Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

Not one to barge into a cave without reason, Honoroit knelt to examine the tamped-down snow and check his annotated map before he bothered going too far in. Once he'd ascertained that this was, as far as he was able to tell, the correct location, he pulled his hood down over his face, opened his lantern, and stepped out of the biting wind and into the altogether unknown, but hopefully a little less frostbite-inducing, dangers of the waiting dark.

The lantern's beam at first illuminated very little as he swept it across the passage. There was smooth rock, a handful of skittering creatures that fled from the light like it was a blast of fire, and some sparse patches of hardy blue-green moss. Far away, echoing off the close-in walls, was the sound of dripping water and a few unidentifiable rumbles and growls that could be coming from the shifting of snow on the cliff side, the mysterious movements of aether beneath the earth, some enormous hibernating animal that would wake up just in time to devour him whole -- any number of things, really. One of those things, though, might very well be his quarry.

Well, there was nothing for it. Honoroit took a deep breath, full of cold air and the scent of ancient water, and stepped into the darkness.

Under most circumstances like this, he would have said a small prayer to the Fury, but in this case he suspected that flagging down Her attention would do a great deal more harm than good. As always, when it was all said and done, Honoroit found he ended up doing all the work himself.

Honoroit had prepared for this, mentally -- or at least, he'd thought he had. It turned out that he'd been preparing for entirely the wrong emotion.

He'd never seen a dragon up close, after all, and they were terrifying from afar -- twisted creatures of immense size and ferocity, their jaws dripping with flame, keening in strange voices as they fought and killed and died. The heretics, Honoroit had always presumed, venerated them largely out of fear.

It was hard to imagine Emmanellain looking quite so awe-inspiring, but Honoroit had assumed that the transformation would have somehow managed this impossible feat -- that it would transmute not only his body but some feature of his essential Emmanellain-ness into something altogether imposing and lethal, something one might lay out a sacrifice for in hopes that he would deign to be merciful and refrain from devouring you whole.

Swallowing, Honoroit lifted the cover off the lantern fully, flooding the cavern with lamplight. For one brief moment Honoroit wondered if he'd been mistaken, if he'd inadvertently awakened some entirely different slumbering beast that was going to leap up and make a meal out of him, but then the creature squirmed and made a distressed kind of chuffing noise that quickly banished all doubt.

The light glinted off deep purple scales that shimmered like a beetle's wing into shades of midnight blue and forest green, and an enormous eye -- as wide across as Honoroit's palm and a clear summer-sky blue, squinted at him with an expression that somehow came off as shocked and embarrassed. All told, Emmanellain did not make for a large wyrm -- his body, as far as Honoroit could tell, was really no bigger than a draft chocobo, though he had a truly staggering amount of sinuous tail, easily twice the length, and an impressive arrangement of spines and frills around his cheeks and along his back that made him look somewhat larger than he was. The tip of his tail was finned and delicately transparent, reminding Honoroit of nothing so much as the extremely expensive fish he'd seen floating dreamily inside a glass box in the parlor of some rich eccentric or other.

All in all, it was a monster that looked startlingly like Emmanellain, right down to the way he'd always tried to disguise his lack of height with immense furs and heeled boots.

Honoroit had no precise idea when Emmanellain had taken a draft of dragon's blood, but it seemed to have predated his contract of employment with House Fortemps. Some time after the Calamity, Emmanellain had apparently been caught in a snowstorm while out riding and survived only by the intervention of a kindly and mysterious traveler -- but by the Fury's blessing, the young lord had made a rapid recovery from the ordeal that had shocked and delighted even the house chirurgeon. Or at least, that was the way the story went as the other servants tell it; Honoroit suspected it was no Halonic miracle at all, but that the generous stranger had been a Dravanian heretic who had given Emmanellain, injured and freezing and delirious, the sacrament of their blasphemous faith. Perhaps it was an act of sabotage directed at House Fortemps, perhaps it was mercy, but regardless of the intent, Honoroit suspected the dragon's blood had plucked his master from the jaws of death itself, and so he could not find it in his heart to be angry.

