Cat and Dragon - Printable Version

Cat and Dragon - Printable Version

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RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 02-21-2021

"Oh my God. No. No, that is not fucking happening. You just said you'd leave if I answered your questions, you lying little shit!" Sparta snapped, throwing his hands up in the air in exaggerated frustration. "Head back home now! Fuck you, if you stick around that long, I'll be the one who's dead, or part of some psychotic dragon's hoard! Seriously, do you even hear yourself!!! Ohhh I'm totally immune to your curse, I'm just going stay with you the entire fucking winter when that makes literally no goddamn sense?! No! Fuck! Are all dragons this fucking stupid? The longer you stick around me the worse it's going to get! Maybe right now it's a feeling in the back of your head you can rationalize away, but it won't stay that way! It always gets worse! Give it a full winter and the only way I'll be able to get rid of you is to get you to--"

He cut himself out, pacing in furious frustration in circles in the leaves. His body language was as loud and exaggerated as his voice. "You! Did a stupid, shitty thing because your head is so far up your ass that you literally couldn't tell the lesser of two evils if it was holding a rat in one hand and a pregnant mother in the other! And you've made that my problem about three times over now! You just want me to swoop in and fix your dumb fucking problems, why, because you think you deserve it? Because you think I'm a bad person? Because you're a dragon and think humans are your slaves or some shit? Or just because you're big and strong and when it really comes down to it, you know you can just bully people into doing whatever you want? I'll tell you how I could fix your problem! I could walk into a rich man's house and ask him for gold and he'd give it to me. I could steal more in value in one day than I've managed in my life of begging, just for you, to suit your needs. Is that what you want? Or are you just going to hang around until I pull five pounds of gold out of my ass in some morally unimpeachable way?"

RE: Cat and Dragon - skiesofpurple - 02-24-2021

Ah, alright. It was much more amusing when he went off on his tangents when it was on purpose, on Eric’s part, rather than an angry rant meant to cut into him. Eric hoped that the curse didn’t somehow help communicate his thoughts. He didn’t want this angry pink thief to know how fucking amused he suddenly was. The guy really was committed to the whole hermit lifestyle if the thought of having someone nearby for only a season was enough to set him off like this. Just what was so awful, what could happen, what had happened to him before to make him react like this? To live like this?

Suddenly it wasn’t as funny.

Eric heaved out a sigh. “I’m sorry for upsetting you. Listen. I know that you don’t want to help me, you’ve made that very clear. You’re right that you don’t owe me anything. I’m sorry for making mistakes, I didn’t know any better. I’m out here to try and learn better, that’s the whole reason I left home! I’m asking for help because that’s how I was raised, to ask for help when I fuck up. It’s never been a problem before.” He hummed in contemplation, wondering how this would go in the stories, and then wondering how that would translate to real life. All stories start with a grain of the truth that gets heaped over with a steaming load of bullshit, as granny would say. He may have underestimated how much bullshit actually went into them, if this whole entire fucking day was anything to go off of. “What I really need is an evil rich man to steal from. That’s supposed to be alright.”

You know, once he got used to all of the mean comments and nasty words the thief said, waiting to see what his reactions to things were became a lot more interesting. Actually, that reminded him. “My name is Eric, if you wanted to put a name to the insults.”

RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 02-24-2021

Sparta rubbed his face, as if trying to wipe off frustration that had no chance of being wiped away, or, seemingly, removed at all through any method. "Are all dragons like this?" he wondered, more to himself than any kind of real question. "God help us, no wonder the whole area is in such a fucking state." Everyone spending the last five hundred years avoiding the shit out of the dragon's backyard just made so much more sense now. You couldn't even reason with the lunatics. They just did whatever the hell they wanted.

"I think by your standards," Sparta said, still rubbing his face in exhaustion. "All rich men are evil. How do you think they got to be rich? No, I guess you wouldn't know this shit. Dragons get hoards by, what, just taking stuff that they want, right? And being given other things as sacrifice so that they won't burn down villages and shit, I guess? It's the same with humans, basically, from what I've seen. The haves have because they already had. The have nots never have because there was nothing left for them to have afterwards." That didn't make any sense. He wasn't used to having to explain things to other people. "If that's your morality, you're gonna be able to get by just fine, but I don't know what rich men just have piles of gold lying around." He rubbed his chin. "Kings, maybe. Proper kings, not like the chieftains they have in the city-states; those guys have too good of an understanding of what stuff is actually valuable. I guess you could always go to Aeris. Maybe another dragon would be happy to help you out; I dunno how that shit works. God knows he has enough gold, from what I hear."

