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rainbowfic2015-07-16 01:12 am
finch) wrote in rainbowfic2015-07-16 01:12 am
Dragon Scale Green, Monolith: Dragon Scales
Name: Jack
Story: the Empty Sky
Colors: Dragon Scale Green, Monolith 1. Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes.
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti, Paint-by-number (Immortality has given Jian a purer appreciation of the passage of time.), Saturation, Tapestry, Novelty bead ("He knows the truth of you, and he is dazzled by it." - Bones)
Word Count: 4200
Rating: PG-13 - sorry, the porn fades to black
Notes: Oh god it's done. I hope y'all are in the mood for some more Jian/Robin. There are two sections written in first person from Robin's POV because they're from the same novel and I didn't want to rewrite them in the limited third person I was using for Jian. /lazy
"I'm not so much a dragon slayer, more a dragon annoyer... I'm a dragon irritater." ― Craig Ferguson
Something was bothering Jian. He stalked through the palace and found nothing to occupy him. He wandered the City, watching people flinch away from whatever unpleasant look he was wearing. Even the Alchemist's son thought better of standing in his way.
There was an itch he couldn't scratch, couldn't even figure out what needed scratching.
-You may as well check on him,- the Dragon said.
-Who?- Jian thought, but before he'd even finished thinking the words, they both knew the answer was Robin. Now that he had put a face to it, it was obvious that the itch was a tie to reality, and he didn't have many of those left.
He reached through the strands to find an opening in the City. There was a city block that had stood in Shengao before the last major earthquake - Jian remembered when it appeared. The City people looked away as he hurried through the door of the government offices, finding himself in the public gardens that had been built over the remains on the other side.
Now that he was here, it was more obvious that something was wrong. Since the boy had played host to the Firebird, however briefly, Jian could trace that energy. He'd gotten used to the quiet, almost electrical hum of Robin's energy. But it was disrupted now, almost - but not quite - as if the boy were dead.
That was both unfamiliar and unacceptable. Unsure exactly what he would be dealing with, Jian set off into Shengao. He needed to start with something familiar.
-
There wasn't much familiar left in Shengao, particularly as he hadn't spent much time with Hanli after accompanying his granddaughter last time he was here. The streets were similar enough that he could find his way to the old shop.
Jian wasn't sure if he would find anything; there were no guarantees, and he didn't know how much time had passed. Two years? Three?
But the building was still there, and the sign had been repainted but was familiar. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, hoping Hanli wasn't busy.
There was a woman behind the counter instead, carefully grinding dried leaves with a mortar and pestle, and it wasn't until she looked up and smiled that Jian realized it was Daiyu. He mentally revised his estimate of how long it had been from two or three years to eight or ten.
"Jian? It is you!" Daiyu was saying as she came around the counter. "Of course you look exactly the same, it just took me a minute to catch up. Can I help you? What brings you in?"
"I was hoping to ask your grandfather about a matter," Jian answered, looking past her toward the curtain separating the front and the back of the shop.
Daiyu stiffened, and he knew the answer before she said it. "Grandfather passed over... It must be six years now. I'd have to count."
-Too long- Jian thought.
-It does happen,- the Dragon answered, and then aloud, "We are sorry to hear that, and that we could not send our condolences sooner."
Daiyu squinted at that. "Some day you need to tell me about how you knew Grandfather. But for now, how can I help you?"
"Noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive." ― Terry Pratchett
Daiyu had not seen Robin in weeks, which worried them both. Jian was more convinced than ever now that something was wrong, but /what/?
"He owes people work, and they're not happy about that. I've been by his place but he's never there. I was thinking about asking his sister to let me in, to see if I can at least turn something up and make sure he's not dead."
She said it casually, jokingly, but Jian flinched at the thought. He brushed it off; obviously he was still surprised by Hanli's passing.
"But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them." ― Ursula K. Le Guin
Mari met them at the small house in Londontown. Jian thought maybe he'd been here once to see... Mildred? Dierdre? He couldn't remember. The Rose line had always had an uncanny ability to get him to show up when they needed him, now that he thought about it.
The house was... well, about what he would have expected for Robin, given what his room had looked like when he was training. The front room had a few pieces of antique furniture covered in sheets, and a full wall of shrines that looked sadly neglected. The rest of the house was in varying degrees of workshop. Jian suspected that screws and wiring spontaneously manifested any time Robin stood still too long.
Daiyu was poking one robot after another to see which were working. Mari was clearly distressed, fetching fresh water from the kitchen and clearing off old offerings.
"He wouldn't leave these," she said as she fussed over the statues, dusting and anointing them. "Even when he wasn't sleeping or eating, he always kept the shrines. Something is very wrong."
"I'm going to find him," Jian surprised himself with the strength of the words.
"He's never missed a deadline either," Daiyu came back carrying a small packing crate. "I didn't see his wallet or his bag, but there's no sign of a fight." Behind her trailed two shadows carrying a larger one.
"I can track his energy easily enough, but I hate walking in unprepared."
"Sorry, but I don't think we can help with that," Daiyu shook her head.
Jian stalked outside, irritated. Why did everything with Robin have to be a complicated production, anyway?