Regardless of when the fateful drink had been taken, since Honoroit had been hired on Emmanellain had been deeply particular about which duties of a valet he ought to pick up -- or rather, which ones Emmanellain refused to allow him to do. Arrange his hair, for one, or ever see to him in the bath. Frequently he refused to remove his gloves in strange circumstances, and -- most damning of all -- Emmanellain would sometimes give him the slip and disappear overnight. Almost always he had tried to imply some manner of salacious assignation, but Honoroit had long since learned to be skeptical of any such claims, so he had been driven to search for alternate explanations. He had found them in the Athenaeum's reported fluctuations of the Dragonstar.

Fury take me, Honoroit thought, but he makes for a fetching creature.

"Ah! Hono-- Honoroit--" The wyrm's voice seemed to arrive in Honoroit's head as though he'd already heard it without ever bothering to go through his ears by natural means, a feeling that made the inside of Honoroit's skull itch for a moment, and it possessed a deep, resonant tone that called to mind cathedral bells. The anxious stammer, though, was unmistakable. Leave it to Emmanellain to stumble over words he wasn't even actually speaking out loud.

"Indeed, my lord," Honoroit said, taking a step forward with the lantern held out. This produced a short, bark-like noise of alarm, Emmanellain's tail thrashing through the space between the two of them as though attempting to ward him off. There was no doubt now that Honoroit's other suspicion had been correct -- his master was quite ill. Honoroit was close enough now that he could feel the heat rising off the wyrm's body, as though possessed by a fever that would burn an ordinary man to cinders from the inside out. His mouth hung open, panting, his breath turning to steam once it hit the chill air.

"You, of all people," the wyrm whined, his voice taking on a desperate edge. "You shouldn't be here--"

"Nevertheless," Honoroit said, "I am." His tone was firm, brooking no argument -- as strange as it felt to be speaking in such a manner to a dragon, it had precisely the same effect as it always had upon Emmanellain. He whimpered and slumped down, his whipping tail quieting for the moment, looking for all the world as though he had found himself presented with an immovable obstacle.

Honoroit chewed his lip nervously -- though he was canny enough not to let it show, or at least not enough that Emmanellain would notice, the plan he had settled upon made his heart flutter and his stomach twist. Still, his determination was rarely swayed once he had arrived at what he thought was the correct course of action. Now an arm's length away, seeing the rise-and-fall of the wyrm's breath, the powerful limbs, the jaws large enough to close around his head in one bite, the furrows in the rock that Emmanellain's unconscious scrabbling had left -- well, Honoroit suddenly understood quite well why the heretics worshiped them and the priests regarded them as a subject of terror.

Emmanellain closed his eyes and whimpered again -- a sound which was far more of an animal whine than a human noise -- and Honoroit got the distinct impression that if he was capable of it, the dragon would be blushing down to the very tips of his ears. Honoroit was moved to comfort him, almost without thinking, but the moment he reached out and laid his hand on the smooth scales Emmanellain reacted almost violently. His long back arched, his head whipped through the air like a dog attempting to shake off water, and Honoroit found himself thrown off balance by the dragon's thrashing. He tumbled to the ground, rolling onto his back, and before he could even fully know what was happening Emmanellain was upon him -- great foreclaws to either side, serpentine neck curled. Gods, Emmanellain's head in this form was nearly as long from nose to horns as he was tall, and he was looming over him with his mouth agape and his breath hot as a furnace's blast.

For one single, heart-stopping moment Honoroit feared he'd been mistaken, any impression he'd gotten that his beast was his gentle-hearted master had been wrong, a trick intended to lure him in -- that those long teeth and powerful talons were going to tear him to shreds for his foolishness -- but it was short-lived. As though trying to apologize for having knocked him to the ground, the wyrm nudged Honoroit's shoulder gently with his nose, and Honoroit felt Emmanellain's tongue flicker out and slide against his collar, barely brushing against the bare skin above it. Like a serpent tasting the air, but far larger. Warmer. Wetter.

"You don't…understand," Emmanellain said, accompanying his words with what was perhaps intended as a warning growl, but which came out with an edge of needy whine. This close, Honoroit could see that Emmanellain was trembling, his powerfully-sinewed legs tense, his breath a rattling pant as though he were winded from some great effort.

Honoroit's heart pounded in his ribs. Emmanellain as a wyrm was on the small side, yes, but that meant small for a dragon.

