The silence stretched, like they were in a standstill, but when Maurice's reasoning came to light, the dragon couldn't help but laugh aloud.
"I don't pray to your gods, my lord." He snorts, wiping a tear from under his glasses, "Or any for that matter. If you wish, I won't stop you from praying, but don't expect me to join you."
Maurice startled when the dragon roared with laughter and for a moment he was afraid he'd said something wrong...but then the color came back to his face. Ugh! Horrible, feral thing! He brought his hands together and muttered something quickly, pleading, even squeezed his eyes shut.
"Amen!" He pounced. The young man hesitated, but only for a breath, looking at the crumbly char that covered the haunch that had been set aside for him, but then he tore into it. The ash bit his tongue, but then there was a taste--like the smell of Hanna's breath. Cinnamon. Bite after bite, like a drowning man gasping for air, he gobbled it down. Eventually, all he had left was the bone which he licked and gnawed on before giving up. If only he had a dog's teeth! Then he could get at the marrow. God only knew when the dragon would allow him at the table again.
"I'm sure that was a masterful prayer," He teased, enjoying the moments hesitation before Maurice dug in. His manners weren't appauling to him, he was a rather large beast after all, and while he preferred cooking things before eating them, he had been known to eat things whole, and raw before.
He ate with a steady pace, bites much larger than Maurice's ever could hope, and when they had both gotten to the bones, he raised a brow at the human. "Do you need help with that? I won't let you waste the best part." Crunching open a bone with his teeth, Hanna enjoyed his portions till the very last sliver of bone. He would have Maurice do the same if he wanted to be rewarded with food ever again.
The prince looked up from turning the bone over and over in his hands as if somehow he'd find a way to open it without one of the little table hammers. He hesitated, warring with his pride. He felt his strength returning to him. Suddenly he felt very wild and clever and rugged and if letting this monster crack open a bone would allow him to survive like his ancestors did in these horrible mountains, then he'd do it! He could be feral!
As a kindness, Hanna didn't break the bone open with his teeth, taking it in his claws against the table and breaking it open with the pressure of a sharp claw. It didn't take much, but he handed it back easily and nodded towards the storage, finally deciding it was a good time for discussion since they were both fed.
"You worked hard today. I would be lying if I said I wasn't surprised."
Once the bone was handed over, that desperate grabbyness came right back. He ran his teeth along the insides of the bone along with his fingers. Every last morsel. He couldn't waste it! HE WAS GOING TO DIE OUT HERE OH GOD HELP HIM. But then that was gone too. And suddenly he didn't feel wild or smart or clever at all. He sagged and massaged his stomach, frowning at the memory of the storage room.
"Well you didn't make it easy. Your handwriting is atrocious."
"If you're not going to finish that, I will." Hanna says, eyeing what was left of the bone, rather enjoying the crunch of it. He looked rather affronted at the insult though, frowning, his claws resting on the table as if to present his issue, "You come and tell me how good your handwriting is when you have claws like these." Writing with three fingers was rather difficult, and using his tail wasn't possible when writing on parchment. It tore it very easily in two.
"I can write much better with my tail, but no one uses stone any more, and paper is so much easier and more efficient to store."
Maurice didn't look convinced. Surely there was a way...an idea came to him suddenly and an expression of realization crossed his face. There was. But he decided to keep it to himself as he flicked the uneaten bones Hanna's way.
"Anyway, I put them in order, A to Z. The ones that looked like they were in a set might be mixed in, I did the best I could. Some of the scroll spindles were broken though." He counted off on his fingers the various issues with Hanna's storage methods. "And there were three that had something spilled on them and I'm not sure there's anything your magic can do to save them."
Hanna seems to have the same idea that Maurice does and his smile starts to reflect that as he nods, 'Mmhmm'ing along as Maurice explains what he did.
"Well, starting tomorrow, you can start making new copies of those, starting with the ones with the most damage." He licks his claws once he's done with the bones he'd been given, not wanting to be rude and leave the table with dirty talons. "Will you have trouble with the ones that had been spilled on?"
