Dealing with Dragons (Glob!) [M]

[DragonSong]

Elora snorted. "Sure, not yet," she quipped back, pinching his side lightly in retaliation.

Melly chuckled softly as she looked between the two of them, absently wrapping a sarong around her hips. The knight shot her a fondly exasperated smile when Merradin struck a pose before rolling her eyes at the other dragon. "Sorry about him. He can just be...like that."

The dragoness giggled and shook her head. "No, no, don't be! It's--it's nice, really. No one's exactly...joked around me in a while," she admitted quietly.

Elora felt that little pang in her chest again and jerked her head toward Merradin as she moved to follow him. "Well, if you're not sick of it by the end of the night, it'll be a damned miracle. C'mon."

[DaGlobster]

Merradin was beaming, inside and out. When Elora caught up to him, he paused to lock arms with her and give her a little nudge with his head.

"My brave knight will bail me out if anything happens," he murmured, mostly for Elora's ears but Melisma's would be able to hear it just as well.

Merradin beckoned for Melisma to follow the two of them as he started to walk with Elora. Now that it was approaching midnight, the jungle was a mix of blooming colors washed orange by the setting sun.

[DragonSong]

The knight huffed and rolled her eyes at him, though there was a hint of color in her cheeks. Melly just smiled as she fell in beside and a little behind them. The younger dragon seemed reluctant to encroach too much on their space.

"It really is gorgeous out here," Elora noted as she glanced around. It occurred to her, almost vaguely, just how odd her current situation was: walking between two human-shaped dragons on an island she'd never before have thought she'd see in person. She shook herself, but the feeling lingered a bit.

Melisma made a chirping sound and played absently with the ends of her colorful hair as she nodded, smiling happily. "I've always thought so. I've been to the mainland once or twice, and it's fascinating, of course, but..." She looked around, shrugged, smiled again. "This is home."

[DaGlobster]

"So few mountains..." was Merradin's comment. He focused on the walk, on the feeling of Elora on his arm and the pleasant smells of the jungle.

"Oh, you should definitely come visit Ketra if you find the time," Merradin chimed in, looking to Melisma.

"I've spent so much time there over the centuries it's practically my second lair."

[DragonSong]

Melly's eyebrows shifted toward her hairline. "A city?" she repeated, sounding dubious. "Oh, I...I don't know. That's an...awful lot of people."

Elora tilted her head at the younger dragon, tucking herself a little more securely against her mate's side as they walked. She found herself smiling slightly--it was hard to reconcile this shy, fluttering young woman with the word dragon. Merradin at least kept something of the...the aura of the dragon in his more human shape, she supposed, but Melisma was...something else.

It was rather sweet, in a slightly odd way.

[DaGlobster]

"One step at a time, I suppose," Merradin answered.

He opted to walk in silence until he recognized the outskirts of the port town, and saw a familiar palm tree... that's when he snapped out of his silent thoughts and contemplations about this new dragon. Dragons may look diminutive when they're young, but Merradin could only guess as to what Melisma would look like when she was his age. She already conflicted with much of what he was used to seeing in a dragon, even for a youngling.

"Ah, back again," he started, and then laid a hand on Elora's forearm, wanting her to take the lead on this particular foray.

[DragonSong]

Elora cast him a quick, questioning look, but didn't really hesitate as she led them back out from under the shade of the trees.

"Well, I suppose it's quite lucky we ran into you for communication purposes if nothing else," she joked lightly, glancing back at Melisma. "Neither Merradin nor I speak the language."

Melly blinked at her, then laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners and the jewel in the center of her brow glinting subtly. "Oh, I can certainly help with that. I could even teach you a bit, if you want!"

She seemed so enthused with the idea that Elora found herself smiling and nodding automatically, only mildly bewildered. She cut her eyes up to Merradin sidelong and quirked one brow. Were you this energetic at her age?

[DaGlobster]

Merradin, always the sucker for an opportunity to delve into his vast memory, merely narrowed his eyes.

Far more.

At Melisma's offer, Merradin just gave a thoughtful tilt to his head. He'd taken to walking just ahead of Elora, mostly to search for the best smelling place in town. A tiny part of him wanted to see how Elora would get along with a dragon that wasn't him.

"All the food words. Maybe a few swears as well," he said with a mischievous look back towards the younger dragon.

"I like to keep my vocabulary practical."

