A/N: By popular request, I give you the continuation of My Best Friend is a Dragon, and Roxas's story within.

Just as before, the story follows Roxas but with the sole exception of the very first part, just below. That bit isn't his, but the consequences of it will turn up later on.
And now, as usual, I don't own Kingdom Hearts. Now go ahead and start reading... I may even have another chapter up soon.

How long it had been, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that there was something different, something that was there before that wasn't any more. Something that had been a part of him, and wasn't any more.
He was fairly certain it was not just a thing, but a person... but there had only been one person like that... and he should still be with him... right?
And yet... there had been strange happenings ever since he'd felt this... disappearance. There had been that evening a while back, where a bit of forest he was in had been set alight around him inexplicably, and even harder to explain was how he managed to get out of it without the slightest burn on him.
It had happened again much more recently, and with greater intensity. Thankfully he'd been out at sea when that happened and so nothing had been burnt, though he admitted the boat he'd been in hadn't made it through, causing him to have to swim to shore.
Something had happened and something else was going on. It was unclear if they were related, but either way, he was going to get to the bottom of it. He glanced up to the skies and saw the familiar sight of a passing Wishing Star. He'd seen one just before the feeling of whatever it was not being there.
"I wish I could find the cause of these things," he murmured on seeing it.
Wishes are dangerous things. Sometimes they come true unexpectedly. Sometimes they're better left unsaid. Sometimes they're better left unfulfilled.
But a wish on a Wishing Star... well, anything could happen then. If one of them heard, the chances were you'd get your wish... but not in the way you expected.
The Wishing Star went to work with the wish. It was already handling one wish, watching its recipient search for his friend... what was another wish that would end up coinciding with it?

Roxas woke to the sound of silence. Silence, but for the sounds of normal woodland life keeping its distance from him. Not even the faintest crackle, which told him the small fire he'd made must have burnt itself out. He'd only lit it so he had something to cook on. He could have cooked it himself simply by breathing fire on the food himself, but it would still have taken time, and anyone stumbling over him would have been hard pressed to find a normal explanation.
Roxas was a Dragonkin, one of a rare few people with special affinity for Dragons. A passing wish had given him a life of his own, no longer influenced by the old ghosts of Sora's past or the Organization.
He'd met old friends and some new ones, found his best friend Axel had come back as one of the Wyvern Dragons, red naturally, and the two had partnered, giving Roxas several Draconic abilities that matched up with Axel's own. Breathing fire was a relatively simple ability in comparison to some of the others, and some he'd already discovered were dependant on how he felt at the time.
But the time he'd displayed such abilities was mostly behind him now. With Axel's aid, he driven off the Noble Dragon that had been threatening his new hometown of Dragonbarrow, but as thanks for it Vexen – somewhat ironically, the Commander of the Watch – had attempted to kill him. The resulting actions had seen him all but run out of town, with Axel disappearing completely.
No one was stupid enough to actually force him out, but the general attitude toward him had been unfriendly enough that he knew he was no longer welcome there. So he'd stowed his belongings in a hideout in the tunnels beneath the town, packed the necessities and left in search of his best friend, and in search of a mysterious Onyx Dragon that seemed to know so much about him.
So far though, he'd found nothing that gave him a trail to follow. He'd followed the well-worn route out of Dragonbarrow and through the forest that would eventually lead to another settlement. All he knew was that Axel had last been seen flying away this way.
It had been a week of travel already, but it wasn't any bother. After fashioning himself a crude bow and some basic arrows, he was able to hunt and forage to keep eating, and he was never without the means to light a fire. He tried not to have to light it himself if possible though, but the ability to breath fire was always there to fall back on in a pinch.
He rolled out of the thin sheet, picking out a fresh change of clothes for the day. He'd have to find the winding river again if he wanted to keep on having something clean to wear. Usually the path he was following wasn't far from it, but it weaved back and forth so much that he'd once gone for three days before seeing it again.
Once dressed, he warily glanced outside the tent at his small camp to ensure it was safe, then built up the fire a little, lighting it with one short breath – it was early, and he was feeling lazy – then while it cooked off the last of the rabbit he'd caught the day before he set about clearing up the camp, making ready to leave.
