soli

For fourteen months, she carries this devastating secret while Lando unknowingly breaks her heart over and over again. He flirts with other women in front of her, maintains ties with his ex-girlfriend, and treats Y/N with a casual cruelty that cuts deeper than he could ever imagine.

What Y/N doesn’t know is that Lando feels something too—something that unnerves and confuses him. So he buries it beneath sharp words and cold shoulders, lashes out, and pushes away the one person he can’t seem to get out of his head.

He feels the pull. He just doesn’t understand what it means.

Until one moment, by pure accident, he sees the mark on her body.

The universe stops.

Suddenly, the girl he’s spent over a year pushing away is no longer just another name in his orbit—she’s his. His soulmate. The one fate carved into him before he was ever born.

As realization crashes down on him, Lando finally understands why she always looked at him like he was both everything she wanted and everything she feared.

And Y/N—fragile, angry, and terrified—must face the one thing she’s spent months trying to avoid: the truth that he knows.

But the cruelest truth of all? She still doesn’t believe he could ever want her back.

Because while no one in history has ever rejected their soulmate, Y/N has spent her entire life being rejected by everyone else. And she’s convinced that not even cosmic destiny can make her worthy of love.

Pairing ━━━ Lando Norris x she!reader

Overview:

soulmate AU

enemies to lovers trope

loads of angst

loads of sexual tension and frustration

fuck boy Lando

complicated relationship with emotionally abusive parents (Y/N)

hyper-independent and emotionally guarded Y/N

jealous Lando

“I don’t need anyone” Y/N vs “I’d give her everything” Lando

protective Lando once he finds out the truth

unrequited love (but not really)

Y/N hiding her trauma behind success and control

slow burn

Y/N putting up walls Lando desperately tries to break through

yearning and longing

smut (at some point)

mutual pining

idiots fighting fate (mostly Y/N)

Lando falling first and harder

touch-starved but terrified Y/N

moments of softness that wreck them both

“I’m not good enough for you” trope

Each chapter contains its own content warnings.

Chapter 1: Fight

| 10.9k | Summary: A brutal fight erupts between Y/N and Lando at a friends' gathering, where he unknowingly destroys his soulmate in a way no one thought possible. His attack confirms every fear she’s carried alone for years, shattering the last piece of hope she had. That night, overwhelmed by heartbreak and years of buried trauma, Y/N suffers a panic attack more severe than anything she’s ever experienced.

Chapter 2

He doesn’t look up. Just keeps dragging a piece of charcoal across a scrap of parchment, tongue caught between his teeth like a boy trying to stay inside the lines. The sketch is decent, too. Big wings, swept back like sails. The suggestion of movement in the spine. A Stormcutter, probably. The smug shape of it.

“You going to give me pointers?” he asks absentmindedly. His voice has the same irritating lilt it always has. Half grin, half blade. “Or just more unsolicited praise?”

You shrug from where you’re sitting, arms looped loosely around your knees. Your leathers are still damp from the ocean. Salt crusts at your collar. They hadn’t even let you rinse off before locking you in this glorified goat pen beneath the riders’ stronghold.

“I just thought it was sweet,” you coo. “You, sketching dragons like some lovesick maiden scribbling hearts in the margins. Very unexpected. Very sensitive. Is this how you woo them? Draw them first, ask questions later?”

That gets a twitch of a smile, barely there. “You wouldn’t know anything about wooing dragons,” he says. “All you do is kill them.”

You lean your head back against the wall. “You wound me, Norris.”

He closes the sketchbook. Not slams it, just folds it like he’s tired of pretending to be calm. There’s soot on his fingers. A smudge on his cheekbone, like war paint. He paces, restless, the clink of his boots against stone the only sound for a few heartbeats.

“I wasn’t expecting to catch you today,” he admits, like you’re two old friends bumping into each other at market, not predator and prey on the wrong side of a manhunt.

You let out an unceremonious snort. “You never do. And yet, here we are. Again.”

The flashback flickers quick behind your eyes: the scent of pine needles and burnt ozone, the way the blasted Stormcutter had burst from the fogbank with a scream that shook your ribs. Lando, perched sideways on her back like some reckless prince, grinning like a lunatic as he drove you into the canyon wall with nothing but wingbeats and well-timed arrogance.

He hadn’t even drawn his blade. Just landed beside you after your net trap had backfired spectacularly.

“Caught you,” he’d said. Arms crossed, chin tilted. Oozing victory. 

“Tripped,” you’d muttered.

He’d smiled wider. “Sure. On my genius.”

Now, in the gloom of the cell, you eye him again. He looks the same as always: sea-wind curls, tunic a bit too fine for someone who rides dragons into battle, and that Stormcutter charm that makes even silence feel smug. But there’s something else tonight. A quiet tension in the line of his shoulders. The sketchbook, maybe. 

Or the fact that he still hasn’t found a dragon that feels like home.

“What’s her name again?” you ask, nodding toward his sketchbook. “Your-big winged terror.”

“Moomoo.”

You laugh. “Gods, you really are soft.”

“And you,” he says, leaning closer to the bars, eyes bright with challenge, “still haven’t explained what you were doing sneaking around our rookery with a vial of sleep moss and three dragonbone bolts.”

You shrug again. “Old habits.”

He shakes his head, but he’s not angry. Not really. You two have danced this dance too many times for it to carry real venom.

A dragon screeches in the distance, sharp and wild against the moonlight. The Isle of Formulae never sleeps. Neither, it seems, do its riders. 

Nor its hunters.

You stretch your legs out, tilt your head toward him. “Are you going to keep me locked up all night, or are we going to talk about why you’re really down here sketching dragons instead of riding them?”

Lando flips you off, and you almost smile. Almost. 

The first time you met Lando Norris, you had both been seventeen and full of blood.

Yours, from a graze across your thigh. Dragon fire, sharp as glass. His from a split lip, courtesy of your elbow. You’d tracked a rogue Devilish Dervish into the pine-choked ridges of his territory, thinking it had fled from your island’s northern cliffs. Your traps were crude, efficient. You knew the angles of a hunt the way others knew prayer.

But Lando had dropped from the sky like a storybook curse. 

His Stormcutter hadn’t even roared. Moomoo only sliced through the fog with wings like blades, scattering your carefully placed fire-bombs with one gust. Lando then landed in front of you, smug and golden, like he belonged to the clouds. His first ever words to you: “You’re trespassing.”

You had drawn your dagger, and spat in his face, “I’m cleaning up your mess.”

He’d grinned then—and you hated it, how easy it looked on him. How boyish. How bright. Like war was just another game. That day, you left with a bruise blooming along your ribs and a furious ache in your pride. He left with a smudged cheekbone and your name carved somewhere behind his teeth, even if he never said it aloud.

After that, it became a pattern. You found dragons, he found you. Sometimes too late to stop you, always just in time to scold. Sometimes you slipped away. Sometimes he let you. Once, during a wildfire in the Valley of Bones, you worked together. No words, just movement. You saved a nest together. Tiny winged things chirping against the smoke. 

Later, he tossed you a waterskin without looking. “Don’t tell anyone,” he muttered.

You never did.

You began to map the shape of him like you did the sky. The way he always flew low before a dive. The way he clicked his tongue to steady Moomoo. The way he looked at dragons—not like a rider, not like a soldier. Like a boy looking at constellations. 

You began to wonder if you had been wrong.

Now, in the damp belly of the stronghold, Lando leans against the cell door like it’s a tavern counter and you’re his favorite bard.

“So,” he drawls, twisting the ring on his finger like he’s bored. “How many laws did you break this time? Or is it a record?”

“Only two. Three, if you count breaking your ego.”

“Impossible. My ego’s flame-proof.”

“Shame your face isn’t,” you grouse. 

He breaks out into a smile, and there it is again. The stupid, sunlit thing of him. The way he always looks like he knows something you don’t. That’s not the case, though. 

You wait until he’s fallen asleep.

Or pretends to.

He does this thing where his breathing deepens just a little too rhythmically. His arms folded behind his head like he’s sunbathing, one leg cocked over the other. It’s theatrical. Deliberate and utterly maddening. 

You crouch by the cell door, fingertips finding the loose stone at the base of the frame. It lifts with a soft scrape. Behind it, the pin you stashed three visits ago glints in the dim torchlight. You work quietly. The lock isn’t complicated. Riders don’t expect prisoners to return often enough to hide tools.

Click.

You swing the door open with the careful grace of someone who has done this before. Because you have. You’ve been caged here, and you’ve escaped. Only once before from Lando; thrice from the one named Alex. 

You step into the corridor, boots whispering against the stone. You make it four steps before you glance back. Lando is still in his makeshift throne, eyes closed, mouth set in the ghost of a smile.

You sigh, louder than you need to. “You know,” you call, “for someone who keeps catching me, you really are terrible at holding me.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even open an eye. Just mutters, voice low and scratchy with sleep he isn’t actually in: “There’s no fun in seeing you behind bars.”

That stops you. Not completely—your body keeps facing the exit, but your eyes drag back to him. The ridiculous slouch. The charcoal still smudged at his temple. That line between his brows that only shows up when he thinks you’re not looking.

“You should lock the pinhole next time,” you say wryly. “Or check for false stones. Or, I don’t know. Maybe just try harder.”

He shifts just enough to shrug. “Maybe I don’t want to try harder.”

“You’re a terrible jailer, Norris.”

“And you’re a predictable flight risk.”

You don’t say goodbye. You never do. But you do shut the door a little quieter behind you. 

The smell hits you first.

Brine, singed leather, smoke. Home.

You crest the final ridge before the cliffs drop into your island’s harbor, and there it is. Jagged rooftops and soot-streaked towers, chimneys coughing out black ribbons into the sky. A place built by people who never learned to stop surviving. 

Your boots crunch over gravel as you walk into the guild courtyard. There’s blood on your sleeve, soot in your hair, and the distinct ache of someone who slept on a wet cave floor.

The gate creaks open, and Max is the first to spot you. Of course.

He doesn’t run. Max never runs. But he folds his arms across his chest and raises one brow with enough judgment to bring down gods. “Two days,” he says gruffly. “No raven. No signal. Not even one of your dramatic little smoke flares.”

“Hi, Max,” you chirp. “I missed you too.”

He squints. “Did you at least kill something?”

“Only the mood.”

Max sighs, and it sounds like gravel. You know why he does this, why he leads. He was thirteen when a dragon took out half his village, and seventeen when he speared that same beast through the eye. There’s no poetry in it. Just a ledger in his mind: dragons above, losses below.

“You look like hell,” George chimes from the forge steps, flipping a dagger in his hand.

