OK! A/N this is the first part of the big dragon scene!!! YAY! Ummm, we're
trying to shift back and forth between Nancy and Jenni, let me know if it's
too confusing. I hope everyone likes! Happy reading and post up what you
think!
*******************************************************************
Jenni was unable to move. Fear, horror, and grief all struck her at once rooting her feet to the ground. She stared at the large beast that lay in the exact same place that Nancy had only been standing in moments before. Jenni gasped and finally gained control of her senses. Unaware of the dangerous threat the dragon still posed, she headed towards the place she had last seen her friend.
"Where are you going?" Jenni was whirled around as hands grabbed her and pulled her back. She spun around to face Bill.
"My friend is out there. I'm going to see if she's okay."
Bill ran a hand through his long hair, utterly perplexed at the girl's obvious insanity.
"Have you gone mad? That dragon is still breathing. It could lash out at any minute and swallow you in one bite."
Any normal person would have been utterly terrified at the angry expression on Bill's face that caused his blue eyes to go from clear to icy within seconds. Jenni however only retaliated with an equal amount of anger.
"I'm not about to stay here and do nothing. I'm going to make sure Nancy is all right."
Bill snorted, "And just what are you going to do? Are you going to waltz right up and say 'excuse me Mr. Dragon, but did you happen to eat my friend?'"
"Aaaaaaargh!" Jenni screamed in frustration. "You have got to be the most annoying, pig-headed, stubborn..."
"Look, you can call me names all you like, but you're not going out there." Bill grabbed Jenni's arm to pull her away from the dragon beginning to stir.
"You have no right to tell me what to do!" Jenni tried to jerk her arm away but to no avail.
"You know what? You're right. I can't tell you what to do, but I can bloody well make you stay." Bill's grip tightened on her arm causing Jenni to wince. However, his tightened grip only increased her anger more. Without stopping to think of the consequences of her actions, Jenni pulled out her wand with her free hand.
"If you don't let go of me right now, I swear, I'll hex you into next week."
Bill sighed. Why was she being so damn complicated? Bill had no time to contemplate the reasoning behind the girl's way of thinking for at that moment, the dragon began to thrash around, the tail whipping madly about. Jenni's only particular thought at that moment was of her friend. Things weren't looking very good as the dragon's tail caused a tremendous amount of damage.
******************************************************************
Nancy felt the crash and the immediate spray of dirt and rock that shot out from the dragon's landing. It was so close, she could swear that if she reached out her arm, she would be able to touch it. Not that she did. Nope, her head was carefully tucked away under her arms and between her knees, old reflexes trained into her during life in Tornado Alley as a kid. The rock bits hit her hard and she pulled in tighter, just hoping it all stopped soon.
"MI?CA-TE! MI?CA-TE!"
A man's voice cut through her panic, and she nearly raised her head, before another flying rock caught her in the arm. Damn, I wish I'd bothered to look up some Romanian now, she thought ironically.
"Bloody hell. DON'T YOU SPEAK ROMANIAN? MOVE!!! MI?CA-TE!!!!" The man's voice, though harsh with shouting slipped into a recognizable British accented English. THAT got Nancy's attention. Uncurling, finally, she was just in time to jump out of the way of a rather large chunk of falling cobblestone. The dragon, down but not defeated, was flailing every which way and kicking up all sorts of dangerous debris.
"Finally!" The man's voice penetrated her frightened brain once again, before going off in what sounded like a tirade in Romanian. She looked up, searching for its source with growing irritation.
"If you BLOODY well want to HELP me, the first thing you'd better do is to stick to blasted ENGLISH!" Nancy shouted to the sky, although it was almost totally hidden behind a cloud of dust. There was no reply. Scowling at the unhelpful voice from above, Nancy decided she'd better try moving out of this area. She headed to her right, slowly and carefully, keeping an eye out for flying stone, and wishing she could clean her glasses off.
Still no answer from her British voice-o-god. Nancy was starting to move more quickly when the dragon thrashed, rolling towards her, and running into a large lamppost, which accordingly started tilting in a rather scary manner. The groaning metal would only last so long with a dragon lying on top of it, she realized with a start. Preparing to run past it, she stopped short when she saw those two black eyes, red in the center, staring at her from further up the sidewalk.