The prince's face blanched. That was not the idea he had. "New copies...new copies! One of those scrolls was as big around as a man's arm!" He brought his elbow down on the table and gestured feebly to it.
A WHOLE ARM.
He didn't even remember what it was about. What if it was in some weird dragon-scratch language? This was awful!
Hanna's laughter booms in the cavern, nodding. "Well, I figure it will keep you busy and quiet enough that I can send your search party packing. I think I know the one you're talking about, anyways."
Hanna's tail swishes from side to side, considering the glass of wine that Maurice hasn't touched yet, taking it from out of in front of him and sipping. "If you start early I'm sure you can finish a fourth of it by dinner tomorrow."
Somehow, in all his hunger, he'd missed the wine entirely. Probably because it wasn't in a rooster-encrusted goblet. He could only watch as Hanna claimed it as his own. Nobody was making him stay here. he could get up and leave at any time, go untie Sally and take off for the Bog to meet with the wolves.
With a huff, he stood. He'd show the overgrown newt. He'd finish half of it. "I guess I should go to bed then. Surely you don't mean to work me all night too."
He actually regretted giving Hanna the idea, knowing full well the beast could cow him into it if he tried. Maurice excused himself to the table and trudged back to the sorry nest of furs he'd made for himself. However, before he shut his eyes he looked over the scrolls on the far wall in their perfect lines with satisfaction. Maybe he'd eventually stop feeling like he lived in someone's garden shed.
Again, sleep was dreamless.
The prince awoke just before noon with a start and had the same minute panic attack he'd had the previous morning. This wasn't his room. These weren't his silk sheets. He took a private moment to listen for the dragon rustling anywhere nearby and have a little cry about it before getting to work.
It did not go nearly as swiftly as the determined Maurice in his daydream convinced him it would. Ink and a fresh scroll had been supplied but copying...
Since leaving his most basic lessons behind, the only thing the prince had any real practice writing was his name. It was easy. He could do it with his eyes shut, his wrist and fingers knew all the swoops and curves and how to make the M stand out. This was just awful. He propped his chin on a gloved hand and slowly started printing. After having to disturb the dragon twice and have him read a word he couldn't make out, Maurice decided that he'd make better time if he just fell into a trance and stopped reading words all together. Letter after letter, well printed but somewhat oddly spaced, fell out of his quill.
An enormous dark stain blotted the current section he was on as he snored loudly against it. And this time he did dream. He dreamed that he was riding home, triumphant on his father's prize horse. Hanna's head hung at the side of his saddle, tongue lolling, glasses shattered. The castle gates opened and there in the entrance stood his mother the Queen, all six and then some feet of her. She spread her arms wide and Maurice dismounted. But before she could embrace her son and tell him what a wonderful job he'd done, the decapitated head hanging from the saddle spoke.
"Don't let him fool you," the dream Hanna sneered. His neck began to spurt ink and flop around like a banked fish. "He couldn't do it! He had the chance! I had to behead MYSELF, I felt so sorry for him!" Ink oozed and gushed and bubbled and soon an enormous black dragon with a pink head stood on the drawbridge.
"That's not true!" Maurice roared back but the barbed tail was already swinging toward him. His sword had vanished. So had the castle and the horse and his mother. The prince braced himself for the impact.
"Hhbllhh..." Maurice opened his eyes and grimaced. "Oh, ugh!" He leaned away from the desk and spat ink. "Forget this, stick a fork in me!" He threw his hands in the air and left the desk, tromping away in search of the dragon and of dinner. He was oblivious to the inky handprint on his face.
Hanna, who had a rather uneventful afternoon, had gone out after Maurice had stopped coming to ask him clarification. Another trip to the village had awarded him with more scrolls, quite certain that if Maurice was going to finish his task, he would need them. Ink and quills had followed, even if the man had asked him why, for such a small man, did he need such big quills. He only responded with a closed mouth smile and a wink.
