Chapter 2 - Loving Reassurance by the Waterfall

Subscribestar Link: Cheers!

Author's note: This took me, forever. This work single-handedly caused me to re-evaluate and change policies. I went to hell and back over the course of several months to make this the best damn piece I possibly could.
I think I did it. I hope you love it.
Pink is unbelievably cute in the morning, at least that’s what her big sister Cattleya used to say the morning after she’d crawl into the girl’s bed in the dead of night. Back then it made her flush, now it’s more of a wavering memory that makes her mornings a little more magical.

She tingles everywhere. From her cherry tipped breasts to her fanciful little toes. Her body is warm, and her head is a little fuzzy. “Water.” She mumbles, pushing herself up a little on one arm, and reaching up with the other to rub her eyes free of any leftover grog.

“Nnn.” She stretches up, and her cheek brushes against her bare arm. “Um.” One look down is all she needs to realize something fundamental. “That’s not my nightgown.” A part of her is still dressed, haphazardly and completely naked in other places. Her panties are on the floor, her socks are too. At some point, her mantle hit the floor, and her blouse is hanging halfway off her desk. Ah, correction, one of her socks is still halfway on, and her hair is a little in her face in a way she’s not exactly used to.

“I look like that cow does when she’s trying to pretend she wasn’t having sex ten seconds a-eeep!” Flame encroaches throughout her body for an entirely different reason. Her knees bend, her eyes widen, her cheeks flare, and her vision darts to the side.

There he is, her familiar, the one with that amazing - she can’t even say it - and a smile that broke her into a little bit of a haze. Her dragon turned humanoid is resting and looking incredibly pleased with himself. Proud in his full nudity, as if he didn’t just steal her purity. “I’m ruined.” She gulps, a long bead of sweat flowing down her brow and a scratchiness hitting her throat for an entirely new reason. She’s engaged, not in the same way a lot of the girls in these halls are either. Not in the ‘someday I’ll be done with my schooling, make a life for myself and get married for political advantage, and possibly love.’ She’s engaged in the ‘there is a man she is promised to and has been that way for a long time.’

Arrangements have been made, preparations have been taken. Her family has promised her delivered at her best quality and with her essence intact since she was a little girl. He didn’t have to wait for her to do all this, he chose to give her that freedom, let her blossom into a woman before he took her. Yet here she is, having just trampled on that trust with vigor and excitement. “I had sex with you.” She mumbles with a stray tear, reaching out to rub his cheek. He’s her familiar, he’s-

“We had sex!” A pressure settles on her when the cold ever frost of reality begins to melt. She messed up everything. Her family won’t get even an inkling of gain from someone as worthless as her. Their one attempt to give her a life with meaning, and she’s, she’s- “We had sex!”

Her breathing stalls, her vision blurs. He fades, everything fades. There’s not enough air, there’s too much light and not enough sight. Her skin is crawling, her spine tingles painfully and her muscles feel too stiff. “We-”

“Louise!” A gust of air blows through her discordant existence and she finds herself blinking for what feels like the first time this eternity. “You okay?” His tone reminds her of her older sister’s, and she can’t help but melt into his touch for it. Unaware of when he’d wrapped her in his arms, she can’t bring herself to care. Tear filled eyes close against his bare chest, and she once again finds herself taking comfort in her dragon. He is her one symptom of success.

Perhaps she hasn’t wasted all of her potential. He has to count for something, right? She can’t just be a housewife anyway, she has a dragon. So if Wardes decides she’s not worth his time anymore, she… She’ll make a very eccentric dragon owning barmaid. That’s something to look forward to. She can already imagine the amount of business she’d get.

“What are you talking about?” She scolds lowly, forcing air into her lungs gratefully at the same time she wills up the scorn she needs. “I’m fine. A master would never let her composure drop in front of her familiar.”

“Right…” His fingers rub into her still bare back, kneading over her spine and gently pressing in. “Well if you’re fine, when do we get food?”

“We get food when - wha - show more concern for your master!” She jumps back and away from his touch. Landing with her tush bunching up her priceless sheets, and her cheeks as red as they were when she first looked upon him. “You can’t just go from worry to demanding food!”

Her finger points out his indiscretion harshly, cutting through the air to aim right to his face. “Well…” He has the nerve to simply rub the back of his head, and not care about his swollen girth standing right out at her. It bounces in a way she’d describe as tantalizing if that wasn’t practically sacrilege for her crumbling sense of self-dignity. “You’re fine and I’m hungry.”

“A familiar cannot demand food from his master before he has even put on clothes!” Her finger darts right to his menace. Her breathing is a little harsher for it. The memory of what happened likely just a few hours ago is one she can’t get away from. That thing was inside her, and it felt - well it felt amazing but she can’t let him know that. “Cover that for your master. We have to go over the rules of decorum before you even think of going outside!” It’s a lot to deal with. It makes her feel so very free and yet so very scared. He made her his plaything, he looked into her eyes and melted her heart. He had pinned her to a wall and tore every resistant thought she had away.

An ember of fire inside her tells her that maybe he didn’t do anything at all. Maybe it was her, but that’s insane. That’d make her responsible. She blows that ember out with scorn and pressure from her upbringing. A pressure she’s worn on her shoulders for so many years it is second nature. He nods and smiles at her obediently - well mostly, that smile is a bit jagged and his nod a bit sideways. She is sure her words are getting in, but the glimmer in his intoxicating eyes tell her he’s up to something. She can’t help but wonder if she’s paranoid and he’s nothing but an obedient servant, or if he’s a deviant mastermind.

The flashes of memories from earlier are hungry, and they heat her bosom. They remind her of how intoxicated with lust she was for him, how passionate and needy she’d felt. Everything about that experience was a direct revolt on everything she’s grown up under, every stiff value she’s had ingrained since the moment she could walk on her own.