The moderately tall, solidly built man who was at that moment directing a team of 15 dragon handlers was pulled out of his concentration when he heard a female voice responding IN ENGLISH to his Romanian orders to the group to hurry and get this one under control. The Hungarian Horntail was particularly cranky, since they'd had to take her eggs away from her for health reasons, and she wasn't responding correctly to their carefully placed hexes. He was turning his broom to go and scan for the small female he'd seen crouching just feet away when the dragon first hit, when one of his crew shouted a warning.
"BLOODY HELL!" He steered his broom into a fast dive, racing just inches ahead of the lethal tail that was whipping about angrily. As he penetrated the rising cloud of dust that the ornery dragon had set into motion with her thrashing, a small figure caught his eye. The girl! And she was walking right towards the oncoming tail!
"Ok. Running TOWARDS the dragon's mouth is NOT such a good plan, Nancy. . ." she started to back up slowly. "HEY! MISTER VOICE FROM THE HEAVENS! A LITTLE HELP WOULD BE USEFUL HERE!" Nancy yelled loudly as she hurriedly walked backwards in the other direction. Maybe she could get around the creature from the back end.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the young man's mouth quirked appreciatively as he sped towards her. 'Mister voice from the heavens?' Not only was she British, but she was plucky to boot. Tensing himself for the extra weight and the balance shift of the broom, he reached his arm out as he came flying up behind her. "Steady on!"
Nancy nearly jumped out of her skin, and she whirled around, her dust glazed glasses allowing her to see not only the blur of red hair and broomstick, but the large swishing weapon of a tail that was headed straight for them. Stunned, for a moment the only thing her brain would do was to try to count the excessive number of spikes that were coming straight towards her head. She had just managed to think the words "move" and "now" when the man reached her, and wrapping his iron band of an arm around her waist, lifted her off the ground.
All of the air rushed out of her lungs with the impact, and she clung to his very muscular arm for dear life, not even letting go to grab for her glasses as they spiraled off to the ground. Great, I get to be rescued and now it's going to be all blurry, Nancy thought on a sigh. Squinting up at her rescuer, she yelled, "Where we going?"
He didn't even look down, his entire body was focused on making the broom go as high as it could as fast as it could with a double load. "UP."
******************************************************************
"Nancy, please be okay." Jenni whispered brokenly, forgetting Bill's presence for a moment. As he heard her plea for her friend's well being, his grip on her arm relaxed.
"I'm sure she got out of the way in time." Bill's voice had softened considerably and there was no condescension evident in it. This did nothing to relieve Jenni of her anger. As she turned to face Bill head on, the anger in her face was outlined by worry. That worry was reflected in her eyes as she fought to keep tears from falling.
"Don't you dare try to tell me that everything is fine." Her voice was rather shaky. "I don't need you feeling sorry for me."
"Feel sorry for you?" Bill gaped. He had been trying to be nice. Now here she was going on about him feeling sorry for her. "You think I feel sorry for you? I was trying to tell you that I'm sure your friend is okay. In case you haven't noticed, there are several dragon handlers involved. Someone was bound to see her and get her out safely."
"Of course I noticed." Jenni was absolutely furious now. "Just because I don't know enough Romanian to be able to tell if the paper is upside down does not mean I'm not observant."
"Yes well, observant or not, you are not going any further. That dragon is rather hacked off about something and I'll not have you going head to head with that Hungarian Horntail to save your friend." Bill repositioned his hand around Jenni's arm, intent on dragging her back to the wall that he had slammed her against earlier.
Jenni struggled against his grip. "Let go of me."
"Or what? You'll hex me into next week was it? I'll have you know," Bill whipped out his wand with his free hand, "I know my fair share of hexes as well."
Jenni stared. She had naturally assumed he was a muggle. However, she was not going to argue with him as he led her at wand point back to safety away from harm. The presence of the wand however did not stop her from glaring at Bill.
Bill turned away, aware of Jenni's eyes on him. He grinned slightly, she had a temper very much like his youngest sibling. He surveyed the surroundings and the various dragon handlers trying to control the situation. He noticed a familiar red head zip past on a broom and waved, shrugging when he didn't get a response.
