Title: Dragon Heart

Author: sllebswap

Characters/Pairing: Kobayashi Rindou and Tsukasa Eishi

Type: Continuous (InComplete)

Genre: Romance/General/Humor

Word Count: 3879

Rating: T (Contains content not suitable for children)

Disclaimer: Shokugeki no Souma belongs to Tsukuda-san.

Summary: It is believed that the heart of a dragon, if consumed whole, would grant the one who ate it incredible powers and immortality. So, by order of King Azami, Sir Knight Tsukasa Eishi had been sent to find that dragon and acquire its heart, by any means necessary.

Verse: Fantasy Medieval AU

Chapter Last Revised on: 13/06/17

Chapter 3

One night, the temperature up on this alpine mountains fell drastically, so much so that even with a fire constantly burning at the hearth, the howling winds outside still seemed to be able to find their way into the small cottage. Even the pitcher of water on the table was frozen solid. It was going to be a long, miserable evening, and shivering under the blankets, Eishi had wondered how his fellow housemate and host could live like this the way she did. His fingers were starting to feel numb and bloodless, and even his teeth were starting to chatter as his body struggled to withstand the extreme chill.

Then, Rindou came to the rescue.

She, who had ceded her bed to him for the past week or so and had taken refuge up at the little loft tucked into the corner of the room instead, had simply emerged from her cozy den, vaulted gracefully onto the ground and padded over to him. She looked faintly concerned, her golden eyes glowing almost preternaturally in the flickering firelight as she gaze upon his trembling form. She shook her head, and he could almost see that question silently forming in her mind.

Are all men so weak?

…Wounded pride aside, he just wanted to know how it was possible that she was able to stand there in the middle of the freezing room, dressed in what looked like a thin, cotton nightgown, and still appear perfectly unaffected by the biting elements. Belatedly, it eventually occurred to his half frozen mind that she was also standing right in front of the hearth, inadvertently casting her hair a mesmerizing crimson halo and her pale skin a warm, irresistible honey gold. The backlight from the flames also had the side effect of turning her white sleeping dress almost completely translucent against the shadowed silhouette of her supple, willowy form; he could see the soft swell of her breasts, the graceful dip of her slender waist, the inviting flare of her full, womanly hips.

She looked like some pagan Norse goddess of fire and blood, and at that very moment, he thought that he would not mind dying, just to taste her heat.

…But he was waxing poetic again, so that was probably all just the delirious cold speaking. Probably.

He closed his eyes even as that innocuously erotic image of her was seared into his mind. His pulse quickened, his blood throbbed dully in his ears. Much to his chagrin, thinking of her did warm him up, just a bit. It was also entirely inappropriate and neither here nor there-

The bed shifted and creaked, the mattress sinking a bit under the addition of a new weight. His eyes flew opened immediately, and he started.

"What are you-"

She flopped onto his side unceremoniously, already hugging a pillow and curling into it, her back turned towards him.

He sat up slowly and stared at her. He stared at her long enough that she huffed and wiggled back around to look at him.

"What are you doing?" he asked again.

"I'm trying to sleep," she replied. "As you should."

"Here?" he asked again, just in case there was some sort of misunderstanding here. "On the same bed?"

She lifted a brow.

"This is my bed in the first place, you know."

Well, she wasn't wrong. He gritted his teeth at her flighty demeanor.

"I understand. I'll move-"

She sighed, louder, and before he could make to shift out of the bed and do something really stupid like try to sleep on the freezing floor, she reached up, grabbed him by the front of his tunic, and tugged him back down. He, of course, put up a valiant struggle. That was when she rolled over on top of him and straddled his hips, pinning him onto the mattress. Her red hair curtained their faces as she leaned down and looked at him. She was incredibly warm, he could not help but think. Dizzyingly warm, and enticingly soft in a way that made him want to grab onto her hips and pull her in close.

"Look. Do you want to stay toasty and actually get to sleep, or do you want to worry about propriety in a place where no one cares and freeze to death?" she asked.

He twitched at her mistaken impression of his reaction.

"I'm concerned for your modesty, actually."

"Don't be," she responded calmly. "If you do anything that I do not find agreeable, your other leg, I'll break."

She did not sound like she was kidding, and after enjoying the fruits of her hunting skills for the last week or so, he did not doubt that she could do it either. Instead of feeling put off by her casual aggressiveness, he found himself hyper focused on her instead, his lavender gaze locked with her sharp, slit-gold ones. Dear god, she was perfect.

He slowly nodded, still not breaking eye contact. "Fair enough."

She nodded as well, still perched on his lean hips.

"Good."

Problem solved, she slipped off of him and returned to her original position on her side of the bed. It wasn't really a very large mattress in the first place so they were basically just lying shoulder to shoulder to each other. She wiggled around onto her side to look at him again.

