"Okay, let's try this again. I am a human being."
The small white dragon, who rode on Jaune's shoulders as he made his way through the forest of Lonelywood, nodded her scaly little head. "Agreed."
"And as a human being, having some other entity try to claim me as their 'treasure' is a violation of my inherent dignity."
"Objection, on the basis that it's laughable to suggest that you have any dignity at all, let alone inherent dignity."
"Rude."
"Accurate."
Jaune sighed as he carefully stepped over a fallen log. "Look, it's nothing against you, personally, but I don't want to be considered property, by anyone."
"Why not?"
"Well, property doesn't get a say in what happens to it, does it? It gets sold, or traded, or used up, and it can't do anything about it. You wouldn't like it if someone treated you like that, would you?"
"Of course not!" Weiss huffed in indignation. "I'm a dragon!"
"Well, I'm a human, and I don't want to be treated like that either."
"Why not? I take good care of my treasure!"
Jaune rolled his eyes. "You didn't know that humans need to bathe frequently!'
"I can learn!"
"Yuh-huh. Point is, I'm not property, let alone your property."
"Don't you understand the honor and prestige of being part of a dragon's treasure hoard?"
Jaune snorted. "What, being the slave of a pushy little newt creature? No thanks."
"Hey!"
The argument was shelved when Jaune emerged from the forest, leaving the foliage and entering the cleared terrain that had delineated the village of Lonelywood.
"These were houses," Jaune explained, for Weiss's benefit. "Dwellings that humans build for us to live in. A lot of people died here, whole families. Men, women…our young." He sighed.
"Oh," murmured Weiss, drooping her neck sadly.
"Can you…smell anything?" asked Jaune. "Anything unusual in the air?"
The small dragoness sat up, raising her head into the air and flicking out her blue forked tongue. "Um…Brimstone?" she said, her tone hesitant. "There's something else here, but I don't know what it is."
"Well, what does it smell like?"
Weiss tasted the air again. "It's hard to taste under all the brimstone, but the scent is…sharp? It bites a bit. I don't like it. Can we leave this place?"
"Sure." Jaune set off. "If we encounter that smell again, will you be able to remember it?"
"Of course!" said Weiss.
"Well, that's something. Thanks, Weiss. So, my family lives on the far side of the great lake from here. We should be able to get to my family's house by lunchtime."
"Yay, food!"
As he trudged through the snow, Jaune reached up to pat the dragon that had taken up residence on his shoulder. "You're hungry again already? You ate an entire squirrel this morning!"
"Is there more beef?"
The human youth chuckled. "Yes, I can share some of my mom's cooking with you. But you are going to have to keep up some of your own hunting, if only to keep you from eating my folks out of house and home. You're a bottomless stomach on wings!"
Weiss thumped him on the back with her tail. "Rude!"
"Accurate."
The dragonness huffed in impotent outrage. Jaune grinned at her indignant grumbling, the pair leaving the scorched remnant of Lonelywood behind.
[/]
Gil Arc was, all things considered, a practical man. He had been a forester for many years, and had made a good living as a guide for the trade caravans that took metal ingots from Mantle's mines and foundries, as well as lumber from Lonelywood, and brought finished trade goods from the port town of Norport, which lay, ironically, to the south of Mantle.
He'd married a fine woman, and built up a house with a lot of space for expansion. The Arc homestead was spacious, with a well, chicken coop, a covered barn for livestock, a sauna, a shed for smoking meat, and a small garden for hardy tundra herbs and vegetables. The house itself was sturdy, strong, and well-insulated against the cold winter weather.
Each expansion had been carefully planned ahead of time, to make the best use of the available space and ensure that it would be paid for without dipping into the family's emergency funds.
Yes, Gil Arc was an eminently-practical and sensible man. Which was why he primarily blamed his wife, Isabelle, for their only son's complete lack of anything resembling sense. For the last decade, the attempted lake-diving debacle was the high point of his boy's harebrained stunts, though not for a lack of trying. With the fire across the lake, and Jaune's bold volunteering to investigate, Gil was well aware that these events had the potential to land him into real trouble.
If Jaune didn't return by tomorrow morning, Gil would round up what men he could and go after him.
The old forester was spared the trouble when he looked up from the stump where he'd just split a log for firewood. Sure enough, his boy was waving as he strode, bold as the night was long, with an honest-to-gods dragon draped across his shoulders.
Gil facepalmed.
[/]
It didn't take long for the Arc daughters, all seven of them, to hear the news that their brother had returned, and they practically materialized in the large living room. A fireplace kept the place warm and lit, and their father had sat each young woman and girl down in the various chairs and divans along the walls, to keep them from crowding Jaune and his unusual…guest.
Of course, Gil Arc could do nothing in regards to his wife, who had immediately gone to her "baby boy." She'd begun fussing over him, as she always did, rubbing his face with a napkin to clear up smudges that only she, in her infinite maternal wisdom, could discern. So caught up was Isabelle Arc that she hadn't even noticed the literal dragon perched on their son's shoulders until the creature had piped up to ask what she was doing.
Hadn't that been the shock of their lives! Not only had their son brought home a living, breathing dragon, but the creature was as capable of speech as any human, and opinionated to boot. That revelation had brought the clamor in the Arc household to all-new levels of loud, with almost a dozen people all trying to speak at once, so Gil, being Gil, had brought some semblance of order to the chaos by dint of going to the kitchen to retrieve a pair of cast-iron skillets, and then banging them together as loud as he could.
"Now," said the Arc family patriarch, once the commotion had died down. "Girls, you sit. Hold your questions until Jaune has had a chance to speak. Isabelle, for gods' sakes, give the boy some room. Jaune, you stand there with your guest, and tell us what happened."
With that, Jaune stood in the center of the room, and began to tell the story of his scouting expedition. He'd confirmed the total destruction of the village of Lonelywood, and reported on both the apparent arson and the utter lack of anything like tracks.
Then he'd explained his choice to search for dragons in the mountain valley east of the Lonelywood, which had Gil sighing in exasperation at his foolish, incorrigible son and shaking his head in disbelief that the boy's fool's luck had somehow led him to not only find the beasts of legend, but to find dragons that, somehow, weren't all that interested in slaughtering and eating humans.
