nighteyes (nighteyes) wrote in top_shelf, @ 2014-08-27 18:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | book: his majesty's dragon, player: lauren |
Who: Ptolemy and NPC Celeritas from the books
What: A scolding, and a warning
When: October 1809
Where: Loch Laggan
“Oh, do not be stupid,” Ptolemy said angrily, but was cut off by Celeritas abruptly roaring and snapping his teeth inches from Ptolemy’s snout. Ptolemy found himself instinctively hunching his shoulders to make himself smaller.
It was not that he was afraid—Celeritas was not extremely large or muscular, but he was – older. And wiser. Ptolemy was suddenly dreadfully conscious of the solecism he had committed, both in draconic and human terms. Celeritas was his senior. His superior officer.
“I just,” he said helplessly. “You do not have a captain. There are many dragons now without captains. I don’t—” He rent the ground beneath his talons unhappily. “My information is still good. Sir.” Humans called people sir, did they not? People had called his second captain sir an awful lot, as a mark of respect. Or maybe— “Please let me report, my lord?” he tried, and was slightly relieved to see an amused wing-twitch, rather than further fury.
“I have had two captains, both for full human lifetimes,” Celeritas snorted, having settled back on his haunches coolly. “You have barely been out of shell six months. We have enough trouble with our captainless dragons - you must have a captain, by order of the Admiralty.”
“But I do not want any of those captains,” Ptolemy said forlornly, for possibly the ninetieth time, because maybe this time it would change things. “They do not—they are not for me. I want—” Something nebulous and impossible. Someone to treat him as an equal and not a draft animal. Someone who would be excited to listen to his ideas and go on adventures and raid the French countryside and not always be ordering him about as though he had not thoughts of his own, who was excited to try new things, who—well.
At any rate, Ptolemy had not found anyone that suited him among the candidates presented thus far. He had an idea that suitable humans might be scattered about the countryside and he might meet one, but it was difficult when they kept running off screaming whenever he appeared and tried to start a friendly conversation.
“Make do,” Celeritas ordered, and then sighed long and low. “You have until tomorrow morning to choose another. We will try—perhaps not an officer this time. I will think on it. Now. Tell me what you saw of this French ship you saw last night, on your entirely unapproved mission.”
Ptolemy let out a quiet sigh himself, but allowed himself to lash his tail a little excitedly as he settled in to sketch out the positions of the small darting fleet he had found hiding in the cliffs last night, by the glimmer of their lanterns on the water.
Anyway, maybe this time, he would be lucky. Maybe he’d find someone who wouldn’t just want any dragon. But someone who wanted him.
Maybe.