Chapter CII: Courtship

The image changed. Jaden was older, a little taller and more regal in appearance. He seemed more confident, but when he met Yubel's eye, it was far from the truth. He put on a good show, but he was defenseless whenever he looked at the female. Yami was almost amazed by the change of expression in the other male, but it faded quickly. Atem had always looked at Yugi like that before he'd realized Yugi's betrayal. He had smiled softly, tilted his head, watched him with glittering eyes that looked relieved and tired despite his usual quiet strength. He'd never overlooked it when Atem drew strength from Yugi, be it just knowing he was there or actually making eye contact.

His heart squeezed in his chest again.

What if I fail? He didn't hear what Jaden was saying and Yubel's focus seemed severed for a split second, as if the memory were wavering. He wondered at the sensation, as if someone were trying to warn him away from something, and for a split second he had to assume something similar were happening. I can't fail. Failure isn't an option.

He forced his eyes to sharpen and focus again, senses bursting forth to investigate the area around them.

"So, you came to see the nests and check the number of eggs produced?" Yubel said wryly, flicking her tail. The sunlight streamed down heavily enough it weighed the fur along her wings and almost pressed them to the ground. Her golden claws glinted as she moved past Jaden and toward the nursery. "Shadi requested this?"

"He's curious as to who the next God Dragon will be. He was hoping there might be another from the Clans. They're easier to find that way, you know? There's no competition to figure out who it is."

"Oh?"

Jaden hesitated a moment and Yubel smelled him acutely, like live embers and leaves heated beneath the sun. He looked her over from the corner of his eye and studied her intently. "It's easier because the chances of a nest of multiple eggs with only one to hatch are rather slim unless there are signs of egg rot. So, it's more likely a God Dragon is born from them. Besides, having them all in one place makes it easier to know where to find them later when we're supposed to retrieve them."

Yubel nodded slightly. "Well, aren't you lucky I'm the post for the nursery?" she teased, though her voice was slightly irritated. Yami wondered at the prickle of annoyance he felt beneath her amusement as she led the way underground. The earth was deep red like blood here, though the shadows made the smooth walls of the tunnel before them that much darker. The sand was soft and warm beneath their paws, growing colder as they got further into the tunnel. There were voices, mothers coaxing their hatchlings to rest or lay down without disturbing them any further.

The sounds were oddly muted down here and the sand became much looser, the grains wider and thicker than before. It itched against Yubel's paws despite her familiarity with the territory, and the soft voices wove their way through the air like trickling water. Yubel didn't glance back at Jaden as the tunnel tightened to allow only one dragon passage at a time.

"What then, after this? Do you plan to visit the other Clans?"

"Yes," Jaden answered as the tunnel finally widened enough for him to move past her and try to keep pace in perfect stride. Yubel glanced at him and then raised a paw in front of him to bar his way. He halted obediently and she moved past him and into the den.

The sand was warmer here, as if they'd gathered sunlight within it to keep it soft and silken to the touch. There were four mothers, and about ten dragonets playing about. They faltered as they spotted Yubel, though two of them chirped her name and raced over.

"Yubel, I thought you were playing sentry duty," one of the females said in a sharp, annoyed tone. She turned away from her immediately again, dismissive, and licked one of the hatchlings at her paws. Yubel watched her with glittering eyes for a moment, then turned away and shook her head.

"I am. Jaden wished to see the nests."

"Jaden?" another of the females whispered, head whipping around. Her eyes grew wide with shock. "Oh, the newest God Dragon came to see our nests?"

Jaden dipped his head. "I did. I came to see if any of them might be the next to join our ranks," he explained, smiling warmly at one of the hatchlings that raced over again. "Shadi and I are the last remaining, and the balance calls for four. The idea is they're likely already born by now, but they probably aren't…active just yet and haven't grown into their abilities for the moment."

Yubel glanced at him sideways, dubious, but did not speak.

"Ah, well, there is nothing divine any of these little hatchlings, as much as we might wish otherwise," a third female laughed, shaking her head. "They all hatched and none are larger or smaller than they should be."

"Are they too young for names?"

"For the moment, yes," the fourth answered in a rougher voice. She sounded almost exhausted as she yawned and tucked her wings into her sides more forcefully. "Give them another couple of moons and it'll be a different story."

Jaden nodded and the image changed rapidly before him. The God Dragon was older again, though still so terribly young, sitting before her as Yubel wandered toward the border. She paused there a moment, tilting her head, and then came forward again. Her movements were slower, cautious almost, and her voice was low when she asked, "Well? Did you find your new brethren?"

