Red & Blue, Black & White
Summary: REWRITE. Dragon AU! Seto Kaiba is the lieutenant of the Rafter of Domino Peak, living his days in frustration after the death of his father. Not only is he second-in-command to his lifelong rival, and the only caretaker to his hatchling brother, but his attitude towards his leader has 'earned' him solo patrol duty for the next month. On one of those patrols, he comes across an odd, aggressive black dragon who comes with his own set of baggage.
Pairings: Kaiba/Jounouchi, Yugi/Anzu, Honda/Otogi, Ryou/Marik(not Yami Marik), Yami/Yami Bakura, other minor shippings will be mentioned as the story goes
Rating: T+, may go up later
Chapter 5: Shine bright
Seto was reeling, he couldn't blink his eyes with how wide they were; he couldn't look away from the glittering diamonds adorning the other dragons mouth as naturally as if he was born with them.
A diamondtooth? Jou was a diamondtooth.
"What the… fuck..." Seto finally said, Jou closed his jaws and walked back over, dragging his paws slightly. "You're a diamondtooth?"
"I'm… sorry I didn't say anything earlier… I… I wasn't sure what to say." Jou told him sincerely, resting the tip of his tail on Seto's shoulder, which the white dragon shrugged off right away.
"You could have been just slightly more formal, like a leader should be." Seto snorted.
Jou laughed softly, he walked back over the the pond and lay back by the edge of it, patting the ground next to him with to wing, invitingly for Seto to join him. Seto didn't want to, but with the knowledge that Jounouchi was a diamondtooth made him reluctantly do so; even if he wasn't of his own Rafter, the authority of a diamondtooth was not something any dragon took lightly.
"How old are you…?" Seto asked the other hybrid, tucking his talons under his chest. Jou looked to be his age at most… but he was most likely younger by at least a fledgling group of two.
"180." Jou replied honestly, Seto frowned; Yugi was that age when he became a diamondtooth, but… "I've been the diamondtooth for almost two decades." He finished.
"..." Seto said nothing. 180 was the legal adult age for dragons… for the more progressive ones that is, because it was the human equivalent of 18. The Rafter of the Shadow Forest was notorious for being traditional, maybe a little backwards even as other groups adjusted and changed with the times. While it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that they wouldn't have a minimum age for leadership, it didn't make it any less jarring.
This explained why Jou had sired a clutch already when he was still young.
"So, Pegasus was your father then?" Seto asked, Jou sighed sadly.
"Yes," he confirmed "only by biology, though. I didn't know until these diamonds came in, and our Sunset- er, lorekeeper, then told me; my egg was created via a union between Pegasus and the female diamondtooth of The Misty Swamp Rafter."
Seto thought hard for a second, he's visited that Rafter before with Yugi for a trading negotiation. "...Cecelia?" He asked.
"Yes, her." Jou nodded "I knew my mother was a bogcrawler, obviously, because I'm a hybrid. I was hatched and raised by my dad in the Shadow Forest Rafter and… he's the only dad I had… really the only parent. " He let out a long drawn-out sigh, looking out to the surface of the pond water "He wasn't the nicest dragon," He continued "he would throw me around sometimes when I became a fledgling, he would yell at me over stupid bullshit, we butted heads all the time because he was a hothead, but I guess I was too back then, the other dragons always like to tell me that I was basically my father if he was nicer." He laughed softly "But… He's gone now."
Seto stared out at the water "Mine too."
There weren't any more words.
It couldn't have been easy, for either of them. Both of them got a lot on their plate at a young age. Seto was inherited the Lieutenant position, and served a dragon he had once been in competition with, and had an egg shoved into this talons when he was a barely an adult. Jou was surprised by a leadership position when he was still a fledgling, and then pushed into parenthood the second he became old enough.
Seto thought his lot was frustrating, but he hadn't been pushed into a role unexpectedly, only to be almost killed and have all but one of his offspring slaughtered.
Hesitantly, Seto nudged closer to the shorter dragon and draped his tail over his shoulders, but he didn't look him directly in the eyes. The red eyed dragon tensed up for a moment, but went slack, accepting the comforting gesture.
"Thanks, Kaiba." He said quietly.
"Don't mention it." Seto muttered. "Literally." He growled that bit out, Jounouchi purred at him and stretched his front legs in front on his, resting his head on top of his talons and staring out at the surface of the pond water with a distant stare.
"...What are you going to do?" Seto asked his companion, Jou's red eyes narrowed at the question, and the white dragon had a good idea what the other dragon was thinking.
"Once my leg is healed, I'm going back to my Rafter and I'm going to burn Hirutani until there is nothing left of him but a sooty inprint." Jou growled, pupils constricted with the rise of aggression.
