Chapter Text
Having to CHOOSE to be born was actually quite a bummer, really.
If Shang Qinghua left the safety of his shell, if he braved out into this new life - wouldn’t that mean that everything that happened to him afterwards would be kind of his fault? The consequences of his very first action of choosing birth?
He’d had no say in his previous life as a human. His mom had popped him out without his opinion, and that had been bad enough in the long run. Forced to run the endless rat race of survival, ground under the heel of capitalism. Writing shitty porn for weirdos as the king weirdo, until he was taken out by the only thing ever there for him always: cheap cup noodles.
Of course, Shang Qinghua didn’t want to die. His instinct to live was one of his highest RPG stats. He shared a kinship with the cockroaches in his old apartment that seemed immune to any and all poison sprays in that way.
You couldn’t call his spirit indomitable. In fact, he was extremely dom-able. He assumed. He’d never been brave enough to actually, you know, call one of those services. But when he wrote some things in PIDW, he thought about how very dom-able he would be...
Cough.
Moving along. If ‘indomitable’ wasn’t the right term for his drive to stay alive, then ‘resilient’ might be. (Not beating the roach allegations).
...It was resilient to cling to life by your fingernails, just scraping from one misery to the next, right?
...Ugh. And now he had to CHOOSE to be born? Losing such a convenient excuse. How could he throw his hands up in the air and go “it’s not like I even asked to be born!” dramatically, while binged out on doubled up energy drinks and 24 hours of no sleep, ever again?
It was criminal!
Egg warm and safe.
World cold and scary.
Ah well, better to rip it off at once like a bandage!
Though in Shang Qinghua’s experience, leaving bandaids on until they eventually sloughed off all gunky but painless in the shower was the most optimal strat.
Aiyah, whatever, whatever, time to go!!
Great Master Airplane was coming out!
Of the, of the egg.
Not out, like, you know. Cause that hadn’t gone very well back when-- Well, not important, no one cared. (Story of his life, was he right? Lmao. Up top!)
There was a shell to crack.
Somehow.
Birds did it with their beaks right?
OW! Okay, so Shang Qinghua’s nose was extra sensitive. Probably not a beak.
He squirmed. The problem was he was all scrunched up and folded like some balled up piece of paper, to the point he couldn’t even be sure what parts (of which there were way more than usual) of his own body were touching where.
If someone had told him he’d be in a ‘jumbled tangle of limbs, pressed together so tight one could barely tell which from what’, Shang Qinghua would have hoped for the near impossibility of an orgy, but assumed it was a prediction of his murdered and mangled corpse.
How was it that even though he’d transmigrated to THE porn novel world of Proud Immortal Dragon Way, his reality was still closer to the second than the first? QQ!
The long ass thing that kept nearly suffocating him, that he could feel across his front, neck, and back, had to be some kind of tail. It clearly wasn’t in any helpful position.
After a few minutes of smacking himself in a variety of ways, Shang Qinghua figured out his legs. They seem to be the strongest part of him, and with the way his egg was shaped, he actually had the space to channel his inner godzilla and stomp through Yolkyo, then slam against the shell like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
After a moment, without even warning splinters or cracks, one leg burst through into the world.
It was like sticking your foot in a freezing river! The air outside compared to the warmth within was harsh and biting, and Shang Qinghua sucked back his leg like balls receding in the cold, with a little yelp. That did NOT feel like spring! This couldn’t have waited for better weather?
With a grumble, Shang Qinghua kicked a hole in the other side of his bottom shell. Heh, he was basically a dig*mon now, right? He sighed wistfully. If he’d known he was going to end up transmigrating into the story like this, he would have shamelessly ripped those off more - then his odds would have been good about eventually ending up as some hot bondaged out humanoid, or a dragon that was 86% gun, which was objectively cooler than anything he’d written into PIDW.
Still, a dragon - his odds weren’t awwwful at being cool, especially if his body turned out to be female. Even though as the author he knew all the fucked up facts and lore he kept in his notes, knowing the stuff behind the curtain couldn’t be too much of a hindrance?
And, even if many dragons were cannon fodder, at least they were taken care of. Most of the time. It came with brain-blasting a compatible person into being the world’s biggest simp after all! The less focused on part of the bond than the ‘melding souls’.
Readers only ever focused on the beauty of it, the very rare times Shang Qinghua would show true impressions in text (but never with Binghe).
Truest soulmate, yada yada. Always there, blah blah. One especially loyal hate reader threatened to beat him to death daily if he didn’t allow Luo Binghe to experience the wonder of a true bond.
Shang Qinghua could tell where the wind was blowing, and dropped the plothook before he even brought it up. Imprinting was kind of an evolutionary thing on a dragon's end, where if they sensed they didn’t have their parents around, their dependent little subconsciousness
reached out to find someone else to take care of them.
