Hanna, who had decided it was a good day to sleep in, had, completely oblivious of the cleaning that Maurice had done. There were some sounds that had made his ears twitch, but it wasn't enough to wake him, and he settled, breathing easily. He had used quite a bit of magic to create such a large illusion, and while it was easy, he hadn't used that much magic in a while, unused to it since he lived alone and potions required none to create. It was like exercising a muscle you never used, and had left him tired.
When he woke, he did his usual routine despite it being so late in the day, half awake and not realizing the newly organized work space, yawning as he poured his morning potions on a cloth, wiping it down his scales and yawning once more before heading off to check a list of orders he had recieved from the nearby town. He was just about to sit and go over it when the swish of his tail caught his eye, blinking, he watched as it swished again, back into his vision and he blinked once more. That was not pink.
His tail was a bright, bright Orange, his underbelly, while normally blue, was a hideous shade of sick lavender.
Maurice had been in the middle of creating an admittedly lovely block letter H at the beginning of a fresh scroll. Hanna's scream made him drive the quill straight through the paper and drag it down through the desk, leaving an ugly cut in both.
The first thing that came to his mind was that somehow his mother had arrived. Somehow the rattled horsemen had made that two day trip already and she had made another two day trip on her own and now she was strangling the dragon in his own keep!
He tripped over his chair and knocked over a stand of scrolls (which he'd have to re-sort later) as he fought his way out of the study and came running, swinging a candle holder. His sword lay next to his heap of the bed.
"GET OUT, FOUL MURDERERS! GET OUT OR--"
His mother wasn't anywhere and what was that eyesore sitting in Hanna's workspace???
Hanna's bright orange scales seemed to glow they were so blinding. The lavender had darkened to a shade of indigo that really didn't match, and his spikes? Well. They were a shitty brown color.
Moving around the room, he looked at the bottles on his other work bench, realizing what had happened. They were moved. Some of them were gone... And then Maurice entered the room. "What did you do?" He shouted, claws coming up to drag down his long face, spreading his wings and showing the full majesty of...Eww that he had become.
"Those were in a specific order! I...I never asked you do to move them around, now I don't even know which is which!" His ears were doing that thing that he had done the day before, drooping down, though he looked less sad and mournful than at the end of his rope. "I'll have to strip it all down! It'll take days to figure them all out..." He is now just lamenting, really, over dramatic and he just flops on the floor in his tantrum, orange body spread all over, hitting his nasty, now blue and green striped horns and forehead against the floor. "I look like someone threw up on me"
The scribe stood in utter silence as his employer fell apart right in front of him. He looked from the miserable reptile to the incredibly nice rows of organized tonics, bottles, brews, and powders. In hindsight, it probably hadn't been as great an idea as he thought.
And he felt bad for that.
But another of Hanna's illusions was crumbling right before his apprentice and that was the illusion that he was actually majestic in any shape or form. Such a fuss! A single yip of a laugh escaped Maurice before he covered the rest with a harsh cough and his hand.
"I'm...I'm sorry! I was just trying to help. I'm almost done copying and you always leave everything in such a huge mess and I just thought..."
He looked so terrible. He looked like a stuffed toy his sister had owned when they were small.
"Maybe you should. Um. Maybe label. Things?" He offered carefully.
"I don't label the ones I use so it isn't obvious," He whines, a rather awful scraping noise filling the cavern when he grinds his horns against the floor. "L-lineage is by color patterns," He rolls over, showing his underbelly and just letting himself flop, pathetically. "Some knight would come kill me to complete their set. I might as well be dead already."
Never say he wasn't one for dramatics. "Geniuses are messy, that's what my mom always told me," his tail slaps against the cave floor, feet just kicking back and forth. Like a child throwing a fit, "Kill me now."
As Hanna continued to wallow in misery, Maurice carefully approached him, one hand raised as if he were trying to calm a spooked horse or a really upset lady of the court. Once Hanna finally fell into his death flop, the prince crouched down by his head and sighed, looking down the length of him.
Well. He knew he certainly wouldn't want to be circus tent orange and plumb. He ran his fingers through his hair, fond of his own corn silk blonde. But what Hanna said next brought yet another revelation. "Hunt you?"
It was obvious that knights slayed dragons to prove themselves or to rescue handsome princes in danger or maybe to gather and sell their parts for medicine...but collecting them like a pottery set? That was a new one. And that meant "You're not pink by birth..."
