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It’s the quiet sound of whispering that draws Shouto to the glade deeper in the forest, barely audible above the sound of the winds caressing the thick canopy of leaves overhead and the gentle singing of the inhabitants of the trees.
‘Danger’; ‘caution’; ‘be wary’ and the like do not cross Shouto’s mind as he ever so slowly, and ever so carefully, makes his way closer to the source of the whispering. He’s on this trip across the kingdom not because he wants to, physically dragged from his bedroom by Natsuo and shoved into a carriage with a pre-packed suitcase he doesn’t remember seeing before and definitely doesn’t remember packing. Both Touya and Natsuo had been silent on their way over—they’d exchanged words with their father before setting off, father sat in his private carriage in front of them leading the way, though Shouto hadn’t been part of the exchange.
Not that he minds. Father and Touya always end up yelling whenever he tries to eavesdrop, before Fuyumi leads him away. Shouto would much rather read his books about faes and magic and dragons than make ‘important decisions regarding Our Kingdom’, argue with his father and traipse across the land.
They had stopped to give the horses a break, Touya and father promptly starting to argue about something again when they had come face to face. Natsuo had rolled his eyes and wandered off in one direction, and Shouto had wandered off the other, directly into the forest.
He hadn’t known how dense the forest was when he set off towards it. All he had known was that he didn’t want to be standing around watching the way Touya’s and his father’s facial expressions twisted. The trees in the distance had looked appealing enough, and he had put one foot forward before the other, and then the other, and then the other, until the scenery around him had morphed completely and he could no longer see the clearing he had come through no matter how much he turned this way and that.
The surrounding trees are tall; looking up, they stretch for forever, seeming to touch the heavens. Shouto moves over to the one closest to him, brittle branches snapping beneath his boots, cracks muffled by the cool, damp, mossy ground. He places a hand on the trunk, coarse but not unpleasant against his skin, and looks up, standing to watch the wind shift the greenery overhead.
A songbird twitters nearby. The leaves rustle, sharing secrets amongst themselves. Shouto takes a deep breath in, the sweet taste of peaceful nature barely gracing his tongue, so unlike the cold, tense corridors of the castle they call home, when he hears it.
A small, quiet whisper, and a mixture of low tones and soft hisses.
It doesn’t sound like anything Shouto’s ever heard before. His heart races, excitement flooding him when he considers the possibility of discovering a new species like the heroic explorers in all his books.
Slowly, carefully, he concentrates on the source of the whispering, reaching hand after arm after hand out to push stray branches hanging low before his path. The ground hardens slightly as he moves deeper into the forest, flattening out until the trees abruptly part for an almost perfectly circular opening, bathed in sunlight while tiny white butterflies flit about, the rays dancing off their little wings.
A blonde boy crouching in the very centre looks up at Shouto, his eyes flashing in warning and his brows knitting together. His arms shoot out, obscuring whatever it was he was looking at on the grass from Shouto’s line of sight.
Shouto hesitates. The boy continues to glare at him.
“Do this,” Natsuo had told him once when they still had their training sessions together, turning both his palms to the sky, then raising his arms up to display both hands as empty, “when you want to show that you don’t want to fight. That you want to approach in peace. Dad and Touya have too much pride, but you should know this, Shouto.”
Shouto lifts his arms, showing his empty palms. The boy’s glare relents slightly, though his arms stay in place. Shouto takes this as an invitation to approach, and he does so with caution, curiosity begging to be satisfied.
“I heard… something,” Shouto says, unable to describe the whispering that had brought him to the glade. It had been beautiful; music to his ears, so unlike anything he’d ever heard before.
The boy rolls his eyes. “Yeah? And?”
Shouto draws nearer. The boy stays in place, fingers curling slightly into the grass as he looks up at Shouto. Shouto tilts his head.
“Was that you?”
He stops a foot from the boy. The sunlight overhead catches the object on the ground before him, casting his chest in a brilliant shade of scarlet.
A perfect ruby oval, barely larger than the size of the boy’s fist, lying on the grass between the boy’s arms and shimmering under the sun.
Shouto stoops down, a hair’s breadth from the boy, eyes wide with excitement. The boy’s eyes narrow at him, though his suspicions are lost on Shouto. Eventually, he turns back to the ruby oval.
“This is a dragon egg,” Shouto breathes, heart pounding wildly with excitement. Beside him, the boy scoffs.
“Obviously it’s a dragon egg, genius.”
Shouto turns just to catch the tail end of him rolling his eyes. His blonde hair is wild, pale as the tall pampas grasses that line their castle grounds. His eyes gleam with excitement, as wild as his hair and as red as the dragon egg. Up close, Shouto can see freckles dotting the high bridge of his nose.
The boy is good looking despite his lack of decorum.
“Was that you whispering earlier?” Shouto asks. The boy rolls his eyes again.
“Obviously. Where the heck are you from? Your clothes are weird, and you don’t seem to know anything.”
Shouto’s clothes are not weird. He’s about to say so when the boy, bored with their exchange, turns back to the egg and begins to whisper; small, quiet, a mixture of low tones and soft hisses. It makes Shouto shiver, though not in an unpleasant way. His fingers tremble to trace the egg. His lips quiver.
“Wow,” Shouto says, fingers creeping towards the egg.
“We shouldn’t touch it,” the boy instructs, “we have to tell it to hatch first.”