"I am, in fact, familiar with dragon-rut, my lord. From research, and not through the output of two-gil presses." Emmanellain whimpered, and inside his head Honoroit heard...not words, exactly, but a disjointed and jumbled feeling. Embarrassment. Shame. Shock that Honoroit knew about his reading preferences.

Dragon-rut saw occasional mention in both the cautionary writings of the church and the confiscated scrawlings of heretics, which were occasionally archived by the Inquisition in the interest of further investigation. They were not typically available to the general public, but Honoroit was adept at talking his way into places he was not strictly supposed to go, and besides -- it's not like he intended to do anything dreadful with the information. Dragon-rut was a kind of mating frenzy that troubled true dragons very little but could easily overwhelm the corrupted bodies of mortals — it was said dragon-rut could drive a newly transformed devotee mad if left unchecked, so the heretics would hold debauched orgies of man and beast mingled until the rutting dragon was sated.

Well, Honoroit wasn't in the habit of letting Emmanellain run off to any debauched orgies, and he certainly didn't fancy his master going mad. If dragon-rut could be satisfied by a heretic, then surely...

And he wasn't jealous, of course. It was really only the practical thing to do.

The dragon nudged him again with his nose, as though urging him to get to his feet and flee. The heat rising from the dragon's scales was starting to make his woolen jacket feel stifling; it was like sitting close to a hearth, so warm that it felt winter could never touch him again. He fumbled with the laces and chain.

"You can't stay," Emmanellain said. Talking seemed to be a strain upon him now, his words arriving in Honoroit's mind in jumbled piles he had to carefully sort through for meaning. "I'm not strong enough to--to--"

"My lord," Honoroit said, his stern and sharp voice softening, "when have I ever turned aside from your weakness?"

There was a long moment, then, where Emmanellain stayed with his head bowed down close to Honoroit's neck. Honoroit put his arms up, hands sliding along the smooth scales behind Emmanellain's frilled head, and the feeling was satisfying -- pleasant, even. Emmanellain's breath rattled in his throat, his tongue lapping at Honoroit's cheek like a faithful hound greeting its master.

Honoroit's heart twisted up with several emotions in succession -- a thrilling shiver of anticipation first, which he had sworn to himself he ought not to feel, and then a sharp stab of regret. Emmanellain was hardly in his right mind, after all -- nor, for that matter, his right body. How would he feel when all had been said and done?

With Emmanellain's tongue running across his collarbone, though, and his own hands drifting back to the laces of his jacket, there was very little time left for such considerations. Emmanellain was no longer speaking, at least not in any language Honoroit could recognize -- though he still made a mewling sort of growl that seemed all at once gentle as a kitten and powerful enough that the sound resonated deep in Honoroit's bones like a peal of thunder. Thinking seemed to have become too much of a struggle for Emmanellain now -- even moreso than usual, some razor-tongued voice in the back of Honoroit's mind helpfully volunteered, but his heart wasn't really in it -- so he was desperate to give in to instinct.

The thought of some stranger -- some heretic who saw only a dragon to be placated, or even worse, some fierce and feral wyrm incautious with its teeth and fire -- laying hands upon his master in such a state filled Honoroit with a white-hot blaze of anger. No, this is how it had to be.

As he shoved himself sitting, heart pounding, face flushed straight to the tips of his ears, Honoroit wondered for a moment if this wasn't what he wanted, too.

Honoroit found himself with his back against the cave wall, the damp stone soothingly cool in the stifling heat. He'd managed to unlace his jacket -- likely broken the clasps on his livery and torn a seam or two in the process, something he distantly worried he'd have to attend to somewhere down the line -- and had shrugged halfway out of the thick wool and leather sleeves, so there was nothing but thin linen between his skin and the dragon's tongue when he bent his head down to nudge and lap at his chest. Honoroit's heart leaped into his throat as Emmanellain's massive teeth brushed against the now-wet front of his shirt -- it was impossible not to imagine those jaws closing around his ribs, with all the dragons he'd seen upon the battlefield, but...

Of course, this wasn't JUST a dragon. It was Emmanellain, foolish and flighty Emmanellain, who had never had a single cruel thought cross his mind in all his days. Even transformed, even half mad with lust, surely Emmanellain would never hurt him.

Well, not BADLY, anyway.

