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After Wade rescued Peter from going over the falls (so stupid, my goodness), the dragon deposited him right back at the campsite, shaking himself dramatically to get rid of all the water, and basically flinging Peter off his back in the process.
“Ow!” Peter hit the ground with a thump. “You didn’t have to throw me!”
I’m not a horse, you can’t ride me. Came the deep voice in his mind, the dragon’s only way of communicating.
“Right.” He brushed the dirt off gingerly. “Well for what it’s worth, thank you for saving me.”
Don’t like my food soggy. The dragon opened a mouthful of teeth and Peter was screaming before he could stop himself.
Shut up! If it was possible, it sounded like the dragon was laughing at him. I was joking. You don’t have an ounce of fat on you, i bet youd be stringy and get stuck in my teeth.
“Har Har.” Peter rolled his eyes and went searching through his pack for new clothes. “I doubt even dragon shifters eat people.”
I would if they were tasty enough. Wade huffed a breath at Peter. Why dont you scent like a shifter.
“Because I’m not a shifter.” Peter shrugged out of his shirt, frowning when the dragon huffed at him again. “Stop breathing on me, your breath is rank. And I told you before that I wasn’t a shifter.”
Why not?
“I just can’t shift.”
Why not?
“Hey, you know for an ancient dragon that’s been hiding in the woods for a while you’re awful pushy. I thought hermits didn’t like to talk.”
You think I’m ancient?
“No one’s seen a dragon in centuries.” Peter pointed out, giving a suspicious glance towards the dragon shifter before ducking behind a tree to change his pants. “And there isn’t a record of a dragon shifter being born for centuries before that.”
Your records are wrong, then.
“Well, how old are you then?”
I saw thirty winters by the time the Great War destroyed the valley. Its how I got my scars, what forced me into my shift. How many winters has it been since then?
Peter came around the tree, the dragon growling nervously when he saw the pity in the human’s eyes.
“The Great War was over three hundred years ago.” Peter said slowly. “That’s when you were forced into your shift? You’ve never been able to break it?”
You’re wrong.
“I’m not wrong.” Peter stepped closer, a hand held out in comfort when the dragon tried to shy away. “I’m not wrong. The Great War was over three hundred years ago. Have you been– have you been hiding this entire time?”
I’ve been trapped like this for three hundred years?
The dragon took a step back, then another, and then his wings unfurled and with a blast that sent Peter tumbling to the ground, he was airborne, and then gone.
For the first time in years, Peter didn’t mourn the fact that he couldn’t shift. Right now, he mourned the pain of a man lost in his shift, trapped in his animal half, hiding away from a world that didn’t even know he existed.
Spideypool Dragon AU
Published
themusechronicles 