Indigo #128 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonmagitech) wrote2016-06-30 06:12 pm
dragonmagitech) wrote2016-06-30 06:12 pm
Introduction: Vermouth
They noticed the roc almost immediately. It would have been difficult not to. The creature’s size was not the cause—after its arrival it hardly left its nest—but rather its regular piercing screams, which had everyone in the canyon constantly on edge by the end of the first day.
“Can’t we get rid of it?” Fang said, pacing in the hallway.
“I could cite it for noise pollution if you like,” Eureka said.
The guards were not notably more helpful, much to Fang’s frustration. Darnell’s explanation was that the thing was “flipping enormous” and therefore posed a threat to even all three ‘Claws working together, and Fang was forced to concede this point. The only dragons close enough in size to even consider trying to scare it off were the Imperials, none of whom was especially inclined to do so either.
“I have all this filing…”
“I am in the middle of crafting a masterpiece.”
“Are you joking?”
Which meant enduring the constant noise until the roc decided to nest somewhere else, and no one had any idea how long that might be. After three days of screeching, a meeting was called.
“I did some reading on the subject,” said Anodyne, “and it may be trying to attract a mate. You know, it’s claimed a territory, and now it’s advertising that territory to other rocs. If it sufficiently impresses another—”
“There are going to be more of them?”
“Very likely! The screaming will stop once a mate is attracted, of course, but at some point they’re probably going to try eating us.” Anodyne looked down at her claws, as if this were her fault somehow.
“Did you find anything about strategies for fighting them?” Caldwell said.
“’Run away’ seems to be the main suggestion.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Hendricks said, and was ignored.
“Maybe if we brought in the twins…”
“Yes, that couldn’t possibly go wrong. Besides, they don’t even do magic. Do you want an entire harpy flock descending on us when they get eaten?”
“We don’t actually know—”
“Do you really want to find out?”
The debate continued for some time, and was only interrupted when the curtain over the doorway was flung aside with great force, revealing Asch, though considering how soot-smeared her goggles were everyone at first thought she’d come in by accident.
“Eh, sorry to interrupt.” She didn’t sound especially sorry. “There’s a Skydancer down in the smithy who says he wants to speak to someone in charge.”
“We’re having a meeting,” said Vinegar.
“He’s in my way and he won’t leave.”
Vinegar’s fins twitched as if she were restraining something rude, but she jumped down from the table and followed Asch back down to the smithy. The Skydancer was sprawled out across the floor, but he leapt to his feet as soon as they came in.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “I hear you have a roc problem.”
“I imagine everyone along the canyon has heard it by now,” Vinegar said. “Do you have a method for getting rid of it. No offense, but you don’t look particularly threatening.”
The Skydancer shifted slightly, as if trying to emphasize his height. “It doesn’t matter. I have experience in this area, although I’ve never seen a roc in person. But I assure you I can handle it, if you can find someone to take me to where it’s nesting.”
Vinegar looked at him. She was not, as a rule, in favor of sending anyone off to their death; but he wasn’t part of her clan, and the roc did pose a threat, and one must have one’s priorities in order. At the very least he might annoy the beast enough to convince it to leave before he was chomped out of the sky.
“All right,” she said. “What’s your name, so we can notify your family if you don’t come back.”
“Vermouth,” he said. “But I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Bishop elected to go with him, or rather she was part of the group who had an idea of where the roc was, and of that group she was the best at throwing up a barrier at a moment’s notice. Didn’t bother her much. She might even be able to set a trap for it, if Vermouth could lure it in the right direction.
“Absolutely not,” Vermouth said.
“Why? If we trap it we might be able to take it down once you bite it,” Bishop said. They were approaching the roc’s nest on foot, the better to avoid drawing attention, Vermouth struggling to keep pace with Bishop’s casual gallop.
“I’m not here to help you ‘take down’ a magnificent representative of a rare species,” Vermouth said. “I am here to solve your problem and satisfy my curiosity.”
“That sure sounds familiar.”
“I…don’t understand.”
“Maybe not that familiar, then,” Bishop said. “How are you planning to solve our problem, if not by killing it?”
“You’ll see.”
Bishop rolled her eyes.
She stopped at the bottom of a stretch of cliffside not unlike every other stretch of cliffside, and Vermouth almost tripped over her. “Is this it?” he said.
“Yep.” Bishop pointed upward, and a horrible screech rang out from above as if on cue. She grimaced; Vermouth flinched, then nodded and sprang into the air.