"You can't keep hiding out here," Seto reminded him "you should ask my leader for help… he's always been soft, he'll give you asylum."
Jou shook his head furiously "That's not a Darkstalkers way," he growled "we don't ask for help."
"Funny," Seto deadpanned, tail-tip twitching "you didn't splint your own sorry leg and tail." The other dragon looked a bit flushed for a second.
"Th-, that's different," Jou insisted, a little embarrassed "I didn't physically ask you for help, you just offered and I let you."
"Very different." He replied sarcastically, the dark dragon pouted.
"But… I mean it," Jou told him, sounding a little more serious and sincere "what Hirutani did was rotten… but I can't expect my Rafter to take me seriously again if I'm going to run away, only to try to take my place back only with assistance. Overthrowing Hirutani is something I have to do on my own. I'm sure your alpha great - but… if he found out, I think he might understand why I wouldn't go to him."
The white dragon sighed; stubborn fool. He saw the logic and knew he had a point. Dragons aren't the type to find inspiration in a leader who can't fight their own battles, another brazen usurper would just try to get the drop on Jou the moment he was on his own again.
"...How long do you think you have until your leg heals, Jounouchi?" Seto asked; when he was fledging he had broken his wrist and Gozaburo forced him to stay in human form for two months, because he would have healed much slower in his natural form.
"I'm a pretty fast healer… One more month or two." Jou insisted; Seto didn't really believe him, but he's give him the benefit of the doubt; he'd seen dragons with unnaturally fast healing time for normally long lasting wounds. After all, Anzu had once almost completely broken her wing from a thunderstorm accident, and yet it was fine a short month later, and she hadn't taken her human form at all during that time except at night like everyone else of their Rafter.
"I can't keep lying to my diamondtooth, you know."
"I think you will," Jou stated bluntly "you're a pretty rebellious lieutenant from what I've seen so far."
"Do you want my help, or do you want to be a smartass?" Seto retorted.
Jou purred audibly and nudged him with his shoulder, a gesture which the white dragon did not return "Why not both?" He inquired, before staring back out at the pond.
"You seem pretty taken by that pond." Seto observed; it wasn't an impressive size, and it was visually underwhelming, but Jou looked at it like it was the lake.
"I am half Bogcrawler, you know." Jou pointed out "I inherited their love of water," he hummed in thought "I remember I used to piss my dad off by swimming out into the huge lake close to my Rafters territory, and he couldn't get me because he hated getting wet. Didn't have the easiest time learning how to fly either." He shifted his wings to emphasize his point "A pure bogcrawler doesn't have wings."
Seto thought back to his visit to the Misty Swamp Rafter; Bogcrawlers were all drakes, they were unmistakably dragon, but they were quadrupedal with no wings. He'd always felt pity for their lack of flying, but he supposed it made sense, wings would get in the way of swimming. Drakes, lindwurms and wyrns were usually water faring, after all. "I don't see why you would even need wings, it's impossible to fly around all of these trees."
"Ah - no, you just got to think more when you're flying around the woods, situational awareness ya know? You never know when you're going to faceplant into a tree." Jou explained, chuckling "I'm surprised my face isn't flat after hitting so many of those. I got my head stuck in a hole this one time and almost got my eyes scratched out by this angry mother squirrel. My teachers refused to try to help me until I started burning the tree from the inside, then they had the nerve to get pissed off at me." He continued to chat, Seto rolled his eyes but rested his chin on top of his talons, somewhat listening but beginning to doze off from the constant, but consistent stream of words. He soon felt himself fall gently into his dreams.
He was flying - the sky wasn't ending, he wasn't sure what direction he was going, he could have been going up or down for all he knew. All he really did know was that everything was clear around him, and he could fly as long as his heart desired.
He didn't have to worry about anything. He didn't have to organize hunting parties, or border patrols, he didn't have to be the teacher for a group of fledglings.
All the weight was off of him.
"I don't understand what you see in this." A voice suddenly asked - Seto craned his previously stationary head and saw Jou there below him, or above him?
"There's freedom in flight," Seto said "you see everything around you when you're in a clear sky."
"Fair enough," Jou said, this time side-to-side with him, his wings were fixed in one position as he was flying, making it appear to be more of a glide "but don't you feel exposed? You can see everything, but everything can see you."
"I could tell you the same thing about the forest - anything can hide and you wouldn't be able to see it, but it would see you." Seto pointed out - the scenery started to change, his feet met solid ground the clear sky morphed into a thickly wooded forest, dense with undergrowth and folliage in all levels, it was mostly dark with only rays of twilight shining from gaps between leaves above.
"That's true." Jou validated, he was definitely standing next to him now, but he started to walk foreward, towards a conglomerate of shadows, leaves, living and dead plant structures.
