Put Down The Knife (the night is here)
Part of the Effortless As Fire series, the Star Wars Dragon AU no one asked for.
The previous instalment, And The Moon It Fell Down, is recommended reading but not necessary.
Part 1, Section 1: Ryloth
The dragon that appears on Ryloth is like no dragon Anakin has ever heard of. It's nothing like Ventress, who is vicious and slick like oil, or Maul, who had made nine year old Anakin feel like the inside of his lungs were being turned to ice and tied into a knot at the same time. This dragon's presence is as dark and clear as the desert night, and cool as the breeze underneath a gloaming sky.
It's been a long, hard, and messy campaign. The GAR have been wrestling for a foothold on the planet for weeks, but finally, they are gaining ground. The dragon Ventress, who's been a scourge since she first appeared, hasn't been seen near Ryloth for several days. Intel puts her on Christophsis, trying to retake the planet from Master Fisto.
That leaves Anakin dealing with droid troops, commanded by predictable tactical units. Anakin has managed to push them back into one of the rangey canyons that score the landscape of Ryloth, and he's having fun picking them off as he drives them towards the capital.
They're so close. Half his troops lead a punishing attack on the left flank from above, forcing them close to the cliff face. Anakin leads the squad tackling them head on, deflecting blaster shots that free his troops to litter the enemy ranks with pulse grenades, EMP missiles, and long range blaster fire.
Then a shadow passes across the battlefield. A warning bite in the Force, urgent like wildfire. It prickles like teeth in the back of Anakin's neck.
"Dragon!"
Anakin dives into the Force without thinking, hot, animal panic lending him the strength and speed to protect his men. Moments later, coppery flames explode across the ranks. He tries to channel the onslaught away from his troops, but these flames are insidious, creeping past his shields and barriers to lick cruelly across the shoulders of his men. A bone white terror, huge and spined, soars across the battlefield. The hot Ryloth sun scatters in blinding, golden curlicues across its flank.
Anakin pushes back, moving the air itself to vent away the flames, until he's shaking with the strain. He refuses to give in and allow his men to suffer the brunt of the fire. The blast seems to last forever, and he stands there sweating though the heat, both from the fire on the physical plane and the roiling inferno in the Force.
With Anakin occupied, Rex barks orders. His troops aim their cannons skywards, sending a volley of blasts towards the dragon. It spirals higher, until the range of its fire is surpassed.
When the flames finally stop, Anakin staggers with relief. He peers up, still dazed and half blind. For a moment, it seems like the dragon has totally disappeared. He only just draws his saber up in time to meet his opponent, who drops out of the air like a lightning bolt, red blade sizzling, and stinking of hot metal.
The dragon, now human shaped, lands a punishing strike straight from its dive, sending vibrations along Anakin's arms. The dark side crackles, the Force pivoting around a new focal point - the attacker, who follows the first blow with a heavy sideways sweep towards Anakin's legs.
Anakin blocks clumsily, pushing his opponent back with a hasty Force shove. The man-shaped beast falters, and Anakin has a chance to look at it properly - russet hair, crisp white robes and armour, and mad gold eyes. Its Force presence gleams with mischievous malice, like marsh fire spirits. It regains its balance easily, and takes a defensive posture.
"Skywalker?" it asks.
"You bet," Anakin replies.
"Delighted," says the dragon, returning Anakin's savage grin.
It draws itself into the opening stance of Soresu. An odd choice - Ventress is brutally aggressive, much as Maul had been.
In the distance, the droid army are regrouping, turning to face the onslaught from the left flank. Rex is pulling the frontal assault round to keep them penned in while Anakin handles the dragon. He needs to finish this quickly. He's fought dangerous opponents before, and matched Ventress more than once. He's never yet defeated a dragon in combat - but there's time yet. This is an opportunity to prove himself.
The dragon twirls its saber, and Anakin jerks into a guard position.
"Careful now," it says. Its voice is rich and glassy, with a sneering Coruscanti accent. "You allow yourself to be distracted, young one. It will be your undoing."
