ℝ𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝔻𝕠𝕨𝕟 [Becboc║Ryees]

[Ryees]

 

The late evening sun had barely kissed the horizon as Gaelyn made his way through the halls. Memories of his trials were still as fresh in his mind as the bruises on his flank and the the sling that hung his left arm to keep the mending charm in place as the bone healed. It would be set by that evening, and healed by the morning. That would become a necessity in the coming days, as he put his last bits of polish on his etiquettes and practices. His hatching was tonight, and the morning would begin the Bonding.

Lohia Kaarm had become his home, as it had for many. It was the largest academy in the Six Spokes, a large land-locked island connected by six man-made dirt ridges punctuated by enormous, towering bridges of Scalesteel. Nowadays, even enough Scalesteel to craft a sword was considered a stroke of good fortune. Finding enough to build six drawbridges from made them miracles come to life, artifacts of another Age in which dragons could only have been as plentiful as the men and women that rode them.

The last six years had seen Gaelyn settle to become just that, to join the prestige of the Riders of Lohia as an attendant to the knight Agyren Aterosta D'Fontaine. She was a living legend, larger than life ever since she was a child and even still stepped into larger shoes than any had ever expected. That Gaelyn was to be her squire positioned him for a kind of success of which his parents could have never dreamt. It was times like this that he missed them most dearly.

"Gaelyn? You with us?"

Tessa's voice snapped him out of his mind. She stared up at him with those obnoxiously green eyes, sharp and intuitive and always seeming to weigh him. Her gown matched his—black chased with gold, hung off the shoulders, and cut across to tastefully display her respectable bosom before it slimmed down and clung down her torso and legs. Gaelyn could have stared at her in that dress for hours if he had not had something much more pressing to attend to.

He coughed into a fist and adjusted the gold-chased collar of his black tunic, well exhausted by the restriction the garment levied upon him but understanding of its need relative to the ceremony he had just departed. "Yeah, I'm—I'm good. I'm here." That they had come to a stop in front of the hatchery door had not yet settled in; that his companion lay on the other side, somewhere amongst the dens, had settled in hours before, and now threatened to vibrate his bones from his flesh.

She leaned up on her tiptoes—all the way up, as he had two heads on her—and poked a chaste, encouraging kiss into his cheek. "Go. It's time." She settled back on her heels, hands folded at her waist, beaming up at him. Her own ceremony had been only a day before, graduating as his peer but instead moving to the Corps, the main branch of peacekeepers and military body that kept Lohia Kaarm and the Six Spokes an enormously unpleasant place to think about attacking. That they would see each other less and less gave him no small amount of discomfort, as she had become a constant in his days. Something very close to longing started to set in, but she spoke again, and finally, Gaelyn was pushed into the reality where he heeded to be. "Find her."

With one last encouraging grin, Tessa turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall, heading back to the Grand Promenade and towards the Grand Hall to rejoin the festivities. Gaelyn was left alone in the dim hall of the hatchery, the rusted-dry smell of hay lingering low in his nose. With a breath, he put his hand on the door, exhaled, and pushed.

The hatchery was a sprawling space, half-circle alcoves encompassed by plaster walls set between the support beams of a wide, cavernous chamber. The only light came from the narrow windows set into the outside walls of the rounded chamber, making the outer edges just light enough to see and the inner circles barely bright enough to see your feet. Each alcove was host to a bed of straw, a Living Ember, and a single, scaly egg the size of a large pumpkin. Living Embers were the leftover flesh of a dead dragon's heart, forever burning with the persistent, hopeful light of a dying campfire, and made the perfect incubation heaters for eggs on their way to hatching. Gaelyn had been told to simply wander, and to listen. So he stepped in, and turned, and walked, clearing his mind as much as he could manage.

It did not prove an easy task. The burning heat of Tessa's kiss on his cheek; the stifling tension of his collar tied up around his throat; the energy from the ballroom; and the dull, dim ache from his side and arm all vied for Gaelyn's attention, dragging him away from the solace of a clear mind that could listen for the whisper. He pressed on, warring for focus. Arm. Ballroom. Collar. Cheek. Collar. Cheek. Arm. Side. Friend. Collar. Cheek. Cheek. Friend. Cheek. Friend.

He had not realized that his feet had stalled, stopping in front of a stall bearing a monochrome egg with a washed-out rainbow shimmer that still somehow managed to shine even in the dim light of the hatchery.

"Friend?" he murmured, barely cracking his voice for the quiet of the whisper.

Friend.

As instructed, Gaelyn unbuttoned his shirt, pulling his arms out of the sleeves and leaving the waist tucked in to bare his chest. He stepped into the hay, then sat next to the egg. Pulling it into his lap with one good arm was a trick, but he managed well enough, and with his egg pulled against his chest he scooted back against the plaster wall, pulling the egg off its Ember. Almost immediately, it started to move. The scales on its outside bloomed, then bent back, flaking off and cracking and showering his lap with chitinous dust. The petals were sharp and the egg was hot, but no matter his discomfort, he sang. Low and deep and rumbling in his chest, the words of a dragon a millennium departed bounced from his lips in practiced, perfected pitch. The words sang of nourishing, of bonding, of peace, and of camaraderie. They sang of battles and kinship and the shared plight of those bound to war. They sang of love and chaos and ruin, and every space in between. But most of all, they sang of coming. Of bringing. Of giving.

They sang of life.

And soon, the petals had fully flaked away from the egg's outer shell, leaving only a rainbow orb of chitin that was slowly, carefully, cracking across its top.​

​

 

[Becboc]

With graduation ceremonies and the resulting celebrations in full swing, now was arguably the best time to do something that was otherwise forbidden, not only to students, but to graduates, to professors and to all those who had no business in the hatchery.

Ivy Seaforth was certainly one of those people. But that wasn't enough to deter her.

The punishment, if she were caught, would hardly befit the crime but then dragons were sacred and their young? Even more so. If there was even a hint of misconduct where hatchlings were concerned, only the most severe of consequences could be delivered, even if the culprit had innocent intentions. Lohia Kaarm would not take the risk, not when dragon numbers had been steadily declining over the past ten years or so and for reasons that nobody yet understood.

Which was exactly why Ivy was here, why she was taking the risk; why she had, for all intents and purposes, broken into the hatchery while the whole rest of the academy was drowning in ceremony.

There was a hint of bitterness to these thoughts as the graduate took a breath and pushed open the hatchery door, in doing so sealing her fate, not as an archivist but as something much more unexpected. Once upon a time, her vision of this moment had looked very different; she too would have been adorned in black and gold, she too would have been gifted the opportunity to bond, to ride. But she had not been chosen, had not been deemed worthy of rider status. Even after putting everything she had into the trials, she was not good enough. And it really was as simple as that. She was weak. Frail. To say her mother had been disappointed was an understatement and Ivy couldn't think about what her father might have said if he was still here. The kindness, the reassurance that she didn't receive from anywhere else. Thinking of that was more painful than her mother's clipped tones, her dismissal after learning of Ivy's failure; her graduation as an academic meant for books and study, not a cadet who would rise to honour and glory.

These thoughts weighed heavily upon her slender shoulders as she gently closed the door behind her and stepped into the cavernous space, the scent of hay and warmth stroking her nose. Ivy inhaled and she inhaled deeply, both to clear her mind and steady her suddenly fluttering heart. No, she had not been chosen as a rider but there were other pathways, other opportunities. She had always been studious, always shown an innate interest in dragons, their history, their biology, their bonds with riders... it seemed criminal really, that she would never truly get to study them up close, to experience those things for herself, which is why... why she had to do this, when it could be her only chance to make a difference to a world she cared about.

Unlike the regalia that many of her peers would be adorned in as they graduated, Ivy herself wore simple clothes; black, figure hugging leathers and a tunic made of dark fabric that was sewn with silver dragon scales at her neck and sleeve cuffs. They highlighted the strands of silver that laced her otherwise chestnut brown hair, that as always, was tied into two intricate braids on each side of her head, eventually joining at the crown and forming a larger. single braid that hung to the middle of her back. Her form was slight, subtle and she moved between the alcoves near silently, with an ease that was as graceful as it was careful. Ivy didn't have any pre-conceived ideas of what she was expecting to find; she was simply here to observe and to take note.

She was across the far side of the hatchery, just about to pause by a considerably smaller looking egg when she heard the door open somewhere behind her, raw, white hot panic gripping her chest. It was enough of a jolt to drop her into an immediate crouch behind an plastered wall, her ears straining to listen as footsteps began into the space.

Oh fuck. Fuck.

She was no longer alone and this... this wasn't supposed to happen. She had chosen tonight because the hatchery was supposed to be empty, she had waited for two hours watching the door to ensure that it was just that. Yet here she was, no longer the only one amongst about a dozen Live Embers warming their eggs, with little chance for awe, let alone observation.

The footsteps continued and Ivy remained in place, hidden for now... until they stopped, which damn it, was not a good sign. If they belonged to a rider, a rider who was here for a hatching, then she needed to leave and she needed to leave now.

But Ivy could only guess at where the other body was and so she had to move slowly, from alcove to alcove, trying not to disturb, to make a sound. Each step she took was one closer to the door, to freedom, but just as she saw the path she needed to take, just as she saw the exit...

A voice began to sing and everything within her seemed to freeze.

The low, echoing timbre filled the hatchery, reverberating off the walls and sliding down the back of her neck, stroking at her senses, her ears, her chest, raising the fine hairs on the back of her arms. Dark eyes flickered towards the door and yet her body did not move in the same direction, as though someone... or something was calling her, pulling her backwards.

She understood the words of the song, the meaning. She had practiced it herself, could have joined in if she had dared, but she had never, ever heard it quite like this. Raw, gentle. Coaxing as much as it was comforting. The perfect combination to aid the bonding of rider and dragon, to bring new life into the world. It was hauntingly beautiful and mesmerising in a way that Ivy felt somewhere within herself she would have chosen to keep buried if she could.

The song flowed through her mind, weaving between what she knew she should do and what she wanted. The door. The song. The door. Song. Door. Song. Friend.

Her breath caught as that word, as that single word erupted between the others.

"Friend?" Her response was barely a whisper, her hands trembling in a way that she hadn't noticed until now as she unknowingly echoed the rider before her.

Friend.

It was all she needed to hear.

Slowly, Ivy began to straighten and her legs seemed to move of their own accord. They carried her slowly, with trepidation yet with certainty, to an alcove a little further away than where she had stopped. Her footsteps were near silent against the noise she could now hear as her guide, the slick cracking of shell and membrane, the clicking whine of a creature, no, a dragon, as it shuffled from its casing, as its small body rolled and forced breakage in the structure that confined it.

