In all honesty, I did not originally plan on having this scene in the story. It just kinda showed up. *ducks as an axe flies over my head*
So enjoy some dragon rants and... something else that my mind seemed to spawn XD
Remember: Dragonese is in bold
Chapter 9 – How to Train Your Human
If Aurora had been presented with a choice between being stuck with a hyperactive hatchling dragon or a rebellious twenty-one-year-old Berserker for two weeks, Aurora would have picked the hatchling.
"Gods above, I need to get a cage for you or something!" the disgruntled healer snarled as she picked the Berserker up by the collar of his tunic and unceremoniously dropped him in the corner. The annoying human immediately tried to scramble off again, but dropped to the floor as his legs gave way beneath him.
"Ow!" he yelled, rubbing his chin. "Stupid legs!"
"Not my fault if your legs haven't healed properly," Aurora huffed. "They'd be healing up even faster if you didn't try to run off all the time."
"Shut up."
In response, Aurora lashed her tail in a whip-like motion to make a savage cracking noise. The human immediately froze, a flicker of fear in his blinded eyes. Deciding that she wouldn't have any more of the human's bad attitude, the dragoness pressed her face right up to his, growling softly.
"I don't know how much of my language you can understand, but I know you know enough to understand the gist of what I'm about to say, so listen to me, you hairless little rat," she berated harshly. "I don't care if you're a legendary Berserker; you have no right to be repaying me the way you are now! I could have left you to die in that rock pile, but I went against the wishes and advice of my friends to save you. I could have been putting my own life and my nest in danger, but I dragged you out of that death trap anyway. I have a responsibility to my people, but I put those responsibilities aside for you! A human! A human who has killed countless dragons, many of whom I have cared for and grown close to! I owe you – nothing! But did I ever consider that? No! I didn't!"
For once, the human was silent, doubt and shock plastered on his face. Finally, she was making some headway!
"So stop being so stubborn and show some gratitude for once! Otherwise I'll build a raft, dump you on it and cast you out onto the open sea for a pack of Sharkworms to feast on!"
With her rant over, Aurora promptly shoved the human onto the pile of nesting materials she kept in the corner and turned her back on him with the intention of ignoring him for the rest of the morning. In an attempt to calm herself down, she began taking her healing resources down from the makeshift stone shelves she had and reorganised them all while she waited for Elda to arrive.
It wasn't long before Aurora's keen ears alerted her to a faint rustling behind her, right where she'd left the Berserker. Holding back a growl of frustration, the healer twisted her neck round to glare at the human who had been such a burden to her for the past two weeks.
What she saw surprised her. It wasn't an escape attempt like she'd expected. The human had managed to drag himself to his feet and stumble over to a small pile of discarded stones and other knick-knacks that Aurora had been meaning to clear out but had forgotten about. After shifting about to get himself into a comfortable sitting position, the Berserker started sorting through the objects, simply running his hands along them.
For a while, Aurora watched; completely baffled by the human's actions.
"Humans are weird," she eventually muttered to herself, turning back to her own activity. "Berserkers are weirder. He's twice as weird."
But as the early hours of the morning passed by, Aurora found her attention being repeatedly drawn to her bipedal patient. As she took in more of his strange antics, she realised he was setting up small challenges for himself; tossing rocks in the air and catching them, inspecting sticks of crystal for cracks and imperfections and other small tasks that most creatures would have found ridiculously easy.
But that was because most creatures weren't blind like he was.
"I guess you're smarter than you let in on," Aurora breathed softly. "Well then, let's see how sensitive your ears are."
Chuckling inwardly, Aurora finished setting up her tools and resources, and spent the next few minutes lying around and coming up with the simple test that she was going to spring on the human.
Think of it as payback for your bratty behaviour this past week, she thought.
Dagur had never been so bored in his life. At least not that he could remember. He'd admit that trying to catch things that he couldn't really see had been quite entertaining for a while, but the novelty had worn off eventually.
