Years of deeply ingrained habit drove Anders var Ghain from his bed, across the icy stone floor of his chambers, and into the bathroom to begin his morning ablutions just after dawn.

The motions of washing and shaving his face came automatically to him, so much so an outside observer might think him still asleep despite the steadiness of his hand as it wielded a straight razor along the planes of his face. By the time he rinsed the lather from his jaw and leaned over the sink to check his handiwork in the mirror the man appeared more awake, though he looked better rested than he actually felt. A cup of kahv, he decided, would set him right, even if that did require he leave his room and make his way down two flights of stairs to the mess hall to acquire it.

Well, he was hungry anyways.

Anders left the mirror to finish getting ready but was delayed by several minutes when he couldn’t find the doublet he’d been of a mind to wear. He had others, but the man had always been the sort to be irked by an unsolved mystery─ particularly when said mystery involved his favorite doublet, so he continued to search anyways.

“Ghain!” Anders shouted when he’d successfully turned his chambers upside down without a sign of what he was looking for. “Have you seen my red doublet?”

Outside the large double doors that occupied one wall of the room, something immense shifted and a low, rumbling voice answered, “The one you singed last week?”

Normally the risk of burning was minimal thanks to the armor or riding leathers Anders wore but he’d eschewed them that day and, well… paid the price.

Anders heaved a sigh. “That’s right, I sent it to Alanna to get it mended, didn’t I?” he said and turned to look up at the other occupant of the broad balcony attached to his chambers.

Ghain, proud son of Marilderland’s Torsay dragon clan, was over fifty feet in length from nose to tail with a thick crown of horns that curled out and back from his wide skull in a broad arc. Like most Marilderish dragons he sported armored scales in a striking shade of burnished gold, though jewel tones were the most common color range in his clan. Being so large and with such a heavily muscled build, Ghain’s broad wings were truly massive, even clamped against his sides like they were now as he reclined on the balcony. They were easily a hundred feet across at full spread which left him a slow flier─ but one with unmatched endurance.

“You did,” the dragon remarked and turned his head to regard his partner with one huge yellow eye. “She was not pleased with you.”

Anders grimaced as he recalled his younger sister’s irritation at the extra work she’d have to do to repair the doublet she’d made for him in the first place. Alanna made her living as a professional seamstress in town, happily single and running her own business making fine clothes for the wealthy clientèle she’d managed to cultivate over the years while he and their older sister, Tamora, had been training as dragon riders. Honestly, Anders was lucky she agreed to sew for him at all considering how in demand her services were.

Another shiver racked the man and he hurried back inside to fetch a different doublet (also made by his younger sister), though this one was a more subtle brown with gold embroidery to compliment his dragon’s scales. Suitably dressed, he returned to the balcony and asked, “Morning flight before I go down to breakfast?” as he shielded his eyes with one hand and gazed out over the fantastic view their perch afforded them. “Seems a shame to let the good weather go to waste.”

It was summer in Marilderland, not that a stranger might guess it by the temperature at their current altitude, but that meant frequent storms and miserable flying conditions when duty forced riders out and about contrary to their wishes. The dragons barely noticed, of course, unless the winds turned particularly turbulent and made flying a trial even for them.

Ghain cast his gaze skyward then rumbled his agreement and levered himself to his feet. While the dragon stretched, Anders stepped over to the hook by the door to fetch his goggles and flight cap, deciding to forgo the effort of outfitting his partner with the usual riding straps in light of the good weather and the planned brevity of their outing. It was something he’d have frowned at in a trainee but turned a blind eye to in more experienced riders─ mostly to save himself being a total hypocrite.

Cap and goggles firmly in place to keep the wind at bay, Anders turned back to the dragon, who had crouched down low, forearm out, so his partner could mount up. The steps from forearm, to elbow, then shoulder came as natural as breathing to the rider now, as did the final, precarious swing of a leg up and over Ghain’s spine to sit in the hollow just before his wing joints, though that hadn’t always been the case. The dragon allowed Anders to settle himself then strode towards the edge of the balcony and stepped off into an easy glide to save any unnecessary jostling. Like all riders, Anders was proficient in magic and knew the necessary spells to save himself an untimely splattering on the ground below, but he’d always preferred a good cup of kahv to a dose of adrenaline to wake him up in the morning.

Still, it was a rush the man was sure he’d never quite grow accustomed to when Ghain’s immense wings opened and caught the air with a snap, arresting their brief downward descent and carrying them effortlessly away from the balcony.

Named for the dragon clan the first human settlers of Marilderland had made a pact with generations before, the capital city of Torsay sprawled below them, still caught up in the shadows of night cast by the mountains that loomed around it on three sides. It was a large, prosperous place, brimming with life, and even at this early hour Anders could make out people in the streets below when he leaned forward for a look. He smiled to himself and thought of his sister, Alanna, who was certainly not among them. She never had been a morning person and made it her business not to open the doors of her shop before the sun was well above the horizon.

Taking a deep breath of the brisk, clear air, Anders twisted slightly and looked behind them to admire the impressive, tiered facade of White Cliff, home to Marilderland’s Dragon Legions. It fairly hummed with activity as glittering dragons stirred on their balconies and their riders ousted themselves from bed to meet the day, giving it the semblance of a tremendous hive populated by particularly colorful bees.