Ivy turned into the alcove just as the hatchling, shimmering with the salmon coloured scales of a newborn, shed the final layer of chitin. The casing fell away in two near-perfect halves, the dragon raising her small, beautifully horned head to look up at the rider that held her. And then...

"Holy. Shit."

The dragon opened its golden eyes and blinked... right before it turned to look at Ivy too.

 

[Ryees]

 

The moment was one spoken of with awe, reference, and humility. For all the magics in the academy, for all the wonders they experienced and grandeur they were told of the moment of hatching was spoken of as perhaps the most powerful, intimate moment of a Rider's life.

A moment that was ruined in two words.

"Holy. Shit."​

Gaelyn's eyes, once transfixed on the pearlescent eyes emerging from the shell on his lap, now snapped up, along with his hand that reflexively jumped into a defensive casting position.

"Ivy!? What—" His outrage was cut off by the gentle trill from the creature in his lap. That sound triggered an instinct in him he had been told of, but had never understood the gravity of until the moment it graced his ears. He felt, through that sound, the bridge begin to build. In the next breath, he could feel this little creature more than just through his lap and arms. Gaelyn had a sense of where she was in his mind, and could feel her newborn curiosity in the back of his senses. Her thoughts echoed dimly in his ears like echoes of conversation from a house over, dull and unformed but present and noticable, even if undecipherable. He could feel her health, her strength, and could tell even now the sharpness of her perception.

And then, as the bridge continued to build, those senses passed further. Those feelings in the back of his mind were joined, a moment later, by another bubble. Fear, wonder, guilt, curiosity—
With what approached upon a mental hiss, Gaelyn dragged shut the mental barriers with a practiced sweep of psychic energy. That was Ivy. Gaelyn had never done anything to bond with her, never done any telepathic work outside of the classroom hive minds. They had trained together, studied in the same classrooms together, and gone through the same testings, but their paths had never converged in a way that would forge any sort of psychic link. Which meant...

"What have you done!" he hissed, pulling the creature in his lap closer. It had now fully shed its shell, and its serpentine body with tiny legs was trying to scrabble up into his lap. "You could be executed for even entering this room! I saw your trial," he added with a twist of his upper lip, "you aren't meant for this bond."

The anger in his chest was having trouble burning hot enough to properly bubble over with the dragon in his arms trying to scramble up his arm and perch on his neck, but he kept his expression stony as he stood and brushed the shell fragments off his lap. He had a head and more over Ivy, and while he knew well and good she had enough fire to burn just as hot as he, Gaelyn also knew that, in that moment, she wad balanced on a terrible razor's edge between expulsion and execution. If she were to fight him or no, her very presence in this room would see her on trial with no favorable outcomes in sight.

"You can feel it, can't you?" His voice had changed, the anger dulling to something flatter, more focused, colder. "Do you even know what you're feeling? Do you understand the weight of what you've just done?" He held one arm out, and the dragon slithered down his arm. It perched at the end of his hand, looking from Gaelyn to Ivy expectantly. "I'm expected to enter the Grand Hall with Kisa wrapped about my shoulder within the hour. And now you and I need to work out the details of what happens when a dragon bonds to two Riders at once. Which has zero precedent, you full well know." Snotty and self-important, Gaelyn had always considered Ivy, but never had her dared to call her stupid. Truthfully she was one of the sharpest in his cohort, but her slim figure and upbringing had precluded her from being a Rider before she ever could have tried. She had tried to persevere, and Gaelyn gave her credit for that, but fighting against the odds became less charming after the futility became apparent.

But now she had done something properly foolish, and put them both at risk. The bond was permanent, and unerring. Neither of them had any idea what would happen if one person was removed from the bond—in the centuries of history at Lohia Kaarm, there was no recorded precedence. "You may well have doomed all three of us."

 

[Becboc]

The other rider went largely unnoticed at first, so transfixed was Ivy on the baby dragon as it emerged from its shell. Or at least that was until she heard her name, in a voice that snapped her gaze up and into the face of… Gaelyn Fontine.

Her eyes widened at the sight, as if she couldn't quite believe that it was him sitting there, with his shirt spread open and his sleeves rolled up to reveal lean, toned—

Any thoughts or words that were forming were cut off however, when Ivy felt something begin to change in her mind, felt something begin to grow, larger than the panic or disbelief that just she felt. It was like… her thoughts were expanding, almost as if they were reaching, joining, like she was no longer… alone.

A small frown furrowed into her brow as a name whispered across her thoughts.

Kisa.

The hatchling was attempting now to scrabble up Gaelyn's chest, and Ivy could feel her, sense her. Her name was… Kisa.

But as if that connection wasn't enough, the expansion didn't stop at the newborn, no. Curiosity seemed to shift as quickly as it had appeared into something else, something other. Anger, fear, frustration, confusion- emotions that Ivy could see as well as feel radiating from Gaelyn himself. Her breath hitched at the realisation until all of a sudden it stopped, the connection snapped closed like a door slammed shut. The force was so tangible it was a wonder Ivy didn't stumble backwards and it was again, Gaelyn's voice, echoing with this time hissed words that dragged her attention back to the present, to the glowing amber eyes now searing into her own pools of darkness.

He pulled the hatchling closer and something within Ivy roiled. Possessiveness, a want… no a need to protect what was hers.

Oh. Fuck.

There was no room for doubt or question. Ivy had bonded and she had bonded with a dragon meant for another. Something that was unheard of, unprecedented… believed impossible until now.

"Do you even know what you're feeling? Do you understand the weight of what you've just done?"​

Gaelyn's words were sharp, cold and they pulled Ivy from her own thoughts, thrusting her back into reality, into their reality. A hot, pink flush began to creep up her neck, but not one born of embarrassment; one born of anger. Irritation. Defensiveness.

"Of course I know!" She all but exploded in response, the first words she'd properly given to him since this had all started. "We attend the same school, the same classes, a-and last time I checked, we're part of the same god damn… country!" Ivy's words tumbled from her, panic still underlying the higher pitch of her tone. That Gaelyn was questioning her understanding of this tracked; she'd always thought him arrogant, believing himself to be better than others in his class, which… he was, she had to give him that, but he didn't need to be so… so annoying about it.

His lecture didn't stop there, but this time Ivy's focus shifted again to the shimmering newborn that slipped down Gaelyn's arm and came to perch upon the end of his hand, blinking up expectantly at her second rider.

Without thought, as if she knew what Kisa wanted, Ivy held out her hand so that the tiny serpentine body could slither across the gap and along her own arm, a croon of approval vibrating from her chest.

This was bad. Really fucking bad and yet Ivy couldn't bring herself to regret it. This was all that she had ever wanted, and what it meant for her, what it could change—

"You may well have doomed all three of us."​

If she even survived that long, if… if any of them did. Because there was no I in this any more, Gaelyn was right. What had happened, what they chose to do now, it affected all of them, including the hatchling that was climbing Ivy's shoulder in search of the warmth in the crook of her neck. The hatchling that she knew she would do anything to protect.

Her eyes moved back to Gaelyn, now standing at least a full head or two above her so she had to tilt her chin slightly to catch his gaze, her braid hanging a little further down her back.

"I… I didn't plan this, you know!" She fired back, indignant, stubborn. "I am well aware that this was not supposed to be my path and I certainly don't need to be reminded of that by the likes of you." Her features flashed for a moment, her body language only just short of her stamping her foot. "The hatchery was supposed to be empty, I waited and I checked!" Yeah, like that made this any better.

"You… why didn't you do the same, huh? You didn't think to make sure it was empty, didn't think to call out before you waltzed in?! This may be my fault but it's yours too, Gaelyn." She was clutching at straws and they both knew it but Ivy… shit, Ivy could feel her very real fear beginning to constrict her chest. What she had done, it was forbidden, and graduates had died for less. Kisa seemed to sense it too as she rumbled gently and nestled her head against Ivy's jawline.

For a moment, the second rider shifted slightly with discomfort, mostly because of the words that she needed to speak next, the brief flash of vulnerability that they exposed. But she had to, needed to ask. Needed to know.

"Are you…" She tried, stopped, sighed in frustration and then finally forced the question out through almost gritted teeth. "Are you going to… turn me in?" Her voice betrayed her bluster as the question hung between them. Because Gaelyn could try to fix his problem that way if he so wished; they both knew that he could and they both knew what that would mean for her.

Just like they both knew that right now? She was kind of at his mercy.

 

[Ryees]

 

"Of course I'm going to—" The words started to tumble out of his mouth before his brain had authorized them but they cut short when Ivy mentally flinched at the first syllable. He regretted the outburst immediately, dropping his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. The sigh he huffed was exasperated and frustrated, but there was a pragmatic light in his eyes when he looked back to at her, even if his jaw was set.

"At some point, we will have to say something. This is unprecedented... But in different circumstances, I could see instances where it could be desirable to have a pair of Riders bonded to the same dragon, especially as hatchings have declined in the last decades." The gears had started turning, outage fading to inquisitive pondering as he went into problem solving mode. "The knights and the Seat both are going to want to look this over every which way."

He held his hand forward, beckoning Kisa to climb back up to his shoulder. He saw and felt the reluctance from Ivy, but luckily for them both of never gave away to resistance, and the girl extended her hand to let the budding dragonlet scurry back up his arm and drape herself around his shoulders like a scarf. "But the first thing we're going to need to do, I reckon, is stop them from executing you." For a moment, his gaze sharpened. "Even though I don't think you deserve much by way of mercy..." The acid he began with faded and he sighed; he could not keep up the act of being angry with her with that emotional ping rattling the back of his brain. "I would rather you had not gotten us stuck in this situation, but we're in it, now. I don't know what you dying would do to the bond. Maybe Kisa and I would be fine, but maybe... maybe I would lose her, too. And if you're feeling what I'm feeling, then you know that however much I would like to toss you off the nearest tower, I love her more."

He plopped back into the straw, beckoning did Ivy to sit across from him. "But we do it my way. No more skulking, no more shadows." Gaelyn stressed the last, alluding to her personal rune. "We don't know the consequences of this, but if you make my life any more difficult, I'll out you and what will come, will come." It was a threat, but spoken so plainly and calmly that it rang like a promise. "The first thing we need to do is find someone in research that we trust that we can explain the situation to. We can get their insight, see what they think will happen with the bond down the line. I have a friend in the courts that we'll talk to after to discuss what she thinks the fallout will be, if there's any way we can protect you without jeopardizing my status as a Rider or your... wellbeing."

