My Hero

AN- Not gonna lie. I think this fic is cracky. But I'm rather in love with it and the plot...and yes, you all must suffer through some plot first before we get to the smut ^^; It will be here around chapter three or four though! Anyways, read, review, enjoy! And any readers of Control Freak I must apologize, it's currently on hiatus until I get my other comp working again. Now...to the story!

My Hero

It wasn't as easy as it used to be, this whole business of slaying a dragon. Back in the old days, the days of his extremely great grandfather, it was just a simple slash, hack, dodge, burn, thrust and BAM! The dragon was slayed, the damsel was saved, and the townspeople erected a statue in your honor. Not like now-a-days.
For one thing there was the Dragon Conservation Guild. A group of, as both his fathers had put it, annoying tree-hugging faggots who'd just as soon eat a humanoid as a leaf so long as it didn't have leathery wings and a perchance for roasting virgins alive. It wasn't an official, or even very well thought of group, but their habit of burning to the ground towns that offed their own local draconians without probable cause had made modern heroes cautious.
Then there was the technology. Sure, it was all fine and dandy to have your high tech weapons and state of the arc security systems and defenses to amplify your magic, but it quickly became a nuisance once the dragons began investing small portions of their hoard in the best defense systems gold could buy. Leaping heroically over a bottomless pit was one thing, but leaping away from one that just happened to appear under you was a bit trickier.
These were just two of the reasons Cuan D'Andler's parents didn't want him running off to play hero just quite yet. Sure, technically this was the reason one of the king's bastard sons had spent most of his life living with what would almost be considered 'middle class' patrons if they owned one less house or seven less servants, sure he had been training for this future for practically his entire life (well, for four years now but who was counting?) and yeah, okay, so maybe most other royal Hero Sons started out on their own when they were sixteen and Cuan had turned seventeen almost three months ago...but those weren't really valid reasons, were they? After all...those arrangements had really been made in haste when it was finally accepted that he would never be good enough with numbers to become a merchant or enough of a team player to play any sports. Even if he chose to do nothing he would never be found wanting. Close royal ties tended to take care of things like food, shelter, servants and other bare essentials.
Cuan was a good son. And as such he had listened politely to his parents arguments, attempted to rationalize with them, acquiesced gracefully when they wouldn't rescind their verdict, and was now in the process of tying a length of rope to his bedpost and throwing the other end out the window. On his pillow was a note;

Sorry guys, but I'm a hero. -C.

It was dark out tonight, the moon partially hidden by lazy clouds drifting across the sky. A good night to make his grand escape. Tugging experimentally on the rope, the boy assured himself that if the rope broke or untied, it would at least be when he was a few feet closer to the ground.

“What're you doing?” A whisper from behind made Cuan turn around and start, nearly falling out of the window he had been gazing down through if the intruder hadn't lunged forward to grab his wrist and tug him forward. Both boys ended up in a pile on the floor, laughing as quietly as they could.

“Thanks.” Cuan sat back up off of the slighter boy and slowly got to his feet, taking the other's hand and pulling him up as well.

“Are you okay?” Conroy asked, looking around the room then at once again at the princling, a small frown barely visible on his shadowed face. “You're running away?”

“Me? Nah.” Cuan grinned guiltily, “I'm just practicing my, um, you know, skills for when the parentals finally do let me become a hero.”

“You're wearing a backpack.”

“It just has rocks. For strength training.”

“You're wallet's in your pocket.”

“Well if I get hungry I might want to get something.”

“There's a note on your bed.” Conroy and Cuan both ran for the bed, Conroy diving onto it first and grabbing the note. “That doesn't look like a love note to the maid.”

“Okay, yeah. Maybe I am.” Cuan grabbed at the paper in Conroy's hand. “You can't stop me, though! I have to do this.”

“Stop you?” Conroy cocked his head to the side. Sure it was dark, but he had sort of hoped that Cuan didn't think he just wore boots and gloves to bed. “I want to come too.”

“...you do?” Cuan grinned in spite of himself. “But, um, you're kind of the Heir Apparent. I don't think my brother would wanna go through all the hassle of everyone saying he had you offed so he could rule singularly in peace.”

“Actually...my mom and your dad both asked me to accompany you when you went off,” Conroy said. “I mean, they don't know you're running off but they did guess quite well.”

There was a silence punctuated only by crickets.

“So they...”

“Yes.”

“And they're letting me...”

“Yes.”

“And my super-secret-awesome escape is...”

“Expected.”

Another silence.

“Oh.” Cuan bit his lower lip. “Well then did you by any chance grab my...”

“Here you go.” Conroy ran to the doorway, coming back with a small metal rod and a dufflebag much larger than Cuan's backpack. “Ready?”


“Let's go.” Cuan paused, “So they really knew I was going to go?”

“Your father had a suspicion, somewhere between the fourth and tenth beer he was telling my mother something about 'kindred spirits' and 'his father's son' and 'what does the queen know, anyways?'. I don't think the other ones knew.” Conroy got a grip on the rope and hopped through the window. “So are we really going to do this?”

