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

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[X] Show him the vast treasure trove of wine your wish gave you and get extremely drunk in miserable solidarity with each other. What could possibly go wrong?

The responsible choice! :V
 
[X] Show him the vast treasure trove of wine your wish gave you and get extremely drunk in miserable solidarity with each other. What could possibly go wrong?
 
[X] Show him the neighbourhood. He probably wants to get a proper feel for the local landmarks so he's not just stuck in and around your spire-region, and there's plenty of stuff to see within flying distance. Maybe you can even check out one of the places from the map on the sly. That'd really impress him.
--[X] The mountains. Air should be a lot clearer there, and if he's anywhere near as fascinated by magical bits and baubles as you then there should be plenty to amuse yourselves with in that old wizard's tower. Given how long and thin and flexible he is, he might even be able to fit comfortably as a temporary lair.
 
[X] Show him the neighbourhood. He probably wants to get a proper feel for the local landmarks so he's not just stuck in and around your spire-region, and there's plenty of stuff to see within flying distance. Maybe you can even check out one of the places from the map on the sly. That'd really impress him.
--[X] The mountains. Air should be a lot clearer there, and if he's anywhere near as fascinated by magical bits and baubles as you then there should be plenty to amuse yourselves with in that old wizard's tower. Given how long and thin and flexible he is, he might even be able to fit comfortably as a temporary lair.
 
[X] Show him the vast treasure trove of wine your wish gave you and get extremely drunk in miserable solidarity with each other. What could possibly go wrong?
 
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Adhoc vote count started by toxinvictory on May 5, 2018 at 12:24 AM, finished with 559 posts and 47 votes.
  • [X] Show him the vast treasure trove of wine your wish gave you and get extremely drunk in miserable solidarity with each other. What could possibly go wrong?
    [X] Show him the neighbourhood. He probably wants to get a proper feel for the local landmarks so he's not just stuck in and around your spire-region, and there's plenty of stuff to see within flying distance. Maybe you can even check out one of the places from the map on the sly. That'd really impress him.
    --[X] The mountains. Air should be a lot clearer there, and if he's anywhere near as fascinated by magical bits and baubles as you then there should be plenty to amuse yourselves with in that old wizard's tower. Given how long and thin and flexible he is, he might even be able to fit comfortably as a temporary lair.
    [X] Show him Söfnun. It's dangerous sure, but if you get in early enough Mother won't have had enough time to institute martial law or whatever it is she intends to amuse herself with for six months. Beyond tormenting you.
    --[X] Take him to the market and buy him things on credit you're not sure you can afford any more. You think that's how courtship works for dragons and mortals alike.
    [X] Show him the neighbourhood. He probably wants to get a proper feel for the local landmarks so he's not just stuck in and around your spire-region, and there's plenty of stuff to see within flying distance. Maybe you can even check out one of the places from the map on the sly. That'd really impress him.
    --[X] The forest. You don't really know how scale colour corresponds to natural habitat for his type of dragon but if it's anything like red dragons from around here it'd at least be slightly more comfortable. And there's that old abandoned estate he could squat in.
    [X] Show him Söfnun. It's dangerous sure, but if you get in early enough Mother won't have had enough time to institute martial law or whatever it is she intends to amuse herself with for six months. Beyond tormenting you.
    --[X] Try finding somewhere 'classy' to take him. Something that makes you look deep and cultured and sophisticated, like an art sort of thing.
Click to expand...
 
[X] Show him the vast treasure trove of wine your wish gave you and get extremely drunk in miserable solidarity with each other. What could possibly go wrong?
 
I hope our childhood playmate was some princess (or some random villager that married up) that our mom captured and when we meet her again she's basically this person. Eldingar's reaction would be hilarious.
 
Okay, so. I think we chose the worst option. But ah well. Wait, did I vote? Or did I just think, "I'm going to vote" and then forgot like I always do.