"Where are you, Axel?" Roxas muttered to himself, the Draconic language coming to him naturally. Ever since the meeting with Vexen, it had become the dominant language for him. He tried not to speak in Draconic when others were around, but when alone he didn't bother.
When the fire was all that was left of his presence, he turned back to it and retrieved the rabbit. It was hardly the same kind of breakfast he preferred to eat, but he also preferred to eat than go without.
Part way through, something rustled nearby, making him pause and look sharply around in the low morning light. Most people would see very little, but being Axel's partner conferred some exceptionally sharp low-light vision, with the added extra that anything alive would show up with an orange corona around it, making targets easy to spot.
The woodland life was not as abundant here as it had been last night. His presence had persuaded much of it to move clear of him. Most animal life could tell he was a Dragonkin, and few liked to be around one.
Nevertheless, there were patches of orange that showed some were around anyway. A few passing squirrels, or nesting birds. A wolf tackling it's own still-warm breakfast. And one human.
The fire was stamped out. Roxas ignored the heat, it wouldn't harm him, not since he'd partnered with Axel. Thankfully that also carried over to anything he was wearing, allowing him to extinguish it without any threat to him.
As quietly as he could, he picked up the sword belt that had been leaning against the rucksack containing nearly all of his belongings, a sword already resting in the attached scabbard. He set it in place, all the while watching the human. A cold, thin line made part of the glow disappear. A weapon perhaps.
Roxas silently swung the rucksack onto his back, finished the last of his breakfast, then crept back into the forest a ways. The figure seemed to pause for a moment, then turned and reoriented on him. Whoever it was, they knew he was here.
He drew the sword slowly to avoid making the steely hiss it would have otherwise made, holding it lightly but ready in one hand as he pulled behind a large tree, peeking out just enough to keep the orange glow in sight.
The line of the weapon became nearly vertical, and a second line appeared in it. Some kind of bow. He waited until he judged the figure was about to loose the arrow, then quickly ducked back behind the tree. Another nearby tree sprouted an arrow with a thunk.
"Damn," a voice whispered quietly, audible to Roxas only because there was next to no other sound around. Not one he recognised, but it had been nearly five days since he'd last met anyone.
A second, brief glance was risked. The figure seemed to be doing something with the bow. By the faint twanging sounds, it sounded like it was being restrung. The comment could have been because of the shot taken, or because the strings had needed attention.
He used the distraction to move deeper into the forest, away from the mystery archer and back toward the path he'd been following. He kept a close watch on the archer as he continued quietly along.
When he returned to the grey paved path, the only sign of civilization in the woodlands, the archer was no longer visible. He deemed it safe to resheath the sword. Though he knew how to use it, he preferred not to – killing people was not something he liked or wanted to do. Scared off was considerably more preferable than dead.
It was hard to say how far he'd come, or how far was left to go. In the life he'd gained here, caused entirely by a single wish he'd made, he'd never left the town of Dragonbarrow before. Since residents were not encouraged to leave the town except in the case of merchant caravans, traders and anyone who worked outside the walls, little emphasis was placed on the world outside Dragonbarrow, and so little was known of it.
Roxas found he didn't mind this so much provided he followed the well-maintained route. It would eventually lead him to another settlement sooner or later, and until then the passing merchant caravans coming the other way frequently made excellent guides to part of the route ahead. People on this route always looked out for each other, it seemed. Provided you didn't appear threatening – bearing arms was good sense, wielding them on this route was putting yourself at risk. The caravan guards were known for their policy of not asking questions when it came to such travellers.
This early in the morning though, the only one you could reliably depend on was yourself, unless you happened to travel with company. And the only company was his mystery and accuracy-challenged archer he noted, as another nearby tree suddenly grew an arrow.
He redrew the sword, taking cover behind another tree. Another quick glance and he determined it was safe to move to another tree, and a pause later showed the figure was still headed toward the first tree.
A few more trees later, he'd circled around behind the archer, who was now getting ready to jump out on Roxas was with a thin blue knife, or rather where Roxas had been before his trip around the trees.
