WE SURVIVED.
Happy new years everyone! I'm hoping 2017 will be a bit better at least. Let's start it off with an update!
Adrien would like to congratulate himself on his cleverness.
To make up to Ladybug, he didn't go into her lair. But he did linger close to it, securing that Ladybug would either find him, or he found her.
By his lucky stars, Adrien found her first.
He grinned as he saw her in a tree, nosing around a bird's nest, picking up small, gleaming items. A thief stealing from little thieves. How unsurprising. "Hi Ladybug!" he called out with a wave, making her jump and nearly fall out of the tress. Ladybug grabbed it, looked towards him wildly, then glared. He could see her muttering to herself as she scooted closer to the trees' edge, then slid down the curving trunk to the ground below.
She stomped over to him, glaring up at him. "What are you doing back?!" she demanded.
"Oh just gathering some things, just like you," he eased, patting his sack full of herbs and leaves and roots. Anything he could use for alchemy and potion brewing. She glared at it, then glared at him.
"You should leave," she said.
Adrien chuckled, easing around her. "I didn't know you owned these woods."
"I don't," she admitted. "Plagg does. And he's not a kind dragon."
Plagg the monstrous nightmare. "He's not too bad," Adrien commented, slowly walking away.
"When lazy," Ladybug insisted, prowling up beside him. "You haven't seen him when Plagg gets serious."
"I'll believe you the day Plagg isn't tempted by food," Adrien declared.
Ladybug huffed beside him.
"Speaking of dragons," Adrien voiced, turning to look down to her. "I got a proposition for you."
Ladybug blinked in surprise, eyeing him warily. "A proposition..." she repeated slowly.
"You don't have to do this anymore," he told her.
"This?" she repeated, waving her hand about, like she was trying to tempt more out.
A little amused by the gesture, he cleared up, "Stealing from us during raids. I promise you, you help stop those raids, you can have your own home in my village! You don't have to steal or live with dragons again!"
Ladybug gasped, hands flying to her mouth, eyes wide with wonder. "Stop the dragon raids and live in a village full of Vikings I don't know? Vikings that likely won't take the presence of Ladybug the phantom thief kindly?! Especially since she lives with dragons?!" Her eyes slanted down as she peered at him. Flatly, she responded, "How could I resist?"
Surprised, he stared at her then tried to ease, "I doubt it'd be that bad-"
"You," Ladybug cuts in, jabbing a gloved finger to his chest, "really think that dragon hating Vikings would accept me?"
Adrien rubbed the spot she jabbed. "People can change," he reasoned.
"Yeah, people, individuals," she said, using her hands to add to this point. "But a whole village? A whole culture? That, that doesn't change easy. Especially not a day!" She shook her head, the scales on the mask rattling with the movement. "I'm not going to be accepted there. I wasn't before, I doubt that'd change now." She turned away with a huff, leaving the surprised Viking behind.
"Before?" he called after her, pursuing her. He came beside her, looking down. "You tried to join before?" he asked the masked thief.
"Yeah," she she confirmed, turning to his sharply, making him skid to stop. "Living in a village offers the greatest chance of survival. But no one wants a girl that smells of dragons and was being shadowed by a changewing. No one really wants a girl that wants a changewing to live with her. No one wants a changewing around."
There was a snap above and Adrien jumped, turning to catch the blue of Tikki's eyes. The lone changewing was trailing them, eyeballing Adrien.
Ladybug walked on, far from alarmed. Adrien cleared his throat, following. Before he could speak up, she continued, "And maybe, just maybe, you should consider that I want to continue living with dragons? In the wilderness. That I don't want to live in a village full of Vikings?"
Adrien had to stop at that. "Really?" he voiced, surprised.
Dragons, he could agree were interesting creatures, ones full of potential.
But to live with them instead of Vikings? Their own kind?
She turned, waving to him like that made the answer clear. "Vikings are a bit impossible."
Adrien pursed his lips. "Well, you're a Viking," he shoots out.
"Not anymore," she said. "Vikings are largely classified as being amazing sailors and explorers and dragon killers. I am none of those. Even before. I couldn't do any of those. I could make bread. I was a decent bread making Viking, but that doesn't really count as amazing in the world of Vikings."
"You're not an explorer?" he teasingly asked, looking around the woods. Wouldn't she have to be here?
"I'd be long lost without Tikki or Nooroo," she huffed.
She turned and stomped off. Adrien persistently followed. He continued to press, "Ok, ok. No living in a Viking village. Got it. Then, maybe you can still help us?"
"Help how?" she asked flatly.
"The raids? Why are they happening? How can we make them stop?" Adrien listed off.
She stopped, turning to him to eyeball him.
Adrien shoots her a look. "If you say you can't do that because you steal during raids..."
