{Liz & Kat} Non-muddy forest explorations! {Hydra & Measle}

'In that case,' she thought, 'Time to give you a nudge!' With that she headbutted the back of his leg. "Let's get moving then come on double time Jacky-Jack!" Upon finishing with her motivational moment she went back to acting like a hatchling with Measle again. "Tag you're it!" she squeaked running off down the trail. She paused and looked back at him with a laugh. "Come on slowpoke catch me if you can!" The day was young and with Measle able to actually be active and play games with her, she'd probably pass out once it got dark and running around wasn't an option anymore.

Jackdaww stumbled a little, before whirling around in mock-anger at Hydra, laughing as she told him to speed up. Then, she went tearing off down the path, and he shook his head. Both she and Measle seemed full of energy that day, and it was a little contagious. He sped up, with a slight spring in his step, heading down the path more confidently now that he knew where he was going.

Measle crackled happily deep in his chest, before racing off after Hydra, nearly bowling Jackdaww over as he ran past. His pent up energy gave him a burst of speed, and he chased after her, gaining fast. “Who’s the slowpoke now?” he called, tagging her and dashing past, his teeth sparking happily.

Now he could put his claw on why he was so energetic – he was ‘charged up’, and full of spare lightning. It usually sparkled off his scales when he moved, but now the energy was coursing around him, making him all bouncy. It was a nice feeling, actually, but he hoped it wouldn’t last too long – he could afford a couple of playful, hatchling-like days, but then he would have to start acting a bit more grown up again.

"You think you're faster than me? Ha!" She hadn't felt this happy in her whole life. It didn't seem to occur to her that Measle wasn't always like this, and definitely wouldn't stay this way for long. The fact that he'd soon stop acting like this would definitely sting a bit, but she'd get over it. He was, after all, her precious lightning bug. She could never stay mad at him for too long a time. That would come much later though, as for the moment they were just running down the trail playing tag. Hydra finally jumped at Measle trying to tackle him rather like a puppy would its litter-mate and laughed. "Gotcha now, Measle!"

Measle laughed and rolled over, caught in a tingly-cold tackle. “Hey, that’s not fair!” he crackled, laughing, before rolling over again and catching her, pinning her down playfully. “Gotcha!” he grinned, before leaping over her and rolling into a little ditch beside the path. The last part had been quite by accident – he had sort of landed on a bump, and rolled until hitting the ditch, but it gave him a great vantage point. He liked this game, and although he knew Jackdaww would think it was silly and childish, he didn’t care. He had never been around dragons as a hatchling, and had therefore never had a chance to play like this. Now he was going to catch up on everything he’d missed, whether Jack liked it or not.

She had jumped up to follow him but rolled into the ditch landing next to him. "Oof! We're a couple of klutzes today!" she said still laughing. After licking Measle's cheek she climbed out and looked at him curiously. "Will you need help getting out of there my precious lightning bug?" Her tail swished back and forth rather consistently as she waited for his answer. "I don't think this day can get any better, do you?" There were countless ways it could get worse, but that didn't seem to occur to her either. This day had been the absolute best in her opinion, but then again, was that also the case for Measle?

“I guess we are.” He smiled, crackling to himself again as Hydra licked his cheek. “We’re still not as bad as Jack, though, so it’s fine.” He added, watching as Hydra got out of the ditch.

“I think I can get myself out, my precious snowflake.” He replied softly, smiling warmly before leaping out of the ditch, dragging a few leaves with him caught under his scales and on the spines down his back. He pulled the worst off with his teeth, before nodding at Hydra’s comment.

“This is pretty much as good as it’s ever been, but then again my days have all been better since meeting you.” He crackled endearingly, ignoring the fact that it made his heart beat even faster than their energetic playing had done. However, he was still packed full of energy, and sprang into a pile of leaves left from the autumn, burying himself until the red and orange leaves.

