A Dance with Dragons

[Darth Parox]

Arkania, 1233 local time​

It had been stupid of him to assume 2 seconds were short enough. A loud whooping sound revved up, the violator bathing his face in green light as he readied it to fire. The dragon—white, with cyan wings—looked up from its meal, its eyes setting directly on Milo, his cover blown. Its tail swung around the moment the reptile heard the whoop, and it slammed into the rock Milo had been standing behind, turning it to smithereens. The very tip of the tail hit him as well, sending the Sith rolling backwards across the rocky floor.

The violator shot, but the shot went wide. It slammed into a nearby pillar, sending even more rocks tumbling down, dust and pebbles raining on Milo as he scrambled up. The weapon had flown from his hands and he couldn't find it now, so he unholstered his lightsaber. "There goes our plan."

Normal blaster fire would not help them. Their only bet would be to try to cut the dragon with their lightsabers, but how much abuse could it tank before it succumbed to its injuries?

@Logan

 

[Aadya Drast]

____________

Aadya's lightsaber was already in her hand though she hadn't ignited it yet, hoping that Milo would just be able to one shot the mother dragon and they wouldn't have to to worry about getting into melee distance to a fire breathing lizard. Unfortunately, this dragon seemed to be a little older and a little wiser than the last one they had faced. Yikes.

"It'll be more fun this way!" Aadya shouted, igniting her lightsaber and coming out in plain sight of the dragon. It would be easier to fight the thing if it didn't know which human to focus on. "Hey ya big ugly bitch, over here!"

Aadya threw out a punch with the force, sending a telekinetic blast towards the dragon's face. It wouldn't do much but it should pull its attention towards her. Running towards the dragon, Aadya watched as it reared up and sent a stream of fire in her direction. Jumping up in the air towards the wall, Aadya kicked off and managed to go over the stream of fire, avoiding getting roasted alive despite being able to feel the intense heat as she passed over it.

Hopefully Milo would be able to use the distraction she was providing to get in a good shot on the beast. Aada wasn't sure how long she could play a game of dragon and mouse without getting melted.

@vamp

 

[Darth Parox]

He could feel the Force shift as Aadya channeled it into a punch toward the dragon, but Milo wasn't immediately sure whether she was overestimating herself by thinking she could damage it or if she was simply trying to distract the dragon. It turned toward her and took its attention off Milo, so he got his answer.

In the time that it turned to spit fire at Aadya, he scrambled back up and reached out through the Force, gathering it under the dragon. On the way there, the man had given them many tips on the creature's weaknesses, and a soft underbelly was one of them. As it opened its mouth to spit fire, Milo sent all the Force that had gathered under it directly into its stomach in a sucker punch that sent all the air out of its lungs. The dragon spit fire alright, but it choked, its accuracy drastically decreased as it tried to recover from the blow.

"No need to be mean!" he shouted in response to Aadya. The dragon wasn't ugly at all—it was a good boy/girl, acting the way it had been raised to act. Milo didn't blame it for trying to kill them, but that didn't mean he would go easy on it.

He scanned the floor of the cave for a brief second, finding a flash of black sticking out. He reached out through the Force, wrapped it around the violator, and lifted it off the ground, still trying to get it back.

@Logan

 

[Aadya Drast]

____________

Looked like her distraction worked, a solid first step. While the dragon had been attempting to turn her into human smores, Milo had attacked one of its primary weak points. Aadya came down from her fire jump, skidding a little on the loose gravel and bits of bone scattered along the cavern floor.

Pressing their small advantage, Aadya charged forward towards the dragon's side to try to give it a good slice with her lightsaber. Unfortunately, the dragon had much better reach than she did. It used one of its massive wings to knock her back with a good amount of force, but not before Aadya could swing her saber and carve off a huge chunk of its wing. The dragon roared with both terrifying rage and incredible pain, it was almost deafening as it reverberated off the stone walls.

