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last-on-your-lips · 3 years

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Perception (pt. 2)

Its not that it’s hard for a mage to use destructive magic, really. Focus hard enough on anything and it’s liable to break apart when you command the very fabric every element is built on. Magic in our world is that intrinsic, so potent and present that technology all but has to be built around it with cooperation between Mages, Drakes and Alchemists alike.

Talin fancied herself as a healer, and I knew that even when I asked what I did of her. Mum’s not much for breaking things at all. Repairing shattered ceramics is one of her hobbies, actually. She’s very sentimental like that, and I could see her have to set her jaw when she turned her eyes on the ramshackle town we’d been a part of as long as I could remember. This was the place I had learned to talk, these were the homes of our people. It didn’t matter that they were small and easy to rebuild, or that few who lived there owned more than they could have carried out. Mum had spent most of my life half-employed as the doctor to the Draughters of Infirili, and she was sentimental.

When she began her cast I had the privilege of my new sight to tell me that she glowed like the bloody sun from the crown of her head down to the center of her chest, coalescing the energy of her sentimental grief and her disgust with the necessity of the action into a softly spoken evocation. The tips of two of her fingers touched her lips as she spoke, the power she called focusing to a point of light visible to the lame and frail as well at the end of her claws. Mum was never one to waste time with her spells, so it was a simple gesture of extending her arm and opening her hand that flung that spell to the town from where she stood. I knew to brace for the heat that would come. Our frail passengers didn’t.

One moment a prick of light flew loose of the ship, no larger than a shooting star against the night. There was a brief silence as the energy bolted deep into the hard trod ground beneath the huts and shacks, and next there was a vicious rumble from the ground before heat billowed out ahead of a voracious flame. The structures weren’t all that hard to destroy, of course, but the shockwave was enough to flatten the marsh grass and hide the hoofprints and footprints all the way to the tree line. It also sent a flush of heat and force to flutter the battalion standards, and I could see the march come to a halt at the impact. Mum radiated with her fury below, her eyes narrow and focused behind us on the forces we were avoiding as I tilted to cut into the trees, following the scent of the other evacuated draughted and the drakes leading them.

I was surprised at how well the ship balanced as I had to switch to climbing through the forest, usually only needing me to mind it with one massive forepaw or by the tip of a wing as I transferred between trees. I’d have to ask Kyn if it was designed for that when I put it back down… which seemed like it might come sooner than I had anticipated. I would have to adjust to covering distances so confidently with my new mass and form, I was used to the forest feeling impossible to travel in the night as a human. I contemplated how I had moved so many miles on little rest and less food as I half slithered down the trunk of the tree Talin and I had established our home in the base of, the natural place for me to return to as it was the only relatively secure part of the forest with enough space to accommodate for the very suddenly displaced crowd of exiles.

The moment the hull touched the clearing I had painstakingly maintained by spear and effort, there was a calamity of questions tumbling over each other out of the mouths of sore footed mothers, sobered fathers, and collected tradesfolk that had understandable frustrations about abandoning the small shops they’d managed to accumulate. Natural and reasonable fury and confusion, if louder than I liked as Kyn was unthreading the line from my chest and Mum was unboarding the folk we’d carried out and shepherding them into the husk of the great trunk. I caught complaints about potential livestock losses and upset over losing the small place we’d had for longer than any other Draught community were known to have maintained a place. My body language was blank, and my gaze studied and counted the faces of the children first, then their mothers, then their fathers. Then I sought out the tradesfolk, counting to ensure the strongest of them were among the bodies escaped from the town. After my assessment I made a low bellied rumbling noise, and the calamitous fury turned to hesitant silence.

Kyn spoke before I could, as close as the town had to a leader. “We all knew this was coming, get hold of yourselves! I dunnae what ye thought Talin meant when she told ye that her child was a dragon, or why ye ignored her if ye were going to shout about it now.”

There was a rustle of discomfort through the crowd of displaced friends, eyes averting and pouts settling onto faces as they were chided for their vocal frustrations about the disruption to their night and life. Many arms crossed and chins pointed up in familiar guard and defiance as Kyn stood on the rail of his ship between them and me to speak his piece.

“Ye can all like it or nae, but this is what ye were told when ye moved in. Ye should be grateful we got out ‘fore some folk that didn’ much mind us surviving cleared us out to piss Faern here off.” The words were certainly not as delicate as I would have said myself, but the life that many of my friends had lived had been rougher than Talin had given me. And Kyn certainly wasn’t wrong that I would’ve been less composed to see them dead. “We’re here for a day or two. Get some sleep, we work tomorrow. Got horses to catch in the morning an’ shoes to put together before we get us moving on.”

At his dismissal many eyes had gone from fury to steel, acceptance that this was indeed the lot they’d chosen when they came to Infirili. I admit some guilt lingered in the back of my mind, knowing I was the cause of displacement and loss. Although mostly I was relieved that the worst case scenario hadn’t been what I had found when I arrived. While the crowd distributed into the clearing with less heated grouching, Talin came back out to us looking much calmer than she had going inside. She was concerningly loaded down with maps and her bestiaries, however, and I recognized her planning face. Perhaps when I was younger I should have paid more attention to her and Kyn when they had their late night plotting sessions drawing on maps and conspiring about exactly what local wild animals could be caught, bribed and purposed for companionship and protection to humans.

I counted myself rather lucky that it was then Kyn’s lover looked over, the scathing squint of her slit blue eyes enough to send a chill down his spine and put a pause in Talin’s step as she had to glance over her shoulder to find the source of the prick against the back of her neck.

Asyla was a massive woman, someone who had kept me in check during some of the more physical outbursts of my gangly teenage years. She was a draught drinker from the westernmost continent, Ophelim. Her draught, you ask? Well she was given Serpent’s Draught. And with it she was adorned with a venemous bite, speed unlike anything that belonged in the bulk of someone as direct in their intentions as she was, and eyes not unlike a pit viper. The pretty pattern of pale silver, off white and almost black scales that decorated her back and her forearms in intricate diamonds was something she liked to display with pride by way of sweeping open backed dresses, although I was a bit stunned to see her skirt knotted over her hip to show the muscular length of her legs was similarly patterned along the outside of her thighs and down shins and calves where her drake hide shorts didn’t cover.

This stunning example of woman was also making a direct path through the disgruntled population of her lover’s town with a look on her face I could only describe as terrifyingly focused. On me. Mum and Kyn put themselves in her way with a cacophony of placations and pleas, begging the walking tank to wait a moment and think before she started in on me. Naturally they were shrugged off as Asyla stalked around The Hull and made herself a wide stance in front of my lowered head.