Yet, she wants to do it again. She wants nothing more than to tackle him back to the bed and feed her hunger before she even begins to care about his request for food. Her gaze takes in his massive length not for scolding - regardless of what falls from her mouth - but because she can’t take herself away from it. She has to consciously stop herself from gripping it, stroking it to full again, and begging for it with her legs spread like some kind of Germanian whore.

She must be so repressed her brain is turning brazen at its first hint of rebellion. She’s better than that. “Stop nodding and put on some clothes damn-it!” Her hand grips her pillow and she hucks it into his face with a satisfying ‘plop’. Her grin is dastardly and satisfying when she finds him laid back down and out from her assault. “Stop staring at me with that one-eyed thing! It’s unsightly, and I’m a lady!”

“My apologies, milady.” His voice comes out only slightly muffled under the pillow, and she chooses to ignore the hint of mockery for both their sakes. What trap has she fallen into? She doesn’t know, and that stops her heart cold and ignites her loins at once. Will it lead to more sexy -

“Clothes and then food!” She jumps up to gather her clothing quickly. So she chooses to just change back into her disheveled school garb and maybe wash down her hair a little before going out, for now, if all they want is food, she’s not sure she has it in her to care about appearances right now.

Her actions give her well endowed familiar more than enough time to admire her firm and recently overworked tush from his place on the bed. The fact that she’s able to walk at all would be astounding if she wasn’t his, he finds it adorable to watch her toiling around with her sense of pride in a frantic mess. The sight urges him to pull her into his lap and start anew, but then that’s not what this moment is about. They’ve had that mutual victory, and they’ll have it again.

This moment is about doing what she says in the quest for food. It’s a little annoying but a give and take is an important part of any relationship with someone, especially someone as important as her. It’s like bartering, except with emotional bonding. It’s not even a big barter, it’s a rope handed with which he’ll gnaw on for a moment if it makes his new lover happy. For anyone else, her request would be absurd. How would he change without clothes? For him, he simply waits until her eyes happen to track back over to his bobbing dong with a hint of shame before he waves his hand a little and imbues the air with a gentle spark to remind it that it is his to tame.

At least, for matters as simple as clothing. Pinks widen comically when a simple black button-up and comfortable pair of dark slacks appear on his form in sparkle and shift of the air. Power incarnate imbues reality with the need to rend to his will and obey without complaint.

The new outfit is not exactly what he’d like to wear, but dark colors contrast nicely with his vibrant red mane, and if Louise is going to dress like she’s going to a fancy party then she’s at least expecting him to dress in a manner in which a beggar might think he has a coin to spare. Either way, it’s a stark contrast from the nudity he’d prefer. “Haau!” If the stars in her eyes and the habit she’s taken up of drooling with her mouth wide open are anything to go by, his actions are worth it.

It helps it lets him take in her mostly nudity for a few moments longer. He admires that which he’s become connected to. That which will at some point bear his children if they haven’t started already. Her fingers are half drawn up her legs in their efforts to adorn her with panties, something she’s completely forgotten about. “You have magic! My familiar has magic!”

“I shapeshifted to get in here…” He trails.

“My Familiar has magic! I’m not a complete failure!” She’s so giddy she jumps, tripping herself on her panties and face planting in a way that leaves her bare butt in the air, wiggling awkward. He can’t help but smirk. It’s the little things that tell him he made the right choice submitting to this little contract with her. One day it’ll be okay to just slide up behind her and push in when she does something cute like this. It’ll be reflex, and she’ll beg for more of his cock deep inside her. He’ll be able to scrape a smile onto her face regardless of what’s happening in the world around.

For now, he jumps off the bed and moves behind her to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her up. “You should be careful if you’re going to call yourself my master. People might think oddly of us if you’re the one with the scratches and bruises from playtime.”

“Playtime? Scratches? What are you talking about?” Her confusion is clear, but he doesn’t have time to educate her on the cultural meaning of her assertion. He has food to get, and possibly some sort of cream for her face. That mark on her cheek is a little scuffed.

“Nevermind. Let’s get food.” He asserts, waiting just long enough for her to finish dressing before his feet, barefoot despite the change to an outfit, quickly drag her towards the door. Her smile is bright but confusion is still slightly in her eyes, signified by the gentle fog that slowly clears even before the door is opened, and he marches her through.

“Oh my!” Interruption is not long for them. Just a few steps out, her hand clasped in his and a grin to which he’s obligated to give her is all they have time for before their ringing endorsement arrives with a salamander at her side. It seems to take a liking to him for obvious reasons that force a wayward pet out of him. The girl the salamander came from is standing tall before them with enough skin showing to entice his gaze away from his ‘master.’ Dark skin, breasts that are meant to be slain with his endowment more than they are any babe’s hungry mouth. Flaming red hair and teasing eyes. He finds himself more than a little happy to see her finger touching pink puffy lips, and another digging into her curves. “This is new.”

“Kirche…” Louise can’t help but feel a digging in her heart at seeing her. She did succeed. She should be proud and shove it in her face but it’s hard. She’s been soiled, magnificently pounded out of the very things she held proud over this barbarian. And yet…

She smiles. A glow burning inside her. She might be happier for that. “Congratulations.” Her rival greets her, for the first time looking from him to stare into her pink eyes. “Louise, after all this time I had begun to doubt you, I’m sure you did too.” The Germanian sighs with a sense of relief, her gentle embers burning brighter than they did just yesterday. “You did it anyway. Fought back your issues and fought for a victory even I hadn’t managed. I’m proud of you.”

“Oh shove-”

“Not just for summoning.” The bodacious tease interrupts her rival’s carefully crafted tirade. One they’re all sure she would have regretted before long, even if it would have felt so good at the moment. Red hair flows down Kirche’s back, and her fingers press into her eye-drawing behind. “For coming out of your shell. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but, I sure have.” Brownish gold eyes trail down the smaller girl’s body, drawing his eyes back to his ‘master’ in question.

