another tumblr request, this one from EthanolMusket: "It's not what it looks like…"
From down the hall, Judal can feel something off in the air. He enters his room to find it occupied. Someone lays half sprawled across his floor, blood trailed from the doorway and pooling around the intruder.
"What are you doing here?" he demands, wand in hand and on the offense. The man jumps, startled, and cringes in pain.
"Quiet! Ah-" he coughs, and there's a sickly wetness to it. Gross. "It's not what it looks like."
Judal stares down, considering his options. The stranger stares back up, stubborn pride in his slitted eyes, and he can't help but be intrigued. He's got power somewhere underneath his pretty looks, and Judal has come to terms with being drawn to bad ideas.
He laughs. "It looks like you've escaped and using my room as a hiding spot!" Judal jerks a finger at the man's eyes, finally noticing the pale scales around them. They match well with the delicate shackles that bind the man's, no, the dragon's wrists. "I can see what you are, you know."
"Then free me," the dragon boy says after a pause. "And I'll grant you any desire." He offers his bound wrists and meets Judal's gaze challengingly.
A dragon, bound in human form, bleeding out in his room. What a day. What an opportunity! He makes a show of pondering it over, considering his options, before settling.
Judal cracks a grin and answers. "Sure thing. I don't want anything right now, though. So I'll call on you later, when I do."
The dragon's eyes narrow, considering him carefully. Silence weighs heavy in the room and a beat passes, punctuated by the slow drip of blood draining from wounds. Finally, an answer.
"All right. One favor, to be granted at a later date. You have my word." He turns his head up haughtily. "Now free me."
Judal runs his hands over the shackles. They look merely decorative, but they're full of binding magic, twisting through the bright metal. Nothing he can't break, though. "What's your name?"
"You don't need that." His eyes are fixed on Judal's hands, watching them work over the shackles.
He pauses. "Yeah, I do! How else am I gonna hold you to that promise, huh?"
"...Hakuryuu."
Judal grins and pulls apart the final spell, shackles falling from Hakuryuu's wrists like useless, pretty jewelry. There's fleeting gratitude in his eyes, with just a hint of awe.
"Judal. See you later, Hakuryuu."
There's a brief nod, and he's gone, out the window in a burst of light as he sheds his human form, fleeing from his prison, and Judal sees the barest hint of white wings spread wide against the sky.
A favor from a dragon is nothing small, and as he watches the breeze, Judal looks forward to when he sees Hakuryuu again.