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The Order of Dragon Guardians, ancient and noble, looked down from its ancestral home of Emberrock on the world and found, as it often had, a world that was in need of those who could and would save it from itself. After all, they were the finest warriors to ride dragonback the world had yet witnessed, and seeing as most of their number usually hailed from the orphans of war and strife it only made sense that they would ride out from the mountain top castle and try to turn the tide of the world. One small battle at a time.
Revered as heroes in nearly every land that they flew through, it is known by almost everyone who has ever had a dragon and their rider split the sky above them that they lived by an unbreakable code that commanded them to do no evil, to never tarnish the order, to never kill out of wanton slaughter and always to keep the psychic bond between dragon and rider as pure as a snow melt stream that graced the heights of Emberrock. For it is on that code that all the accomplishes of the Dragon Guardians rested, that the foundations of their society and purpose rested. In fact it could be said (and it was whispered by the enemies of the Order) that the Dragon Guardians were first and foremost a philosophic order before they were a warrior one. Their code taking precedent over even the most dire of military matters.
But no code is perfect, and not every person who had entered the order followed it. After all, war orphans were an unpredictable stock to grace the numbers of the order. As was clearly being shown by one pair of dragon and rider by the name of Heart and Ursula as they leapt from side of castle Emberrock, their escape silent and seemingly undetected by the Dragon Guardians as they flew into the deep black midnight sky. No companions beside each other to keep them company as they slipped away from the ancient and noble order and their mountain top home.
The first thing Ursula noticed when she opened her brown eyes was the dull-ish red light that surrounded her and Heart like a ever long canopy of twilight sun. The second thing she noticed was that her clothes were soaked through and freezing.
She chose to ignore this as she scanned her surroundings, her years of training kicking in as she looked for threats. But all that surrounded her was burnished brown leaf litter and the obvious proof that whatever forest she and Heart had landed in was obviously very, very far away from the fortress Emberrock.
They were safe.
She looked again at the trees.
They were also apparently south enough for them to be under trees that shed their leaves in anticipation of winter instead of retaining them like they did around Emberrock. Of course Ursula knew that such things and places existed, but to know that and to be there, under the red leaves and on the brackish brown leaf litter that had fallen to the earth was another matter entirely.
She turned to look at Heart, feeling as she did her breath catching at the sublime beauty of her dragon curled up and asleep, a claw atop her snout as she slept. Her wings folded and rested atop her back, which only worked to smooth and contour the dragon’s shape even more, as morning dew coated her like a shower of twinkling diamonds.
They had done it. Five thousand years of tradition might have had to be thrown out of the window to do so, but they had done it. They were free to be together for however long they could be. No more expectations of procreation on the part of Heart nor separation on the part of their bond. No more judgement as they gossiped, no more pain if they delayed in their duties, no more rules which restricted them. They could be together wholly and without limit. Without a screaming hoard of elders saying that what they were doing was wrong or perverse.
Fuck, could she really do that?
She’d been so confident last night, but now in the watery light of day Ursula realised just how fucked she was, how fucked they both were.
Ursula felt a cold shiver go through her as the night's riding reminded her of its presence.
The Order of Dragon Guardians were all she had known since she was found as a war orphan. And she knew that for as long as Heart had been alive, the guardians had been the dragon’s whole world, her whole purpose for existence. Heart had been born within Emberrock for fuck’s sake! She had been expected to give her life for the order. They both had!
Could she, could they, really abandon all that? For something so fragile as love? For something that broke, so fundamentally, the foundations of the tradition on which the people they’d grown up as had been built on?
Ursula looked back at Heart. Saw the lines of her face, the curve of her neck, the glimmer of her blood red scales, the sharpness of her bone white horns which sprouted majestically from the back of her skull. Remembered the feeling of Heart's scales softly scraping against her naked skin when they had first made love, the warmth of Heart’s chest as she held Ursula against her, the look in her eyes as she confessed a desire so despised by their order and the shock returned to her as Ursula had responded in kind with no care given to the consequences.
She felt love flood her system as a single word appeared in her mind.
Yes.
Yes she could, Ursula decided.
She and Heart could do anything as long as they were together.
It had been hammered into each of their heads after all, that for either a dragon or a human, that their other half was the most important thing in their lives. From the battleground to the open sky, and everything in between.
It was just that now, her and Heart’s bond contained something slightly more. Something forbidden by their traditions, but which was oh so wanted by both dragon and human.