“Tell it to hatch?” Shouto asks, turning back to the boy to find fierce determination on his face.
The boy nods. “That’s what I’m doing. I’m using dragon-tongue to tell it to hatch.”
Shouto’s never heard of this practice before. None of the books he has read have mentioned this.
“Can I try?”
The boy’s lips form an arrogant smirk. “Go ahead. But I’ll warn you—dragon-tongue is hard.”
Shouto frowns, concentrating. He purses his lips, curls his tongue, and tries, from memory, to mimic the same gentle mixture of low tones and soft hisses.
It comes out as an awkward warble. The boy laughs loudly, slapping Shouto on the back. Shouto isn’t prepared for this, and it pushes him off-balance and onto his side on the grass. He wrinkles his nose, exhales quickly as he pushes himself back up, and tries again.
“You suck,” the boy laughs, a lively, vibrant sound that reverberates around the glade. “No dragon baby’s gonna want to hatch to that.”
“It’s not so easy,” Shouto grumbles before trying again. The boy keeps laughing, and Shouto eventually finds himself laughing too.
“How do you know dragon-tongue?” Shouto asks when the laughter dies down. The boy looks up, his lips parting to answer, when the sound of Todoroki Enji’s booming voice echoes from the depths of the forest.
“Oh,” Shouto stands, brushing grass from his breeches. “I have to go.”
“Oh,” the boy says, standing too. The dragon egg, so small by itself on the ground, casts a halo of crimson on the grass around it.
Enji’s voice calling for Shouto continues to boom. Shouto doesn’t move, staring at the blonde boy.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
The boy hesitates before replying. “It’s Bakugou. And yours?”
“Bakugou,” Shouto likes the way his name feels on his tongue. “I’m T—Shouto.”
“Shouto,” Bakugou says, and Shouto shivers again.
“Shouto!!!” Enji calls. Shouto moves away from the centre of the glade.
I hope I’ll see you again, Shouto wants to say. Bakugou remains standing, a strange expression on his face as he watches Shouto leave. I’ll come back to see you and the dragon, Shouto wants to say.
“Good luck with hatching it,” he eventually settles on.
Bakugou gives him a small smile. “I don’t need luck.”
Enji calls for him again, voice growing increasingly impatient.
Shouto turns to leave.
~ * ~
Enji looks up from his desk, expression stern yet resigned.
“No,” he says again. “Shouto, you cannot go.”
“People are dying,” Shouto says. “How can we stay here and do nothing?”
“This doesn’t concern our kingdom. We do not know enough about the enemy yet, and our army isn’t ready. You are not ready.” Enji presses his lips together. Shouto doesn’t reply, staring down at him as he stands by Enji’s desk. Enji eventually sighs, and returns to the documents he had been poring over.
“I cannot lose another child,” he says to his papers quietly. Shouto presses his nails into his palms.
“I’ll come back,” he says.
Enji looks back up, his jaw set. He stares at Shouto, silent for a long time before speaking.
“Fight well, son.”
Shouto takes very little with him. His mother wears the same resigned expression on her face as she hugs him, though her smile and her words are warm.
“Stay safe, Shouto.”
Fuyumi tries to hide her tears. Natsuo fails to hide his, slapping his back and threatening to turn his precious library into an alchemy workspace instead if he never comes home. Casper neighs as they set off, waiting patiently for him as he pauses at the top of a distant cliff overlooking the castle and its surrounding waters.
“There are things you do for our kingdom,” Touya had said to him not long before he had disappeared, “and there are things you do because they’re the right thing to do. There will be times when they won’t be the same thing.”
He’s in the middle of pondering Touya’s words, too young to fully comprehend what his oldest brother might have meant when he had first heard them, when Casper jerks his head to a side, spooked by the sudden appearance of three travellers.
Shouto’s eyes meet those of an astounded ranger, a determined witch, and a serious bespectacled paladin, standing in a neat row looking up at him as Casper tries to pull him away.
“Um, hello,” the ranger says in a quiet voice. Shouto smiles in response.
The four of them make an eclectic party, but Shouto finds them wonderful travel companions. They too, are on a journey east to help fight the growing army of chimeras and demons threatening the land and peaceful villages. They exchange stories about their families, their towns, cities, and their customs as they traverse over hills and across ravines. They set off when sunlight illuminates the land in the mornings and laugh over silly jokes beneath the stars.
Izuku is as kind as he is strong. Tenya is as loyal as he is serious. And Ochako is as perceptive as she is bubbly. Shouto finds a home away from home in them. The further east they travel, the more travellers they pick up, determined to do their part against the demons.
Coming face to face again with the good-looking blonde boy with the arrogant smirk and scarlet eyes is entirely unexpected, and a surprise so fantastic it takes Shouto a moment before he recognises the exuberant happiness coursing through his blood.
The boy isn’t a boy anymore; his hair even wilder, a shocking blonde explosion atop his head. His short bangs sweep across his forehead, framing his sharp eyes. Canine-looking beads adorn his earlobes and his neck, a fur-lined cape draped over his broad shoulders.
Bakugou, Shouto recalls. Many things had happened after their chance encounter in that green glade all those years ago. Shouto hasn’t thought of him since Touya disappeared, but the memory comes flooding back. Bakugou casts his eyes down at Tenya, then Ochako, then Izuku, before locking onto Shouto.