Swallowing hard, pulse pounding in his ears, Honoroit reached down as the dragon reared over him, digging his claws into the rock wall and sending a shower of stone dust down on Honoroit's hair. Honoroit didn't know what he was fumbling for, what he expected to encounter -- none of the accounts he'd read had gone into much detail, or at least the reliable ones hadn't, however many salacious chapbooks were willing to delve into the vivid details of dragon anatomy that could be more or less exotic, depending upon the imagination of the writer.

The wyrm's underbelly was soft, the scales there delicate and almost as yielding as the skin of a man, and it felt like laying his hands against a warming kettle -- it might turn his palms and fingers pink if he held it too long, but it was comforting in the winter chill. He leaned close, putting his forehead against Emmanellain's neck as he trailed his fingers down, wondering if he could feel the gentle touch -- and from the way he growled and scratched, arching his sinuous spine and lashing his tail against the ground, it seemed he could.

Honoroit closed his eyes, afraid he might lose his nerve if he had to look at the dragon just yet. Better just to feel -- the strange softness against his hands, the buzzing heat of the dragon's body, the occasional FEELING that flashed through his mind as though Emmanellain was fumbling for words that would not come, as he always did, and --

Oh.

Of COURSE a dragon's cock would be massive, but Honoroit was unprepared for the reality of the thing. At the base there was a fold of smooth skin as though the member had emerged from inside his body somehow -- and no wonder, Honoroit thought, because if dragons had to fly about with THIS on their haunches they'd never get anywhere. Solid as rock, unyielding as a spear, and thick enough that Honoroit could not wrap one hand all the way around -- though his attempt to do so brought a low rumble up from Emmanellain's throat that turned almost into a whine, as though even that gentle touch had lit up every fiber of his body like bolt of lightning. The powerful muscles of his back legs trembled, as though he were barely holding himself back from thrusting forward.

With deliberate slowness that was as much anticipation as it was caution, Honoroit slid his hands around the dragon's cock. His fingers barely met on the other side of it, and he stroked first down and then up, feeling out the shape. It was not much like an elezen's, at least as far as he knew (there were all sorts in the world, and if a man could turn from dragon and back again then who's to say what was possible) -- knobbed toward the base, tapering sharply toward the tip, and at LEAST as long as Honoroit's entire forearm.

Did heretics really, as the church claimed, fornicate with dragons? Surely there must be some kind of sorcery involved -- surely it was not possible to take a cock this size...was it?

Eyes still closed, Honoroit could now pick up the scent of the dragon -- resinous incense, earth and ash. He even fancied he could catch the slightest hint of verbena and flowers -- the perfume and soap his master always used, lingering even in his transformed state. Perhaps it was his imagination, but if so, it was a pleasant fancy -- it wasn't as though he hadn't thought of this a thousand times, though typically Emmanellain was a man, and the scenario played out in bedrooms or parlors. If he was feeling particularly imaginative, Honoroit might envision a theater box or a chocobo-drawn carriage, or some quiet alcove in a tavern or back alleyway filled with fresh snow where he could kiss away his master's tears (though it always made him feel guilty to be dreaming of such things, as though he ought to let Emmanellain be happy inside his own thoughts where he had absolute power).

The dragon made a frustrated, rumbling growl, and knowing exactly who he was talking to now, Honoroit shushed him before he began to stroke up and down with both hands, sliding easily over the smooth flesh; Emmanellain's growl was punctuated by surprised, higher-pitched snorts that Honoroit could only interpret as gasps. The wyrm's breath washed over him like the blast of a hot furnace, and Honoroit shuddered; the massive cock pressed forward against him, prodding at his chest. He quickened his stroke and cautiously leaned down to press his lips against the tip, giving it an experimental lick. The motion felt awkward, fumbling, not at all how Honoroit wanted to imagine comporting himself in such a moment -- though admittedly, his experience in this area up until now had been largely limited to kissing a parlor maid who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Emmanellain's tail flicked, and he ran his tongue along the top of Honoroit's head like a cat as though to encourage him, and it WAS encouraging, though Honoroit could scarcely believe that he could evoke such a reaction, so small he was in comparison. He ran his tongue up and down, then around, tracing every ridge and curve, and the dragon thrust forward with a hiss. Too large to fit in his mouth, the dragon's cock slid along Honoroit's lips and against his cheek as Emmanellain reared up again, and almost instantly Honoroit began to miss the feel of the wyrm's warm tongue. Emmanellain's cock had begun to drip with something that tasted almost sweet against Honoroit's tongue and glistened like lamp oil in the dim light.

