Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoy. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.
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The noise of the Blackthorn dining hall slowly resumed, and before long, it sounded much like a kindergarten again. But it never quite reached its previous level, and it was easy to figure out why.
One merely had to follow the wide eyes and 'discreet' pointing – though wide-armed gesticulation might count as such for Blackthorns – to find the source. Forks, for the more civilized Dragon Trainers, missed mouths and smeared food across cheeks in their reluctance to take their eyes off the greatest Blackthorn in recent history – at least – and every conversation revolved around the Champion.
At least amongst the lower tables.
Upon the dais, the high table was a lot quieter. The clanging of cutlery had resumed, the main branch at least having that much class compared to many below us grabbing the nearest plate and shoving it in their maws.
I was getting a weird feeling that the Clan didn't see Lance much and was a little on edge.
"Is that you, Lancie!? Finally remembered this old woman, eh!? If I were a little younger, I'd have put you over my knee, you little shit! You never come visit!"
"Hello, Grandmother." The Indigo Champion grunted, unfazed by the nickname. I saw a smirk form on Clair's lips, though it vanished in an instant when Lance turned to look at her with almost bored eyes. The cousins stared each other down for a moment as the tension rose to a crescendo around the table. Claire's hands clenched, her jaw tightened, and she was clearly trying. Yet, without Lance ever changing his expression, she broke first, turning her head and glaring down at her plate, red-faced.
Something flashed across Lance's face at her capitulation before he hid it under an eyeroll. His grandmother, allegedly, didn't appear to care in the slightest.
"And who's this you've brought with you!? Is this your friend!? It's about time you socialized more, I've always told you that, ever since you were a kid!" To my horror, her sightless eyes turned in my direction with unnerving accuracy. "He's always been a loner, little Lance, always brooding while the others played Drake and Glacial." Thankfully, she focused back on Lance quickly enough. "You'll never find a girl that way!"
"I have plenty of girls."
"Bah, you're man-whoring won't benefit the Clan! How am I supposed to spoil the great-great-grandchildren if they're spread all around Indigo, foolish boy!?"
I was in awe at the sight of the tiny old woman laying into the Champion. Grandmothers were the same everywhere, apparently. Lance didn't seem subservient to the lady, but she was also the only one who spoke to him with anything other than perfect respect.
Until the blue-haired, aristocratically dressed man on the other side of me spoke up, his face in a slight grimace, like he'd smelled something foul. Since he got that expression after I was pushed in next to him, it wasn't hard to make the connection.
"Sitting with the main family is an honor, Lance. While I'm sure the youngling is a… perfectly adequate civilian," I glared at the man who I suspected to be Clair's father, especially when I saw her close her eyes in exasperation, "but a Titan does not worthy make in the face of over a millennia of dominance-"
"The boy," Lance broke in, silencing the blue-haired man with the first syllable – thankfully for him, otherwise I'd been forced to do it myself – "has more balls than half this Clan put together. If anything, you're unworthy of the honor and should go sit with the rest. How do you feel about that?"
The man looked stunned, looking around the table for support, yet finding none. "Dear Nephew-" he tried, confirming the family relationship, but Lance wasn't having it.
"That's a great idea, actually!" The Indigo Champion leaned closer, a viscous glint in his eyes and a small grin pulling at his mouth. "Fuck off down to the rabble, Uncle. It's more your… class."
"Lance-!"
"Are you disobeying me?"
The words came calmly, yet Clair's dad's words died in his throat, and his jaw flopped around uselessly. He tried again to find help amongst the others, but found only averted gazes and the ancient woman happily smacking away with what little teeth she had left.
SCREEEECH!
His chair was loud as he stood up with force, face completely red in a way that put Clair's to shame while he stormed down from the dais, the closest Blackthorn pushing the ones next to them away so that the former Gym Leader could sit as close to the head table as possible.
The color only deepened when Lance, without bothering to lower his voice, shot a parting "pussy!" after him.
More silence followed the departure, though it didn't last long until I broke it.
"... he does have a point, though. Why'd you drag me up here, anyway? Last time we met we weren't exactly friendly, and I doubt even you could be dumb enough to think otherwise."
