Helpless
A/N:Lil bit of Snowdragon/Elderburn/whatever, in an au where Winter is a dragon. My tag/name for this one is 'Clever Sky Lesbian AU.' Enjoy!
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It had been nearly a millennium since she'd struck out on her own, leaving Father's domain on foot, with her head held high and her wings proudly spread behind her.
She'd willingly given up everything she'd had in life to get out from under his thumb, leaving with nothing but a robe she'd made herself, painstakingly sewn and arranged to allow her the appearance of regality, while still affording her wings their full range of motion.
She'd spent the next year or so searching for a homeland, and, once she found it, and digging out a cave in the side of a mountain to call her own.
The rest of that first decade had been spent taking whatever she wanted, adorning her cave with every luxury she could ever want, taken from ships, cities, anywhere that had anything her heart could desire.
That had been when she'd learned her first lesson; Cornered rats had a tendency to bite the cat, and humans were shockingly quick to feel cornered.
It had taken a cannonball to the side to knock her out of the air… but all it took for them to become complacent was watching her allow herself to sink beneath the waves.
Within a month, the humans were telling tales of how they'd defeated the mighty beast…
But she'd become smarter.
She spaced out her raids, taking only what she truly wanted, and letting them believe the tales they told themselves, that she was an entirely new dragon, and if it became an issue, they'd kill it as they had the last.
She never allowed them to believe her an issue, attacking pirates, conquering armies, and only the occasional merchant.
Soon enough, the people thought of her as a guardian, and even prepared the occasional cow as a sacrifice.
The thought of eating raw meat made her sick to her stomach, but she saw nothing wrong with taking the cow back to her cave and cooking it properly.
And that had been all well and good, for a few centuries…
But she'd gotten bored.
So, she allowed her story to fade, the myth of the Snowscaled Guardian to become just that.
She kept herself fed by feeding on wild creatures, finding herself enjoying the hunt more than the sacrifices humans would give her, and her hoard stopped growing.
She didn't have much, by her family's standards, though she had enough that even the most gaudy and affluent of kings would call her ostentatious… but only once.
And… time passed.
Years turned into decades, which blended together into centuries spent lazing around, reading or hunting or just thinking.
She took up hobby after hobby, finding joy in solitude for the longest time.
She even took to staying in her "human" form most of the time, switching to her natural form only to hunt.
And so, it wasn't a huge, fearsome dragon that interrupted Yang Xiao Long's attempt at robbery, but a pale, gorgeous, and above all, entirely nude woman.
/
She'd been awoken by a sharp clang, and headed to the gold room to see what had fallen this time.
To be entirely honest, she was glad for the excuse to rearrange the hoard rooms.
It'd been a couple decades, after all, and she was starting to go a bit stir-crazy.
Though if it was that fucking hat rack again, she was just going to melt it down.
The thing was more trouble than it was worth… and it was worth quite a bit.
The first thing she thought when she walked into the gold room was 'Hm, guess it wasn't the saddle.'
The second was 'There's no way she can lift that.'
The third was 'Why is she staring?'
"She" was an incredibly aesthetically figure wrapped in snug leathers, with a small knife strapped to her belt, and another to her boot.
She had the longest, fluffiest blonde hair she'd ever seen, and she was currently lifting a saddle she'd taken from some merchant king or another centuries ago.
A saddle that even she had trouble lifting, considering the majority of it was solid gold.
She gave a small cough and rolled her shoulders. "Pardon me, but what do you think you're doing here?"
The blonde went even paler than she was, and took a quick step back. "Who're you? Are you a ghost?"
"I asked you first." Winter said, crossing her arms. "Now, who are you?"
She shrugged in response, setting the solid gold saddle down and stretching her arms behind her back.
"Yang Xiao Long, part-time explorer, part-time treasure hunter, full time cutie. You?"
"I have many names." Winter deflected, taking a step towards the intrepid treasure hunter, and smiling when her hand moved to the knife strapped to her hilt. "Why are you here, Yang?"
/
Yang forced herself not to give a pleased little shudder at the sound of her name.
The way she'd said it, almost like she was savoring it, had sent tingles down her spine, but she forced those to the back of her mind and took a step forward, almost but not quite putting her into the woman's personal space. "Y'know, I could ask you the same question… but I can't help but notice you didn't answer my first one. Who are you?"
The woman smiled, then, and her heart nearly skips a beat. "I did ask you why you were here first…"
Yang just shrugged. "Alright, fine. I spent the last four years studying every old book I could find to figure out where the 'Snowscaled Guardian' made its home, so I could come clean the place out and live like a queen. So, who are you, and why are you here? Come to think of it, why are you naked? Not that I'm complaining, of course, but aren't you cold?"
"Her home." Winter responded, taking a step closer and relishing how Yang's face reddened.
Granted, she didn't exactly remember that being a typical human response to fear, but this didn't seem to be a typical human.
"Uh, excuse… excuse me?" Yang managed, forcing her eyes to stay locked with hers.
"The 'Guardian', as you've all called her, is a girl. Not an 'it,' and she doesn't appreciate thieves."
"Treasure hunter." Yang replied, almost absent-mindedly… and then her back slammed against the wall, and the blonde is grinning at her, her lips only inches away from her own.
For a long moment, they just breathe, nearly in sync, and then Yang's smile widens.
"Oh, the big, scary dragon, heart aflutter and completely at the mercy of some poor human girl." Yang chuckles, and tilts her head to the side a bit, that grin not quite disappearing, but shifting into more of a challenge. "Alright, really, who are you?"
"You… you can call me Winter." She decides, allowing her eyes to shift, if only a bit, and the beginnings of flame to flare from her nostrils as she breathes out.
Yang goes a bit pale, but chuckles, leaning her forehead against hers. "I can, hm? Well, I'm flattered…"
Their lips crash together then, and neither of them speaks for a long time.
/
Several hours later, when she's laying on one of the finest mattresses she owns with a dozing and very naked Yang in her arms, she wonders how, exactly, it was that nothing in her several millennia long life had prepared her for this eventuality.
And then Yang shifts in her sleep, and she finds herself making plans to get a more comfortable mattress for next time, and she starts wondering when, exactly, she'd decided on doing this again, or even for the first time, and then she's asleep, pulling Yang that much closer.
And that night, for the first time in her life, she has a completely restful sleep in her "human" form.