Heechul had his eyes clenched as tightly as his hands on the saddle. He’d never flown on anything featuring open air, freezing his face and whipping his hair all over. Knowing Leeteuk was a good rider and that Kiri was a careful carrier did little to ease his stress.

Both Leeteuk and his dragon could feel the tension coming from Heechul. Leeteuk could guess what the other man looked like without even having to turn. Even still he smirked when he saw him, clenched up in constipation. “You’re going to miss the lights of the city like that,” Leeteuk called back. He had to talk louder with the wind creating a shield for their ears.

Not opening his eyes, Heechul shook his head. “I’ll fall off if I look down.”

“Kiri will catch you if you fall. You won’t.”

Using Leeteuk as a breaker for the wind so it wouldn’t sting his eyes, Heechul slowly opened them. He blinked hard a few times adjusting to the light and cold air before chancing a glance around him.

To Heechul it seemed like they were moving impossibly fast over the forests of Mystaven, the vast central continent of the book. Definitely not willing to look directly down, Heechul scanned out over the horizon and took a slow breath when he saw the city they were heading for looming up before them.

Drakerist. It was a mountain kingdom in the North with the sea breaking against the Easternmost of the high stone walls that surrounded the city. Naturally a home for dragons, when the first of the Draken (strikingly tall and powerfully built among men), arrived they tamed the beasts as not only working creatures, but loyal friends. Being an aerie to begin with, the Draken left the jutting rocks and weather torn peaks of the mountain as natural as possible while hollowing out their castle inside it.

The bloodline of the kings showed to be descendents from the first Draken to tame a dragon. Most of the royalty and noble classes were warriors who were chosen once they came of age through fierce aerial combat. Only those that had mastered a trust with their dragons, usually red or white in color, could advance through military training.

If you weren’t a warrior in Drakerist you were a healer or a craftsman. Healers were traditionally women who favored the blue and green dragons which had a natural understanding of the flow of magic. Craftsman typically chose brown or black dragons, colors that helped in the hunt or acquisition of precious ores.

Leeteuk was none of these. An outcast from birth that never knew his father and only had a few years with his mother before she passed away to a bone illness, he was kept from learning a trade, because no respectable craftsman would take an unknown apprentice. He wasn’t even going to be permitted a dragon, since everyone was sure that his scrawny stature and jet black hair proved he wasn’t even Draken. Technically, he had stolen Kirialstrasz. Knowing he wouldn’t be allowed a ceremony or privilege of playing with the dragons to have one pick him for life as a child, but also knowing it was his one chance for acceptance, Leeteuk sneaked into the red dragon aerie.

When the Draken had figured out what he’d done, they threatened to take the dragon and banish him from the city. Upon storming his small home at the foot of Drakerist Mountain, they found a tiny dragon hissing and spitting blasts of premature fire in fierce protection of her owner. The bond had been made between dragon and man and no Draken would dare defy that, no matter how unusual the circumstances.

Permitted to stay only, Leeteuk had to find his own way to make money in a city that didn’t acknowledge he existed. So he traded stolen goods, things left forgotten, with the peoples to the West and South of their mountain. It was on one of these trips to the Southern city of Sochur that he heard of a Knight failing a quest in the mountains near his home, to save a maiden from a wizard. And the rest was history as Leeteuk guided Kiri down to the foot of the mountain.

Heechul’s legs were shaking as he crawled and eventually fell off the dragon’s back. Despite having his coat the wind from the flight had chilled him to the bone. Leeteuk hopped down to help him to his feet and Heechul didn’t protest being led into his small home.

The home was only small in relation to the rest of the dwellings carved into the mountain. Heechul smiled as he entered the main room, big enough to fit a dragon that was small for her breed. In other Draken homes the main room was for seeing guests but Leeteuk used it mainly for his dragon. Since Kiri was an outcast just like him, instead of sleeping in the aerie of her birth with her clan, she slept in the house with her rider.

Even though Leeteuk had never been accepted as an apprentice, he’d snuck around and learned enough to craft and support himself when the little money he earned from trade wasn’t enough for clothes and supplies.

Feeling the floor beneath them heating up, Heechul smiled all over again remembering that Leeteuk and Kiri had carved a section of the rock out beneath them which they filled with kindling and Kiri lit with her breath. Industrious and amazing, dragon and rider had more heat than just a fireplace.