Somehow that gave Maurice a little more faith in mother nature and even more to think about. This haughty spell-slinging reptile was pink on purpose and that just painted a whole new picture of him. But he wasn't going to tease him about that right now. A prince didn't kick a man or dragon while he was down. Instead the scribe shifted out of his crouch and settled on his knees before hesitantly reaching out a gloved hand to pat Hanna right along his chin. He couldn't think of anything else to do for the poor creature and his mother's cats always liked it.
"I ruined your garden and now I ruined your favorite suit. I'm sorry I keep making messes, but I promise it's not on purpose."
"Are the dragon heads in your castle the same color?" He asks, eyes closed, laying pathetically on the floor, "Or similar in color at least? Usually they'll be of the same clutch, or parents." Or hunters looking to wipe out a line. "And no, I'm not pink. What a stupid natural color for a dragon. It's so unappealing for a castle wall." Like a horrible defense mechanism, Hanna chose pink to keep from being mounted. "It's my favorite though..." He admits, tail sliding along the floor in it's nasty orange color.
He breathes in deeply, trying to calm, and wishes he were under his horde, calm beneath gold coins and trinkets. But he has no real will to move yet, and he'll be behind with a shipment of potions if he doesn't sort most of this out today. Still, he doesn't want to stop throwing a fit just yet, and huffs out smoke. When Maurice touches his chin though, his chest starts to rumble, much like a purr from a cat. It's calming, and he likes it.
"You didn't ruin my garden, my lord." That was his own fault, and not Maurice's. "And...While I'm irritated, I know you didn't do it out of spite." Another huff, though he's still rumbling in response to his chin pets at the very least. "I should have been clear not to touch the potions." He hadn't set a lot of rules, really, he knew that. Just the ones that were important. Or, just the one. Do not touch his horde. "I can fix it...It'll just take more time than I have at the moment." Another sigh. "I suppose the scroll will have to wait, since I'll need your help delivering potions."
"I thought so," Maurice agreed with Hanna, unable to catch himself. He hoped the dragon didn't notice as he continued his sad tale. "Ours are mostly greens and golds and sort of..." He pointed to one of Hanna's talons. "Sort of that color."
He took his hand away from his boss's chin to see if the rumbling stopped. When it did, his face momentarily lit up. He discovered a thing. He wondered if anybody else in the world knew that dragons purred. And spoke and wrote and colored themselves and had entire melt downs over herb gardens. Honestly, Maurice could only see shadows of the pink monster he'd met earlier in the week. He started patting Hanna's chin again.
Delivering potions! Now that he'd like to see. A great flying lizard showing up with a basket around its neck like hello sir how do you do here is your month's subscription of toad oil and lavender. Maurice managed to contain a snort. But...well, if Hanna said that's what he did with all these things he conjured up, who was he to call him a liar?
"I guess it's a good thing my mother's men didn't bother taking my horse with them."
He looked up at the un-mess he'd made. It was going to be a long week, wasn't it? And who on earth was he going to be delivering to? And what if they recognized him?
That offhanded comment gets a laugh out of him instead of the usual scolding, "That's comforting. At least I know my parents heads weren't what you ate breakfast under every morning." He almost growled when Maurice took his hand away, but he refrained, the petting coming back all too soon, soon enough to keep him satisfied, and he stretched out his wings, trying to relax some more. His color was a problem, yes, and would be for a few days, but he could fix it.
"I'll give you lists of names, and a disguise to go into town later. But you'll have to help me figure these potions out first, then we'll decide an actual order. If it helps your....Problem with my clutter."
Maurice opened his mouth to say something, but his words died in his throat.
His parents' heads.
Of course. Of course they were dead, beheaded. That was what Hanna had meant the previous night--about finding out about the ignorance and cruelty of humans far too soon. He took hold of Hanna's chin and tipped his head forward so that he could see the dragon's face, glasses or no glasses.
"I can't fix what people did to you...I can't even stop other people from hunting you. I'm a dead man...but I can give you my royal word that I wont' be part of the problem anymore."
And a prince's word was as good as cold.
He looked at the mouth of the cave and the sliver of the world he could see just beyond it.
"What's this town you keep telling me about?" He knew Hanna had to get his nice clothes from somewhere and he couldn't have flown back to the village that sprawled around the castle and survived.
Hanna blinked his eyes open, staring back into Maurice's with a seriousness that seemed to betray the way he was flopped on the ground. "I'll keep you to your word, my lord. Don't forget it." He returns, finally rolling over, probably shifting Maurice in the act since he was so close, "Dragons have long memories, so I won't forget it as long as I live."