It was a risky form of parasitism - it required the baby to open its soul up, and then when it came to souls and minds (which were already enmeshed so heavily), once melded, it wasn’t as if it could be undone easily. The explosion of serotonin and oxytocin and, like, whatever other hormones bonded people together (Airplane had lost interest and just handwaved ‘special dragon mind powers’ in his notes) - it affected the dragons just as strongly, if not even stronger, than the humans. They were linking their lives up forever, letting each other into the deepest, most secret parts of themselves.
If they grew to hate each other? Or one became abusive? Or if one died?
Shockingly, sentient beings grew over time into different people. Being sorted into one box at age eleven and then being stuck because of how you were at that age... It could have its failings. Sometimes souls that got along great as children couldn’t stand each other as adults, yet they were up shit’s creek.
Ugh. Just. A nightmare. A minefield.
A fertile, perfect land for fun plots! Plots he’d had to cut because all readers cared about were breasts, breasts, and - you would never guess this - more breasts!
Shang Qinghua pedaled his feet uselessly in the air for a moment. Then he withdrew back into the egg and kicked away the intact shell still between his legs so the bottom was less ‘silly underwear onesie’ and more of a proper hole to squirm free from.
There was probably some kind of karmic joke being made that he had to go into the world he’d created ass first.
He squirmed backwards, briefly getting stuck like a clog in a drain when his hind end and the tail curled over his back were too thicc a combo for the opening.
Reminding himself FIRMLY he was now a baby, and not a thirty something porn addict, Shang Qinghua quickly evicted all the terms for step brothers out of his brain as he finally popped free into the outside world.
Why was it so cold?! Instantly Shang qinghua discovered he had a good amount of fur by the fact it was sticky and goopy in the frigid air, clinging to his otherwise soft-scaled skin.
As if back in his Chūnibyō days, he flicked his head to the side to get his long bangs from covering his vision. When they didn’t move, he found he could easily sit on his haunches and reach up with his front paws to flip back the wet curtain to free his vision.
So. Dexterous paws.
Shang Qinghua took a deep breath and stared at the sky for a moment.
All right. Okay. All right! It was time! It was time for the part that made dying and being stuck in claustrophobic hell for who knows how long worth it!
There hadn’t really been a main dragon of PIDW, but Shang Qinghua knew how transmigration stories into stallion novels worked! It was wish fulfillment! If he didn’t get to be the OP f*cking machine stallion of the Gary Stu main, then he would at least still get to be the kind of bad ass that he fantasized about in fake confrontations while in the shower!
No middle schoolers hanging out in packs in front of gas stations would be able to think of anything to roast him over, let alone laugh about him picking up dinner there every night. As if a hard working adult grabbing a cup noodle a day for the special daily stamps was as sad as having a hang out spot in front of a gas station! When they were old enough they’d understand the importance of economics! A 10th stamp meant a noodle cup was free!
THE POINT WAS, it was time to see what kind of amazing dragon Great Master Airplane - God of this whole world - had transmigrated into!!
He looked down at himself.
...
Ahaha. That was funny.
He was probably remembering his notes wrong.
It almost looked like he was the most basic bitch, canon fodder, bottom in almost all stats, smallest, and ultra common dragon type. The ones used for messengers and nimble-fingered work-horses.
Ahaha.
That couldn’t be right. Secretly he was some kind of mysterious Mary Sue rare hybrid, with unknown origins. Surely.
Okay. Tail.
Extra long and fluffy, basically the size of the whole rest of his body. It wanted to curl up over his back and bend back downwards because of the weight and excess length. Stronger hind limbs with thicker hips, ending with large four toed paws with heavy claws. With dawning horror, he picked up a foot in the air and spread his toes.
The observing humans ranged from perplexed to amused to see the tiny bobble-headed ball of fluff lift up its own hind paw and stare at it with comical intensity.
With a feeling of dread, Shang Qinghua shifted forward so his front and back paws were all touching the ground. He discovered that his front limbs were much thinner, and just long enough that his stance made his hips slightly higher in the air.
...
Pushing off with his front paws, he heaved himself upwards into a bipedal stance. His limbs were shaky and weak, and he tottered from side to side, but the motion felt just as natural as being on all fours.
...
He stared at his front paws, which were like little rodent-y hands. Then reached up with them to touch his face. His snout was short and rounded, with an ultra soft velvety nose. The area for his eyes felt massive, and he could feel a different texture of fur in round spots where eyebrows should be. Further up were nubs of horns, and then large twitching ears.
He pulled at the curly, fluffy, chestnut brown fur along his head, back, and tail. This! This was extra fluffy compared to normal! That had to mean something right? It thinned out to shorter sandy light brown fur on his underside and legs, giving him a two-toned look. A color that carried over into the feathered wings on his back.
Shang Qinghua sat there, internally mapping out his parts, frozen like the mental math meme.
He stayed wide eyed and frozen long enough that a couple of the hatching hallmasters began to mutter to each other about the possibility of brain damage and sent a disciple to check the records for if any eggs were rattled or dropped.