Words tumbled through Honoroit's mind, all jumbled up into an incoherent mess -- he was starting to wonder if Emmanellain actually struggled with the dragons' way of speaking overall. It did seem difficult, having your words pass from mind to mind without ever slowing down enough to be spoken aloud. Fortunately, as overwhelming and abstract as Emmanellain's communication as a dragon could be at times, it did still seem to be roughly equivalent to speaking. Honoroit was forced to admit that even at the quietest of moments, he would rather not have unfettered access to all of Emmanellain's thoughts unfiltered.

Honoroit tried to renew his slacking grip upon the dragon's cock, his fingers gliding up and down its length with as much vigor as he could muster, but he felt so...small in comparison, his hands barely powerful enough to indent the flesh even when he squeezed as hard as he could. Even the lightest of touches drew a reaction out of Emmanellain, which was gratifying, but Honoroit still felt like he was TEASING, spurring on the dragon's instincts without ever being to fully satiate him. Well, he was tired of teasing -- he wanted MORE, and he fancied Emmanellain did too (he always did).

What did "more" actually look like, though? For a moment Honoroit almost thought he heard Emmanellain's voice chiding him, You're the clever one, my dear boy. You'll figure it out. Thankfully, it had only been in Honoroit's head -- thoughts that the dragon hopefully could not hear.

But first thing was first -- Honoroit was still sweltering, so warm it was starting to make him dizzy. He had to get out of some of these clothes, and he fumbled with the buckles of his boots using one hand before moving to the laces of his breeches. In retrospect this had not been the obvious thing to remove -- in fact, he only managed to shove the garment down as far as the tops of his boots would fold, or roughly to the knee. He was certain he'd broken a few more seams in the process too, but that was a problem for someone (almost certainly him) to solve in the future.

At the outset, Honoroit had briefly flirted with the idea that he ought to do this in as perfunctory a manner as possible, as close to businesslike as he could possibly make it -- maybe, he thought, that would avoid awkward questions, and spare Emmanellain a little bit of indignity. Honoroit was always supposed to be the level-headed one, the one who thought things through and never let his baser instincts take control.

Hand fumbling between his legs, smearing the dragon's slick seed over his thighs, Honoroit realized that was no longer an option.

Emmanellain hissed and whined when Honoroit let go of him and pulled away, as though the absence caused him physical pain -- and maybe it did, if some of the stories he'd read of dragon-rut were true -- and he bent his head down to bite gently at Honoroit's shoulder. A thrill of heart-pounding terror shot through Honoroit's body as he felt the dragon's enormous teeth pricking painlessly against his skin with all the delicacy of someone handling a fine instrument, and that was that. Honoroit's baser instincts declared absolute victory.

Steadying himself with a hand on the underside of Emmanellain's muzzle, Honoroit reluctantly pulled himself back from the dragon's maw and turned. Now on his hands and knees, legs spread as much as he could without stopping to remove his boots (this pair of hose was going to be ruined after this, he thought, and something about sullying a perfectly good pair of trousers struck him as particularly salacious in the moment). The wyrm reared again and in the blink of an eye there were powerful claws on either side of him and the warm, tense plane of the dragon's belly just above him, -- more all-encompassing than a human embrace even though Emmanellain was not yet touching him at all. There might have been nothing else in the world in that moment besides his master's draconic form and the smooth, perversely cool rock floor beneath him.

Murmuring something Honoroit could not catch even as a thought, Emmanellain thrust forward until his cock slid along the curve of his arse; not exactly what Honoroit wanted. Luckily, the dragon was big enough that he could reach back and guide him a little -- downward, Honoroit arching his back to give the dragon easier access until the tapered tip of his cock was positioned squarely beneath his hips, in between his thighs. The solid, unyielding weight of it pressed up against Honoroit's groin, and he hissed through his teeth at the sudden friction, even slicked by the dragon's seed. Drawing his knees together and tensing what felt like every muscle below his waist, he promised himself he wouldn't moan out loud, at least. Next time, Emmanellain would never let him live it down.