“I feel like it, too,” you shoot back heatlessly. 

George grins, wide and sharp. He’s all angles and calculation, the kind of man who can kill with a compass and a good guess. Once mapped the migratory pattern of a Copyclaw using nothing but burnt maps and a rock collection. He doesn’t hunt for revenge. He hunts for control. The way other men play chess.

“So,” George drawls, “what kept you? Got tangled in rider territory again?”

You give him a look. A brief flash of Lando’s smug face crosses your mind, uninvited. “Something like that,” you say vaguely. 

Then comes Yuki. You hear him before you see him. The clang of something heavy being dropped, followed by an exuberant shout: “Oi! Look who's back from their romantic getaway with death!”

He lifts you off your feet like a sack of potatoes.

“Yuki—!”

“You smell like shit. That means it went well.”

He drops you with a cheeky grin. Yuki doesn’t need reasons to fight dragons. He was born in a crater where one landed. The first thing he ever saw was smoke. Brawn, sure, but never brute. There’s a surprising tenderness in how he cleans his axes.

You brush yourself off and smile despite yourself. The courtyard is loud again. Full of bad jokes and worse stories. Despite the burn on your wrist and the bruises blooming down your spine, it feels good to be back.

Max finally softens. Just a little. “We need you for the next hunt,” he says. “No more solo heroics.”

“No promises,” you say under your breath, but you nod when Max shoots you a glare.

Because this is the closest thing you have to a family. And families, at least the good ones, wait for you. Even when you smell like dragon spit.

George tosses you a roll of bandages. Yuki heads to the stew pot. Max goes to argue with someone about a broken lance.

For a while, you let yourself believe this is all there is. Just soot and laughter and the people who know you best.

You clean up to the best of your ability. It doesn’t work all that much. By the time you’re stalking into the meeting hall, the unmistakable musk of three unwashed hunters and one deeply burned stew invades the senses. 

You slump into your usual seat, the one near the back with a good view of both the door and the window. Max stands at the head of the war table, arms crossed, expression carved from stone. George lounges to his right, half-polished blade in his lap, while Yuki rocks back and forth on two legs of a chair that looks like it’s seen better centuries.

“Alright,” Max starts, voice brisk. “Next hunt’s local. Razorwing in the northern fjords. Nothing we haven’t handled before. We move at dawn.”

George yawns. “Another day, another lizard with a vendetta.”

“Razorwings aren’t lizards,” you point out.

“Semantics.”

Max continues like he’s used to being ignored. Which, to be fair, he is. “Standard formation. You two—” He nods at you and Yuki, “take the flanks. George and I handle the ridge.”

“Finally,” Yuki grins. “Something to hit.”

You roll your eyes. Max makes a few more notes, ticking off supplies and exit routes. George scribbles nothing useful on a parchment. Just when you think the meeting’s over, Max tries to bury the lede in his goodbye: “Oh, and someone reported a Night Fury sighting. South cliffs. Likely nonsense, but there it is.”

You blink.

“I’m sorry,” you say, sitting up straighter. “Did you say Night Fury?”

“I did. And we’re not pursuing it.”

You stand. The stool screeches against the stone. “Why the hell not?”

Max levels a look at you. The kind that usually ends arguments before they start. “Because it’s a dead end. No one’s seen one in over a decade.”

“Until now,” you protest. 

“A fisherman saw a shadow. That’s not proof.”

“It’s enough to chase!”

George, for once, doesn’t back you up. He shrugs, all reluctant reason. “Max has a point,” he says, and you can count on one hand the amount of times the two men have agreed. “Even if it is real, chasing it is suicide.”

You glare at him. “You’d believe in tracking a dragon by the way moss grows on stones, but not this?”

“Moss doesn’t kill you with plasma blasts.”

“It could, if it tried hard enough,” Yuki offers unhelpfully. Probably because he’s starting to feel left out. 

You rub your temple. The anger starts small, a coil in your gut, then it grows, pressing at your ribs. “Look,” you say, as if you’re explaining to a child instead of your peers. “If we found one—if we tracked it, fought it, maybe even captured it—we’d be legends. We wouldn’t have to go after Puffertails and Boomback for table scraps.”

Max doesn’t flinch. “We don’t hunt legends. We survive,” he says firmly. “That’s what this guild does. That’s what I do.”

You sit back down, hard. The stool groans under you. Yuki leans over, whispering like he thinks he’s subtle. “I mean, it would be pretty cool,” he says conspiratorially, because Yuki Tsunoda is exactly the type of guy to want a little bit of glory for himself. 

You stab your stew with unnecessary force.

Cool doesn’t begin to cover it. You can already see it—the Night Fury, wings stretched like shadow, lightning dancing across its scales. Your name etched into the history books beside it. Not a footnote. Not a ghost.

And yet, all you get is another hunt. Another day. Another dismissal.

The fire in the hearth crackles. The stew bubbles. Inside you, something sharp and bright refuses to go out.

The Razorwing hunt goes by without a hitch. You capture, you kill, you sell. It’s calculated, clinical. You reap enough benefits that Max gives you all a mini-vacation. You have two days off and a lead so thin it could snap in a stiff breeze, which is exactly your definition of fun.

The village is all crooked shacks and nets hung out to dry, the air heavy with the sharp tang of fish guts. The cliffs loom just beyond the docks, jagged and wind-cut. Somewhere out there, a man claimed he saw lightning move like it had a mind of its own.

You wander through the mist, boots sinking into the wet sand, asking questions the way you always do: carefully, with a grin you don’t mean and a knife tucked under your sleeve just in case. You don’t expect much. You definitely don’t expect to round the side of a weather-beaten hut to find Lando leaning against a barrel like it owes him money.

“Looking for something?” he says, smiling like a cat who already knocked the vase off the shelf.

You sigh. Loudly. “Oh, good. My headache’s here.”

He laughs, and it grates in the way it always does. Bright and insufferably charming. His curls are windswept, a scarf tied loose around his neck like he just walked off a ship full of admirers. 

“I didn’t peg you for the ghost-chasing type,” you say wryly.

“And I thought you were too practical for fairytales.”

“It’s not a fairytale if someone saw it.”

“Someone also said they saw a dragon made of fog and moonlight last month,” Lando quips with that toothy, shit-eating grin. “You want to chase that too, or are you saving that for your next break?”

You roll your eyes. “What are you even doing here, Norris?”

“Same as you. Looking for answers. Or at least a good story.”

“You’re not a storyteller."

“No,” he agrees, pushing off the barrel with surprising grace. “But I know a good tip when I hear one”

You squint at him. His hands are in his pockets. He’s not armed, which means he’s either reckless or overconfident. Probably both. You step around him, muttering, “Waste of time.”

“And yet you came all this way.”

You keep walking, even when he calls after you. You only falter when he tacks on a too-loud, “I might have something you want.” 

You want it on record: Lando Norris has nothing you could want. He’s a cocky sonuvabitch who walks around like he’s Odin’s gift to the Barbaric Archipelago. He’s absurdly handsome, unnecessarily loud, and trouble in human form. 

Still, you stop enough to glance over your shoulder. “If this is another drawing of a dragon eating Max’s head off—”

“Not this time.” He taps his satchel. “Fisherman gave me something. Said it belonged to the thing he saw. Might be yours, if you buy me a drink.”

You stare. He smiles.

“Come on,” he says, tilting his head towards the supposed direction of the town’s tavern. “I promise I’ll only bite if you want me to.” 

You grit your teeth and drag your feet, but not to walk away. 

The pub Lando guides you to smells like a hint of something fried in questionable oil. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t ask questions and charges extra if you do. You’re tucked in a corner booth beneath an antler chandelier that flickers every time someone slams a mug on a table. Lando looks annoyingly at home—elbow propped up, mug in hand, acting as if this is a first date and not a tenuous truce between natural enemies.

He takes a long sip of the beer you bought him. Smacks his lips. “Tastes like regret and river water,” he declares. “I love it.”

You narrow your eyes. “You said you'd show me what the fisherman gave you.”

“I did.”

“So?”

He leans back, cradling the mug like it’s some kind of priceless heirloom. “I said I’d show you after a couple of drinks,” he croons. 

“I’m going to chop your dick off and feed it to Moomoo.”

He breaks out into a grin. “Thinking of my dick, are we?” 

You glance around the tavern. No one here knows your name. That’s half the appeal. The other half is that the chairs aren’t nailed down, which means you could grab one and bash Lando’s head in at any given moment. You take a cautious sip of your drink. It’s sharp and bitter. Lando watches you with open amusement. 

“What punishment did you get for letting me go?” you ask him for the lack of better thing to talk about. 

His eyebrows raise, disappearing behind his curls. “Who said I got punished?”

You lift a brow right back. “Come on. You let a known dragon-hunter walk out of your holding cell. Again.”

He gives a little smile. Not the bright, showy one. The smaller kind that hides behind silence. “Let’s just say it was frowned upon.”

“So they did punish you.”

He doesn’t confirm or deny. Just takes another slow sip, gaze flicking to the fireplace. You know a little about Formulae, about how its chieftain is a dragon-loving freak who didn’t even eat meat. Formulae is a haven for the monsters. Aqueducts, wing-inspired windmills, Dragon Racing bleachers. Hangars, stables, feeding troughs. Fucking dragon baths, even. The antithesis of your own isle—one that still has catacombs, catapults, trebuchets.

Lando’s side of the archipelago takes their liberation very seriously. They take their concept of peace very seriously, which makes you a disruption. Which makes Lando’s supposed incompetence a travesty. 

He taps your mug with his. “To freedom.”

You scoff. “To manipulation.”

You drink, because he insists, and because part of you wants to. The beer doesn’t taste any better the second time, but the company’s warmer than you want to admit. The satchel with whatever-the-fisherman-gave-him rests between you on the bench, untouched. You don’t reach for it. Not yet. 

You learn, instead, that Lando talks like he drinks. Too much and with vouchsafed confidence.

He’s on his third mug now, sprawled like a spoiled cat in the booth, telling a story about the time he tried to ride two dragons at once. You think he’s embellishing. Actually, you’re sure he is. The physics alone are suspect.

“And then the Snowtail looks back at me,” he says, slurring only slightly, “like she’s about to demand a formal apology, and the Flightmare just gives up mid-air. I swear, I saw disappointment in its eyes. Y’d think I broke some sacred bond of dragon trust."

You hum, lifting your mug to your lips and hiding a grin. He squints at you, suddenly earnest. “You’re not even listening,” he grumbles petulantly. 

“I am,” you lie.