They all jumped when the little dragon finally gave a piercing shriek, tugging on its own ears and stomping its tiny feet.
A second disciple was sent.
ANYWAY YOU LOOKED AT IT, WASN’T HE BASICALLY A DRAGONIFIED, WINGED, SQUIRREL?! WHERE WERE THE SECRET SUBTLE SIGNS HE WAS ACTUALLY SOME ULTRA RARE CROSS?!
...
Okay. So he was below average. Story of his life. Well, LIVES apparently.
Point was he knew how to handle it. Suddenly being a dragon was culture shock enough, ah? Probably would have been too much to have been a cool or interesting or popular one
...
FUCK THAT! NO FAIR, NO FAIR!! HE WAS THE GOD OF THIS WORLD, WHY SHOULD HE BE STUCK SCRAPING THE BOTTOM?!
Hunched over like the personifica-, er, like the draconification of the onz emote, Shang Qinghua pounded the ground with his paw balled into a fist, then howled in despair.
(A third disciple was sent.)
One loud cry bubbled into another, which stuttered and choked into more of them.
Ah- oh, oops.
So the whole baby thing.
Seems like a man couldn’t lament in peace without his new brain getting all slippery and making him slip-and-slide into genuine upset without a trace of over-dramatic irony. Shang Qinghua was beyond shameless, but deploying dramatics on purpose was one thing! Having his body go against his own will and put his whole actual emotion-ussy out?! Objectively more cringe. Obscene, even!
Shang Qinghua sobbed so hard he struggled for air, heaving and gagging in breaths.
Aiyo, aiyo, dial it down! You were scaring the bitches!
The bitches being all the humans, one of which Shang Qinghua would have to gaslight-mind-bomb into pampering his ass for life.
...Wait, that was right. Sugar daddy? For free? No ass-payback required? (Putting aside peak work he just wouldn’t think about for now.)
The dragon sniffled, and rubbed away giant tears (let’s not mention the snot) with his front paws.
...Yeah, yeah. Someone would have to take care of him! Even if he was a shitty common workhorse species only ever shuffled to An Ding peak (WAIT, WAS IT HIS NAME’S FAULT? Had he cucked himself by naming the peak lord of An Ding after his own name?), he’d still have someone metaphorically under him! Or, at least, responsible for him!
Just some mind blasting and a soul quickie, and then Shang Qinghua would be set! One hit to get them hooked. No take backs or refunds, even when they regretted it! Well. Technically... No, that was for future Qinghua to worry about!
Someone to brush his hair when he had a bad day... Someone to feed him noodles and read him books. Someone soul-contractually obligated to listen to his chatter! To stay!
Haha, sucker!
One unlucky peak disciple was about to get scammed! Going in expecting a sweet and innocent baby, and getting Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky. Lighting a candle for you, pouring one out, etc, etc.
The hallmaster received the reports: no eggs had been dropped, but one night there had been a strange fluctuation of qi among the pile. No negative signs were detected, nor source found. He and the answering disciples turned to look at the baby who’d been acting peculiar.
It had stopped crying (in a strangely human posture), and had been staring into space for a moment, huge eyes glistening.
All of a sudden it slapped its own cheeks with its front paws and then got onto all fours. With excited vigor, it looked around, its long tail flicking in excitement. They all looked at each other, a shared sense of ??? permeating the air among them.
“Do you want us to... Do anything?” Someone asked. They cast a hesitant glance towards the person who’d pulled the short straw for ‘emergency duty’. She was standing as stiff as a board at the edge of the field, clearly dreading the miniscule chance of being needed.
“No, no. It’s just a little odd, nothing dire.” Said the hallmaster.
Meanwhile the baby dragon they were watching mentally rubbed his little hands together like a letcher in a stripclub and dived into his search!
Should he go young or older? Older people close to the cut off would be more desperate and willing to settle, but kids were more malleable and easier to deceive.
Counterpoint to that: Shang Qinghua was shit with kids.
He hadn’t really been permitted to interact with his half siblings growing up, nor was he popular with other kids when he WAS one. And some sort of school-uncoolness apparently was just innate no matter his age, considering he STILL got roasted by the aforementioned pack of middle schoolers who hung out in front of his favorite gas station-convenience store.
He took a second to imagine opening his stained soul to one of the twelve years old hopefuls walking around, and cringed hard enough that his frail front limbs slid out from underneath him, making him fall onto his chest, heavy head thudding hard on the ground.
EEK! M-S-S AGENTS, HE WOULDN’T DARE! NO CORRUPTING THE YOUTH HERE!! A SOUL THAT HAD PLUMBED THE DEPTH OF THE WEIRDEST SEEDY INTERNET UNDERBELLIES HAD NO RIGHT EVEN BREATHING THE SAME AIR AS THESE COUGHING BABIES TO HIS HYDROGEN BOMB OF DEGENERACY.
