Motorcity with Temeraire-style dragons.
Please note that I haven't seen all the episodes, so things will be off. Also, this won't be one long story, it'll just be a bunch of shorts.
Mike Chilton was startled to discover that it took less than twenty four hours after leaving Deluxe for him to fall in love.
"When I reach my full length," the dragon, which was a somewhat alarming shade of green and slightly smaller than a medium-sized dog, said, "I shall be able to fly at speeds greater than two hundred miles per hour."
A small part of him was certain it was impossible for any living creature to go that fast. A much larger part of him was cooing over her smooth scales and the three nubby little gray spikes that curled back from just behind either side of her head, and an even larger part was thinking about exhilarating that sort of speed would be, and with that statement Mike just knew that that the dragon was the most perfect thing in the world. He also knew that he had no way to keep up with the things a growing young dragon needed to thrive, seeing how he had just left behind the only life he had ever known out of a sense of – betrayal and need for justice and things like that – and was now living in what was almost literally the damp underbelly of Detroit Deluxe. But there was no one else to take care of her, and he could at least try, right?
He was startled from his thoughts when she nosed his hand impatiently.
"Are you listening to me, Mike? I am certain it is not too late for me to find someone else, who has better food and also is willing to listen when I am speaking. I am going to be very fast, you know. Anyone would be lucky to have me as a companion."
The thought was unbearable. Mike didn't doubt that at least some of his attachment came from the fact that he had just left behind everything – and everyone – he had ever known, but the creature also seemed to be smart and kind and, and, well, adorable, and the thought of losing her to a random passerby hurt.
"I'm listening! I'm sure you'll be very fast," he said, a slightly glazed smile on his face at the thought of actually flying on a dragon and really that fast wow. "and very large? And I'll find you better food, I promise."
He managed not to say so please don't leave me, but it was a pretty close thing. She could probably pick it up on his face, anyway.
"We should start looking for a better place to spend the night," she said, ignoring both his questions and his compliments. "I am not yet large enough to protect you properly."
The dragon was a little wobbly on her feet; she stretched her wings and took a few experimental flaps, which failed to push her into the air at all – Mike wasn't certain whether he ought to be relieved that it would be difficult for her to leave, or worried that she couldn't fly because he didn't know much about dragons and was that normal? – before giving up on that, choosing what seemed to Mike to be a random direction, and taking a few steps forward.
She wasn't very large yet, and with the piles of scrap and foliage that he thought might be glowing (it was hard to tell in the current light) she looked very – vulnerable.
"I think there's some civilization over there," Mike said, jerking his thumb in the direction of some lights he had seen while on top of one of the scrap heaps. The dragon tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, then managed a sort of shrug and started to turn around. She really wasn't very big, he thought worriedly, and her steps were frighteningly uneven. She looked like she was about to collapse.
"Hey, I can carry you, and you can get some sleep," he suggested. Even without a lot of dragon knowledge, Mike was certain that a dragging tail and drooping wings were signs of exhaustion. "It must be tiring, uh, cracking open your egg and eating and everything."
"I am not tired at all," she insisted, then immediately gave an enormous and poorly-timed yawn. "And how will I protect you if you are sleeping? Your skin is too soft; I am certain anything could bite you."
The look she directed at the bruise on his face was magnificently dark. "I will be very unhappy if you are the wrong color all over simply because I could not keep my eyes open."
"No, no, I'm really tough!"
That was definitely a skeptical look on the dragon's face, but Mike really could take care of himself.
"C'mon, trust me. I get to protect you now, and then you'll grow and be big and strong and fast" – and he doesn't bother trying to hide the joy that springs onto his face when he thinks about that speed, and flying – "and then we'll protect each other."
The dragon made a snorting noise that didn't quite fit with her generally dignified manner. "I shall protect you," she insisted, but then she sort of sighed and her eyes kept drooping further downward. "But I will make an exception just this once."
He reached down to scoop her up, and she shifted until she was pressed up against his chest in a way Mike assumed was comfortable for her, though he wouldn't go so far as to say it was comfortable for him. She had a few too many spiky bits, and he found out just how sharp her claws were when she pushed a few through his shirt in an attempt to get a better hold on him. Her tail flopped over his arm, and its tip almost reached his knees. He wondered if that sort of length was normal – it seemed like her tail was longer than her actual body. Maybe she just needed to grow a bit in order to reach the proper proportions.
Her eyes faded closed, and Mike couldn't help the smile that was becoming an almost-constant on his face. A dragon! A fast dragon! And she liked him! And once she was grown enough, they were going to go flying!
Leaving Deluxe was an awesome idea, he decided. Leaving Deluxe would have been an awesome idea even if Kane hadn't been – what he was. It still hurt, to think about that, so Mike tried not to. At least there was plenty to take his mind off it, like the weight of the dragon in his arms.
She was a little heavy, but Mike wasn't weak. He was perfectly capable of carrying her to some sort of shelter; finding things for her to eat. The people that lived at those lights – had to live there, he thought a little desperately – might not welcome him, with his voracious dragon and his blue cadet uniform, but hopefully they would at least point him towards where he could get something for the dragon to eat. Surely they wouldn't be cruel enough to force an innocent creature to starve.
Mike tried humming as he walked. He thought he could remember some sort of song his mother used to sing to him, when he was little and had trouble sleeping. The dragon didn't seem to have problems getting to sleep, but he liked to think it would help her have pleasant dreams: flying dreams, he hoped. Those sounded like the best kind.
It wasn't long before she snapped awake, though, with a tightening of her feet that stabbed him a little but probably didn't break any skin.
"I forgot!" she wailed, as she thrashed out of his grasp. He stared at her with wide eyes – what, what? Did she forget that she was supposed to wait for someone else, who was following them now and was going to take her away and then he would be alone again? Did she forget about something that was going to kill them both? Special dietary restrictions, and he had poisoned her and now she was going to die?
"I – I know your name," she said, then scratched at the ground and stared at the mark in a gesture that looked uncomfortably like embarrassment. "Now you have to give me mine."
Mike didn't know what to do. He had to – he didn't know how to name someone! He never daydreamed about having kids, and what he would call them, and their future careers, and –
"I - Mutt? No, that's awful, sorry – "
Her wings flattened slightly, and her eye ridges lowered. "Mutt? That really is – but no. You've already decided."
"I can think of a better one! That makes you sound like a dog, which obviously you aren't, I'm so sorry – "
"No," she interrupted, and now she was definitely grinning. "You've already decided. It's terribly cruel, but I suppose we will just have to demonstrate what a Mutt can do."
"I – "
"Now then, I am hungry again." Mutt looked around, her tail flicking thoughtfully back and forth, before sidling closer and nudging at Mike's pockets. "I don't suppose you have found me any more food?"
