Valor did not feel any way in particular about snakes. As they were a powerful dragon, they had never met one they couldn’t crush in a single powerful step, and the fangs of the venomous ones couldn’t even pierce their scales. As they understood it, some humans were afraid of snakes not for any actual threat they posed, but as a deeper ingrained fear without a logical cause. Perhaps the humans’ ancestors had lived in fear of snakes for long enough that the fear carved itself into their blood. As a drake, Valor couldn’t relate to that, either.
Dragons were often compared to snakes, due to the shapes of their heads or their scales or eyes or necks. Valor thought Pentwec certainly had something of a snake-like head, and perhaps Fracas too, but they genuinely couldn’t see the comparison with most dragons.
Even here in the swampland, where snakes were fully at home and present almost everywhere they looked, hidden in the muck and water, Valor couldn’t muster more of a feeling about them than dry observation. Snakes were animals, and they had their own lives, and it didn’t really have much to do with Valor. At least, that was the case for the snakes Valor knew.
Valor did not know the thing in front of them.
Its head was as big as Valor’s entire upper body, and its length was fully on display as the thing lay flat on the ground, its body winding around trees even into the distant mist. Its scales were a pale yellow in the dim light of the deep canopy, and the marsh mud had stained its whole body to some degree. Its eyes were closed, which Valor would only later learn disqualified it from being a snake at all, but it was clearly breathing. Rather, it was snoring loudly.
“What in the world...” Waver whispered, atop their back.
It felt like Pentwec next to Waver had something to say, but before she could get a word in, the libel who had led them all there leapt into action.
Fracas floated directly over the creature’s snout, balled one of her taloned feet into a rough estimation of a fist, and slammed it directly down on its nose.
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The creature’s eyes opened wide -- they were a brilliant silver, laced with white, with deep black pupils -- and it sputtered briefly.
Seemingly thinking he had defended his honor sufficiently, the old, enormous dragon yawned deeply and put his very unsnakely full rows of teeth on display. As Valor watched in fascination, the dragon they’d thought of as a massive snake drew huge, leathery wings from what they had taken to be simply unsightly bulges in his figure. He stretched his wings out with some effort, narrowing his eyes again as he did so, and then relaxed them. He reared up to look down at his company.
The old dragon peered at Waver.
<...you must be the rumored medium. I had wondered if you would find me before the hunting parties. Heh heh heh!>
The dragon had a very breathy laugh. Valor could literally hear the wind rushing through his trachea as he chuckled.
the precocious dragonet announced from Valor’s shoulder.
Valor looked back at Pentwec. Her eyes were shining. A whistling noise, like an arrow through the air or the wind through a cracked window, lightly echoed through the swamp. A piece of aged vellum appeared, floating in the air in front of the serpentine dragon’s face. His face was triumphant and slightly smug as a quill dripping with black ink appeared next to it.