He shuddered at the thought, squirming onto his side and thrashing for a moment to rid himself of the excess disgust like a duck rolling water from its back.
His observers: ...
The presiding hallmaster sighed.
“Tell someone to bring over a person from the Qian Cao tent. We need to check it for brain damage after all...”
Ahehe, why had he forgotten how much fun rolling could be? Shang Qinghua swore it wasn’t this much fun in his memories. It lit up his brain and gave him a wiggly up-down sensation in his tummy that had him letting out little chuffs.
“Is it having a seizure?”
“I think it’s laughing.”
The nearby voices popped the bubble of distraction Shang Qinghua had fallen under.
Gack! Why didn’t someone just jingle-jingle some keys in his face or delight him with some peek-a-boo while he was apparently acting his body’s age? Yikes!
Shang Qinghua hastily tried to scramble up, and promptly tripped over his own big back legs.
...
Alright, trying that again more carefully with dumb chibi proportions in mind.
No more distractions! It was time for him to judge OTHERS for once while being the sought after commodity. He was the hottie on the dating app! The girl in the gamer chat! The minor in the minecraft ser-- Okay, he was going off track again, did this always happen with a brain the size of a grape?
Shaking his head, he snapped his keen gaze to the knot of people nearest to him.
Almost as one, they jerked in place, and then averted their gazes - some going as far as to turn away completely or hastily walk away.
Huh. Odd.
Sure, his dragon species was the lowest of the low, but snagging a bond with ANY dragon was a small chance when you looked at numbers. The amount of humans vastly outnumbered the amount of dragons, where only twenty-five percent of Cang Qiong (the place with the highest percentage of dragon riders in the world aside from Huan Hua Palace) could ever hope to impress.
And without a dragon, good luck holding any position of rank. It was straight up forbidden to inherit certain important roles without being bonded.
Shang Qinghua wrinkled his snout at their backs.
Peh! Ptooey! Who wanted you anyway!
Figuring out how to walk was a bit of a struggle with the way his legs were arranged. Naturally his kind probably flounced (much like squirrels - was he looking out the window when he designed them?!), but his baby limbs were shaky in their newness.
He half-wobble bounced and half awkward spider walked, making his way towards more people.
All around him heartwarming tales of eternal friendship were being forged.
It was fascinating to see the dragons from his notes in high definition, even if they were scrunki-fied by their newborn status. That was a two-tailed scorpio bull-horn! And over there was a Gastro-Spitter Jagged Fanged Frog-mouthed Hawk-wing! Both were blinking lovingly with their hideously ugly faces staring up at equally starstruck disciples.
It was enough to bring a tear to one’s eye.
Too young, too skinny, too short... Shang Qinghua rejected people with glances as he crawl-hopped through, like a lady swiping right.
Finally he spotted a muscular looking older disciple who was looking around hopefully. Ears perking with interest, Shang Qinghua hurried over in his direction - creeling loudly.
The man turned at the nearby sound and their eyes met--
...
Nothing happened.
...Do something, Shang Qinghua told his soul, as if mentally poking it with a stick.
...So uh. How was he supposed to, er?
He had to reach out somehow right?
The man knelt down. He was handsome, even in the masculine way Shang Qinghua preferred. It might as well be him, ah?? That way he could have some eye candy every day. And look how excited he looked!
Okay: open your soul up and reach out NOW!
...Ahaha. Ahem.
Shang Qinghua strained, eyes crossing a little in the intensity of how hard he pushed at his soul.
It remained furled in a tight little ball deep inside, curled in like a hedgehog protecting its soft belly.
Before he could worry about disappointing the attractive human in front of him, another dragonet came from behind and shoved him out of the way. Shang Qinghua landed hard with a yelp, and watched as the bigger red-scaled Raging Crowned Caller rushed into the man’s waiting arms.
The man cooed and kissed her little head, tears sparkling in his eyes - never once looking at Shang Qinghua laying on the ground.
After a moment he pulled himself with a wince to his feet and moved on.
So it turned out baby dragons were shallow. Almost every time Shang Qinghua spotted someone whose looks were above average, they already had a baby dragon latched onto them.
And they were totally rude about it.
He was just taking brief glances!
It would be one thing if it was just the other hatchlings - it was their instinct to fight over humans.
But did the people really have to look at him with the same gaze as people in his past life?!
“Uh, no thanks little guy.” Said one.
“Move on.” Said another.
“No way am I downgrading!” One yelped, before lifting their dragonet and hauling ass away.
WELL FUCK YOU TOO! ...This was supposed to be his moment!! Couldn’t he have just a little taste of popularity?! Q.Q
But even when he did run into eager people willing to open up to him, it just went...
Wrong.
Slowly the sinking sensation in his stomach began to grow. He waited for the magic moment.
Waited for the wonder, the feeling of connection.
Something he’d never been able to have before.