My cheek got me a series of wide eyes, but they were insignificant in the face of Lance's stare. The urge to flinch pressed down on me, but I fought through it, holding his gaze.
Whatever he was looking for, he seemed to find it, because something in his jaw eased fractionally and he went back to his food with a grunt.
"Felt like it," he said, reaching for another piece of meat like the matter was closed, like an entire hall hadn't just held its breath waiting to see whether I was about to become the evening's second casualty.
I could feel the glare of Clair's dad burning into my head, but it was hard to care.
I decided that pushing the question further while surrounded by a hundred people whose Champion had just very publicly humiliated his own uncle for less was not a winning strategy, and went back to my own plate with as much dignity as a man can manage when his hands are not, technically, all that steady. I tensed them as hard as I could for a second before letting it go, satisfied that the knife didn't clatter against the ceramic.
Grandmother, on the other hand, seemed to have decided the whole thing was hilarious.
"So." Her sightless eyes found me again with that same unsettling precision. "You're the one who let a Gible have a nibble of you."
"That's… one way to put it, I guess. Wasn't much of a discussion, but he kept what he bit off, and I got the rest of the arm." The old woman had me on edge. Every single person in that hall – including another three super old people, all men, on the end of the table – was half scared, half awestruck by Lance.
Everyone – except for her.
"Good!" She said it like I'd passed something. "Boys who bleed easy and boys who bleed at all aren't the same thing. I like the second kind better." A gap-toothed grin, aimed somewhere just left of my actual face. Then her nose twitched, and the milky orbs locked onto mine with startling accuracy once again. "Lancie's the same. Bled all the time as a boy. Never told anyone. Little liar used to hide it under his sleeves so I wouldn't fuss."
"Grandmother!" There was a warning in Lance's growl, though nowhere near as sharp as what he'd used on his uncle. The knife bent in his hand and his eyes slitted.
But that was it.
"Oh, hush, I'm allowed to embarrass you; I changed your nappies. Unless you wanna do something about it!?" The geriatric woman leaned forward with a wide, bloodthirsty grin, showing all five of her remaining teeth. I thought Lance was going to explode at the direct challenge.
So imagine my shock when he stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Reopening his eyes, he ignored his grandmother and everyone else, focusing on just food.
"Ha! That's what I thought!" She waved her one good hand at him, chuckling to herself. then jabbed a finger vaguely in my direction. "Anyway. Eat, boy, you're thin as a Doduo leg."
Regardless of her blindness and thus questionable ability to judge my figure, I ate. It seemed like the safest available option. Besides, the food was good.
A man further down the dais – good clothes, a doubled chain of dragon-tooth beads, the particular build of someone who'd traded a Trainer's career for an administrator's desk somewhere along the way – leaned in with the air of someone aiming for casual and landing closer to desperate.
"Champion, while you're here, the matter of the eastern boundary claim really does need-"
"Later." Lance didn't even look at him, barely understandable around his mouth full of meat.
"It's been sitting three months, if we could just-"
"I. Said. Later." He didn't raise his voice. Didn't need to. The eyes did all the work. The man sat back with a thump!, found something urgent to discuss with his neighbor instead while pretending his hands weren't shaking, and didn't try again for the rest of the meal.
I'd gotten maybe four more bites in when Lance stood.
No warning. No word. Chair legs screamed against stone loud enough that conversation two tables down actually stumbled mid-sentence. Then his hand closed around my upper arm, and not gently, hauling me up out of my seat with about as much ceremony as he'd hauled the whole chair across the hall earlier.
"Up," he said, somewhat redundantly, given that he'd already yanked me. "Walk."
"Absolutely not!" I'd been through too much to end up as Dragon-Type food after Lance shanked me in a cave.
"Didn't ask." Nor did he care about my struggles. Moving to drag me along, he paused briefly in front of the grandmother. "I made the appearance."
"So you did!" She laughed. "That's the fault of an old woman! Should've specified! Bah, go play with your friend, then; I know how the stuffiness bores you."