Stretching, much like a cat would, wings spreading wide, he yawns and glares at the horror that was his scales, "This is going to be distracting, working like this." But, he sighs and nods to the mouth of the cave, "It's not too far, over the other side of the hill, a small town that gets traffic on the way to your kingdom, actually. It's a good place to set up shop, and sell wares to traveling merchants."
When the dragon sat up, Maurice pulled his hands away and settled them on his knees. He listened to the dragons not-quite-warning soberly but didn't respond to it.
"I wonder if they'll have one of Mother's chains..." It was half hopeful, half fretting. Fresh caught deer was nice but he was already missing the taste of home. He looked to his hands and flexed them opened and closed. They still ached for a break from constant writing. "Am I going today?"
Hanna moved towards the work tables, frowning at the bottles. The labeled ones were fine, but finding the right hues he needed? That would take some time. "It will have to be tomorrow. But, if you can fetch me two quills, and a parchment, then we can get started on reorganizing this mess..."
The scribe climbed to his feet and quickly did as he was asked. He also brought along another sheet that he started tearing into strips because by the gods they were going to LABEL SOME SHIT so that he couldn't get into (as much) trouble next time.
"Some of these smell horrible, how do you stand to put them on yourself?"
Hanna blinks at Maurice, taking a rather large sniff of the assorted bottles, "They don't smell all that bad to me." Says the dragon who loves the smell of charred almost anything.
Though, he can give it to Maurice that some did smell a little off. "Not all of them are for application though. I mean, this one here is acid." He points, to an almost harmless looking white bottle, picking it up and chugging some of it. Licking his lips, smoke leaks from his mouth, as if it burns going down, and he offers it to Maurice, "care to try some?"
Maurice was no chemist, not by a long shot, but he still had a basic idea of what acid was. He made a small, horrified, strangled sound when Hanna up and downed it.
When the bottle was offered to him he put up both hands, dropping his quill.
"N-no thanks! I've lasted this long without getting some kind of burn! No offence!"
But now he was impressed. He guessed it made sense that a dragon of all things should be able to withstand terrible burns but acid?
He was going to continue the prank a little longer, but he snorts, almost dropping the bottle and starts laughing heartily, unable to restrain himself.
"You should see the look on your face! And the sounds you made, Oh..." Setting the bottle down before he actually drops it, he just continues to laugh, unable to get a hold of himself. Give him a minute.
Maurice slowly lowered his hands and balled them into fists as he realized he'd been had. He puffed himself up and suddenly all that fight he'd stowed away to try and be a good housekeeper came bubbling back up.
Hanna will then tip the bottle over on Maurice's head. He deserved it for calling him 'dragon'. The white bottle contained a clear liquid, the glass cloudy but the contents definitely not.
The noise Maurice made echoed off the cave walls. He was too slow to cover his hands and while the bottle's contents wasn't acid, he still didn't know what to expect. It wasn't until he was dripping and not dying horribly or turning into a newt that he realized the extent to the dragon's douchebaggery.
He turned and let out a strange, wordless yell--the same kind he had the first time he met Hanna--his own pitiful version of a roar.
That yell gets Hanna to laugh harder, half bent over with it, and he just can't seem to stop.
Though to be honest, it kind of serves him right, a little revenge for his sad, colorful state right now. Usually he doesn't clash this much. "I think you deserved that," He wipes at his eyes, tears forming from laughing so hard, "But we're even know, so don't worry." His head turns, taking in a breath and breathing out flames above the man's head, the heat of it more than halfway drying his hair, and high enough that there was no danger of singeing it.
He managed not to scream when Hanna puffed out the fire that dried his hair. But now it was all FRIZZY and awful and he'd worked so hard to look presentable this morning.
"Your face looks longer than mine at the moment," He comments his tail circling around and very gently prodding Maurice's cheek. It was sharp at the end, but it's easily controlled by Hanna, almost impressively so.
Almost as a testament to just how darn gullible he was, the prince unconsciously patted his face just in case that hadn't been water. This was short lived because suddenly that deadly tail came out of nowhere but instead of spearing him through the jaw, it just made things worse. Maurice's brows furrowed so deeply that he resembled some kind of ponderous gargoyle on top of his parents' castle instead of a man. His cheeks and ears flushed a brilliant red.
He let Hanna poke him until finally his temper peaked again. He whipped around and took hold of the dragon's tail with both hands. He had the monster in his grip now. He had won.
