Tribulations of a Dragon

We’re moving through a surprisingly large street, clearly made for allowing carriages to pass each other. As I look around, it occurs to me that I have no idea where the knights went.

They just left us in Wreyn’s care, which is a little bit alarming, since I now suspect he’s strong enough to subdue me. I’m gonna bet on him being friendly though.

Juuust to make sure, I ask him why he’s willing to risk letting us in. “Consider it professional curiosity. I’ve spent my life studying magecraft, and now a creature of magic approaches my doorstep on friendly terms. I’d be a fool to turn away this opportunity!”

Ah, so it’s not just him being friendly. At least he seems honest. Unless he isn’t entirely honest… I suddenly feel a shiver and ask what this opportunity is, as I fear it might be a ploy to bind me.

“Oh my, no. Oh, I apologize for that misunderstanding. No, no, no. I have no intentions of deceiving or harming you. What I meant by opportunity would be the chance of being on friendly terms before you grow too powerful, so that you may share some secrets with a friendly face as you grow, and perhaps a favorable glance, should someone else offend you.”

To his credit, he looks shocked and uncomfortable at the implications of what he unwittingly alluded to, but yeah, that still sounds sketchy, politics... So I ask Raya what she thinks, and she’s clearly busy looking around at all the buildings.

The only reason I can tell is because she keeps leaning towards whatever she’s currently looking at. It seems we’re crossing through a shopping district. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.” Good job, Raya…

Having stopped, Old Man Wreyn strokes his beard again, “perhaps a peace offering would be just the right thing.” And then he saunters over to some clothing boutique and slams the door open. Geez, some people are careless with other folks’ property.

“Ladies! I have an important guest in need of new attire! My treat!” This guy might be nuts…

“Du themar?” “No, not the dragon, the goblin!” They don’t seem entirely sold on the idea of dressing up Raya, but I think it sounds like a tremendous idea, so I lower my head and she dismounts.

“I’m not sure about this, Kira. They’re blessed, what if they hurt me?” Nudging her, I reassure her that if they do anything, I’ll burn this entire place to the ground. “That seems a bit harsh, Kira.”

As Raya walks into the shop, I glance over at Old Man Wreyn, and he looks worried. Good. "I hope it doesn’t come to that.” Me too, buddy. Looking through the window, the seamstresses have gathered around Raya, who is now standing on a platform.

She seemed apprehensive about this initially, but now that the seamstresses are having her select a dress, she’s much more into it.

I’m impressed by how fast these women manage to work, I can barely keep track of them. Feeling somewhat suspicious, I decide to ask Old Man Wreyn if he had planned for us to visit this shop, since it seems awfully convenient that we just happened to stop here.

“Hmm, I appreciate you thinking I’m that good at scheming, but I simply went with the first thing I could think of. Had we been outside a bakery, I’d have bought stuff from there.” Darn it! I want snacks…

As I’m watching the magic of tailoring, I find myself surrounded by a bit of a crowd. I’m not really comfortable being surrounded by a crowd of strangers. But luckily for me, Old Man Wreyn starts telling them to disperse, but in doing so, he also calls me a wild animal…

At least it worked and folks are now wandering off. Looking back into the store, I see Raya wearing a very pretty dress with some lovely floral appliqués. I bet she’s loving those.

Aside from watching her joy, this is tremendously boring, I’m stuck sitting out here watching her for hours because these people also didn’t make their town dragon-accessible…

I catch the old man glancing at me several times, clearly wanting to say or ask something. Well, if he’s not ready, I’m not gonna prod.

Instead, I focus on Raya, who is apparently done getting her dress fitted, as she comes waltzing out of the shop.

“Look Kira! It’s beautiful!” With her wide grin, she twirled around in her new red dress, looking like quite the little lady.

I’m glad I haven’t done anything to get dirty today, if she’s planning to wear the dress when we fly home. Old Man Wreyn guides us further into the town, and it becomes increasingly difficult not to hear the passersby giggling as they look at Raya. It’s putting me a bit on edge since I can’t understand their language.

Old Man Wreyn seems to have noticed my mood shifting, and starts looking around. “Do not worry, Lady Kira, these fine folks merely find Raya adorable.” I appreciate the reassurance, so I let out a small puff of smoke. As long as things are okay and I’m just a little protective, all is well, I suppose.

To my surprise, Old Man Wreyn seems fixated on the smoke and waves his arm through it while letting out “oohs” and “aahs.” “Remarkable! I can see the magic in the smoke. If you intend to set fire to anything, do let me know so I may witness it.”