*checks*

Whew, voted... and lost anyways. It's politics all over again! :V
 
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Chapter Eight - When Has Drinking With Strangers Ever Led To Regrets?
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    • You look around you and realise for the first time in a very long string of grey, rainy, stormy days you have absolutely no desire to be outside. And with the weather clearly getting to Jun-ho the way it does you during a dry spell when your lightning has the time to all just bleeeeeeed away like sweat the next course of action seems semi-obvious.

    "Okay so," you say, before you can lose your nerve, "you hate this just as much as I do."

    "N-no!" he protests weakly. You just keep looking at him. "... yeah," he finishes, sheepishly averting his gaze.

    "Well! That's something we have in common already!"

    Jun-ho raises one claw, mouth opening as he tries to come up with a counter-argument. Pauses. And then puts his claw right back down again.

    "So let's get drunk as skunks on the rest of the wine in my cave and complain about what endless nightmares our lives are!" you proclaim proudly, adding a "Yaaaaaaaayyyyy!" and jazz-hands. "... and if Mother's gonna see fit to mash us together like a pair of toy soldiers for half a year the least we can do is get to know each other."

    Jun-ho scritches the back of his neck, talons kneading and twisting through the flowing golden hair as he thinks it through. You don't blame him for needing to take a second, in his position you'd probably be more likely to leap into the air and leave immediately. Instead he just shrugs helplessly, palms up almost at shoulder-level.

    "Okay?"

    "GREAT!" The way you see it you've got about ten, maybe twenty minutes before everything hits you again and you're no good to anyone. Best capitalise on the time you have while you can! So you unfurl your wings properly and prepare to take to the skies, leading Jun-ho to the entrance.

    "What about the cups you brought out for your mother?" he asks, pointing at them where they lie in the grass. "Are you just gonna leave them?"

    You pause mid-flap and think about it.

    "After she's slobbered all over them we'd probably get diseases," you say. "Leave 'em, I have more. (I think.)"

    You kick off properly and flap your way up to the cave mouth, alighting atop the lip at the corner to make sure Jun-ho knows where to go, and out of curiosity so you can turn and watch how he flies to follow you. He doesn't disappoint - he has to return to his true form to do it, and what follows is an oddly mesmerising serpentine undulation that carries him straight through the thin air like a swimming snake or eel or very long fish. It's almost hypnotic in its rhythm just in the short time you have to watch it, and then like that he's vanishing into the cave. You can practically hear the schloop of the cave sucking the weird noodle-dragon down into its depths. You hop in after him, flaring out your wings for the last metre or so to cushion your fall as you land next to his bipedal form. He's craning his neck to see the top of the wall of wine-barrels that saved your life from Mother just a few moments ago.

    "I guess you... really like wine?" he asks.

    "And you don't like gold apparently so this is gonna be a lot less of an issue than it should be!" you reply with a distinctly hysterical undertone to your voice as you decide to get it all over with out of the gate and give the base of the wall a short, sharp kick. You hear the wine inside rumble and ripple, the wood groan and creak, a section of the mighty alcoholic fortification wavering and swaying. Finally giving up the ghost and toppling ponderously, steel-banded barrels bouncing with strangely sonorous sounds and rolling away to various corners of your cave.

    "Uh," says Jun-ho.

    It's just the way you remember it and will likely remember it in all of your nightmares from this day forth. The whole thing coated in a single irregular layer of coins, one side dominated by the horrible molten, fused lump of lightning-scorched gold that was once the heart of your treasurepile. Salt and spices and other provisions strewn about the place among the wreckage of the once-wagons that held them. The bag of baubles you bought at Söfnun yesterday is intact, and you spy at least a couple of the bigger items scattered around untouched or only lightly damaged, but all in all you've still lost the majority of your life's work.

    "Do you... want to talk about it?" the eastern dragon asks, concerned.

    "Not much to tell I just got in a fight with a djinn!" you say far too jauntily because if you let it set in that's when the demons come. "Find a nice bit of rubble or two, I'll get us a barrel and some cups."

