Prologue
Even through hardship, the kitsune known as Amber had sworn to protect outcasts like the infant she found. With no way to care for the human baby, she took it to those she knew well enough to trust with the child. She walked for miles until she got to the cavern in the night. Looking inside from the entrance, she called out a name. "Draco? Draco!" Draco soon emerged from his home. The 7ft feral body with black scales all over looked at Amber with a disgruntled stare until he saw what she was holding.
"Who's the boy you're holding?" Draco asked her. He got a good sniff of the boy with his draconic nose. Already he knew some strong untapped potential was within, and his kobolds were already debating who would have legal custody of the boy.
"Some boy I found practically tossed out by his parents. I don't have the means to care for him myself. I thought maybe you could?"
"Always trying to score all nine tails. Something I could never understand about your kind. You strive to show how hardened you are, yet many of you are so much more than that. Especially you, seeing how kind you are." The kobolds then took hold of the child and went into the cavern to establish how to care for the human infant. That debate would go on until morning.
Three years passed until they started to tutor the boy. Already he proved to be capable of things human kids two years older would have been taught. This was mainly due to the way the kobolds were raising him. The childhood of a kobold was shorter than humans by about ten years. The way they raised him wasn't much different from them raising a kobold child, save for the human milk from a bank for the first year.
Draco only saw the boy as another kobold then. And a rebellious one at that. Ivan's human side showed in that he never addressed Draco the way the kobolds did. Though every night, he'd find the boy the kobolds called Ivan in his bed fast asleep, resting in his arms. "Why do you find me so comfortable?" He asked the sleeping boy. Ivan woke up soon after and looked Draco in the eyes. He soon hugged Draco the best he could. Something about the gesture elicited a smile from the dragon as he hugged back. "Why do I feel like you fill a void." He said while crying. He felt an unknown hole mended, and he then knew he wanted Ivan for his own.
While Ivan was asleep one night, Draco had two of his kobolds construct a dragon living suit for Ivan that would grow with him. Using their magical prowess, they made the suit with Draco's molted scales and breathed life into the construct. The hollow skin and scales slithered out of the room to Ivan in Draco's bed. Draco nodded at the suit, hoping for it to merge with Ivan's skin, but the suit seemed to have its own ethics. "Why would I want to merge with such a young child, and at the expense of my sentience nonetheless." Despite the words, the suit slid under Ivan's clothing and made his appearance like an anthro dragon. Though what the suit said prior made Draco think it wasn't permanent.
Ivan soon woke up in his new skin, but he wasn't aware of the change till his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. "Rose, what happened to me?" He said, calling for his kobold mother.
"I wouldn't say you're one of the kobolds living here anymore," Draco said as he cradled Ivan in his arms. "You're my boy now. The son I never knew I wanted." Ivan felt around his head, trying to make sense of what happened to him until he felt a seam at his neck with no stitches.
"A living suit? Your kobolds are rather clever." Draco rolled his eyes, he was hoping Ivan would figure out how to go feral with the suit on, but instead, he seemed more focused on taking it off as soon as he found himself in it.
"Just leave it on if you don't want to be tossed out of my bed every night," he told Ivan. Ivan quickly got on all fours and leaped out of Draco's arms as a feral dragon before running off to the kobolds for something to eat.
Another year passed, and Ivan had grown a bond to the living suit, though he mostly kept it on at Draco's request. He also caught a knack for the technology that the more tech-inclined kobolds used. Suddenly his kobold parents caught him on some 3d printer forums. But they fully supported his work when they saw him working on his own design down to the hotend with tools at hand. "It seems our teaching methods work quite well on him," one kobold commented.
"Makes me wonder if this will be lucrative or not," another kobold said. Draco peeked in to see Ivan work as he built the printer and wired it.
"Bright kid. I hope he knows what he's doing," Draco said with a grin.
Ivan worked till it was time for a meal, and it was clear he was tired a bit from the work he put into the small machine. He ate slightly slower than usual but still could tear through cooked meat with all the teeth in the living suit. "You worked up quite an appetite. Even for a human, you've eaten quite a bit," Rose said to me.
"I just feel like I need more protein in my diet. Like I'm working up a dragon's appetite with this suit on."
That night, Ivan lay there with Draco in his bed like usual, but he was struggling to sleep. Something seemed off to him. As he looked at the cave entrance, he could've sworn he saw a red-furred kitsune with seven tails standing there before walking off. After that, he fell asleep.
