To be arrogant was to be a dragon. That's what Tyr's mom had told her once before. She hadn't really understood at the time, and truth be told she'd never taken the time to examine those words very closely. It was amazing how many other things were more fun than waxing philosophical. That wasn't to say she never had, but she'd certainly never done so with that phrase.It wasn't that she was consciously arrogant - that much was probably apparent - it was that that she was convinced she'd learned enough to avoid trouble. Fighting it head on would give her trouble, most likely, but she wasn't a fighter anyway. Those that didn't fight for a living tended to live longer than soldier types, plus she was both cute and not a threat to anyone in her own eyes.
"Hm, no evil dragons or evil dragon slayers, huh? You guys must do a good job. Better than I'd do. I avoid trouble so I don't have to fight it." She flexed. "I'm not exactly beefy, even for a dragon." She shifted again, once again on the prowl for possible real food. The jerky was a bit disgusting, even though she was thankful for it. Not to mention it was hardly filling, and her mom had taught her that eating too much wind could be dangerous to the environment. People needed to breath and trees only made air so fast!
"So uh, not to be rude or anything, Mister Raven Dracoson," she started distractedly, "But I'm starving and those deer smelled delicious. Mind if I take a moment to go hunting? I might not be that strong but my dragon form is strong enough for deer," she chuckled to herself as if it were an amusing statement. Truth be told sky dragons weren't physically the strongest dragons anyway. She was weak for one - a runt, so to speak. She could probably beat a single human bodybuilder in her dragon form, but her strength translated to what the equal would be for a human in this form, and she was literally about a thirteen year old girl in every physical way.
"There hasn't been an evil dragon in this area in a long time," Raven shook his head slowly. He wondered what it would have been like if there were evil dragons here. Would he still be transformed like he was? He still didn't even understand why he was given such a powerful magic. And the one who had the answers he buried himself. He shook his head slowly. He needed to be less depressing. He'd work on that later though. Maybe. Probably not. "Since before I was born."
"Far be it from me to stop you from hunting," Raven shrugged and smiled again. He followed this with a small nod and motioned towards the deer. It'd give him some space to wrap his mind around the fact that this small girl was a dragon. Or that there were more than he thought that existed. "Go get food. I'll be around here if anything comes up."
With a pleased giggle, the girl reactivated her magic, masking her scent as she moved towards where the deer had been. There was still one lingering. He was the slow one of the bunch. That meant he deserved to get eaten. Tyr tiptoed to some brush, motioning with her hand to command the wind. Suddenly, the deer was lifted off its feet, and just as it started to bleat, a long, green wyrm appeared from the brush, grabbing it and flying back into the trees. The deer was never heard from again.
Tyr, however, returned shortly, a bag of fresh meat in tow. She could have just eaten it raw in dragon form, but she did have *some* manners, and there was a human dragon person who needed to eat too sometimes. "I was gonna just eat it," she admitted as she sat down cross-legged, opening the bag to show Raven. "But then I remembered you might be hungry too, and that humans like their meat burned just like fire dragons do." By burned, she meant cooked. She'd come to like it either way, though normally that just meant she was adding unnecessary time to the process if she prepared it the human way.
All in all, the hunting trip had taken maybe fifteen minutes, if one included the time it had taken her to steal the good parts from the deer before leaving the rest to the hungry scavengers nearby. "But there were a bunch of dragons here a few years back." she restarted the conversation from where they left off as if no time had passed. "I know they weren't evil, but the person who brought them here was. It's kinda a scary thought. Though, I don't think I'm very desirable as a dragon henchman. Imagine this cute face coming after you. You'd just stand there laughing while these human teeth nommed ineffectively on your arm or something." She was half joking, considering she wasn't violent and thus actual effective ways to hurt people weren't really on her mind.
"Er, what I mean is, I guess I'm kinda curious. Did you stop them and the bad person? You know, since you said there weren't any bad dragons or dragon slayers around, that suggests you're the good guy." She allowed some of that age to show through for a moment - not the "I'm still a child dragon" age, but the "I'm wiser than I act" sort of age. "I can't imagine how hard that would be. Especially since sometimes bad choices have to be made for good reasons, huh?" Yet another reason she didn't want to be a fighter.
Another Dragon.... and this one so young compared to the others. Raven found himself stumped. He shouldn't have been but here he was. He sat, leaning against the tree he'd been hiding near while she hunted. Looking down at his hands they were shaking slightly. His emotions were getting the better of him. By the time Tyr returned however, Raven had recomposed himself. , "A good guy?" Raven took the offered food with an appreciative nod and let fire surround his hand. He began cooking the meat over his hand, doing his best to not look tense. His eyes stayed focused on what he was doing but he managed to still keep an eye on her. "If only it were that simple."
