1061 of the New Era.
150 years before the birth of Geralt of Rivia.
Shaerrawedd.
A week later.
Merinelteratsin, also known as Merlin.
Glancing sideways at Nimue, who was looking at me demandingly and had just demanded answers about my wounds, I was forced to let out a heavy sigh…
…And begin my story.
For the most part, it was more like an analogue of human sparring with real weapons, but thanks to the ability to heal many wounds through accelerated regeneration, even up to a large through-hole in the body, even such sparring became a very bloody and serious spectacle.
At least when we locked together then — and given our fire resistance, that was the only way for one dragon to beat the crap out of another dragon…
Anyway, when we entered full contact, Vivien hit and scratched me with her claws quite real and painfully, tearing off a fair number of scales.
Everything else in the form of a fiery light show was just for show for the witchers, who were probably watching us with their whole crowd.
And if Mama inflicted many small wounds on me, essentially deep scratches, I was waiting for the right moment to surprise my parent.
Well, I inflicted a moderately severe wound on her chest, although to the observers, that wound probably looked almost fatal.
But no — as the defeated dragoness later told me, that heals very quickly and she has no problems with it, except for mild discomfort and a desire to eat.
Accelerated regeneration also requires the body’s resources, and the more you eat during that time, the faster you’ll recover.
However…
Despite this supposed victory, I didn’t suddenly become stronger than an adult, experienced, and moreover pureblood golden dragon.
In a purely dragon fight — I got by on the genes of my black-scaled father, which gave me considerable size…
And I’d also been constantly building muscle in my dragon form through endless hunting, but…
The strength of goldens isn’t in raw power.
Vivien could easily have turned into a bird, flown around me, and turned back into a dragon on my back.
Then slammed me into the ground — it’s just that this time we decided not to make it worse and crashed into the water.
Not that water was safe for falling; we’re not in some computer game about various cubes and construction, but…
With our wingbeats, we stirred up the water a bit and thereby made the landing a little softer than it would have been with a calm current or on fairly hard ground.
“…Yes…
I was wrong to think your parent was quite reasonable,” Nimue shook her head, finally hearing the full story, albeit without various unnecessary moments related to my past life experience.
“To think of such a thing…”
“At least I got combat experience fighting my own kind,” I shrugged, not seeing anything special about the fight.
Yes, tougher than usual, but honestly, for dragons, our wounds were no more dangerous than scraped knees from childhood.
Pretty painful, and moving around afterward is unpleasant for a while…
But nothing serious.
“Dragons shouldn’t fight their own kind at all when there are these sorcerers…
Witchers…
And other dangerous bipeds around,” Nimue grumbled with notes of displeasure, covering her golden eyes.
“Pfft…” I almost laughed, but fortunately, I restrained myself in time and didn’t continue.
“What?” the dragoness under the guise of an elf asked, with bewilderment and approaching notes of suspicious displeasure.
“Nothing, nothing,” I waved my hands soothingly, leaning back on the pillows.
“It’s just that you have a very good outlook on the world.
If bipeds didn’t feud among themselves, the world really would be better, but…
They may be dumber than us, but we all possess reason, so our motives are similar.
And since they’re similar, to one degree or another, real enmity between dragons has also existed, exists, and will exist.” I was no longer afraid to express such thoughts to her, since Nimue’s own father was quite a renegade and didn’t follow the party line… This story is hosted at NovelPing.
Yeah, the dragon party line.
“Again, definitely smart words, but so complicated…” Nimue sighed in displeasure, leaning her cheek on the palm of her hand, her elbow resting on her hip.
“Well, it’s too early to think about that now…
For now, we don’t have any enemies among our own kind,” I shrugged, involuntarily recalling that over the past week, Mama had already managed to slip away with the treasure (with my help and a rather peculiar experience of flying in her claws (they refused to let me sit on her neck)), and the witchers had already settled into their not-yet-canonical Kaer Morhen.
But they seemed to have already developed a bustling activity that was quite difficult to hide.
Because building that fortress from the canon and partially restoring the elven ruins is very difficult and requires a ton of workers.
So a big commotion was unfolding there, but I didn’t personally stick my nose in — they might get scared that an evil, fire-breathing black dragon lives here and scram God knows where, yeah…
“That’s temporary,” the dragoness’s eyes flashed with elongated pupils, grinning smugly.
“And why is that?” I asked with a raised eyebrow, distracted from my thoughts.
“Because at least one conversation about…
many things with some dragon who doesn’t have a parent like mine…
In short, if he’s at least a third smaller than you in size, he’ll try to give you a thorough beating,” Nimue continued to grin widely, clearly using a word from my vocabulary.
“Well, let them try,” I snorted, involuntarily feeling a sense of déjà vu.