"Old dragons, like old thorns, can still prick. And I am a very old dragon." ― Jane Yolen
The building was riddled with security, much of it anti-magic, but for someone of Jian's skill and the Dragon's experience it was more of a good day's exercise to reach the place where Robin was being held. He was half-transformed already, teeth sharp against his lips and his hands clawed.
The room was lit only in emergency lights and some kind of sickly blue light trickling in around the door ahead. Jian strode toward it, but a massive thrum echoed across the space and he found himself held still.
"I know your kind," a woman's voice said. "You think magic is only power, but it can make you weak, too."
Jian couldn't open his mouth to argue with her. He couldn't move at all, no matter how his muscles tried to thrash.
The woman came into view then, walking right up to him. She ran her fingers over his outstretched claws. "You're going to make a lovely specimen, though. First, some tests, maybe some exploratory surgery. Then we'll rip your power from you and use it for whatever I see fit." She laughed, apparently enjoying the idea.
Off to the right, there was a soft click. A male voice asked, "Doctor Sugaya, why are the lights..."
"Hells, Koushou, can't you see I'm having a dramatic moment here?" She shook her head as the younger voice yelped and the door clicked shut again. "Now, where was I?"
-What is this? I've never seen the like,- Jian thought.
The Dragon's voice felt strained when he answered. -I've come across workings that could strip the magic from someone's blood, but nothing quite like this.-
-What do we do? Wait until she lets her guard down?-
-I have a more effective solution,- the Dragon said. -Together, we are a single magical being. Separately, you would not be held fast, you would only be unable to use magic.-
-What would happen to you?- Jian asked, alarmed.
-I might be diminished, but I doubt I would be destroyed.-
-But Robin...- Jian's heart was racing and he couldn't quite identify the reason. Doctor Sugaya was back, taking samples of scales from his hands and talking to herself.
-You go on to Robin alone. Once this device is deactivated, I will find assistance.-
It had been quite a long time since Jian had done anything alone, and the prospect made him dizzy. The glee on Doctor Sugaya's face as she approached with a tray of needles galvanized him, however, and he gave the Dragon his assent.
That in no way prepared him for the first moments of silence in his head, nor the pain as his body reverted to its natural state. He stumbled forward into the doctor, sending the tray to the floor as she shrieked in surprise.
"How did you... Your features... Interesting," she said as she got to her feet. Jian looked around hurriedly, trying to spot the device she was using. His balance was off and he felt nauseated, but he didn't hesitate.
There was a switch near the far door, next to a tiny, blinking light. He tried it, and the nausea seemed to clear. He was still alone, but he'd had some blood skill of his own, and he felt it bubble up.
"Hey! No touching!" Doctor Sugaya was yelling behind him.
Jian pushed through the doorway and dragged a table in front of the door to buy himself some time. Then he looked into the blue glow of... He stared up.
The glow came from a row of large glass tunes, each with a person inside. All of them looked asleep. Robin was in the furthest tube, naked and stripped of his prostheses. His eyelid hung loose over the empty socket, and a few loose wires protruded from whatever he'd replaced his lost fingers with.
There was no obvious "escape" button on the tube, only a number pad. Frustrated, Jian punched the numbers. The liquid inside the chamber sloshed.
It had been a long time, but Jian's affinity had always been water. Was the liquid..?
He laid his hands against the heavy glass. Yes, it was water enough to respond to him. He closed his eyes, blocking out the sound of. Sugaya's angry shouts in the next room. He pushed the liquid outward, against the glass, seeking out the seams. It didn't take long for the seals to fail, and then the glass to crack.
Jian gathered Robin's unconscious body up in his arms and turned to leave. He was cursing Robin's height and his own awkwardness, and ended up nearly running over a young man, the one who had interrupted the doctor earlier. Jian rushed through three different plans for fighting without setting Robin down.
Koushou looked down at Robin in his arms. "You'd better hurry, she's calling security. Take the stairs back there. When you reach the sky bridge, go across and leave from the other building. I'll tell them you went down the front stairs. But hurry."
Jian knew he didn't have the luxury to question his fortune. He only gathered Robin up into a better grip and ran.
"Always speak politely to an enraged dragon." ― Steven Brust
"Where? Wha- Jian?" Robin was conscious, and just in time. Jian was not used to this "having limitations" idea, and the fact that he was tired grated on him.
"Can you stand?" Jian asked. He set the naked man down without waiting for an answer, but held tightly until Robin found his balance on his good leg. "This isn't ideal but-"
Robin coughed and spat out a mouthful of blue liquid. "Better than a tube?" he offered weakly.
"There you are!"
Both of their heads shot up at the female voice. Jian grabbed Robin tightly, prepared to run again, sore muscles be damned. He felt Robin relax, however, and so he hesitated.
"Ixtli!" Robin called with relief.
"Koushou called," she said, pressing something into his hand. Robin held it up to his face and Jian realized it must be his eye. In the meantime, she knelt and was sliding his knee into a prosthetic.
"Couldn't find yours, but this is one of mine," she told him. "The eye is the one you gave me to study. I'm sorry I couldn't do more, I had five minutes."
"More than enough," Robin was saying, though Jian didn't think so.