He waves a hand dramatically. “You never do. You just watch me like you’re waiting for me to fall off a cliff.”

You sip again. “That’s not true,” you say sagely. “Sometimes I watch you like I’m hoping the cliff falls on you.”

Lando laughs. It bubbles out of him warm and unguarded, and for a moment, you feel something soft lodge between your ribs. Then he leans in, closer than he’s been all night. His gaze is heavy-lidded, breath warm with beer and mint. You hold perfectly still.

He’s close enough to kiss you. And maybe he means to.

But instead of meeting him halfway, you duck sideways and knife the bottom of his satchel with the practiced efficiency of someone who’s been playing the long game. The leather parts with a quiet rip. You slip your hand inside, just about to claim your prize—

Lando’s fingers clamp around your wrist. Hard.  “Ah, ah,” he tuts, suddenly far too sober, though his smile is still that lazy curl. “And here I thought we were having a moment.”

You twist, elbow aimed at his side, but he’s faster than he looks. He ducks it, using your own momentum to pull you across the booth. Your hip slams into the table. “You were faking!” you hiss.

“Only a little. You know how much I like a good show,” he says conversationally, as if you hadn’t just tried to rob him mid-flirtation.

Your fingers close around the first thing you can grab inside the satchel. A sheaf of crumpled parchment, ink-stained and dragon-marked. His notes. You wrench free and bolt.

The tavern erupts in surprise as you shove past a server holding a tray of questionable stew. Chairs scrape. Someone curses. The barman doesn’t even flinch, just sighs and mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like good riddance. 

Behind you, Lando’s laugh chases you out the door. He doesn’t even follow you, which leads you to think that there was no prize to win in the first place. 

Your boots are still wet when you make it back to your base. You unroll Lando’s parchment with fingers still tingling from the cold and adrenaline. Your heart, traitorous thing, dares to hope.

The notes are exactly what you expected at first. Lando’s drawings are infuriatingly intricate. A Fire Fury mid-flight, wings curled into flame. A Copyclaw in slumber, drooling molten snot. The strokes are loose but reverent, every scale inked like it mattered.

Then you get to the text. Stormcutter enjoys smoked eel. Gets grumpy when rained on.

You blink. Flip to the next page. Terrible Terror has an irrational fear of mirrors.

Another page. Deadly Nadder likes singing. Off-key. Possibly on purpose.

Your eye twitches.

Where are the wingspan measurements? The structural weak points? The tactical value? You’re knee-deep in doodles and diary entries. It’s less a field manual and more a… crush journal. For dragons.

You rub your eyes and groan. Yuki knocks once and lets himself in anyway, balancing a bowl of something unidentifiable in one hand. It smells strongly of onion and what might be scallops. “You’re back early,” he grunts. 

You don’t look up. “Couldn’t sleep. Needed to review intel.”

Yuki peers over your shoulder. “Is that a Shocktail doing yoga?”

You slap the parchment closed with dramatic finality. “No,” you huff, and your next words are a little more annoyed than you probably mean them to be. “It’s nothing.”

He shrugs and sits cross-legged on the floor, slurping loudly from his bowl. “Looks like art,” he says in between spoonfuls. 

“It’s useless,” you snap.

Yuki squints at your face. “You look mad.”

“I am mad.”

“You also look impressed.”

You throw a pencil at him. Yuki catches it mid-air and goes back to his second dinner. Meanwhile, you stew in the aftertaste of Lando’s ridiculous, beautiful fluff.

You shouldn’t care. You still do. And worse—you think you might be smiling.

The woods are thick with morning mist and bird chatter, damp moss curling around your boots as you pick your way past tree roots and half-frozen puddles. George is somewhere behind you, muttering to himself about wind patterns and wingbeats, but you’ve slipped ahead for a breather. And space. And maybe, if you’re honest, to get away from the lecture that always comes when you suggest Scuttleclaws might be smarter than him.

You’re not expecting to find Lando crouched like a vulture by a bush of winterberries, inspecting them like they might detonate. He doesn’t notice you yet. He plucks a berry and sniffs it, nose wrinkling. “Do you think if I die from poisoning, Moo will avenge me or just eat the leftovers?” he asks, and you realize he’s probably expecting somebody else. Maybe that one named Oscar, with the moles like constellations and the Songwing for a companion. 

“Hard call,” you say dryly.

Lando startles, spinning. His hand goes to his tool belt but relaxes when he sees it’s you. “Gods above,” he exhales. “Why do you walk like a shadow?”

You step forward, hand resting lazily on the hilt of your dagger. “You played me for a fool back at that tavern,” you accuse him. 

He straightens, brushing moss from his jacket. “I didn’t fool you,” he says. “You just assumed I was drunk.”

“You slurred through half a story about riding a dragon backwards.”

“I did ride it backwards. Once.”

“Let me guess. You sketched it afterward, with annotations about how the dragon prefers back-handed compliments and shrimp.”

His eyes light up. “He does prefer shrimp, actually.” 

You snort, folding your arms. “Those notes were ridiculous.”

“Were they?”

“Completely useless.”

He tilts his head, not quite smug. “So you didn’t like them.”

“Didn’t say that.”

Lando raises an eyebrow. You chew your lip, suddenly aware of the quiet between the trees. Even the birds have hushed, as if watching. He meets your gaze, and for a heartbeat, there’s no teasing. Just him. “What did you think of them?” he asks with startling sincerity.

You don’t blink. “Used them to light my fires,” you lie. 

Lando winces, hand to his chest like you’ve stabbed him. “Cold.” 

You shrug, already turning back toward the trees. “It was a cold night.”

He calls after your retreating back. “I drew you once, you know!”

“Those berries will definitely not kill you, by the way,” you shout out as you stomp away. Again, Lando’s laughter follows you. It flits over the leaves and finds a home in your bones. 

George is leaning against a fallen log when you get back to him, half-buried in his notebook and squinting at something he’s sketched. You recognize the silhouette of a Timberjack mid-wingbeat. His artwork is amateur compared to Lando’s, though his annotations are equally questionable: Glide ratio questionable. May have seen a mating display. Possibly just itchy.

You clear your throat. “We have company.”

He doesn’t look up. “You mean the squirrel?”

“I mean Norris.”

George sighs like you just told him it was going to rain. Then, with a faint smirk, “He’s still breathing, then.”

“Barely. He's trying to poison himself with berries.”

“Classic Norris.”

“‘Classic?’” you echo, because you can’t imagine what George might know about Lando Norris, of all people. 

Before George can answer, a voice calls out, bright and obnoxiously cheery: “George Russell, as I live and annoy you!”

You turn. Lando’s emerging through the tree line with that same half-limp swagger, seeming to have followed you through the forest. He tosses something between his hands—probably one of the cursed berries—before chucking it over his shoulder.

George looks up, grinning despite himself. “Norris,” he calls out. “You still making dragons your emotional support animals?”

“Only the emotionally stable ones. So, not you.”

George stands and they clasp arms like old friends meeting at a harvest festival, not in the middle of potentially opposing missions. It’s strange. You knew George had grown up on Formulae, but he never talks about it much. Left not long after their last chief was chosen. Something about politics. Pride. Unsaid things.

Now, he’s laughing with Lando about a festival pie-eating contest and whether Moo still gets winded climbing hills. You watch, slightly bewildered, because this isn’t a camaraderie you’ve seen in hunts prior. Then again—Max had always been on those expeditions, ready to pounce at any sign of weakness. Here, in this forest where it’s just the three of you, George and Lando get to be boys again. 

“You two want a tent and some matching cloaks, or should I come back later?” you ask wryly. 

George waves you off. “We were practically raised in the same barns.”

“You mean the ones that burned down?” you prod. 

“Suspiciously, after you left,” Lando deadpans to George.

You look between them. “Should I be worried you two will form an alliance?”

“Already did years ago,” Lando quips. “You’re just late to the reunion.”

George chuckles, going back to his notebook like Lando isn’t public enemy number five. You chew the inside of your cheek, watching Lando stretch in the sun like a particularly smug cat. You had expected tension. Instead, you got banter, shared history, and a fresh sense of unease curling under your ribs. 

You’re not sure who’s the traitor here. You suspect it might be your own curiosity.

Lando leaves like he lives: dramatically, with flair, and just a bit too proud of himself. He throws an arm around George’s shoulders, plants an exaggerated kiss on his cheek with an exaggerated Mwah! and starts backing into the woods like he’s on stage, not surrounded by dead leaves and dubious birdsong.

Then he turns to you. “Come here,” he says, already puckering up. “Don’t be shy.” 

You raise a hand, flat-palmed. “Try, and I’ll knife more than your satchel.”

“I’ll get you next time,” he sing-songs. Then he vanishes into the brush, whistling some tune that will probably end up stuck in your head for weeks. 

George wipes his cheek, still smiling, and hoists his pack. “He hasn’t changed.”

“He kissed you.”

“He does that.”

You stare at him. “And you let him?”

“Better than a headbutt.”

You and George make your way down the deer path, heavy steps crunching dry pine needles. The sky’s beginning to shift to that soft orange of mid-afternoon, sun caught in the net of tree branches. A wind stirs the leaves and the faint sound of birdsong returns, like the forest finally decided it was safe again. You glance over. “So. You and Lando.”

George hums noncommittally. You try not to sound too invested as you go on, “You were friends? Before?” 

“Childhood friends. Trained together. Ate dirt together,” he replies easily. 

“Why didn’t he follow you when you left?”

George doesn’t miss a beat. “His place was there,” he says plainly, without a trace of emotion. “Mine wasn’t.”

That hangs between you for a moment, just long enough to feel a little heavy. You try to keep your voice light. “He seems… like a terrible influence.”

George chuckles. “He is.”

“He drew hearts around a Tide Glider in his notes.”

“He would.”

You watch the wind toss leaves across the trail, golden and soft like the tail-end of a fire. “Do you trust him?” you ask before you can stop yourself. It’s invasive, but it’s what you want to know the most. 

George doesn’t answer right away. Then, simply: “He’s a decent guy.”

You make a noise in the back of your throat, somewhere between disbelief and digestion. Decent. Lando. As if those two words were ever meant to be neighbors. You and George keep walking. The words follow you like a second shadow, long and uncertain in the fading light.

You try not to think about Lando.

Which is harder than it should be, really. One would think a man who kisses cheeks like a wayward aunt and sketches dragon doodles like love letters wouldn’t be difficult to forget. But Lando lingers. Like a burr under your collar. Like sap on your hands. Like a song you only half remember but can’t stop humming.

