Archive of Our Own ^beta

Durin… was.

He couldn’t exactly find the right words to complete that sentence but it wasn’t incorrect or incomplete. Durin was. Period. Durin existed. Something not quite a man or boy. Not a tiny, two-legged screaming crying thing and not quite a village razing, sky-blotting, fire-breathing terror and not quite the soft, round hatchling. Durin was not quite reborn and not quite remade. Not entirely new but not the old thing… things? He once had been.

Horns curved from his head, pushing up through messy dark hair. Wings sprouted from soft, smooth skin on his back. A short spade-tipped tail curled and uncurled restlessly behind him. His fragile human flesh, smooth and unmarked, was marred in places by dark scale. His fingers and toes ended in claws. His eyes were red-gold, slit pupiled, and reptilian on the round face of a young man. HIs teeth were mostly flat, but his canines were maybe longer, sharper, than the teeth he’d seen in the mouths of humans before.

He was clumsy at first, adjusting slowly to life on two legs, upright. He liked having hands, he found. They were easier than wings or claws when holding and manipulating objects. And he liked that people didn’t run away screaming when they saw him. That had been nice when he was made small the first time. It was new and different, but very similar now. Mondstadt was new and familiar at the same time. So much was.

It was confusing.

Durin was confusing.

He would see people and be so consumed with white-hot envy, burning through him, that others had what he wanted, wanted, wanted . And it wasn’t always a mother with her children, or friends-lovers-aquaintances, but even things as simple as a smile between strangers on the street or a nice lunch. He couldn’t just want something without the long dead jealous confused monster grabbing at his mind and screaming. Roaring. A blinding, burning tide of “give me that, I want that.”

Durin didn’t leave his rooms often, which made things better and worse. Better, as he didn’t scream and rage in public over wanting, wanting contact and friendship and someone who cared for him. Worse, because it only made the old dragon he had been, was made half of, was , all the more furious. He had Albedo and Hat Guy and Klee, but it wasn’t enough. Albedo was as welcoming and emotive as a rock, and as warm as the mountain he frequently retreated to. Klee wanted to play all the time, but was disappointed when Durin couldn’t share. The dragon would scream and rage if he tried, and part of him knew that wasn’t the appropriate response, so he would pout and refuse instead. Hat Guy couldn’t stay long, and that was agony. Nobody but Hat Guy got close, understood. He was patient and gentle and didn’t mind how confusing everything was for Durin, with Durin. He didn’t mind that Durin would hold his hand so tight it should hurt, or begged for the affection he saw others receive. Hat Guy was reserved about it, but even if it wasn’t with a warm smile and eagerness, the awkward, stiff hugs soothed the want, want, want . And he listened to Durin trying to explain himself instead of the disappointment and rules he got from Albedo and Klee. Klee would cry, too, which always made Durin cry. He didn’t understand it, but at least Hat Guy would always, always hug him if he cried, and Durin liked those hugs best.

He cried a lot when Hat Guy left, and then some more, because the dragon was angry and wanted and usually Hat Guy helped, but then he was leaving, and the dragon was confused. So Durin was confused.

Albedo wouldn’t let him leave with Hat Guy and Albedo was not swayed by tears or rage. He’d roared, then, a genuine dragon’s roar that had startled both of them. What a sight they’d been. Albedo, as stoic and emotionless as a statue and just as unmoving. And Durin, flushed with rage, tears wet down his cheeks, bearing his flat, human teeth while his tail lashed.

“Use your words,” Albedo said.

“I hate you!” Durin screamed, and wished he still had the bulk to smash Albedo under massive claws, the strength to fly out after Hat Guy. “I don’t want to stay with you, I want my–”

Words failed him and he snarled wordlessly. Because deep down he knew Hat Guy wasn’t his. And anything else that Durin could say in place of “I want Hat Guy” was even more impossible. “I want my mom”? In this form, he had no mother to pine for. Just Albedo and Hat Guy. “I want my own mind”? He had that, he just wished it made sense. He had a body that allowed him to interact and live with humans. If he could behave himself, he could have freedom, too.

