ƒεriŧαs
[wildness]
After Sherlock's impertinent announcement and subsequent departure from Seb's Emporium, Mycroft efficiently took care of the drac's nominal purchase fee and the ownership papers were transferred into his name. Owen was uncharacteristically helpful with the organisation of transport, providing Mycroft with the business card of a reputable wildlife freight service run by a doctor of veterinary medicine, Mike Stamford.
"Doc Stamford'll give him the good drugs," Owen assured the elder Holmes brother once the date and time for delivery were settled. "That mean old beast wont know what's hit him!"
Mycroft's reply had been a small twist of lip that was falsely interpreted as a smile.
Much to Sherlock's infinite annoyance, Dr. Stamford and his crew proved to be just as efficient and reliable as Owen had claimed them to be. Within fifteen minutes of their arrival at 221 Baker Street the dragon was upstairs and settled on the living room floor. He would just have to formulate a plan to lose Mycroft's dumb beast later.
On his way out, Stamford took it upon himself to leave Sherlock with a few parting pearls of wisdom. "He should be out for the rest of the day. We had to give him three times the usual weight to sedation ratio for a dragon of his size. You'd best stoke up that fireplace before his core temperature drops too far; a big drop in body heat can-"
"Severely diminish a drac's ability to expel flame," Sherlock interrupted impatiently. " I am very familiar with the latest research projects and scientific publications, Doctor Stamford. You have performed your job satisfactorily and I believe my brother has arranged payment with your company so I shall take my leave. Good day."
Stamford's docile expression slipped at Sherlock's 'satisfactory' rating of his performance, though he fortunately made no further attempt to reengage in conversation and left rather promptly - exactly the result Sherlock had aimed to provoke. Why waste time pleasing someone so dull when there was something interesting and potentially challenging unconscious in his flat?
An indecent little smirk tugged at the corners of his lips as he took the stairs three at a time and strode none-too-quietly towards his unfortunate prey, unearthing a torch (police issue, pilfered from Lestrade just a week ago) from the cluttered dining room table on the way.
The horse-sized dragon lay sprawled on its side, the gold-hued scales of its hide darkened to shades of brown by caked on grime and the creature's general ill health. Kneeling beside the drac's head, Sherlock used his right hand to deftly pry open a heavy, scaled eyelid, hefting the torch in the opposite hand. Neither the split pupiled eyes nor the lack of pupillary response surprised Sherlock - obviously Stamford had not exaggerated the excessive amount of sedative used to fell the beast. Sherlock promptly dropped the stolen torch in favour of further exploration.
The thick skin of the dragon's cheeks proved reasonably hot to touch, a sign that the drugs were yet to have an adverse affect on the dragon's homeostatic processes.
'How fortunate,' Sherlock thought, 'though if the drac were to die of an overdose it would save the effort involved in losing it later.'
Sherlock carefully palpated along the raised, knobbly brow ridges to the fleshy masseter and temporal muscles along the sides of the wide skull. Many scientific research papers likened a dragon's cranial structure to their closest living relatives - crocodiles - however in Sherlock's opinion, the similarities were rather superficial. On average the brain cavity of a common drac was at least three times that of a crocodile and the facial profile (having not evolved for an underwater habitat) much less flat.
Continuing his explorations, Sherlock felt further along until he reached a curious frill of leathery skin on either side of the creature's head. Most dragons - especially the smaller dog and cow sized breeds - lacked an external ear aperture. This dragon it seemed was a specimen of a handful of larger drac breeds with flexible flaps of skin used to protect the delicate structures of the inner ear during flight.
"Interesting," Sherlock murmured in a distracted voice before moving his inspection along the beast's spiked neck to its limp wings.
The wings were even dirtier than the dragon's body having been strapped down tight until Sherlock had cut through the leather binding just after Stamford released his levitation spell not an hour ago. Sherlock had not felt a sudden uncharacteristic sense of kindness towards the creature, he had merely sought to alleviate his raging curiosity towards the enigmatic limbs.
