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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2018 17:21:45 GMT -6
"Anything at all isn't even a name! How can I call you a phrase?" Drake shot at her, though his smirk faltered just the slightest. He definitely couldn't do any fun name games with an actual dragon, even if he was certain he'd get out of it unscathed. The wizard had ways of doing such things, even if they were last minute plans. "Pfft. I've tangoed with West-Indian dragons and sent 'em running. These dragons you're telling me about will be lucky to be saved, let alone a grump like you." Childishly, he stuck out his tongue.
"Riiiight. That's how I came by this, after all. " He said, gazing upon the cooked meat. When she asked if he had anything to store it in, he shrugged. "Maybe I'll just levitate it until we get hungry...Ah! Fun fact about human girls--they almost have a purse as big as their head. They may only keep lipstick and a dagger in em, but they sure are big. Now," He clicked with his tongue. "Let's get a move on. Those valley trolls should be sleeping a storm right now. We all know they hate getting a tan."
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Post by Tiamat on Apr 9, 2018 19:39:21 GMT -6
Utterly baffled, Kesstril leaned away from Drake as if to give herself a little more room to react in case he went crazy. Perhaps there was something to his earlier words after all, about powerful wizards not having a firm grasp on reality. At least, she hoped this confounding unpredictability was limited to magicians. If it was a human trait it might explain why they had such strange customs, but if so then she doubted she would ever be able to interact with any of them for long.
The wizard just kept twisting her words and dancing around her as if nothing she said mattered, as if she didn’t matter, and Kesstril had never felt so powerless. Inexplicably her eyes began to sting. Startled, she rubbed at them with the knuckles of her free hand, but there didn’t seem to be any grit causing the irritation.
“Okay. Here.” All but shoving what was left of the haunch at Drake, Kesstril pushed herself to her feet. She swayed briefly before she found her balance and set off to retrieve her cloak and boots from their camp. Bits of wood snapped underfoot, hard little splinters threatening to stab into her soft skin. Leaves and bits of dirt clung to the back of her tunic, unnoticed. Despite her obviously weakened state, however, there was at least one point in her favor: she was no longer limping.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2018 21:51:04 GMT -6
Drake felt very accomplished with her reaction.Ha,speechless. She'll learn soon enough that I'm just too much of a... The wizard blinked himself to a halt as her eyes visibly watered and she wiped at them wjth her free hand. As if he hadn't noticed, he turned away and pretended to judge what time it was by the sun's height. Still, his smile was gone for good. ...a big Jerk.
It was his usual way of speaking to any employers that had the time to follow him on his exploits, but they either ignored him or displayed all the symptoms of not caring. He had to remind himself that she was new to being human, and some emotions of hers would show up more frequently than others. He wasnt going to stop his teasing and wittyness, but he was going to be more aware of himself. Dragon or not, he did not like making girls cry.
With a less happy voice, she shoved the deer haunch into his hands. Wordlessly, he fllowed to retrieve a few things of his own.
With a long ways walk, they had reached the end of the morning and the edge of the forest itself. With only a few trees blocking his sight, Drake cojld see the cracked canyon between two high mountains, dark and shrouded with a sense of dread in it. Still, that canyon was too far away to be worried about it, even if they could see it now. He glanced at Kess,for he hadn't spoken to her for a while.
"So...Did i ever tell you I was friends with a Hydra once?" He started, though he feared she wouldn't want to talk to him
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Post by Tiamat on Apr 9, 2018 22:47:48 GMT -6
Kesstril scrubbed at her eyes until the irritation eased, and then scowled as she shoved her feet back into the overlarge boots to let them rub her skin raw all over again. At least she’d be fine for the next few hours. She fastened the cloak around herself and waited in silence for Drake to gather his things as well. Her gaze slid past him, broadcasting her disinterest in further conversation, and caught on the hovering leg of venison behind him. Interest sparked in her eyes. Part of her regretted that she missed seeing him cast the levitation spell, but rather than speak she turned and began to walk north.
