On the Wings of the Past Ch.1 - Only You

[r7]

 

Etho trudged his way through the thick bog, fighting to simply move his legs as he pulled himself forward with one of the vines hanging from the trees above. As the physical exertion worsened, he mentally cursed at both himself and the person who’d put him in this situation.

Hours later, Etho pulled himself up onto the island of solid ground in the middle of the swamp, breathing heavily and arms feeling as though they wanted to fall off. Lazily, the large black dragon lying on the island lifted an eyelid, revealing a large purple eye beneath. The eye moved around for a bit, avoiding the obvious figure before focusing on the person that had pulled himself out of the bog.

The two had been paired together by the clan’s elders shortly before - though neither had appeared particularly happy about it at the time. They, along with the other unpaired dragons and riders had gone through training as a large group in a way of determining who would pair well together.

Throughout, Nebris and Etho hadn’t exactly gotten along - or even had been on good terms. When they’d first worked together, Etho had been sceptical about Nebris’ inability to breathe fire - but after watching Nebris fight and work for a short time Etho just became impressed by his ability to keep up, and even surpass other dragons who did have the breath the species were known for.

Nebris, always used to having to earn and then fight for the respect of others due to his disability, scorned the attention. He saw it as odd, offsetting, possibly insincere and even dangerous - both to him and the way of life he’d lead up to that point. In response, Etho reciprocated the hostility in kind, or at least appeared to, seeming to fixate even more on Nebris’ lack of the critical ability - while still silently harboring the respect and even awe for the black dragon.  

Only you…. The dragon said slowly to the new, somewhat pestering dragonless rider that was disturbing his rest.

“Only you.”The rider replied exasperatedly to his prospective dragon that had dropped him into the bog he’d just spent hours freeing himself from.

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Nebris tried to back up, only to find his tail pressed against the hard stone of the rock wall. The humans that he was backing up from seemed to take heart from the fact that Nebris was now trapped, advancing towards him again and raising their pikes.

Nebris probably could’ve easily killed them earlier, but he hadn’t wanted to hurt them at the time as he wasn’t sure how the older dragons in the rider’s wing would take one of the new additions killing a bunch of humans. Now, however, even though he wanted to kill them, he’d backed himself into a corner - both literally and metaphorically.

Nebris wasn't large enough yet that he could just ignore the weapons and charge the group of about twenty men, while confined to the ground, and hope to come out without serious injury. The pikes would hurt him that much, but to attack the men he’d have to charge directly into the pikes, which was exactly what the men wanted, in hopes of using his weight and size as a weapon as he couldn’t use his talons very effectively - due to needing to stand on them - or much of his training and skills as they almost entirely involved either flight, his talons, or both.

Their numbers also made it so that after the initial charge, they could flank him and take shots at his vulnerable wings and flight surfaces on the end of his tail - and even his eyes while biting, if he didn’t close them and risk missing his mark.  He was confined to the ground due to the  overhang he’d accidentally backed below (or more correctly, had been herded under) was preventing him from taking off and either escaping or fighting them from the air.

To add to his problems, Nebris couldn’t just roast them with fire like a normal dragon could, either - he lacked fire breath. Nebris was somewhat confused as to why the humans thought what they were doing was a good tactic for hunting dragons, as it was very vulnerable to said breath - and the humans didn’t know that he lacked it, removing that as a possible explanation - but the tactic worked on him never the less, even if any other dragon would have simply burned them to a crisp. He couldn’t even blow the fire in an arc to try and scare them off if/when he was trying to be non-lethal.

Just as Nebris was reaching the decision that he would have to fight the men and take the wounds, or possible death, that it could bring, he heard a scream from the back of the loosely spread group - followed by the sound of a metal spearhead hitting the stone floor. A second later and the first scream was followed by a second, the metal-on-stone sound ringing out again.

At the third scream the men in the group started turning around, trying to find the source of the screams - and the problem that was causing them. When they did, the men noticed a silhouette of a man running around the back of the group, killing off people as it went. The majority of Nebris’ attackers rushed the lone figure - but rather than helping their chances, it only increased the frequency of the screams.

Soon the twenty attackers lay still on the ground, one or two killed by Nebris but the vast majority in a pile around the rider’s feet. Slowly, the rescuer stepped forward so that his face wasn’t hidden in the shadow of the overhang, revealing a pair of heterochromatic eyes looking up at Nebris.

“Only you.” Etho muttered, shaking his head.

Only you. Nebris replied, motioning his head at the pile of bodies.

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Only a few months later, and it was Etho who found himself with his back to a wall. He was pressed against the wooden door to a house on the outskirts of a village he’d been visiting, his stance was half protective and half backed-into-a-corner, and he’d eased his sword and knife from their sheaths over two minutes ago.

The problem was that the sight of the two weapons didn’t to anything to faze the lynch mob that had him pressed against said door - which happened to be the door to the house of the young woman, barely more than a girl, who they were accusing of witchcraft. Even if they knew the capabilities of the man holding the swords, the mob still wouldn’t have been fazed by the woman’s protector - sure, he had killed twenty men without so much as a broken finger, but the mob was ten times larger, if not more, as it consisted of almost half the village.

He’d stood up for the girl in the hopes that, what at the time had been a crowd, would back down when someone made a stand and defended the girl - particularly because the reasoning behind the accusations made little to no sense, and the supposed ‘proof’ for said accusations was barely acceptable - on a good day, if you looked at it just right, and squinted for long enough.

Unfortunately for him, it had the exact opposite effect. The inference - particularly of someone who was not only clearly a warrior, but also an outsider, ended up turning the somewhat angry crowd into a mob baying for the woman’s blood.