Gods, why did she look so cute suddenly, with the lines of distress creasing her face. "I don't know what will come of that," he added, his throat tight as his eyes searched Ivy's face for something he could not find, "but for Kisa's sake and your own, I hope it ends well."​

​

 

[Becboc]

She definitely flinched, and he felt it, didn't he? Ivy saw it in the way he started and stopped straight after her internal wince at his tone, the pink upon her neck now reaching her cheeks and dusting across the bridge of her nose. Gods this connection was proving to be a blast already; it was one thing that she was bonded to Kisa, but another thing entirely to be bonded to another human as well. The same human that had every right to turn her in, and yet as he began to speak, as his words hatched a plan into the air before them, Ivy realised that perhaps that wasn't what he intended after all. At least not straight away.

"I… guess it would be kind of hard to hide it forever," Ivy eventually muttered as she considered his words, her panic momentarily subsiding in a small exhale of relief that for now? Their secret was safe. "People are going to notice if Kisa has you on her back one day and me another. That's if I can even…" Those words however, fell away before she could voice them. It would be just her luck to accidentally bond to a dragon that she couldn't ride, either because she wasn't strong enough, or perhaps Kisa wouldn't let her, knowing that it would be an effort for Ivy to remain on her back when she didn't have the build or stamina for flying.

Her mind whirred with the possibilities and Gaelyn's attempt to shed some light on the situation, but that didn't mean that Ivy was any less reluctant for Kisa to leave her and reattach herself to his shoulders instead. It shouldn't have surprised her, how strong their bond was already and yet it did, mostly because she had resigned herself to never feeling it. But now that she had? Ivy wasn't sure she would ever want to give it up, even if when it came down to it, she wasn't given a choice.

When Gaelyn began to speak again, she listened and found herself physically biting her bottom lip to stop more words from flowing out because right now, what she really didn't need was to piss off the guy who quite literally held her life in his hands. Thought it seemed that he had no intention of wielding that power just yet, even if he wanted to, which Ivy had to admit… was a surprise. He was right though, of course - despite his personal feelings towards her, how he felt about Kisa was stronger and until he had some kind of certainty, he would do nothing to put her at risk. And neither would Ivy. So whether they liked it or not, for their dragon's sake? She supposed they were in this together.

As the other rider plopped down into the hay again and beckoned for Ivy to do the same, she scoffed briefly at his admission of what he wanted to do to her. "You and me both," she muttered before sitting across from him, her shoulders slumping slightly with the sudden weight of all of this, her brow creasing with worry. It wasn't quite enough though, to stop her from rolling her eyes and biting out, "Requesting no shadows is like asking me not to breathe air." But when she looked at Gaelyn, straight into the amber shining back at her, her mouth snapped shut again before it could get her into more trouble, and she found herself dropping her gaze back down to where her hands now plucked at strands of golden straw.

"Alright, fine," she eventually relented. "I'll try. But I'm not making any promises. Despite what you think, I'm not trying to make your life difficult so you don't need to threaten me. So long as you're here to protect Kisa, then I guess we're kind of… maybe on the same side. For now."

… Okay, so was it just her, or had it suddenly become way hotter in the hatchery? Ivy shifted slightly with discomfort, the hay now one of the most interesting things she'd ever seen.

"Are you sure you can trust your friend with this?" She eventually spoke again, mostly as an attempt to shut down whatever train of thought had just tried to emerge. "Aren't law types kind of the ones we want to avoid for now?" Her tone was wary, certainly it didn't quite hold the bite of before now that everything was properly starting to sink in.

"Research though… I know someone in research. You can leave that one to me, I'll… I'll speak to him, set up a meeting." Ivy bit her bottom lip in thought as she considered what Dale might say about all of this, what any of her friends might say about this… right before she lifted her gaze again to find Gaelyn watching her, no… studying her, searching her. Her own dark eyes blinked back at him but for some reason, in that moment, Ivy didn't look away as she said softly, "For my sake too, huh? Careful, Gaelyn. That almost sounded sincere."

 

[Ryees]

 

The thin sheen of sweat on Ivy's brow was starting to get to him, too. Surrounded by Living Embers and insulating bedding, the room was stifling. He had not noticed it so much upon entry, with the adrenaline coursing and dreams of his future in his eye, but with the cold water bucket of reality thrown over the situation, the heat was much more prominent. Kisa, for all her wonder, was not helping, trapping a ring of heat around his neck that seemed as comfortable and welcome to her as it was agitating for him.

Ivy had always had good sense, it was her attitude that Gaelyn had rued. Trying to rise above one's station was a thing to be admired, but delusion was another thing entirely, and her family history had never painted her in a kind light. Going into research was perfect for her, in Gaelyn's mind: She could stay close to the field that she—that they all—dreamed about, and help develop the future of the conclave. That she, herself, would have never taken to the skies was the accepted fate for most everyone in Lohia Kaarm. So for her to be so insistent that she had what it takes had always come across as self-aggrandizing and insulting.

So why was he starting to sympathize with her?

He banished that train of thought and shook his head in response. "Law types are going to be the only ones who will be on our side if things go belly-up. They'll make sure due process happens and no one gets too uppity and throws you off the tower."

Ivy considered his words. "You sure about that?" She quipped back but then sighed - Gaelyn had a point. "The issue is, there is no due process for this. Or at least one we know of. Whichever way we look at it… telling anyone is a risk. To Kisa."

He nodded. "That will be step two. First we need your friend in research to give us some insight on what is going to happen to us with this bond, what our options might be, possible outcomes."

She chewed on her bottom lip in thought. "Alright. While you're in the Hall, I'll go find him. Can you meet us in the labs when you're done?"

Another nod. But then he hesitated a moment, his eyes glancing back and forth from Ivy to Kisa. "You'll have to keep it cool. You're going to be away from her for a long while. I need to show up in the Hall and make an appearance, I can come to the labs afterwards. You can't give away, until you meet your friend, what happened. Can you handle that?"

There was a delay before she replied, like she was seriously considering her answer. Could she handle it? In reality, she didn't know. "I…" She started, then sighed. "I can handle it. For her sake." She looked at Kisa. "I need to trust you to take care of her and I know that you will, if you feel even a fraction of what I do." Then she looked at Gaelyn. "Do you think she'll be okay with it? Dragons aren't exactly known for their rationality."

Gaelyn's mouth compressed to a thin line, and he took a long moment to think. Finally, he raised his eyebrows and shrugged dramatically. "I have absolutely no idea. If she's acting weird, I'll just play it off as newborn tendencies, or something."

"Then I hope you're a good liar, Fontine." A brief smile flickered before it was gone again. "Because we both know an unhappy dragon is not something to take lightly and I have a feeling that Kisa is going to be particularly talented in letting us know when she's pissed."

That incessant need to try and comfort her kept trying to creep into his head, and, unsure where it was coming from, Gaelyn shoved it back down again. What was it about this little shitstain that kept making him like her? "More likely than not," he toned flatly, "you're going to have to figure out how to convince them that you've got the mettle for Riding. Start thinking how you're going to do that." He leaned forward on one knee, rising and dusting himself off for the second time. Kisa stirred, looking at Ivy fondly, then peering around the room as Gaelyn stepped towards his classmate.

He extended one hand down to her, the illusion of an olive branch almost visible in his offered assistance. "I don't think time is on our side. Let's go."​

 

[Becboc]

Any trace of defensive amusement disappeared in a flash at the thought of actually... riding. Ivy hadn't passed some of the trials, the ones that tested strength and a rider's ability to simply remain on the back of a dragon as it moved through the skies. It was very likely that she would not be able to ride Kisa without falling to her death, if they even managed to make it airborne in the first place. Gaelyn was right though; if they had any hope of trying to convince anyone that this bond should be allowed, then Ivy was going to need to prove herself.

Just like she'd been trying to do her whole damn life.

She watched as he began to rise from the hay, her expression now slightly more hollow, slightly less... Ivy-like. For all of her bravado, there was an undeniable sensitivity beneath, one that few saw or even knew existed. Certainly, she wasn't about to let Gaelyn of all people into that part of herself so she made sure to recover quickly, shoving down her feelings just as he had only moments ago. Instead, Ivy's attention turned back to Kisa, the small hatchling a comfort in an otherwise precarious situation, a momentary comfort that was interrupted by an unexpected hand extended towards her.

For a moment, Ivy hesitated as she looked from the olive branch, back up into the face of the person it belonged to, as if she were searching for something. In the end though, and after a good few moments of indecision, she outstretched her own to place her fingers onto the ones that awaited her. She curled her grip, and had been about to haul herself upwards when there was a flash of something between them; like a bolt of warmth igniting at the connection. It might have disconnected them if she hadn't already been on her way to standing, which once she was again, Ivy found herself staring at Gaelyn for perhaps a beat or two longer than was natural, and retracting her hand too quickly to imply she hadn't noticed anything. In the aftermath of whatever the heck that was, she was left stretching out fingers that felt weirdly tingly and looking away to hide her expression.

It didn't take any longer than a minute or so for them to reach the hatchery exit and when they did, Ivy paused, bringing her finger up to her lips. She listened... and listened... before raising that same index finger to trace the rune that she knew better than the back of her own hand into the air before her. It was small, delicate, and the moment her word crossed her lips, Ivy was shrouded into darkness, as though she had slipped into the world itself. She moved unseen; checking the hallway outside and the adjoining corridors, and only once she was sure they were empty did she reappear in the same spot, as though she had been there all along.

"Okay, it's clear," she announced, turning back to Gaelyn. "But... we should probably leave separately anyway. Just in case. You... you go first."

The reluctance in her voice was a contrast to her words however, a longing already settling somewhere deep within her chest that she knew was for the hatchling who was looking at her now, undulating her tiny head in confusion. "I won't be far away," she offered softly to the dragon, lifting her hand up to Kisa who met Ivy's fingers from where she was still perched upon Gaelyn's shoulders. They looked at each other for a long few moments before Ivy switched her attention back to the rider, as doubt and fear began to swirl through her veins like poison caused by the proposition of separation.

Gaelyn had specifically told her not to use her shadows, not to skulk. Ivy knew she had a task to do, where she needed to go and who she needed to find but... maybe she could tail them, at least until they reached the Hall? That way, Kisa would still feel her nearby, but nobody else would know. Not even him...

"Take care of her. I'll see you after the ceremony."

 

[Ryees]

 

Gaelyn fought the reflex to flex his fingers in front of him, instead opting to raise that hand to run his fingers up and down the bridge of Kisa's nose. The wonder he was supposed to be feeling had been replaced by the indignance, fear, and confusion prompted by Ivy's interruption. That he would never get that moment back was not lost on him, and likely something which forgiveness would never come, no matter where events led them.

