Dragon Harem Quest - Or: Saying You Were Gay Wasn't The Conversation-Ender You Hoped For

Don't say anything, don't say anything, just make something up to get her off your tail and leave, you don't have the time to waste on this. You clear your throat and pluck at your bowtie, trying out all sorts of gestures before you settle on holding up one finger in a silent plea for patience.

"Here's what we'll do," you say. "I need more time to think about this, really let the situation soak in properly so I can pass an appropriate verdict. I'll head back with these figures and process it, review your policy, give it a few days, and then once I'm absolutely sure-"

"I don't have a few days!" Phaedra exclaims. She immediately glances over her shoulder, as if expecting to find workers crowding at the windows to witness her outbursts. She raises a hand and struggles to find the words, stiffly scrubbing away the sweat beginning to form at her brow, and continues in a lower voice. "You must understand. This was never supposed to be a long-term project. You've seen it happen more than enough in your day, surely? Hand the reins of a small subsidiary over to your child, temporarily, to prove their business acumen and make them that much more of a compelling match. Then you're supposed to just hand the reins back to some nobody and move on but this... town, it feels like one big sinkhole! How am I supposed to marry anyone if I'm not-" she lowers her voice even further, as if confessing to a venereal disease "-solvent?"

She combs her fingers through her hair, quickly snatching up all the pieces of her composure within reach, and clears her throat. "I need... name your price. Call it a loan. I only need enough to keep this sucking money-pit of a town going long enough to prove I have what it takes. I'll sell everything off later, transfer the workers; my father has stakes in shipping, mining, construction, anything you can think of worth having a slice of he has it, I'm good for it I promise you. I can make you and your firm very wealthy men, just... get a little creative with your report. Please."

You look at Phaedra. Really, truly look at her. You look at Phaedra and you wonder what her father must think. You wonder if he even thinks of her at all. You look at her and you see the vast shadow cast from beyond the town stretching over her, a shadow she thought only she could see. You hear the desperation in her voice, muted and muffled, and it grates on you like a talon scraping down the inside of your skull. You take a deep breath and remove your glasses, gazing thoughtfully into the lenses.

"Let me offer you a piece of advice," you say. "Free of charge."

"I beg your pardon-?" she starts, bewildered.

"Your father doesn't care about you," you go on, and that silences her like a punch in the mouth. It's half the words themselves and half that you would dare speak them to her that gives her pause, but it's all the opportunity you need. "I mean look around you, this must've already occurred to you. He hands you the keys to an entire town, runs off on a 'holiday' and days after he leaves it all starts to fall apart? It's all right there in the books so plain even I could see it. He sold you out, Phaedra. He made a tidy profit on that artefact and then he bolted to let you take the fall for all of it."

You bring your hand to your lips, glasses dangling from your finger on a single spindly wire arm. "Did he actually try to convince you this was some big opportunity? Or is that just something you started telling yourself? Doesn't matter I suppose. Fact is that this place is doomed - I don't know if the god cursed it before it left or if it was the only thing holding it together in the first place, but it's not healing until the idol your father sold is returned and if he didn't already know that he certainly doesn't care."

"Why are- how dare-" You recognise that too. Phaedra's summoning everything she has to keep it from showing but you know your words are stinging deeper than she'd like. Deep enough that there are good odds nothing you've said so far isn't something she's already thought about herself. She covers it by getting angry. Her parasol creaks dangerously in her white-knuckle grip. "Who are you to speak of my father this way? You know nothing about who he is, nothing about the sacrifices he has to make every day and nothing about what he thinks of me!"

She advances on you, furiously jabbing her finger against your chest, and despite the height difference if you really were an elf you'd have good cause to worry. Each stab of her finger is like one from a short spear, as if aiming to crack the sternum and break open the raw, red truth behind this unforgivable insult you've done to her.

"I will have your job for this you callous, miserable little miscreant!" she snarls. "Who are you to speak to me like this? Speaking of my father as if he were some- some heartless dragon!?"