"Who were you waving at?" Jenni eyed Bill suspiciously. She really didn't like him. Especially when he looked at her like he was doing now. Looking as if he could see exactly what it was she was thinking.
"My brother Charlie. He works here, with dragons." Bill turned to see a different expression on her face. A look of, what was it, recognition maybe?
"Charlie Weasley? Your brother is Charlie Weasley?" For the first time that day Jenni smiled. Bill noticed her eyes light up when she smiled.
"Yeah, you know him?" He turned to face her with an amused expression on his face.
"I went to Hogwarts with Charlie. He won the house cup for Gryffindor when I was a fourth year. Fabulous Quidditch player."
*******************************************************************
"Up, he says! Even I, with absolutely no ability to see my hand in front of my FACE could have told me that." Nancy tried to make the ground come into focus so she could gauge how high they were now. It seemed perfectly safe at this point, she was sure they were over the roof line and how could the dragon possibly be a threat from all the way down there?
Forgetting that she was in a rather precarious position, hanging in midair with only his strong arm keeping her from plummeting right back down to earth, Nancy twisted, trying to get a look at his face. But, with the blurriness of it and the shadow that came from the sun being behind him, all she could see was red hair. The broom slowed abruptly, and his other arm shot down to hold her still. "Don't move just yet, kid," he said shortly. Acutely aware of his tight grip on her, Nancy scowled up at him when she heard him tag that on. "Kid? I beg your pardon, but I happen to be a woman with a career and. . ."
She saw him turn his head and mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, "Bloody Snape's Balls!" Twisting her own head in an effort to see what was going on, all she could make out was a fast moving dark blur. Her savior, however, had perfectly good eyesight, and had quickly readjusted her, resting her chin on his thigh and tightening his grip even more. Nancy wondered for a moment, as they took off at a high speed, whether he was deliberately trying to keep her from speaking. In the next moment, however, she heard a loud WHOOSH and felt a tug and a stinging in the vicinity of her left leg.
Shaking it to free herself from whatever she'd caught onto, Nancy heard her robe tear before the extra weight fell away. Since she was now turned towards her British dragon man, she was able to put a hand on his leg to get his attention. She felt his muscles tense underneath her hand and pulled it back, suddenly nervous, to cling to his rock-hard arm.
"What?"
"Gee, friendly, aren't we?"
"I'm rather busy, in case you haven't noticed. And I'm supposed to be HELPING those people down there, not escorting you around." His rather dismissive remark was softened by the charming grin that spread across his face when he looked down at her. Such big brown eyes, he thought to himself, and so very expressive. Right now they were looking distinctly uncomfortable despite busily shooting daggers at him.
Nancy was caught suddenly by the bluest gaze she'd ever seen. His eyes weren't black or brown, as she'd earlier thought, they were a deep dark blue, almost unreadable. In an attempt not to fall into their mesmerizing depths, she swept her gaze over the rest of his face, feeling his smile tug at something deep within her as her befuddled mind tried to make sense of his words and respond in kind.
"The dragon people?" Great. That was bloody brilliant, Nancy, show off that Hogwarts education. Flushing with embarrassment, she turned away so she couldn't see him mock her. Glancing down below her (who was it that said you should never look down?) Nancy gasped when she was unable to distinguish dragon from road from building. They must be awfully high.
"Are we flying to the moon, then?" she asked a bit nervously.
Charlie looked at her sharply; that was the first hint of uncertainty he'd heard in her voice thus far. Peering down himself, he saw that they were just level with the village clock tower.
"Not hardly, I'm just trying to get us above that clock over there. See?" He pointed to the distant spire. Nancy squinted. She saw absolutely nothing. Seeing that he was waiting for a response, she muttered sarcastically, "Yeah, sure, if I half close the left eye, and completely close the right one, I see a little smudge in that direction. But it could just be an eyelash."
Those gorgeous blue eyes stared at her blankly. "You can't see. . ."
"Nope. I'm absolutely useless without my nice big glasses. EVERYthing goes blurry. See the ground? I can't. That thing that I snagged on a minute ago? No clue what it was. And your fabled clock tower? In my eyes it is part of the vast blue I call affectionately, the SKY." Nancy was always nervous without her glasses, as her vision really was awful. She could hear herself rambling on about all the things that she wasn't seeing right now, and winced, betting Ol' Blue Eyes didn't appreciate the chatter.
