Dragon Prince - Chapter Nine
Dragon Prince
Chapter Nine
“Kyujong, please sit,” Soojin said gently, pulling on his arm. The young man sank beside her on the blanket. He stared into the fire that was flickering just in front of them. A minute later he rose to his feet and began pacing again. Soojin sighed.
“I’m sure he’s fine. It’s Youngsaeng,” Jungmin offered.
“He can take care of himself,” Hyungjoon added. “And he can even take care of our uneducated prince.”
“That isn’t what I am worried about. It’s been too long,” Kyujong murmured.
“Too long since what?” Soojin asked gently, pulling the young man down to sit again.
“Too long since we were together,” Kyujong said mournfully. He sank down onto the blanket. “He was avoiding me. I didn’t want to push him but I should have,” the young healer buried his head in his hands.
“It is not your fault,” Soojin told him firmly. “He will come to you when he has need of it. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to push him into something he is not ready for.”
“This is the first time he hasn’t slept in our wagon for this long,” Jungmin pointed out. “I just figured he was feeling better and he had enough stored up from when he was sick.”
Kyujong shook his head. “He went through it nearly as quickly as we could get it in him when he was sick. Even if he had a good store of it, it only lasts for a week maximum. I knew he was close to needing some, I just though…” his words trailed off.
“Did you two fight dear?” Soojin asked.
“No,” Kyujong answer after a moment’s thought. “We didn’t fight or anything. He just started avoiding me. I mean he apologized for taking so much from me all the time, but he knows that I don’t mind.”
“Don’t worry, I am sure they are on their way home,” Soojin said soothingly, patting his arm. Kyujong nodded.
“Besides,” Jungmin said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “What trouble could they possibly get into?”
‡†‡†‡†‡†‡
Conscious returned in short bursts of awareness: the feel of dirt beneath his cheek, the coolness of metal against his skin, the sound of voices celebrating their prize. Slowly Hyunjoong pieced together what had happened until he was able to blink open his eyes groggily. He had been exposed to drugs as part of his training to build resistance, but whatever they had used to render him unconscious, it had done quite the good work on him.
It took him a few minutes before he felt like his muscles would cooperate enough to allow him to sit up and only once he did was he able to look around and take bearing on their surroundings. The men that had captured them sat around fires, eating and joking about their catch. They didn’t seem too concerned with their prisoners which could be due to the fact that both men were bound so tightly in chains they could barely wiggle.
In fact, Hyunjoong guessed that all he would be able to do would be inch along much like a caterpillar if he absolutely had to move. That or hop, if he could every figure out how to get to his feet. His hands were bound behind his back with chains encircling his arms to keep them there. Chains were twined around his ankle and crisscrossed their way up his legs. A glance to the side told him that Youngsaeng was bound in much the same way.
Judging by the darkness and the position of the moon in the sky, several hours had passed since they had been captured. It was well after nightfall and Hyunjoong had no real bearing on where they had been taken. Beside him Youngsaeng hissed softly and he inched his way closer in order to speak freely.
“What is the plan?” he whispered when he was close enough.
“What makes you think,” Youngsaeng paused, his whispered words were strained, “that I have a plan?”
“I know those chains can’t hold you,” Hyunjoong told him. “You broke stronger chains in the City dungeon.”
“Yes well then,” Youngsaeng paused again and shuddered, causing the chains to rattle softly, “I wasn’t having a slight problem.” His last words came out through clenched teeth.
“The drugs affected you badly? Are you still feeling the effects of them?” Hyunjoong asked. The man beside him appeared to be fine for all intents and purposes.
“If only,” Youngsaeng replied with a muffled laugh. He groaned softly then and shuddered. Hyunjoong studied him curiously. A moment later he blinked, confused at what his eyes had just seen. It appeared as though a wave of black had just rippled over Youngsaeng’s skin. He was about to write it off as a play of the light, when it happened again.
“What was that?” Hyunjoong asked curiously. “Is that part of the problem?”
Youngsaeng’s eyes widened, almost with fear before they closed and he smiled resolutely. “Yes,” he said shortly. “I’m not human. That is the big secret that you have been searching for.”
Hyunjoong nodded as if he had been expecting that all along. “Then what is the problem? Can’t you use some of your non-humanness to fix whatever is wrong?”
“That is the point. The nonhuman part is what is wrong,” Youngsaeng hissed.
