Dragon days of August

[dragongrrl]

🧙 WHO: Barbara and anyone who wants to do things with Barbara!
⚔️️ WHAT: Open log for August, incl. animal culling and Don't Treep quests
🕒 WHEN: August, various times in the month
🗺️ WHERE: Avalon
⚠️ WARNINGS: Animal violence


a. Let's see how far dragon whispering extends 🛡

[The zombies are gone, and the damage they left remains. Not wanting to leave a job half-done, Barbara is down at the farm. She might have a shovel, burying the remains of the undead in safe spots, nodding to you to pick up one yourself. Or she's shouldering new wood along to fix the fenceposts. Or she's flagging you down to help her drag a wooden trough to a new pen. Rather than her usual armor and chainmail, today she's in hardwearing work clothes.

You might also find her helping with the animals. Barbara isn't an animal mage, but she knows how to be quiet and patient, and might tell you to stand ready at the pen gate while she tries to entice a horse or a sheep back towards it.]

b. Invasive species 🗡

[Barbara's noticed how crowded the woods are. More than once she's woken up to see something that isn't her moogle familiar looking back at her. So it's no surprise that something else has decided that all this bounty represents a free lunch.

Not wanting a scorpion-tailed crab as a neighbor, she's ony too eager to help get rid of the Carcinuses]

Carcninus dangerous. Prepared?

c. But how does not a dragon work

[So. Horses.

Barbara's been avoiding this. But it also takes a long time to walk everywhere she wants to go. And who knows, she might be able to fight from horseback. So it's about time she learned how to ride properly.

Being Barbara, she's going to try it on her own before she actually talks to the man about officially getting lessons. If she can deal with dragons, she can deal with something that doesn't even have sharp teeth, right?]

Good horse. Here.

[She knows that they like apples, apparently. So she's got a bag full of them by her feet, approaching a likely-looking mare.]

d. Wildcard!

[None of these suit your fancy? Hit me up by PM or at compassinks and we can work something out!]

Comments

[dragongrrl]

Losing power of dragons... hard.

[Her own skills arise from human ability for magic combined with the wind drakes' gifts, and it was a wrench to realize that she had lost it. To have the dragon's bond with one's very soul be sealed away along with home... she can't imagine it.]

Elemental magic, can imitate. Not same.

[fireandhoney]

I didn't even know I was Dragonborn until a couple of years ago, but it still feels like I lost a big part of myself.

[Even if he could only do those extraordinary things for those couple of years, it got to the point where he couldn't imagine himself without them.]

I'm an elemental mage too. In fact, I could do that back in my world as well, in addition to the Dragonborn powers, so thank whatever gods are here that they let me keep those powers.

[Though he still lost his powers of illusion and alteration. Not sure why he was given death magic, since that sort of thing was something he never got the hang of back in Tamriel.]

[dragongrrl]

[Barbara can understand that. To find out so late in life by JRPG character standards and then have it snatched away--along with everything else about home--might be even harder, in a way, than to lose something you'd been raised with.]

Not everything strange for Finn. [She looks back at the horse, which is still a strange thing to her, and pets its nose. It seems to like that.] Barbara teach self, breathe fire again. Can teach Finn.

[fireandhoney]

[Finn's expression immediately lights up.]

You can do that? I'd be delighted to learn how.

[And perhaps he can apply that knowledge to breathing ice too.]

[dragongrrl]

Finn teach horses, Barbara teach fire.

[She looks up at the horse. It's interesting, being able to spend time around one without worrying it's going to attack her. Up close like this, she can see that it's a handsome creature.]

[fireandhoney]

You've got yourself a deal.

[He gives the horse another apple, and waits for them to lower their head so he can pet them.]

Another basic tip: try not to spook a horse, especially if you're riding it. In my world, nothing scares a dragon, but a horse isn't quite as smart as a dragon.

[He looks at the horse, as if it can actually understand English.]

No offense.

[dragongrrl]

[Ah. Yes, that makes sense. An eater of grass, hay, and carrots is going to be on the prey list for anything that's big or bold enough to try taking it down, and Avalon certainly has no shortage of that sort of beast.]

Barbara never hear horses talk.

[Unlike dragons, which are as intelligent as humans. If not more so. Even if most humans can't understand what they say, Barbara knows that they speak.]

But horse fast, and strong.

[fireandhoney]

Me neither. Dragons talk plenty, though. In my world, their power comes from speaking their language.

[If he can get the hang of breathing fire like she shows him, he might shout the Fire Breath words just for effect. He also swears that his horse could understand his words, but she may have been a supernatural being that just looked like a horse.]

[dragongrrl]

[Hmm. That's interesting, his dragons must be quite different to wind drakes. They can certainly make a statement with their roars, and a statement you do not want to contradict--but there isn't magic in their vocalizations.]

Finn dragons, different. [...] Dragons and people, get along?

[fireandhoney]

[He frowns sadly.]

Sadly, no. Dragons see mortals as lesser and seek to conquer them, and will often attack villages. But, there are good dragons out there, and one of them is willing to teach them kindness and goodness.

[dragongrrl]

[Ah... this is the second person who has talked about dragons as vicious killers and conquerors. It makes Barbara wonder if it's her wind drakes at home that are the unusual ones.]

Wicked dragon, more dangerous than wicked person.

How Finn meet Akatosh?

[fireandhoney]

I can only hope that with their leader gone and so many of them now following Paarthurnax, things might change.

[After all, if he can change, then others can too.]

I've never actually met Akatosh. Akatosh is the chief god of the Nine Divines and father of all dragons. He's also known as a god of time.