Chapter Text
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Twins were cursed, it was whispered.
Two boys meant a year of frozen winter, while two girls meant a year of blazing drought. Both would still be cast out at the first opportunity, of course, but the village could surely make it through such crises.
A girl and a boy, on the other hand… well, those twins meant nothing less than calamity. No village could allow them to remain in peace.
And it is into such a place that Aether and Lumine are born.
The calamity they are meant to bring seems to follow them from their very first breaths. Their father dies before they are even strong enough to walk, fallen into the depths of a half-frozen lake, and the townsfolk begin to whisper.
Their mother, in a desperate bid for safety, moves them to a tiny hut of wood and straw far away from the center of town. She breaks her hip falling from the roof, loses two toes when the flickering fire logs suddenly pop and tumble from the hearth, but her children are growing up— wary, perhaps, but as healthy and strong as they can be. Then she leads them on their first hunt in the forest and is speared to death on the antlers of a fleeing deer. The townsfolk murmur.
Aether takes care of Lumine then, and Lumine takes care of Aether. Part of their house burns when an ember escapes the nearest neighbor’s chimney, and they do their best to repair it— but the townsfolk don’t even bother to cover their mouths when they talk, now.
When Lumine— and by extension, Aether— turns seventeen, she dares to enter herself in the town’s archery competition, and they cannot conjure a reason to turn her down in time to stop her. She fires five arrows, one of which splits the shaft of another, and she walks away with a satchel of gold as her prize, because none could come close enough to her score to excuse changing the victor. The muttering continues in earnest.
When Aether— and by extension, Lumine— turns nineteen, he finds the bound scraps of an old magick text in the marketplace, and brings them home, much to Lumine’s dismay. He has no wand, no staff, no catalyst, nor any inherent power, but he reads those scraps anyway, because if he stares at them long enough, sometimes he can imagine the magick glowing in the dusty air around him, see the creatures of legend walk through the cracks in the wall where the wind blows in. The townsfolk huddle and watch with suspicious eyes.
Aether and Lumine trek out into the woods near the end of a very long winter, hoping to fill their growling stomachs, and when they return, the town is in an uproar. For once the whispers are not about them, but the true news is no comfort: a dragon has come, they say. A golden dragon and his court, a creature of such power that not even a kingdom’s worth of knights could hope to defeat it. All they can do, the chief says, is placate the creature and hope it leaves them alone. Every eye turns to the bright-haired twins.
Lumine goes into the town to sell part of her and Aether’s latest catch, and she steps just a little too far into the path of the wrong man. Struck down, she is left crying and running as the fearful townsfolk throws rocks and threats at her retreating back. The whispering has turned to loud suggestion, now.
Aether kneels before Lumine where she sits on a tiny, wobbling stool in front of their house, and does his best to soothe her bruises and bandage the bloody scratches. They hold each other for a long time afterward. Even they know what the townsfolk are planning.
A letter arrives one coldly sunlit day, and the chief calls every ear to gather and listen.
“The dragon demands a bride!” He says.
There is no question of who will be sacrificed.
--*--
They choose Aether, in the end. Maybe it’s because Lumine’s face is still blooming with purples and blues and greens and Aether’s long hair and soft features are enough to present him as a woman. Maybe it’s because Lumine might be of some use to the village yet, with her skill as a hunter and her ability to bear children, while Aether is little more than a dreamer. Aether doesn’t really care, as long as he is the one being sacrificed instead of Lumine.
“Let him go, bastards!” Lumine screams, and it takes three guards to hold her back. “Take me instead— damn it, Aether. Come back!”
He can’t, and they all know it. He doesn’t look back.
A handful of people, all wearing gloves and long veils, come to drag Aether into the house where he assumes he’ll be prepared as an offering to the dragon. Lumine’s furious cries follow them until the heavy oak door slams shut behind them. Then all is silent.
None of Aether’s… attendants talk as they work, and are they really so afraid of the curse that they won’t even show him their faces? Aether’s eyes are smeared with gold and dark paint, his bare feet are shackled together by a shining chain, his clothes torn off and replaced by layers of fluttering silk and linen, the finest the village has to offer.
It’s the nicest thing he’s ever worn. If only it wasn’t also the last.
“Can I have some water? Please?” Aether croaks. Counting the time he and Lumine had spent imprisoned while the village council decided who to sacrifice, it’s been an entire day since he’s had something to drink. Food he can go without, even though his ribs already stand out beneath his skin, but water…
He receives no response, and once his attendants are finished transforming him bride worthy of a dragon, they lower a veil over his head and drag him into the next room to wait.
His steps land on polished wooden floors and the air smells like velvet and old paper. When they push him into a stiff chair, Aether stumbles over the chain that ties his feet, and the veil flutters away from his face. The letter— that terrible, fateful letter— is framed on the desk before him, and Aether catches a glimpse of the words inscribed in gold.
—searching for a mate. If any in your village are willing—
Willing? Aether almost snorts. As if anyone would want to become a dragon’s bed slave.
Distantly, he can hear voices and the clang of construction from outside. They must be finishing the grand platform from which Aether will be sacrificed.
When was the dragon supposed to arrive? Sunset? A little before? Aether has no idea what time it is, but he doesn’t want to risk lifting the veil to check when guards are watching him so intently.
What will the dragon do when it realizes Aether is not a bride after all? The charade of his face will only last until the dragon takes him back to the mountain on which it has settled and… does whatever it wishes to do with Aether. Maybe, if he’s lucky, it will just eat him in one bite. That sounds like a mostly painless way to go, really.
