I stayed awake with my eyes open for a full twenty-four hours.
Is mating strictly required during rut? I chewed the question over dozens of times, mustering every bit of knowledge I had.
Bottom line: no. No animal dies because it fails to mate during rut.
...But there are plenty that die in rut because they stop eating or from stress.
More than anything, the span of three years snagged in my mind. How was I supposed to let Varen suffer for three years?
Besides, the Belzena war would flare any moment. It made no sense that the strongest dragon wouldn’t take the field just because of rut.
“Haaah....”
I paced in tight anxious circles over the same patch of floor.
Then I stopped, one leg trembling, and bit at my thumbnail.
I kept seeing Ordin’s sly, unreadable look. He hadn’t said it outright, but it felt like he’d slid the task of looking after Varen onto me.
Leaving what even his own father couldn’t persuade to a temporary guardian.
“What do you expect me to do....”
The Varen I know would never accept a match.
He’d suffer the fever for three years if he had to; with that iron-straight temperament, he wasn’t going to enter an emotionless marriage.
Above all, Varen likes me.
“Ah—ah! Get a grip!”
I smacked my own cheeks.
So Varen likes me, and what—am I supposed to take a male dragon’s rut?
That was absurd. We’re not even the same species to start with....
...If it’s in human form, does that not matter much.
Then sex. In any form, that was a problem.
In my previous life and in this world, I’ve never taken an interest in that side of things.
Which means—
...I don’t even know how to do it....
At least one of us should have something reliable to lean on.
With both knowledge and experience at zero, we’d end up one hundred percent in blood.
Judging from Varen’s behavior so far, the blood would be mine.
Before my overactive imagination could really unfurl, I shook my head and moved away from Varen’s ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) room.
But I only made it a few steps before I turned back.
My nerves were so frayed that I started muttering—something I almost never do—like a stream of dialect.
“No, but am I the only one worrying? Why doesn’t his own father care when his son is down?”
Ordin’s face surfaced, looking on blankly as if it were someone else’s problem.
Of course, he’d been through all of this himself, so maybe to him it was nothing special.
Right. If even his own father isn’t worried, then this is me sticking my nose in....
Thud.
“Wah! You scared me!!”
The door suddenly shook with a heavy thump.
I sprang straight up where I stood, clutched my hammering heart, and stared at the door.
From the other side, Varen said, rough and fierce:
“Haa... Ceryl, you’re loud.”
His tone was sharper than usual, but that didn’t even register.
It was the voice that had tormented me every night for the month we spent together in the forest, the voice that left me wringing my hands because there was nothing I could do.
All I could hear was that heat-soaked breath riding his words.
“Varen, are you okay? Are you in a lot of pain?”
“Through the crack of the door... your scent, it’s... vibrating... everywhere. Haa....”
His already husky voice was gravelly. My chest throbbed in response.
Fuck, the kid’s dying. I couldn’t just stand here and watch that.
“Varen, open the door. Let me see your face.”
I knocked on the closed door, but Varen didn’t open it.
“Go back, Ceryl... Right now I... can’t meet... you.”
“I’ll just check you and go. Okay?”
“It’s really... hard to hold back.... Don’t worry... about me....”
“I won’t stop worrying until I see your face! I said open up!”
I snapped and kicked the door. The heavy slab didn’t so much as quiver, and I only managed to hurt my foot.
I grabbed my throbbing toes and fumed. Then I fixed my glare on the door that took after its owner’s stubbornness.
I didn’t need to see it to know he was in pain. Why insist on enduring it?
He even supposedly had a fiancée already. Why was he... me...
A surge of irritation rose for no clear reason.
“I heard it from Ordin. You’ve got a fiancée.”
I waited quite a while, but nothing came back.
I clenched and unclenched my fist, forcing myself to settle.
Think only about how to help Varen right now. He already had the optimal option.
A suitable mate who could take a male dragon’s rut. A true partner to carry on Dravergh blood.
The right answer that only needed Varen to choose it.
I squeezed my eyes shut. My throat felt sandy, as if I’d swallowed grit.
“A dragon’s rut lasts three years. One day is hard enough—how are you going to last three like this.”
“......”
“And... by rights you should have been married long ago, they said. It’s not too late even now...”
Just then, a worn metal scrape rang along the corridor. The massive door I thought would never open parted by the span of a hand.
Tense, I faced Varen.
If he exploded, I’d take it; if he whined, I’d bat it away just enough.
That was my firm resolve—until I saw his face through the gap, and everything collapsed.