Shouto would like to think that recognition flashes through them. He looks up, staring at Bakugou and remembering a butterfly-filled clearing in a forest and whisperings to a dragon egg from half a lifetime ago. Shouto doesn’t even notice the gigantic dragon below Bakugou until Casper turns to flee and Shouto has to stop him.
“Please,” Izuku implores. Bakugou keeps his eyes on Shouto a fraction of a second longer. Shouto’s hopes soar.
Do you remember me? Shouto wonders. Do you remember us whispering to a dragon egg, trying to get it to hatch?
“I don’t do teamw—” Bakugou begins to say, but he is interrupted.
The grass beneath their feet shrivels, turning to ash. The earth turns barren. Around them, mountains and waterfalls darken, becoming erupting volcanoes. High-pitched shrieks and cackles drift towards them.
Bakugou turns around. The demon army has come.
~ * ~
The demons are strong, terrifying, and outnumber them. With every one Shouto’s sword cuts through, two more leap at him.
Their eclectic group fight doggedly—knights and paladins, sorcerers and witches, archers and tailors, barmaids and bounty hunters equal on the battlefield. But it isn’t enough—the demon lord is too strong, too powerful, and even with a dragon rider on their side, Shouto soon finds himself on the ground, staring up in horror as the beast approaches, a massive hulk of thick, ashen leather with three wings, horns longer than Shouto’s arms, and eyes that can blind the unsuspecting.
“Never show weakness,” his father had said.
“Never lower your head to them,” Touya had said.
Shouto turns to his side where Bakugou is also on the ground, watching his fingers dig into the barren ash as he continues to smirk, glaring up at the enormous demon with fight still burning bright in his eyes.
Is that the dragon we found together? Shouto wants to ask. There are other things he wishes to ask too, and other things he wishes to say: that he never forgot Bakugou’s name, or the way the sunlight caught his hair in that glade all those years ago. That for a period of time, when he closed his eyes and drifted off into that space just between asleep and awake, he would hear Bakugou’s voice in a mixture of low tones and soft hisses. That he’s been trying to practise dragon-tongue but has always been teased by Natsuo for being terrible at foreign language. That he wishes they had met again under different circumstances.
Belatedly, Shouto wonders what his father and mother might be doing; if Fuyumi is tending to the roses in the garden she so loves, and if Natsuo regrets relinquishing his title at all.
Izuku is still standing. The demon lord lunges, and Shouto waits for the inevitable to happen.
Except it does not. Izuku stands, raising his sword to the heavens, and an immense figure of brilliant golden flames saturated with magic appears behind him, raising its own flaming blade to the skies before swinging it down in a flash of blinding light.
All Might. Shouto had assumed it was nothing but an age-old fairy tale.
An eclectic group of travellers banding together may be no match for a demon army, but no demon army, no army at all, really, can stand against the greatest power ever known to all the kingdoms.
“We’re going this way,” Bakugou says to him gruffly after the dust settles, jerking his head towards the dark mountains in the distance. “There was a dragon den over there, in the mountains due west. We’re going to check on it.”
Shouto nods, then glances around. Izuku is still surrounded by an enormous crowd, spluttering in the limelight and awkwardly scratching the side of his cheek.
“I’ll go get Izuku and—”
Bakugou clicks his tongue. “It’s just gonna be me and you. The others have things to do here. Now hurry up.”
He turns and stalks off towards his dragon without looking back. Shouto considers him for a moment before following in his footsteps.
“Kiri,” Bakugou says. Bakugou’s dragon lifts its head from the ground, leaning into Bakugou’s touch in obvious delight before turning enormous gleaming eyes, wide with curiosity, at Shouto.
“He’s gonna help us,” Bakugou smirks down at Shouto after settling onto Kiri’s back. He lifts an eyebrow, “Well?”
Shouto hesitates. He’s never ridden a dragon before. And all the books say it is completely different from riding a horse.
Bakugou huffs loudly, rolling his eyes before holding his hand out. Shouto looks at Bakugou’s hand, then up at Bakugou.
Bakugou’s expression shifts, a strange curtain coming over his features. Shouto still doesn’t take his hand.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask you for your name,” Bakugou says, and Shouto’s heart drops right into his stomach, beating wildly there as it splashes around. A breath he hadn’t even realised he had been holding escapes him.
“S—” he pauses, and then: “Todoroki,” he says.
“Todoroki,” Bakugou repeats slowly, like the syllables are foreign on his tongue. It isn’t the name Shouto wants to hear, but it sounds like music to his ears anyway.
Bakugou’s lips press into a tight line as he nods, eyes darting towards his outstretched hand in emphasis. Shouto takes it, letting Bakugou pull him onto the back of his dragon.
Kiri takes off at once, enormous maroon wings flapping once, twice, three times before they are high enough to glide. Shouto yells as he loses his balance and nearly falls off, saved only by Bakugou throwing his head back and laughing as his hands come down to secure Shouto’s arms firmly around his waist.
“It’s a long way down,” he bellows over the wind roaring past them, “so hold on tight!”
Bakugou’s broad back is a line of heat against Shouto’s chest, though his waist is narrow enough for Shouto to almost be able to grab his own elbows. Shouto wonders if Bakugou can feel the wild thrashing of his heart through his thick velvet cape, hoping that if he does, he’ll put it down to the nerves that come with riding a dragon for the first time.
