Chapter Text
“It’s cold, A-Zhan.”
Lan Zhan didn’t reply. He stared resolutely ahead, back straight and chin raised, maintaining the correct sitting posture his uncle had taught him.
“Come inside. Please.”
A shiver rippled across his thin shoulders but still, he didn’t dare shift his focus from the door in front of him.
“A-Zhan,” his brother tried again, softer this time. “She’s not going to let you in. She isn’t…”
He lapsed back into silence, allowing the wind to overtake him and drown out the rest of the sentence.
Another chill made Lan Zhan’s tiny form shake. Lan XiChen sighed and took off his outer robe, placing it over Lan Zhan like a blanket. Then he took his place kneeling beside him.
Their mother would call them inside soon. Lan Zhan was sure of it. He could bear the cold until then.
Snow was starting to settle along the rooftops of the Cloud Recesses. It sparkled in the moonlight, giving everything a dreamy atmosphere with soft edges.
Lan Zhan could feel the snowflakes settling over him as he sat there, barely even cold anymore where they touched his skin.
He wasn’t supposed to be out here past curfew. Indeed, his brother had finally managed to coax him back indoors just in time for it. But as he had sat there in his cold bed, watching the snow piling up outside his window, he realized the chill of his empty room was far worse than anything he would endure outside. All he could think about was his mother, alone and shivering out there. Suddenly, the idea of receiving due punishment for sneaking out had become far more bearable than remaining in his bed.
A cloud of snow burst up from the rooftop of his mother’s cottage, breaking the calm of the night. Lan Zhan startled and looked up, blinking back the melt that clung to his eyelashes.
A creature stirred from under the pile of snow, shaking off the icy blanket to reveal glossy black scales that reflected the glow of the moonlit snow and shone almost silver.
A little white puff sped around the corner of the cottage and bounded towards Lan Zhan. It hurtled itself into his lap and as he laid a hand over the damp fur, he realized it was a rabbit. The black creature followed, pouncing into the snow and slithering closer until Lan Zhan could make out a pair of large, gray eyes staring at him.
Lan Zhan instinctively clutched the rabbit tighter and glared back. The creature’s eyes snapped shut and it was utterly motionless for a moment until it opened them again to squint at Lan Zhan. When it noticed it was still being watched, its eyes quickly closed once more. Lan Zhan didn’t look away, barely even blinking.
After sneaking a few peeks, the creature eventually seemed to realize its theory that “they can’t see me if I can’t see them” wasn’t working and fluttered open its huge eyes. It was almost entirely covered in snowfall by this point, so when it jumped back to its feet, it showered Lan Zhan in a spray of snow that threatened to bury him.
He hastily wiped his face to clear his vision but by the time he could see again, something smooth had bumped up against his nose. He flinched, not from surprise, but because the contact made him sneeze on reflex. When he looked back, the creature’s snout remained shoved right in his space, sniffing at him curiously.
It was large, about the size of a big dog, its body probably longer end-to-end than he was tall. The rabbit hopped out of his lap to scurry away and in the next instant, the creature had bowled him over.
Pressed between its heavy form and the frost, the creature’s high body heat became immediately apparent. Though its scales seemed to work as an insulator, allowing snow to pile up on its back before melting, its underbelly was wet from burning everything away instantaneously.
It nuzzled Lan Zhan’s nose again and he sneezed right on cue. It made a happy, chirping noise and swiveled its head to replicate its own version of a sneeze, a few tongues of fire sparking from its nostrils.
It was a dragon, Lan Zhan thought dizzily.
His hand came up to touch the scales on its neck, feeling the smooth slide and ridged patterns. The dragon seemed to like this, twisting its neck to press closer into Lan Zhan’s palm and making a pleased whistle.
It must have been very young. Dragons could grow to be larger than buildings, yet this one was barely any larger than himself.
Leathery wings extended from its back, shaking off even more snow as they flapped cheerfully. The movements were imprecise and Lan Zhan wondered if it was even too young to fly just yet.
Silhouetted against the moon above them, the dragon’s jet-black scales rippled in silver waves when it breathed, like a fine bolt of silk taking wind. Two bone-white nubs poked out between the scales on its head, as if cracking apart soil. The unevenly raised edges revealed how the layers of plates overlapped in complex geometric patterns and disrupted the otherwise smooth illusion of a simple flat surface.
Lan Zhan brought his hand to cup its face and distantly supposed that he should have been frightened at some point during this encounter. But the dragon leaned into his touch, intelligent eyes blinking down at him owlishly, and all he could think was how beautiful it was.
The snow was starting to seep through his robe. When he shivered, it wracked his entire body now. The dragon sniffed at him, seemingly mystified by this behavior. Its jaw dropped open and a burst of heat licked at Lan Zhan’s shoulder, singeing the edge of the robe. When this only made Lan Zhan wince and failed to solve the trembling, the dragon tilted its head, eyes narrowing in thought.
Finally, its eyes rounded again with a little chirp. It moved off of Lan Zhan and slithered into a semicircle around him, rolling over enough to expose its warm belly. It prodded at the side of his head with its snout, then curled in tighter to rest its chin against his thigh. Taking the hint, Lan Zhan pulled himself up to lean against the dragon. Its underbelly radiated heat, and the wet fabric of his robe even hissed steam upon making contact.
A faint smile tugged at Lan Zhan’s mouth. He patted the dragon’s forehead and it rumbled in response, a sound that he couldn’t help but equate to a purr in his head. His hand smoothed over one of the fledgling horns and a scale that had been displaced by its growth came loose under his touch. The dragon didn’t seem to notice at all, and when the scale stuck to the humid moisture in Lan Zhan’s palm, he ran the tip of his middle finger over it several times to make sure it stayed in place.
At some point, he must have drifted off, because in his next moment of consciousness, Lan XiChen was whispering his name with increasing urgency.
“A-Zhan! A-Zhan, wake up.”
Lan Zhan’s eyelids were so heavy. It took quite a bit of effort for him to pry them open.
“Brother…” he mumbled.
Lan XiChen knelt a foot away. His eyebrows were drawn together, pulling at the corners of his eyes and sharpening the shadows beneath them with worry. His gaze flicked conspicuously over to the dragon.
Struggling to sit more upright, Lan Zhan patted the dragon’s head and explained, “Friend.”
Lan XiChen didn’t fall for that explanation right away, but Lan Zhan’s stubbornness eventually forced him to yield this point if he wanted his little brother to go to bed instead of spending the entire night out in the snow, where he was bound to get sick.
Once he had safely seen Lan Zhan back to his room, Lan XiChen eyed the dragon that was currently nuzzling at his brother’s ankle like a house cat a fourth of its size and asked, “Does your friend have a name?”
Lan Zhan considered that for a moment. He turned to pass on the question to the dragon with a quiet, “Name?”
It only stared back at him blankly.
Lan Zhan frowned, his cheeks – still round with baby fat – puffing up just a little bit more as he looked the dragon up and down. It really did seem so young, with those huge, innocent eyes sparkling when hit with even the barest amount of light.
“Ying,” he said finally. “A-Ying.”