"I did stop his plan with some help," Raven nodded as he rolled the meat over to cook the other side. There was a deep melancholy in his voice as he continued. There was no real point in hiding things from a dragon. "The ends don't justify the means. A bad decision for a good reason is still bad. And I have to bear the consequences for it."
Tyr held up her own meat for Raven to cook. Her human form didn't appreciate uncooked meat like her dragon form did; her tastebuds were rather different in the two forms, though both liked the taste of wind. She had to be patient; she preferred her human form in front of humans and this was the price she paid: Patience. Something that shouldn't be hard for an eternal being, but never seemed to stop being hard when it came to food.
"Can I see your eyes?" Tyr asked, rather than responding to what he had said immediately. She had a sinking feeling of what he'd done, and yet she couldn't bring herself to see him as a bad guy for it. Dragons, especially the ones thousands of years older than her, were extremely powerful, and would be hard to stop without... well, killing them. If his eyes didn't look human, she'd heard what that meant. She'd been told to be careful around dragon-eyed humans, because they were dragon slayers who had killed dragons. But she also knew that was their purpose, and if a dragon had trained a dragon slayer, they likely knew it would have to happen. Dragons weren't stupid, after all.
Raven shifted when she started cooking the meat on his flame so she had easier access to it. Normally he'd have built a camp fire. Put effort into making it look like he didn't have magic. But he was with a dragon. A young, naive, and possibly stupid dragon, but a dragon none the less. And because she was a young dragon, even if she was older than him, he felt an urge to be kinder to her. It wasn't the face... at least not for Raven.
"I'd rather not," Raven said shaking his head slowly. He didn't want to ruin his only chance to talk with a dragon again. He was pretty sure the other dragons were angry with him. And he knew Kotone was mad. And rightfully so too. What he did was inexcusable. He'd finally been redeeming himself after Shadow Heart and then he went and screwed it up. For everyone's sake.... it almost made him want to laugh.
Grrr. The mental grrr was accompanied by a physical one. It wasn't very dragon-like, coming from a human throat. Unfortunately, she didn't catch the irony in not showing him her dragon form while wanting him to reveal his secrets. She opened her mouth to respond, but the cooking meat was just so good. She wondered if being cooked over a human hand flavored it. That was a weird thought, who would want to eat humans? She spent half her time or more as a sort of human. Gross!
Then again he was using magic. it was probably like cooking the meat on a rock or something... only, you know, more hand shaped. Wait she'd been thinking of something else. "But I need to see!" she decided, hopping up to grab his sunglasses, all human politeness forgotten in her moment of excitement. "C'mon! I want to see! It's not like I would hurt you, I'm just curious!"
Raven flipped the meat over again and patiently watched it slowly brown over from the heat. Ocacasionally juices would come off the meat, but the flames consumed them with a sizzle before they hit the flame. The sizzling brought a small smile to Raven's face. He did enjoy cooking, even if it was for himself at this point.
"And I'd really rather not," Raven said with a slight growl to his voice. He hadn't missed her growl, and it was out of instinct more than anything tthat he returned the growling. That had been a big problem for Raven lately. The dragon instincts... Though it seemed Tyr was bringing them out more. "And I'm not worried about you hurting me. Not with those stubby little teeth."
That's when she lunged and with his hands full there was liittle he could do. The sunglasses came off, and after a moment of surprise, Draconian eyes shifted away, as did his face.
"My teeth aren't stubby. Not my dragon ones anyway." The girl chuckled happily in her triumph as she looked up and saw his eyes, confirming her suspicions. The grin disappeared for a moment, replaced with a look far more serious and adult than one would think possible. "So that's why they trained you," she decided after a minute. They'd seen the possibility of needing the world defended from themselves, and he'd had to do it. It was... probably one of the most tragic things she'd ever heard.
Her emerald eyes shifted across his face, the goofy grin reappearing. "Still," her voice showed little evidence of the serious tone she'd had a moment ago. "I think this is much better. Your human sunglasses are so impersonal. I could never tell where you were looking. Weirdest human invention ever. Well, after... everything else that's popped up in the last fifty years..." She sat his glasses down beside her as she sat back down on her knees.
"So, what's it like to have to deal with dragon instincts and stuff?" she asked after a moment. "I mean, I was born with em, so I don't think about it much. Is it different? Was that why you growled back at me? I've never heard a human growl before."
She didn't seem angry or distraught. And she knew why he'd been trained. He honestly didn't know himself, and he was afraid of the answer. So he didn't push for the why's. He simply shifted his gaze back at the meat cooking in front of him. He was silent even after she spoke. But before she could get bored he did eventually speak up.
