Mother's Dearest Puppet

I had a desire to prove to myself that I was actually in control - that I wasn't a puppet. -Sean Parker

[chosenoutcast]

If she took a long time to respond, then Cho honestly didn’t notice. Maybe it was because young dragons were often known for their inability to pay attention, or perhaps it was because Cho displayed a lot of symptoms that could be considered some form of ADHD if he were human. Either way, after his response, the next thing he was aware of was the reply from the girl in front of him, which he gave a toothy grin towards.

He knew it! Not that that should be a surprise to anyone. After all, dragons had excellent deduction skills. And while it was true that Cho had his magic revoked before his banishment, he guessed that was just one of the things that dragons were born with and that no one could take away even if they wanted to.

But if you want an honest answer here, yes, dragon’s deduction skills are absolutely 100% part of their magic abilities, so yes, when Cho’s magic was taken away from him, so was his underdeveloped skills of deduction. He just wasn’t quite aware of all that yet. And, really, can you blame him? His magic deduction skills were taken away from him, after all!

"I knew it!” He swayed his tail a bit in a form of excitement as he stood up on the tips of his toes in an attempt to look a little intimidating. After all, if this girl was a pirate, she was probably pretty tough. Cho was obviously tougher, though. Dragons beat pirates any day. “So where’s your buried treasure? Is it here? Is that why you came here?”

[monstrouspuppet]

[Had he...taken her comment seriously? Or maybe he was playing around, but...either way, how he reacted definitely took her by surprise. In fact, he was even standing on the tips of his toes--was he trying to be intimidating, honestly believing that she was a pirate? Though, actually, her life might've been better if she was to go off plundering treasure rather than being forced to destroy actual cities, and...and...]

[...Well, either way; this was a mistake that definitely needed to be corrected right now. There was absolutely no way that Kassie was a pirate, even if she did have a tendency to hurt others thanks to her parents'..."occupation", or if one of her eyes was missing. Wait, now that she thought about it--did that spark the belief that she was possibly a pirate of some sort? I mean, most pirates had a missing eye, but...they'd usually wear an eyepatch, and Kassie's mother wouldn't even let her cover up the wound. It was a constant reminder of...the trauma she'd faced that night rather than anything else, not a mark to signify that she sailed the seven seas and went on adventures.]

[That sounded like a pretty nice idea, though...maybe she'd run away on a ship or something and spend the rest of her life pillaging other pirates, pilfering their gold, even if it was a bit too...far-fetched of a dream.]

W-Wait, no, I didn't...I mean...I'm not r-really a pirate. [Of course, maybe it was too late to say that; Cho might've already gotten the wrong idea and started thinking that she was the best pirate on the seven seas, which was as far from the truth as you could get.] I'm not here to get buried treasure or anything...w-we just moved here because... [Oh, boy. How was she meant to describe that part?] W-Well, because...it...seemed nicer here, I guess.

[chosenoutcast]

"Okay." He started off. Jeez Louise, this girl was jumpier than that one kangaroo at the zoo that he was pretty sure was secretly a werewolf. Which was weird. Jumpy people were weird. And she didn’t even know where she’d moved from? What, did she have memory problems, or something? At least she knew her name, I mean wow.

He could swing this, though. Most of the people he wound up talking to weren’t exactly easy conversation partners. Which was sort of weird since he sucked at talking to people too, so most of his conversations with people just wound up being really awkward and probably full of gibberish, but whatever.

Oh, right, he was just staring at this girl now. He should probably say something.

"Okay." Wait, you loser, you already said that, what are you even doing? "Well I’m Cho?" Now we’re getting somewhere. Even if he did say that like a question. "A dragon. I’m a dragon." This was going downhill fast.

[monstrouspuppet]

[Kassie couldn't help feeling a bit unnerved; gosh, she really was an awful conversation partner, wasn't she? I mean, the redhead was just staring at her, like he didn't have a response...th-then again, she hadn't really left any questions for him to answer or the like...was she meant to do that? Really, the only thing that he could have responded with was his name. Yikes, Kass, you've gotta work on conversing...]

[Or...well, maybe not. Probably not, and that was thanks to her mother's prohibitions on any sort of relationship that the blonde could possibly ever have. There wasn't any need to have friends when you were only going to betray and possibly kill them, anyway...that didn't exactly stop Kassie from wanting to have some kind of friendship, even though it was going to break her heart to have to kill them. The Troubles of Monstrous Beings: A Novel by Kassie Gillespie.]