"I don't know why raids are happening," she cut in. "Dragons will raid for many different reasons."
"Such as..." Adrien pressed.
"Well, a lack of food will push a dragon to go at villages. It could be territory, especially if a dragon or few lost it's home to another bigger dragon, the losers may try to bully humans out so they can claim that area. They could just not like humans. Or they're doing it to appease another dragon."
Adrien blinked in surprise. "Appease another dragon?" he repeated.
"Dragons will fight each other just like people do. And there's always someone bigger and scarier out there. Someone that could easily gobble up another dragon. And sometimes, the best way to survive is do appeal to that dragon. Sometimes, that means attacking Vikings." She frowned, contemplative. "There is one dragon here that could scare enough of these guys to go raiding. They may do that because they sense she's hunting, they may be raiding hoping she'll be drawn to the villages and go there to hunt instead."
Ladybug sighed, shaking her head, the scaly mask rattling. "I don't know," she admitted, sounding tired. "Dragons will raid for many reasons. It borders easily between they just don't like you being neighbors to they have to in order to survive. Which reason this is, I don't know. Every dragon is different."
Adrien hummed thoughtfully, frowning as he mulled this over. "So, no way to stop the raids?"
"At this moment, I don't know how. If she's scaring dragons into raiding, I say go slay Akuma, if you can. If not... well, I just don't know. If you could convince your village not to hate dragons or at least, try not to kill them on sight, maybe you could find a way to appeal to your scaly neighbors. Otherwise, I just don't know." She backed this a weary shrug.
"Ok..." Adrien trailed, considering this. Then looking up, he asked, "Akuma? Who is she?"
"Probably one of the biggest dragons you'd meet here in this area," Ladybug told him, wrapping her arms around her middle, looking very small and scared. It was an odd sight to Adrien. "And one of the nastiest. Very, very few survive when they meet her." Ladybug turned her gaze to the ground. "She has no real set territory, no real set hunting ground. You never know when she'll come, where she'll be. This part of the woods is one of her least used hunting grounds, which is why Tikki and I stay here..."
Tikki clamors down, rumbling. Ladybug goes to her, leaning on the dragon. "Plagg's one of the few dragons that can hold against Akuma, and she doesn't care to fight unless she's in the mood for it. Most of the time, she just wants to eat so she usually won't want to fight but..." Ladybug gulped. "She does sometimes. Tikki and Nooroo can sense her, and when she's hunting here, we all sleep as high as we can in the trees."
So there was a chance that this Akuma could come here. Adrien asked, "What sort of dragon is Akuma?"
"A whispering death."
Adrien tensed, feeling cold.
Whispering death were one of the worst dragons to come across. They were naturally aggressive dragons, bordering cruel by nature. And so easily bitter and grudging by nature. And these dragons, they were willing to eat anything, including other dragons and even Vikings. It's been recorded that they were one of the few that liked human meat.
Adrien gripped his bag's strap, uneased. "Why hasn't Akuma attacked the villages yet?" he asked.
Ladybug shrugged. "She's nasty," was all Ladybug offered. "She likes going at Vikings that are walking alone or in small groups. She likes taking them by surprise."
"She's probably why many Vikings discourage going into the woods," Adrien murmured. It was long thought that dragons in general would just strike Vikings that wander in, many of them, any of them.
But if it was just a large whispering death...
"She has no set lair?" Adrien asked.
Ladybug shook her head. "Maybe... deep, deep, deep underground? Otherwise, I don't know." Then she cleared her throat, straightening and shoots him a sharp look. "This is why you need to stop, go back home and don't come back. Akuma will get you. She can sense when Vikings are wandering around in the woods, especially when they're alone. And you look like someone a bit important. Last thing I need is a vengeful village coming in going on a bitter dragon hunt, getting the wrong dragon, or finding me, or Tikki."
Adrien blinked at her, surprised.
Important?
Was he that important that his village would go on a vengeful dragon hunt?
...Adrien supposes.
His father was one of two advisers to Chief Andre Bourgeois.
The other was the Kubdels' father.
And he did get an engagement offer from Chloe, though, it was more offered out of pity since he sucked at dragon fighting, and no girl wanted a man who was a horrible dragon fighter. "I can do the fighting for both of us," Chloe declared. "And if I had to marry, might as well be someone I know that's not going to pressure me to settle and bare children."
Not quite what he had in mind marriage wise, but Adrien could manage if it came to that point.
These were the marrying years.
Adrien jumped when he was shoved, Ladybug pushing him forward and back to where his village was. "H-hey!" he protest, once again sliding away from her and sending her stumbling forward. At Ladybug's sharp look, he insisted, "I'm done gathering herbs yet!"
"I swear on Nidhog's stinky breath," she muttered, waving her hands in exaggeration.
Adrien blinked. That was one of the nastiest swears in the Viking world. "You are really irked," he noted.