"If you're all so eager to help, why didn't anyone get him out of there?" he snapped as she helped Robin into some scrubs.
"Inter-department politics is... complicated. Doctor Sugaya keeps a lot of secrets and we didn't... Doctor Okoro tried..."
"Politics!" Jian was confused by half of what she'd said and horrified by all of it.
"It doesn't matter right now," Robin cut him off and Jian wasn't sure how he felt about that. "Thank you, Ixtli. I'll be in touch. Come on, Jian, we don't have much time and I'll need your help on the stairs." Was that an order? Had Robin, of all people, just given him an order? But there was no time to think about it, because that really was what needed to be done.
"The elevators are monitored, but they'll have to check the cameras manually for the stairs, so we can beat them to the exit," Robin explained as he hopped and stumbled his way down the stairs in the unfamiliar prosthetic. It was all Jian could do to keep him upright.
The night air was colder than Jian had noticed going in. He looked around, trying to get his bearings. Robin was looking at him like he was waiting.
"Well? Now where?" Robin asked him after they'd spilled out into the alley.
Jian tried not to sound exasperated. "I don't know. None of this is what I was planning when I came looking for you. We walk, I guess. Which way is your house from here?"
"Can't you just... pop us somewhere useful? My house? Daiyu's house? Anywhere that's not here?" Robin complaining was at least familiar territory. That Robin had picked a direction and was walking as he complained was even better.
It almost made up for the fact that he had to answer that question. "No, I can't 'pop' anywhere."
Robin stopped and turned, and Jian felt like it was the first time Robin had really looked at him since he got there. "What... You're different. What's different?"
Jian started to answer, but Robin blinked heavily and kept talking. "Oh. Oh. You're you."
Somehow that was the last straw. "You can tell?" he sputtered.
"I spent a while figuring out how to pick energies up with my artificial eye," Robin shrugged, clearly far more interested in Jian's situation. "What happened?"
"We were... your Doctor Sugaya held us in some sort of field. By separating, I was able to come get you."
"Is he coming back? Where is he?"
Jian sighed. "I don't know. He said he was getting help."
They were about to leave the alley and cross the street when a small, dark vehicle with tinted windows stopped suddenly in front of them. Jian reached for Robin as the side popped open and the door swung aside, bracing himself for an attack.
"Get in, hurry up!" He breathed a sign of relief on seeing Daiyu there, and hurried to help Robin into the vehicle. She slid the door shut behind them and hit a few buttons on a screen.
"What is this?"
"I was told you needed a ride. Poddie-cab seemed like the fastest option."
"...Poddie-cab?" Jian was getting tired of asking questions.
"Like a pedi-cab, but a pod," Daiyu answered.
"Self-driving taxi pod," Robin explained. "Ballentyne designed them for the city, actually. Kind of ironic."
"Where is it taking us?"
"My place," Daiyu said.
Robin whined. "I want to go home."
"They'll find you at home."
"The Dragon will be back with me soon enough, and then they'll be lucky if I let them catch sight of him." Jian was certain of it. Robin smiled and slumped down on his shoulder, clearly tired. The weight and warmth made Jian feel better.
Daiyu frowned. "I don't really want to argue with you, but-"
"Then don't," Jian snapped, then shook his head. "That was rude of me, but my request stands."
Unhappily, Daiyu pushed a few more buttons on the screen. "You win. I hope you're right."
"Of course I'm right," Jian answered her.
"With money you are a dragon; with no money, a worm." ― Proverb
I showed him around, which consisted mostly of pointing to closed doors and saying I didn't really go in there. Each time, Jian opened the door and looked inside. At first he'd been impressed by the volume of magical artifacts hidden away in the house, but by the third he was horrified and after the fourth he was just morbidly curious.
"Is there an attic?"
I nodded. "There's a panel at the end of the hall if you want to try climbing up. I don't know what's there, though."
"I'm not sure I actually wanted to know. Mostly I'm just wondering how this house has refrained from blowing up in your presence, given your track record."
"Ha. Very funny. Most of them are inert or really specialized, I think."
"Inert?" Jian glanced all around him. "They're not- Oh. No wonder the spirits saw fit to give your family someone with your talents. Someone who absorbs and shuts down magic would be particularly useful in a family of magical hoarders."
"They weren't hoarders."
He cocked an eyebrow at me. Some things never changed.
We spent the afternoon distributing boxes from the guest room among the other rooms. I was grateful he'd decided on that one and not the rooms I thought of as Aunt Macy's room or Grandmother Dee's room, even if Aunt Macy's had a little more breathing room when we started.
In the end we admitted defeat and left a small stack of boxes at the end of the hall, and we never did try to look in the closet, but at the end of a few hours there was a bed that could be seen from the door. Jian sat down on the side of it.
"Better to sit all night than to go to bed with a dragon." ― Proverb
Jian's confidence faltered soon enough when the Dragon did not return. This entire exercise in limitations was driving him to distraction, and then there was Robin.
When they'd parted ways, Robin had told him he needed to figure out who he was and what he was doing with his life. At first glance, Jian had thought it almost a waste: practically squatting in his sister's house, barely moved in, getting himself kidnapped. That was Robin: always a bit of a mess left to his own devices.