"And that, of course, is where I met my new friend here," said Jaune. "Of course, what with Weiss being a dragon, and me being an adventurer in the making, it wasn't exactly a smooth meeting. We did battle!"
"Glorious battle!" echoed the dragon.
"It was a clash of swords and scales -"
"A valiant test of might!"
"-That made the entire valley tremble at our power!"
The boy and dragon nodded in unison as they tried to sell their obviously-fake story of their brave exploits. Given the apparent youth of the creature and Jaune being, well, Jaune, Gil suspected that the truth was much more…well, it couldn't exactly be "under" whelming if one's expectations were already fairly low, could they? More like…whelming. Just plain whelming.
"Yeah, I call bullshit," declared Saphron.
"Hey!" the dragon protested, sounding exactly like one of Gil's own daughters when caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "It could have happened just like that!"
"I know my brother. No, it couldn't have."
Moving quickly on, Jaune then explained how he'd apparently earned the gratitude of the little dragon by a combination of helping her with a shedding scale and feeding her one of Isabelle's spiced meat jerkies.
"So I decided to claim him as my very own itchy-remover," declared the little dragon. "My first treasure."
Jaune, for his part, just sighed. "Yeah, she's acting like l'm some kind of treasure for her dragon hoard. I keep trying to explain to her that people aren't treasure, but so far, it hasn't sunken in yet."
Weiss merely stretched her long neck up to rest her chin on top of Jaune's head. "Mine."
After a moment of silence, during which the Arc family digested the news of Jaune's situation, three of the younger girls began snickering loudly. "What, what is it?" asked Jaune.
One of the three giggling sisters, a girl of thirteen, named Viridia, bit down her snickering to answer. "I think you've got some competition, Miss Dragon. That reminds me, Jaune, Ruby asked us to tell you to come see her right away when you got back. She needs to 'ultra-murder' you for running off on an adventure without her."
Jaune blanched as he realized what his best friend's reaction would be to him running off on a potentially-dangerous expedition for several days, on his own no less. "Aw crap, I'm a dead man."
"What is this Ruby, and why is it threatening my human?" Weiss demanded to know, flapping her wings in agitation.
"Ruby Rose is a girl - a human girl - that lives here in Mantle," explained Jaune. "She isn't really going to hurt me, but she is going to be upset that I went out to investigate Lonelywood without her, especially since I took a few days to look around in the valley afterwards."
"She also has first claim on Jaune," one of the giggling younger girls teased. Jaune's face went red.
"It isn't like that!"
"I thought you said that humans don't keep other humans as treasure," protested Weiss, thumping her tail on his back to punctuate her point.
"Girls, cut it out," Gil interjected. "Your brother is having a difficult time explaining how we people - er, humans - do things to someone of an entirely different race. His task is daunting enough without adding layers of meaning and inside jokes to the conversation." With his young daughters properly contrite and chastised, he turned to his son. "What has happened to our family shield? I noticed that you didn't have it with you when you returned."
At that, Jaune looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Well, ah, as it turns out -"
"You humans murdered my mother and turned some of her bones into an object," Weiss finished for him. "The Crisp Rush of Winter Winds - that's my older sister - she was mad when she smelled it. I've never seen her so furious before, not even that time when I was learning how to use frost breath and I froze her tail to the wall of our cave. Anyways, I hadn't hatched yet when you humans murdered her, so it was the first time I was able to learn her scent."
An awkward quiet fell upon the room. "Yeah," said Jaune, breaking the pregnant silence. "I, uh…it didn't feel right, trying to hold onto it after that. 'A shield made of dragon bone' is pretty awesome until you're actually holding a conversation with dragons, and trying to explain why you're holding something made out of their mother's dead body."
"Also, Winter Winds would have ripped you apart if you tried to take it from her," Weiss helpfully added."
"And Winter Winds would have ripped me apart if I tried to take it," agreed Jaune. To his father, he added, "Much larger, older frost dragon. She was about the size of an ox. Even if I'd wanted to try to take back the shield, which I didn't, picking a fight with her would've been a bad idea." He shook his head. "Anyways, Weiss and I made our way back to Lonelywood. She was able to taste a different scent, under all the brimstone, but she didn't know what it was."
"But I can recognize it if I smell it again, so my treasure-boy and I are going to continue to search for what is putting you humans in danger," Weiss declared.
Saphron snickered. "Treasure-boy," she echoed.
After that, Isabelle stood, smoothing the front of her blue woolen dress. "Well, dear, you'd best wash up. You've got some people to report to, after all."
"Yeah," agreed Jaune. "I wouldn't want to go meet Ruby smelling like a foot, after all." He turned and made for the door.
"I was referring to the mayor, you silly boy!" his mother called after him.
With the boy and his dragon departed, the Arc sisters broke out into a dozen different conversations at once. Gil put his arm around his wife's shoulder as she sighed. "That boy," she chuckled, shaking her head.
"That boy," agreed Gil.
[/]
Weiss sat perched on a stump, watching curiously as her human went about drawing water from a well, taking buckets full of water and pouring them into a large tub built into one of the small wooden dwellings. Her ice-blue eyes had widened when she saw him do his fire trick to a pit set under the tub. The humans could make hot springs on demand!
Spreading her wings, she smoothly glided up and onto her human's shoulders as he brought some kind of cloth and a block of strange-smelling animal fat.
"Hey, Weiss. I'll be back in a bit, I just need to take a bath."
"Yup," she nodded. "We're taking a bath."
"No, see, I'm taking a bath."
"That's what I said! We're taking a bath!"
"You can't come into the bath with me!" Jaune sputtered.
Weiss canted her head, puzzled. "Why not?"
"Because I'll be naked!"
"So? I'm naked all the time."
"I'm just going to ignore that, on the grounds that I want to." Jaune shook his head, picking up Weiss and placing her on the ground. "So you stay here, and I'll be back later." He turned and entered the bathing room, closing the door behind him.
He hadn't even begun unbuttoning his jacket when the scratches started at the door.
"No, Weiss."
The scratching continued.
"If you scrape up the door, my mother's gonna be mad!"
There was no reprieve from the continued scratching. "Let me in!" wailed the small dragoness. "Let me innnnnn!"
With a great sigh, Jaune opened the door. Weiss strutted in, her snout pointed haughtily in the air.