Just in time for Louise to gasp at herself, cross her legs a little in surprise, and for her fingers to twitch. “I am unsure what you would mean.” His lover is stiff enough in response it’s hard for him to decide if this girl is an enemy or a friend. He takes a look at the tenseness between them and holds Louise a little close. Taking the moment to cop a feel of his lovely new possession. “I have no shell, I am not a bird - “

“Dragons can have shells when born if via dragon marriage, and not with a mortal.” Aries feels the need to interject. “Shells aren’t just birds.”

“ - But even if I was a bird or dragon, I would not have just come out of it. I’ve not changed, Zerbst, this has always been my potential. Summoning a dragon was always my fate. I told you that, didn’t I?” She leans into him grateful for his support, but even more grateful for his presence to prove her point. “My familiar is not just a dragon. He can shapeshift, he’s magical, he’s -”

“Got a huge dick.” The woman’s tease is said instantly.

“ - Got a huge di-gah!” Louise’s finger points out an instant later, her eyes narrowing and her cheeks flustering intensely just in time for him to lean forward and kiss her burning cheek. A singe of care flares between them. It’s a big moment for Louise.

Kirche doesn’t care. She looks past her embarrassed form, staring at him. His muscles are strong and dominant, and his gift, something to lick her lips about and beg for with a shine to her golden browns. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Of course not.” The Germanian titmonster exclaims with a fake smile, a haughty little laugh, and a flicker of real joy to her eyes. “But uh, in case you’re not aware, my family has a lot of special techniques that yours doesn’t.” The sexy Germanian beast gazes past them towards the door. “Things like soundproofing? Would that be useful to you, little Louise?”

“Little?”

“I can hardly call you zero anymore. I guess I never should have, after all, you’ve summoned such an adonis. No zero would call a hunk like this forth.”

“You better believe it.” He growls a little. Gripping his ‘Master’ a little tighter, even with the woman’s slightly hungry gaze taking over his form, and glancing over his muscles one by one. He caresses Louise in his touch, something she’s ever grateful for if the twitch of her lips is anything to go by. “Why would we soundproof anything? I’m proud of the noises we-”

“We’ll take soundproofing!” His ‘Master’ shouts very suddenly. Squeaking a little, and shifting in place against him. She’s heating up for reasons he doesn’t quite understand, and his eyes trail around looking for an invisible attack. “Please, if you would.”

“Hehehe, you two get food, okay? I’m sure you’re very hungry after all that. I’ll get it done.” The caramel beauty runs her fingers through her hair as she walks past them, on her way into her ex-rival’s room. “Have fun~!”

His ‘Master’ stiffens in place, while his eyes trace Kirche’s ass on the way into the room. He enjoys the way it bounces with every step and movement of her figure. Up until the door closes, and he’s neglected his treat.

“Mmm…” He allows. Before finally letting her go, and taking her hand again. “Let’s go get that food, master.”

He times his statement perfectly, his enhanced senses letting him synchronize their movements so that her responsive automatic argument is trampled nicely by the gurgle of her stomach. “Ah-um…” Grrrlllgglll. “Yeah, food.” It’s odd, she should be happy. He’s not completely sure what’s between Louise and Kirche, but he does know she just won. So why does her expression look so glum?

He’ll have to fix that.

“It’s okay, little Louise, everyone’s blown up some dirt before.” He’s still not completely sure about this Kirche lady. She’s got a perky ass and a pair of jugs that stand out to him more than any of the other women around here, but that doesn’t mean anything besides that she’s fun to look at. A beauty for sure, with flaming hair and a voice that sends his ‘master’ into fits of rage for seemingly no reason - it’s nice to see her passionate about something - but by no means does it tell her about whether he can trust her.

She comes off more enemy than a friend, and yet she’s nice even when Louise seems to expect mockery. Like now, when her magic failed to transmute some sorta plants, he’d seen her pink eyes dart back to the redhead and instantly beg for her not to make this worse. With smoke erupting and the wood tarnished all around, she singled out her classmate as the worst thing that could happen about it.

She’s definitely not a good thing. But then, he has more time to speak than think. “She’s right,” he says, “everyone I knew back home blew up dirt for one reason or another at some point. It’s a convenient target since it’s everywhere.” She seems to be very helpful despite her status as not a good thing. If nothing else, she stands in agreement with him. What does that say about him? It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that the pout and enraged tears staining his lover’s cheeks are wiped away by the corner of his finger, and the palm of her seemingly enemy atop her head appears to relieve some of that pain. “Shut-up.” Louise scolds, reaching up to rub her eyes with her palm on her own, but notably not pushing them away. “I failed again, and your patronizing isn’t helpful. Nothing’s changed, nothing. I can’t even transmute!”

“So you’re not an earth mage-” The dark-skinned maiden argues.

“-I’m not an anything!” His lover counters, pink hair bobbing in the wind pressure from her own smokey gusting, her power still flowing around the room with a surprising amount of potency. He’d be impressed if she wasn’t viewing this show of dominant power as some kind of failure. “I’m a failure who happens to have summoned a dragon!” Her fists ball, her breathing is ragged.

As a caring Familiar, his wings spread behind him so he can blow some of the smoke out the window with force. Her breathing is more important than the moment, not that he doesn’t give her emotions plenty of mind. It’s just, kind of hard to get what she’s getting at. Isn’t that an oxymoron? Having summoned him means she’s not a failure. Blowing stuff up is a sign of power, not of failure. What’s the problem?

Why… “I wanna, it doesn’t matter.” She scoffs, a forceful sob escaping her at the same time as her chest stops heaving - his doing he’s sure, what with the sudden air quality - and her eyes close forcefully. “Let’s just clean this up.”