"Hmm?" the God Dragon muttered, looking bewildered for a split second before smiling and getting up. He came forward and attempted to rub muzzles with her but Yubel stepped back with a bristle, startled. Jaden faltered, visibly shaken by the rejection as he stumbled for words. "Uh, yes. We found one. It's Shadi's brother's, recently hatched. He's twice the size he should be and the exact opposite coloring of Shadi or Ironheart. The second we haven't found just yet."

Yubel nodded dismissively and considered him curiously. "And you've come here for what?"

"To see you, of course." Jaden looked almost puzzled, but mostly hopeful as he stared at her intently. He watched her with glittering brown-red eyes, blinking as he tilted his head. He stepped closer and Yubel narrowed her eyes. "I came to see you."

"Why?" she snapped, lashing her tail and suppressing a wave of frustration. Yami couldn't tell where it was directed nor why it reared its head so suddenly like this. They'd seemed okay before. Why now was she so closed off? "You saw me plenty the last time you checked the nests, so why are you here again now?"

Jaden blinked and looked bewildered, then slightly hurt. "It's been several moons, and I…I couldn't get you out of my head—the entire time, you surrounded me and I just…" He seemed for a moment to withdraw into himself almost shyly, then stepped forward with a more determined expression. He flexed his claws almost anxiously, studying here as he drew a deep breath and exhaled, regaining his courage. "I wanted to see you again, because I haven't seen you in moons, and because I couldn't stop thinking of you."

Yubel stared at him silently for a long time. "That's…" She trailed off, then shook her head. "You have not bothered to ask me why we did not cross paths in that time."

"I assumed it had to do with the mating cycle," Jaden admitted with a small huff. He grimaced and shifted his weight as if he'd been stung by her silence. When the seconds passed in quiet, he finally blurted, "Did you take a mate?"

Flustered and indignant, the female bristled and lashed her tail. "It is my right should I have chosen to," she spat. But then she paused, an inkling of regret crossing through her. It was almost mystifying how quickly a wave of shame came down her spine. "No, I did not. I do not believe it would have been worth it."

Jaden tilted his head. "Hmm?" he whispered, bewildered and rapidly growing crestfallen. "Why do you say that?"

Yubel hesitated for a long minute, then looked away. She shifted her weight, flexing her claws nervously. Her tail lashed after a moment and the shame grew tenfold. "Well, assuming my Clan sisters are right, taking into account my age and the numerous heat cycles I've lived through… I may just well be barren."

Jaden's eyes stretched wide as twin moons for a split second. Then he blinked and forced himself to regain his composure. He stepped forward and nuzzled her shoulder. "That's okay," he rushed to say, and the hope in his voice made Yubel snarl softly with frustration. "I don't care about hatchlings. I…I just… I love you."

Yubel didn't answer for a long moment and when she did, it was to pull away and stare at him. After a few heartbeats she turned and wandered off without another word. She glanced back at Jaden when she was halfway toward the camp and found him still watching her from the distance. The God Dragon seemed only to leave when Yubel entered the camp and wandered off for her individual den.

The shift of the den walls was what announced the change of memories. Yubel rose from the where shadows stretched so far across the loose sand that the ground looked black. She crawled out of the den and through the tunnels to the clearing that heralded the entrance of the camp. The moonlight was bright overhead, cold and silver and glittering where the sand twinkled with starlight. She looked around slowly, eyes narrowing, and padded forward. The clouds were too few to obscure the moonlight and as she looked over her shoulder she could hear the occasional snore echo through the tunnel.

She sighed and shook herself out, padding toward where she knew a watering hole existed nearby. She could hear a few animals moving about the sand, snakes slithering across it or mice scampering around. She thought she heard a cat, large and graceful, but it could have been her imagination.

She padded along as quietly as she could, as if she might hunt should she grow hungry but had no plans to at the moment. She blinked lazily and narrowed her gaze as the watering hole began to take shape in the moonlight, a swirling mass of black and silver like the night sky had been liquified at her paws. And, yet, she paused.

"Jaden," she hissed as she considered the male laying near the edge of the pool. He immediately looked up, blinking eyes that glowed amber in the dark, and was on his paws almost instantly. "What are you doing here?"

The God Dragon stretched each limb and shook himself out lazily. He yawned after a moment and scrambled toward her with a huge grin. "Hi!" he blurted, pausing awkwardly before hurrying to rub beaks with her; she was too startled by his presence to rebut the affectionate stance he'd taken. "I, uh, I'm the God Dragon of the South now."