"I'm glad to see that you came to your senses, human." The small dragon hopped onto the side of the bath tub, her tail swishing back and forth as she cautiously tasted the water with her tongue. Apparently satisfied, she slipped in, and began happily swimming around the tub. Interestingly, she sat at the top of the water, like a duck, her wings folded onto her back as she kicked around.
Jaune sighed once more, looked at the door, winced, then shut it. Stripping quickly, he then lowered himself into the tub. To his great relief, the dragoness barely noticed him, having taken to floating on her back, wings outstretched, and purring happily at the warmth.
Putting Weiss out of his mind for the moment, Jaune turned his attention to just what he could say to Ruby to defuse her anger at him.
"Say, you feel like helping me out of a jam?"
[/]
The Rose family was always seen as a bit eccentric by the other residents of Mantle. Summer Rose was a pleasant enough woman, though strange things tended to happen around her, things that she could offer no explanation for. She had moved to Mantle two decades previous, an herbalist and healer with a blond infant girl that she carried on her back, and had paid for a comfortable cottage to be erected on the outskirts of town.
Now, her vocation was mundane enough, and there were plenty of circumstances that might leave a lovely young woman either widowed or else otherwise raising a child with no father in sight, most of them unfortunate enough to warrant a bit of privacy from the townsfolk. That was all normal enough, but what wasn't normal was just how quickly she managed to set up a pair of odd houses, made almost entirely of glass, of all things.
The glass houses soon became the envy of the entire town, as they learned that with them, Summer Rose was able to cultivate many species of herbs and other plants, many of which were unsuited to the cold northern climate of Mantle. However, those plants quickly proved their value in her hands. The peppers that she grew were always in high demand, especially after she treated the Arc boy when he nearly drowned in the lake. The intense spice kept blood flowing through extremities, and while Jaune was not a happy camper with the salve she applied to his fingers, toes, and his nose, it successfully prevented him from suffering frostbite.
With her herbalism skills helping the fishermen ward off frostbite in their cold, wet endeavors, Summer was quickly an accepted and valued member of the community. But three years after she'd moved to Mante, she had become pregnant with her second daughter, Ruby, and once again, no one knew who the father was. This unfortunately left Summer with a bit of a reputation, and every once in a while, some miner or fisherman would come to her cottage, seeking a bit of "hands-on" treatment.
Those would-be clients left disappointed, or, if they tried to press the issue, disappointed and in agony from concentrated pepper juice sprayed into their eyes, but the rumors persisted regardless.
The oldest daughter, Autumn Rose, was a renowned beauty, with long, shimmering golden hair and striking violet eyes. She had recently begun working as a barmaid in the local tavern, driving up the sales with her fun, flirtatious demeanor and occasionally challenging men twice her size to drinking contests, with the giddy tavern keeper pocketing the coin. There had been a bit of trouble when she'd slugged old Shithead Tom in the jaw, knocking out three of his teeth, but Autumn had had an entire tavern's worth of people willing to testify that the man, who was old enough to be her grandfather, had grabbed her bosom, in full view of everyone. Between the overwhelming testimony and the fact that, of the three men named Tom in town, only one had earned the epithet of "Shithead," Autumn had easily won the suit, and hadn't had to pay the old lecher a single copper.
Then there was the younger daughter, Ruby Rose.
Ruby had always been a strange, shy girl, with her head full of strange notions and ideas. She had always had a deep affinity for metalworking, and fortunately for her, Mantle was a hub for such crafts, as there was always more ore from the mines to refine. From an early age, Ruby had learned the proper proportion of coal to iron to make steel, or the proper techniques for casting bronze. She had dark hair that lightened to red, but she kept it cut short to keep it out of the way. Her unusual mannerisms, combined with her odd looks and mysterious mother, did not endear her to other children her age, and as she grew older and took to the smith's craft in truth, that gulf had only widened.
But she'd always had Jaune. Two dreamers, always with their eyes on the horizon, the pair of them had been inseparable from a young age. So what if the boys in town called her mannish and ugly, and the girls called her creepy-looking and weird? She had her mother, and her sister, and her trusty partner in crime, and her craft.
Of course, there had been the general expectation that, should one of them receive a genuine, real-life call to adventure, that one would have brought the other along, but what did she know?
Ruby brought her trusty hammer down on the heated chunk of iron ore on the anvil. Nothing like beating the slag out of a hunk of metal to vent her frustrations.
The door to the workshop opened, a small bell tinkling to announce the arrival of someone into her shop. "I'll be there in a minute!" called Ruby, over the metallic clanging of hammer and anvil.
Jaune watched as Ruby worked on some iron ore that must have come in from the mines. She must have been at it all morning, from the slight residue of soot on her apron and upper arms. With one hand on the tongs holding the ore still, her other arm raised up and down, the impact of her hammer on the ore ringing through the air.
He swallowed as he saw a bead of sweat run down her arm, glistening along her strong, defined bicep. Ruby wasn't large, but her work at the forge gifted her with an athletic build, her cut muscles faceted like a jewel. Jaune and Ruby had been inseparable for their entire lives, but a few years prior, they had begun to develop…differently, from one another, especially after that incident where Ruby had plopped herself onto his lap, like she always had, and they'd both been made abruptly aware of the changes they were going through. Ruby had shrieked and jumped a foot in the air, and Jaune had done his level best to burrow into the ground and die of pure embarrassment.
That night, Jaune's father had sat him down, pressed a mug of ale - real ale! - into his hand, and had explained a few things about being a man to him. After that day, the interactions between Ruby and Jaune, which had previously been entirely innocent, had taken on a new, charged energy. It wasn't bad, necessarily, but it was exciting, and a little scary, and the two of them had been circling around each other, neither one willing to take the leap, but neither wanting to step away entirely.
This, of course, had been a great source of amusement for the families involved.
Of course, Jaune had also been subject to a great deal of ribbing from the other boys in the village, partially due to his apparent crush, but also since it was on Ruby Rose, of all people. Jaune didn't care what any of them thought about Ruby.
"Jaune! You're home!"
