Title: bloody wings and sharpened fangs
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: fantasy AU, mentions of genocide
Pairings: pre-Chris/Vin
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 825
Point of view: third
Prompt: Magnificent Seven (TV series), Chris/Vin, painful memories start to fade over time
They fade over time, his memories. Never completely, but they dull, the ache lessens, and sometimes he actually almost sleeps the whole night through. Doesn't see a ghost circling across the sky, splashing in the water, or waiting on the next hill, glinting bright silver beneath the burning sun.
He knows those men did what they thought was right. No dragons had ever raised a man before, not for anything but food. And he'd forgotten the language of men, those years the dragons had him.
But he wasn't kept for food. He wasn't a prisoner or a slave. He was beloved, the dragons' own. Their manchild. A dragonling in the shape of a boy.
But he's a man now. Taken and forced to live like a man. And the kings, all of them, the continent over, want his expertise to hunt the dragons. All those years they had him, he learned almost everything there was to know. He'd be a great asset in the quest to destroy the dragons.
But he sees Neresa everywhere, the queen-mother, the great silver dragon who ruled his territory. The one who carried him in her own claws, bleeding from a dozen wounds inflicted by men. The one who nursed him to health, who patiently taught him draconic, who sang him lullabies no human had ever heard before. She protected him, she raised him, she loved him. Her little dragonling born of man.
And now the human kings want him to hunt dragons. They even gave him a guard, soldiers meant to watch him, make sure he does as ordered. He will be killed if he even gives a single hint of trying to sabotage the mission.
Neresa told him of honor, and justice. Of blood-debts and blood-demands, and the God of Blood, Vincezika. The men who killed his family and took him to be civilized wanted something to call him. He never answered, so they called him Boy.
When the guards ask his name, he bares his teeth and says, "Vin."
o0o
Neresa named him Tanuhi, after the great dragon hero, the first dragon, born of the Northern Star. He grew wrestling with adolescent dragons, so a human is easy to kill. He leaves the bodies broken, ribs cracked open and hearts staked out on a barren hill.
Let the kings hunt the dragons themselves. He has his own quest.
The great queen-mother, Neresa Silverwing, raised him as her own, her beloved dragonling. And an army of men killed her and half her nest. Those who survived fled into the sky. He knows where they went.
A war is coming. He has yet to choose a side. But either way, he must speak to Neresa's heir.
o0o
In his memories, dragons fly, swim, roll in the grass laughing. He stretches along a silver neck and listens to stories of times so ancient that men have no words to describe them.
In his memories, dragons scream and men shout. It took an army to kill seven dragons, among them his mother, his queen.
Neresa could have escaped, but she turned back for him, her Tanuhi.
Tanuhi died with Neresa. Vin will find a way to avenge her.
o0o
In a forgotten Cyren town far from any law, Vin meets a man in black. Angry drunkards try to lynch a half-trained healing mage; Vin and the man in black save him. An elf and a fae bearing the Cyren mark of slavery ask them for help against marauders. No one would defend an elf or a slave from anything.
But Vin had once been Tanuhi, named for a hero, a human raised by dragons. An impossibility. An abomination.
The man in black says he'll help. The mage agrees. Vin smiles because allies are a great thing to have, and Neresa would've liked them.
o0o
After the marauders are defeated, Vin has six powerful beings on his side. Chris, the man in black, used to be an assassin, until an enemy killed his wife and child. The healing mage, Nathan, will be good enough to kill without touching when he's finished training. Ezra, a 'shifter they pick up along the way, can fool people into believing whatever he wants. Josiah was a wandering priest who exorcised demons and can control the weather in small doses. JD is a stubborn kid looking for adventure, but he has the making of greatness. And Buck has a touch of elf blood, enough for charm; he also has some history with Chris that Vin isn't yet privy to.
But being around Chris is a balm to Vin's soul. Something in him is like Neresa was, and it's enough to soften the biting edges of Vin's memories. Around Chris, a part of Tanuhi peeks through.
Neresa really would've liked Chris, Vin thinks. And this group, they will help him with his quest, whichever side of the conflict he chooses.
Neresa will be avenged, and Vincezika will drink his fill of men's blood.