So you throw yourself into chores. You sharpen blades, clean gear, prep snares. You spend half the afternoon arguing with Yuki over whether he actually saw a Gronckle belch itself awake or if he’s just been skipping sleep again. You avoid Max, who still thinks the Night Fury is just a bedtime story told by drunk fishermen and arrogant riders.

And you definitely avoid the loose corner of your pack where you’ve stuffed Lando’s dragon sketches. Just in case. Not for any particular reason.

But the truth is, you’re restless.

So when night falls, you grab your foraging bag and leave. Just a simple errand. Mushrooms. Maybe some wild leeks. Something to do with your hands that doesn’t involve stabbing things or thinking about emotionally constipated riders with stupidly nice curls.

The forest is quieter at night. You like it that way. Leaves whispering. Crickets clicking. The cool hush of dark. You’re crouched beside a root cluster, fingers brushing over a patch of what might be edible fungi when something cracks through the stillness. 

Not a twig. Not a squirrel. Something else.

A whistle. High-pitched. Sharp. And then the sky behind you goes violet. 

You don’t think. You dive.

The explosion scorches the air where you were seconds ago. Earth rattles beneath you. Trees shriek as branches split. You roll behind a fallen log and press your back to the bark, heart stampeding through your ribs. Silence, then a rustle. Your head snaps up.

And there it is.

Above you, perched on a boulder like a phantom made solid, is the dragon from every impossible tale you’ve been told not to believe. Black as obsidian. Eyes like molten gold. Wings tucked tight. Breathing quiet.

The Night Fury.

It sees you.

You should run. Every manual says run. But you don’t. 

You leap over the log, feet scrambling on the dirt, and you run towards it. Because this isn’t a ghost, this is real. And if it’s real, then maybe everything else might be too. 

Even the part of you that wants to understand what others fear. Even the dragon-hearted things you’ve never let yourself chase.

The Night Fury’s eyes narrow like a challenge, like it can’t quite believe you’re doing what you’re doing. Which is fair. Even you can’t believe it. There’s something electric in your chest now, something hot and hungry, and your legs move like they have their own mind. The dragon tenses. Tail flicks. Jaws open.

You see the glow before you hear the whine. Bright, violent purple gathers in its mouth. And then it fires. You twist at the last second, but not fast enough. The heat brushes your cheek like a slap. Dirt explodes beside you. Your ears ring. Your knees skid. You brace for the follow-up shot, lungs burning, heart ricocheting in your ribs.

And then you’re flying. No, wait. Falling.

Someone’s shoulder slams into your gut. You go down hard, breath punched out of your lungs. A heavy weight lands on top of you, warm and furious. “Are you completely out of your mind?” Lando hisses, voice tight with rage. “What the hell were you thinking?”

You wheeze. “I was thinking I nearly had it until you showed up and ruined it!”

Above, the Night Fury lets out a sharp, almost offended screech. A blur of black wings cuts across the sky. One beat, two, and it’s gone. Melted into the night like a dream you can’t quite hold onto.

Lando stays sprawled on top of you. You squirm. “Get off me,” you huff.

“Gladly,” he bites, rolling off with a grunt, “and you’re welcome for saving your idiotic life.”

You sit up, brushing leaves and dirt from your arms, and glare at him. “I didn’t need saving.”

“You were one plasma bolt away from being a pile of ash.”

“And you were one second away from being stabbed by me.”

He lifts his head, curls wild, eyes glowing in the faint moonlight. There’s dirt smudged across his cheek. “If this is some death wish thing, at least have the decency not to do it in front of me,” he snaps. 

You stare at him, chest still heaving. “You don’t get to be mad. You don’t even belong here.”

“Neither do you, apparently, if this is how you treat your own damn survival.”

The silence that follows is thick with smoke and disbelief. The forest smells like scorched pine and singed moss. Your palms sting from the fall. Your heartbeat hasn’t slowed. You stare up at the trees and say, half to yourself, “It was real.”

Lando lies beside you, panting softly. “Of course it was real.”

You look at him. “You knew it was here.”

He doesn’t look away. “I hoped.”

You breathe in, breathe out. Then, because you can’t help yourself: “This was your idea of a rescue mission? Wait for me to get flambéed and then sweep in all knight-in-shining-stupid?”

Lando laughs, bitter and breathless. “Worked, didn’t it?”

You roll your eyes as your fingers twitch, aching for the creature now gone. You know, deep in your bones, this won’t be the last time you chase it. Or the last time Lando gets in your way.

You stagger a little too hard when you try to stand.

The ground shifts. Tilts. One moment it's solid beneath you, and the next it isn’t—your boots skid on the loose gravel, and your shoulder bumps against the nearest tree trunk. The bark is rough, the pain a sharp jolt.

Lando’s already on his feet. His eyes catch yours, then drop to the side of your face. His whole expression changes. “You’re bleeding,” he says, flat and clipped.

You scoff. “I’m fine.” You're not. 

The air bites the side of your face like acid. Your skin feels tight, too hot. The copper taste of blood hits the back of your throat. Lando moves in a blur. One hand presses firmly against your shoulder, steering you back until your knees hit a low rock. You grunt as you sit, more from the indignity than the pain. He shrugs off his satchel, rummages through it with purpose.

“I don’t need your help,” you mutter.

“Sure,” he says. “And I’m a stable boy from Bjorn’s Hollow.”

The adrenaline has faded, and in its place: the dull ache of injury, and Lando's steady presence beside you. He wets a cloth with something sharp-smelling. Presses it gently to your temple. You flinch.

“Hold still,” he says, less annoyed now, more tired. “You could’ve been roasted alive."

“Would’ve saved me the embarrassment of this,” you grumble.

Lando dabs the wound with surprising care. His thumb brushes your jaw to steady your head, and for a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Just works in silence, brows furrowed, mouth set in a line. His fingers smell like iron and ash and the pine sap clinging to everything here. You don’t meet his eyes.

When he finally speaks, it’s quieter. “You really don’t know when to quit, do you?”

You shrug one shoulder. “No glory in quitting.”

“No glory in dying either.”

The cloth comes away dark and damp. He glances down at it, then folds it once, presses the clean side to your cheek.

The wind shifts again, cooler now. It slips between the trees, rustling the ferns and carrying the scent of scorched bark and damp earth. Lando steps back, wiping his hands on the hem of his tunic like he hadn’t just been ridiculously gentle. Like he hadn’t just touched you like glass.

“You want me to carry you home, too?” he asks, too breezy.

You raise an eyebrow. “What, and have you trip over your own ego halfway there?”

“Bold words from someone who nearly got barbecued.”

You snort, then shift to stand. Your legs ache, the side of your face throbs, but you manage to straighten with only a little wobble. Lando eyes it. Says nothing. You dust off your trousers with more force than necessary, then glance over at him. He’s already pretending to be preoccupied, fiddling with the straps on his satchel.

“Hey,” you say, quieter than you mean to. “Thanks.”

That catches him. His fingers still. His head tilts just enough to look at you from under his curls. He tries to mask it, the way his whole posture softens. The corner of his mouth twitches like it wants to smile, but his voice stays casual. “Don’t get used to it.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s something warm in your chest. “Next time, stay out of my way,” you add, because letting him off too easy would be a mistake.

He grins then, crooked and cocky. “Next time, try not to run face-first into plasma blasts.”

Max clears his throat, a low scrape like the drag of flint on steel. It cuts through the quiet like a blade through cloth.

You turn from the fire where you’d been half-tending a pot of something vaguely edible, half-ignoring the way your thoughts keep drifting toward the scuffed roll of parchment tucked beneath your cot. Max stands near the doorway, arms crossed, that permanent frown carved deep into his face. In his hand: Lando’s notes.

Your stomach drops. “You going through my things now?” you ask, more defensive than you mean to.

Max doesn’t flinch. He unrolls the parchment with deliberate slowness, eyes dragging across the ink like it personally offended him. “Didn’t have to look far. You left this out.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s yours to read.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s yours to keep either, does it?”

You open your mouth, then close it. The fire cracks behind you. Smoke curls lazily toward the rafters. What would you say? That you were just curious? That you liked the drawings? That you kept it because it reminded you of the look on Lando’s face when he thought you’d burned them—that flicker of panic, fleeting and real?

Max steps forward, boots thudding dully against the wooden floor. He stops only when he’s close enough to shove the parchment into your hands. “You gettin’ soft on me?” he asks, not bothering to beat around the bush. 

You scoff, trying to mask the way your fingers hesitate before wrapping around the roll. “For the record, I still think he’s an idiot.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” 

“They’re not even useful,” you snap, fingers tight around Lando’s notes. “They’re—fluff. His dragon has a favorite type of berry, Max. Berries.”

Max’s eyebrows lift. “But you kept them.”

You look away. Max drops onto the bench opposite the fire, elbows on his knees. His voice loses its edge. “I know you haven’t lost anyone,” he says with the deliberate slowness of a pre-prepared lecture. “Not really. Not like George lost his brother. Not like Yuki lost his village.”

You don’t respond. Just stare at the parchment, the delicate ink lines, the gentle swoop of a dragon mid-flight. There’s no battle strategy there. No terrain maps. Just Lando’s dumb, useless, heartbreakingly tender observations.

Max continues as though he’s narrating the memory to himself more than to you. “You took this path because you saw what happened to the rest of us. You saw me hold pieces of my sister in my arms. You wanted to make sure no one ever had to do that again.”

You remember that day like it was carved into bone. Max, soaked in blood that wasn’t his. George, screaming. Yuki, hollow-eyed and shaking. And you, standing there—untouched, unharmed, ungrieved.

No one you loved had been taken. But the fear of what could be, what one day might be, was enough. You didn’t need personal loss to understand the cost.

You became a hunter not out of hatred, but to keep the scales from tipping. To make sure you were always ahead of the threat. Because if you could kill it first, maybe it wouldn’t have the chance to take anyone else. You tuck the notes into the inside of your jacket, heart heavy, throat dry.

“I haven’t forgotten,” you say.

Max watches you for a beat longer, eyes narrowing like he’s searching for something in your expression. Then he nods, sharp and simple. He stands and leaves without another word. 

The fire pops. The stew bubbles, overcooked and starting to stick to the sides. And the parchment crinkles beneath your fingers, just enough to crease the corner of a sketch. A dragon in flight, mouth open in a silent roar, eyes full of something that looks too much like wonder.

It’s an unraveling you can’t afford, so you shove the parchments somewhere Max won’t find them, and you shove the thought of Lando even deeper down. 

To be fair to him, Lando makes it easy. Weeks pass, then a month, then another. Lando vanishes off the map like a ship swallowed by fog. No sightings. No barroom rumors. Not even George has heard anything, which is somehow more suspicious than if he had.