When seeing her broad, bright smile, and feeling her throw herself into his arms, Jaune couldn't think of a more beautiful sight. So, she wore her hair short, underneath a kerchief while she worked. That was just her way. So, she wore leggings and a sleeveless vest at the forge, like a boy. Not only was Jaune okay with that, but as Ruby had grown and developed into a young woman, he had become very okay with it. Her hands were rough and calloused, and she was sweaty and sooty, but that was just how Ruby was.
She pressed her head into his chest, squeezing him tightly to her. Jaune savored the unique contrast of her tightly-gathered muscles and feminine softness that he always associated with her.
Of course, after a moment, she then stepped back, looked him over for any obvious injuries or signs of distress, and then, when she found none, she punched him in the arm.
"How could you just up and leave without me?!" she yelled at him.
"Owwww…." Jaune whined as he rubbed his arm.
Ruby poked him in the chest. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
Jaune smiled broadly. "Can you make me a shield? A dragon took mine."
Her large silver eyes blinked, her momentum completely stalled in the face of his bullshit and his stupid, boyish grin. "A…wha?"
"Hello, human female!"
Ruby looked to the shop counter, where a small, white dragon sat, looking curiously at them. "Are you two going to mate?"
[/]
"I don't see what you're so upset about," said Weiss, as she followed along behind Jaune, flapping her wings as he practically stormed down the road towards the Mayor's house. In the wake of Weiss's hopelessly-blunt interjection, the sheer awkwardness had overwhelmed the two young humans, and Jaune had practically blurred in his haste to flee from Ruby's shop.
"You don't just blurt out questions like that!" huffed Jaune.
"Why not?"
"Because!" he snapped. "These things are…are…delicate!"
"Oh, please," Weiss rolled her eyes. "If the two of you emitted any more pheromones, I'd have had to chew on them."
"Faira-wha?"
"Pheromones! You know, mating scents?" At Jaune's incredulous look, Weiss huffed. "Okay, I refuse to believe that you humans are that ignorant of the scents you put out. You were emitting the pheromone equivalent of declaring your supreme fitness to fertilize her eggs, and she was practically showing off her nest-making skills in response!"
"You know, humans don't lay eggs."
Weiss blinked. "What?"
"Yep. Human women give birth to live young."
"They what?! No they don't. Do they? No…"
Despite his irritation, Jaune grinned. "I shit you not. Nine months to a single baby. They have to carry a baby in their belly the entire time, all swollen and heavy, and then actually pushing it out is a huge deal. Very painful."
Weiss landed on Jaune's shoulder. "That sounds awful!"
"It really is," he agreed.
"And your mother did this eight times?!"
"To be fair, that's the usual response from other humans, too."
"I feel both respect and fear towards your mother."
"That is also a usual response from humans."
Finally, Jaune just had to ask. "Well, how do dragons mate?"
The look of pure and utter scandal that Weiss shot him in response drew a genuine belly laugh from Jaune, enough that he had to pause and brace himself against a building to regain his breath, while a thoroughly-flustered little dragoness sputtered the entire time.
"Hey!" She thumped her tail on his back in agitation. "I am not a figure of mockery! Furthermore, your question was rude and entirely inappropriate!"
"You jumped into my bath and then later demanded to know if my best friend and I were about to, and I quote, 'mate,' right there in the middle of her shop," Jaune deadpanned.
"And?"
"And, if you're going to act so familiar with me and ask questions like that, then isn't it fair that I get to do the same?"
Weiss blinked her ice-blue eyes. "This is entirely different!"
"How?"
"That's because…er…" she flapped her wings as she considered her human's question. "Because these are secrets!" she finally declared. "Dragon secrets, very dangerous."
"Yuh-huh. Do you know how dragons mate?"
Weiss almost fell off his shoulder. "O-of course I do! It's just secret!"
"It was just you and your sister over there, right?" Jaune continued to press the question. "Have you ever even met a male dragon?"
"I dislike this line of inquiry," Weiss griped.
"Yeah, I'm gonna take that as a 'no,'" said Jaune. "So go on, talk down to us humans all you like, but at least we know where babies come from."
"You shall rue this day, human!"
Jaune grinned in triumph as he approached the door to the mayor's house. "Yeah, yeah, the rueing will commence shortly. Now pipe down while I go talk to the mayor. He's the leader of this community of humans, the one who sent me to investigate the village."
The small dragon huffed in indignation. "A dragon does not 'pipe down,'"
"You're not kidding about that."
The mayor's house was similar to other buildings in Mantle, being made of thick logs, proofed against the wind and snow with pitch. Jaune pounded on the thick wooden door a couple of times, to let the inhabitants know that someone was there. After a moment, he heard the mayor call for him to enter.
Entering the living room, Jaune saw the mayor sitting shirtless in front of the fireplace. James, called James Ironwood, had been the mayor of Mantle for as long as Jaune could remember. The man was known to be stern, but a generally-decent man, who was well-respected by the community. The problem was that he was largely no-nonsense, and, well, nonsense was Jaune and Ruby's stock and trade.
James had long ago lost his left arm in a vicious fight with a cave bear, retaining only a short, truncated stump at his shoulder. He had taken to wearing a replacement carved from the sturdy lumber of Lonelywood, which gave him his name, but while he had it affixed to a leather harness that strapped around his right shoulder, to distribute the weight, wearing it for too long left painful welts and abrasions on the stump of his left shoulder.
Said welts and abrasions were currently being treated with some kind of white, foamy salve that Summer Rose, Ruby's mother, applied with a brush. "...and so help me, if you undo my hard work by wearing that ridiculous contraption again before the week is up, no balm in this world will heal what I will do to you. Is that understood?"
"It's important to keep up morale," James attempted to explain. "What with this Lonelywood business -"
"You have one arm," Summer interrupted, blunt as a hammer. "Everyone in town knows you have one arm. No one thinks you're any stronger or weaker for having it on or off, so keep it off and keep a clear head." She glared down at him with the imposing force of personality that seemed to be a vocational specialty of healers. "Or else. Are we clear?"
James cleared his throat. "Well, that's certainly a view to take under advisement."
Summer continued to glare at him.
"Under strong advisement," he quickly, and wisely, amended. He cleared his throat, and then he turned his head to see Jaune standing there. "Ah, Jaune, it's good that you're back. What did you learn about Lonelywood?"