*******************************************************************
Jenni was unable to move. Fear, horror, and grief all struck her at once rooting her feet to the ground. She stared at the large beast that lay in the exact same place that Nancy had only been standing in moments before. Jenni gasped and finally gained control of her senses. Unaware of the dangerous threat the dragon still posed, she headed towards the place she had last seen her friend.
"Where are you going?" Jenni was whirled around as hands grabbed her and pulled her back. She spun around to face Bill.
"My friend is out there. I'm going to see if she's okay."
Bill ran a hand through his long hair, utterly perplexed at the girl's obvious insanity.
"Have you gone mad? That dragon is still breathing. It could lash out at any minute and swallow you in one bite."
Any normal person would have been utterly terrified at the angry expression on Bill's face that caused his blue eyes to go from clear to icy within seconds. Jenni however only retaliated with an equal amount of anger.
"I'm not about to stay here and do nothing. I'm going to make sure Nancy is all right."
Bill snorted, "And just what are you going to do? Are you going to waltz right up and say 'excuse me Mr. Dragon, but did you happen to eat my friend?'"
"Aaaaaaargh!" Jenni screamed in frustration. "You have got to be the most annoying, pig-headed, stubborn..."
"Look, you can call me names all you like, but you're not going out there." Bill grabbed Jenni's arm to pull her away from the dragon beginning to stir.
"You have no right to tell me what to do!" Jenni tried to jerk her arm away but to no avail.
"You know what? You're right. I can't tell you what to do, but I can bloody well make you stay." Bill's grip tightened on her arm causing Jenni to wince. However, his tightened grip only increased her anger more. Without stopping to think of the consequences of her actions, Jenni pulled out her wand with her free hand.
"If you don't let go of me right now, I swear, I'll hex you into next week."
Bill sighed. Why was she being so damn complicated? Bill had no time to contemplate the reasoning behind the girl's way of thinking for at that moment, the dragon began to thrash around, the tail whipping madly about. Jenni's only particular thought at that moment was of her friend. Things weren't looking very good as the dragon's tail caused a tremendous amount of damage.
******************************************************************
Nancy felt the crash and the immediate spray of dirt and rock that shot out from the dragon's landing. It was so close, she could swear that if she reached out her arm, she would be able to touch it. Not that she did. Nope, her head was carefully tucked away under her arms and between her knees, old reflexes trained into her during life in Tornado Alley as a kid. The rock bits hit her hard and she pulled in tighter, just hoping it all stopped soon.
"MI?CA-TE! MI?CA-TE!"
A man's voice cut through her panic, and she nearly raised her head, before another flying rock caught her in the arm. Damn, I wish I'd bothered to look up some Romanian now, she thought ironically.
"Bloody hell. DON'T YOU SPEAK ROMANIAN? MOVE!!! MI?CA-TE!!!!" The man's voice, though harsh with shouting slipped into a recognizable British accented English. THAT got Nancy's attention. Uncurling, finally, she was just in time to jump out of the way of a rather large chunk of falling cobblestone. The dragon, down but not defeated, was flailing every which way and kicking up all sorts of dangerous debris.
"Finally!" The man's voice penetrated her frightened brain once again, before going off in what sounded like a tirade in Romanian. She looked up, searching for its source with growing irritation.
"If you BLOODY well want to HELP me, the first thing you'd better do is to stick to blasted ENGLISH!" Nancy shouted to the sky, although it was almost totally hidden behind a cloud of dust. There was no reply. Scowling at the unhelpful voice from above, Nancy decided she'd better try moving out of this area. She headed to her right, slowly and carefully, keeping an eye out for flying stone, and wishing she could clean her glasses off.
Still no answer from her British voice-o-god. Nancy was starting to move more quickly when the dragon thrashed, rolling towards her, and running into a large lamppost, which accordingly started tilting in a rather scary manner. The groaning metal would only last so long with a dragon lying on top of it, she realized with a start. Preparing to run past it, she stopped short when she saw those two black eyes, red in the center, staring at her from further up the sidewalk.
