Chapter 4: Friendship

The dragon’s name is Taehyung. Just Taehyung. Over the next few weeks that gradually turn into months, Jungkook and Taehyung become fast friends. Jungkook is fascinated by everything Taehyung does: the way his routinely flosses his teeth with his own forked tongue between meals, the way he sometimes blows perfect smoke rings in the air from sheer boredom, the way he can hold his breath underwater for literally an hour. Jungkook had panicked the first time he’d done that, convinced he had somehow drowned.

Taehyung seems equally interested in everything Jungkook does: he watches him fold his shirt neatly every time before he jumps in the lake with Taehyung for a swim, watches him do stretches in the mornings and before bed, watches him practice combat skills, watches him scribble away in his treatise.

“What write in there?” Taehyung asks one day. His head, which is easily as long as Jungkook’s whole body, is directly over Jungkook’s as he squints down at the pages crammed with Jungkook’s small but neat writing. He snorts with dissatisfaction because while he is decent at speaking the human tongue, he can’t read it, and Jungkook protests as the wind from his snort rifles the pages and tangles Jungkook’s hair.

Taehyung can understand the human tongue just fine, but struggles sometimes to speak it. His tongue does not form the syllables naturally. Sentence structure is different as well. It turns out this is doubly true for a human trying to learn the draconic tongue but now that Jungkook has started learning it he’s not about to give it up. And both he and Taehyung are getting better at communicating every day.

Jungkook replies in the dragon’s language, always taking every chance to practice; he wasn’t the top student for nothing. “It’s my… formal… work… study?” Jungkook says slowly, glancing up at Taehyung. He seems to be following, so Jungkook takes a breath and continues. “I’m writing about you, about dragons.” Jungkook had told Taehyung all about being a Knight Scholar, about how proud he was of that, and about his home at the Academy, so Taehyung knew he was out here on a pilgrimage of sorts. But Jungkook had not told him his end goal, afraid of how he would react.

Taehyung hums in acknowledgement. Thankfully he doesn’t seem concerned. “Giving away all secrets?”

Jungkook laughs, joining him in the human tongue. “You bet, like the time I saw you pick your nose with your tongue like a cow!”

Taehyung’s scales bristle indignantly. “That is not what was doing! My fire duct was clogged! I can’t reach it with claw!”

“I’m kidding,” Jungkook says. At Taehyung’s blank stare he switches back to dragon. “Joking,” he explains. Taehyung relaxes, grunting with satisfaction. Jungkook hesitates. “You… don’t mind? That I write you? About you? People might read it.”

“That’s the point, right?” Taehyung replies, speaking much more freely in his own raspy language, almost too quick for Jungkook to follow. “I don’t mind as long as you promise not to write down the things I ask you not to.”

“I can do that,” Jungkook eagerly agrees, still in dragon, relieved Taehyung isn’t demanding he stop writing about him all together. “Is there… anything you’ve told me… that might have written and that want removed?”

Taehyung thinks for minute and then says, “My Thunder. What I’ve told you about them. Please leave that part out. They cannot give permission.” Jungkook nods in agreement even though he feels a little sad. Taehyung’s stories about his Thunder have been some of his favorites.

Taehyung is a part of a Thunder with five other dragons. He is the youngest, though he likes to point out that Jimin is only two years older than him, which is basically nothing to a dragon. Jungkook knows their names by now like he knows his own: The leader of Taehyung’s Thunder: Namjoon, then Seokjin, Yoongi, Hoseok, and Jimin. Each one of them Taehyung speaks of with nothing but fondness and longing dripping from his voice.

He misses them. When Jungkook had asked why he isn’t with them, he’d simply replied, “I am one hundred years old this year.” When Jungkook still look confused, he’d elaborated. “Dragons go on pilgrimage for a year after they turn 100. It’s a right of passage. Leaving nest and Thunder behind to live for a while as our ancestors once did, purely by tooth and claw, fire and wing.”

“You don’t do that now?” Jungkook had asked. The only stories he really knew of dragons were of them stealing livestock and burning villages. Stories Jungkook didn’t put much stock in, but still. He’d clammed up then, wondering if he would offend Taehyung.

But he’d only laughed. “We are quite docile these days.” A shadow had fallen over his countenance. “Too docile, some think. Perhaps they are right.” His sudden gloom was such that Jungkook hadn’t asked him to elaborate.

Taehyung had had questions for Jungkook too, of course. The first time he’d seen Jungkook without a shirt before their first lake swim together, several weeks ago now, he’d demanded “Why scar?”

Jungkook had glanced down at the ugly scar gracing his chest, just shy of his heart, and grimaced. “Stepped in front of the wrong arrow.”

“Why step in arrow?”

“In front of an arrow. And to save a friend.” He’d chosen not to mention the “friend” was an enslaved dragon. He didn’t know how Taehyung  would react. Did he even know humans were enslaving his kind? Deep down Jungkook was afraid that if he knew that, his hatred and mistrust of humans would inevitably increase and Jungkook worried that it would extend to Jungkook as well. He couldn’t bear the thought of that.

Taehyung had stayed quiet for a minute. “Friend okay?” he’d asked finally.

“I… don’t know,” Jungkook admits. “I hope so.”