That seems like a weird request, but if he wants something to burn, then that should be easy enough. So I suggest we set something up, and then Raya and I can start heading back, because I don’t want it to get too late before we leave.

“Ooh, witnessing Dragonflame is quite rare! Well, not so much rare, quite a few have experienced it, it’s surviving it that tends to be the problematic part.” Geez, that turned grim fast… Dragons really have a reputation, huh.

And he’s off… Our escort just ran away. I offer Raya the opportunity to sit on me again, which she readily accepts, clearly not content with risking her new dress getting dirty. A little princess riding atop a dragon, what a sight that must be.

Unsure where we were headed, I just opted for continuing down the street in the general direction Old Man Wreyn ran. He’ll probably find us again. How hard can it be for him to spot us? I’m larger than anyone here, by a lot.

In barely any time at all, Raya and I get lost. So many of the buildings look the same, wooden frame, white walls in between the wood, some windows. It’s just very ‘the same.’ A quick inquiry to Raya turns out to not be helpful.

“We probably should’ve stayed put, so he could find us again.” Okay, yeah, that would have been a good idea, but I didn’t do that, Raya.

The obvious choice now is to double down and continue exploring. What could go wrong? Probably a lot, if I’m being honest, but that’s not our problem right now. Wandering further into the town, we see all sorts of people, and now that we haven’t got an escort, they’re a lot less keen on sticking around.

“You sure we should keep going, Kira?” I’m a lot less sure now than I was half an hour ago, that’s for sure. If we find a larger area, I can just take off, but once again everything is too narrow for my wings, my body can fit into these streets, but they’re not great for taking flight.

All of a sudden, three guys are blocking our way. They look quite well-equipped, and uh… armed… One guy is standing in front of the other two, wielding a large shield and a mace, behind him is an archer with a very large bow, it’s as tall as he is.

And lastly, some wizard-looking guy with a small stick tipped with a delicious-looking gem.

They started shouting something and my bad feeling about this whole thing got worse, so I set Raya down and ready myself for an attack. This time, I refuse to be caught unprepared.

The archer loosed an arrow, hitting my shoulder. To my surprise, the arrow penetrated my scales without much difficulty. I flinch and the shield guy charges.

I feel the heat within me rise, his turn to be surprised as I unleash my flames with all the power I can muster. He doesn’t make it to me before his shield is ruined and he takes the flames head-on.

I don’t stop until he stops screaming. The smell is tantalizing, and I feel a thrill growing within me. I want more.

Unfortunately for the citizens, the nearby buildings caught fire. The wizard uses this opportunity to throw out magic, and I’m struck by several globs of adhesive, limiting my movement by making me stick to the ground.

Another arrow hits me in the back, and I can see the bastard nock another arrow. I need to break line of sight, so I pull myself out of the goop and move into a nearby alley. I feel another arrow hit my tail. How the hell aren’t my scales protecting me?!

Fortunately, Raya is smarter than me, because she’s already in here. I don’t have time to wait, so I scoop her up in my mouth, careful not to hurt her, and then I climb up the wall of one of these three-story buildings. It’s not especially comfortable. The alley is barely wide enough to fit me, so my wings rub against the walls.

Before I reach the roof, I feel another arrow striking me, lodging itself in my thigh. As I reach the roof, I spit out Raya on a neighboring building, and I can hear people running up stairs underneath me. I’m gonna assume it’s those bastards following me.

I try unfolding my wings, but the adhesive goop is limiting how much I can spread my wings. I doubt I can fly with this nonsense sticking to me. What I can do is get a bit of lift… I don't want to be caught out here on the open roofs, I can't allow them to keep attacking me from a distance. This fight needs to be brought to a smaller area, and I have an idea.

Partially unfolding my wings is the best I can do because of this freakin’ goop, so I use that to increase my jump height and try to slam down through the roof.

It becomes immediately apparent that the roof wasn’t built for this kind of abuse, but it won’t be long until those two bastards are on me.

After a few slams into the roof, it starts to crack. A couple more and I’ll break through and hopefully crush my pursuers. The roof access latch opens, and it’s the archer. I should have been prepared for that.

I swing my tail around, but he manages to dodge. Another jump and the roof cracks. I fall through, landing on the third floor. The wizard appears very surprised by my sudden appearance, so to capitalize on that, I unleash my flames again. I want to see him burn. But my flames aren’t reaching him.