"How can a dragon not feel suffocated when he can't even spread his wings out?" Seto asked, looking around - even in his dreams it was unsettling to be so… surrounded.
"The point of cover is that it isn't one-sided," Jou explained, crouching under the thick log of a downed tree that had ivy creeping around it and casting shadows around him "the forest has many dimensions to it. Hiding places. Low and high points..." he trailed off "A lot of dragons think it doesn't make sense, because you can't see anything around you… but do you really need your eyes to see?"
Seto blinked at him, twitching his wings.
"If something was flying above you in the sky, unless if you heard it or saw its shadow on the distant ground, you wouldn't even notice it, you can't really do that in the forest, because the forest likes to reveal things as much as it likes to hide them." to demonstrate, the black dragon took a sudden, hard step forward, and a loud SNAP of a broken twig sounded out. "A lot of dragons fear the woods because they fear the unknown, they're suspicious of what could be hiding around them; but a darkstalker thrives in the woods because we aim to be that unknown, we strive to be the thing that isn't seen until it's too late."
"I think I understand." Seto said after some thought, though the concept still felt a little slippery.
"Sometimes, to get over fear you just have to become that fear." Jou generalized with a shrug, he walked foreward and stomped on the ground again, this time a dead squirrel appeared under his paw "Want to share?"
- CHIRP?
Seto's blue eyes groggily opened at the noise, roused from his sleep; he expected Mokuba at first but instead saw a tiny black dragon chick clinging to his snout instead, no doubt hungry. He groaned loudly and gently rolled the chick off of his snout; how long had he slept for?
He lifted up his head and saw that it was dusk; the light was gray, and and mostly gone as the sun retreated below the horizon. He was still by the pond, a few feet away Jounouchi was curled up similar to a cat, with his tail wrapped around his body as well.
"Go bother your sire," he ordered the chick, who just peeped loudly and butted at his chest.
He picked her up by the scruff and carried her over to Jou "Wake up stray." He grunted and swatted the other dragon with his tail, Jou looked up at him before shutting his eyes again. "Get up." He growled, placing the infant chick on top of her father, right on his head "Your brat wants you."
"Don't-" Jou yawned, lifting his head "don't call my daughter a brat, Kaiba." He didn't seem groggy, he looked to his daughter and opened his mouth to regurgitate into hers. Shizuka chirped happily at this, but still seemed antsy. Jounouchi's red eyes started to glow, as did hers, and she stayed still, almost fixated as he did this.
Hatching dragons don't just feed on physical food, they feed off of the ambient magic of older dragons as well; this helped their own magical abilities develop, it was especially crucial in the first year. Seto seldom did this with Mokuba anymore, but the hatchling knew how to signal him if he felt like he needed a magic boost. That first year had been very hard on Seto, he'd been practically drained and had to have Mokuba supplemented by other adults; a dragon produces more ambient, transferable magic when they become parents, and since he didn't reproduce himself he didn't have the surplus of it a true mother or father dragon would.
Dragons can't truly actively maintain and use their own magic until they become fledglings, until then the relatively simple task of changing forms or using their element requires adult facilitation and support - initially draining and not an easy thing to learn how to do, but it was a necessary task when human forms were required.
Shizuka's peeping quieted down and she curled up in Jou's talons, now sated with prey and magic.
"Great, it's sundown and I still need to catch prey before I can go back." Seto cursed, he couldn't believe he actually slept the entire day away like some kind of fledgling after their first hunting trip.
"Let me help you," Jou offered, setting Shizuka down "I'll get you a catfish."
"I hate-" Before Seto could finish the black dragon leapt into the pond, slapping him with a wave of water "...Idiot stray." He muttered, not caring if he was a diamondtooth, or if he could hear him. Shizuka looked to the water, at the ripples where her father had jumped, she was chittering excitedly; perhaps she had retained some bogcrawler traits even if she was a further dilution.
He looked to the water; as a dragon, his night vision was excellent, but he really couldn't see the other dragon; his lusterless black scales blended in perfectly with the deeper, darker parts of water. Sighing, Seto put a talon gently on top of Shizuka to stop her from potentially following her sire into the water.
The dark head of the Nightstalker hybrid popped out out the water, a giant, slimy catfish between his gleaming teeth.
"You do know that Windriders don't eat fish, right?" Seto inquired as Jou trudged out of the water, pond water droplets rolling off of his scales as if they were duck feathers.
"I've seen you eat them," Jou shrugged and placed the big catfish in front of him "just tell your leader you couldn't find any deer tonight." Seto grumbled and looked to the stinky prey.
"Fine, but only because I don't feel like hunting in this suffocating forest - if I never have to hunt in the woods again, I'll die a happy dragon."