The minute it took to walk to the door was spent in quiet contemplation. Ivy would make her way to the labs and reference her contact. Gaelyn would go to the Hall and celebrate his rise as a Rider with a hollow joy of a stolen triumph, and then pull Tessa aside to get her thoughts. They would meet in the lab and sort out a very strange version of the future Gaelyn had been promised.

Watching Ivy disappear into the floor had never gotten any less disconcerting, but the usefulness of it was welcome. And her return signaled their departure.

"Take care of her. I'll see you after the ceremony."​

Gaelyn nodded, wordlessly slipping into the hallway. Empty, save for him and Kisa, he made his way through the conclave, the distant tones of revelry reaching his ears from a wing away. It took a deep centering breath for him to put on the smile that should have come to him naturally. The Great Hall had two doors twice the height of a man, clever mechanisms built into the hinges allowing for one man to move it when pressing on the spring plates that replaced proper handles, a mirror of all the doors in the conclave and a backup security measure when they were locked. With a deep breath, he heaved the doors open.

The sound that hit him as his face broke from the dim light of the passages to the bright torchlight of the Hall nearly took him off his feet. Cheers and hollers and whoops bombarded him from the mouths of three hundred people, and the triumphant roars of twenty dragons made the din a cacophony of power he could never have imagined. That smile redoubled. How could it not?

By meeting Tessa's eyes, was how. The front of the Hall had a raised dais where the professors, faculty, and administration sat, and Tessa, embalmed in the legal and political system of the school, stood among them. She was positively beaming and clapping her silken-gloved hands, but the moment she met his eyes, her face shifted in a way only he would ever have noticed. He saw her mouth move, the silent rune spoken inside her own head, and on queue, he whispered to himself a sound that would be lost in the riot but perfectly audible to her ears alone.

"Something went wrong."

And then the moment was gone as Gaelyn was dragged bodily into the hall. A dozen hands offered him a dozen mugs of half a dozen wines and spirits, and he took one at random and was swept into the crowd.

---

It was barely an hour that passed before Gaelyn told the room that he was going to retire. The disappointment was met with understanding as he spoke of Kisa. She among the rarer mutations, and her coloration and luster had not been seen in a long many rounds of hatching. She was getting on perfectly well with all the attention, but her energy was fading, he told them. She was barely hatched—the energy was too much for her, and he was still exhausted from his trial. They told him his belly was too weak to be missing another cup of ale, they told him he was already showing the kind of responsibility a proper Rider should have for their dragon, and they told him he had earned whatever rest and time he had wanted for the grace and spectacle with which he completed his trial; he heard very little of that praise as he made his way through the throng and out the Hall doors.

Tessa met him in the passage the moment the door closed, her slippers silent on the stone floor. "What happened." They were walking, then, and she fell into stride next to him without hesitation.

"There was someone else in the hatchery," he explained grimly, "and she came upon me as Kisa was hatching. We both bonded."

Tessa's eyebrows twitched a fraction higher. In her language, that was akin to any other man gasping for breath and recoiling in horror. "How? Who?"

"I don't know; Ivy Seaforth."

"Ivy? The researcher girl? What was she—"

"Tess, I don't know. I don't know." He huffed a sigh as they turned a corner on their way to the labs. "I was sitting in the hatchery, the egg shed and then cracked, and then she walked around the corner. The bond goes three ways. I can feel her the same I can feel Kisa. I suspect she could feel me too, if I didn't have your barriers practiced—thanks for that, by the way."

Tessa didn't acknowledge the gratitude, one elbow perched on the other and that raised hand picking at her bottom lip through her rouge. "She'll hang for that," she stated matter-of-factly. "You have nothing ot worry about. We'll take care of it, no matter how promising she—what do you mean 'no?'"

Gaelyn, shaking his head already, stopped, turning his back against the wall and flopping against it, taking care to keep his head forward to not crush the scarf that his now-sleeping dragon had become. "We don't know what will happen with the bond. IF she dies—"

"—your whole bond may shatter." The dots had already connected in Tessa's head and she was nodding too, suddenly looking very tired. "So you came to me for protection, then? Because she will hang for that, Gaelyn, and you knew that." Gaelyn waited; Tessa often connected her thoughts out loud, and he had learned to simply stand by and wait for the conclusions to come, as they always came rapidly and cleanly. "So you need me to meddle enough to not let her get discovered while you—" she looked around them, acknowledging where they were in the conclave "—go to the research wing and try and find a way to eject her from the bond without ruining your own."

And there it was, the reward for his patience and the point that Gaelyn had not thought of himself. "If that's possible. Meddling with bonds has always been tricky. I don't know..." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I don't know. I just don't know. Ivy went there ahead of us, she has a friend, so hopefully the time they spent was fruitful."

Tessa's ears twitched imperceptibly at Gaelyn's suggestion that Ivy was not present, but she said nothing. "I'll go do some digging. Go." She jerked her head towards the labs, turned on her heel, and graced off into the conclave towards the dormitories.

Gaelyn slid down the wall, his strength failing him. Kisa chirped, scuttling down his shoulder as she was pinched between his neck and the wall, giving him a properly indignant look before curling up into a dragon-donut in his lap and closing her eyes. He stroked her back, mind empty, thoughts hollow, letting the adrenaline and confusion of the night finally wash him away into his mind.​

 

[Becboc]

Ivy waited. And waited. And waited. She waited until Gaelyn and Kisa were out of sight before she activated her rune for a second time, and once more let the shadows envelope her.

The world looked the same from within her darkness, a little dimmer, a little more... muffled, but mostly it was simply as though she were invisible. A shadow in the corner of a room that if one looked too closely at, they might realise that there was no object, no person there to cast it. That its positioning on the wall, the floor, didn't quite align with where the light hit. By the time they might come to question it though, Ivy was already gone, moving to the next void like she might stepping stones across a babbling river.

She knew that she shouldn't be tailing Gaelyn, knew that if he found out it could sever what little trust they'd actually managed to bloom in the time since they had bonded. But she didn't plan on allowing that to happen; this was simply a failsafe. A way of ensuring that Kisa was safe, a way of easing the ache in her chest at the thought of being too far from the hatchling, and... perhaps a way of ensuring that Gaelyn himself kept his word too. Kept their secret.

The noise echoing around the conclave tickled the back of Ivy's neck as she remained a few feet behind her target, dark eyes fixed upon the small creature around his neck. It was as they drew closer to the large, double doors of the Hall however, that her focus began to waver, a sense of anticipation rippling through her small form like a ghost of what could have been. Ivy had never been destined for this moment yet here she was, walking it in the shadows, like a hollowed out version of what she had always wanted. It took her a moment to centre her own self as Gaelyn placed his hand on the press pad, and finally entered the Hall with the expression that Ivy knew she would never, ever wear herself.

---

It wasn't any easier inside the Hall, either. The chorus of applause and cheers reverberated through the room, a sea of smiling faces and waving hands flapping in the face of celebration. Ivy kept to the edges of the room, watching as she weaved through the unassuming bodies, her expression stony, cold. She had made this plan without much thought beyond being close to Kisa, but now she was here... it was like she was watching the death of her own dream. She had bonded a dragon, yes, but not legitimately, not how the country intended riders to bond. There was no place for her here amongst the elite, the professors, the faculty and all those others who stood at the front of the Hall. She was within the crowds yet she didn't belong; even as she slipped back out of her darkness, even if just for a moment to allow herself to stand, unhidden on the periphery of the room, to imagine herself up there with her dragon, shaking hands and smiling until her cheeks ached.

No... This was as close as she was ever going to get.

---

She had meant only to follow Gaelyn and Kisa until they reached the Hall, but in the end Ivy found that she could not pull herself away from them. She was no stranger to being ruled by her emotions, and while she wanted to blame the bond for heightening them... in her heart, she knew that the only thing to blame for where she currently was, was herself. Logic didn't come into it, and neither did what she should be doing right now; she simply wanted to stay and so she did. Right up until Gaelyn made to leave himself.

As they exited the Hall, a little under an hour since they had entered it, Ivy did so with a seed of bitterness weighing heavily upon her chest. Bitterness and perhaps a little anger that Gaelyn hadn't left as soon as he felt Kisa beginning to falter. That was an argument for another day though, she supposed, and Ivy had just been about to drop off his trail and take a shortcut to the labs when a voice, a different voice, pulled her up short. When she turned, she found Tessa approaching Gaelyn and his new dragon, with a question that... suggested that she knew something.

Everything within Ivy tensed; she didn't know Tessa well, but she knew that she and Gaelyn had some kind of... history. They traversed the academy together like they owned the place and she, as the lowly researcher she was, had always made a point of staying out of their way. Yet here she was now... witnessing a conversation that was meant only for the two of them.

... And to hell with it all, she had known that Gaelyn wouldn't stay true to his word.

That sneaky, lying son of a--

"You have nothing to worry about. We'll take care of it, no matter how promising she—what do you mean 'no?'"​

Ivy's gaze snapped to Gaelyn as he shook his head. Her hands had curled into fists by her sides and her heartbeat was ringing in her ears as she had prepared for the worst, believed the worst. Yet here he was... not making the plan she expected him to.

"—go to the research wing and try and find a way to eject her from the bond without ruining your own."​

Although in the end, was that conclusion really any better? Ivy loosed a breath she hadn't known she had been holding, but not through relief, in frustration. She was supposed to be going to the research lab to find out general information, anything really, that might give them an indication of what this meant. She certainly wasn't going there to learn how to eject herself from the bond, and if Gaelyn so much as tried to suggest that--

"I don't know. I just don't know. Ivy went there ahead of us, she has a friend, so hopefully the time they spent was fruitful."
​

There was a pause after that statement, one in which... Ivy noticed something. But not something from Gaelyn, something from Tessa. It was imperceptible, but there was a twitch at the corners of her mouth, a brief blankness that suggested her thoughts were elsewhere and for a moment, Ivy felt... exposed. She wasn't sure how or why, but the cold trickle of intuition prickling along her skin was enough to back her up a few steps... and then a couple more. She didn't want to leave, needed to stay and listen but... she also wasn't dumb enough to know when her time was up. So with that, she silently melted away from the scene and began in a different direction, only letting herself remerge into life once she was far enough away to feel safe again.

If she was lucky, she could take a shortcut to the back entrance of the labs and find Dale before Gaelyn reached the front one, because fuck, not only was she supposed to be there already but she also just... really, kind of needed a friend right now.