After all, why create and nurture a bond as powerful as those that the Order of Dragon Guardians fermented, if there were limits to it? Why encourage the melding of mind and heart as the Order did, between a Dragon and Human, if there were places where the mind and heart weren’t allowed to wander?
It only made them stronger, more in sync, more committed to each other.
Fuck, her clothes were freezing but she didn’t want to wake Heart. Maybe her travelling blanket would help? At least until Heart woke up.
Shit! Had she remembered to pack it with her last night?
She rummaged through her travelling pack, finding that apparently she had brought along a vast array of seemingly pointless bits and bobs, including a barometer, a kind of strange rock, her silver tipped quill as well as her hair brush. Only the jerky really made sense as Ursula looked through the bag, which she proved to herself as she popped a small amount of it into her mouth and chewed.
Before continuing to find that her previous self from before had been incorrect in what they thought was important when running away from the only organisation one has known for their whole life. Which included the fact that she had not packed the travel blanket.
It seemed that her late night decision to sweep the top of her desk into her bag hadn't provided quality results.
Then, as Ursula moved her hand back inside the space within the travel pack she felt something hard and sharp within the bag. Her curiosity peaked as she brought the hard and sharp thing from the deep confines of the very overstuffed bag into the daylight.
Which shortly brought a book out of the bag, her hand grasping the spine.
‘Why in the god’s did I pack a book?’ She thought to herself as she turned the book to view the title, almost dropping the damn thing with a gasp as its name was revealed to her in the watery light of day.
Commandments of the Order of Dragon Guardians: Instructions for members of the Order By William Steelreed.
She turned it over and over in her hands like it would reveal some sort of secret, yet again and again all that greeted her was that title, almost mocking her with the knowledge she knew was stored within the tome that all members of the Order were forced to memorise and repeat at the time of their accession.
She could still remember her own time going over the very book in her hands, trying to remember all the commandments and the reasons for them, the stories which showed how each of the commandments were sacred and true, and why the order held by them. Then her time standing before the elders, Heart beside her in their finest riding leathers, each reciting everyone of the commandments in perfect synchronization as was tradition for a rider and the dragon who would be their steed.
They came unbidden to her mind at that moment, rattling through her head like a pair of well worn dice. ‘Thou shall not kill thine Steed for greed, nor kill thine Rider for glory. Thou shall not commit an evil deed through any action nor inaction. Thou shalt not lust after thine Steed, nor desire after thine Rider. Thou shall never betray the Order. Thou shall serve the Order with Dignity and Honour. Thou shalt never pollute or dilute the bond between Steed and Rider’.
Back then she'd been convinced of each and every one of the commandments. After all with the connection between dragon and rider why would one kill each other, why would they lust after each other, why would they betray the Order, or pollute the bond between rider and steed?
By Ursula's count she had so far broken about three of the commandments in one single night and day. Though she did know she would never kill Heart nor intentionally allow an evil deed to come about through action or inaction. Those made sense back then and they still did to her.
But she almost laughed at her old self at thinking that it was wrong for lust and love to come between a rider and their dragon, or that in doing so they would pollute the bond between the two of them, or that their future lay exclusively with the Order, that it was the Order overall who could and should decide how dragon riders were organised. That it was only the Order with all its rules and expectations that could handle the burden of humans and dragons being bonded through a psychic connection and no one else. And that Ursula believed them, wholeheartedly and with reverence in each and every instance.
And then as Ursula looked down at the book in her hands she did start to laugh, bodily and heartedly, at everything that she and Heart had done in their commitment to being together, at all the rules they had broken simply because they knew they wanted each other more than was allowed, at all the ridiculousness that was the Order and their rules and commandments.
She laughed and laughed beneath that orange coloured canopy, tears running down her face at the absolute absurdity her life had been up to that point.
Which then started to quickly and unexpectedly morph into crying, her tears of laughter becoming tears of grief, at all she had been forced to give up in the name of love. At everything that she'd had to abandon because she simply didn't fit into the mould that the order expected of her and of all the friends who she knew would now be made to consider her an enemy, a betrayer who would be put to the sword should she ever be captured by them.
Before she was joined by a shadow who pulled her close to them with a giant leathery wing, hugging her into them, as a taloned paw tried to rub down her back in a soothing manner, Ursula flush against their blood red scales.
It took a moment for Ursula to stop crying and notice that she was being held before she snapped her head back to see Heart smiling as best she could from above, which only brought a new wave of tears from her eyes as she hugged her lover and dragon. Now squeezing and holding on to Heart like her life depended on it, she let tears flow out from her.