Returning had found no sign of any search party just yet, and dropping off his things in an orderly pile, he had twitched an ear, still hearing Maurice's breathing and not thinking anything of it, having assumed he was working just as he had the day before. Dinner was a similar affair as the previous day, not a lot of variety in the dragon's diet of meat, and while he could eat veggies and other things, it did nothing for him really.
Having already eaten, since Maurice still hadn't returned, he kept the man's portion over fire, not over cooking it, but keeping it warm, and set back to his own writing, puzzling over a list of ingredients that didn't seem to get the desired effect when combined.
He had just about given up, when he heard Maurice come down the long hall from the storage room, blinking as he set blue eyes on him, and stared.
The smell of the main chamber set his mouth watering, but he had some complaining to do so it was going to have to wait. He wasn't desperate and ravenous as he'd been the previous night.
"Dragon, what in hell is it you do with all these scrolls anyway?" He started tugging his gloves off and tucking them into his belt.
It had taken him two days to observe that Hanna simply hunted and slept and puttered around in his kitchen.
Before he was to answer Maurice's question, Hanna has to stifle a laugh.
"You have something, just there. Did you know?" His claw taps his own cheek, fighting a grin, and he almost loses it. "Wait, wait. I have a mirror, somewhere." And, turning to look back near his bed, he finds a gold mirror in the pile of finery he sleeps in, presenting it to Maurice with a half concealed smile.
Maurice puffed himself up when Hanna ignored his question. "Answer me, Dragon! What is it I'm helping you laboriously squirrel awa--"
He saw his reflection. He recoiled. He looked awful! His eyes were baggy and his hair was a mess and he was growing stubble. Never mind the ink stains! He reached out to gingerly take hold of the mirror so he could angle it better and gazed into it as if looking at a painting of a lost loved one.
Hanna pulls it back away from his filthy hands, for once actually growling. Instinct can sometimes over power intelligence, and while Hanna can be generous, is kind if not a little smarmy, he doesn't like people touching his gold. "You can look, do not touch." He warns after a moment, pupils widening from the pinpricks that they had been.
Another moment and he's back to his usual self, nodding to the prince, "I think the stubble is rather fetching, but I can get you a brush and your own mirror if you need it."
The growl set the hairs on the back of Maurice's neck on end and he drew his hands away. He'd never seen the dragon's eyes do that. Over the past two days after being put to work, he'd started to forget that his boss was a huge reptile.
When Hanna spoke again, Maurice gathered up his nerves again. "That would...I would like that." He finally sat down at the table and rubbed his chin to feel this 'fetching' stubble. He just made the ink smears worse. "You didn't answer my question."
"You should wash yourself before you eat, the ink is getting everywhere." He comments, thinking that the more dirty Maurice gets, the less fetching that stubble looks. But, returning his mirror to his gold pile, his ears twitch, perhaps slightly irritated.
"Not all dragons have jobs. We don't waste our lives away as you humans do, doing menial tasks for pay. I could just as well pillage and burn to earn my place on this earth, but...if you must know," He nods to the work table that is set aside from where they had sat to eat twice now. It was filled with papers, vials, mortar and pestle, and other assorted things. "If you hadn't gathered from my collected works, I am a mage."
Maurice held his hands out in dismay and searched for something to wipe them on. He didn't want to swallow any more ink because it gave him nightmares. His knees would just have to do. Ugh, how awful. He felt like a kitchen boy wiping away blood and grease.
But!
He was getting answers so Maurice tried very hard to make it apparent that he was listening. He looked at all the odds and ends Hanna had decorated his home with and while most of it was just clutter, he recognized a few things--either from stories or from the one wizard his parents employed.
He took up his plate, shaking his fingers from how hot it was. "Why? I mean...you obviously know what you're doing, but...why? Why aren't you out there running wild and eating cattle and burning down houses?"
If he were a dragon, that's what he would do--he'd be a majestic, terrifying beast.
Dragons did not accumulate clutter, they horded and they loved it, thank you very much.
