Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Smell the Danger
[Hey... what do you call yourself?]
The raccoon flicked his ear as he looked back at me.
[Name? Uh... I was just called pup by my teacher. I haven't had someone to talk to otherwise yet.]
[...well. What would you LIKE to be called?]
[Hm. Korven?]
[...]
I nodded and tried to refocus on what to do today.
'So I'm still heading west, need to practice magic more-oh shit I forgot to figure out water. Fuck.'
I shrugged. 'I'll do it tonight, we gotta use the sunlight while we can.'
[Korven?]
[...oh yes! Sorry forgot that's gonna be my name now. Yeah what is it... uh... I don't know your name.]
Dude you literally just named yourself and then forgot?
[...well what's a properly draconian name?]
[HOW WOULD I KNOW?]
[WELL I'M BABY, SO SHUT UP.]
"..."
"..."
[Ahem. Yes? You had a question?]
[Yeah... where do we go from here to get to the sea?]
[West.] He helpfully lifted a paw to point.
[...I meant like specific landmarks.]
[Oh! Well we'll want to reach that mountain, then go around its base and then we should find a river off the backside of the mountain to follow.]
[...if you're a new awakened how do you know all this?]
[I came from the direction of the sea. I originally lived next to it. I'm basically backtracking.]
[Ah.]
Korven looked at my back. [If you were bigger I could ride your back...]
[Get on.]
[What? No you're too small and weak.]
I gave him a look of biting sarcasm as I brought Fire essence into my body, letting the aura of fire fusion emanate from my fur.
[Oh. Riiiiight. Fire is strength... you're a fire dragon. You're more purple/indigo in shade so I forgot.]
[...]
He awkwardly got on my back.
You know what? I don't want to know what the indigo-shade furred mini-dragon with wolf ears and a 4-pointed Star of white on his forehead with a horn bump growing there while having a whole-ass raccoon in his back clutching to it looks like.
Except I described it so vividly now I have that mental image. God why do I have to look adorable instead of fearsome. I'm not a scary dragon, I'm a PUPPY, with WINGS.
I think all chances for draconic pride disappeared with this appearance.
I stood up, surprised how light Korven was.
I wasn't even using fire fusion and it already get like I could run with him on me. I guess... dragons are stronger than their size?
Whoa. That's a scary thought. Human size Spider-Man can already do so much, what would a dragon that can lift 6 times its weight be capable of?
Yeaaah... no. Not thinking about it. When I grow up I'll be terrifying... as long as I'm not pregnant and weakened, then attacked by a massively powerful magic weapon.
My mother had really shit luck huh. What a small chance of it all occurring at once by a million choices and coincidences.
I flexed my tail with it's thicker and longer fur at the tip, and began to run, air fusion filling me as Korven hooked his paws over my wings to hold him in place as the wind rushed past us.
[By the way... what season is it even?]
[Spring. Why?]
[Wanted to clarify cause I'm... young.]
[Oh... Kay?]
He sounded pretty confused, but I left it alone.
Honestly I was feeling awkward and that was kinda my lame attempt to fill in the silence...
Which toooootally worked. Mm-hmm.
Yeah okay it's even worse now.
I continued to run, leaping around trees and watching the world blur around me.
Sometimes I'm left wondering what I'll be like years from now when I've lived in this world for a long time.
How long will I live? Decades, centuries, or a millennium?
What would I be running towards then?
My thought process was interrupted as a new scent filled my nose, and my instincts screamed at me!
[STOP!] Korven mentally screamed as the scent hit him too, and water fusion increased my flexibility as I spun, throwing my momentum down my body and "throwing" it through my tail as if it were a whip, stopping my forward motion almost instantly.
[Urgh... please don't do that again...] Korven limply fell off looking strangely nauseous for a raccoon.
'Oh yeah... stopping that fast with that sudden motion cannot feel good if you don't have water fusion helping.'
[Korven what is that smell?!] I yelled into his head, trying to focus him on the danger here.
[Not sure, I've never smelt it either?]
[Then how do I know it's bad?]
[Well you can probably smell the decay and predatory pheromones just like me... also I can practically taste the earth elements powering this thing. It's magic, it's a Predator, and it smells like death.]
Okay when he lays it out while looking around for the threat as he explains it sounds obvious, but I'm still not used to being able to smell pheromones and emotions.
So while I could tell it was dangerous, and bad. Meanwhile, I've never run into concentrated earth magic before, so while I felt that there was a "heavy" sense to the smell, I wouldn't have realized that was my magic sense without more time to think.
[Run?] Korven asked.
[We're upwind. If we can smell it, it's very close, and it can definitely smell us.]
[So fight if it's aggressive.]
[Yeah, one issue: I haven't been in a proper fight before? My kill strategy so far the last month of being alive is mainly ambush with lightning speed.]
[Well, if you were the predator and about to ambush us, how would you do it?]
[I'd take out the one more dangerous... so me, cause I have more magic, am bigger than you, and have more obvious weapons with my teeth and claws being more prominent.]
[Well you'll be fine. Dragon's are night unbeatable with their armor-like scales and terrifyingly sharp teeth and claws, plus the almighty breath attack.]
[My teeth and claws are more prominent than yours, so more obvious, but I'm a BABY. My claws are not as sharp as my teeth are, so I think they still need to shed a few more times!]
Oh yeah... shedding claws like a cat. That was a weird experience.
[Oh. Well durable scales!]
[Korven. I don't have scales.]
[...]
[...]
Well. I'm about to be totally fucked aren't I.
Oh yeah, should mention: we haven't been standing waiting for an attack while talking. We communicate by thought transmitted as magic, so that exchange took a few seconds honestly.
Most of our conversations are a lot faster than your vocal-speakers might think.
'If only I had a way to find-'
Wait.
See. If I had a way to magically influence how I see to find another life form.
I stretched out my heat sense, areas of hot and cold apparent somehow.
(By the way, I think the heat sense is meant to help with flying? Like sensing air currents of different temperatures.)
I still couldn't find anything that stood out... which was scary in and of itself.
Korven's body heat stood out to me, my now-decidedly warm blooded body also stood out.
But not a single squirrel, rat, or mole was within sight that I could feel.
Not a single sign of any other body warmth... in a forest.
If I wanted a sign saying "MANY DIE HERE", I couldn't do much better than that.
[Korven, use light fusion in your eyes to scan for other lifeforce!]
[Huh? Wait what?!]
Ignoring his confusion I hastily pushed light magic into my eyes, glad I finally remembered how it could show me all living energies.
[...oooooh fuck. Fuck-a-duck.]
Korven seemed to concentrate for a second before his eyes began to dimly glow with white light.
[Whats the big-WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?]
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