“’Appy blas’ed bir’day to you, innit?” Her voice it’s usual broken hiss past the disfigured fork of her tongue, not quite managing to form all the complicated ‘T’ or ‘H’ sounds in common.

“Another year. Not another disappointment.” My growl answered as I dropped my weight down, curling up with my wings and tail in tight. “Feels different.”

“Sure should.” A nod of agreement as her hands rested on her hips and she appraised the sheer scale of the difference between what she knew and what I’d changed into. Kyn and Mum seemed baffled that I wasn’t being yelled at. “Wha’ now?”

“Make sure the family is safe first.”

“Alrea’y done. Wha’ now for you Faern?” Asyla always did have a directness no one else showed toward me.

“Finish what they started. Try not to get turned into a Draught while I do it.” My ambition wasn’t going to be a secret, I wanted to see if I could accomplish it in Hocrayle. A camaraderie between Drakes and humans anything like the cooperation happening on the other continents.

“’Ey’re real busy bein’ ‘Uman ‘ere.” Her opinions therein laid out in so few words, although I could tell that she didn’t particularly doubt my determination and abilites. “Figh’in’ isn’ goin to be much like wha’ we’ve done before. Ere’s like to be whole armies.”

“Not trying to do it looking like this, auntie. I want to try and learn from Kyn, take the wings back off and look more personable on the way.” I could feel how naive she thought I was when her arms crossed and her head tilted into her scowl.

“Wha’s the plan, kid.” Demanded more than asked. Rude of her really since the only plan I had come up with was find all my parent’s contacts and figure out exactly what it was they’d been doing before they decided to start an entire war. About that… I realized under my aunt’s discerning stare I had no rightful idea where to begin looking for those contacts. Or how to approach them. Or what to expect if I did find them. All I knew was that Talin wasn’t the only Dragon Draughter that Urthylo and Rhaekson had some kind of contact with before I was born, and I had the newly learned ability to spot draugthed by the way they looked different from other humans. Until Asyla questioned me that felt like a lot to work with.

“Find the Draught Dragons that Urthylo and Rhaekson were conspiring with and figure out what they were doing to help relations between Drakes, nations and humans?” My voice managed to be an infuriatingly uncertain whine.

“Big questions.” Kyn cut in there, his voice heavier than usual, and his pale golden gaze more direct when he pointed it at Asyla. I was surprised to see that she backed off. “We can get those answered. What ye going to do with ye answers?”

“Unite Hocrayle the way drake and dragons are united on the other continents.” This was stated with a confidence all three of my more practiced adults shot down by the angle of their quirked brows. Having said it out loud I also understood how unlikely it seemed that a single influence might achieve that between six unfriendly nations and an extensive wilderness untouched by common humans. The other continents operated as massive and united nations, sharing the same laws and general systems of function across their whole land mass rather than disrupting into countries. This was made possible by their kinship with their local drakes and the cooperation of the Dragons that were incorporated into the bodies of their governments and nobility. Dragons and Drakes were a part of other societies because they maintained station among those societies. Talin had been purposeful in teaching me about how those politics worked, and informing me on how dragons were regarded across different parts of the world.

Hocrayle did not value dragons as part of their government, because Dragons had been tyrants to the humans until they suddenly vanished from the population entirely centuries before my occurrence. In four hundred years many common men and nobles alike had lived and died, and so the six nations had specialized in their ideals and budded into independent philosophies and borders. Into conflict and animosity, and into an age of Alchemy rampantly afflicting people by the hundreds with experimental Draughts.

Asyla was an example of more lawfully applied Alchemy, in Ophelim they only adorned the few and mighty with Draughts. And of those draughts there were only three, The Lion, The Wolf, and The Serpent. Noble beasts that augmented loyal and noble people, and a Draughted from her continent was to be expected as educated, disciplined and in control of their beast. It seemed to me that was likely how the elixirs had been meant to work when they were designed, a kind of initiation and accomplishment to allow humans to gain a deeper understanding of the the rest of their world. Asyla, direct as she ever was, embodied the patience and the gravitas of any viper I’d ever met at least. She also showed that it was possible for a Draughted human to be reasonable, educated, resourceful and respected. Things that were uncommon to see in the nations of Hocrayle.

“Well. Ye want to learn to change the wings back off first, yeah?” Kyn broke my spiraling depth of thought, bringing my eyes to himself and inspiring an earnest bob of my head. “We’ll get that done for ye, and talk more on changing the world when ye aren’t a great lizard.”

Talin sat by Asyla and watched the lesson on transformation as the earliest hours of the day’s turn made little more noise than the uncomfortably light snoring of her friends camping haphazardly around her home. She’d prepared for this over the years. There had been blankets waiting, and food for the little ones. Even a handful of cots she’d built to see the aging folk and lame limbed of the exile town into. Faern had kept their ‘lawn’ clear with enough room for every hardened body now laying on it to doze. She’d expected all of this, really. Yet while she watched Faern struggle to wiggle all the scales off themselves (this being a slow process that Kyn seemed utterly fascinated with and ill equipped to help) she wondered if she could ever have been prepared enough for their future.

Their friends were right, the young dragon was naïve in their ambitions. Not necessarily wrong in wanting to understand what each of their ill-fated parents had been trying to accomplish, and not even wrong to want to see some kind of friendship between humans and drakes on their natural born home. Even without being wrong, they were estimating themselves against nations of humans who only knew of Dragons as legends of practical enslavement. Given how Hocrayle worked without the dragons… She couldn’t honestly come up with a good argument to bringing them back, or turning her well meaning child loose into a world that considered them as an ingredient first and a person sixth.

“Try that water gathering spell I taught you.” Suggested as she watched the scales that had just been shed reform from the low rolling fog under their belly for the ninth time. The fog was thinning from all the water that Faern hadn’t realized they were drawing in yet.

Kyn didn’t like what happened when that suggestion was made, the pale white streak of magic travelling along the dragon’s spine as they gathered up the energy and focused it toward their horns. Talin realized belatedly that she probably should have let anyone in town know that their favorite harmless dragon knew fundamental direct magic, and had mastered the manipulation of most of the natural elements at a frankly alarming scale. That could be handled later though. She focused intently to watch how the spell began to unweave the massive body that Faern had grown into, the water from the creek they’d absorbed on the mountain top gathering as tail, scale, claw and wing withered and swirled into the mass. A few focused moments and the slender frame of her child with eyes closed was levitating fully nude at the height their horns had been, the odd glow of pure magic making them painful to look at.