    "O-okay..." he says, eyeing you as he clearly conjures up all sorts of alternative reasons for your cave to be in this state that don't involve mysterious invisible djinn battles, but refrains from actually speaking them aloud. He finds two roughly chair-sized pieces of rubble while you bring the goblets and wine barrels - one to actually drink from and the other to stand up between the two of you like an end-table. You scoop your cup full first and, after a second's hesitation, Jun-ho follows suit.

    "So..." he says.

    "So," you concur.

    "So... d'you know how this," he gestures in a broad fashion with his cup, "All this is supposed to go?"

    "Kkkkkind of?" You take some very deep pulls from your goblet, ever your mother's son, and rack your brain for anything useful. "I mean I kind of passively heard about matchmaking while I was still living with Mother but I don't remember any times when it was this set up."

    "Ah." Jun-ho takes some hearty swigs to match you and refills his cup. "Then just tell me everything you do. More context can't hurt, right?"

    "Mhm." You empty and refill yours in turn. You have to admit the ifrit did a pretty good job actually, this wine is good. You wonder where he ran off to. Maybe too tired to torment you any more for the day? Perhaps he'll be back to break up this mandated courtship. Wouldn't that be nice. "Well whenever you pick someone you're wanting to form something long-term with the aunties think it over - and the aunties always know."

    "Magic?" he asks.

    "Most comprehensive and wide-reaching spy network in any nation and beyond," you reply wide-eyed. "They will know."

    He looks distinctly uncomfortable, and just the barest hint interested in why you'd know so personally, but you blow past it immediately thanks to hysteric energy and wine. "So they evaluate your partner and kind of weigh up the cost-benefit ratio there, whether it's in grandchildren or in money or in power and influence et cetera et cetera. It's rare that they don't find something useful honestly, think the only flat-out rejections are when there's a scale colour mismatch."

    "Scale colour?" Jun-ho repeats as you top yourself off. "Doesn't that seem a bit...?"

    "Oh no it's a..." you gesture vaguely, taking another sip while you think. You snap your claws. "Biological. Thing. Like say, me I'm a blue dragon so my element is lightning. I don't just breathe lightning I absorb it from storms and it's kind of like another food for me- do you have this where you come from?"

    "Oh, no I wasn't very uh... deep into the local dragon scene," Jun-ho replies awkwardly.

    "Yeah well neither am I, so that's another thing we have in common," you say sardonically. "Uh... right scale colour. I eat lightning and I breathe lightning and I'm immune to lightning. Simple enough yeah?" He nods. You take another sip. "So I marry a... red dragon lady. Red dragons are immune to heat and tend to find volcanos to live in so they can chew on some magma to fuel their fire. Youuuuu breathe fire right? Just asking since you seem more on the orange side."

    He breathes out a tongue of iridescent flame, which a moment later bursts blue as the alcohol fumes catch light. His eyes go wide as he slaps his free claw over the end of his snout, as if catching a burp. You just snort.

    "Fire it is!"

    He gives a little laugh of his own, taking his hand away from his mouth.

    "So yeah, say I married her and we had children. They're not gonna be purple dragons, it doesn't work like that. Or..." your brow furrows, "I think maybe sometimes it does but it's really super rare? But maybe the guy who told me was fucking with me. Point is more commonly it's like... half would be blue, half would be red, and out of all them like a third would get some kinda health problem. Like not being completely immune to one of our elements so they'd hurt themselves trying to eat it or produce a horrible nightmare-mixture of our breaths if they tried to breathe an element, so on and so forth."

    "Well that sounds... bad," Jun-ho says insightfully, goblet already half empty - how many are you at? You haven't really been keeping count but maybe he is, who knows.

    "Mm. But hey, we're gay, so that's one problem solved!"

    There's a pregnant pause.

    The two of you drunkenly snort in unison. You take his cup and refill both.

    "So it's only dragons with other scale colours?" Jun-ho asks. "What if you fell in love with a mortal?"