"You think?!" Ladybug huffs, waving her arms wildly at him, stomping near and ranting out. "I, I have a Viking who discovered me! I have a Viking I can't get rid of! Who may draw in other Vikings, and it'll stress out my neighbors, or they'll come after Tikki, and probably me, and it's all going up in flames and-"
Tikki drew near, clicking and huffing down at the masked human. Ladybug latched onto the dragon's long snout, clutching it like a life line. Adrien blinked at this, eyeballing them. Ladybug glared at him. "Don't look at me like that I have a wild imagination and I get anxious easily. And you're making me anxious!" Tikki growled her blue eyes back at him.
Adrien gave her a light scoff. "I doubt it's as bad as you think, Ladybug."
"No, it is," she insisted.
"...Really?"
"Yes."
"Positive?"
"Absolutely."
Adrien raised a brow at her.
Ladybug glared at him.
Tikki huffed.
"You really think," Adrien pressed, "that a dragon is going to flip out at the sight of me? And that me being here will draw out other Vikings?"
"Yes."
"Logically, that's kinda silly."
"Silly," she repeated sharply.
"Well, it's perfectly normal for me to come here. I come here to gather herbs, I'm one of the few Vikings good at alchemy, so no one from my village will really follow me out here. And Akuma hasn't gotten me yet."
"You've never wandered too far from your village though," she retorted, making Adrien give a slight start at the reveal that she's seen him gathering herbs before.
He shook his head. "I'm still in the woods," he pressed. Then pointing to her, he stated, "And you are a Viking living a forest full of dragons, and they obviously don't mind you."
"I've been living in these woods for almost two years, getting used to them and them to me," Ladybug said, withdrawing from Tikki and nearing the Viking, agitated. "I've made compromises, I bonded, I learned, I appealed. Majority of them aren't going to attack me because they know me. They don't see me as a Viking. I'm not Viking, and even when I used to be, I was a horrible Viking that many of them didn't even know existed." She pointed to him, stressing, "They don't know you. To them, you're a Viking form one of these villages. It'll be even worse if they've seen you during a raid or foug-"
There was a near, curious cry behind them.
Ladybug and Tikki stiffened.
Adrien slowly leaned over, eyes locking onto a familiar deadly nadder. A nadder he knows he's seen on raids. A nadder that Chloe had punched in the jaw. An act he was present to see. And by the loud sniffing from the dragon, it's spines raising, it remembered his scent besides Chloe's.
That he was there when Chloe punched the nadder's jaw.
That he was there during a dragon's raid.
"Duusu," Ladybug whispered fretfully, moving so that she stood in front of Adrien.
The nadder, Duusu, hissed as it shuffled on it's claws.
Tikki gave a warning growl, loudly stomping her feet as she moved to stand before the two humans. Duusu stomped a claw down, snapping it's jaws. Spines on the tail snapped up, ready to be used.
"Run," Ladybug uttered.
Adrien didn't moved.
Duusu turned, tail arcing back.
Ladybug whipped around and shoved Adrien hard, shouting, "Run!"
Adrien stumbled, moving with Ladybug's pushes, allowing the small thief to grab his hand and easily drag him off, away from the nadder and the spikes it flung at them. With a furious cry, Tikki charged. Adrien looked back to see the fight over Ladybug's head, trying to move with her tugs. The last he saw was the nadder jumping into the air, pink wings spread and Tikki disappeared from sight. Ladybug sped around the trees, and he lost sight of the fight, though he still heard the snaps and growls.
Moving quickly, they ran through the forest, Ladybug easily moving around the branches and roots and rocks, tugging Adrien along whenever he stumbled and tripped. Even as the sounds of the fight grew distance, she kept going, not daring to slowly down.
Only, for Adrien, as they ran, his legs started to burn, and his steps got clumsier.
"I, I think we might good," Adrien managed out, tugging his hand back.
"What?" Ladybug asked, turning to him, and not stopping right away. She gave a loud, surprised squeal when she dropped down, giving Adrien an equal start.
"Ladybug!" he cried, rushing after her, nearly dropping down when the edge suddenly opened up before him. "Woah," he whispered, waving his arms for balance, quickly spotting Ladybug on the ground. She sat up, muttering, "Owie, owie, owie," to herself. "You ok?" he called down.
"I'm fine!" she called back, wobbling to her feet. Adrien carefully worked his way down to join her, ignoring Ladybug as she insisted, "I've had worse. "
"You've had worse," he repeated skeptically, taking her wrists and helping steadying her, looking over for anything. She seemed to be standing fine. He went along her arms, trying to feel anything beneath the scales he had wrapped around her arms. He couldn't really feel anything beneath the smooth, warm plates. "That was quite a drop," he murmured.