He sounds so smug. It's irritating. Anakin says nothing, raising his own blade in preparation. He checks his footing, steadies himself, breathes deeply. He doesn't need to give in to the goading, as he would have years ago. Nevertheless, Anakin feels the first thrill of adrenaline for the coming battle.
The dragon lunges at him impatiently. Anakin catches the red blade with his own, but the dragon's saber curves wickedly around Anakin's guard, forcing him to the side. Anakin tries a few testing blows, trying to gauge its strength. Ventress never lets up, and her blows are deceptively heavy. This dragon is different. He favours sliding, elusive movements, blocking Anakin's strokes easily with indefatigable soresu, and always seeking to hook his blade or get in close for a deadly short range strike.
Anakin's blade skips along the dragon's, and they grapple for a moment, close enough that Anakin can see soft creases at the corner of the dragon's eyes. A few fine hairs slide through Anakin's fingers.
Anakin pushes away, giving ground. Then he surges forward, aiming a heavy spinning slash to the dragon's back.
Something catches around his boots, a sneaky maneuver in the Force. He staggers, trips, caught at the worst moment of his step, and goes down face first.
He rolls, desperately trying to get his saber up in time to catch whatever killing blow the dragon has aimed for his back. He's shocked when his blade meets nothing but thin air.
Anakin scrambles to his knees, spitting out sand and mud, fists clenched.
"Look at you, rolling in the dirt like a nerf calf. Are you Jedi or are you beast?" the dragon asks cheerfully.
Anakin's cheeks flush, as he cringes with mortification. It's a surprisingly familiar feeling - Qui-Gon's tactics were often unscrupulous (and playful, Anakin recalls regretfully), especially in training when he wanted to keep Anakin on his toes. Except this isn't Qui-Gon harassing him in the training rooms. This is a serious battle in the middle of a heated campaign, with a deadly enemy who Anakin is at war with.
"At least I don't fight dirty," Anakin mutters, half to himself.
The dragon stares down at him, all pointed beard and pretty, sneering mouth.
"Oh, do you not? I suppose you must be above that, Jedi." The dragon smiles. His eyes rake up and down Anakin, from his mud stained knees to his blaster charred pauldrons. Anakin shivers.
Made uncomfortable by the direction of his thoughts, Anakin wrenches himself upwards, abdominal muscles straining, and strikes out with a wild blow. The dragon bats away his saber with a light tap, strategically placed. Anakin slides his blade forwards, reaching inside the dragon's guard, but with another twist he is forced away.
The dragon laughs. "A good attempt for sure. What will you try next?"
"Don't push me," Anakin snaps.
"Push you? Push you to what?" the dragon asks, resettling into an opening stance for Anakin's next maneuver.
A hot, burning sensation creeps up Anakin's neck, as his stomach churns sickly. He suddenly wants nothing more than to smear the dragon into a fine paste across the barren Ryloth dirt. His shame-born anger is right there. He could use it to win this battle easily, he's certain of it.
Qui-Gon's lessons: The emotion is there, the action need not reflect it.
Anakin throws himself into the saber play instead. He's good at it, one of the best among all his peers and elders alike. The dragon really is underestimating his skill. He'd been too rash before. The dragon arcs it's saber, testing Anakin's guard with quick, well placed hits.
"Better," says the dragon, and Anakin punishes it for the comment with a blow that sends it staggering.
It grins as it recovers, straightening its spine languorously. The hot Ryloth sun scatters across its pale, sharp cheekbones, and the oddly genial creases at the corner of its eyes.
He really had been clumsy before - both with his movements and his emotions.
Anakin clenches his jaw, and they begin again. Finding his rhythm, Anakin is absorbed in the duel, in bright splashes of red and blue. Their movements become more artful, morphing into familiar and complex rhythms and exchanges.
Anakin is being driven away from his troops - isolated. That's a good thing. The dragon is further away from his men, and Anakin is facing him alone, on his own terms, without fear of collateral. His movements come easier for it, his shoulders slackening. A grin curves at the corner of his lips. He's been aching for a good fight, to find a foe he can test himself against.
