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Title: collared
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Nicolai
Prompt: 029 "Birth"
Word Count: 400
Notes: follows Rush/a>. Still before the wars.
This is the hundredth, and the last for this set of prompts.
The cavern was silent, aside from his own heartbeat still pounding in his ears, and the sound of his breathing.
He should have known better. Even if the stone tunnel leading to this cavern had been quiet, it hadn't been like this. Living silences weren't like this, didn't send cold prickles down his back or make him whip his head up to chase a sound from above-ground, however far that was from here.
He wondered if anyone--anything--was coming to investigate the magical explosion. Wondered if he'd emerge from the leading tunnel directly into another dragon's mouth, meet his own death in charcoal and flames. He stilled a shiver with an effort, trying to think around the remains of adrenaline still racing around in his bloodstream and making his hands tremble.
Guilt wasn't useful. Dragons wouldn't accept the words, even if they didn't eat him right away. And he still didn't have the shed scales or broken-off fang he'd come up this mountain for, which meant he needed to either pay for someone else's insanity once he got out of here or figure out a way to keep himself alive and here long enough to find them.
He was staring at the dragon's claws, he registered belatedly, and stretched up to touch one, running the pads of his fingers along the underside.
A mental spark flashed as he touched the stone, and he extended his reach to run along the full length of the forelimb, white lines forming where his fingers had touched. Another reach, another brushing, and he could expand the form of his model around the limb entirely, connecting with the lines drawn from the other limb, then along the spine and wings, cresting at the head and becoming blinding around the fangs.
He walked backwards a few paces, trailing cords of magic from his hands, whispered "Appear as you were," to the stone and the light surrounding it, and pulled.
The image of the dragon blinked down at him as it settled onto all four walking limbs, shaking its wings out briefly in a rattle of joints, then slicking them back neatly along its spine.
He wrapped the end of the cord still connecting them around his wrist, then made a chopping motion through the section hanging between them. "As you were in all things," he said, conversationally, "except as I tell you change."
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Nicolai
Prompt: 029 "Birth"
Word Count: 400
Notes: follows Rush/a>. Still before the wars.
This is the hundredth, and the last for this set of prompts.
The cavern was silent, aside from his own heartbeat still pounding in his ears, and the sound of his breathing.
He should have known better. Even if the stone tunnel leading to this cavern had been quiet, it hadn't been like this. Living silences weren't like this, didn't send cold prickles down his back or make him whip his head up to chase a sound from above-ground, however far that was from here.
He wondered if anyone--anything--was coming to investigate the magical explosion. Wondered if he'd emerge from the leading tunnel directly into another dragon's mouth, meet his own death in charcoal and flames. He stilled a shiver with an effort, trying to think around the remains of adrenaline still racing around in his bloodstream and making his hands tremble.
Guilt wasn't useful. Dragons wouldn't accept the words, even if they didn't eat him right away. And he still didn't have the shed scales or broken-off fang he'd come up this mountain for, which meant he needed to either pay for someone else's insanity once he got out of here or figure out a way to keep himself alive and here long enough to find them.
He was staring at the dragon's claws, he registered belatedly, and stretched up to touch one, running the pads of his fingers along the underside.
A mental spark flashed as he touched the stone, and he extended his reach to run along the full length of the forelimb, white lines forming where his fingers had touched. Another reach, another brushing, and he could expand the form of his model around the limb entirely, connecting with the lines drawn from the other limb, then along the spine and wings, cresting at the head and becoming blinding around the fangs.
He walked backwards a few paces, trailing cords of magic from his hands, whispered "Appear as you were," to the stone and the light surrounding it, and pulled.
The image of the dragon blinked down at him as it settled onto all four walking limbs, shaking its wings out briefly in a rattle of joints, then slicking them back neatly along its spine.
He wrapped the end of the cord still connecting them around his wrist, then made a chopping motion through the section hanging between them. "As you were in all things," he said, conversationally, "except as I tell you change."