“How?”
“This isn’t my real form and to keep it I need the proper code or what you would think of as a layout plan,” Youngsaeng replied.
“What do you mean?” Hyunjoong pressed.
Youngsaeng took a deep breath, “I’m only telling you because you won’t shut up about it until you know it all anyway,” he said, as if he needed to justify himself.
“That and talking helps calm whatever is happening to you,” Hyunjoong said confidently.
Youngsaeng didn’t respond to that, instead he began his explanation. “Every living thing is made up of a code of letters or building blocks. The blocks are constructed differently for different things. Just like how, if bricks are laid a certain way it creates a building. Lay them another way and it creates a road. It works the same with living things. Lay them one way and you get a human, lay them another and you get a horse.”
“Where is this plan stored?”
“In every single piece of every living thing. Your skin, hair, everything that is a part of you contains the code that makes you,” Youngsaeng answered.
“How do you obtain this code?” Hyunjoong asked.
“I have to take in some of the code that I want, but I can’t just eat a hair or lick your skin. That would give me the full code that makes you. Then all I would be able to do is follow that code and build a person that looks exactly like you do. What I need is half of the code. That only exist in one place in a person,” Youngsaeng paused again as another ripple of black moved over his skin.
“What place?” Hyunjoong prompted.
“It is the one place where only half the code exists so that it can come together with another person’s half of the code and create a new person.”
“You mean in a man’s sexual fluid?” Hyunjoong asked pointedly.
“Well, look at that,” Youngsaeng said with a smirk. “The little prince does know a thing or two about the world.”
“Why are you having problems now when you have obviously not had any until this time?”
“My body can process the half code and complete it to make me appear as a unique human, but it needs the code to process. Essentially it is running out and is forgetting the code that it had laid out because it is nearly all used up,” Youngsaeng groaned lightly as one of the ripples happened again. This time the black didn’t pass over his skin entirely, but remained on his arms and chest.
“You get your code from Kyujong and that is what you need isn’t it?” Hyunjoong waited until the man beside him nodded and he paused for a minute. “Take it from me then.”
Youngsaeng’s eyes flew open and he snarled, jerking away from the prince. His movement was so violent, that he fell over onto his side and lay there panting for a moment. “Idiot prince,” he said slowly. “You have no idea what you are even suggesting.”
“I understand how you would obtain sexual fluid from me. I am not stupid. If it is what you need, you may take it. I understand that I won’t mind as much as you think and that it can feel quite pleasant,” Hyunjoong stated.
“If it was the sex I was worried about, I would have already taken what I need from you,” the young man paused for a minute. “I have another plan,” Youngsaeng rolled onto his stomach and lay there for a minute panting.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m going to undo your chains. You are going to get up and run as far as you can as fast as you can and not look back,” Youngsaeng instructed.
“I don’t agree with that plan.”
“To bad little prince, it is what you are doing,” the other man said firmly.
Hyunjoong was about to argue when he noticed the chains on the other man begin to corrode and fall away as dust. Looking down he discovered that his were doing the same. “Run,” Youngsaeng growled as he slowly rose to his knees, what was left of the chains clattering to the ground.
The prince shifted away, shaking off the remains of his chains. Despite the command, he found himself rooted to the spot by an unexplainable force, unable to take his eyes off the form of the other man that was slowly shifting. Youngsaeng groaned, his head that no longer looked human shifting to stare at the prince, bright golden eyes focused on him as the transformation completed itself.
Where smooth skin had been there were now dark obsidian scales. A long powerful neck stretched from a heavily muscled body, ending in a wedge shaped head. Large black wings unfurled from the creature’s shoulders and a tail with a wicked looking tip, swished behind him.
Yet despite all the changes he had just witnessed, Hyunjoong couldn’t take his eyes from the warm golden ones that stared back at him. The prince couldn’t describe the feelings that were passing through him, they flitted by so quickly, but he could say that he never thought that was what he would have felt the first time he saw a dragon.
Hyunjoong knew that the creature in front of him was Youngsaeng but somehow it was hard to remember that. Without a thought he stretched his hand out towards the creature. It seemed to tilt its head slowly and stretch forward as if it wanted his fingers to reach it. His stretching fingers had nearly pressed against smooth scales, when several things happened all at once.