Hours later, the sun was high overhead and the outskirts of the forest were in sight. Kesstril worked her tongue around her mouth, feeling like she’d taken a faceful of somebody else’s flames, and hoped they’d come across another stream soon. She eyed the canyon in the distance with curiosity. This would be the first time she’d ever traveled through such a feature, much less on foot. Canyons weren’t particularly interesting most of the time: no prey, no treasure, no place comfortable and secure enough to make a den…
She looked at Drake when he spoke, a little surprised he was finally breaking the silence that had settled between them. Her focus sharpened, her attention caught. “A hydra? How did you manage that?”
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2018 7:53:58 GMT -6
Well...it was a long time ago,back when i entered a underground cavern of monsters and terrible beasts. I found it as an abandoned egg, and he became a sort of sidekick to me. "He nodded as they ventured out farther from the edge of the forest and fhe beginning o thd canyon began to approach them. "Yep. We were pretty tight. We'd end up battling marsh dwellers and othed magic beasts, even when he grew too big to take around scaring people or eating something. I taught him how to talk with all his heads, and he taught me how to be fat from a good meal."
Drake shrugged the memories away after a quiet moment of reminiscing. " Then I tore out his eye and we stopped being friends. I imagine he's off devouring people or something,far away from us." Drake reached into his satchel and retrieved another edible item, far stranger than the jerky. It was water, but it was in the form of atiny squishy ball. It wasnot wrapped in any plastic, or anything at all. He tossed it to Kess. "Have a drink on me. Just chew on it, and it will liquify."
He didnt tell her it would expand as well an make her cheeks bulge with the large amount, but it would be funnier that way.
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Post by Tiamat on Apr 10, 2018 8:53:26 GMT -6
Ah, a lost egg. That made sense. Hatchlings were so malleable, impressionable, trying to figure out who they were and find their scales. She smiled at Drake’s story. It was a good exchange when each party gained from the other. Kesstril tilted her head up into the sun as they stepped out from beneath the trees. Despite her thirst it was instinctive to seek out that radiant warmth. As it was, however, she had no scales to absorb the heat and make it her own, so with a sigh she lowered her face.
Her expression of interest didn’t change even as Drake described the abrupt and violent end to his friendship with the hydra he’d raised. Kesstril nodded. That was a perfectly reasonable way to conclude a relationship, after all. Curious, her gaze shifted to the nearly translucent little sphere Drake pulled from his bag. A startled “Oh!” burst from her when he tossed it at her, and she scrambled to catch it, fumbling it several times before she managed to clutch it to her stomach. Kesstril glanced up at him in question, but it didn’t seem like the wizard had intended to test her undeveloped hand-eye coordination.
Bringing the little ball up to her eye, she carefully rolled it this way and that, pinching its giving surface between her fingers. Was it really water? She popped it into her mouth and carefully worked her jaws up and down, crushing the little sphere between her flat teeth. True to Drake’s word, water began filling her mouth, pressed from the pea-sized sphere. Only it wasn’t pea-sized anymore. It expanded almost instantly, first to the size of a grape, then a hen’s egg, and then the thinned outer layer burst. Kesstril released a wordless cry of surprise as her cheeks bulged. Unprepared for the sheer amount of water the ball had contained, she ended up spraying most of it in front of her, leaving herself only a swallow’s worth to soothe her dry throat.
She stared down at her wet cloak with a faint frown, puzzled and taken aback all at once. “I…” A bit at a loss, she looked at Drake. “I didn’t mean to waste it.”
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2018 9:33:55 GMT -6
He prepared himself for a very good laugh at her exense; for a hilarious scowl at him that would ease his conscience about earlie. What he got was a faint stay of water that wasn't really finny, and then an apology that seemed even less funny to begin with. He frowned on irritation at her sincere speaking, and nodded hurriedly. "Oh, it matters not. I'll just have it removed, like with the Gorgon saliva. " With another dance of his fingers, the water drenching the cloak was sucked away by an unseen force into the air were it exploded into a genle mist. A faint rainbow cluttered the sky as the toy droplets rode the air.
