For the Love of a Dragon

By vivalarapture

Authors note- Uhm.. Hi? It's been almost two years now since I've updated this and I'm so sorry. :( My laptop broke in 2014 and I finally saved up enough money to get a new one. (Okay it's second hand but still.) I hope to update more often now, so hopefully there won't be another two year break in between finishing my stories. I hope you enjoy this new chapter! Thank you!

Chapter 4

Soul groaned as he awoke to his blankets being unceremoniously ripped off of him. He rolled over onto his side, whining low in his throat, "Five more minutes, Weeeeeees."

Maka chuckled and knelt down to shake his shoulder, "It's time to get up, human. We have a long way to go so we must leave early."

Soul swatted Maka's hand away, reaching around blindly to try and find his stolen blankets. Maka pulled the furs even farther away, giggling as he tried to stretch and reach them within uncovering his face with his pillow.

"Don't make me change into my dragon form and light your bed on fire, human."

Soul scrambled to a sitting position, officially awake after that threat. He glared at the grinning Maka and jabbed a finger towards her, "No more lighting me on fire threats! You don't understand how many times that has actually happened!"

Maka stood up and brushed her hands on her yellow dress, a sly smile pulling at her lips, "No wonder you hated me when we first met. That weapons soul of yours has marked you as mine since you were born. Any dragons you met since then would have either ignored you since you were taken or attacked you because it intimidated them."

Soul huffed and stood as well, giving his bed a mournful last look, "What do you mean 'hated'? That's not past tense yet, dragon. I still don't like being kept prisoner."

Maka shrugged, her face set with a neutral expression, "You'll come to see reason, I just know it." She slapped her hands together and she had a determined set to her eyebrows, "Okay! So all of my things are packed, all I need from you is to hold the map and hop on!"

In a flash, Maka's skin flickered gold and her scales appeared, shifting and growing in an instant. Soul felt the air whoosh out of his chest as he watched her transform, absolutely refusing to call it beautiful. He stepped back as he looked up at her dragon form, swallowing a lump in his throat forcing a glare onto his face.

"What do you mean hop on? You don't expect me to ride you, do you?!"

Maka turned her snout upwards, a plume of smoke curling around her toothy smile, "How else did you expect us to travel?"

Soul put up his hands, shaking his head adamantly, "No way, dragon. I've never flown on the back of dragon before and I'm not starting now."

Maka leaned forward, her log neck curling down until her head bumped against Soul's chest, "You keep saying these things like you have a choice. It's cute."

She snapped her razor sharp teeth down on the back of Soul's tunic, pulling him up and dropping him onto her back. Soul cried out, scrambling to find purchase on her spines before he slipped right off the side of her back.

Maka laughed heartily, making Soul shake from side to side as her whole body shook. "You should have seen your face! You thought I was going to eat you!"

Soul bared his teeth at her, but the effect was wasted when she did the same back to him, with teeth the size of his palm. "You are awful and I hate you, stupid dragon."

Maka simply laughed at him once again, carefully snatching up her packs with her teeth and tossing them onto her back. They all landed neatly on her spikes, hanging like they were on a coat rack. Despite his anger at being manhandled, Soul couldn't suppress the feeling of awe at her superb aim.

Once her "packing" was finished, Maka ambled towards the edge of the cave, "So, are you going to tell me where your brother lives, or are you just going to go on letting him believe you're dead?"

Soul crossed his arms in front of his chest, displeasure and anxiety shooting through his mind, "We wouldn't even have to deal with telling my brother if you would just leave me alone. Now my horse is probably dead and my brother is beside himself with worry. Thanks."

Maka shook out her wings, dislodging Soul just enough that he had to grab onto her spikes again, "You keep forgetting human, if it hadn't been for me, you would have died on that ledge."

Soul bit the inside of his cheek, indeed having forgotten that she saved him. "It's to the south, dragon."

Maka nodded and looked back, her jaw opened in a wide smile, showing off every sharp tooth, "Hold on tight!"

Soul had attempted to ride dragons before. During his failed years attempting dragon training, he tried everything he could think of, from bribing the dragons, to threatening them, to surprising them and just full on jumping on their backs and hoping for the best. They all ended badly, and he only tried that whole surprising thing a few times. That usually only ended as well as riding a huge, wild bucking bronco would.

