It was another half an hour, before I was visited again. I took this time to see just how bad my wing was. It still hurt like a bitch to move, let alone touch, but it was manageable.
Everything from the middle of the wing, all the way to the outermost tip was tender and slightly discolored. It was less than it had been one and a half hours ago, but still some ways from what my good wing looked like.
It didn’t seem like any of the bones were broke, at least. Under some pain, I had tried to gently bend each one, and wasn’t greeted by any pain, beyond what simply touching the area gave me. That’s somewhat good news. At least I don’t have to think about setting the bone, and I’ll be able to use it again as soon as it stops hurting. Not like it might matter, soon enough.
They’re either going to be territorial and try to murder me or chase me off, or they adhere to the kobold stereotype of revering dragons. I didn’t want to find out in a setting I don’t control, but I hope it’s the latter.
When the kobolds returned, they did so in a group of four. Three of them were each carrying one of those baskets on their backs, and the fourth, the only one glowing with mana, was saying something in their language. They didn’t seem hostile, but I was still flaring out my right wing and bearing my teeth at them, for good measure.
So this is what it feels like to be a cornered, injured beast. Not a nice feeling, I must say.
Their next action threw me for a loop, because they bowed to me. Well, the one glowing with mana bowed, while the other three prostrated themselves just inside my little alcove. Each of those three were also wearing a sort of necklace with a light crystal pendant.
Once more, the fantasy settings were right. Is that a point in favour of me having dreamed up my prior existence? Maybe. Or small dragon-like beings just always evolve to revere actual dragons. Either way, I slowly stopped showing hostility.
The one I assumed to be a leader or spokesperson of some kind, the glowing one, stopped bowing and started to speak again.
I tried to at least distinguish the sounds he was making, but the sounds he made were somehow completely different from the others I had heard talk. There were none of the ratcheting sounds, for one. Instead, they were actual growls of different pitches.
These sounds I already knew I could make, at least. Is it safe to assume this one is speaking in a language more common among dragons? Or is it just a dialect of some kind? Could be either. It would explain why I had so much trouble making those specific sounds, if the language was adapted into something more suitable for kobolds.
He was happily babbling on, gesturing and gesticulating, and eventually he stepped to the side, and the three behind him stepped forward. They had taken off their baskets and were now presenting them to me.
As the leader made a small series of sounds, the kobold closest to him opened the basket, revealing some of the meat I had seen the last group gather. It was at least as much, maybe more than I had eaten before being interrupted.
The leader made another, different series of sounds, and the last two kobolds opened their baskets. Inside both, were a collection of rocks and pebbles, some shiny or glittering in the light, and some with interesting shapes. And here we have the prejudice of dragons being vain and greedy. I’ll have you know, that I have had neither tendency, not in my human life, and not since reincarnation. Or whatever happened to me.
As those baskets were presented to me, the one with the food had been pushed closer to me, now only a bit over half a meter away from me. When I looked that way, the kobold doing the pushing scurried away, like I might eat them for their insolence.
The leader said something else, then waited for something. OK, so this is the best case scenario. Either these kobolds revere dragons, or they fear them enough that they pretend to do so to protect their own hides. If either of those is the case, and dragons can be as powerful as human fiction always claims, one of them taking up residence close to their settlement might be a boon for them, if managed correctly. Bribery and garnering goodwill being the primary focus here.
I thought about what I could get out of such an arrangement if I could bluff my way through it, but always got caught up by the language barrier. They obviously think I know whatever language dragons speak. Revealing that I don’t will either make them pretend that they understand what I try to communicate, and scurry to do whatever they think I said, or realize that I just hatched. That, in turn, might make them try and ‘raise’ me to be their protector, chase me off so I don’t waste their resources, or kill me for whatever they think my body might be good for.
There’s only really one useful outcome for me here, and I think it might be equal likelihood to the only neutral one on the list. Question is: how likely are the two bad ones? The leader was starting to fidget ever so slightly, and was saying something again. I looked in his direction, which made him bow once more and shut up, then considered further.
They seemed entirely cowed by my presence, leading me to believe that dragons, indeed, had a reputation for being powerful in some way. I hadn’t noticed anything of the sort yet, but that might have been due to age. The offerings were obviously meant to appease me in some way. The food to give me something easier to eat than them, and the shiny things to appeal to some sense of vanity.