"That's why I wear them," He said making a mental note to get them back before they parted ways. "There are people like general Nox that would come after me because of these eyes. And other people who would hate me for them would attempt to kill me. So I siimply hide them. Out of sight out of mind as they say."
"It's probably why," Raven simply shrugged. He looked uncertain as he spoke but he sounded more confident than he looked. "It's strange, having two sets of instincts. For example... the dragon side says to start chowing now, the human side says to finish cooking it. The dragon side is just... much louder now than it was before."
"Well," she leaned back, sniffing as the meat cooked. It smelled as good as ever. Possibly better due to the fact she was liable to die any second if she didn't get food. Well maybe that was an exaggeration. Either way, she quietly took a few sips of air so she wouldn't tackle him for the flaming dear steaks. Young dragons needed a lot of food. "Dragon slayers go through some ritual I was never taught to gain dragon abilities. By the same token, the more dragons a dragon slayer kills, the more dragon she becomes." She doubted he'd been taught this.
For her part, she sounded like it was no big deal. As much as anything, it was a side effect of the ritual, but it was also a nice safeguard to make sure that even if a dragon slayer went bad, it wouldn't actually get rid of all the dragons in the world. "You know there's ways of concealing stuff like that. Heck, I'm an entire dragon who looks like a sweet little girl, right? I mean, sure it's an actual alternate form and not an illusion, but... how hard could a couple of eyes be if you managed to learn a similar spell?" She wasn't, of course, taking into account how naturally strong dragons were when it came to magic.
"Wait... what!?" Raven blinked in surprise almost dropping his lunch. Thankfully this time he didn't let it hit the ground, and resumed his roast. There was a confused look on Raven's face that was slowly melting into worry. So if he was forced to kill more dragons.... he'd become one himself? There was a cruel irony there. If one learned the magic and hated dragons... they would become what they hated.
But what did that mean for Raven? "I don't think you really understand the difference in magical power between humans and dragons," Raven shook his head slowly. "Even as I am now, such a spell is outside my abilities to manifest... let alone maintain. Partially because of how I was trained. And... even if I could, I shouldn't hide it behind magic. The sunglasses are enough."
"Just what I said. The original dragon slayers that lived long enough became dragons themselves. My ancestry can be traced back to one, that's actually one reason I remember it. Also, careful with the food. I hear dirt is bad for human tummies, and I've never really wanted to test it." She ate a lot, but she didn't go chewing on random things. Dirt was like, plant food anyway, and that was just wrong. "Basically we could be like, cousins one day. But I think we both hope it doesn't come to that. There aren't nearly as many dragons as there used to be, and I know a lot of em. Most of them are pretty good people." She paused, scratching her cheek with an expression that said "I should have stopped talking about five minutes ago."
"Er, anyway!" she made a little coughing noise as if to distract him. "Sunglasses are just so weird. Are you sure you couldn't handle it? You seem like you'd be exceptionally strong for a human to me. You're all protectory and stuff."
"..." He listened without really looking at Tyr. The dragon slayers that lived long enough became dragons themselves... Was that his fate? To become a Dragon and repeat the cycle over and over again? His thoughts melded a frown on his face as he wrestled with the concept. Raven didn't want to become a dragon. While he respected them on a level bordering near worship, he never wanted to be that.
"I've always got something to lose..." He murmured quietly to himself. Those words came back to haunt him in that moment. He bet if she'd heard this she'd laugh. And then probably be angry and try to kill him or something. Then another thought him. If he was becoming more and more like a dragon, did that mean his lifespan was longer too?!
"Bright light hurts my eyes," Raven countered after looking up when she coughed. He pointed to his eyes as he continued. "I am exceptionally strong for a human. I'm the only one I know of in recent history to have slain a dragon. But just because I have a lot doesn't mean I'm that good at controlling it. You've had three hundred years to practice. I've only had Twenty four."
"Maybe the bright light hurts your eyes because you're always hiding them~" Tyr finally flopped back on her back, dramatic mostly because she felt like she was starving. She let out a hungry groan to accompany her loudly shriveling stomach. "Need foooood," she chanted to herself, unable to keep concentrating on whatever it was Raven was babbling about. Something about being a human so he wasn't good enough or something. She nearly told him that maybe he should just practice, but then it occurred to her that he might take away her meat she worked so hard for.
"Is it almost done?" she asked, not even addressing what he'd said - mostly because she was getting hungry enough she was losing the patience to listen. She was really resisting just gulping in all of the air and magic in the area. You'd think it'd be easy to live as a sky dragon... but no. Unlike eating fire or ice or something, creatures actually depended on air and magic to live. Including sky dragons.
