(no subject)

[fathoming]

[1: Video]

[Naija is blurry with darkness. The ice on the lake is beautiful, thick and shining to bursting with light that looks like it'll drip into the water at any moment, droplets sinking bright into the depths. But the light is mostly trapped there. Only when she swims up close to it can you really make out her face. She's a little gaunt looking. She sighs.]

Can anyone help me get out of here? The ice has frozen too thick for me to blast through.

[She's humiliated. She's been trying to get through for days like a true metroidvania protagonist, missing her classes.]

[2: Action]

[When they finally fish (har har) her out of there, she looks cold and hungry. Which is not all that surprising, given that she's still wearing the glorified bathing suit that is her normal clothes. She clings to her good samaritan, trying to pull as much body heat from them as possible.]

Comments

[tiamaris]

He hadn't gotten too far away by the time she surfaced, and his hearing was excellent. His head looked up and back at her, eyes dull and red.

[fathoming]

Now that she was no longer startled, Naija walked right up to him, a little wobbly on the surface but defiant and prickly for someone who was a sixth his size.

"Oh, so you can hear me. What are you and why did you just stick your head into my territory?"

Nevermind that she'd been trying to get out of there. This was something she wanted to know.

[tiamaris]

"What, not who," he muttered darkly. Of course, when you are a rather large dragon, quiet is not a vocal range you can achieve. He was a what, a monster. Not a who, not a person. A what. "Next time, save yourself," he snapped, eyes now a livid pulsing red. He felt his temper growing, building. He had to get out of there before he attacked her, before he set the world on fire, before he proved them all right and acted the monster he had become.

[fathoming]

"What are you so mad about, then?"

She padded up to him and looked up directly into the firey maw. She wasn't about to let him go without answering her curiosity and what little manners she had was the first casualty of it.

[tiamaris]

He stared at her, just stared at her for a long moment. She was surprised that he was upset at being treated as a monster, as a thing? A what? Did she think he should just be used to it by now? He spread his wings warningly, she better run, little girl, stupid insulting little girl. It was a good thing that dragons didn't cry, if his breath burned the world, he didn't want to know what tears would do.

He shouldn't have bothered, shouldn't have tried to help. There was a reason that in stories princesses were saved from dragons, not by them.