The dragons head jerked sideways and let out an angry growl. Suddenly, as if a spell had been broken, the world around him came rushing back to the prince and he instantly realized it was full of heavily armed angry men. His instincts kicked in and he dropped to the ground kicking out at a nearby man. His foot connected solidly with a knee cap and the man howled and dropped his club. The prince rolled and came up in a crouch looking for his next target.
A man yelled and approached, sword swinging, from the right. Hyunjoong turned to meet him but just before he would have had to dodge or lose a layer of skin, the man stopped literally frozen with tiny icicles hanging out him. He heard the angry bellow of a dragon and suddenly he was covered completely in black. It took him a minute to puzzle out that the black over him was a wing and behind him was the body of the dragon.
‘Get on my back!’ the order wasn’t spoken, but instead flowed directly into his mind. Although the method of communication was different, the voice was distinctly Youngsaeng’s.
Hyunjoong placed a hand on the dragon’s scaly hide and was surprised to find it not only smooth but cool to the touch. He looked at what bit of the dragon he could see through the curve of his wing and took note of the small ridges of bone that ran along the creature’s spine. He might be able to sit between them but the question was where. Although the dragon wasn’t much bigger then a horse in body size, the entire structure was different. “Where?” the prince asked.
‘At the base of my neck you idiot! Right in front of my shoulders!’
“Well excuse me for never having ridden a dragon before. That wasn’t covered in prince training,” Hyunjoong retorted crossly. He smacked the edge of the wing that was impeding his climbing onto the dragon’s back and it moved out of the way as its owner hissed. Then using his front leg as a step, Hyunjoong mounted the dragon. It was a tight fit between the two ridges on the dragon’s neck, but he found that his knees fit around the creature’s much like they would on a horse.
Once he was on, Hyunjoong could finally see what had been occurring. Several of the men were frozen solid. Several others were clutching wounds of various degrees. Youngsaeng’s tail snapped quickly to the right, using the sharp bladed tip to unarm a man who had been trying to sneak up on him. A moment later a stream of frozen particles flowed from his mouth, freezing another man to the ground.
‘Hold on!’ Youngsaeng ordered. Hyunjoong didn’t need to be told twice as he grasped the ridge in front of him just in time to avoid being thrown from the dragons back as he leapt clear over the ring of men. Two more gathered leaps had them safely away from the armed men, and Youngsaeng fell into a flat out run.
Hyunjoong was surprised at how quickly the dragon could run but he didn’t have much time to marvel at it for a moment later, the creature’s wings opened and began beating the air. Each wing was easily as long as the dragon was and their powerful strokes stirred his hair. With a final large leap, and a huge down stroke of his wings, the dragon’s body lifted off the ground and began to climb into the air.
The prince looked back at the slavers, who seemed to be very little people already and growing smaller the higher they rose into the air. The majority of them were scrambling around trying to figure out how best to aid their comrades. A few were attempting, with very little luck, to follow the dragon but nothing they did would be able to follow them into the air.
Now that he didn’t have to worry sharp objects trying to pierce him or club him to death, he had time to fully marvel at the creature beneath him. His fingers ran over scales so smooth that he was certain rain would simply run right off them. Curious to the difference in texture, he reached out to feel a still beating wing. It was soft, almost like skin, but it looked much tougher and thicker than that.
‘Stop!’ Youngsaeng snarled into his mind. ‘I will throw you off if you don’t stop touching me!’
Hyunjoong leaned slightly and glanced at the ground far below them. He wasn’t specifically scared of heights but he didn’t fancy falling that far. The death he would meet would most likely be quick but incredibly painful. “How am I supposed to stop touching you?! I am sitting on you?!” he called, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.
‘Do not be a smart ass and don’t yell I can hear just fine,’ Youngsaeng replied with a growl. Their climbing flight leveled off and they seemed to simply float through the air, his wings only beating every now and again to keep them going.
“So does everyone else in the clan know?” Hyunjoong asked conversationally.
‘The ones that are important. Let’s get something straight right now. Any thoughts you are having about turning me over to the king, you can stop having them. You will be dead before I let you leave now. Any thoughts that you are having about killing me yourself, you can stop having as well. As you can see my tail is tipped with a ridge of sharpened bone and I can breathe ice. I am very proficient in the use of both, not to mention the wickedly sharp talons and incredibly thick armor I possess. You would be dead before you did any damage,’ Youngsaeng’s voice in his mind was smug.