Even he can tell she means the two of them, but he has no complaints when Kirche picks up a broom and gets to work. She wiggles her bouncy ass back and forth throughout the classroom, humming a jaunty little tune. “We’ll figure it out, Louise.” He promises, giving his ‘master’ the shiniest smile he can manage. A smile as reinforced with care as it is casual magic to seem all the more confident. “All we need is time, and we happen to have a lot of it. Let’s get cleaning.”

With a huff, a few gusts of winged winds, and enthusiastic teamwork the likes of which Zerbst and Valliere have rarely achieved, the newly live entity known as ‘the mess’ finds itself meeting its match within the hour.

The sky is an ocean you can’t swim in, it is a lake that’s too far for her feet to touch, or for her toes to touch the bottom of if she somehow managed to find herself sinking up and away. She’d always grown up knowing that flight was possible. Her mother even took her on her own familiar a few times, a mighty Manticore that put her imagination to shame simply by existing. Beings of fantasy exist all around her, always have, Aries is no different.

Not in his attributes, not the massive wingspan that carries her through the windy sky, cutting through clouds like a knife does the soft surface of butter. He’s certainly not different because of the sharp eyes he has which stare into the world in such a way to make her wonder if it ever stares back.

Aries is only different in that he’s hers, and no one else’s. He doesn’t come with her mother on his back critiquing her grip or scolding her for smiling a little too happily when her face breaks up an airborne mist and her hair becomes pleasantly wet. His wings may not be that different in appearance from any other wings in the world, strong and reinforced with bone and flesh, an armor of sorts plating those bones to make sure he cannot be bested by a simple arrow or hawk’s talon.

They don’t have to be completely foreign to make her heart soar, because they’re her wings. She’s allowed to ride on them, she didn’t even have to ask. The little changes they do sport from what she’d conventionally expect are enough to make her world brighten on its own, but they don’t matter. They are hers, all of him is hers. Her familiar, her benevolent, giving familiar. “Come with me, I know what’ll cheer you up.”
He’d offered freely, and so here she is, looking down at the green forest below, and the distant academy where all her woes of the last several years can burn for all she cares right this moment.

She’s always loved flying whenever she could manage to block out her mother. Now she has her own wings, they’re named Aries, and all they want is to see her smile. “Thank-you.” She whispers, her fingers gliding across the back of her wings. A bright smile on her lips for the first time today. “Thank you so much.”

He’s here to remind her, when she’s down, that she succeeded once. That she has a reason to smile. That he’ll always be there, always. He’s her familiar, and she’s a mage. She leans in to hug the back of her dragon tightly, not even caring to guide him or look. She trusts him, just like she trusts the wind in her hair and on her back.

The landmarks that can be seen from the sky are as magical as they are plentiful. Something about soaring through the air on the back of a dragon makes the world shine. Every stone cropping her little stream seems special from up here, glows a little with the ambient magic of the realm, and fills her eyes with stars. One after another she’s subjected to a beautiful barrage, one potent memory after another sinking into her core and lifting her spirits the same way Aries lifts her body.

“We should stop here,” she says quite suddenly, pointing towards a clearing not too far from them. To the left, surrounded by green trees and next to a pretty looking waterfall. Even from up here she can hear the force of it, less like a brook and more like a roaring river that cuts through the land until it branches off and becomes a soothing stream “Right next to the water, I’d like to see if it’s good enough to practice alchemy.”

His eyes looking back at her say it all, but she doesn’t let that get her down. She crosses her arms and huffs instead, pointedly staring at the body of water, and the nice grassy land by its side. “I know to practice it outside the room, dummy, I like my things.”

He says nothing, merely glancing down at the scenery before his powerful body is sent slicing through the open world with a flap of wings that fractures the solid the air had gleefully pretended to be a mere moment before. He circles the clearing once, twice, enough times she closes her eyes lest they dry out from the pressure or she nervously lose her grip from how close to landing they are getting.

At this angle, with the wind directly in her eyes, it’s as if the ground is soaring towards her. A falling angle that reverses whatever laws of reality make her brain function. Panic starts in her heart but is blocked and destroyed before it can so much as reach her knuckles. Knuckles that strain red from the exertion of holding on, but do not tremble or falter in the face of this. It’s not the rule of steel her mother preached that does it, it’s not even her logical brain kicking in to remind her that she’s the one flying and therefore she has control. It’s trust, flooding from the mark at her core, and making her feel the potent warmth of a familiar’s touch. It’s not like the flesh under her fingers, it’s far more real, an emotional weight held within a magical glance.

Her familiar’s in control, not her, and while she’s screwed up a million times he’s done absolutely nothing wrong since he got here. He’s a beacon of chance, her ticket to fight against the odds. She doesn’t hold tighter than needed to offset the winds blowing behind her. She doesn’t order him to slow down or yell at him about the way her skirt is blowing around in the wind and showing wild animals the pink of her panties. She closes her eyes and trusts her gut.

Fwoosh

His wings flap out a single instant before they land, displacing force with masterful grace that sends dirt flying in all directions and bleeds their momentum in a truly magical way. The potent spellwork allowing such a feat to happen tingles on her skin. The residual mana stings her fingertips ever so slightly, sending her brain in an instant tizzy. It’s powerful, familiar, her gut reminds her of exactly what it is. The magic that proves she’s not a failure.

The magic of her summon, mighty and potent. It washes away her doubts in a way not dissimilar to the view of the waterfall just to the side. It’s rushing and strong, its surface white and bubbly, bouncing off rocks and loudly crashing down before being swept away in a stream.

Her chest pumps for it and her legs take her off her dragon to feel the damp dirt beneath her. Walking a little closer to the water, she can’t help but smile. The sight is a miracle of its own, as all waterfalls are. They’re too complicated to work alone, every waterfall is a thousand different natural happenstances occurring just perfectly to allow water to spatter her face despite a lack of rain. Nothing explodes, nothing breaks, it just works; because it works, some village downstream gets water.

