The large city was a near mystery to him. Not because of the layout, or for lack of exploration. It was the people Dantel didn't understand. All of them scurried about so with such weary expressions, as if their lives were so filled with burdens that they couldn't bear it. He would have liked to see them bearing his own worries. The cinnamon skinned man slipped past street cleaners with a near blind eye to their work.

His amethyst eyes were filled with visions of the city center, the buildings there and what lay within. The dragons ... He understood them, loved working with them. Today he would finally be able to choose one all his own to train, and this in his twenty fifth year. His family was longer lived, with longer youths, then most. Others would already have taken up their first dragons a decade before he had. It mattered not, the day had finally come for Dantel to choose.

He smiled, brushed strands of green tinged hair from his eyes. Dantel knew he seemed excited, and saw the same emotion in the faces of his family's servants as he approached their building. It was large, elegant, and shimmered with the lacquer of dragon scales protecting the stone walls. It was beautiful. He stopped to admired the view, taking a deep breath and trying to relax.

He sighed, scraping his brush against the brick and staring at it. Dragons tended to shed their scales most of the time---if one wasn't in a growth stage, another was, and it was necessary for their beautiful scales to fall to make room for even more beautiful ones. Jax could understand that perfectly, but he didn't like cleaning them. Cleaning them, never interacting with the source of the scales, watching others be able to be around them all the time, talk to them, teach them. He could teach them too, if they just gave him a chance. But he was just a cleaner. He had no place amongst trainers. Classes couldn't earn their way up---he came into the city as a cleaner after wandering here, starved and near death, taking whatever position was tossed at him. He began as a room cleaner in the inns, washing linens and stuffing mattresses, sweeping the floors, then he was sent out onto the streets to clean up the scales. At night he spent some hours sorting scales from trash and dirt, washing them, then drying and grinding them into powder that would later become a shine for their buildings, and shipped out for other cities.

He brushed his pure white hair back and swallowed hard. It was somewhat difficult to breathe sometimes, and Jax put a hand to his throat, where a flat chain was seared into his skin. He didn't know how it got there. He didn't know much about himself, only his name, and that he woke up one day in the middle of the desert with a city's tallest spires in his vision.

He sat, rubbing his arms as a fifth-generation Mer passed. A nobleman. No doubt here for a dragon. If only he could see one again. He wanted to leave. Maybe go to Soma Lae and find a better job. He couldn't walk that distance, and a dragon-pulled carriage would take days, and cost so much money, none of which he had. If he could just get a dragon to fly him... Perhaps even keep the animal. The city wouldn't miss a single thin flier. They couldn't. He sighed again, rubbing his ivory skin and blinking through tears as he went back to his work.

There was one he passed who smiled not on his joyous day. It made his face fall, that his importance wasn't acknowledged by the lowest of the city inhabitants. He was oddly pale in Dantel's opinion, for one who worked day and night cleaning the streets and grinding scales. Shaking his head, the noble walked past after letting his foot slip against the bucket the scales had been dropped into. The glittering jewel colored things slopped across the street, and Dantel found satisfaction in his petty action. He knew it was cruel of him, but found enjoyment in it all the same, for not having been acknowledged. It was a payment of sorts from the striking street cleaner.

Dantel walked passed, continuing on his way into his family's building. The Monblanc family was known for opalescent dragons, but those weren't the flyers he walked towards as he entered the stable area. He looked this way and that before aiming his feet towards the hatchery, a spot placed in the building to gain the most heat from the dessert. The eggs needed to be kept warm.

Jax gasped, the sound rather high for a male, which tended to be picked out by others and a source of torment from other cleaners---even trainers. He had worked for hours to get that many scales---it was his pay, and it was all scattered, some rolling off toward the well. He wanted to cry---to stand and sob and scream at the Mer-and-human nobleman that had ruined a morning of hard work. Instead, valuing his life and freedom, he glared at the man's back and let tears slip freely, sniffling lightly as he scrambled after his week's pay with the bucket and brush, probably blushing brilliantly at the others watching and snickering here and there. Some understood the turmoil he and other cleaners faced, but most loved to torture them---dump their buckets, steal their brushes and make them pick up dirt and scales with their hands, scatter small piles they made to make it easier to gather. It was a horrible life.

He watched the nobleman enter one of the dragon stables, sniffling hard and glaring as much as he could at everyone that laughed and commented as they passed by. But his young features could barely harden enough to intimidate someone. Maybe tonight. Tonight he would get out. Or he would try. He couldn't take it anymore. Some left the city, some that had saved money. But he could barely get enough food to keep what weight he had on with what he was paid, let alone get a carriage driver to take him along to Soma Lae.

