The Pet And The Wild Animal

[ 274 ]

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Living underground for her entire life had not been such a depriving experience, many dragons were happy living their lives never leaving. However, since she had left the dragoness would experience some things her peers never would get the chance to, bring back stories of the great unknown one day. Pandora's first truly new and unique encounter compared to her home was the change in temperature as she approached what appeared to be a mountain range, the air becoming much colder, causing the invisible dragons breaths to pillow out in the form of steam. Considering that what was in front of her happened to be something she could have never experienced before? She chose to descend for another landing sooner than she had initially intended to, seeing a large rock like structure deeming the area surrounding it to be good enough to suit her needs for a few days of exploration on foot around this place.

Pandora landed still using her scales to remain invisible, her large feet touching the ground causing her ability to fail as the sharp cold and wet feeling made her go back a few feet into the sky. Why had the ground given under her large feet like that? Did something about this land make it too fragile for her to land on? If she could not land here, how were tree's growing here, and how was such a large structure seeming secure here? Pandora looking quizzically at the snow-covered ground, lowering her flight so she could poke the substance with one of her claws quickly retreating the appendage as if the snow could suddenly gobble her up.

Akeldama had actually managed to get some time on her own out of that Fortress. It wasn’t far. And she’d mostly managed to do it by saying she’d go train on her own a little bit. People in Basilisk Fang believed she had potential. And were willing to… Help. Ish. They were an odd sort to say the least. But she had least had a room to stay in and had bundled up in some warm cloths.

She was currently looking around for a stream to bathe in… No doubt it’d be cold as all hell. But she’d feel safer washing off in a random forest stream than in the belly of Basilisk fang.

Akeldama thought she was heading in a good direction, after all she was hearing the sound of the river somewhere near by… But that was all but forgotten when she saw a dragon not twenty feet away from her. She hadn’t noticed it until now largely due to the think forest cover. But now that she had its black scales made her feel like an idiot for not noticing sooner.

She took a step back, trying to sneak away in the hopes that the creature hadn’t noticed her yet.


WC: 203

starting exam

[ 583 Total Personal WC ]

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She could hear the snow crunching, much like leaves would when something moved, her sharp green gaze instantly pivoting towards the sound. What was out there? Judging from the way her eyes drifted around, she had not pinpointed the other creatures exact location yet. Pandora wanted to know was out there, glancing at the snow and wondering what of her visual senses may be best for trying to figure out what was out there. Eventually, several moments later, she decided that since it was cold switching to her heat vision may let her see where the creature was standing so she could switch back to normal sight and truly see it in color. Without much strain, the dragoness blinked her pupils changing visibly when she switched vision kinds, flying around a little to help with her pinpointing before she saw a heat signature that she deemed matched the noise she had heard. With no more than a single blink, her sight returned to normal and let her see what had alerted her.

Another Hominid? Why were these creatures so common on the surface when she had never seen one before in her life, it was getting annoying. However, it did give her an important hint as from what she had seen, few hominids had special abilities, so if one was dwelling here it likely meant the cold, soft, wet stuff was likely safe to walk on. Making her choice, the dragoness angeled her body and closed her wings descending to the ground nearly in front of the girl, a nearly squeak like noise coming from the giant beast when she found that the snow did indeed give underneath her weight, wings flailing for a few seconds as she struggled to drag herself to her feet in this stuff. How was the hominid walking so easily in this stuff?

Akeldama let out a little screech in seeing the creature descend, trying to back up rapidly. Its landing however… Was a little less than overwhelmingly terrifying. The thing looked like it had never touched snow before. But still. It was a dragon, and she was a girl who could barely control her magic. And apparently that was what it was.

Not just a curse. Though she honestly wasn’t entirely convinced of that. Perhaps she really should have been trying to practice whilst out here. Maybe she’d be a bit more prepared to deal with this thing. She had least had a dagger but… It’d take time to make it just the right amount of rusted to not ruin it as a weapon but still make it a terrible combination with her ability to age wounds in particular rapidly.

But would that even have an effect on a dragon of all things? She put her hands up, trying to show she was defenseless. “Nice dragon. Easy dragon.”