"It's not good." With that, Jaune began to recount his expedition once more. As he discussed his suspicions about a possible dragon attack that led him to search the far valley, James brought his hand to his forehead, while Miss Rose adopted an oddly-pensive expression.
"Really, Jaune? It didn't even occur to you to come back and get help?" Ironwood sighed. "What would you have done if there had actually been a dragon out there?"
"Is this the part where I come in?" Weiss asked.
"Sure."
With that, a small white dragon glided elegantly down from the rafters, landing on Jaune's shoulder. Sitting upright, Weiss proudly spread her wings out, posing dramatically.
"Ta-da!" Jaune gave his brightest, most obnoxious grin as Mayor Ironwood and Miss Rose stared at him.
"You may begin heaping praise upon me at your leisure, humans," Weiss added.
Ironwood slowly rose, to join the healer in staring at the new arrival to their village.
"That's a dragon," he finally said.
"I knew you humans were clever," Weiss deadpanned.
"Weiss, be nice." admonished Jaune.
"This is nice!"
"Jaune, what are you doing with a dragon?" Summer asked. "Where did she come from?"
The youth winced. "Ooh. Yeah, about that. Well, you know that shield made out of dragonbone the Arc family held onto for so long? So..turns out we might have jumped to some conclusions back in the day, and we really shouldn't make artifacts out of creatures that can speak to us about their long-dead mothers. Anyways, Weiss here -"
"Hello again, humans! Still waiting on that uncritical adoration, by the way."
"Besides being a frost dragon and being unable to breathe fire, was able to taste the air at the village, and picked up some kind of scent. If we can find it again, we'll know what kind of creature burned Lonelywood. I'm thinking the most likely direction to check is north of the village."
Ironwood pinched the bridge of his nose. "So, after wandering off on your own in search of dragons, which you somehow found, your big plan is to wander aimlessly to the the north, in the vague sense that said dragon can find a specific taste."
Jaune and Weiss shared a look. "Well, if we go north, it won't be aimless, exactly. We'll be aiming north," explained Jaune.
With his single hand, James pointed to the band of silver hair at his temples. "I never used to have these before you came along, you know. Why are you like this?"
"Well, I -"
"No, no," Ironwood interjected. "I just…" With one more weary sigh, he started over. "I believe I have a better option for you and your…friend."
"Do you have anything to eat?" Weiss blurted. "I'm hungry."
Caught off-guard by the abrupt question, Ironwood blinked, then looked around his sparse home. "Well, uh…"
"No, because James here is a bachelor, and they're useless," explained Summer. "If I didn't stop by to remind the man to eat, he'd probably survive off of nothing but hardtack and ale."
Jaune reached up to run his fingers down Weiss's neck and back. "We're almost done here, and then we can have some more jerky, okay?"
The small dragoness leaned into her human's touch. "I suppose that will have to suffice, for the time being."
"Is that dragon dangerous?"
"Of course I'm dangerous, I'm a dragon," huffed Weiss, who gave the human leader a decidedly unimpressed look.
"I think what he meant was if you can be trusted not to attack anyone," said Summer.
"Well, I've seen her do some unkind things to a squirrel, but she hasn't really been aggressive with me," Jaune replied. "She hasn't even scratched me when she clambers all over me."
"You're welcome. I take good care of my treasure."
At the inquisitive looks from the two adults, Jaune sighed. "I helped her remove a scale that she was ready to shed and had become itchy. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess, so now this bossy little dragon thinks that I'm part of her treasure hoard. Which consists of literally just me."
"He's my comfy human," proclaimed Weiss, laying her neck fondly on the top of his head.
For some reason, Summer had a somewhat brittle expression. "Well, that's…lovely."
"It's like having a cat, really," Jaune shrugged. "A flying cat, who can talk and complain."
"Oh hush. I'm delightful," Weiss thumped his back with her tail.
"Well, if you're sure that the creature -"
"Still right here, human."
" - can be trusted, then I suppose it can stay, until you're ready to move on," said Ironwood. "When Lonelywood burned, I sent word to a friend of mine, a ranger. His familiar probably reached him by now, and he'll be on his way to Norport."
"Wait, you called in someone else? You didn't think I could do it?" Jaune asked, genuinely hurt.
James gave the boy a flat look. "You were meant to go scout the situation, confirm if there were any survivors, and then return here. You've done well, and gone further than I expected, but Qrow Branwen is a ranger, a professional woodland tracker and monster hunter with decades of experience. You are an impetuous youth, who demonstrated initiative, clever reasoning, a grasp of woodcraft, and the empathy needed to enlist aid from an unconventional source. I'm not sending you to meet with Qrow because I don't think you'll be of use. I'm sending you to him to learn from him as a potential apprentice."
Jaune blinked. "Oh."
"Yes, 'oh," echoed Ironwood. "Now, we'll be having assembly at the meeting hall tonight. I need you there to answer questions about your findings." A faint smile crossed the man's lips. "Also, if you haven't already, young Ruby was not happy that you ventured out alone."
"Oh, yeah, um, I already…saw her."
Summer arched an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"How do you know something happened?"
"Because you and she have been running wild for literally your entire lives, and I've patched up enough of the aftereffects of your little adventures to know your 'I did something dumb' look near as well as poor Isabelle by now."
"Wait, why is it my 'poor' mother?"
"You know why. Now, out with it."
Put on the spot, Jaune gulped. "It, uh, wasn't much, really. Let her know I was okay, had a brief but lovely conversation and then, uh, you know, just said goodbye to come here."
"They got embarrassed when I asked if they were going to mate, and he lost his nerve and ran." Weiss helpfully pointed out.
"Weiss!" Jaune's voice squeaked. "Don't tell her that!"
"Why not? She's the metal-girl's mother, I doubt she doesn't already know."
"Is this really happening?"
"I mean, their pheromones were practically screaming at each other," the dragoness, speaking to Summer, recounted dutifully.
"There were no moans, fairy or otherwise!" Jaune was quick to add.
"Honestly, I kind of thought they would go at it right then and there -"
Jaune turned on his heel so fast that Weiss actually fell off of his shoulder, squawking in indignation as she was barely able to extend her wings in time to glide to a table. "And that's all for today, bye Miss Rose, see you later!"
The boy all but fled from Ironwood's house, the small dragon following, telling him off the entire time.