It’s easy to call that nature’s gift, the product of ambient mana making the world a better place, but for that to happen so many circumstances need to be perfect. Every single one of them needs to be perfect, and they all need to pull their part forever without ever being told there’s a part to play.

If rocks and dirt can do this, splash her with water without a cloud in sight. She can…

“You can do it.”

“Eep!” Her fingers whip her wand out before her feet have even finished jumping her in the air in shock and surprise. Her mantle flapping behind her in a gentle breeze, her pink eyes narrow on his stupid face, and those stunningly shiny eyes that make her heart beat a little faster.
“Jumpy?” He asks. His voice is sturdy, strong, but a little young. She’s sure that’s always gonna catch her by surprise, his going from a majestic dragon to some boy who can read her mind.

Her red cheeks and her shameful inability to maintain eye contact with him tell him enough about her, she’s sure. She decides not to say anything. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to center herself instead.

“You should try to cast some magic here.” He says quite suddenly, disrupting her calm before she can even find it. Snapping her pretty pinks open in time for her to spin around and gesture to the beauty of nature.

Nature that’s all around. “Why would I want to destroy this? I have a space near the school for erasing nature, thank-you.”

“You won’t destroy everything,” he declares with a fierce shake of his head. She can imagine his de-summoned tail shaking behind him, and the wind kicks up just then to complete the image. The wind dusts grass this way and that way, but most importantly it blows around his messy red mane. “You're gonna cast your first successful spell tonight. Of that, I swear to you. We just have to start with the basics, one at a time. What’s the most basic spell you know the theory behind?”

“Fireball!”
Batoom
Shards of bark fly past them like lightning strikes, stabbing into the ground and even cracking some rocks around with the sheer force. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before. Pure destructive mayhem the likes of which a phantasmal cannon might fire.

“Fireball!”
Baboom!
Something doesn’t seem right, maybe it’s the way the wind cries out. Maybe it’s the way the last impact had an aftershock. Maybe it’s just happenstance, but his instincts roar and he’s moving before he can think about it.

His arm wraps Louise’s stomach, his other darting up just in time to deflect a shard of rock with his claw just a millisecond before it can spear one of her lovely eyes. Something cracks, crashes, a thunderous call to action erupts, and he’s jumping back. He turns her around in place before she can so much as get out a ‘what?’, his wings unfurl and batter away a stream of aggressive wood chips and a small boulder that falls from the sky. The pure force and magical potency of his wings reign dominance on this landscape in an instant.

“That was far too close,” he gasps, eyeing her over to make sure she’s okay. He gracefully ignores the sweat stains on her outfit and the way some of her hair is sticking to her cheek and forehead. The burden of long hair is that it doesn’t always look perfect, it can look gross and out of place. No one told Louise that, despite the intensity of the moment she still manages to look perfect to his eyes.

“I said stick to the basics.” He scolds, “your cantrips or whatever it is mages do here. All you need to do is make something float or, change color or something.”

“A fireball is basic!” She refutes, crossing her arms over her chest even as she hangs in his grip, off her feet and practically floating by the grace of his strength. His wings retract without much warning, blowing some more wind in her face and shifting her hair into yet another lovely yet vulnerable look. This girl…

“You’re exhausting yourself.” He points out. “Let’s go over that starter once again.”

“I don’t want to,” her growl catches him by surprise, but not so much so he doesn’t catch her attempt to stomp on his foot and regain her balance as a person and not his carry on toy.

“Just ask,” he grumbles, stepping back on the misty, bark strewn grass. He eyes her over with a gaze as hard as it is filled with care. “You, don’t want to?”

“I’m not a child, I can get something like this done.” She declares. Raising her wand at him. There’s a spark of power at its tip, but he doesn’t move. He’s not worried about it, she won’t strike at him, not like that. Even if she did, it wouldn’t do much damage to him. He’s a dragon, and a powerful one. “You’re not supposed to doubt me too.”

His sigh heats the air, a flame contained at the tip of his tongue. Despite this, he nods. “I’ll give you another chance, but start small so I can see what you’re doing first, okay?”

“Levitate, Fireball, Frosty Steps, Gale, Change of Mineral!” Every word, another explosion, and another painful attempt. This time he stood by her side to prevent a shrapnel situation, and because of that, he can feel every chaotic pulse of fury working it sway up her wand and making its rage known to the world. Haunted magics, the desire to destroy that which has fundamentally built this world up from the ground.

There’s something with her magic, something abnormal. Where her classmates seem to be calling from the world, their limits merely how much power they can call upon and handle from outside before their body begins to fall. Louise appears to call her power from inside, from the twisted emotions that have been forced on her from day one. So much rage, so much doubt, every bloody tear fallen from her abused tear ducts is channeled into her wand from deep inside her core. Whereas her classmates make requests, Louise demands.

Batoom!

The result is something special. Her magic is unique in a fantastical way this world should celebrate, a way that his kind discovered long ago, but different in some simple ways. It would be easy to declare Louise part mythological creature and call it done, but it has to be more than that. As far as he can tell she’s as human as her peers. Well, as human as all her peers but that blue-haired girl. He’s not sure what she is. She looks human but she feels more like a weapon whenever he focuses his senses on her, and if Louise wasn’t so much more important he’d be rather curious.

“It just, doesn’t, work, damn-it!” She stomps the dirt and fires off another blast of envy, a hateful sphere that denies even the rocks their place in life. “It never works! Nothing does!” Sweat slips down her brow, and the top underneath her mantle is drenched.