Back in the present, Jungkook flips through the pages of his second notebook to cross out little anecdotes he had written about Taehyung’s Thunder:

Taehyung says one time he and Jimin got tangled up in a fight with over one hundred griffins when they were barely 80. Apparently, the relationship between griffins and dragons is not unlike that of the hyenas and lions found in savannahs. A lone griffin does not pose a threat to a dragon, but a group of them will attack any dragon they see as a potential target without hesitation.

Hoseok, one of Taehyung’s mates, has a rather rare gift among dragons, the gift of healing. Apparently, it’s gotten their Thunder out of quite a few scrapes in the past.  

Seokjin is the oldest dragon in existence, but he gets quite offended if you bring it up, and Taehyung says he acts much younger most of the time. He’d disliked his leadership postion and passed it along gladly to Namjoon when the time came.

Speaking of Namjoon, apparently, he has quite the love for books and has quite the collection in his hoard. He’ll share them only if the others ask very nicely. Taehyung didn’t elaborate on what that meant, exactly. I’ll have to question him about it again.

Yoongi is almost as old as Seokjin, but acts “more his age.” Sometimes he’s grumpy but he also give the best cuddles? This is not very scientific. Will cross this one out later. Maybe.

Jimin is Taehyung’s oldest friend. They were hatchlings together, but not from the same nest.

Jungkook crosses them all out with finality. He wants to do his best to respect Taehyung’s wishes.

As he closes his notebook for the time being, Taehyung stands up from his position behind Jungkook and shakes out his wings. Jungkook is always in awe when he does this. His wingspan is easily 60 meters and it filters the sun through a purple lens, causing a pink tint to the lighting around Jungkook who is directly under the wings’ shadow.

Taehyung shuffles his massive feet in place, seeming almost nervous, before he leans down to be on Jungkook’s eye level once more. “Jungkook,” he says. Pauses.

“Yeah?” Jungkook prompts.

“I’ve been here far too long. It’s time for me to move on. A pilgrim isn’t meant to stay in one place.”

It takes a minute for Jungkook’s mind to catch the meaning of the draconic words, but once he does he immediately drops his eyes so Taehyung won’t see the glisten of tears. “I… I see. Well. It was really nice meeting you, Taehyung-nim. And thank you. You’ve been a good friend. At least I consider you a friend? And… and you’ve taught me a lot and—” Jungkook cuts himself off before the tears can bleed into his voice. He doesn’t want to make Taehyung feel bad for the pathetic little human crying over a lost friendship they Taehyung maybe didn’t even recognize.

“Jungkook.” Taehyung says again. Jungkook is going to miss hearing his name in that deep gravely voice. But there is hesitation in the voice this time and it gets Jungkook to finally raise his eyes to Taehyung, blinking back his tears. “Would you… like go with me?”

Jungkook straightens. “You want me to?"

Taehyung nods without hesitation and Jungkook can’t help the grin that spreads across his face at that one gesture. He reaches out to put his hand on Taehyung’s brow and Taehyung closes his eyes. “Then I will,” he says.

So Jungkook and Taehyung spend the rest of the summer together and on into the fall, flying over the Great Forest, hunting and foraging, exploring lakes and mountain, grasslands and caves. Jungkook documents it all in treatise notes when he has the chance, but often he is busy listening to Taehyung’s stories, telling stories of his own, having contests to see who could catch something fastest for dinner (Taehyung nearly always won; the wings were unfair), practicing the draconic tongue (Taehyung has started explaining the meaning of the roars he sometimes hears in the night and early morning, a form of long distance communication amongst dragons, not unlike wolves howling to each other) and just generally reveling in each other’s company.

It’s a day in late summer when Taehyung tells Jungkook he wants to show him something. Jungkook has gotten a very good grasp on the draconic language at this point, practically fluent, and Taehyung has become even better at human speech, so the barriers to communication are now basically non-existent.

“What do you want to show me?” Jungkook asks curiously, speaking in dragon. Taehyung seems strangely tense, almost nervous, and Jungkook pats his side reassuringly. They are in a small clearing in the forest, with barely enough room for Taehyung. He’d landed here abruptly after Jungkook had randomly admitted to missing the feel of human contact, just a tiny bit.

“You cannot write what I am about to show you,” Taehyung demands. “It is knowledge that no human has, and is possibly our one great advantage. You must not speak of it. Promise me, or I can’t show you.”

Jungkook’s curiosity is peaked, but he doesn’t hesitate. “I promise,” he says.

Still, Taehyung hesitates. “Close your eyes,” he says finally.

Jungkook obeys. There is silence and then some rustling. Jungkook almost peaks multiple times. At last a voice that sounds like Taehyung, but also not, just as deep, but less loud and rumbly and far more musical, says, “Okay. You can open them.”

Jungkook does.

Standing in front of him wearing what looks to be his spare set of clothes, is hands down the most gorgeous man Jungkook has ever seen.

With a sharp square jaw line, high cheek bones, and flawless skin, his hair a royal shade of purple, the effect is ethereal, otherworldly. The man seems nervous, struggling to meet Jungkook’s eyes. But once he does, Jungkook’s own eyes widen and his floundering brain, that has been chanting little more than pretty man, pretty man, pretty man, finally catches up, as his own dark eyes meet amethyst one’s the exact same shade as the dragon’s.

“…Taehyung?” Jungkook asks weakly.

The man smiles at him and Jungkook’s knees nearly give out.

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