Now he was able to closely observe them, he estimated their length to be a fully flight-capable ten metres. Other than the obvious dog-eared state of the appendages they appeared to be in full working order apart from a large, pockmarked on the left wing joint. Perhaps this drac was earthbound after all. How dull.
After that discovery Sherlock made a perfunctory study of the creature's tail (four metres long, spiked along the top edge, ending in four crimson coloured rudder fins), claws (long, curved and serrated on the inside edge - obviously this dragon had recently been in a high-adrenaline environment for-battle ready claws such as these to grow in) and teeth (twenty-eight thick, curved fangs) but his interest was beginning to wane. He would not have settled for this drac if he had known it was grounded.
Sudden bounding footsteps on the staircase caused a slight smile to spread across Sherlock's face as he straightened up from the floor. Finally Lestrade had realised his team were out of their depth with this serial 'suicide' business. It had only taken three - no, four deaths.
"Where?" Sherlock demanded before Lestrade had even reached the landing.
The other man finished his climb before answering, "Brixton. Lauriston Gardens."
"Something has changed," Sherlock stated, reading the detective inspector's impatience in his balled fists and bedraggled appearance.
"A note. This one left a note," replied Lestrade as he spared a quick glance around the cluttered apartment. "Will you-" he began to ask before breaking off abruptly to stare at the reptilian mound behind Sherlock. "Is that a bloody drac?"
"Your deductive reasoning skills continue to astound me, Inspector," the man in question snarked, unwilling to be distracted from the case at hand. "Who is on forensics?"
Lestrade stood in stunned silence for a moment longer before heaving an exasperated sigh. It wasn't worth the pain to wrestle the dragon's backstory out of Sherlock. He would more than likely find out about it later anyway, whether he wanted to or not. Instead he simply replied, "Sergeant Donovan and Anderson of course."
"Of course!" Sherlock snapped angrily because, as if merely speaking their names summoned them, the two police officers had appeared on the staircase behind their superior. "Anderson wont work with me. You know that Lestrade."
"Who can blame him?" Sally interjected. "Not after you almost burned off his wings on that drac smuggling case!"
Anderson flared out said wings in a show of animosity towards his tormenter, an act which would have been much more impressive if not for the fact he was the size of an average beagle with wings to match.
Sherlock scoffed haughtily. "You speak as if that would be a dramatic loss, Sally. May I remind you the fool can't even use them properly."
Just as Lestrade was about to step in and cool the situation down, Anderson let out an almighty screech and launched himself at Sherlock's knees, his razor sharp teeth snapping at fabric and flesh. In the following melee Anderson managed to utterly destroy Sherlock's tailored trousers, gouging deep cuts into his calves and thighs with knife-like talons as he climbed higher. Lestrade made a grab for the enraged creature only to be rewarded with a nasty bite on his palm while Sally watched with equal parts mirth and worry.
Anderson was just starting to rip into Sherlock's white dress shirt and black suit jacket when a sudden rumbling noise like a distant thunderclap froze all movement in the room. That is until a large, gold scaled head appeared at Sherlock's shoulder, drug-addled hazel eyes fixed intently on the little white dragon with blood stained claws. A cloud of thick black smoke began to gather around the larger drac's nostrils, the air in the room growing heavy with the scent of gunpowder.
Sally swallowed convulsively as the gold dragon's maw opened wide to show a violent red glow gathering in the back of the creature's throat that was steadily turning orange then yellow and finally a deep electric blue.
"Shit," Lestrade swore, his hands in the air in defensive surrender. "It's a war dragon!"
Author's Note:
Hopefully there aren't too many mistakes in that, I wrote 3/4 of it today and thought I've left you guys hanging long enough - damn writer's block! - so I've put it up as is :) The first bit was very hard to get the tenses right in and just did not want to be written (so I got the notepaper and pen out and did it the hard way!)
Thank you so much to everyone that's commented/faved/subscribed, it does really mean a lot to me.
Sorry for all the worldbuilding in this chapter but it will be important later on ;)