DRAGON BAIT

Dragon Bait (Gundam Wing style)
CHAPTER 3

His first inclination was to hope that dragon hadn’t seen the torches and that he’d have time to run under cover of the nearby trees. It was hard to judge how high the creature was flying—above the treetops, below the almost-full moon–without knowing how big it was. And it was big, whatever the distance worked out to be. Its enormous wings carried it halfway across the sky with one powerful beat. The thing was close enough that he could see it’s.....ehem...well..lets not get into that just yet, but he had never heard mentioned in any of the legends that they had any...but of course how could they reproduce if they didn’t? Duo didn’t want to think about it.
Then he realized the dragon hadn’t seen him, and that if he stayed still for a few moments longer, he was free. But he was soaked to the skin, cold, and dressed in a god for saken dress! And he hadn’t eaten since early morning—and here it was, almost dawn of the following day and he was a orphan with nowhere, absolutely nowhere, to go. And he remembered the wolves.
His choice, as he saw them, were to die quick or to die slow.


He chose quick.
Standing, he flung a rock with all his might. “You stupid dragon!” he screamed, “Come and get me!”
His muscles, cramped and strained from being tied so long, rebelled. The rock arced and plummeted to the ground far short of the dragon. But his movement, or his shout, attracted its attention.
Probably the wrong choice, he thought, as the creature wheeled gracefully and glided back towards him. He closed his eyes and braced himself.
He felt the wind of its wings as it passed overhead, circling, perhaps suspecting a trap. Then it settled to the ground before him. He braced himself....braced himself....braced...
He opened his eyes just the tiniest bit, sure that what he’d see would be his last sight: a tongue of flame about to engulf him, or great slathery jaws opened up wide to ear him, or sharp claws about to rake the life out of him.
What he saw was the dragon’s...”Ah!” Duo quickly covered his eyes with his hands as a huge blush fled throughout his entire body. Well that certainly wasn’t what I was expecting to see, Duo said to himself and tried to think of something else.
He swallowed and opened his eyes again. He quickly tipped his head back, back, back.

The dragon watched him from that impossible height.
“Well, kill me.” he whispered.
Still the dragon just stood there, pale in the light of the moon and torches, its wispy mane fluttering in the soft breeze, its eyes too far up for Duo to see more than a dark hint. It didn’t smell of sulphur, which was something the balladeers almost always said, or of blood or carrion, which was something else he’d expected. More like damp meadow grass on a spring day.

Duo thought back to this past winter when so many people had gotten sick, which made him think of his father who had survived, which made him think of him collapsing in Treizes storeroom, his hand to his chest. He kicked the dragon hard. Which probably wasn’t a bright idea since he didn’t have any shoes on.
The impact made him scream in pain and hop around on his
other foot.
The dragon tipped its head slightly to one side as though considering. Something.
Duo’s eyes caught site of the dragon’s tail moving, expecting it to slice him in two. Those violet-blue eye’s widened as the dragon used thp ofp of its tail to lift the bottom of the dress up. Duo let out a soft gasp and tried to pull the bottom back down, but the dragon didn’t let him.
So this wasn’t going to be quick after all: the dragon was going to play with him. That though sent Duo’s head straight to the gutter and had very bad images. It......it wouldn’t. I mean..it couldn’t..IT WOULD NEVER FIT! screamed Duo’s thoughts. He should have chosen the wolves while he’d had the chance. But, from some unexpected place within, a giggle bubbled up, “Now dear,” he said, “don’t play with your food.” He covered his face with his hands again and sank to the ground. He had wanted to be brave, even if he was the only one who’d know it, and here he was laughing and sobbing at the same time, facing his death with his rear end in the mud after all. Well...at least it can’t get to it there. thought Duo.

With his eyes scrunched closed behind his hands, he was aware of the dragon moving. This is it, he thought. But still he jumped as something brushed his hand. I’m sorry, he thought desperately to God, not for being a wizard, which they both knew he wasn’t, but for also being gay, and for anything else–he was too scared to think of specifics–the impatience, the missed opportunities to go out of his way to be kind, the times he daydreamed during mass. Then a very important thought struck him, Oh my god! I’m going to die a virgin! This is such a non cool way to die! His mind shut down, refusing to come up with anything. And what was this stupid dragon doing?
Just as he was trying to get up the courage to open his eyes, he realized that hands were pulling at his hands, uncovering his face.
Hands, not claws.
Duo gasped, opening his eyes and dropping his hands all at the same moment.
A young man, looking maybe two years older than him, crouched before him, his hands still on his own even now as they rested in his lap.
There was no sign of the dragon.
For a briefest moment he wondered if he were some sort of dragon-slaying prince who’d killed—No, there had been no time for that—who’d frightened away....But there had been no sound...