She watched him go. Right, then. He could busy himself getting eaten, and in the meantime she was going to set a trap anyway, because he wouldn’t be able to judge her once he was dead. She set about tracing lines over the canyon floor, flying low, setting up a web of force that should wrap itself around anything non-draconic that came within its reach. When that was done she tossed up a force field around herself and settled back to watch.
Vermouth was doing…something in the air in front of the nest. Some kind of threat display, maybe, he was flashing his wings a lot and they were probably the most threatening part of him. After a few minutes of this the roc’s head emerged from the crevice it was nesting in. Arcanist’s hands, it was huge. It might actually be able to swallow him whole, if he wasn’t careful.
When he saw he had its attention he switched to hovering, or as good as, and did…well, it was hard to tell at this distance. His mouth was open. Some kind of call, then. The roc screamed back at him, much louder than before, though fortunately muffled by Bishop’s shield; and then it pushed itself out of the cliffside and into the air and went for Vermouth.
And missed, somehow. He was fast in the air. He kept making whatever sound it was, now keeping just out of the bird’s reach, flying in what seemed like it should be a pattern but Bishop couldn’t tell what it was supposed to mean. Sort of impressive. But the bird kept coming after him, and from the sound of it the thing was pretty pissed off now, though he kept baiting it anyway like a fool.
It reached, he dodged, and this time he threw something at it and darted away again while the roc screeched and pulled up, shaking its head. It made another stab or two at him—though with much worse aim—and then abruptly turned and flapped off, still shaking its head.
Bishop collapsed her force field as Vermouth landed awkwardly near her. “That was incredibly dangerous,” she said.
“I know!” He was grinning ridiculously.
“Is it going to come back?”
“No!” He took a moment to compose himself. “I issued a challenge for its territory—I wasn’t sure it would work because I’m obviously not one of its kind, but rocs don’t like to share their land with anyone so I thought it was worth a shot—and normally that would involve fighting it, not to the death in most cases because rocs take a long time to grow and only brood one chick at a time and all in all it’s in their best interest to give up when a fight starts going bad, if you see what I mean, but of course since I’m a lot smaller it could have killed me quite easily, but fortunately I’ve been planning for this since I first learned about rocs and I came prepared to—”
“So it doesn’t think the territory is worth dealing with you?”
“More or less.”
“What was that you threw at it?”
“Bees.”
Bishop nodded. It wasn’t any more surprising than the rest of it. “Let’s get back before Chandler starts looking for your next of kin, shall we? Otherwise you’ll have to go around telling all your relatives you’re not dead, and you don’t look like you have time for that.”
“I suppose not,” Vermouth said.
“Can’t we get rid of it?” Fang said, pacing in the hallway.
“I could cite it for noise pollution if you like,” Eureka said.
The guards were not notably more helpful, much to Fang’s frustration. Darnell’s explanation was that the thing was “flipping enormous” and therefore posed a threat to even all three ‘Claws working together, and Fang was forced to concede this point. The only dragons close enough in size to even consider trying to scare it off were the Imperials, none of whom was especially inclined to do so either.
“I have all this filing…”
“I am in the middle of crafting a masterpiece.”
“Are you joking?”
Which meant enduring the constant noise until the roc decided to nest somewhere else, and no one had any idea how long that might be. After three days of screeching, a meeting was called.
“I did some reading on the subject,” said Anodyne, “and it may be trying to attract a mate. You know, it’s claimed a territory, and now it’s advertising that territory to other rocs. If it sufficiently impresses another—”
“There are going to be more of them?”
“Very likely! The screaming will stop once a mate is attracted, of course, but at some point they’re probably going to try eating us.” Anodyne looked down at her claws, as if this were her fault somehow.
“Did you find anything about strategies for fighting them?” Caldwell said.
“’Run away’ seems to be the main suggestion.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Hendricks said, and was ignored.
“Maybe if we brought in the twins…”
“Yes, that couldn’t possibly go wrong. Besides, they don’t even do magic. Do you want an entire harpy flock descending on us when they get eaten?”
“We don’t actually know—”
“Do you really want to find out?”
The debate continued for some time, and was only interrupted when the curtain over the doorway was flung aside with great force, revealing Asch, though considering how soot-smeared her goggles were everyone at first thought she’d come in by accident.
“Eh, sorry to interrupt.” She didn’t sound especially sorry. “There’s a Skydancer down in the smithy who says he wants to speak to someone in charge.”
“We’re having a meeting,” said Vinegar.
“He’s in my way and he won’t leave.”
Vinegar’s fins twitched as if she were restraining something rude, but she jumped down from the table and followed Asch back down to the smithy. The Skydancer was sprawled out across the floor, but he leapt to his feet as soon as they came in.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “I hear you have a roc problem.”
