Series: On Dragon's Wings||Title: Proper Behavior||Chapter: Ownership
Characters: Mizael, Alit, & Leonius
Chapters: 3-8||Words: 1,567||Total: 4,743
Genre: Friendship||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Diversity Writing, YGO Zexal Aus, section I10, multichap with exactly 8 chapters
Notes: This takes place in the same world as Ring The Dinner Bell, Face of Death, and Diamond of the North, and occurs after Mizael left Vector's kingdom.
Summary: Mizael's evening rest is interrupted by two strangers who think they've seen a dragon. Really. A dragon. How silly.
Mizael didn't leave so much as a scrap of meat on his plate. There hadn't been enough of it to fill his stomach as a dragon, and even for his smaller human stomach, there hadn't been quite enough. Still, not quite enough was better than none at all, and that was what he'd been working with before this.
As soon as the servant took the plate away – with murmured astonishment that he'd eaten everything but the plate itself – Mizael considered the rest of his options. He'd come here for one reason and that wasn't dinner. The food was merely a delicious extra.
Now he rose and moved toward the door, every movement of his as silent as could be. Already he knew that despite the pleasant state of this room, there wasn't anything here that he actually wanted to add to his hoard. He could see one or two things that some friends of his might've wanted, but they could come and get it for themselves.
But the longer that he stayed here, the more he began to feel the pull of something that was his, somewhere in this castle. From the way that it felt, he thought it was only one thing, something small, and whatever it was, he wanted it.
So, with great caution, he left his room and started to explore, always making certain that no one else was in a corridor or room before he entered it. The later it grew, the less chances that anyone would believe him if he said he was just taking an evening stroll, and only a small number of people even knew that he was here. Granted, one of those was the Emperor himself, but he could find himself thrown out without recourse to him anyway.
His treasure sense guided him into the deeper regions of the castle, past items of wealth and value that human thieves would've lusted over. Mizael disdained them all. He was not a thief. He was a dragon. Dragons did not steal.
The farther he traveled, the more guards began to turn up, which led him to believe he was headed for some sort of important treasury. That made it all the better. The more worth of what he wanted for his hoard, the more he would enjoy this.
Slipping by the guards wasn't that difficult, either. While his shapechanging abilities only allowed him the form of a dragon or the form of a human, he had other talents he could call on, such as heightened senses and a few minor spells.
This must be it. Two guards stood on either side of a triple-locked door. Mizael remained in the shadows, watching, thinking of how to get by them. Perhaps there's another way in. He had no quarrel with the guards. They were only doing their duty to their Emperor. If he could take what he wanted and be gone without them being aware of it, so much the better.
He moved on by without them seeing him. That was due more to being a hunter than anything else. He took his prey from the skies more than anything else, but there had been times when the only way he could get his food was to shapechange.
He wanted to find whatever this treasure was and get on out of there. He'd never found something of his that humans who'd been kind to him wanted to keep. The longer he let it stew in his thoughts, the more he didn't want Alit or the Emperor to know that he'd taken it in the first place. These thoughts were not ones a dragon had often, if at all.
They should understand. They would understand, if they knew I was a dragon. It didn't completely make him feel better about it, but it helped, a little.
Finally, he found what he thought would help: a small door where the air scented of cleaning materials, with hints of treasure behind it, and not very much of humans, and not of magic at all. He pressed the door open, taking every motion with the greatest of care, and it slid open, revealing a dark corridor behind it. Following that led to another door, and on the other side of that…
Mizael was a dragon. He knew treasure and he knew the value of it. The hoard he saw here would've satisfied many a dragon and quite a few thieves as well. He looked around harder, the scent of the one treasure here that was his calling to him. None of the rest of it mattered to him at all.
Defensive magic glittered all around him, meant to protect the treasures here from casual thieves. Mizael passed through the spells easily enough, since he hadn't yet taken anything here. He would be ready to take off the moment that his hands touched what called to him, though.
Expensive carpets, gloriously woven tapestries, chests full to the brim of coins of every precious metal ever used to mint coinage, gemstones both cut and uncut, all of it shimmered from every corner of the room. Mizael ignored most of it, still searching for that one little piece that sang the song of his soul.
No guards stood around here; likely enough because of the magic itself. Anyone who did manage to get in here would have to deal with the consequences of that, and very few of them would be dragons. Mizael counted on that to give him what he needed to get out of there.
Suddenly his feet rooted to the ground. For a moment Mizael wondered if this were some kind of enchanted trap and fear wound itself all around him. Then his eye fell on something else altogether, and he breathed out in relief.
There in a small alcove rested a finely made porcelain vase, all but see-through in its fineness, painted with images of the sea. Mizael brushed the tips of his fingers across it and smiled in triumph. Mine. The vase sang back to him; it was his, and it knew it as well as he did.
Slowly he brushed the tips of his fingers against it, before leaning forward to touch the side of his face to it. That didn't feel the same as it did when he was in his true form, of course. But the touch reassured him in every way that this was his and therefore he had every right to take it. Humans should not keep something that was a dragon's. Even if he somewhat liked the humans.
He picked the vase up and held it close. Getting it out would be a trifle difficult, but he didn't have any doubts that he could do it.
He'd taken only another step away before some of the gemstones imbedded into the walls began to flash with a rich scarlet warning and he found that he couldn't move at all. Mizael's eyes flashed with rage and he strained with all of his might. Too many memories of the long hours he'd spent entrapped in his human form, unable to do anything to either help himself or Vector, swept back into his mind.
If he could transform, then he could get out of there. There would be damage, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. He focused his mind as sharply as the edge of a well-forged blade, ready to resume his true form.
Nothing happened.
Fear choked around his neck, deeper and stronger, and he tried again.
And still nothing at all happened. He could not change. He could not move.
Noises came from outside of the treasure room, two of them familiar and the rest not. Mizael strained even harder. For all that he'd known them almost no time at all, trying to explain all of this to them would be difficult enough without being first treated as a thief. Surely they'd understand if he told them what he was, once he had his treasure safely tucked away. Vector had understood.
The large guarded door to the treasury swung open. A small contingent of guards entered, swords at the ready, with Alit and the Emperor only a step or two behind them. Mizael could hear them more than he could see them, but it didn't take long at all for the group to arrive at where he stood, imprisoned in beams of light, unable to escape or to defend himself in any way. It was, he thought, a good trap for a common thief. Perhaps even good enough for a dragon.
The Emperor and Alit both stared when they stepped up enough to see him. Hurt flickered in Alit's bright eyes.
"Mizael?" The word seemed to pain him to speak. "What are you doing?"
The guard at the head of the squad raised his sword. "I would think it's obvious. He's a thief."
Leonius's gaze was much calmer than Alit's as he looked the shapechanged dragon up and down. "Take that away from him and put him in the dungeon for now. Make certain to keep the spells on him so he can't escape. He'll have a trial tomorrow."
If Mizael had been able to move, he would've howled his fury to the skies, following it in a heartbeat. Unable to change, trapped, he wanted nothing more than to get out of there!
And yet he could do nothing at all.
To Be Continued
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