AN- yeah yeah I know, "what's this Ibeyla? Another fic?", but I couldn't resist. I've wanted to do a mythical creature AU forever now and just had to pen it down before I went batty with it. So, hopefully this will be a bit lighter than my other fics; its definitely a lot weirder than my other works. Dragon!Bucky is just too much fun to pass up writing. Hope you like it! Warnings for blood, slight violence, Bucky being a messy eater and having no sense of personal space, and later angst.
For as long as he could remember, stories of dragons and beasts had hushed crowds and drove terror into the hearts of the unwary. It kept children inside after dark, stopped the adventurous from poking around where they shouldn't, and, probably the only bit of the tale with any merit, kept the people paying the knights handsomely to protect them from these mysteriously-absent beasts. Sure, everyone knew the creatures were real; the knights typically wore dragon scale armor, the best scribes and artists partook in gryphon feather quills, and the king's warriors rode and fought astride unicorns and Pegasi, to name a few, although nothing large enough to be hazardous had been seen here in centuries. But, even if these creatures hadn't been seen in the areas around the city, everyone knew and feared their presence.
Well, except for Steven, even though he had more reason than most to fear such powerful creatures.
Born sickly, and growing up even more so, his body was frail but his spirit was as strong and big as the war gryphons of the king's court. His bravery and will were bigger than his body could ever hope to contain; he was a gentle, virtuous lion in the body of a lamb. He was known throughout the populace as a fighter despite the brittleness of his body, standing up for those who couldn't do so themselves. To some he was a nuisance, to others a warm fixture of the downtrodden part of town.
The country was at war, but for the longest time it felt so very far away. It only struck home for Steve when his father didn't return, and his mother soon followed his spirit after falling ill with consumption. There were days when he feared he'd fall ill with it as well, that it was slumbering placidly in his lungs, just biding its time. The weakness of his lungs and heart were enough to keep him out of service, but the risk of an illness as serious as that just sealed his fate as being ineligible to serve under the king. It didn't seem right, for him to sit back at home while friends and neighbors laid down their lives in the war against the Hydra forces, but there wasn't much he could do.
Crack. The crunching of his charcoal pencil's tip brought Steve out of his thoughts, a frown forming on the artist's thin lips. His mind had been wandering a lot lately, what with whispers of sightings of some strange wyrm on the outskirts of the town. Supposedly some people had gone missing, but Steve didn't pay it too much merit. They were likely teens trying to skirt the draft that had been instated, and made up the beast as a cover story. Although, the odd, glittering black scales that had been found in the woods by hunters a few days back were rather unusual…
Maybe coming out into the woods to sketch had been a bad idea. He commonly came out here after work, just to get away from the heavy atmosphere of the city that sat in his lungs like damp sand. The air was clear and kind on his asthma and smelled of the life that thrived here, lacking the pungent scent of human habitation. With all the factories working at full capacity to feed the war effort the air had been full of dust and ash, neither of them acceptable for one of his degree of respiratory upset.
Today, he had extra reason to seek solace in the quiet of the trees. On his walk back to his meager apartment he'd spotted several men harassing a woman and jumped in without a second thought, attempting to chase them away from her. It'd worked, to an extent; she was able to get away after the group turned its focus on him. He bore a large scrape across his cheek, shadowed by a deep bruise, from a rough punch by one of the larger men. Steve was sure his ribs were more black and blue than pale white skin, and his knuckles were a mess of scabs and dried blood from his own punches. It wasn't anything unusual for him; in fact, he was used to worse wounds from his almost daily fights.
Sighing softly, Steve pulled out another pencil from his pack to continue sketching. He was leaning back against an ancient tree, thankful for the shade it cast, and for the fruit it bore that littered the ground around him. The fruit drew in all sorts of animals, passive subjects from which he could sketch, and in honesty sometimes he preferred the company of silent beasts to the boisterousness of humans. Wild unicorns, hippogriff, deer and smaller creatures filled these forests, and although they weren't exactly perfectly safe, at least animals had the decency to have reasons for going after people. Be it territory, fear or food, no beast ever attacked without reason, while humans slaughtered each other in droves for the pettiest of causes.
