[For Sam] Healer & Dragon

[carrythetorch]

It had all gone wrong this time. In retrospect, Lio thinks maybe he'd been going too hard. He was on the brink of exhaustion, and his latest raid on livestock had been met with more resistance than it should have, almost as if someone had known he was coming.

He'd gotten away, thankfully, but not before he'd taken a number of blows -- arrows shot from crossbows with enough power that they'd pierced even through his scales. He'd ripped them out in flight and set the better part of a fallow field on fire before he'd flapped high enough to disappear into the cloud cover. That had been what saved him. It wasn't long before he couldn't keep himself aloft any longer, too much pain, too much blood lost.

Even maintaining his full draconic form is too much, and as he plunges to the Earth and tries to slow his descent with his wings, he fizzles back into his human shape, a lithe, slender man. His clothes are dark enough that the blood soaking them isn't obvious from a distance. He lands in a crumpled pile not far from a road through the woods, just off the trail in the underbrush. And that's the last thing he knows.

...

When he opens his eyes next, he's warmer than he expects to be. There's soft blankets beneath him and over him. He can smell something clean and earthy, herbal maybe, and light spills in setting the whole room in a comforting brightness and-- wait. He's in a room. The last thing he remembers is falling, and, oh.

He sits up all at once, hissing at the way his body protests the movement. Where is he? Has he been captured? Except no, if he'd been captured he'd be bound. Or dead. Maybe staked through to the ground. Not wrapped in soft blankets and tended to. "Where am I?" He asks the question mostly to himself as he blinks against his bleary vision willing it to clear, willing his eyes to focus.

Comments

[barenakedspirit]

The flame flicks out of his awareness like a candle being blown out. It belongs to Lio now within his greater flame. “That’s what I was thinking about when I lit it.”

He glances down at Lio’s hand on his chest tracing over the dragon. It tingles a little. “I wanted a flame that would give you some strength when you needed it. Since we’re partners now.”

They’re bound together. He and the lord of dragons. “You good to go?” He doesn’t want to examine it but he really doesn’t want Lio to stop touching him.

[carrythetorch]

Galo isn't the only one not wanting the contact to end, and Lio is studiously avoiding thinking about that too closely as well. Instead he forces himself to draw his hand away, looking up to Galo once more. "Partners. Good. I like that."

Galo may not be able to feel it anymore, but Lio is very aware of Galo's flame burning away within his own. It's warm in a different way, and for the first time in his life, he thinks, he doesn't feel quite so alone.

"Yeah. I'm good." He answers, trying to shake off the impulse to do something absolutely absurd like hug the healer.

[barenakedspirit]

Galo grins and extends his hand to the tree that used to be his staff. It winds back together until his staff is exactly as it was. He plants the butt of it against the earth.

A pulse runs through the forest and Galo realizes he can hear the forest far clearer than before. Had there been some kind of imbalance in himself? Had he truly been as wounded as those he helps?

He still is. He can feel the gaping wound in his soul but it’s mending little by little. Galo opens himself to the world around him and a new path winds between the trees. He is truly of the old ways now. He lifts his staff, and walks down the path. “Let’s go. This will take us to the edge where forest meets the lake. It’s been looking like it will flood the forest since things started tipping out of balance.”

But with Lio they can set that right. His grin is wide and bright like the sun coming out. “We can do some temporary work today. We’ll fix it entirely when we deal with Kray.”

[carrythetorch]

Lio is not sure how he's going to explain Galo to Gueira and Meis and the others, but honestly, he's kind of looking forward to their meeting him, once this is all said and done. He thinks his generals will come to like this strange, idealistic healer.

Oh god he's thinking about taking him home to meet his family. What is that thought??

"I'll follow your lead. These are your woods." When it comes to later, when the dragons are involved, Lio can show Galo the ropes.

Quiet for a long moment, Lio seems to be turn in the next thing he says over in his head before he actually says it. "If we survive this, will you let me meet the rest of your circle?"

[barenakedspirit]

"Course. You need to!" Galo says immediately as he gestures widely to the forest around them. "It's been a long time and we'll need all the help we can get to help us bring everything back into balance. And uh, negotiating peace and or educating people about what dragons are really like."