 

[Ryees]

 

The minutes passed by in quiet solemnity, a litany of emotions pulling Gaelyn back and forth as he sat. Kisa had gone back to sleep in his lap, leaving him alone with his thoughts, which were many. The feeling of being robbed of an experience was strong and at the forefront of it all. He was not supposed to be researching countermeasures for hanging a classmate he barely tolerated, tonight. He was not supposed to be questioning the safety of his connection with his dragon. He was supposed to be reveling and cheering and learning this new creature and exploring the first forays into the new life he had been grinding his nose on the stone for since he could remember.

The frustration setting in was what picked Gaelyn up from the floor, and what propelled him down the halls. His legs were long enough to carry him briskly, and the pace he set was quick enough to keep his mind from straying too far into the realm of what-should-have-beens. Kisa awoke as soon as he stood, crawling up his arm to wreath his neck once more. Her tail flapped irritably against his shoulder as she kneaded her way into his neck, leaving red marks where her budding talons dug into his flesh through his still-loosed-open tunic ties. He kept his chin down give her ample real estate to nestle into as he walked.

Lohia Kaarm's conclave was an efficient space of mostly gridwork, and getting from one section of the building to the next was made simple by the ample navigation signs at each intersection. With Tessa's promise of digging secured, Gaelyn started to ponder on what Ivy and her contact would have found in the hour that they were separated.

So it was a surprise when he rounded the corner to the labs hallways, and found Ivy striding her way up to the lab door just as he arrived. His eyes followed her path backwards, and then narrowed. "What's... going on?" he asked quizzically, suspicion drawing his syllables longer and more inquisitive. "You were supposed to be here already. Where have you been?"​

 

[Becboc]

Adrenaline powered Ivy through the hallways, adrenaline and a mind alive with thoughts. She didn't immediately notice Gaelyn round his own corner at about the same time she did, so deep was she in the past hour or so. Or at least that was until they were almost upon each other, her eyes meeting his shoes first and then slowly trailing the length of long legs, a white shirt opened at the front, smooth skin and... Oh. Fuck.

Her own footsteps slowed as she approached Gaelyn, both guilt and irritation already threatening to bubble to her surface. She noticed how his eyes flickered and then narrowed, piecing together what she already knew so that when his words came they were suspicious, and borderline accusatory.

"I..." Ivy flushed a little. "I took the long way round. Needed some time to think." Then her expression seemed to harden again, her words doing little to hide the challenge in her tone. "You weren't in the Hall long."

Gaelyn's back straightened—something was not adding up to him. "I was there for an hour. It takes five minutes to talk from the hatchery to here. How long were you thinking?"

"Long enough," she countered immediately. "Now if you're done with the interrogation; shall we?"

Gaelyn moved for the door, but still shot back, "No, actually, I'm not done with the interrogation. You were supposed to have been searching for an hour, already, I was buying you time." He pushed open the door to the lab and poked his head inside, peering back and forth for signs of occupancy. "What conclusions did you come to with your big think, exactly?"

Ivy couldn't help the scoff that left her at that. "Oh, I get it. So you were doing me a favour as you paraded through your chorus of applause for bonding our dragon. Sorry, my mistake. Next time I guess I should be more grateful." She folded her arms, her foot tapping with impatience. "I think I probably realised that the conclusions I came to during my big think are none of your business? Now, are we going in there or what?"

"It's clear," he muttered, moving inside. But a meter in the door, he rounded on her. "She is my dragon," he spat, tossing a dismissive hand. "You should be more grateful. For all we know, axing you would do nothing to my bond with her, and you'd be out a head. I—" He stopped up short, straightening. "Parading through my... You should have been across the conclave by that point. How do you know what happened?"

She almost slammed straight into Gaelyn's back when he rounded on her. "Hey, what the f--", but his hissed claim cut her off, as did his realisation... followed shortly by her own, that she had just royally screwed up. Well, shit. "I... um..." Ivy flushed further, if that were even possible. "Isn't that what happens after all riders have bonded? You all gather to blow smoke up each other's asses?"

It did not take him long to put the pieces together. "You followed me there? For what! For fuck's sake, Ivy, I—you know, what, no. No." He reached over her head and threw the door shut with one hand, grabbing her by the shoulder with the other and hauling her back against it. "I am under no obligation to be kind to you, surely you understand that," he growled at her, the hand on her shoulder pinning her hard against the door. "We are going to do things my way, and you are going to cooperate, because I have every right to get you locked in a cell for the rest of your life or separated at the neck."

Ivy rolled her eyes, because damn it, if she couldn't deny it then she was sure as hell going to validate her actions. Although in the end, she didn't have a chance to before Gaelyn was moving and moving fast. In almost no time at all, he'd slammed the door shut and his hand was on her shoulder, his grip tight as he pushed her back against the door. Her dark eyes flared, at first with surprise, which quickly turned to indignation. As always, he had a point, but right now? Ivy couldn't see past the red clouding her vision. "I don't cooperate with assholes," she bit back through gritted teeth, her breaths coming too quickly. "Or hypocrites. Because last time I checked, I'm not the only one who didn't stick to my word."

"Assholes or hyp—you were eavesdropping on that too? You never even came here!" His grip on her shoulder tightened, fully securing her in place. "That is our legal counsel, you idiot. Remember when I said I was going to get someone on our side to make sure you don't get executed? That's her."

His words hit her and they hit her hard, a sinking feeling dropping into her chest. Gods, she'd gotten it wrong, hadn't she? Of course Tessa was their legal counsel. She'd forgotten her standing in the academy, let her emotions rule her again and-- "Then... then why was she suggesting finding a way to eject me from the bond, huh?" Ivy all but exploded, panic lacing her words now. "That didn't sound like legal counsel to me, that sounded like... the beginnings of some kind of... of scheme to cut me out!"

The distress coming through the bond softened his grip unconsciously, and his voice softened with it. "We're going to explore every avenue. You never passed a trial—you might not be allowed to have this bond, for all we know. Cutting you out might be the only way to save your life."

Ivy's expression fell; Gaelyn softening seemed to soften her with it, as though she were subconsciously reacting to him in a way that she hadn't expected, as though she wanted... more of him to comfort her, something she had wanted since the moment this had all started. "But..." She tried, her voice quieter now, as if she were scared of the next words that forced their way out, of what they meant, of admitting them out loud. "But what if that makes it a life not worth living anymore?" Her gaze searched his in that moment, for a second and then another... right before her eyes flickered downwards, towards the mouth that had suddenly become only inches from her own.

He could not help but let his shoulders drop at that, taking his hand off her shoulder and bending a knee to lower his face to hers. "Your life was worth living before; it will be worth living again. We just need to make sure you can actually live it, because you broke... just, so, so many laws, by being in that room."

"You don't know..." Ivy started, but shook her head to stop herself from finishing. You don't know what it's like. The words echoed but never made it into the open. Instead, Ivy did something else; she found their connection, laying dormant within her mind and she, for a brief moment, opened herself to it. Let him feel what she needed, how alone she had felt before she had broken those laws, before Kisa, before him. "It doesn't matter," she whispered. "I just..." But then as her gaze found his mouth once more, Ivy hesitated for only a moment longer before she pitched forwards... and captured his lips with her own.

 

[Ryees]

 

"You don't know..."​

Gaelyn raised his brows, twisted his head to one side, and waited expectantly. Her words never came, though. He slowly dragged his head back and forth, waiting, opening his mouth to ask her what she was on about, when he felt a latch open in the side of his mind like a flintlock locking its hammer back.

A deluge of emotional input blasted into his mind, his eyelids fluttering closed and his eyes crossing as a whole second human's worth of emotional and sensory information was deposited into his mind. Threatening to be lost in the overwhelming sea of feelings and sounds and thoughts and hopes, he dove, down deeper and deeper into his Self, diving all the way under the current until he found calm waters. Floating there, finally in the stillness of the Deep, he turned to peer upwards, to see the current from the bottom and try to parse what had just come to him.

Ivy had opened the gateway on her psychic bond for only a moment, but in that moment their minds had become fully synchronized in their current space. He could see the whirling tempests of hope that were plaguing her dreams the weeks before the trials; her disappointment when her classmates started to receive letters that she would never open; the heartbreak when a figure high above her cast its gaze aside in disgust. And he could feel the acrid mix of envy, respect, and jealousy directed at a figure only defined by his tall stature and golden eyes. He set his sights on that as he started to rise back up through his Self.

The waters were rougher the higher he went, but with himself oriented now, he could feel the currents before they crashed into him and brace himself against their force. Gaelyn swam past the fear, past the disappointment, past he entitlement; he curled his legs to not get snapped up by the fear and isolation that tried to drag him under only at the last moment before its jaws clamped around his ankles. Finally, he arrived at the golden-eyed figure and, turning his back to it, nestled himself into its embrace like an ashen sarcophagus. He saw himself through her eyes, her lens, her feelings. He understood, intimately, the entire complex breadth of emotions that Ivy had assigned to him, emotions that had wildly and horrifically shifted in the past hours to something entirely unlike what they were before.

Through him, and through Kisa, she had manifested hope in the form of belonging. And in one case, she had likely been right: Going back to a life without that would be difficult to stomach.

That feeling locked into focus, he rose through the surface of his Self and returned to consciousness.
​

"It doesn't matter. I just..."​

Gaelyn sensed it before he felt it, felt it before he saw it, and accepted what was to come as her face closed in on his. Whether that need for belonging had simply taken over and her body was reacting or this was a precursor to something more potent, Gaelyn had felt what she did too deeply to resist, now. His lips met hers in a searing, messy kiss born from an understanding of her Self that was a more sacred offering than anything of the body, an intimacy often times held back even between decades-old lovers. Kisa, privy to the outlying feelings of their bond, skittered down Gaelyn's back onto one of the long countertops, curling into a wreath atop a linen work mat.​

Likewise, Gaelyn also moved them away from the door, his lips, tongue, and teeth never leaving Ivy's as he hauled her by the waist towards the lab table. One hand then the other ran down her back, slipping down her butt to her thighs to hoist her up onto the table, leaving her properly eye level with him for the difference in their height. His lips did break from hers, then, but only to kiss and nibble his way down her neck as his hands roamed her hips and chest with a fervor born from equal parts frustration and understanding.

 

[Becboc]

Gods, she was such a fucking mess. And she really hadn't realised it until now, until she had accidentally tugged at the frayed edges of her mind, only to unravel much quicker than she ever thought she would.

Opening their bond, even if for just a moment, was like cracking open a floodgate only for the pressure of the water behind to burst it wide. Ivy was not practiced in any kind of psychic power, had never expected to share a mental connection. She might have found it within herself to trigger it, but that didn't mean she knew how to filter her thoughts and feelings, how to close the gateway again. So in the end, she allowed Gaelyn to see more of herself, more of her thoughts, her feelings, her memories than she had ever meant him to see. More than she had ever shared with anyone else.