With a new pencil he set about sketching a deer that had been drawn by the tree's fruit, watching him warily even though it approached regardless. He'd been here enough times that most of the animals didn't startle at his approach; they took notice, of course, but were hesitant to bolt unless he tried to approach them. It didn't bother him; he just wanted to draw them when he could get away from town for a while, not interfere with their lives.
Steve settled back against the trunk of the tree, hastily sketching down the buck as he nibbled at some of the fallen fruit. The pages of his sketchbook were filled with drawings of all sorts of creatures, along with the people who walked below the window of his apartment. The deer made for much more pleasant, understanding subjects. They weren't much for conversation though, sadly.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there in the shade, sketching the various animals that came to pick at the choicest fruits that lay strewn on the ground, but it really didn't matter that much. It wasn't like there was anyone waiting for him at home, and work had ended so he wasn't needed nor really wanted anywhere else. He'd filled three pages with various sketches of deer, a pair of hippogriff, and a solitary unicorn that had refused to venture out fully when it noticed him. They were always the most skittish of the forest dwellers.
Evening was settling in when he decided to draw a late-arriving doe as his last artistic venture of the day. She was far less cautious than the other visitors had been, coming within a yard of his folded up legs as she searched for the best bits. He just studied her for a long moment (she had a strange white spot on her right flank, like a fawn spot that never truly faded) before he began to shade and detail his drawing. His eyes didn't leave the paper for several minutes, at least, not until something caught his attention.
That something was a loud, wet snap; the sound of bones breaking, of liquid splashing and flesh colliding with something solid. Steve ducked out of reflex, but no blow came. There was nothing else in the clearing, he was completely and utterly alone. Where is the deer— his own thoughts stammered to a halt, something viscous and wet dripping down onto his shoulder, a stray drop splatting onto his almost-complete drawing. It was slimy and thick, tinged with a strange darker fluid that smelt of copper pennies. Blood. The fluid soaked into the fabric over his shoulder, burning for a brief instant when it contacted his skin. The acidic sting, however, soon faded into a persistent, deep chill, as if ice water had sunken into his flesh.
Steve knew he should have just calmly gotten to his feet and tried to get as far away as possible, but curiosity was a very powerful thing and he soon found his eyes drawn up to the branches of the tree he'd taken to leaning against. A loud gurgling, sucking noise made his stomach lurch, eyes catching sight of a tangle of rippling, ebony-scaled coils draped across the thicker upper branches, partially hidden behind the emerald leaves. His frail heart about stopped. There was no way something that big could have climbed the tree without alerting him, meaning it had to have been up there the entire time.
A flash of roan and white through the leaves drew his gaze, dark liquid dripping down and staining the muted colors of the foliage. Even with his color blindness he could recognize it as blood. A flash of purple flesh, of shiny black scales and needle-like teeth should have sent him running, yet he stayed rooted to his spot against the trunk of that tree. He wanted to see it, see if it was the wyrm that had been whispered about through town.
Claws the color of midnight sank into the bark, folding a branch as easily as paper, exposing the beast's face. The sickly artist couldn't stifle his gasp fast enough, the muffled noise seemingly deafening to his own ears. It was a dragon, the winged wyrm, the black-scaled beast who'd been fearfully murmured throughout the city. Its jaws were stuffed with the broken and slicked body of the doe, blood and saliva dripping from its mouth as it nosily swallowed the deer whole like a snake. The scales that covered its face faded into long spines that glimmered like obsidian along the fringe of its skull, laying flush to its neck in a relaxed position. Curved protrusions ran down the entire length of its body, resembling the thorns of a rose. Along those horns, atop its spine, a layer of thicker, pointed scales hugged its body. They looked like they might stand on end, and he noticed that the rest of its body had smaller, thinner scales that looked almost delicate. An arrow or blade would have little trouble piercing there, and as his thoughts drifted back to the liquid that had dripped onto him earlier, he realized with a start that it must have been venom.