It’s not a very flattering look, but he can’t help but find the signs of hard work sexy. “You’ve demolished everything around us.” he points out flatly. A clawed finger drawing a line in the air to force her eyes to look at the scattered shards of rock, land, and forest that once was but now lies a corrupt and discarded wasteland of doubts and wrath. What she once had reason to be envious of, she’s now destroyed. It is no longer perfect, not even functional, the waterfall lies shallow and the grass is marred and scarred forevermore. “That’s an accomplishment.”

“For a child, yes!” She shouts, spinning on her overworked heel and wincing in pain from the crack they can both hear from inside her. This time there’s no wand raised at him, she can’t afford it. Cannot even drag her hands up, weakness washes over her in overbearing waves.

“But I’m not a child, I’m a grown woman right on the verge of adulthood, and I need to succeed at casting waves and miracles years ago. Explosions aren’t impressive anymore, they’re no longer a showing of too much power and too little control, nor an excuse for extra teachings, they’re a curse mark showing my failure to inherit the family power and take my place as a child of high noble blood.”

She looks at the very same marks of destruction he does, and unlike him, she cannot help but growl. “Every time I see something like this, all I can think about is how much I failed to obtain because something inside of me is broken. How many dinners could have been happy but were instead spent with my mother’s disappointed gaze focused on the side of my head? How many opportunities were passed up? I have a fiancé, why do I get a fiancé and my sister gets to go to some school for researchers? Because of this.” She glares at the destruction, envy and rage flowing through her eyes as if a new wand.

“Nothing goes right, and what I do have is pity. Even you are considering me some kind of mate because you pity me.”

Fiancé? He finds himself curious, but this is more pressing. She has to know she’s not speaking the truth. “No, you’re my mate because -”

“Right.” She denies him before he can even finish his thought. “One day in and you already drooled over Kirche. You were doing things to me so shortly before that, and already you’ve found someone better. I’m not special, I’m not important to you, I’m just that pathetic failure who never managed to grow up and cast real magic.” He doesn’t wait for her to continue her rant, doesn’t wait for her tears to fall - of rage or sadness or both he’ll never know -, he uses his active position standing right by her side to wrap her in his arms and support her just like he chose to stand by her and watch her before. There’s nothing to be gained from a tirade of falsehoods and blackened feelings.

She’s warm in his grasp, warm and soft, just like he’s sure he’s warm and sturdy right back. “No.” He repeats. Whispering into her hair, a hand caressing her back, and rubbing lines of heat into her strained muscles and tendons. He takes pride in how her voice cracks into a strangled breath, instead of the words of doubt she was no doubt about to speak. “You’re my mate because you summoned me, and you summoned me because you’re my mate. Dragons believe in fates like that, and I am no different in that aspect. If you were not to be my mate, we would not have become intertwined like this.”

She says nothing, not now. Her face buries itself in his chest. Her feet land on his so he can support her wobbling stance. “Dragons take mates and concubines without a real limit besides what they can support, appease, and please. No dragon worth his pride would be happy with one treasure in his horde, even if that treasure was as cute as you.”

Her cheeks flush instantly against his bare chest, he can feel it even if he can’t see it, a heat resting on him with a steadily increasing intensity. “Sh-shut-up!” She decides on, her head spinning, her brain-melting. Her fists clench at his side, and she holds back a confused huff of half rage. “I was sharing with my familiar, not asking for you to lie to butter me up. All nobles should share with their familiar, they’re to share their life. Past, present, and future.”

“Sounds a lot like a mate to me.” He snickers. Holding her with just a bit more force to hold back any thrashing and whacking she might make. He still doesn’t manage to avoid a punch to his gut, not that it matters. She may have powerful destructive capabilities, but the soft knuckles of hers make him contemplate some odd bed play more than they make him wince. “You really don’t get it do you, why you’re my treasure?”

He pauses, waiting for her body to stop. For her motions to slow. Her heart is beating with the force of a gale inside her chest, he can feel it against him, even hear it if he concentrates. The feel of her hot breath on his skin is comforting. “You really don’t.” His fingers rub her, his eyes look from her bubblegum hair to the sky. “The sun’s position is significantly lower than when we came here, but it doesn’t feel like any time has passed at all. That’s just what it’s like to be with you.”

“Easy for you to say.” She grumbles softly. “You haven’t spent the last few hours using everything inside you to try and cast some dumb spells.”

“Instead I’ve watched over you doing that.” He says. “Even in failure, I’ve watched you rend the landscape and make it yours. A true dragon’s treasure is sought after for a reason. Whether it be money, rare items, or the most beautiful women in the world, their treasure possesses the power to change everything. You’ll succeed, Louise, and just like your summoning predicts I’ll be right here to help you.” One of his hands lands on her hair, brushing it away from her face and opening her up to a lovely kiss that rocks her world and alights the stars despite the sky being at mid-day.

“Whether it’s deflecting rocks or guiding you, I will be watching and holding you when my treasure finds herself. You’re the prize in my chest, and whether I take your big bootied classmate as a concubine or not, she wasn’t strong enough to summon me. Not like you, you managed to manifest your will and call upon the great and all-powerful Aries as your ideal partner through a ritual that’s intent is nothing more than finding you the perfect match among common creatures. You’re the strongest of my golden goblets, and I know that before I’ve even collected the others, because I’m your strongest goblet, and it cannot be different the other way around.”

“Nnn…” Louise grumbles to herself, balling her fists once again but for an entirely different reason. Her insides flush, her lower half as embarrassed as her top, she can’t help but be swept aside by the river of emotions released into her without a trench dug to take it all away. “The ritual provided that power.”

“I don’t believe it for a second.” His hot breath brushes against her cheek, a roaring heat that’s almost cold to her inflamed skin, she can imagine steam as easily as he creates it for the momentary unspoken laugh. “Some ritual may pull a toad from a pond, or a salamander from a volcano, but I witnessed that very ritual and it does not possess the power needed to tear me from my perch. Not here, and certainly not from another world.”