Anders had only seen the latter a few times in passing, though she’d attended his promotion to captain of the Gold Legion two years before and been so gracious as to offer her congratulations. Her election to the position by the council some five years ago had come as something of an upset in the power balance among the nobility, but he’d never quite pinned down why. Internal politics affected Anders very little, and while Tamora would probably scold him for his disinterest, his day-to-day concerns took precedence and he focused more on the riders and dragons under his command.

The captain sighed and leaned backwards to lay between Ghain’s shoulders, hands behind his head and legs hooked over the dragon’s wing joints to keep himself in place. Anders wriggled in place to make himself comfortable, automatically settling into a position that kept Ghain’s armored scales from digging into his back, then smiled to himself as he gazed up at the vast blue sky overhead. “Hey, it’s our anniversary today,” he said and gave his partner a hearty smack forceful enough the dragon would register it through his thick scales.

“Is it?” Ghain asked, sounding a little surprised, but Anders wasn’t offended by his forgetting. Powerful and intelligent though they were, dragons were very much creatures of the now, giving little thought to dates beyond how the shifting seasons affected where they went to hunt. It was one of the reasons they’d agreed to their pact with humans when they arrived on the Eastern continent in the first place. An acute perception of time and their ability to perform magic had made humans valuable allies to the dragons nearly a thousand years ago when they’d needed aid combating the dark forces that had lurked beneath the surface of their lands.

Elves, beautiful and terrible, had first emerged from their caves centuries before humans arrived on the continent, and as far as anyone knew, had been wiped out in the years since. Knowledgeable in the art of magic, their offer of friendship to the dragons had been welcome as the dragons had none of their own. The two races lived in peace for some time but, eventually, the elves were no longer happy to live in the dragon’s lands, wanting them for their own to do with as they pleased. Even then the dragons might have granted them the lands they desired if not for the fact that what the elves ‘pleased’ was to drain the very life from the world around them, though to what end, was lost to time.

The dragons, of course, confronted the interlopers, but were driven back by the elves’ magic as the land began to die around them. All had seemed lost until humans, also users of magic and newly arrived from the West, offered their allegiance to the dragons in exchange for a new place to call home.

The rest, as they said, was history.

“Yep, fourteen years today,” Anders said, smile widening into a grin as he remembered the day they’d been magically bonded to one another all those years ago.

Plenty of young people dreamed of becoming a dragon rider, though not all were eligible. The first hurdle to entry was to be at least eighteen; the second was an aptitude for magic. The vast majority of humans were capable of performing at least minor spells, particularly with the assistance of an appropriate magnifying gemstone, but being a rider required something greater. If a person measured up, however, and could pass the entry level fitness exam, they became official tyros and spent the next two years undergoing an intense training regimen. They learned lance, bow, and sword in their martial training, on top of a thorough education in magic, tactics, and etiquette; the latter of which Anders had been convinced was pointless at the time, but in retrospect had to admit he’d used far more than he’d anticipated over the years.

It was a demanding program and dropouts were common, but those that persisted graduated from tyro to apprentice with an established rider trusted by their captain to take on and train future riders. They accompanied their master everywhere throughout their duties, assisting them in the care of their gear and any other tasks while continuing the education they began as tyros. After a year and a day in service to a master, the apprentices were eligible to bond with a dragon; though only if a dragon would have them.

Despite all their impressive physical capabilities, dragons were not particularly magical creatures. In fact, magic tended to roll off of them like water off a duck’s back unless the casting was extraordinarily powerful, and there weren’t many individual magic users that could manage the feat. The one curious exception to the rule was their innate ability to sense compatible souls, whether it be in a lifemate among their own kind, or a human partner to live and fight alongside for the rest of their days.

Anders still remembered the day he’d met Ghain like it was yesterday. Twenty-one years old and wracked by nerves as he waited alongside his fellow apprentices for the dragons to arrive, convinced his knees would give out the moment they came into view and landed at the top of White Cliff in a riot of colors and rustling leather wings. The clan always sent younger dragons to join the legions, same as the humans did, but Ghain had been on the edge of aging out altogether when their eyes met across the open ground and the dragon had known he’d finally met his match.

Being human, Anders hadn’t felt a thing, but he’d burst into hysterical laughter when Ghain had approached and declared that they would be bonded, though he’d quickly caught himself and managed a bow and an introduction. Luckily, such reactions weren’t uncommon, not that his bonded had ever let him live it down. The ceremony to bind them together had been surprisingly simple; an oath of allegiance and a runic spell drawn in their own blood to make the magic stick… and then a rush of recognition as Anders was suddenly able to feel their connection for the very first time.

It lingered all the time, now, a faint, reassuring hum just behind his heart that let the captain feel particularly powerful emotional reactions from his dragon. It was a comforting presence Anders couldn’t imagine being without now that he had it.

Beneath his back, Anders felt Ghain rumble thoughtfully. “It doesn’t feel that long.”

The captain laughed and pushed himself upright to better admire the view as Ghain angled his wings and leaned into a slow turn to bring them back around towards the cliffs. “That’s what you say every year,” Anders said and chuckled as he gave his partner’s shoulder another fond slap. “I know what you mean, though. Feels like yesterday to me too, sometimes.”

The sun had finally risen enough for its light to spill over the mountaintops and across the city below, casting it in warm, golden tones that put Anders in mind of Ghain’s own scales, which fairly glowed in the dawn. The captain admired the view for a minute longer, then leaned forward a little and said, “Lets head in; I’m dying for a cup of kahv and it’ll all be gone before I get any if we don’t hurry.”