"You look like you're going to turn into a block of ice," she commented blithely, and his only response was to pull the quilts closer around him.

"How are you not freezing?" he muttered, and she just looked at him like he was being funny.

"I'm used to it," she commented. "It's not even that cold..."

Now it was his turn to give her a very disgruntled stare, which only succeeded in making her chuckle.

"Human men are very fragile," she noted, inching closer to look at him. His pale lashes were so long, and she had never seen eyes the color of his before. She marveled quietly over them; such a gentle shade of lavender.

"…You're like a flower," she announced suddenly. "Really pretty, but also fragile."

"..." He had no words for her. He had never in his entire life been likened to a flower before, so this was a somewhat surreal experience. Actually, all of his interactions with her so far had been somewhat surreal. He still honestly did not know what to make of her.

Pretty? Fragile? She really had a way with words. He did not know how much more his fragile pride could take.

She snickered again at the look on his face. She reached out and petted his arm in an amused, assuring manner.

"I like flowers," she told him, her soft, glowing gaze getting heavy with sleep. She stretched out and yawned widely, flashing a pair of pointed incisors as well as the catlike curl of a pink tongue. Her eyes slid close, and she rubbed her face against the soft, comfortable sheets, content and drowsy. "…G'night."

He watched her as her breathing slowly evened out, as slumber claimed her. He watched the dense copper of her lashes fanning the gentle slopes of her cheeks, the charming arch of her nose, the poetic curve of her petal lips.

He silently thought of the insipid, simpering ladies back in court that his family had tried futilely to match him with, how he had been unmoved even by their elegant poise, their incredibly refined breeding. It was only now that he was beginning to comprehend why those women had never really appealed to him.

Once that realization slowly took form inside his mind, Eishi closed his eyes and heaved a sigh, visibly distressed by his newfound understanding.

What was he supposed to do now?

…He liked flowers too, it seemed.

When he woke the next morning, it was squalling furiously outside, the force of the sudden snow storm violent enough to rattle the door and the window panes. The temperature had dropped to way below freezing, but yet, he was incredibly comfortable.

He was warm. His vision was filled with red.

Eishi could not quite claim surprise…or dismay. His host was curled up into his side, still deeply asleep. Her hands clung unconsciously into his shirt, her face half tucked into the nook of his neck. Every now and then, she snored softly.

The position that they were in was incredibly…intimate. She was very, mesmerizingly soft, and the steady, gentle heat she exuded lulled him into a sense of complete contentment. He was relaxed, sleepy, and when he gazed at her, a languid, tender feeling that was very much like pleasure welled within him. He wanted to keep her, he mused.

Even if they were the only ones left in this world right now, he thought that he would not mind it at all.

Eishi stopped fighting the inevitable.

When Rindou stirred awake an hour or so later, she was only faintly surprised to find herself entwined with him, their limbs tangled, sharing warmth and the unexpected, subtle pleasure of tactile body contact. She did not appear averse to her new setting on the bed, and after the initial, vaguely disconcerted disorientation, was more curious and interested in exploring this nice, soft feeling that his presence seemed to elicit in her. She had half thought that he would have been fussier about their current position, but he seemed strangely placid.

He also wasn't pushing her away, either.

He was watching her though, his expression was calm, his pale lavender gaze scrutinizing her closely. She didn't quite know what to make of his composure…as well as the fact that his fingers were slowly, gently running through her hair. His unobtrusive ministrations made her want to purr. She leaned into his touch, her eyes closing, and that feeling he gave her grew.

"You make me feel strange things," she mused slowly, voice still low, smoky from sleep.

His brow silently lifted.

"You make me feel strange things too," he admitted quietly as well. Her golden eyes opened, and she simply stared at him. She said nothing, and after a while, she laid her head back down on his shoulder, keeping close, taming docilely beneath his touch.

If only they were the only ones left in this world right now, then it would have been perfect.

He was almost fully healed by now, which meant that his imminent departure was almost a certain thing. They did not speak about that inevitability, but both knew that it was encroaching upon them. After that first evening where they shared the bed, she took to curling up with him on subsequent nights. There was nothing unchaste about their contact, the way they reached out to each other, fingers tracing warm skin, lingering yearning over cheeks and lips, tangling softly through hair and clothes. She thrived beneath his gentle attention, quietly seeking more from him, accepting his tender courtship.

"Come back with me," he murmured into her crimson hair. She was quiet for the longest time. "Please," he whispered.

When she finally lifted her head to look at him, the expression on her face was incredibly sad. She took his larger hand in hers, slowly brought it up to her face. She closed her eyes and nuzzled against him, turning to kiss the center of his palm. Then, she took his hand and simply pressed it against her chest, right over where he could feel her heart was beating, fluttering in the cage of her chest like the wings of a little swallow. She looked at him steadily, her eyes softly glowing.

