Jealous Heart

Leuven
Jean closed her eyes and let herself be taken by the kiss. The glorious kiss. The first kiss… Finally her lips parted from Zack’s and she gently opened her eyes. Her eyes looked straight into his dark brown eyes, looking tenderly in her own baby blues.
"I love you." She whispered.
"And I love you." Zack answered.
He put his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders and guided her into the park where the sun shone pleasantly on students who were enjoying the first real day of spring. The temperatures were ideal for picknicking and the slight breeze that sometimes ran through the trees had swayed more than a few people to leave their study books in their rooms and go outside to talk, laugh and play.
Zack and Jean soon vanished in the crowd of students who flocked on all free areas of grass, some of them throwing Frisbees, but most of them just sat down, obstructing the Frisbee-ers road and making the old game entirely challenging.
But there was one person who wasn’t interested in the good weather. His eyes were only on one person. Dark was his gaze and hateful were the thoughts in his mind.
"I loved you first…" he thought, following Zack and Jean with his eyes.
Once he had known true love, but that love had been betrayed. His soul mate was now walking around with another, acting like what had once been there between them had never existed. Will craved for a kind word, for some attention… silly maybe but the phrase ‘let’s stay friends’ popped up in his mind. He could have pulled that off. Just being friends was better than being banned from the life of the one he so sorely missed.
If only… but he had been thrown away like a broken doll and now… they would pay. Both of them needed to suffer. Today, with most of the students in a relaxed mob outside, the conditions were far from perfect, but they’d have to do. There were bound to be some places left in Leuven where there weren’t a lot of people hanging around. Shadowy places, college auditoria most likely where lonely professors stood in front of fewer students than they had expected. Will grinned… maybe there he would find the right opportunity for his revenge.
Jean and Zack, oblivious of Will following them lost as they were in each other’s company, carried on in the way new couples are supposed to. They kissed, they laughed, they gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes, promising the world and all the stars to the person they loved, things that weren’t theirs to give to begin with.
Will got sick of it, anger like a fire blazed in his heart that had been torn when the one person he valued most had crushed it with the sentence "I’ve finally found someone to be with! It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world, being in love", like Will didn’t know how it felt. Like what they had between them wasn’t real. Will fumed, his cheeks were red and his face was twisted into a dark mask of hatred.
Jean and Zack reached the auditorium they had a class in. They postponed leaving the warm air a bit, not wanting to go into the cooler, darker building.
"Let’s skip this class…" Zack said.
"And do what exactly?" Jean asked, "Listen to the birds sing in the trees?"
"That’s one thing we could do, though I think making out sounds pretty wonderful too."
"God’s gift to women…"
"That’s me, baby." Zack smiled, "Anyway it would be better than class."
"But I want to pass." Jean said, "Coming to this guy’s class is the best way to achieve that."
Zack sighed, "I know… but maybe after?"
"You really do only think of one thing, right?"
"Guilty as charged, but can you blame me when it’s an absolute goddess I want to keep happy?"
"Smooth, very smooth." Jean said, "Let’s go Casanova."
"After you."
Jean and Zack entered the campus building and Will followed shortly after. He didn’t have this class and both of them knew that. If they saw him he wouldn’t be able to take his revenge. They would come to him and be all nice and ignorant of what Will felt deep inside.
As he had suspected only 5 people, including him, had shown up for the class. The professor came in, dismissed the class and went out again, surely he too would be enjoying the sun within minutes, after all, teachers were humans, granted, weird humans, but still humans.
Finally, when only Will, Zack and Jean were in the room, Will got up and approached them.
"Hey Will!" Zack called out when he saw him, "I thought you didn’t take this class."
"I don’t." Will said.
"Then why did you come?"
"To see you two sticking knives in my back." Will shouted, his face flushed red again as he tried to speak of his feelings.