Would there be a next time? Did he want there to be? Did Emmanellain?

The sudden rush of thoughts, of doubts, of feelings was almost immediately driven directly out of Honoroit's head by the dragon seemingly getting the idea and thrusting forward with far more strength than he had before. Even maddened by some kind of unnatural lust Emmanellain had been holding back, he realized -- his cock slid between Honoroit's thighs almost to the hilt and the force of it was so powerful that nearly knocked him forward off his knees. Even this was not Emmanellain's full force, Honoroit was certain, but every movement now rippled with barely restrained power. And then, before Honoroit even had time to think about it, the dragon pulled back and thrust again, again -- pounding between his thighs in earnest. Each movement rocked Honoroit's entire body, lighting up his nerves like wildfire; it was all he could do to stay steady on his knees every time the dragon's cock dragged back and forth between his legs, every tiny ridge and curve a new and shocking sensation. Objectively, it should not have been different from grinding on anything else, but it WAS -- the warm heat, the slickness, the feel of his thighs clenching around something so powerful, the whole circumstance -- it was all too fast and too much and Honoroit was glad to lose himself in the overwhelming tide.

Every time the dragon thrust forward the tip of his cock prodded up against Honoroit's ribs, and he couldn't help but imagine what it might be like were he some depraved cultist, some half-draconic chimera that could have a wyrm mount him in earnest -- or what it might be like if he were still his own self, so small in comparison, how deeply that massive length might fill him.

Climax overtook Honoroit swiftly, almost embarassingly so, and this time he was not successful in stifling his voice -- he let out a strangled moan that soon melted into a helpless whimper as his legs buckled under him, jamming his hips almost painfully against the solid weight of the dragon's cock. Fully abandoned to lust, Emmanellain showed no sign of stopping or slowing, pounding against Honoroit ceaselessly until the sensation was so overwhelming, too much, far too much, that Honoroit thought he might faint, or come again, or both at the same time.

Fortunately for Honoroit's continued sanity, dragons in rut had only marginally more endurance than young elezen -- or at least Emmanellain did. For all Honoroit knew, some distant voice in the back of his head remarked, that was simply a trait his master possessed inherently. Just when Honoroit was on the verge of begging he was spared by the dragon slamming up against him harder than before, body shuddering with the force of an earthquake. Unable to effectively reach Honoroit with his mouth and foreclaws, Emmanellain instead curled his impressivley long tail around Honoroit to pull him closer as he came, spending like a geyser that was warm and wet and smelled like honey and ash, sweet and melancholic and dizzying and maybe, Honoroit thought as he collapsed to the ground and the dragon abruptly withdrew, Emmanellain's heated madness was catching. He closed his eyes, feeling almost sleepy -- despite laying half-naked and practically dripping with dragon seed on the floor of a cave. He hadn't realized how much NOISE Emmanellain had been making -- after the manner of dragons, both out loud and inside his head -- until it had all faded and he was left with nothing but his own thoughts. Mostly, these were hazy and oddly content. He had a lot to think about, but he could think about it later.

Or rather, he had intended to think about it later, but a very loud, very distressed, and very human squawk of alarm echoed off the walls of the cavern, snapping Honoroit out of his dreamy mood. He opened his eyes carefully to encounter his master's face -- the ordinary one, hair all disheveled and cheeks flushed and mouth twisted into a highly distressed frown. He was also stark naked, it seemed.

Honoroit opened his mouth to say something, but Emmanellain gesticulated wildly in the air to silence him. "No, no no no, don't move--" he said, before making a game attempt to wipe away some of the mess, or at least whatever of it had gotten too near to Honoroit's mouth. "Don't move, don't talk, I don't want you transforming too--"

"My lord," Honoroit said, gently batting away his hand. It wasn't doing a great deal of good anyway. "I believe it is the blood of a dragon that sparks the transformation."

"But it would make sense if--"

"I could do without hearing the rest of that conjecture at the moment, my lord."

Emmanellain fussed but said nothing, sitting back and hugging his knees to hs chest. Honoroit felt he ought to say something, but elected instead to deal with the practicalities at hand first.Stripping his shirt the rest of the way off, he cleaned himself off as best he could with the parts of it that weren't already dripping and tugged his hose back up to roughly around his waist. This left the shirt essentially unwearable, so he discarded it for the moment. "I've your chocobo tethered at the mouth of the cave," Honoroit said. "I presume you did something with your clothing?"

