Day Eight: Give me that, before anything happens.
Characters/Pairings: Jake/Rose; Huntsman; Lao Shi
Rating: T
Content warnings: on-screen death (s); on-screen death's of child(ren); murder; burn injuries
Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!
~TLL~
Rose took the her brand new Huntstaff into her hand, swinging it around her head. She giggled once, twice, three whole times. She planted it in the ground in front of her, the way that she'd seen Master's favourites do. Rose looked up at the Huntsman for approval. Even though she couldn't see his face through his mask, she was sure that he was smiling at her. Of course, Rose was five, and she assumed that everyone was smiling at her. The Huntsman nodded at her and Rose stamped her feet, grinning behind her own mask.
Rose pulled her staff out of the ground. "Does that mean I can go hunting, Mr. Master? All by myself?"
"Well, Huntsgirl," the Huntsman said, tugging at one of the braids her Huntsnanny had carefully plaited down her back this morning, "you're still a little young, don't you think?"
Rose scoffed. Young? Her? She was the favourite and the best and even though she was only five, she knew it. She wasn't about to sit around and wait for someone to hand her the opportunity. Master had taught her better than that. She pulled the Huntstaff out of the ground.
Casually, like she had seen the big kids do, Rose looked over her shoulder and said to the Huntsman, "I'll see you later. I've got this."
Rose marched off into the bushes, not quite sure what she was looking for but knowing that she was a huntress who was finally on the move.
(-.-)
"Jake, focus!"
Jake was not interested in focusing. He was five and he was interested in cloud animals and the fact that he had wings and a tail to really listen to his grandfather. His mother had told him to when she had let him go this morning but Jake was a dragon. A dragon! How was he supposed to be a normal boy and listen to his mother when he was a dragon! He was big and mythological and everything else that a dragon was.
Jake incinerated a dandelion. 'Cause he could breathe fire now, 'cause he was a dragon.
"Jake! Pay attention!"
"Yes, Gramps," Jake said, matching his grandfather's irritated tone.
Then, the incinerated dandelion ash spores began to float and they made their way into Jake's snout.
Jake could feel the sneeze building and building and building. He tried not to sneeze – he tried very hard not to sneeze. Gramps had said that sneezing was bad for a dragon because of the fire and the wings and the fact that it was much more powerful than a regular sneeze. Jake tried very hard not to sneeze but it didn't stop him from sneezing. The flame lit up the grass in front of him and Jake shot backward, into the bushes. He watched his flames climb very hard in the sky and then the branches of the hedges closed over him.
Jake stood up on his short dragon legs, looking around him. "Gramps?"
Gramps didn't respond.
Jake opened his mouth to shout but then a girl emerged from the bushes. She was a tiny girl, in little black robes, and a mask that covered most of her face. Little blonde pigtails hung over each shoulder and there was something very sharp in her hands. Jake didn't have a lot of instinct in him yet but Jake knew enough to back away from the sharp blade.
"Who are you?" Jake asked.
"You're a dragon!" she gasped.
"Well, I know who I am," Jake said. "Who are you?"
"I'm a Huntsgirl," she said, "and my Master says I'm supposed to hunt dragons."
"You don't hunt people," Jake said, because even at his city born and raised age, he knew what hunt meant. "What is a Huntsgirl?"
"A girl who hunts for the Huntsclan." She stabbed the spear in his direction. "And you're a dragon, not a people."
Jake opened his mouth to tell her that he was a dragon and a people but before he could say a word, the Huntsgirl had taken that sharp staff and slapped him against the arm.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"That's hunting!" she said, proudly.
"Oh, yeah? See what I can do!"
Jake knew what fire was, of course, but he had no frame of reference for what fire would do to a human body. He took the deepest breath that he could and breathed fire as hard as he could over the entirety of her body. Jake never knew a human could scream like that but the second he heard that sound come out of the Huntsgirl's mouth, he stopped the flicker of fire.
"Jake!? Jacob!"
"GRAMPS!" Jake shouted back, feeling very afraid.
The little Huntsgirl looked like her skin was melting, like one of the candles that his mother liked to burn when she was taking a bath. Jake was surprised that the Huntsgirl could even move. Her big blue eyes stared at her staff. She had to be in pain, Jake had heard her scream in pain, but she hardly seemed surprised by it.
"You hurt me," the Huntsgirl said, picking up the staff and looking at Jake. "You hurt me lots and that's bad."
Jake didn't have it in him to speak as the melted Huntsgirl staggered her way toward him. He felt like screaming himself, trying to get Gramps to come and find him, but his voice was gone, buried very far deep inside of him. As she advanced, Jake felt his legs lock.
He could hardly even manage a squeak.
(-.-)
"BAD!" Rose shouted and she stabbed at the dragon with her new Huntstaff. "Bad people hurt people!"
"Ow!" he wailed but he didn't try to run away.
He had to be bad, Rose reasoned. When things hurt good people, they ran away from them; she should know. The dragon raised one of his paws to try and fend her off and Rose's stomach dropped at the sight of his claws. Fear was a dragon's claw, she decided right then and there, and that thing was never getting close to her. She smacked the dragon again and he bent over, reaching over to tend his wounded knee.
For the first time, Rose raised the sharp end of her Huntstaff. One good jab would teach him a lesson. That was how Rose learnt all of her lessons. She raised it as high as her little body would allow and then she brought it down to the space over the dragon's ear, thinking that it would hurt the most and, maybe, he would be good afterward.
The red dragon crumpled down.
Rose waited for him to move again, her spear at the ready. The bushes in front of her rustled and, instead of the red dragon responding, a big blue dragon appeared.
Rose screamed, unable to help herself. Dragons were that big!? She should have stayed with Master. She shouldn't be by herself.
"HUNTSGIRL!"
Master was close by. That was definitely Master's voice. Rose felt like she was going to pee herself or cry before she found her voice, though. This dragon was so big that he could step on her without noticing. It surveyed the area with its sharp eyes.
"Come now," the dragon said, focusing in on her. "Come on. Give me that, before anything happens."
It wanted her Huntstaff!
Of course it did. That was what Master had always said – dragons were bad and dragons stole and dragons wanted everything that the Huntsclan had and it was the Huntsclan's job to be better.
"No!" Rose was relieved she found her voice. "It's mine!"
"Give me that!" the dragon growled.
"No! MASTER!"
Rose could hear noises in the bushes and she wished that Mr. Master would run fast. Faster than the wind could go, even. She needed help and she knew she needed help and she was so sorry for ever going off alone because everything was starting to hurt and that dragon was just so big that she just started to cry.
The dragon, that big scary blue dragon, was nosing at the little red dragon that hadn't stood back up yet.
Rose slumped to the ground. She should run away because she knew the big dragon was bad but only bad people ran away and she didn't know what to do. Her little legs didn't feel like they could take her much further, either.
The big dragon approached her.
"Did you hit him?" the blue dragon asked.
"Yes," Rose whimpered. Tell the truth was the rule her Huntsnanny always gave her. Now, the truth made her cry but she wasn't sure why.
"Do you know what death is?"
"HUNTSGIRL!"
Master was right there. She could almost feel him but Rose started crying harder because of it. Was he going to save her? Was the blue dragon going to eat her? What was going to happen?
"Do you know what death is?" the blue dragon asked again, his sulphur breath rolling over her.
"NO!" Rose shouted, feeling the pain from her burns and the scariness of everything closing in. She peed her pants.
And then the blue dragon opened his jaws and showed her what death was.