Clair's eyes tracked us the whole way to the doors, something in them that wasn't quite worry and wasn't quite relief, and when I glanced back once – she didn't call out, she didn't move to stop us, didn't stand. She just stared after us until we turned a corner and were out of sight.
—-
"FUCKI-LET! ME! GO!" My shoulder popped as I heaved, feet braced against Lance's ribs and chest while I pulled with all my might to try and get him to let go. Relenting with a curse, I glared up at the indifferent Lance as he kept walking. Frustrated, I lifted a foot and brought the heel down sharply on his ribs, eyes lighting up when he grunted and flinched.
Thud!
"AWWWWW!" I complained, falling to the ground after being slammed into the wall headfirst, clutching the point of impact with my good arm while the other protested.
"Stop being a child." Lance scolded, hauling me up again and pushing me ahead, though without holding onto me.
"That's rich coming from you, the biggest infant in Indigo!" I dabbed at the base of my head, but didn't feel any blood. There was, however, a slowly spreading warmth from my shoulder, so I properly reopened one of the teeth marks.
The air was even colder as we stepped outside, the sun having fully set and the storm picking up while I was inside.
"You're not riding one of mine." It wasn't up for debate, the Alakazam reaching out to lay a hand on my shoulder.
"I'm not going anywhere-!" I was frozen in a telekinetic hold. Honedge stirred in my shadow, but he didn't even have time to emerge before we were dragged into a wormhole through time and space-
Kalido-
-my feet touched solid ground, a thin layer of frost and snow crunching under my boots. I blinked, shocked at the smoothest Teleport I'd ever experienced, and looked around to find myself on the ledge that led to the Dragon's Den, the warm air leaking from the crack leaving a path of snow-free ground around the opening.
"Wha-?" Honedge darted up, Distortion swirling around his blade in a Shadow Claw as he swung it towards Alakazam's neck. Or, where the Alakazam's neck used to be, the Psychic-Type slipping back into its PokéBall in a stream of red. Instead, Lance's large hand shot out and wrapped around the hilt, ignoring the purple energy that flared at his touch and tore at his skin. With a dismissive motion, he threw the sword Pokémon at the mountain, hitting the very edge of the entrance.
THUNK!
"Son of a-will you guys stop throwing him at mountains!? It's not good for the steel!" The Dragon Master didn't acknowledge me trying to dislodge the Steel/Ghost-Type, walking past me and into the Den without words.
It took Honedge using Steel Claw to cut his way free, but eventually I managed to get him out of the wall. I panted, plumes of condescension spewing from my mouth to make me resemble the titular Type of the cave in front of me while glaring after him.
Snorting, I spun around and went back to the edge of the ledge, mumbling insults under my breath. Screw that guy. Who'd he think he was, kidnapping me and then just thinking that I'd follow him because he wanted me to. Didn't work for Koga, wasn't going to work for Lance the Idiot Champion. I'd just climb down, see how he liked that. Herc was probably strong enough for me to hang on his back, or Espeon could lift me in short bursts-
I froze, hand brushing my empty belt.
My Pokémon were in the Den. Clair had insisted on me not bringing them – something about it basically being a challenge – and I'd snuck my Ghost-Type with me. She probably knew since she was a little too good a Trainer to be fooled by a basic Shadow Sneak, but that was all.
Which meant that the others were alone with Lance.
"I hate-!" I grunted to myself, turned around, and sprinted into the Den after him.
The entry tunnel flew by without any sign of the long-legged bastard, and I emerged into a Den in an uproar. The younger dragons bounced around the distant, dimly lit figure towering over the young Pokémon as they clambered for his attention, Dratini wrapping themselves around his limbs with soft sounds, looking for affection, and Bagon tripping over themselves to keep up. Even Betty's Trapinch friend – one of her only sources of company those days – was enraptured by the Champion, disproportionate head bumping into Lance's shin, beady eyes staring upwards blankly.
"I'm fine, don't worry," I assured my team as they came running, all the while keeping an eye on Lance. Betty in particular was agitated, wounded pride from Lance cowering her with a glance during their last encounter warring with the slowly increasing brain I'd managed to beat into her over our stay in the Den.
"You can bring your Pokémon," Lance's voice easily echoed throughout the Den, "but they'll stay in their PokéBalls unless I tell you otherwise." He'd reached the far end of the main cavern. With a single motion from him, all the dragonlings moved over to the side like a pack of trained dogs, waiting eagerly as Lance reached into his pocket and threw an arc of some kind of treat at them, the Pokémon eating their snacks in the most orderly manner I'd ever seen from them. They weren't even fighting!
"Fuck you!" So what if he could kill me by blinking. He hadn't done it yet. "I'm not going anywhere with you! You tried to frame me as a terrorist to steal my Pokémon!"
"And you didn't let me." I blinked at the almost compliment. Maybe. If you tilted your head. "It's done. Get over it." He rolled his eyes at the disbelieving look on my face. "Whatever. If you don't want to come," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and it was then that I realized that he wasn't just standing at the end of the cave.
He was standing by the tunnel to the Dragon Holy Land Clair had mentioned. The deepest part of the Den, where the Blackthorns didn't go and let the local dragons rule as they wanted.
"... Clair said-"
"Clair's not here," he interrupted. "And even if she was, she's not your mother." Seeing as I didn't instantly agree, he shrugged and moved into the passage. "Hey, if you're too much of a bitch, then say so."
I frowned. I was undeniably curious, but not enough to follow him in there. If the fully adult, territorial dragons didn't rip me apart, then Lance would.
Therefore, I made to return to my room and go to bed early, the team following me.
Except for one.
Betty hesitated, staring after the Champion as he vanished into the opening. She didn't linger, slowly trotting after the rest of us with the distance she'd been forced to keep, but she clearly wanted to go.
And further in, behind the baby dragons who had started snapping at each other as soon as Lance was out of sight, sat Newt, staring forlornly after the Blackthorn.
I groaned loudly.
"Damnit!" Betty perked up as I stormed past her, snatching the others up in the PokéBalls as I passed. Espeon hissed, but relented at the rare time she had to go in the ball. "Shut up!" I snapped at Betty. "I don't wanna hear it from you! Just shut up and be grateful!" I didn't let her respond before she went in her own ball. The only one that didn't get returned was Honedge – there had to be limits.
Newt squeaked as I scooped her up, stomping past the rest of the Dragon-Types, freezing in my grip. As I entered the tunnel to the Holy Land, though, she started struggling.
"Will you stop!? You're coming, end of discussion. Here, you can hide in there." I showed her the extra-large center pocket Zorua usually hid in and stuffed her inside.
Thin lines of bioluminescent growth high above gave just enough light to see, yet I still stumbled over the uneven flooring of the passage, and it twisted and turned, sometimes wide enough for Betty and at others so narrow a standard Shelgon would've been stuck several times. There had to be a large path through the Pit, as there was no way a fully evolved Dragon-Type could fit.
I caught up with Lance and somehow suppressed the urge to kick him again when he smirked at my appearance. Instead, I made do with watching him bang his head and struggle to squeeze through the smallest passages.
It was impossible to tell how long we walked for, but eventually, we started moving downwards as the tunnel widened again, and stayed wide enough that I could move up beside him. The glowing plants thinned and disappeared, plunging us into almost all-consuming darkness.
But not for long. It got wider again, and an uneven circle of silver light shone ahead, beckoning us as we stepped out of the mouth of a proper cave.
My breath hitched.
Jagged peaks surrounded us on all sides, black silhouettes obscured by the falling snow encircling us like jaws. The mountains loomed tall; bits and pieces of their profile were missing, holes blown in their sides, chunks torn from their colossal frames. In the shadow of the massif, a depression had formed, perhaps from the snow at the summits melting and running down to gather. Over time, that had turned into a massive, frozen lake in the middle of an enormous meadow, stone spires that had yet to be ground down erupting from among the grass. Stubborn plants and flowers, frost clinging to their leaves, grew wild and unattended, carving out a life amidst some of the highest peaks in Indigo.
The moon seemed huge, slowly crawling up behind the towering alps to illuminate the land below, the flowers gleaming like a carpet of crushed diamonds down below. Something fast flew past the celestial light, a black dot crossing the bright sliver faster than a blink.