Another freakin’ surprise… He’s using some sort of barrier to protect himself, but I can’t stop now, that would only give him a chance to retaliate. Another arrow hits me, right in the mouth, pinning my tongue to the bottom of my jaw.

It doesn’t stop my flames, though, so I keep going. Even with the roof of the building missing, smoke is filling the increasingly hot room. I feel inclined to keep it going, but that archer is a problem. One lucky shot could be the end of me.

I need to get out of here, so I rush toward a wall and body-slam it, breaking my way through. Instead of falling, my claws rip into the wall on the other side of the street, but that just leaves me as an easy target.

I quickly move and jump onto the side of the building next to the one I broke out of, where the bastards are.

This is going to be fun. I ready myself by the hole I created in the wall, still hanging onto the outside of the building. It doesn’t take long for the archer to stick his head out, and I strike.

Biting down on his torso, I rip him from the building and shake him with more power than I probably need to. His torso tears apart, and my thrashing sprays most of his intestines across the street, his legs landing with a thud at the base of the building.

He may be a bastard, but he is a delicious bastard. I quickly swallow the chunk I ripped off. It tastes glorious. I climb up on the roof again. I’ve still got one person to deal with.

“I surrender!” Too fucking bad, you picked this fight. He has moved into the center of the room I broke into, so I jump him and rip his belly open.

Thrusting my face into the juicy bits first as I tear out and eat his organs. He’s even juicier than the archer, and I can feel his power become mine.

Once I finish up my meal, I leave through the gaping hole in the wall I charged through, climbing down onto the street. I’ve still got a crispy treat waiting for me.

My thoughts drifting back to the charred wolf, I can’t help but salivate in anticipation. He’s still there. I bite into one of his legs and rip it off.

He’s just as tasty as I expected. I’m halfway through him when I hear someone shouting at me. Turning to look at the source of the obnoxious shouting, I find a very pale guard.

Fantastic, more treats have presented themselves.

“Kira! Stop! Please…” Why should I stop when I’m having so much fun and these witless treats keep presenting themselves?!

“I don’t like seeing you like this, Kira.” Too bad! This is what they want me to become!

“Don’t let them force you to become what they fear you are, Kira. You’re my friend, remember that. You’re our protector, not this monster. Please.”

Before I can understand what’s going on, I fall to the ground as a deep shattering sensation overwhelms me, as if my head is being split open. Like something inside me is screaming with all of its might. Screaming in abject horror and disgust.

As I’m pulled out of my bloodlust, the screaming quietens, and I regain my strength. I look over at Raya, and it’s clear she’s been crying. Because of me… I need to control myself for my friends.

I tell her it’s time for us to go, we’ve overstayed our welcome… I try to shake off the goop and find myself surprised that it does come loose. My guess is that it lost its potency once the wizard couldn’t maintain the spell anymore.

Raya enters the building she used to get down to the street, and I scale the wall one last time. When I get to the top of the building, I wait for a moment and Raya shows up, so I lower my head, allowing Raya to climb on, and we fly back to Tuiran. At least that place is friendly…

I fly over Tuiran and see the square empty, so that’s where I land. I’m just gonna lie down for a bit… It doesn’t take long for folks to start gathering, and recent events have left me somewhat weary of that.

I let out a soft growl, but they just keep sticking around. Some of the guards gather, and suddenly I feel a stabbing pain, which makes me want to lash out.

“Please be calm, dragon, we have to get these arrows out.” Right, of course… I can feel a few people climbing on me, and then a sharp pain in my thigh. Apparently, the arrow is stuck deep enough to need several people pulling to get it out.

It fucking hurts…

“If I had known you’d be bleeding all over the place, I wouldn’t have paid so much for your blood.” Looking up, I see Joras. I don’t really appreciate his smartassery right now, but I do appreciate that he immediately gets to work helping the guards.

Evidently, I got hit more than I realized because they’ve pulled out five arrows, and I’ve still got one stuck in my lower jaw.

Joras then asks if that was all of them, so I open my mouth to reveal the remains of the last arrow.

“I might have to volunteer someone else for that one, in case of chewing.” Without realizing it, I end up growling at him.

“The growling isn’t really selling me on you not chewing, Kira.” He eventually relents and, with some help, manages to pull the arrow out, which is very relieving.

I look over at Raya and… her dress is torn… even the one good thing we got out of this has been ruined… “Are you going to be okay, Kira?”