The leader was likely asking what other wishes I might have. Out of curiosity, I smelled the air again. The smell I associated with kobolds was thick in the air, but also something more subtle than that. Something I only remember the barest hint of from where the lion and the goat fought. Is that what fear smells like? Good to know.
I was having a hard time reaching a conclusion on what the best way forward would be, but didn’t have high hopes of getting anything useful out of this situation without making them aware of my lack of a language to speak. Seems like my life is just one plunge after the other, now. First finding out my gender, then jumping off that ledge by my birth place, coming here, taking risks all the way. What’s one more, then?
Still looking at the increasingly worried looking leader, I tried to form some of the sounds I had heard him make, until he looked up again, entirely confused. He said something else in a quiet voice, to which I cocked my head, trying to convey as well as I could that I couldn’t understand them.
He said a few more things, which I tried to copy to the best of my ability. I didn’t do a great job, as expected when trying to repeat words in a language you don’t speak at all. This exchange repeated a few more times, the leader looking a bit more confused with each pass, until finally, something seemed to dawn on them.
He reverted back to the set of sounds I had come to expect of the kobolds, looking a bit agitated. I was keeping my guard up, in case they tried to do something to me.
I needn’t have worried, because instead of doing anything hostile, they all left, leaving the baskets with their offerings where they were. Aaand I’m alone again. This gives me some more time to think about where this is headed, at least. With their reaction, I have high hopes that they will go for the ‘raise me to be a protector’ option.
I still needed to prepare myself for unforseen possibilities, as well as for how they might go about raising me, but I’d burn those bridges when I got to them. For now, I had some more time to rest and let my wing heal. I didn’t see a reason to scuff their offerings though. Resting is hungry business, and I might as well see if those dragons from fantasy were onto something with resting on piles of valuables.
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The meat, thankfully, hadn’t undergone any sort of preservative treatments, so it tasted virtually identical to what I had gnawed off the bones myself, except that it was a lot less work. Looking at my claws again, I imagined how I might be able to sharpen them in the future, but they seemed to have changed during my short rest. The looked like they had lost a bit of their thickness, becoming less rounded at the tips.
So they were coated in something that’s slowly dissolving? Keeps the shell of the egg intact but gives the prospective dragon a weapon a few hours after birth. I’m looking forward to what else a dragon develops as it ages. ...not looking forward to some of it though.
After eating just a few mouths full of the meat, I went to inspect the ‘treasure’ they left me. I dragged the two baskets over to my resting spot and spilled out some from one of them. Most of what was inside really was just pebbles of varying roundness or flatness. They seemed to have put all of the stones with shiny or sparkling features at the top to make it more impressive.
There were a one or two things I assumed to be some sort of uncut gem of some type, most seemed to be quartz or something along those lines. One of those actually had the faintest mote of light glimmering in the center. Are these what they use for their lights, then? The second basket had much the same contents as the first.
I put everything that wasn’t just a round rock to the side and went about making a small pile of the rest, where I had rested previously. It wasn’t very impressive, but with the slightly shiny ones facing the exit, it was something, at least.
When I went to curl up around the pile that was now about knee-high, the difference to before was like night and day. I had my left wing spread across the pile, covering my head as well, which rested neatly on my tail. OK, I admit, this is comfortable. That makes it 3 points in favour of fantasy prejudice?
Despite my best intentions to expect it, the list once more startled me unexpectedly.
Name: unknown
True Name: unknown
Age: 5 hours 53 minutes 59 seconds
Species: (some sort of)Dragon
Gender: female
Life Stage: Hatchling
Titles and Given Names: K
Statistics:
Notes to self:
Never do cunnilingus again
Always pay attention to your surroundings
Times I thought of my situation as weird in any way: 8
Times I fell on my face: 48
Points in favour of Fantasy prejudice: 3
Goals:
Learn to fly. Progress: 12%
Learn the kobold language: Progress:3%
One day, I will no longer be surprised by you. This I swear to you, you infernal thing in my head.
I dismissed it and went back to resting, this time not sleeping, but merely relaxing after nearly 6 hours of constantly being on edge. I didn’t let down my guard completely, but I did make myself chill out a bit.