Emmanellain nodded miserably in the vague direction of deeper into the cave; Honoroit could just discern the outline of a pile at the edge of the lamplight if he squinted. "Honoroit--" Emmanellain began.

"Fetch it, if you would, my lord," Honoroit cut him off, and Emmanellain obeyed instantaneously. Honoroit watched him as he scrambled to his feet and vanished momentarily into the darkness, taking in the light dusting of scales down his spine, the short nub of a horn jutting from his scalp that he usually brushed his hair over, the sinuous and serpentine way he moved even at his clumsiest.

A fetching beast, Honoroit found himself thinking again.

He'd told Emmanellain to go fetch his clothes in order to give himself time to come up with a good response, but by the time his master returned, Honoroit still had nothing. Mostly dressed with his coat over his shoulders, Emmanellain sat down in much the same place he'd just left, and a nearly identical long silence settled over the two of them.

"Honoroit," Emmanellain finally began again, but Honoroit shook his head to shush him.

"Don't apologize," Honoroit murmured. "Please."

"How did you know I was going to--"

"I can tell, my lord." Another silence settled over them.

"How...long have you known?" Emmanellain finally said, so quietly and sadly that Honoroit had the sudden urge to gather Emmanellain into his arms -- which was, of course, impossible, given their respective sizes.

"Since the beginning, more or less," Honoroit said. "About your transformation, anyway. You are not so skilled at keeping secrets, my lord," he said, trying a small smile to lessen the blow, "but I have been more than happy to assist in the matter, whether or not you were aware of it."

The smile did not have quite Honoroit's intended effect -- instead of being reassuring, Honoroit's practiced calm seemed to shred away what little composure Emmanellain still possessed, and he laid his head on his knees with an exhausted groan that sounded like he was struggling to hold back tears. "How can you sit there and say things like 'don't apologize' and ‘more than happy to assist, my lord,' when...when..." As a man instead of a dragon, Emmanellain could not pour his emotions into Honoroit's ears like wordless shouts, but his distress was more than clear regardless.

"I did not find the imposition especially onerous, my lord," Honoroit said softly, and when Emmanellain looked up at him in blank incomprehension, he chewed his lip for a moment before attempting again. "It was actually rather enjoyable," Honoroit explained, feeling his face flush hot at having to speak so directly. Emmanellain looked exactly as embarrassed as he felt, though, and wracked with guilt besides, which was an emboldening thought. Honoroit was used to being the stronger one, the more level headed one, and that position was a comfortingly familiar rock to cling to in an uncharted sea of feelings he could scarcely sort through. "I rather feared that you would be the one distressed. You were hardly in your right mind."

"Well, I'm glad it was you," Emmanellain mumbled, laying his head back down on his arms to hide his face. "Is that terrible to say? It feels terrible, hearing myself say it. Gods, I ought to be flung directly into the Hell of Ice without further delay, oughtn't I?"

"I should rather keep you tethered to the mortal realm," Honoroit said, and pulled himself closer to venture a hand upon Emmanellain's arm. Emmanellain shuddered all over at the tiny gesture, but did not pull away or ward him off. "But if you wish to be shriven of your sins, you could start with a swift journey back to Camp Dragonhead, followed by hot tea and a warm bath."

"For you?"

"For the both of us, my lord."

Emmanellain nodded and rose to his feet; Honoroit followed and went to collect the lantern. Back turned to his master momentarily, he was surprised by the feel of a heavy fur, warm and smelling faintly of perfume and resin, falling over his shoulders.

"It's just for show, really," Emmanellain said, reaching down to wrap the mantle around Honoroit's neck. The collar was so large that the dense fur brushed the tip of Honoroit's nose. "I don't actually need it, you know, and you'll catch cold if you go out there half-dressed."

"Of course, my lord," Honoroit murmured, mind wandering to the ride ahead, which he would likely be spending bundled up in Emmanellain’s arms.

“And should you, ah…well, the first sign of the transformation is said to be an unusual sense of vigor…”

“I assure you, my lord,” Honoroit said, a slight smile creeping across his face, “in such an event, you shall be the first to know.”