Now that Caldor and Idriseth are together, everything seems to be going right for once. Cal is still bitter and angry after what happened to his guildmates, but he tries to put it all aside, move on, and focus on the new life path that's in front of...
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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.