This is stupid, he thought to himself. I should be trying to get out of here, but I'm letting a silly lecture on morals from a stupid dragon get the best of me! Some Viking I'm turning out to be. Freyja must be worried sick about me. I seriously need to-.
His thoughts were interrupted when a low snarl sounded right in his ear. Whipping round, Dagur lashed out, only to have his hand make contact with empty air. The moment he turned around, he felt something hit him in the back of the head. The impact wasn't very hard, but it still annoyed him.
"Hey!" he yelled, suspecting the dragon was behind this. "What's the big idea?!" Great, he was doing it again; exchanging Norse words for snarls and growls. It had been quite a confusing development, along with the fact that he was also seeming to turn the dragon's once incomprehensible roars into words, as if they were speaking some sort of language. Eventually, he'd learned to ignore it, but when it came to listening to the dragons for prolonged periods of time, it could get quite concerning.
"… get me!" the dragon cooed somewhere to his right. "Or… scared?"
"Dumb dragon!"
"Come… get me!"
Groaning in exasperation, Dagur pulled himself to his feet, using the handholds on the cave wall as leverage. It hurt as he felt a few of the less healed parts of his legs creak slightly, but other than that he gritted his teeth and got up.
"Get… lazy..!"
Spurred on by what he was certain was an insult, Dagur managed to stumble a few steps in what he hoped was the direction of the dragon, intent on giving it what for.
"Almost..!"
Dagur stood shakily on his sore legs, his hands waving about in a desperate attempt to try and reach the dragon from where he was. The beast's taunting chirps had taken an unfamiliar tone; almost encouraging. He would not be scared to admit that he'd never, ever been in this situation before, especially not with a dragon.
"Come… little more."
"Have you ever considered that walking hurts?!" Dagur snapped.
"Won't… better… try."
Mumbling profanities, the Berserker chieftain shuffled forward towards the dragon a little more before his knees gave out from beneath him. Just before he hit the ground, he felt a warm, scaly mass break his fall and he immediately held onto it.
"Okay… think… pushed… too hard… time," the dragon growled softly. Dagur could feel its body vibrating with the sounds it was making, and actually found it quite-.
He pushed away. No, he wasn't going to get cuddly with a dragon. Not ever.
When Dagur felt the dragon pick him up by the back of his tunic yet again, he tried to struggle, but to no avail. He only stopped pushing back against the dragon's chest when the beast put him down in the alcove he'd been confined to for the majority of his stay here.
The dragon's soft footsteps soon retreated to some other part of the cave, and Dagur was left to his thoughts. Normally he wasn't very keen on constructive thinking, but he figured it would stop him from becoming too bored. After a few moments, he figured it would be a good idea to formulate a list of things that he felt were important to his situation.
Okay, he didn't know how long he'd been there, but it had to be more than a week. If his armada hadn't been scuttled, Dagur figured it would have gotten back to Berserker Island by now, and his sister was formulating some sort of crazy plan to get him back. He was blind; that did absolutely nothing to help him escape. In fact, it made things a lot harder. Not only that, but his legs still hadn't completely healed, making walking a lot more painful. To make matters worse, he was stuck with a dragon that apparently had a constant eye kept on him and also seemed to enjoy ticking him off. Top that off with the fact that he didn't know where on earth he was on the island, he had next to no chance of escape.
Dagur groaned in annoyance and defeat. Was he ever going to get off of this blasted rock?
Soo... hehe... what do you think? *cackles with evil laughter*
Okay, here are the complete sentences of the messed up Dragonese.
"Come and get me!" "Or are you scared?"
"Come on and get me!"
"Get up off of your lazy behind!"
"Almost there!"
"Come on, just a little more!"
"Won't get better unless you try."
"Okay, I think I pushed you a little too hard this time.
*grins like an idiot* Don't worry my faithful followers! There are more chapter like this in the future! *runs away from the mob of angry Vikings*