimmering coat and gaping maw the last sight for so many of his kin, as it rains down hell upon them from the sky. The beat of its wings fan the flames higher until whole villages are set ablaze. Nines has seen the soot-covered men returning from their watch with mouths set in grim lines often enough to lose count.
Its home, come to find out, lies in an abandoned castle long since laid to ruin. Ivy clings lovingly to the weathered stone and through the crumpled walls he can see its hulking form moving through what once must have been the great hall. Nines approaches in the opposite direction of the wind with his blade balanced in his hand. Forged with the finest steel he could afford, hopefully strong enough to pierce the dragon's thick hide.
The dragon appears oblivious to his advances as the sun slowly descends, tethering on the cusp of disappearing from view. Creeping ever closer Nines awaits the perfect moment to strike. The first slash needs to be ring true or his chances of success will drop rapidly. Aim for chinks in the armour, he’d been told, or better yet force it into being landbound by damaging its wings. They’re easier targets when crawling on their bellies.
Beneath his heel a twig breaks with his weight.
He doesn't close his eyes the way he wishes to but rather abandons stealth to rush the beast as it turns towards him. It reels back from his charge and opens its maw in a deafening roar.
Deep in its throat Nines sees the build of molten heat.
His blade finds its target, dragging over an old scar where the scales are weakened. In the midst of following it with a second swipe, the dragon catches him with a massive wing and he goes flying, tumbling to the floor. With his blade knocked out of his hand Nines feels a spike of fear at his vulnerable position – paralyzing the way it twists into his heart.
You have to move, he urges himself and shifts onto his feet, scrambling for his blade. Yet, even in his dazed state, he realises a follow-up attack never comes. It makes no sense, none at all, and even less when he sees a man crouched in the dragon's place.
Ichor spills down a wound on his thigh, the human equivalent to where Nines had struck, dripping down to puddle beneath him on the floor. Wind-tousled hair and burly muscle with eyes of molten gold set in a scarred face gives him the illusion of a hardworking man. Attractive is what he is and, to Nines' flustered recognition, he’s also as naked as the day he was born.
"What?" he rasps out, unable to slot his thoughts back in order.
As if his voice were the key to break a spell, the dragon-now-human turns tail and runs further into the depths of debris. Nines picks up the chase, following the trail of sizzling ichor in his wake. It hardens when it grows cold, speckles of metal on the stone floor like stars in the night sky, and they offer a glimmering path in the moonlight. Regardless, a human is easier to lose than a dragon. Nines realises this and finds himself thankful for landing the hit where he had seeing as it slows his prey – eventually allowing him to corner the man in what appears to have been a study once upon a time.
He scrambles away from the glint of Nines’ weapon, eyes darting desperately over the unrelenting wall he’s been back into. “Please,” he whispers, hopeless despair thick in his gravelly voice, “don’t hurt me.”
Nines’ shadow falls over the cowering figure and for a moment he feels nothing but pity.
“What are you?” he asks in an effort to delay the inevitable.
“I was cursed, stripped of a piece of my soul and trapped in a form not of my own choice. I can’t- I can’t control the shift. My name is Gavin,” the man, Gavin, says. While not an entirely satisfying response, Nines' interest is piqued and refocuses on this new information.
“Who would ever commit such a heinous act?”
“The one you call king,” he says slowly, as if it were obvious. “Elijah Layton Kamski, Scourge of Humankind and Herald of Dissent.” Gavin licks his lips, opening his mouth to continue speaking and then shutting it just as quickly when Nines breaks into laughter.
It’s difficult to refrain in the face of such potent absurdity.
“Surely you don’t expect me to believe you or these lies you’ve fashioned from thin air? What could he possibly have to gain from targeting you?”
“Power.” The word silences Nines faster than an arrow through the jugular and Gavin takes his silence as his cue to carry on. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that the youngest son ended up being the only living heir to the throne, or that he hasn’t aged a day since he claimed it from his mother’s corpse? Her body wasn’t yet cold before he relieved her of the crown he’d sought since he was a child,” Gavin spits.
“You lie.”
“You delude yourself,” Gavin counters. “I was there when he slid the dagger into her heart, when he carved valleys into her flesh to shift the blame onto me. A dragon, a mindless beast killing their beloved queen is easier to digest than trying her son for murder. I was raised by her since I took my first breath. She was my mother, in all but blood. Look in my eyes and tell me I’m lying when I say I’d never so much as displace a single hair on her head.”
And Nines… Nines can’t. The raw emotion condensed into every vowel, every consonant, every syllable has him inching his blade lower until the tip is resting against the ground. Every stripped bare sentence sounds like irrefutable truth and it robs him of any inkling as to how to proceed.
Gavin rises to his feet, cautious and slow, eyes burning like embers on skin as he offers his ichor-stained fingers to grasp.
"Renounce him, your usurper king and anything within my power to grant is yours. Help me, and you'll want for nothing."
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