Yubel blinked and snorted. "I see," she muttered, "and that means you're here now to oversee the region. "

Jaden took a seat in front of her almost expectantly, but when Yubel walked past him and lowered her head to drink, he visibly deflated. "Is it really so bad to even consider being mated to me?" he asked almost desperately. Yubel paused and looked over, startled. "I just… You act like I've tried to gut you or something. Like… I plan to disembowel you for no other reason than my own amusement. I don't understand how you could dislike me that much."

She lashed her tail and considered her words, then took another long drink of water. After a few moments she raised her head and turned to him again. "I don't dislike you," she said finally. "And I don't think ill of you, nor do I… You could do better. I just don't want you to waste your life with me when you could find a female who could give you what you want."

Jaden blinked. "I don't want a nest. I want you."

Yubel snorted. "Do you even know what you want? Jaden, go find a female Prime Material Dragon and raise a clutch and enjoy your time with them."

He shook his head. "I know you wanted a nest before," he said quietly. "It wasn't hard to figure out when you took care of the hatchlings so often, but if you can't have that, wouldn't you rather a mate who loves you? I can't promise it'll be easy all the time but it might be worth it. I'd try to make it worth it for you."

Yubel stared at him, insides churning. It wasn't herself she was worried about. And the notion of having a clutch had disappeared a long while back, when the first heat cycle had come and gone without even a twitch of difference in her. She had not felt the need to find a male, nor the desperate itch the others had spoken of. She had not even wanted to consider mating, even though she should have been drawn to the idea immediately. Females matured faster than males for the most part; she should have sought a mate long ago, within the first twenty years of her life. That amount of time had tripled while she'd waited for even the slightest impulse toward the desire to find a male to couple with.

What she worried about was what might happen to Jaden. Would he grow upset when he realized she truly was barren? Or would he be frustrated when she failed to prove the mate he most likely desired?

Who was to say she could ever be that dragon?

"Take a moon to reconsider," she said finally, when he kept staring so earnestly. "Take a moon to think it over and reconsider what you're proposing. We'll speak again next full moon."

Jaden opened and closed his mouth, then sighed. "Would it really be so bad for you to take me as a mate?" he mumbled.

She considered him for a long moment, then lashed her tail. She bristled faintly and narrowed her eyes, studying him intently and baring her teeth for a split second. "Jaden, you're young. And you act like this might be forever."

He tilted his head. "You wouldn't want it to be?"

"We're not Sky Dragons," she spat, saying the word almost as if it were a dirty thing. She bristled and scowled, then shook her head roughly. He wasn't understanding any of it. "I don't mate for life. Neither do you. You're chasing me like we're going to pretend that's what will happen. I've had enough suitors and turned them down and yet you persist."

"I've met plenty of dragons whose species don't mate for life but they chose someone," Jaden argued, though his voice had dropped and he looked flustered. He seemed almost as if he were losing his stamina for the argument, opening and closing his mouth twice before shaking his head. "Why couldn't we do that too?"

She huffed a breath. "Why would you want to? You're a deity. You wouldn't even need to participate in courtships." She shook her head. "Why limit yourself to me?"

Jaden smiled a little. "Well, what's so wrong with you?"

Yubel stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. The prickle of annoyance that surged through her was vibrant. It made her blood warm as she scowled for a brief second. She searched for a reason that might get through his thick skull, then stopped and huffed again.

"Just…take a moon to figure out if you really want to do this. And if you do, I'll go along with it."

"You sound like I'm threatening to torture you," he mumbled, looking unsure of himself even around the humorous glint in his eye. Yubel bristled with annoyance and shook her head again. "You can't tell me you don't feel anything for me. I know you do. You wouldn't have bothered talking to me otherwise. I've seen you freeze everyone else out when it's convenient, so I know you have to feel something. It's not just because I'm a God Dragon."

Yubel bristled with irritation again, but she couldn't ignore the slight thrill that came from his attention or the way her belly churned with excitement at times when she crossed paths with him. It was stupid, but it had always been there. Jaden deserved better. She was barren and he could have clutches if he so desired. It was true. He wouldn't have even needed to bother with battling for courtship. He was a deity. Any dragon—male or female—would throw themselves at his paws to have a chance. He could have another mate everyday for years if he so desired.

So, why did he insist on having her?

Jaden watched her for a long moment, then smiled and shook his head. "You're not denying it," he pointed out playfully.