Hanna gave him a look, rather surprised that he would try exactly what he was doing at that moment. "Uh...." he manages before his whole tail lifts, bringing Maurice at least a foot off the ground. While Hanna was a noodley dragon, he was still a dragon, and with that, a good amount of strength.
"I will behave how i want and you will learn how to take a joke," he snorts, puffing smoke in his face.
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theattic2014-11-09 08:06 pm
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When he woke, he did his usual routine despite it being so late in the day, half awake and not realizing the newly organized work space, yawning as he poured his morning potions on a cloth, wiping it down his scales and yawning once more before heading off to check a list of orders he had recieved from the nearby town. He was just about to sit and go over it when the swish of his tail caught his eye, blinking, he watched as it swished again, back into his vision and he blinked once more. That was not pink.
His tail was a bright, bright Orange, his underbelly, while normally blue, was a hideous shade of sick lavender.
He took in a calming breath, and then screamed.
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The first thing that came to his mind was that somehow his mother had arrived. Somehow the rattled horsemen had made that two day trip already and she had made another two day trip on her own and now she was strangling the dragon in his own keep!
He tripped over his chair and knocked over a stand of scrolls (which he'd have to re-sort later) as he fought his way out of the study and came running, swinging a candle holder. His sword lay next to his heap of the bed.
"GET OUT, FOUL MURDERERS! GET OUT OR--"
His mother wasn't anywhere and what was that eyesore sitting in Hanna's workspace???
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Moving around the room, he looked at the bottles on his other work bench, realizing what had happened. They were moved. Some of them were gone... And then Maurice entered the room. "What did you do?" He shouted, claws coming up to drag down his long face, spreading his wings and showing the full majesty of...Eww that he had become.
"Those were in a specific order! I...I never asked you do to move them around, now I don't even know which is which!" His ears were doing that thing that he had done the day before, drooping down, though he looked less sad and mournful than at the end of his rope. "I'll have to strip it all down! It'll take days to figure them all out..." He is now just lamenting, really, over dramatic and he just flops on the floor in his tantrum, orange body spread all over, hitting his nasty, now blue and green striped horns and forehead against the floor. "I look like someone threw up on me"
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And he felt bad for that.
But another of Hanna's illusions was crumbling right before his apprentice and that was the illusion that he was actually majestic in any shape or form. Such a fuss! A single yip of a laugh escaped Maurice before he covered the rest with a harsh cough and his hand.
"I'm...I'm sorry! I was just trying to help. I'm almost done copying and you always leave everything in such a huge mess and I just thought..."
He looked so terrible. He looked like a stuffed toy his sister had owned when they were small.
"Maybe you should. Um. Maybe label. Things?" He offered carefully.
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Never say he wasn't one for dramatics. "Geniuses are messy, that's what my mom always told me," his tail slaps against the cave floor, feet just kicking back and forth. Like a child throwing a fit, "Kill me now."
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Well. He knew he certainly wouldn't want to be circus tent orange and plumb. He ran his fingers through his hair, fond of his own corn silk blonde. But what Hanna said next brought yet another revelation. "Hunt you?"
It was obvious that knights slayed dragons to prove themselves or to rescue handsome princes in danger or maybe to gather and sell their parts for medicine...but collecting them like a pottery set? That was a new one. And that meant "You're not pink by birth..."
Somehow that gave Maurice a little more faith in mother nature and even more to think about. This haughty spell-slinging reptile was pink on purpose and that just painted a whole new picture of him. But he wasn't going to tease him about that right now. A prince didn't kick a man or dragon while he was down. Instead the scribe shifted out of his crouch and settled on his knees before hesitantly reaching out a gloved hand to pat Hanna right along his chin. He couldn't think of anything else to do for the poor creature and his mother's cats always liked it.
"I ruined your garden and now I ruined your favorite suit. I'm sorry I keep making messes, but I promise it's not on purpose."
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He breathes in deeply, trying to calm, and wishes he were under his horde, calm beneath gold coins and trinkets. But he has no real will to move yet, and he'll be behind with a shipment of potions if he doesn't sort most of this out today. Still, he doesn't want to stop throwing a fit just yet, and huffs out smoke. When Maurice touches his chin though, his chest starts to rumble, much like a purr from a cat. It's calming, and he likes it.