Hanna shook his head, unsure why Maurice was so concerned about him not 'living up his dragon life' and murdering as he pleased. "Rats are pests because they carry disease and steal. Wolves are pests because they are dangerous and steal, and what do you think a dragon is, if he does either of those?" Hanna was smart, if not cautious about his life, and while he did hunt and ate as he pleased, he was cautious about his interaction with humans. To be quite honest he was surprised Maurice knew of him and where to find him.
"I rather like my life and head where it is, and I like doing magic and if I don't disturb the peace, no one disturbs my peace." He paused a moment, giving Maurice a pointed look, "Usually."
Maurice met that pointed look but finally turned his eyes down to his plate. "I'm not sayin' you should change, I just--I don't know..."
The prince wasn't sure if he needed to dig deeper to get what he wanted or if he was being punished for his curiosity and needed to be happy with his new life as a dragon's scribe. He finally started pulling strips of meat from his plate with his fingers and eating them.
His heart wasn't in it though and he didn't even finish. Instead, he started scooting bits around on his plate. His mind was somewhere else.
"I am curious...what is the point?" He has to ask, focusing on the ingredients list he had been fussing over before Maurice had shown up to eat. "As a Prince, I can't imagine you know much about discrimination or hatred. Or at least, not experienced it first hand." Perhaps he was being too harsh, but there was something irritating about being questioned by a man who had wanted his head.
"Have you ever been challenged to fight in a battle you didn't ask for with your opponent dreaming of your head as their prize to take home to their family to show their worth? The royal taxidermist just waiting to stuff your skull?" He huffs, smoke starting to rise from his snout, "Those are quite enough reasons why 'I just, I don't know'."
He felt his face turning red. Shame wasn't something he was terribly familiar with and he didn't like it--not a bit! He couldn't look up at the pink monster now. He'd pried and now Hanna was prying back. Another new experience.
"The point is..." He tried to find a way to say it that would let him keep his head...and to make the blow easier for himself, regardless of any beheadings. "The point is, I didn't know, alright? I didn't know you were a-- a person!"
A person with mountains of JUNK to sort through.
"I thought you would be like--like this!" Maurice shoved his half eaten plate forward and buried his face in his hands. He didn't even care about getting dinner in his hair. "It's a lot to think about! My parents. My brothers, my sister, they all did it!" Maurice had sort of entertained the idea of Hanna being under some kind of curse or maybe just very well trained, but the more he spoke of 'we dragons' this and 'we dragons' that, the more it became horrifyingly clear. "They're all murderers...we're all murderers!"
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theattic2014-11-09 08:06 pm
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"We have...to bless...the food."
He'd been whipped too many times for sneaking blueberries during prayer and he wasn't about to try it with a dragon.
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"I don't pray to your gods, my lord." He snorts, wiping a tear from under his glasses, "Or any for that matter. If you wish, I won't stop you from praying, but don't expect me to join you."
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"Amen!" He pounced. The young man hesitated, but only for a breath, looking at the crumbly char that covered the haunch that had been set aside for him, but then he tore into it. The ash bit his tongue, but then there was a taste--like the smell of Hanna's breath. Cinnamon. Bite after bite, like a drowning man gasping for air, he gobbled it down. Eventually, all he had left was the bone which he licked and gnawed on before giving up. If only he had a dog's teeth! Then he could get at the marrow. God only knew when the dragon would allow him at the table again.
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He ate with a steady pace, bites much larger than Maurice's ever could hope, and when they had both gotten to the bones, he raised a brow at the human. "Do you need help with that? I won't let you waste the best part." Crunching open a bone with his teeth, Hanna enjoyed his portions till the very last sliver of bone. He would have Maurice do the same if he wanted to be rewarded with food ever again.
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"Please and thank you." He handed the bone over.
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"You worked hard today. I would be lying if I said I wasn't surprised."
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"Well you didn't make it easy. Your handwriting is atrocious."
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"I can write much better with my tail, but no one uses stone any more, and paper is so much easier and more efficient to store."