Great leathery wings were folded tight to its sinuous body, the fingers at the joint armed with hooked claws that gripped onto tree limbs to steady itself. Those wings looked like they could be as wide as two war gryphons, wingtip to wingtip. The span had to be over thirty feet at least; he shuddered to think just how long the actual body was if the wings were that big. As he watched, the creature's color seemed to roil and shift, lightening then darkening when the light shifted. Dark splotches of black and grey and, he assumed at least, red splattered the creature's hide along its back, fading down into a uniform deep grey. No wonder he hadn't seen it; it had probably blended right in with the tree branches.
With a loud, grotesque slurp the deer vanished into the dragon's throat, the beast letting out a contented rumble deep in its chest. A thick purplish tongue, forked slightly at the tip, cleaned off any last trace of blood from its scaly lips, an expression almost like a smirk on its features. Steve felt his heart hammer against his thin ribcage when the dragon yawned widely, resetting its maw like some great serpent. Two articulated jaws, armed with teeth like needles and knives, stretched and shifted back into place, elastic flesh and gums returning to their original size as the bulge that had been the doe vanished down into its belly.
Time to leave. Without food to distract it, Steve knew he needed to escape before it took an interest in him. He didn't like to run away from anything, but this was a dragon and not some back alley fight; this was slightly out of his league. He tore his gaze away from the seemingly-placated beast and gathered his meager belongings as silently as possible, wanting to get back into the relative safety of the city. Sure the dragon could probably rip his way through the strongest of buildings, but dragons rarely entered large population centers; they were smart enough to recognize the risks involved.
Steve slowly rose on shaky knees, clutching his sketchbook close to his chest with eyes firmly set on the path back to the city. Dragons were rare beasts indeed, and rumors and myth surrounded them. Some said that they pried their ways into the minds of men to force them to do their bidding, that they could suck the life out of someone with a simple inhale, or that their eyes held a hypnotic power no person could ever resist; he doubted such stories held much merit, but it was better to err on the side of caution than risk his life by staying. Some dragons possessed the gift of speech and worked peacefully with humans, but that had only happened a handful of times with the smaller, gentler dragon species who had vanished into near nonexistence with the onset of the war. This was a wyrm, sought for their venom and blood for all manners of poisons and elixirs, and was as far from those timid and affectionate species that aided man freely as one could possibly get.
He made it all of three feet before stopping short, a tug on his ankle signaling one of the wiry vines that clung to the tree's roots had tangled around him in his hurry to get up. Tucking his sketchbook up under his arm he knelt to pry it free, pulling his pant leg up with one hand while the other grabbed at the plant. The moment he touched it, however, he realized just how much trouble he was in. That wasn't a harmless vine caught in the fabric of his sock under his hand, oh no; instead his thin fingers were pressed into silken, scaled flesh that coiled tighter at the contact, creeping further up his leg just a fraction of an inch in grim promise.
The leaves rustled ominously above his head, and the artist felt his heart leap in fear, pounding against his ribs hard enough he could hear it in his ears even through his partial deafness. He didn't dare look up, the rumor about wyrms and their gleaming eyes buzzing through his head. It was hard to ignore that temptation to steal a glance, however, when he heard coils shifting and sliding above him, the tree limbs groaning in protest as the dragon repositioned itself.
Steve quickly cut a glance over to the path in a bid to judge just how far away he was but was met with a curtain of mottled skin, the beast's wings hooded around to encompass nearly the entire clearing. They were the color of a fresh scrape, red-raw and covered in speckles of black and teardropped grey. The membrane was almost translucent, stretched taunt so that the dabbled light backlit the cross work of veins. He would have found it beautiful if he wasn't fearing for his life.