She drives her finger into your chest one last time and the change ripples outward, like a once-still pond in the wake of a fallen stone. Fine clothes peeling away into fast-fraying rags, vanishing into thin air as shining azure-blue scales replace them. You lose a little of the raw height you had as that white-haired beanpole, but your digitigrade stance and many-pointed horns make up the difference, and in terms of sheer mass the difference is like night and day. You seem to fill every inch of the solitary office, crowding Phaedra closer to the door with your mere presence, even before your great leather wings stretch out and your muscular tail lashes about for space. You loom over Phaedra, horns scraping the ceiling as you crane your neck to look down at her, and for the first time since you can remember - perhaps the first time in your life - you see the fear that a mortal owes a dragon.

"Unless you start working on getting out of his shadow, right now, he will eat you alive," you say. "Just my advice. Now get out of my way."

Phaedra steps aside, almost stumbling in her haste to clear a path. You stride past and shoulder your way through the door, bowing your head and turning sideways to fit through. The streets are so deserted that for the first few steps no one even seems to notice a dragon walking among them. First the workers sitting by the sinkhole notice. Then a couple more stumbling out of the tavern. Then more as they're drawn by the voices of their fellows, bursting through doors and crowding at windows. Shouts of shock, cries of surprise, hushed murmurs when you draw closer. It may not be an exaggeration to say that all of White Table is staring at you as you reach the centre of town and kick off, growing to your full size and majesty as you take to the air. Each beat of your vast wings sends up a swirling storm of chalky dust, washing over the town in weakening waves. And then the next moment you're gone, the storm's passed, and you never have to think about anything that happened there ever again.

So you do. Immediately. You're not even a mile out of town when you start replaying the scene over and over in your mind, wings beating faster and faster as if trying to physically outrun the vivid memory. Where did that even come from? What got you so vehement? Why did you presume to know so much about the situation of someone you just met that day? This Takara thing has you completely loopy. Seeing things that aren't there. You were just... excitable, that's all. You got too worked up over finding a lead, that's it. And now you deeply appreciate the fact that you will never have to see Phaedra again as long as she lives.

It's back on the 'road' again for you, but this time it's not so bad. You still sleep like crap, the long hours of flying are still draining as all hell and no matter how much game you hunt you still can't get rid of the gnawing knot in your gut, but it's better. You have something concrete, something very easy to track. Townsfolk need little prompting to open up about 'oh yeah that nine-foot-tall fucking bull-man that passed nearby', and it doesn't take you long to stumble across the story of Stagroot - they say a man with a green band around his wrist suddenly burst out of his own skin and turned into a monster, racing off to get in a fight that destroyed the whole town. They also say the monster left town with a fox that walked on two legs.

After that, it's almost too easy to follow the trail, rumour by rumour, gossip by gossip. The nice farmer-type young man with the green ribbon around his wrist and the vast, eclectic array of foreign companions he seemed to travel with, each one with eyes the colour of amethyst. And you were right - each time you pick up their trail they're headed further north, closer to your home. If you'd left it long enough perhaps they would've come right to you. But this is better. This is how it should be. Not on their terms, but on yours. Retribution from on high.

The sun's set on the sixth day by the time you reach their latest destination, a city within spitting distance of the Arosan-Plutocracy border, and not too far from the coast either. It's even changed hands a few times, whether by shifting borders or crafty purchases or both, but at the moment it's back in Arosan hands. Called Hálendi by some and Cloudbank by others, it was once no more than a humble village huddling in the shadow of the towering cliff that loomed above, but atop that stormswept mesa there lived a god. The storm-god Ljósingar (no relation) was moody and capricious, scouring the land with howling winds and shaking the earth with bolts of lightning, but the day the first villager made the fateful climb up to their abode was the day they discovered the storm-god was not so much boundlessly hostile as oblivious of their presence and bored to tears. Tribute and favour changed hands quickly and easily, allowing the townsfolk to uproot and make the dizzying climb to their new home, and from that lofty roost they rebuilt greater than ever before. Or so they say. It was a bit before your time - you might have to ask Mother or someone else her age to know for sure.

