BEND low again, night of summer stars.

So near you are, sky of summer stars,

So near, a long arm man can pick off stars,

Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,

So near you are, summer stars,

So near, strumming, strumming,

So lazy and hum-strumming.

-Carl Sandburg

"I have dragon blood in my family, you know," the boy with the brown hair says. "My grandfather says so."

The dragon lets out a long sigh, letting out a plume of smoke between his lips.

"Everyone's grandfather says that," he says, but it is not a retort, only a statement of fact.

The dragon twists its head around to where the boy sits, nestled beneath one silvery wing. Well, perhaps he is more than a boy. It is hard to tell, when one is thousands of years old.

He is tired, the dragon thinks. It is hot out tonight, and the stars hang low and hazy in the heat. Even the night couldn't drive it away.

The human boy balances his stringed instrument on his knees but does not play. The strings are snapped and the bow is broken. His head leans back against the dragon's scales—they are cool under his head. Even in the shadow of the dragon's wing, there is a faint, shimmery coolness under here, as though he is enveloped by the stars themselves.

"Do you have any songs you could teach me?" he asks.

"Many," the dragon says, but he does not sing any of them, and the boy does not ask him to.

The dragon curls his head around to meet his tail so that he is encircling the boy. The boy kicks his legs back and forth from where he perches on the dragon's hind leg. The dragon can watch him with one eye from her. Can count the bruises on his face and the tears in his pants with the blood that stains the edges. The tip of his tail twitches with anger.

"You are safe here," the dragons says.

The boy smiles, a wide, winning smile that does nothing to hide the anxieties that swirl underneath.

"I know," he says.

His legs kick back and forth, back and forth. One hand presses against the dragon's scales, and there is a coolness that spreads through his body from the touch. It tames the fire that roils in his belly, lets it fade to a soft hum. The night is not so oppressive anymore.

The boy traces the dragon's scales under his finger. They are so cool, he thinks. Like touching the water of a river, despite the fire that he knows is within it. Despite the flames that he knows that the dragon can unleash, the fire that he saw licking at the heels of the fleeing bandits, leaving him behind, in pain and cowering as the dragon's wings cupped above him.

"Tell me your name?" the boy whispers.

The dragon hums.

"You couldn't pronounce it," he says.

"Tell me anyway."

The dragon eyes him with one large, azure eye, a color that rivals the summer sky above.

"A name for a name," he says. "That is how dragons have always done with each other."

The boy looks up from memorizing the flakes of the dragon's scales. He stares at the dragon for just a moment. He knows what the dragon means.

"Dragon to dragon?" he whispers.

The question that is not asked rings in the spaces between his words. 'Am I a dragon after all?' 'That is why they tried to take me, isn't it.'

The bruises on his face and the cuts on his skin will heal. They will heal quickly, even.

Young dragons always have. They have to. The world so often knows that they are dragons before they themselves do.

"Dragon to dragon," the dragon says, lifting his head and tilting his nose close to the boy's face.

The boy hesitates, looking into each of the dragon's eyes.

"Judai," he whispers.

The dragon nods. He tilts his head down, and then, in return, he hums his name to the boy in return for a name. The boy's eyes widened at the sound—it is a beautiful thing, the dragon remembers, to hear your real language for the first time.

He finishes humming his name, and the crickets take back the silence. The boy stares at him for a moment.

"Yusei," he mumbles.

The dragon cocks his head. The boy smiles.

"That was the only part I could hear," the boy says. "Your name is Yusei."

The dragon blows out through his fangs to ruffle the boy's hair. The boy laughs and falls against his side, almost sliding off of his leg. And then, he does drop to the ground, because the dragon is behind him now, and smaller, and—a different shape entirely. He holds the boy's shoulders lightly, with human-dragon hands. The boy tilts his head back to see the other boy that stares down at him. He doesn't look older than himself.

His hands are just as cool to the touch, and his eyes just as deep a blue, his hair as dark and raven as his scales had been.

The dragon thinks that perhaps the boy isn't such a boy after all. But then again, the dragon is still older than he is. There is still a youth in the boy's round brown eyes.

"Yusei," he agrees, looking down at the boy with a human-dragon face. "I am Yusei. And you are Judai. A name for a name."

Judai smiles.

It has been a long time since the dragon has found another young dragon to take beneath his wing.

Name for a name, with the stars as witness.

The first time we met, you saved my life.

The second time, I'll try to return the favor.