I took this time to go over what I remember from the little mishap that brought about this newest development. I, again, had banked hard enough, but didn’t get rid of enough hight to properly clear the opening, so I hit my wing against the upper edge of this cave’s mouth. This trend of bad flying will continue until I can learn to fly properly. And that’ll have to wait for a few more days now, I guess.
The only thing I could think of to pass the time in a reasonable fashion, was to try and chain some of the sounds I now knew to be part of the dragon’s language together. The growls really were an improvement to the kobold’s alternative.
In all, I felt confident that I the only thing standing between me and communication was learning vocabs and learning the grammar. I could only hope that it was somewhat close to what I already knew.
Though I find that hard to believe, unless it turns out this is a hallucination of some kind. I was still far from a conclusion about what had happened to me. At the moment, I was just working under the assumption that this is normal for a dragon and just work to preserve myself.
After some time, I actually did fall asleep again, the vocal practice having become repetitive and boring.
When I woke up again, I was startled to find another kobold prostrated at the opening of my current place of residency. It didn’t have the glow of mana, and had a very bright light crystal instead. This kobold looked like a deep orange in the yellow light.
Now wide awake again, I looked around for anything else, but didn’t find anything out of place. Either this one is more sneaky than the others, or I slept more deeply than I had thought. A look at my age revealed that I had slept for almost two and a half hours, minus however long I had been practicing my ...vowels?
The kobold seemed to not have noticed me casting about, so I did the dragon equivalent of clearing my throat. Imagine my surprise, when that produced the exact sounds I had been struggling with so much. Oh, Murphy, you devious being. Always throwing me for a loop.
The kobold was startled awake by my vocalization, so it did its job, at least. Still on the ground, it bowed its head a few times, then slowly got up. Behind itself, it revealed another, very small basket. The kobold showed the contents to be some more treasure, which it held in front of itself while cautiously approaching. I nodded, and the kobold put the basket down half a meter in front of me.
What followed, was a series of gestures, accompanied by words, assumedly in the dragon dialect, judging by the growls. First, it gestured to me, then to itself. Both words were made of a growl followed by a hiss, both sets sounding indistinguishable to my ears, but when it gestured to itself there was a click preceding the growl.
So they sent a language teacher. That makes those series of sounds the words for my and their species, mayhaps? Regardless, I tried to imitate as best I could. It took me a few tried until the kobold was satisfied, and the language lesson continued like that.
At some point I started referring to him as Red, following my assumption that the yellow light mixed with the color of their scales to make orange. Red was quite patient with me, as he pointed to literally everything in the alcove until I could produce their words satisfactorily.
He then went on to trace out various shapes in the stone floor using his claws. Just goes to show how hard these claws are. Evan stone bends before them. He made various sets of undefined shapes, presumably going through a numbering system, and failing to convey how it works. The sounds that made up the words seemed to repeat with no rhyme or reason, first after four, then six, then again at ten.
Mate, you best stay away from these things until I can actually understand what you’re trying to say. When the next shape was drawn, I just shook my head, motioning towards the line of now 20. Red sighed, then went on to something else.
4 hours into the lesson, things were starting to get frustrating for him. He seemed to be trying to explain something to me, likely some small thing I kept getting wrong in pronouncing the word for cavern, or whatever it is he was referring to with gesturing at everything, which was made out of three fast clicks and a chirp.
I think this is enough for today. We should stop before he starts pulling off his scales in frustration. I made a nondescript growl, the motioned my head towards the entrance. Red took it to mean ‘What’s the word for that’ and gave it, but I again shook my head. At a second gesture he understood, bowed, then left again.
This is going to take a looong time, isn’t it? Why couldn’t I just have been born with the knowledge of how to speak dragon?
During the next hours, until I felt hungry again, I went over all the words I could remember once more. It wasn’t a huge selection, since the alcove was rather small and only had my small pile in it, but I did my best to burn them into my memory anyway.
And so, I eventually fell asleep once more, the food I had been brought eaten completely, and my wing now only stinging slightly when I move it the wrong way. When I woke again, my first day as a dragon had officially passed, hopefully not defining how the rest of my life would play out.