But as the days turned into weeks while they sought the Dragon and avoided Ballentyne's science turf wars, Jian couldn't help notice things.
He watched Robin work on robots and magical artifacts of his own design, impressed by the meditative quality of his focus. As always, he found himself proven wrong half the time when he told Robin something was impossible. Now, however, the boy had notes and plans for why things worked.
And "boy," well...
Jian might be old but he'd been a teenager when the Dragon claimed him as his ratha. Robin had at least ten years on him now, physically, and several inches. Calling him "boy" felt petty, especially without the Dragon sitting behind his eyes.
Jian accompanied him on his deliveries and other meetings on behalf of a Doctor Pak, who was constantly asking for new and better prosthetic designs. Robin was confident here, with people, in a way Jian had never seen him.
So confident that one night he leaned in and kissed Jian on the lips. Jian was startled, and Robin immediately apologized.
"No, it's fine," Jian told him. Better than fine, he thought as he returned the kiss.
The time between that first kiss and pants coming off was frighteningly short, but there were other things about being seventeen that Jian had largely forgotten about.
"You haven't been bit till a dragon does it." ― Tamora Pierce
After, they lay on Jian's guest room bed, breathing heavily. Robin was staring at the ceiling, hands still clenched into the sheets as if he'd forgotten how to move them.
As the silence stretched on, Jian couldn't help thinking. "So do you prefer to be the one doing the work?"
Robin laughed a little. "I'm usually more the receptive type."
"Then why...?"
"I wanted to make it less stressful for you. And... Well, I didn't want to have fantasies to compare it to. I just wanted to experience it."
Jian smiled at that. "Was I a good experience?"
"Hells, yes."
"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings." ― JRR Tolkien
Jian had a sudden, vivid flash of the last time he'd stood before the Dragon like this, a hundred years before.
"Are you ready to be reunited?" the spirit asked. There was something like amusement in his voice and Jian wondered if the Dragon knew something that he didn't know.
He opened his mouth to welcome the spirit back, but he hesitated. When he was seventeen the first time, he didn't really feel like he was giving anything up when he accepted the Dragon's offer. The world, or at least large parts of it, had been at stake. And even if it hadn't been, he hadn't really understood what immortality meant.
He was tired of losing people when he looked away. Hanli's death rattled around in his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs. He didn't want to look up one day and realize Robin was gone, as he once had with the Emperor.
"No, my friend," Jian whispered. "I'm sorry." His heart was not in it. It would be a weak partnership, and Chenek would take advantage of that. Better to admit his weakness and let the Dragon find a more worthy host.
The Dragon wrapped around him like a hug, energy pressed against skin. "I am proud of you."
Jian choked on that, a small noise.
"I suspected you were ready. You have been an excellent ratha, Jian, but the partnership is not meant to last forever."
In his mind he had always known that, and yet it was so easy for his heart to forget. He did not have to stand alone and apart forever. He could pick up where he'd left off.
"Will you be...?" Jian started, not sure where the question was going.
"I expect I won't have too much trouble finding a new ratha. And you will always know how to reach me."
"Thank you," Jian said, and the Dragon quickly faded.
Jian appreciated it as he sank to the floor, shaking and unsure what he'd done or what he was going to do now.
"Let me tell you: the only way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own." ― Eugene Shvarts
"This... this is mine."
"Sure thing. I think you're entitled to whatever after all the work you've done."
Jian shook his head, slowly unlatching the antique wicker box. "No, Robin, I mean this belonged to me. I must have left it on your great grandfather's ship. The Dragon wasn't terribly worried about my luggage."
He pulled out a musty old monk's robe that I had trouble picturing him in. It looked familiar- it matched Tai's. Well that explained a few things about the time I'd spent training with him. There were some papers and a wooden bowl and a few other things I watched him place carefully on the bed.
The last thing he pulled out was a pocket watch. "I thought I'd never see this again."
"What is it? A watch?"
"Not any watch," he said, talking more to the item than to me. He flicked the case open and looked at the face, then opened the back to look at the mechanism. "The Emperor was fond of clocks as a young man. He built this with his own hands, and gave it to me when we left on the last mission I did for the Empire."
Jian held it out for me to study, and I took it carefully. "It's beautiful craftsmanship," I said, looking it over. There was a tiny knob, and with the mechanism visible, I felt I could wind it without danger of breaking anything. To my surprise, once it was wound, it not only ticked, it warmed my hands with the gentle hum of magic.
"What does it do?" I asked him.
"It keeps time-" he started to answer, and then stared at it. "He never told me it did more, and I never did get the chance to even carry it. I was afraid it would get damaged."
I closed the back, and then the front. The hum faded but didn't disappear entirely.
"You should have it," he said, closing my hand around it.
"Are you sure? You sounded so amazed to have it back."
"It's not as if you're going anywhere," he said, smiling. "And it was a gift from someone you've reminded me of before. It feels appropriate, and I think he'd approve. Perhaps you can figure out what it does."
I pressed the watch to my chest, feeling the warm hum of it on my skin. "Thank you."
Story: the Empty Sky
Colors: Dragon Scale Green, Monolith 1. Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes.