Which is why the kiss said so much more than words could in that moment, when she was open and vulnerable, a state that Ivy was not familiar with and would probably deny until her dying breath... after the fact.

It surprised her almost as much as it did him but perhaps not as much as him kissing her back did. She hadn't known what she had expected but the kiss that became more, that quickly turned into tongues and teeth and gasps of want? Yeah, that had not been it.

But as her body began to react, Ivy couldn't bring herself to regret it. Not yet. Nor could she bring herself to pull away.

Gaelyn's hands upon her, running the length of her back, her waist, her hips were like kindling to a fire. He hoisted her up onto one of the worktops with little to no effort and Ivy responded in kind, her legs meeting his hips, her thighs pressing into either side of him so that she could shift herself closer, so that she could encourage him into place. Her hands roamed until they found dark, silken locks of hair and then they gripped and they gripped hard, as his lips detached from her mouth and found their way to her jaw and the sensitive, awaiting skin of her neck; the skin of her neck that she tilted her head to give him better access to.

Ivy's chest rose and fell too quickly, her heart thudding in her ears but it was when she felt Gaelyn's teeth nibbling at the skin just above her pulse point did her breath hitch, her already dark eyes darkening into something else, something other. She couldn't remember the last time she had been physical with someone, it had been so long, and it had created an almost deadly concoction of physical need and emotional desperation that meant she couldn't pull away, couldn't think about this rationally, couldn't stop it... even if she had wanted to. Instead, her mind and body sung to the hymn of how good, how right Gaelyn felt in this moment. How, beneath the surface level of lust, something else simmered, something waiting to be awoken.

As he reached the bottom of her neck, her skin restricted by the silver collar of dragon scales, Ivy used her grip upon his hair to tug him back to lips already flushed from prolonged contact. She shivered as their tongues connected again, her body a livewire under his touch. Her hips shifted towards him, towards the edge of the worktop and Ivy's hands released themselves to traverse the length of his neck, his shoulders. They reached the open planes of his chest, still exposed from the hatching, meeting the warmth of lean muscle and Ivy couldn't help but sigh an almost whimper against his mouth.

"Gaelyn..."

His name however, as it fell from her lips created an inadvertent interlude, one that acted as a reminder, a realisation... one that was enough for Ivy to pull back just a little, as her palms pressed into his chest, creating either a barrier or more contact. She was breathing hard into the space between them, her onyx storms meeting amber and for a moment they simply... searched. For what exactly, it wasn't clear but after a moment and then another she leaned in again, slower this time, offering a more tentative peck to Gaelyn's mouth, once, twice; but not a third time. Instead, Ivy paused just short, creating a space in which there was a question, a challenge as her hands began to move again, lower this time... and lower. Chest. Abdomen. Belly.

An invitation.

She had started this... but would he finish it?

 

[Ryees]

 

Being pulled up and away from her flesh elicited a low growl from Gaelyn, both from the sensation of fingers wrapping into his hair and from the denial of what he had wanted. That his lips closed down on hers again served as a welcome secondary goal, but he was not done with her yet. His hands slid up her front, one cupping a breast and squeezing while the other bounced a span higher. Perhaps Ivy had had another's hands on her before, but he would make this a new experience for her.

Runelight trailed from his fingertip and he touched the bottom-most point of the chevron of scales that adorned her top. On dragonback, a lattice-net of runelight was often used to bind a Rider's legs directly to their dragon's scales during flight—even the strongest thighs could not keep a grip on scales when flying at a hundred miles per hour, whipping around a corner upside-down. Now, though, Gaelyn let the net spread up her chest from scale to scale until it covered her chest and décolletage, then dragged the lead line down her midsection to the hem of her shirt. Like a curtain rising on a stage, the net contracted, dragging Ivy's shirt up in a neat, furled line, her breasts popping free as it reeled the fabric up tight against the collar of her shirt.

The hand that had gripped her never moved save to let her shirt clear, now closing down on her bare chest and squeezing, pinching. His name, tumbling from her mouth, whispered through his ears as much a prayer as it was a plea, but then her hands were on his chest, pushing. He broke away from her, senses returning to him. Was she stopping him? That would be understandable, considering—

She was not stopping him. That look in her eyes told Gaelyn everything he needed to know on its own, but her hand, delving down his middle, cemented the notion. He dropped his hand below hers, pulling the ties to his breeches and pulling them down to free himself of the clothing. When her hand reached its destination, her fingertips would meet flesh, warm and stiff and damped at its head in anticipation.

He let her hands explore, pulling her against his chest and holding her there with one arm. He flexed his knees, popping her up off the white marble of the lab bench, just long enough for the other hand to swipe underneath her, dragging the waistband of her pants with it and pulling down. When Gaelyn deposited her on the cold surface, he pulled that hem to her knees before letting it go, lifting one leg, and pushing her pants the rest of the way off with one drop of his heel.

Gaelyn closed the distance between them again, a low, wanting grumble rising in his throat as he kissed her again. He lined up his hips with hers and stepped closer, letting her hands be the guide of tempo and direction.

While her hands moved between them, though, so did one of his, silently and carefully tracing a pattern of runes on the table surface behind her, below and outside of her field of view.​

 

[Becboc]

Ivy was well practiced in the use of runelight, but not like this.

She hadn't even noticed the hum of magic from Gaelyn's fingertip, so focused was she on other sensations until she felt the material of her shirt begin to rise with the fluidity that human movement was rarely capable of. It was a slow, torturous thing; a spreading warmth across her dragon scales that came to be replaced by the coolness of the lab air as it caressed her newly bare skin, pebbling across breasts that dipped free of their restraint, a gentle bounce to the fall until they settled into place.

Well, he was inventive, she had to give him that.

But the smile that almost formed wasn't quite born, because as soon as Gaelyn's hand cupped her, his touch short-circuited any attempt at coherent thought. Her dove-white flesh sat near perfectly in the palm of his hand and Ivy pressed into him, her back arching in a request for more, a gift of more. The small, pink peak he rolled between his fingers hardened with anticipation and Ivy's own fingers became more frantic in response, more desperate once they finally reached the waistband of his pants.

Ivy moved quickly after that but Gaelyn was quicker. Or perhaps more practiced; either way the result was the same. The ties to his breeches were undone in one swift motion, dropping to reveal the prize she sought. Her gaze remained for a moment on the rider's features, as if she wanted to see every detail of his reaction when she leaned forwards and finally stroked her fingers against the hardened length that awaited her.

Ivy's hand was graceful, delicate at first as she found her way, as she explored Gaelyn with a featherlight touch. Her thumb traced prominent veins, her palm pressed and cupped his leaking head and she pulled, tugged him towards her in a display of what she wanted. Her focus remained steadfast, given that she hardly needed to move as Gaelyn supported her through the removal of her own layers; he made quick work of ripping away her leathers, of shedding the final pieces of material that separated them. The cool marble of the worktop pushed into the underside of Ivy's thighs when he set her down again but she hardly felt it for the sensation of hungry lips meeting hers once more. She caught Gaelyn's low rumble of need in her mouth, with her tongue; felt it right down to the ends of her toes which curled as heat pooled in her lower belly.

As if heeding her silent request, Gaelyn took a step forwards then, lining up their now exposed hips as Ivy shifted forwards to do the same. Her hand continued to draw them closer while her other cupped his neck, one of her thighs knocking against his hip, the second dangling from the worktop. They were aligned in almost every way possible and when she felt him meet the slick, waiting desire of her flushed centre, Ivy clamped down on his bottom lip in an attempt to stifle the groan that fell from her. Her breathing was heavy and growing ever heavier with need, her hips undulating against his tip, brushing his stiffness down the line of her entrance once... twice. A tease as much as it was a promise.

She was not yet aware of the runes he traced, could not be aware, not when they were so close, so damned close...

"Move," Ivy eventually panted, her breath hot and needy against his lips, her body squirming to get closer. "Please."

 

[Ryees]

 

His head against her slit, feeling the damp heat of her core, threatened to destabilize his mind and came very close to destabilizing his hand. Only careful concentration and thousands of hours of practice kept his hand stable as he pushed his hips forward and drove himself inside Ivy. Her breath on his lips was met with his, a throaty, breathless gasp. Her bidding him to move was but a formality.

He found a rhythm, deep and long and smooth, rippling her folds with the head of his cock as he pulled nearly all the way out before driving back in to the hilt. Steady, strong, and persistent, he drove himself in and out with his full length.

But it was Gaelyn's fingertip on the countertop that had his full attention. The rune representing the rider net had been traced again, but alongside it he had drawn "person" and "glove," with a clever connection of "fire" and "leyline" that was commonly used to represent nerves and synapses. It was a combination of his own design, and, with its trace complete, he slapped his hand down in its center and charged the characters.

The net came away from the countertop as if adhered to his hand, and he clapped it into the small of Ivy's back, bared by her shirt riding up. Of its own accord, the net laced around her middle, its fibers latticing down and up. Two strands dipped between their hips, curling around her bottom and connecting to the net in the back. Half a dozen more spiraled around her breasts, connecting top to bottom and fully covering her torso. A single fiber wormed its way under the sleeves on either side and down each of her arms, while another pair crawled down her legs and formed a loop at her ankles.

With the pleasure net in place, Gaelyn grabbed Ivy's hips, and his slow, steady, merciful pace ended. He drove into her with all the frustration and hope and angst and confusion that he had generated in the passing hours, her body a cushion for his landing. The net responded not to him, but to her—it connected the nerves in her body such that when the nerves in one center fired, they fired all along the net. The pleasure that rippled out from her hole and her clit was mirrored a dozen fold, as if it were simultaneously coming from every place in her body at once. When Gaelyn squeezed down on her breast, that commanding pressure was mirrored on her ass and throat, giving the sensation that she was being locked down from every place at once.

And through it all, Gaelyn pounded her, sending those rippling sensations of pleasure all along the net to set her entire body alight.​

 

[Becboc]

Their near instant, sudden connection erupted from Ivy in a gasp. Her whole body jolted with it, a flash of pain momentarily stealing her breath; it had been… a while and she was incredibly tight. Enough so, that it took her a few moments of simply breathing into Gaelyn's mouth to try and adjust before he began to do what she had demanded and move.

He pulled nearly all the way out of her, only to thrust back into Ivy's waiting heat, ignoring any friction completely. Every stroke, every hit was strong, persistent and oh so unexpected. Gaelyn felt… heavenly between her legs as her walls clamped around every inch he gifted her, trying to hold him in, to keep him in place. And every time he ignored them? The slow drag against her was torturous, as maddening as the way her hips rolled in line with his own, allowing him to hit deeper, harder.

