she was powerful not because she wasn't scared,
but because she went on strongly despite her fear.
but because she went on strongly despite her fear.
How it must've tasted to be a hostage to the merchant - a hollow cube assembled of oak with solely one way in or out, where the exclusive thing to do was gawk at emptiness through the interminable monotony, tracing with penetrating eyes the age lines and rainwater pimples on the wood and the claw marks of those who had strived to escape before. Time must've felt endless to those creatures locked away like oddities, whose lives had been diminished only to their monetary equivalent. 'Passing time' meant speculating about absurd meanings as plank walls stared back in muteness.
The silver-haired girl trailed him, hushed as the twilight, dancing between the tree arms as the sunshine roused to twinkle through the canopy of leaf overhead, flagging the appearance of dawn. Reflecting his actions required little effort of the equine - she'd become an immaculate outline of his shape, an echo of his movements; she melted into the scenery just as any shadow would.
The girl had seen enough.
Soft strides carried her from the shadows and into the stallion's view just as his hip toppled one of the crates open, releasing a bundle of pink-mottled scales with a circulatory system pumping only anger. Maerys was silent as she watched, wondering what approach the merchant would take: let the dragon free as she desires, or recapture her? The girl suspected he would choose the latter despite that choice being extremely ill-advised. What was one stallion to do against a fire-breathing child?
Yes - that was all the dragon was. A child. An angry one at that.
"Mine own recommendation would be to let the child free," she began, powerfully enough to apprehend both the dragon's and the stallion's attentions. "You cannot trade that which does not want to be traded -" Her statement is straightforward and easy to comprehend (even for a merchant who makes money selling sentient beings). "Unless you'd prefer to face the penalty any slaver should." It is a blatant threat to the man (though as his eyes trace over her rather slender form, she questions whether a small, young girl like her could ever make a threat that held any real weight).
He began to argue with her then - discussing how he had a family to feed and that he had debts to pay off, but Maerys heard nothing but falsehoods. She was sudden to argue back, emphasizing that the large pouch of gold and silver coins (earned from selling other creatures and wares) that rested so comfortably on his cart should take care of it all. He paused only a moment, perhaps weighing the situation, before lurching towards the dragon in a weak attempt to recapture her.
The dragon accepted this as his final choice - his fate sealed.
She would not go back to him.
It happened promptly - the dragon's anger flashed in the form of flames that caressed and kissed all they touched.
Smoldering, the billows of her fire were crackling and almost playful at first before escalating into a scorching, hungry serpent that spat and leaped in showers of sparks and plumes of coal-colored smoke. She was a violent, unforgiving creature that was satiated only as her fire winded itself around the foliage after there was nothing left to burn, where the stallion no longer stood.
All that remained was the ash that floated serenely to the ground.
And Maerys with a dragon eyeing her curiously.
They'd been inseparable since.
Maerys has been watching the stallion for some time and notices when things are about to escalate, revealing herself to a no-longer-caged-dragon and the pissy stallion. She warns him to let the dragon free as it is clearly what the creature desires, but as he reaches to recapture the dragon, she defends herself by burning him and most everything around them to smithereens.
579 words
thank you chaosy for the wonderful quest
The silver-haired girl trailed him, hushed as the twilight, dancing between the tree arms as the sunshine roused to twinkle through the canopy of leaf overhead, flagging the appearance of dawn. Reflecting his actions required little effort of the equine - she'd become an immaculate outline of his shape, an echo of his movements; she melted into the scenery just as any shadow would.
The girl had seen enough.
Soft strides carried her from the shadows and into the stallion's view just as his hip toppled one of the crates open, releasing a bundle of pink-mottled scales with a circulatory system pumping only anger. Maerys was silent as she watched, wondering what approach the merchant would take: let the dragon free as she desires, or recapture her? The girl suspected he would choose the latter despite that choice being extremely ill-advised. What was one stallion to do against a fire-breathing child?
Yes - that was all the dragon was. A child. An angry one at that.
"Mine own recommendation would be to let the child free," she began, powerfully enough to apprehend both the dragon's and the stallion's attentions. "You cannot trade that which does not want to be traded -" Her statement is straightforward and easy to comprehend (even for a merchant who makes money selling sentient beings). "Unless you'd prefer to face the penalty any slaver should." It is a blatant threat to the man (though as his eyes trace over her rather slender form, she questions whether a small, young girl like her could ever make a threat that held any real weight).
He began to argue with her then - discussing how he had a family to feed and that he had debts to pay off, but Maerys heard nothing but falsehoods. She was sudden to argue back, emphasizing that the large pouch of gold and silver coins (earned from selling other creatures and wares) that rested so comfortably on his cart should take care of it all. He paused only a moment, perhaps weighing the situation, before lurching towards the dragon in a weak attempt to recapture her.
The dragon accepted this as his final choice - his fate sealed.
She would not go back to him.
It happened promptly - the dragon's anger flashed in the form of flames that caressed and kissed all they touched.
Smoldering, the billows of her fire were crackling and almost playful at first before escalating into a scorching, hungry serpent that spat and leaped in showers of sparks and plumes of coal-colored smoke. She was a violent, unforgiving creature that was satiated only as her fire winded itself around the foliage after there was nothing left to burn, where the stallion no longer stood.
All that remained was the ash that floated serenely to the ground.
And Maerys with a dragon eyeing her curiously.
They'd been inseparable since.
Maerys has been watching the stallion for some time and notices when things are about to escalate, revealing herself to a no-longer-caged-dragon and the pissy stallion. She warns him to let the dragon free as it is clearly what the creature desires, but as he reaches to recapture the dragon, she defends herself by burning him and most everything around them to smithereens.
thank you chaosy for the wonderful quest
M A E R Y S
![[Image: maerys-pixel.png]](https://i.ibb.co/kM48w8r/maerys-pixel.png){kind=tracking}
x
force and magic always permitted