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti, Paint-by-number (Immortality has given Jian a purer appreciation of the passage of time.), Saturation, Tapestry, Novelty bead ("He knows the truth of you, and he is dazzled by it." - Bones)
Word Count: 4200
Rating: PG-13 - sorry, the porn fades to black
Notes: Oh god it's done. I hope y'all are in the mood for some more Jian/Robin. There are two sections written in first person from Robin's POV because they're from the same novel and I didn't want to rewrite them in the limited third person I was using for Jian. /lazy
"I'm not so much a dragon slayer, more a dragon annoyer... I'm a dragon irritater." ― Craig Ferguson
Something was bothering Jian. He stalked through the palace and found nothing to occupy him. He wandered the City, watching people flinch away from whatever unpleasant look he was wearing. Even the Alchemist's son thought better of standing in his way.
There was an itch he couldn't scratch, couldn't even figure out what needed scratching.
-You may as well check on him,- the Dragon said.
-Who?- Jian thought, but before he'd even finished thinking the words, they both knew the answer was Robin. Now that he had put a face to it, it was obvious that the itch was a tie to reality, and he didn't have many of those left.
He reached through the strands to find an opening in the City. There was a city block that had stood in Shengao before the last major earthquake - Jian remembered when it appeared. The City people looked away as he hurried through the door of the government offices, finding himself in the public gardens that had been built over the remains on the other side.
Now that he was here, it was more obvious that something was wrong. Since the boy had played host to the Firebird, however briefly, Jian could trace that energy. He'd gotten used to the quiet, almost electrical hum of Robin's energy. But it was disrupted now, almost - but not quite - as if the boy were dead.
That was both unfamiliar and unacceptable. Unsure exactly what he would be dealing with, Jian set off into Shengao. He needed to start with something familiar.
-
There wasn't much familiar left in Shengao, particularly as he hadn't spent much time with Hanli after accompanying his granddaughter last time he was here. The streets were similar enough that he could find his way to the old shop.
Jian wasn't sure if he would find anything; there were no guarantees, and he didn't know how much time had passed. Two years? Three?
But the building was still there, and the sign had been repainted but was familiar. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, hoping Hanli wasn't busy.
There was a woman behind the counter instead, carefully grinding dried leaves with a mortar and pestle, and it wasn't until she looked up and smiled that Jian realized it was Daiyu. He mentally revised his estimate of how long it had been from two or three years to eight or ten.
"Jian? It is you!" Daiyu was saying as she came around the counter. "Of course you look exactly the same, it just took me a minute to catch up. Can I help you? What brings you in?"
"I was hoping to ask your grandfather about a matter," Jian answered, looking past her toward the curtain separating the front and the back of the shop.
Daiyu stiffened, and he knew the answer before she said it. "Grandfather passed over... It must be six years now. I'd have to count."
-Too long- Jian thought.
-It does happen,- the Dragon answered, and then aloud, "We are sorry to hear that, and that we could not send our condolences sooner."
Daiyu squinted at that. "Some day you need to tell me about how you knew Grandfather. But for now, how can I help you?"
"Noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive." ― Terry Pratchett
Daiyu had not seen Robin in weeks, which worried them both. Jian was more convinced than ever now that something was wrong, but /what/?
"He owes people work, and they're not happy about that. I've been by his place but he's never there. I was thinking about asking his sister to let me in, to see if I can at least turn something up and make sure he's not dead."
She said it casually, jokingly, but Jian flinched at the thought. He brushed it off; obviously he was still surprised by Hanli's passing.
"But it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them." ― Ursula K. Le Guin
Mari met them at the small house in Londontown. Jian thought maybe he'd been here once to see... Mildred? Dierdre? He couldn't remember. The Rose line had always had an uncanny ability to get him to show up when they needed him, now that he thought about it.
The house was... well, about what he would have expected for Robin, given what his room had looked like when he was training. The front room had a few pieces of antique furniture covered in sheets, and a full wall of shrines that looked sadly neglected. The rest of the house was in varying degrees of workshop. Jian suspected that screws and wiring spontaneously manifested any time Robin stood still too long.
Daiyu was poking one robot after another to see which were working. Mari was clearly distressed, fetching fresh water from the kitchen and clearing off old offerings.
"He wouldn't leave these," she said as she fussed over the statues, dusting and anointing them. "Even when he wasn't sleeping or eating, he always kept the shrines. Something is very wrong."
"I'm going to find him," Jian surprised himself with the strength of the words.
"He's never missed a deadline either," Daiyu came back carrying a small packing crate. "I didn't see his wallet or his bag, but there's no sign of a fight." Behind her trailed two shadows carrying a larger one.
"I can track his energy easily enough, but I hate walking in unprepared."
"Sorry, but I don't think we can help with that," Daiyu shook her head.
Jian stalked outside, irritated. Why did everything with Robin have to be a complicated production, anyway?
"Old dragons, like old thorns, can still prick. And I am a very old dragon." ― Jane Yolen
The building was riddled with security, much of it anti-magic, but for someone of Jian's skill and the Dragon's experience it was more of a good day's exercise to reach the place where Robin was being held. He was half-transformed already, teeth sharp against his lips and his hands clawed.
