Work Text:
The wind was silently blowing through the half-opened window, but other than that Katie could only hear the crickets outside. She was snuggling deeper into her covers in her bed, but then she heard the house door close. Her eyes immediately swung open but she waited and listened carefully. Footsteps.
Her heart was beating fast, she got up to look out of the window. Although it was dark, Katie was able to make out a silhouette between the trees that were growing around their house.
She knew instantly that it was her husband. They were living in the woods, although it was not that deep into barely anyone passed through them. That and it was completely oblivious to her that it was him.
She made her way to the house front door, and grabbed her black cloak on her way out. Her night gown was comfortable but not warm enough for a late-night walk.
When she closed the door behind her and looked around, she noticed that the silhouette disappeared. She inhaled and exhaled briefly, the air was cold, but she tried to ignore it the best she could. Katie kneeled down to touch the grass.
She could feel the dew on her fingertips, but she strook her hand deeper into the grass and closed her eyes. She focused on Keith, and without words she knew where he went. When she opened her eyes, it was like she had an imaginary compass inside of her, that just knew where he went.
Katie ignored the cold breeze that made its way under her overthrown cloak as she followed the trace in a hurry.
She stopped when she saw a fire lit up shortly behind a tree.
There were only a few creatures that were able to spook fire; dragons and dragon- hybrids like lizards.
But because she knew Keith was there, she went on, although she chose her steps more thoughtful now, careful that she didn’t step on anything that could make a sound.
When she crossed the tree and could see the creature, she eyed it closely.
It was a human-dragon hybrid. It was an overall human stature, but they had horns and their hair was longer and more voluminous than she had ever seen it on a human. Their hands were full on claws and nothing like fingers. And every few seconds they spooked fire in the fire, then there was an annoyed sigh, sometimes more frustrated, then more scared. They moved restlessly around, when they turned around looked Katie in her eyes, she recognized her husband.
Keith.
His scared eyes, on his now darker more purple skin, made his full golden eyes shine even more. He was looking at her with an empty stare; it broke her heart.
They held their eye contact for a few seconds, Katie shook her head then slightly, but still gave him a genuine smile.
As he was about to open his mouth, but fire escaped his mouth directed to Katie. She screamed and formed a cross in front of her face. When she opened her eyes again, her arms felt hot, but otherwise she was fine. She recovered fast and wanted to walk to him.
It was then she noticed the thick burned tendrils she must have summoned when she had covered herself.
They were still smoking, but she stepped through the dark fog to reach Keith.
But when Katie finally could see again, he was stepping farer away from her.
“Stay away from me. I don’t want you to get hurt!”, he screamed his voice was deeper and rougher than normal, like it was literally burning in his throat. He watched that he looked to the ground to the ground when he talked to avoid to aim at her on accident again.
“You would never hurt me, I know it.”, she answered shaking her head and holding a hand to her heart.
“I almost burned you! This is why I want to figure this out by myself!”
“But-“, she looked the ground, thinking carefully what to say next.
“Please…”, Keith begged; his voice was barely more than a whisper. As Katie looked at him, she couldn’t deny him. She nodded slightly and turned around. Shortly after she could feel a warm breeze, although the night was freezing cold. She pressed her eyes together. She won’t let him go through this experience alone, no matter what he might think.
On the next day, Keith didn’t act out of the ordinary in any way. As she was chewing on her bread and eying him as he was getting ready to leave, she wondered if last night was the first night, he snook of.
He met her gaze but then a dry cough escaped his throat.
Katie stopped eating and wanted to ask something, but he just smiled and left through the front door of the house. She put her fits down at the table in anger. Her plate made a little jump, her food moved.
Then she decided to take a deep a breath and trying to relax, she pressed her eyes together but relaxation just didn’t want to come to her.
In frustrations she cleansed her fits tighter.
Suddenly, she was hit by a bush in her face.
She fell from her chair in surprise. When she got up and inspected the table, she noticed that a little tree had grown from the apple on her plate. It had hit her after it grown very fast. Her glance dropped to her hands and she felt her heart beating fast.