I’m about to give her a lick when I remember that I’d cover her in blood if I did, so I stop myself. I confirm that I’ll be okay and apologize for ruining her dress, but she just gives my face a hug. We’ll have to find someone to repair it.

“So, what happened, Kira?” Joras looks at me with his remarkably indifferent eyes. Raya gives him the cliff notes, and he shrugs but goes on to explain that we likely encountered adventurers.

Apparently they’re an independent organization working to reduce the number of threats to settlements. It seems like good work, but screw those guys. I didn’t do anything to deserve getting attacked.

“I must say, I’m quite curious how this will turn out. Adventurers going against the wishes of a lord, and a Grand Mage at that. It is profoundly foolish behavior. While it is possible that the Grand Mage set you up, I doubt he’d be so careless as to do it in his own domain.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Joras’ brow wiggle with such intensity before, he must be giving this quite a lot of thought.

He ended up thinking of several scenarios in which this whole thing would make sense, but I don’t really care right now, I’m more inclined to just lie here.

I wanna mope, but every time I think about those adventurers, my frown is quickly turned upside down as the memories of a thrilling battle fill me with exhilaration.

Joras is still mumbling about schemes and stuff, but I don’t think anyone is paying attention to him anymore. It’s kinda fascinating watching him just ramble on by himself. Like a white noise machine.

It’s surprisingly soothing to just hear him rant in the background, and it doesn’t take long before I end up dozing off.

————————

Delicious smells in the air rouse me from my glorious slumber. Slowly opening my eyes, I see that the food stalls are back!

“Hah! It was my skewers that woke the dragon! Come try the best skewers in town!” It was kind of a combined effort, I think. And then I notice an underlying smell, sort of like decay and blood, and it feels close by…

I look around to locate it and I realize it’s me. I’m still covered in adventurer. Yeah, I’m gonna need a bath, but as I stand up, it occurs to me that these people are very unafraid of me.

They’ve been setting up their stalls very close to me, and I don’t really have room to take off without risking damaging something.

Luckily for me, I’m much taller than these folks, so I can see a fairly open area that’ll be excellent as a launch pad. I start making my way over there, ignoring the tasty treats for now.

Once I reach the launch area, I unfold my wings and people are quick to step back. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of flying.

I head straight toward my lake to get a good lake bottom scrub in. I manage to get most of the grime, but there’s definitely still some stuff stuck, but that’ll have to do. I need to figure out how to make some sort of car wash for dragons.

Enough of that, I’m gonna head toward the plains and pick up a few snacks. I bet I can trade them for cooked snacks. I am Kira, fearsome lake dragon and barterer of snacks! Rawr!

Taking off again, I find myself flying at a leisurely pace. My thoughts are drawn to the events in the human town. I find myself mostly indifferent to having killed multiple people and caused what I assume is quite a bit of property damage. At the same time, something inside me feels like it wants to cry and mourn for my attackers.

I’m not sure what to make of that, but I’m confident I’ve crossed some sort of threshold. I’m definitely starting to see humans as an enemy, and why wouldn’t I? So far, they’ve been quick to judge me an enemy.

As I’ve been flying over the plains, I have kept an eye out for those deer creatures, and they seem quite plentiful now that I’m looking for them. I pick out one as my first target and go for a swoop.

It works perfectly and I’m feeling quite proud of how good I’m becoming at hunting. Deciding I deserve a reward, I just eat the entire thing quickly. They’re fairly small, I’d say about one and a half meters tall (5 ft), which now occurs to me is actually pretty large, I’m just larger.

I fly away from the kill site and take aim at a few more of these critters. Bringing a few back to Tuiran is definitely gonna earn me some good food, maybe even some money.

It barely takes any time at all to swoop in for the kill a few more times, my end result is three more critters to return with. I’m surprised at how different it is to take off while carrying something.

Instead of getting distracted and going off-course, I manage to fly directly towards Tuiran, but then I get distracted by some horse rider. I think it’s Old Man Wreyn, and he’s alone. Curious.

Now we might find out which of Joras’ endless ideas is the correct one, but just as a precaution, I should mentally prepare myself for him to attack.

As I approach Tuiran, I aim for the square to drop my deer off. I quite easily spot the area in which I woke up, so that’s where I’ll drop the fresh meat. I’m sure the vendors will figure out what to do with them.

Now to focus on even more important things than food; potential danger. I don’t know what Old Man Wreyn wants, so I fly on over to where I assume he’ll arrive and let out a roar.

