The Heart of a Dragon's Hoard
Fuck it, have a slice of my dragon/royalty romance story Royal Rogue.
This character study is about my lovely dragon Asrir musing about his hoard/friendship.
(also for those who read my bug fairy romance, The Courting Web, Spark got his gender transed by Dewy - who also gets mentioned in this snippet)
If there is one thing most people assume about Asrir, it is that he is a romantic with his heart on his sleeve. It isn’t an incorrect assumption, but it also isn’t entirely the whole picture. Asrir has, and always will be, a hopeless romantic, dreaming of soft sighs and adoring words. One must have some sense of dreamy hope to have a hoard such as his; collecting the first drafts and failures of artists, to treasure and remember.
To a cynic, they’d pin him as optimistically naive to find anything salvageable from the often messy application of his many collected manuscripts. Or, at the worst, they’d call in to question his ethics. Why collect such things, if not to laugh at the expense of those who failed?
Sometimes he isn’t quite sure himself anymore. What the truth of it all is.
When he runs his claws over the cracked spines of books stored along the endlessly upwards climbing shelves carved into the yawning chasm of his home, each point of contact sings to him with a song of connection. To be heard. To be seen. To find some meaning in this world, and for the fellow bleeding hearts to find one another. To feel less alone.
Loneliness, is something Asrir understands all too well.
At a young age, he’d learned quickly through the sneers and quips of his peers that a tender heart is best used to the advantage of others. It’s the kind of easy joke to get a harmless laugh out of, often at his own expense. Or at the worst, easy prey to take from until there’s nothing left to give.
In a world of fierce dragons, someone like Asrir is an anomaly. Soft, tender, and romantic, is not the stuff of legends that dragons are built from. While the others felt power in their sharp teeth and swift talons, Asrir found himself holed away dreaming of fairytale’s and true love. While the other dragons built their skills to collect their mighty hoards, he created stories in his mind and hid from his ancestry.
The act of creation, is not what dragons are skilled in. To give, is not what they are meant to do. Dragons, are meant to take.
With time, he came to despise the very sight of his mighty claws, teeth, and wings.
As the seasons changed, so too did his appearance—growing into all the sharp edges a dragon should be proud of. He grew into his body with the disdain of a gnarly root waiting to be ripped from a garden bed. But what was to be done about it? It simply was what it was, and Asrir was a dragon. He could not change that truth.
When he finally came of age to pursue the romance he’d dreamed of, there was none to be found. Instead he soon found a tender heart is an open door for a sly thief.
What he had thought were kind smiles, quickly turned sharp and hungry. The brilliant eyes of a new love meant only for him, never held true devotion, instead they searched to see what he might give. And he gave. What ever they asked, he would gladly serve his heart up on a silver platter. And once they had their fill, time and time again, through the processional march of seasons, his lovers would dissipate into the far off mists of time, to only be memories.
Asrir found no lack of bodies in his bed, but the gaping wound of his heart bled and bled until he feared the river of his love would run dry.
There comes a point when an open book must be shut. If every page is torn from it, is there any story to still tell? And so, Asrir hid himself away to live in his dreams, rather then risk the chance for the fragile remains of himself to be scavenged. Safe in the seclusion of his mountains. Safe from the expectations of being a mighty dragon.
For a brief time, he thought solitude was true freedom.
The dream he had held on to all his life, to share a home with someone he loved, instead became a hideaway. Safe behind the mighty stone walls of the mountains, the roots of his dreams crept out into the nearby forest, like twinkling stars, as his magic weaved itself into the home he’d found. Like stubborn roots cracking through cobblestone, Asrir’s magic longed for more.
It was through those magical roots, that he’d met the person who changed his life. Knocking on the massive doors littered with signs to stay away, a bold pixie stormed into his life complaining of magical ley lines creeping into his yard—like a curmudgeonly gardener.
With a double set of transparent dragonfly wings, a black hue to them like the night sky with veins that shimmered like the stars above captured in his wings—stood Dewy Dewdrop. His skin was a cool dark brown, with a feint shimmer of verdant green and blue in the afternoon light. Dewy struck Asrir from his stooper like an icy winter night with an endless clear sky of stars.
Standing at a proud four foot high, with sharp green eyes, sharp teeth, and an even sharper personality. In every sense, the other man should have fit the bill to match everyone who had ever hurt Asrir in the past, and yet… there was an uncanny sense of honesty to him. There was no hiding behind a sweet smile to ease the rough edges, Dewy was who he was, other’s be damned. He would not bend for a single soul to stop being his authentic ornery self. But he also would not demand others to hide their truth, in turn.
The world of the faeries is not too dissimilar to that of the dragons. Friendly faces are just as quick to flip, once a fairy has what they want. But there was no trick to Dewy, at least not at Asrir’s expense. The man came to his door and simply requested for the dragon to help prune the stubborn magical roots creeping into his home from Asrir’s forlorn longing.
To repress oneself to the level Asrir had, that kind of unconscious magic can be a beastly thing to wrangle alone. And so, their time together stretched the span of weeks, which then became months. Not once did Dewy demand for the dragon to give him something in return. It was a job to be done. “Fix the messes you make. If we all spent our time ignoring that shit, then the world is just gonna be one big pile of garbage!” Dewy had barked at him, while pointing the end of a gardening spade his way.