Three broken ribs, a broken arm, multiple burn wounds, scratches and a scare when he really thought a dragon was going to eat him later, Soul had given up. He had given up hope that he would ever ride a dragon. He would never get to feel the joy of being in the sky, of feeling the wind in his hair and the clouds under his feet. Watching everyone else feel that happiness for years only made him bitter, it made him convince himself that flying was probably stupid anyway.

Boy, was he wrong.

Maka may have been a small dragon, but her enormous wings seemed to take up the entire sky as they took off. Soul felt his stomach drop in the most pleasant way possible as they soared off the mountain. He had the inexplicable urge raise his arms and holler at the sky, but his better judgment kept him clinging to Maka's spine. He couldn't keep the smile off of his face as they neared his home.

This wind was nearly bruising his face with how fast they were going, but Soul was too ecstatic to even care.

Maka craned her neck to the side to watch Soul's first flight. She grinned and roared happily, shaking her passenger just slightly. She really does want to get along with her newfound human, and she should have thought of flying with him sooner. She had flown with humans on her back many times, but never with someone she had bonded with. She closed her eyes and let the wind carry them for a moment, absolutely content to feel the amazement rolling off Soul in waves.

With what seemed like only a few beats on her wings, Soul could see his farm in the distance. He cupped his hand and called out to Maka, hoping she could hear him over the wind, "Hey that's my farm down there!"

Maka nodded and angled her wings, swinging them downwards. Soul felt the giddy energy buzzing in his stomach return as they started their descent, his stomach doing flips and making it very hard not to smile.

Soul peered down, searching for his brothers head of blond hair. Maka landed with a gracefully flap of her wings that would have been almost ladylike if she didn't make the ground shake when she hit the ground. She leaned forward so she was closer to the ground and Soul could get off.

He was trying to figure out how to do this when he heard a strangled cry of his name. He looked over his shoulder quickly, dislodging himself from Maka's back in the process, making him half slip and half clamber down her side. He landed with a thump before quickly standing up, ignoring Maka's amused chortles.

Wes hit his side like a bullet, nearly knocking him down once again.

"Little brother! I thought you were gone! We were searching that mountain for days! Where have you been all this time?!"

Soul wiggled out of his brothers embrace to gingerly rub his still bruised ribs. "I'm sorry, Wes, it's kind of a long story." He thumbed a finger at the golden dragon watching carefully off to the side.

Wes looked up, finally comprehending that he just saw his brother get off a dragon. He gaped up at Maka and then back at Soul, completely flabbergasted.

"You.. You ran off to find your stupid horse, got caught in the storm that made me think you were dead for six days and you come back with a dragon?"

Soul rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of a simple way to explain everything to his brother. He couldn't just up and tell his brother he got kidnapped by a Magical Dragon who wanted to take him to meet other Magical Dragons so she could use his soul and fight some evil force somewhere.

"Hello, Wes, my name is Maka and Soul is my new human."

Soul slapped a hand over his face, groaning loudly and thinking that absolutely nothing was allowed to go his way in life.

"You can talk?!"

Maka sighed, twitching her tail back and forth like an irritated cat, "Please tell me you're not as slow as your brother. Yes I can talk; Do you really not have any Magical Dragons around here?"

Soul patted his brother on the shoulder and glared over at Maka, "I think you broke him, dragon I told you that we had no idea that Magical Dragons even existed."

Maka shrugged her scaly shoulders, lying down on the grass, sensing they were going to be there for a while the other human recovered from his shock. Soul rolled his eyes and waved a hand in front of his brother's face. Wes smacked Soul's hand away, turning towards him with a coherent, yet still confused, look on his face.

"Soul, you have a Magical Dragon."

Maka snorted derisively, burning the patch of grass in front on her snout, "He does not have me, I have him. He is my human."

Wes raised an eyebrow at Soul, and he sighed, knowing his plan of keeping this under wraps was shot anyway.

"Yeah she kind of kidnapped me."

Maka huffed again, sitting up slightly to growl at him, "I saved your life!"

Soul waved a hand at her, "Stop interrupting, it's rude, dragon."

Maka slit her eyes at him as she slowly lowered herself to the ground again.

Soul turned back to Wes, who was looking at him oddly, "Like I was saying, she kidnapped me. I was searching for Oni and kind of fell down the mountain." He winced at Wes's pained expression, thinking he probably should have left that part out, "I landed on this ridge, and Maka was there. I woke up in her cave bandaged up and everything, and then she tells me I'm her new human and I have to stay with her until she takes care of these bad guys or something? I don't know the details."