"Kaiba, surely the woods aren't that bad to you?" Jou asked, wrapping his tail around Shizuka and pulling her close to him again.
"...They are." Seto muttering, remembering his dream. It was surprisingly informative… but it was strange. Couldn't he only dream things he already knew?
"Goodnight, Jounouchi." Seto said, he took a short sprint away and flew off, his earlier dream still stewing in his head. He was thinking too hard about this… Jounouchi was more talkative than a songbird in the middle of courting season, his brainless ramblings probably slipped into his subconscious mind.
He came back to the main camp area of the territory, looking around for Yugi - he saw the undersized dragon was lying on top of a a large boulder, no doubt enjoying the lingering warmth the stone still had stored from the sun throughout the day. Tightening his teeth around the catfish, Seto walked over to him.
Yugi looked up, his eyes falling on the large fish "What is that, Kaiba?" He asked, head tilting.
"Catfith." He said muffled before placing it in front of Yugi.
The diamondtooth looked at him suspiciously "You can fish?" He asked.
"There isn't much big prey in that forest." Seto told him, his face screwed up from the fishy taste lingering in his mouth.
"I don't want the why Kaiba," Yugi said, hopping off of the boulder "I want the how."
The white dragon stared at the fish, racking his brain "Catfish are active at night," He answered quickly, remembering something from Jou's constant chatter "I bent down to take a drink and it bumped against me, it startled me and I swatted it out of the water on reflex."
"I see..." Yugi said, he didn't sound entirely convinced, and his lieutenant was worried, up until the smaller dragons eyes flicked back up at him "take this to Ryou, his eggs hatched this morning and he hasn't been able to grab anything from the prey pile." He ordered sternly, "this is acceptable, I believe you can now return to your regular duties instead of solo patrol, but don't test me." When he finished he took off into flight, he infused his wind element with his flight to zip off so fast that Seto didn't see the direction he went. He likely went to the village where his house was, to turn in for the night.
Sighing in relief, Seto picked up the disgusting, slimy catfish again, gagging when the fishy taste his his tongue and nose again. "How the hell does Jounouchi like these so much..." He muttered against the flesh of the fish, before flying back to the nesting area.
He was off the proverbial hook, for now.
"Thank you, Kaiba." Ryou said kindly as the lieutenant dropped the fish in front of him. The silver dragon looked tired, but overjoyed. He had his tail curled around three newly hatched dragons; their eyes were still closed and their wings were pressed against their sides, as typical of a newly hatched dragon. Mokuba was at Ryou's other side, sleeping under his wing.
"No problem." Seto said, eyes returning to the newly hatched dragons, he coudn't see their distinctive colours in the dark "Has your mate seen them yet?"
"He took a few fledglings on a trip to collect herbs the other day," Ryou said, shaking his head "he should be back in the morning."
"Must be disappointing, him not being here for their hatching."
"Maybe a little bit," Ryou admitted, looking down to his chicks with a loving expression "but I knew things wouldn't always be favorable with a healer as a mate. His loyalty is not just to me or our family, because it's not just us that needs him; the whole Rafter needs him."
The white dragon looked down at the twitching hatchlings "So… what do you have?" He asked, a little more casually, as he picked Mokuba up by the scruff.
"Oh - two daughters, and one son. I think Marik would be pleased by them." Ryou told him in a dreamy tone, before resting his head on his talons, no doubt ready for sleep now. Seto let him be as he walked back to his and Mokuba's nest.
Authors note: A little more of a lighthearted chapter for those who may have found the last chapter too sad. A lot of talking. Jou's talkative and a little too physical for Kaiba's liking. Seto is off of his extra duties. And Ryou/Marik's chicks have finally hatched! It's about the middle of hatching season currently, so Yami/Bakura's might not be ready yet.
There are six (main) types of dragons (not counting breeds);
With wings:
Dragon: Four legs with wings, could be quadrupedal or bipedal, or both as in have the ability to walk on four legs, but can also walk on two legs with the front legs able to act as arms.
Wyvern: Two back legs, with wings. They are primarily bipedal but most have talons on the tip of their wings that act as gaspers, or to walk on.
Amphiptere: Wings, but no legs. May or may not have grasping talons on the tips of their wings
Without wings:
Drake: Four legs. Can be bipedal, quadrupedal or both.
Lindwurm: Can either have back legs or front legs, but usually they have front legs with talons that can grasp. Tail can be prehensile.
Wyrn: No legs, similar to snakes. Tail is almost always prehensile.
Now, there are outliers of course (hydras, ect), but those are rare, kind of a more case-by-case basis type of dragon. And the type of dragon does not affect their human form; their human form always is just a normal bipedal human. It does, however, affect their intermediate form since their scales and appendages turn into armor.
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