She appreciated the style of the next spell that they chose, watching the gathered element surround Faern anew and change it’s density and structure until it made a decent impression of their usual hunting garb. This was something a mage couldn’t have done in a thousand years of study, and only a mad alchemist would try with nothing but their own focus to depend on. Talin had taught it to Faern anyway, after decades of obsessive research into the old Tyrant Dragons. The old dragons had been able to transform at will from their royal robes, and after painstaking research she had found no remnants or records of seamstresses or looms or fabrics that made it possible for them. It had actually been one of Faern’s own theories that the tyrants kept their element under an elaborate glamour in order to ease transitions. And immediately after they sealed this spectacular spell as proof they opened their eyes and dropped down to glare at Kyn where he was fastening his britches back on.

“Explain the Indemnic boat, Kyn. That kind of technology is rare here, and insanely expensive to build–” The tangent was cut short, to Talin’s amusement, when Kyn squared his palm across the full plane of Faern’s face. She had to respect that Faern tried to start an interrogation with an exhausted Draghted.

“Ye can bother me for it in the morning. Ye need to eat and ye need to sleep. We got much to do, and people to feed and move.” She couldn’t argue with his logic, although Talin certainly felt like her child was asking important questions of him. When they looked to her she gave a gesture toward the branches above where the Drakes they’d met the day before were anxiously perched.

“If you want to stay up, go settle them down. Kyn’s right that we should rest while we can. We don’t know how long that fire will burn and we don’t know if they had their own magicians in that battalion.” Talin endured the seething squint of her child’s eyes, and heard their frustrated grunt before they pulled back from Kyn and stalked over to the tree. They chose to leave by climbing up the bark with a refreshing new lack of restraint.

“I’m not explaining it to ye either, Tal.” Kyn’s first words when the rustling leaves over their heads began to settle down and indicate the drakes had been led away.

“Don’t want you to. You’re Indemnic yourself, known for a long time my friend. You need to get the engine right for tomorrow, we don’t know if Faern will carry the raft as far as it needs to go.” Talin appraised Kyn and how he reacted, almost laughing when he seemed surprised she would’ve recognized his towering frame, mahogany skin, and distinct accent as foreign to the short, narrow and pale national residents of Hocrayle.

“Kyn, your surname is Arseilles.” Asyla helpfully contributed from where she remained on a mossy cushion beside Talin. As his mate and an Opheli Serpent it wasn’t surprising she’d bait him. “Anyone with a Mage’s educa’ion would know you’re from Indemnis by lookin’ of you. Jus’ fix the ferry for the folk who aren’ tryin’ to save the world.”

“I’ll fix the boat in the morning. Tired from all that morphin’ I did for no reason.” Gruff and with a pointed look to Talin. “My hands’re too shaken to do the work without a rest. Could’ve had them try the spell first, Mage.”

“Could’ve told Faern you weren’t from Hocrayle when they were younger too.” Talin gave a nonchalant shrug and adjusted her shirt at the shoulders, her focus pointedly directed to her friend. “And you probably should have. Because Sire Itun is the drake that Faern’s gone off to chat with.”

“Itun is alive? Wait. Itun was– Shit!” The panic mounted utterly late into her friend, although she managed not to laugh at how he began to scan the branches above them searching for the now distant drakes.

“I suppose we’re all in for a long sit ‘n speak in the mornin’.” Asyla’s input as she rocked to her feet and offered a hand to help Talin up. “Explanations are wanted for, and ‘ey said who should say them.”

“Let’s all hope it goes better in the morning, shall we?” The Dragon Mage’s word on the matter as she saw herself into her house, leaving the lovers to do as they liked on the ferry for the few hours they’d have before the sun, and the Dragon themself, returned.

#Windscorn #Faern & Talin: Dynamic Duo #we are over 7k words into this arc and we are not done #writeblr #When I finish this arc I'm making a masterpost and should have my patreon set up

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last-on-your-lips · 3 years

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Dragon’s Draught

When you ask the right questions of the wrong people, they’ll often give you answers. A yes to something they should say no about, a no when you have a wise doubt about what they instruct and influence.... and a comforting smile when you’re suffering the worst of their suggestions.

Talin had learned this later than some, an almost accomplished mage student of Sinthir Tower. A childhood not worth much talk, she had proven she had a handle on magic early and been whisked away from home by a Magus in need of Apprenticeship. Pondering long and hard she wouldn’t tell you of her heritage or how she was discovered, or why a Lady would’ve done for a Magus’ apprentice. You make yourself, she’ll remind you, by the choices that get you to who you become. There are wiser choices than interrogating people that can handle magic, too. Especially when they chose to switch over to the school of alchemy.

“Not like ye to make threats, Lass.” The brawny keep at the border bar commented to the former apprentice, she was not the kind of rambunctious beauty he was used to seeing. He knew better than to press a mage though, and further better than to test an alchemist with a bad attitude. “I was just wanted to know why i’was ye wore a hood inside, wasn’ trying to make trouble of a question. More like thems rogues and ugly to hide in them own shadow.”

“I suppose you’re dying to know if I’m ugly.” The bitterness was present, but her voice was infuriatingly sweet with the snarl. She could tell it wasn’t quelling his curiosity and for once she was unhappy that her usual half-past noon drink was taken in an empty exile bar. “I’m not.”

“I don’t expect ye to be, ye’re slender and ye move with the grace of any graduate Mage. Never met an ugly Mage before. Few weird ones, them’s that were the type took a Dragon’s Drink for a reason or another.” His face was intently pointed away from her as he worked a cleaning rag into a mug. He even pretended her sharp gasp went unnoticed by giving an experienced shrug and turning his back. “Weird doesn’t mean bad. There’s good reasons and bad reasons both to drink the stuff.”

“What do you know of good and bad reasons for a Draught...” Muttered into her drink, hood still pointedly covering all but her lips. Plump they were. he thought. Flush with drink and aggravation. But they were very carefully all she showed of herself. Hid under that hood, clearly enchanted to stay shading her from head to toe. Seemed silly to drink something as drastic as a Draught and then hide, to him.

“Ye can’t hide the smell of it, no matter how careful ye are with the cloaks. I know the Wolf Drink, i’was what they had me on.” Admission given to her muttering, and a grin over his burly shoulder at how she let out a recognizable whimper. Wolf men were reputably dangerous among folks. Damn shame in his opinion, he never even meant to drink a wolf and make a monster of himself. His laugh bellowed at how she hurried to drink her ale, bemused that she prioritized it over trying to run away. Odd Lady Talin always had seemed to him though. “Most lass’ll sprint right through the door when they realize. Now I know you took a drink you weren’t suppose to.”

