This started out as a one-shot during the time I actually should've spent on 'Humanoid' and then… grew on me.

This post is already dedicated to my beloved Destined Jonas because she can use some cheering up.
Enjoy,

A deep orange trail of light fell through the open window of the young boy's bedroom, reflecting beautifully on hundreds of diamond-like scales. It trailed over the dark wood towards the circular bed in the middle of the room. In the bed lay a young man.

A soft, moist sensation ghosted over his cheek, tickling against his nose and making him turn over in mock-annoyance. He groaned a muffled protest to his pillow when the wetness was replaced with a gentle tap against his temple.

An amused hum only barely warned him before a nudge from Vesper's nose send him sprawling out of bed and onto the floor. Tor a few disorienting seconds, he just sat there, before his young, blue scaled dragon-mate pinned him down and started lavishing sloppy dragon kisses all over his face.

"Vesper!" Nick complained affectionally, rubbing the underside of her long neck, "I already took a ba– blech! Okay, sure, I love the taste of dragon spit in my mouth first thing in the morning, thanks anyway."
He send his beloved dragon an annoyed glance, but laughed at the next lick over his face and hugged her head, massaging the soft scales of her cheeks.

After Vesper had decided Nick had received an appropriate amount of love, she let him push her off and lazily flopped back to the other side of the room, curling her tail around her and resting her head on the end of Nick's bed, staring at him with one, dark-violet coloured eye the size of Nick's head.

"Mrr," She informed him, huffing once before closing her eyes to enjoy the morning sun while Nick quickly got changed, attempting to fix his wild dark curls for a second, unsuccessful, before giving up altogether.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I should've been up already," he replied, as she blinked at him again, in search for one of his boots, fishing it from behind her tail victoriously, "I'm glad you woke me up, anyway, Olive would've dragged me down there like a dragon-pup."
His dad's dragon had always mistaken her mate's children for her own, carrying him and his brothers around in her beak quite often when they were younger.

Vesper hummed her agree leisurely and Nick stopped in his tracks to admire her shining beauty once again.

He still couldn't believe his dragon had turned out to be a blue Aria; such a rare and beautiful species, even under dragons.
Vesper, like most Blue Arias, had a long, sleek body covered in smooth, deep blue scales and strong features. Her muscles were strong and lean, rippling subtly beneath her skin, especially on her powerful hind-paws.

The crown to the magnificence of the Blue Aria, though, were the beautiful, sculpted wings that stuck out from their backs, which could grow to nearly twice their own length and making them the fastest flyers to roam the skies of the kingdom of Ylonia.
Right now though, Vesper's wings were tidily folded against her body, rustling softly when she caught him looking.

"What, you're beautiful," he acknowledged her, earning himself a draconic grin as he continued lacing his tunic.
He skilfully dodged her twitching tail, which would have send him plunging to the floor again, had it hit him, and stepped out on the deck.

Nobody in the village had been surprised he'd bonded with Vesper when he was twelve. It wasn't strange at all; not for a Lucas.
Not that they hadn't been impressed, of course, but with both of his parents flying around on proud, large ridgebacks and his eldest brother Kevin teamed up with a stunning Zenger named Cloë, with scales the colour of fresh-roses who won all beauty-contests and flame-throwing competitions alike.
Kevin deserved that though, he sometimes spend hours grooming her and the both of them trained every day at least a few hours.

Nick smiled softly, as he surveyed the giant trees around him, noting Joe's treeroom, a little lower in their family tree –which was a nearly a hundred feet tall— was still silent and dark. Nothing stirred in the large tree-house of his older brother and he took a wild guess that he and his yellow Scamander Mandy were probably still snoozing peacefully. He'd also forgotten to bring in his saddle, again.
He used the saddle to protect certain important bits from himself from Mandy's horns and spikes and he really shouldn't leave it out to damp; the leather would harden and that wasn't comfortable for both rider and dragon.

