DRAGON RAGE: ORIGINS.

[murderbaby]

WHO: Aziraphale, Julius, Val, Mhavos
WHAT: Everyone loves Canadian rappers.
WHEN: Probably around Harvestmere.
WHERE: The Storm Coast
NOTES: Stop dragon my heart around.

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[degenere]

"Oh, very clever."

He is a strange fellow, this Dalat. Very sharp. More amusing than one might expect. Do elves often have surnames? Beleth Ashara has one, of course. Or was Ashara a title? Val is still uncertain. Perhaps Dalat is a title, too. It is safer to say the full name, Mhavos Dalat, even in one's thoughts, or else risk saying aloud the wrong name someday.

But: the dragon scale.

"Still, you are correct as well as clever. A dragon is missing its scale. And I would suppose she is quite nearby. This would be one of the tubercler-shaped scales toward the dorsal area--the shape, you see--and the curve, there, at the bottom, will be for now less chitinous than if this example were several days old. If we are lucky, we will find more quite close by. Exciting, yes?"

[murderbaby]

"If one wishes to be killed by a dragon," Mhavos says. "A goal of yours?"

Still, he carefully places the dragon scale in one of his bags, away from anything that may scratch or crack it.

[degenere]

"Oh, I will not be killed," Val says with great confidence and self-assurance. And he is right. People like Val de Foncé are not killed. Instead they move smoothly through life, side-stepping tragedies and terrors that befall those lesser blessed than they. All of this goes without saying.

"But I do wish to see this dragon," he continues, conversationally. "Of course I have seen others. Do not mistake me: I am no amateur. It is more than a dragon is not so commonplace that one would grow tired of beholding it. I should love to be able to boast of beholding this one, one day."

[murderbaby]

People like Val de Foncé are killed all the time, in Mhavos' experience. A thought he keeps to himself, along with the quiet gush of self-loathing accompanying it.

"And how did you survive the other dragons? Speaking as I am, an amateur."

It's not necessary, Mhavos has found, to always puff up the egos of the nobility. Simply playing up one's own failings is often the same, and hurts Mhavos' pride none at all.

[degenere]

"By observing it from a safe and concealed distance, of course. Though I find it distasteful, I have made study of the dragon hunters. Their finishing methods are but sheer barbarism. Their stalking technique is what interest me. There are ways to create blinds, as one would use to hunt game for sport, but these are far more advanced. Think of the dragon's senses--a predator like no other. How soft one must touch upon these sharper senses, and how hard one might tread upon the senses that are blunter. Most of their kind do not see so well as they smell, for instance. So a hunter relies upon that. So, too, does the researcher in the field."

Here Val pauses to sigh, happily, caught up in his memory. There is such peace upon his face as he continues, "Ah, my friend. To have hidden among the craggy places of some mountain roost, tucked away in a narrow cave, with a woven thatch of twigs and brush ahead, scent obscured by oils, and to see a dragon alight, as lightly as a dragonfly, upon a stony peak. You cannot imagine. I hope someday you are to behold it for yourself. Perhaps soon. It is a thing of indescribable beauty that few have been permitted to see, but if the sight were mine to give, I would give it to everyone."

[murderbaby]

Mhavos lets the man talk. He's rather obsessed with dragons, isn't he? It's something to take note of for later, if he ever needs the man's favor. He also listens to the details, of course-- they're clearly well-researched and prescient. They may even soon be relevant. But this is not a conversation, it's a string of speeches where Mhavos will occasionally interject to give the Val a new subject on which to pontificate. He's played this role before.

"And would you," Mhavos says, looking at the detritus around them. Ah, look, a femur, "consider this a safe place from which to observe?"

[degenere]

Val abruptly stops walking so that he can look around them, and study their surroundings. His eyes narrow thoughtfully. He side-steps, to the left, and tips his head--then steps back to where he was, and tips his head the other direction.

He looks over at Mhavos.

"I would say that it is a place where we might be caught by a dragon before we can secret ourselves to make these observations. Is that a femur?"