You keep your head down. Learn how to fight with your fists. Help Yuki patch his arm after a scuffle with a Skrill. Study the Night Fury sketches when no one’s looking.

But then—

It’s a trader’s camp at the edge of a salt-flat ridge, and you’re there for dried herbs and a new waterskin. You’re halfway through bartering when someone behind you whistles low. “Been a while.” 

You know that voice. You turn, heart skipping in a way you refuse to admit. And there he is. Lando, leaning against a fence post like he’s got all the time in the world. Wind-mussed curls. A smirk just sharp enough to spark irritation. Same old.

Except—

Your gaze drops. The left leg is gone from the knee down, replaced by a metal-and-wood contraption that clicks softly as he steps forward. 

He sees you looking and grins, wide and unbothered. “I know, I know,” he says with a charm that’s a little too practiced. “Still devastatingly handsome, right?”

You stare. Words fail you in a way they never have before. Lando tilts his head. “What? Cat got your tongue?”

You don’t answer. Can’t. It’s not the prosthetic, not really. It’s the thing under it. The implication. The truth you already know but hate admitting: a dragon did this to him. The monster—the thing—he would defend to an inch of his breath. 

He doesn’t say it. Doesn’t have to. Instead, he shrugs like he’s tossing off a joke. “Had a bit of a disagreement. You should see the other guy.” 

Still, you say nothing. Just watch the way his stance shifts subtly to accommodate the new weight. How his eyes flash, just once, with something that isn’t humor. Lando raises an eyebrow. “Come on. You’re not gonna say something mean and weirdly flirtatious?”

You try, because one less leg doesn’t mean Lando Norris is an invalid. You want to ask him what happened. You want to know if the dragon is still out there somewhere, and if he’d fault you for believing in an eye for an eye. In the end, all that comes out is, “You’re an idiot.”

Lando beams. “Ah. There it is.”

That goddamn leg clicks softly as he moves past you, like it wants to remind you that even charm and wit can’t outrun consequence forever. You watch the shopkeep nod at you, then flick his chin toward Lando, who is already tucking away the coin pouch you were about to reach for.

“You didn’t—”

“Too slow, hunter,” Lando calls over his shoulder, grinning like he hadn’t just blindsided you with a guilt donation. He hands you your basket full of goods, all paid for now. “I guess I owe you one. For all the times you almost got me killed.”

You frown, stepping out of the stall after him. He’s doing that thing again. Shoulders squared, posture tall, cloak flaring just enough to make a statement. He means to saunter off like a storm in retreat, all drama and mystery.

Except he can’t.

The prosthetic drags slightly on the uneven cobbles, interrupting his grand exit with a subtle limp. It doesn’t ruin the image, exactly, but it slows it down. Lets you catch up. So you walk beside him.

You say nothing at first. Just watch the way he adjusts unconsciously—how he plants his good foot a little harder, swings his hips a little wider to compensate. Every fourth step, he touches the hilt of his sword like a nervous tic.

“You gonna keep staring,” Lando says, not looking at you, “or are you gonna write me an ode? I like the word ravishing. Works well in a chorus.”

You roll your eyes. “You limped off like you were trying to be mysterious,” you grunt. “I was just trying to see if the theatrics survived the leg.”

He nearly smiles. “They did. Just... slower.”

“Slower’s easier to keep up with.”

That makes him glance at you. A flick of amusement in his eye, but something softer underneath. You’re not sure what to make of it. 

Then, you touch his elbow. Just a brush, like testing if he’s real, if the months apart haven’t made you dream him into something else. Lando stares at the spot your fingers had been. He looks back at you, a smirk forming.

“Don’t do that,” he chides. “I fall in love with people who are mean to me.” 

You scoff, instantly retracting your hand. “Oh, go wrestle a Scauldron.”

“At least a Scauldron wouldn’t insult my hair.”

“Well, A Scauldron wouldn’t talk my ears off.”

“Yeah? A Scauldron—”

“—doesn’t pout when it loses at dice.”

He breaks into laughter. Real, unguarded. It’s bright and warm and nothing like the gritted smile he wore when you first saw him again.

He says, still grinning, "Gods, I missed y—this."

You don’t say it back, don’t point out his mid-sentence pivot. But you let yourself walk a little closer.

Just enough that your steps sync, even if the rhythm’s changed.

The trees whip and rustle in a way that feels normal for this high up the ridge, the wind slicking along the slope like it always does. But then there’s that low, droning hum. The distinct thrum of wings—not Windwalker wings. Something broader, slower. More deliberate.

Yuki hears it too. He straightens from where he’s crouched beside the trap, spear in hand. “That doesn’t sound like our guy.”

“No,” you mutter. “It sounds like trouble.”

And it is.

The Hobblegrunt dips into view over the crest of the trees, its patchy scales catching the sun like oil on water. You already know the rider before you see his face—because of course it’s Lando.

“Unbelievable,” you hiss.

He circles once, then coasts low enough that you can see the dumb grin on his face, the wind tugging his curls sideways beneath his helmet. You expect him to just fly by. Maybe flash that grin and be on his way. Instead, the dragon banks and lands with a heavy thud not ten yards from where you’ve set the trap.

“What is he doing here?” Yuki asks flatly.

You’re already striding toward the Hobblegrunt, the grass crunching underfoot. “Being a menace. As usual.”

Another dragon descends behind Lando’s, sleeker and wirier. Its rider—the devastatingly attractive Oscar Piastri—already looks like he’s ready for a squirmish. Great.

Yuki peels off to intercept the second rider, leaving you to deal with Lando, who swings off his saddle with more ease than you’re comfortable seeing. “You shouldn’t even be on that thing,” you snap before he's fully dismounted.

Lando only stretches, wincing slightly as he adjusts to the weight of the prosthetic. “And let you have all the fun? Never.” 

You level a glare as he eyes your trap. “Let it go,” he says, some seriousness wheedling its way into his tone. “The Windwalker doesn’t belong in chains.”

You step between him and the netting. “That’s not your decision to make.”

He tilts his head, mock-thoughtful. “I think you’ll find I make a lot of decisions.”

“And most of them are bad.”

He grins. “Still bitter about the pub?”

“Still bitter about you existing, mostly.”

The Windwalker, hobbled by the net, lets out a low, keening call that makes your shoulders twitch. You hear Oscar and Yuki bickering somewhere behind you, the sound of metal hissing softly as swords get drawn.

Lando doesn’t move to fight. Just looks at you with something bordering on earnest. “You know it’s not dangerous,” he says, and the softness in his tone has your hands balling into fists. “It was just flying through. You know that.”

You hate that he’s right. Almost as much as you hate how calm he is about all this. Like he didn’t just get back into the air after months of recovery. Like this is normal. Like he isn’t risking what little he has left just to do something good.

“Go home, Norris.”

He smiles like he heard something else entirely. “Not until you let this one go.”

The Windwalker stares at you through the trap netting, its massive eyes wide and terrified. You clench your jaw. You do not have time for sentiment. You do not have time for Lando. And yet here he is. Again.

Lando throws the first hit, which isn’t much of a hit at all. It’s a weak, wide sweep of his leg that you sidestep with one eyebrow raised. “You’re off your game, Norris,” you say. 

“Are you about to go easy on me?” he huffs, breath already coming heavy.

“If you ask nicely enough,” you say flatly, then you duck his next lunge and clip him with the handle of your blade. Not hard enough to bruise. Just to make a point.

He stumbles, catching himself before he falls. Barely. His prosthetic digs awkwardly into the soft soil, throwing off his balance.

You hesitate.

Lando notices. For the first time in a long time, he looks angry. A muscle in his jaw jumps; something sparks behind his gaze. “Don’t you dare pity me,” he spits. 

So you don’t. 

You twist, drop low, and hook his leg with yours. He hits the ground with a grunt, kicking up a spray of dirt and dead grass. His breath knocks out of him all at once, the sound of it cracking something in you. Maybe your resolve. Maybe your chest. Hard to tell.

Yuki whistles from a few feet off. “You done flirting or can we wrap this up?” 

You toss Lando a look. He rears back, ready to retaliate against you. But then the Windwalker makes a sound like the sky tearing in two. Not a screech. A wail.

It thrashes against the trap, wings flapping wildly, nostrils flared, eyes locked not on you or Yuki but at the ridgeline past the trees. It stumbles forward, then tries again, every movement desperate. Desperate in a way you know too well. Not fear. Not rage.

Grief.

Yuki lowers his weapon. “What’s it doing?”

You follow the Windwalker’s gaze.

Through the trees, there’s a hollow in the rock. Shadowed. Barely visible. But you see the shine of shells. Pale blue. Delicate. A cluster of eggs, nested in a shallow bed of moss and old feathers.

“Shit,” you breathe.

The Windwalker cries again, and this time, your chest hurts with the sound of it.

Yuki raises his bow.

Lando curses, sharp and quick, and Oscar shifts beside him, poised to spring. The nest is halfway up the slope, cradled in the crook of two twisted boulders, fragile as a breath. Life, pressed soft and waiting beneath the thin veil of time.

You move to shield Yuki from Lando and Oscar before you can think better of it. Your body remembers who you owe. 

“Don’t,” Lando says. Just one word. You glance at him. There's no heat in his voice now, no swagger. Only a raw, desperate thing. “Please.”

“Stay out of it,” you warn, blade gleaming in the rising light.

“They’re not a threat. The Windwalker’s only attacking because you cornered her,” Oscar chimes in. “Let the eggs go. Let her live."

The Windwalker wails again, a sound so keening it curls your spine. It thrashes, wings bent, one leg bloodied, dragging against the trap Yuki laid. Its eyes aren’t on you. They’re on the slope.

You falter. Just for a second.

Yuki doesn’t.

“Let her live?” Yuki spits the words out like they taste bitter. He doesn’t look at Lando. He looks at you. “We do this for our island. So they don’t have to bury children. You remember that, right?”

And for a moment, you don’t. 

You forget the soot-stained grief on Max’s face. You forget George’s silence when his brother’s name comes up. You forget why you ever picked up a blade at all. All you see are eggs. Small. Still. Waiting. 

Lando sees the flicker in you and latches onto it. He says your name all soft and prayer-like. A benediction in its own right. “They deserve a chance,” he insists, but he’s pleading with the wrong person. You’re not the one aiming. 

“Our dead deserved a chance, too,” Yuki grits out.

He lets the arrow fly.  

Time holds still. 