The dragon is allowing it. He's intentionally letting Anakin use his flashiest moves, setting up each step ahead of time. Anakin lets it happen, working in complex steps and movements that serve no purpose other than being fun. Their eyes meet, and a thread of shared thought passes between them. It's an understanding - a strange and temporary truce in the heat of battle. Anakin is enjoying himself, and aware that he is being enjoyed in turn.
There is movement in the Force. For a moment, Anakin is open to the dragon's mind. He senses a shimmering delight overlaid on the heady, sickening vortex of the dark side, and a repeating thought - this is the one, this one is mine.
Unnerved, he pushes back with his heaviest blows and wildest tactics. The dragon matches him in combat skill, but the Force is with it, spinning the duel to its favour. For every trick Anakin tries, the dragon has a countering maneuver that leaves him giving ground and off balance.
"Can you do no better? Try harder. Give more," the dragon purrs. Its golden eyes are wild, its white robes dusty. A pearly pink sheen of saber light scatters across the ceramic plates of its chest armour. It looks glorious, somehow, as if the battle has infused it with a bright and glowing vigor.
Anakin feels a sudden urge to reciprocate, to let their battle drag until he's exhausted, until he doesn't have to worry about his anger and frustration clouding his actions, because he'll have no strength left to act.
His heart thumps in his chest and the Force churns like the whorls of hyperspace. For a moment, he flounders in the grip of it, as it curls in towards the dragon like space towards a singularity. Bright trails of intention follow their movements, trailing through the Force like glittering fiber optics. Possibilities flicker wildly and die with the ebb and flow between them, a single luminous wire unspooling from Anakin, coupling to the dragon's surging and sucking presence.
"Give me more," the dragon repeats, and its eyes darken. It licks its lips.
Anakin's mind echoes with what he guesses is a dragon's version of a Force suggestion - give.
He can't. He mustn't. Anakin comes back to himself with a snap, his ears ringing with the distant blaster fire from the battle that's still ongoing.
No.
Furious that he's allowed himself to be distracted, Anakin slams after the dragon. The dragon's eyebrows arch with momentary surprise, panic, even. Then it smiles, catching his eyes, its own glinting with humour.
Anakin realises he is doing as asked - he is giving more. Or at least, he could be. The Force whispers a strange idea to him - he could choose to offer his fury and energy as a gift.
A gift for a dragon. A sacrifice.
No. He's not giving anything, what is he thinking? He must be under some kind of compulsion.
Rather than continue his assault, he leaps clear, trying to get some space between them so he can take a few breaths. He keeps the blade of his saber lit, But he angles it down - unaggressive, Jedi-like. Qui-Gon would be proud. He counts through Qui-Gon's lessons, watching the dragon carefully, determined not to attack first.
The dragon tenses, cocking its head. Anakin steadies himself, tightening his grip on his saber.
An explosion cracks through the canyon, shaking the ground under Anakin's feet.
"Looks like your men are making progress," says the dragon, smiling brightly.
"We'll accept your surrender any time," Anakin replies, feeling an unbidden smirk tugging at his lower lip.
"Perhaps another time, thank you," it says. High spots of colour show just above its bearded cheeks. It's panting with exhilaration. "But now, we are done. I have a retreat to cover... I'll see you again, dear one."
"Wait-!"
The dragon is out of reach - it dashes forward, and Anakin raises his blade, but then it leaps. In mid air it shifts, the Force curling around it and parting to reveal its true form - a shimmering white beast with ragged, leathery wings that carry it up across the battlefield.
"-What's your name?" Anakin finishes, even though there's no chance of reply.
Anakin stares after the dragon, caught in awe by the power of the Force. For a long moment, he feels like he's being yanked upwards too. The strings of light formed between them during their sparring stretch and stretch, until they are fine enough to disappear. Anakin is released from the pull, his chest heaving.
Notes: Thanks for reading! You can read more about Star Wars dragons on the "Dragonverse" tag over on my tumblr, where I welcome questions and comments, and post snippets of future works.
The previous work in this series is And The Moon It Fell Down. Set ten years in the past, during and after the battle of Naboo, and focusing on Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan.