#i wasn't going to split this into parts originally but this right here is approximately 1.5k words

[daringdragons]

[Pictured: Arys, Evie]

@toothlessrising @crazyfangarlady @serpens-fr @dragonhomeclan @viafr If anyone else wants to be pinged for future lore from me, let me know~!

Related stories: Roava Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, Kepi Comes To Stay, Sibling Bonding Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, The Knight and The Healer, general story tag~

(btw, if anyone wants descriptions on how these two look in their human forms, just ask~!)

The Knight and His Shadow, Part 1

-

Arys had always liked Edain, had considered her a friend; he admired her fierce devotion to the deity that they shared, the Lightweaver, and had never minded her occasional over-zealousness the way the others in the Clan Guard seemed to...he often wondered if he was her only true friend outside of her mate.

So, when Edain’s mate, Eucario, first brought around their child, scarcely more than a toddler, to visit her and the rest of the Guard, he offered the small girl a “Hello” and a small wave, despite his general aversion and confusion when it came to younglings.

The child, a Ridgeback like her father, had been taught early how to shift into the smaller, fleshy forms that most of the residents of Roava took, and so she stood much smaller than Arys than she might've in their dragon forms. Craning her neck to look up, up, up at the Wildclaw, her bright yellow eyes widened at the sight of him in his golden plate armor.

“Hi,” She responded, barely more than a whisper, her hand raising in an attempt at a wave. The two stared at each other for a long moment, Arys not entirely unused to small children being awed by his appearance, before Eucario broke the silence with an “awww” at his daughter’s greeting; Arys would notice in the coming weeks that the Ridgeback tended to “aw” at most everything his daughter did, the already normally enthusiastic dragon now almost unbearably so in fatherhood.

When her father led her away a short while later, encouraging her to wave goodbye to her mother, the child only had eyes for Arys.

This would prove to be a bit of a problem.

The day had been long, and would be longer still, and Arys wanted nothing more than to spend a few moments with his mate. They had agreed earlier in the day to meet on the beach, so after finding someone to take over his guard duty for a short while, the Wildclaw made his way down there.

As he approached the shore, he could clearly make out Ravi, standing with his back to the ocean, waiting. Coming closer, he could clearly see the amused look on his mate's face.

“What's so funny?”

Ravi's grin only widened, pointing his finger over Arys’ shoulder.

“You seem to have a follower.”

The Wildclaw instantly knew what his mate meant, though he didn't quite believe, until he quickly turned around to find wide yellow eyes staring up at him.

This was not the first time this had happened. In the weeks since the child, Evie, as her parents had named her, had first met Arys, he had found her following more times than he could count. She had grown a bit taller, but she was quiet as ever, and this included her footsteps - Arys liked to think that he was alert, with a keen sense of hearing, but very rarely had he actually heard the small Ridgeback following him.

Much to Arys’ confusion, Edain and Eucario merely found their daughter's stalking of him cute. The first few times they had, of course, been quite worried about wherever their child had slipped away to, but once they realized that Evie was only ever with Arys, who they knew she would be safe with, their worry turned into amusement.

Thus, situations like this had become a regular occurrence.

Arys sighed, begrudgingly reaching out his hand for Evie to take. “Let's get you back to your father, you really-” Some sort of scolding died on his lips, it would do no good to dissuade her anyhow, and the pout she normally gave the few times he had asked her not to follow him was positively unfair.

Ravi raised his closed fist to his mouth, stifling an “Aw~” at the sight of the child taking his mate's hand - he found Arys’ little “problem” absolutely adorable.

“Not a word,” Arys warned when he glanced at his mate, wagging a finger at him for effect.

Ravi only laughed, “Of course not, dear. Hurry back now, at this rate I'll barely have any time to kiss that pretty face of yours before you have to get back to work.”

The Wildclaw promptly scooped up Evie in his arms, much to Ravi's amusement and the child's delight, practically dashing back to the castle.

“Teachmehowtobelikeyouplease.”

Arys had been standing at his usual post - just outside of the king's throneroom, directly to the left of the double doors -, when the small voice broke the silence in the hall.

Looking down and to his left, he was met with his former shadow. As Evie had grown, while she still plainly stared at Arys when they were in the same room, she had stopped following him, seemingly embarrassed by her younger self’s starry eyed stalking. Now, gangly and fully in the throes of adolescence, she was shy as ever, her eyes averting to somewhere else down the hall when Arys turned to look at her.

“...What?” He questioned, unsure if he had correctly heard her, and even if he had, he was a little confused.

“I...I want you to train me to be a...a knight.”

He simply stared at her for a few long moments, blinking, in surprise or something else he wasn't sure, and the prolonged silence was enough to trigger the young Ridgeback into saying more.

“Ev-ever since I could remember, I was...I wanted to be just like you. With your...gallantry and your...your calmness, an-and your devotion towards the king, and everything else,” She finished her stammer, her cheeks reddening as she went on.

Another long beat of silence and she began to backtrack.

“Nev-nevermind, this was stupid, I shouldn't of-” There were tears in her eyes, as quickly as that, and Arys was finally jostled out of his surprised silence.

“No! I mean...that's not stupid. I've never...trained anybody before, but I would be honored, Evie.” He swallowed, offering the barest of smiles, and a much larger grin broke out on the younger dragon's face before she reigned it in a bit.

“Really?” She breathed out, nearly seeming to be vibrating with excitement, an odd sight on the normally quiet, reserved dragon. “I didn't...thank you so much...when can we start?”

“Let's say 6AM, tomorrow morning,” He responded, and the smile faded even more from her face as she stopped herself from protesting, instead offering a nod much too serious for someone her age.

“That's adorable,” Ravi gushed, Arys having just finished telling him about his latest encounter with Evie.

“I don't know the first thing about training anyone, Ravi,” Arys nearly whined, if the Wildclaw was in fact capable of whining. They were relaxing in Ravi's room, Arys reclined on the bed, most of his armor neatly placed on the floor due to lack of anywhere else to put it; a large wooden table took up one wall of the small room, but it was absolutely covered with books on magic and healing, pieces of parchment with spells and recipes messily scrawled on them, and entirely too many healing supplies to properly fit on the table.

This was where Ravi sat, finishing writing something on a piece of parchment, a bottle of something glowing an odd shade of yellow next to him. The fading sun shone through a window facing the table, and Arys’ train of thought halted for a moment as he simply had to stop and stare at his mate, nearly glowing in the light.

“You’ll do fine,” Ravi assured, rolling up the piece of parchment and tucking it into a cubby hole on the table, turning in his chair to give the Wildclaw a soft smile. “You learned just fine...you learned exceptionally well, in fact, that much is made clear by what an excellent knight you are...just take all of that and give it to her, as best you can.”

The Skydancer stood, crossing the room to his bed in two steps, practically collapsing on the mattress next to his smaller mate, rolling onto his side and propping his head up with his hand.

“You thrive on structure, Arys, stop trying to pretend like you haven’t already begun to plan her first lesson in excruciating detail,” He grinned, and if the way Arys pursed his lips and averted his eyes were any indication, he was spot on.

“Stop being grumpy for the sake of being grumpy,” Ravi teased as he leaned forward, kissing his blushing mate on the nose, before rolling on top of the Wildclaw and proceeding to cover the other dragon’s face with kisses until a smile broke out on Arys’ face, letting out a teasing sigh.

“Alright, alright, come here,” He simply murmured, wrapping his arms around Ravi as he pulled him in for a proper kiss, putting thoughts of do I start her with a blunted sword or a real one and should I get the blacksmith to make her some armor or is it too early on the backburner for the time being.

-

that’s gay

stay tuned for the next part where I proceed to cry along with Ravi over how adorable Arys and Evie are!