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"Anyway, I put them in order, A to Z. The ones that looked like they were in a set might be mixed in, I did the best I could. Some of the scroll spindles were broken though." He counted off on his fingers the various issues with Hanna's storage methods. "And there were three that had something spilled on them and I'm not sure there's anything your magic can do to save them."
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"Well, starting tomorrow, you can start making new copies of those, starting with the ones with the most damage." He licks his claws once he's done with the bones he'd been given, not wanting to be rude and leave the table with dirty talons. "Will you have trouble with the ones that had been spilled on?"
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A WHOLE ARM.
He didn't even remember what it was about. What if it was in some weird dragon-scratch language? This was awful!
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Hanna's tail swishes from side to side, considering the glass of wine that Maurice hasn't touched yet, taking it from out of in front of him and sipping. "If you start early I'm sure you can finish a fourth of it by dinner tomorrow."
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With a huff, he stood. He'd show the overgrown newt. He'd finish half of it. "I guess I should go to bed then. Surely you don't mean to work me all night too."
He actually regretted giving Hanna the idea, knowing full well the beast could cow him into it if he tried. Maurice excused himself to the table and trudged back to the sorry nest of furs he'd made for himself. However, before he shut his eyes he looked over the scrolls on the far wall in their perfect lines with satisfaction. Maybe he'd eventually stop feeling like he lived in someone's garden shed.
Again, sleep was dreamless.
The prince awoke just before noon with a start and had the same minute panic attack he'd had the previous morning. This wasn't his room. These weren't his silk sheets. He took a private moment to listen for the dragon rustling anywhere nearby and have a little cry about it before getting to work.
It did not go nearly as swiftly as the determined Maurice in his daydream convinced him it would. Ink and a fresh scroll had been supplied but copying...
Since leaving his most basic lessons behind, the only thing the prince had any real practice writing was his name. It was easy. He could do it with his eyes shut, his wrist and fingers knew all the swoops and curves and how to make the M stand out. This was just awful. He propped his chin on a gloved hand and slowly started printing. After having to disturb the dragon twice and have him read a word he couldn't make out, Maurice decided that he'd make better time if he just fell into a trance and stopped reading words all together. Letter after letter, well printed but somewhat oddly spaced, fell out of his quill.
An enormous dark stain blotted the current section he was on as he snored loudly against it. And this time he did dream. He dreamed that he was riding home, triumphant on his father's prize horse. Hanna's head hung at the side of his saddle, tongue lolling, glasses shattered. The castle gates opened and there in the entrance stood his mother the Queen, all six and then some feet of her. She spread her arms wide and Maurice dismounted. But before she could embrace her son and tell him what a wonderful job he'd done, the decapitated head hanging from the saddle spoke.
"Don't let him fool you," the dream Hanna sneered. His neck began to spurt ink and flop around like a banked fish. "He couldn't do it! He had the chance! I had to behead MYSELF, I felt so sorry for him!" Ink oozed and gushed and bubbled and soon an enormous black dragon with a pink head stood on the drawbridge.
"That's not true!" Maurice roared back but the barbed tail was already swinging toward him. His sword had vanished. So had the castle and the horse and his mother. The prince braced himself for the impact.
"Hhbllhh..." Maurice opened his eyes and grimaced. "Oh, ugh!" He leaned away from the desk and spat ink. "Forget this, stick a fork in me!" He threw his hands in the air and left the desk, tromping away in search of the dragon and of dinner. He was oblivious to the inky handprint on his face.
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Returning had found no sign of any search party just yet, and dropping off his things in an orderly pile, he had twitched an ear, still hearing Maurice's breathing and not thinking anything of it, having assumed he was working just as he had the day before. Dinner was a similar affair as the previous day, not a lot of variety in the dragon's diet of meat, and while he could eat veggies and other things, it did nothing for him really.
Having already eaten, since Maurice still hadn't returned, he kept the man's portion over fire, not over cooking it, but keeping it warm, and set back to his own writing, puzzling over a list of ingredients that didn't seem to get the desired effect when combined.