"Perhaps we'll have to shrink the orbs, a least for you." He said, eyes noticing how close they were to the canyons filled with darkness and foreboding feelings. They would only be ten feet away from entering it. "Well,here's to not being eaten alive, K." He shrugged and have a serious glance. "Take care. Trolls are dumb, but their size doesn't stop them from moving fast."
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Post by Tiamat on Apr 10, 2018 19:29:38 GMT -6
Kesstril relaxed somewhat at Drake's reassurance. It still grated as wrong to have wasted so much of a freely-given gift, and the wizard did seem irked by her reaction. She took him at his word, however, and her attention shifted to watch with fascination as he pulled the liquid from her clothes. The shimmer of refracted light in the air was beautiful. She smiled and gazed at the display for the short while it remained visible. "Is there a reason you didn't remake it into a sphere again?" Her voice was curious, nothing more.
Then she huffed air through her nose and gave Drake a sharp look. "I already told you: if Kesstril is too difficult for you, then Kess will suffice. Since you can't even manage that, call me dragon or do not refer to me at all." She would rather be treated like a stranger than have to put up with any more verbal attacks. It might have been one thing if she hadn't trusted him with her name, but she had -- had introduced herself practically at first sight, as was the human tradition. And in return the wizard had flung one wrong name after another at her, like it was a game... one where it didn't matter if she disliked it as long as he had his fun.
Hands flexing at her sides, she regarded the canyon as they entered. The walls were a decent distance apart, and there was a wide ribbon of sunlight shining down the center of their route. Perhaps further in the stone would rise high enough to shadow the ground, but here, at least, they were safe. "You think we can outrun a troll if we encounter one?" She shot Drake a disbelieving look. Trolls were large and strong enough to give even dragons pause, and when a creature was too dumb and determined to attack that not even setting it on fire turned it away, it was better to keep one's distance.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2018 22:24:39 GMT -6
"Waste of effort. " He fibbed when she asked. Now was definitely not a good time for her to catch on to his act, so he would have to take care in traversing these canyons to avoid a troll confrontation. He wasn't sure if they'd be intimidated by his lightning storm effects of even his great booming voice. At her new commands for her name, he smiled innocently and gave her a small salute. "Aye,Aye Captain! I mean, Dragon." He would respect her wishes for now,but would pretend to forget later.
The journey was first a series of turns and twists between two very high walls of stone. Giant holes marked some of the sides as clear openings, but he felt no eyes settled upon his form as he passed them. On a right turn, they finally happened upon a a wide part of the canyon, filled with fairly shiny items. Mostly human trinkets of silver and gold, underneath leafless trees that stood like giant gnarled hands. Very thick rope hung from the branches with loops that settled down on the dusty ground, waiting for some idiot to snag their foot in them.
"They must think we're really stupid." He tsked at the rudimentary trap set for intruders and easily plucked a golden ring from a small pile. Nothing happened, as he'd expected. With a hilarious curtsy, the wizard gently grasped Kess' hand and slipped the ring onto her index finger. "A perfect fit!" He mused, before becoming distracted with a very delicate looking cepter on a larger pile. Far off to the side of him, a stone feasted at the peak of a silver pile and glowed with multiple soothing shades of colors. It's light seemed to make the sunlight seem dark in comparison, and less entrancing to boot...
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Post by Tiamat on Apr 15, 2018 20:20:27 GMT -6
Waste of effort? "Okay." He must have plenty of water tucked away in his bag, then, for that lost amount not to matter. Kesstril dismissed the incident as resolved. Then she relaxed and smiled, relieved, as Drake finally agreed to call her something reasonable. That was all she'd wanted.
At her current size there was plenty of space between her and the towering stone on either side. It still made Kesstril uneasy, made her feel trapped, especially with the knowledge that she couldn't fly, couldn't flame. Although she still gave Drake a healthy bubble of personal space, she inched closer until their fingers would brush if they both reached out at the same time. They rounded a bend in the canyon and Kesstril froze, shocked.