“Drink I shouldn’t have been given, it wasn’t what I wanted from what I had asked for. Didn’t know enough to know better.” She was defensive now, desperately twirling him back into her circle of non-acknowledgement. He’d already gathered she’d been taken into Sinthir a young and dewy lad. Prettier than most Magus apprentices were expected, pretty even before the graduation. Pretty enough she fell prey to the Traedurin alchemists no doubt, promised they had the answer to help her change what she didn’t love about herself.

“I’ll agree with ye. Traedurin mages and alchemists are twisted in the head, they think they understand things better enough to make choices wrong for people that don’t know better.” He nodded patiently, thoughtfully. Appreciating that she hadn’t flown loose of the bar. She couldn’t have been much older than him, looking at her and listening to the tremble of her voice still denying that what they’d done and influenced was still what had happened to her. Irreversible as if it had been her own informed choice, there was no unmaking the changes a Draught put the body through. The lucky folk got subtle things, as he had. Brawn he’d never had before, teeth too sharp, nose too keen, eyes lighter than gold. It was hard for folks to tell whether he was strong enough to lug the kegs or if he was strong because he did. He had the inkling she hadn’t been so lucky and got such subtle hints of her changing.

“They make stupid choices with smart people is what they do.” Grumbled from under the hood, thing still stubbornly positioned to conceal her. Still an agreeable word there. They fell into a silence past that statement, she soaking in the bar keep as he busied himself organizing mugs and bottles. Noticing where he wasn’t quite human anymore under the billow of his tunic before she finally decided to speak again. “It was when they told me I’d have to be a Magus to graduate. Sinthir wouldn’t allow me to ascend as a Mage. It was too late to transfer over to the alchemists at Erfersi that year, so I left my apprenticeship and went to the capital to work for the public. Was trading blessings and wards to farmers. An almost graduate is as good to them as a proper Mage, and their food was fresher than I got in the tower anyway.”

“A public magic user is a Traedurin Alchemist’s wet dream, lass.” Sympathetic in his tone, the entire country of Traeduros produced a population that was widely received as mental when not outright putting effort into being violent or manipulative. They were usually responsible for crafting the morally unsound and otherwhere illegal substances known as Beast Drinks and Draughts, transformative elixirs that could augment a human with the power or appearance of animals, though they rarely gave a human both the power and the appearance and often enough they could go horribly wrong and disfigure more than augment. Trick potions mostly, sound minded people wouldn’t drink them.

“Isn’t it? So I was. Unhappy and easy prey for their ‘magic’. Their ‘solution’.” There was a hiss under her voice, a certain raspy flair as she sprung off the bar seat and onto her feet... feet he now noticed as what some would call disfigured. She stood balanced on specially crafted shoes, but he could see that three inhumanly shaped toes were bound in the rough shape of a human foot and strapped carefully to a wedge. A flex of those toes broke her free of the meticulous binding to reveal that the flesh of her feet was stain blue, and she put a hand to hip under her cloak before she pulled back the hood and unveiled herself, ale helped defiance in her gaze. It was to his merit that the less obvious Draught Beast didn’t laugh.

Talin stood defiantly poised on those draconic feet, loose pantaloons not managing to conceal how her bones were twisted to accomplish the strength and dexterity expected of an upright drake. Her waist was bare up to the chest, a vest fitted neatly and decorated in what he felt were comically small pockets, though only because she herself was petite. Petite, flat framed, and lean with muscle all the way through her arms and down to her clawed digits. The barkeep was unduly fascinated that her augments were so symmetrical and functional, almost distracted enough by them to ignore her face until she snapped her fingers and leaned forward toward him. Downright impish in the face! She had vibrant silver markings against the blue tint of her skin, cheeks cut high into her expression and a jaw drawn sharp and low. Slender to add to how small she already seemed, but adorned with perhaps the most intense stare he’d ever tried to meet. Her irises were the palest tint of green almost glowing through the ink black of her eyes, and her pupils were feline slits within them. This under her arched brow and paired with her still human nose under a mane of half-kempt iridescent hair gave her the look of a particularly spunky demon in his opinion.

“Yers wasn’t as subtle as mine.” Managed and uttered from him, his lips curled in an approving grin to look at her without her cloak. “Certainly aren’t ugly either, ye were right about that. Never seen the Drink change colors like you have.”

“Supposedly had to do with me being able to use magic.” A flair of the stuff, just a glimmer of it moving through her skin as more markings similar to those on her face. “It leaves a permanent mark on the body, any Mage will admit. But the Draught brought mine out.”

“I think it’s good it did, Lass. Ye shouldn’t have to live under the cloak for it either.” Advised as she was clearly weighing the options of putting the thing back on and assessing how horribly she’d damaged her shoes. “Might be that how ye look now is how ye find out who ye’re going to be.”

It was twelve days past taking her cloak off that she decided not to put it back on.

It was a month after that she enrolled with the Alchemist’s guild, a celebrated student of Erfersi graduating after only a year of study.

It was a week after that when Rhaekson spotted her, an obvious draconic body, and gave her responsibility of a newborn in a quiet plea in front of the same border bar.

The same barkeep helped her find a path and a hollow tree to raise the child away from humans when it’s blood mother decided to forfeit several towns.

#Faern & Talin: Dynamic Duo #just Talin #flashback and worldbuilding #Windscorn #Windscorn pt 3/?

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last-on-your-lips · 3 years

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Perspective

Talin had never had many ‘normal’ friends since taking the duty of Faern’s care. The people that thrived in Lostresh, she found, needed a great deal of adaptation to handle the wild animals, toxic plants, and wild roaming dragons. Faern had therefore grown up seeing few natural human figures, and perhaps associated the draught drinkers that lived in exile as their norm. As she lay under the young drakes, bemused at how light it felt to have three densely built reptilian children atop her petite chest, she contemplated if that had been wise of her. The great dragon coiled half in on itself conversing with the Sire Drake didn’t seem like it would threaten anything, even given a chance. Gone so far as making a splendidly loud display of defending her, even. She contemplated this while she fluffed the downy feathers on the nestlets and idly chattered with their Carrier, only half attending what she said at all.