[DragonSong]

Elora shivered. It was still so—so surreal, to hear him in her head like that. She knew he couldn't hear her every thought—or at least she didn't think he could—but it was still a hell of an adjustment!

Melly bounced along beside her, humming to herself and giggling at Merradin's request of vocabulary. "I'm sure I can teach that easily enough," she chuckled. "All the important things to go back and impress mainlanders with, huh?"

Elora snorted quietly and smiled at the other woman. Dragon. Dragoness? Whatever. "I'm sure my countrymen will be thrilled," she noted dryly.

Melisma giggled again, then looked between the two of them. "Where exactly are the two of you from, again? Maybe you could teach me some....some Serenian or whatever it is."

Elora chucked. "Maybe Merradin could. I've got Common and some Adelan dialects under my belt, but that's really it."

The colorful little dragon suddenly stumbled, her eyes flashing wide for a moment. She quickly righted herself, chirping a bit too brightly, "Yes, Adela, of course! Where else would dragon knights come from, I suppose."

Elora frowned and cast a quick glance in her mate's direction. The hell do you think that's about?

[DaGlobster]

Indeed, Merradin couldn't hear much. It seemed one only heard the other when they made a focused effort on voicing it internally. Either way, he didn't need Elora's voice chiming in through his thoughts to catch that odd, reflexive recoil that went through Melisma just then.

Hunters, perhaps? From Adela?

Catching some of the nervousness in the air (he couldn't help it, his nose picked up the heightened anxiety like it was nothing), he let his pace slow so he could walk alongside the two women.

"Modern Serenian is palatable to the tongue. Fae Serenian... confuses me, that's all I have to comment on the matter," he said, and he would've said more had the bitter, alluring smell of a good drink not caught his nose. He turned almost on a dime, eyes bright like a dog that had smelled a juicy cut of meat.

[DragonSong]

Melisma blinked, seemingly taken aback by his sudden switch in attention, but Elora just laughed and rolled her eyes. "It's still rather early for a drink," she reminded her mate, but with no real sting in her voice, just fond exasperation.

Melly chuckled quietly and followed where Merradin was looking with her eyes. "Oh, but have you tried any of the native drinks yet? They make one with this sort of spiky fruit—I can't quite remember the proper name for it, but it's quite sweet until you swallow, then it's almost spicy."

She continued chattering about the different varieties of alcohol available on the islands, not a trace of her earlier shock to be seen. Elora smiled and nodded along with her, but she couldn't keep herself from eyeing the other young woman with occasional concern.

[DaGlobster]

Just as quickly, Elora's words seemed to snap him back, and he turned to look at her sidelong with an apologetic curve to his eyebrows. He stopped long enough for Elora to catch up and then simply linked his arm with hers and kept going.

"Come to think of it, we've only had the food. We were starving when we arrived in town," Merradin said with a small chuckled. Elora's concern seemed to radiate to him, slowly bleeding through where their arms were linked.

"To be honest, bars are where I go to figure out where I'm going next. I've never been to the isles, so you could say we're in need of a local to guide us around to what's good. And the clothes, we need some clothes so we don't look like tourists" Merradin said, completely glossing over the fact that Elora's lack of wings and Merradin's hiding of his own made them stand out way more than their clothing. It was mostly an excuse to just collect nice things.

[DragonSong]

"Oh, I can certainly do that!" Melly beamed and quickened her pace slightly. "I trade with this village a lot, so most of them know me. I don't, ahh..."

She cast her eyes back toward the two of them and furrowed her brow, cocking her head first to one side, then the other. "Well, er...the local fashions are a little more...revealing than what the two of you seem to be used to?" It should probably have been a simple observation, but the ever-present curious lilt to her voice and apparent uncertainty turned it into a question.

Elora pursed her lips. "Wonderful," she muttered, already feeling a blush start to creep up her neck.

[DaGlobster]

Merradin chortled at Melisma's commentary over the clothing. Just as Elora's heat started creeping up her neck, Merradin glanced at her as if he could smell nerves in her. He put a hand on the arm she had linked with his as they walked.

"This one's been wearing all of my clothes, it'd be nice to have my own wardrobe again," he said. His voice was a teasing growl but the spoken words concealed another attempt at this new telepathy they'd been brewing up. He turned his head to meet her eyes, narrowing his own meaningfully as he projected.

Only if you want, Storm Rider...