The situation was so strange, it had been the first real laugh Asrir had given in ages. Dewy only waved him off with a flare of grumbles, but in the end, a small smile found its way to the edge of the pixie’s lips as well.
Such a strange man. And yet, Asrir began to look foreward to their time together.
As the two of them worked side by side over the months, dredging up the deep roots of Asrir’s unconscious dreaming, a comfortable sense of companionship bloomed. All the while, Asrir listened to the daily complaints and stories Dewy had to tell, but he never offered to share his true self with this strange pixie. He simply nodded and listened.
As they worked, Asrir came to learn quite a bit about Dewy. The gruff veneer Dewy maintained, was concealing his own kind of vulnerability. Magic amongst the fey, is weaved in their words. It’s all about the turn of phrase that holds power. Often, that power is used to lead the nonmagical into precarious situations, for the fey to inflict their magic upon. Those are the rules of it, after all.
Dewy had dedicated his life to becoming the greatest magic practitioner of his kind.
Dewy was good at what he did. The best. The most magically skilled pixie anyone had ever known. At least… that’s what he proudly boasted to Asrir quite regularly.
The thing is, fey were boring. They liked to cause mischief and illusions to trick the mind. But that’s all it ever was—a short trick. Dewy wanted to create! He wanted to mold and make magic into something that lasted forever. So he gave up on the cheap tricks early on.
But even through the bravado, Asrir could see a fellow bleeding heart.
“I don’t spend much time with other pixies. They say I’m boring,” Dewy scoffed while stabbing his spade deep into lush green earth, “Fine by me. I don’t like most of them anyway. Flighty bastards. They’re all too busy giggling with their creepy bright eyes, little freaks… Always trying to find the next joke to pull.”
He digs his hands into the dirt to take hold of a magical root. “What I make is real. I’m about the real things, Asrir.” And with a harsh tug, the very real root of Asrir’s lonely dreaming was wrenched free.
Friend of the fey. That’s what the people who came to Dewy were called.
Like gravity, Dewy’s magic pulled the lost souls that would run away to the fairy forest to him. The kind of people who were looking to leave their old lives behind. To run from the lives expected of them. To run from the expectations they could never meet—to be the good daughters, sons, wives, or husbands they were born to be.
Birth is hardly the vessel for truth. In the face of magic, why should the man born a woman not be able to be reborn? Dewy could mold the truth to become real.
And that’s what he did. He made deals with the nonmagical, to make their truth real. To finally let them feel at home in their bodies. For men to become women, and women to become men, and every other variation under the sun to come true. Fairy magic is built on deals, but who’s to say the deal can’t benefit them both? Dewy got to practice his magic, and they’d get a shot at a new look.
Of course a deal is a deal and fey has its rules, he couldn’t just give away freely. So he asked for the promise of a first born, when clearly the person wasn’t planning on having them. For names, when they never wanted the name they were given in the first place. And even pronouns, after Dewy was done—people wouldn’t even be able to think of the old ones around them anymore!
He played his game and flexed his skills, with no repercussions, in proper fairy workarounds.
Truly, a fascinating man.
“I do it for the practice. That’s all.” Dewy had huffed, as they sat side by side in what seemed far more like two friends enjoying an afternoon in the countryside, then a job needing to be done. There wasn’t a single root left in sight to upend.
Though his gruff walls stayed up, the way his eyes lit up with pride describing magical grounding lines of olive branches along chests, shimmers of stretch marks like gold, rosy cheeks and hair of the most verdant greens, and the moment when someone would See themself for the first time, well, Asrir would hardly call any of it cold.
There was more then just pride from Dewy, when people reacted to who they wanted to be became real. He would never admit it, but Asrir saw the kindness and care behind it. Lives were changed, all because of his magic. What a great gift that is to give.
“Well… I suppose that’s the last of them.” Asrir had murmured as he looked over the rolling fields of wildflowers, no sign that there was ever a disturbance caused by his magic. “I apologize once again for ruining your landscaping. I’ll be sure to keep my magic in check, so that it doesn’t disturb you again.” The unspoken admittance of, So that I don’t disturb you gain. And yet, he lingered. For the first time in a long time, Asrir wanted to open himself up. To trust again. But, he could never outright impose that on to Dewy.
Scratching the stubble along his cheek, Dewy squinted at him like a stray gray cloud on a sunny day. “You know… I’ve been having trouble with my garden lately. Can’t get the strawberries to grow right. Think you might wanna take a look at ‘em for me?”
The walls Asrir had put up to save his heart tumbled like dandelions in the breeze.
With a broad reptilian smile, Asrir bowed his head with joyful relief. “I would love nothing more… Friend.” And the two have been friends ever since. Even if Dewy pretended to grumble at the word from time to time.
So was Asrir truly an open book? Only for the right ones. With an entire life left to live, Asrir had learned the art of patience and that listening can be keen and sharp, in its own way. That self-induced loneliness was not the answer, but to instead keep guard. To stay watchful.
But most of all, he had learned that it is worth trying.
Life is full of risks. If one hides away, to only dream of it… can it actually be a life well lived?
The cynics can say what they will, but Asrir truly treasured the failures and flops of his hoard. Because in his own life, he certainly has his own fair share. So why should trying not be honored? Why should it not be regarded with celebration?
To try, is a very brave thing.