Dantel slipped into one of the beds set aside for people such as he. The bag he had carried was set aside to await the moments when he would need food and distraction. Though the chances of that happening were rather low with so many eggs to watch, and so vigilently. There were others like him, lying upon cots surrounding the sands. They too wanted to race in and snatch a dragon from its mother the moment it hatched. A dangerous thing, but a test of bravery as well.

There were three clutches, three beautiful mother dragons. Inexplicably, his amethyst eyes were drawn to one particular clutch of near white eggs. Their mother was an amber beauty, elegant necked and delicate seeming. Her wings were strong, tucked around herself as she curled around her unborn children. He was drawn like a moth to a flame, he didn't even glance to the other eggs, not even at the sound of a mewing newborn dragon and a mother's roar, and a man's scream. He only glanced at the commotion, catching a glimpse of bloodstained sands, and the mother dragon nuzzling her little one, safe and sound by her side now.

His bucket was full despite the way it had been kicked early on. Full of mostly scales now---he'd grown talented at spreading the dirt and gathering the scales rather than scooping up everything at once, and it made a big difference. Jax carried it and the brush to the scale mill, a rather big building with a wide smokestack that fed steam and heat up and out of the enclosed rooms. His eyes were still leaking, mostly from embarrassment as he stepped into the mill and set his brush down, sighing and settling on a bench nearby with his bucket firmly wedged between his feet, feeling he earned a rest.

Jax's hair had come loose---the pin-straight sheet of pure white was long, and for good reason---it was easy to tie or braid back and keep out of his eyes, or from higher-ranking citizens from grabbing it as they passed in cruel humor. He tied it up in a high ponytail, then stood, gathering his things and going to a washing bin. It was a large pipe over a grate with a screen over the top, small enough to let muddy water spread through and be funneled out. He dumped the bucket onto the grate and pulled the chain over his head, dousing himself with water as well as the scales and other trash. It was mostly scales, however. Iridescent, black, blue, sandy, amber, various metal tones, and earthy colors and jewel hues. It was like he was rich for a while, handling gems of every color, until the water stopped flowing and the little shards became apparent---scales. Worth their weight in gold piths, silver shills and bronze gills. He scooped them up, shaking his old, light clothing and gathering them up to wring out. With the clean bucket of scales, Jax took them to the drier---an oversized bellows powered by a strange machine that he was glad he didn't have to know how to handle.

Tonight. When the moon was high, he would find a trained dragon and leave. It seemed like it was a year away.

There were many other incidents, but Dantel ignored them all. There was one dragon alone whose clutch interested him, and that innate sense in him that was his inheritance from his Mer blood told the noble to wait. This lady of dragons had born the one for him, and none other. In fact, he was so confident that she would wait for a quieter time, or that her young ones would, that he wrapped himself up in scratchy wool blankets upon the bed against the stone walls.

Dantel forced himself to sleep. It was the only way he knew which would allow him to be as alert as he needed to be for the final confrontation. Facing down a dragon to steal one of her young was not something to be done by someone lacking sleep. When night fell, he would be well rested, while others would be yawning and trying to remain awake.

Finally, it was evening. Evening, when the sky grew dark and the moons became obvious. In the city the stars were hard to see, but the two moons were bright and obvious. It almost made him glow like a light, however, and he didn't like that little fact. Jax pocketed his hands, grasping the gold piths that he'd been paid with after he had them ground up. He thought he would use these pieces once he got to Soma Lae. He had to.

Glancing around once he made it to one of the stables, Jax slipped in. The city streets were so quiet, only a few cleaners were still about, finishing their jobs and no doubt about to be in for a very long night of converting scales to their ground, powdery forms. Closing the door behind him, Jax stood and looked around, feeling a smile form for the first time today. In their sandy stalls---made of stone since some dragons did breathe fire, though not all, they sat, stood, laid down. Some were young, and others, much older. He knew dragons could live for centuries, and were very resilient to the day they died. He passed earthbound dragons, best made for pulling carriages and carts. He wanted to get there as quickly as possible... there, the flying dragons. Their wings were belted down loosely so they wouldn't display to other dragons, a trait that was quickly learned to be done outdoors, and during specific times.

Jax came to a stunning sky-blue dragon, and smiled brightly at him. Dragons were known to be hostile to most beyond their specific trainer until they were conditioned, but this one approached easily and nuzzled Jax's outstretched hand warmly. Animals seemed to gravitate toward him, and dragons were no different. "Hey, you... You think you could hold up a little guy like me?" He stepped forward, stroking the smooth scales sweetly. The dragon tilted his head, glancing upward. They had taught him language, at least. Eventually they would learn to speak it. "Right, up there." Jax nodded, point up to the ceiling. "I really want to leave this place... I can take you too. I can take you to a place where you can do whatever you like... Go wherever you like... If you take me there first."