What’s that about, and where did it come from?
Unclear…
“That’s what I’m talking about.
Your arguments about various generally accepted things will often lead to fights, despite all your desire not to get involved in meaningless battles,” the supposed elf shrugged, and, clasping her fingers together, stretched them forward and stretched.
“So, shall we continue to do nothing while the elves are at war with the humans, or shall we follow our parents’ instructions and go look for our future family lair?”
“Where are they in such a damn hurry?
I’m only nineteen years old, and you’re twenty-six…
That’s young even by elven standards, let alone ours, dragon standards?” I groaned in despair, remembering another brilliant idea from Mama, who seemed determined to see grandchildren.
I’d met such women among humans in my past life, but I never thought I’d meet one among dragons too, yeah…
Glancing at Nimue, who was not at all embarrassed by this topic or the speed of events, I sighed.
Yeah, this is all somehow unusual — no gradual development of the relationship, no dates or anything like that…
No, it would be stupid to deny that I like Nimue as a person…
Dragon.
She has a good personality, a gorgeous appearance…
Well, if that’s even worth mentioning regarding a metamorph who can twist themselves any appearance, even if not at the snap of a finger…
After all, my acquaintance-friend was still too young to fully use her potential as a pureblood metamorph-golden dragon.
But still, it’s somehow…
Unfamiliar!
Yes!
Something, something about it bothers me.
Life is shoving a beautiful dish in my face that I want to eat, as crudely as that might sound in this context, but…
The understanding of how this sort of thing goes among twenty-first-century Earth humans makes me look like a complete slowpoke and an idiot.
But for now, I can’t just ignore all this and do what all dragons do.
If I do it now, then what?
Become another arrogant reptile that abandons its mother with an egg to the whims of fate and flies away?
“…So?” the golden dragoness prompted me, wisely not distracting me during my pensive moment.
That’s what I was saying about a good personality, yes…
“If we’re going to have a lair, it’ll be the best one,” I began categorically, finally coming up with a solution.
“And since I’m an unusual dragon and I’m not going to abandon you after the hatching or even the creation of the egg…” oh, how wide her eyes opened.
And they say anime doesn’t exist in real life…
“Then it will be a lair for a very, very long time.
So we need to make it substantial and involve various dwarves, gnomes, and maybe even elves…
For construction and decoration.”
“This is…” the golden-haired woman didn’t find an answer right away, slo-o-owly trying to gather her emotions.
“You’re taking this so seriously?..”
“I liked the example of your father,” I quickly found an answer, realizing it was better not to attribute everything solely to the infectious example of bipeds.
“Yes, your situation is somewhat different…
And, forgive me for reminding you, you have no mother, but…
In my opinion, Villentretenmerth is an example of the most worthy dragon-father, even if I don’t entirely share his love for humanity in some aspects.”
“You sure know how to make these…
Compliments,” to my considerable surprise, the fake elf’s cheeks flushed slightly.
Hey, how do women’s thoughts even work?!
I praised her father, not her!
As chauvinistic as it sounds, a woman remains a woman, even if in reality she’s a multi-ton armored, flying, fire-breathing, and so on, reptile.
“So, do you agree?” I asked, having absolutely no idea what to do if she for some reason refused and decided to do everything the old-fashioned way.
It’s unlikely, but still.
“Show me the fool who would refuse such an offer in my place,” she snorted, smiling much more warmly than usual.
“Especially from someone who was practically deprived of the right to choose a partner, and given your…
Hm, merits, your choice among dragonesses would have been large.”
“Wonderful.
Then we should hurry…” I began, and although a dissonance arose in my head with my desire to drag out the process of creating the lair, a logical explanation quickly nullified it.
First, we can always ask the builders to slow down the construction…
If I even want to do that.
Second, what’s happening now?
That’s right!
A very serious war is going on between elves and humans, and consequently, more dangers.
Both from the warring parties and from the very fact of wartime in conditions of an abundance of monsters of considerable danger and aggression.
Only in the future will witchers and others exterminate them enough.
So for now, we can quite peacefully negotiate — they build us a lair, we burn any insolent ones who think of messing with the dwarves…
Or we escort them to the Dragon Mountains for some resources that are simply impossible to obtain there without protection equivalent in strength to dragons.
Or, if that kind of payment doesn’t work, at least we’ll find out the approximate price, and then we’ll think about how to get it — depending on what and how much the dwarves demand.
In short, I voiced the reason for hurrying out loud, and received full agreement and approval, and consequently we set off to get acquainted with the dwarves.
Their place of habitation was known to everyone and everything.
The mountain range, mostly running between the kingdoms of Temeria and Aedirn — Mahakam.