The end result its plain to see, stretching out below like a slice of civilisation presented to you on a plate. Thoroughfares laid out like the spokes of a wheel, wedge-shaped districts filling the gaps between, with a grand circular temple district in the centre. The axle around which it all spins, day after day. It's also where most of the lightning spires are, so the priests advise visiting pilgrims to invest in ear protection. It's so high up that lower-hanging clouds can roll through the streets themselves like roaming banks of chilly fog, and freight-lifts ring the plateau by the dozen. They take people too, but it's generally considered poor form not to take the long way up at least your first time. Of course you approach by air, dipping down lower and lower as you approach until you're below the sightline of anyone who's not actively peering over the edge, and then... up you swoop, shrinking and shifting, for a moment mortal but for a pair of leathery blue wings giving one last flap, and then you land. Just a silver-skinned Arosan orc come to visit a holy city for fun and prophet. The street corner seems pretty sparsely populated, the people either closing up shop or already on the way home, so you straighten your jacket and set off.

Hálendi's pretty big, big as Söfnun or bigger - but you're hot on their trail now, you can smell it. True you'll have to find some mortal lodgings for the night, but there's be far fewer questions asked when you withdraw funds from the bank here than if you'd tried to pay your way through the past almost-week on credit alone, and you can put up with an annoying soft bed for a night or two if it means a chance at revenge. You ponder asking Ljósingar for help directly, your feet carrying you in the general direction of the temple district, only to pause as you pass a post office with fifteen minutes left on the clock. You fiddle with a pair of silvers, the ring of precious metal on precious metal between your fingers calming you some even as your thoughts whirl.

You burst in with ten minutes left and dash off a letter addressed to 'the spire on the tip of the peninsula north of Söfnun'. The bespectacled woman behind the counter seems aggrieved at the lateness of your missive, but you probably seem desperate and haggard enough about it that she lets it pass without comment. You didn't have much time to think over the contents and phrasing much, and sure you feel an instinctive stab of regret to see the letter disappear into the mailbag, but you tell yourself it's better to be safe than sorry. Worst-case scenario, you beat the letter home and intercept the mailman. Threaten to eat him or something.

Night falls proper. You feel the chill in this form but not much. Whether you're going to end up petitioning the storm-god for help on a fox-hunt or not, it'll have to wait 'til morning, so you stick to plan B. You duck into the first bar you find and ask to look at a map to memorise and walk the streets, hoping to find the pair on a roll of the dice. It's looking like a relatively calm night tonight anyway, not that the wind got the memo. You heard something about them putting up giant windmills all over the place, a special kind that grind up wind into lightning rather than grain into... whatever windmills do to grain, your knowledge of the subject is a bit spotty. All you know is that it gives you the heebie-jeebies, and you don't know why it wouldn't give Ljósingar the same. But then again it's not just windmills that have you on-edge. You buy a drink to go at the next inn you check, something hot and sweet and non-alcoholic, carefully gulping it down between your ivory tusks. Clouds roll through ahead and behind you like streams of misty traffic, transient and insubstantial yet completely opaque. You stop in the middle of the street, waiting for it to pass.

"Hey Eldy."

You whirl around, hurling your cup aside. A shape sits atop a lamppost behind you, a lamppost you passed not moments ago and you know there was nobody on it when you did. A lean and lanky shape hidden beneath loose-fitting pleated pants and a folded jacket in purple and white, the kind of cut you only find across the sea. A shrine-shaman, face white as alabaster yet hands and feet black as coal. Tattoo-like markings the colour of fresh blood standing stark against the pale skin, deep purple eyes with vulpine slits for pupils and a glow all of their own gazing down at you. They're reflecting too much of the lamp-light, you realise. No wonder they can see in the dark as well as you. They're seated casually, one foot up on the spar meant to be a handhold for the lamplighters, the other leg lazily dangling below. Their bushy, golden-white fox-tail sways gently in and out of view behind them, matching ears protruding from the top of their head amid the long, curly locks of snow-white hair. Lavender lips curl into a half-smile.

"Wondered when you'd show," Takara finishes.

"Is that it, then?" you ask. "Your true form?"

Takara shrugs. "As much as I have one I s'pose. What about you, big guy? Going to shout at me as an orc all night?"

You shed the orc's skin like a snake, scraps of silver-blue skin tearing away and vanishing like dust in the wind as your true form bursts through. Just as tall, just as strong, tougher than anything else that's ever walked the earth or otherwise. You square your shoulders and curl your claws into fists, little arcs of lighting leaping from knuckle to knuckle.

"You were waiting for me," you say. It's not a question.