Gold and silver lay scattered about in piles of varying sizes. The items themselves didn't look like much, nothing large or overly-intricate in the mix that she could see at a glance, but the fact that she hadn't known they were there had her deeply rattled. Dragons knew treasure, were raised from the egg surrounded by the metallic scent of gold and silver, the soft malleable surfaces that slid so delightfully over scales, polishing and soothing simultaneously. She was so taken aback that she barely reacted to Drake's gesture until the ring he'd taken was already on her hand. Her wide-eyed gaze shifted from the wizard to the ring, taking in the delicate twists and knots in the braided metal. It was a lovely piece.
A glimmer of light caught at the corner of her eye and drew her attention. Kesstril turned away from Drake and stepped closer. It was rude to peruse another's hoard uninvited even when they were there, but these were trolls, and they hadn't exactly made any attempt to secure their possessions. Scattering everything outside, open to the weather, the animals? Appalling.
The stone had to be enchanted to glow like that. Greens, blues, pinks and purples wove their way across its surface, bringing a smile to her face. What was it? Reaching out, she picked it up and brought it to her nose, and breathed deeply. To her frustration she couldn't smell the slightest trace of magic, but even though she didn't know what it was, it was still a sight to behold.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2018 21:35:36 GMT -6
"I think I can cast really big thunderstorms with this baby!" He twirled the scepter eagerly between his fingers and tossed it upwards into the air. He stepped forward to offer a look to Kess, when he noticed she was distracted by something else. "Uh, what's that? Some kind of Huemag--?!"
When she pulled the stone up, she failed to notice that it had a very thick bar magnetized to it on one end of it and the pull was shattered by her interference. As the bar disappeared back down into the golden pile, ad Drake flinched at a sudden constriction around his ankle. He shrieked at a high pitch when his legs were yanked out from under him and he found himself hanging upside down from a tree branch. Drake looked at his captured leg and then at Kess with a not too happy frown. "...Nice going. Look before you touch, dragon!" With a sigh, he aimed his hand at the rope with the intention of burning it with a flame.
Vibrating stomps interrupted him, and the speed of the stomps made him shudder involuntarily. A massive shape of fur and muscle landed behind the tre Drake was trapped too and another blur landed behind Kess. Drake swallowed as the trolls stood to their full height, tails swishing the ground behind them. This was very not good. Very not good.
"Nope. Don't see no dragon, Brai." The troll behind Dragon actually picked up the entire tree and actually shook it. Drake worried he'd have broken bones because of it. "Just some scrawny human. We could split'im for a bite."
"Hold your wyverns, Pin. ". The second, a little larger than Pin, stooped to Kess' level and took a giant sniff of her. It's beady eyes widened and it slammed an earth-shaking paw down next to her. " Ha! The Dragon smell is from 'er. Must be one of those shapeshifting kinds."
Drake saw an opportunity and piped up. "You're entirely right! Best not to get her angry, or she'll shift right back into her dragon form and toast you all alive!" He made a wild hand gesture at her, and hoped that she was smart enough to play along. Maybe he could scare the idiots off.
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Post by Tiamat on Apr 21, 2018 8:58:22 GMT -6
A sudden scream snapped her attention away from the stone’s shifting colors. Kesstril stared at the wizard dangling upside-down from a tree. Had he triggered one of the traps? Why was he blaming her for his predicament when she was at least ten feet away? She hadn’t done anything...
The ground trembled, heralding the approach of something big. She shifted her weight, settling and tensing in automatic preparation to either hold her ground or run. The stone, though forgotten, remained clenched in one hand. Something large and heavy landed just behind her and nearly knocked her off her feet. Kesstril whirled around, teeth bared and shoulders curved. Her wings would have been half-spread, if she still had them, to both make herself look bigger and allow for a quicker escape should retreat prove necessary. The humanoid mass of fur that met her eyes was a most unwelcome sight.