The lands racing by below them are dark and dead, ruined by the chimeras and demons that had trampled through them. He imagines what it might have looked like before all the destruction; his books on the east had always painted vivid images of dense, lush forests filled to the brim with exotic, brilliantly coloured flowers and a myriad of creatures that lived within.
Kiri slows as they approach a range, the mouth of a cave growing larger the closer they get. As they alight, he snorts in anger, flames flaring from his nostrils.
“I know, I know,” Bakugou mutters under his breath, glaring at the desolate wasteland around them, “the fucking bastards.”
“Are you finally going to tell me what I’m meant to be helping you with?” Shouto asks, moving towards the cave’s entrance. He peers inside, seeing nothing but never-ending darkness.
“They were slaughtering dragons,” Bakugou says as he comes to stand next to Shouto, “flights and flights of them. That’s how I got involved. This had been a peaceful den for them—it’s too late now, but I’m here on the smallest sliver of hope they might’ve missed one.”
Shouto nods, turning to look at Bakugou. Bakugou’s eyes are already on him.
“It’s dark as fuck in there,” he says flatly. Shouto laughs.
“Yes. I noticed.”
“Well?” Bakugou huffs. “Use your magic.”
Shouto hesitates. Bakugou’s eyes remain level as he waits with his arms crossed. Shouto hadn’t mentioned being a magic user to anyone, not even to Izuku. Tenya might have realised, given his background, and Ochako would have sensed it, but Bakugou…
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know, isn’t there?” Bakugou says, a small smirk creeping onto his lips. Shouto finds himself smiling at that and shakes his head.
“Funny, I could say the exact same thing.”
His fingers reach for a small glass bottle hooked to his belt. Carefully, with Bakugou watching, he pours the contents, no more than five millilitres of an azure liquid, into his left palm, just as Touya had taught him. Immediately, his palm begins to glow. A few seconds later, a perfectly spherical ball of crimson flames hovers above his palm.
Bakugou laughs. “Now that’s more like it. Let’s go, Princess.”
“I’m not a princess,” Shouto says with a frown on his face. Bakugou just laughs again as he walks before him into the cave, ignoring the fact Shouto is the one with their only light source and that he was the one who asked him to light it in the first place.
The cave is empty. The flight must have escaped just in time, though it remains clear they fled in a hurry. At the end of the large tunnel, the cave opens into an enormous cavity at the heart of the mountain. Shouto lets the small ball of flame in his hand drift upwards, expanding into a roaring fireball and illuminating more of the deeper crevices and hidden nooks of the dragon den. Bakugou wordlessly begins his search, his entire frame tense with barely restrained anger. Shouto quietly heads in the opposite direction, peering into small holes in the ground and reaching into smaller crevices in the walls, unsure of what he might be here to help Bakugou search for but hoping, for Bakugou’s sake, that they might find something all the same.
“Over here,” Bakugou’s voice echoes, low and gruff, from the other side of the cavern.
Shouto finds Bakugou crouched low against the wall, hands on his knees and his lips pressed into a thin, tight line.
Before him, in a small hole carved into the junction between the floor and the cave’s wall, an indigo egg, iridescent in the light from Shouto’s flames.
Bakugou says nothing for a long time, staring in silence at the forgotten egg. Shouto crouches down next to him, one knee pressing into the side of Bakugou’s thigh.
Eventually, Bakugou sighs. Shouto isn’t sure what to say. He’s never been any good with words like Touya or Fuyumi. So he thinks back to the mixture of low tones and soft hisses, and tries to whisper.
There is a short pause before Bakugou chuckles.
“You’re just as bad as before.”
When Shouto looks up, Bakugou no longer looks about to break from a mixture of anger and anguish. “You haven’t improved a single bit.”
Bakugou remembered him after all.
Bakugou looks down at the indigo egg and smiles softly. Shouto’s eyes remain transfixed on him—he didn’t realise Bakugou, gruff and loud and rude and rough around the edges, could wear quite such a gentle expression.
He whispers something to the egg, something different from what Shouto had heard back in the glade where they had first met, then gingerly picks it up, tearing off a piece of his cape with his sword and carefully wrapping the egg before placing it into a pocket.
“That wasn’t the hatching whisper,” Shouto says as they head back towards the entrance of the cave.
“The hatching whisper?!” Bakugou’s head whips around. “What herbs have you been sniffin’, Half-and-half?”
Shouto frowns. “Half-and-half?”
Bakugou’s eyes flick up briefly. “Your hair’s pretty unforgettable.”
Shouto pauses in his steps, fingering his bangs. “Oh.”
Bakugou doesn’t wait for him to catch up, moving at a brisk pace back to Kiri at the cave’s entrance.
“What did you say to the egg?” Shouto asks. In the light from the fireball in Shouto’s hand, Bakugou’s features, only half-illuminated, become downcast again.
“I told her not to worry. That it’s safe.”
Kiri’s eyes flash as they exit, immediately sensing the egg on Bakugou’s body. His wings extend to full span, tiny plumes of flames coming from his flared nostrils as he expresses distress. Bakugou whispers something to him which calms him down significantly, a second phrase foreign to Shouto.
“What did you tell him?”
Bakugou gently pats Kiri’s snout. “That the flight got away.”
