faderift | [ closed & open ] when you smile, you knock me out, i fall apart

WHO: Adalia (

candlekeep), Daenerys (

motherofdragons), and anyone in the Nevarran caravan!
WHAT: A dragon finally hatches!
WHEN: Backdated to the night after the Rifter arrival
WHERE: On the way to Nevarra
NOTES: None! Will update if necessary.

i. someday, someday, you'll blow us all away (closed to daenerys)

❰ it's the middle of the night when it happens. adalia had known the egg was close to hatching — she could feel little movements from inside it even when she'd picked it up in the ruins, and alacruun had been so angry when she'd taken it — but she had thought... well, she hadn't really. she knows next to nothing about dragons, despite speaking their language, and she's not at candlekeep any longer with ready access to all the research she could ever want. "how long does it take for a dragon's egg to hatch" is not a question she's had cause to ask before, so she's stayed up all night just in case, watching it, going over her notes from her talks with all the people she'd accosted for information once she got here —

at midnight, the first crack appears. at first adalia isn't sure it's really there, but the hair-thin fracture spreads further down the shell and widens just the slightest bit, and that lights a fire under her ass. it's not a particularly productive fire at first — she spends a full minute silently screaming into her hands and running around her tent like a chicken with its head cut off — but quickly enough she comes to her sense and rushes to collect daenerys. leaving the egg feels sort of like torture, but she doesn't dare move it, and anyway it hasn't changed too much by the time she gets back, dany in tow. it's been nearly an hour since then, and the cracks have continued to spread, but there is none yet wide enough for the creature within to poke its head through. ❱

I have no idea what to do for it, ❰ she says, wringing her hands nervously. she's going to have to raise a dragon. a dragon. this is... going to be a challenge. ❱ I think you're not supposed to help shelled things hatch, but it's been so long... I just want to help it out.

ii. pride is not the word i'm looking for (open)

❰ in the morning, hours since charis has hatched and daenerys has gone back to sleep, adalia is wide awake, sitting in front of her tent with the baby dragon in her lap. he's so shockingly small... adalia hadn't ever seen a baby dragon — a wyrmling — before, only adults and ancients, and those are massive. charis will grow to that size, but she'd expected him to be big, even now — and yet, he's small enough to perch atop her shoulders or fit in her lap, freezing her with his chilled scales.

a silver dragon is so much better than a black one — black dragons are evil by their very nature, and even if adalia doesn't believe in evil by nature, she'd considered that it might be difficult to raise a black dragon to be able to be around other creatures without wanting to subjugate or eat them. silver dragons, on the other hand, love people. that is one of the only things she remembers learning about dragons, and the idea that she gets to raise one — her heart is overfull already and just keeps getting bigger, stuffed to the brim with pride and love and a protective fervor she's never felt before. she is not a mother, not really, and she would never call herself charis' parent... but she is responsible for him, and she will do her best to keep him safe.

when approached, adalia immediately tenses, but stays sitting — charis is asleep, and she doesn't want to wake him if she doesn't have to. ❱

If you wake my dragon I'll kick your ass, ❰ she warns, wary, but otherwise leaving him on display. ❱

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

❰ ...excuse her while her brain makes a little record skipping noise at "quite fond". no one's "quite fond" of her. she's annoying and prone to unilateral decision-making, people don't like her.

she must get to the bottom of this. ❱

You've known me for less than a day, how can you be "quite fond" of me?

❰ show her your receipts, elros, then she'll explain all the ways in which you are Wrong About Dragons. ❱

[ He blinks at her, temporarily diverted, although he never relaxes out of his wary stance ]

Why should I not be? You are brave and kind, a boon companion in a fight and so far, a good friend.

[ Also, he thinks she is pretty, but he's not about to say that when they, as she says, don't know each other that well yet ]

❰ was this diversion just to distract him from being weird about charis? who's to say, really. it's at least partially real, anyway, and adalia wrinkles her nose at "brave", shakes her head at "kind"... shrugs acceptingly at "good in a fight", and has to bite her lip against a laugh at "good friend". ❱

All I've done is kill some demons in front of you, Elros, I hardly think that counts as "good friend" material. You don't really know me.

❰ ah — and this started as being about charis, right. she scritches underneath her companion's chin and he yawns, his long pointed tongue flicking out to taste the air as he nuzzles into her hand. his eyes remain closed, but if a dragon could be said to be smiling, charis seems to be, at this moment. ❱

Just like you don't know the dragons of my plane. Charis would no sooner put you under an enchantment than I would, I promise — and I don't even think he could if he wanted to. He's an infant, he just hatched last night.