"There are bigger drops," she waved off, withdrawing from him, and turning her gaze up to the ridge she fell from. Then she pointed up to it, stating, "See? Like I said, they're going to flip out finding you here."
"Well," Adrien tried to argue, "that nadder kinda knew me from the raids-"
"And that's it! They'll know you from the raids! They're going to freak out, get aggressive, attack-"
"How come they didn't attack you?" Adrien wondered.
"They did! I had Tikki to protect me through a lot of that."
"...Well, couldn't she protect me too?"
Ladybug stared at him. "You expect Tikki to protect you from each and every dragon, wait, why would she even need to protect you?! No! You're not going to come this deep anymore!"
"That's not really for you to decide," Adrien pointed out.
Ladybug growled at him, blue eyes narrowed. "Then don't assume that Tikki and I will save you each and every time. From each and every dragon! You come here again, you're on your own."
Done with the Viking, she turned to prowl off, moving to scale up the wall she had fallen down. Adrien went after her, reaching for the scale covered thief. "Wait!"
She paused, gripping a root tightly, looking just as ready to move.
"How about a deal?" Adrien tried.
Ladybug spared him a glance over her shoulder. "A deal," she repeated testily.
"I really, really want to stop the raids. And it seems part of that is learning and knowing dragons. You know a lot! You can teach me about dragons. And I could use that to stop the raids, could teach that to others in my village. Pass that onto other villages."
"You're talking about changing a whole entire culture-"
"It's not impossible," he argued patiently. "And in return, you won't have to go stealing on raids anymore, I'll bring you whatever you need." Adrien paused, letting the offer hang.
Ladybug eyeballed him. "You'd bring me anything?" she asked.
"Anything," he repeated.
She shook her head, dropping down with a huff. "It's not going to be easy. As you saw with Duusu, they'll know your a Viking. They won't want to trust or work with you. And you think learning about dragons will be enough to stop raids? You got to figure out why they're raiding to stop it. It could be a bigger dragon, it could be food, it could be just a general dislike-"
"And I can learn that through your teachings," he said. "I know more about dragons than anyone else in my village. I know terrors are easy to bribe, dragon nip can turn a grunkle in a puddle of goo, you can stop a nadder with a mirror-"
Ladybug shook her head, still unsure.
Adrien persisted to appeal, "You do this, and I bring you things, and the legend of Ladybug would fade and be forgotten. No one will come searching for you."
"The risks..." she tried.
"I'm a Viking, a fighter, a survivor," he stated, "I can adapt. I can make it." He glanced to the trees. "You go into the trees to hide from Akuma? I could too. I know those are strong enough to hold dragons. I could travel through the trees too."
Ladybug just eyed the ground, still torn.
"And you used to be a Viking," he pointed out, "you do admit this. So it's not impossible for dragons to accept a Viking."
Ladybug made a tired, strangled sound, slumping down on the wall and sliding down to lean on it.
Sensing that she was breaking, Adrien pursued, "I'll help you disappear, I'll bring you whatever you need, and no one would ever catch sight of you again. And in return just help me learn about dragons so I can figure out how to stop the raids. And Vikings will stop dragon hunting if I do this right, no one will come after Tikki, Nooroo, Plagg, or Duusu..."
Ladybug eyed him, considering this.
Slowly, she repeated, "So, I teach you about dragons, you try and stop the raids, and you bring whatever it is I want, and help 'Ladybug' disappear?"
"Yep!"
She shook her head. "That, it seems impossible..."
"I doubt it really is," Adrien persisted.
Ladybug sighed, frowning as she considered this. Was it worth it? In the long run, it'd be nice. If Adrien was successful, she and Tikki would be left alone. Dragon aggression would dwindle down. She wouldn't have to worry about over reactive Vikings anymore. Or the stress of stealing during a raid. Anything she needs he could just bring her. It was an appealing offer.
But there were risks.
But, those risks could be worked around.
They'd just have to be clever and tactical.
It could be done.
Giving the Viking a sharp look, she pointed to him, stating, "No one else will find out about this."
"Of course."
"We'll have to take precautions. I will not risk Akuma coming here."
"Agreed."
"And you're to do everything I tell you. I tell you to run, you run. I tell you to hide, you hide. I tell you to go with Tikki, you go with Tikki. Don't move. You don't move. Many of the dragons here will try to kill you. And Tikki can't face off against all of them."
Adrien nodded.
Ladybug got up with a sigh, still looking very unsure about this. "Ok Viking, we'll, we'll give this a shot," Ladybug uttered.
He held out his hand. "It's Adrien Agreste, the Curious."
She took his hand, grumbling, "I say more the Devious."
He cracked an amused smile. "I'm the Devious?"
"Yes," she stated.
Adrien chuckled, not really denying it. "I'm looking forward to working with you, Ladybug."