Kiri folds his wings, leaning into Bakugou’s touch, though his nostrils remain flared, eyes darting this way and that.
“How do I say ‘everything will be okay now’?” Shouto asks, drawing closer. When Kiri doesn't shirk away, Shouto gently places a palm on his snout, stroking his scales lightly.
Bakugou smiles at him.
“You say it like this.”
Shouto is hit with a sudden, ludicrous longing to be a dragon if this is how Bakugou always sounds when he speaks to one. He replays the whisper in his mind, then gives it a go. It sounds terrible compared to Bakugou, but it gets a reaction out of Kiri, who slaps both his tail and a claw on the ground.
Bakugou throws his head back and roars with laughter.
Shoutos eyes narrow. “What did I just say?”
“You said you have weird hair. Kiri says he agrees.”
They remain standing by the entrance to the cave, Kiri watching them with wide, curious eyes as Bakugou says a phrase in dragon-tongue and Shouto tries to repeat it. With the ash in the air finally settling, the moon makes an appearance in a cloudless sky, surrounded by her bright, twinkling companions.
“Is Kiri the dragon we found that day?” Shouto asks eventually.
Bakugou’s smile freezes.
“You weren’t supposed to hatch the egg without me.”
“Hah?” Bakugou laughs incredulously.
Shouto shrugs. “We found him together. I was going to get better at dragon-tongue, then come back to hatch it with you.”
“Well good thing I didn’t bother waiting then, because you still suck at dragon-tongue, and we most certainly did not find him together. I found him.”
Kiri cackles at the exchange. Shouto gently pats the softer scales beneath his eye.
“I tried waiting,” Bakugou says from beside him. “But you never came back.”
Shouto keeps his hand and his eyes on Kiri, but Kiri averts his gaze, suddenly keen to give them privacy. Bakugou isn’t looking at him when Shouto turns around, eyes up at the moon shining down on them. Shouto’s eyes trace his strong jaw, the beads around his neck hanging low before his bare chest, down to his navel before dragging them back up again and noticing the markings on his left shoulder.
“You didn’t have that when we first met.”
Bakugou’s eyes meet his. Shouto holds his breath.
“Have what?”
“The markings on your shoulder.”
“Oh,” Bakugou tilts his head down, eyeing his shoulder, then looks back up at Kiri rather than Shouto. “Yeah. Well. It’s been years. Things change.”
Shouto’s hand slips away from Kiri’s face, falling to his side. “What does it mean?”
Bakugou turns to face him, a wry smile blooming on his face. Shouto doesn’t like what he sees, anticipating what is to come.
“You already know, don’t you, future king?”
~ * ~
The ride back to Izuku and the rest of the travellers is done in silence. Shouto doesn’t have to be told twice to hold on tight, but he has too many thoughts on his mind to enjoy the feeling of holding Bakugou to his chest.
He’s heard of the fearless dragon riders who inhabit the north. His father, Touya, and now Fuyumi have mentioned correspondence. Shouto knows his father doesn’t care for them. Touya had been impartial. Fuyumi wants to strengthen relations, though Shouto suspects he will be pushed to maintain a polite albeit distant relationship.
Many of the travellers have set off, headed back across the lands towards their respective towns and kingdoms, but a small group elect to stay behind, keen to continue speaking to Izuku while awaiting Bakugou and Shouto’s return. Bakugou shows them the egg on arrival, and while some of the travellers pat the thick fur around his shoulders with solemn expressions on their faces, the rest squeal in delight at the iridescent egg, smiling up at them and congratulating them for managing to save one.
They set up a temporary campsite far enough from the battlefield that they can pretend to forget the horrors of the days gone by. They sing, eat, drink and dance under the light of the stars, their revelry becoming more and more rowdy as the liquor continues to flow. Bakugou and Izuku spend a long time speaking in private, and when Bakugou returns, explaining that he has to leave to bring the egg back to the mountains up north, Shouto is the last to bid him farewell, accompanying him to where Kiri waits.
Bakugou strokes Kiri’s snout gently, his eyes warm, before he turns to Shouto, taking the indigo egg out of his pocket.
“Try whispering again,” he says, a small smirk on his face. Shouto laughs softly, warbling in choppy, hesitant dragon-tongue.
The egg doesn’t move.
“Gotta work on that, Half-and-half,” Bakugou says. He’s half a step away, face close enough that Shouto can see every fleck of gold in his crimson eyes.
“Shouto,” Shouto says, and Bakugou’s eyes widen. “That’s my name. That’s what I want you to use. I wasn’t sure you remembered me.”
Bakugou nods. “Katsuki,” he says, holding out his other hand for a handshake. Shouto reciprocates the gesture; Katsuki’s hand is warm in his, smaller and surprisingly soft. “Like I said, your hair’s pretty unforgettable.”
Shouto laughs, fingers tight over Katsuki’s.
“Maybe next time we meet, you’ll be better at dragon-tongue. Though I doubt it.”
“You know,” Shouto says just as Katsuki makes to pull his hand away, fingers tightening further, “you could visit. With Kiri too. We’d always welcome you. It’s not that far.”
Katsuki’s expression betrays nothing. “I probably will in future, one leader to another.”