From the angle of her eyes, she noticed the movement of the little “apple tree” on the table. Her eyes widened. She moved her hand trying to control her powers, she sighed in relief when the plant finally stopped moving.
She needed to do something.
So, she did.
Katie put on her nice dress planning to pay the library in the nearest village a visit. She walked in and grabbed a few books to inspect them further, when she suddenly heard screams from outside.
She quickly put a book under her belt to not have come for nothing and ran outside. There she saw people running from the center of the village. She wished instead of her long blue dress she would have put something on more suitable for this situation, but she didn’t.
But although, the odds seemed to be against it, she hurried to the place people were running from. There she found a full fleshed dragon, spooking fire aimlessly in every direction.
The dragon was not as big as she was used to, but his stretched wings still made him appear big. His body was covered with scales, but he had a long-haired mane, the tip of his thick tail ended in a big hair curl. And although he was spooking fire, the hair under his chin was never caught on fire.
Katie eyed the dragon, already looking for potential weaknesses, when she recognized the color of the scales.
She then took notice of the mane and how that hair looked.
The picture of half-transformed Keith flashed in front of her eyes.
Then she could see it.
This was Keith. As a dragon. Fully transformed.
She dodged his every attack as she was running around to gather as much info about him as she could. But the moment she realized that this dragon was her husband, she froze in place.
The dragon noticed and also stopped for a moment. He was also confused at her sudden stop. Then he looked around, was there anything he had missed?
Keith had lost every control he once had over his body, but the moment he tried to think of what he could have possibly missed, he tried to analyze the person in front of him. He tried to make out their weapon if they didn’t carry one, they were probably a mage.
Mages were unpredictable. It was impossible to guess a mage’s powers just by their appearance.
Although, he was panicking as he tried to figured it out, he also calmed down in the process.
Because he thought about this. His thoughts became clearer again. The picture of the person became more clearer by the second till his vision was sharp again.
The moment he recognized Katie, she exclaimed:
“You’re back!”
He was startled and didn’t move. He simply watched as she ran towards him and hugged him. It was almost like a reflex that he also laid his arms around her.
He raised his eyebrows as he saw his human arms around his wife.
“You’re, ok?”, she asked.
Keith looked around and saw the destruction of the village, some houses were burning, there were no civilians around, only a few simple soldiers that still pointed their swords in fear towards them.
“Did I hurt someone?”, mumbled Keith scared and closed his eyes as he was preparing for impact.
Katie tightened the hug and ensured him: “It wasn’t your fault.”
Keith opened his eyes and saw the solider slowly stepping closer to them, so he whispered to her ear in defeat: “Let’s go home.”
They slipped through the soldiers’ grip and quickly disappeared in the forest. On the way back home they barely talked, walked one meter apart.
When laid eyes on their small house, Keith muttered:
“We originally came here, because we wanted to hide your powers. And now…this happened.”
“Hey, we’ll figure something out. Together.”
“I am scared.”, admitted Keith more in a whisper and slowed down.
Katie turned around to face and grabbed his hands:
“This is why we have to work together. Powers come with little control at the beginning, but they are always bound to emotions. Controlling your emotion is the half of the cake, and I can help you with that.”
Keith still looked at her in doubt, but didn’t turn away as she met his lips with a brief kiss. She added: “Oh, but I will definitely will invent a fireproof wear for me.”
He chuckled and nodded.
Then she let go of his hands and gave him the book that was under the belt the whole time. The edges were a little burnt, but other than that it was still intact.
Katie explained: “I’ve got this book from the library; it is about dragons. It will help us to get started to figure you out.”
He looked at the book and was speechless. He accepted the book hesitantly.
Katie gave him a smile and started walking again, it took him a moment to follow her into their house.
When he entered the kitchen, he saw the little tree on the table. Then he watched Katie as she casually grabbed the tree and threw it out of the window mumbling that she would take of it later – saying something along the lines of planning to planting it somewhere.
He chuckled and his eyes fell on the book in his hands, noticing the burnt edges. They both had still a lot to learn.