Maka sniffed haughtily from her makeshift bed in the grass, "Forever, human, not just until we've taken care of the evil."

Soul raised his eyes to Wes, hoping his brother would just tie him to the barn so Maka couldn't take him and leave him again. Knowing Maka, she would just burn the thing to the ground and take him anyway, so maybe that wouldn't work.

Wes glanced between Maka and Soul for a few moments before nodding at Soul.

"Okay."

Soul choked on his own spit as he did a double take, "What do you mean okay?!"

Maka chuckled as she grinned up at the two men, "Your brother is much more reasonable than you. Can we transfer your weapon soul into him instead?"

Soul didn't even bother glaring at Maka as he stared at his brother, "You mean you're okay with me gallivanting off with this talking dragon to go fight monsters and travel the world?!"

Wes smiled gently and ruffled his little brothers hair, "Soul, I know you've never really been happy here. I think it's time for you to have an adventure."

Soul felt guilt well up inside him and fought to keep the sting of tears out of his eyes, "You know I love you. You're annoying as hell but I've never wanted to leave you."

Wes shook his head, his lips upturned but his eyes were forlorn, "I've seen how you looked at those trading boats. You've always fit with our family, but never quite on this island. All I want is for you to be happy."

Soul cleared his throat to dislodge what felt like an entire rock in his windpipe, "Stop being all supportive and mushy, it doesn't suit you."

Wes laughed and slapped a hand on his brothers back, "Just promise you'll write, okay?"

Maka stood quickly, stretching out her claws and pawing at the ground in anticipation, "So that means you have no more qualms about leaving with me, human?"

Without waiting for a response, Maka leapt over to where Soul was standing and opened her jaw, ready to pick him up and toss him on her back again. Soul backed up with his hands in front of him, "Hey, hey wait! I never said that!"

Wes gave a thumbs up to Maka and shoved his brother forward after giving him a tight hug, "Adventure waits for no one, little brother!"

Soul struggled as Maka grasped the back of his tunic again, "Would you cut that out?! I need to get a bag ready and tell Wes to keep looking for Oni!"

Maka dropped him to the ground, ignoring his scathing look to glance at Wes, "Yes, would you please go get a bag for my human? I don't trust him to leave my sight."

With this kind of torment, his ribs are never going to heal. Wes snapped his fingers and pointed towards the barn, "Oh with all this talking dragon nonsense I forgot to tell to that Oni came back! About an hour after you left, actually."

Soul stood dumbstruck as he stared at his brother, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Maka flicked him with her tail, "Language, human!"

Without another word, Soul bolted towards the barn to see his horse. Despite the fact that the damn thing had gotten him into this whole mess, he was so glad to hear that he was okay. He swept open the barn door and nearly tackled the horse who was happily munching on hay.

"You stupid beast! You had me so worried! I got chained to this crazy dragon lady because you ran away!"

Oni wuffed Soul's hair affectionately before going back to eating his breakfast. Soul ran his fingers through the horses mane and told him the shortened version of his harrowing tale in the past week. For being a horse, Oni listened quite well.

"Okay buddy, please try to stay out of trouble while I'm gone? I'm pretty sure if you kick down the barn door one more time then Wes is going to turn you into glue."

Oni's ears flicked back, but otherwise paid no head to the warning. Soul chuckled and patted him on the head before heading back out of the barn. Wes was chatting animatedly with Maka, and Soul knew this wouldn't bode well for him.

A pack was thrown in his face and Wes grinned as Soul scrambled to catch the bag.

"I packed you some clothes and few of your weird knickknacks. Please be safe and listen to Maka."

Soul gaped at his brother, who simply patted him on the back and ruffled his hair again. Maka purred deep in her throat and snatched Sol by the collar before he could protest again.

"Goodbye Wes! It was good to meet you and I'll take good care of Soul!"

Soul smacked Maka on the back after her got a good grip on her spines, "Aren't you the one who needs my help?! And bye Wes! See you soon!"

Maka vibrating scales divulge her true excitement and some of the emotion washed over to Soul. As they soared higher in the air and the waving figure of Wes get's smaller and smaller, Soul thinks that some of that exhilaration is his own.