In his distraction, he didn't see the shadow cross his peripheral until it was too late. Something warm and rough, spongy and slimy, was drug over his cheek directly over the bruised scrape he'd received in the earlier scuffle. Steve recoiled as if bitten by a snake, his trapped ankle sending him falling backwards. His back collided with slippery scales instead of hard tree bark, claws encircling his shoulders like a vice, holding him upright and steady. The smooth chest scales he was leaning back against pressed against him with every breath the serpent took, its heart beating lazily and far too calmly against him, a stark contrast to his own which threatened to burst out of fear.
A glut of hot air in his face drew his gaze forward, and he immediately regretted it. The dragon's neck hung above him, curving gracefully and flexibly to bring its head directly in front of him, mouth parted slightly and the tip of a pudgy forked tongue barely visible. The mouth should have alarmed him, but his gaze was locked on the serpent's eyes. Even with his muted color palette the beast's eyes glittered a gemstone shade of blue; he was reminded of the ice that filled the bay in the winters. Its pupils were slitted like a cat, otherworldly and predatory, and they seemed to stare right into him.
About a dozen different expletives flashed through Steve's mind, his mouth too dry to even think of speaking out aloud. He was scared, then again who wouldn't be, but he was far from sitting back and letting the beast have its way. When it moved closer he swung at it, hitting it as hard as he could on the flat scale on the tip of its nose. He honestly expected to feel his hand break against armor plate, but instead the scale was softer than he'd anticipated, flexing under the blow like stiff leather. There were three 'spikes' along either side of its muzzle (he was reminded of the whiskers of a cat for a half-second) and they twitched at the strike, before suddenly the human's vision was crowded with movement.
They weren't spikes at all. They were feelers of some sort, he mentally noted, waving in the air like the antenna of a butterfly. Steve probably would have found it ridiculous if he wasn't scared of being eaten. They were brighter than the rest of the beast, probably some shade of red as he couldn't see it well, but he didn't dwell on the color much when the first one wrapped around his wrist, an iron grip that held his arm still.
"Let go!" Steve shouted with all the fire in his voice that he could muster, panic and anger both snapping him out of his momentary daze. He tried to pull his wrist free but the thin tendril was deceptively strong, holding him firmly in place. His other arm was soon caught as well, and another tendril blindly thumped along his shoulder before prodding his face, close to the scrape across his cheek; Steve was sorely tempted to bite the damn thing. Now that fear was ebbing away he was more frustrated with the dragon. It was like it was toying with him and he wasn't going to stand for it.
"I said let go!" the artist screamed as loud as he could without letting his voice crack with fear, and that seemed to finally get the dragon's attention. Its glassy eyes rolled in their sockets like marbles, staring down into his frightened human ones with an almost frustrated air. To Steve's surprise, however, the feelers released his arms, hovering around the beast's jaws, waiting.
A strange pressure built in his head, right behind his temples like the beginning of a headache. It didn't… hurt like a headache, though, and he realized with a start it had to be that power he'd heard, of wyrms prying their way into the minds of humans to command them. There weren't any words, just flashes of colored patterns; they seemed oddly peaceful, considering the situation. A multitude of blues and greens and golds, lazily swirling into a simple picture of what Steve assumed to be the dragon's view of him. It was… odd seeing a picture of himself in his head, with colors unmarred by his eyes' shortcomings. Red splotches dotted the simple, flickering picture, where he had been injured in the fight earlier in the day. The dragon seemed focused on them, for some reason.