Durin just wanted. Anything and everything. He learned how to write so he could send rambling, messy letters to Hat Guy. Begging him to come back and please take Durin with him when he inevitably left again. Or letters to nobody at all, about all the things he wanted, wanted, wanted . Writing it down helped. Seeing “I want a tasty lunch” and “I want a new too just like Klee’s” and “I want someone to hug me and never let go” all written down next to each other, he could show the greedy, lonely, desperate dragon he used to be that some things were worth that burning, raging desire, and others could just… be.

Perhaps that’s what Albedo meant when he kept saying “use your words.” Not that he would ever tell Albedo that writing it all down was helping. But he told Hat Guy, in his letters, which were becoming more composed now. In return, Had Guy was encouraging and even occasionally sent gifts. Sometimes. He sent a hand made doll, and Durin didn’t put it down for a week. It was his and Albedo sighed and said Durin had “backslid on all his progress sharing” when Klee asked to see Durin’s new toy, Durin snarled at her. Durin would share other things. Paper and pencils and crayons and plates and cutlery, bedding and books, the space on the couch, but the doll was his.

If he held it close and closed his eyes and pretended, then it soothed the burning want, want, want ing and the confusing boy-man-dragon-hatchling he now was. 

“Use your words,” Albedo said.

“I want some things.” Everything. “A space where I don't have to share my things. Please.” Everything, I want everything. “I want Hat Guy to come back.”

Albedo was quiet for a while.

“I can get you a chest for your blankets and your doll,” he said. “But Hat Guy is in Sumeru.”

And the boy-dragon-man-hatchling that was Durin understood that Hat Guy was his own person with research and obligations and a life in Sumeru. But the dragon par that reared it’s ugly head and cried and roared and raged didn’t. He wanted, and he wanted Hat Guy back, to himself, because if Durin couldn’t have a mother, he could have Hat Guy. Except he couldn’t have Hat Guy. And he couldn’t quite understand the things he wanted but knew he couldn’t have, not yet. At least when they were things he really, really wanted.

He started going out in the evenings. Slipping out through the window and wandering the lamplit streets. Durin came across all sorts of different people that way. He told Klee about his evening adventures, but swore her to secrecy. She liked hearing about his escapades, so the condition was that he’d keep telling her about them as long as she didn’t tell Albedo. 

While out, he talked to knights and adventurers who sometimes offered him food or drinks, safe in their bubbles of light and company. In exchange, he’d sit on the edge of their warmth and listen to their grand tales. They called him “dragon boy” and he didn’t correct them.

“What do you want?” He asked one night, when some knights had pulled him in, to their table. “Use your words.”

They’d laughed, boisterous, before going quieter. Calls for more drinks or for women became more serious.

“I want to start carving again. I enjoyed handicrafts, as a boy. I made a spoon in the field last year and it was the first thing I’d made in years.”

“I want to read better. Lisa scares me, though.”

“I want to get married.”

“I want to see my father. I’d like to apologize to him.”

Durin didn’t respond when they asked him, in turn, what he wanted. And he didn’t tell Klee about that night’s exchange. Or any other times he asked people what they wanted.

He was up on a roof one night, pleasantly fuzzy-headed and mulling over the answers he’d received, hugging his doll, when he met someone new. A man in an owl mask hopped up onto the roof next to him.

“Hello,” Durin said, because snarling that the roof was his was impolite, and the alcohol slowed his thoughts enough that he was able to reign in his first dragonish impulses.

“Hello?” The stranger-owl-man said.

“I’m Durin. Durin. Durin. What do you want?” he said, and the stranger-owl-man stared at him with blood-crimson eyes, shaded behind the mask. Nobody else would have been able to see them, but the moon was out, and Durin had been made with the eyes of a dragon. He could see quite well, even with very little light to see by.