"Zack… I love you. I thought it was the same for you. We did everything together. And now, it’s like I’ve lost you… to a woman!"
"He’s gay?" Jean asked, looking at Zack.
"Don’t look at me, I never knew that." Zack said and then turned to Will, "Really I didn’t. I thought we were friends, best friends, but we were nothing more in my eyes. We still are friends, now I just have a girlfriend too."
"Liar!" Will cried out in pain.
There had to be something between them. Will couldn’t live with the idea that all he had seen between them had been a fantasy of his. Clearly he remembered the looks Zack had given him, the accidental touches that had run shivers down his spine, the faint electricity between them. Hadn’t Zack felt those things?
What was he going to do now? Will had envisioned that Zack would have fallen in is arms and left the bimbo once he had confessed his feelings. He had been so sure that Zack had been taunting him, dating a girl. But if it was real? How could he go on? He had made a fool of himself. Broken, all the anger washed from his system, Will sagged down on a chair.
"We’ll leave you to your thoughts." Zack said.
Zack would never know the agony those words brought upon Will. The knowing what Zack and Jean would be doing and the sadness of what Will would never experience… the love the boy he had loved since the day he had first seen him.
The awkward scene was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a green beast, ridden by a woman.
"Dresynith," she said, "Are you sure this was the best place to land."
"Of course it was…" Dresynith told her rider, "right next to the candy vendor."
"I’ve created a monster…" Maira sighed.
The finder looked around and noticed the three humans. "are these the ones you told me about?" she asked her dragon.
"Yes, a love triangle, be it an unusual one…" the dragoness answered.
"Perfect for the Valentine clutch." Maira pondered, "Keep away from the chocolate while I go get the candidates.
"Eh… the candidates have a mind of their own." Jean said.
"Yes, we won’t go without a fight!" Zack called to the woman who was much smaller than him.
"It’s against the rules to find people who are unaware of their status." Maira smiled, "I’d just like to ask you if you’d be interested in getting to know dragons for yourselves. Once you got one it’s hard to imagine ever being without." Maira said.
"I don’t see why we should go." Jean said, defiant as usual.
"I don’t know, " Maira said, "think of it as a long tropical vacation, you could bond and then be back here about the same time you left. Nothing to it."
"But we would have dragons to take of, not to mention hide them!" Zack said.
"The valentine dragons wouldn’t be that big. Besides, some resident magician might know an invisibility spell to people unaware of dragons. It really wouldn’t be a problem."
"We’d just leave?"
"Yes."
All the while Maira spoke with the young couple, Will was sitting on his chair, his thoughts far away from the spectacular entrance of the Lantessama Finder. His life was over, he wanted to crawl in a corner and die. His heart, already torn, was now completely crushed.
"What’s wrong with him?" Maira asked.
"I think he’s got a heartache." Jean said, "Bad break up."
Maira looked at the girl, her right eyebrow lifted, it was one thing to dump someone, but to crush him? That seemed almost inhuman. Maybe this girl wasn’t right after all.
"Hey! Don’t drag me into this." Jean cried out when she saw the Finder’s look, "Ask Zack if you want to know who dumped in."
"We were never together to begin with! I didn’t know that he loved me."
"Er… Dresynith, will there be foliages hatching from the clutch?"
"Get with the Lantessama colour chart." Dresynith sighed, "That doesn’t matter…. Though I think he’d like some of our foliage and rain riders." The dragon grinned.
"There are gays in this place you talk about?" Zack asked.
"Sure! They used to impress big time in the olden days, though now that there are more females around…"
"But he could find someone there who is more like him, right?"
"That isn’t very friendly, but yes."
"What are you thinking about?" Jean asked.
"I think we need to find him a boyfriend…" Zack said, "It’s the least I can do."
"I gather this means you’re coming with me?" Maira asked.
"We are." Zack said, looking at Jean who nodded and Will who shrugged and said: "I will never find a new love…But I will come with you… if only so I can still see you."
Zack winced for a moment, gay attention was not what he needed. In fact he wanted to return to how things were before, he wanted his best friend back…