Its head canted to the side, the pair of tendrils closest to its nose, which were the shortest, reaching out towards him slowly. This time it didn't grab him but instead lightly encircled his wrist with one of the whiskers, lifting his arm a bit and turning so his palm faced down. The other tendril ghosted over his blooded and split knuckles, a soft keening sound escaping the dragon's jaws that sounded almost… mournful? That wasn't the right word but he couldn't think of another way to describe it at that moment. The claws gripping his shoulders loosened before urging him to sit, and Steve found himself complying. It wasn't acting like a predator anymore, it was acting like something… else, so he allowed himself to be swayed as long as it didn't press his boundaries again.
The dragon ducked its head to stay level with him when he sat, the tendril still wrapped loosely around his wrist. As he watched, the serpent clicked its jaws together and made a wet noise, opening its mouth enough to stick out its tongue. Steve noticed, briefly, that its teeth were hidden behind a thick padding of gums now and not ready to snap at him. He viewed it as a small comfort. The wyrm seemed to take his lack of screaming and thrashing as permission, as a moment later it licked at his hand, swiping its roughly textured tongue over his bloodied knuckles. The artist winced, feeling the thin scabs tear away with the motion, but the pain was fleeting as the wyrm licked again, covering the bleeding wounds in saliva.
The rather gross-looking slime dulled the shock almost instantly, replacing the heat of pain with a cold numbness that began to spread through his hand and up his arm. Steve could only watch in fascination as the wounds began to close, skin knitting together painlessly as whatever-it-was the dragon had put on the injury went to work. In a split second of recognition, he realized that this must have been what the wyrm had been trying to do when it licked his face earlier.
"W-wow." Steve mumbled breathlessly, looking up at the dragon in wonder. The earlier fear had melted away, replaced with a deep curiosity. He knew wyrms were dangerous, and he was no way stupid enough to think the dragon might not decide to eat him when it got bored, but as it stood now it wasn't making itself out to be an immediate threat.
With a satisfied hum the wyrm started on his second hand, repeating the treatment on any other wounds it could find. It didn't try and get close to his face again, though, instead licking one of its tendrils and touching it to the scrapes that covered his cheek and forehead so as not to panic him. It was still rather… alarming having anything belonging to the dragon near his face, but it worked so delicately and carefully that he allowed it. He barely felt it clean and cover the cut on his forehead or rub against the bruise on his neck that he hadn't even known was there.
A sudden spark of color in his mind signaled the dragon wanted his attention. Steve watched as it smoothly and effortlessly removed itself from the tree completely, making barely a sound as it did so. Soon enough the entire creature was exposed for the first time, and it was much, much bigger than he had thought it was at first. That was enough to make fear trickle back into his awareness, even though he was no longer enveloped by the creature and could probably make a run for it.
Yet… he realized he didn't really want to make a break for town now. The artist was just as curious as the dragon seemed to be, and after all, no one really knew much about wyrms. This could be a good chance to learn. He could feel it trying to form another picture in his mind; a myriad of blues filled with swirls of white crowded out his own thoughts, before it shifted to what he assumed was a view of the seaside cliffs that weren't too far from the city. He could see a cave, and several other figures painted in his head, but he couldn't make out what they were.
Before he could really try and make sense of what the dragon wanted he felt himself being picked up, fang-filled jaws latched firmly onto the back collar of his shirt and lifting him clean into the air as if he weighed nothing at all. Steve didn't even get the chance to curse before he was deposited on the wyrm's back, planted firmly between its shoulder blades and in a gap in its thorn-like spines. His heart almost stopped. Is it going to take me somewhere…? He didn't even get the chance to finish his thought before those great, curtainous wings spread to their full expanse and stroked downward, lifting the dragon clean into the air in a single fluid motion.
Steve sucked in a breath and grabbed onto the nearest spine for dear life, the ground dropping away below them as the wyrm twisted in the air and dove away from the clearing, the city a mere speck in the distance by the time the artist dared to look back. His heart sank into his stomach, for the first time really realizing that he was in so, so much trouble. Where in the world was the wyrm taking him? And worse, for what purpose…? He could only hope he hadn't made a horrible mistake in not running when he had had the chance.