He looked again, and didn’t know how he could have ever mistaken him, however briefly, for human.
The thing that was most obviously wrong were the eyes. And he though that before he even noticed the color, which was that of a beautiful sapphire but darker. “It’s a small dragon” Duo recalled Dorothy saying. No wonder. If this human manifestation was any indication, the dragon wasn’t fully adult yet. It gave him a perverse pleasure to think of the villagers of St. Toby’s having to contend with him when he reached his full size. Even if he wouldn’t be alive to see it.
By that light of the torches he saw his hair was the color of dark brown and was very unruly and hung in his eyes. Duo’s eyes came across a golden chain that had a amulet of twogonsgons on it, they surrounded a ruby. As Duo’s eyes continued to roam they stopped at the waist. Duo’s jerked his gaze back up to the face, for he had suddenly—finally—noticed that he wore no clothes.
For the first time, the cobalt eyes flickered with emotion: amusement. He had seen his discomfort, and recognized the cause.
“I didn’t know,” he said, to say anything, and looked away and simultaneously tried to pull his hands from his, “that dragons could take on human shape.” He was surprised that his voice worked. His hands felt like human hands–the texture, the warmth, everything was just as it should be, but–
He refused to release his hands until he looked at him again. He smiled, but this time the amusement didn’t reach his eyes, “It’s not often,” he said in a voice that was soft and husky, but well within the normal for a human of his–apparent–age and build, “that I find damsel flinging rocks at me.” He paused as though considering and slowly added, “ It happened once with a knight, but I’d already eating his horse and most of his weapons. The squire, too, as I recall.” He tipped is head slightly eyes running up Duo’s long legs and smirking, “I especially wasn’t expecting to find a beautiful boy dressed in woman’s clothing and soaked to the bone.”

Duo blushed brightly,”I see.” He said.
The dragon youth raised a eyebrow doubtfully.
Duo stared at his hands in his lap. Dragon or human, he certainly appeared human, and it was disconcerting to have him crouched before him with nothing on.
The dragon-youth sighed and sat down on the cold ground, his right leg folded under him, the left up; but spread so that he could rest his elbow on his knee, which did give him a little modesty, if he didn’t think about it. “Humans,” he sighed in a tone which reminded Duo that—whatever was the dragon equivalent to seventeen years old—dragons lived for hundred\'s of years.
“Sometimes I forget.”
Duo glanced down and then stared for a moment, his eyes getting wider, wow...he...he’s really big. You know...it might actually be nice to...oh god.. Duo’s eyes began to glaze over and he felt a little something down south.
The dragon boy smirked as he noticed this and pointed to the pole to which he’d been tied.
“That yours?”
He nodded, not looking up
“You had time to get away.”
He met his eyes then. Defiantly. “You didn’t see me.”
Then something stirred deep beneath those cut-glass eyes, but it was already gone before he spoke, “Of course I saw you. I wasn’t interested until you began to act out of the ordinary.”
His superior attitude made him shiver. “People staked out on hillsides is ordinary?”
He flashed a grin, “It is for me.”
Duo sucked in his breath, reminded of his earlier concern.
“Why is it...?” He hesitated, not sure he wanted to know.
“What?”
Maybe he was worrying needlessly. “Can all dragons change to human shape?”
The sapphire eyed boy paused, as though considering how much to tell him, “No,” he said, just at the point he realized he couldn’t believe him, whatever he answered. “Only the blue-green colored dragons have magic.” He repeated Duo’s own words to him: “‘Why is it...?’”
Duo looked down again.
The dragon-youth forced his chin up.
In a very small voice, never meeting his eyes, terrified of the answer which he had so glibly dismissed earlier, he asked, “Why is it dragons ask for maidens?”
The brown haired youth released him, his hand shaking. Startled, Duo looked up and saw that he was silently laughing, “Because we want to use them as our sex toys.” he responded in a joking voice as he continued to laugh. When Duo started backing away he had his hand grabbed and was pulled back to the sexy human formed dragon, “Silly boy. Dragons do not ask for maidens,” he said. “Dragons are offered maidens.”