    "Yeah that's fine." You pause. "I mean hey it's not always 'falling in love' but yeah if it's a mortal it's still okay. All sorts of stuff you can control through a mortal if you don't feel like doing it yourself in disguise, and you can still have half-dragon kids."

    Jun-ho cocks his head and makes a face as he clearly tries to picture what a half-dragon kid would look like.

    "Uhhhh..." you consider his unasked question, setting your near-empty cup down and counting off your talons. "Grow up at the regular rate for their mortal parent, I think they just look like 'em too by default but maybe they're weird hybrids, then as they grow up they learn the innate tricks. Main difference is they can only look like the one normal mortal guise or like forms we're using now, 'least unless they scale up."

    " 'Scale up'?" Jun-ho asks, leaning over the barrel-table as he refills his cup. "What's- what's this 'scale up'?"

    "D'you not have that where you're from?"

    The mustachioed dragon shakes his head.

    "Uuhhhh how to explain it..." you knock back the rest of your cup and worry the golden stem back and forth between your claws. "Basically a mortal can turn into a dragon if they're greedy enough."

    Jun-ho blinks blankly at you.

    "I mean, yeah. We're greedy. It's kind of our Thing. Building up treasure-hoards and adding to them over the course of the years and decades and centuries is just kind of this overwhelming need. Like, metaphysically or something. So all throughout the land when someone's too greedy and too miserly, if they push enough people away and covet enough, eventually they'll just wake up one day on a pile of all they've gained a full-fledged dragon."

    "So it's... a punishment, here? To become a dragon?"

    Now it's your turn to shoot him a blank look. The question takes a second to worm its way through your thickening head. "I mean... I guess?" you answer eventually. "In technical terms yeah it's a curse and sometimes scale-ups get those broken for whatever reason but..." you shrug. "I dunno. I'm like this and I always have been. Just seems pretty normal to me."

    There's a long silence cut only by the gentle gurgle of wine flowing into cups. You're having to reach pretty far into the barrel at this point. You don't know what face Jun-ho is making because you're busy staring into the middle distance and trying to remember who it was in the Söfnun fighting pits that got the simultaneous knock-out with the one that always chained his right arm behind his back. And remembering what day it is. And-

    "Oh right!" you say suddenly, lurching a little as you lean over the barrel-table. You prop yourself up on your elbow, sipping from the goblet in your moderately swaying other hand. "IIiii haaaave... a magic treasure-map. That points me to treasure. With a magic compass."

    "Wow," Jun-ho says insightfully.

    "Yeeeeah," you reply. "S'what pointed me to that motherfucker piece of shit the ifrit what... blew up all my gold the prick but he grants wishes so I got that going for me." You take another long drag from your cup. "And there's still six other markers on that map so I'm gonna... gonna go find all that treasure and replace what I lost 'cause Mother might Actually Kill Me if she finds out I blew up all my gold."

    "I thought you said the ifrit-"

    "And I thought I said shaddup!" you jab a talon at him accusingly. "An- anyway the more gold I have the nicer the aunties'll be at Nana Illvithri's birthday -or kill me less painfully I guess- so I'm gonna go fffind it all and you can come with me if you want 'cause it's something to do I guess y'don't have to I mean we can do what you wanna do too it's not like every day nothing but treasure-hunting."

    "Right, right, right, right," he agrees, nodding repeatedly. "But... you aren't worried I'd try'n steal it? We only just met?"

    "Uhh... mean you could," you say, brow ridges furrowing as the idea actually properly occurs to you. "But then Mother would know and the aunties would know and basically they'd hunt you down like a dog and kill you 'cause dragons don't steal from dragons without getting fucked."

    Jun-ho drinks the rest of his cup very very quickly and you match him like the world's shortest drinking game.

    "So can you do the disguise thing?" you ask out of the blue.

    Jun-ho blinks. "The... disguise thing?"