The guards are quick to respond and start gathering from most of the town. They’re a clever bunch, not leaving the other areas entirely defenseless.

I land just outside the gate and the guards rush to gather around me. I’m genuinely surprised by how willing they are to not only fight by my side, but also to gather at my command.

By the time guards stop trickling out of the gates, the rider is in clear line of sight and still approaching without slowing down.

For a moment, I think that’s promising because surely someone who’s here to attack would slow down after seeing us, but I realize I don’t actually know how they would react.

So for now, we wait and let the rider approach. Geez, it’s boring to wait, I’m just gonna have a sit down. I’m very tempted to just fly out and torch this person, at least then I wouldn’t have to wait anymore.

Glancing around, the guards look quite disciplined, they’ve arranged themselves into organized rows and are looking surprisingly intimidating.

He’s finally approaching, it’s definitely Old Man Wreyn, and he’s casting that spell of his again. Before he gets too close, he just stops and dismounts.

“Lady Kira! I seek an audience!” I have no idea why he’d want an audience, so I just inform him that he can consider these guards his audience and get on with it.

“This is no time for jokes. Please, we must speak about what has transpired.” Oh… Well, now I feel silly. Just gonna go with that being an inappropriate joke…

I tell him to approach, and he quickly does so, followed by kneeling in front of me. I’m getting very mixed emotional responses at this, it feels very awkward, but it also fills me with pride.

Using my most commanding voice, I tell him that we can speak once my councilor arrives. I ask a nearby guard to fetch Joras, the guard quickly runs off without questioning me. I could get used to this.

I turn my gaze towards Old Man Wreyn, he seems quite uncomfortable, but he’s waiting patiently for Joras to arrive. My plan so far is just to throw this responsibility onto Joras and let his smartassery win this battle of wits.

To my surprise, Joras arrives after only a while of staring down Wreyn, and I introduce the two to each other. Wreyn explains how he heard about the events with the adventurers, but he still believes that an alliance is possible. Though the people of Oakhold are split between blaming me and blaming the adventurers.

Apparently, some folks believe it was only a matter of time before I caused a ruckus, and the adventurers just happened to be the catalyst this time, but anything could’ve set me off.

That’s obviously nonsense, I haven’t caused a ruckus all day. I considered bringing this up to defend myself, but I’m sure Joras would do something silly, like point out that it’s only barely past noon.

Wreyn goes on to explain that the folks who believe I’m the innocent party in all this are now very much against having adventurers around. Well, maybe not innocent, but at least not the aggressor.

It turns out you look a lot less innocent when you spray half a person across several buildings. Something Wreyn pointed out he’d prefer I didn’t do again.

According to Wreyn, adventurers tend to cause problems wherever they go, but they’re necessary, so folks just deal with the aftermath. Which is exactly why he wanted to get in my good graces.

How bad are adventurers if a giant man-eating danger lizard is preferable…

Turns out very bad. He also considers this whole ordeal their fault because, according to him, I did behave very well until they stepped in, and that’s when the fire started.

Although he’s not really comfortable with the man-eating part, if they didn’t want to get eaten, they shouldn’t have been hostile while being tasty.

“Miss Dragon, may we leave? It doesn’t seem like there’s much for us to do.” I completely forgot about the guards… They’ve just been standing here dutifully. I dismiss them and suggest they try some of the food stalls and see if the cooks have used any of the meat I brought.

Watching these two go about their talk is tremendously boring, so I join the guards and leave.

“Wait, Lady Kira, where are you going?” I can’t think of an excuse, so I just give him a look and continue leaving.

“You’ll have to excuse her, she’s very busy, unfortunately. Although I assure you, I can negotiate just fine on her behalf, with or without her presence.”

I’m just gonna disregard that chill I felt.

I’m gonna find Raya and see if she’s up for something. Which turns out to be a remarkably easy task because she was waiting for me just inside the gates. She’s curious about what’s going on out there, so a quick somewhat accurate rundown later, we’re walking down the street at a leisurely pace.

Glancing at her as we walk, I note she’s wearing her usual outfit, so I’m reminded that I need to ask about repairing her dress.

“That’s not important right now, Kira. We should talk about what happened in the human town.” I disagree… We should probably focus on something else, like her dress.

“You really scared me, Kira. You’ve been aggressive before, but this was different.” I don’t want to talk about it…

“It was like you were a wild beast, reveling in the kill for fun, not because you had to. What happened?”

The stupid rain is back…