The path turns muddy under foot and Galo sighs. "Walk where I walk. It's all swampy up ahead." He strides through the mud with full confidence as he says. "And I still need to talk to the rest of your people...if you and they are okay with that." He turns his head to look at him.

"All this goes at the pace you decide. You know what is needed, we're just amplifying your voices with what influence we got on our side."

[carrythetorch]

Lio perks up, interested now. Then Galo isn't against it? Good. "Yes, that's exactly what we'll need. The fear won't go away over night, but if we work to change it..." Maybe they can do it, maybe they can get to a place where dragons and humans can coexist, can live in the same world in peace.

"I want you to meet them. I think they'll like you." He's certain of it really.

He's feeling pretty good about all of this. Except the mud. That he is not a fan of, and it shows on his face as his feet squish. But he follows in Galo's footsteps so he doesn't wind up stuck in a mire. Now would be a wonderful time to fly, but he still doesn't trust his strength to take his other form and sustain it.

"The pace we decide, Galo. We're doing this together. You and me. Humans and dragons."

[barenakedspirit]

"Yeah, yeah we are." He says, tossing a grin Lio's way as the trees part and they come out at the edge of a lake. It's over flowing its banks that is marked by sticks with the tops marked by cloth flags.

Galo walks along the new edge. "Can you feel it?" He can feel things are wrong. Like there's cracks in the metaphysical and the water is seeping through it. The air is humid and he can feel the water gathering on his skin.

The forest whispers to him that it's drowning here. The plants asking for the heat that is needed. Galo turns to Lio and holds his hand out. "...if I give you my power can you send it where it's needed? So you're not using your fire when you need to be recovering."

[carrythetorch]

Lio frowns, opening his mouth to inform Galo that he wouldn't know the first thing about how to start feeling it -- except he does. So he shuts his mouth and nods. "I can. It's unbalanced." The water has gone too far, rushing to fill cracks made by the state of the world.

He looks up at Galo, gaze running from that extended hand up to the healer's eyes. "I can do that. But let's use my fire too. If it's both our strength, it won't take too much." And it feels right to work together like that.

Reaching out, he takes Galo's hand in his. They can fix this, and that thought is thrilling somehow, that working with this man they can start putting something right.

[barenakedspirit]

Galo nods. “You’re right, a mix is better.” He plants the butt of his staff into the water and reaches for the power within him, his fire and asks for Lio’s without words.

The heat in the air spikes like the rise of heat in the desert as the morning sun rises. It’s a heat that calls water to it. Shifting the balance away from the swamp things had become.

He lets that power shape in the air as he pulls up memories of how things looked when he was young. The banks of the lake. The plants swaying gently in the breeze. The soft call of birds and whispering of the trees. He envisions it all and lets the forest tell him what it needs to happen.

“We’ll be like a local circle. You got my fire. Feel how we’re connected. Follow it, see what I see Lio.”

[carrythetorch]

Lio's fire responds before he even consciously realizes it, rising to join with Galo's. It feels right, and that heat in the air calls to him as much as it calls to the water. He feels the pull there and the pull to Galo.

"I can feel it," he murmurs quietly, letting his eyes fall shut.

It takes shape in his mind piece by piece until the whole tableau spreads out before him. He audibly gasps. "I can see it."

He can see all of it, and he knows what they have to do. "I understand. I'm ready when you are."

[barenakedspirit]

Galo smiles brightly and focused. The heat pours in. The dry heat peels back the moisture in the air.

The water’s over abundance ebbs as he guides the power where it needs to be. The water level is going down bit by bit.

The plants respond and spread themselves out. Galo hums to himself. The trees rattle their branches happily. Galo opens himself to let Lio hear them too.

[carrythetorch]

The forest is responding to them, to the call of the heat and the flame. They're fixing this, he can feel it starting to breathe again when it had been choking. He can feel it all and hear it through Galo.

And he smiles. This is the world he was meant to inhabit, that his kind were meant to be a part of, of helping to hold the world in balance.

There are tears threatening the corners of Lio's eyes as it all hits him, stark and beautiful, even if it makes his chest ache with a fullness that he doesn't know how to handle.

[barenakedspirit]

Galo turns enough to get a better look at Lio’s face. It makes his chest ache to see how overwhelmed he looks. He had looked up to Kray, loved him in a way.