The sharp twang of the bowstring, the brief hiss of the arrow splitting air, the sickening crack as it lands dead center. The explosion is oddly quiet. A wet pop, a scatter of yolk and shattered shell.

The Windwalker lets out a sound that rends flesh from spirit. Her wings crumple in on themselves. Her long neck curls inward. For a heartbeat, even the wind refuses to move. You don't need to be a dragon rider to feel it. You don't need to speak their tongue. You feel her loss like it sits in your own lungs, heavy and foreign and final.

It feels like the sky splits. Like some terrible thread has snapped.

No one moves. Not even Lando, who still has one hand lifted like he could catch the moment and rewind it. The Windwalker sinks to the ground, her body shuddering with a grief too large for the fragile world around her.

Yuki exhales a clean, hard breath, like the shot cost him something. When he drives his spare arrow into the creature’s underbelly, there is no protest. Not when the Windwalker has already faced a fate worse than death. 

All you can do is watch. 

All you can do is burn. 

It helps you to keep your hands busy. 

Every morning, you’re up before the sun, strapping gear to your hips and brushing ash from your jacket. You go on hunts back-to-back. You volunteer for the risky ones, the ones that take you into the canyons with no wind and too many blind corners. You don’t flinch when the dragons scream. You don’t blink when the blood sprays. You just wipe it off and move on.

Max notices, but it’s all wrong. “That’s what I like to see,” he says, clapping a hand on your shoulder after a particularly vicious kill. “Focused. Sharp. More of that.”

You nod, give him the tight-lipped grin he wants to see. You tuck the ache behind your ribs and carry it like another blade.

But when you’re alone, you see it again. The Windwalker’s cry, stretched into the sky like it was begging for the world to end. The way its wings shuddered before the collapse. The pale shards of eggshell, smoking.

You’ve killed before. That wasn’t new. This, though, felt like the wrong kind of silence after. And worse than that, you see Lando’s face. Not angry. Not yelling. Just empty. 

He had looked at you like he didn’t know you. Like he wasn’t sure if he ever had. That’s what you can’t get rid of, no matter how sharp your knives are or how long you run. You think about the way he’d stood between you and the nest, as if his body could change the outcome. 

You don’t know where he went. You haven’t seen him since.

Max thinks you’re in your element. George says you’re finally living up to your potential. Yuki just grunts in approval every time you return without a scratch.

And maybe you are everything they say. A good hunter. A leader. Someone who does what needs to be done.

But when you wash your hands at night, the blood never feels like it comes off. And you lie awake with your jaw clenched, stomach churning, because you’d give anything to go back. Not for the dragon, maybe. Not even for the nest.

For the look on Lando’s face before he turned away.

That’s what guts you.

You think he probably never wants to see you again. You wouldn’t blame him.

It still burns. It burns more than the fire ever did. And so you keep hunting, keep killing, until one evening the world closes in on you. 

The moon is hanging low and fat over the edge of the cove, casting a blue sheen over the black sand. You step carefully over driftwood and scattered shell fragments, your boots crunching soft against the quiet. The salt air curls thick around you, dampening your curls and your thoughts. It’s a routine check—or that’s what you told Max. One of the scout dragons had gone off course near the sea cliffs, and you volunteered to look into it.

You hadn’t expected anything. Definitely not this.

A shadow uncoils at the far end of the cove, slipping from the rocks like a second thought. Your body tenses before your brain catches up. Wide-set eyes blink at you. The creature stands low and feline, with wings folded tight like a cloak. Sleek black scales shine like wet ink.

The Night Fury.

Your breath stills. This close, it doesn’t seem real. It feels carved out of stories and fear. You go for the hilt of your blade out of instinct. The dragon’s pupils dilate to slits.

Then it pounces.

You fall hard onto your back with a grunt, sand flying into your mouth, your ears, your collar. The beast looms over you, breath warm and sharp like struck flint. You suppose this is the part where your life is meant to flash before your eyes. Some seven-minute montage of all the things you did and all the things you failed to do. 

Except the Night Fury doesn’t fire. Its jaws don’t close over your throat. It just looks at you, and so you don’t fight it. Not yet. There’s a strange hesitation in its body, something twitchy and curious, not feral. You’re about to whisper something stupid like, Well? when the creature is suddenly yanked off you.

The weight lifts and you scramble back, coughing. The dragon skids a few paces, grumbling.

“Are you insane?” comes a voice you haven’t heard in what feels like years.

Lando.

You stare.

He’s tugging the dragon by a leather strap looped loosely around its chest. His hair is longer now, tied back messily, and his jacket’s worn in that familiar, too-casual way. He looks at you like you’re the one who just ruined his evening.

“You know,” he says, huffing, “most people don’t try to fight dragons with sarcasm.” 

“Most dragons don’t pounce instead of blast.”

“That’s called progress.” He raises a brow. “You alright?”

You brush sand off your sleeves, still blinking with mild confusion. “I think I liked it better when you were missing.”

“Ah,” he says, like that stings, but not enough to stop him from smiling. “Missed you, too.”

You glance past him. The Night Fury glares back at you, tail twitching like it’s half-annoyed it was interrupted. It doesn’t move to attack again. It almost looks bored. The dragon’s breath is hot against your arm, and you stay absolutely still, heart banging in your throat.

Then it snorts—an almost indignant huff—and stalks back a few paces. You watch, dumbfounded, as Lando steps up beside it like it’s nothing, fingers brushing over its flank like he’s petting a particularly irritable horse and not the harbinger of death and doom. 

“You’re taming it,” you say flatly.

Lando glances at you, all teeth and mischief. “I prefer ‘mutual understanding between reluctant companions.’”

“That’s a Night Fury,” you sputter. “The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.”

“Yeah, yeah. He’s a big softie. Just don’t look him in the eyes too long. Or move suddenly. Or carry fish he doesn’t like.”

You blink. “He’s picky?” 

“Just like me,” Lando says cheerfully, crouching to scratch just behind the dragon’s ear. It practically purrs. You recoil.

“Is it broken?”

“Rude,” Lando says, not looking at you.

The Night Fury casts you a glance. Not threatening, but certainly not welcoming either. Its muscles coil as if in silent warning, tail twitching like a cat’s. You bristle, instinct telling you to draw your blade, but Lando casually raises a hand.

“Easy, both of you,” he says, like he’s mediating a family squabble.

You eye the dragon. “Why hasn’t it flown off?”

Lando stands, and for the first time, you notice the slight unevenness in the way the dragon holds itself. Its tail sweeps to the side, sluggish and imbalanced. You narrow your eyes.

It’s missing its right fin.

Cleanly.

Precisely.

“That’s why,” Lando says plainly. 

You don’t say anything. But you think about Max. About the mangler cannons he sometimes shoots at shadows. How he never checks to see whether or not the shot landed, instead trusting the creatures would die a slow, horrific death. You swallow hard and keep the fact to yourself as you focus back on Lando. 

“It matches,” Lando says, tapping his own prosthetic leg with a half-smile. “Though, fair warning: he’s grumpier about it than I am.”

You stare at them. Man and dragon. One missing a leg, the other a tail fin. Two halves of something ridiculous. You run your hands over your face. “It’s official,” you say incredulously. “You’ve gone fucking insane.” 

Lando grins wider. “And yet, here you are. Still following me into caves.”

The dragon flicks its tail again, and you try not to notice the way it settles just slightly closer to him. You look at Lando. “You gonna name it?”

He pauses. “Thinking about ‘Murder Muffin.’”

“Gods.”

“Too cutesy?”

“Unhinged.”

He grins. “We’ll work on it,” he says, and you’re not sure if you like the way he says we. 

The Night Fury gallops off into the tree line like a shadow with paws, tail flicking in the half-light. You watch it go, dazed, arms limp at your sides. There’s mud on your knees and pine needles stabbing into your thighs, and you can’t decide which makes you feel more unsteady. The fact the dragon hasn’t killed you, or the way Lando yanked it off you like it’s just a particularly spirited puppy misbehaving in front of company.

You’re still catching your breath, trying to make sense of the fact you’re alive, when Lando makes himself comfortable on a fallen log a few feet away. The sound of him settling—leather creaking, a sigh escaping like it’s been corked up too long—makes your skin itch. You don’t look at him, but you feel him in your periphery, familiar in the way a thorn is once it’s been lodged in too long.

He doesn’t speak right away. Just exhales, slow and deliberate, as if he’s trying not to spook a bird. Or you.

You get there first. “If you’re about to say anything about Windwalker eggs, save your breath.”

He raises his hands without argument. “Wasn’t going to.”

You glance at him, suspicious. “Really.”

“Well,” Lando says, plucking a twig from his curls and flicking it with theatrical flair, “Not immediately.” 

You look back at the trees where the Night Fury disappeared, as if the darkness there might offer an easier conversation. The silence stretches. Not hostile, not charged—just tired. The kind that sits deep in your joints and behind your eyes, weighted with things you haven’t let yourself say aloud.

Then, softly, Lando says, “I know why Yuki did it.”

You can’t help the scoff that crawls out from the back of your throat. “Oh, do you?”

“Yeah. You think if you kill enough of them, fewer people end up dead. It makes sense.”

The ache in your jaw ratchets up a notch. You don’t speak. You don’t nod. The accusation—if it even is one—sits close enough to the truth that you let it hang there. Lando rubs the back of his neck, eyes on the moss underfoot. “I think, maybe, you understand why I don’t. Why I can’t.”

You still don’t look at him. But you don’t push back, either. The quiet between you deepens, thins, turns from cold steel to something threadbare and uncertain.

A rustle draws your gaze. The Night Fury has returned, dark and sleek, creeping low to the ground like fog over wet stone. It sniffs the mossy dirt near your feet, then nudges the toe of your boot like it’s testing your boundaries.

Your whole body tenses. Your breath catches. But you don’t flinch, you don’t reach for a blade. You just watch.

When you finally glance at Lando, expecting a smirk, a quip, something to shake loose the tension, he’s just—watching. Still.

There’s no cocky grin. No usual flash of teasing in his eyes. Instead, his face has gone soft around the edges, gaze full of a quiet warmth that doesn’t try to press in too close. Like he’s afraid you’ll bolt. Like you’re the rare creature now.

“Careful,” you say, throat dry, voice cracking faintly. “Fall in love with me and I’ll start charging you for my time.”

Lando grins, but it’s smaller than usual. Like he knows not to laugh too loud when something fragile is unfolding. Like something in him wants to reach out, but he’s holding himself back.

The Night Fury curls up at a short distance, tail swishing like it’s already bored of the both of you. You sit there with Lando in the hush that comes only after surviving something that should’ve ended differently. The kind of silence that doesn’t need words to be full.

