deercountry | Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck

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Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck

April catch all!

Who: Raleigh Becket, Min-Gi Park, Bolin and you!
What: Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe bad.
When: All gosh dang diggity month long.
Where: No.

Content Warnings: TBA

Prompts added as they come. Ping me if you want something. If you know what's up, post your starter in here.

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It's incredible to see but Raleigh, out of habit, takes a step back and to the side lest the dragon come careening towards them.

In his defense, he hasn't had the best of luck with large reptiles.

But still, that thing isn't a kaiju, it's a god damn dragon and that is rad. Unless that fire dragon comes for them in which case very not rad.

He is very torn between preparing for a fight and cooing in awe like a little kid.

"Do... you think it knows we're here?"

"I...don't know."

It was said that Alastrians were descended from dragons. And if so, it would follow that dragons had an acute sense of smell. But Ariadne had no idea if scent traveled through a portal like this. Could anything go through?

Cautiously, she stepped forward reaching out to touch the event horizon.

It was like a pane of glass. A window. She couldn't press through.

What would she have done if she could? The question was bewildering. Could this have been her chance to go home? Would she have taken it?

It is, if nothing else, a moment of reflection. Ba-dum-tish.

Ariadne's hand can't pass though but that doesn't mean Raleigh trusts it. Last time the sky was black for a month nothing good happened and thinking you're safe is the easiest way to be in intense danger around these parts.

He wets his lips and comes back in to see the view.

A beat. He lifts his hand.

(Don't do it, Raleigh.)

Another beat. He taps the window.

Dragons were a bit like hornets. If you left them alone, they were more than happy to leave you alone. But if you started poking around, trying to get their attention...

The dragon's head whipped around, the wings of fire streaming behind it like a little girl's braids. Its eyes were an electrifying shade of green, almost like traffic lights. Covering its face and horns were silver scales, with faint cracks that allowed more green light to escape.

It almost looked...wounded. Like someone had taken a hammer to its snout.

"Well...we know it can hear us," Ariadne said nervously, taking a step back from the portal.

Anxiety leaps into Raleigh's throat, otherwise he'd answer. That was stupid, that was such a stupid move, what the fuck were you thinking, Rals. That dragon looks bruck up and and it knows they're here. You absolute idiot.

"We should run," he finally manages, putting himself between Airy and the portal as if his own squishy human body can do anything against a fire dragon.

He'll still die trying though, and summons huge balls of flame into his fists.

"Raleigh! No!"

It was a dragon. Did he really think that fire, of all things, would hurt it? Well. Then again, he probably didn't have dragons back home. At least, not the type she knew best.

The dragon itself almost looked amused. If dragons could look amused, which she wasn't entirely sure about.

It seemed to decide that if Raleigh wanted to posture, it would as well. And with a deep breath, the dragon bellowed out a long, stream of smoke that drifted through the portal itself. All the way to the other side. It was harmless, just smoke. But it seemed to promise...

...more.

Too late.

And boy that scared the shit out of him.

Raleigh's stomach drops through the floor and he reaches for Ariadne's arm to tug her back. If the smoke can come through the portal then, in theory, so can the dragon. And Raleigh doesn't have enough time to scramble the jaeger to fight one.

"We gotta move, cmon-"

Ariadne took half a step to follow, Raleigh, but when she looked back into the portal, she hesitated.

The dragon was drifting in the air, regarding the two of them thoughtfully. It didn't seem aggressive. More curious. Perhaps watching to see what they would do.

"Wait," she said, putting a hand on Raleigh's shoulder, pulling him back. "I don't think that it's..."

Upset? No way to know. But it wasn't charging them either.

The look in response is slightly panicked.

"Airy..." He hates this. He hates this.

"No offense but I haven't had good luck with giant lizards. If that thing follows us through then we're releasing havoc on the whole city."

"Running away isn't going to close the portal," she pointed out. In fact, running away might be subjecting their fellow Sleepers to more danger. They could be unleashing a dragon and not know it.

But she wasn't sure about the 'unleashing' part.

She gave Raleigh's arm a gentle squeeze, looking back at the dragon. "I don't think...I don't think it wants havoc any more than we do."

The dragon tilted its head, oddly bird-like. Oddly...Ariadne-like, really. It continued to watch the two of them through the portal, but other than its head, it wasn't moving.

He looks so very, very unsure, but he stops and looks between her and the dragon.

Raleigh swallows the lump in his throat before forcing himself to adopt a more sure stance. Non threatening, how could you threaten a dragon, but still very much ready to spring into...some kind of action if needs be.

"Then what do you think it wants? Can you talk to it?"

There were thirty-six languages Ariadne knew from home. One physical, the rest spoken. But for all of her knowledge, she had no idea what language dragons spoke. If they spoke one at all.

It would probably have to be one of the older tongues.

"Hello?" she tried in Elvish, Trench translating for Raleigh. "Pardon us, we didn't mean to intrude." She curtsied, to emphasize her point.

The Dragon didn't say anything. But slowly, it shoved its snout down. As if dipping its head politely.

Because of course she can talk to dragons.

Raleigh can't believe that worked. There's shocked and amazed.. and then there's whatever the hell Raleigh is right now because wow.

Okay. Maybe.. maybe he won't be so scared anymore. If only a little bit. Ariadne can talk to dragons. Of course.

But if anyone could, it would be her.

Not wanting to be rude, Raleigh nods his head a little bit before giving an awkward half bow. He has no idea what to do, it's a dragon.

Has he mentioned it's a DRAGON!?

"Hey," he murmurs to her.

"Didn't you say your people come from dragons?"

"Some people believe that," she said. "There's really no way to know. That part of our history was lost thousands of years ago."

She tried to stay collected. Matter-of-fact. But really, Ariadne was kind of a shocked as Raleigh, if not more so. She knew that dragons existed, of course. She'd just never met one. Ariadne knew how to get into trouble, but she'd never gone looking for this kind of trouble.

It probably helped that neither of them was carrying a sword. They weren't dressed to play the part of the ancient Heroes. She imagined that dragons didn't like the Heroes very much.

The dragon seemed to be waiting to see what they would do next. And if it was possible for a dragon to look bored, this one was starting to.

Sorry, dragon. They don't make for the most entertaining vision.

"But if he understands you then maybe he'd know about your connection?"

It's a reach, but what does he know. They're like two children in front of a TV for the first time.

Stupidly, Raleigh slowly reaches back out towards the portal, fingers lightly resting against the tension between worlds. Dragon slayer or not (which he sort of is, one would suppose), there's no great show of aggression and so he falls back to curiosity.

It made as much sense as anything else that was going on, at the moment.

She tried it in Elvish again. "Honorable dragon. Do you know of the Alastrian race? Are we cousins to you?"

The dragon watched them for a moment, its eyes shifting to follow Raleigh. At the question, it rose up a few feet, then flew in a tight circle, its body forming a ring. Smoke rose from its nostrils. A little cloud lifting up over its body.

Ariadne frowned. "If that's the answer, I don't know for sure what it means."

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Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck

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