“I thought dragons were bigger,” Hyunjoong stated completely un-phased by the half veiled threats. “You aren’t really all that intimidating.”
‘Surprisingly,’ Youngsaeng said dryly, ‘dragons work much like humans. They start little and they get big.’
“How long does that take?”
‘That is something that no human will ever be allowed to know,’ Youngsaeng replied.
“Why do you breathe ice?”
‘No,’ Youngsaeng replied sharply.
“No what? That doesn’t, in any way, answer that question,” Hyunjoong pointed out.
‘No we are not playing this game where you ask me questions like we are friends and you aren’t planning on killing me or taking my blood the first chance you get. I’m not stupid Prince. Your father may know some of our secrets but I am certainly not going to reveal anything to you,’ Youngsaeng snarled.
“We only kill dragons because you have killed hundreds of humans,” Hyunjoong stated.
‘Funny. The humans that are the victors of any war have killed thousands of humans, yet they get to march home and be with their family. Oh that is right,’ Youngsaeng said sarcastically. ‘It is alright for your kind to kill another of your kind, but heaven forbid if a dragon kills one of your kind in self defense.’
“Sometimes death is needed. People who have committed unforgivable crimes do not deserve to live,” Hyunjoong said seriously.
‘Who are you to judge who deserves to live and who does not? Who are you to put value on life? Tell me prince, who puts value on your life and who gets to decide when you get to die? The answer is no one. Then how is it that you get to decide when others get to die? What is it that makes you better than everyone else? If your father were not the king would you still get to make that call? What gives you the right?’ for the first time in their conversation Youngsaeng’s voice was calm. As Hyunjoong turned the dragon’s words over in his head, he found that he didn’t have an answer.
Chapter Ten
Masterlist
AN: And the big secret is out! I know at least two of you guessed it in your comments and I am guessing several more of you had suspicions. I am so bad at keeping quiet on this stuff. Anyway this isn't the only mystery that has to be unraveled, this is just the start. You might feel like you know almost everything now, but ask my regular readers how often that is true. I like curvy plots. This one is twisty all the way to the end. ^_^ Stay tuned!
Chapter Nine
“Kyujong, please sit,” Soojin said gently, pulling on his arm. The young man sank beside her on the blanket. He stared into the fire that was flickering just in front of them. A minute later he rose to his feet and began pacing again. Soojin sighed.
“I’m sure he’s fine. It’s Youngsaeng,” Jungmin offered.
“He can take care of himself,” Hyungjoon added. “And he can even take care of our uneducated prince.”
“That isn’t what I am worried about. It’s been too long,” Kyujong murmured.
“Too long since what?” Soojin asked gently, pulling the young man down to sit again.
“Too long since we were together,” Kyujong said mournfully. He sank down onto the blanket. “He was avoiding me. I didn’t want to push him but I should have,” the young healer buried his head in his hands.
“It is not your fault,” Soojin told him firmly. “He will come to you when he has need of it. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to push him into something he is not ready for.”
“This is the first time he hasn’t slept in our wagon for this long,” Jungmin pointed out. “I just figured he was feeling better and he had enough stored up from when he was sick.”
Kyujong shook his head. “He went through it nearly as quickly as we could get it in him when he was sick. Even if he had a good store of it, it only lasts for a week maximum. I knew he was close to needing some, I just though…” his words trailed off.
“Did you two fight dear?” Soojin asked.
“No,” Kyujong answer after a moment’s thought. “We didn’t fight or anything. He just started avoiding me. I mean he apologized for taking so much from me all the time, but he knows that I don’t mind.”
“Don’t worry, I am sure they are on their way home,” Soojin said soothingly, patting his arm. Kyujong nodded.
“Besides,” Jungmin said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “What trouble could they possibly get into?”
‡†‡†‡†‡†‡
Conscious returned in short bursts of awareness: the feel of dirt beneath his cheek, the coolness of metal against his skin, the sound of voices celebrating their prize. Slowly Hyunjoong pieced together what had happened until he was able to blink open his eyes groggily. He had been exposed to drugs as part of his training to build resistance, but whatever they had used to render him unconscious, it had done quite the good work on him.
