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The problem with hand drawn maps, really, is that they’re subject to the stylistic whims and biases of whoever drew them.
Say, for instance, that the person drawing the map really enjoys drawing monsters more than anything else. Well, then you get a map like the one Izuku is squinting at now, in which the forest he’s trying to navigate his way through and the path the map is supposed to show, are all but completely obscured by a rather well illustrated dragon.
“I can’t even be that mad,” Izuku grumbles, “it’s a really good dragon.”
The ink beast is curling itself over trees and mountain peaks, and its open mouth with many sharp teeth frames the entrance to the forest. Izuku can trace with his finger all the way to one of the dragon’s claws, nestled between a cluster of trees, which is where he knows he got separated from the traveling party he’d been with. They’d been ambushed by bandits, and he’d fallen from his horse, and now…
Izuku sighs heavily, and lowers the map so he can glare at the tree canopy above him. “I am so lost.”
Only the wind and a few distant crow caws answer him. He’s truly deep in the forest, and completely on his own.
Frustrated, he rolls the useless map back up, and gets himself moving again, stomping through the underbrush. Even if he doesn’t find the other knights he was with, he’s going to find the dragon that they came here for.
“It’s gotta be around here somewhere,” he mutters to himself. “Why else would there be a big fancy dragon drawn on the map?”
The plants grow thicker the further he goes, and soon Izuku has his sword out so he can hack away at vines and roots whenever they tangle around him. His compass is no help in pointing him which way to go, as it spins and spins like a child’s toy rather than an important tool he needed to find his way around.
He’s starting to get hungry, starting to get cold, starting to wonder if he should just turn around and try to go back the way he came, when a tree root finally gets the best of him. He tumbles over it with a panicked yelp, and then just keeps falling. Branches and thorns tear at his clothes as he rolls down the sharp drop off he hadn’t noticed, everything passing by his eyes too quickly for him to make heads or tails of what’s happening.
So it’s impossible for him to see the cluster of rocks and boulders waiting for him at the bottom.
Not that it would matter, since it’s just as impossible for him to dodge them.
The world goes black before Izuku even registers the pain from his head striking the largest stone.
Izuku wakes up who knows how many hours later feeling stiff and sore all over, as if he had tried to pick a fight with a rock troll and lost, he would know, he’s been in that situation before.
Still he’s a little miffed that he’s lost half the day at least to being unconscious because he wasn’t looking where he was going. Serves him right, he guesses, that’s always been the first rule of adventuring, and Izuku forgot it just because he was excited about the possibility of seeing a dragon for the first time.
He never should have been so careless, and he chastizes himself as he sets about collecting all the miscellaneous items that fell out of his bag during the tumble, calling himself ten kinds of stupid as he moves from item to item. Some of them are too badly damaged to even be worth rescuing from the dirt and that irritates him most of all.
Izuku is in the process of trying to pick up the last few items and find his missing sword, which he remembers dropping when he first started to fall, but now cannot find when someone says, “Why are you calling yourself a halfwitted dumbass?”
He whips around, trying to find the source of the voice, but all he can see is greenery, trees and shrubs and lots and lots of leaves.
“Who are you? Where are you?” Izuku calls, still trying to figure out who’s talking to him. According to their guide up here, he was the only one experienced enough to get them where they needed to go, no one else would dare venture out here for fear of the dragon.
“Oh, sorry, I’m Kirishima,” the person says, “Who are you?”
Izuku turns to see where the voice is coming from and finally catches the first sign of something that isn’t green or brown or gray. The man has bright red hair, so bright that it’s a little astonishing that Izuku didn’t spot him earlier when he was looking. “I’m no one,” Izuku answers, the words tumbling out of him unbidden in his surprise.
Kirishima’s head tilts to the side as he blinks. “No. One? That’s an odd name.”
Izuku flushes. “I. I didn’t mean literally. I’m just not that important to the overall quest and I’m lost to boot so I can’t really help you meet up with the others.”
“Help me ?” Kirishima parrots sounding puzzled. “But I’m not the one lost.”
Izuku can feel his face reaching shades of red that can’t be healthy. So he does what any knight in his position would do, he ducks into a hasty bow and hopes it’ll return to normal by the time he finishes speaking. His voice when he speaks is in the overly loud tone he gets when he’s anxious but he can’t do anything to stop it. “I’ve been so rude, Midoriya Izuku, amateur knight and hunter hopeful at your service.”
“Hunter?” Kirishima blinks. “But you don’t have a bow.”