~^~**^*~~

Lantessama
They had been about two days on Lantessama when Jean excitedly charged into the room she and Zack shared. To avoid problems on any kind (and sleepless nights for other candidates), Will had been appointed to share a room with a die hard chad kroeger fan of the opposite gender... a gender Will wasn't interested in. Nor was Yarissa, as the girl was called, interested in Will. Apparently only Chad would ever be right for her.
"Zack!" Jean called out.
"What's wrong? Are the eggs hatching?" Zack asked, but people around the Isle had assured them it would still be at least a week before the eggs hatched.
"No! But I've found the strangest garden... right behind that mountain. And it has living flowers!" Jean said excitedly.
"Of course the flowers live, dead gardens are never pretty." Zack said, "I've found this pyramid in the dunes, now that's a cool place... and it's got flitters!"
"Flitters?" Jean swayed for a moment from her own topic, but then she returned to it again:
"Never mind, I mean that the flowers chirp and move! They have eyes too, but no mouth."
"Then how do you feed them?" Zack asked.
"You water them and feed them nice rich ground, silly, how else do you take care of plants?"
"I wouldn't know, all my plants died."
"I was thinking of getting one." Jean says.
"A flitter?"
"No, a fazzle!"
"Oh... I wanted a flitter."
"You can still get one... I'm just getting fazzles."

Jean walked away from the small, but overly crowded flower patch, carrying two bright red-gold flowers in small bags containing dirt.
"I've made up my mind.3 she said, smiling at her boyfriend.
"Finally!" he said, "But they are pretty."
"They are, aren't they? This one is Lulu, and the pointier one will be Kiki."
"heh... those names actually suit them." Zack said.
"Now we go to that pyramid of yours and see what you get."
"Definately!" Zack said, "Maybe we should take Will though..."
"It almost seems like you think more about him, than about me." Jean said disapointed, "Maybe you really are gay!" she continued laughing.
"Eh. No! I'm one hundred procent straight! So let's get going!"
They reached the pyramid and found a few eggs on a pedestal. Zack took one and was amazed when it hatched immediately into a small light-red critter with triangular gliding wings.
"He's perfect!" he said, "I'll name him Red."
"And you thought my names were silly." Jean sighed.
"What? Red is a very good, masculine name."
"At one point you are trying too hard at being straight... right before you admit to me you're gay. I think we're almost there."
Blushing Zack stopped his charade and said, "Ok, but I still am going to call him Red."
"Suit yourself."

A little while away from the pyramid, Will was walking through the dunes. His heart had recovered a bit after he had completely changed environments, but sometimes, when he saw Zack in the distance he still felt it ache as if it was going to shrivel and give up beating.  He tried to keep away from his unreachable love, but he was failing miserably.
Suddenly he stepped into a ditch and nearly fell when he saw the eggs he had been about to step in. He had heard about these... flit eggs, the small flying creatures he had seen all around him. Not wanting to disturb the nest, he placed back the eggs. But when he had found the last two, he felt the shells in his hand shatter.
"Oh no!" he whispered, thinking he had broken them.
But not much after, a feeling of hunger and love filled him, overpowering his grief. With a shock he realised he had bonded to the two fliters that had hatched in his hand. But though he hadn't meant to do it, he still felt like it had been a good thing to happen. And if a dragon was ten times more powerful... he light forget about Zack altogether.
Will's heart stopped for a minute when he thought about that. Would he just forget about Zack and move on? Could he?
"We'll see." he said to the sea and trotted of to the kitchen to find food for his new two friends, Alisha and Darren. 

                       

        Jean's Lulu and Kiki - Zack's Autumn Red (m) - Will's Sun (f) Alisha and Obsydian (m)
    Darren