The moderately tall, solidly built man who was at that moment directing a team of 15 dragon handlers was pulled out of his concentration when he heard a female voice responding IN ENGLISH to his Romanian orders to the group to hurry and get this one under control. The Hungarian Horntail was particularly cranky, since they'd had to take her eggs away from her for health reasons, and she wasn't responding correctly to their carefully placed hexes. He was turning his broom to go and scan for the small female he'd seen crouching just feet away when the dragon first hit, when one of his crew shouted a warning.
"BLOODY HELL!" He steered his broom into a fast dive, racing just inches ahead of the lethal tail that was whipping about angrily. As he penetrated the rising cloud of dust that the ornery dragon had set into motion with her thrashing, a small figure caught his eye. The girl! And she was walking right towards the oncoming tail!
"Ok. Running TOWARDS the dragon's mouth is NOT such a good plan, Nancy. . ." she started to back up slowly. "HEY! MISTER VOICE FROM THE HEAVENS! A LITTLE HELP WOULD BE USEFUL HERE!" Nancy yelled loudly as she hurriedly walked backwards in the other direction. Maybe she could get around the creature from the back end.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the young man's mouth quirked appreciatively as he sped towards her. 'Mister voice from the heavens?' Not only was she British, but she was plucky to boot. Tensing himself for the extra weight and the balance shift of the broom, he reached his arm out as he came flying up behind her. "Steady on!"
Nancy nearly jumped out of her skin, and she whirled around, her dust glazed glasses allowing her to see not only the blur of red hair and broomstick, but the large swishing weapon of a tail that was headed straight for them. Stunned, for a moment the only thing her brain would do was to try to count the excessive number of spikes that were coming straight towards her head. She had just managed to think the words "move" and "now" when the man reached her, and wrapping his iron band of an arm around her waist, lifted her off the ground.
All of the air rushed out of her lungs with the impact, and she clung to his very muscular arm for dear life, not even letting go to grab for her glasses as they spiraled off to the ground. Great, I get to be rescued and now it's going to be all blurry, Nancy thought on a sigh. Squinting up at her rescuer, she yelled, "Where we going?"
He didn't even look down, his entire body was focused on making the broom go as high as it could as fast as it could with a double load. "UP."
******************************************************************
"Nancy, please be okay." Jenni whispered brokenly, forgetting Bill's presence for a moment. As he heard her plea for her friend's well being, his grip on her arm relaxed.
"I'm sure she got out of the way in time." Bill's voice had softened considerably and there was no condescension evident in it. This did nothing to relieve Jenni of her anger. As she turned to face Bill head on, the anger in her face was outlined by worry. That worry was reflected in her eyes as she fought to keep tears from falling.
"Don't you dare try to tell me that everything is fine." Her voice was rather shaky. "I don't need you feeling sorry for me."
"Feel sorry for you?" Bill gaped. He had been trying to be nice. Now here she was going on about him feeling sorry for her. "You think I feel sorry for you? I was trying to tell you that I'm sure your friend is okay. In case you haven't noticed, there are several dragon handlers involved. Someone was bound to see her and get her out safely."
"Of course I noticed." Jenni was absolutely furious now. "Just because I don't know enough Romanian to be able to tell if the paper is upside down does not mean I'm not observant."
"Yes well, observant or not, you are not going any further. That dragon is rather hacked off about something and I'll not have you going head to head with that Hungarian Horntail to save your friend." Bill repositioned his hand around Jenni's arm, intent on dragging her back to the wall that he had slammed her against earlier.
Jenni struggled against his grip. "Let go of me."
"Or what? You'll hex me into next week was it? I'll have you know," Bill whipped out his wand with his free hand, "I know my fair share of hexes as well."
Jenni stared. She had naturally assumed he was a muggle. However, she was not going to argue with him as he led her at wand point back to safety away from harm. The presence of the wand however did not stop her from glaring at Bill.
Bill turned away, aware of Jenni's eyes on him. He grinned slightly, she had a temper very much like his youngest sibling. He surveyed the surroundings and the various dragon handlers trying to control the situation. He noticed a familiar red head zip past on a broom and waved, shrugging when he didn't get a response.
"Who were you waving at?" Jenni eyed Bill suspiciously. She really didn't like him. Especially when he looked at her like he was doing now. Looking as if he could see exactly what it was she was thinking.