He had just about given up, when he heard Maurice come down the long hall from the storage room, blinking as he set blue eyes on him, and stared.
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"Dragon, what in hell is it you do with all these scrolls anyway?" He started tugging his gloves off and tucking them into his belt.
It had taken him two days to observe that Hanna simply hunted and slept and puttered around in his kitchen.
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"You have something, just there. Did you know?" His claw taps his own cheek, fighting a grin, and he almost loses it. "Wait, wait. I have a mirror, somewhere." And, turning to look back near his bed, he finds a gold mirror in the pile of finery he sleeps in, presenting it to Maurice with a half concealed smile.
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He saw his reflection. He recoiled. He looked awful! His eyes were baggy and his hair was a mess and he was growing stubble. Never mind the ink stains! He reached out to gingerly take hold of the mirror so he could angle it better and gazed into it as if looking at a painting of a lost loved one.
"I can't go on like this!"
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Another moment and he's back to his usual self, nodding to the prince, "I think the stubble is rather fetching, but I can get you a brush and your own mirror if you need it."
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When Hanna spoke again, Maurice gathered up his nerves again. "That would...I would like that." He finally sat down at the table and rubbed his chin to feel this 'fetching' stubble. He just made the ink smears worse. "You didn't answer my question."
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"Not all dragons have jobs. We don't waste our lives away as you humans do, doing menial tasks for pay. I could just as well pillage and burn to earn my place on this earth, but...if you must know," He nods to the work table that is set aside from where they had sat to eat twice now. It was filled with papers, vials, mortar and pestle, and other assorted things. "If you hadn't gathered from my collected works, I am a mage."
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But!
He was getting answers so Maurice tried very hard to make it apparent that he was listening. He looked at all the odds and ends Hanna had decorated his home with and while most of it was just clutter, he recognized a few things--either from stories or from the one wizard his parents employed.
He took up his plate, shaking his fingers from how hot it was. "Why? I mean...you obviously know what you're doing, but...why? Why aren't you out there running wild and eating cattle and burning down houses?"
If he were a dragon, that's what he would do--he'd be a majestic, terrifying beast.
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Hanna shook his head, unsure why Maurice was so concerned about him not 'living up his dragon life' and murdering as he pleased. "Rats are pests because they carry disease and steal. Wolves are pests because they are dangerous and steal, and what do you think a dragon is, if he does either of those?" Hanna was smart, if not cautious about his life, and while he did hunt and ate as he pleased, he was cautious about his interaction with humans. To be quite honest he was surprised Maurice knew of him and where to find him.
"I rather like my life and head where it is, and I like doing magic and if I don't disturb the peace, no one disturbs my peace." He paused a moment, giving Maurice a pointed look, "Usually."
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The prince wasn't sure if he needed to dig deeper to get what he wanted or if he was being punished for his curiosity and needed to be happy with his new life as a dragon's scribe. He finally started pulling strips of meat from his plate with his fingers and eating them.
His heart wasn't in it though and he didn't even finish. Instead, he started scooting bits around on his plate. His mind was somewhere else.
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"Have you ever been challenged to fight in a battle you didn't ask for with your opponent dreaming of your head as their prize to take home to their family to show their worth? The royal taxidermist just waiting to stuff your skull?" He huffs, smoke starting to rise from his snout, "Those are quite enough reasons why 'I just, I don't know'."
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"The point is..." He tried to find a way to say it that would let him keep his head...and to make the blow easier for himself, regardless of any beheadings. "The point is, I didn't know, alright? I didn't know you were a-- a person!"
A person with mountains of JUNK to sort through.
"I thought you would be like--like this!" Maurice shoved his half eaten plate forward and buried his face in his hands. He didn't even care about getting dinner in his hair. "It's a lot to think about! My parents. My brothers, my sister, they all did it!" Maurice had sort of entertained the idea of Hanna being under some kind of curse or maybe just very well trained, but the more he spoke of 'we dragons' this and 'we dragons' that, the more it became horrifyingly clear. "They're all murderers...we're all murderers!"
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