The room was lit only in emergency lights and some kind of sickly blue light trickling in around the door ahead. Jian strode toward it, but a massive thrum echoed across the space and he found himself held still.
"I know your kind," a woman's voice said. "You think magic is only power, but it can make you weak, too."
Jian couldn't open his mouth to argue with her. He couldn't move at all, no matter how his muscles tried to thrash.
The woman came into view then, walking right up to him. She ran her fingers over his outstretched claws. "You're going to make a lovely specimen, though. First, some tests, maybe some exploratory surgery. Then we'll rip your power from you and use it for whatever I see fit." She laughed, apparently enjoying the idea.
Off to the right, there was a soft click. A male voice asked, "Doctor Sugaya, why are the lights..."
"Hells, Koushou, can't you see I'm having a dramatic moment here?" She shook her head as the younger voice yelped and the door clicked shut again. "Now, where was I?"
-What is this? I've never seen the like,- Jian thought.
The Dragon's voice felt strained when he answered. -I've come across workings that could strip the magic from someone's blood, but nothing quite like this.-
-What do we do? Wait until she lets her guard down?-
-I have a more effective solution,- the Dragon said. -Together, we are a single magical being. Separately, you would not be held fast, you would only be unable to use magic.-
-What would happen to you?- Jian asked, alarmed.
-I might be diminished, but I doubt I would be destroyed.-
-But Robin...- Jian's heart was racing and he couldn't quite identify the reason. Doctor Sugaya was back, taking samples of scales from his hands and talking to herself.
-You go on to Robin alone. Once this device is deactivated, I will find assistance.-
It had been quite a long time since Jian had done anything alone, and the prospect made him dizzy. The glee on Doctor Sugaya's face as she approached with a tray of needles galvanized him, however, and he gave the Dragon his assent.
That in no way prepared him for the first moments of silence in his head, nor the pain as his body reverted to its natural state. He stumbled forward into the doctor, sending the tray to the floor as she shrieked in surprise.
"How did you... Your features... Interesting," she said as she got to her feet. Jian looked around hurriedly, trying to spot the device she was using. His balance was off and he felt nauseated, but he didn't hesitate.
There was a switch near the far door, next to a tiny, blinking light. He tried it, and the nausea seemed to clear. He was still alone, but he'd had some blood skill of his own, and he felt it bubble up.
"Hey! No touching!" Doctor Sugaya was yelling behind him.
Jian pushed through the doorway and dragged a table in front of the door to buy himself some time. Then he looked into the blue glow of... He stared up.
The glow came from a row of large glass tunes, each with a person inside. All of them looked asleep. Robin was in the furthest tube, naked and stripped of his prostheses. His eyelid hung loose over the empty socket, and a few loose wires protruded from whatever he'd replaced his lost fingers with.
There was no obvious "escape" button on the tube, only a number pad. Frustrated, Jian punched the numbers. The liquid inside the chamber sloshed.
It had been a long time, but Jian's affinity had always been water. Was the liquid..?
He laid his hands against the heavy glass. Yes, it was water enough to respond to him. He closed his eyes, blocking out the sound of. Sugaya's angry shouts in the next room. He pushed the liquid outward, against the glass, seeking out the seams. It didn't take long for the seals to fail, and then the glass to crack.
Jian gathered Robin's unconscious body up in his arms and turned to leave. He was cursing Robin's height and his own awkwardness, and ended up nearly running over a young man, the one who had interrupted the doctor earlier. Jian rushed through three different plans for fighting without setting Robin down.
Koushou looked down at Robin in his arms. "You'd better hurry, she's calling security. Take the stairs back there. When you reach the sky bridge, go across and leave from the other building. I'll tell them you went down the front stairs. But hurry."
Jian knew he didn't have the luxury to question his fortune. He only gathered Robin up into a better grip and ran.
"Always speak politely to an enraged dragon." ― Steven Brust
"Where? Wha- Jian?" Robin was conscious, and just in time. Jian was not used to this "having limitations" idea, and the fact that he was tired grated on him.
"Can you stand?" Jian asked. He set the naked man down without waiting for an answer, but held tightly until Robin found his balance on his good leg. "This isn't ideal but-"
Robin coughed and spat out a mouthful of blue liquid. "Better than a tube?" he offered weakly.
"There you are!"
Both of their heads shot up at the female voice. Jian grabbed Robin tightly, prepared to run again, sore muscles be damned. He felt Robin relax, however, and so he hesitated.
"Ixtli!" Robin called with relief.
"Koushou called," she said, pressing something into his hand. Robin held it up to his face and Jian realized it must be his eye. In the meantime, she knelt and was sliding his knee into a prosthetic.
"Couldn't find yours, but this is one of mine," she told him. "The eye is the one you gave me to study. I'm sorry I couldn't do more, I had five minutes."
"More than enough," Robin was saying, though Jian didn't think so.
"If you're all so eager to help, why didn't anyone get him out of there?" he snapped as she helped Robin into some scrubs.
"Inter-department politics is... complicated. Doctor Sugaya keeps a lot of secrets and we didn't... Doctor Okoro tried..."
"Politics!" Jian was confused by half of what she'd said and horrified by all of it.
