WHAT: Temeraire wakes up to discover his captain is ten years old WHERE: The Dragon Covert WHEN: During the Timeslip Plot WARNINGS: Nah, this is just wholesome STATUS: Complete
Will shifted from sleep to confusion. Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure if it was the crisp breeze and the smell of fallen leaves on the air, the fact that his bed was unaccountably warm, despite the cool air, and moving – not a lot, but a subtle rising and falling that he liked to imagine would be how it was sleeping shipboard – or some combination of all of the above. His eyes snapped open; the sky above him was a brilliant blue, with soft, white clouds floating across it. It was certainly not the white ceiling of his bedchambers, which he’d expected to see.
He sat up, what visages of sleep that had remained disappearing rapidly, and looked around. His bed wasn’t a bed at all. It was black, the beautiful, nearly shiny black of onyx. He followed it, up the elbow, trailing up the neck, and then to the many-toothed jaw of the biggest dragon Will had ever seen in his life.
Well, the only dragon period that Will had ever seen in his life – at least up close, though sometimes he’d seen them flying high above them. He’d never come close enough to make out their teeth, or the gleam in their eyes. He’d never been close enough to one where it could easily just reach down and snap him up. The dragon wouldn’t even need to chew, he was suddenly certain. It was big enough that Will would slide right down its throat without so much as a by-your-leave.
He couldn’t help it. He screamed, crab-walked backwards on hands-and-feet away from that jaw, and fell right off the beast's forearm.
The scream roused Temeraire immediately. He was used to, and could happily sleep through, children making noise and even running around over his back while laughing and calling to each other, although it had been a long time since he had had a proper crop of runners, lookouts and ensigns. In fact he had been having quite a pleasant dream set in just such a time, in his younger days, flying over the covert at Dover with his crew and his war harness and Laurence sitting in his proper place, calling out orders as they flew to battle together. But a child’s scream of fear was enough to shake him free of dream and sleep both, his good eye coming open bright and wide, the other, scarred and clouded, followed a second or two later. He looked around in confusion, muscles tensing and wings trembling as he prepared to fight. “Laurence?” he called, looking down to where he had thought he felt Laurence get up, no doubt similarly alerted by the noise, but Laurence was not there. In his place was a small boy.
Since he had been in Vallo nearly two years now, it only took a moment or two for Temeraire to realise what was going on. He was not quite sure what to do about it, however. “Oh dear,” he rumbled, trying to stay very still so as not to startle the boy even further. “Ah… please… do not be afraid. I will not hurt you.”
Oh no. Will had roused the dragon, and now the dragon was opening its mouth – Will cringed, sure this was when his brief life was cut short – and…
And it spoke. It spoke his name, or his last name at least. Will's fear melted away, and he blinked up at the dragon, wide-eyed with awe. Its – his, maybe, given the timbre of his voice – eyes were a deep, unexpected blue, not unlike the sea. Anyone creature intelligent enough to speak, Will was nearly positive, was intelligent enough to not make a light snack out of him. He'd heard that dragons could speak, but also had heard that they spoke like parrots spoke, more repeating the sounds they heard and less capable of having a proper conversation; this wasn't at all like a parrot.
"Wow," Will breathed, and then clambered to his feet. He brushed off the seat of his trousers. "I'm terribly sorry!" he called, raising his voice so the dragon could hear him; it was so big he was sure it would need to strain to hear someone as tiny as him. "I didn't mean to scream, only I've never met a real dragon before, and I was startled! My name is Will Laurence; what's yours?"
He almost lifted his hand, and stopped before he made a fool of himself; the dragon was too large to shake his hand.
That was Laurence all right, Temeraire thought, if not his Laurence, exactly. He even introduced himself in almost exactly the same way Temeraire remembered from the day of his hatching. “I am Temeraire,” he said, feeling as he did so how very odd it was to be giving his name back to the person who had given it to him in the first place. “And there is no need to shout.” He lowered his head a little, careful not to get too close, and sniffed, taking in the boy’s scent. He knew rather little about Laurence at this age, except that he did not much like reading or arithmetic, and was desperate to go to sea. “Are you all right? You did not hurt yourself?”
Will clasped his hands tightly behind his back to resist the urge to reach out and touch the dragon; his muzzle looked very soft, and he wondered if it was as soft to the touch as it seemed, but Will knew it would be the height of rudeness to just go ahead and touch it. He straightened his back, the picture of a young gentleman.
“Oh no, not at all,” he promised. “Though if it were, it would only be my own fault for carelessness.” There. He thought his father would be proud if he could hear him. “Do you fly with the Aerial Corps? Do you have a Captain?”
