#WordWeavers 2405.10 — Antagonist POV: What do you like the most about yourself?
[A short tootfic. Likely canon. Her Highness speaking. From /Inklings:/]
My jaw almost dropped at the shear gall of the question, but the Midlands plenipotentiary was, if anything, expert at being jovial. His smile was disarming. He was a diplomat. I didn't gape, but put the tea cup down carefully.
"You're referring to the dragon incident, aren't you?"
He nodded. He plunked a couple lumps of brown sugar in his tea, stirring. It accounted for his corpulence, something rare amongst his gaunt brethren who spent much of their day running on forest paths. He'd made it from the Midlands in just weeks, on horseback I guessed. Poor horse. "It's on everyone's tongue. You'd mobilized the militia. Detailed reports hit the Forest Ridge High Tower as if carried by a thunderstorm."
He was making sure I knew "people" kept him well informed, and that my military wasn't what interested him. Much, anyway. I sighed, crossing my legs as I sat back.
I'd mobilized the best and most radiant of my magic users. None could best me, but we expected to face a wyvern the size of my in-town mansion. It had burnt up part of the Fell Woods. A good thing, thinking about that unassailable haven for monsters and wild beasts. Then it attacked a farm.
"The attack on the farm was an accident," I said off-handedly, steepling my fingers.
He paused. Blue eyes speared me. I'd never announced the details of what happened because if I made them official rather than rumor, the public might panic. Nobody died.
The Midlands ought know, I decided then and there. It'd be to my advantage. I'd let him decide the implications. "The grain silo had a moisture problem. It had started to ferment. Who would have thought a dragon might like beer?"
He chuckled, then, "You're serious? You know this? /How?"/ He put down his tea cup with a loud clink, spilling some of the reddish liquor.
I'd rode in with an elite company of my army, through a wood arch that proclaimed "Cornfeld," into a farm yard. I'd been ready to use my radiance to repel fire; dragons of all shapes breathed fire. My troops had the best spears, but it had been centuries since anyone had needed weapons against dragon scale. Would newiron even work? Drowning the beast by swirling airborne the farm's pond was almost our best offense, if the magical beast decided to fight. I knew they disliked fighting. I hoped that I had that much correct. If I had to resort to radiant kinesis to heave rock from a stone fence, it might decide to retaliate against my Townships—if I failed.
What I found was a half-naked girl, barely a woman though very tall, mollifying a distraught farmer and mediating with a red dragon who looked to be hanging on her every word. I could tell this, even though the dragon had the form of a giant bat.
Apparently, with her mediation, both parties were apologizing to each other!
Worse, though covered with mud and ash, visibly scarred, the young woman was devastatingly beautiful. The type of beautiful that made a seasoned and well worn woman like me think of a different kind of bedmate. I wasn't a man...
Wintereyes was her name. She had befriended a dragon.
Innocent and kind.
And immeasurably dangerous.
The ingénue now attended my magic university, despite being uncomfortable around people and wearing clothing. Learning to be human. One of mine.
I said, "What I like about myself is that I know when to fight and when to make friends."
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