That’s not what I want, Shouto thinks, but the timing isn’t right. The demon army had not only wreaked havoc on the lands they had streaked through, they had also sown the seeds of protectionism and suspicion. The demon lord might be finished now, vanquished by the almighty power of All Might, but it would take months, years even, for peace to return to the Kingdoms. And then there is Touya—the crown prince, still missing, presumed dead, and Bakugou Katsuki, a boy in an evergreen glade he had met by coincidence, and a dragon-rider he had fought alongside.
Shouto forces down the lump in his throat. “Then I’ll come to visit,” he says, “as a friend to a friend. And I’ll be better at dragon-tongue then, which will be soon.”
Katsuki scoffs, no less charming as a boyish smile paints his lips. “I’ll look forward to it then.”
Their hands fall to their sides. Katsuki swings his legs around Kiri’s neck.
“Soon, right?” Katsuki asks. Kiri rises to his full height, and as Shouto looks up, Katsuki’s hair is framed like a halo by the moon.
“Yes,” he breathes. “Soon.”
“See ya then, Half-and-half princess,” Katsuki smiles.
Kiri pushes off. Katsuki turns away. Shouto stands in place, head tilted up to the twinkling heavens, watching them go until they’re smaller than the smallest star in the sky.
~ * ~
Tenya gives him a metal badge, a crest of sorts.
“So you will always be welcome,” he says with a sincere smile.
Ochako gives him a vial of something orange and a tiny bottle of something pink.
“For the colder nights on your journey back home,” she gives him a tight hug, “and for when you next see Bakugou,” she says with a wink.
Shouto’s cheeks are on fire when Izuku hands him a small, worn, leather-bound notebook. He accepts it gingerly, Bakugou Katsuki temporarily forgotten.
“A small, humble offering to a future king,” Izuku says shyly, “but I hope it can be a welcome addition to your library.”
Shouto flips through it: it’s Izuku’s notes, carefully collected and diligently recorded in his neat, cursive script over the course of his journey across the kingdoms.
Shouto holds the gifts to his chest and beams at the trio, warmth spreading from his heart. “Thank you. For these, and for everything else since we’ve met.” Ochako jumps forward for another hug; Izuku and Tenya follow suit.
“I’ll see you all again. I’m sure of it.”
The journey back home is lonely without the trio and feels thrice as long as it should. Shouto finds himself thinking of Katsuki more often than not; of the soft skin on his palms, of the gentle way he would look at the dragon egg and whisper to it, of the way the sunlight would catch his hair in the morning and the way his features would relax when he was asleep.
The kingdom and the castle are abuzz when he arrives. Shouto pays it no mind, greeting soldiers and civilians alike as he rides in through the main drawbridge. Fuyumi had ended her letter with ‘we have news waiting for you’ when he had sent word of his imminent arrival. Shouto had figured it would have something to do with the vanquished demons.
He isn’t expecting it when he enters the main courtyard out front. In fact, he’s so surprised he nearly falls right off Casper.
Fuyumi has tears in her eyes. Natsuo has a gigantic smile on his face.
Touya walks forward, a little older and a little taller than Shouto remembers him being, offering Shouto a hand.
Shouto takes it. Touya smiles.
“Long time no see, Shouto. Welcome back.”
Shouto chokes back his own tears.
“That’s my line, you jerk.”
~ * ~
The celebrations for Touya’s return had started before Shouto had sent word of his arrival, and upon his arrival had morphed into a joint celebration. The festivities last for an entire month, after which the kingdom promptly returns to its usual calm order.
Touya is different now. He acts, for the most part, like how Shouto remembers he used to, but is less broody, less angry, and argues much less with their father. Shouto’s mature enough to know that it isn’t because Touya’s outgrown his angsty teenage phase—he left home for a reason, one he has yet to share with Shouto, and everything he must have seen, everything he must have experienced while he was away, has given him fresh perspective.
There is a lengthy discussion between Enji, Touya and all the royal advisors on whether to reinstate Touya as heir to the throne that lasts weeks. Shouto is neither privy to it nor dragged into it, which he is grateful for. He has no doubt his siblings have everything to do with this. When the palace formally announces their decision to the kingdom, celebrations start anew.
Shouto spends the days in his library consuming every book on dragons, dragon-tongue, and the dragon riders who live in the north. Occasionally, when Touya’s schedule will allow for it, the two will go riding together in the grassy fields beyond the palace walls, not far from the cliff Shouto had paused at, overlooking the castle and its surrounding waters as he had set off in search of the demon army, pondering Touya’s words to his younger self.
“What you did, Shouto,” Touya says as he lies on the grass, hands beneath his silver hair as he looks up at the scarlet-streaked sunset skies, “that was incredibly brave of you.”
Shouto dismounts from Casper, fingers threading through his mane as he looks out at their castle in the distance.
“It’s funny you should bring that up here,” Shouto says. “When I set off, I paused in this exact spot and thought about what you said to me before you disappeared.”
“What did I say?” Touya says, mirth in his voice. “I said a lot of dumb things back then.”
“You said,” Shouto swallows, “that there are things we do for our kingdom.” Touya sits up, no longer brushing the conversation off as a joke. “And there are things we do because they’re the right thing to do. And that sometimes, they aren’t the same thing.”
Touya is silent for a long time. The tall grass rustles around them as the sun continues to descend beyond the horizon, violet beginning to paint the clouds.
“I did say that,” he eventually says with a sigh, standing to join Shouto in looking out at their castle.
“Father tried to stop you, I imagine.”
Shouto nods. “He did.”
