SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Velkaris swallowed them the moment they came up out of the transit hub.

The streets ran thick with people of every kind, elves and dwarves and beastkin and humans, uniforms and rags and fine coats all pressed into the same current, criers bawling destinations over the din, vendors shoving mana-warmed food under the nose of anyone who slowed enough to become a target.

Flying carriages slid between the towers, floating bridges caught the light, and far above all of it the great white spire of the council rose like a blade stood on its end.

Nobody spared the two of them a second glance. That was the thing about a city this size. A boy with a Great Family’s blood and a woman who was one of the last of a dead people could walk through the heart of it among a hundred thousand strangers, and every one of them had somewhere to be and no reason on earth to care who they were pushing past.

”I always forget how much I hate this place,” Rhosyn said at his side, unhurried, black against the colour of the crowd. ”Far too many people, every one of them in a desperate hurry to get somewhere they’ll be miserable the moment they arrive.”

”You could have stayed home.”

”You know I couldn’t stay home,” She didn’t look at him. ”This way.”

”I actually remember where the place is.”

They left the main artery without needing to discuss it, slipping out of the roar and down a side street the crowd had no use for, and another after that, until the noise dropped away behind them by degrees the deeper in they went. Velkaris did that, if you knew where to step. For all its millions, it kept quiet pockets folded away inside itself, corners the current never reached.

Neither of them needed directions. They had walked this route before, and when the nameless door finally appeared between two unmarked buildings, Trafalgar knew they had arrived.

The lack of a sign was the first confirmation. Places that wanted business announced themselves. This one wanted the opposite.

The second was the old gouge scored deep along the beam above the frame, carved straight through timber no ordinary blade could have marked. Caelvyrn had left it years ago with the tip of one horn, making some point neither of them remembered anymore. The edges had gone dark and smooth with age.

Inside was low and warm and near empty, a handful of rough tables, the air thick with woodsmoke and something slow-cooked over a fire. A place for the few who came on purpose and no one who came by accident. The keeper behind the counter, an old dwarf who had never once asked Trafalgar a question he didn’t already know the answer to, glanced up, took in who’d walked in, and went back to her work.

Two of them were already at the big table near the back, and the room arranged itself around them the way rooms do around people who carry more weight than they let on.

Caelvyrn saw him first. He wore the form he kept for company, tall and long-limbed, the two horns curving back from his temples, purple eyes bright with the same easy mischief they always carried. His black hair was longer than the last time Trafalgar had seen it, pulled back into a loose tail, and he lit up at the sight of him like a man greeting his favourite joke walking in off the street.

The one beside him didn’t light up at anything.

Dravok sat with the stillness of a mountain that had decided, for the moment, to be a man. Huge, and old, and every inch of him carrying the weight of it. Brown hair gone grey in streaks, pale green eyes that held no expression and lost nothing for the lack of one, a body written over with the pale seams of more scars than one life had a right to gather. He said nothing. He didn’t need to. The whole room had dropped a shade quieter the moment Trafalgar walked in, and none of it had a thing to do with the dragon grinning beside him.

”Well, would you look at that.” Caelvyrn spread his hands as Trafalgar entered, delight written openly across his face. ”The prodigal Morgain returns. Alive, whole, and only several weeks later than anyone with manners would consider reasonable.”

”Caelvyrn.” Trafalgar crossed the room, the corner of his mouth lifting. ”I see Silas hasn’t managed to kill his babysitter yet.”

Caelvyrn’s grin narrowed.

”Babysitter.”

”That is what you’ve been doing, isn’t it?”

”I have been teaching a young dragon to control powers that could reduce half a district to ash if mishandled.”

Trafalgar pulled out a chair. ”So, babysitting.”

Rhosyn sat beside him without ceremony.

Caelvyrn stared at Trafalgar for a long moment, then leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. ”I spend two years making regular journeys to Euclid to teach that boy how not to burn your mansion down, and this is the respect I receive.”

”How is he?”

The question came more seriously, and Caelvyrn’s irritation eased with it.

”Better,” he said. ”Far better than when we began. He still loses control when his emotions get ahead of him, but he recognizes the signs now. Most of the time, he can stop the power before it takes hold completely.” A faint trace of pride entered his voice. ”He learns quickly.”

Trafalgar nodded once. ”I noticed.”

”Of course you noticed. You were standing there for half the lessons.”

”Usually while you shouted at him.”

”I was instructing him.”

”You threatened to hang him upside down from a tower.”

”He listened after that.”

Trafalgar settled into the chair. ”Thank you for helping him.”

The dragon regarded him suspiciously, as though searching for the insult hidden beneath the words.

When none came, he gave a satisfied nod. ”Better.”

His expression shifted a moment later, some of the humor thinning from it.

”You do remember that you owe me one.”

”I remember.”

”Good. I have a long memory.”

”You remind me every time we meet.”

”And yet the debt remains. Clearly, the reminders are necessary.”

Before Trafalgar could answer, a low voice cut across the room.

”You took your time.”

Dravok had not moved throughout the exchange. He sat at the other end of the table, pale green eyes fixed upon Trafalgar, his expression giving nothing away.

Trafalgar met his stare.

Dravok leaned forward slightly.

”I hope you’re ready.”