He peeked out over his hands, unsurprisingly still glaring. "For the record, I'm only telling you this because you've made it clear you have no intention of listening to anything I say or caring in the least about how I feel about the situation. I'm pretty sure you've already elected to ignore that entirely, but I just want to periodically remind you. Also, Eric is a stupid name for a dragon."

RE: Cat and Dragon - skiesofpurple - 02-24-2021

“I wouldn’t know,” Eric admitted, somewhat contemplative himself, “what all dragons are like. Or how they get their hoards. I only know what I’ve heard from the stories.” Stories of knights and valor, of evil dragons who he should absolutely not grow up like. Of good little dragons who strive to be better, who help the knights in the tales to vanquish the evil dragons.

It might take a while to unpack the fifty years of bullshit from whatever truth was buried underneath.

Sounds like some of the stuff he’d heard, the thief also knew about, so maybe those parts were true? Eric tilted his head, trying to parse actual sense from everything that the thief was saying. “Sssssoo… There aren’t any… good lords? Around here? Who watch over their people and protect them?” He snorted. “Why hasn’t anyone done anything about that yet?” Oh, maybe that was why. He’d almost forgotten about Aeris. From the rumors, that dragon in particular seemed to be fond of eating people.

“Ah, I’m suppose to avoid Aeris. Ma ‘n Pa said I’d probably die if I went there. I wonder if there are any evil rich merchants. I don’t really need coins, just gold. Do you know where some human kings live? And how to get there? As long as I give some gold to the poor it should be fine to take some from them. What do they even need all that gold for, anyway?” Clearly nothing if they just kept it around in big rooms all the time and only went in to look at it. Gold drives men mad, that’s something Eric was mostly certain was true. He wasn’t too keen to test the theory, but it seemed like he might get some experience with it sooner rather than later.

“It’s better than having to call someone ‘the angry pink thief’ all the time,” Eric said flatly, staring at said angry pink thief as if that would get him to give him his name in return.

RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 02-24-2021

"So you know no other dragons. That explains a lot." And left a lot of other things questions, like why he was so bad at people if he didn't even have the advantage of having grown up in a foreign society. Or maybe he'd been an orphan, and grown up totally alone? But then how would he talk? Dragon chicanery?

"Ohhh, you're asking the wrong person about that, dude," Sparta snorted, half-leaning and half-sitting on his wagon-sled of earthly belongings. "Have you just like, never heard of hermits? You don't know how that works? I don't know anything about 'lords' or whatever. I'm not even clear on who the king is most places. Like, normally that news trickles down eventually, but it's not really... as long as it doesn't effect me, and it basically never does, why would I pay attention?

"Again, like, the way you think about evil, it's most merchants? All merchants? You know, for all you think those guys were monumental angels or whatever bullshit, they for sure had some garbage going on. Some of their goods were stolen or they ripped off the guy they got it from. Half of them probably beat their wives, all of them probably beat their kids, and when they get to town, what, were you under the impression they handed that shit out to the poor? Fucking imported glassware?" Sparta snorted. "That glassware is gonna be sold to the richest twats, and was worth more than the rest of the load they had put together. Cheese, leathers, furs, that's just standard stuff. I could have taken the whole load and they would have still made enough just reselling the glass to make the trip worth it. Cheese, honestly, a fucking guy steals cheese and leaves the valuables and you're thinking high crime. You're too stupid to fight crime or whatever dumb shit you're hoping for, you know. You don't even know what evil looks like."

He sighed. "Anyway, Crithe has a human king still, last I heard. It's like, northeast of here, over the mountains and down into the valley. Look for a bigass castle and you'll probably find the king, or at least like, a duke or something, I dunno." He laughed. "Maybe if you tell them you're the dragon-king's nephew, they'll just give you the gold." Or maybe they'd kill him, but at this point, like, either way. He was starting to come to terms with the fact that this might turn into a "you or me" situation.