    "Yeah! You know, like-" you shift down into your Lord Elding guise, bearded and tanned and long-haired and pointy-eared "-this!"

    "Ooooh! Oh yeah I can do that!" Jun-ho looks down at the barrel and concentrates as hard as he can. Suddenly, all at once, with an audible poof and a wave of dry heat he's covered in a thin layer of scarlet fur and literal flickering flames. He's an upright dog-man of the same size and proportion as his old form, long and lean and lanky. Bright emerald-green eyes still glowing beneath coral antlers.

    You snort. "What's that?"

    "A bulgae!" he says defensively. "They're plenty common where I come from!"

    "... oh yeah," you say stupidly, "mean just looks like a dog someone lit on fire I guess..."

    "Yeah well they're called 'bulgae' and they're majestic and beautiful," Jun-ho adds weirdly vehemently.

    "And you forgot your horns," you point out.

    He pats them with his free hand. "Aw shit. Well-" he looks up at you "-well you forgot your eyes!"

    "No I'm pretty sure I have eyes still."

    You pause. Then carefully tap at your face just in case.

    "no no no you have eyes I mean your eyes," he explains helpfully, waggling his claws at his own. "They're really bright blue and I've never seen a normal person with that shade."

    "Oh." You look down into the rippling surface of the wine in your goblet and see that he's right. "Ohhhhh..."

    "S'okay!" Jun-ho comforts you, pat-pat-patting your shoulder rather harder than you think he's intending. "You tried! And that's what counts! S'long as you keep trying!"

    "Yeah yeah yeah-" you reach into the barrel for another cupful, only to find yourself scraping the bottom of it. You pause, scraping it a few more times just to make sure there's not more hiding under this weird wood-y blockage you've unexpectedly bumped into. "-oh. Need more."

    "I'll get-" Jun-ho starts, pushing himself off his rock.

    "Nno-nono, you, you stay," you order him, wagging your hand at him authoritatively. "Stay. Stay. Guest. I-" you press your hand to your chest "-I go. Get more booze."

    Jun-ho nods in acknowledgement of these sage words. You slowly push yourself upright, claws flat on the lid of the unopened barrel beneath. You turn and- wait. The barrel table has wine in it too. Why not just use the- no that... that means it's wine and not table any more. You want it to stay table. Only one table and lots more wine. You turn away, content that you're a clever boy for catching that so quickly, and wander off in pursuit of one of the many that rolled away when you kicked down the winewall.

    "Heeeere drinky drinky drinky..." you murmur to yourself. "Daddy needs you to stay happy because his life is a nightmare~"

    And then at some point you think you blink too long and decide that a nap would be really nice right about now.

    You sit up on a soft four-poster bed wrapped in silk sheets, draped in gauzy curtains on three sides. The light of either sunrise or sunset filters gently through the window, catching the incense smoke that curls up from almost every available surface and bathing the lush bedroom in a soft, hazy pink glow. The scent is almost overpowering, like a dozen rich perfumes all mixed up into a single heady cocktail that hangs heavily in the air. A fire flickers behind a brass grate at the other end of the room, casting a slight dancing orange light across the massive Sultanate rug lying before it. You can even hear music, sitars you think, gently strumming from somewhere beyond the room and filtering through in such a manner that it seems to surround you.

    "Mmm... something the matter?"

    You turn and look. Jun-ho is lying next to you, posed just so with the silk sheets coquettishly wrapped around his naked, scaly body. He's looking up at you like you just got done having the most passionate sex of your lives and he's angling for another go before breakfast, one hand on your arm.

    "Uh..." you take another look around the room "... lots, actually."

    "Why, what is it?"

    You blink, sluggish thoughts connecting behind your eyes. "Because... because for starters this seems awfully fast."

    " 'Fast'? Eldingar, we've been together for two years," Jun-ho says, somewhat concerned. "Are you still confused from the dream you had?"

    For just a moment that seems a little plausible. And then it doesn't in the slightest so you furrow your brow ridges, plucking at the silk sheets with your claws. Predictably, they tear almost immediately.