WC: 396

[ 914 Total Personal WC ]

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The way she had landed was far from the amount of grace normally displayed by her species, it was downright shameful, to be honest. At least she was not the only one scrambling though, from the screech that came from the hominid it was fair to assume the other creature was terrified of her. Could she hunt these things scattering the land? If they feared her, it led to the reasonable assumption she was somehow capable of eating them. Why else would they be so scared? Unless of course, they were an illogical race who feared things for no good reason, which was always possible, she had heard of things like that where fear depicted violence and flight for some species. Most of the times, Shades did not end up like that, not exactly, considering the status of her kind as healers they rarely had a use for the fear that drove many other creatures, so they didn't often make decisions based on it.

Looking at the creature sideways she wondered why the girl suddenly threw her arms up, it was weird and Pandora did not understand it at all. When the words were added? The dragoness assumed the action was one of surrender for humans, which confirmed her earlier theory the other animal was afraid of her. Luckily for the hominid in front of her? Pandora did not yet know enough about the species to consider hunting this one down to sample what hominid meat tasted like, but one day, one glorious day she would taste every meat the world had to offer. At the moment, she had to learn and figure things out, so she could survive out in the great wide world beyond the grotto she had grown up within.

Pandora circled around the little girl cautiously, but extremely clumsily, tripping and stumbling in the snow several times. In the end, she chose to plop down on her rump in front of the girl, tilting her head again.

Well… This was becoming less and less intimidating as more time passed. It could barely walk. If she wanted to outrun it…. She probably could. But then it could just take flight again. The question was if it would be able to maneuver in this dense forest. And if it would even need to do that in the first place to keep track of her.

Akeldama pulled off her back pack slowly, reaching into it to pull out a container some left overs she’d managed to sneak away while her master had been out of the kitchen. As a cook for Basilisk Fang food wasn’t so much a problem nowadays for her.

She could eat as much as she needed… Which of course turned out to be an excessive amount. That’s what people told her any how. But she always found that if she ate the normal three meals that most did she’d feel like she was starving.

But if this might be able to buy her a little extra time… Akeldama opened the container and threw it to her right, as far away from her as she could manage, before taking off towards the fortress.

WC : 592

Pandora never really had the intention of being intimidating to anyone in the first place, it just kinda happened sometimes. When your main form of existence was an eight foot tall dragon with pure black coloration, sharp teeth and claws, other creatures tended to be frightened from time to time. Being as this was not the first time she had been feared since her emergence, she was not extremely bothered by this series of events, she could simply deal with this creatures reactions as they took place. The world was certainly interesting, as were the creatures populating the place. This exploration was turning out to be something she greatly enjoyed. Even if this particular place had been weird to begin with.

She was never one to kick some random gift in the mouth, it would be in bad taste and give her the short end of the stick. Green eyes followed the food for a moment, the dragoness easily chose to use her wings in aiding her to obtain it via a swift pouncing flight, mouth closing around it as her tongue helped her figure out it was food. Had the creature meant to feed her, or was there some other purpose behind this? Pandora didn’t care, she ate the food anyways.

Now, it was time to figure out more about that creature and sate her own curiosity regarding the hominid. To do any of this, she needed to find the little girl. Pandora blinked a few times switching her vision to find a mode where she could track the child easily, emitting a noise for echolocation to help her fly within the forest.

No matter where Akel ran? If the child remained outdoors she would find that when she stopped the dragon would be sitting in front of her again.

Naturally Akeldama could not run forever, and she found herself winded within a minute. She’d gone a decent distance, but not far enough as the dragon ended up in front of her again. The raven haired girl leaned heavily against a tree, trying to keep herself upright. Currently only adrenaline was keeping her up after sprinting for a solid minute.

She looked over the thing, growing to even more think that perhaps its intent was not predatory. But if not that. Then what? What could such a creature want from her? “Hahah. I guess you got me.” Akeldama laughed nervously, unsure what else to do with an eight foot dragon staring her down.

She could try and alter her weapon now… But if she went too far she’d just end up breaking it. Then she would be completely without any means of defense.

WC: 735

[1,428 Total Personal WC]
Pandora was in no way some seasoned warrior or long flyer, she knew plenty of dragons who could fly longer, faster, through worse conditions than her and maybe even fight or heal while they did it. She wasn't lazy, she was just very young for her kind who could live infinite lifespans compared to humans. However, when one compared her to the human girl in front of her, she was larger, older and generally just had every single thing going in the stamina department. Essentially human children had no hope of fleeing from the dragoness, she just had too much going for her, the only hope any child could have if she was hunting them, would be to end up hiding somewhere she couldn't find them. Luckily, Pandora was not hunting Akel, simply curious.

