RP:A Father Dragon's Fury

Part of the An Ascending Dryad Arc

Northern Range

Madigan has been trudging up Xalious' slope for a while now, her joints bending fluidly after growing accustomed to the even pace of effort put into walking uphill. The air grows crisper with every passing minute, colder and thinner as the altitude rises. It's become increasingly harder for her to breathe and not because of a shortage of oxygen, but because of a thinning of carbon dioxide in the air. As a dryad, she breathes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen into the air instead. An abrupt climb of elevation stops her in her tracks. She's come to the rocky, jagged territory of the Xalious Mountains where she'll need to climb over uneven surfaces of rock and step cautiously through scarce piles of white snow. She moves to climb up the rock before her, its surface reaching up to her waist. She's used to being so small, so it doesn't perturb her in the least how far up she has to climb over the rock. Once she stands on its surface, she looks back from where she'd come, taking in the distance of her climb. A very thin, very opaque cloud of mist blankets the trail she'd just walked. She glances up north where she's headed to, takes a big, deep breath that burns her lungs and then exhales. She pushes on.

Far, far above, coasting in cold thermals which eddy up from the frigid earth, a dragon basks in the freedom of flight. From this lofty vantage, Vaidhe is, quite literally, almost on top of the world, able to gaze down upon the panoply of lands within the greater realm at his leisure as he glides in gigantic circles above the snow-covered Xalious range. He is far enough above the land that any other saurians will likely pay him little mind...a good thing, too, since his body is still healing from the wounds dealt to it in the previous night's combat. It has always been this elder gold's predilection to test his limitations, both physical and mental, wherever possible...and so, instead of sunning himself on a beach and letting the new flesh upon his belly grow firm and supple, he is plying the cold currents of wind at high altitude. The dragon exerts himself, but not unduly, figuring that the best way to a speedy recovery is to seek it rather than simply waiting passively for it. He enjoys this time in the sky immensely, taking in the sights below him and the scents around him with equal attention. Now and then, he sees an indistinct figure trudging northward or southward along the mountain path over which he has the easiest sightline, and to these he gives special consideration, hoping that none will wander too far northwest, where ill fate might await them if their eager feet wander too far from the cleared road.

Madigan continues her climb, concentrated on getting up this rock and the next. She pays no attention to the muffling wind picking up around her or the frigidness of the air; her body doesn't register temperature the way it would in most mammals. The massive shadow that surrounds her catches her sudden attention, though. She looks around her at the shadow like it wasn't a big deal, and once it registers that there's a shadow around her, she looks up to the sky, craning her neck and leaning back a little. The source of the shadow is no longer there, though, so she turns around and looks into the sky behind her. Holy crap, her mind screams when she sees a frighteningly huge dragon soaring in the air. Her heart jumped at the sight and now her ears are pounding from the adrenaline. Maybe she shouldn't be doing this alone, she finally considers for the first time... Do gold dragons breathe fire? She bites her lip and looks back toward the mountain climb, her green eyes mossy because the hidden sun and drenched in worry and fear. Maybe she should've sought out someone to tattoo fire wards onto her skin before coming out here... She'll have to do that before she goes to Craughmoyle for the Queen of Frostmaw. For now, she needs to continue forward. A fire-breathing dragon would never find itself nesting in a cold climate. That wouldn't make any sense! ...Right? And if that huge, gold dragon meant her any harm, then it would've attacked her already because she's here out in the open! It would've seen her. Or maybe not... Her hair is as white as snow, so maybe she hid well. She sighs and chides herself to stop. She's going forward and that's final. So, farther up she climbs and deeper into the cold she goes, finding a hidden clearing in the rocks just between two jagged boulders that tower far over her head. She walks quietly and tries to control her breathing to keep it as silent as she can, despite the natural reflex to breathe deeply in the thinned-out air. Her lungs burned to suck in as much carbon dioxide as possible as she restricted her breath and therefore her lungs' expansion. She turns her head away from the direction she's going to take a slow deep breath and lets it out in a relieved sigh. Although she's hoping there's a dragon's nest here, she hopes there isn't a dragon with it. Ranok's warning about protective mother dragons comes to her mind; she squeezes her eyes closed tightly, holding her breath all of a sudden. If there was only a way to keep from breathing! Her eyes shoot wide open at a thought. Grinning, she transforms her skin from the fleshy, soft tan to a thick, rough bark texture. Her white hair becomes thick, white vines in her high ponytail, looking much like dreads. She quickly but quietly strips off her clothes and stuffs it into her bag. Now she can absorb carbon dioxide without the use of lungs. She's such a genius.