    "And I'd never be caught dead in this... weird... soft... fluffy thing mortals call beds," you go on, so offended at the concept that your thoughts manage to get a little clearer. "Let alone in this form with you! We'd tear these to shreds nightly, it'd just be impossible! Where's my cave? Where's my treasure? Why aren't I lying on a giant pile of gold? I mean the incense, the music, the sexy posing... what's really going on here?"

    There's a long, pregnant pause as Jun-ho simply stares at you, mouth slightly agape.

    "... is this a dre-?"

    Which is when you wake up with a disgusting, deep, apnea-skronk that frightens even you. You're flat on your back, staring straight up at the ceiling of your spire, a thin sheet of gold coins beneath you and very little idea how you got there. Albeit you do know that your head is aching like you're running on no lightning at all and your mouth feels like someone scrubbed it with a ferret and also there's someone snoring nearby. You crane your neck to look - oh, it's just Jun-ho, slumped over the table-barrel and drooling, one arm crooked over his eyes and the other dangling free beside it. At least he's back in his draconic form so he's not... setting the barrel on fire.


    (( art by @Camellia ))

    Your head rocks back and you squint up at the ceiling in confusion, trying to puzzle out what exactly is going on in your weird head right now.

    At which point you realise that you and Jun-ho aren't alone in your cave. You can hear someone pacing back and forth off to your right somewhere, their footfalls making a weird noise you can't quite place. They're muttering something to themselves, clearly so wrapped up in whatever it is (and you so groggy and wasted that you've barely moved) that they don't actually know you're awake yet. Definitely not the ifrit, you can tell that much at least. For starters, he seems more the hover-lounging than walking type.

    You're not even worried, strictly speaking, just confused and annoyed. And looking to deal with whatever the hell this is quickly so you can go off and freshen up with a bolt or six because fuck the pain is literally pulsing behind your eye.

    [ ] Ask who the hell this person is and what they're doing in your cave. You're in no mood to be anything but blunt.
    [ ] Keep playing at being asleep and sharpen your ears for whatever they're muttering. Get some info on the down-low, and this way you can rest your eyes and stay horizontal which sounds really appealing right now.
    [ ] Wake up Jun-ho to back you up, leap into action and attack whoever it is so you can make them give you some answers. Hung-over anger will give you the strength you need, and this way at least they can't escape.
    Adhoc vote count started by ZerbanDaGreat on May 5, 2018 at 7:57 PM, finished with 627 posts and 44 votes.
    Click to expand...

    Adhoc vote count started by ZerbanDaGreat on May 6, 2018 at 3:27 AM, finished with 641 posts and 50 votes.
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    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Keep playing at being asleep and sharpen your ears for whatever they're muttering. Get some info on the down-low, and this way you can rest your eyes and stay horizontal which sounds really appealing right now.
     
    [X] Keep playing at being asleep and sharpen your ears for whatever they're muttering. Get some info on the down-low, and this way you can rest your eyes and stay horizontal which sounds really appealing right now.

    because honestly fuck getting up.
     
    Goddamnit I was just about to go shopping.

    Well this turned out... Less terribly than I expected. Using it as an excuse for some worldbuilding is appreciated.
    ZerbanDaGreat said:
    "Ooooh! Oh yeah I can do that!" Jun-ho looks down at the barrel and concentrates as hard as he can. Suddenly, all at once, with an audible poof and a wave of dry heat he's covered in a thin layer of scarlet fur and literal flickering flames. He's an upright dog-man of the same size and proportion as his old form, long and lean and lanky. Bright emerald-green eyes still glowing beneath coral antlers.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    oh no he's a nervous puppy everything makes sense now

    [X] Ask who the hell this person is and what they're doing in your cave. You're in no mood to be anything but blunt.

    Look if we keep playing at being asleep we'll probably go back to sleep, and picking fights out of the blue seems like a bad idea.
     
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