The creature raised a claw, settling it on the gate in front of them. A sign of acceptance. "Good!" Jax kept his voice down, and unlatched the gate. "Thank you so much... You're a lifesaver..." He had to find a lightweight saddle---if he were to mount the dragon and it were to fly, its scales would rip him apart.

He awoke, a disturbance in the air drawing him from his slumber. It wasn't the queens, lying upon their bed of sand, nor their unborn offspring. No, Dantel was sure it had something to do with the stables. Shaking sleep from his eyes, the Mer blooded human slipped from his bed and raced into the stalls. What he saw made him see red. As quick as his feet could carry him, Dantel was across the floor, tackling the intruder and commanding the dragon into his stall once more with voice and mind alike. He didn't like doing that, but this once he made an exception.

Breathing hard, he made sure that the thief's slender form was pinned to the ground, and in the moonlight he recognized the man who had refused to acknowledge his day of trial, him, earlier that day. "You," snarled Dantel. "I should turn you in and have you made into something far worse then a street cleaner." There was worse indeed, and the noble was contemplating it, until the light of stars and moon alike fell across fine features, pale hair, and made them glow with a beauty he coveted suddenly, more then he wanted to destroy.

Jax gasped---he didn't even have a moment to react when someone had him on the ground, distancing him from the beautiful blue dragon. No... His best bet for escape from this city... He tried to reach, but both hands and arms were pinned down, under a heavier, larger form. A darker form. The noble that had kicked his bucket over. Jax gasped, tears immediately forming in his eyes and spilling into his hair. "No! Please... Pl-lease, please! I just a---I just... I wanna go... G-go away. Pleaesss, I j-just... I want to get out... I want to go... I can't walk it... C-can't walk so f-f-far..." He struggled lightly, knowing his weaker stature was worthless to escape. "I d-don't have money... N-not much, I m-mean... T-th-the stuff I have... I have to spend it o-on food... I ca-an't afford to... t-to get a c-carriage..."

He wiggled his body, but barely moved. This nobleman was much stronger than him. "P-please... I'll ju-just walk... I'm s-sorry..." He closed his eyes, averting his gaze from the man.

"You think I'll allow you to leave this city, after witnessing this? You tried to steal one of my mother's prize dragons!" They were shifting about uncomfortably, the disagreement making the dragons uncomfortable. Dantel sent them a soothing emotion, and soon the beautiful, strong, creatures settled down. That was an ability of his family, something not all trainers possessed. Dantel knew why of course, but at the moment his thoughts refused to linger.

They lingered, his thoughts, upon how it felt to hold such power over another .. The way if felt to have the frail man pinned to the ground. "That was your last chance of escape. Now ... why now, with this kind of information and all that could be done to you if I told someone, why now I suppose you belong to me in a way. Isn't that right?" He was playing. He doubted his paltry attempt at blackmail would work, but even so, Dantel fell silent to let the words sink in as he squeezed lightly with his hands.

His parents would have reacted in different ways, but would have been no less cruel. At his father's hands, Dantel was sure the pale haired street cleaner would already have been dead. Such a waste, that would have been.

Jax's ragged breath caught and he shook his head hard. "Noooo...!" His voice was pitiful, and he felt worthless. "T-that doesn't m-ma-ake sense..." Belong to him? This cruel, angry Mer-blooded human? After what the man had done to him during the day, belonging to him was the last thing on Jax's mind. But he didn't want to die. He could have counted himself lucky, if his stomach weren't pressed down so hard that his breathing was constricted more than the binding around his neck had originally done to him. He already felt as if he were dying---the world was going dark, his eyelids flickering.

"N-no... don't wanna die..." He coughed weakly, feeling the air begin to escape his lungs. He didn't feel as if he were dying---rather, falling. Falling out of consciousness?

With a snort of derision, he shifted off the other man and wrenched the pale form against his own. Strong arms held the white haired street cleaner tight to Dantel. "I won't allow you to die ... So long as you do whatever I ask." He was playing a dangerous game. The noble knew that anything like what he was setting up ... If it came to light, the other man would die indeed, a horrible death. Despite all his threats otherwise, that was the last thing the nobleman wished.