Vaidhe is, rather unfortunately for the dryad he cannot quite see below, a creature not known for subtlety. He has more than once made his presence known in these parts, as well as his intentions, but from time to time the elder gold still chooses to do so on the off chance that new dragons have come hither with mayhem on their minds. Just as the clearing partially obscures Madigan from his view - though his scan is rudimentary at best - he throws open his maw, takes in a great blast of cold air, then roars it out in an exuberant wall of fire that sheets off harmlessly across the sky. The flames are accompanied by a deep basso call, a trumpeting shout meant to let all and sundry know who and where he is. It is also a clear proclamation of his joy to be alive and free to fly, a sound almost any dragon would know in its heart but which another creature might well mistake for something much more threatening. This dragon, it would seem, fears nothing, quite in opposition to the little figure scurrying about below. It is almost chance alone that causes the great golden beast to catch sight of Madigan again, now set off on a slightly different heading. To the best of Vaidhe's reckoning, there is a mostly abandoned nest in a deep canyon further along the way the dryad appears to be following...a nest whose brood-mother has recently been killed, and whose sire is more than a little angry about losing his mate in such fashion. The mated pair were whites, some of Vaidhe's bitterest foes among dragonkind, but since they were more focused on raising their young, Vaidhe had let them alone and, in turn, been permitted to fly unmolested where he pleased so long as he did not stray too close to their chosen home. The male, in his grief for his lost mate, has taken to long and meandering flights, senseless journeys that Vaidhe has tracked at various times; it would appear that his sadness has driven away the better part of his sanity. Madigan, if she continues on her chosen pathway, is likely to come across this nest, but Vaidhe, having arrived only within the last hour, knows not whether the white male is home or away. Such beasts are small for dragons, but fearsome opponents for nearly everything else in the realms; so thinking, Vaidhe tips his head down, inclines his body so that his tail points vaguely toward the sky, and begins to dive.

Madigan, grinning like an accomplished fool, moves confidently forward, forgetting for a moment that she needs to be wary of dragon presences. She's much too elated at her solution to realize she's walking too fast. She does, though, stop abruptly and metaphorically pees herself when she hears a dragon's roar. Metaphorically because dryads don't pee. Did she just walk into a dragon's attention unintentionally? She stands frozen, her entire body tense and thrumming with fear. Her eyes cast around her as she looks for the dragon that's angry with her. Seeing none, Madigan slowly turns her head to see if it's behind her. None. Upon a little more analysis of the roar, she realizes it came from far off in the distance, so the source likely hasn't seen her at all. She lets out an inaudible sigh - one that not even a dragon would hear because this sigh didn't consist of letting out air. Just her body relaxing. She moves forward now with more caution, reminded once again that she needs to be so. Slowly, the dryad creeps along the massive boulders that surround the clearing and keep the loud, fiercely cold wind from coming in. The tiniest of sounds can be heard in this bubble of space, especially by any nearby dragons who possess clairaudience. She swallows and mentally kicks herself for making a sound. Eventually, she discovers the clearing to be mostly empty. A nest rests in a deep, hidden corner within the clearing, several eggs lying there, waiting to be received and nurtured by a mother figure. Madigan gasps excitedly, her eyes lighting up with elation. Yes! She dashes to the nest, climbs into it, and starts touching the eggs. She hugs the nearest one, pressing her cheek to it. "I'll take care of you. I'll take care of one of you, and I'll tell the Queen of Frostmaw about the rest of you, so she sends out a party to retrieve you guys. She'll find all of you a home in The Eyrie." As she pulls away from the egg, she frowns in sadness. "What happened to their mother?" Madigan looks up to the skies, wondering if their mother abandoned them or if she was gone only for a little while. Her sadness quickly became disappointment when she considered the latter possibility. She can't take any of these if they have a mother. She can't steal an egg; it's against her moral code as a dryad. Her eyes are cast to the floor in sad consideration of having to leave these eggs alone after all when another dragon's roar rings out. The clearing suddenly fills with forceful winds as a white dragon descends into the clearing. It lands and turns its head to the side to spy the dryad in the nest. It cries out a fierce cry of threatening anger as it charges toward Madigan. Her mind screams as the white dragon comes towards her. She runs out of the nest to keep this mom-dragon from trampling over her own eggs. At least, Madigan assumes it's the mother since she never learned dragon fathers tended to their offspring, too. She was definitely panicking, not sure if this dragon breathed fire. She was in real danger, now.