Faern was supposed to become a dragon, this much she had known for the entire twenty six years of their life, this much she had prepared them for as their mum. The ability to hunt, the basics of magic, and the knowledge of alchemy were drilled into the brilliant young dragon from the moment they’d started asking questions as a sharp toothed toddler. Every year up to this had been a race to teach them everything they would listen to. The effects of the wild plants, the uses of the elements. How to read and write in all of the human words on the continent. How to brew everything from tea to draughts, how to make enchantments and how to think for themselves. She’d done her best as a mother to teach a strong and capable person, someone who would make choices reasonably and apply their natural curiosity and discipline with some modicum of wisdom and restraint.

While she listened to them discuss what it meant that they were a Dragon with a Drake, she worried she had taught too much deep thinking. It was clear to her that her child, dragon or not, had gained many worries as they carried on learning about themselves from that Sire Drake. It had been several hours now of them conversing, and the questions Faern poised had cut deep into draconic politics. It was a political boon that they were a dragon, but the other colonies and species would be manipulative by their own ends. They hardly sounded any wiser than humans, really, Dragons were revered as graceful and commanding among all drakes. While that was agreed on, it also lead them all to covet the ideal of having a Dragon within their own beliefs. Matriarchs and Patriarchs of large colonies were known to be cunning, and it had driven most of the older Dragons far and deep into the wilder and less hospitable territory of Hocrayle as they sought to be free of folks human and not trying to use them.

“Finding another dragon would be nearly impossible then, wouldn’t it?” Grumbled deep from the chest of her child. She felt a pang of regret for them as she recognized the note of loneliness back in their voice.

“Liege Faern I can’t honestly tell you if any of them yet live. It has been many clutch seasons since a drake met a true Dragon, and I don’t blame them for their absence.” The Sire seemed to have noticed the younger beast’s forlorn note as well, and his wings and feathers rustled sympathetically. Talin considered it lucky they had found Fisherman’s Friends as the first drakes they affronted, kindly and pretty drakes who enjoyed human company and easily bonded with Draught Drinkers too. Even luckier that the Sire happened to be a friend of one of Faern’s parents too, and happy to endure a young Dragon’s long interrogation.

With that it seemed the interrogation had ended, however, and Faern’s head turned to level on her with a slow blink of their pale silver eyes. Somewhere amidst their discussion the Sire had explained what a Dragon’s Draught was, and the concept of the Beast Drinks that humans sometimes partook. He had also mentioned that he knew few humans that would drink them in their right mind, with them often being painful and causing great and uncomfortable disfigurement rather than providing any refined effect. At that point it had seemed a good thing that most of the humans that Faern knew were such folk, and they knew many of the conditions that their ‘aunts and uncles’ had undergone to be influenced to drink. Being Faern’s mum, however, she could recognize that her child had belatedly recognized her as also having taken a Draught.

“You’re a dragon yourself, some part of your instinct responded to my features as quite normal.” A lame answer as it passed through her lips when the nestlets allowed her to sit up and meet the Dragon’s gaze. “My reason wasn’t good enough, and I caring for you has been an atonement for this.”

“You were chosen by my mother because of the poison you drank.” The words cut directly through the bullshit that Talin was concocting as Faern rose up on their feet, horns flickering with magic and head turning up to taste the air. “You’re my mum. You don’t have to justify why you drank it, and I won’t ask you to. You didn’t raise me to become one of those Draughts, and it seems like our lives have become more dangerous than ever.”

Talin watched them with her own draconic gaze, mouth pursed shut by pride and relief. The Drakes crooned and fluffed toward the monolithic stance of the great Dragon, anticipation making their body language eccentric and excited.

“I have no reason to expect I can find another born dragon on my own by going into the wilderness, and I don’t know how to speak to drakes. We should find the other Draught Dragons instead.” Words spoken with conviction and a distant gaze toward the wilderness. Talin wondered what Faern could sense there as they spoke their intentions. “Uncle Kyn knows how to transform, and I don’t. We should send for him before we do anything else.”

“I thought the Sire could–” Talin began and was promptly interrupted.

“You do not allow your horns to grow so you could not have heard it when we discussed it, but your dragonet can not transform in the same way a Drake does. Liege Faern will have to learn from a human with the ability or another born dragon, simply because their familiarity is with how a human body works, and they do not understand their body in the same way that drakes do.” Apologetic and polite in his tone to her, the Sire deferring as if she was a Dragon herself definitely seemed to stump Talin.

“My dragonet?” The only dumbfounded answer she could muster.

“Well, are they not? Like a Drake you have stayed in flock with your young, instead of casting them away when they were capable as a human would have. You may be a Dragon by Poison, Half-Queen Talin, but to many Drake you are going to be Dragon-Friend and Half-Queen.” He seemed equally dumbfounded she would not understand her place in the hierarchy of his own kind as he continued. “Draught Dragons age slowly, much like born dragons… And until we met you we assumed many of them would seem inferior to a born Dragon. Half-Queen Talin, you have raised a born dragon, you command magic no lesser than a true Drake. Perhaps even equal to your dragonet!”

“Thank… you?” With a glance cast back to Faern, who helpfully offered a roll of their wing and shoulder as though to say ‘I only know what you’ve shown me’.

“I need no thanks for speaking a truth you had not realized, Dragon-Friend. Be ready to use those strengths as you aid your dragonet. They seem like they are more ambitious than sensible.” All too knowing were the words of a Sire.

I watched my mum try to form some conclusions about how well this was likely to go after the Sire regarded her as, for lack of a better word, mighty. I don’t think she was used to that being assumed about her, mostly because of how tiny she seemed in comparison to many of the folks we knew. It was natural for most human-born to assume she needed protecting, and I was probably the worst to assume it. Drakes, I had learned, had an innate sense of how much magic anything they came near possessed. Sire Itun had shown me how to use this sense, and I could do nothing but agree with him when I came to understand the scope of my Mum’s presence in comparison to himself and his family. As he had said, she was no less dense in magic than I was. He’d mentioned during our conversation that was unusual for humans, even Mages and Draught Drinkers.

He’d also mentioned that Draught Drinkers were known to be kinder to Dragons of any type, and that they’d been allies with Drakes for as long as any history. Long we had spoken, and I felt that I had learned much of what I needed to travel Hocrayle and conclude the war he warned me of… About that assumed ambition: he wasn’t entirely wrong. The continent we stood on was the last realm where drake and human kind hadn’t come to peace, and my parents had come from opposing nations both intending to infiltrate and change that fact. Rounding back, of course, to the natural cunning of Drake flocks. Although mum had been terribly, terribly underestimating the impact of them battling to the death.