Sparta, who was, for the most part, fresh out of names, blanked only briefly at the extremely pointed demand. "They call me Sparta," he said, which was true, because that was what people called him, and what he'd provided maybe once before when pressed, in the vague hopes it would be intimidating. It never was. People who'd seen the posters figured it out when they saw the hair, and even then, they were at that point too enthralled to be intimidated by anything from him besides disdain.

RE: Cat and Dragon - skiesofpurple - 02-27-2021

Yeah, his life would sure have been a whole lot different if he’d know any dragons at all growing up. Hanging around with alligators just wasn’t the same. There were so many goddamn questions he just wished he could ask sometimes, but there was no use in getting caught up in all of that. He wasn’t interested in meeting most dragons right now, anyway. He wanted to explore the human lands first!

If only he’d found a different guide for it. This one was way too enthusiastic about rubbing his face in all the things he didn’t know. Although, it was… fair. To point out that hermits wouldn’t know much about local politics. They seemed to be in the same boat on that one.

But, still. “Wouldn’t you want to keep up on the local laws?” He wondered, before quickly shaking his head. "Never mind." No, stupid. The thief didn’t care about local laws, he just took what his curse made people give him and then kept away from everyone else. And now he was spouting different nonsense, anyway. “You don’t know that about them!” Eric protested. He hadn’t heard ANY of that happening! At least, not when he was with them. And a lot of those merchants WERE traveling with their family! They all seemed like decent people. Not all of them were kind, but he would have heard it if that was happening. “They were fine.” Even if they kept him on guard duty all night long pretty much every night since he’d joined up. Surely he would have sensed something if anything awful were happening then!

He rolled his eyes at the continued harping, not seeing a reason to revisit it himself beyond, “Evil comes in many forms. It can be hard to recognize.” He blew out a breath and shifted his weight back and forth, considering their options. Eventually, he decided to make a proposition, but he gave himself a moment to remember not to get pissed off when he was called an idiot for it. Again. It seemed to be one of Sparta’s favorite words.

“Why don’t you show me the way to Crithe. We can find a place to get my gold and we can also get you supplies for the winter. Then we can never see each other again!” Perfect. Fool proof. Absolutely nothing could go wrong with, uh. Could this even be called a plan? “What do you say, Sparta?” His name wasn’t any better than ‘Eric’, but he didn’t want to get caught up into yet another game of insult-the-name. Chances were that ‘Sparta’ would win that contest anyway.

RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 02-27-2021

This was going to give him a migraine. "Do you even hear yourself? 'Evil comes in many forms; it can be hard to recognize, but not by me, I'm infallible. I am definitely correct when I unilaterally decide the people who just so happened to be helping me out were good and not evil, and also that you're evil and not good. I know literally almost nothing about anyone involved, but I'm a dragon so I'm right,' is that the gist of it? So evil is a thing that happens in front of you? From what I'm gathering, my actual crime was to do something you didn't approve of where you could see.

"When you say 'show you the way,' you mean 'take you,' right? Don't bother trying to couch your shit at this fucking stage. I can show you the way. It's that way." He pointed northeast. "I don't know why I'm bothering to say this, given that it'll be ignored completely, but no. I don't go into Crithe. I definitely don't go into Crithe in the company of a dragon who's planning on robbing someone in the dumbest way possible. Presumably just landing and introducing yourself to see if your magic evil-dar pings. Better hope he's in the middle of petty crime when you show up, huh? Putting aside that you would get me killed, I would also get me killed. Have you put any thought at all into why I live the way I do, or have you just written me off as villainous? I can't go into a town or a city the size you're talking about. Keeping a 'low profile' is physically impossible, and also you appear to find my very existence and the effect I can't but to have on people 'evil,' and I don't actually want to test just how far your moral relativism of 'it's not evil if it helps me specifically' can be pushed. Also, practically speaking, given how we're on foot unless you intend to fly us into Crithe, by the time we got there I'd probably get fucking snowed in and wind up stuck all winter, which I would think was a deliberate plan if you had showed any ability to have deliberate plans up to this point."