Feeling tired after everything that day she gave a small yawn and jumped into the leaves as well. "I suddenly feel tired. . .I wonder why. . ." In cooler weather she always fared better than she would in the summer, but it was a cool day, not even evening yet, and she was tired! It occurred to her a short time later that she felt rather old, having no energy to run around like a hatchilng again. "I feel so old." she muttered. "But then again since I don't "recharge" like you do, so it's excusable?" She burrowed into the leaves and cuddled up to Measle. "Perhaps the city won't be so bad after all."

“Maybe it’s because we’ve not been very active for a while?” Measle suggested, snuggling Hydra’s side as she joined him in the pile of leaves. It was cool in the middle of the heap, where the sunlight couldn’t warm it up, which felt more natural to Measle now than the warmth did. He was getting used to Hydra’s cold scales, and felt quite at home with colder temperatures, purely because they reminded him of her.

“I don’t really ‘recharge’, I just sort of stockpile energy.” He smiled, settling down a little. He was fairly sure that there was no real difference between gathering energy and recharging, but he didn’t know. Either way, it most certainly did excuse Hydra for not having as much energy as he did that day. He hoped it would last a while, his happy, childish mood, simply because it was to most fun he’d ever had, but equally he could tell that his excessive peppiness must get annoying after a while.

"Wonder if Jack continued on without us?" she mused. "Wouldn't exactly matter if he has, since we can catch up to him no problem, but I'm just curious." She poked her head out of the leaves and glanced around. "I just worry for his safety is all. Much like I worry over you." As she gradually got her energy back she tumbled out of the leaves and shook herself off. "Guess we can't leave him on his own forever, can we?" She sat on her haunches to watch Measle, but her ears pricked as a bird began to sing. 'Wish dragons could sing like that.' she pondered to herself.

“He probably has. Don’t worry about him too much though – that’s my job.” He joked, standing up to shake the leaves off. They should be moving again really – ideally they wanted to be within sight of the city before setting up camp. And of course, Jackdaww would be ahead of them – he couldn’t let the skinny two-leg beat them to Caspan!

The birdsong sounded so natural to Measle – so everyday that he would never have paid it any attention. However, as Hydra pointed it out, he nodded a little. “Yes, I suppose that would be nice. I’ve never thought of it before.” He said with a smile. Then, fluffing his scales to remove the last leaves, he started to walk slowly down the path. “Come on, snowflake.” He called back, smiling softly, looking for signs of Jackdaww that they could follow. The messy footprints with the occasional smudge from a stumble seemed like their best bet.

The day went on like it had started, and it seemed to get dark pretty quickly, giving everyone time to rest. With a long sigh she settled down in the shadow of the fire and curled up. This had been the best day so far considering Measle spent weeks hardly able to move and her only mobile company was her lightning bug's scrawny human. She hadn't any idea what wonders or horrors the city would bring, but she was hoping for fewer horrors than she'd seen in cities in the past. It was bad enough she could get stepped on, but seeing dragons butchered for their skin and teeth among other things was just too much for her.

As the light disappeared, and Jackdaww set up a fire in the dark, Measle settled himself down on the cool ground. Jackdaww wasn’t building a shelter that night – they were close enough to the city to be out of any real danger, and it was a mild evening – which meant they would be out under the stars. Not that it was unusual for Measle to be out under the starts, but it seemed significant. He only hoped that Caspan would be as nice as he hoped – ideally he would have tried to take Hydra to somewhere like Shayenne, which was utterly pristine, and was possibly the least corrupt place he could name. Caspan was unfamiliar to him, and he only hoped it would have enough good in it to show Hydra the best of humans.

“It’s a lovely night – the moon is so big.” He said casually, nodding up at the sky. The moon did look big, and it was flushed with a dull, copper-orange colour which made it stand out from the midnight-blue of the sky perfectly. Jackdaww had explained what made it look like that once, but he couldn’t remember - it just looked nice.