Then suddenly at arm's length from Elora once again, although his hand still held hers. He tapped his chin as he perused the locals. "Hmm, we are rather out of fashion," Merradin said, glancing at two passing Yoreiqi men with bare chests but wrists and waists wrapped in beautiful, light garments that held various tropical shades, and then down at his blue velvet tunic and breeches.

Oh, such nice colors. You wouldn't mind me in an outfit like that, I bet... his mental voice purred.

[DragonSong]

"This one doesn't have many other options in terms of clothing," Elora pointed out with a little chuckle, crinkling her nose at him as he put his hand on her arm.

She shivered slightly when his voice brushed through her mind--she couldn't tell if she was growing used to the sensation or not, but it was definitely something.

She glanced down at their very clearly "mainland" clothes and agreed with another small laugh, "I suppose we are, at that."

Glancing up at Merradin sidelong, she squeezed his hand gently and projected, You are an absolute peacock, do you know that? She let her hand slide down his arm to twine their fingers together and added, I wouldn't mind, but I think I'd prefer you out of that outfit...

[DaGlobster]

"Peacock!" He chortled to himself out loud, eyebrows knit with mirth as he regarded Elora with a growing look of adoration. The words that followed had his eyebrows soften and a small sound rumbled in his chest. Had his horns been exposed, that definitely would have provoked a bolt between them. The slow slide of her hand down his arm had that rumbling growing into something more audible.

"You're incorrigible," he told her, mimicking her cadence when she'd called him that in the past.

He looked back to Melisma, suddenly remembering her.

"Lead the way?"

[DragonSong]

Ohhh, damnit. She was playing with fire--or, well, lightning--and she always seemed to forget that goading him into this particular kind of game was just as likely to bite her as it was him. She could feel that low rumble vibrate from his body into hers where they touched, and it sent a distinctly not cold shiver skittering down her spine.

Melisma's tiny laugh when Merradin seemed to suddenly remember her presence thankfully snapped her out of it, but did nothing to help her sudden blush.

"Well, I could take you some place to get some more local fashions," the younger dragon offered with another chuckle, spinning on her heel to walk backward as she spoke. "Or we could find that drink you were interested in first, it's up to you, really."

Elora, still a little flushed, shrugged as she tried to pull her mind back into more appropriate territory. "I'm not picky--I'm not really used to being a...tourist, I suppose you'd say. I'm content enough just to see the islands, I'm happy to go wherever you'd like." The last was said with a quick glance directed up to her mate, one eyebrow quirked. He was the one who'd convinced her she needed a vacation, after all, she was hardly well-practiced at it.

[DaGlobster]

"Let's get dressed up, then!" He answered easily. It was still early in the day for them, and while his bottomless hunger and thirst always called to him he could subside it longer, if only for Elora's sake. In regards to "being a tourist", Merradin could only smile wider.

"I'm something of a professional in the field," he said, putting a hand on his chest.

"Think of the things you'd love to do in a place where nobody would recognize or remember you. All your concerns and stresses are a continent away now, so let your imagination go wild," he said. He took a stronger lead in the walk and led Elora along by an arm.

He couldn't help but think on that dance they shared, back in Ketra.

[DragonSong]

"Come with me, then!" Melly practically sang as she spun to lead them on a meandering route through the little village. "The best tailor in town is just this way--her great-grandmother was friends with my father, so her family knows me. Sort of. Anyway, she's lovely, and she's magic with cloth and dye."

Elora found herself laughing a little helplessly as the two dragons urged her along. She cut a sideways glance up at Merradin, shifting her arm slightly in his grip so she could take his hand and squeeze gently. "Honestly, I'm surprised there's anything left in your imagination to go wild on," she muttered playfully. "I'd think by now you'd have already done just about any crazy thing you can come up with."

Her own thoughts flickered around Ketra--but then steered quickly away. Ketra was home, and always would be, and she had certainly had fun with him before...things went bad. But she didn't want to think about her real life, her responsibilities, not just now.

[DaGlobster]

"Mm, I'll think you'll find that my imagination is still quite vivid," he said, unable to keep the pleased growl out of his voice when she took her hand in his and squeezed it. He looked down at her, and dipped his head down. Not for a kiss, but just to tenderly nudge the top of her head with the side of his before they kept walking.

Hearing about Melly's human father again sent a few pangs of sympathy her way, but before he could offer any words about his own they were going around a corner and Merradin could already smell the dyes in the air.

"Excellent. I want to be turning heads for the rest of the trip," he said with a hint of mischief in his voice.