Roxas once more fought the urge to speak the language of dragons, setting the sword lightly against the archer's neck and quietly growling, "Drop the weapon and turn around slowly."
There was some faint surprise when the archer turned out, against Roxas's predictions, not to be male. More of the surprise came when he recognised the face as being one of the people he could barely stand in his previous life.
"You won't kill me, Dragonkin," Larxene said. "I know all about you. You don't like to hurt people." Like most others from his previous life, it appeared that Larxene had no memory of him in that life, or of that life itself.
"Why are you trying to kill me?"
"It's what I was hired to do."
"Who by?"
"Can't tell you that."
"Knock it off."
"Can't do that either. I don't stop until the contract is fulfilled."
"I hope you're ready to waste the rest of your life trying then – or did they not tell you a Dragonkin is immortal as long as his partner Dragon still lives?"
"I'll find a way. You can count on it. I always get the job done."
"Is there a problem here?" someone else asked in a strangely urbane manner. Both of them turned toward the nearby path. The speaker was on a caravan designed to be drawn by two horses but was instead being pulled by a strange contraption that looked like it would have been more at home in a metalworker's workshop. Out of the caravan poked a small brass chimney and many other odd things that neither of them could put a name to. In one hand, he held a small metal tube, attached to a longer black tube that went inside the caravan. It was pointed at them.
"I was just... explaining to this hired assassin I'd rather she didn't do it," Roxas answered after a moment.
"And I told you, I'm going to do it whatever it takes," Larxene replied. The tube was reoriented on her.
"Step away from him, ma'am," the stranger said. "I'm not entirely sure what this will do to you, but the chances are it'll hurt."
"Don't tell me what to do!" That was the Larxene he remembered.
The stranger did something, and the tube fired out... something else, which passed over their heads with a faint whup-whup-whup sound. A tree in the path of the whatever-it-was suddenly sprouted a pair of large round holes, linked by a chain of smaller ones.
The two of them stared at this for a few moments, then Roxas prudently stepped away as the stranger added, "The next one will be aimed at you, ma'am. I advise you to leave."
"Don't think you've heard the last of me," Larxene threatened him, then headed back into the trees.
"Now what's your story, mister?" the stranger asked him then. "Not often anyone sees a lone traveller with nothing but a single bag and a weapon, especially not an ornate one like that."
The sword had been given to him by Captain Nielen of Dragonbarrow's town watch. Despite their differences, he hadn't been willing to let Roxas leave without some kind of weapon to protect him, and had made a gift of this sword to him – which he'd been told had belonged to the last human Minister of the town.
"I'm just looking for my friend," Roxas shrugged, putting it away again. "All I know is that he came this way, so this is the way I'm going."
"Bit strange to see you've not taken another means of travel."
"You mean a horse? They don't get along with me. And the caravans leaving Dragonbarrow... well, they shared the views of the residents, and probably wouldn't have taken me with them no matter how much I offered to pay them. Anyway, what about you? And what is that?" he pointed toward the mechanism that replaced the horses, chugging away with its own collection of little hisses and plink sounds and all the others it made.
"Ah, that there is what I call the automatic horse! It needs only steam to make it work, and can pull far more than a horse can."
"And you?"
"You haven't heard of me?"
"The forest generally doesn't come with its own newspaper," Roxas answered with a faint smile.
"True that. I, dear chap am Professor Gamsworth. Not much of a name I'll admit, and the Professor is entirely self-bestowed. But surely any man who can power anything on steam where others said it was impossible is worthy of such a title?"
"I'm guessing something happened that made people think otherwise?"
"Right on the mark. It might have had something to do with the town receiving an unexpected shower of pieces of my workshop. I was politely asked to leave at that point, and so here I am. I passed Dragonbarrow just the other day. Would you care to hop up and come along for the ride?"
"You don't seem fazed by the fact there's someone hiring people to kill me," Roxas said.
"Oh, minor details," Gamsworth brushed it aside airily. "Everyone has a few skeletons in their closet. No doubt one of yours is the reason why."
"Heard of the Dragonkin?"
"I cherish my ignorance on the matter," Gamsworth grinned back. "Come on. Hop up my boy, and I'll help you find your friend."