Joe's dragon was one of the strongest in the village and one of the biggest too, which was why his tree-room was the biggest out of all four of them.

Yes, four.

Because the Lucas family wasn't just admired and respected for their bonds with extraordinary dragons.
It was also the fact that their family consisted of not three, but four children; an extraordinarity of the highest kind.

It was the price human-kind had gladly paid for their bonds with dragons; no human pair would or could conceive more then 3 children, because more would disrupt the fragile balance between the draconic and human population.

Once every century or so though, a fourth-child was born, a child with three older siblings.
Because of the ancient magic the elder dragons had cast over the human-kind so many thousand years ago, this child wasn't born a human.

That was why the fourth Lucas child, Nick's little brother Franklin, was born a Caldar and destined for greatness.

He would never bond a dragon, but was the protector of their ancient magic.

And today, it was Nick's duty to pick him up from the royal castle to bring him home for the sommerfestivals; the celebration in honour of the four elements and the biggest holiday of the year. Nick couldn't wait to enter the race competition again; he and Vesper had only nearly lost last year.

He absent mindedly ran his fingers over the scales of Vesper's flank as she appeared beside him, nudging his shoulder with a questioning 'Mrr'.

"Yeah, I'm hungry too," he said, smiling as her wings twitched happily, "let's go down to the river to catch some fish for you, huh?"

Vesper yelped, humming in agreement and spread her wings excitedly, her claws scratching in the wood beneath her as she let herself topple off the deck.

"Vesper!" Nick scolded, as the end of one of her wings nearly hit him over the head, again, but laughed when she immediately swooped back up at the sound of his voice, looking sheepish.

He smiled, stroking one of her wings softly as she held still in front of the deck, licking his face to comfort him. It was hard to remember that Vesper, beneath the wise demeanour of every Aria, was still a young, playful dragon.

"Mrr," Vesper said, apologetically and did her best to hang as still as possible as Nick swung a leg over her back and sat down in front of her large, leathery wings. He was glad that he, in opposite to most dragon riders, didn't always need a saddle, thanks to her lack of sharp, sticky-out bits.
He and Vesper fitted perfectly.

They circled down to the river that ran beneath the village of their tribe, the Rhea, where they found his mother, Sandy and her fleeting ridgeback, Arrow, already doing their daily wash-ups.
A few young dragons were playing in the shallow water close by, but made sure not to come anywhere near Arrow, who was very obviously enjoying the scrub his mother was giving him.
Arrow and Vesper greeted each other happily, rubbing their noses together and happily mrr-ing at each other as Nick slid of his dragon's back and padded through the water to where his mom was now oiling one of Arrow's scales.

"Hey honey," she said, touching her forehead to his gently in greeting, "ready for today's flight?"

It was a tradition that, if possible, a sibling would fly the Fourth back home and this year, it was Nick's turn, even though he and Vesper had only recently reached maturity.
It was planned he set off when the sun had rounded one thirds of the sky, so he would have enough time to prepare, fly to the castle and make it safely back to the village before nightfall, but his mother still worried.

Nick nodded in confirmation, trying to ease her mind a little, "We didn't fly at all yesterday, so Vesper's thrumming with energy, it's quite amusing, she nearly threw me off a branch yesterday to make me go fly with her."

Arrow snickered darkly and his mother simply laughed at Vesper's scandalised expression, her tail lashing dangerously until Nick's fingers softly touched her right paw.

She nudged his hand affectionally and then launched herself out of the water, spraying poor Arrow with little droplets of liquid, in favour of some bushes on the edge of the river bank, which carried lot's of Drassels for her to snack on, humming happily at the red berries, now that the young dragons had most likely scared off all the fish.

"You'll be careful, right?" Sandy questioned meekly, threading her fingers with his and answering his comforting smile.

"Of course."

She sighed, "I'm just glad you're riding a Blue Aria. Fly high today, okay?"