"My brother Charlie. He works here, with dragons." Bill turned to see a different expression on her face. A look of, what was it, recognition maybe?
"Charlie Weasley? Your brother is Charlie Weasley?" For the first time that day Jenni smiled. Bill noticed her eyes light up when she smiled.
"Yeah, you know him?" He turned to face her with an amused expression on his face.
"I went to Hogwarts with Charlie. He won the house cup for Gryffindor when I was a fourth year. Fabulous Quidditch player."
*******************************************************************
"Up, he says! Even I, with absolutely no ability to see my hand in front of my FACE could have told me that." Nancy tried to make the ground come into focus so she could gauge how high they were now. It seemed perfectly safe at this point, she was sure they were over the roof line and how could the dragon possibly be a threat from all the way down there?
Forgetting that she was in a rather precarious position, hanging in midair with only his strong arm keeping her from plummeting right back down to earth, Nancy twisted, trying to get a look at his face. But, with the blurriness of it and the shadow that came from the sun being behind him, all she could see was red hair. The broom slowed abruptly, and his other arm shot down to hold her still. "Don't move just yet, kid," he said shortly. Acutely aware of his tight grip on her, Nancy scowled up at him when she heard him tag that on. "Kid? I beg your pardon, but I happen to be a woman with a career and. . ."
She saw him turn his head and mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, "Bloody Snape's Balls!" Twisting her own head in an effort to see what was going on, all she could make out was a fast moving dark blur. Her savior, however, had perfectly good eyesight, and had quickly readjusted her, resting her chin on his thigh and tightening his grip even more. Nancy wondered for a moment, as they took off at a high speed, whether he was deliberately trying to keep her from speaking. In the next moment, however, she heard a loud WHOOSH and felt a tug and a stinging in the vicinity of her left leg.
Shaking it to free herself from whatever she'd caught onto, Nancy heard her robe tear before the extra weight fell away. Since she was now turned towards her British dragon man, she was able to put a hand on his leg to get his attention. She felt his muscles tense underneath her hand and pulled it back, suddenly nervous, to cling to his rock-hard arm.
"What?"
"Gee, friendly, aren't we?"
"I'm rather busy, in case you haven't noticed. And I'm supposed to be HELPING those people down there, not escorting you around." His rather dismissive remark was softened by the charming grin that spread across his face when he looked down at her. Such big brown eyes, he thought to himself, and so very expressive. Right now they were looking distinctly uncomfortable despite busily shooting daggers at him.
Nancy was caught suddenly by the bluest gaze she'd ever seen. His eyes weren't black or brown, as she'd earlier thought, they were a deep dark blue, almost unreadable. In an attempt not to fall into their mesmerizing depths, she swept her gaze over the rest of his face, feeling his smile tug at something deep within her as her befuddled mind tried to make sense of his words and respond in kind.
"The dragon people?" Great. That was bloody brilliant, Nancy, show off that Hogwarts education. Flushing with embarrassment, she turned away so she couldn't see him mock her. Glancing down below her (who was it that said you should never look down?) Nancy gasped when she was unable to distinguish dragon from road from building. They must be awfully high.
"Are we flying to the moon, then?" she asked a bit nervously.
Charlie looked at her sharply; that was the first hint of uncertainty he'd heard in her voice thus far. Peering down himself, he saw that they were just level with the village clock tower.
"Not hardly, I'm just trying to get us above that clock over there. See?" He pointed to the distant spire. Nancy squinted. She saw absolutely nothing. Seeing that he was waiting for a response, she muttered sarcastically, "Yeah, sure, if I half close the left eye, and completely close the right one, I see a little smudge in that direction. But it could just be an eyelash."
Those gorgeous blue eyes stared at her blankly. "You can't see. . ."
"Nope. I'm absolutely useless without my nice big glasses. EVERYthing goes blurry. See the ground? I can't. That thing that I snagged on a minute ago? No clue what it was. And your fabled clock tower? In my eyes it is part of the vast blue I call affectionately, the SKY." Nancy was always nervous without her glasses, as her vision really was awful. She could hear herself rambling on about all the things that she wasn't seeing right now, and winced, betting Ol' Blue Eyes didn't appreciate the chatter.