Vaidhe has been keeping an eye more on Madigan, or whoever else might be travelling on foot, than anything else. It is understandable, then, that the angered shout of the male white dragon should catch Vaidhe unawares and almost cause him to pull out of his steep descent. Evidently, the male had not been too far away, and has taken just this moment to come home to roost. The elder gold has no specific idea as to the nature of the interloper in the nest, but that creature's fate is all but certain without some sort of interjection from on high, as it were. Tucking his wings and cursing his mental shortsightedness, Vaidhe steepens his attitude and plunges down toward the clearing and its occupants. The gold's body is not as fast or nimble as the white male below, but his mind is shrewd and fully prepared for combat, should it prove necessary. Lashing his tail and then curling it in agitation, Vaidhe alights in the clearing with a tremendous crash, facing the white dragon from near point-blank range. He speaks then, in a voice like thunder. "Leave it! Leave it! Let it run...it meant your brood no ill." Vaidhe, of course, cannot be certain that this is true, but the bravado he exudes is more than enough to make up for the uncertainty he feels. Vaidhe takes a lumbering step backward upon the earth, then folds his rear legs so that his massive body is crouched and ready to spring if need be. "I will not do harm without need. Your young are safe from my teeth." Raising his voice once again and now addressing the much smaller creature he does not see, Vaidhe bellows, "Run! I will occupy him...run, if you want to live! And run far!"

You got it! Madigan's mind answers back, her throat too choked up with fear to respond. She should've known better; she should've known better! Her joints are stiff now, unlike before, from a soreness and a hindering fear that's clawing away at her insides and churning her over, turning her inside out. But she makes a run for the clearing's exit all the same. Paying absolutely no mind whatsoever to what's taking place behind her, Madigan's heart beats louder and faster with increasing anticipation as she gets ever so close to the exit, but then a blast of cold mist surrounds her and propels her forward into a boulder. First comes the loud thud and quickly follows the sound of splintering wood. Madigan cries out as her left arm fractures. Crumpled on the floor, she grasps her arm to dull the pain and soon realizes that won't be enough. She heaves a sigh to fill herself with the will and concentration needed to overcome this sudden threat. The dragon doesn't breathe fire, so she's much less at risk of getting killed. This is a very big step in the right direction, she assures herself. With a swiftness, the dryad sits up, her fractured arm left to hang tensely and painfully at her side. She grits her teeth at the shift of weight, but nothing else. With her dominant right hand, she digs through her bag, her eyes focused on the angry white dragon. She'll just have to fight back to get out alive, and if the gold dragon is really on her side, then she should be safe. If he's not on her side, then damn it all to hell - she'll deal with him after the white dragon.

Vaidhe is positioned in such a way that the white will have to either take off and fly high, or plough straight through him in order to get directly at Madigan. When the enraged male unhinges his jaws in preparation for a hellishly cold blast of breath, Vaidhe does the same; thus, both Vaidhe and Madigan are spared the greater ravages of chill by the application of a little fire, this time aimed point-blank at the white dragon's face. Vaidhe is still numbed by the blast despite the heat he has hastily added to the environment, but knows almost instantly that the damage will not be enough to do him greater injury than a lot of stiffness and ache in his taxed muscles. Thankfully, he will not have to do much more than this in order to at least nullify the current danger. The back edge of the clearing is shielded from the elements somewhat by an overhanging shelf of rock, which serves double duty and protects the nest below it from the worst of the snows these peaks offer. It is old rock, topped far above with scree, and this is a detail that the golden dragon had picked up on during his descent despite the relatively short time for observation he possessed. Vaidhe is generally not a creature who will kill for no reason at all, and in this instance, the male white, while perhaps too quick to kill a lesser creature, does not deserve death itself. He does need to be stopped, however, and Vaidhe intends to do a quick and decisive job of it. Instead of allowing the white to launch skyward in order to start an airfight, Vaidhe follows up after his blast of holy fire by using his considerable telekinetic abilities upon the rock shelf above the white dragon's nest. Its relative proximity makes the task a quick one, and within seconds the huge slab of stone cracks away from the cliff to which it has clung for thousands of years. Instead of letting it fall to crush the eggs, Vaidhe's mind fastens upon the heavy thing and, with a burst of tremendous mental fortitude, hurls it in an arc whose endpoint is just above the white dragon's snout. The white, sensing the danger a moment too late, tries to tuck its head down, and the shelf slams the back of its skull and thuds down atop its back. Immediately, the great snow-coloured beast slumps to the ground, issuing twin plumes of frosty vapour from its nose as it lapses into unconsciousness. The shelf is heavy enough to have rendered the dragon unconscious and to be a slight impediment upon its back when at last it does wake, but unless luck is particularly bad today, the male white dragon, who did little more than defend his territory a little too zealously, will not die or be permanently injured as a result.