Like a fool, you stay.

You tell yourself it’s for the dragon. The sheer rarity of it. The mystery. The biology. The need to witness a Night Fury in action, to observe and log and study. That’s the story you stick to, anyway, every time you find your feet taking you back to the cove in between missions. It’s definitely not because you might want to run into Lando again. Nope. Not that.

The cove doesn’t change much between visits. It always smells of wet stone and blooming moss, and there’s perpetually a breeze that feels a little too curious, like it knows you shouldn’t be here. The trees crowd the edges like sentries, branches heavy with green, and the pool in the middle glimmers dark as spilled ink. Sometimes the dragon is there, curled on a sun-warmed rock, tail flicking in vague irritation when it hears you. Sometimes, it isn’t.

When Lando isn’t around, you try to bond with the Night Fury on your own. Try being the key word. You bring it food—only raw things, no seasoning, which feels like an insult to your heritage. You offer a few quiet words, a few outstretched palms. Once, you even read to it out of boredom and desperation. The Night Fury stares at you with the blank, judging look of a cat that is absolutely not impressed.

And today? Today, you’re wrestling it.

It’s not your brightest moment. It had pounced playfully (you think?), and you’d misread it as an attack. Now you’re half-pinned against the grass, muddy and muttering curses, as the Night Fury noses your chest like it’s debating whether or not to finish the job.

“You know,” says a voice, far too amused, “it probably knows how much I like you. That might be why it hasn’t eaten you yet.”

You groan.

Lando stands just past the tree line, arms crossed, grinning like he’s watching the best play he’s seen all year. He’s got a new scarf looped around his neck and smudges of ink on his fingers, and that stupid little smirk that makes you want to strangle him to death.

“You have a real talent,” you say, trying to wriggle free without dignity, “for showing up at the worst possible moment.”

“No,” he says, strolling closer, “just the right one. Otherwise I wouldn’t get to see you covered in grass stains and shame.”

You finally shove the dragon off with a grunt—it goes willingly, smug—and sit up, brushing yourself off. Your pulse is still drumming too fast. “You think it really knows?” you ask, only half-joking.

“That I like you?” Lando shrugs, crouching beside you with a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Dunno. Dragons are smart. Smarter than people, sometimes.”

You don’t answer. Just reach for a twig and flick it in his direction. The concept of Lando liking you is a foreign one. The Night Fury curls beside you again, pressing its head into the grass. It doesn’t look at you, but it doesn’t leave either.

You try not to think too hard about what that means. About any of it.

Later on, the moon is a half-lidded eye in the sky when George finds you loitering by the docks, hood up and boots caked in enough mud to give you away. You’re checking your pack for the fourth time, making sure your offering of dried trout hasn’t spoiled. Not for Lando. For the dragon. Obviously.

“Don’t look now,” George says behind you, voice low and far too smug for someone who supposedly minds his own business. “But if this is your idea of sneaking out for a date, you might want to rethink your footwear.”

You startle and nearly drop the trout. “It’s not—” you start, then stop. Denying it means explaining it. Explaining it means talking about the Night Fury. Which would mean questions. Which would mean the truth.

You settle for an unimpressed look. “Nice of you to assume I have the time for romance.”

George leans a hip against a barrel, arms folded, grin sharp. “You have the time. Just not the common sense.”

You kick a pebble into the water, watching the ripples spread. “Any wisdom to share, then? Since you apparently think I’m throwing my life away with that curly-haired demon,” you snark, but George takes it seriously. 

He hums, glancing toward the dark stretch of trees that lead to the forest. “If you were throwing your life away, I should probably warn him about you.”

You bark a laugh, short and a little sharp. “Fair.”

George doesn’t smile back. Not fully. “You know what you’re doing, right?”

Your jaw tenses. When you don’t respond, George pushes off the barrel and claps your shoulder. “Don’t break his heart unless you’re ready to deal with the fallout. That’s all.”

For gods’ sake, you are not about to take love advice from George Russell of all people. Wordlessly, you turn toward the trees and start walking. Behind you, George tacks on, “And for the love of all that is good, do something about the mud!”

You keep walking. You don’t mind the mud.

The forest glows gold in the evening light, the canopy overhead catching every last thread of sun like it doesn’t want to let go. You follow the trail to the cove without really thinking, boots quiet on the mossy floor, heart not so much. You tell yourself it’s the dragon. It’s always the dragon.

When the trees part and the clearing opens up to the little rise where grass grows thick and soft, you see them—Lando and the Night Fury. Curled up like some ridiculous painting. One arm tossed over the creature’s wide flank, the other pillowed beneath his head. The Night Fury’s wings are half-furled, its sides rising and falling with an almost feline purr. It looks like peace. It looks like something out of reach.

Your chest squeezes.

You take a step back. You shouldn’t be here.

Lando voice, low and syrupy with sleep, drags you out of your thoughts. “You watching us, or are you gonna join the cuddle pile?”

You freeze. “You’re awake?”

He cracks one eye open and grimaces without lifting his head. “I heard your stalking. Like a bear with performance anxiety.”

“I was just passing by.” 

“No, you weren’t.” 

You glance over your shoulder, then back at him. “I could still go.”

“I should tell George about the time you tried to climb a pine tree to avoid a Deathgripper and got stuck halfway up.”

Your glare is all teeth. “Blackmail. Really?”

“Call it gentle persuasion. Just—c’mere.” 

You sigh like it pains you; your legs carry you forward anyway. The grass is cool beneath your knees as you lower yourself down. The Night Fury shifts but doesn’t protest when you press cautiously against its other side. Its scales are warm. Surprisingly so.

Lando stretches out an arm, draping it over your side. It should be awkward. Iit isn’t. His prosthetic rests near your ankle, the Night Fury’s wing curved like a blanket around all three of you.

“This is absurd,” you murmur.

“Absurdly perfect,” he corrects.

You don’t argue.

You just let yourself breathe. And when your head sinks against his shoulder, and the forest hums like a lullaby, and Lando's hand strokes lazy circles into your back—you sleep.

You don’t remember falling asleep. One moment, the moss beneath you is scratchy, the Night Fury’s flank is warm at your back, and Lando’s chest rises and falls under your cheek. The next, you’re drowning in fire.

Dragons, dozens of them, wings spread like stormclouds. Shrieks that don’t echo in the air so much as your chest. A shadow falls across you, massive and final, and when you look up, Lando is standing there with a spear in his gut and nothing in his eyes.

You scream.

You jolt awake so hard you nearly elbow Lando in the throat. Your breath punches out of you like you’ve taken a fall from a tree. The cove is dark, the stars smudged behind fog, and the sound that wakes you fully is not your gasp. It’s your murmured name, over and over again, in a tone so soothing your heart has no choice but to calm. 

“Hey. Hey. It’s okay,” Lando says, voice impossibly soft. “I got you. You’re okay.”

He’s already holding you.

One of his hands cups the back of your neck, thumb brushing gently along your hairline, the other curled around your back. You don’t realize you’re crying until he wipes at your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “You’re alright,” he says again, voice quiet despite the rasp of being half-awake. “You’re with me. ‘M with you.” 

You let your forehead fall against his collarbone, breath hiccupping like a broken metronome. Your hands fist into the fabric of his tunic. He smells like pine sap, smoke, and something warmer underneath. “Sorry,” you gasp. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t,” he cuts in gently. “Don’t apologize.”

You shift to look up at him. His eyes are half-lidded, his lashes catching the faint moonlight, and there’s a tenderness there that no one ever gets to see. Not unless he lets them.

Maybe it’s because he’s just woken up. Maybe it’s because you’re rattled by the fact your nightmares now take the shape of losing him. For one breathless moment, you and Lando are both leaning in.

And then something massive and warm wedges between you like an overgrown toddler. 

The Night Fury huffs, curling its body into the narrow space, its head plopping squarely onto Lando’s chest, tail flicking over your thighs. You groan into a face full of Night Fury scales. “You’ve trained it to be a chaperone, haven’t you,” you huff. 

Lando laughs, breath puffing against your temple. “Jealous?”

You scowl, but your fingers lace through his, your hand warm in his palm. You don’t let go. He doesn’t ask you to. The Night Fury snores. 

Lando squeezes your hand thrice.

Peace, for now, settles over the three of you like a blanket shared in silence.

There’s a draft that keeps rattling the map tacks loose. 

You try not to fidget, try to pretend you’re listening as Max outlines patrol rotations and supply shortages with his usual tight-jawed precision. But you feel the weight of something else bearing down on you—not just the silence from the other side of the cove, not just the warmth of a hand you held too long last night.

Then Max says your name. You look up. Blink. “What?”

His arms are crossed, expression unreadable. “You’re being reassigned.”

George raises an eyebrow. Yuki straightens beside you. Max doesn’t give you a second to protest. “You’re going to hunt the Night Fury,” he says. Informs. Orders. 

The words slap the air out of your lungs.

George lets out a low whistle. “Didn’t you say that was a dead end, like, three meetings ago?”

“Yes,” Max says. “But now I think it’ll be a good use of our resources. And a good way to sharpen our edge.” His eyes flick to you, hard and flat. “Someone’s been… distracted.” 

You force a laugh that sounds too much like a cough. “Wow. Touching.”

Yuki elbows you, grinning. “You’re the only one fast enough to keep up with it. If anyone can bag that monster, it’s you.”

You smile because you have to. Because you’ve always known how to act the part. But your stomach knots, thick and tight, and you can feel your pulse in your teeth. George gives you a slap on the back hard enough to make you stumble. “Hey. At least now you get to be a legend.”

You nod. Swallow. It tastes like ash. Like the memory of an almost-kiss and the press of fingers into your cheek. Like betrayal you haven’t committed yet.

Because you know exactly where the Night Fury is, and you don’t want to find it. Because—now—being a legend doesn’t sound all that great, not when the price of it as a cat reincarnated as a dragon. 

You avoid the cove like it owes you money. You trudge through marshes, forests, even scale half of Windspire Bluff just to convince Max you’re taking the Night Fury hunt seriously. In truth, you’re hunting everything but. Lando, the cove, the look in his eyes that night you almost kissed. They’re all things you studiously pretend not to think about.

Max is thrilled. He pats your back in war meetings, claps your shoulder and says things like, “That’s the fire you’ve been missing,” while you nod and smile like your stomach isn’t churning in on itself. George and Yuki egg you on, of course. George says it’s about time someone bagged the infamous beast. Yuki calls it poetic justice. You call it karmic justice.