It was something he’d watched others attain easily, something he’d chased and chased as a child - first with his family, then with people he’d tried to befriend, then with the people who’d ripped his family in two and pasted themselves into spots inside better than he’d ever fit. He’d tried to tape himself up along their number, but they always seemed to be printed on the same pages - leaving him separate even if he was physically near. As if the divide between their paper and the one he was tacked on was some sort of invisible barrier he couldn’t conquer.
If he were the analytical sort, he’d probably theorize about his reasoning for writing a novel where emotional bonding was a big theme - and then making it so the main never attained a true one.
But Shang Qinghua tried not to look too deeply into his thoughts and feelings.
Mainly because when he was forced to, like right now, as the realization swelled bigger and bigger in his chest and pressed heavy in his stomach...
(It followed him even here.)
(So. )
(The thing that was wrong. )
(Wasn’t them. )
(It was--)
Shang Qinghua groomed his own ears, anxiety buzzing in his skin like he’d drunk too many energy drinks.
No. No, he just hadn’t tried hard enough yet! He just hadn’t found the right person!
Like, one time out of ten thousand the fated thing was true, so - uh, that had to be the case, right? He hadn’t been feeling a desperate pull like he was going to die a minute ago, but his chest was certainly hurting now. It hurt a lot.
He hugged himself, and looked around.
Everywhere he looked he saw happy little families. Slimy infants getting groomed and new partners being licked, happy creels and beaming smiles.
Memories of sitting on the sidelines in grade school during parent-child day events rose in his vision and overlapped. Watching his classmates and their progenitors laugh and play together and thinking, if I were better, would they have remembered to come?
Memories of sitting alone at the school, the other students long gone and the teacher checking her watch for the fourth time in ten minutes and huffing a sigh as the sky darkened.
“This can’t keep happening.” She’d said, as if it was his fault.
As if it was his fault.
Was it his fau--
Memories of--
His pulse thundered in his ears.
“Hello little one,” said a soothing voice.
Shang Qinghua blinked and looked up. A young woman with neatly braided hair knelt before him. He recognized her from the circle of disciples in Qian Cao robes he’d seen nearby, competing in hasty rock-paper-scissor matches (an anachronism Peerless Cucumber would have had an apocalyptic fit over). His ears drooped. From what he’d seen, she had been losing badly.
“I’m just going to check your head. Please don’t bite me...” She said this all in a calm tone, palms outwards. Shang Qinghua didn’t resist when she reached for him, nor when she felt along his head and neck with her fingers. This seemed to surprise her.
“What a good boy.” She said.
Shang Qinghua’s tail gave a little wag.
Lol. How many more pathetic points could he add to the pile?
“I don’t feel anything off... I’ll have to examine with spiritual energy. He’s not going to like this... Please don’t bite me...” She muttered, still in that same soothing, coaxing voice. Shang Qinghua realized she didn’t think he’d really understand her much at this point, and was mostly talking to himself.
The qi, when it pressed in, felt like a static shock - extra unpleasant after the manner of his sizzling demise, but the painful spark faded to just the prickle of static quickly.
Shang Qinghua stared up into the woman’s face, taking in her focused brows and pretty eyes.
Anybody was fine.
So why not her?
...
Come on.
The connection of spiritual energy was there in his body: all he had to do was open up his soul. Offer it up. Use it like a lasso and lash around her mind, bind them both together like the collars that were so tight that flesh grew up around them.
He’d be Embedded.
Like a tick.
No, like something impossible to pluck away. An internal parasite. Unless by another more powerful dragon: but she wouldn’t want to replace him! This time it would be different.
Surely it would!
He just needed to open his soul.
OPEN!
...
If anything, the bud of his soul closed tighter: shied further away from the foreign qi.
“Everything seems fine.” The healer said to herself. She looked down at the little hatchling, and her heart twisted at its expression. It was staring up at her with big black eyes that glistened with fat tears, giving off such a feeling of kicked and lost puppy that her prior reluctance was swept away.
“No, don’t cry!” She hadn’t even known dragons could cry tears! “Does it hurt anywhere?”
To her surprise, the little dragon shook his head. Though dragon hatchling intelligence fresh out of the egg was a debated topic, it was widely acknowledged that babies had little to no concept of language until their minds meshed with parents or a human and they absorbed it upon impression.
She looked around, angry. Who would abandon their newly bonded baby!? But no one was nearby, looking dragonling drunk and bitter about it.
“Are you still alone?” The woman asked, totally unaware of the landmine she was stepping on.
One of Shang Qinghua’s paws flew to his chest, like he’d taken an arrow right to the heart.
Why not just kick him in the nuts, yeah?? Why not just slap him in the face and spit on it??
What was she? All of his female relatives at New Years dinners?
He was the god of this world! He didn’t have to take this kind hearted harassment!
Great Master Airplane was filing a complaint, and leaving!
...
What he actually did was burst into loud wailing sobs again.
...DAMN HIS BABY BODY!