[/]
Weiss sat perched on a kitchen shelf, her tail flicking back and forth as she watched the humans scurry around a room. The mother human led her offspring through a series of movements, seemingly further altering the pork that they had brought in. The young dragoness had been surprised to learn that humans had many different ways of making the meat from their hunts last a long, long time. The pig had been slaughtered months ago, but a combination of covering the meat in salt and storing it in a special cellar designed to be very, very cold meant that it remained just as edible as the day the animal died.
Swish-swish, went her tail.
Humans were remarkably clever, and had a talent for providing comfort. Weiss was glad she had claimed one as her treasure.
The meat was chopped into chunks that went into a big iron container, along with water and some plants, and then placed atop another iron contraption, similar to the hot water container that she and her human had swam in that morning.
Swish-swish, went her tail.
Weiss didn't understand why humans gave their meat a bath, but after a while, the scent filling the room began to smell incredible. Her human was doing something with a metal claw and a brick of plant fibers that the humans called "bread," while the juvenile human females began carrying out other assorted tasks, like pouring water into odd-shaped containers for them to drink, or bringing open containers for the meat-plant-bath.
The human mother asked if she ate plants, which was an odd question. Only prey ate plants! Unless a dragon was sick, in which case, they could often taste plants that they would instinctively know might help if they were ingested.
With a knowing nod, the human mother had dipped a wooden spoon into the meat-plant-bath and scooped out a chunk of pork. The dragonness nearly fell off the perch leaning towards the delicious, savory-smelling meat that the human mother offered to her. Taking it in the claws of her forelimbs, Weiss sat up and bit into the cooked pork.
Swish-swish-swish-swish, went her tail.
[/]
Jaune was making his way towards the town meeting hall, a full and - for once - contented little dragon half-dozing on his shoulders, when he drew up short. Ruby was waiting for him by the side of the meeting hall, and she had taken the opportunity to clean herself up. She wore a black and red bodice laced tightly over a white blouse, with a matching skirt that flared at her hips. Her skin scrubbed free of sweat and soot, Ruby peered at him, her large silver eyes like reflections of the moonlight overhead.
"R-Ruby?"
"Jaune." The girl worked her hands nervously for a moment. "Why did you run off today, Jaune?"
"I, uh…you know…with the dragon and all…"
"Oh, I see." Ruby fidgeted for a moment, seemingly working up her nerve. Finally, abruptly, she grabbed Jaune by the jacket and turned his back to the wall, pinning him against it. Standing on her tiptoes, she pressed her lip just under his ear.
"I never said I wasn't interested," she admitted, her voice a low, husky growl. Then she pressed her lips to his in an urgent kiss.
Stepping back, and seemingly realizing just what she'd done, Ruby's face flushed with both embarrassment and also a sort of giddy, disbelieving joy at what she'd just said and done. Then reality crashed back into place, she squeaked out some kind of farewell, and fled into the meeting room just as fast as her legs could take her.
Jaune still leaned against the wall, stunned, looking like a man who'd been brained by a fishing oar and couldn't have been happier about it.
"So…does that mean she does want to mate with you?"
"Maybe?"
"Human courtship rituals are so bizarre."
"You're telling me."
[/]
The town meeting had been…interesting, to say the least.
After Jaune had revealed that there had been a second, much larger dragon nearby, one segment of the attendees had promptly forgotten all about Lonelywood and wanted to form a hunting party, both to seize Winter Winds' hoard for themselves, and for the sake of harvesting valuable components of her body. Either one would ensure that the village would be filthy rich, and taking both? Well, both would be a windfall enough to ensure that every man in the party would have more coin then they could spend in a thousand lifetimes.
Jaune had argued against that. Firstly, he pointed out that, being Frost dragons, neither Weiss nor Winter Winds had had anything to do with the burning of Lonelywood. Going to kill a reasoning being, who had done nothing to them, for the sake of robbing her things and desecrating her corpse would be a crime, just as much as if it had been done to a man.
This had led to a great deal of vicious arguing among the people of Mantle, as they struggled to decide if the speaking, reasoning beings called dragons counted as people. It only came to an end after Ironwood whacked a mallet against a table, and told everyone involved to shut their faces. In the ensuing quiet, Jaune then pointed out that, even if he wanted to lead a hunting party, which he didn't, he didn't know where Winter Winds had laired, making the whole point moot.
It had been a long and frustrating meeting, and after it was finished, Jaune had flopped into his bed, exhausted by the day's events. He slept sprawled on his back, with the increasingly-familiar weight of the young dragon curled up on his chest. Both youth and dragon dreamt of more pleasant things; Jaune, the feel and taste of Ruby's lips on his, and Weiss, the delicious, savory taste of the herb-soaked pork stew that filled her little belly.
They were still sleeping when the rough hands of strange men grabbed them.
Both Jaune and Weiss cried out as they were yanked up and out of bed. Disoriented and confused, the youth flailed against the man who had grabbed him, trying to free his arms, while Weiss shrieked.
"Damn it, shut that thing up!"
Whoever it was trying to wrangle a fledgeling dragon did not, in fact, succeed in shutting her up, instead getting a full blast of frost breath, point-blank to the face. He howled in agony, his face already blistering and blackening, letting her go. Weiss then turned and began using her talons to rake the man who had grabbed her human.
His hands now free, Jaune frantically felt around in the dark, until his hand touched the familiar, leather-wrapped hilt of his family's ancestral sword.
It was a movement that he had practiced a thousand, thousand times under the watchful eye of his father. Gil Arc was no grand hero out of legend, merely a man whose job it had been, for many years, to guide traders along routes that were often dangerous. In that time, he had become the veteran of dozens of fights, most of them against the most desperate outlaws, and he had developed a simple, no-frills style of swordsmanship. It would never win any great prizes for aesthetics, but its proven, economical techniques worked when the situation had gone out of control, and it was time to start stacking bodies.
It was that brutally efficient swordsmanship that Gil had passed down to his son.
The first movement was a simple half-turn, accompanied by a drawing cut. The glittering ancient steel sang in the moonlight as it flicked through the air, bringing the sword to Jaune's right side. The second movement, executed through sheer muscle memory, was a forward step with his left foot, accompanied by a slightly-upwards stab with the sword in his right hand. It was a swift way to end a fight almost as soon as it began, and it was a technique that Gil had drilled into his son to the point where, as now, he could perform it almost in his sleep.