Then another.
And another.
It was nearly impossible to see thanks to the conditions, yet as I strained my eyes, more and more flying dots blurred through the storm, coming to and from the mountains. A bright spot of orange dropped by like a falling star, only to shoot back up and be joined by a second, the two plumes of flame twirling around each other. Despite the conditions, there had to be dozens of them, the wind and snowflakes calming in their wake, slowly drifting down before being picked up again by the blizzard as the dragons left and returned to their dens.
But mainly, they seemed to be coming from an enormous one to our left, its flat summit the only one not clad in snow.
That was the mountain Lance started leading us towards, keeping fairly close to the edge of the bowl. The temperature was below freezing, and the howling wind only made it worse, Lance's cape flapping in the wind in every cardinal direction at the same time and somehow not twisting into a ball. Yet, the man himself seemed unbothered as he led the way, even as my ears turned red and I started shivering. It got worse and worse, and soon, I was on the verge of saying 'screw it', releasing Sol, and dealing with the consequences afterward when it finally stopped getting colder.
Instead, it got warmer. Not hot, but I stopped shivering. Then, at the foot of the large geological heap, the snow melted upon touching the oddly porous rock.
We came to a cave and the warm, sulfuric air blasted me in the face to reveal the truth.
It wasn't a mountain. It was a volcano.
Lance led the way in, not a single Pokémon in sight other than the ones high above. I'd have thought we would deal with more resistance from what I'd been told, but accompanying Lance apparently had some perks.
The bones started maybe twenty feet in and dashed the humor of the thought.
Not scattered – arranged, spaced deliberately across ground gone stiff with frost. A curve of rib rose up out of the grass like the frame of a building abandoned halfway through. A wing bone lay half-sunk nearby, moss eating away at its upper edge, softened by age and elements. Small stones sat at the foot of some of them, weathered round, placed with care that spoke of grief. Here and there, something more personal – a scrap of cloth gone grey with age, a coil of old leather cord, and once, small enough I nearly missed it, a carved wooden toy sitting at the base of a spine no longer than my forearm.
And at the center of it, on a small rise all its own – the skull. Round and blunt, the 'small' horn gave away the species as a Dragonite.
Only, from bottom to peak, it was nearly as tall as Lance.
Calling it big undersold the thing massively, like calling the ocean 'kind of damp'. A jaw long enough I could've lain down inside it with room to spare, teeth like standing stones gone the color of old ivory, eye sockets deep enough that something had built a nest in one of them, twigs still faintly visible in the dark. Lichen crept up the far cheekbone in slow, patient blooms.
It didn't look like something that had died so much as something the mountain had grown, right up until the day it decided to stop. It wasn't Dragonite-big.
That was Titan-big.
"Old Mother," Lance said, stopping beside the skull with the easy familiarity of someone who'd done this exact thing more times than he'd probably admit to. His hand reached out to caress the fossilized calcium. "Last and only Titan Dragonite the Blackthorn Clan ever had. Before her, there wasn't even a Clan. Just a mountain full of dragons and cowering humans surviving in their shadow. Then there was her, and her Trainer, and victory. And they came, hacking a city into a mountain she'd conquered for them. 'Her blood', they say, 'her children'. 'We carry her strength,' they cry, like that's something you inherit instead of a thing you fight to earn."
"... you say that like you don't think they're earning it." I stepped up beside him, though I didn't touch the skull. Even I wasn't that stupid. But I did release Betty after getting an approving nod from Lance. The Titan Shelgon emerged with an unusual calm, looking around with something close to reverence before focusing on the skull. With a thump! she lay down, eyes fixed on the monstrous cranium.
"I don't." No hesitation at all. "Old Mother took this place with tooth, claw, and fire. Everyone since has been living off that one act like it still counts for something, generation after generation, getting softer and calling it refinement. They're weak. They're weak because nobody's had to prove themselves; nobody's had to fight and struggle to even be noticed. Somewhere in all that peace, all that humanity, they decided proof was beneath them. They just… deserved it." He glanced sideways, something almost sharp in it. "If I had talked to you like I talked to my Uncle, what would you have done?"
