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The blades of the chopper thumped over head as they flew though the night, the occasional lights from small towns flickering below as they flew over, the blinking of the running lights for the chopper the only other lights on this moonless night.

Ryan leaned against Tanner and looked out the window wordlessly. There was very little chatter over the coms, Kheros was mostly silent, Sulvius only occasionally giving instructions on direction and timing. Ryan glanced up into the cockpit and smiled to himself. Kheros was a very reassuring figure.

He sighed and his mother reached over and patted his back and he smiled up at her, then looked over where his father was sitting, stone faced once more.

The whole thing was all very stressful for a young dragon. For that matter it would probably be hard on any dragon; even Sulvius was looking worse for wear. Sulvius decided to go with them to help support Ryan and the young prince as grateful for the company. Adamas had given him the instructions on how to get into Cochise.

Irian stayed with Norian, Adamas, and Mikail to attempt to straighten things out along with Isabelle who had stayed to back her son, her presence being well known amongst the council and respected.

Cladden wanted to accompany him along with Pax but Adamas told them to stay put and Ryan didn’t like that one bit. He missed having Pax on his shoulder giving him advice, telling him what was going on, and keeping him calm. The tiny dragons presence was like an anchor in a storm: a small thing and yet it could hold a large ship in place.

He looked out the window again with a dull stare, his head leaning against Tanner’s shoulders and chest, not really paying any mind to anything going on around him, the thumping of the blade producing a soporific sound that thankfully blanketed out a lot of the franticness that had gone on in the last several hours.

Tanner sat back in his sat, also looking out the window, but occasionally looking down at Ryan with a worried expression. He rubbed the boy’s back from time to time but Ryan scarcely gave any indication that he noticed.

Ryan’s mother looked on with a great deal of worry, frustration, and what could only be described as jealousy, no matter how she wanted to label it something nicer like concern or care.

She raised Ryan, cared for him, loved him, did everything for him since the day he hatched. She was his mother as surely as if she were a dragon.

She took care of him when he was sick, infrequent those times were, cleaned his scrapes and cuts, stood up for him the the bullies would bother him, reassured him, encouraged him, and, though she didn’t care to admit it, protected the boy from his father when Allen was having trouble relating to Ryan and his struggles being a dragon in a human world.

Allen had an unfortunate tendency to treat Ryan a s human with some dragon parts and that almost never worked out right. Ryan was not human, at all, and you had to make allowances for his draconic instincts and thoughts. Mostly he acted human enough to be understandable from a human perspective, but there were always those times…

Allen felt he had to protect Ryan from everything and that included Ryan himself at times. He had gone too far, too often, and it had made Ryan timid, nervous, and even paranoid at times and seemingly frightened of seemingly his own shadow. Perhaps worse, Ryan tried to deny his draconic instincts and tendencies to make his father happy. It was not possible of course but he tried even when it frustrated him.

Now she watched this Tanner, this interloper almost, sitting there with her son leaning against him, taking comfort from him, and “bound” to him, whatever that meant. She had been suspicious of Tanner form the start, worried at his intentions towards Ryan, the amount of care he seemed to lavish on her son, and the level of devotion he displayed.

Tanner assure her all he wanted as friendship and to help Ryan with some of the troubles he was having being a dragon. She trusted him then but now? She wasn’t sure anymore. It seemed all to likely to her that everything he had done was to create this “bond” on purpose despite his protests otherwise.

And it made the dragons nervous and upset which didn’t help at all.

The healer said that Ryan would not tolerate separation and seemed to be saying that Ryan could actually come to harm if it were to happen. She didn’t have time to ask him for more information before they were rushed on to the helicopter and wasn’t sure any information would have been forthcoming if she had asked.

Ryan throwing a fit, saying he would rather stay and fight and even possibly die rather than leave Tanner behind was unnerving.

And if she were struggling with all of this so badly just how much worse was it for Allen?

Sulvius drowsed in his seat after giving Kheros the final set of directions, occasionally looking over at Tanner and Ryan. There was nothing to be done about it, he knew, at least not for now. Later? He wasn’t sure anything could be done even then.

He knew very little about the bonding instinct or what it entailed. Privately he thought that Tanner would be just fine as Ryan’s bondmate, or whatever you called it, and things would probably work fine if the bond did continue even if you could break it which he had doubts of.

Personally, even if Tanner and Ryan would do well together, he didn’t like the idea of Ryan, or any dragon for that matter, being bound to any human. Even so there were far worse people in the world than Tanner.

He discussed Tanner and his family with Norian a little before they were forced to leave and even taking in consideration Norian’s respect and devotion to the Wilberforce family, Tanner was a great human and dragon friend, one of the most dedicated.

Even still, Ryan was the prince, the last of his breed, and the council was going to have enough trouble with him being raised by humans to say nothing of being bound to one. That along with million of other issues that would surely crop up with an untested, untested, and almost undragonlike prince.

Sulvius had to admit it: while dragons had instincts and Ryan was certainly a dragon with those instincts, it was all too obvious that Ryan had no notion of dragons, who to act, what to say, or what was normal. It was going to be hard on him.

Sulvius sighed quietly. He had sworn to himself that he would See Ryan though all of this and help him no matter the cost, but he worried that it would not be enough.

He looked out the window as the landscape rolled past, lost in his thoughts.