"It doesn't matter right now," Robin cut him off and Jian wasn't sure how he felt about that. "Thank you, Ixtli. I'll be in touch. Come on, Jian, we don't have much time and I'll need your help on the stairs." Was that an order? Had Robin, of all people, just given him an order? But there was no time to think about it, because that really was what needed to be done.
"The elevators are monitored, but they'll have to check the cameras manually for the stairs, so we can beat them to the exit," Robin explained as he hopped and stumbled his way down the stairs in the unfamiliar prosthetic. It was all Jian could do to keep him upright.
The night air was colder than Jian had noticed going in. He looked around, trying to get his bearings. Robin was looking at him like he was waiting.
"Well? Now where?" Robin asked him after they'd spilled out into the alley.
Jian tried not to sound exasperated. "I don't know. None of this is what I was planning when I came looking for you. We walk, I guess. Which way is your house from here?"
"Can't you just... pop us somewhere useful? My house? Daiyu's house? Anywhere that's not here?" Robin complaining was at least familiar territory. That Robin had picked a direction and was walking as he complained was even better.
It almost made up for the fact that he had to answer that question. "No, I can't 'pop' anywhere."
Robin stopped and turned, and Jian felt like it was the first time Robin had really looked at him since he got there. "What... You're different. What's different?"
Jian started to answer, but Robin blinked heavily and kept talking. "Oh. Oh. You're you."
Somehow that was the last straw. "You can tell?" he sputtered.
"I spent a while figuring out how to pick energies up with my artificial eye," Robin shrugged, clearly far more interested in Jian's situation. "What happened?"
"We were... your Doctor Sugaya held us in some sort of field. By separating, I was able to come get you."
"Is he coming back? Where is he?"
Jian sighed. "I don't know. He said he was getting help."
They were about to leave the alley and cross the street when a small, dark vehicle with tinted windows stopped suddenly in front of them. Jian reached for Robin as the side popped open and the door swung aside, bracing himself for an attack.
"Get in, hurry up!" He breathed a sign of relief on seeing Daiyu there, and hurried to help Robin into the vehicle. She slid the door shut behind them and hit a few buttons on a screen.
"What is this?"
"I was told you needed a ride. Poddie-cab seemed like the fastest option."
"...Poddie-cab?" Jian was getting tired of asking questions.
"Like a pedi-cab, but a pod," Daiyu answered.
"Self-driving taxi pod," Robin explained. "Ballentyne designed them for the city, actually. Kind of ironic."
"Where is it taking us?"
"My place," Daiyu said.
Robin whined. "I want to go home."
"They'll find you at home."
"The Dragon will be back with me soon enough, and then they'll be lucky if I let them catch sight of him." Jian was certain of it. Robin smiled and slumped down on his shoulder, clearly tired. The weight and warmth made Jian feel better.
Daiyu frowned. "I don't really want to argue with you, but-"
"Then don't," Jian snapped, then shook his head. "That was rude of me, but my request stands."
Unhappily, Daiyu pushed a few more buttons on the screen. "You win. I hope you're right."
"Of course I'm right," Jian answered her.
"With money you are a dragon; with no money, a worm." ― Proverb
I showed him around, which consisted mostly of pointing to closed doors and saying I didn't really go in there. Each time, Jian opened the door and looked inside. At first he'd been impressed by the volume of magical artifacts hidden away in the house, but by the third he was horrified and after the fourth he was just morbidly curious.
"Is there an attic?"
I nodded. "There's a panel at the end of the hall if you want to try climbing up. I don't know what's there, though."
"I'm not sure I actually wanted to know. Mostly I'm just wondering how this house has refrained from blowing up in your presence, given your track record."
"Ha. Very funny. Most of them are inert or really specialized, I think."
"Inert?" Jian glanced all around him. "They're not- Oh. No wonder the spirits saw fit to give your family someone with your talents. Someone who absorbs and shuts down magic would be particularly useful in a family of magical hoarders."
"They weren't hoarders."
He cocked an eyebrow at me. Some things never changed.
We spent the afternoon distributing boxes from the guest room among the other rooms. I was grateful he'd decided on that one and not the rooms I thought of as Aunt Macy's room or Grandmother Dee's room, even if Aunt Macy's had a little more breathing room when we started.
In the end we admitted defeat and left a small stack of boxes at the end of the hall, and we never did try to look in the closet, but at the end of a few hours there was a bed that could be seen from the door. Jian sat down on the side of it.
"Better to sit all night than to go to bed with a dragon." ― Proverb
Jian's confidence faltered soon enough when the Dragon did not return. This entire exercise in limitations was driving him to distraction, and then there was Robin.
When they'd parted ways, Robin had told him he needed to figure out who he was and what he was doing with his life. At first glance, Jian had thought it almost a waste: practically squatting in his sister's house, barely moved in, getting himself kidnapped. That was Robin: always a bit of a mess left to his own devices.
But as the days turned into weeks while they sought the Dragon and avoided Ballentyne's science turf wars, Jian couldn't help notice things.
He watched Robin work on robots and magical artifacts of his own design, impressed by the meditative quality of his focus. As always, he found himself proven wrong half the time when he told Robin something was impossible. Now, however, the boy had notes and plans for why things worked.