Rhaekson had come from the neighboring continent Athedis, a place where cooperation between dragons and humans built lush gardens, thriving cities, and worldwide trade of rare products their traditions produced. Known for exotic foods and complex textiles, and renown to produce educated and noble dignitaries like herself. She had come with a long mission of smoothing relations between her home and the military dominance of Traeduros… The nation I was born in and the nation she had carved a line through, to quote Sire, “With Urthylo’s unprepared body.”

Urthylo, my Sire, had been a Knight King from a further continent in the east. Indemnis was a place that thrived with technology, machinations that paralleled the refined magics and tools made by Mages on our own continent. He had been equally interested in creating good relations in Hocrayle, although his target nation had been the more level-tempered trade nation of Xocrana. In fact, he had introduced technology to Xocrana that was still used for a multitude of convenience purposes in their relations internationally. Which was most of why Traeduros hadn’t yet managed to mount a war with anything but themselves.

According to Sire Itun, the issue with their deaths had been greater than an inconvenience on a dauntingly intercontinental scale. Rhaekson and Urthylo had done no less than start a war between their Continents by killing one another, and it was absolutely no secret that I was the cause of their battle. While Talin herself was reduced to estimating when I would emerge as a dragon in order to keep my survival and location hidden, he assured me that Drake and Humans from their home nations would have suffered no such uncertainties. Remaining stuck in the form of a dragon was a certified non-option if I didn’t want to help some unfortunate mage look like Mum. He was a reasonable Drake, obviously, and offered that I should venture away from the humans, and retire deep into the wilderness.

I am not a reasonable person. I am a hunter, and I am a dragon.

As of yet, I’m not sure what the dragon part is going to mean. Seems like a bad lot all around for me, honestly. I already had a problem with overthinking before I had the room in my head to do too much of it. Had too much ambition too, before I had the muscle and the fundamental magic to put behind it. In fact, hours ago, I felt like being a dragon and having the power to do anything but live in exile with Talin was an impossible maybe that we both were beginning to give up on.

“Mum, do you need to rest tonight?” I asked it as I felt the heat of the sun waning into dusk. Moving during the day would be too much a risk.

“Kyn will be working, we’d have to clear the whole forest and break the border into Traeduros of all places!” Understandably incredulous, the average Drake wouldn’t have the faintest hope of crossing an entire country border to border over a single night. Also it’s mostly suicide for a dragon to touch Traeduros, that’s where they make the Draughts.

“Kyn knows I’m a dragon, Mum. Infirili is close enough to the border that it won’t take anyone from Orthrain long to know it’s the only place that we would have made friends.” I lowered my head close up to hers and huffed a breath against her. “Do you think our friends are safe?”

Terror seized my Mum as my statement sunk in. She’d heard Sire Itun when he told me that others would have been waiting for me to mature. She hadn’t quite put two and two together that the network of people she’d befriended, the folks I had grown up assuming as family, would be the first people that any interrogative force would reasonably meet looking for us. “They’re hunting you, not them.”

“What lengths have you warned me humans will go to for a dragon, Mum?”

What lengths indeed. She’d warned them too, often. Getting too comfortable, too close to each other. It was liable to get them all killed by the same people that fed them their beasts. Some quality about Faern had always made them ignore her, and the voices of the Beast Drinkers that made up their family of the last two decades were racketing around her head. What lengths might the Alchemists and Mages who make Draughts go to?

How small her fears were. What lengths would warring nations stretch to?

The recognition seized her chest and she felt like the child under the Dragon’s unwavering gaze. “We have to go.”

There was no conviction in her voice, no emotion. It was a breath of fact and action, given as she leapt by the strength of her Draught-given legs onto Faern’s back. Claws caught against the ridge of rough scales as her dragonet burst into motion due east of their annual perch.

It was something she had always noticed about Faern, they were careful. They thought deeply and looked far ahead before they exacted motion or exerted any of their natural born strength, speed and force. The moment that they took flight, grasping massive trunks and launching themself along without any restraint, Talin recognized she had been wildly underestimating what her child was restraining. Bark crumbled under claws that only made contact long enough to crush dragon-sized grappling holds into ancient trunks, and they sprung from grapple to grapple with a familiarity and grace as if they were handling their spear in a hunt.

Each leap surprised Talin, in that she wasn’t jostled or flung off by the sheer force of the brief impact landings between them. Neither the great serpents or the storm drakes were known to possess such a grace, both often reported to be heavy and clumsy when they were seen in the wild. Other than the small feathered drake types, she didn’t know of any species reported to move with such grace or precision in fact. This in mind as the country went by them leap by leap, she became less concerned about her Dragonet and more concerned about what precisely they had in mind.

“What are you going to do when we get there, Faern? You don’t know how to be a dragon yet!” Attempting to be a voice of reason felt a bit late, if she admitted it to herself.

“I know magic.” Gruff, and disconcertingly not out of breath.

“I taught you very simple magic, and gracious little of it is anything we can—” Fretting, naturally. And interrupted by a snort and a pause in Faern’s motion. A pause, she realized with thinly veiled horror, that meant they had reached the end of the forest itself already. “That’s damn near thirty miles, how did you…”

“Sheer muscle and determination, mostly. I’m built to move through trees like that and I’m massive. I was throwing myself by full body length between the trees, without them I don’t know how fast I’ll be.” Reasoned as they were calculating the route, a mostly flat plain, to get the rest of the way to the border town of Infirili.

Talin noted that Faern was right, a long and slender frame reminiscent of a serpent, four powerful grappling limbs, and single jointed wings made for gliding spoke a story of sleek huntsmanship within the jungle or the forest, perhaps even suitable for streaking through deep waters. Very little of the renowned storm dragon’s flight seemed to have translated into them.

“Your legs are fairly long and slender for your framing. You can try sprinting at a gallop?” Suggested as she clambered up to clutch closer to their ears, using their massive horns as wind shields and peeking across the plain. Halfway through it turned into a crowded swamp before it actually reached the border, and she found that she fretted again about Faern’s health just as they leapt into action.

She had made a wise choice to grip behind the horns, a dead leap from near enough four hundred feet into a controlled glide giving her a taste of the sheer strength that her dragonet possessed. It was easier to see how much ground the full body throw covered when they were out of the tree crowding, and yet further did her meters long child glide on their unpracticed wings, surprising her when said membraned wings gave the rotation for a flap and gained some lift. Though nothing as jerky as a bat, it made the same leather flapping noise when they rose that slight bit into the air, and both herself and Faern gave incredulous twitches about it.