“Have you been drinking?” The stranger-owl-man asked.

“I am ancient and new. I don’t buy it myself, but I want to drink, and the knights and adventurers will give me a drink if I ask nicely,” Durin said.

“They really shouldn’t,” The stranger-owl-man said, but he sat down next to Durin.

“What do you want?” Durin asked again. “Use your words.”

“I want Mondstadt to be safe,” The stranger-owl-man said after a long, silent moment. “And I want everyone within its walls to be safe too.”

Durin nodded, thinking about it. That was a good want.

“You shouldn’t be on the roof after drinking,” The stranger-owl-man said.

“I have wings,” Durin protested. “I want to be up here.”

And he wanted, wanted, wanted . Everything. 

“Have some water, at least,” The stranger-owl-man said, and so Durin drank some water and returned to his bed.

Klee was excited about that exchange.

“You met the Darknight Hero!” she said. “Klee wants to meet him!”

“If I see him again, I’ll tell him,” Durin said.

“You don’t have to humor Klee,” Klee said, pouting.

“I will, honestly. I promise,” Durin said. “If it’s what you want.”

“You think a lot about wanting things,” Klee said.

Durin paused to think.

“What do you want for lunch?” He asked.

“Spiders!” Klee said excitedly.

And Durin wanted spiders, too.

“You should stop sneaking out,” Albedo said, bland as always, one afternoon while working on something in his lab. Durin was perched on a stool nearby, watching. He didn’t have a response. He wanted to go out, so he did. 

“The knights say you drink with them and ask weird questions,” Albedo continued. “You’re welcome to speak with them during the day if you want to socialize. I would advise against drinking with them. I know you feel grown, but there’s much of the human world you haven’t experienced and it’s not safe everywhere. Not all humans are safe.”

“Who told you?” Durin asked.

“I’ve known for a while. I thought you’d stop on your own,” Albedo said, pouring the contents of one vial into another. Slowly. Carefully. “You always ask what they want.”

Durin hugged his doll, clutching it to his chest.

“I want to visit Hat Guy. In Sumeru,” He said.

“No. You’re not ready to travel on your own,” Albedo said.

“Because I drink with the knights and they tattle on me?” Durin demanded. “Because I’m a hatchling-boy? Because humans are ugly and small crawling things that could hurt me?”

“Yes. And no. You don’t know how to travel, yet, and Hat Guy is busy,” Albedo said.

So Durin snuck out. Past the familiar warm circles of light near the taverns and bars and alehouses. Past the knights and adventurers who tried to wave him over. He didn’t want to talk with them or drink with them. He wanted to see Hat Guy. Wanted, wanted, wanted . He slipped out the side gate, circled the walls of the city, and listened to the soft waves of water in Cider Lake. He crossed the bridge and started for Springvale. Springvale, he knew, was on the way to Liyue, and Liyue lay between Mondstadt and Sumeru. 

But between Springvale and Liyue loomed Dragonspine. The mountain dominated the landscape, above the woods and highland. Tall, stark, pale, and imposing. It was also, Durin knew, where he died. Where the part of him that raged and burned and wanted had fallen under the fangs of Dvalin. His body still lay there, on the mountain, festering.

He made it past Springvale and curled up under a tree, cuddling his doll close.

The sky was grey with high clouds when he woke, wind tousling his hair, rushing through the leaves of the forest overhead. He knew he should avoid Dragonspine, that was Albedo’s haunt now, and there was nothing Durin wanted from his old body. Skirting its chilly foothills was a good plan, though. Durin set out again, ignoring the mild discomfort of hunger. Food always rated lower than Hat Guy in his lists, so it didn’t matter. By midday or so Durin realized the knights may come looking for him. He didn’t want that, but he’d also left the road a while back. Surely, they wouldn’t be able to find him.