“Back off,” she growled, and tensed further when the beast loomed over her. For the briefest second her gaze darted to Drake, and then she went right back to staring down the troll before her. A long moment of silence passed before she spoke. “How... perceptive of you. The wizard speaks the truth,” she said, putting the slightest emphasis on Drake’s title in an attempt to further intimidate the creatures. “If you value your lives and your fur, leave us now.” Maybe it would work. Maybe they could scare the beasts off. It was early enough that the trolls might not already be fixated on attacking the two of them.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2018 22:29:45 GMT -6
The troll closest to Kess narrowed it's eyes at the woman. "Well, she's certainly as fiesty as a dragon." Brai noted without much fear at the mention of a wizard or a dragon. "But I ain't seen a dragon alive that wouldn'ta changed by now." He snorted and reached down to grasp her legs between his thumb and finger. He held the upside down woman high into the air with a sudden jerks upwards. "And in a minute she ain't gonna be alive at all."
"Aw, I want her! I like when their bones crunch at the back of your teeth!" The other troll whined and held up an increasingly worried Drake. "See? He's all skin and bone! She's thicker!"
Drake held up his hands, or rather shot them downwards in an attempt to stop them. "Wait! I've bound her in human form, which is why shes just a human right now! I'm the only one with the words to change her back!" He sighed as they both stopped, the one holding Kess pausing with her dangled above his open mouth. "Which I have, for just such an occasion!"
"Oh yeah? Give it then."
"Uh, sure. But only to the leader!" He glanced at Kess with a wink. "Don't you think the leader should get the magic words?"
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Post by Tiamat on Apr 25, 2018 16:59:14 GMT -6
Kesstril snarled, but the nearer troll -- Brai -- was right. Even if she could change back, he was far too close to her. It would be all too easy for the beast to grapple with her, to snap or pin a wing. And while she fought with him, there was no telling what the other one might do to Drake. Why hadn't the wizard done anything yet?
She shrieked in outrage as the world spun and abruptly left her staring head-first at the ground some fifteen feet away as the troll held her up next to his head. "What are you doing?" Her hands curled into claws, her right hand hampered by the hard, smooth rock still clutched reflexively in her palm. Kesstril eyed it for a moment as half an idea flitted through her head. Maybe if she needed to...
Shocked, her grey eyes snapped across to Drake. "What?" He was claiming responsibility for the sorcerer's curse? Sharing her weakness with the trolls? Even as the furious snarl ripped from her throat, her eyes widened in realization. The man's wink helped, as the incongruity caught her attention and helped her to think past her powerless anger. Another beat passed as she processed Drake's ruse, and then Kesstril jerked in Brai's fist.
"Don't you dare, wizard!" She shouted. "We had a deal!"
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2018 17:27:20 GMT -6
At first, Drake was worried that the trolls would be able to cath on to Kess' acting. But to his relief, the morons glanced at each other with uncertainty. Brai struck an annoyed pose, crossing his brawny arms while the dragon dangled from hid fingers. "Awright. Give us the word, and we'll jes' eat the dragon.
Drake could see through that lie a mile away, but chose not to point it out. " I told you; I can only give it to the leader."
"Then hand it over to me." Pin volunteered and gave Drake a painful shake. "Im the leader here, anyway."
"Just a minute there, mutton head!" Brai pointed at hid swiftly and jerked Kess with him. "Im the leader here."
"Trolls, Trolls! This is no way to settle this!" Drake cautiously gripped the rope around his ankles and used fire heat to cut it off. Sighing when he saw that Pin didn't try to pick him back up, Drake dropped to the ground." Clearly the way to determine who the leader is," He said while stalking over to Brai's hand, reaching for Kess and grasping a hand. "And the winner of this fine meal," He added, pulling and ughing with effort. "Is my solving a riddle!"
"Do we look stupid to you, wizard?" Pin growled at him.
Drake gave him a calm look of correction. "No, you look like very strong strolls that are hungry. So instead, you could just...um, arm wrestle?"
"HA!" Brai dropped Kess instantly and cracked his knuckles."Im having a dragon stew tonight!"
Pin readied himself as well. "No, we're having a quiche!"
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