Leeteuk pulled a chair back at the table where he ate dinner and Heechul moved to sit down just as he heard Kiri squeezing her way inside. Going over to take off her saddle and harness, Leeteuk laughed as a forked tongue slipped from behind rows of dragon teeth to tickle his ear and neck.

Heechul’s stomach grumbled suddenly, but he didn’t say anything about it. He knew Leeteuk didn’t have much of anything to spare. Even though it was amazing to see these things from a book, come to life and in person, Heechul was starting to miss home. Food, shower and bed most of all.

Watching the newcomer, Leeteuk scratched behind his dragon’s ear and along the scales of her neck. “What do I call you?” He asked.

“Heechul,” he said as he realized he hadn’t told his name yet.

“Heechul,” Leeteuk repeated. “Where do you come from?”

“I don’t know.” Heechul admitted. “I was taken by the wizard when I was a baby,” following up with a lie to keep Leeteuk’s attention away from the fact that he didn’t come from a book.

“Then how do you know you’re the twin of the maiden?”

“I- Don’t.” Heechul sighed heavily. He was too tired to keep up his lies. “I was always told that. I’d only ever been around her and the wizard, so I came to believe.” He was even starting to talk like the characters from his favorite book now. Maybe if he was patient the hunger he felt would wake him up and he would be home?

Leeteuk left Kiri to curl up on the warm floor and started a fire. “Are you hungry, Heechul?”

His stomach answered for him and Leeteuk smiled. “But I know you don’t have much. You don’t have to feed me. I can fend for myself.”

With a slight shrug of his shoulders, Leeteuk went to heft a pot over the fire. “How do you know so much about me?” He asked, keeping his eyes between his guest and the stew he started to prepare.

From the heat beneath them and the fire nearby, Heechul was finally warm enough to take off his coat. He stood and draped it over the back of his chair. “I was trained as a seer. It might have been a natural gift for all I know. But I saw you save me before it happened. I can predict things sometimes.”

“A useful skill.”

Heechul couldn’t tell if Leeteuk believed a thing he was telling him. He crossed his arms over the table and rested his chin on them.

Watching his stew more than his guest, Leeteuk let silence fall between them. He still had major doubts about the man, but the idea of being a seer was probably the most truthful thing he’d told him. Why else would he not ask where he was and know the proper way to greet a dragon? At least Kiri liked him, so he could trust Heechul to not ram a dagger between his ribs while he slept. But who was he? Where had he come from? And more importantly, what would he do now? Leeteuk could feel change coming, but was this Heechul a new piece to that puzzle, or just a wandering sage?

The stew was done enough to his liking and Leeteuk got two bowls, despite Heechul saying he didn’t have to be fed. Leeteuk’s mother had at least been around long enough to teach him how to treat guests. He placed the bowl and a large chunk of hard bread on the table in front of the other man’s arms. Heechul looked as though he’d fallen asleep in the warmth and silence. Leeteuk didn’t disturb him as he sat across from the sleeping figure, eating his own dinner.

In the morning, Leeteuk would take Heechul with him to his next trade post and leave him in the city to find his own way. Leeteuk couldn’t keep him here, he was already outcast enough and Heechul would never be accepted by the Draken. He’d be safer in Sochur or even on the mountaintop where he’d been found than in Drakerist.

Heechul woke up to the sound of snores. Mumbling to himself about books, he opened his eyes and his heart sank to see a snoring dragon in the corner of the room he was in. He hadn’t woken up to find himself home like he’d wished before falling asleep. Leeteuk was gone, probably in his room farther back in the cave. There was a bowl of now cold vegetable stew in front of him and Heechul didn’t bother trying to heat it up before eating it all, probably too quickly.

Figuring it must still be night, since Leeteuk and Kiri rose early, Heechul decided to go back to sleep. But it was difficult now that his back was stiff from sleeping in a chair hunched over a table. There were piles of furs and cloth behind him, Leeteuk would no doubt be using it for trade, but he had been a kind enough host that Heechul figured he could borrow a few to make a bed. Curling up with the furs, Heechul situated himself so he could watch Kiri snoring across the room. A real, live, fire-breathing dragon was there. He could see her with his own eyes. Smiling, Heechul went back to sleep.