Izuku finally straightens to rub sheepishly at his neck. “Ah sorry I meant Dragon Hunter. I got separated from my party but we’re all—“
“Why?”
Now it’s Izuku’s turn to blink. “Why?”
“Yes. Why are you hunting the dragon? Has he done something?”
Izuku has felt wrong footed since this conversation began and it’s only getting worse. “Has the dragon done something?”
“Yes! Has he looted villages? Burned crops? Stolen animals or people or gold?”
“Uh. Not that I know of.”
“Why’re you hunting him, then?”
“I, uh. I dunno,” Izuku admits, shamefaced. “I know some of the others are in it for gold, some for glory.”
“But you’re not in it for any of that?” Kirishima infers, head tilted and eyes narrowed.
Izuku half-shrugs. “I mean, the money doesn’t hurt. But I’m really just excited to meet the dragon. I got separated from my team, so I’ve been trying to find it on my own for a bit. I know I won’t be able to kill it,” he adds, “but the legends say it’s beautiful.”
Kirishima softens, inexplicably, at Izuku’s admission. “You really mean it?” he asks.
“I do,” Izuku says. “I know most people are just plain scared of dragons, and I’m not exactly the bravest person around.”
“And yet you’re searching for him anyways,” Kirishima murmurs.
Izuku startles. “You know the dragon?”
“Er. Yeah?” Kirishima says, unsure.
Izuku’s mouth breaks into a grin. “Dude! That’s so cool! Oh, I’m jealous. Is he nice? Is he close? Oh my gosh, what does he look like? Is the dragon old or young? Is it just one or are there more of them holy crap I have so many questions.”
Kirishima laughs and runs a hand through his hair. “You really were serious! That’s— that’s awesome.” He mutters something to himself, so low that even Izuku can’t decipher it, then says, “As for your questions… how’d you like to find out for yourself?”
Izuku is about to explode. “Do you— I can— Kirishima, you really mean it?” he demands, heart beating as fast as if he’d just run a mile.
“I do,” he says simply.
Kirishima’s responding smile is wide and full of sharp teeth. Izuku feels he should probably find that important, but the possibility of meeting the dragon is far too exciting for him to care about minutiae.
“Well then, follow me. He can’t chance being caught in the wooded areas like this, especially knowing there are hunters afoot.”
Kirishima turns and starts off through the forest, pausing only long enough to make sure Izuku is following. Izuku notices as he follows that the man is eerily graceful, nimbly stepping with bare…wait…bare? How is he managing to walk so casually through the woods with bare feet?
Shaking his head he decides to go back to quizzing the man rather than convincing himself he’s seeing something he’s not. “So how long have you known the dragon? What is he like? I know you said I’d find out later, but I have so many questions.”
Kirishima laughs, looking back at him with those shockingly vibrant red eyes. “I’ve known him my entire life. As far as what he’s like, that’s difficult to describe. He’s a dragon, after all.”
“That is true, I imagine they are likely quite different from us. But…what if they aren’t? Is he only a dragon? There are legends that they could shift sometimes into human form, but the hunters say that's balderdash. But if it is true , then it means they aren’t just the horrid man-killing monsters that they like to tell us they are. If they are like us …they deserve to be left alone. To live, unless they break laws.” Izuku’s mind is running a mile a minute, no longer really paying much attention to where he is anymore. The excitement is tinged with horror now at the realization that they have been hunting down and killing sentient beings.
“Ah, but if that was the case they’d never have the excuse to kill a dragon, and their precious market for the spoils of those battles. They need the supply of those, what do you think will happen if it dries up?” Kirishima’s tone turns dark as he speaks, reminding Izuku that he really truly cares what happens to the dragon.
“It would shatter the economy. Knock a lot of powerful people out of power. It would…change everything. But if I’m right, if the legends are correct and he’s sentient, it has to change. It is wrong to keep hunting them. You’ll help me warn him right? I want to help, I need to help save them.” The need to help has always burned brightly in Izuku’s soul, being a strong drive to why he became a knight in the first place. To find an innocent species being hunted for profit…could there be any higher calling for Izuku to answer?
“Well, now isn’t that interesting. They always said that fate would end up leading the right person to the dragon, but I’d never really believed it.” Kirishima pauses as he leads Izuku out into the soft light of the setting sun. “Are you sure about this? I know the whispers still exist in the legends of old, speaking of those who dedicate their lives to their dragons. It fits, you could choose that path. Or take the path of one of the helpers, the interconnected whisperers who join together to help protect the dragons. The choice will be yours, regardless of what happens tonight.”