Just as Etho steadied himself as the bodies started to surge forward, readying himself to stay alive and fight for as long as he could before he went down, there was a loud sound of something heavy coming to a fast stop and the timbers in the house behind Etho creaking.

It was Nebris’ roar that turned to formerly steady mob into a mass of fleeing people, and his teeth and talons that turned those who did stand their ground into barely recognizable piles of blood, cloth, and flesh.

Only you….. Nebris muttered telepathically as Etho lead the girl out of her house and onto Nebris’ back, careful to make sure that she was either facing away or that her head was down so that she wouldn’t have to see the carnage.

“Only you…” Etho replied, eyes pointedly darting from Nebris’ to the carnage before moving back to the person he was guiding.

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Almost a year had passed from the time that Nebris had been trapped beneath the overhang and Etho was now walking down a street in one of the larger cities, a woman’s arm linked inside his. They hadn’t actually met that long ago, barely more than a week, but the woman had been fairly forward - and insistent.

Etho had gone into the city as a mix of work, partial work, and vacation - in way of seeing new things that he hadn’t been exposed much to before (as he didn’t get to see much of the cities in his forest dwelling child years). In terms of work he was in the city because the riders were looking into an underground network of poachers and black market dealers - not something they would really care about, until they heard that said network was known to deal in dragon bones and scales. He was in the city as partial work because he was acting as a liaison of sorts - a way for regular people to see one of the dragon riders the normally almost mystical and otherwise shrouded in mystery due to their seclusion, and by seeing them, hopefully not fear them as much or be more cooperative as they saw that they weren’t so alien.  

Etho hadn’t really known how to react to the advances, his solitary lifestyle along with the isolated upbringing in his clan betraying him in terms of social interaction skills - and his somewhat spartan and definitely non-romantic life with the riders not helping to fix the problem.

He didn’t necessarily love the woman, or at least not to the degree that her advances and actions would imply, but he also didn’t not like her, either. That, coupled with his unsureness with how to decline or ask her to slow down now had him walking down said city street, with her attached to his arm.

Before the two had been walking for more than five minutes, the woman had pulled him aside and into a shaded alley - which was even more shaded in the evening light. While Etho was still fumbling to react, she had pulled him farther down the alley - far enough that they couldn’t be seen from the outside street - and then pinned him against one of the brick walls by placing him against it and then putting one of her hands on either side of his neck, standing seductively over him.

To this Etho was even more unsure of how to react. He’d always lead an austere life - living with the clan had insured that, both with the position that they lived and their teachings - but he was still fairly young, his blood running hot and running fast.

However, before Etho could make a decision or the woman could make another move, Nebris’ tail swung into the alley from one of the roofs above, knocking the woman away from Etho before crushing her against a wall.

Etho turned up to the roof that his dragon was sitting upon, an exasperated expression on his face and not able to really from words, only able to make indignant sounds at his dragon. His reaction was immediately halted as Nebris released a bit of pressure from his tail and there was the sound of clinking metal as something fell to the ground of the alleyway.

A knife, poison dripping from the blade, presumably drawn from one of the woman’s sleeves - and about to be used to end Etho’s life.  

The ninja-turned-rider’s eye widened as the knife bounced on the pavement a second time. Both that the woman would do this and that he’d allowed himself to be in a position for it to be possible for her to do it without him noticing shocked Etho beyond almost anything previous.

“Only you.” Etho said, looking up and into his dragons’ eyes - this time meaning it in a way that meant the end of his romantic life, or any chance of such in the future. He would have this level of a connection with only one person - the person he could always trust to have his back.

Only you. Nebris replied, making the same promise.

“Only you.”

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A/n: On the Wings universe is back! Well, at least for this one-shot. It’s a little background for the universe, from before the main arc began. I might make other On the Wings of the Past stories, but only if I have a specific part of the past I want to write about - so there may very well not be anymore. I have a few ideas on other types of things I could do in the universe, but for now, have this nice Nebtho-esque oneshot.

Comments

[tanadin]

*flails around vaguely before flopping on the floor*
I liked this. A lot. I'd go on a huge rant about why but a) I'm too hungry to focus on that right now and b) I can talk about it in call later if you poke me about it. :3

[r7]

Too calls!

[peanut_emma]

I really enjoyed this!
I quite enjoyed being able to getting to see the background of a pairing, it was very interesting to read it for this particular pairing.
I like the aspect of kinda having to prove to each other that they were the right pairing.
I especially like it was with this pairing because anything nebtho is good XD
(And hey look I actually hit the enter button!)

[r7]

Yay for hitting the enter button! Would you find these interesting with other pairings, or do you think this is good as it is?

[tanadin]

I, personally, would definitely like to see more with other pairings. Overall I love reading things in this universe and think you should write more in it if you ever feel like it. ^^

[peanut_emma]

I would find it interesting for other pairings, yes.
I'd quite like to see how some of the pairings were created, as they all have their own quirks.
I really enjoy this universe, and look forward to anything else that comes from it ^-^

[the_mysterious_m]

Yay this!

What is this? A nebris and Etho story where they're FRIENDS? It's about time this happened!

I think a Vechs meeting Aurey story would be interesting. Anyways, good job!

[r7]

Ooh, that's an interesting idea. Expanding on the section that Zisteau mentions "Came home babbling about the dragoness with the rainbow flames"..... Hmm....

And yes, a Nebtho friendship fic! Le gasp!

[midnightdreamer]

Loved it ! Can't wait to see more