One of Caldor's favorite things to do was watching Idri sleep. Not that he did it on purpose, but Idri tended to wake up later than Cal did. And given that the dragon was a cuddler, to put it mildly, it wasn't like Caldor could get up without waking him up, anyway.

Idri claimed that the reason he always kept his arms around Caldor's chest like that, along with a wing draped over half of Cal's body, was for protection against the cold, but Caldor wasn't buying it. It was very effective—he wouldn't deny that—but he didn't believe that it was the only reason.

Cal smiled as Idri nuzzled his shoulder with his nose, letting out a deep sigh and continuing to slumber. The dragon liked to sleep a lot, Cal had noticed, and he wasn't sure if it was because of all the traveling they'd done over the last few days, or if he was naturally like that and hadn't done so back at the fort because he hadn't trusted Cal enough to let him out of his sight.

That thought was still a sore spot, mostly because it still made Cal feel guilty, but they were past that already, and all Caldor needed to push it away was to remind himself of that.

They had gotten on well so far, with only the occasional grumpiness from Idri, but Cal didn't think he'd had any part in causing that. He suspected that Idri was just like that, and it was very cute to see him get huffy over minor inconveniences like bad weather, so Cal didn't mind.

In fact, he couldn't remember ever being so consistently happy before. It always got muddied by his grief over the deaths of his friends, and his fury towards Augerill, but Idri tended to very easily manage to distract him from it, just by being near him.

And the fact that Idri kept changing from his true form to his human-ish one meant that he generally didn't bother properly dressing himself, which was quite distracting, too. Idri didn't seem to realize that, though, which begged the question if the dragon had walked around his home naked prior to Caldor showing up.

Cal wasn't sure how he felt about that, but parts of him certainly did. He'd better stop thinking about this while he still could.

Next to him, Idri let out a long yawn, his hold on Cal's chest tightening, but he didn't open his eyes. Caldor doubted he was still asleep, but he wouldn't rush him. It wasn't as though they had any specific deadline to meet.

He wasn't even sure where exactly they had been traveling to, to be honest. Idri had just told him that he was planning on following through on turning himself fully human-looking, and he needed some specific ingredient to cast the spell.

Cal supposed he agreed that it would be more practical if Idri looked human because then they wouldn't have much of a problem visiting towns, especially now that they needed to lay low, but he also stood by thinking that it wouldn't have been that much of a problem if Idri looked like he did now.

So he had horns and wings. So what? People were scared of dragons, sure, but they didn't know they could turn into semi-human forms. Caldor sure hadn't. They could just pretend Idri was a friendly, magical creature no one had ever heard of and they could probably get a pint without much of an issue. Especially since they were barely on Augerill's land anymore, and so the risk of running into his people was almost nonexistent.

But Caldor understood this was just something Idri felt he had to do, and so he wouldn't try to change his mind. It wasn't like they had anything else to do, anyway, and while Caldor might enjoy spending time with Idri more by doing something other than traveling, he didn't mind that much.

He would miss the beautiful wings and scales, though. Caldor realized that this would only be an illusion and that Idri would still look the same underneath it, but it was still a shame—he'd really come to like Idri's dragon features.

How was Idri planning on keeping him warm when he didn't have his wings anymore? Caldor couldn't help but chuckle to himself at that thought, to which Idri grumbled something into his shoulder.

"Sorry, didn't hear you," Caldor told the dragon, barely managing to hide his grin when Idri opened his eyes and lifted his head so he could look at Cal.

"I said that you are loud," the dragon complained quietly, a look of annoyance on his face. Then he yawned again and put his head back on Cal's shoulder, making no move to let go of him. "But I suppose I already knew that."

"I'm not loud, this cave is just echoey," Caldor joked, knowing it would only make Idri more annoyed. Well, it would make him pretend to be more annoyed, at least. Cal had seen a smile tugging on Idri's lips while acting irritated by whatever Caldor was saying or doing plenty of times, so Cal knew very well he was enjoying it to some extent.

"Anyway, you're one to talk," Cal continued, giving Idri a kiss. "That roar of yours could deafen anyone."

Idri shook his head, sitting up and finally letting go of Caldor. "Almost as if size plays a role in how loud a creature is."

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Caldor smirked at the dragon, propping himself up on his elbows as he tried to ignore how sore his back was from sleeping on the hard ground of the small cave Idri had found for them yesterday. "Well, what doesn't size play a ro—"

The rest of the sentence turned into a muffled noise of surprise as Idri captured his lips in a kiss, just as deep and intoxicating as ever. Cal's eyes slid shut as he followed suit, kissing back and running his hand through Idri's hair.

Idri had learned this trick to shut Caldor up very early on, but Cal couldn't complain about it. The only downside was that with Idri there was usually no such thing as a casual kiss, and Cal tended to get a bit too excited from it. And since Idri wanted to get wherever he was going as fast as possible, they hadn't had much time to—

That thought died in his brain the moment Idri pushed his hand into Caldor's pants and grasped his cock, making Cal moan into the kiss. He hadn't been expecting that at all.

