« Back
Generated:
Post last updated:
dungeons and
dragon may in dresdenverse
Permalink Mark Unread

You might think that snakes generally aren't a natural predator of dragons. And you'd be right, it's just that this snake is so terribly unnatural. For instance, having consumed her, instead of moving on to a leisurely digestion as is customary for snakes, it causes her to appear - still in scaly blue fullform - on top of a red Honda stopped at an intersection in downtown Chicago, claws scrabbling on the paint with an awful screech, wings flapping to keep her balance. Shift? No shift? If she doesn't shift she has a shot at flying away, getting out of sight, shifting then, and appearing unconnected to the spontaneous draconic appearance that is now causing passerby to holler and point and take phone pictures. Balance first, she isn't that good at flying yet and needs to start from something like a solid stance, she can't flap right while she's actively overbalancing. There, okay, with considerable paint job casualties she can line up for a takeoff -

Permalink Mark Unread

(A dragon having just appeared before his very eyes, Harry Dresden is now having a moderately unusual day.

Until and unless it starts eating people, however, the dragon is Not His Problem. He doesn't want it to become his problem, either. He stays in his car.)

Permalink Mark Unread

The dragon takes off.

This is the United States, so someone shoots at her.

She is not that good at flying. It's not a horrible wound but she drops.

Permalink Mark Unread

Harry gets out of his car in a substantial hurry. "What the fuck?" he yells in the general direction of the idiot with the gun, and then he runs toward the fallen dragon. (Conveniently, most people are running away from the fallen dragon.)

"Are you okay?" he asks when he reaches her.

(Molly gets out of the car and hurries after him, because she suspects someone who can make things invisible may be more useful here than someone who can set things on fire.)

Permalink Mark Unread

Nice of him to assume she can talk also ow. "OW!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you want me to dull the pain?" Molly asks.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Excuse me? What? Who are you? You don't look like a paramedic, let alone a dragon paramedic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm not a paramedic," she says calmly. "I'm a wizard. I can make your wound hurt less until someone can treat it properly."

"Speaking of paramedics, we're probably going to start seeing cops in a minute," Harry says uncomfortably. "Can you turn human and/or invisible? Because I don't think we want cops trying to handle a dragon situation."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I was hoping to fly away before I turned human so I wouldn't have a problem with people knowing I was a dragon. Uh, yeah, go ahead, dull the pain. You just tell random people on the street you're a wizard?" She presents her left hind foot. "Uh, invisible takes prep."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hell, Harry's in the Yellow Pages," Molly comments. After a moment, the pain does indeed recede.

"Uh, I think everybody ran away but valid point on not wanting people to connect your human form with the dragon, we don't know that nobody's watching out a window... Molly can make you invisible first and then you can turn human? And you can get in the car, and we can get you some medical care for the bullet, and we can try to get you back to the Nevernever or wherever you came from. And the cops won't have to get involved with either a dragon or a mysterious gunshot victim who may or may not be a dragon."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thanks," she says to Molly, and "Can do," to Harry. "What's the Nevernever?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Molly turns her invisible, with a couple of muttered Japanese syllables.

"The Nevernever is... where dragons come from. Usually. I guess it isn't where you come from, though it's very, very strange that you don't know about it. It's kind of, uh, 'magical creatures 101' material. How old are you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Seventeen," says May, shifting. "Ow ow ow I don't have my wheelchair and I have been shot in the foot where is your car."

Permalink Mark Unread

Harry winces. "It's the particolored Beetle. Do you want me to carry you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

She gauges his carrying capacity and says "Yeah" and touches his arm.

Permalink Mark Unread

He scoops her up with little trouble and carries her to the car. Molly opens the door, and he places May in the backseat. "Don't worry about bleeding on the seats, they've seen worse. Mostly from me."

Molly takes shotgun. Harry gets in the driver's seat and starts driving. "So, how did you end up here? It didn't look voluntary."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wasn't. Snake monster of some kind ate me and then next thing I know I'm in traffic. Where am I?" In human form she has her backpack; she rummages in it, though it is invisible, and finds the binder divider for invisibility scrolls by feel and whispers in French. She doesn't know how long the other spell lasts.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Snake monster. That's very weird. Uh, you're in Chicago. And we're driving to get that medical attention I mentioned."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have a healing spell in here somewhere." Flip flip.

Permalink Mark Unread

"A... healing spell? Is it rated for gunshot wounds?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not really but I have like a dozen." And if she needs to she can cheat but probably not while she can't see what she's doing, that'd be a bit much even for her.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. I guess that works. I'll still want to get you to Butters so he can check you over, if that's okay."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's a butters?" She flips to her healing spell and starts muttering in French.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Butters is a guy I know - he's a mortician, but he knows how to treat gunshot wounds and he won't tell the police if you show up with one." He pauses. "I feel like I'm coming off as really preoccupied with the police. They're perfectly nice people, they're just not situationally appropriate right now, is all."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fine by me, American cops are terrifying. This is America, right?" French muttering. She probes at her foot, and feels like she's made enough progress that she can take off her shoe. Poke poke. "I'm making good progress, I'm not sure there'll be anything for him to look at."

Permalink Mark Unread

"This is America, yes. Are you... Canadian? I kind of thought you were from some kind of dragon society."

Permalink Mark Unread

"If there were any dragon societies I'd belong to a Canadian chapter." French.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. I've only ever met a dragon once before and he wasn't very personable, so I'm not really up on the culture."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You've met one?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, it was at a particularly unpleasant vampire party, which is saying something. He told me my life was as a flickering candle and punched me in the face with magic. Like I said, not a people person. People dragon."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Vampires??"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Red Court. They drink blood, turn into giant bat-monsters, generally unpleasant."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I would have told you that vampires were imaginary."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...and you would have considered yourself well-informed on the matter. Hmm. What magical creatures are you aware of?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Dragons, griffins, sphinxes - extinct, I believe, but people say that about dragons too - nixies, bugbears, perytons, Nemean and Bohemian lions, white stags, harpies, gorgons - there's a lot, I have them written down but not on me and I'm invisible anyway."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...okay. As far as things on that list that exist, I'm aware of nixies. And you hadn't heard of the Nevernever. I'm beginning to think we have a more fundamental disconnect here than I thought. Are you sure you're from this universe?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Less sure than I was five minutes ago!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay. Um. This doesn't technically change the order of operations here, but it does make getting you back home much more difficult than it otherwise would be. And very, very dangerous."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Greaaaat."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm sorry. Obviously, I'll help out any way I can."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I appreciate that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...what's your name? I just realized I never really asked."

Permalink Mark Unread

"May."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And I'm Harry and this is Molly. I'm not going to say it's nice to meet you, because it's actually very unfortunate, but, um, greetings."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Greetings." She pokes her bullet wound. She mutters in French again. "I think it's down to a nasty scrape at this point."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Did you get the bullet itself out? Or did it go through?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Went through. Or possibly fell out, lost enough momentum from hitting scales? I wasn't looking closely at a high framerate."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fair enough. In that case we don't have to go to Butters, I'll trust your weird foreign magic... I'm drawing a blank on what we should actually do here."

"If you've mostly healed up and the bullet's not still in there I'm gonna drop the anesthetic effect," Molly says. "Should I keep the veil up too, or are you okay with being seen to exist yet?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I've done my own invisibility since I didn't know how long yours would last, go ahead and drop yours."