Duo shook his head to show he didn’t understand.
“Is a king likely to be a maiden? Or a village headman? It’s the men who make the laws which decree that maidens be offered.”

Duo thought of all the lovely old songs, the grieving kings, the valiant knights. “That’s a lie.” he whispered.
“Perhaps.” He saw a glint in those sapphire eyes. “I do lie.”
“Yes,” Duo snapped at him, suddenly more angry than afraid, “just like the old riddle: Everything I say is a lie. But if that’s true, then it’s not a lie, so that makes it not true, which means it’s a lie, which...”
The dragon swept to his feet, Duo gasp as he had a clear view once again, causing his blood to rush. “ I didn’t say everything I said was a lie. And I wouldn’t be lying when I say I think your incredibly beautiful.” He leaned down with his hands on his knees to put his face on a level with Duo’s own “Why didn’t you run away when you had the chance, before I saw you?”

“You...” Duo was blushing from head to toe and hadn’t heard the question because of what the dragon had said. “..you think I’m beautiful?” Rolling his eyes the brown haired boy smiled and nodded before asking the question again. “Why didn\'t you you run away?”
“To where?” Duo asked. “ I have nowhere to go. They killed my father. They convicted me of being a wizard. I’m cold and wet and hungry.” He gave a ragged sigh and let his head slump against the pole,“And I have nowhere to go.”
The dragon sat down again and smiled a little when Duo rested his head against his shoulder. “Are you a wizard?”
“No.”
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked, letting a arm slip around the younger boys waist.
“There is nothing I can do. Except enjoy the thought of you flying over St. Toby’s and breathing fire and roasting them all, every single one of them, down to the last baby.”
The dragon raised his brows.
“Well,” he said, “maybe not the babies.”

The dragon grinned and stood up causing Duo to fall over, “Hey!” the dragon smiled and gave a awful cry, like a huge bird of prey. Duo’s head jerked up and saw that he’d resumed his dragon form. Now he’d made him angry, failed whatever test it was he’d set, or simply no longer amused him. The great wings flapped with a sound like sails snapping in the wind, and he threw his hands up to protect his face.
Claws wrapped themselves gently around his waist, causing him to grab them with his arms as they raised him from the ground.
Duo opened his eyes and saw that he was already dangling high, high up above the trees. He screamed in terror at the thought that he would drop him and he would plummet long moments before hitting the ground, or that he wouldn’t drop him at all but was carrying him to his lair. That wouldn’t be half bad thought Duo, eyes getting dreamy as he remember just exactly how big the dragon was in human form he can take me back to his lair and bang me as many times as he wants.


And then he did let him go.
The rushing air tore the scream from his throat, but he didn’t fall for long. And the ground he hit was soft, bouncy. A haystack, he realized from the smell of it, and the prickliness, before tog oog of terror cleared from his eyes.
He lay there flat on his stomach waiting, waiting, his heart beating so loudly he could hear nothing else. He lowered his face into the crook of his arm and rocked back and forth. Despite everything that had happened—he drifted off to sleep.
He was jolted awake by something pressing into his behind.
He moaned into his arm as he finally realized what it was...every 10 fucking inches of it Duo thought dreamily. Duo looked over his shoulder and frowned a little when he saw the dragon youth dressed in a peasant’s shirt and breeches. It nodded his head to where he’d had been lying, “ I thought you were crying.”
“No.” Duo said. “I don’t cry, ever.”
He gestured off into the pink-edged dark. “Farmhouse.”
“You didn’t....kill the people? Did you?”
He paused, with that expression of his which said he was weighing his answer. “They’d run off. Abandoned the place.”
He shrugged, with a condescending smile. “Perhaps. You better get out of your wet clothes.” He tossed him a rough-spun peasant dress and sturdy pair of shoes. Duo glared as he realized the dress he was handed was just as short as the one he was wearing now. “What’s the meaning of this?” The dragon youth smirked, “ I like your legs.” was his answer.