"The same as the first time we met. Told you to go fuck yourself." I expected a lot – mostly negative.
But I was starting to think I didn't know Lance that well as he just gave a sharp bark of approving laughter.
"As you should! Who sits there and takes that shit? Who the fuck obeys!? He should've stood up and punched me in the face, right then and there! Yeah, I'd have broken every bone in his body, but at least he'd have shown some fucking balls! You know the Dragonids, out in Hoenn?"
"Can't say I do." There was a vague memory of the post-game in Emerald having something about a meteor and Rayquaza that I felt involved some Hoenn Salamence guys, but the details escaped me.
"Dragon-blooded Clan. Same general idea. They fight each other about as often as they fight anybody else – territory, pride, grudges nobody even remembers starting anymore. Ugly business, most of it. Whole families reducing themselves to ash." Something shifted in his face, eyes bright and slitted. "But at least they're honest about what they are. Every one of them's tested, often, or they can leave. If they're strong, they become stronger. If they're weak, they're pushed down, if not killed. What are they," he waved back in the general direction we came from, "compared to that? We've had a thousand years of nobody strong enough to challenge us for the mountain, and everybody's decided that's the same as being mighty."
"..." I didn't know what to say to that, or anything that was going on, before something Clair had said tickled my brain. "... why are you Champion, Lance?" He looked at me. "I'm just getting the feeling you don't enjoy it. Being Clan Head, and Champion, I mean."
"I'm the strongest. I deserve to stand at the top."
"... you don't seem to enjoy it."
"I don't." The answer came instantly again. "People assume I wanted this-" A vague gesture that took in the cape, the title, everything the word Lance came attached to now "-like it's something to aspire for. All it gets you is sycophants and paperwork, an endless stream of people who want shit from you, demand shit from you, and want you to do things because they say so. Clan's been muttering about it for years – think I should be doing more with what I've got. Consolidating. Making examples. Being more of a presence up here instead of running the League circuit picking fights with children."
"And?"
"And if any of them want to fight me over it, they're welcome to." Something close to a smile. "Could even be fun, at least more than their pussyfooting. Been a while since anybody's tried anything."
"That's… deeply unhinged."
"You don't get to complain about a mountain you didn't climb," he said. "Clan's held this place because for a thousand years there was always somebody strong enough willing to hold the line when it mattered. To push, to fight, to burn and conquer. That's not tradition. That's not blood, whatever they tell themselves at dinner with their meat bleeding all over good plates. That's a debt that keeps coming due, generation to generation, and the day it stops getting paid-"
"You lose the mountain."
"You fucking deserve to. Your flesh is stripped clean, your better takes your place, and if you're lucky, someone likes you enough to take care of your remains." He spread his arms wide to indicate the graveyard.
I didn't have a great counter for that, mostly because I wasn't sure I entirely disagreed, which was an uncomfortable thing to sit with at – I checked – well past midnight, on a mountain, next to a skull the size of a house.
That was when Newt decided to announce herself, small head pushing free of my jacket collar, blinking against the cold and the dark, and going very still the instant her eyes landed on Lance.
Lance's gaze dropped to her. Whatever had been in his face a second ago flattened out into something colder.
"Dragging that around with you, huh." Newt cringed in on herself at the words.
"She has a name, asshole! Use it!" I didn't appreciate his tone or words. I'd gotten fond of the little Dratini during her training with Siren. She reminded me of the Feebas and Eevee, before her evolution, and even Hercules back when he was an Elekid.
"I'm surprised it's still breathing." He didn't necessarily seem angry with Newt, or even disgusted, which might've been easier on the little one. Instead, the words were flat. Bored. Like Newt's continued existence was a minor administrative oversight somebody should really get around to correcting.
"Yeah, well, she is. No thanks to you! Why do you have to be such an asshole!?"
"Careful." One word, quiet, yet the air around us changed the way it had back at the table when he'd first walked into the hall – that weight, thicker with nobody to spread it across, no crowd to dilute it. Every instinct said get smaller, apologize, back up.
I ignored them all.