It took him a few minutes before he felt like his muscles would cooperate enough to allow him to sit up and only once he did was he able to look around and take bearing on their surroundings. The men that had captured them sat around fires, eating and joking about their catch. They didn’t seem too concerned with their prisoners which could be due to the fact that both men were bound so tightly in chains they could barely wiggle.
In fact, Hyunjoong guessed that all he would be able to do would be inch along much like a caterpillar if he absolutely had to move. That or hop, if he could every figure out how to get to his feet. His hands were bound behind his back with chains encircling his arms to keep them there. Chains were twined around his ankle and crisscrossed their way up his legs. A glance to the side told him that Youngsaeng was bound in much the same way.
Judging by the darkness and the position of the moon in the sky, several hours had passed since they had been captured. It was well after nightfall and Hyunjoong had no real bearing on where they had been taken. Beside him Youngsaeng hissed softly and he inched his way closer in order to speak freely.
“What is the plan?” he whispered when he was close enough.
“What makes you think,” Youngsaeng paused, his whispered words were strained, “that I have a plan?”
“I know those chains can’t hold you,” Hyunjoong told him. “You broke stronger chains in the City dungeon.”
“Yes well then,” Youngsaeng paused again and shuddered, causing the chains to rattle softly, “I wasn’t having a slight problem.” His last words came out through clenched teeth.
“The drugs affected you badly? Are you still feeling the effects of them?” Hyunjoong asked. The man beside him appeared to be fine for all intents and purposes.
“If only,” Youngsaeng replied with a muffled laugh. He groaned softly then and shuddered. Hyunjoong studied him curiously. A moment later he blinked, confused at what his eyes had just seen. It appeared as though a wave of black had just rippled over Youngsaeng’s skin. He was about to write it off as a play of the light, when it happened again.
“What was that?” Hyunjoong asked curiously. “Is that part of the problem?”
Youngsaeng’s eyes widened, almost with fear before they closed and he smiled resolutely. “Yes,” he said shortly. “I’m not human. That is the big secret that you have been searching for.”
Hyunjoong nodded as if he had been expecting that all along. “Then what is the problem? Can’t you use some of your non-humanness to fix whatever is wrong?”
“That is the point. The nonhuman part is what is wrong,” Youngsaeng hissed.
“How?”
“This isn’t my real form and to keep it I need the proper code or what you would think of as a layout plan,” Youngsaeng replied.
“What do you mean?” Hyunjoong pressed.
Youngsaeng took a deep breath, “I’m only telling you because you won’t shut up about it until you know it all anyway,” he said, as if he needed to justify himself.
“That and talking helps calm whatever is happening to you,” Hyunjoong said confidently.
Youngsaeng didn’t respond to that, instead he began his explanation. “Every living thing is made up of a code of letters or building blocks. The blocks are constructed differently for different things. Just like how, if bricks are laid a certain way it creates a building. Lay them another way and it creates a road. It works the same with living things. Lay them one way and you get a human, lay them another and you get a horse.”
“Where is this plan stored?”
“In every single piece of every living thing. Your skin, hair, everything that is a part of you contains the code that makes you,” Youngsaeng answered.
“How do you obtain this code?” Hyunjoong asked.
“I have to take in some of the code that I want, but I can’t just eat a hair or lick your skin. That would give me the full code that makes you. Then all I would be able to do is follow that code and build a person that looks exactly like you do. What I need is half of the code. That only exist in one place in a person,” Youngsaeng paused again as another ripple of black moved over his skin.
“What place?” Hyunjoong prompted.
“It is the one place where only half the code exists so that it can come together with another person’s half of the code and create a new person.”
“You mean in a man’s sexual fluid?” Hyunjoong asked pointedly.
“Well, look at that,” Youngsaeng said with a smirk. “The little prince does know a thing or two about the world.”
“Why are you having problems now when you have obviously not had any until this time?”
“My body can process the half code and complete it to make me appear as a unique human, but it needs the code to process. Essentially it is running out and is forgetting the code that it had laid out because it is nearly all used up,” Youngsaeng groaned lightly as one of the ripples happened again. This time the black didn’t pass over his skin entirely, but remained on his arms and chest.
“You get your code from Kyujong and that is what you need isn’t it?” Hyunjoong waited until the man beside him nodded and he paused for a minute. “Take it from me then.”
