So. We haven't talked in a while.
I've learned a few things about dragons: first off, they actually capture princesses. And any daughters of nobles, really. See, they eat gold, and stockpile it before winter to hibernate, but they've picked up on human politics well enough to know you can get a King's Ransom (sometimes literally!) for the safe return of a land's progeny.
In a complete coincidence, it's a long-standing tradition for the women's quarters in any building with more than one storey to be at the top, so their suitors have to prostrate themselves or whatever. Maia says it's quite romantic. I definitely heard Nessa mutter something about "ridiculous calf-chasing maids", which could mean anything really. Except it's a tradition in the southwest, where dragons really aren't a problem at all (the weather's too wet to give them good flight control). And the Comtessa was specifically super anal about having her manor built the way her grandfather did it.
Which is to say, with an awkwardly protruding Rebellious Girl Tower that I'm now thinking the Comtessa may have some unresolved trauma over. It doesn't make her a better person, but I can see the shadow of the kid she probably had been. And where Morrin gets her grit from.
Uh yeah I should also mention that we got abducted by a dragon.
That may have been obvious. I just have to make sure we're on the same page
The dragon's name is Astyanax btw. Like the mythical figure - I hope this doesn't have any impact on the future.
Yeah so we were panicking and the door was all cluttered up with whatever we could throw at it and the guards were panting their way up those ridiculous stairs and then something CRASHED into the tower, the floor under us jolted, and all of a sudden, we couldn't hear the guards anymore. Or the rumbling, for that matter. Nessa was holding onto some kind of wall-mount with one hand and white-knuckling Morrin to her with one hand. Morrin kinda looked bewildered for a hot minute, then just started laughing. Like, uncontrollable, wheezing, slightly painful laughter. Nessa had to shout at her to stop, or she'd have fallen out the window, but our poor girl just kept on giggling to herself, clutching the older woman like a lifeline.
Maia and Yolanda and I got tossed around a bit, mostly when the dragon THREW US HIGHER UP IN THE AIR to readjust her grip. I'm still covered in bruises; Maia's sleeping next to me at the moment. We were flying for, what, six hours? I'm too used to planes being damn fast, this was like a leisurely helicopter ride; excepting of course the mortal danger and the fact that we can't ask the pilot to even so much as dip down. But other than that. Pretty leisurely. We set down near some ruins, I think it's on a mountainside - we are, at the very least, in some kind of mountain range, and Nessa say's it's pretty far North of the Comtessa's manor. So at least we don't have to worry about her coming to give us grief. Small problem though: the dragon turned around and started talking. It's reeeeaallllyyy interested in keeping Morrin for the promise of gold, and we've not been able to convince it that in all fairness the Comtessa will probably not agree to pay anything at all. It's something like sunk cost fallacy ticking in, I could tell the dragon flinched a bit at the thought. Anyways yeah. We're sitting on a modestly-sized hoard and having some food from our packs, since the tower top doesn't exactly look structurally stable any more. We'll just have to see what we can do.