~^~**^*~~

Hatching
Another five eggs were showing promising signs of hatching. Suddenly one burst open, crashing the other four with the shards blasting away in all directions.
Streaks of pink and purple became visible in the tangle of dragons trying to get off the sands and bond. It was a blood coloured male with nebula wings that struggled free first. Eyes blazing and wings extended outward he was quite a sight to see.
He moved to the candidates and walked past most of them to find the young man Will in the back.
"Dare not to try to stay hidden from me!" the hatchling roared.
"But Salem, I really don't need to bond a dragon..."
"Well you're too late. You're already mine." the dragonet said triumphantly.
"I am?" the college student asked, not sure what had happened. But then he felt the presence within him where a large hole had been ever since Zack had left him. "Oh..."
"See, you don't need anyone else anymore... not when you've got me." Salem winked.
The new pair walked to the feeding tables where they tried to still Salem's hunger. Will was so occupied that he didn't feel Zack's eyes on his back.
"I'm glad he bonded." Will's best friend told his girlfriend Jean.
"Are you thinking of him again!" she sneered, "Really, I think a real break up might do wonders for you."
"Huh? We never were... involved."
"That mister, is called denial."
"What could I be denying myself? There never was something to begin with."
"I second that!" a high orange-sounding voice suddenly added.
"What was that?" Zack asked Jean.
"What was what?" she asked.
"That voice!"
"You're hearing things..."
"Then so are you!" a frosty pink voice sounded in her ears.
"Dragons?" Jean asked.
"That must be it!" Zack exclaimed, "But... where are they?"
Zack and Jean looked around the cavern, but they could see no dragons looking at them. There did seem to be fewer dragons in the center ring where there had been many before... but where could those be hiding?
"The secret passage way, of course!" a giggle sounded right behind them.
Zack and Jean turned around to see two baby dragons, one bright pink, one yellow-orange emerge from behind a white curtain. Trailing behind them was a string of hearts and cans reading 'Just Married'
"Is this a proposal?" Jean asked, looking happily into Zack's eyes.
"Eh..." Zack started, but was rewarded by a shove in his back and the feeling of a small metal ring being pressed in his hand by a dragon behind him.
"Where did you get this?" he asked nearly panicking.
"We grabbed it from one of the cardboards." the orange voice chuckled, "Now what are you waiting for! Kiss the girl!" (shalalala)
Zack shrugged. If he was conned into proposing by such devious little romantic minds, than who was he to resist? He hadn't given the thought of marriage much thought...but the look in Jean's eyes convinced him to go through with the scam. She looked so happy and he realised he loved her more than anyone else in his life.
"Including me?"
"Probably, Harvey." Zack said.
He was rewarded by another strike from the dragon's tail. "Ouch!"
Meanwhile, Jean was being informed of their plans to honeymoon under the fabulous skies of Lantessama and maybe later... when Harvey and Sabrina were large enough, to a more tropical place where they'd touch the stars.
"It's just perfect..." Jean sighed, "How did you know?"
"Eh, just lucky I guess." Zack stuttered.
"We helped!" Sabrina couldn't resist to say. 

Zack and Morning Sun's Fog Harvey (m)
Jean and Frosty Pink Sabrina (f)
Will and Nebula's Blood Salem (m)

~^~**^*~~

Adults
Jean and Zack sat together in their joint living quarters, holding hands and leaning in to each other. Some distance away, their dragons lay with tails entwined, their two heart-shaped tail-sails tucked neatly over one another.
"Can life get any better?" Zack asked.
"I wouldn't know..." Jean said.
"I know." Sabrina remarked.
"How, sweety?" Jean asked her dragon.
"The coming of babies." Harvey replied in her stead.
"Whose babies?" Zack asked.
"Yours and ours of course." Sabrina grinned.

Will had adjusted both to the life around the dragonry and to living without constantly watching his former crush Zack. Every time he got the urge to see what was going on with him and his life partner, Jean, it seemed as if Salem intervened. The Nebula's Blood dragon seemed to keep his mind from dwelling on the past. Making him look forward and gain some hope. Hope even for a future with someone who would reciprocate his love.
"And I'll be there to make sure it doesn't get messy again." Salem said.
"Thanks." Will said, not sure if he should take this as a promise or a scolding for his earlier behaviour. Were dragons ever vindictive?
"Some of us are... But it was a promise." Salem said.
The purple, pink and red dragon blew some flames followed by smoke rings. His tail twitched and hit a bucket, leaving a low rumbly sound to ring around the stone walls of their new home. Salem hummed in tune with the ringing and made more than one glass vibate because of his singing.
"You think you're such a great singer." Will laughed.
"I'm better than you under the shower." Salem mocked.
"What is it with dragons and singing anyway?"
"We love it. From the creation of new life, to the celebration of a hatching, to even the dead of our fellow dragons. Singing soothes the soul."
"Should i try it more."
"I would be inclined to say yes, but your singing sucks."
"You're brutal when you're honest."
Salem grinned, "But I do know what else might help you."
"What?"
"I think the time is right for a mating flight. What would you say if we chased a female dragoness with a cute boy rider?"
"Are there many of those around?"
"More than you think." Salem smiled.
 

~^~**^*~~^~**^*~~^~**^*~~
Lantessama Isle
Jean, Zack and Will are Candidates at the Valentine Clutch