He let out a long, pained sigh. "You know what the worst thing is? I could literally get you your fucking gold. I could take some things from one town, resell it in another for way more than it was worth, and maybe manage to stay on the move enough to not get caught, stalked, or put to death. But no. That would be way too practical and sensible and not involve you landing wholesale in a castle to menace to noble into giving you their gold." He couldn't help but laugh at the prospect. "God. Your idea of good really is baffling. Crimes are fine if they happen to bad people, but you're the judge of what that is... Why bother? Why do you even feel the need to paint this dumb veneer of nobility over this obvious policy of just doing whatever the hell you want? I don't get it."

RE: Cat and Dragon - skiesofpurple - 02-27-2021

“Just because you put words in my mouth doesn’t mean I actually said them,” Eric hissed, getting annoyed all over again at how this pink menace took such great joy in just poking at every thing he said to find the flaws. He WAS inexperienced! He’d admitted to that! That was why he was HERE! But this- this Sparta wasn’t about to pull any punches. No one had ever treated Eric like this and, although he’d recovered from his initial rage, he was quickly finding himself at his limit all over again.

It was a test of character. If he just kept repeating that in his head, like a mantra, maybe he won’t start reconsidering his ‘no eating sapient life’ policy.

“Fine. Fine! I’ll go by myself,” Eric somehow got out past the deluge of words that was regularly being directed at him. “I thought you might want a chance to get more supplies since meat and fruit apparently won’t be enough, but I can see where I’m not wanted.” He even backed up a bit, finally moving a bit away from Sparta’s cart and giving them both some room to breathe. He looked up at the sky between the trees, trying to judge what time of day it was and how much ground he could cover before nightfall (not much), before looking back down at his unfortunate conversation partner. “Do you even want me to help you gather some food before I leave or should I just leave right now?” That last bit was said pretty sarcastically, as if Eric was expecting a certain answer from Sparta. You’d never guess what that answer was.

“I’d like to try and sell goods for the gold,” Eric protected. “Taking it from someone who doesn’t deserve it should be a last resort. I’m sure I can find another human who has a better idea of what I could trade. I’m a dragon, I should be able to find something people would want.” That last part was said with way too much confidence for someone who’d scared off his previous guides to the region by turning into a dragon without any warning while they were bewitched by a curse that turned them against him.

“I just want…” He sighed. “I’m trying to be better than people expect from me. The problem is, I don’t know what that looks like yet.” It probably wasn’t too late to just find a mountain somewhere and just spend a couple months there instead of traveling, but his sense of honor probably wouldn’t allow that for long.

RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 02-27-2021

"Are you gonna invade Crithe?" Sparta wondered out loud, wondering if there was a way he could watch from the sidelines. "I was kind of joking earlier but if you just show up and rob a duke or a rich merchant or something that is definitely country-invading and I don't think they'll take well to it. I mean! You still can? I just feel like you should know what that would be, first? I refuse to take any moral culpability for starting a dragon war. Maybe don't start with Crithe, they've probably got some anti-dragon stuff after the whole Aeris thing. But also don't invade Aeris? Hm. Maybe a city-state." He appeared to be giving this more thought than it really warranted, but it should have been clear by then that he had never developed any kind of barrier between brain and mouth. "I dunno if they'd have the gold though... Have you considered just landing somewhere and demanding tribute? Is that functionally different from robbing? No, I think if you qualify what I do as stealing, that definitely is.

"I do need food but also it would be great if you'd leave right now," Sparta admitted. Mostly because he wasn't sure he would. Or could. "Also, not that I'm poo-pooing your 'world's first dragon merchant idea,' since it requires you leaving, but how would you get the things? If you're not taking them? You understand how ownership works at least a little, clearly. But even if you robbed me, since I apparently qualify as evil, I like. Don't have anything of value. I guess you could try and find some bandits and take their stuff and try to sell it?" He was once again overthinking it, but didn't seem inclined to stop once he'd started.

"I actually settled in this area specifically because there weren't any bandits, though; there's a werewolf that tears through here every full moon and it keeps basically everyone else at bay. I'm not really sure how you even find bandits on purpose. I guess it's a moot point anyway, since you can't really sell anything like this. You'd need the gold first. Man, you really didn't think through any of this, huh, you just saw a kid stealing some cheese and went feral. And now you're stuck like that, so the only thing you have on you is just--"

Sparta, against all odds, went silent, squinting vaguely at Eric.