She looked up at the moon and nodded. "The sky looks lovely tonight." She lay down lethargically by the fire and snorted, she'd made an idiot of herself today on more than one occasion and now was just too tired to care. "Hope Caspan's different from the other cities I've seen..." she murmured. The night was pleasantly warm, but she had a sudden longing to see the ice plains again. Homesickness always happened at the worst time possible, didn't it? With another sigh she glanced at Measle. "You're used to roaming aren't you?"

“You could say that – roaming is all I really know.” Measle replied quietly. Sometimes he envied the homesick – he had never even had a home to miss. No family to speak of, and he’d been forced to hit the road the day he hatched. He really only had Jackdaww, which only seemed sadder once you got to know him.

“What about you?” he asked. He didn’t really know how long Hydra had been away from her home, or how much she missed it, but wasn’t sure he wanted to ask outright. It might be a sore subject, and he didn’t want to make anyone feel awkward that night.

“I hope Caspan’s nice too.” He added, thinking. Jackdaww was busying himself sorting out the little camp, and making sure he still had the few possessions they had brought along in the rough pack, and therefore couldn’t reassure either of them, meaning that they were both in the dark about the city they were headed towards.

"I haven't had family, or a home, in many years. I've been a nomad for most of my life going from city to city on the wing and hardly staying any time at all. In fact traveling with you and your human is the first interesting thing I've done in a long while." She missed having a family to cuddle up to when it was storming too badly to go out into the snow and chase down the rabbits. "I miss having a family very much. My mother, my siblings. . .It still feels somewhat lonely without them now and again." Sadly she lay her head on Measle's foreleg and looked up at him. "You make it easier to cope with the pain though."

Measle rested his head on top of Hydra’s comfortingly. “At least you have memories of them – you’ll always have a little piece of them with you that way.” He whispered into her ear. He felt so sorry for her – a whole family was a pretty big thing to loose. In that way he supposed he was lucky – he hadn’t ever had to loose his, so as to speak – they had always been absent. And e had Jackdaww, which could often look like a curse, but he was thankful of him really.

“We should get to sleep – tomorrow will be a busy day. If you don’t want to stay in the city, just say so – we can leave any time you like.” He said, hoping that it wouldn’t be a necessary precaution. He wanted Hydra to see that humans could be nice too, but frankly the case against them was huge.

She inhaled slowly and snorted a bit of ice into the fire when she exhaled. "I guess. . .Course I also have memories of you and your funny little skinny human to fill that void." The thought of having memories to make her smile made things a bit less grim. "But sleep is difficult to come by Measle. Your human snores half the night." she teased. She curled her tail around her legs and made herself comfortable as she looked at the stars. "Perhaps tomorrow will go just as well as today has for us. No accidents, no major mishaps. Wouldn't that be nice?" she asked with a yawn.

“Really? I’ve never noticed his snoring – he always said that was me.” Measle said in surprise. However, it seemed more likely that it was in fact Jackdaww that snored so loudly, and it explained why Measle could always hear it before he fell asleep… that annoying man, trying to lie to Measle about it!

“Hopefully it will – I can’t see why it wouldn’t. Well, Jackdaww may well manage to do something daft, but that’s inevitable.” He smiled, looking at Jackdaww over the fire. The human seemed to have no idea they were talking about him, and it seemed almost funny how unobservant he could be.

Measle settled down properly, folding his wings tightly so that they warmed his scales with every crackle of electricity that flowed through them. He yawned too – he was still full of spare energy, of course, but he’d used so much up that day, and it had left him feeling sleepy.

The next morning Hydra got up a bit faster than normal and looked around to see if Jack or Measle were awake yet. "Seems I'm either the first one up or I'm the last one up. Hopefully it's the former." She sat by the fire-pit and waited for someone to say 'good morning', but got distracted with a small little rabbit she found nearby. With a quiet yawn she lay back down half forgetting that she was going to a city today. She'd have probably gone off and sulked if she were awake enough to recall. "Wish they'd wake up already." she groaned.