[And then--he introduced himself, sure, but...a dragon? That wasn't possible, was it? Says the frickn monster/human hybrid, but still! Here she'd been, thinking that she and her mother were the only supernatural beings around here...or maybe Cho was really into dragons or something? Those horns on his head could be made of clay or...something.]

Pfft...a-a dragon? Right, and I'm a pirate! [Sure, maybe it was rude to make fun of him like that, but it was pretty funny.]

[chosenoutcast]

Wandering around town, at this point in his life, had become a rather usual part of the dragon’s daily schedule. He’d spend a portion of the day at the park, sniffing out any non-human smells. After all, as bad as his social skills were, Cho rather liked meeting new creatures, even if it was only to question them about every aspect of his being and remind them that dragons were most definitely superior to them in every way.

Unfortunately, not every day could be some grand adventure, and whenever there weren’t any interesting smells to be found, Cho spent the rest of his day wandering down the streets and staring hopelessly at the deli that he’d been banned from for trying to “steal” some ham from. He would have paid for it later, I swear, but some people just do not appreciate a nice IOU card, I guess.

There was something that interested Cho today, though. While he didn’t usually stop to converse with humans, this one had an unusual sort of smell, which Cho decided, through super cool detective skills, meant she was new in town since he hadn’t seen her around before and he was pretty sure that house was empty last week.

What he didn’t realize until he got a bit closer, is that the girl only had one eye. Yeah, that was weird, but hey. Maybe she was a pirate or something. That’d be interesting.

"Hey! New girl. Where did you come from." What a great way to greet someone!

[monstrouspuppet]

[Kassie felt herself jump slightly as she was greeted--well, if you could call that statement a greeting. Honestly, the blonde wasn't much of a socialite, especially after discovering what her family's secret was. Even before finding out she was really nothing more than a hideous monster along with her mother, she was so accustomed to moving before she met or interacted too often with anyone. That made it a bit less heartbreaking when the towns disappeared, but it was still devastating to discover what her mother had done--so many innocent people killed...]

[Regardless, and changing the subject internally, Kassie faced the man that "greeted" her; her expression revealed her anxiety, and she couldn't exactly bring herself to smile at this point; how was she supposed to tell him that the place she'd moved from had completely vanished? Should she merely excuse it with something like, "I forgot", or "It's not important"? Should she dismiss the question and the person asking it? No...that was much too rude for the sweetheart that Kassie really was. How ironic that she was truly an awful creature that wreaked havoc.]

O-Oh, I...erm...I can't quite remember where I moved here from. I-I apologize...and...if you'd like, you can just call me Kassie, since that's my name and all... [What an awkward introduction. You really are a lost cause, poor girl.]

[Though, that was pretty understandable if you knew what she'd been through, a constant move after another. That, and...her mother had forbidden any relationships between her and any townsfolk. "Don't want to get too comfortable," she'd excused it as. "After all, I don't want you to try and stop me from destroying the town. You'd be nothing more than a hindrance, and you know what would happen then." Gosh, now that she thought about it, maybe she really should have ignored the redhead. Wh-what if she invoked the wrath of her mother...?]

[monstrouspuppet]

chosenoutcast started following you

[Kassie couldn't resist feeling anxious--and even anxiety was an understatement regarding her current emotions. Her family had just moved into a new town--Gabdrive, wasn't it?--and the blonde knew exactly what that meant. Another town for her mother to wreak havoc upon, and another town added to that horrid guilt weighing down upon her as she was quite aware that her mother would force her to assist.]

[What could she do in protest? Nothing, that's what. Her mother was much more powerful, having even torn out her own daughter's eye without so much as a shred of remorse, even going so far as to leave the socket hollow, without anything to cover it. At the very least, by now, Kassie had grown accustomed to the partial blindness, though it was still extremely uncomfortable to realize that it was completely empty and, most likely, still a bit bloody--it still burned like hellfire, that much was for sure, but she was still lucky to even have an eye left.]

[Once the car was parked in their new driveway, Kassie took a moment to look at the town they were soon going to decimate; it was so beautiful, the sky a shade of baby blue, and the clouds so fluffy...it was going to be horrible to see this place destroyed because of them.]

[monstrouspuppet]

ROBOTS OR DINOSAURS?

Robots...or...dinosaurs...

[Kassie paused, scanning her mind for a response; dinosaurs merely reminded her of...what she and her mother really were; hideous creatures that could have come from the netherworld.]

I-I suppose I'd have to say that I prefer robots.