Absentmindedly, he began to play with the other man's hair. "Wouldn't you like to eat better, to have a warm place to sleep?" It would be so easy to arrange, with so many little hideaways in the city. They were safe spots, places where he'd gone to play... And upon his own stretches of land. There he could almost guarantee safety, warmth .. A nice place to stay.

The world came rushing back, and he gasped when his body was brought up with one swift movement. He was barely able to stand, but it didn't seem to matter---the noble had most of him. Jax breathed heavily, one hand at his neck to pull a little at the flat metal links burned into his skin---but they refused to give, just like the man. He bit his lip until it threatened to bleed, and shook his head a little. "I j-just... I want to b-be a trainer... T-that's it. I d-didn't even choose... t-to come here... I'd have di... died otherwise."

He closed his eyes. "I... guess." He whispered at last. He could barely speak now.

"Where did you live, before this?" With surprising gentleness, Dantel guided the street cleaner into one of the empty stalls. He pulled a blanket from a nearby wall and wrapped it about the other man. He had been rough, harsh. Now that he had what he wanted, now that he was in control, Dantel felt safe enough in showing some kindness. His mind raced all the same.

Where would the man sleep that night? Where would he be safe? The streets were out of the question, the stalls were as well. It was a pretty little puzzle that needed to be taken care of, and soon. Shaking his head, the noble slid to the ground and continued to play with the nameless man's hair. It was best not to know names ... Yes, much safer that way.

Jax suddenly felt entirely exhausted, but he couldn't do anything about it. He was at the mercy of this nobleman, whose name he didn't even know. He tensed when he was guided into the stall, a nauseated feeling rising in his stomach---this man could do whatever he wanted to him, and Jax wasn't strong enough to stop it. He was surprised, however, when he was settled down on a mix of straw and hay in a blanket from nearby. "I... don't remember..." He sighed, breathing heavily, snaking his hand up to finger the metal around his neck. "One day I woke up in the desert... in the middle of the day. I was so... so burned... I felt like I was walking through fire. A-and birds... vultures. They'd b-been pecking... Eating me." He brought up the blanket and wiped new tears away.

"I only remembered my name. And there... there were... two open wounds on my back. Like claw marks... And this thing on my neck..." He didn't know why it was sealed to him. He just couldn't get it off. It was as if it were very, very deep in his skin and neck.

A puzzle. Dantel loved them, and now he felt like he was faced with one. As he carded his fingers through the other man's hair, he tilted his head to peer at the metal burned into his neck. The sight was horrible for its strangeness, for the fact that it marred such smooth, perfect, skin. Metal, surrounded by puckered, scarred flesh. The nobleman had never seen anything of the like in his life. He let snaked his hand down to let his fingers play across metal and skin. "How strange ..."

"You remember nothing then? No wonder you became one of the cleaners." With no connections, with no memories or history, there was nothing else one could do in the city of dragons. They were the lowest of the low and none ever rose above what roles they had been slotted into. One could fall, but to rise above was unheard of.

Jax grimaced, curling away from the touch and the comment. Of course it was strange! It was one of the many, many strange things about him that others asked about, and he felt a little more foolish every time he couldn't answer with more than "I don't know". "This city was the closest..." He muttered. "The only one I c-could find when I woke up. I hurt so much... I just wanted to find a place to rest where I didn't have to... to burn. Or b-be eaten... All I could do... was clean. W-wanted... wanted to... to be a trainer... I love... d-dragons... B-but..." He curled into himself, sobbing silently into the blanket.

"I do-don't even know what I am!" He sniffled, burying his eyes into his knees. "How can I be anything but worthless?" Worthless beyond a brush and bucket. Keeping the streets clean and grinding shed dragon scales. Hating each day of his life he was trapped here, terrified of leaving the city for the baking desert that grew so cold at night.

The other man reminded him of someone. As Dantel began to rub the street cleaner's back, he realized the person he thought of was himself. He could understand what it felt like, to feel worthless. Perhaps not to the same extent ... But he could sympathize all the same. "But the training of dragons is the domain of nobles, and unless a family adopts you, there is no chance." Though he could sympathize, he wouldn't stand up before his peers for a pretty stranger, no matter how hard he pulled at Dantel's heartstrings.

He could even see why it was the other man had wanted to escape upon a dragon's back so badly. It had only taken a few minutes ... Still, Dantel was selfish and it would take far longer then such a short acquaintance for him to change. "I don't know the answer to that."

Jax sighed. He'd thought he could win his way up to a trainer with what he could do---few could handle a dragon like him. Few could communicate verbally with them the way he could. They listened to him. Obeyed him. Even the wildest of dragons. They let him touch them when no one else was allowed to even get near them. Maybe that was why---they were afraid of him? Perhaps. But Jax had no place to even insinuate such a thing.