"No, fuck you! You had a kid that didn't live up to your expectations," I said, stepping closer rather than away. "And you didn't even bother finding out what happened to her after you had her thrown out. That's not strength, dickhead. That's just not caring enough to look!"
He crossed the remaining distance between us in a single step. I didn't step back, though every cell in my body protested that moment of bravery. His fist closed in my collar and lifted, just enough that I was forced up on my toes, his face very close to mine and very still. Newt shook in my pocket, stiff as a plank.
"You get one of those," he said. Low. "One. I… acknowledge our first… impression was… poor." It sounded like it physically hurt him to get those words out. "But careful."
My heart was doing something that couldn't possibly be healthy. My voice, when it came, wasn't as steady as I'd have liked, but it came.
"Fine. Used my one chance. You're still a fucking prick."
Nothing happened for a long second. Then he laughed – short, rough, like it had surprised him as much as it surprised me – and set me down, not gently, but down, and let go of my collar like the whole thing had never happened.
"Most people don't make it through a sentence like that," he said, "before they start apologizing. Well, most don't start a sentence like that in the first place. You did, though. You keep doing it." A considering look. "I like that. More spine than most of my own blood."
"Bet you think that includes Clair," I said before I'd fully decided to say it out loud.
Those words landed somewhere different than the rest. He didn't grab me for it, but something shifted in his shoulders, and when he spoke again it was slower, like he was picking through a thought he didn't love the shape of.
"Clair's a different problem." He looked back towards the Dragonite skull rather than me. "She's got the blood for it. The Aura, the instincts. More of it than most of that hall put together. And she spends every hour of every day making sure none of it shows. Making sure it doesn't slip." A pause. "You saw her fold earlier. Over nothing. A look, that's all it was, and she gave before I'd even had to try." It wasn't anger in his voice. Closer to grief, I'd guess, though I wasn't about to say that out loud to the very casually violent man. "Could be something, if she let herself. Instead, here she sits, rotting away in a position she's convinced herself means something, for people she's convinced mean something."
"... maybe trying to be better than your worst instincts takes more control than what you've got," I responded, the words hitting me just as much as him. "Not less. I'd take that over turning into you any day."
Bruno's words rang in my ears, comparing the two of us.
Wind howled through the graveyard, through grass gone stiff with frost, and Lance looked at the Old Mother's skull instead of at me for a while.
"Maybe," he said eventually, which was about as close to conceding a point as I suspected he ever got. I thought that was the end of it. "It's… it's not my strongest point."
"... yeah." It was funny. Sometimes, the most honest moments came with people you didn't necessarily like, but understood, like Koga. "Me neither."
And then, because apparently emotional honesty came with a strict time limit where the man was concerned, his eyes dropped to my shoulder, to the edge of bandage visible where my collar had gotten yanked half open.
"Heard you nearly lost the arm to a Gible hatchling. In my own Pit." The smirk was back, easy, like the last twenty minutes hadn't happened at all. "That's embarrassing."
"Okay, first of all, definitely not a hatchling, asshole," I defended. "Second, it wasn't a matter of strength. We were just caught off guard. Won't be a problem twice."
"See that it isn't." He held my eyes a second longer than felt entirely comfortable, and then, apparently satisfied, turned and started back down the path without another word, without waiting to see if I followed – which I did, mostly because the alternative was staying up in the mountains alone with a dragon skull, hostile live dragons, and my own thoughts, and nothing good came from me thinking.
"Wait, why did you bring me up here!? What's with the skull!? Lance!? LANCE! DON'T IGNORE ME BITCH!"
"What'd you call me!?"
"BITCH!"
I stopped once, at the edge of the graveyard, and looked back at the Old Mother – jaw open to the stars, moss climbing her cheekbone slow and patient, that little nest of twigs sitting quiet in the dark hollow of her eye – and thought that maybe a thousand years from then, somebody was going to stand in front of a Salamence skull roughly the same size and call her something just like that.
Then I ran to catch up before I lost the dickhead entirely in the dark.
—-
I like Lance, or what I've done with Lance anyway. He's not a good guy, but he's not all bad either. He's just more dragon than human and half-asses learning how to put on his human suit.
Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.