But the building pressure within her lower belly didn't stop there.

Previously unaware of Gaelyn's plans for his runelight, and so distracted was she by the sensations at hand, when he clapped his design upon her lower back, Ivy started a little, lifting her head back to find his eyes, to request answers without words. Yet when they came, they did so in a way that she could never have predicted.

The net latticed across her milky skin like a web, attaching itself to her softness; her hips, her thighs, her chest, her throat, her ankles. It traversed the lean planes of her like it was returning home and while she briefly looked down at herself to catch it, to try to figure it out? That's when Gaelyn grabbed her hips, and when he did, Ivy shot her eyes back up to amber, her lips parting to speak… but it was a cry that left them before any words could.

The rider plunged back into her slickened depths and when he did so, Ivy felt herself erupt into a crescendo of pleasure. The net seemed to ignite, sending currents of electric ecstasy to places that she shouldn't be able to feel what her overheated core did. Every bump to her clit, every slap of skin, Gaelyn's near brutal pace, the squeezing pressure on her breast that she could feel on her ass, constricting around her throat.

Ivy felt as though she was losing her mind. He was everywhere, all encompassing, spreading liquid fire through her veins in a way that she had needed when all this had started. Every movement, every pulse rippled through her small body and she found her fingers curling into the back of his neck and gripping at the ends of the dark hair that fell there, while her other hand tried to brace them upon the worktop. Ivy's forehead dipped against Gaelyn's nose, their pants of breath mingling, her gaze dipping down to watch where he was driving into her again and again until her legs trembled, until sweat began to shimmer across her chest with the exertion of simply holding on…

But the end that they were now both chasing so desperately? That end was not destined for this moment.

Just as Ivy had lifted her other hand to cup Gaelyn's neck, her lips reaching his, something pinged within her mind, something sharp and urgent. It was enough, even through the attack on her senses for her to pause, to lift her head over to where Kisa had been sleeping, over to where Kisa was now sat up, her ears twitching, her golden eyes fixed upon the door. Ivy followed her line of sight, already knowing that Gaelyn had felt her warning too. "Someone's coming," she panted the words, still holding onto his neck, her chest pressing against the exposed skin of his. But there was no time for them to do anything as Kisa chittered and spun her body once, twice; they were getting closer.

Ivy looked back to Gaelyn for a second before she was moving. She pushed him away and out of her, dropped her legs to the floor and scooped up her discarded leathers. The movement was swift, lithe and within moments she had his wrist gripped in her hand while her forefinger raised to sketch a rune into the air beside them; 'push'. A click sounded from across the room as the lock to the door slid closed, which gave enough time for Ivy to begin her second; 'shadow.'

One moment she and Gaelyn were standing by the worktop, but in the next? Darkness swallowed them both, depositing them again within seconds… straight into one of the equipment closets at the other end of the lab. The space was constricted, enough to press them up against each other, enough so that Ivy could cover her hand over Gaelyn's mouth to stop whatever protest she assumed was about to come her way. They were hidden, safe. But damn it, their dragon…

"Kisa, hide." Ivy mentally uttered the command and the tiny creature didn't need telling twice before she slid towards one of the top shelves that lined the wall behind her. As she settled, the room once more fell into silence… except for maybe the heavy, panting breaths behind the closed closet door. All they needed to do now was wait until the risk had passed, but that was more easily said than done when Ivy finally turned her attention back to Gaelyn and the hand that still covered his mouth, back to how close they still were, and how she could still feel him, hard, and warm and wet against her stomach.

 

[Ryees]

 

It was the heat building in Ivy's body that caused the heat to build in Gaelyn. The hand that curled around the back of his head called its message as loud as her begging out loud would have, spurring him on to hold her tighter, pound her harder, pleasure her more. He could feel the net reacting to his machinations, and through their bond, he could feel the building pressure that thumped up against its enclosure like a noisy lion scratching to get out. It was with some satisfaction that he felt her beginning to crest.

The footsteps from the hall, though, snapped all their attentions at once. Kisa heard them first, and sent that ping dancing across the bond on command. While it would not be devastating to be found boinking in the conclave—especially as a "victory lap" for his bonding ceremony—it was certainly in poor taste to be caught in the labs, of all places, and a story that Gaelyn would never live down. "Ah, fuck," he muttered with an irritable click of his tongue. "Alright, you—"

His word were cut off as she snatched up his wrist and started tracing. He dared not break her rune, its light already glowing, so he clenched his jaw and watched her hands. A jolt of force to set the door lock made sense, but her personal rune following it up set his hackles on edge in an instant. Instinct told Gaelyn to take a deep breath, and then his senses were distorting as he was pulled into the floor and dragged across the lab through the stone, unceremoniously flopping up into a locker barely wide enough to house the pair of them and entirely too short for him. He hunched forward, one hand between his head and the metal to keep it from bruising.

Gaelyn had no intention of making any sound, but Ivy's hand over his mouth silenced any protests of their hiding, that they should just let it be and chalk it up to too much wine and too much stress from their trials.

"..st want to check my notes, I left 'em a' my desk."

"I'll wait out here, be quick about it."

Tessa's voice from the hallway made him extraordinarily grateful for Ivy's hiding them. His body had not cooled off any, and the heat of their rut had left him fully excited and at attention against Ivy's midsection. Her soft skin teased at the underside of his cock, prompting the thought that perhaps he could just lift her...

A droplet of sweat rolled into his eye and he blinked hard to clear his vision. He hoped to the Nine that Tessa wasn't listening into the room as one of their classmates whose name Gaelyn had never remembered skipped into the room on the balls of his feet. Gaelyn blinked again, his vision still blurred, ssᴉɯɐ sɐʍ ƃuᴉɥʇǝɯos llǝʇ plnoɔ ǝɥ ɟᴉ sɐ pǝɥɔunɹɔs sʍoɹqǝʎǝ 'punoɹɐ pǝʞool ʎoq ǝɥʇ sɐ ƃuᴉɥɔʇɐʍ, but graciously, when he opened his eyes the boy was gone.

He waited. He waited a long count of ten before patting around inside the locker for the mechanism to trip the door and flicked it open. It was almost a tumble out of the locker but he caught himself on one leg and one hand braced on one of the work benches. With an arm shot out at the wall, he hissed, "Kisa!" at the equipment shelf whose heartbeat he could feel. A pearlescent figure snaked out from the shadows with surprising grace, its tiny legs carrying it off the shelf and two lab tables before it leapt for his arm and spiraled up to curl about his neck again. Kisa wrapped around his shoulders again, seeming very pleased with herself for reasons Gaelyn could not quite understand, but offering her a pleasant smile all the same.

Gaelyn turned to face Ivy, but blinked to find himself alone in the room with his dragon.​

 

[Becboc]

Indeed, it would not have been devastating to be found bonking in the conclave but Ivy had sought comfort in the shadows because of what had happened before. What she had shown Gaelyn before she had kissed him, how much of herself she had laid bare... quite literally.

It wasn't a conversation that she was prepared to have, at least not now. She was under no illusion that they wouldn't need to talk again eventually, she had left him with their dragon after all and that was before she considered the fucking bond that tethered them together. For now though, that conversation could wait. She needed to finish what she had started, or take a damn cold shower. Or maybe both.

Opting for the latter when she finally reached her dorm room, Ivy emerged not quite half an hour later, striding for the labs with a newfound sense of determination. She had, mostly, shaken off her lingering frustration and the feel of Gaelyn between her legs, and the pleasure net he'd wrapped around her... and the feeling of his hand on her chest... all swapped out for considering how relieved he must have been for the closet she had forced them into, when he had heard it was Tessa who would have been one of the ones to find them.

Yeah, that particular thought in itself was quite a sobering one and Ivy clung to it like a lifeline as she avoided the lab that she happened to know was now probably empty. Instead, she moved along the corridor to the only one that had a light on at this later hour, and a figure hunched over a desk in one corner.

Using her stealth to her advantage, Ivy slipped into the room unnoticed, crept up to the graduate and only allowed herself to reappear when her lips were by his ear.

"Whatcha' doing?"

Dale jumped about three feet in the air, whipped around with wide eyes and then clutched at his chest when he realised who was behind him.

"Fuck, Ivy!"

The silver brunette gave what could only be described as a near-wicked smile, as she came to lean casually against the side his desk, at the same time that he sagged a little and pushed back enough so that he could see her.

"Yes, Dale?" The archivist fluttered her eyelashes in a way that was anything but innocent when her friend looked up at her, his warm brown eyes softening.

"You're a menace, you know that?"

She tapped her chin. "Mm, I do. Just like I know that you love it."

Dale rolled his eyes but didn't deny it, not when they both knew that beyond their teasing? There was a little bit of truth in what she had said. The two of them had been friends for years and honestly, it was a surprise that they hadn't been more at some point; certainly, if it was up to Dale alone they would have been, but Ivy was more... cautious. Complicated. Fiercely loyal to those that she cared about and making sure she didn't do anything to ruin those relationships.

"Riiiiight," Dale quipped with a shake of his head, the two friends smiling at each other for a few moments before he cleared his throat.

"So what are you doing here anyway, Seaforth? It's kinda late and I know you're not here to help me figure out these equations. If you were I'd be concerned."

Ivy snorted in response, folding her arms across her chest mostly to ease the ache that was beginning there as her thoughts drifted to Kisa. A brief silence fell while her mind drifted and while Dale waited, one in which his friend's expression changed from that of joviality to something heavier, something more serious.

"Ivy? Is... everything okay?" Dale sensed the changed and leaned forwards slightly, his back straightening.

"Yeah... well, no. Honestly, I don't know." She stood then, unable to keep still with the nervous energy that had to thrum through her again, now she was thinking more deeply about her situation. "Everything is kind of... fucked, actually? Like, I fucked up and it's bad but... it might be a good thing too, in a way? At least for me. But then..."

The words tumbled out and she was so involved in trying to voice them that she didn't notice that Dale had moved out of his chair until his large, warm hands were upon her shoulders and he was looking down at her, his expression gentle, open, a contrast to the urgent worry in his tone.

"Hey. Calm down. Take a breath. Then tell me. Tell me what happened."

She met his gaze with hesitancy but ultimately, she knew that she had to tell him, not only for her sake but for Kisa's, too. She and Gaelyn needed to know what their bond meant, needed to know as much as they could if they had any chance of making it out of this whole situation unscathed.

So, in the end she took a breath as instructed, a deep breath and then said on an exhale she breathed, "Alright," as she met Dale's gaze, taking comfort in the familiarity of it. "Alright. But you can't tell anyone. Not a single soul. Promise me, Dale. I... I can only tell you if you understand that, and I have your word."

