Tags
Tropey tropes a lot, fated mates, dragon shifters, mages on a quest, because North’s finding a dragon, that’s happening, European road trip at Christmas, found family, true acceptance, twinks and makeup, shopping montage, steamy makeout session, because dragon fire, get it?, someone needs to fire the author, winter snuggles, poor Gunter had to put up with them, licking, not mpreg
Dragon scale? Check.
Map? Check.
Bottled wind? Check.
Moonstone? Check.
Compass? Check.
North rubbed his hands together, ready to go. This wasn’t the first seeking spell he’d done—far from it—but each time he attempted it, he found himself holding his breath; praying, hoping, wishing this time it would work.
North had faith the spell would take him one step closer this time. Ever since he’d arrived in Europe, the deep red dragon scale had started rattling, as if wanting to move. His attempt in London had sent the scale zinging off the map’s surface and straight into the hotel’s boring white wall. The scale may or may not have left a dent. Confirmation pending.
He was in Belgium now, in a hotel near the Brussels airport. Quite a nice place, really, but he had a feeling it wasn’t his final destination. Not by a long shot.
“Okay, Gramps, you ready?”
North glanced over at his laptop and smiled at his grandpa on the open Skype call, who was dressed in his favorite red flannel shirt—for luck, naturally. His snowy white hair looked a little disheveled from running his fingers through it. The man was as excited and nervous about this expedition as North. His grandpa gave him a thumbs up from the laptop screen. “Ready. Let ’er rip!”
North found himself praying again, his fingers trembling slightly as he set the scale on the edge of the map. This map covered more territory than his last one because North could learn from his mistakes, thank you very much. His first map had been of the United Kingdom only, because that was the direction the scale had headed in the first time. His new map showed the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia, and part of Poland. He put the compass down on the map, double-checking his own orientation. North sat facing due north on the hotel bed.
It was probably insane, what he attempted. Scratch that. It was definitely insane. Trying to find dragons when everyone insisted they’d been extinct since the Dragon War more than five hundred years ago fit the definition of crazy to a T.
But something in North compelled him to at least try. To prove it to himself, one way or another. There had to be more to this world than what he saw when he looked out his window at home, more than what his parents believed in.
After all, everyone also claimed magic was dead as well, that mages were no more. And here he sat, a mage.
Well, alright, calling himself a mage might be a little bit of a stretch. He didn’t actually know all that much magic. Just what had been handed down through his family. And his own immediate family didn’t put much stock in it, despite what they’d seen him and Grandpa do.
That was all beside the point! He had magic. Dragons possibly, maybe, still existed.
And the dragon scale seeking spell on the map, that was reacting to something. Hopefully the dragon it came from. And not something gruesome, either, like a grave. Or possibly an ancestor of this dragon? Family member? Living dragon, that’s all North asked for.
Uncapping the bottle of captured wind, he set the charged moonstone to his left, the bottle to his right, and drew on the power of both as he focused on the scale. “Ziik dracon.”
The scale didn’t zoom off and try to drill through a perfectly good wall this time. It did move, though, decisively. Straight to a spot on the southern German border, almost in Austria, and started to glow with deep red-orange light. “Whoa! Gramps, I think I got a hit!”
“Lemme see,” Earl demanded.
Snagging the laptop, North tilted the screen so his grandpa could also see the map. “Looks like it’s right there on the border. Oh man, is that a mountain range?”
“Makes perfect sense for dragons to be high up in the mountains. No better place for dragons to hide.” He spoke while chortling with outright glee. “You know what that glow means, boy? The dragons are alive.”
That fact hadn’t quite connected, but when it did, North let out a whoop. True, the Dragon War hadn’t happened anywhere near Germany. It had gone down in Africa, in fact, in the now Sahara Desert. Wait, could they just assume that? Doubts creeped in. “You really don’t think the dragon attached to this scale is dead and just buried there?”
“Still a fifty-fifty chance, I suppose,” Earl answered, but he sounded doubtful. “I’ve been reading through your great-great-grandma’s diary, bless that woman. She wrote the best notes on the spells. She said the spell you’ve been using only works on the living, not the dead. I hope for your sake she’s right.”
“Oh! That’s great news. Yeah, I hope she’s right too.” North flipped the laptop around to be in his lap and plugged the mountain range into a Google search. “Okay, so the Allgäuer Hochalpen—gah, seriously, how do you say that? Anyway, it’s part of the Alps. It’s a nature reserve, looks like. I’m probably going to have to get over there and do the seeking spell again once I’m closer to figure out where they are in the mountains.”
“What?” Earl teased. “You don’t fancy tromping about in foreign mountains looking for ’em?”
“That idea strangely holds no appeal. Hard pass on that.” North turned his head to look out of the window where it was, once again, snowing. “Especially with this weather. Maybe coming out here in December was a bad idea, after all.”
“Don’t know if you’d have gotten another shot at this after it took so long to convince them in the first place.”
“Yeah. There’s that.” North’s family was not okay with the idea of him being…him. Being gay was bad enough, but the brightly colored clothes, and the eyeliner, and the silk boxers, all of that just pushed his family right over the edge. They wanted him to be like them.
In a word, boring.
North’s desire to escape that stranglehold was strong and had been building since he was fifteen. Still, finances were a problem, and it had taken him until the ripe old age of twenty-one to convince his parents to go on this trip and help pay for parts. Even then, Grandpa Earl had pitched in to help cover the bases. It was ridiculously expensive to hop from one country to the next. This trip was vital in more than one way, not only as an escape, but also to prove to himself what he’d always known.
Fate had given him magic for a good reason. He just had to find the reason.
Dragons were, crossing all fingers and toes, hopefully the reason.
“Be more enthusiastic,” Earl encouraged him. “You’re closer!”
“Yeah. No, I’m really excited about that. I just keep thinking—German Alps. Winter. Snow. That sounds like a very cold and dangerous combination.” And as he’d already proven, his jacket from home was not really up to the task of European weather. North had goosebumps on his goosebumps.
“Suck it up, buttercup,” was his grandpa’s loving advice.