Madigan's hand stops rummaging through her things as the white dragon gets conked into unconsciousness. Well, that was easier than she'd expected. She thought she'd have to put it to sleep. At least the gold dragon and she had the same intent in mind to not kill the dragon, but to only render it unconscious. A sigh of relief escapes her lips and then another shot of fear goes through her. The eggs! She quickly looks over to the nest and sighs an even heavier sigh of relief when she sees them unharmed. Painfully, Madigan stands using only her right hand and her thighs to lift her body. Her tribe of dryads emphasized a mastery of one's body and balance, so it wasn't as difficult as it was painful for her to stand. Once she was on her feet, she aimed to confidently stride toward the white dragon, but abruptly stopped when her eyes fell on the gold dragon. He breathes fire, the thought burned in her mind. Her body grew paralyzed in place as she stared at him, but a moment passes in which the gold dragon doesn't turn on her and show her the back of his throat with a fierce roar and a breath of fire, reassuring her he had truly come to defend her. She resumes her walk toward the white dragon, her eyes trained almost professionally on the gold dragon. She was not going to let him out of her sight until she was ready to. Her right hand finally pulls out of her bag and in her palm is a much smaller piece of cloth that had been filled with something and tied at the ends to form a bag from the small cloth. With her teeth, she pulls at the twine holding the cloth closed and down fall the flaps to reveal a grey-ish brown powder. She advises the gold dragon, "Hold your breath," her words coming out half-enunciated because of the twine still clenched between her teeth. With some expertise, Madigan turns the cloth without the cloth fall from her hand and spills the powder onto the white dragon's snout. It puffs up into a cloud of dust that covers her form entirely, but nothing happens to her. And nothing happens to the dragon, either. It's a fungi that works as a relaxing sedative. The white dragon will remain unconscious for eight hours, and the relaxants in the fungus will cause its body to grow so relaxed, that it'll defecate. And that would be very soon, actually. It won't affect her because she's not inhaling through her nose or mouth, though. Madigan is very wary of its effects and takes every necessary step to not fall under its influences. Once the cloud of dust settles, she glances up at the gold dragon and starts toward the exit once again, walking calmly this time. She mumbles a quiet song that slowly begins to heal her. It'll take a long while of singing before her arm will be completely healed and she'll be able to descend the slope again, but she's fine with that as long as she leaves Xalious long before the dragon wakes up again.

Vaidhe holds his breath as instructed, watching the curious dryad with cold eyes as she moves about and finally spills her powder on the other dragon's muzzle. With lungs like his, Vaidhe can hold his breath for quite a long time, and so he does as Madigan turns and walks away out of the clearing. The elder gold simply lets her go, without asking her business and without any means to heal her visible wound. Strangely, Vaidhe feels the desire to stay and protect the eggs while the white dragon is unconscious...at least until it is clear that Madigan has gone her course and does not intend to return soon. He is, in all honesty, rather wary, since few creatures are bold enough - or stupid enough - to be in such close proximity to a dragon's eyrie without ill intent. He crouches there, calm and collected, an unmistakable hulking presence in the clearing, a mute symbol of negation. In due time, he will let out his breath, inspect the immediate vicinity and then take his own leave, lest the white awaken early and take offense to his being there. He has time, now, to feel the ache in his belly and the soreness in his wings and shoulders. Before him, the remainder of the day stretches, a blank slate, but his heart is heavy with the morning's occurrences.