TEARS WERE FOR BEING DEPLOYED STRATEGICALLY - LIKE WHEN PEOPLE CAME KNOCKING AT HIS DOOR FOR RENT MONEY HE DIDN’T HAVE ON HAND!
“Hey, hey, it’s all right! We’ll find you somebody!” The Qian Cao disciple assured, panicked. “I can tell you’re a special little guy.”
For some reason the little dragon narrowed its eyes and looked offended at her words, palming away fat globes of tears. She felt the hair at the back of her neck prickle at the unnatural keenness in his gaze, but pushed it aside.
“Just wait here for a minute, okay? I’ll be right back.” Hiding how unnerved she was when he nodded again (looking like a miserable slumped over pile of fluff), she scurried off to find the hallmasters in charge of this hatching.
Shang Qinghua sat down. He didn’t really have a better idea. Or. Any ideas. His head was full of fog the color of when you closed your eyes and pressed down on them with your hands: a swirl of gray and red and black.
He stared at his own toes, and the sharp claws at the ends. Then at his front paws. They were somewhat hand-like. He could... He could still type, right? If nothing else - he had that.
His distracted thoughts were punctured by a sudden overly loud voice, projected across the area.
“If you’ve impressed, collect your beast and leave the hatching grounds.” It said, “Everyone else, come to the front and make orderly rows.”
There was a little pause, where a surrasion of sound rose once again as pairs lingered.
“NOW!” The voice snapped.
Shang Qinghua leapt to attention.
When someone yelled out ‘Jump!’ his natural response was bounce first, face embarrassment later!
While he was scrambling in the direction of where the voice came from, the Qian Cao disciple made it back to him.
“Hey little one, no need to tire yourself out. I’m going to pick you up, okay?”
Well, he wasn’t going to pass up a free ride. He couldn’t even remember being carried as a kid, though he must have been. His mom never put his half sister down when she was young, so surely...
He stood on his haunches and lifted his arms up.
The Qian Cao disciple exchanged a sharp glance with the couple of disciples beside her. The one in the beast peak colors’ mouth popped open, and he pulled a charcoal stick from behind his ear and eagerly scribbled something on a scroll.
“Well, go on Fu Yingtai!” He said, primed to write more.
The Qian Cao disciple - Fu Yingtai - apparently, made a quick face at him that Shang Qinghua wondered if he’d been supposed to see.
“Okay... I’m just going to...” She said, grabbing Shang Qinghua along his sides.
Feh! No need to sound so enthusiastic! Did he look like a bomb?!
With an expression of bracing herself (oof, kick a guy while he’s down, why don’t you? No need to give him flashbacks to the pity dance he’d gotten at a party once) she lifted him up with her arms held out stiffly.
He stayed still, legs and tail dangling.
They blinked at each other.
“Huh.” Fu Yingtai said.
The beast peak wrote another note.
Shang Qinghua tried to parse their reactions, casting his mind back through the mountains of copious ‘flesh mountains’ and other types of humps and mounds he’d buried his original ideas under. It had been so, so very long since he’d lost his original notes on fresh hatchling lore.
A normal hatchling... It would usually go one of two ways. It would either be so focused on finding a bonded companion that it would grow more and more agitated as time passed until it would start to violently react to anything it saw as getting in the way of its single-minded search. Or it would be one of the very rare cases where it had no desire to imprint at all, referred to as ‘feral’. However, it would be incredibly resistant and eager to escape - lashing out in angry confusion from the start in every direction until adult dragons were called in to capture and carry it away from the mountains.
So by not savaging Fu Yingtai upon being picked up, he was acting bizarre.
After another half minute of Shang Qinghua awkwardly dangling, she readjusted him, bringing him against her chest and supporting his hind end with a hand like one would an infant you were going to burp.
This was the first time in his life that a woman was touching Shang Qinghua’s butt, and he didn’t even feel a ‘certain type of way’ about it.
If this were a book- Well, if this was currently something Shang Qinghua was writing, he knew how the readers would want the scene. Transformed into a tiny cute thing - kindly waifus, overtaken by the adorableness, would sweep up the faceless protagonist and bury him in their bagongadonkas - passing him back and forth. Which would be described with as many adjectives as Shang Qinghua could fit, and the protagonist would half heartedly try to escape, or burst into an anime nosebleed, or whatever else helped make him appear blameless.
...
...
Sorry perverts of the world! King pervert Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had to hand over his crown: apparently he was a fucking fraud.
Because.
Because all he felt when pressed suddenly into the warmth and softness of another person’s breast was a sinkhole opening in his guts: a vacuous and desperate kind of longing and loneliness.
In his time writing, he’d sometimes stumbled upon words in languages that had unique definitions. One had stuck. “A nostalgic yearning for something that no longer exists, or may never have existed.”
He’d long forgotten the actual word.
But like.
That.
...
Cowabummer.
Aiyah.
He was touch-starved, but not even horny about it.