Izuku looks out over the distant landscape as he steps up next to Kirishima, considering his words carefully. The last rays of sunlight cast long shadows over the world below them, the view from the cliff is spectacular. Practiced eyes pick up the scrape of large claws against rocks, and he knows that he’s now closer to a dragon than he’s ever been before.
Part of him almost hesitates, wanting to choose the easier path, the one of a whisperer. Kirishima is right, legend speaks of both people…both in idolization and in scorn.
Izuku has spent his life searching for somewhere to belong, to finally feel truly at home. This right here…this might be his chance to find that. True freedom and a chance for true, unbridled happiness.
“I want to meet him. I believe I would like to take the path of a Dragon’s Chosen, if we are truly compatible in that way. I’ve felt drawn to dragons my entire life, something about this feels like fate.” Izuku’s gaze burns with determination as he meets Kirishima’s steady one.
The answering grin is bordering on feral. “I was hoping that would be your answer.”
Izuku’s heart drops when Kirishima simply runs and jumps off the cliff in front of them. He scurries over to the edge in time to end up face to face with gleaming ruby red eyes and a riot of shades of red scales shining in the sunset.
Kirishima…is the dragon.
The sight of him there, suspended in the air with heavy, earth-shaking beats of large leathery wings, steals Izuku’s breath right from his lungs. He squints against the bright sun that streams off the edges of Kirishima’s horns, taking in his silhouette and every detail of the majestic form he’d been able to shift to in an instant.
He knows now, why so many legends tell of dragons so easily eclipsing the sun, of them swallowing stars with ease.
Although the sight has him captivated, Izuku can’t help but curse himself in his head. He had been so foolish. Of course a strange, barefooted man in the forest, with burning red hair, wouldn’t be a normal human. And Izuku said all those things about dragons and hunting them to him!
Still, he freezes up and doesn’t run, accepting his fate when Kirishima descends. Massive claws carve rough gouges in the dirt of the cliffside as he lands, alighting as if he is a bird on a perch. Then his head cranes down, so that one large, red, reptilian eye the size of Izuku’s head can blink at him on his level.
“Don’t be nervous now,” Kirishima says. His voice is the same, but also so very different. It rumbles out from the depths of his throat, each syllable rolled over with ash and gravel, dripping thick from his tongue like magma that would be as sweet as syrup if you were able to taste it. “I liked listening to you talk. You were all fired up, and it was great!”
Izuku’s head spins. He’s completely unsure of how to respond to that. Kirishima chuckles at his dazed confusion, opening his mouth and showing off his rows of sharp teeth with a big grin.
Gulping at the sight of them, Izuku stammers, “I-I meant no offense–”
“No, hey, don’t apologize!” Kirishima lowers his head further, nearly shoving his snout into Izuku’s chest now. This close, Izuku can see every slice through a scale, every burn… every scar.
There’s a particularly nasty one that slices straight through the right eye, and although the eye itself doesn’t look damaged, no scales grow on the wedge-shaped scarred patches of skin. Izuku wonders what caused it. A hunter’s spear? A knight’s blade? What weapon was it that cut into Kirishima, and left him with an undeserved mark that he’ll bear forever?
“I sprung this on you too soon, didn’t I? I just got excited,” Kirishima sighs. “It’s not everyday someone comes through and is as genuine as you. And you said you had questions,” Kirishima continues, “I thought I could answer them for ya.”
He pauses there, but at Izuku’s lack of response, Kirishima clicks his tongue in a small involuntary way, before he seems to consider Izuku very seriously.
His large eye scans Izuku up and down a few times over, and then slowly, with Izuku right there to witness it, Kirishima begins to reverse his shift. The wings shrink and are pulled into his back first, before his entire form seems to tremble and then tighten, collapsing in on itself until it is compact. A much more manageable size for the human Kirishima to step out of his old skin.
The whole time, Izuku finds himself reminded of a woodworker he knows back in the kingdom’s capital. The man’s hands may tremble through every other activity, but they are always so steady when he gently carves away sliver after sliver of wood, until a beautiful statuette is revealed from within the block he started with.
“Please,” Kirishima grins at Izuku, bright and blinding. He stands on two legs now, though his head is still eclipsing the sun, the light streaming through his hair turning it golden. And Izuku can’t bring himself to regret anything he said. Nor can he bring himself to be mad at the unhelpful map becoming wrinkled in his pack. He doesn’t even mind getting left behind by his hunting party anymore. Not when it has led him to this incredible man before him. “You’re my Chosen, now. You can ask anything of me.”