"Okay," promised Nick, sending a glance to Vesper to make sure accidentally swallow a hidden pixie again.

"Thank you."

"Aww, parental love!" A squeaky voice suddenly peeped, startling Sandy, but making Nick chuckle, in search for Macy's purple glitter.

Eventually he found her, using Arrow's tale as a makeshift swing, giggling loudly as she swung back and forth, leaving a trail of bright, purple fairy dust in her trail.

"It almost makes me wish I still had a mother," the fairy sighed, twirling off the green dragon's tail just before the huffing as creature splashed some after her, shooting towards Nick in a wave of sparkles. Her purple butterfly wings flapping hurriedly to get as close as possible within what was preferably the least amount of time.
Macy stopped just in front of his face, making Nick go cross-eyed at her. She was very tiny, very tanned but looked hugely pissed off all of a sudden.

"And where," She peeped in an offended tone, "do you think you're going to go without me?"

"I told you before," said Nick, "I'll be picking up Frankie today."

Macy froze in mid-air and then chirped excitedly. Fairies were attracted to magic like moths to a fire to her, so to her, Frankie smelled extremely good. Sandy, however, seemed less happy about the ordeal.

"Don't call him that, you know the elders don't like it," she reprimanded him.

Nick's lips set in a firm line turning towards his mother with a dark shadow cast over his face, Vesper immediately at his side, her head hovering defensively above him, "We've always called him Frankie, mom, he's still Frankie. He's still him," he spoke almost angrily now, "They can't take that away from us too."

The boy was only nine and even though he had gone to live at the castle when he'd reached his seventh autumn, he was still their little brother and he always would be.
All of them hated the fact that he had to receive his education at the royal palace, but there was little they could do, except be proud of him.
But now he was coming home, finally coming home after almost half a year in which they hadn't seen him and Nick wasn't going to ruin that by calling him 'Franklin' as the elders insisted.

"Don't defy the elders, Nick, you know you can't do that," she whispered, stroking back one of Arrow's twitching wings, "They protect us."

Nick shook his head, looking away towards their tree, and Frankie's empty room, "They rule us." Vesper growled.

"They protect us, Nick, don't say such things," she continued meekly, repeating what all of them had been taught their whole lives, "they use the ancient power to protect the country."

"From what? The black dragons?" she winced, "We do that ourselves, mom! The only thing they do is set rules; make us work for them and taking little brothers away from their family at too early an age in order to keep control of the ancient magic."

Nobody mated or received magic before their twelfth birthday, Frankie's early departure was ridiculous and he told his mother so.

"Not so loud!" She nearly sobbed, Arrow's tail now wrapped securely around her arm, his worry etched on his reptilic face.

"The oath is empty, mom, we don't owe them anything."

Sandy sighed sadly when Nick and Vesper stalked away from her, her son stubbornly talking to Macy instead of looking back at her. The fairy made a few anxious ringing sounds before the young flyer shut her up.

Vesper immediately pressed her nose against his arm, rubbing her scaly cheek against him in questioning comfort. She keened softly at his expression, reading it perfectly and probably having guessed the gist of his conversation with Sandy, just like he usually caught the meaning of her dragon-language.

"It's okay," he told her, petting the deep blue scales on her head and neck, pressing a kiss just above her eye, "we're just gonna get some food elsewhere today."

Vesper hummed again and crouched so Nick could climb on her back again, Macy twirling around his head.

"How 'bout we check out the southern-area, there's always plenty of fish there," he promised his dragon, eternally happy for her companionship and set on forgetting his mother for the moment.

And after they'd eaten and he'd saddled Vesper up for the journey, they'd fly off for the castle, to finally get his little brother away from the suffocating grey walls of the elders.

There was a grim expression to Nick's face as they flew off south, towards the domain of the nymphs.
He hoped for their sakes he was still the boy they brought to them after midwinter.

~ To be continued ~