The strength of the dragon surprised Aadya, the wing whack sending her flying backwards, her back slamming into one of the larger boulders and knocking the wind of out of her. Thankfully she didn't smash the back of her head, something as simple as that could have easily killed her. Scrambling to get back to her feet, Aadya dove behind the rock as the dragon reared back to bathe the cavern in fire again.

"Maybe not as fun as I thought!" She called out, unsure of what Milo was getting ready to do as she currently couldn't see him. Hopefully it was going to be something that would end their fight soon.

@vamp

 

[Darth Parox]

"He's no womp rat, no," he replied, feeling a pang of worry as he saw Aadya get knocked around like a ragdoll. She can handle herself. They'd only known each other for a few days—it wasn't his place to worry for her.

As Aadya charged the dragon, he did as well, though Milo had better luck. As it knocked her away with its wing, the Crusader leapt on top of it, using the Force to assist his jump. Milo suddenly found himself riding the dragon, ignited lightsaber in his hand, a handful of scales in the other. The creature protested, but he stabbed his lightsaber into it before it could begin shaking too much. The immediate wound was cauterized as it was thrust into the dragon's lower back, but blood still poured out in buckets, coating Milo in red up to his forearms. It screeched in pain, filling the chamber with its screams, but Milo simply bit down, grinding his teeth to distract from the pain in his ears.

It thrashed around, trying to force him to dislodge, but Milo didn't give up. Its tail and wings were going wild, sweeping around the cave with careless abandon, slamming into rock and destroying entire chunks of the lair. One of the wings came to hit Aadya as she scrambled behind the rock, shortly followed by the dragon's tail. Milo was about to thrust his lightsaber into the dragon again when it managed to throw him off, and the Crusader went flying through the air, slamming into a wall.

He tumbled down, the air knocked out of his lungs and a big nasty bruise forming on his back, but Milo did not stay down, lifting himself up with some difficulty.

@Logan

 

[Aadya Drast]

____________

Things were quickly beginning to escalate. Aadya was unsure if the damage Milo had just done to the dragon was significant, she'd been too busy dodging all of the falling boulders from the beast's intense thrashing. She managed to see Milo get bucked off and thrown into a wall but he seemed to recover pretty quickly so her fears that he'd managed to get himself killed were quickly abated.

Deciding that trying to run head first back into the dragon's reach was a terrible idea, Aadya decided to use the Force instead. Reaching out, a group of rock shards that had fallen from the ceiling. They looked incredibly sharp from where she was standing, hopefully sharp enough to do something. She sent them flying at the dragon's face but most of them seemed to bounce of harmlessly. One of them, and a rather large one to boot, embedded itself straight into the dragon's eyeball.

"Attack from the right flank, it can't see that side anymore!" Aadya shouted as she kept moving. The dragon had roared that same ear piercing roar again, shooting flames wildly from its mouth as the confusion of its sudden eye loss began to set in.

Aadya let the Force pool around her so that she would be ready for whatever came next.

@vamp

 

[Darth Parox]

The ground spun in front of him and his legs could barely hold him up, but Milo ran forward again, directly at the dragon's right side. It hadn't stopped roaring since he'd first hurt it, but the Sith had begun to tune out the screeches. As he reached the beast, it swung toward him randomly, but Milo ducked down—and slashed his lightsaber directly into the part where its wing met its body. The dragon bucked as it felt the pain, and Milo kept pushing up, aiming to cut the whole limb off. It was thick as a tree trunk but the blade cut through like butter.

The wing came off, blood gushing from the wound, and the dragon charged forward. It was probably the only reasonable course of action for the creature, who was desperately trying to get away from Milo. Unfortunately, it charged forward directly at Aadya, fire building up within its throat. It would keep running until it reached her, mouth open and ready to spit the flames out at her.

@Logan

 

[Aadya Drast]

____________

Part of Aadya felt bad for the mother dragon. Her death was coming slowly, the pain must have been agonizing. Inside this cave her range of motion was very limited, she couldn't take flight like normally to combat their constant barrage of lightsaber slashes. The wounds were beginning to take their toll, but the fight was not over yet.