"This heart, it is yours."

The end, when it came, came too fast and too abruptly. There was no time, no warning, no chance to fix the mistakes that he had made.

It was too late.

That afternoon, he returned from the lake to an unexpected sight.

It was the members of the Order. There were five of them, all ominously hooded, standing in a circle in the clearing outside the cottage. It felt almost sacrilegious somehow, that they were right here, intruding upon this land, tainting the tranquil peace with their blighted presence. His hackles slowly rose. He had not expected that they would actually have him followed. There was something on the ground within that circle in front of them, partially concealed from his sight, something alive and frantically struggling for freedom, like a downed, wounded animal, like a gasping, landed fish.

His heart slowly coalesced to ice.

One of the men separated from the group and shuffled up to him, bowing in reverent obeisance.

"Sir Knight," he intoned. "Congratulations on your successful hunt. His Majesty will be very pleased. We did not think that you'd find the dragon heart so quickly. Let us return with your prize so that you may be richly commended and rewarded for your efforts."

"…Are you the only ones sent after me?" he asked, his expression turning blank.

"Yes, Sir Knight. There were more of us but this frightful beast slaughtered them during the surprise attack," the hooded member of the Order spat in the direction of the half-Turned, serpentine golden-eyed creature trapped in a barbed net on the ground, muzzle and claws bloodied from where she had put up a desperate fight when she had been hopelessly ambushed and outnumbered. Dragonsbane coated the deliberately sharp spurs of the strong, chained netting, ensuring that she was in constant, abject torment every time the poisoned hooks bit deeply into her flesh. Pain and fear churned her into a fevered frenzy. One of his colleagues drew back his foot and launched a vicious kick at their hideous looking captive. She writhed against her torturous bindings and snarled with hatred, flashing crimson stained fangs and teeth. Stuck in the form that was half human and half dragon, slivers of delicate gold red scales glistened over her cheeks, the back of her hands, nails lengthened into claws, preternatural slit pupiled eyes dilated with unforgiving, dragonic rage.

He could not tear his eyes away from her.

Rindou. Rindou.

He could not ignore the truth any longer, not when it was staring him blatantly in the face the way she did.

Confusion. Realization. Denial.

She, too, was starting to understand what was going on.

He turned away from her and returned his attention to his fellow compatriot.

"I see."

There was no hesitation. Eishi raised his bow and launched the loaded arrow point blank in the cleric's face, the weapon punching straight through the latter's eye and right out the back of his head. He dropped without making another sound, his face frozen in a grotesque rictus of astonishment and agony even as blood and brain matter sprayed onto a second, nearby Order member, the same arrow finding its final resting place lodged deeply into the joint of his shoulder. The man shouted and staggered back, clutching at his disabled limb, before a second arrow right through his throat silenced him forever. The third and last projectile slammed into the forehead of the man beside him mere seconds later, while the rest were still gawking and paralyzed by the speed and extreme prejudice of the merciless assault.

No. Not assault. An execution.

The white haired knight was already moving forward onto his fourth target when they started to react, trying futilely to mount a defense, terror causing their movements to become clumsy and sluggish. In the first place, they were no match for him; mere members of the clergy pitted against a full-fledged knight of the realm, blooded and hardened by some of the most brutal battlefields and wars ever fought for their kingdom. He could take all of them even while still recovering from the weakness of his recently healed leg. It was no contest at all.

Eishi swung his unloaded crossbow downwards and bludgeoned the fleeing member of the Order with the edge of the weapon, employing enough blunt force to internally separate the man's spine from the base of his skull in one decisive blow. He, like the others before him, fell like a puppet with its strings abruptly cut, dead even before he hit the ground, a strangled gurgle the only sound that heralded his swift passing. And then there was only one left.

"W-Wait! What are you doing! We're on the same side! T-Think about what you are doing! Are you intending to betray King Azami and keep the dragon heart for yourself?! You will not get away with this, Tsukasa Eishi!"

Eishi leaned down briefly and pulled a sickle blade free from the braided belt of one of the fallen men. He continued to approach the cowering cleric who was frantically trying to back away. His expression was quiet, almost regretful.

"I cannot let you live."

The other man could read the look on his face, resolute and unyielding, decision set in stone. There would be no mercy forthcoming. The hooded male turned around and tried to run for his life, frantically praying for deliverance, just as Eishi lifted the weapon and swiftly hurled it at him.

The momentum of the throw sent the deadly sharp, scythe-like object planted hilt deep through the back of the man's head like it was nothing more than a ripe watermelon. His body plowed forward, limbs still moving along helplessly even as he pitched across the dirt ground. He was dead, even as his muscles continued to spasm in death throes.