If only Peerless Cucumber could see him now! He’d said Airplane didn’t have emotional depth past “your own curled right hand”, but look at the depth of this despair! Gottem!
“And you’re definitely not bonded?” Said a disciple in hatching peak colors, staring at the way the little dragon fisted the material of Fu Yingtai’s robes and laid its head on her shoulder without even a hiss.
“No. I mean - I’d feel something special, right?” She whispered. They began walking towards the front of the hatching grounds.
Shang Qinghua could feel her heartbeat under him, the thudding reassuring against the coldness in his stomach.
She cupped her free hand over the side of his head, covering his ears. Perhaps she believed this deafened him, but he could still easily hear her barely-there whisper.
“I mean, I feel like. Just like seeing a kicked puppy?”
“Haha, yeah, I get that vibe too.”
“I was thinking more of a drowned mouse.”
“Shhh.” She hissed, holding him tighter to her. She was kind of crushing his head. But even that was kind of nice somehow.
Soon they made it to a crowd of people standing in rows, all standing at loose attention. A hallmaster with a glowing array painted on his throat spotted their arrival, and motioned them to the front.
“Right,” he said, his voice magnified many times, “we have one strangler and one egg behind the others. We’ll go person by person until we find matches.”
Fu Yingtai stroked Shang Qinghua’s head, then peeled it away from the crook of her neck, turning his chin towards the many, many disciples staring.
His snout boofed into her palm when he instinctively tried to hide from their gazes.
Be reasonable!! This mirrored his weird stress dreams about public speaking that still haunted him over a decade after highschool Technically, he was even naked again!
“All right, little one. Let’s find your partner.” She said.
What followed next was the most awkward, agonizing, and crushing conga-line of cringe.
Person by person. Over and over. One after another.
Could eyes bleed from too much eye contact?? His should be seeping.
Fu Yingtai carried him, facing outwards, from human to human - lifting him to each of their faces (GEE THANKS - HADN’T SHE EVER HEARD OF SOCIAL DISTANCING?) so he was stuck eye to awkward eye.
Some people were resistant, turnt away or expressions bristling with hostility that made Shang Qinghua want to flip them off.
Ayo? Even if you didn’t want his type of dragon, you were literally mean mugging an actual infant!
Just to make their days worse, they were the ones he made artificial sounds of chirped interest at, blinking guileless eyes up at them, and tilting his head this way and that long enough to make them sweat.
Of course, he wasn’t actually going to try and latch onto someone who didn’t like him when he had other options! Not unless they brought something amazing to the table - which was unlikely in these scrub fodder.
The ones that were earnest were the worst.
Staring soulfully into his eyes like open, hopeful little books that Shang Qinghua had to rip pages out of and use for toilet paper.
He didn’t want to shit on your dreams!
He was really trying!!
...He was... Really trying...
It should be so easy. He could even feel some of their souls reaching out to him, trying to brush against him. But at the slightest hint of contact, his own soul sucked inward like the anemones that slurp into themselves - the vacuum’s force whip-cracking the person’s tentative touch like a hand being smacked away.
He watched them flinch back, hands going to their heart or head: watched the flashes of shock or hurt or anger.
After the twentieth time, Shang Qinghua stopped trying.
Later, Shang Qinghua sat where he’d been placed on Fu Yingtai’s lap while the attending hallmasters discussed what to do with him a short distance away.
“Perhaps by searching through so many minds, it picked up rudimentary intelligence?” He could hear the beast peak one theorizing.
“Yes, but what do we do with it? It’s not feral. It’s not fated. It doesn’t seem able to bond, but-”
“Boop.”
Shang Qinghua blinked, eyes going crossed as he stared at the finger on his nose.
“Your face will freeze like that if you’re not careful. Relax. Let the grown ups do all the thinking.” Fu Yingtai said.
This baby was probably ten years your senior! Respect your elders!
Shang Qinghua grabbed her finger with his front paw and fake bit it.
Then realized he’d just stuck a woman’s finger in his mouth.
...
HE REALLY HAD TO GIVE BACK HIS CROWN!
Because instead of strange glee and self disgust, his little brain was just twitching and jumping on the button that said ‘gums sore - nibble!!!’
...OH WHAT THE HELL!
HE WAS A BABY!
HIS FANS COULDN’T SEE HIM, TO FIND HIM FALLEN SO LO-- RISEN SO HIGH??
He nommed gently on her fingertips, and wished they were cold like the teething sticks babies had back home.
She was magnanimous, and allowed it.
Shang Qinghua stared with huge eyes up at her over her fingers.
Couldn’t... Even if it wasn’t the right way. Even if he wasn’t... the right way.
Maybe she would let him linger around her? He wouldn’t take much maintenance, or space. And when he grew, he could make himself useful.
...
There was a lot of sound nearby. Shang Qinghua heard the excited voices and muffled thin creeling as if from a distance.
This Qian Cao disciple. She really put up with his annoyances well already.
It was just.
Just something to think about, haha.
