A/N: This chapter is more about world building than anything, so sorry about the fillery and glossed over feel of it.
R&R!
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The misconception of Calliope being the only Patriot dragon was corrected, when the Delaware militia, composing mostly of those descending from the Finnish settlers of the original New Sweden, arrived to present themselves for the General. Early Scandinavian merchants, the Vikings, had early adopted the roman dragon harnessing and handling method, but it had never reached the peninsula now known as Finland. The difference was that the Finns had to learn to live with their dragons for centuries even before the Swedish crusaders in the 1200s. They adopted similar practices as China, the Tswana Empire and the Incan Empire, making their own distinct way of handling dragons, in which the dragons were considered citizens, even family. Every child who lived to their tenth summer were gifted with a dragon egg, which they were to look after with the help of their parents' dragons. When the dragon hatched, the human and dragon became inseparable, negotiating even marriages together, as the dragons often mated their human's partner's dragon. When the human died, the dragon stayed with the family and were often the most influential members of käräjät (the democratic governing body of a village or township, presiding over trials, taxes and general welfare). The important aspect of the Finnish dragons was that they helped their humans with their work, meaning that a hunter's dragon had to be able to blend into any surroundings, a smith's dragon often developed immunity to fire, farmers' dragons managed to produce animal calming scent and had tails that could be used either as a plow or an axe, depending on the need. Finland is also the only European country to have native water dragons, most likely developed to help with fishing in the numerous lakes and rivers. The dragons that arrived to greet the General were what we consider private class, but then were somewhere between courier and light weight dragons. The Finnish dragons were not known for their speed, indeed, but rather for their stamina, being able to fly two to three days without rest.
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April 14th, 1777
Being called by the General early in the morning was something Alexander was getting used to. Usually it was just to receive orders to carry another letter to the Congress. Once, it had been about his plan for the British prisoners, which he'd negotiated himself with General Henry Clinton. (His starting position had been to exchange two hundred prisoners per courier class egg, four hundred per middle weight egg and seven hundred per heavy weight egg. They'd settled for four hundred per courier weight egg, five hundred for light weight fighting egg, seven hundred for middle weight eggs and a thousand for a heavy weight egg. He managed to get twenty winchesters, four xenicas and five grey coppers and four common yellow reapers. When the eggs were handed over, one of the stone faced aviators had handed Alexander a piece of parchment with the words Xenicas only accept female companions. Since that aviator captained a xenica themselves, and had the body of a woman, Alexander was willing to believe her.)
Suddenly Alexander had been responsible for finding four women willing to tie themselves to a dragon for the rest of their lives, not to mention men captains for the other twenty-nine dragons, being promoted to Commodore to mark him as the aviator in charge of the others.
He remembered from his later research at King's College's library, that British dragons were harnessed rather by force than any agreement on the dragon's part, and thought his own method better, so he had instructed everyone accepting an egg to talk to it. To tell the dragonet inside who they were, what they were fighting for and what they wanted to do after the war. And to talk in as many languages as they possibly could, even going as far as to arrange common sessions in which he read in Spanish or French to the collective egg group while Calliope brooded over them.
John Laurens was one of the first officers who accepted a winchester egg. Major Benjamin Tallmadge got the last one. The larger dragon eggs were accepted by those that had shown both courage and leadership skills, such as Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold.
The winchesters had hatched early and near simultaneously, all twenty within a week. Laurens named his Aiolos.
The xenicas were the next ones scheduled to hatch, but there were some problems with them, since one of them took a liking to a slave woman instead of his appointed Captain, Mary White. Abigail was the slave of Anna Strong, one of the volunteered other xenica Captains. She wasn't afraid of the dragon, having hazy memories of dragons from her childhood, but she was afraid of what her being a dragon Captain would mean in regards to her son. Mpho, as the xenica was named, declared that should anyone distress his Captain, he should very well eat them, before eating the entrails of the slaughtered cow, and falling asleep with his jaw still dripping with blood. Nancy Trotter and Deborah Sampson harnessed their xenicas without problems.
Having dragons with female captains caused bit of a shock to the general populace, and gave Alexander another headache with the uniform, but Mulligan suggested long coats to hide that they only wore breeches underneath. Alexander then made long, dark violet coats the standard aviator uniform, to better hide the women Captains among their fellow aviators. Alexander funded the uniforms himself, and Calliope persuaded him to splurge on a velvet dress uniform on top of the functional cotton uniform.
The other eggs weren't set to hatch until a year later, for which Alexander was thankful, because he already had enough on his plate, learning to fly in "formation", if it could be called that, as well as directing the energetic winchesters in the kind of play that would help them later on.
And now the General had called for him once more, though his days were already hectic.
To his surprise he was directed to the field outside the camp, where the General stood in conference with a commander of one State militia or other.
"Sir," he announced his presence, falling into a parade rest.
"Commodore Hamilton, this is Caesar Rodney. It seems your force just grew larger," General Washington said, humor coloring his voice.
"Sir?" asked Alexander and turned to look at Rodney curiously. The man covered half his face with a green scarf.
"Delaware has dragons, Hamilton," the General revealed.
Rodney nodded and gestured to the trees where leaves were finally starting to emerge. "My Koivu is right there."
Alexander squinted, seeing no dragon, but then it seemed like the bump in the forest floor moved. His attention was drawn to the too perfect shape of the bump, and finally he traced the mottled brown dragon among the dried leaves left over the previous autumn.