"You were pretty obvious about finally getting off your ass to hunt me down, yeah," Takara replies. "To be honest I never even expected you to get close, but once I realised you were serious I knew it was only a matter of time. That draconic pride and stubborn persistence I've heard so much about. So I figured I'd double back and follow the follower, make sure we bumped into each other when and how I wanted." They shift in their precarious seat, resting one arm on their bent knee. "Y'know I really have to ask. Why now? I steal your map, I get off scott-free, and then you just... leave it a couple days. I don't hear a peep out of you until all of a sudden your djinn turns up - right in the middle of a conversation, rude by the way - and now I find you personally stomping up and down the continent looking for me? What changed?"

"You do not have the right to ask questions of me," you snarl.

"Oh?" Takara tilts their head. "Oh I see. It's like your djinn said. The map shows more than just boyfriends, right? You thought you could hack it on your own but poor Eldy needed guidance-"

"Be silent."

Thunder booms somewhere in the distance, the sound rolling up the lonely streets like galloping hooves, the outriders of a coming storm. You breathe deep. You breathe slow. In and out. In and out.

"Why did you hurt him?" you ask.

"Who?"

"Makram," you snap, fangs gnashing together like a steel trap as you bite down on the name. "When you stole the map you left my... friends all but untouched, but when you and Makram met again he came back broken, nothing to say how long it'll be before he's fit to come out of his lamp again. Why? Is your capacity for mercy so painfully limited?"

Takara is silent for a while. Their eyes leave you, wandering, the corner of their mouth twitching up a moment. Then they meet your eyes again and it's that same wry, faintly mocking smirk they seem so accustomed to.

"Does it even matter?" they ask. "What do you want me to say? 'I'm sorry I didn't mean it'? 'I promise not to do it again'? 'Please, it wasn't me, it was the one-armed woman'?" They wave their hand dismissively. "Let's be honest, you don't care why I did anything. You're just trying to work yourself up into enough of a lather you can kill me."

They tip their head back lazily, glancing at you out of the corner of their eye. "Besides, it's just a djinn, right? Made to serve? You can always buy a new one."

A flash of light behind you, washing over your shoulders and stretching your shadow long. Another clap of thunder, closer this time. Your fists are clenched so tight you can feel the pressure of your claws, dull pinpricks of pain in your palms growing sharper and sharper. Your tail feels tense as a spring from base to tip, your calves flexing and ready to spring or sprint. No, not yet, not yet. You have to think this time. Think. Be smart. Be patient. Like a real dragon.

"Call out your god friend," you say, your voice harsh and guttural with strain.

"Don't be silly," they reply simply. "I didn't bring him. Left him in the room and snuck out so he wouldn't try to intervene. I dunno what you heard on the rumour mill while tracking us, but he certainly isn't the village-destruction type. Sure he could tear down a building with his bare hands, but you'd really have to make 'im, and he'd be apologising the whole time."

They draw their dangling leg up and perch atop the lamppost, at once cat and fox and carrion bird, looming above you with a predator-gleam in its eye. They lean forward, so far forward than a mortal would have overbalanced, lips curling up into a cruel smirk. "Much too soft-hearted to associate with the likes of me, certainly. Fortunate for him that you've come to rescue him from the mean old field-fox. Who knows? Maybe if you kill me he'll be so grateful he goes back to the spire with you~. He was on the map you know. You two would really hit it off right away."

You laugh. It's not voluntary. It's not even particularly sane. It's hysterical, it's a laugh of sheer disbelief, a bitter chuckle that runs away from you and bursts its way past your lips at the utter gall of this fox. "Are you trying to make me angrier!?"

"Not trying, no," they reply, and in that moment, in that tone, with that smirk, you've never wanted to hit someone more in all your years. "Already got a dragon terminally furious with me. Might as well see how high I can stoke the fire while I have the chance~"

[ ] Back down, try to talk, find a way for this to end without violence. No longer an option.
[ ] Close with Takara and prove your might. They have claws, yours are sharper. They have fangs, yours are longer. They may be strong, but you're stronger.
[ ] Stay at range. Show them the elemental fury you command. Your reserves are full, and in this city you're always close to more.
[ ] Teach the fox to fear this dragon's power. Assume your true form and overwhelm them utterly, no matter the consequences. [x1.5]