“Not if you're blocking the escape route all night.”

“See you on the otherside.” Conroy gave a quick wave before beginning his journey down the castle walls.

Cuan looked around the room one last time. It was nothing special, really. Dark stone walls, two tapestries, a four poster bed and a spot on his dresser where a TV used to be until a slight accident involving him, his older brother Steph, and his older brother's foot put the thing out of commission. Still, it was probably a lot more comfortable then sleeping under the open night sky on lush green grass full of bugs and rocks. Ah, the price one paid for glory. Muttering a quiet farewell, he walked to the window and grabbed the rope. The rubber soles of his shoes hit the wall with more noise then he'd prefer, but so far there were no cries of “Hey! You there!” Or the sharp feeling of tazers hitting his skin and knocking him to the ground. His room was only four stories off the ground, so with some luck he could easily survive with just a broken bone or five, but he'd rather not test that theory.

“Hurry up.” Conroy hissed from the ground.

“Shut up,” Cuan began his descent, “Go get the drakes or something, will you? I'll meet you at the stables.” Eventually. He always forgot he was afraid of heights until he was looking down from a turret or repelling down a castle wall. Conversely, if he took too long and Conroy came back with Reginald and Trinity and he hadn't moved from the spot, he might never be able to live it down.

He took a breath, and pushed off the wall once.

For Honor.

Twice.

For Glory.

Third time.

For Adventure.

Fourth time.

For Hot Guys.

Fifth Time.

Hot guys still seemed like a pretty good reason.


Six feet from the ground Cuan decided he had enough imaginary hot guys and simply dropped to the ground and rolled with what could only be called grace in a night as dark as this one. Well, so far things were going swimmingly. Quickly checking inside his backpack to make sure that nothing was obviously broken he ran silently through the courtyard, ignoring the intricate cement pathways crisscrossing throughout the grounds in favor of running straight towards the stables, where a brief flash of bright light followed by a dimmer, steadier one indicated that Conroy had woken up the drakes.

“They ready?” Cuan ran up the steps and through the doorless doorway, for the first time that night stepping into light that let him be seen properly. He wasn't an extraordinary looking lad, short and shaggy dark auburn hair that could have used a cut last week, eyes that were somewhat of a dirty green and set in a face that wasn't that pale but not that tan either. The baggy clothes hanging off his skinny body were non-descript, a plain black t-shirt and equally plain blue jeans, his sneakers were made of genuine leather but covered easily by the pant fabric. Theoretically, he cleaned up quite well, and pictures from important functions he couldn't get out of were somewhere in the castle as evidence, but until those relics were discovered there was no proof that he could ever pass himself off as something regal.

He looked past the slowly burning thatch pile set in the middle of the otherwise stone room to see two of the drakes, one dark red and one dark blue, with their heads buried in the feeding tank. Drakes were interesting creatures. Leading scientists and alchemists alike both agreed that, looking back at their evolutionary stem, drakes were something like the retarded cousin of the dragon. Reaching up to ten feet in length and about as wide as a horse, drakes were covered in a chitinous shell broken up into anywhere from 7 to 14 plates, plus the one encasing their snake-like heads. Two sets of tiny, vestigal wings, on near the anterior and one near the posterior, seemed to serve no purpose on the body other than to look comical. Drakes didn't have legs, but they didn't fly, they simply hovered off the ground.

“Almost, but I think we should take a few extra bags of feed.” Conroy appeared from the shadows carrying two sacks labeled FUEL. He was a small boy, at least three inches shorter than Cuan, with white blonde hair neatly trimmed just below his earlobes and bangs that suggested they might like to obscure his bright green right eye. Where Cuan could be considered skinny, Conroy was nothing short of slender in every sense of the word, hinting at the elf in his lineage and combined with his pale skin made him look delicate. He was wearing clothes similar to that of the elder's, but the way he wore them in a dignified sort of manner that implied that he wore them only because silk was not good enough. Fitting them in the saddle bag of the dark blue drake and securing his dufflebag tightly around one of the spiny protrusions coming out of the plate closest to the head he mounted Trinity, easing him back out of the feeding tank.

“This is going to be awesome.” Cuan grinned, hopping onto Reginald and clicking his tongue to get the drake to follow Conroy's out the door. Together the boy's rode in the shadows away from the main gate in favor of the eastern wall. Pulling their steeds to a stop, the boys looked up in unison, admiring the way the ancient stone seemed to stretch indefinitely into the heavens and then beyond.

“So are we really going to do this?” Conroy whispered again.

“Yup.” Cuan clicked his tongue again, gripping the protrusions on Reginald's back lightly as he reached out once more for the mental connection between them, a basic tie forcing empath-like abilities onto both parties and allowing Cuan to tell his steed to back up so they could shoot straight forward into solid stone. “One...”

“Two...” Conroy backed Trinity up beside Reginald, glancing sideways and Cuan.
“Hey? What are you two doing?” A shout from behind them triggered the boys' last nerves and they both broke out laughing. Without bothering to look back at the voice they raced forward towards the wall.