The spate of brutally efficient violence was over in the matter of seconds.

Eishi did not enjoy the kills. Their deaths were necessary, and he derived no pleasure out of massacring these hapless men. His shoulders lowered, ever so slightly. In a way, they were right. This was a blatant, unforgivable act of betrayal towards his King. But Eishi did not know if Tootsuki could survive the immortality of one Nakiri Azami. He had never intended to find out.

The dragon was never supposed to exist.

The lavender eyed man turned and immediately went to Rindou's side, pulling a small hunting blade concealed in the side of his boot and cutting her free. She was still in that curious state of existence that was neither here nor there. She looked human, but she also possessed fine, iridescent scales, impossibly sharp fangs and lethal claws. Despite the clearly unearthly nature of her appearance, he was unafraid of her.

But maybe he should be.

The instant the thick netting was loose, the heaving, wrathful female exploded into action. One moment, she was staked helplessly to the ground, and the next, she was lunging at him, slamming him back first onto the nearest tree, with enough force to crack several of his ribs. Pure fury percolated her glowing, reptilian eyes.

"You. Are. A. Knight," she snarled in his face.

He drew a sharp breath at the jarring pain, but he made no move to retaliate. The stark betrayal and anguish in her eyes lanced through him like a searing pike.

"Rindou-" he wheezed.

"You knew. You knew all along-" she broke off, and could not even speak properly because it hurt so much. He was never supposed to wound her like this. Not even the agony from her seeping wounds, poisoned from the despised Dragonsbane, had been able to cause as much damage as he had. There was no doubt whatsoever that he was exactly the thing that she had been raised from birth to hate, to fear. A knight. She could not believe her ears when those men greeted him with such admiration and respect. But then, he had demonstrated that ruthless killing efficiency that had proven beyond all doubt that he was indeed the real deal. She was not even allowed the benefit of the doubt. She could not even be granted that small mercy.

God, she had even thought that he was fragile. She had wanted to protect him. What a joke! He must have had been laughing at her stupid naiveté the entire while! Laughing, while also plotting how to best rip her heart out of her chest. Her heart, which she had almost offered up to him on a silver platter. What an utter fool she had been. How could she have fallen for someone who had only ever wanted to kill her? How could she have known?

"I didn't realize," he struggled to speak, silently pleading with his eyes, for her to give him the chance to explain. "I was sent here to procure a dragon heart, but I never really believed that it existed - I didn't know it was you."

It was only towards the end that he started having his suspicions, the mysterious pieces that were starting to come together one by one, but by then, it had been too late. Hurting her was no longer an option, if it ever was.

"Shut up."

She wanted to hate him, she really wanted nothing more than to hate him. But she could not. She was blinded by hurt. Her breath hitched, and it felt like her world was collapsing around her. That bubble of safety was bursting, and what did she have left? Nothing. Her face crumpled. Red started to leak from her eyes, streaking her cheeks with hot tears of blood. He made a sound that was very much like a low, pained moan at the sight. Her forearm pressed hard against his throat, keeping him pinned with her sheer, monstrous strength, threatening to crush his windpipe. He choked. Her slit pupiled eyes never left his. She should kill him, right here, right now.

"I love you," he gasped out, desperate to convince her. I love you. I've only ever wanted to love you.

She shoved away from him, backing away, shaking her head, as if trying to awaken from this utter nightmare. She could barely even look at him. He lurched forward, fell onto his knees before her, struggling to breathe through his badly bruised larynx. What a cruel, bittersweet irony. The knight who refused to slay the dragon. The dragon that could not kill the knight. What was there left to do?

"I wish I've never met you." Her voice was quieting now, her features draining of emotion. It was as if she was mentally retreating to a place where he could no longer reach. Panic started to rise in him at the steely resolve in her tone.

"You saved my life today, so with this, we're even." Her gaze was hard, and alit with a fierce fire. "I never want to see you again, Tsukasa Eishi."

Power rippled over her being, a dense, breathless feeling that flooded the clearing, that made him acutely aware of his own flickering mortality. When she transformed, the colors that rippled across her red gold scales rivaled the breathtaking brilliance of the sunset. She was nowhere near as big as what the legends say, or perhaps she was just small for her species. She was streamlined, compact, and obviously built for speed. She reared and stretched out her wide, leathery wings, and he realized what she was about to do. No. No.

He stumbled to his feet, reaching out futilely for her, just as she took a running leap and launched herself into the air.

"Rindou!"

::tsuzuku::

Questions That I Would Like To Answer Before You Ask:

Just so that we're all clear, this is still part of the prologue, ahaha. I know it doesn't feels like it but it is! One more chapter of prologue/world building, and I think we'll be getting into the story shortly thereafter!

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Your reviews make me update faster; so please leave a comment if you like this fic!

-sllebswap