He sat with Path for a little while, watching her stare daggers at him, until she huffed and looked away. A human that is definitely a dragon on the inside, he thought as he felt how stiff she remained. Need to come up with something for you to wear though. Some of my clothes, I guess. I do not think you are likely to have any human clothes to wear or at least, in any condition to be worn, in your hoard.
He was still and quiet, letting her settle down before he tried anything else. He could just, well, sense that she was looking for a fresh opportunity to try something like biting him in his face again. So, he pondered a little how, or if, there might actually be some sense in the situation that he found himself in. Serving Mysteera did sometimes feel erratic, but in the end, it often came together to make a sort of sense to him.
Then, he remembered that in the temple that he had first run to so that he could escape his family, begging for blessings so he could serve the Goddess, there had been some iconography of purple dragons around the stained glass windows. Because the true form of chaos is a dragon and Lady Mysteera is considered the Mother of All Dragons.
When he framed it to himself in that light, he imagined the fight between Kriseya and Path the way a parent might and saw how frustrating an event like that might be. But, it did not feel quite right. No, many Gods claimed “parental” roles over certain races, but had a benevolent neglect toward even pretty egregious things happening. No, it is because Path stole from Mysteera and blinded Kriseya all as a bid for… what? Attention? Some sort of statement? So, this is like Mysteera saying, hello, I am paying attention. So, here was Dainin to… presumably guide the dragon onto a “right” path.
Well, she seems mellow now. “All right, we need to get you back to town to see a healer before we do anything else. I can only administer aid, I cannot actually help with some of the injuries you have, and I do not want you to get an infection.”
“Do not play nice with me, you would have killed me in my sleep if you could have,” she accused. When he flushed a little, she narrowed her eyes, “Do not sleep around me,” she all but growled, seething at him.
“All I knew about you is that you mangled up a dragon that people were looking forward to working with and that you froze over town and destroyed a temple and stole. I thought I was supposed to fight you, not that Mysteera had plans for you because you took her artifact,” he said, deciding that they better sit there for a while.
She huffed. “I live here! They invited in another dragon even though this is my place! I would have killed her if I could.”
Dainin made a musing noise. “I guess what I heard growing up about wild dragons is a little more true than I thought.”
She huffed. “I do not want all those rules or people to manage. I just want my space. They used to be respectful of me. Now you’re here.”
“Sent by Mysteera,” he reminded her. “Also, I am not so powerful as to cast a spell that would change your very being, that was also the Goddess. However, I understand if you want to be angry at me about it. I did try hard to stab you at least once.”
She huffed. He slowly stood, carrying her over to Oberon, who took one look at the bundle he carried, and snorted at him, sidestepping him. He seemed to know what Path really was also. Dainin whistled the stay command at him, and the horse froze. “I am going to give you a shirt of mine to wear. Then, we are going back for a healer and to talk to the temple priest.”
“You cannot make me go back to the city,” she squirmed.
He sighed a little. “I promise that it is the only place I will force you to go. We can come right back after that if you want. I will watch you pretend you are a dragon on a hoard as much as you like.”
“I do not want you.”
“Well, what you want and what you end up with change when you commit crimes… especially against Goddesses,” he said as he carefully set her on her feet. He helped her with the blanket so she did not just lose her footing and fall. “Many would suffer a lot worse fate for the damage you caused and what you took.”
She moaned.
“Speaking of,” he said as he handed her a shirt, which she promptly dropped right back on the ground. He sighed, and when he bent to pick it up, she had reached out and grabbed him by his bun and was trying to yank him off his feet… which hurt, but did not budge him. “Ow,” he said as patiently as he could, reaching up and catching her by the wrist and squeezing until she let go. “I think we should have you make a peace offering for the harm you caused. It was expensive.”
“NO!” was what she had to say about that, and she tried to bite his fingers, and it turned into a lot of work to avoid ending up with his knuckles against her teeth without accidentally giving her a fat lip.
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He put his shirt in her face to block her, “Clothes. On,” he insisted. “Otherwise, back to swaddled dragon. Pick.”
She huffed and then reached up and took hold of the shirt. He let it go. She dropped it on the ground again.
“Not very good at being endearing are you? Just wild.” He bent to get it, but this time when she moved at him, he just made a motion with his hand and water from the air flicked her in the face, distracting her. Was it a little bit like how he might have disciplined a bad house cat? Yes. Was it what she deserved? Also yes, he felt. “All right, I am going to say you probably do not know how to put a shirt on. So, this hand up,” he said, catching onto her wrist when she came at him again and he raised her arm and put it up, sliding one sleeve over it and pulling it down over her head.
“Do not wrap me in that blanket again!” she said, squirming, pulling back.