Hearing her speak again, the large dragoness huffed out, settling back onto her haunches once more, looking the girl up and down. Considering she was new to this land, she tried to interact with everything she could to some extent deem to be clever on some level since she could speak any non hominid language in this body, it was great fun. Luckily, she could only not speak the human languages in this body, she could understand them easily.

It was just… Looking at her now. Akeldama honestly found herself unsure of what to do. But it definitely wasn’t going to eat her. “Well…” Akeldama muttered to herself. She had a dragon following her for no apparent reason. Should she bring it back to Ambrosia in hopes that she would be impressed?

Would it be that easy? Akeldama started backing up slowly towards the fortress, hoping that the dragon would follow her. But would it go inside? Only one way to find out. She’d been hoping to get a bath in today but this might actually get her to sleeping on a bed again. Ambrosia had decided to switch out her bed for a mangy small pillow.

She had to do something to earn her master’s good graces, and this might just be it.

WC:870

[1,733 total personal wc]

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Pandora would have eaten the human child if she had known for sure that they were edible, the sort of thing she could take down, but they were still bigger than her normal prey. The dragoness was learning, and little did she know that this little girl could be the doorway to a lesson she likely did not actually want to learn. Every single experience she'd had so far with hominids had been positive, making her slowly begin to grow to like the species, unable to understand why the rest of her kind were so hesitant of them. She may be the older one, but she was far more innocent than the child in front of her, it was sad.

Every single step that the bundled up child took backward, Pandora took a slow one forward, tilting her head in another direction or bunny hopping to right in front of the girl. No clue, not a single idea of how much malice, greed or self-preservation could exist within humans. Pandora was probably about to end up in a situation where she would learn why other dragons did not like humans very much. Theo, Nyx, Rosabella, Victoria, and everyone else, they had all been very kind to her, and she had no reason to believe Akel would lead her into danger.

If Akel did end up leading Pandora back to the fortress, the dragoness would look at the stone walls for a second. The building? Looked creepy and she seemed intimidated for a second, before looking at the human child and making a sound much like cooing and following her inside without any further hesitance. What reason besides wild stories did she have to distrust hominids, they had been nothing but kind to her, the stories other dragons told had to be drama and lies.

“Yes. Everything’s good.” Akeldama said in an attempt to soothe the uncertain dragon. She had stopped walking backwards awhile back, but kept a close eye on the dragon in case it decided to change its mind and chase her anyways. “I just want to introduce you to a… Friend of mine.”

The dragon probably couldn’t understand her anyways. But it felt weird just leading this thing in complete silence to its doom. Akeldama almost felt bad for it. But if the thing was so foolish as to follow her in the first place… Then…. Well it was its own fault for ending up in this situation, not hers. She walked as quickly as she dared towards where she was hoping Ambrosia would be- her quarters. And knocked.

WC: 998

Sliding smoothly open she lounged against the door frame with brows raised. It was that, the small little child thing. Sort of ragged and lost looking much like a puppy, well this puppy had shown growth indeed, enough to catch the interest of a few within the guild. Was it a natural feeling with Akel that allowed her to committee such acts, or just the spirit within, urging her forward for the sole reason of staying alive and preserving herself. Either way when this little pet turned up amusement often followed. "Oh Hello! Are you enjoying my old foot rest! I mean you had that boring little mattress which just had no history- So I gave you my old foot rest, its a little bit of an honour for someone of your station so don't go telling everyone." Yet even as the sentence was finished her gaze was on the beast behind the little pet. It was a dragon, rather pretty indeed that hide looked relatively unscarred. A little cautious yet its pure black body looked enticing, the bone structure of its face was rather interesting and those claws would just look so dashing if they were used to decorate a mantelpiece. The centipede within her wriggled slightly, unbeknown to the others around it had a great thirst for this reptiles body. The skeleton could be bleached white and hung up while a new rug for the hallway would be much appreciated. Ohhh? Now this was interesting, "Hello there, I'm Ambrosia! Like the dessert, that sweet treat that is really nice." Voice soft her gaze went back to the short terrier which stood before her, akeldama indeed. Now what did she have to say for herself?