Yubel huffed. "Shut up."

The imagery shifted once more. The moon had retreated and the sun shown brightly overhead. Yubel was padding past the nursery entrance, watching some of the hatchlings as they jumped about. Bitterness swelled through her as one glanced over and squeaked, "Food?" and rushed toward her. Another sprang over and the rest quickly followed. She lashed his tail but didn't object when they sprang for her mouth, licking and pawing at her in an effort to make her regurgitate.

They truly only cared when she had come back from a hunt, never when she sat with them and attempted to tell them stories or anything else. It was as if she only existed when she brought them food and never before or after that.

"About time you came back. They're starved," another voice huffed, all but sneering the words. Yubel ignored her as she lowered her mouth and spat half-digested meat on the ground. Annoyed, she moved around them and ignored their bickering as they fought for who got the majority.

"Starved is hardly the word to describe their plumpness," she hissed as she took a seat. Her mouth burned with the bitter twinge of bile and her stomach ached as she suppressed a small snarl. She should have turned her head away. She was the only one regurgitating any longer.

The others had left it for her to do as if it were her duty. It was if her reluctance to mate and likely barren status was enough to force her into the position of caretaker despite her lack of maternal instincts. They all left her to spend the time with them despite everything. Their apparent hatred for her and their reluctance to deal with her did nothing to slow them down from forcing her to act as the babysitter for the clutches they so constantly spawned.

Yubel huffed and lashed her tail again. Perhaps Jaden was right. Why waste her time pretending she wanted someone else when the God Dragon was so clearly interested in her? She could get out of the Clan and cease caring for hatchlings that weren't hers. She couldn't procure a nest, and the odds of finding a mate dwindled drastically from there. She didn't even go into heat cycles with the other females, and everyone considered it a curse and the biggest joke in the Clan.

She wondered what else there was to do.

She couldn't have hatchlings of her own and the Clan thought of her more as a burden than an asset any longer. Her lack of interest in mating now had driven many of the other females to sneer and snicker when they saw her. What point was there in pretending to be interested in remaining?

She got to her paws again when she heard the dragonets rushing forward, ignoring them as they tried to get to her flanks and toward her mouth again. She raised and turned her head away as they sprang about, barely resisting the urge to snarl.

Things had only grown worse since Jaden had claimed the region as his. Being sought after had made many of them turn their claws and teeth on her as if it might make him see them before her. The aggression had been sharp enough they'd meant bloodshed in their attacks, but Yubel had never been so foolish as to let them lay a claw on her more than a superficial scratch. She'd beaten most of them back from their impulses and stood proudly before them without much care. But the patience she'd displayed before had been rapidly dwindling.

She could barely think straight at times without growing infuriated with everything.

Yubel stalked away from the camp without a second glance, ignoring the calls of several of the others. It didn't matter even when the sentry looked at her in alarm and asked where she was going. She refused to answer, lashing her tail when the sentry followed for a step before stopping short and returning to his post at the entrance. It was infuriating, her blood hot with rage, as she continued forward.

She traveled for what seemed hours, walking without direction, all but mindless in action, and found herself more frustrated when the desert seemed an endless scorched ground trodden with paws. She huffed as she glanced back. No one had bothered to follow. No one seemed to care that she'd wandered off on her own.

She turned around and spat, springing backwards and chomping her teeth.

Jaden tilted his head. "Easy," he laughed, surprised by her aggression. "I'm obviously not planning to hurt you."

She lashed her tail. "You snuck up on me."

"It's kind of hard to sneak up on someone when they were headed for you initially," he chuckled, though he gave her a concerned glance. "What are you doing out here?"

Yubel stared at him for a long time, studying until she thought she saw multiple of him, and then slowly looked away. How far was she from Clan territory? She had to be far beyond it, even from the very outskirts. She blinked again and turned back, flustered. Jaden watched her, concerned but also slightly hopeful. Her tail lashed again, at first angrily and then with a soft twitch as she considered her options.

Did she return to a Clan that hated her so much?

Or did she agree to becoming mates with Jaden?

Did it matter in the end?

She almost laughed at herself, bitterness swelling through once more. Jaden blinked and peered at her with narrowed eyes, unsure, and she suppressed a bark of anger. After a moment she stepped forward.

"If you'll still have me, I accept your proposal."

Jaden blinked at her in confusion, then raised his head with wide eyes. The hopeful glint in his eye turned into a brilliant flame as he considered her. "O-okay!"