“Do you understand why?”
Shouto still remembers how Enji’s face had twisted, then turned stern, then had shown despair. “I do.”
“You were right though,” Touya continues. “It was the right thing to do, and it was the right decision for our kingdom, too. It was just the timing. And for that, I have to apologise.”
He sighs. “I did something for myself which I shouldn’t have done, but at the time, I had no other option. And while I’ve now seen things, experienced things, and met people I never would have had I never left, I’ve hurt the people closest to me.
“So I’m doing this because I don’t want to have any more regrets.”
Touya is smiling when he turns to Shouto. Shouto has never seen him look more at ease.
“How will you live your life so you won’t have to regret, Shouto?”
The answer comes to him at once, and Shouto isn’t surprised in the least.
A smile spreads on his face. “Will you help me with something?”
Touya’s eyes narrow, his lips stretching playfully. “If it’s something reasonable, and within my power, then I will.”
Shouto laughs.
“Will you help me find a dragon egg?”
~ * ~
It becomes apparent once Shouto crosses into Northern Mountains territory that the vast majority of writers who had written about the area had never even bothered to step foot within the place.
The mountains are not barren. The lakes are not dry. The forests are not desolate. The plains are not ashen.
In fact, the entire area is brimming with colour and with life. Even Casper, usually so docile, gets distracted by a rainbow-tinted butterfly and follows it around through the tall trees as Shouto laughs, happy to indulge his whims.
The people are friendly at the first settlement he reaches. They offer him water and nectar, and point towards the bluest mountain in the distance. A baby dragon, shimmering in emerald and golden scales, still too small to fly, approaches Casper on the ground with curiosity, lifting its head and observing Casper before bending low to sniff at Casper’s hooves. Casper neighs in response, bending down to sniff at the dragon baby in return, who hurriedly scampers away, hiding behind the feet of a little girl in brown overalls standing before a tent, eyes wide with amazement as she looks at Shouto.
Shouto smiles as he approaches slowly, lowering one knee to the ground as he takes a bag of honey drops out from his coat. He hands them to her, patiently waiting as her fingers grip the hem of her overalls before relaxing to reach for the bag.
“Thank you,” she says in a quiet voice. Shouto pats her head.
“You’re most welcome.” He looks down at the baby dragon, still hiding behind her legs and looking up at him with inquisitive eyes. “And who is this little one?”
The little girl beams up at him. “This is Anya! She hatched a week ago so she can’t fly yet, but she can breathe green fire!”
“Whoa,” Shouto chuckles, “that is very, very cool.”
Anya peeks out from behind the little girl’s legs, quickly ducks away again, before curiosity wins out and she comes out from hiding, padding slowly over to Shouto and placing a tiny claw on his knee.
Hello little one, Shouto whispers in dragon-tongue. Anya squeaks, a little ball of green flames erupting from her mouth, before scampering to hide behind the girl again. When Shouto straightens, the little girl is gaping up at him.
How do you know dragon-tongue? She asks.
Shouto points to the blue mountain. I am a friend.
The girl's eyes grow impossibly wide. We were told that a great prince fought with him against the demons. Was that you?
Shouto blushes.
I’m not too sure about the ‘great’ part. And I’m no longer a prince. But I did fight alongside Bakugou, yes.
The little girl gasps, then rushes forward to hug him. Shouto hugs her back.
“Thank you,” she says.
The next settlement, and the settlement after that, goes much the same. The people are curious, friendly, and offer him a myriad of exotic drinks and snacks. It’s close to nightfall when he finally makes it up to the middle of the blue mountain where Katsuki sits, waiting on the stone steps with Kiri.
Kiri notices him first, leaping over with a single, powerful flap of his wings. Shouto laughs as Kiri pushes his snout into Shouto’s cheek.
I missed you too, Shouto whispers quietly, out of earshot from Katsuki. Kiri pushes his snout into Shouto’s cheek again.
Katsuki has a smile on his face when Shouto finally turns to him, eyes intense and brimming with emotion.
“I hope everyone extended a warm welcome,” he says. Shouto’s been imaging his voice every single day since they parted. His imagination has nothing on the real thing. “It’s taken you quite a while to make it over here since I first got word that you’d entered our territory.”
“The people here are wonderful. They’ve given me so many alcoholic drinks that I might just be half-drunk right now.”
Katsuki laughs, a deep, throaty sound right from his belly. Shouto wants to throw his arms around him at once, but he came with a gift, and with a confession. Katsuki turns to walk up the steps, a silent invitation for Shouto to follow.
The Blue Mountain, where the clan’s elders, shamans and leaders reside, stands beside the Blue Lake, an average-sized body of water with the clearest waters said to be found in all the Kingdoms. Katsuki leads him through a vast hall, down a few corridors, and finally to an opening on one side of the mountain with a wide balcony overlooking the lake. They make their way to the bannister, Shouto marvelling at the clear waters and the way the surface reflects the moon, the stars, and the surrounding mountains just as a glass mirror would.
Katsuki leans over the rails, closing his eyes as a gentle breeze blows by. His lashes sweep across his cheeks. Shouto wonders if his skin sports new freckles.
“You could have told me you were coming to visit,” Katsuki says. “I would’ve prepared a welcoming party of sorts.”
Shouto shakes his head. “I’m not here for any of that.”