"...Do you shed?"

RE: Cat and Dragon - skiesofpurple - 03-21-2021

"Invading and robbing are the last things I want to do," Eric said with a sigh. "If I were going to be demanding gold from anyone it would be from someone evil. It might be difficult to find out if they're evil or not when I can't even walk into a town." Sparta seemed very obsessed with the idea of him taking gold by force now. While he wouldn't be opposed to doing so if the person he was stealing from deserved it, he figured it'd take a lot of time to figure out who was evil and who wasn't around here. Plus, that would be pretty hard to do while he was. You know. A dragon. And apparently couldn't talk to anyone but this hermit without them running in fear of him, if he was interpreting this correctly.

Since it seemed like he wasn't going to escape this conversation any time soon, and it would be rude to just fly away while someone was talking to him, Eric lowered himself to the ground and tucked his front legs together. He lowered his head slightly, too, to better see Sparta and to appear less, hmm. Looming.

"I can dig things out of caves and mountains a lot easier than humans could. It's much easier to cover long distances and get to high places when you can fly. If I knew what sort of resources are valuable around here, I could gather them to sell," Eric explained while Sparta continued to think out loud. He actually zoned out a little bit, at some point, ignoring some comments about werewolves and bandits, only paying attention when Sparta suddenly asked him a direct question. About... his scales?

Eric looked back, as if to check to make sure his scales were still there. Then he looked back at Sparta and tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he wondered what the heck this man was thinking this time. "....Yes?"

RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 03-21-2021

"Right, but it would still be invading if they were evil? Laws don't work based on your subjective view of--you know what, nevermind, I'm not actually sure I can explain that in a way you'll get." His understanding of the law was fairly shaky for someone who broke it so regularly, anyway. He was pretty sure Crithe didn't have separate laws for dukes versus dukes, subset evil, though.

"Nothing you can just gather out in the woods is valuable enough to get you a reasonable amount of gold," Sparta said, shaking his head. "You'd be better off digging for gold yourself, at that point. Which I guess would work, if either of us had literally any concept of where to find gold in the ground. But." Sparta pointed towards Eric. "Genuine dragon scales might sell for a fair penny. Presuming they were off the dragon. You're even red. That's a very good dragon color, I think. Seems dragon-y. Anyone can go into the woods and trap a fox or find some truffles, but dragon scales? There's literally only one source of those around here, and as far as I know he's not selling them. It's basically a naga oil gig, except they're actually genuine, so you wouldn't even be scamming anyone. I mean, I still have no idea how you'd get close enough to a village to be like 'dragon scales for sale! extremely fresh dragon scales for sale!' but." Sparta shrugged. "It's something?"

RE: Cat and Dragon - skiesofpurple - 03-21-2021

It was a good thing Sparta stopped when he did, because whatever the hell he was able to say about law an order would have gone completely over Eric's head. A man dragon didn't get raise in a swamp commune by a bunch of elves, fed a steady diet of loosely interpreted fairy tales about good and evil, and come out of it with a single frame of reference for how human government works.

"Humans are more complicated than I thought," sighed the dragon who'd been told that 'humans are both the simplest and most persnickety kinda folk you'll ever come across, kid, and we won't blame you for eating a few of them who deserve it' before he left on his grand adventure towards human civilization.

The more Sparta talked, the more Eric started to see that there might be a way for him to make genuine gold without have to resort to violence. He perked up, eyes glowing with the possibilities, before settling into a frown as he contemplated the root of the problem. How to even sell his scales when the townsfolk were more likely to run at the sight of him, items for sale or not?

"Hmm. It's not like you'd do it." He dismissed that as a possibility outright, not particularly wanting that reason to spend more time with the thief anyway. "I suppose I could try another merchant caravan. If I try to look non-threatening someone might get curious. Or maybe a hunter, they're supposed to be brave, in general?" He looked back at himself, contemplating his wings, scales, spines, and claws. "It's not like I'm going to hurt anyone." At least he was starting to sound uncertain now. How he looked might not have been a big deal back home, but around here... well. He was going to have to get used to being looked at like a nightmare, he supposed.

RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 03-21-2021

"It'd be way more likely to end in trouble if I did it," Sparta pointed out dryly. "I mean, I'd be great at it; I could sell rice to a rice farmer, but that doesn't mean he'd appreciate it after the fact. Sketchy kid slash potentially wanted criminal wandering around selling dragon scales? Not a good look."

It really wasn't Sparta's problem, he reasoned, if the dragon wandered off and got itself killed by a knight. Or started a war on accident. Or burned down Crithe because it thought that you could do crime if it was to bad people. Or generally terrorized the countryside. Or if Crithe wound up with a dragon king to match Aeris', and then that started a massive dragon war because the king of Aeris already hated Crithe and oh, god, wait, this was starting to sound like responsibility actually. It was an alien and particularly horrifying sensation, and Sparta did not care for it one bit.

"How much... how much gold do you even need to transform, anyway?" Sparta asked, trying to seem disinterested and not like he was suddenly deeply concerned about potential dragon murders (both of the dragon and by the dragon). "Is it like, a lot?" Dragon scales surely had both magical properties and inherent magic, but you'd have to be a wizard to make use of that. Sparta didn't know any wizards, or where you found them. It's not like they were centrally located. Last he'd heard, they still operated on an apprentice system in Crithe. Maybe... maybe knights? Or... blacksmiths? Could he make jewelry? Did he still remember how to make jewelry? How much did one dragon even shed?

RE: Cat and Dragon - skiesofpurple - 03-24-2021

"Is that what happens?" Eric asked, curious despite himself. "After you leave, they realized later that they've been robbed and now you're wanted?" He stared off a bit, considering this. "I don't think it'd do them much good to decide to arrest you if the same thing will just happen when they see you again." Honestly, that curse of Sparta's seemed pretty useful. He supposed that, considering what it did, it wasn't too surprising the Sparta mostly used it to rob people and get the things he wanted. Err. Needed. Eric couldn't quite understand why he decided to live like a hermit out here instead of closer to towns where he'd be more likely to be able to ask people for things. One would think that it'd make surviving in the wilderness much easier. Maybe there was more to it than he'd seen so far? Besides the whole 'wanted criminal' thing?

Hmm. Not his business. Probably. After all, Sparta was a thief... Even if, from the right angles, he looked an awful lot like a person who needed help. Damn it. No, it was fine. It's not like he wanted any. And he'd clearly gotten by just fine this long with his curse. Anyway.

"Oh, only about a sack full." Eric attempted to demonstrate how large this 'sack full' would look like by untucking his front claws and holding them apart from each other, but he seemed to be having trouble gauging just how large a sack was. He frowned down at his claws and lowered his head to eye them for a moment, before holding them much closer together to approximate the size of a normal human-sized "sack" of gold. With a shrug of his wings he looked up and dropped his claws back to the ground, idly drawing circles in the dirt. "Depends on the purity of the gold, probably. I haven't had a chance to test it out much, I've only ever turned bipedal once. Elves don't really do gold."

RE: Cat and Dragon - SolitareLee - 03-24-2021

Sparta couldn't help but laugh. "Well, I mean, it can go pretty bad pretty fast if they do decide to arrest me. Hate, love, and obsession are all twisted up, like this," he said, crossing his fingers together and holding them up. "And the more you're around me, the worse it gets. So if I'm locked up in one place, whoever is around me is gonna get steadily and steadily more in love with me. People who like to keep people in cages always lean a certain way when it comes to love." Sparta snorted, because it was all he could do. He had to be rueful, because the alternative was remembering. "It's not always presents, you know. Plenty of people react exactly how you did. You take one look at me and you just get urges, and you'll rationalize that shit however you want to, but the end result is still someone chasing me through the fucking woods."

Sparta sighed. "Okay, so, that's a lot." Even after the dragon readjusted his claws. "Damn, I figured. You're not going to just be able to sell a few shed scales to a handy merchant and voila. Damnit. Well, at least it's not rob-a-duke amounts, I guess. Kind of a shame you decided to blow your one transformation on the one dude who knows, like, zero people. Anyone else in the whole world probably could have like, sent you to someone, but nope, you picked the mountain hermit." He sighed again. "How many do you even shed? Do you shed more when you're stressed, like a cat? Because I could definitely stress you out or hit you with a stick to speed things along."