Dragons, Honour, and a Good Pair of Boots
"Not that I don't love it, but sometimes you're too nice, Tolys."
The pair had paused for breath on a grassy knoll a few miles away from the village – close enough that they could still see the smoke rising from the chimneys, but far enough away that the actual houses were nothing more than so many whitewashed blurs. The mountains either side of the valley in stained glass shades from blue to silver framed the rising sun as it's light began to filter down to the fields below, and the dappling effect it had on the grass made it look like the pair were stranded in an emerald sea, yet while it did look picturesque, Feliks wasn't concentrating on the view behind; much preferring the view of Tolys bending down to shake what he complained felt like a small boulder out of his boots, jerkin rising above his hips and baring the tiniest slither of tan skin.
"I'm sorry?" Tolys replied, looking over his shoulder with a confused tilt to his dark eyebrows as he began to relace his boots and wincing when he felt the blisters, the type of blister that only forms when breaking in new shoes. Hopefully the boots would be worth it – made of good solid leather that had cost Feliks more silver pieces than he usually earnt from three pairs of slippers, they should last a while.
"You should be," he groused. "It's like a week before Immis' Day, and we're in the middle of nowhere on the way to risk our lives because some woman basically batted her eyelashes at you."
The run up to Immis' Day was habitually the busiest time of the year for a cobbler, especially one with Feliks' particular skill set. Since Immisp was the goddess of travellers, hospitality and good fortune, she was quite a popular deity, and it was almost a guarantee that every family would buy new shoes; either one of the miniature pairs used as an amulet, or delicately embroidered dancing shoes for the following two days of feasting and dancing.
Tolys huffed, although whether from exasperation or the weight of the pack settling into his shoulders Feliks couldn't tell. "You didn't have to come. I'm sure I'd be fine."
"Yeah, sure. You'll say that and then the bandits will appear, and add another wordsmith to their collection." Feliks had to jog a little to catch up with his friend with his pack bouncing into his shoulders and strands of blond hair whipping into his mouth every step so the words came out a little choppy, but Tolys seemed to understand if the tired look in his pine green eyes was anything to go by.
"Silversmith."
"What?"
"Braginski's a silversmith." Or maybe Tolys didn't understand, because that was completely unrelated to the subject at hand.
"Same thing," Feliks said, with an annoyed flap of his hand. "Anyway, the-"
"It is not!" Feliks had forgotten how annoyed Tolys would get at any perceived insult to his craft.
"Silversmiths work silver into other shapes, wordsmiths actually have to use magic. That's why Miss Arlovskaya asked me to go," Tolys finished with what Feliks would call a hint of pride in his voice if it was anyone else.
With great difficulty, Feliks bit down on the urge to mention how in that case, Tolys didn't count as a wordsmith and Miss Arlovskaya should have found someone else, because in a village as small as theirs he barely had to actually cast anything more than once every six months, which was the entire reason he'd ended up as delivery boy at the cobbler's, and yet another reason for Feliks to worry about his doormat of a friend. Instead, he simply said, "Anyway, the point is you need to be careful," with a tight grip on the miniature clog dangling from his scabbard, and changed the subject for the rest of the journey.
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"Could you repeat that, please?" Tolys asked, and Feliks almost wanted to cry at the fact that he doesn't seem worried at all. Maybe he hadn't heard properly because of the noise in the tavern – there was at least one brawl, two instances of quaffing, three different groups of people carousing, and the same loud albino dwarf in an oversized helmet was involved in them all – but Tolys was both brave and foolish enough to not be bothered by the fact that Ivan Braginski had not been kidnapped by bandits. He had been kidnapped by a dragon, or Feliks was a centaur.
Their contact, a blonde elf with the most exquisite pair of slippers Feliks had ever seen, smiled and started again. She had introduced herself as Emma, but Feliks knew that was just a human courtesy – her real name was probably only known by her parents, as elves had many superstitions about the power of words, and incidentally were the ones to invent the position of wordsmith.
"He arrived three moons ago, the night before market day, and I can remember thinking that Braginski set up his stall remarkably quickly for someone with such traditionally fragile merchandise. We didn't really speak – my brother and I ran a fish stall nearby, but obviously there was the silver problem."
Feliks nodded understandingly, before realising Tolys was confused. School of life one, fancy wordsmith college nil.
"Elves can't touch silver," he muttered while Emma took a sip of her cider.
"He stayed for, oh, about a moon?" She shrugged. "He seemed quite worried by the dragon sightings, mentioned something about trying to shake him off."
Feliks sighed. There was always the possibility that Braginski had been playing a friendly game of hide and seek and this was all an embarrassing misunderstanding, but since the dragon was known as Antonio the Greedy and already had a reputation for razing small villages to the ground like yesterday's kindling, that was about as likely as Tolys suddenly announcing that he was retreating to the forest to become a lumberjack.
Distracted by the thought of Tolys in flannel, Feliks missed Emma's departure, and only remember they were supposed to be searching for the silversmith when Tolys was explaining their next move.
"... so we'll head up into the mountains, and hopefully he won't notice us until it's too late."
The cider suddenly felt heavy in his stomach as the enormity of fighting a dragon sank in.
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They were travelling through the mountains that had once provided a comfortingly familiar backdrop to their journey, and Feliks swore that if they lived through this, he was never going to complain again about the snow trekked in by travellers looking for repairs, even in jest. They'd barely left the town before he'd found himself unable to put one foot in front of the other for the weight, and Tolys was saving his magic for the dragon.