Katsuki turns his eyes to Shouto, fires burning behind them. “Why are you here then?”
“I’m here to give you this,” Shouto says, reaching into his bag for a small dragon egg. It’s smaller than the size of his palm, so perfectly silver that it reflects the night sky.
Katsuki doesn’t react when he sees the egg. He doesn’t look up from it either when he says in a cold voice, “You mean you came here to return it.”
“No,” Shouto says, taking a step closer. Katsuki still refuses to meet his eyes. “I came to bring it here.”
“Well I gave that to you, didn’t I,” Katsuki says, voice a tone lower, a little quieter, his expression guarded when he finally meets Shouto’s gaze. “So if you’re bringing it back here, you’re returning it.”
“You gave this as a present to my brother,” Shouto says, taking one more step closer. Katsuki has to tilt his chin up slightly to look at Shouto. “My brother then gave it to me, and I’ve decided I want to bring it back here.”
Katsuki pauses before responding, his brows knitting together. “Your brother gave you the special coronation present I sent over to him? Sounds like a jerk to me.”
Shouto laughs. “Touya is a rude asshole, I’ll give you that. But actually, I asked him for it, and he did it as a favour to me.”
Katsuki continues to frown, tilting his head to one side in confusion. Shouto thinks that if he were to lean forward now, their lips and their noses would lock together perfectly.
“After he came back, I asked him to help me find a dragon egg. We rode out so far, searching high and low, anywhere we thought we might find a flight, but we always came home empty handed. As it turns out, finding dragons isn’t easy.”
A small smile begins to grace Katsuki’s face.
“And why were you looking so hard?”
“Because,” Shouto says, “you hatched the first two without me, didn’t you?” Katsuki laughs quietly, nodding. “So I wanted to hatch this one together with you.”
“I made no promises to hatch them together with you. You suck at dragon-tongue either way, and when you left the first time you wished me luck with hatching it.”
Shouto’s heart skips a beat. Despite pretending not to, Katsuki might remember their first meeting just as well as he does.
“You could’ve waited, you know,” Katsuki continues. “His ceremony’s coming up. I would’ve attended. You didn’t have to come all the way over here.”
“I did,” Shouto says, desperation suddenly flooding through him. What if Katsuki doesn’t understand? What if Katsuki doesn’t feel the same way? “Because this dragon egg isn’t Touya’s, it’s mine. And I’m not a prince anymore, not officially, anyway, and I’d like to tell you that—”
Katsuki’s hand closes over the egg, then over Shouto’s hand, and before Shouto fully comprehends what Katsuki’s doing, his lips are on his.
Katsuki tastes like the nectar the people down in the settlements had been giving him. Katsuki tastes like the honey drops Fuyumi makes by hand back home. Katsuki smells like the fresh dew in the mornings on the cliff behind the castle, like spring when the winds brush through the tulips reaching for the heavens in the main town square. Bakugou Katsuki is everything impossible, and Shouto cannot believe he’s standing before him, finally holding him and finally kissing him.
“Well, fucking finally,” Katsuki breathes against Shouto’s lips, and Shouto closes the distance between them again, and again, and again. Katsuki’s velvet cape is soft between Shouto’s fingers, the bare skin of Katsuki’s back warm against Shouto’s palm. Katsuki’s fingers tug gently on Shouto’s hair, the fingertips of his other hand dragging tingling lines of excitement down Shouto’s back.
Shouto pulls away panting, his heart racing in his throat. Katsuki is flushed, eyes slightly unfocused, and Shouto wants nothing more than to have his lips on him again.
He reigns his impatience in. He rode all the way up north for a specific reason after all.
He leans down, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to Katsuki’s.
I like you. A lot, he whispers in dragon-tongue. I think I’ve liked you ever since we met by chance in that glade, but I didn’t realise it until we met again, years later, to fight the scariest demons ever known to our lands.
Katsuki laughs, his warm breath ghosting over Shouto’s lips, a bright, vibrant sound that echoes across the lake and around the mountains.
Shouto smiles. How’s my pronunciation?
It’s as shit as ever.
That’s very r—
Katsuki is kissing him again, winding an arm around Shouto’s waist and another behind his shoulders. Shouto’s lips part, and Katsuki gently swipes the tip of his tongue across the inner aspect of Shouto’s lower lip, sending shivers of excitement and anticipation running down Shouto’s spine. More, Shouto thinks, I want more, before parting his lips fully to let Katsuki explore the roof of his mouth.
Katsuki takes half a step closer, pulls Shouto in tighter, and Shouto unwittingly moans as Katsuki presses the tip of his tongue into the arch of his palate. His hand—
His hand. The hand still holding a dragon egg.
Gently, he pushes against Katsuki’s chest. Katsuki seems reluctant to part, but he does so gently, pressing a chaste kiss to Shouto’s lips before kissing his temple on each side.
Shouto giggles when Katsuki’s hair brushes across his nose, which in turn makes Katsuki chuckle.
“Can’t forget about this little guy,” Shouto says, still panting for air.
Katsuki looks down, then back up.
“Give it a go,” he says, both hands moving down to cup Shouto’s around the dragon egg.
Shouto’s heart pounds against his ribs. Katsuki’s hands are warm around his, and the silver egg feels warm in his palm. He looks up, meets Katsuki’s eyes, then looks back down and whispers.
Nothing happens.
And then—
—a crack.