“Shirt, not blanket. Clothes so you do not get cold, and… honestly, I do not know how to take you seriously naked.” She paused and stared at him. He held out the other sleeve, “Your hurt arm goes through this, can I help you with that?”
She lowered her head a little, and it came forward a little, her shoulders hunched forward - it was not a human way of looking, but he could see the dragon within clearly for a moment, hunching her shoulders, looking up at him from the ground. “I am trying very hard to be difficult, why are you not at least a little angry?”
Dainin felt a little bit of hope. “Mysteera has asked me to look after you for a while. I … already hurt you. I saw that you bled a lot on the way to your home. I… empathize a bit. I mean with making decisions that you regret later. I want to serve Mysteera well. If she has told me to look after you, then I have complete faith that it will be worth it.”
She relaxed a little, and he used that opportunity to get the other sleeve on delicately. His shirt was ridiculously big on her. She was probably a full foot shorter than he was. It was almost funny to think that this diminutive woman with bright hair was a dragon. So, his tunic came clear down to almost her knees. “I see you are a dragon who likes collecting things,” he tried something else. “What if I bribe you? I could take you into the city and get you pretty things to wear? Then could we see a healer?”
She drew herself up, “I just want to be a dragon, my real self. How long does this curse of yours last?”
He shrugged. “You could pray and ask Mysteera for guidance, but I do not know. Can you use your magic?” When he looked at her, he still saw that she was three pinwheels of power strong just as before, but she had not tried anything.
She flushed and shook her head.
He was extremely surprised he got a true answer from her. Or what seemed to be one, anyway. “I see. Do you want to try and make reparations for the damage you caused? What if we brought back some of these gems you have been hoarding?”
“I did not hurt anyone but Kriseya,” she snapped. “They started it. I will do no such thing. This is mine.”
He had no quest to compel reparations, so he decided to let it go. “I see. Maybe later you will change your mind; for now, we will start with proper clothes and a healer. I will explain to the priest of Aurell what the situation is if you are too scared to go back there.”
“I am not scared!” she snapped again.
He raised a brow, “Then we can go there first then!”
She wilted a little. I think I am getting used to this, he thought, feeling some hope that she would get easier to wrangle with practice.
He handed her his canteen, taking a moment to focus on the water in the air around him and fill it with fresh, clean water. “Here, have something to drink.” Then, he got into his rations, pulling out a promisingly large chunk of jerky. “Give this a try. You might be hungry after all the time you have spent recovering, yes?”
She was hungry. She sniffed the jerky once and immediately bit into it and ripped a chunk off and tried to eat it like a dragon… which meant that it was good she had water as she coughed.
He gathered his dented armor and pulled off his cloak. He brought both back to Oberon. In that short amount of time, she was rifling through his saddlebag, stealing all the jerky… she skittered back when she saw he was watching her, but she didn’t apologize. He did not begrudge her food. He got her more water, and then tied his dented armor to Oberon and fashioned his cloak into a better than nothing at all skirt for her legs with plenty of room for her to sit on Oberon.
Who looked like he wanted to take bites out of Path for coming up to him without permission but had not done so because he was told to stay. Dainin hugged his war horse’s nose. At least one creature here was stable and well-behaved.
“More?” he asked as the last bits of stolen jerky were finished. She shook her head. “All right, we are going back to the town for a healer.”
She stared. Fidgeted. “The damage was bad?”
“The roof of the temple was pretty mangled. A big stretch of wall was destroyed, and the threat of pirates and neighboring brigands is always a problem. When things like that have to be repaired, usually they take it from the people who live there.”
“And if we make… an offering of gems… they will not be so angry?”
“I believe so. It is a good start.”
So, she nodded, and they both went back into the cave, with the light of his Blade of Unusual Chance, found a good pile of different kinds of gems and filled the rest with gold. It did not make a dent in the mound of gold in the middle.
“We do not have to tell them you are the dragon,” Dainin said.
“Please do not. Just… tell them… you did not beat me and I am still here, otherwise… people will come.”
“I understand.”
“I made this home; I did not want them to bring in Kriseya to take it from me.”
“I understand,” he said again, and he felt that he really did. He felt that all of this had been a ploy to get attention, and probably to intimidate, and it had all backfired.
The journey back to town took most of the night, and she got exhausted enough that he wrapped her in the blanket again, much to her disorganized protests, but this time so that she could lay against him. She was too tired to continue arguing with him and half-slept. Who would have guessed all that practice with my stepmother would make the stubbornness of a dragon easy to handle? He thought as he realized he was actually in a really good mood for outlasting all her best efforts at being difficult. Of course, he did not let himself spend time fretting about what that meant about his stepmother.