Primordial Things ((Solo))

[DarkDelights]

“Company, halt!”

“Fuck off.”

“Guys, this looks like a pretty good place to set up camp for the night.”

“I stole some cheese from mess when you guys were packing...”

***

“Ovin, you got the short straw, so you're on watch, the rest of us will grab forty,” the charismatic dracari delegated. He and Gisele were the only one's trying to keep things stringent anymore, the others already devolving to childish habits and fancy. Tummus had already taken his armor off and it propped up the pillow on his bedroll that he was already making good use of. Ovin pouted over drawing watch.

Gisele savored a sandwich she packed, knowing that after that night, they would have reached the marsh, and it would be iron rations and wet socks for many days. She kept the fire hot and contemplated removing her armor too. It would probably be the last time for a while she'd be able to do so in relative safety. It itched terribly and cut off the circulation in her shoulders. Arkault must have been thinking something of the same sort, as a heavy leather bracer clattered to the fire-side, and then the other. Ovin scratched his neck with his blunt claws, muttering, then grabbed his spear and headed for the perimeter of camp.

Arkault unceremoniously flopped into his bedroll, now clad only in his tunic, breaches, and combat boots. He kicked a wide foot out around the campfire.

“Private Toulette, help your squad leader take his boots off.”

Gisele took one hand away from her sandwich, still chewing, and pushed the dracari's leg into the fire. He withdrew it immediately. Sweat glinted in the fire light on her close shaven head. She had a handmaiden's cheekbones, and a soldier's grimace. She finished the last few bites of her sandwich. Ovin Brightwing's pilfered cheese had really been what it was missing, and she ended the meal with a satisfied sigh, and sucked the stray mustard off her finger tips.

Arkault leered, but said nothing. The dull grey scales that grew on his brow and joints caught the light of the fire like Gisele Toulette's sweat. He eyed his companion a few moments longer while she was oblivious. “Its not bandits you know. Or monsters. I asked around, and people say there's some crazy hermit who lives on the road. Some shaggy old guy or something. He just... lives there and trashes the road cause he's bored or something,” the muscular dragonkin said, resigned to removing his own boots. He sat in the middle of his bedroll by the fire, fidgeting with the laces.

Tummus Lotner sat up, and propped himself on his elbow, palm resting on the ample flesh of his cheek, now very interested in the conversation. “I heard something of the same. Its not a single old man who lives on the road though, its a harpy! A monstrous woman with talons and a bird's feathers, who preys upon male travelers. She sabotages the roads, and waits for them to come to a halt, then seduces them with a song. She draws the unwary man to her nest with the illusion of being a beautiful woman, and she enchants them into having their way with her. Then, just when they're getting close to finishing, she dispels the illusion and forces them to look at her terrible face while they fertilize her! She cuts off their hands and breaks their knees with a mallus, hobbling them so they can never escape! She breeds with them again and again until she lays a clutch of eggs which hatch into new baby harpies, which THEN proceed to feed on-”

“That's enough private,” Toulette said curtly.

“Private Lotner isn't scaring you is he Gisele? If you need to, you can move your bedroll over beside mine. I'll keep you safe,” Arkault taunted across the fire.

“Let's get one thing straight, Frog-Dick,” Gisele began evenly, her eyes already fast shut. “I don't fuck reptilians. Not now, not ever. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you take a walk and help Brightwing on watch.”

“Which is it Toulette?” Arkault shot back angrily. “Am I an amphibian, or a reptile?”

“If you ever find your real parents, you can ask them, orphan-boy,” the human woman responded coldly without missing a beat. “Good-night, Private Lotner.”

Arkault collected his boots in a huff and padded away from the fire to join Ovin Brightwing.

“Goodnight, Private Second-Class Toulette,” Tummus said cheerily.

***

Krung-rung-rung-rung rung. Krung-rung-rung-rung.

The steel tip of Ovin's spear rested on a small rock in front of the large one he himself sat upon. He turned the spear, and with a flick of his wrist, he spun the weapon like a top, which sounded musically on the rock for a short moment.

Krung-rung-rung-rung-rung-rung.

He looked up from his spear, surveiled the horizon around the hill with his superior night-vision, then looked up at the approaching Arkault who bore a scowl. “Can't sleep?” he asked.

“Are dragons amphibians or reptiles?” Arkault Grey-Scale asked, finding his own rock to sit upon near Ovin's. He also bore his spear, but had not bothered donning his armor again.

“Toulette again huh? You should just lay off her. She's not interested in you, and she only starts that anti-dracari shit when you're hitting on her,” Ovin said, uncharacteristically serious.

“Doesn't it bother you? That thousands of years ago our ancestors slept on beds of gold coins and magic weapons, and she talks to us like that?” Arkault responded, incensed.

“Plenty of the humans in Suthainn don't like dracari, and are pretty vocal about it. Its the age of humans, or whatever. She's not one of them though, she just knows how to get under your skin is all. She's army, like us. I trust her as much as I trust you.”

Arkault let it go at that, and the two young dracari warriors stood watch for a few hours before Arkault finally decided to turn in. He stood up to leave, and heard the krung-rung-rung of Ovin's spear once more. Private Brightwing turned to him, still bearing that uncharacteristic seriousness on his green face.

“It doesn't matter if dragons are reptiles or amphibians. We aren't dragons.”

Arkault, defeated by the pessimistic statement, returned to the camp to put wood on the fire before he got some sleep. He looked at the humans, Tummus snoring rhythmically, and Giselle, completely buried under the sky-blue cloak that were standard issue to all enlisted men and women in the army of Rheathainn. He could not tell if she was awake or asleep. He watched her for a few moments, then fell into a restless, dream-filled slumber.