She had been in mine shafts, caves and such but all that was different from what she was venturing into, a place where her echolocation seemed to bounce around aimlessly fuzzing any picture beyond her eyesight. It was slightly disorienting to be in somewhere so enclosed, since the most enclosed she had ever been was the narrow caverns she climbed to escape from the hidden underground grotto she had grown up in. Luckily, she had her trust in humans that made venturing inside much easier than it otherwise would have been.

Eventually they ventured to this doorway where the girl seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Green optics blinked as the door opened to reveal a white haired woman, tail fins folding in towards each other and wings laxing further as she turned her head to the side. This one was different, most humans were overly ecstatic about her or afraid upon first encounter, yet the one Akel had led her to, seemed strangely calm.


Wait was there something sweet to eat involved in this? At the mentions of desserts she lifted one foot off the ground, body leaning forward, tongue coming out the side of her mouth.

Old foot rest. Akeldama clenched her dress tightly inside the pockets, doing her best to hide her discontent in hearing that. And being told that it should be an honor. She hated this woman. She truly did. But that didn’t matter. Akeldama had to make good with her if she ever hoped to better her station here. Ambrosia was her new master, and that was that. “I brought you a new toy to play with, master.” She said softly, bowing a little bit and looking up, eyes full of hope that Ambrosia was pleased with what she had brought.

WC: 1097
Ending exam, continuing job

It was like a dog, yet with scales and wings at the mention of her dessert like name the animal seemed to be interested, perhaps even begging for food. A new toy indeed this little Dragon would keep her amused for a while, it would keep them both amused, Akeldama had done well indeed. A grin cracked across her face, widening just slightly with every second that passed. "You've done well, now we're all going to go to the storage room together and get some things for a picnic. As celebration for meeting a new friend.  You'd like a picnic, with food right Dragon?" the words were soft as she slipped past them into the hallway, mentioning for the duo to follow. The Dragon seemed to understand basic words as well as body language and tone of voice, she just had to seem soft and nice. As she walked, she thought, maybe it was time for the terrier to do something, they could lure the Dragon into the storage room and while she's looking at the shelves of food the brat could snap a collar and muzzle on her. Then the beast was just spare parts

As she wandered down the corridor the sign at the end indicating their target grew ever larger. "Miss Dragon we can go in and get some things for a picnic, maybe little sausage rolls with some cookies, juice and one if those big sponge cakes! Well have to call you something Dragon, I understand you can't speak but perhaps if you find an object or food you want to be called?" just a nice friend thinking about what to call her new friend. It was quite tiring this little act, yet that mattered not for soon they would be in the storage room and even if the lures of picnic were fake she had a Dragon and an entire pantry to sate her hunger.

Shockingly, the dragoness had not yet gotten the chance to encounter any dogs in spite of her travels around since emerging from the underground. What was Ambrosia talking about telling the black haired girl that she had done well? Naïve the young creature did not understand the implications of such a statement, large optics simply looking between them with a small bit of confusion. Oh well, she didn't need to understand everything right away, she had a long time to study the world around her considering she was from a hybrid species of dragon, some of the longest lived creatures with some of her kind even being immortal age wise.

She followed them new food being the only real lure needed, not that she had actually needed to be lured. Pandora was not stupid, but she knew too little of mortals to be cautious, these were new friends in her poor little mind. She rumbled happily, making a variety of happy sounding noises in her chest as they ventured through the place heading for wherever the food was for the picnic.

Tail swaying back and forth she seemed to smile in her own way when the other asked about her name. Pandora glanced around, eyes falling slightly when she saw no where for her to carve her name into the ground existed, she didn't want to damage the building. Gosh, these girls were going to call her the first food she picked up, weren't they? Oh well, lacking any humanoid body she was incapable of actually speaking to them directly, thus it was likely best to pick something she could display easier than carving into the ground. With that, the dragoness ventured into the room they had been heading towards.

The mere sound of all that found was mouth watering. Even if she worked in the kitchen nowadays, Ambrosia still found ways to taper with her food. She still got more good food than not, but still. Those sounded really good. But she knew that there was going to be no food now that she thought about it. Ambrosia would never do something so nice.

And now she was dragging Akeldama into her nightmarish fun. But she’d have to do her best to look like she was enjoying it if she were to get in good with her new master.

Once they reached their destination Akeldama opened the door to the storage closet, allowing the dragon to enter first. As she looked into the closet it dawned on Akeldama fully. This was a trap.

Job word count started: 134