“You... Why are you....”
His fever-flushed face was steeped in shock and hurt. From his blue eyes, tears like big chicken-droppings fell and fell.
Without blinking once, fixing only on me, he let the heavy drops pour.
“Ceryl, are you telling me... to... haa... marry another dragon.”
“......”
“My mate is... you... you, so why would I...”
I stared at Varen, mouth hanging open, unable to answer.
Then his shoulders started to hitch, and I snapped back to myself. I shoved through the hand-wide opening without ceremony and pushed inside.
“Hey, hey. Why are you crying. Don’t cry. That only spikes your fever.”
“...It hurts....”
“See? It hurts, right? If you don’t relieve it in rut it keeps hurting. Varen, I get how you feel, but, okay?”
A jumble of clumsy comfort spilled out.
I cupped Varen’s face in both hands and wiped as fast as I could, but I couldn’t keep up with the flow.
His face, soaked through, rammed straight into my chest.
“My heart... hurts....”
“Huh? Why your heart again? Is that a rut symptom too?”
I hurriedly set my hand over the left side of his chest.
Thud-thud-THUD, the beat was faster and harder than usual, and my expression turned grave.
But without moving so much as a finger, Varen went on.
“Because of you....”
“...Me?”
“The only being that makes my heart hurt... is you....”
Our eyes met, full of sorrow.
Not the one who makes his heart race, but the one who makes it hurt. How had I come to weigh so much to Varen?
Even with that heavy confession laid on me, my head spun.
If I could, I wanted to rewind five minutes.
“Okay. I’m sorry, Varen. Don’t cry, okay?”
“It hurts... it hurts so much....”
“What do I do? Do you want a hug? It hurts—should I hug you?”
Varen, who hadn’t moved at all, gave a small nod.
I almost laughed at how familiar that was, but this wasn’t the mood for it, so I stretched my arms up and drew those broad shoulders in.
Since the Spring of Wisdom, his already thick body had grown even larger. I patted that even-more-unwieldy back with all I had.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was thinking wrong. I was worried because you’re hurting. I do want to do something for you, somehow...”
“Hug me....”
Varen had to bend a long way down, and I had to stretch onto my highest tiptoes.
It was uncomfortable for both of us, but he folded his shoulders in and burrowed into my arms.
His door-slab of a body, burning with heat, felt like I was hugging a lump of molten lava.
He was even trembling in fine shakes. I hadn’t known it would be this hard on him, and I was washed through with guilt and pity. So I kept stroking the soft back of his blond head.
Then lightly, Varen’s lips grazed the side of my neck. His boiling breath had me breaking a sweat, too.
“Ceryl, I only have you....”
“...I know.”
“If it’s not you... I hate everything....”
With a soft smack, the lips of a dragon in rut latched onto my neck. After a warm-up like light pecks, he took a mouthful and began to worry it.
He didn’t bare his teeth, so it didn’t hurt, but the intent was unmistakable and a chill shot down my spine. Every nerve I had converged on one point.
Because of that, I noticed late what was happening elsewhere.
“Haa... Ceryl, if it’s not you, I can’t...”
“Hey, wait. Where is your hand...”
I didn’t know when it had gotten under my clothes, but a palm the size of a pot lid was traveling up my spine.
The feel on bare skin was hot and damp. I couldn’t tell whether it was his sweat or mine.
A dragon’s long arms were more than enough to wrap me, and after encircling me once, they reached the front.
“Ceryl... with you, like this...”
“Hold on, hold on. Time out! Varen, ngh....”
His hand finally made it to my chest.
The thick fingertips rubbed the place that jutted up. The alien sensation snapped my eyes wide open like someone flipped a master switch.
I let go of the shoulders I’d been holding and shoved him away like mad.
“Okay, okay! Just—listen to me for a second!”
I’d thought he wouldn’t budge, but Varen let me push him back without resistance.
His arm was still inside my clothes cinched tight around my waist, but he wasn’t pawing at anything mortifying anymore.
My head was halfway blown, and the words spilled out jagged and unarranged.
“I—I’ll use my hand... I’ll do it with my hand. Once you let off a few times, you’ll feel better.”
Back in the forest, when he got excited enough to lose his reason, Varen would slam his body into me.
Once upon a time I’d yelled that he should go get sex education from his parents, but it looked like that job was mine.
“When I saw you last time, you didn’t even seem to know how to touch yourself.”
“...Touch myself?”
“Yeah, that. I’ll teach you. With a hand... how to do it.”
