Blood = Sangre in Spanish!
Disclaimer: If I owned pokemon, would I be busy writing championshipping fanfics? Aight, this fic is dedicated to Rainy Day Dragonair/YoruRyu for the fanart she’s sent me!
Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks. This is also a crossover with Jane Yolen’s book, Dragon Blood, which I don’t own either. I know that it’s part of a sequel but I’ve only read the first book so there… this fic takes place between chapters 16 and 17 since there’s a long time jump there.
Summary: Jakkin Stewart meets Lance Dragyn…
Title: Sangre
Chapter 1
Someone had come to his oasis.
That was Jakkin’s thought as he slowly edged his way towards the small patch of weeds, the small pond, where his dragon, his beautiful Heart’s Blood, his holly-red dragon slept. Only… there was someone there, still there…
He frowned, after initial panic had given away. His dragon was… protecting the other? Was it Akki? The dragon didn’t mind Akki, but…
No. Akki had dark hair and this stranger had … red, red hair as dark as a dragon’s scales, life-blood spilled upon the sands. Who was this stranger? For it was not one of the bonders from Master Sarkkhan’s. And the stranger wore dark clothing, black shirt and trousers, long-sleeved, tucked into white boots with strange… almost stirrups in black on them? He shook his head.
Perhaps the stranger had been seeking shelter, an offworlder perhaps, lost? He wore no bond bag, so he was no bonder…
Perhaps he was a runaway?
But Jakkin didn’t think he was dangerous. If he were, would not the dragon have attacked him, like the drakk before? He walked up and began shaking the stranger awake.
Fuzzily, he saw the eyes open, and suppressed a gasp. The eyes were a startling gold, golden like… like the sands, like a dragon’s eyes! What was this?
“Who… are you?” Jakkin asked. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t expect an answer, since he was only a bonder, and with no bag – that meant this man was a Master, correct?
He did get a reply, just not what he expected. < This… this is Austar IV, is it not? >
Jakkin jumped. So it was an offworlder! But… he had spoken in his mind, like a dragon might! “Yes… it is. Can you understand my language?”
< I am sorry… I cannot speak with my voice, but yes, I do understand. > The man stood, wincing slightly. < Do you know where I might find lodging for a few nights? My grandfather sent me here to make myself a name in the pits… >
The pits! Then… he was a Master! But where was his ship? How had he gotten here? Something rang false here. Jakkin hesitated to bring him back to the farm, but he could not leave the man out here alone. Master Sarkkhan would know what to do.
“Yes, follow me.” Hopefully the man would not tell, and yet, as they carefully walked away from the oasis, Jakkin could not help feeling worried. What if the man stole his red, his dragon?
He would have to take a gamble then. Luckily, it was still his Bond-Off so he could have run into the man anywhere, really…
Within half an hour or so, they had returned to the main road and then they made their way to Sarkkhan’s nursery. Master Sarkkhan seemed to have somehow sensed the stranger’s arrival, and so the bushy red-bearded, red-haired man greeted the stranger courteously, and gave Jakkin a coin for his trouble.
Jakkin nodded and then snuck back to his oasis to spend the rest of his day with his dragon, and at night, as he lay down with the others in the bunkhouse, the gossips began to tell.
“He’s mute,” A whispered voice came. “And I don’t know why Master Sarkkhan let him stay. He says he’s a Dragon Master – hah! He’s not a single dragon with him! Give him a bag and bond him, I say.”
“I wouldn’t…” The second voice sounded frightened. “Have you seen his eyes? Abnormal color… they can pierce you, oh, I shivered… they’re as cold as Dark-After…”
“Well, he’ll have to prove his worth to old Lick-and-Spittle at least,” another spoke. “That’s a sight I wouldn’t miss!”
Likkarn? He had to prove his worth to Likkarn, the old smoker? The old weeder, who had killed Blood Brother? How?
Jakkin wasn’t sure he knew, but he did know that it would most likely be interesting…
It was a bad year, there had been no rains, and even his small oasis was running dry. He did not steal seeds of bloodwort and blisterweed to feed his dragon from the stores, for he had no desire to condemn the nursery worms and older dragons to starvation, but ah, something had to be done!
The old plowman, Balakk, was once again complaining about the dry weather, and things were seriously heading downhill. The plants all over their farm were dying, and without them… the dragons would starve.
Likkarn glared at Master Sarkkhan, who was eating with the others. “You see? This is your folly! You brought that stranger here! The gods are frowning upon us! Why not bond him like the rest of us, make him prove his worth!”
Sarkkhan was about to reply, when Lance stood up. Lance… his name lacked the double kk to mark him as a bonder, but…
His eyes swept around the room, and despite the warm color, there was no warmth in their stare, and when he spoke, they all heard it.
< Very well, Likkarn. I shall prove my worth, as you say… >
He silently pushed his cup of takk – the only food he seemed to touch, besides bread, back onto the table and silently left the room, his boots making no sound upon the dry earth. They followed en masse, interested.
“I wonder how he’ll save the plants? Water them with his own blood?” Slakk teased crudely. Jakkin winced.
True, Likkarn got under everyone’s skin, and even after he had been broken down to stable boy, he still bossed all around, but…
What was going on? Was Lance out of his mind? Perhaps the unfamiliar desert heat had addled his mind. After all, offworlders were supposed to be more delicate…
At the edge of the weed patch, Lance slowly removed something from around his neck. It was a necklace on a chain, Jakkin saw, squinting his eyes. It was a silver chain, and on the end, dangling, seven little red-and-white metal beads. Pretty and probably worth a few coins, but…
How would that help?
< Hakuryuu… my darlings, wash the land with rain and save your brethren… >
And then there were two flashes of light so bright that Jakkin had to shade his eyes, and when he opened them again, there were cries and gasps of astonishment, and he looked up, and gasped in return…
Two beasts, long and thin and blue and absolutely huge, twenty arm-lengths long at least, soared over the weed patch, and above their twirling motions, the skies darkened, fat black clouds, and then rain began to fall, soaking the dry earth…
They stood out in the rain in silence before they all began to laugh and rejoice, rain, rain, finally, rain! And they danced and made merry, and only once did Jakkin notice that the dragons – or whatever those strange beasts were – were no longer flying, but had vanished once again.
However, now he and the others knew that they should perhaps not underestimate Lance any longer…
End Chapter
Completed 6/18/05