He shook his head, leaning against the cool stone wall. "No one knows." He growled, sniffling angrily. "They don't know or they don't tell me. Maybe they don't care. I mean... what am I? Just a... J-just a stranger. In their town. Their... their city. Not mine. I shouldn't even be alive. Maybe I was meant to be eaten by vultures or baked to death in the desert..." He sighed, shuddering his body and coughing in response to the chain around his neck. "I bet you could help with that..." It was barely a whisper---Jax didn't want to die outright. He was still afraid of the concept of death, and that was obvious with every struggling breath he took every day.

Quick as a snake, his hands wrapped around the other man's throat. Dantel squeezed lightly, shifting closer. His face hovered near the other man's. "Are you asking for your death?" He squeezed again. The thought of such despair was alien to Dantel. His life was hard at times, but there was joy in it.

Dantel slipped a thumb over the stranger's pale jaw. It was a gentle caress, something he usually reserved for dragons alone. "I said I would keep you alive, didn't I?" He was probably being quite contradictory. It didn't help that he had no idea how exactly to handle the situation. Nothing such as this had ever happened to Dantel before.

Jax tensed, and the feeling didn't disperse as the nobleman kept trying to change his mind. "M-maybe I don't want to be alive..." He growled. "W-what is a life... where all I have to look forward to is abuse by the hands of a stuck-up, entitled man of money, whose dreams don't have to wait to come true, or be put off forever? At least you have a f-family. A memory. I have scars from a past I can't even recall. I might have been royalty once. I might have been a priest. I don't even know which gods are mine. Which religion is mine. I might have been an animal trainer. I might have lived in the mountains once, in a beautiful landscape full of green trees and grass and shade, rather than in this gods-forsaken desert. N-now? Now? Now what do I have? Not much more than being treated like a ragdoll to anyone that wants a little entertainment. I can't fight back. I can't fight anyone that wants me to... to do... to do things... for them."

He closed his eyes. It was nearly impossible to breathe now, and this time he welcomed the coming darkness that gave him tunnel vision.

"I'm trying to help you!" Dantel shook the other man, fingers digging into his arms. "It might not be what you want, or in the way you want, but this is the only way I know. Stupid, ungrateful, idiot!" He didn't know who he was insulting, himself, or the street cleaner. In his own way, he was indeed trying to help. Letting out a frustrated sound, he released the pale man and scuttled away. "Have it your way ... go and die alone in a corner."

Dantel stood, and walked away to the hatching sands once more. He didn't even bother to check with his senses to see if any of the queens were awake as he walked past them. His thoughts had latched on to the dragon hatchling he wanted to steal so desperately. This he knew he could do. That was a creature he could take care of, after taking it from its mother. A cruel thing to do, but the world was always cruel. He was only imitating it.

It didn't matter that the amber beauty was awake, that the just hatching newborn was so near her claws. He would prove that he was worthy of his title, and he would show that frail street cleaner that he didn't have things handed to him on a platter.

When he was alone, Jax came to, slightly confused. Stupid ungrateful idiot. Why did the words keep repeating? He tried to stand, but tangled in the blanket that was around his shoulders and fell, letting out a pitiful cry and dragging himself across the somewhat dirty floor. He was still in the stables, and was crawling toward the exit. Had to get out. He had to. His breathing was so ragged, he needed air. Fresh, real air. He needed that. To get out, get to a corner where no one could find him and torture him. He had to sleep another day... Where was that nobleman? What was his name...? Did he even have a name? Of course he did---he had to...

He collapsed at a door, but didn't know what it was. There... sand? The exit, perhaps. He crawled forward, breathing raggedly, heart beating fast. He fell again, and heard something. What was it? Movement... The dragon from the nearest stall, no more than that. Why was it trying to get out? He drifted into half-consciousness.

The sand shifted precariously as Dantel ran towards the hatching dragonet. The queen dragon was faster then he ever could be. Eyes wide, the young man glanced down as his ruined tunic and the blood welling from his chest. Shaking his head, breathing harshly, Dantel swallowed and moved on despite his shaking legs and tremblings fingers. It didn't hurt, much. It was worrisome that so much red blood stained the sands. He seemed to remember blood already having soaked into the hatching grounds before.

All of a sudden, just as his fingers curled around the hatchling, he was upon the ground staring at amber scales. Flickering in the moonlight, it captured his eyes, the way each tiny one looked like a warm flame, or honey. He could feel the pain of his wounds now of course, but shock kept it from truly registering. Besides, he had his goal in his hands, he just needed to crawl away now.