He had loved what he thought Kray was. But this. Is one sign of the many how much destruction his supposed hero had caused. Galo lets go of his staff as the magic settles in. He faces Lio and says softly. “This is how it is meant to be. How it will be again. We will do this again and again, as we bring things back to balance. Here. Everywhere. And you will never be alone, Lio.”

His flame will burn on within Lio for all the time Lio is alive. A light in the dark.

[carrythetorch]

Overwhelmed is the word. His gaze turns from the mending lake and forest to look back to Galo as he speaks. Those tears are still gathering, but despite the tears, despite everything, he smiles at Galo -- really, genuinely smiles at him, bright and soft, the first time he's shown that expression to Galo. Or to anyone erally, in a very long time.

"We'll put things right. For the dragons. And the forest. And humans too." The balance will soothe them all. And Lio has never been about vengeance or turning their anger on humanity. He just wants his people to be able to live without fear, without hiding.

Lio sets a hand against his own chest. No, he won't be alone again. He can feel Galo's flame dancing intertwined with his own. "Neither will you. If you call, I will come. Always."

[barenakedspirit]

What a beautiful smile. He smiles back, warm and real with a softness of its own. His smile morphs into a grin. “Course you will! Because we’re partners now.” He offers the side of his fist to him.

Lio will always be there. That makes his own chest feel tight and warm. He closes his eyes against a wave of emotion. Gratitude and something else that takes that loneliness he has felt for so long and makes it a little less. “Thanks.” He opens his blue eyes and that gratitude is in his eyes.

[carrythetorch]

Lio reaches out to bump his fist to Galo's. Partners, yeah. He likes that. This healer is his now. Not just that little piece of flame that burns with his own, but all of Galo. He'll protect him with his dying breath if he has to.

"I'm the one who should be thanking you." For now though, he lets his eyes sweep over the changed land around them. Balanced and in tune with its own nature once more.

"We should get back. We'll need to rest and prepare for what's coming."

[barenakedspirit]

“Yeah, we have a lot to do before the Judgement.” Galo says and grabs his staff. “A lot to do.” He murmurs as the forest’s whispers fill his ears.

—-

The cloak is a jet black like the midnight sky. He stands outside the town just inside the tree line before the wood gives way to simple grassy fields and farmland. Galo turns to his companion. With the hood pulled over his head only his mouth and the bottom half of his face is visible.

“Okay, I have to go first. People have to know that a Judgment is happening. Once I’m walking you can come out and people will see the jewelry. They’ll know you’re elemental lord. Just not what type or what species. Not unless they’re fire mages.” He strongly suspects the fire mages will not fight them.

They know who he is and would see the shadow of his parents walking with the colors of judgment.

“The rest of the Circle are coming. Should get here soon. I can’t wait for them. Earth is saying it has to be now.”

[carrythetorch]

The day has come. Lio has grown stronger since then, with Galo's assistance, and he's ready to see it through. Whatever may come, he's going to stand by Galo on this and they're going to face down Kray. They're going to put this right.

He's in his human form still -- though he's strong enough now to take whatever form he needs to, when the time comes -- and properly adorned with the jewelry that marks him as what he is. Unlike Galo, his hood is thrown back. The jewelry catches the sun, glinting like sparks about his neck and shoulders, at each wrist. And his eyes burn even brighter.

"I'll follow your lead. If there are fire mages here who know the old ways, they'll know what I am." Or at least they'll guess. "I don't think anyone else will recognize a dragon in human form."

[barenakedspirit]

"They don't even know you have human forms. Kray saw to that." Galo says with a sigh. He looks to the village and almost sighs again. The elements push at him. Something is happening. Something bad.

They need him to act now. "Time to start." He says and walks out of the woods. His cloak billows as the wind roars past him, voicing its outrage to anyone who knows how to listen.

Thunder rumbles, the promise of rain on the wind as he crosses the fields to the town gate. The guards on the wall freeze and their faces go bone white. He doesn't look back. It's Lio's time to follow in his wake and he trusts he'll do it.

People step out of their houses as he walks into the town. No one speaks. They watch him with fear and confusion. His heart clenches in his chest. Kray made this necessary.