“I imagine everyone along the canyon has heard it by now,” Vinegar said. “Do you have a method for getting rid of it. No offense, but you don’t look particularly threatening.”
The Skydancer shifted slightly, as if trying to emphasize his height. “It doesn’t matter. I have experience in this area, although I’ve never seen a roc in person. But I assure you I can handle it, if you can find someone to take me to where it’s nesting.”
Vinegar looked at him. She was not, as a rule, in favor of sending anyone off to their death; but he wasn’t part of her clan, and the roc did pose a threat, and one must have one’s priorities in order. At the very least he might annoy the beast enough to convince it to leave before he was chomped out of the sky.
“All right,” she said. “What’s your name, so we can notify your family if you don’t come back.”
“Vermouth,” he said. “But I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Bishop elected to go with him, or rather she was part of the group who had an idea of where the roc was, and of that group she was the best at throwing up a barrier at a moment’s notice. Didn’t bother her much. She might even be able to set a trap for it, if Vermouth could lure it in the right direction.
“Absolutely not,” Vermouth said.
“Why? If we trap it we might be able to take it down once you bite it,” Bishop said. They were approaching the roc’s nest on foot, the better to avoid drawing attention, Vermouth struggling to keep pace with Bishop’s casual gallop.
“I’m not here to help you ‘take down’ a magnificent representative of a rare species,” Vermouth said. “I am here to solve your problem and satisfy my curiosity.”
“That sure sounds familiar.”
“I…don’t understand.”
“Maybe not that familiar, then,” Bishop said. “How are you planning to solve our problem, if not by killing it?”
“You’ll see.”
Bishop rolled her eyes.
She stopped at the bottom of a stretch of cliffside not unlike every other stretch of cliffside, and Vermouth almost tripped over her. “Is this it?” he said.
“Yep.” Bishop pointed upward, and a horrible screech rang out from above as if on cue. She grimaced; Vermouth flinched, then nodded and sprang into the air.
She watched him go. Right, then. He could busy himself getting eaten, and in the meantime she was going to set a trap anyway, because he wouldn’t be able to judge her once he was dead. She set about tracing lines over the canyon floor, flying low, setting up a web of force that should wrap itself around anything non-draconic that came within its reach. When that was done she tossed up a force field around herself and settled back to watch.
Vermouth was doing…something in the air in front of the nest. Some kind of threat display, maybe, he was flashing his wings a lot and they were probably the most threatening part of him. After a few minutes of this the roc’s head emerged from the crevice it was nesting in. Arcanist’s hands, it was huge. It might actually be able to swallow him whole, if he wasn’t careful.
When he saw he had its attention he switched to hovering, or as good as, and did…well, it was hard to tell at this distance. His mouth was open. Some kind of call, then. The roc screamed back at him, much louder than before, though fortunately muffled by Bishop’s shield; and then it pushed itself out of the cliffside and into the air and went for Vermouth.
And missed, somehow. He was fast in the air. He kept making whatever sound it was, now keeping just out of the bird’s reach, flying in what seemed like it should be a pattern but Bishop couldn’t tell what it was supposed to mean. Sort of impressive. But the bird kept coming after him, and from the sound of it the thing was pretty pissed off now, though he kept baiting it anyway like a fool.
It reached, he dodged, and this time he threw something at it and darted away again while the roc screeched and pulled up, shaking its head. It made another stab or two at him—though with much worse aim—and then abruptly turned and flapped off, still shaking its head.
Bishop collapsed her force field as Vermouth landed awkwardly near her. “That was incredibly dangerous,” she said.
“I know!” He was grinning ridiculously.
“Is it going to come back?”
“No!” He took a moment to compose himself. “I issued a challenge for its territory—I wasn’t sure it would work because I’m obviously not one of its kind, but rocs don’t like to share their land with anyone so I thought it was worth a shot—and normally that would involve fighting it, not to the death in most cases because rocs take a long time to grow and only brood one chick at a time and all in all it’s in their best interest to give up when a fight starts going bad, if you see what I mean, but of course since I’m a lot smaller it could have killed me quite easily, but fortunately I’ve been planning for this since I first learned about rocs and I came prepared to—”
“So it doesn’t think the territory is worth dealing with you?”
“More or less.”
“What was that you threw at it?”
“Bees.”
Bishop nodded. It wasn’t any more surprising than the rest of it. “Let’s get back before Chandler starts looking for your next of kin, shall we? Otherwise you’ll have to go around telling all your relatives you’re not dead, and you don’t look like you have time for that.”
“I suppose not,” Vermouth said.