The dragon lifted its head, and Alexander watched with fascination as it changed the color to that of the green moss behind him.
"What breed is he?" he asked, fascinated with the camouflage ability.
"We call them piileskelijäs, it means those who hide," answered Rodney. "They are hunter dragons."
When Alexander turned to look at the field again, he saw what he hadn't seen before: the dozens and dozens of dragons blending into their environment, men scattered here and there between them. That dragon there looked like a giant stone among some smaller ones. And that one there was a small hill covered in mottled grass.
This was not a fighting force, but rather scouts and spies.
"How fast are they?" he asked dazedly.
"Their best is some fifty miles an hour," Rodney said. "They can maintain forty miles an hour near indefinitely, and can fly for three days straight. Sir," he added as an afterthought.
They were not as fast as Calliope, or near as fast as a Winchester, but still much faster than a horse. And to be able to fly three days without rest?
"Offensive capabilities?"
"Their nails are long and sharp and deliver a poison that forces relaxation," explained Rodney. "That way their prey doesn't taste acrid."
"You mean they are venomous," corrected Alexander, his mind already going through possibilities. The venom would be quite useful, should the British Aerial Corps ever actually join the fight. The only thing that worried Alexander was, how much of the poison would it take to take out a heavy weight dragon like a regal copper or long wing?
"I can see you thinking, Hamilton," the General prompted.
Alexander turned to him. "We shall have to make some tests on the venom, sir. See how much it takes to bring down a heavy weight. Even that would have to be cautious, because regal coppers are much more densely built than Calliope, so the amount of venom to bring her down would likely only hinder a regal copper." He turned back to the interested looking Rodney. "Does the venom eventually kill?"
Rodney shrugged. "Too much of it once forced a bear's lungs to relax, killing it that way, but it had been scratched four time within a minute. Normally a deer, once scratched, shakes off the venom within half an hour, but bleeds to death a quarter hour later."
Alexander nodded. "So it is not intended to be lethal, just paralyzing, but large amounts will force the relaxation of vital organs, killing the victim. We shall start the experiments with a single scratch, then, and move onto more numerous once we see whether or not one affects Calliope in any way. What about humans? If a human were to be scratched, what would happen?"
"Would depend on how deep the scratch were," answered Rodney. "Normally humans bleed out before the venom runs its course, but if it were just a nick, maybe an hour or two."
"Can the venom be extracted and collected?" Alexander asked next. Swords, bayonets and spears coated with the venom would help in pitch battles, if they only needed to nick their opponents. "Can it be boiled down to powder form?"
"Hamilton, what about the dragons themselves? Do you have a use for them?" asked General Washington, interrupting Rodney before he could answer.
Annoyed, Alexander turned to him. "Yes sir, the pilekseljäs - ("Piileskelijäs.") – yes, them, they make the perfect scouts and spies, and in larger battles once the British bring their dragons to play, they may very well be the thing that shifts the odds to us, since we will not have nearly as many heavy weight dragons as the British, we will have to take them down somehow, and the venom seems to be the perfect tool for that. Really though, they seem like a perfect spy force, and I would like to delegate the running of it to Captain Tallmadge and promote him to Commodore, but since that is just my opinion, I will leave it to your consideration."
"Why do you think Captain Tallmadge should head this new division of the Aerial Force?" the General asked, ignoring Alexander's annoyance.
"He's been hatching a similar plan to mine to use the winchesters as spies instead of couriers, sir, and even drafted a proposal that I was going to bring to your attention later today," explained Alexander impatiently. If the venom could be milked, maybe they could even coat the xenicas' spikes and unusually long claws in it and deliver it that way? He'd have to meet the rest of the Delaware militia men and find one not thirsting for a fight, one more scientifically minded, and have him and Ned collaborate on the venom tests.
"I do have a head of intelligence, you know," the General interrupted Alexander's thoughts.
"What, Sackett? Yes I know, sir, but he is more about humans and codes and drop boxes and I doubt he'd even thought of utilizing dragons as possible agents. But Tallmadge loves his Swift and wouldn't ask any Captain to unnecessarily endanger their beast without considering every possible angle, and he can inspire loyalty in most men, not just towards himself but for the cause as well. He is also very capable of detecting patterns and irregularities and he thinks outside the box."
Washington sighed, as he was wont to do when Alexander won an argument. "I am not arguing about Captain Tallmadge's qualities, just wondering if there might be someone more experienced."
Alexander scoffed. More like someone with better connections. Because as much as Washington did appreciate talent, the lowest ranked person in his close circle was Alexander himself, a bastard grandson of a Scottish Laird who'd never even met his more important relations. Everyone else were the sons of wealthy landowners or reverends, and certainly not bastards.
"I doubt you'll find one in the Aerial Force, sir, who also wants to take the job. Suppose you could order one to take it, but they wouldn't do as thorough a job as Tallmadge," Alexander informed the General. "I will have a more thorough proposal on your desk by the end of the week."
Alexander felt strange, as he essentially dismissed the Commander-in-Chief and the General seceded, heading back to the camp proper.
Rodney had watched the exchange, his visible eyebrow raised. "Well then Commodore, shall we?"
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End Notes: the shade of violet Alexander chose for the US Air Force is that of Russian violet, though it wasn't called that yet. I thought it would suit well with the dark blue of the Continental Army's uniform.