Brown eyes studied her for a few moments longer, Dale's jaw ticking slightly while he considered what she was asking of him. A moment passed and then another, but in reality, he didn't need to think about it. Not when he already knew that he'd travel to the ends of the earth if it meant keeping her safe.

"Okay, Ives. I promise. You have my word."

 

[Ryees]

 

Some part of Gaelyn was pondering the night even as Ivy ghosted off info the conclave. He could have pointed to her straight through the wall once she emerged from her shadow walk, but he offered her the privacy of clamping down the mental gate that conveyed feelings through the bond for the time being, and they each disappeared from the other's mind like a light switch save for the barest awareness of the other.

It was an odd moment as he put himself back together alone in the labs, one of the last places he had ever expected to be zipping himself up after an encounter with a lover. He was adventurous, but never outright disrespectful of the school—he pinned the outburst on Ivy ambushing him with her body and filed the experience away.

His walk back to his quarters was the first moment he had had alone with Kisa, he realized, with their bonding having been interrupted the way it was. He slowed his stride, after that, taking the moments for himself and his companion. Carefully, he unfurled the facet of his mind that connected him to Kisa, allowing the edges of their consciousnesses to flutter against each other at the edges. Basic feelings, simple thoughts and low-level sensory information flickered between their minds as they walked, exploring and testing and beginning the process of learning to communicate.

Gaelyn did not want the magic of that feeling to end, but upon entering his dormitory and catching sight of his bed, exhaustion hit him like a raging bull. It would have been generous to say he crawled into bed by the way he slunk down across the top of his sheets and duvet. Kisa scuttled right in next to him, and it was bare moments before they fell off to sleep.

---

​

A wind. A gust that rose from the Yellow Peaks.
That wind carried with it a legend... a legend as old as time.
But the legends told are carried with the birthright.
Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the wind that gave it birth comes again.

I have passed you this legend, young one. May your birthright shine with the passage of time.​

---

Morning came insultingly early with the bastard sun rising right on time as it always did. It had been barely three hours since Gaelyn had shuffled into his room and nearly died for the night, but the march of time did not much seem to respect his business and carried on anyway. The sounds of activity in the conclave thrummed him fully awake, and he sat up only with the entirely titanic effort of lifting the Atlas stone that his body had become. Kisa seemed noticeably more adept at sleeping than he was, having barely moved during his moaning and groaning, and he was immediately jealous of her ability to sleep through the commotion of academy life.

Commencement was today, and he was expected to be there in battle regalia. But that was not until the sun had reached its peak. Another hour would not see him admonished.​

 

[Becboc]

It was ridiculous o clock by the time that Ivy finally collapsed back into her own bed, her body heavy and her head even heavier. But as much as every part of her cried out for sleep, her mind wouldn't seem to still. It rolled the information that Dale had found around and around in her mind, while another part checked and checked and then checked again for Kisa's presence, as though she was worried that the universe would somehow find out about what she had done and right the wrong before it could grow any stronger.

That wasn't possible though, as she now knew, yet... she couldn't seem to shake the fear anyway. The research she and Dale had read up on should have put her mind at ease but the longer she was away from Kisa, and Gaelyn by default, the more antsy she seemed to become. Sure, the copious amount of coffee she'd ingested to keep herself awake probably didn't help but it wasn't just that; she could feel a yearning in her chest, a need to be close to what was now a very real part of her, a desire to protect, to make sure that her dragon was safe.

It was partly for this reason that she found herself rising early from bed the next morning, and heading out before the majority of the conclave were awake too. Ivy had spent the night tossing and turning to thoughts of bonds and research and dragons, but there was also something else that had been niggling at her, as she felt not only Kisa on the peripheries of her mind... but Gaelyn, too.

What they had done in the labs had been raw, vulnerable... and wrong; it had the potential to complicate an already complicated situation. For all intents and purposes though, Gaelyn had done her a favour last night; she had thrust some of her emotional baggage into his chest and he had taken it for her, without question, and agreed to distract her from it, if only for a couple of hours. It was more than most had been able to do for her, more than most had been willing to do for her. And while they hadn't exactly reached an ending as such, Ivy couldn't help but feel indebted to him, which... wasn't great, considering that she was pretty sure she also, kind of, owed him her life too, for not reporting her the minute she'd interrupted his hatching.

So yeah, it was easy to blame why she was heading up the spiral staircase to the rider's dorms so early in the morning on her yearning to see and be with Kisa, or she could blame it on needing to fill Gaelyn in on what she and Dale had found. But in reality, there was also another reason for her decision, one that involved a debt to be repaid; or at a least part of one, anyway.

Ivy's silver brown-hair swung in its ponytail as she made her way up the spiral staircase to the rider's dorms and along a short, windowed corridor at the top of it, her small frame tucked into a plain grey t-shirt and navy blue running shorts. It was a purposeful choice so if anyone asked, she was simply out for an early morning run; ridiculous to those who knew her, yes, but not to those who didn't, and that's what currently mattered. As she rounded a corner, she was quickly met with a row of doors, each one labelled by a golden number attached to the front of it. She had no idea which belonged to Gaelyn of course, but she didn't need to, not when the pull of her and Kisa's bond grew stronger and louder with every step that Ivy took. She knew exactly which door the tiny hatchling was behind, as she came to the one at the end of the corridor, paused outside of it, took a breath and then... raised her fist to knock quietly on the wood.

A few moments passed by in the aftermath, and then a few more in which there came no sound, or sign of movement, eventually prompting Ivy to try again... and again, and again. Her impatience started to grow with every minute that nobody answered, until in the end, she was stood almost toe to toe with the door itself, still knocking, her voice a low hiss of irritation that she hadn't thought she would need to use until at least ten minutes in Gaelyn's company.

"Gaelyn. Gaelyn! Are you deaf? Open the damn door. I need to speak to you!" Then she paused before adding, as if he might not know, "It's Ivy."

 

[Ryees]

 

Another hour was too much to ask for, it seemed.

Gaelyn had to hand it to her, in a fuzzy, bitter way. Ivy's timing was impeccable. Impeccably bad, but impeccable nonetheless and all the more impressive just how sharply he detested her presence upon her arrivals. The only thing that kept him from snatching his flintlock off the side table and putting a bullet through the door—just to send a message, not to hurt the girl—was Kisa rising her head and chirping expectantly at the door. Her glance back at Gaelyn was askance, permission.

"Absolutely not," he whispered, intent on ignoring—

"Gaelyn. Gaelyn! Are you deaf? Open the damn door. I need to speak to you!" Then she paused before adding, as if he might not know, "It's Ivy."​

Yes, you ponce, I knew it was you, I was just hoping you would disappear as fast as you came. With a heaving sigh, Gaelyn sat up on one elbow, tracing a double rune of "off" and "fasten" in the air and connecting it to the latch of his doorknob. The lock clicked open and the handle turned, swinging the door open a quarter inch. Job done, he flopped back into his duvet, lying on one side so he could face the door.

"You have a gift, you know," he droned as she entered his room. "You manage to show up exactly when you aren't wanted at every possible turn. I would be more annoyed if I wasn't so busy being impressed by your consistency, how do you do it?"

Kisa, undeterred by his bitterness, raised her body off the bed. It was uncanny how quickly dragons grew in their first days. ʇɥƃᴉu ǝuo ʎluo ɹǝʌo pᴉp ǝɥs sɐ uʍoɹƃ ǝʌɐɥ ɹǝʌǝu plnoɥs ǝɥS In just one night, she had extended over a foot, her legs now long enough to fully raise her body off the ground. Just under four feet in length, now, she scrabbled off the bed and rushed over to Ivy, curling about her ankles and making welcoming trilling sounds.​

 

[Becboc]

Unsurprisingly, as soon as the door clicked open, Ivy breezed into Gaelyn's space as though she had always belonged there. Her eyes immediately found where Kisa was already around her ankles and she crouched down to meet her, holding out her hand for the... not so tiny dragon to clamber onto.

"Hey girl, I missed you," she uttered, the fondness in her voice curling into the space between them. "You've... really grown in a night, huh?" The weight of Kisa as she scrabbled up Ivy's arm was so much more present than it had been before and Ivy felt a strange twist of something in her chest. Of time lost, of maybe even a little confusion. Dragons grew quickly in their formative years, everyone knew that, but she had not expected Kisa to have changed this much in a night--

"You have a gift, you know," he droned as she entered his room. "You manage to show up exactly when you aren't wanted at every possible turn. I would be more annoyed if I wasn't so busy being impressed by your consistency, how do you do it?"​

It was Gaelyn's droned sarcasm however, that distracted her from her train of thought, the change just small enough for her brain to squirrel it away as overthinking.

With Kisa now wrapped around her shoulders, her consciousness fluttering on the edges of her rider's own, Ivy finally lifted her gaze to where Gaelyn was, still laying in bed, on his side, looking up at her, his hair slightly dishevelled from sleep. For a few beats longer than was completely natural, she stared at him before purposefully averting her gaze with an eyeroll.

"Mm, I think I just have a natural inclination for pissing off jerks," Ivy drawled back sweetly. "I never considered it a gift before, but when you put it like that..." Then, with a shrug and without permission, she began about his room, the rider's space that was considerably larger than her own.

"Obviously, I thought you'd be awake," she continued with a semi-explanation as she headed towards one of Gaelyn's bookshelves. Her dark eyes idly scanned the contents before she helped herself to a hardback at random, pulling it into her hands so she could peer at the cover. "Shouldn't you be getting ready to flounce around in your swanky battle gear or something?"

 

[Ryees]

 

"Commencement isn't until this afternoon, " he grumbled lazily, the sleep still evident in his voice. "They want us in full armor and I'm not spending all morning in that suit." Truthfully, his armor was not so uncomfortable. Chainmail shirts were always a pain to get in and out of, but the shape and diameter of dragon scales actually made it bunch up less and slide off easier. You still had to get on your knees and shake it off your torso like a wet dog, but at least it came off in one go.

He watched Kisa scurry up Ivy and a thought occurred to him, dropping his head as a curious furrow came to his brow. "Does she seem bigger to you—like a lot bigger?" His tone suggested he knew the answer to his own question, but there was a hint of incredulity that bade him ask anyway. "I know we were told they grow a lot in their first molt, but it really sounded like they were talking in scale of weeks, months; not days."

"Anyway," he continued, stretching his free arm up to flex his shoulder and right half of his upper back, earning him a series of dull pops from his spine as it flexed, "what brings you? If you wanted to see Kisa you can stay until I go to commencement, but obviously she has to come with me."​