Youngsaeng’s eyes flew open and he snarled, jerking away from the prince. His movement was so violent, that he fell over onto his side and lay there panting for a moment. “Idiot prince,” he said slowly. “You have no idea what you are even suggesting.”
“I understand how you would obtain sexual fluid from me. I am not stupid. If it is what you need, you may take it. I understand that I won’t mind as much as you think and that it can feel quite pleasant,” Hyunjoong stated.
“If it was the sex I was worried about, I would have already taken what I need from you,” the young man paused for a minute. “I have another plan,” Youngsaeng rolled onto his stomach and lay there for a minute panting.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m going to undo your chains. You are going to get up and run as far as you can as fast as you can and not look back,” Youngsaeng instructed.
“I don’t agree with that plan.”
“To bad little prince, it is what you are doing,” the other man said firmly.
Hyunjoong was about to argue when he noticed the chains on the other man begin to corrode and fall away as dust. Looking down he discovered that his were doing the same. “Run,” Youngsaeng growled as he slowly rose to his knees, what was left of the chains clattering to the ground.
The prince shifted away, shaking off the remains of his chains. Despite the command, he found himself rooted to the spot by an unexplainable force, unable to take his eyes off the form of the other man that was slowly shifting. Youngsaeng groaned, his head that no longer looked human shifting to stare at the prince, bright golden eyes focused on him as the transformation completed itself.
Where smooth skin had been there were now dark obsidian scales. A long powerful neck stretched from a heavily muscled body, ending in a wedge shaped head. Large black wings unfurled from the creature’s shoulders and a tail with a wicked looking tip, swished behind him.
Yet despite all the changes he had just witnessed, Hyunjoong couldn’t take his eyes from the warm golden ones that stared back at him. The prince couldn’t describe the feelings that were passing through him, they flitted by so quickly, but he could say that he never thought that was what he would have felt the first time he saw a dragon.
Hyunjoong knew that the creature in front of him was Youngsaeng but somehow it was hard to remember that. Without a thought he stretched his hand out towards the creature. It seemed to tilt its head slowly and stretch forward as if it wanted his fingers to reach it. His stretching fingers had nearly pressed against smooth scales, when several things happened all at once.
The dragons head jerked sideways and let out an angry growl. Suddenly, as if a spell had been broken, the world around him came rushing back to the prince and he instantly realized it was full of heavily armed angry men. His instincts kicked in and he dropped to the ground kicking out at a nearby man. His foot connected solidly with a knee cap and the man howled and dropped his club. The prince rolled and came up in a crouch looking for his next target.
A man yelled and approached, sword swinging, from the right. Hyunjoong turned to meet him but just before he would have had to dodge or lose a layer of skin, the man stopped literally frozen with tiny icicles hanging out him. He heard the angry bellow of a dragon and suddenly he was covered completely in black. It took him a minute to puzzle out that the black over him was a wing and behind him was the body of the dragon.
‘Get on my back!’ the order wasn’t spoken, but instead flowed directly into his mind. Although the method of communication was different, the voice was distinctly Youngsaeng’s.
Hyunjoong placed a hand on the dragon’s scaly hide and was surprised to find it not only smooth but cool to the touch. He looked at what bit of the dragon he could see through the curve of his wing and took note of the small ridges of bone that ran along the creature’s spine. He might be able to sit between them but the question was where. Although the dragon wasn’t much bigger then a horse in body size, the entire structure was different. “Where?” the prince asked.
‘At the base of my neck you idiot! Right in front of my shoulders!’
“Well excuse me for never having ridden a dragon before. That wasn’t covered in prince training,” Hyunjoong retorted crossly. He smacked the edge of the wing that was impeding his climbing onto the dragon’s back and it moved out of the way as its owner hissed. Then using his front leg as a step, Hyunjoong mounted the dragon. It was a tight fit between the two ridges on the dragon’s neck, but he found that his knees fit around the creature’s much like they would on a horse.
Once he was on, Hyunjoong could finally see what had been occurring. Several of the men were frozen solid. Several others were clutching wounds of various degrees. Youngsaeng’s tail snapped quickly to the right, using the sharp bladed tip to unarm a man who had been trying to sneak up on him. A moment later a stream of frozen particles flowed from his mouth, freezing another man to the ground.
‘Hold on!’ Youngsaeng ordered. Hyunjoong didn’t need to be told twice as he grasped the ridge in front of him just in time to avoid being thrown from the dragons back as he leapt clear over the ring of men. Two more gathered leaps had them safely away from the armed men, and Youngsaeng fell into a flat out run.