And "boy," well...
Jian might be old but he'd been a teenager when the Dragon claimed him as his ratha. Robin had at least ten years on him now, physically, and several inches. Calling him "boy" felt petty, especially without the Dragon sitting behind his eyes.
Jian accompanied him on his deliveries and other meetings on behalf of a Doctor Pak, who was constantly asking for new and better prosthetic designs. Robin was confident here, with people, in a way Jian had never seen him.
So confident that one night he leaned in and kissed Jian on the lips. Jian was startled, and Robin immediately apologized.
"No, it's fine," Jian told him. Better than fine, he thought as he returned the kiss.
The time between that first kiss and pants coming off was frighteningly short, but there were other things about being seventeen that Jian had largely forgotten about.
"You haven't been bit till a dragon does it." ― Tamora Pierce
After, they lay on Jian's guest room bed, breathing heavily. Robin was staring at the ceiling, hands still clenched into the sheets as if he'd forgotten how to move them.
As the silence stretched on, Jian couldn't help thinking. "So do you prefer to be the one doing the work?"
Robin laughed a little. "I'm usually more the receptive type."
"Then why...?"
"I wanted to make it less stressful for you. And... Well, I didn't want to have fantasies to compare it to. I just wanted to experience it."
Jian smiled at that. "Was I a good experience?"
"Hells, yes."
"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings." ― JRR Tolkien
Jian had a sudden, vivid flash of the last time he'd stood before the Dragon like this, a hundred years before.
"Are you ready to be reunited?" the spirit asked. There was something like amusement in his voice and Jian wondered if the Dragon knew something that he didn't know.
He opened his mouth to welcome the spirit back, but he hesitated. When he was seventeen the first time, he didn't really feel like he was giving anything up when he accepted the Dragon's offer. The world, or at least large parts of it, had been at stake. And even if it hadn't been, he hadn't really understood what immortality meant.
He was tired of losing people when he looked away. Hanli's death rattled around in his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs. He didn't want to look up one day and realize Robin was gone, as he once had with the Emperor.
"No, my friend," Jian whispered. "I'm sorry." His heart was not in it. It would be a weak partnership, and Chenek would take advantage of that. Better to admit his weakness and let the Dragon find a more worthy host.
The Dragon wrapped around him like a hug, energy pressed against skin. "I am proud of you."
Jian choked on that, a small noise.
"I suspected you were ready. You have been an excellent ratha, Jian, but the partnership is not meant to last forever."
In his mind he had always known that, and yet it was so easy for his heart to forget. He did not have to stand alone and apart forever. He could pick up where he'd left off.
"Will you be...?" Jian started, not sure where the question was going.
"I expect I won't have too much trouble finding a new ratha. And you will always know how to reach me."
"Thank you," Jian said, and the Dragon quickly faded.
Jian appreciated it as he sank to the floor, shaking and unsure what he'd done or what he was going to do now.
"Let me tell you: the only way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own." ― Eugene Shvarts
"This... this is mine."
"Sure thing. I think you're entitled to whatever after all the work you've done."
Jian shook his head, slowly unlatching the antique wicker box. "No, Robin, I mean this belonged to me. I must have left it on your great grandfather's ship. The Dragon wasn't terribly worried about my luggage."
He pulled out a musty old monk's robe that I had trouble picturing him in. It looked familiar- it matched Tai's. Well that explained a few things about the time I'd spent training with him. There were some papers and a wooden bowl and a few other things I watched him place carefully on the bed.
The last thing he pulled out was a pocket watch. "I thought I'd never see this again."
"What is it? A watch?"
"Not any watch," he said, talking more to the item than to me. He flicked the case open and looked at the face, then opened the back to look at the mechanism. "The Emperor was fond of clocks as a young man. He built this with his own hands, and gave it to me when we left on the last mission I did for the Empire."
Jian held it out for me to study, and I took it carefully. "It's beautiful craftsmanship," I said, looking it over. There was a tiny knob, and with the mechanism visible, I felt I could wind it without danger of breaking anything. To my surprise, once it was wound, it not only ticked, it warmed my hands with the gentle hum of magic.
"What does it do?" I asked him.
"It keeps time-" he started to answer, and then stared at it. "He never told me it did more, and I never did get the chance to even carry it. I was afraid it would get damaged."
I closed the back, and then the front. The hum faded but didn't disappear entirely.
"You should have it," he said, closing my hand around it.
"Are you sure? You sounded so amazed to have it back."
"It's not as if you're going anywhere," he said, smiling. "And it was a gift from someone you've reminded me of before. It feels appropriate, and I think he'd approve. Perhaps you can figure out what it does."
I pressed the watch to my chest, feeling the warm hum of it on my skin. "Thank you."
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Thanks. I was afraid it came off disjointed for a saturation.
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I think... the slightly disjointed feeling helps to kind of place Jian in context with the Dragon, and how disparate that experience is to "normal human." Without, you know, erasing Jian's humanity.
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I'm really glad I managed to convey that. Thank you!
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I was so happy with the progression of this. Being let go is the most freeing thing in the world sometimes.
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Oh Yay, I'm glad you like it!