Edited 2017-11-21 09:13 (UTC)

You could have run and left me alone. [ He points out ] Or fried me along with them. So I think you count as a pretty good friend already!

[ But even so he tenses again as the dragon stirs ]

Some would say, easier to kill that way. [ His voice stays light ] I've known too many things go wrong, Adalia. I'll trust you, but not him.

Not killing you is not a solid basis for friendship, Elros! That means anyone who hasn't met you is your friend, simply by virtue of the fact that they haven't killed you!

❰ he is so endearingly bizarre. even as adalia is trying to insist they're not friends she finds herself reluctantly, incredibly endeared to him, amused by how he is possibly the least regal person she's ever met, except in appearance. maybe if he didn't open his mouth, she could believe he was a king.

he stops being so endearing when he mentions killing. her blood runs cold and sparks spring up between her outstretched fingertips, not flying forward just yet, but ready all the same. ❱

I already fought friends to save his life once, Elros, I will do it again if I have to. He's a baby. You cannot just kill a child because you're afraid of what it might be later! Are people not innocent until proven guilty where you're from?

Fighting beside someone though, is.

[ He says firmly ]

I've trusted my life to you once already, and you did not play me false. In my world, Adalia, the dragons were weapons created to kill us. There was no such thing as an innocent dragon - they were born to destroy us - that was how their Master made them. I've lost too many to dragonfire to trust him. But you, I'll trust.

That... No. I've been fighting alongside the same group of people for months, and none of them like me any better than they did when we started traveling together. That's not how friendship works!

❰ not that she'd really know, being as she's never had any, but she's fairly certain — if all it took was not killing people and fighting beside them, she'd have four friends rather than the zero she has now.

but that's not the important thing right now, and adalia realizes it even as she's finishing her sentence. she growls out a frustrated noise, shaking her head, and the combination of the motion and the sound right next to his ear finally causes charis to open his eyes. it must be a rather unnerving sight for a creature only a few hours old — elros with his hand on his sword, adalia with hers stretched out and spitting sparks, the air between them tense with distrust — and charis chitters nervously, nosing at adalia's ear. the sparks immediately turn off and she turns her head, reaching up for the wyrmling. ❱

Hey, danthe vrak, don't worry, you're okay. Just a disagreement, that's all.

❰ charis squeaks and tries to step forward into adalia's arms, but he's still uncoordinated and unsure of his footing, so he tumbles into them instead. the display makes adalia turn to elros, eyebrow raise as high as it could go. ❱

This is what ultimate evil looks like to you? Really?

That's their lack of vision then.

[ He frowns ]

I don't trust just anyone with my back. If they couldn't see that, tis their loss.

[ He tenses when Charis moves, but he does not strike or draw the blade, only watching with wary eyes. His smile is sad and bitter, his true age visible in his eyes, which are for a moment far older than his face ]

It would not be the first time that evil has come in fair guise.

They — you — ugh!

❰ this is a debate adalia will not be winning, she can tell. really, she doesn't know why she's arguing at all — it's not as though having friends is a bad thing — except that the idea of someone being fond of her makes her weirdly emotional in a way she'd really rather not examine. she huffs, annoyed —

and then laughs as charis grabs at her hand, utterly distarcted for the moment. he's rather well-coordinated for a creature less than twelve hours old, and he displays that coordination now by grabbing at her hand with his own taloned digits, flapping his still-drying wings to try to balance in her arms. adalia allows him to take her hand, watching him with an indulgent smile, and charis just coos, holding her hand close as he curls up in the crook of her arm. ❱

See, ❰ she whispers as charis blinks slowly at elros, eyes tired but wary, ❱ he's just a little thing. He wouldn't know how to be scary if he tried.

❰ when she looks up at elros again, her expression is fierce, determined. ❱

We'll show you. He's not evil, and I'm not wrong.

[ He searches her eyes, and his gaze is remarkably piercing, if not quite so soul-searching as some of his more famous cousins. Whatever he sees there he accepts, because he nods once and bows to her, formally.

This, this is Elros Tar-Minyatur, the King and Leader that he is still only growing into ]

I hear thee, Adalia, and I accept thy word in place of his.

❰ ...well that was sure something. adalia purses her lips for a moment, then rolls her eyes and smiles. ❱

I've seen you covered in mud and demon guts, Elros, you can't impress me with your King Voice.

❰ he kind of can. only kind of! but she's determined not to let on about that. ❱

[ He shrugs, relaxing, and the hand comes off his sword ]

My foster fathers taught me the importance of doing such things right. [ He says cheerfully ]

[ closed & open ] when you smile, you knock me out, i fall apart

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