Hyunjoong was surprised at how quickly the dragon could run but he didn’t have much time to marvel at it for a moment later, the creature’s wings opened and began beating the air. Each wing was easily as long as the dragon was and their powerful strokes stirred his hair. With a final large leap, and a huge down stroke of his wings, the dragon’s body lifted off the ground and began to climb into the air.
The prince looked back at the slavers, who seemed to be very little people already and growing smaller the higher they rose into the air. The majority of them were scrambling around trying to figure out how best to aid their comrades. A few were attempting, with very little luck, to follow the dragon but nothing they did would be able to follow them into the air.
Now that he didn’t have to worry sharp objects trying to pierce him or club him to death, he had time to fully marvel at the creature beneath him. His fingers ran over scales so smooth that he was certain rain would simply run right off them. Curious to the difference in texture, he reached out to feel a still beating wing. It was soft, almost like skin, but it looked much tougher and thicker than that.
‘Stop!’ Youngsaeng snarled into his mind. ‘I will throw you off if you don’t stop touching me!’
Hyunjoong leaned slightly and glanced at the ground far below them. He wasn’t specifically scared of heights but he didn’t fancy falling that far. The death he would meet would most likely be quick but incredibly painful. “How am I supposed to stop touching you?! I am sitting on you?!” he called, raising his voice to be heard over the wind.
‘Do not be a smart ass and don’t yell I can hear just fine,’ Youngsaeng replied with a growl. Their climbing flight leveled off and they seemed to simply float through the air, his wings only beating every now and again to keep them going.
“So does everyone else in the clan know?” Hyunjoong asked conversationally.
‘The ones that are important. Let’s get something straight right now. Any thoughts you are having about turning me over to the king, you can stop having them. You will be dead before I let you leave now. Any thoughts that you are having about killing me yourself, you can stop having as well. As you can see my tail is tipped with a ridge of sharpened bone and I can breathe ice. I am very proficient in the use of both, not to mention the wickedly sharp talons and incredibly thick armor I possess. You would be dead before you did any damage,’ Youngsaeng’s voice in his mind was smug.
“I thought dragons were bigger,” Hyunjoong stated completely un-phased by the half veiled threats. “You aren’t really all that intimidating.”
‘Surprisingly,’ Youngsaeng said dryly, ‘dragons work much like humans. They start little and they get big.’
“How long does that take?”
‘That is something that no human will ever be allowed to know,’ Youngsaeng replied.
“Why do you breathe ice?”
‘No,’ Youngsaeng replied sharply.
“No what? That doesn’t, in any way, answer that question,” Hyunjoong pointed out.
‘No we are not playing this game where you ask me questions like we are friends and you aren’t planning on killing me or taking my blood the first chance you get. I’m not stupid Prince. Your father may know some of our secrets but I am certainly not going to reveal anything to you,’ Youngsaeng snarled.
“We only kill dragons because you have killed hundreds of humans,” Hyunjoong stated.
‘Funny. The humans that are the victors of any war have killed thousands of humans, yet they get to march home and be with their family. Oh that is right,’ Youngsaeng said sarcastically. ‘It is alright for your kind to kill another of your kind, but heaven forbid if a dragon kills one of your kind in self defense.’
“Sometimes death is needed. People who have committed unforgivable crimes do not deserve to live,” Hyunjoong said seriously.
‘Who are you to judge who deserves to live and who does not? Who are you to put value on life? Tell me prince, who puts value on your life and who gets to decide when you get to die? The answer is no one. Then how is it that you get to decide when others get to die? What is it that makes you better than everyone else? If your father were not the king would you still get to make that call? What gives you the right?’ for the first time in their conversation Youngsaeng’s voice was calm. As Hyunjoong turned the dragon’s words over in his head, he found that he didn’t have an answer.
Chapter Ten
Masterlist
AN: And the big secret is out! I know at least two of you guessed it in your comments and I am guessing several more of you had suspicions. I am so bad at keeping quiet on this stuff. Anyway this isn't the only mystery that has to be unraveled, this is just the start. You might feel like you know almost everything now, but ask my regular readers how often that is true. I like curvy plots. This one is twisty all the way to the end. ^_^ Stay tuned!