Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » 1x1: Sinned and Scaled

The storm had broken by the time Kam, exhausted, ran into a patch of dense forest. It had taken desperate measures, but he had finally lost those stupid bandits about five miles back. He hoped no one had seen. He had been tired before, and hungry, but now? Now he could barely walk.

He really should have been watching were he was going, but he was starting to fall asleep standing up, and he didn't see the root sticking up. Or the crevasse he tumbled into. The tunnel he feel into got a startled yell before his head cracked against the stone floor and he blacked out.

The snoozing dragoness hadn't expected company. She never got visitors. Her ridged, finlike ears pricked upwards at the sound of something falling down her tunnel.

What is that? She asked herself, quivering those ears of her carefully like wired satellites while she kept her eyes shut peacefully. It was when the soft sound exploded into a painful-sounding'shclop!' that Rubi actually flailed against the floor on her stomach, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees in a rush. "What the..." She muttered, furrowing her thin feathered eyebrows and lifting herself up to quickly go investigate what was invading her home. When her golden eyes fell on the crumpled creature before her, she quirked a brow and tipped her head to the right, lifting her left earfin and wilting the other like a curious canine.

Is it alive? Is it hurt? Is it bleeding? She found questions flipping through her mind like pages, making it hard to focus and impossible to do anything more than simply remain frozen there in shock. Sure, people had come down here before...but it had been against their will. Other than the occasional chipmunk or fledgling, visitors were rare.

It was a few minutes before he groaned and tried to get to his feet, but his head was pounding and he couldn't feel a part of his body that didn't ache. He'd grown so weak over the past few days he doubted he could even get out of this tunnel if he could stand up right now. He wondered briefly if the armband he was wearing would make his body look human even after he died...

Rubi's features straightened with keen interest and the dragoness lifted both ears towards the intruder. "What have we here?" She spoke aloud, twisting the length of her tail like an energetic dragonlet both agitated and eager to play. She flexed her wings and spread them a little, a natural incentive to make herself look larger and more intimidating. She slowly crept closer to the crumpled robes, flaring her nostrils and sniffing. "What are you, a human?" She couldn't pick up a scent, but its movements were certainly humanoid.

He forced his head to move so he can see who it was talking to him, cringing visibly when he saw the dragon. Did he use up all his luck escaping the citadel?

"I.. look like one, d-don't I?" He groans, grimacing as the act of speaking made his head feel like it was cracking open all over again.

She frowned. "Look like one? Are you saying that you aren't?" The dragon asked, tilting her head and narrowing a single golden eye at the stranger suspiciously. Why would he be concerned about looking like one, if he actually was one?

She crept closer. He was weak, and he was in her territory. Rightfully, this smaller creature could easily belong to her... All she had to do was see to it that she couldn't escape. Such was the greedy nature of her kind. Then again...was there really anything particularly special about this individual? He could just be a lonely passerby, an unfortunate one at that.

"More human than you." He growled. He didn't like her looking at him that way while he was too weak to fight or try to run away. If he'd only eaten recently things might be different. Maybe he could scare her off..? He struggled to cast the spell, weak as it was. The air around him began to swirl around him in time to the throbbing in his skull.

"Well, I should hope so," remarked she, slimming already narrowed eyes at him. He looked like he could fall over any second. Had he broken bones on the way down, fractured his skull? Surely nothing could survive a fall so deep with just a mild concussion?

Deciding to give him his space for the time being, she pushed herself back onto her haunches and just sat there, looking at him. "So... To what do I owe the pleasure? I don't get many visitors down here."

"I fell." The wind didn't seem to be working. Of course, she wasn't really close enough to notice. One delightful side effect of casting though was that the pain in his head had been alleviated enough that he could wobble his way on to his feet. His hands went to his sides as if in pain, but he was really undoing hidden buckles. "turns out people can't trip and not fall down holes."

The dragoness tilted her head in the other direction now, surveying him like a small child might do to something it found oh so interesting and curious. "Gravity can be a burden," she chuckled, lifting a hand to scratch tenderly at her jawline with a sharp-pointed claw. "I trust you can find your way back out?" She added in jest. It wasn't meant to be unkind, even if it'd come out that way. She'd be truly surprised if the stranger actually did have means of climbing back out somehow.

"I think you know I can't..." He was barely able to stand as he was. He could easily become her next meal if she had half a mind to eat him, and he took grim satisfaction knowing she'd probably be sick afterwards. "I've 'visited' at my weakest in years."

She dragged her tongue softly and slowly over her lips. Oh yes, she was hungry, but that didn't mean she was thinking about eating him. Very rarely did the dragoness crave sentient blood - It happened, but for Rubi it seemed rare, compared to the majority of her species. There wasn't anything that piqued her interests right away, and he wasn't of age to tug at her protective instincts, so for the moment she simply saw him as a mere stranger.

"What is it you're needing, then?" She asked, tipping forward to lay on her stomach and lift her legs in the air above her tail, clicking her claw ankles together. There wasn't any reason for her not to be hospitable!

He looked the dragoness over carefully for several long moments before he answered. Could he trust this dragon? She could be just as dangerous as any bandit or cultist, or even a farmer that spied him without his armband. But he was so tired and hungry...

"Food and water. A safe place to rest and anything that might ease my aching head."

Rubi smirked, pushing herself back onto all four limbs to move about in an odd crawl, something one could only do if they possessed traits of both a feral and a humanoid being. "Well, I don't have any silly capsules down here-" She teased, leading him to believe that she was convinced he really was human, "Though food and water, I just might... Are you an omnivore?" She started to rummage against a nearby wall, carefully picking polished jewels and trinkets away while she searched for a bowl or two.

"As long as it wasn't sentient, I'll eat it." He answers, watching her closely in case this was all a trick. Not that he could do much if it was. He wondered how long she had been lairing here to have part of her horde so close to the entrance. Or had he rolled deeper in after he had fallen?

Rubine gave him a look and stared, nothing short of rolling her eyes. "I don't exactly grow fruit down here y'know," she answered bitterly. "I hunt, and stock what I can harvest. These teeth weren't exactly made for a vegetarian..." She leered, dragging her tongue over her sharp fangs so that he could see. "You'll have to follow me deeper for water," She added, starting to walk towards the dark entrance of another dimly lit tunnel.

If and when he started to follow, she called back, "So you eat absolutely no meat at all?"

"I still eat meat." He had been unsure if he could even move, but he managed to limp by rearranging some weight around. Even then his progress was slower than normal. "Animals, fish, fowl.. I'll eat those. Been a while since I've had fish though." He adds more to himself than for the dragon's benefit.

"Oh," the dragoness said matter-of-factly, "That won't be a problem, then." After all, it wasn't as if she intentionally went out to hunt sentient prey everyday... It happened, but it wasn't something she made a habit of. No more so than hunting a feral animal and killing it for dinner.

Her right earfin lifted and she turned to look at him over her shoulder, asking curiously, "Do you want some help?" Sure, she could just go ahead and do it... But those weren't really proper manners with a stranger you'd just met.

"No!" He says a little too fast. If he hadn't undone the hidden straps, maybe, but he had and he could move. Painfully. He forced himself to go faster before she decided to help him anyway. Not like he wasn't used to dealing with worse pain anyway. "it's nothing... Just a little sore and tired."

She shrugged, facing an open palm to the cavern ceiling. "Suit yourself." The dragoness then turned and began to trek further into the tunnel, walking slowly so that the stranger could keep up with her. She wasn't about to leave him in the dust, especially not in her home. She didn't want any reason to have to hurt the poor boy more than he already was... "Just try to keep up. We're nearly there."