He doesn’t let her question him, not yet, it’s too important for her lacking self-esteem to get in the way of his point. Instead, he steals another kiss, gentle and heated. Melts her heart and teases her strings with his fingers on her sides.

Her expression is not in confusion, but in bliss when he speaks again. “There’s only one moon where I am from, Louise, this was all you. Traveling between planes like this isn’t common where I’m from, it requires someone of absolute power and the most extravagant of ingredients placed together to provide the raw might needed to shatter the veil for but a brief moment. You didn’t just do that, you did it without even the smallest shiny stone, and you did it for someone else.”

“Ah…” It’s all she can say, dumbstruck, with hearts in her eyes and an incredible torrent flowing through her veins. Not the least of which at her lower half, hot and flooded and ready to repeat what she did last night all over again. She makes no mention of it, her noble sensibilities won’t let her, but it’s clear in her eyes that if he took her right now…

He doesn’t. He holds her closer instead. “I love you.” She can’t help but say, the words slipping through her lips like the breeze slips past the nearby trees. Her arms wrap him forcefully, and she jumps into his grasp, feet leaving the ground entirely, and forcing him to pick her up and hold her against him. “I love you, I love you so much.” Her face buries itself somewhere different this time, in his shoulder, placing a thousand searing kisses while her legs wrap him fully. His hands rest on her ass, and he can’t help but laugh at her sudden mood swing. Girls like her are as complicated as they are worth it. “We’re here to cast magic, remember?”

“Less talk, more love.”

"If my Master insists." He smirks at Louise, before taking her lips roughly with his own.

She melts into the kiss, her eyes closing slowly. The residual tension of her day’s woes begins to fade away, swept under the current of the moment. He pulls away to take in his treasure, her normally wavy locks are matted down with a thick sheen of sweat.

His eyes trail down her form, her undershirt now nearly transparent from her exertion. The sight of two nubs pressing out from her chest is as expected as it is welcome. Even further down, the feel of her heat pressed against his length begs him to remove the small barrier of her panties from between them and ravish her on the spot.

Sadly, that’s not his plan. He needs to help his mate achieve what she dreams of, one step at a time. One step, right now.

Just as her eyes open to look at him questioning, he reignites the kiss, coiling his serpentine tongue through her lips and laying claim to her own. She gasps into his mouth, pressing her chest against his needily.

He opens the connection between them, causing their brands to glow with mesmerizing light. One of his fingers wraps around to rest on hers, and without warning he lets his essence flood into her, a gushing river of power replenishing her depleted magic with his own.

“Haah, but-” Her every nerve alights on its own as she finds herself grinding against him wetly, the gentle breeze around them enough to send her into a fit she can only struggle against in her attempt for temporary sanity. She’s alive in a lot more ways than one, in this moment she feels as if she’s her toes, her fingers, she’s a being and not a person.

“No buts, try.” He commands, overwhelming her with his tongue, and only pulling back when she’s panting for air. “You need to succeed.”

“I can’t, it’s too-hau!” She finds herself pressed down in the next second, her waist against the dirt, his thighs rubbing against hers in a maneuver that stuns the daylight out of her eyes. “I won’t let you release until you succeed.”

She groans like a lost puppy and grips her wand tightly as a lifeline she doesn’t even want. Her grip would crunch a lesser material, but her wand is made of the best her family could buy, grandiose wands purchased one after another in vain attempts to unlock her true potential. All they ever did was make the explosions bigger, and every investment made the disappointment they felt in her heavier and harder to breathe through. She hates this wand, it was her final failure before they sent her away to this school. Land was sold for this wand, made from the essence of creatures she’s not even privy to the names of.

If she could snap it and fall into a bliss she would, but she can’t bear their disappointment reflected in his eyes, the one person who’s yet to look at her with anything but hope. The stars are aligned inside her, but the true motivation is that faith reflecting from their conjoined gaze. She can’t betray it, even if it hurts.

His lips part from hers, and she whines a little, even as her hand lifts the wand to the side. Her legs wrap him as she focuses everything into it. She promises not to fail because then he’ll reward her with his body, but far more importantly; he’ll praise her. Her essence flows, the wand receives her - and she’s met with silence. No explosion warps the ground, no smoke blocks her view, no fragments fly high into the air never to be seen again. “Wha, but-”

“Try to use what’s flowing into you, not just your own.” He says immediately, not even letting her confusion turn into self-doubt for a single second. “With two energies inside you, you’ll never get anything out but dust. Together…” “

“Nnn!” She wriggles against him chaotically. “I can’t focus, stop making things feel so good then! This is cruel!” He doesn’t answer her, but he does intensify everything. Her sense of touch fades away, and she becomes one with the ground, the ground, and him that is. Pressed against her, his hot breaths warming her face. His admiration is felt, but not so much as his touch. “Fireball!” She shouts, then again, and again. She tries to channel her power, then his, then hers. A fruitless journey that brings tears to the eyes of just another failure soon to be forgotten.

“Mix them,” He reminds. “Like the waterfall does the water from up there with the water here at the basin.”

She gulps and closes her eyes, and only with him grinding against her to further tease her, does she have a realization. One that leaves her heart aflutter, and her airway tighter for the overbearing anxiety it brings.

She’s not a failure, she’s just one half of a whole, useless on her own but overpowering together. Her wand heats up in a way she’s never felt before, twin energies spiraling along its length heedless of its purpose. “Fireball!” She shouts, and like the world itself is answering her call, a fateful flame the likes of which only a true dragon could call small obliterates the land to the side. Her wand smokes, and despite the destruction casually left in the wake of the last second; Louise is left a blushing bride unable to control her excitement and grinding her hips against his. “I succeeded!” She gasps. “I succeeded! I did it with you, I, I did it! Let’s celebrate!”