When Lio walks the guards go still with horror. An elemental lord in human shape is still a lord. They hurriedly bow their heads and the people do the same. Fire mages in the crowd freeze and stare open mouthed. Far beyond them, walking ahead with the same steady pace is Galo.

He stops at the bottom of the hill leading up to Kray's residence. People gasp. He waits until Lio is standing beside him before he continues walking. He can taste the magic around the lavish house. Had Kray prepared for the Judgment he would face? Halfway up the hill Kray opens the door and steps out. Their stares connect. The man he'd once looked up to, loved in a way watched him come with an unreadable expression on his face.

Kray had always seemed massive to him like a mountain. He used to wonder if he was an elemental lord in hiding. Now it doesn't matter. It will likely never matter because he will kill him. That's the only outcome he can see ahead. "Galo." Kray says when he reaches him. His gaze snaps to Lio's face and his eyes narrow but his expression never wavers from the seeming calm he always projects. "You threw in with them, did you? I expected better from you." His tone has just enough disapproval in it that Galo almost snaps at him.

Instead he draws on the magic of his station and wraps it around himself making the day seem darker, his voice a boom of thunder. "Kray Foresight, leader of this village the world has spoken and I answered the Call. The Balance is tipping and you are the cause. I will hear your reasoning and will be the Judge that carries out the sentence. I am the Voice. Names and Titles do not matter. The Lord of Fire serves as witness to ensure this is fair."

His cloak seems to swallow the light as he speaks. The people below go silent. Galo can't keep the anger out of his tone as he continues. "If you refuse, I will carry judgment out now." He would break his own heart doing it, but he'd kill him right here and now. Kray stares at him in mild shock. "...you would..." He sighs and walks back to the house. "So be it. Come inside."

Galo looks at Lio and says in a low voice. "...Take your true shape, Lio. This is going to get ugly soon. Let the people know the truth before..." He sighs, shaking his head. "Before we do what we came here to do." It hurts. He knew it would. He waits, knowing he's stalling because for all that he charges ahead.

This is one moment he doesn't want to.

[carrythetorch]

The air is tense, a current of something unseen running through it. Electricity, a powder keg waiting for a spark. And oh will they provide a spark. Lio follows silently behind Galo. He keeps his eyes forward, head up. He is lord of the dragons, a creature of fire who will not remain hidden anymore.

And he's following the voice of judgment.

He swallows back as much of his rage as he can as they approach Kray Foresight's house. Kray Foresight. It takes all the control that Lio has in him not to leap forward and destroy the man before him. But he can hear the tension in Galo's voice, and he understands how hard this is for him. He'd spare him from it if he could.

But that isn't an option.

His gaze finally leaves Kray to look at Galo. A nod. "It's time they knew." And with that he steps back, enough that he has the room for the change. HE won't fit inside the house like this, but the display is necessary.

Flame erupts around him, growing, building on itself and coalescing into his true form, a large, serpentine dragon, fire-eyed and all tooth and claw. He raises his head, looking skyward and spewing a torrent of flame straight up into the sky, a roar of pain and fury and a demand of the justice that will be done.

[barenakedspirit]

People stare in shock and horror as Galo turns to them, spreading his hands apart. "Dragons just like all other elementals are part of this world!" He calls out, "And by treating them like beasts. Hunting them like wild animals..." His eyes narrow under the hood and his voice turns cold and harsh.

"People just like you have spent years and years weeping for their elders, their children, and their friends." Silence below. Galo sucks in a breath as Lio roars. He gently places a hand on his side. He can feel eyes on him and turns his head to standing in the doorway.

He gives Lio's side one last pat and walks to the house. "I never expected this from you." Kray says when he reaches him. Galo says nothing for a moment. "You should have the moment I walked the path of Balance."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kray says with a hint of exasperation in his tone as he steps inside and Galo follows him in. "You're killing elementals. You condoned the killing to the children of fire, Kray! The world is tipping and no healer could ever ignore that!" Kray walks to his desk and sits in the chair. "It's necessary."

Galo bites back any insult he could make and pulls back into the professional tone and stance he has to take. "Is that your reasoning?" Kray stares flatly at him. "This world has been dying for some time. Magic is not what it was. It's draining away."