"You didn't ruin my garden, my lord." That was his own fault, and not Maurice's. "And...While I'm irritated, I know you didn't do it out of spite." Another huff, though he's still rumbling in response to his chin pets at the very least. "I should have been clear not to touch the potions." He hadn't set a lot of rules, really, he knew that. Just the ones that were important. Or, just the one. Do not touch his horde. "I can fix it...It'll just take more time than I have at the moment." Another sigh. "I suppose the scroll will have to wait, since I'll need your help delivering potions."
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He took his hand away from his boss's chin to see if the rumbling stopped. When it did, his face momentarily lit up. He discovered a thing. He wondered if anybody else in the world knew that dragons purred. And spoke and wrote and colored themselves and had entire melt downs over herb gardens. Honestly, Maurice could only see shadows of the pink monster he'd met earlier in the week. He started patting Hanna's chin again.
Delivering potions! Now that he'd like to see. A great flying lizard showing up with a basket around its neck like hello sir how do you do here is your month's subscription of toad oil and lavender. Maurice managed to contain a snort. But...well, if Hanna said that's what he did with all these things he conjured up, who was he to call him a liar?
"I guess it's a good thing my mother's men didn't bother taking my horse with them."
He looked up at the un-mess he'd made. It was going to be a long week, wasn't it? And who on earth was he going to be delivering to? And what if they recognized him?
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"I'll give you lists of names, and a disguise to go into town later. But you'll have to help me figure these potions out first, then we'll decide an actual order. If it helps your....Problem with my clutter."
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His parents' heads.
Of course. Of course they were dead, beheaded. That was what Hanna had meant the previous night--about finding out about the ignorance and cruelty of humans far too soon. He took hold of Hanna's chin and tipped his head forward so that he could see the dragon's face, glasses or no glasses.
"I can't fix what people did to you...I can't even stop other people from hunting you. I'm a dead man...but I can give you my royal word that I wont' be part of the problem anymore."
And a prince's word was as good as cold.
He looked at the mouth of the cave and the sliver of the world he could see just beyond it.
"What's this town you keep telling me about?" He knew Hanna had to get his nice clothes from somewhere and he couldn't have flown back to the village that sprawled around the castle and survived.
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Stretching, much like a cat would, wings spreading wide, he yawns and glares at the horror that was his scales, "This is going to be distracting, working like this." But, he sighs and nods to the mouth of the cave, "It's not too far, over the other side of the hill, a small town that gets traffic on the way to your kingdom, actually. It's a good place to set up shop, and sell wares to traveling merchants."
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"I wonder if they'll have one of Mother's chains..." It was half hopeful, half fretting. Fresh caught deer was nice but he was already missing the taste of home. He looked to his hands and flexed them opened and closed. They still ached for a break from constant writing. "Am I going today?"
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Finding which color was which and such.
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"Some of these smell horrible, how do you stand to put them on yourself?"
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Though, he can give it to Maurice that some did smell a little off. "Not all of them are for application though. I mean, this one here is acid." He points, to an almost harmless looking white bottle, picking it up and chugging some of it. Licking his lips, smoke leaks from his mouth, as if it burns going down, and he offers it to Maurice, "care to try some?"
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When the bottle was offered to him he put up both hands, dropping his quill.
"N-no thanks! I've lasted this long without getting some kind of burn! No offence!"
But now he was impressed. He guessed it made sense that a dragon of all things should be able to withstand terrible burns but acid?
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"You should see the look on your face! And the sounds you made, Oh..." Setting the bottle down before he actually drops it, he just continues to laugh, unable to get a hold of himself. Give him a minute.
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"DRAGON!"
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Surprise, surprise. It was water. "Got you."
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He turned and let out a strange, wordless yell--the same kind he had the first time he met Hanna--his own pitiful version of a roar.
HOW DARE HE!!!
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Though to be honest, it kind of serves him right, a little revenge for his sad, colorful state right now. Usually he doesn't clash this much. "I think you deserved that," He wipes at his eyes, tears forming from laughing so hard, "But we're even know, so don't worry." His head turns, taking in a breath and breathing out flames above the man's head, the heat of it more than halfway drying his hair, and high enough that there was no danger of singeing it.
"You're so gullible."
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The prince continued to pout.
"See if I believe anything else you tell me!"
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"And here I thought you could take a joke."
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He let Hanna poke him until finally his temper peaked again. He whipped around and took hold of the dragon's tail with both hands. He had the monster in his grip now. He had won.
"Behave yourself at once!"
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"I will behave how i want and you will learn how to take a joke," he snorts, puffing smoke in his face.
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