“I suppose you can fly then.” Matter of fact in tone, watching the ground slip past at alarming speeds below.

“Seems like it.” Agreed with another flap, and some experimental banking and wing adjustment. “Don’t think it’ll be a fancy show thing, but this could be good for going distances.”

“Can see that, we’re coming up on town fast.” Talin focused downward, seeing the familiar shabby adobe and lean to buildings from above made it painfully clear how much the trade center for Exiles wasn’t a real town. It also made no break on the horizon to hide the oncoming force of a foreign battalion. “Those aren’t Traedurin flags, Faern. We’re cutting in close.”

A grunt, and wings tucked tight. Talin let loose a shrill scream as they went from a fearfully high glide into a diagonal dive, speeding down to ground where Faern caught themself in a deep crouch. The shake that gave the ground collapsed a pair of less-used ‘buildings’ by the bar, and summoned the usuals and the barkeep outside in a flustered and half alebound mob. A mob that went quiet as Faern lowered their head and levelled familiar eyes on them.

“Hello Uncles. We need to leave.” Growled a dragon that felt they needed no introduction to a crowd of visibly drunk beast draughted.

Talin helpfully perked her head up from behind Faern’s horn, holding her mouth to prevent herself from losing what little she’d had to eat and looking down at the assembly of their friends, as well as watching the rest of them begin staggering out from the bar in confusion and curiosity. “Kyn!”

“Shit!” Roared the barkeep in answer, and the crowd went notably more sober at the realization that they weren’t having a beer fueled hallucination. “Get everyone out! Move!”

I watched the commotion from where I’d landed as my friends staggered, stumbled and scattered to bang on doors and wake those who were sober and sleeping in the settlement. Children, half dressed women and glinting weapons began to appear in moments as the exiled folk mobilized out of their slumber and towards myself and my mum. Luckily the panic itself didn’t have to do with us, these were the people that knew what I was and had done their best to give me a well versed human experience. These were also people that knew what they were risking when they chose to do that.

Mum leapt back to the ground to help organize, sprinting between folks and chirping for them to get to the trees with boosts of one of her energy elixirs. Off she sent the mothers first, laden with sons and daughters on hip and back and instructing them to bare the bone of their heels before they stopped. I lifted my head to turn back to the forest, finding the glint of the Drakes that we had met and finding a certain relief they seemed to have chosen to make way behind me. A signal for them to stop their hectic chasing, and a missive that they meet the humans at the treeline to show them a safe track through.

“There will be Fisherman’s Friends to find you, they will show you safety.” Barked my draconic voice, and I heard an eruption of expletives and thank yous from the crowd. Lifting my head I could make out the flags of the march, not close enough for me to make out the markings yet. That was good. I bowed my head down and carefully plucked my feet between the huts as I sought out Kyn, routing children towards adults as I came across them. The town itself was only cresting two hundred residents, but on the crest of midnight there was confusion to dampen the usually organized nature of it. “Kyn! I need you!”

My demand was heard by the wolf, standing brown and shaggy with his golden eyes appreciating me from the end of the road we were on. He was herding the cattle, horses and sheep out of the pasture, directing them toward the tree line for the fleeing folk to sort out in the morning. I rounded behind the mixed herd of beasts and gave a solid snap of my jaws, hissing a warning out and his job was done as hoof struck ground by the hundreds. We met on the field of the pasture, and I saw him transform back to human with a scowl dressing up his face for me.

“Faern what the hell! You shouldn’t be coming tae here like that!” Still wearing the growly layer of his wolf’s voice as he darted to get his pants out of the stable and over his bare rump.

“Don’t know how to change back yet, Uncle.” Huffed as I looped my tail around his waist, his hand grasping his tunic and a grunt escaping him as I scooped him up and swung my focus back toward town. Not a torch had been lit during the scramble to get everyone up and out, and mum was herding people out with a faint spell of light to guide them. I fell behind her and saw most of the feet left to run were the lame and frail. A frustrated grunt from me, and I cast my eyes over the broken pieces of the town for anything they might hide in, knowing the horses were routed and they couldn’t walk the plain.

“The Hull, the whole bar is a broken ship’s hull. Old as brass, but she’s solid. Get them inside it!” Kyn demanded of Talin as he clung to one of my horns, and I cast my eyes toward the bar as he continued. “Figure you can carry it as you are, Faern?”

“I can dig it out. We’ll see.” Already leaping over the rushing limp of the crowd, I dug my claws under the bar and hefted, finding the metal hull surprisingly light and hearing the crash of the furnishing inside as I righted the mostly intact length of a narrow boat. I had many questions to ask Kyn later, but we were relatively close to a large lake so I was going to settle on that for the explanation for now. A test of my wings and I found I could lift the ship with ease enough I could fly with it, and further Kyn helped by sliding down and rushing to connect lead lines to hooks on the railings while Talin helped the ailing board.

“It’s ah… Its a dragon boat. From Indemnis.” He explained as he scrambled over my chest, harnessing the ship around my ribs. “They have dragons smaller than you, these are how they move people around.”

“Kyn…” Talin beat me to the inquisitive tone, arms crossed over her chest and her brow quirking up.

“Dun worry about it too much. I think Faern gets it.” Spoken as he dropped onto the boat and pulled the rope to test it. I elected not to question him as I pushed up, beating my wings to gain height and leading toward the forest with a brief look over my back. The flags were still too dim to read, but they marched on steadily toward the town. I looked down and to Talin, giving her an expression of distress before I spoke.

“Level it.” A simple demand given in my growl.

“What? Why!?” I can’t honestly say if her resistance came from not wanting to use her magic for destruction or because it was the only town we’d been remotely welcome in for my entire life.

“They’re a battalion. They’ll follow any tracks we leave Mum.” And given that I was burdened to carry the weakest out, it seemed obvious why I wasn’t razing the town myself. I didn’t have to ask again, Kyn putting his hand on her shoulder and nodding his head in agreement was enough to convince her that my suggestion was sound.

#long post #Windscorn #Faern & Talin: Dynamic Duo #this is actually probably about half of this chapter but I'm going to break it into two parts #writeblr

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last-on-your-lips · 3 years

Text

So about leaping into the sky and roaring... most dragons will do that as a challenge. I happened to be a particularly large dragon, and the drakes I was faced with were a flag three strong about the size of my mouth. According to what Mum had taught me that meant these were probably juveniles, most drakes, wyverns and serpents would have been roughly large enough to latch onto my face in my newly erupted body. My vastly empty new mental space filed all this away behind ‘don’t let them see Mum’ and ‘juveniles probably have protective parents’. Both utterly helpful while mum was below me hissing that I needed to land back down because this territory belonged to other dragons, it was prime nesting terrain and I could anger a nest.