The landscape burns, distant shattered timber is set ablaze, but none of that can even make an attempt to be as red as the small girl’s cheeks. Her eyes shine with foggy, needy awe, and her mouth opens to cry out once again. He preempts her with a rub of her hips that draws a moan from her lips.

“How’d you do it?” He asks, watching her flustered cheeks somehow cast another spell in their efforts to conjure up a brighter red than previously thought possible. A storm is brewing, and it’s been frankly named blush.

“I, um, intertwined us.” She says. “I made your magic accept that it was my magic, because, um, errr we are um, one?”

“You called yourself my mate.” He smirks.

“I did not! I, um, shut-up!”

“Practice wind.” He orders, and despite her tearful eyes, stained from desire she’s not being allowed to give into, Louise practices again. One try, two tries, he stares into her as she fails.

Despite what she’d like to assert when his lips hit hers, and he rubs her thigh, she feels their potent power flow from her until a gust the size of a small home forces itself from her wand and hits the flames. All of her book learning, hundreds of hours spent pouring over materials, they go into making a wind rise into the air, crackling powerfully and spreading across the land at three times its original boisterous size.

It roams the grass and overtakes another tree. “Crap, crap, we need to get rid of that!” She gasps.

“Then do it, water spells now.” With that his hand slips under her skirt, pushing aside the band of her panties. His fingers draw a circle on her lower lips, before his index and middle finger dip past her modesty and slip right inside her. They play around in circles, confusing the suddenly tightening folds wrapping his fingers. It’s too much, her brand showering her with so much power even the slightest touch feels like lightning. Her mind blanks, and in that blankness she does it. A storm of water falls from the sky, conjured by the overpowering magic contained and fired from her wand. Once, twice, thrice, a full seven shots of storm drench the land. Trenches are drawn with the water as if it’s an earth spell, the stream is widened, and the fire is a distant memory to the suddenly rejuvenating plants.

Water magic is about healing in this world, and she just cured something for the first time with a heavy eternal downpour, instead of destroying it.

“You did it.” His voice chimes sweetly, something she can only nod to in her daze. Her wand drops to her side, her chest rises in exhaustion. Her body twitches at his touch. It’s too much. “Please, haah-” Despite having done everything he asked, she finds herself begging.

Her accomplishment is no longer important in the face of his reward. She needs it before she goes insane, and much to her brightening delight, he appeases her. His fingers drill into her heavily quite suddenly, and their lips meet yet again.

She doesn’t even give him a chance to try and let her take charge, her heels push into his ass and strip off what little clothes she’s forced him into. She has no recollection of what, she doesn’t even remember doing it. She remembers his smirk, his domination of her mouth, and the way his fingers leave her only for something much more weighty and important to take their place. Something girthy enough to show her the world, and make it theirs.

“Haah, haaah, what if someone sees!” For the first time, she’s reminded of how open this space is from above, and how much noise they’ve been making. Her thoughts are stirred like her insides, her desires overflowing with every aggressive and girthy pump into their connection. “What if someone comes to check?” She cries out.

“I hope they do.” He says. “They’ll see how successful you were!” Somehow, despite her sensibilities, despite everything she’s been taught. She finds herself agreeing with him, it would be nice to shove her reward in their face the way they’ve shoved theirs in hers. All her classmates should see it.

He smirks at her open-mouthed nod and dominates that mouth, pushing deeper into her delicate folds. He makes use of them, pumping into her soaking perfection like one might a lover’s toy. The rough treatment makes her feel a little used, but most importantly it makes her feel like she’s his. She can’t help the adoration building inside her. She doesn’t want it to end, she is desperate not to let the moment fade. His thrusts become ragged, jagged, and she bucks up into them. Forcefully dragging his shaft along her until she finds him bottoming out. His tip kisses the entrance to her womb.

She doesn’t think about it, she just lets the moment take her. Reaps the reward. She clenches, huffs, and moans, siding up and along and pulling him deep until with a ferocious grunt, somehow not unlike a roar, her insides explode into motion and he explodes as well. She’s quickly painted with a thick white prize she’s not so secretly longed for ever since he started using her brand to teach her. No, in some ways, she’s begged for his cum since she woke up this morning. “I’m your mate,” it hits her all at once, “haah, I really am your maaate!”

They rest their tired bodies in the gentle stream, their clothing and modesty discarded to the side. She sits in his lap, pressed against the hardness he’d used to set her pressures on release, just a few blissful minutes ago.

Her cheeks are flushed but she cares so little, not with all the new reasons she has to smile like a loon. She succeeded, she did it, she even got her first real reward for magic well done! No longer the pitying gazes of her family, a real reward, one that made her toes curl. “I destroyed everything.” She points out with a giddy tone. “You said I wouldn’t, but I did.”

“I was wrong.” He agrees. “Boom.”

The water, cold as it is, feels nice on her skin. His arms are tightly wrapped around her waist, a warm hug in the chilly water. She’s caught in a heavenly bliss that makes her giggle melodically at his dumb joke. Her sensitive skin is caught between the afterglow of their actions and her elation. This probably couldn’t get better with all the money in the world.

“You know.” He whispers in her ear. “If we did make that Kirche girl a concubine, as my mate you’d get to order her around. Maybe even dominate her, I’d like to hear her calling your name one step from orgasm, her eyes foggy and her lips turned upright permanently for your taunting.”

“You’re a perv.” She sighs to herself without the slightest heat. “Such a perv…”

His kiss lands on her neck and she leans into it happily. “Mmhmm, I am.”

Inwardly, allowing herself to be swept away by it all. Her success and the angelic whisper of his lips on her skin doing wonders for her headspace. She can’t help but wonder; just how satisfying would it be, to have that barbarian twitching for her? How’d he go and make this better?