It took almost five minutes before Ursula had calmed down enough to stop crying, before Heart started to talk to her through their connection.
"Is everything alright, my love?"
"No — yes, I don't know." Ursula sent back through the connection as she shrugged her shoulders lightly, all the time keeping her brown eyes downcast.
"You were crying, do you want to tell me why?" Heart looked down fondly at the top of Ursula's curly head.
"I was just think about all our friends back at Emberrock. Tabitha and Moss, Steven and Onyx, Madam Silverquill. We'll never get to see them ever again, and if we do they'll have to draw their swords on us."
"Hmm — that is true. But we'll just have to hope that they'll come to understand us and not draw their swords on us if we meet them in the future. After all it's not like our love hurts them or the Order much, I was never the strongest flier nor the most experienced. Certainly I don't feel-"
Ursula suddenly interjected into Heart's thoughts, "I was also thinking about what I've asked you to basically give up for this, for us, for the idea that we could or should love each other. As well as the fact that I've essentially ruined your life."
As this last line of thinking crossed from Ursula's mind to Heart's the dragon brought a claw to raise Ursula's eyes up to her own as Heart spoke, her eyes soft to the red rimmed ones of her lover, "You haven't ruined my life Ursula. Why would you think you have?"
Ursula's brown eyes averted themselves from the soft red-hued gaze of her dragon as she answered through her thoughts, her face contorting into a grimace, "I don't know? Maybe because I've taken you away from your home? Taken you away from your family, robbed you of the chance to grow old with your kin, taken away your only chance to have a brood and hatchlings. If the Order finds us they'll put you to the sword just like they'll do to me."
Heart smiled down at Ursula with bemusement clouding her face, before she replied, "Oh I wanted a brood and hatchlings, did I?"
"I don't know — but I've basically made sure that you'll never be able to," Ursula communicated through the connection as she shrugged her shoulders.
Heart let out a little huff of amusement, "Okay, well I don't want a brood or hatchlings, unless you want to. I certainly wasn't looking forward to it in a decade or two of active service. And even if I was looking forward to it hatchlings are a big responsibility and I'm not ready for that responsibility, especially with things as they are, but more to the point. You didn't take me away from my home because as far as I'm concerned, you are my home. Not Emberrock, not the Order, you. And I chose to come with you. I chose you Ursula. My kin not being able to accept that is a fault with them not me, and I think you're putting too much faith into the idea that our friends will attack us if the opportunity presented itself. Some might, and some might not, but I know that I'll be with you to face them." At this Heart leaned down her head and nuzzled it against Ursula's face.
At this Ursula nuzzled back, rubbing her face against that of Heart, "You mean it?"
"Of course my love. After all I chose you, and you should know I don't choose easily," Heart thought into the connection before her face level with Ursula's and placed a searing kiss on her human's slightly difficult to kiss face, tongue delivering a long swipe of itself to the outside of Ursula's lips which was shortly responded to by Ursula's with equal and similar passion as she landed a series of kisses across the Heart's face. The book Ursula had been holding dropped from her grasp as her hands roamed the dragonic face of her lover in passion, reverently stroking the delicate scales that glistened under the rapidly approaching midday sun which shone through the canopy above.
After a moment or two, the pair split from one another, before Heart raised back her head and looked down at her human to ask, "Are you feeling better?"
Which Ursula's answered quickly, her warm brown cheeks flushed with desire for her dragon love, averting her eyes bashfully, "Yes — I am."
"Good, because I still have no idea where we're going or how we're going to find somewhere we can stay, especially avoiding the Order. But it's probably safe to say we have to get out from under these weird trees."
At this Ursula laughed as she gave a quick full bodied hug to Heart, "Yeah you're probably right. Come on, I'll pack our bags again, and then we'll get back in the air."
To which Heart responded with her own full bodied hug, drawing her human into her chest and slightly wrapping her neck around her before retreating to rest at her full height, huffing in amusement, "Let's get back up there. And hey — I love you."
Ursula felt herself melt looking at Heart as she felt the thoughts entering her mind before she responded in kind, "I love you too."
Which led to one last round of quick kisses and embraces before both human and dragon quickly went to pack back up the bags they had brought with them, though with one item missing. Commandments of the Order of Dragon Guardians: Instructions for members of the Order By William Steelreed, which sat slightly frayed and damp on the floor of a orange and brown coloured forest, as Ursula and Heart finished their packing, and got ready to leave their temporary resting spot.
Which they did, bursting through the red and orange leaves of the canopy in which they had rested, free, in love and in charge of their lives for the very first time.