Except this time, instead of sand spilling from a bag, or straw splitting from the stab, a man spilled open from the cut, held up only by the steel blade that had skewered him through-and-through, just under the ribcage.
Jaune stared in horror as the man slipped off of his blade and fell, dying, in a pool of his own gore.
The spell was only broken when his door was kicked open, Jaune pulling into his guard out of reflex. His father stood there, in a towering rage, a bloodied falchion in his hand and another body at his feet. "Jaune! Are you hurt, boy?"
"I…" Jaune stared at his father, then at the sword in his hand. "I…"
"Easy now, son. Easy. Let's lower that sword first, yes?"
Jaune blinked, staring at the bloody sword in his hand. "Oh…I…right." He lowered the tip to the floor, then dropped it, the sword clattering against the wooden floor as Jaune suddenly began to shake violently.
Gil, who had seen just this sort of reaction from rookies a thousand times, quickly stepping in and wrapping his arms around his son, heedless of the blood covering them both. "It's over, boy. You're safe now." The youth continued to tremor as the adrenaline seeped from his body, Jaune having to draw in sharp, gasping breaths.
"This one is still alive," Weiss spoke up then. She was airborne, circling the last surviving attacker, the one that had taken her icy breath in the face. The man was huddled in a heap, trying to warm his face with the sleeves of his jacket, and groaning faintly.
"Not for long." Gil released his son and stepped over to the wreck of a man. "You brought this violence to my home!" he shouted, viciously kicking the injured man in the ribs. "My home! You attacked my son!"
He drew his falchion up, preparing to cut down the man who had invaded his home.
"Wait!"
Gil stopped, as he felt his son's hand on his shoulder.
"He's beaten. It's done. We should take him to see justice," said Jaune.
The father looked down at the wretch, seeing the truth of his son's words. The dragon's icy breath left the man's face a ruin, the flesh dying from the bitter cold, like a man left exposed in the highest mountain peaks. He would lose his nose for certain, and probably his right eye, along with most of the flesh of his right cheek, and possibly some on the left side of his face as well.
"Get up," Gil said. "You'll soon wish I'd given you the steel."
[/]
Mantle was in an uproar. The town rarely saw any violence more serious than the occasional pub brawl or fistfight over preferred fishing spots and now, two men were dead, killed while breaking into a neighbor's home to kidnap their son and his dragon companion.
Ironwood sighed as he sipped his tea. What a mess.
Gil Arc was beyond livid, as well he should have been, what with his home broken into and his son attacked in his bed. True to the old veteran's estimation, the sole surviving member of the attackers had suffered horrendously from the dragon's ice breath, with even Summer Rose soon pronouncing the damage to be beyond her ability to meaningfully treat beyond amputation. The man's truly shocking disfigurement, along with the talon marks found on the skull of the man the boy had killed, talon marks that had dug into the bone of the skull, were a sobering reminder that, as seemingly-harmless as the creature's mannerisms were, a dragon was still a dragon.
James had to thread a delicate balance; pointing out that even a small, catlike dragon was lethal helped to persuade his people that attempting to hunt a larger one would be an even more dangerous proposition, and could bring the creature's ire onto the village if it failed. However, he also didn't want them to get the idea that a pair of dragons that had been content to leave them be for centuries represented an intolerable threat in dire need of removal, and so he'd been sure to emphasize that the creature had only unleashed its power in defense of its master, like a loyal hound.
The dragon herself had been decidedly unimpressed with that wording, but she didn't get a vote in what the village did, so James ignored her.
With that being said, there were still those in the populace that thought picking a fight with a dragon was a quick way to wealth and glory, and James needed to find a way to keep them from trying to capture the boy and his dragon, and prevent more violence from breaking out.
He winced. Gil wasn't going to be happy.
[/]
"Go fuck yourself, James."
Ironwood sighed. Why couldn't his prescience ever extend to anything actually useful?
"Gil, look, it's the best option. Very publicly sending Jaune and his dragon away early is the best way to dissuade anyone else from trying to use them to get to the elder dragon's hoard."
Gil meaningfully patted the heavy, curved sword at his side. James tried not to think about what it meant that the old man had taken to carrying it all the time since the attack. "I'll 'dissuade' as many of 'em as it takes. Man oughtta be able to feel safe in his own home, and I'll not see my boy punished for protecting himself in his own bed."
"It's not a punishment, Gil -"
"Remember that part, just now, when I told you to go fuck yourself? You should really see to that."
"- as we'd been discussing the ongoing, and still very pertinent issue of Lonelywood."
"I can go instead."
"And leave your wife and daughters on their own?"
There was a silence.
"James?"
"Let me guess: I should go fuck myself?"
"Got it in one."
[/]
It occurred to Weiss, as she watched her human, that perhaps humans required privacy to mate. This observation struck her as she saw her human and the female that he apparently fancied become more open with each other, especially when she pretended to curl up and sleep on the human's pillow. They had started doing that strange ritual where they pressed their lips against one another. Weiss pondered the utility of such behavior. Humans didn't have breath weapons, so acclimating to one another's frost by means of swapping spit was out.
Making they became intoxicated with tasting one another's scents on their tongues? That would certainly explain the ridiculous, dazed expression on her human's face whenever his female left him.
Weiss took pride in her part in furthering dragonkind's knowledge of this enigmatic, yet resourceful and surprisingly useful species of pet. Indeed, due to her small stature and perceived harmlessness, Weiss could well have been the first to successfully integrate herself into the human familial structure, by which her human's family plied her with yummy jerky, sausage, and bacon (!) in recognition of her protecting one of their own.
Much like human mating behavior, she learned much about human parental behavior, and she could stay awake to observe that relationship.
Isabelle sat on Jaune's bed, where her son was studiously avoiding looking at the spot on the floor where the man he'd killed had lain.
"It isn't your fault," she said.
"They wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for me."
"Jaune, you did a good thing, a kind thing, and that's so rare and precious in this world. Those men who stole into our home, they acted out of their greed, a greed so overwhelming that it overrode whatever decency they might have had. You came face to face with a flappy little lizard creature, and saw a person."