But then— he needs to stay alive somehow, so that the dragon won’t simply come back to the village and demand Lumine instead. That means Aether can’t run, can’t fight back. The only thing he’s allowed to do is survive, and that’s the worst thing he can imagine right now.
Aether has never had the inclination even to seek a partner, let alone actually be with one. They say it hurts. He wonders what it will be like with a dragon.
The door slams open, then, and a rough hand grabs Aether’s shoulder to force him up.
“Move.” The chief’s voice barks, and Aether is pushed out of the building and into the pale sun.
He can hear Lumine’s yells again, mixed with the din of the crowd, but her voice is much more ragged now, worn with desperation. The time is drawing near.
Tripping his way up the steps of the platform he can’t see, hindered further by the chain and the long drape of his robes, Aether manages to reach the top, where he is promptly showered in flower petals and misted with perfume. It’s honey and lavender and mead, a cloying scent that’s probably meant to remind him of the town and home.
He doesn’t want it. This place has never been home anyway.
The chatter of the crowd dies down a little, and Aether waits, straining to hear Lumine’s voice— but either they’ve taken her away or she’s run out of cries to give.
What will she do when Aether is gone? They’ve never been parted before, not even when their mother died, not even when their house burned and their winters grew lean. They hunt together, cook together, sleep side-by-side— will she just go back to their run-down hut and wait? Escape the village? Or will she instead try some desperate, stupid rescue? Aether hopes she doesn’t. Even as good with a bow as she is, it won’t be enough to go up against a dragon or a hundred angry townsfolk.
A sudden scream rises from the crowd, then another, and another. Aether can’t see what’s happening, but…
Far away, air thunders in steady beats, metal jangles, and the trumpeting of a beast drowns out the sounds of the villagers’ fear. The dragon has arrived.
Aether locks his muscles to stop from trembling when something crashes on the platform before him, heavy and solid and powerful. Around him land more taps and thumps— the creatures that make up the dragon’s court, then.
“O mighty dragon!” The chief calls out, and his voice is surprisingly steady. Then again, he’s not the one being sacrificed to an immortal beast of legend. “We have received your letter and heard your demands— here! We offer this bride as a gift to you.”
Deathly silence falls as the dragon moves forward. Its breath huffs over Aether’s face, enough to flip up the fabric of the veil, and he has a split second to hope and fear that the dragon will discover the village’s deception now— and then he sees the teeth. And the brilliant scales. And the bottomless amber eyes and the tangled mane and the claws as long as Aether’s forearm and the size of the beast, a sinuous body on four powerful legs, crowned by magnificent horns. The creature is overwhelming, and if it had been described on the torn pages of his magick texts, Aether would have been in awe.
But it is not, so Aether is not.
There is no helping the trembling now. At the dragon’s left and right stand a huge bird with glimmering green feathers— a phoenix? And a fragile doe-like creature with a single horn— a qilin. Any one of these legends would be enough to send the entire country to its knees, Aether thinks almost hysterically. But all three, and probably even more waiting at the dragon’s court? It’s practically wasteful.
The dragon’s teeth draw closer to Aether’s face, and suddenly his attention really can’t stray at all.
Aether’s hair stirs as the dragon breathes deeply, eyes slipping shut as if— as if enjoying Aether’s scent. He shudders. Then the dragon’s muzzle bumps against his cheek with surprising gentleness, and Aether can’t stop a gasp as something sizzling and electric shoots through his body at the contact.
With a low rumble, the dragon pulls back, and without warning, tip his head up to give what can’t be mistaken as anything other than a thunderous, triumphant roar. Aether claps his hands over his ears as the phoenix extends its graceful neck to join in the cry, and the qilin stamps its hooves on the deck.
The dragon lifts a claw to its own chest, and, with a great flourish, plucks out a pearlescent scale— one that stands out completely from the mass of gold surrounding it— and presses it to the spot just beneath where Aether’s collarbones meet.
It burns.
Aether manages to stifle a cry, but that doesn’t stop him from falling when one of his legs gives out from under him. He’s heard of dragonfire before, legends of the deadliest and purest flame, but this— this might actually be it.
Heat sears through his veins, slowly at first, then faster and faster as his heart pounds and the poison— because in Aether’s body, what else could it be?— takes hold. He can’t see, can’t breathe, and maybe his lungs are full of fire too. It certainly feels like it. An insatiable itch begins high on his chest, and he scrabbles at the scale— only to find it fused with his skin. What has the dragon done to him?
Then something warm meets his forehead, like glazed ceramic left near the fireplace, and all at once, the agony vanishes— and Aether is instead left to thrash under the blind, desperate need to have more of that touch.
The dragon growls again, the sound nearly a croon, and Aether can feel it vibrate over his skin. He has no strength to follow when the dragon withdraws its touch and fire begins to creep over him again; no strength to resist when the dragon’s teeth sink into the collar of his robes to lift him up and onto its back. Again, the fire recedes, and Aether melts as the skin of his cheek and hands and feet meet the dragon’s scales. The shackles on his feet prevent him from straddling his unexpected mount, so Aether instead lies down and clings to the fur of the dragon’s mane, careful not to pull.
He barely notices when the dragon lifts into the air, but then the clamor of their audience is fading behind him, the wind is howling in his ears, and they are dizzyingly high off the ground. Aether’s veil is torn from his head, and he tries not to watch it fall.
Before them, the snowy mountain looms. Already, this dragon has painfully marked him and poured dragonfire into his veins, and who knows what else it will do in the days to come? But between Lumine and the dragon’s very visible claim, no matter what happens— Aether can’t go back.
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