Forever was just. It was just impossible to ask of anybody.
Forever was just another, prettier, word for running into cage walls.
But... Just for now. For now, wouldn’t it be nice?
Something in his chest loosened.
As he looked at her, he could feel traces of her curiosity and worry against his skin.
And then sharp pain exploded from his tail. Which: weird as fuck feeling. Like, a pain in the ass, but extended. A pain in the far-ass.
He screeched in surprise and tried to leap away, but whatever was the source of the pain had a grip on his tail, so he only succeeded in getting yanked back by it. A second pain in the ass!
Shang Qinghua twisted, and met the viscous glinting eyes of another baby dragon. It still glistened with egg yolk, and even had a flat shard of shell on its skull like a stupid little mockery of a hat.
It looked like a copy of him, just darker, slightly less fluffy, and with brilliant amber eyes.
Over her mouthful of tail, she growled and squealed, dragging back with all her force to pull Shang Qinghua bodily off of Fu Yingtai’s lap. Alongside the physical sounds, his head filled with a cacophony of jangling, jumbled tones of reds and oranges, feelings of anger and possession, and the overall impression of the words “GO AWAY - MINE”!
Shang Qinghua clung to Fu Yingtai’s fingers as if clinging to thighs, and kicked at the other baby’s face, trying to peel them off.
With an anxious cry, he turned to look at Fu Yingtai: confident she would save him from this lost sassy child.
...
Oh.
The Qian Cao healer was frozen, staring wide eyed at the interloper. Her gaze was absent, befuddled even, but slowly her eyes filled with tears and the expression shifted to one of rapture.
“Orcid at a River’s Edge...?” She murmured.
Blinking sluggishly, as if half asleep, she lifted her hand.
Shang Qinghua let her fingers slide from his grasp without fighting. It was as if she didn’t see him any more.
He watched her gently stroke the baby’s face, brushing away the egg remains. Orchid at the River’s Edge dropped Shang Qinghua’s tail and let out a joyful cry, nuzzling into it.
She didn’t even see him as a challenge any longer.
...
Shang Qinghua curled his tail inwards, holding it to his own chest. Orchid clambered up onto Fu Yingtai’s lap. There wasn’t enough room. She didn’r even seem to mean to push Shang Qinghua off as she pressed into the space, but he unbalanced and tipped backwards.
Fu Yingtai blinked and reacted too slow to catch him before he hit the ground. For a second it seemed she tried to focus on him, but her eyes kept sliding back to her newly impressed hatchling. Her brow wrinkled. He could see her trying to fight through the flood of endorphins, her innate kindness kicking up her pity.
Nah.
No thanks - Shang Qinghua knew not to ruin a good time.
You wouldn’t catch him skulking around where he wasn’t wanted!
...Unless there was a benefit to himself somewhere. But this was more like. Ahaha, ouch! Yikes!
Tail throbbing, he waddled away towards the men that would be deciding his fate.
He was totally not going to think.
This was a no-think zone!
(if only his brain got the memo)
(it was just)
(would there ever be a world where he wasn’t replaceable?)
---------------------------
Many, many years later, Shang Qinghua was labouriously pulling a wagon for An Ding peak. Usually this would be a job for horses, but with head disciple Yue Qingyuan’s whole -thing- for head disciple Shen Qingqiu, priority always went to expediting or specializing Qing Jing’s orders. Thus, in place of two cart horses, Shang Qinghua, who was the size of a large horse, as strong as multiple of them, who carried the prestige of being a dragon, and yet was the lowest rank due to the whole ‘unattached’ thing (Shang Qinghua preferred ‘independent, and didn’t need no human’), was the perfect minimum to throw at the problem.
Shang Qinghua hated pulling carts. Flying messages back and forth was the menial work he preferred. When towing, his very long tail made things a bit awkward, so he always had to be careful to keep it over his front shoulder. But then all he could think about was the fact the disciples were staring at his chrysanthemum. Even after seventeen years, Shang Qinghua couldn’t shake some human squemish-ness. It was funny for a second and then weird for the rest of the hours.
The disciple ‘steering’ the cart kept flicking the whip too.
Shang Qinghua’s eye twitched.
If that whip was snapped one more time, Shang Qinghua was going to snap it himself: IN HALF. And then he was going to shove it so far up--
A shudder ran down his spine, and he jerked into awareness.
It was like the instincts of a rabbit when the shadow of a hawk passed over.
“What are you stopping for? Hurry up, we need to get to the next town!” Called the ‘driver’. He cracked the whip in the air, but Shang Qinghua didn’t even flinch.
He was too busy staring down at his front paw, where the water in the puddle he’d been treading in had just frozen solid.
KOII’S CORNER:
Would anyone like a turn with my favorite stress ball? C:
What is SQH for, if not to bully?
Me (hand shake) MBJ
(i’m not great at art, but he’s supposed to be one of the squeeze toys whose eyes pop out)