“Well,” Temeraire started, uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure how much he should say. “Yes - I used to be, but we decided to leave the Corps so that we could be free to do other things, such as help change the government and travel the world, but if there was a particularly exciting battle, which was not objectionable politically, of course I would be happy to fight, for a commission.” He paused, aware that he had not been entirely truthful. He had never lied to Laurence before, even if this was not exactly the same, and it was most uncomfortable. “Would you like to be a captain in the Corps, some day?” he asked, thinking that perhaps this was a good way of introducing the idea.
"Oh, no, I'm to join the Church," Will said automatically, answering as he would have if any adult had asked him his plans for the future. Not a lie, exactly, though he had no intention of following his father's will in that.
The familiar words felt wretched as soon as they left his lips, though: Temeraire was hardly a common adult, and while Will so couldn't articulate why, exactly, deceiving the dragon felt worse than deceiving the acquaintances of his parents.
He considered the question. He'd heard some of his father's friends and colleagues speaking of the Aerial Corps and it had never been in very flattering terms, and so he had never considered it before. But he imagined flying must have been great fun, and they no doubt had plenty of adventures, and if all dragons were as charming as Temeraire, well, it could have brilliant.
But Will had fallen in love with the sea from the very first time he'd seen her, and the Navy was a respectable branch of the service to join for a young gentleman. His father, he thought, would forgive him if he joined the Navy.
"Actually, can I tell you a secret?" he asked the dragon instead of answering directly. "One you must promise not to tell my father or mother or brothers?"
Temeraire had to hold back a snort at the suggestion that Laurence would ever do anything so silly as to enter the church, even as a child. “Of course I promise not to tell,” he said - a promise which was easy to make considering none of those people were currently living in this dimension - “But I believe I can guess your secret anyway.” He hit on an idea. “In fact, I suggest that if I can guess it, you must promise to do something for me in return, afterwards.”
Will was suddenly, irresistibly curious about what he could do as a favour for a dragon. He didn't think that Temeraire could guess his secret, but he suddenly wished he could. Perhaps Will would also if he could do for the dragon anyway, even if he did not guess.
"Very well," Will said. "You can have three guesses."
“Like Rumplestiltskin,” Temeraire said, quite pleased, although he was sure he would not need a second or third guess. “Let me see. Your secret is that you would not like to join the church at all, but you plan to run away from home and join the navy instead, quite soon. Is that about right?”
Will stared up at the dragon, mouth agape. And then, before he could stop himself, he asked, overawed, “Can dragons read minds?”
He knew – or at least, thought he knew – that they could not. Surely he’d have been told such a thing if it were true. But then, he had always thought that dragons couldn’t converse as men did, and that had been wrong as well.
“No,” Temeraire said, after only a moment’s distracted hesitation. “At least, none that I have met. It is quite complicated to explain, but you see; I come from your future, where I know you quite well. This place,” he gestured around with a foreclaw, “is called Vallo, it is a kind of unfixed place in time. I am making a study of the science,” he added, but kept himself from going into any further detail; little Laurence, after all, did not even like mathematics, let alone string theory, which had not even been invented yet. “Yesterday you were quite a lot older, but I imagine it is only temporary - you ought not worry.”
“Oh,” Will said, puzzling it over. He’d never heard of travelling through time. He didn’t think that was possible, either. But then, he had no other explanation for how he woke up on some unfamiliar estate, sleeping on the forearm of a dragon. And in anycase, it was better than Temeraire having read his mind. His thoughts were private, and it would have been very rude for the dragon to go looking through them.
“That’s a little like cheating then, isn’t it?” Will asked severely, doing the best impression of his father that he could muster. He couldn’t keep it up long though, before he broke into a grin. If a dragon from the future knew that he planned to run away to join the Navy, that had to mean that he succeeded, didn’t it? “But that’s okay. I’ll do your favour anyway! What is it?”
“It is not cheating at all,” Temeraire said, bristling a little, although the more he thought about it, the more reasonable an interpretation it seemed. He shifted and shook out his wings a little, nearly knocking Will over with the air he swept up. “I should like you to come flying with me,” he said, not a little shyly; he knew young Laurence was not like Emily or the other runners, to have grown up around dragons and been up on them since they were small, but neither did he think the boy would be afraid. His Laurence was brave, at any age.
If Will’s eyes could have turned into stars, they very well might have. He wanted to. Oh, he very much wanted to. He bit back his immediate response of Yes, absolutely, that wouldn’t be a favour at all, but he bit it back. He was going to join the Navy in just a few short years. He couldn’t be an impulsive child anymore. So he forced himself to stop and think of all he knew about the Aerial Corps.