"Hey!"
"Those men, they would have seen her and just seen a stack of coins to be made. They already showed that they were willing to break into a neighbor's home and kidnap someone, for the sake of their greed. What else might they have done to you, or to your dragon?" Isabelle hugged her son to her. "This can be a dangerous world, Jaune. You can't always control what other people do. But don't let their actions denigrate yours."
They heard a knock at the door.
"Come in," called Jaune.
The door opened to reveal his father, with James Ironwood standing behind him.
"The Mayor has a suggestion," Gil began. "Before you hear him out, just know that you can always tell him to go fuck himself. Say the word, and we'll hunker down as a family, and to hell with what anyone else in this town has to say about it."
Jaune blinked. "Let's, uh, maybe hear him out first?"
[/]
Waiting tables at a tavern wasn't exactly the critical community role that her mother or sister filled, but Autumn enjoyed it more than she thought she would. Mostly because it let her keep up on all the gossip in town, but for the last few days, all it had been was about Jaune and his dragon.
"Still can't believe that Arc kid killed a man."
"Wait, Jaune killed someone?! Fishkid Jaune, who nearly drowned in the lake? He killed a man?"
"Killed him? My cousin says that the man he dropped, he was hacked into a dozen bloody pieces, and that dragon of his ate some of it."
"Yeah, but your cousin's Shithead Tom, so's a safe bet he knows fuck-all 'bout it."
"Not so loud, mate, I don't want people to know!"
"Why? Does bein' a shithead run in the family?"
Whatever. Autumn knew Jaune, and more to the point, had heard from her sister about him. Her sister, who came home running a mile a minute about her torrid affair with her best friend in the world.
Deftly avoiding a grasping hand reaching for her rear, Autumn brought a round of ale to another table.
"Really? They're sendin' the kid away? I'll tell ya, if someone broke into my house in the dead 'a night, I'd'a done worse than that to the bastards."
"I dunno, you seen Pete lately? Fucker looks half-dead."
"Serves the dumbshit right for grabbin' a bleedin' dragon. Too stupid to breed, that lot was."
"Still, even if they don't send the boy away, surely a dragon is too dangerous to stay here."
"You want to be the one to tell a dragon to leave her favorite human behind? Be my fuckin' guest, just let me run away first."
"Still, kid's got a hell of a consolation prize. That Rose girl is goin' with 'em."
"The wee one with the short hair? I thought that was a boy!"
"Well, you didn't see her at the meetin', before the shit went down at the Arc place. She's a girl all right, looks just like her mam."
"I'll drink to that. Sent away with a dragon and a loose girl of questionable parentage and big teats. We should all be so punished, eh? Eh?"
Autumn cleared her throat. "Ahem."
"What?" The man who'd disparaged her little sister's status looked up. "You lookin' for a roll, sweetheart? I got the silver if you got the time!" He then swatted her, hard, on the ass.
The tavern did have a bouncer of sorts, a large fellow by name of Steve. 'Course, his job had got all sorts of interesting since the oldest Rose girl had started working there. As he heard the resounding slap, he saw the thunder building on the busty blonde's face.
"Oh, bloody hell."
At least he was able to duck, when the unfortunate patron was sent flying through the air. The last time, he hadn't been so lucky.
[/]
"And so, it would do the town of Mantle invaluable service if you were to accompany your sister, Jaune Arc, and the dragon, and put your prodigious fighting skills to use elsewhere. Away from here. Say, for a year? Even just a few months would be tremendous, surely."
Autumn canted her head at the mayor of Mantle. "Are you trying to get rid of the town troublemakers in one go?"
"Your mother would murder me if I tried."
[/]
The air was crisp and cool as the party met on the edge of town; a boy, a barmaid, a smithy girl, and a small dragon.
"Don't worry, Mom! I'll make sure Ruby doesn't get knocked up while we're gone!"
Summer just sighed. That girl was just like her father. And when she looked at Ruby, gazing up at a goofy blond with a heart of gold, she realized that her youngest was just like her, and that maybe Yang's intervention might be necessary, at least for a while longer yet.
Then she remembered that dragons could apparently claim people as treasure and stay with them, and she resolved to break her foot off in Taiyang's scaly ass the next time she saw him. Seventeen years! Seventeen! Oh, that dragon was in trouble.
"Just follow the map, and you'll get there in no time," Gil put his hand on his son's shoulder. "This isn't a choice you should have had to make, but I'm proud of your decision all the same."
"It's for the best," Jaune nodded.
"And don't forget to take care of the little flappy one!" Isabelle added.
"Weiss is a literal dragon, Mom, she'll be fine!" Jaune smirked. "Besides, if we stay here any longer, she's going to get fat from all of your cooking she keeps scarfing."
"Hey!" The dragon in question thumped her tail on his back in protest. "Rude."
"Accurate." Jaune looked around, taking in his family, friends, his hometown, and the people he'd be traveling with.
"All right, let's go find a ranger."
[/]
Author's Notes:
Yeah, this should've come out a week ago, but Monster Hunter Rise is on Gamepass, so….
No, seriously, someone confiscate my Xbox, for the sake of the writing. (Note: For legal reasons, this is a joke. Please do not dox, rob, or otherwise mistreat Mahina Fable.)
Q: You named Yang Autumn.
A: Yep.
Q: Yet Summer thought of her as Yang in her inner monologue?
A: Also yep. Shuddup, it's a story thing, you're fine.
Q: Wait, how do dragons and people…
A: Shapeshifting. You weirdos. The formula goes 'Dragon male + human female = human child. Human male + dragon female = dragon hatchling.'
One of my inspirations for Ruby's look in this story is a lumberjack woman, named Nicole Coenen, who makes TikTok videos of herself chopping into wood with an axe, while sleeveless. It's a sort of holistic muscle, where, instead of some Miss Olympia shenanigans, they come from someone who works for a living, and builds strength that way. Plus, all the thirsting over her arms and shoulders was fun to incorporate into Jaune's inner monologue.
One thing I wanted to convey in this story is how Weiss is sapient, but she isn't human. Her perceptions, thought processes, priorities, and ethics are all occasionally a bit skewed from our standpoint. Plus, the more I kept writing, the more she came off as literally a cat, but dragon.
K, bai!
-Mahina Fable