Jackdaww had alreadty been up, and was training a little way away. It didn’t matter that they had picked up Hydra as an addition to their group – he still trained at the crack of dawn every day without fail. However, Measle was still out for the count. He stirred and grumbled at Hydra’s movement, but simply rolled over instead of getting up for a moment.

“Five more minutes.” He grumbled, half opening one eye. He could feel the energy buzzing about inside him, but the fact remained that it was morning, and he wasn’t happy about getting up yet.

Across the camp, Jackdaww emerged, just slotting his sword back into its sheath as he did so. “Oh, good morning Hydra. Measle, get up.” He called brightly. Measle grumbled again, but Jackdaww ignored him. He was a morning person, which Measle found more annoying than anything.

Hydra noticed Measle's usual grumpiness and nudged him. "Measle wake uuuup!" she whined. "Come on my lovely little lightning bug please wake up." she begged a softer tone. She licked his cheek a few times and nudged him again. "We're going to the city remember? You were all excited about it yesterday." Finally she sighed exasperatedly and gave up. "Fine if you won't wake up I guess I'll go exploring it on my own and risk getting stepped on." If that statement wouldn't get him up and moving then it seemed that nothing would at that point.

That was enough to jolt Measle awake, certainly, and he sat up with a start. “Okay, okay, I’m up!” he said, shaking his wings down with a great crackle. Of course he remembered they were going into the city – he had just needed a little more prompting to get up. But now he was awake, and he could feel the little trails of energy rippling around under his scales again.

“You’ve been to Caspan before, right Jack?” he asked brightly, his morning grump gone. Jackdaww nodded, and shouldered the little pack he had with him, ready to stock up on supplies once they got into the city.

“Come on you two – we’ll get breakfast in the city.” Jackdaww smiled, before setting off towards the city, which looked very close in the daylight. Measle crackled at him, and turned back to Hydra. “Are you ready?” he asked, feeling faintly excited. He loved cities – they were like an adventure in-between general forest life, and hoped that Caspan would live up to his expectations.

"Ready as I'll ever be and if someone steps on me I'll freeze them!" Truth be told she was happy to see something other than trees, but she was still scared of cities. It did make her nervous to go into one, except this time she had company and that made it all the better. The first thing Hydra was probably going to do was raid a butcher's meat locker like she was used to doing in small villages. Sometimes if she found a butcher that didn't mind dragons she'd hang around for a bit and get rid of any unwanted pests in exchange for a bit of meat and the change to sleep in the freezer. "Maybe something wonderful will happen today."

“I won’t let anyone step on you, my little snowflake. It’s morning anyway, so it shouldn’t be too crowded.” He smiled, licking Hydra’s cheek, before following Jackdaww through the trees. He didn’t want to get lost, so he would have to trust Jackdaww to lead the way until he got his bearings.

It didn’t take them long to reach the city, and Jackdaww led them through the gates confidently. He could clearly remember the city, which Measle was glad of, but that meant that there was only one place that they would be headed first.

“Jack, I hope you’re going to take us to see the sights before vanishing into a tavern somewhere.” He said, a little more sharply than he had meant to. Every time they reached a new city, Jackdaww would buy some important supplies, and then start drinking, and it annoyed Measle immensely. This time was going to be different, he decided, and that meant Jackdaww had to play along too.

"First place in a city I usually visit is a butcher if I haven't eaten in a while. I'll be glad to leave Jackdaww somewhere to get plastered if that means he won't slow us down while we go exploring. We can come back and pick him up later anyway right? Besides we'll see the city better on the wing." Honestly she didn't care for places with lots of people, and alcohol burned from what she'd heard. She'd seen many men do very idiotic things after drinking things like mead and whiskey. The human race could survive without the stuff in her opinion.

» [Syn & Hydra] Little Wandering Child
» The Forest of Tarz (Exxor x Eldarwen)
» Measle {Miniture but Mighty}
» :: Mystery of the Godless Forest :: -{Aero, Nen, Spirit, Rogue}-
» Hydra :: A Place In This World