So you run. And your running takes you far north, to the Isle of Berk, where spring hasn’t dared to set foot yet. The place is still wrapped in snow and old battle songs. Even the wind here feels older, sharper, like it’s been through too many winters and wants to take it out on you personally.

You get caught in a storm halfway through your so-called sweep of the island. It whips your cloak into your face and soaks your boots, and by the time you see the crooked chimney of the nearest inn, you’re ready to offer your soul for a fireplace.

The inn is leaning sideways, either because of bad carpentry or too many drunken patrons. Inside, the air smells of mead and wet wool. The innkeeper eyes you with the resigned weariness of a man who’s seen too many travelers and not enough coin.

“We’re full,” he grunts, then jerks a thumb toward the second floor. “But if you can bargain a bunk off someone, be my guest.”

You curse under your breath and climb the stairs. Each step creaks as if it’s about to give up. The hallway is dim, the lanterns low and flickering. You pick a door at random, knock once.

It swings open.

And standing there, hair damp, shirt half-buttoned, and looking like a hallucination you forgot to forget—

Lando fucking Norris. 

Your breath stalls in your throat.

He blinks at you, eyebrows lifting slowly. “Well,” he says, voice scratchy with sleep. “Either I died and this is some incredibly cruel afterlife, or you’re standing outside my room.”

You can’t speak. You’re too busy cursing every god that decided to make your life a joke. Lando leans against the frame, undeterred. “Come to bargain?” 

You stare at Lando, the icy wind at your back doing nothing to justify the heat crawling up your neck. You try to pivot—literally—to escape back into the hallway and the excuse of inclement weather, but Lando’s hand shoots out, fast and firm, wrapping around your wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, just insistent enough to tell you he’s not letting this go.

“Not this time,” he says. “You’re not pulling another disappearing act.”

You scowl, not meeting his gaze. “Wasn’t a disappearing act. I’ve been busy.”

“Busy avoiding me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. It has nothing to do with—” You gesture vaguely, and unfortunately, that only makes him smile with a kind of hurt that cuts you, too.

“Oh, please,” he says. “Don’t say it. Say it wasn’t about the cove. About you curled up next to me like a very stabby little spoon. About you holding my hand all night like I was your emotional support prosthetic.”

Your sputter is immediate, ungraceful, and completely incriminating. “You are so—”

“Irresistible? Right. You keep saying that with your eyes.”

“I didn’t—”

He leans in, voice low, not teasing so much as careful. “Then why did you leave without a word?” he asks. 

That stops you cold. The warmth leaves your face all at once. You shuffle backward on instinct, but you’re already inside his inn room. He shuts the door behind you with a soft thud. Trapped, like the dragons you’ve spent years going after. 

“Because if I didn’t leave, I would’ve stayed,” you manage, and your voice is a whisper you didn’t mean to let out.

Lando’s expression shifts. A crack in the armor. Vulnerability flashes in his eyes, raw and open. “So?” he says. Almost shrill. Almost hysterical. “Why not stay?”

“Because,” you snap, too loud, too brittle, “you make things complicated. And I already have a complicated life. I don’t need more of it in the form of—of whatever this is.”

He tilts his head. “Is this the part where you deny you feel anything? Because—and I say this with the utmost respect—you are shit at pretending.”

You open your mouth to retort. Or maybe to yell. You’re not sure which. But then he steps closer and your brain short-circuits at the proximity, the warmth of his breath, the softness in the way he’s looking at you. Like he’s braced for rejection but hoping you won’t deliver it.

So you do the only thing you can think of.

You kiss him.

It’s not graceful. It’s definitely not planned. You cut him off mid-sentence with a shove of your mouth against his, palms fisted into the front of his tunic like you’re holding on for dear life. His surprise lasts only a heartbeat.

Then he’s kissing you back, hands finding your waist, your back, your shoulders—anywhere he can touch like he’s reassuring himself you’re real. When you finally break apart, he’s dazed for only a moment, but then he’s breaking out into that bright grin. All teeth and sun. You hate how much you’ve missed it. 

“Told you,” he murmurs. “Shit at pretending.”

His hand lingers at your jaw, thumb brushing against your cheekbone like he can’t quite believe you’re real. You’re not sure you believe it either. His skin is warm, his lips still tingling against yours, and this moment is happening—no dream, no nightmare, just this impossibly soft present.

“You suck at avoiding me,” he adds, a little breathless, eyes half-lidded with something like wonder.

“You literally opened the door,” you retort, voice catching on the edge of a laugh.

“You literally came to Berk.”

“Coincidence.”

“Sure,” he sighs, pressing his forehead to yours. “Total accident you found the one inn I was staying in. On the entire island. During a snowstorm.”

You roll your eyes, even as your heart thuds like it’s forgotten how to stay calm. “Are we going to talk all night, or…?” 

Lando laughs, the sound curling warm in your chest and blooming outward like thaw. He kisses you again, slower this time, less teeth and frustration and more like he actually means it. Like he’s been waiting to. When he pulls you toward the bed, it isn’t awkward. Not exactly. But there’s a shift—a stutter in his confidence when he sits down and the weight of his body favors one side. His prosthetic leg knocks against the bedframe with a dull thunk, and he winces.

You catch the flicker in his eyes before he can tuck it away. That familiar urge to disappear into himself, to make a joke or dodge the moment. You reach out before he can. “Hey,” you say, hands resting firm and sure on his shoulders. “I know.”

He doesn’t meet your gaze. “It’s not…exactly the most graceful situation.”

“Good thing grace isn’t what I’m after.”

That earns you a huff of something close to a laugh. He tips his head back to look at you fully, and something in him untangles, just a little.

“You’re still the worst,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he believes his own words. 

What follows isn’t smooth, but it’s real. Your boots thud to the floor one by one, your jacket half-hangs off a chair, and his tunic ends up somewhere you won’t find until morning. The room fills with the rustle of fabric and whispered laughter, the awkward jostling of limbs and then, quiet. Breath. 

His hands are cautious in places you didn’t expect, confident in others. You kiss the scar where his leg ends and feel the way his breath catches, the way the tension in his spine softens like something he didn’t realize he was holding onto finally lets go.

There’s tenderness in the way he cradles the back of your head, in the way you trace the curve of his ribs. You both move like people who have nearly lost too much and now want to memorize everything. It ends with soft cries of each other’s name, with a burst of warmth, with lips pressed together as if sealing the moment with a kiss. 

When you finally settle, your head tucked against the slope of his shoulder and your body tangled up in his, the world outside shrinks to the shape of this bed, this boy, this breath.

The storm outside whispers against the windowpanes. The room is thick with warmth and the low golden light of the hearth, casting lazy shadows across the wooden floor. You feel the press of his breath at your temple, the rise and fall of his chest steady beneath your cheek.

He presses a kiss to the crown of your head, lips lingering there for a moment. “You’re in so much trouble when I tell everybody,” he croaks. 

You hum against his collarbone. “You tell a soul, and I tell the Fury you called it a moody cat.”

A beat. Then, his voice tinged with something that sounds an awful lot like affection, Lando hums, “…Truce?”

You smile into his skin. “Truce.”

The sun hasn’t even crested the rim of the mountains when you start trying to sneak your boots on without waking him. It’s a laughable effort. The floorboards groan with every shift of your weight, and your tunic gets stuck halfway over your head. You’re still blindly wrangling with it when you hear the gravel in his voice.

“Leaving already?”

You pause, face still trapped in fabric. “Thought I’d let you sleep in.”

“How considerate,” he grumbles. You finally tug the tunic down and see him sitting up, curls a mess, eyes squinting at you like the light hurts. “Usually people say goodbye after, you know, spending the night and all.”

“I figured you’d prefer the mystery.”

He snorts, but the edge of it is brittle. You know what you’re doing. He knows what you’re doing. That doesn’t make it any less shitty. “Yeah, nothing sexier than being ghosted before breakfast,” he bites out. 

You turn away to grab your belt, jaw tight. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?” he asks. When you glance over your shoulder, he’s watching you with something guarded behind his eyes. Humor still rests in the curve of his lips, but it feels less genuine, more like armor. “You keep acting like I’m the one you need to keep secrets from.”

You take a long breath. Then another. The fact spills out of you, somewhere in the cracks borne from how Lando took you apart last night. “Max sent me to find the Night Fury,” you admit, and it hangs in precarious balance between you two for a full minute. 

Lando’s tone is skeptical when he speaks. “I thought he didn’t believe in them.”

“I thought the same.”

The air sharpens. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, prosthetic clicking gently as it hits the wooden floor. “Does he know about the cove?”

“No,” you answer instantly. 

Lando is still looking at you, blankets curled over his hips, hiding the planes of his body that you had just gotten acquainted with. “Does he know about my Night Fury?” he asks, tone a little more demanding. 

You hesitate, and that’s all the answer he needs. “Is the tail—” His voice breaks off. He swallows and tries again. “The tail fin. The cut. Was that Max?”

Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

Lando’s jaw works. “I should have known.”

You want to say something. Anything. But the truth sits like a stone in your throat, and the look on his face—like someone kicked the breath out of him—makes it even harder.

Lando goes quiet, and for a breath too long, so do you. The wood floor creaks beneath your boots as you shift your weight. The air in the inn room is thick with the scent of hearth smoke, and beneath it, the cooling trace of last night: sweat, skin, warmth.

He doesn’t look at you when he says it. “Was that your plan? Distract me with sex so you could go after him?”

Your blood runs cold. “Excuse me?”

Lando finally meets your gaze, jaw clenched. His voice is sharper than you’ve heard it in a while, crackling around the edges like the spark in a dragon’s throat. “It’s not like you haven’t done worse. You already knew where he was. You could’ve taken him out right there."

You breathe in through your nose, slow. “You think I would do that to you?” You try to pretend that your voice didn’t crack midway. 

“I think you only do what you want,” he snipes, and immediately his expression crumples, like he regrets it. All of it. But the words are already hanging between you, jagged and raw.

Your hands ball into fists, nails biting into your palms. You cross the room in two steps, lean over him where he’s still tangled in the bedsheets, chest bare and blinking up at you as if he’s trying to piece together what just happened.

And then you kiss him.

Not like last night. Not desperate, or angry, or hungry. Soft. An apology you can’t quite say, a promise you can’t quite keep. Your lips linger, and he doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe.

When you pull back, you stare right at him. You try to keep the pain out of your voice. It probably bleeds through, anyway. 

“I thought you knew me better than that, Norris,” you answer, and he looks up at you like the world is caving in on him. 

You stand and leave the room without looking back, because Lando is right about that—you do what you want. The door shuts behind you with a finality that echoes louder than it should. You walk.

Fast.

Far.