“Won’t your captain be upset if you took me flying?” he asked after a moment. It surely would have worked like ships; it would have been very poor of him indeed if he just took a ship out sailing without the captain’s permission. Not that that would have been possible, without a full crew, but he was sure the principle of the matter was the same.
“Oh, no,” Temeraire said. “In fact, I think he would be very pleased. Will you come? There is a flying harness in the pavilion behind you. It will be a little big, but we can adjust it to size I am sure.”
Will needed no more convincing. "Then it would be my pleasure," he said, not quite managing to keep the boyish excitent from his voice, even though he tried. He was very proud of the fact that he refrained from running to the pavilion though.
It didn't take him long to find the flying harnesses, very neatly stowed away, so even though they were mostly just leather straps and buckles, he was able to find one that was very nearly in his size with relative ease. It took some time longer for Will to suss out how, exactly, he was supposed to wear it, but once he finally had it on, he found that it was more comfortable than he was expecting. The leather was supple and well-oiled, clearly treated with care. There were much larger harnesses as well, which Will assumed must have been for the dragon. One seemed very complicated indeed, with more straps and buckles than Laurence could count, but another seemed fairly simple, with a large loop that seemed like it would encircle the whole dragon, with two smaller loops which were, perhaps, for his legs. Will grabbed that one.
He couldn't help but run the distance back to the dragon, awkwardly because of his load, and once he made it back before the dragon, he needed to take a few moments to catch his breath. He was glad that Temeraire was the only one to see him; his father surely would've frowned at the undignified way he panted for breath, but when he stole a glance at the dragon he didn't see any sign of disapproval. He laid the larger harness down, and then stood straight, hands clasped behind his back, for inspection.
Temeraire had imagined Laurence would just clip onto his breastplate, but then perhaps it was safer all together if he was harnessed properly; this version of Laurence did not even have sea legs, let alone aviation experience, and it would be most distressing indeed if he fell under any circumstances. “Thank you,” he said, and used his foreclaws to pull the simple strap harness over his head, careful not to damage the leather. “Will you tighten the buckles under the belly strap, if you please? Then we may go.” He waited for the boy to do as he was bid, then shook himself all over. “All lies well,” he said, and offered Laurence his foreclaw to climb upon as always. “Come along then.”
Will hesitated just a moment, suddenly very aware that one of Temeraire’s claws was nearly as tall as Will himself was, and how easy it would be for the dragon to just close his fist and crush Will inside.
But, of course, he was being silly. Temeraire could have stepped on him or ate him a hundred times by now, if he’d wished to. And so, making sure that he couldn’t back out at the last minute and make an undignified fool of himself, Will took a couple of running steps and jumped into Temeraire’s palm (nevermind that running and jumping were also undignified. They were less undignified than a blatant show of cowardice).
“Make sure you are quite secure,” Temeraire said, straining his head around once he had deposited Laurence in his usual place at the base of his neck. Once he was convinced that the boy was properly attached to the harness, he launched into the air and began what he considered to be a slow loop around the lake, stretching his wings as he usually liked to do in the morning. He stopped to hover over the castle. “That is where you live, there,” he explained, calling back. “Are you quite comfortable where you are? You do not feel ill?” Some of the children he occasionally took on short flights would get sick occasionally, which was most unpleasant when they could not hold it long enough to be back on the ground. “I thought we might go faster, and I will show you the rest of the island.”
Will tried to maintain his dignity, he did, really, but when Temeraire launched himself into the air, he couldn’t help but let out a long, loud whoop of pleasure. This was… well, Will had never felt anything like it. George had once taken Will galloping, and Will had marvelled at it; how the horses gait seemed to eat up the ground beneath them, how the wind had whipped at his face, how he could feel the raw power of the horse beneath him and under his arms as he clung to the horses neck.
But that had paled in comparison to this. The ground disappeared below them, and as they rose higher, Will could see where the island gave way to the ocean far in the distance.
“No, not ill at all!” Will cried back. “I’m very comfortable!” Well, that wasn’t necessarily true – it was chillier than he’d expected, this high up, and the wind had made his eyes water; he thought he understood the purpose of the goggles that had hung next to the harness now, though even if he’d wanted to wear them, he could tell at a glance that they were too large for him. “Please, go faster! I want to see it all!”
Temeraire was all too happy to oblige. Will’s enthusiasm for the flight was quite infectious. His own Laurence would be back soon, he was sure, and in the meantime it would be interesting to get to know him afresh, like this, and they could still go flying and hunting like they always did. He let himself dip for a moment in the air, enjoying the whoop from behind his head, before putting on a burst of speed, letting his great wings spread wide to make the most of the current.