He shivered, and huddled further into the parka he'd borrowed from Emma. Why anyone would choose to live at the top of an ice covered mountain, he had no idea. A fire-breathing lizard choosing to live at the top of an ice covered mountain was even more confusing.
There was no way that they'd be aware the dragon was coming until he was on top of them. The wind raged like a frosty beserker, tangling in their hair and lashing at their faces; the hail beat down against their shoulders as relentless as an army, and the snow was everywhere, confusing and obscuring until all Feliks could see was a blinding white glow. He was almost looking forward to meeting the dragon now – at least that way he might be warm.
"Feliks!" He could barely hear Tolys' shouting with the wind roaring in his ears like a raging bull. "Feliks!"
"I'm – I'm over here!" He reached out, his hand disappearing into the whiteness in front of him, until he connected with what felt like Tolys' shoulder.
"I think we need to head back!" Tolys yelled against the wind, yet unbelievably, Feliks was disappointed. The sooner this is over and done with the better. He had to agree though – it wouldn't do Braginski any good if his rescuers froze to death before they reached him – and they begin to make their way back.
The descent was a completely different journey to the ascent. While they no longer had to battle against the blizzard to move forward, they still had to battle against it not to fall off the side of the mountain, and it was now impossible to ignore the dizzying drop below. Feliks blinked snow out of his green eyes, squinting against the amber glow of the fire racing towards –
That was the only warning they had. He pulled Tolys into a snow bank, face as white as the surrounding snow in terror as virulent green eyes surrounded by crimson scales scanned the expanse below. There was an agonizingly slow moment where the dragon paused, right above them, and Feliks could see every notch hacked into his leathery nose, the gleam of malice in those poisonous eyes, and, after what felt like a lifetime, the glitter of the barbs on his tail disappearing into the blizzard.
They only had a few precious seconds, so Feliks pushed Tolys to his feet, and, yelling "run!", dragged the sword out of his scabbard, Immis' clog rattling against the scabbard like a war drum.
They only had a few precious seconds, so Feliks knew Tolys was already beginning to cast as he dived behind a lone scraggly bush.
They only had a few precious seconds, but even so, Feliks had expected to have longer before iron strong and iron grey claws pushed all the breath from his lungs.
"Well, what do we have here?" Antonio the Greedy hissed, and he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the end.
An end that didn't come. Wings beating like thunder, the dragon took off, Feliks tiny and struggling in one mighty claw. He punched and kicked and flailed around with the sword like a butterfly in a storm, but to no avail. He could just barely make out Tolys on the ground below, a tiny ant struggling to keep up.
The higher they flew, the thinner the air became, until Feliks was struggling to believe. He was losing his grip on the sword – not that it had been much use. Feliks was a cobbler, an insignificant, overworked cobbler. He knew about shoes and feet, not dragons and –
Feet. He knew about feet.
With a strength born of desperation, Feliks lunged – not for the dragon's heart, but for the tendon of the talon clutching him.
It tightened for a terrifying second, a second where Feliks felt the life begin to gasp from his bones, and then –
– and then it slackened, sagging open and letting Feliks tumble to freedom.
The dragon roared in pain, whipping his head round and opening his blood red maw to roast Feliks to a crisp mid-freefall.
He heard Tolys scream in anguish, and suddenly the dragon froze. Now they were both plummeting to the ground like stones from a catapult, the dragon covered in a lacework of frost and falling even faster than Feliks.
He twisted midair, grasping for one gleaming horn, and suddenly he was on the dragon's back with no solid plan other than to kill it.
He raised his sword, and swung. The sword connected with a meaty sounding sounding thunk, but – thank the gods for dwarvish craftsmanship – met with little resistance. The head of the once mighty Antonio the Greedy fell to earth, a shimmering arc of poisonous blood following it, before being caught in the web of magic Tolys had cast for Feliks.
Feliks grit his teeth, took a deep breath, and dived from his spot between the dragon's shoulder blades to Tolys waiting magic.
Tolys ran over, dragging the head behind him. "Feliks, you killed it!"
"Yeah." It was only slowly beginning to sink in. Feliks still felt like he was trapped beneath those wicked talons, but he couldn't tell Tolys that without sounding a coward. "We killed it."
Tolys looked vaguely shell shocked."Feliks. We killed it. We killed Antonio the Greedy."
"Yeah. Do you think dragon skin would make, like, good boots?"
Grass green eyes met pine green, and since neither of them seemed quite sure what to say next, Feliks reached forward and pulled Tolys into a kiss that made the entire quest worth it.
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Much to the exhausted pair's relied, the dragon's lair turned out to be not too far from where they'd killed him, and, even better, Braginski had already escaped using one of Antonio's stolen enchanted rings – which was why the dragon had been on the warpath in the first place. They found him in a lonely copse of trees, lips blue with cold and beginning to develop frostbite, but otherwise perfectly fine.
After staying the night in the inn they'd met Emma in, they began to make their way back to the village with only the dragon's head to show for the adventure. It was late by the time they finally got back, spattered with dragonblood and something nastier that had fallen out of Ivan's pack and Feliks really didn't want to identify, but despite the knowledge that he'd have work again in the morning, and Tolys would probably go and deny the reward because of something stupid like honour, the feeling of the warm hand in his own was reward enough.
A/n: written for easterneuropeswife on Tumblr for the Lietpol Secret Santa 2017. Merry Christmas, and a happy new year!
Edit: Prequel posted