“Faern! Bloody... You can’t just go around roaring! Get back down here- oh I hear them now. Faern when we get you back to normal I’m going to make the worst mushroom stew and make you eat it. Get down here and pick me up we both need to go!” Her instructions seemed sound, don’t get me wrong, but the instincts you have as a human are as easy as ‘eat, sleep, mischief’. If I had wanted to do any of those I would probably have been able to make my body go where I told it to be. Instead I lashed my tail against one of the monolithic trees hard enough to split a branch off and spook mum quiet. I’d eat mushrooms for that later.

Thankfully it didn’t seem the small drakes had heard her by the time they came to perch on trees well out of my reach, massive yellow eyes studying my unusual expression and... admiring my ability to make myself hover. I recognized quickly that part of dragon to dragon communication must be magic, conversing by thoughts? No. Through horns. I could tell what they meant by the signals in their horns. I scrambled to figure out how to share my intentions and confusion through the new growths on my head, and panic mounted into the young drakes at the cacophonous effort of how complex and still yet incomplete my communication managed to be.

I stopped trying to transpond through my horns when they began scrambling backwards, instead opting to bellow and whine pitifully, latching myself onto one of the trees and tucking my wings with my feet planted to the ground and my head left peeking over the treeline. Mum wisely moved and tucked herself under me, the grip of one of her surprisingly strong hands pinching under a scale to tell me where she was.

_You are lost-new. Why are you in our forest?_ The first coherent communication came from further away, the mother of the juveniles. I could see by the glow in the young ones horns and eyes she was alarmed enough to overwhelm her children and speak through them. Even so, this gave me words I could imitate back and figure out my horns with. _Lost in forest. New. New. New. You?_ A struggling mimicry, and I indicated her three young as new before I flung my attention further, seeking her out through the skies. Much like a confused youth, she thought. This perplexed her enough I could sense her rising to leave their den. _No! No-new. Lost in forest._

The thing I should have known about mothers, having one of my own, was that this one was coming whether I liked it or not. My protest in fact made her move faster to evacuate her den, and I saw her many colored wings bloom out of a cavern few leagues away over the border into proper dragon country. Her nestlets quickly backtracked as I watched her rise up to get a view of me, and I saw them vanish into their den before she swooped to replace them, balancing on two-clawed feet upon the branches her little ones had occupied. I noted she was a particularly slender and graceful type of drake, narrow faced and tufted in white feathers at the crest, chest and tail. A Fisherman’s Friend, these were called by humans. Potentially not a threat to my mum, these were known to enjoy human company along the southern coast.

_You are not-new, but lost-new. And you are a Dragon, who were your Sire and Carrier?_ Her tone became more perplexed, and I could tell she didn’t intend for me to answer this question as I stared blankly from my shied pose. _Dragons rare from the human lands. Humans kill, steal magic from their bones. Only the oldest of Wyvern and Serpent go where the humans kill, Rhaekson and Urthylo were last drakes, your Sire and Carrier?_

I gave a hesitant chirp of affirmation, still tightly tucked under the tree and hiding my mum by wing and tail. There had apparently been some fame among dragons for my ill-fated parents.

_Human born Dragon. You are New!_ An eruptive cry and warble from the drake, her feathers fanning out in excitement as she bowed her front down and wavered her tail behind open wings. _First Human born Dragon for many sheds, born of Lost Prince Rhaekson and Killed Queen Urthylo. They died humans on Dragon shores! Fought about you!_

Somewhere within her broken human dialect I was coming to understand that my own relationship to gender-as-humans-defined-it was not going to be unusual among the scaly kind. I also was going to have to admit to my Mum she had been right, and my birth parents had died fighting over custody of me. What I wasn’t ready for, after such friendly introduction, was the next question from the excitable drake.

_Who is the dragon-friend below?_ And she showed me the image of my Mother’s heat and scent where it was huddled against my leg, not hidden at all from the array of senses any drake might possess.

_Not dragon-friend. Like you for the made-new._ Using what few words I had I gave a frustrated flap of my wings. _Carrier._ _Then she is Dragon-Friend of us!_ Cheerful, and down she swooped into the clearing, scurrying under my body as I staggered back and let loose a frustrated grunt. Back to all four feet as I could hear she had permitted her mate and her young to come out and join us under the canopy. Fisherman’s Friend, indeed. These small beasts were all too eager to show themselves to my baffled Mum.

“What are they doing?” A simple question posed to me when the whole little flock was present and she was buried under three purring young drakelings.

“They have decided you are their friend because you are my Mum. You are now Dragon-Friend Talin, congratulations.” From where I had settled down into a heap to rest just away from the commotion of the young, watching quietly as these fierce and capable wild drakes played with all the familiarity of lifelong companions to us. I was full of more questions than I had been, and it must have shown in my demeanor and my horns.

“Proper Dragons are rare now, Liege Faern. They breed far in the wilds of Hocrayle, and most have lost the adaptations that let them become human.” Spoken in near perfect human from the Sire, and my attention was gathered and focused. “I served Queen Urthylo, and my family have the human gene as well. I chose to live as a drake when your Sire-Queen... your father, excuse me... perished in the fight with your Carrier, Rhaekson. Forgive me if I speak out of turn, it has been nearly three decades since I was among humans.”

“Is this the reception we can expect from all of dragon kind now?” Mum beat me to the query, still visibly enjoying the pile of weight and purring on top of her.

“No, I’m sorry. Although Liege Faern is long awaited among us, the opinions of the lower Drakes, Wyverns and Serpents differ about their purpose among us. Many of the smaller species will not outright challenge a dragon. What humans call ‘hybrids’ are what we consider to be the true Dragons among us, you are larger, your magics are more powerful, and you possess more skills than any purebred lesser.” He spoke with the careful diction of a scholar and I could see my Mum contemplating dozens of questions she shouldn’t ask a married man or a scholar. “You are also in more danger than any of us, because you are more valuable to the human mages and alchemists. Surely you know this, of course, your Dragon-Friend Talin is afflicted by a Dragon’s Draught.”

#Faern & Talin: Dynamic Duo #Windscorn pt 2/?#Going to post them here and AO3 #Talin has secrets!#Gonna focus on their actual appearance next

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