Eventually, he stepped out of the trees and found himself standing at the top of a steep ridge. The woods thinned, leaving in their place tall, windblown grass. Below the ridge, and into the distance, there seemed to be nothing but more grass, steep ridges, and the occasional small stand of birch. And beyond that… Liyue. Probably. Durin began looking for a way down the ridge when a blast of wind sent him staggering back towards the treeline.

“Dragon-boy,” A sonorous voice boomed. Great wingbeats stirred the air. “What are you doing here?”

Durin squinted up through the rushing winds to see teal scales and brilliant stained-glass wings.

“Dvalin,” he breathed, staring up at the dragon before him. For once, every last fragment of him was in agreement. All he felt was awe at the splendor of a true dragon before him. With another blast of wind, Dvalin landed, stalking forwards, turning his head this way and that in short, hawkish motions as he took in Durin.

“Who are you?” Dvalin asked. “ What are you?”

“I’m Durin,” he said. “I’m not sure what I am, beyond being Durin. Man-hatchling-boy-dragon, reborn twice and human this time. Mostly.”

Dvalin blinked.

“You do smell of Durin. Alchemy. And yet, no rot or poison festers beneath. Well me, Durin,” Dvalin said. “I am not opposed to sharing my territory with you.”

The raging, dead Durin quietly glowed with an odd stated happiness.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Durin said. “But I’m leaving Mondstadt anyways.”

“You need not, if it is for my sake,” Dvalin said. “The land of wind and freedom is perfect for flying. You have wings. If they cannot bear your weight, then one of the human gliders surely will help. There is plenty of prey and company.”

“I’m going to Sumeru. My… friend is there. And I want to see him,” Durin said. He hugged his doll and noted Dvalin following the motion with his eyes.

“Where is your gear? Your tent, your supplies, your water and food? As a dragon, you may physically be ready for the journey, but as a man, you will die of exposure or starve. As a boy, you have energy and willpower, but as a hatchling, you already cling to comforts you will not have on your journey,” Dvalin said.

Durin wanted to rage, to roar and snarl and stomp, because he was ready to travel, but also because Dvalin was right. 

“But I want to see Hat Guy!” he cried instead. “I miss him! He left me!”

Dvalin crouched low, slunk forwards to curl around him, protective.

“If you leave now, you will not make it to Sumeru. If you wait, prepare properly, and try again when you are really, truly ready, you’ll be able to see your friend,” Dvalin said, pressing his beak against Durin to push him into something like a hug. “Show me you pack then, and I will fly you to the border of Liyue myself.”

“Why?” Durin asked.

Dvalin snorted.

“Because you are a hatchling, and I am a dragon. Because you are a man, and therefore beloved of my very important friend. Because I feel as if I owe you at least one flight. For killing the old Durin. And because as you are now, you interest me,” Dvalin said.

That was how the knights found him, curled up against Dvalin’s warm, scaly jaw, safe as could be with the larger dragon wrapped around him.

“Please don’t run away again,” Albedo said. “I was very worried.”

He didn’t look worried. Durin stuck his tongue out at the alchemist.

“Klee was also worried,” Albedo tried, which didn’t work either.

“I didn’t run away, I was going to visit Hat Guy. I ended up visiting Dvalin instead. As you saw,” Durin said.

“Well, I expect to be informed the next time you want to visit Dvalin or Hat Guy,” Albedo said, then thought for a moment. “I want you to tell me next time. So you can be better prepared.”

Durin nodded, because that sounded reasonable.

“Dvalin said he’d fly me to Liyue next time. So I’ll be alright,” Durin said, and Albedo’s eyes widened slightly.

“He did? Maybe I need to have a talk with Dvalin as well,” Albedo said, and Durin knew it likely meant that Albedo would tell off Dvalin for encouraging him or something like that, but it was fine. He could make it to Sumeru without either of their help. Eventually. It was what he wanted, after all.