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.
Maurice really ought not have been as surprised as he was. He didn't expect his mentor to have as much strength in the very tip of his tail as he did. He somehow managed to forget that Hanna routinely carved with it. Watching his boots hover above the cave floor sobered him up pretty quickly.
He faced the dragon and forced a grin.
"Sorry, humor wasn't part of my curriculum as a child."
"A man without a sense of humor is boring, learn to have one or you're going to stay a single man forever," He comments, as if it was a wise proverb, and sets Maurice down.
"Now, seriously. Let's get to these. I'll start going through them and we can write labels." He figures if he has him write it in a dragonic or runic language then people can't figure them out just by looking at them.
"I think being employed by a dragon already branded me with that." Once he was on the ground he made a fuss of attempting to fix his hair before taking up the quill and parchment. "I can tell you which ones I threw away because I put the bottles in a pile by the fire..." He had a thought. "Should I show you where I threw them out?"
Was their little mountainside going to catch on fire or grow arms?
"You're allowed around, you're not a slave," He comments, snorting at him again and messing up his hair again. Though, his smile fades when he blinks at Maurice, looking at him and then back at the table. How had he not noticed before? "You...You threw some away?" He moves to start staring at the bottles, trying to figure out which ones were missing. "Why? Why would you do that?"
"Oh, yes! I bring her home for a romantic dinner and I have to put on a whole play about why I live in a cave and have an ENORMOUS PILE OF GOLD." He flung his arms high but quickly cooled his temper.
"They smelled like they'd spoiled...I honestly thought I was doing you a good turn."
"Or, you could spend time with her outside of home. Who said you had to bring her home?" Regardless though, he's not too concerned with the fact that Maurice has seemingly resigned himself to a life alone after less than a week in his new home. Odd fellow.
In any case, he shoots Maurice a look, groaning as he picked up a bottle and tried t figure out it's contents by look alone, "It's my decision whether something has gone off or not, not yours. Sometimes things smell odd because of what is in them, not that they have turned sour."
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theattic2014-11-09 08:06 pm
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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."
no subject
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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He faced the dragon and forced a grin.
"Sorry, humor wasn't part of my curriculum as a child."
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"Now, seriously. Let's get to these. I'll start going through them and we can write labels." He figures if he has him write it in a dragonic or runic language then people can't figure them out just by looking at them.
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Was their little mountainside going to catch on fire or grow arms?
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"They smelled like they'd spoiled...I honestly thought I was doing you a good turn."
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In any case, he shoots Maurice a look, groaning as he picked up a bottle and tried t figure out it's contents by look alone, "It's my decision whether something has gone off or not, not yours. Sometimes things smell odd because of what is in them, not that they have turned sour."