"How is killing dragons the answer?" Kray raises his eyebrows at him, waiting for it to sink in. Galo's eyes widen then narrow. "Are you fucking kidding me."

"It is a simple solution."

[carrythetorch]

Lio lowers his head, coiling his large, serpentine body half around Galo, a clear sign to those gathered and to Kray that this healer is his and is under his protection. Anyone who wants to do Galo harm has to go through him and a wall of fire that would make hell jealous of its fury.

But he can't keep this form if he's going to follow Kray and Galo inside, he ducks his head as Galo pats his side and shifts into a form somewhere between human and dragon, human-sized and shaped, though his horns and wings and tail remain, as do his claws, and his eyes burn. Like this he can at least follow behind the other two. He's not letting Galo go into Kray's house alone with no one to have his back.

It takes every last shred of self control he has not to lash out and snap Kray's throat out. Necessary. How dare he.

"What are you doing to me people?" He demands, the fury in his voice turning it into a low, dangerous growl.

[barenakedspirit]

Kray focuses on Galo. “You’ve seen the destruction they cause.” He says as if Lio hadn’t said anything at all. He spreads his hands to gesture around them. “You personally know it more than any of us.”

Galo’s face is impassive. “You’re right, I do. But no one knows why the dragon killed them. And dragons are as individual as humans. Answer him.” He says, his hands at his sides. All his usual postures and demeanor is gone for now. He has to be the earth’s voice.

Kray growls and it doesn’t sound quite right. “Answer him, Major Kray Foresight, leader of the Foresight foundation.” He had never meant to use it, but using the Voice that comes from being judgement comes out of him. It sounds like the deep echo of sounds in the deep places of the earth. Flames crackle and wind snaps within that voice.

Kray stares at him and anger flashes in the depths of his shocked eyes. But he swings his gaze to Lio and hatred burns there. A glimmer of it like a spark being struck. His fingers open and close reminiscent of claws. “We drain them in rituals. We’re working on making a gateway to a new dimension for a chosen number of people. We will leave this world to its death.”

Galo’s hands close into fists and the very earth shakes under their feet. Kray snaps his gaze to him in shock and this time Galo’s voice is the depths of water, quiet and cold, almost too still in how he shapes the words. “So, instead of trying to fix things you spill blood and build a new life on the bones of your victims?”

His magic bears out of its restraints and fills the room, more and more of it pouring out as his eyes glow. “There are better ways!”

“This is the only way! Do you think I haven’t tried anything else?” Kray fires back as his voice rises and that growl is back. Unearthly and like the creak of bellows.

[carrythetorch]

When this is over, Lio will make it a point to find the dragons responsible for Galo's family's death, will find out as much as he can. Delayed or not, there should be justice if there can be. But for now, this step needs to be taken. It needs to be set right.

He meets Kray's gaze with an intensity that matches, fury and hatred that mirror Kray's. This man has hurt so many of his people, has extinguished so many flames that the world itself is darker for it. He will never forgive that.

That doesn't mean he's ready for the explanation or the new surge of raise that it raises. "You'd burn this world, ignite it on the ashes of my people to make your escape? You coward."

He can feel the magic rolling off Galo, and his own rises to join it, flashing like lightning on a distantly gathering storm. This world is not beyond saving. The flame that burns inside him is proof enough of that, the way Galo's forest reacts to its healer, the way he could feel it as they restored balance. This world is sick, but it is not beyond saving.

[barenakedspirit]

Anger twists Kray’s face as he looks between them. Then his face relaxes but Galo can feel something building in the air. “It is true as they say. Blood breeds true.” Galo blinks and his building magic pauses. Kray sighs and turns away from them.

Galo tenses and Kray’s words shatter his magic like a hammer to glass. “You’re just like your parents. Ever bit as short-sighted and stubborn.”

“What.”

“Especially your mother. She was quite loud about how things could still get fixed. She knew you would become a healer. You were a reason she didn’t see the wisdom in my words...” He shakes his head but Galo isn’t paying attention. His mind keeps playing the words over and over, trying to wrap his head around what he’s hearing.

“You,”

“I should have killed you when I took care of them. I will correct that now.” Everything stopped. He no longer heard anything but the creaking sound from his nightmares as something vast is suddenly before them and flames rip out obliterating the building with white hot dragon fire.