Aadya stood her ground as the dragon began to charge her, the yellow-orange glow of fire clearly building in its maw. The moment the dragon opened its mouth to spew its lethal payload, Aadya hucked her lightsaber straight into its mouth like a spear, guiding it with the force. The blade of her saber easily pierced through the back of the dragon's throat, causing the fire it was trying to shoot in her direction to get caught, sputter and dissipate.

The dragon let loose another roar but this time it sounded more like a groan, a long, melancholy thing that if Aadya could interpret, she would have thought sounded like the beast finally giving up and giving in to the wounds it had received. Aadya pulled her saber back towards her and caught it in her hand, the dragon seeming to slump to the ground, a massive hole in the back of its throat. Likely it would have trouble breathing now, perhaps it was most humane to simply end its suffering.

Aadya would leave that part to Milo, considering it seemed the dragon was no longer the immense threat it was when they'd first encountered it. Aadya would go looking for the eggs that were in this cavern somewhere, likely hidden from thieves and predators.

 

[Darth Parox]

He was still by the wing when Aadya laid the coup de grace, and Milo could feel the dragon tremble and slowly fall out of consciousness. A last burst of flames fizzed out of its throat, but the fire was weak and dispersed. He felt a bit guilty hearing its final groan, but there was nothing they could do about it now. The dragon—innocent as it may be—had been terrorizing the village for a century. It had likely killed dozens of people and destroyed entire neighborhoods. The only thing Milo could give it now was a quick death.

And he did. He moved his still-ignited lightsaber away from the stump of its wing and thrust it deep inside the dragon's chest from the side. He had no idea where its heart was, but his thrust seemed to strike through; it stopped breathing within seconds, finally laying to rest. The chamber was awfully silent, its roars no longer filling it, and Milo stepped back, his movements feeling more noisy than they were.

They were looking for the eggs. Milo couldn't see them anywhere close, and he didn't think the dragon would keep them too far away, so they were probably still in this chamber. After a few seconds of thinking, the Sith slowly extended his arms, reaching out through the Force. He sent a burst of kinetic energy at the dragon's corpse, enough to roll it to the side. His hunch had been correct. Under the dragon was a nest where a small hole had been dug into the ground. And within, two eggs—one the color of onyx and the other a pure white.

"She was defending her eggs," he remarked, feeling the guilt more strongly now. Milo tried to avoid thinking about it too much, and instead focused on which egg he wanted. They were treating them like loot. He reached out and grabbed the white egg silently, the Force wrapping around it and the egg gliding over into his hands. He made a vow not to treat the dragon like a pet—but like an equal. Because it was not loot—it was a living creature.

@Logan

 

[Aadya Drast]

____________

As Aadya's search for the eggs yielded little results, she turned back to Milo just in time for him to have his epiphany that the dragon may have been sitting on her clutch the entire time. As he reached out with the force and brought to him the snowy white egg, Aadya did the same with the onyx one. Holding it, she closed her eyes and muttered a short Vahlan prayer, pledging that she would protect the life inside as if it was her own.

Walking over the corpse of the mother, Aadya used her lightsaber to cut off two of its largest claws. She wouldn't tell Milo what they were for, but she had a plan for them. Something to commemorate their victory in true Sith style. She would take them back to Korriban and have them undergo the ritutal of being turned into Sith weaponry, meaning that even though they were made of simple bone they would be able to stand up against the strength of even a lightsaber.

"I think all is done here," She said, making her way back towards the entrance of the cave. Aadya would lead Milo - and by lead, she simply was walking in front of him - back to the man and his speeder.

The journey from the wilderness back to the ship that would take them off world seemed to take a long time. Aadya remained quiet for the most part, reflecting on the events that had transpired over the course of the past few days. She couldn't help but wonder if the Force itself had been the reason that she and Milo had survived the crash - hell, maybe it even caused it - forcing them to work together, the beginnings of a special bond forming between them.

The ship would take them where they had intended to go originally without any further issue. Aadya couldn't help but wonder if she would see Milo again, though something in her gut told her that she would.

//end thread