He could barely manage to kiss back at that point, holding onto Idri's shoulders as the dragon pushed Cal's pants down a bit to get better access, all the while continuing to stroke him. Once he had Caldor exposed, the dragon buried one hand in Cal's hair instead, his tongue pushing into Caldor's unprotesting mouth. Cal panted through his nose as Idri swallowed all of his whimpers and moans of pleasure, never letting go for even a second.

Cal wanted to touch Idri back, make him feel good too, but at the pace the dragon was going, all Caldor could do was hold onto him, and let him do whatever he wanted.

It didn't take long for Caldor to finish, and when he did his vision went dark for a second, his mind a disoriented mess in an intoxicating haze of pleasure. He barely realized that Idri had broken their kiss as he breathed hard, trying to get a hold of himself.

"Will you be quiet now?" Idri asked, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Uh-huh," Caldor replied in an embarrassingly strained voice, trying to get his breathing under control. He didn't have it in him to even disagree at the moment, let alone roll his eyes, though what Idri had said was deserving of both.

Idri smiled at him in that gentle, subtle way he always did. The dragon usually moved his lips only a little, instead somehow managing to express it all with his eyes, and it never failed at making Cal's heart race.

But then, his heart was already doing that right now.

As Idri got up, turned around, and walked a bit away from him as he always did when he was about to shapeshift, Cal took a moment to trail his eyes over the dragon's broad shoulders, drinking in the way the muscles on his back moved as he walked, the way his beautiful, golden wings swayed....

Cal truly was impossibly lucky. It still blew his mind.

He watched as Idri changed into his true form, becoming so large that he barely fit inside the small cave. Caldor immediately became distracted by the way the few rays of morning light coming in were lighting up Idri's scales, the reflections from them bouncing around and making the cave walls glisten.

Caldor couldn't help but grin when Idri put his massive front claws as far in front of himself as he could and stretched his back like a cat, yawning widely. It was much more adorable than it had any right to be.

Caldor finally climbed to his feet as he became far too aware that he was still partly naked, quickly pulling his pants up again.

"Come, beloved," Idri said, his voice deep and loud in the small space as he gently nudged Cal's shoulder with his snout. Caldor tried his best not to blush at the pet name and failed spectacularly. Idri had started to call him that almost immediately, but so far he used it sparingly, and it never failed to make Caldor flustered.

"If we hurry, we may reach Zarleth by evening."

Caldor blinked, realizing that this was the first time Idri had given an actual name to the location or person he was trying to reach. He was guessing it was a person, though he had no way of knowing.

"So, who or what exactly is Zarleth?" Cal asked as he grabbed the spellbook and Idri's robes before climbing onto Idri's back. He only yesterday finally figured out how to do it without Idri helping him, or falling while trying to get up there, which was sort of embarrassing, but Idri hadn't made fun of him for it, at least. It wasn't Cal's fault—Idri's scales were just too smooth to climb up them easily.

There was a slight pause before Idri replied without looking back at Cal. "She is a dragon."

And without explaining further, Idri dashed out of the cave and was airborne before Caldor knew it, forcing him to grab the robes with his other hand to hold onto Idri's neck to avoid risking falling.

He knew that Idri wouldn't let him fall, but that didn't mean Cal wanted to risk it in the first place. It wasn't as though Idri had flown particularly carelessly—it was simply not entirely easy to stay on a dragon's back while said dragon was flying upward.

Cal could have done with a warning, though.

He shot an annoyed look at the back of Idri's head once he stopped ascending, finally letting Caldor get a bit more comfortable. He took the robes into his other hand once more, not wanting to risk losing the garment in the wind. It wasn't too windy right now, but the beating of Idri's wings always managed to cause a lot of it on their own.

Caldor shook his head. Because of the wind, he wouldn't be able to ask Idri about that other dragon, because he wouldn't be able to hear him. That had more than likely been Idri's plan, too. Caldor understood that Idri didn't want to talk about it, but there was not wanting to talk about something, and then there was hiding things. And given that Idri had only mentioned the other dragon's name now made this seem very much like the latter.

Perhaps Idri was hoping that Caldor would forget about it by the time they landed, but if so, he was very wrong. They were definitely going to talk about this. Cal had gotten the impression that other dragons didn't like Idri very much, so if there might be trouble, Caldor wanted to know about it. He didn't want anything happening to Idri, especially not over some spell to make him look human.

Caldor sighed, his annoyance draining out of him to instead be replaced by worry. He ran his hand over the side of Idri's neck, the scales warm and smooth beneath his fingers.

There was nothing he could do right now, aside from yelling at Idri to land, which would hardly help things and probably wouldn't work anyway with how stubborn Idri could be. So all Cal could do was watch the landscape change beneath them and think.

Caldor just wished he could think about anything other than this Zarleth person because he had no information about her to go off of, and yet he couldn't help but worry about what she might do. He did know one thing though—whoever this dragon was, Cal already didn't like her.