***I was filling in the blanks for the story tags and I began to laugh at all of the wildlife I was putting in. I'm sure I'm missing somebody in this, I just don't know who it might be.
~smirk~ I'll see if I can add a roadrunner later on.
Anyway, Yuan seeks to build her empire, shall we say. It's something which the old-style dragons are a little famous for. We all make some sort of declaration to ourselves at some point in our lives that, as much as we might love our parents, there are things that we'd do differently. Yuan's mother was fine being alone in her old age. Yuan wants others around her and she's willing to give quite a lot for that. 0_o
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Book of the Dragon Part 11
The troll looked toward Yuan after a moment as Copper got off and seeing Yuan standing there with her mouth open and trying to recover, she took the troll's hand, "Come on," she said, "there's somebody that I want you to meet. This is –"
"Yuan," the troll said quietly in her deep voice.
Copper stared as Luddy came nearer to Yuan and began to bow, but she ended it by standing on all fours in the way of trolls and bowing her head. "I am Lyudmila Potter. I seek to live in your service."
Luddy and Copper had been friends forever and so she knew what she thought that she was looking at. Female trolls never bow to anyone but their...
And even that didn't happen very often.
"Luddy," she whispered, "Luddy, have you been- "
It had the tone of a serious question and the troll nodded, "I've been tamed, Copper. His name is Sheth. I've been watching as a pair of dragons mated and lived in my cave together for the past couple of weeks and I learned their names. I wanted to meet them so much, but, ... "
She sighed, "Well I'm a troll, you know? A lot of folks faint or run when I try to meet them. You know how it is, Copper."
The Dwarf nodded, "Yeah, I know. But what happened?"
"Today, Yuan left. I didn't know why at first, but Sheth explained it to me later. She was going to meet you and a lost demon-girl. Give me a minute here."
The troll moved forward slowly and bowed deeper, holding the bow, "It is an honor to meet you, Yuan. I met your male today, and he has taken me as his pet. He said that it was not wrong to mate with him this way. I came to meet you and, I hope it is alright..." She stopped there, feeling foolish to continue in front of her friend.
"It's fine," Yuan smiled warmly, "I know what you think that you need to say and it's not necessary. These are not the old days and none of us are old. The honor here is mine. May I call you Luddy?"
The troll nodded with a shy smile, "You may. I came to see you and, well, even in a blizzard, a troll like me can hear Copper's machine a long way off in the snow. It's not loud if it's idling like this, but I know the sound. I came because I wanted to meet you and ... "
She hung her head, so Yuan stepped forward. "Look at me, Luddy."
Luddy looked up slowly and Yuan reached for her face to touch her cheek, "Are you a full troll? I do not think so since you look a little small for your kind."
Luddy shook her head, "I'm very small for what I am. My father was Copper's half-uncle, – a dwarf, so she and I are related in a way, but we didn't know until we were in our teens. But I'm enough of a troll to know, ..."
"To want," Yuan smiled, and there was no smugness in her face or her tone. "Dragons have the same want toward trolls. I never thought that I would see one and here you come to ask for service. It is my honor to accept."
Luddy nodded and bowed again, "Thank you. My mother told me the same thing, that trolls and dragons have always been together. I'm enough of a troll to know that I need to serve a dragon. You are the other male. I have seen you. Can you love me too?"
Copper knew quite a bit about trolls, or the sort that Luddy's mother was, but this was new. If she knew old man Potter at all well, then there was bound to be blood and murder here in the worst way and if Sieglinde Potter was the least bit upset by any of this, well it would be far worse then. She was about to speak up to warn Yuan when the dragon smiled.
"You must have family here somewhere, no? I will need to go to speak with someone before we begin, I am sure."
Luddy shook her head, "No. I've just come from seeing my mom. I was pregnant a while ago and I was careful to keep it quiet when I lost the baby as well. I was sure that she never heard, but she knew somehow. She knows everything. She knew that there were dragons here before I even opened my mouth. Once I told her about you, she laughed at the ceiling and said that she was happy that I'd finally found someone for me – if I was accepted. Then she told me what I had to say. Have I said it, then?"
Yuan smiled warmly and touched one of Luddy's braids, "You have said all that needs saying in the old ways. I can love you easily, Luddy. I am happy to have a beauty such as you."
Seeing the expression on Yuan's face as she looked at her and said that she could love her, Luddy actually sighed out loud.
Lyudmila Potter was a young female in her twenties and her dwarf heritage helped her in many ways. She wasn't as large as a house, for one thing, and she wasn't covered with the hard horn scales that most of her kind wore. She had a few, but mostly they were where they might be needed, on her shoulders, elbows and knees – and not too many, either. Another thing which helped Luddy was her cleanliness and the total lack of the stink which many trolls were infamous for having. Luddy had always been aware of her lack of the sort of looks which even a homely human girl could count on, so she'd always done what she could to improve her chances to meet people, since it was what she longed to do. The sad part to her was that none of it had helped very much.
She had a bit of a short neck, but not overly so, and certainly not as short as most trolls. She was thin for a troll as well and quite shapely. Her breasts weren't large – well again, for a troll. They were perfect on her and were covered to a great extent by her long mane – or they would be, but Luddy liked braids. Her long deep brown mane was braided to keep it from getting matted and catching on things that she passed by, and at the sides and the front, she wore thin little ones which bore little gems that she'd braided in.
She was naked but for some charms which she wore on her horns and as thongs around her huge biceps and thighs. Her thatch of pubic hair covered her modesty well, looking like a hanging patch of vines and moss, but that was the way that troll-girls are in many cases.
Her skin was the gray color of old bark without the roughness because she was quite smooth to the touch – that smoothness being another trait that had come from her father though her skin tone came from her mother. Her face, though it was striking for its array of sharp teeth when she showed them, was lovely in a way, framed as it was by the long down-turned horns on her head.
Like this, hopeful to be taken into the service of a living dragon, and just as hopeful for the love of both dragons, she was a gentle giant.
But when she was angered, whole sections of the landscape could fly for the way that she could rip out trees or lift boulders and throw them with amazing accuracy.
Yuan stepped forward to close the distance, "Sheth is not the kind who would use anyone," she said, "If he loved with you, then it was meant, because that is my Sheth. I know him. I can also say that you are accepted, Luddy. I have never seen a more lovely troll-girl – not even in all of the pictures in all of the books that I have seen. Was it done before or after?"
"I just knew, Yuan," Luddy said, "as soon as I saw you both, I knew that I wanted this. I just didn't know how to say hello. The old times are gone and I could see that Sheth is a different sort of dragon somehow. But we bumped into each other in the cavern and we stared at each other, me growing wet and him growing hard as we stared. I asked while I still had the chance to even speak. He's very handsome. I didn't know much of how it was supposed to go, but he smiled at me and asked me right then. I was so happy that I started to cry, but he kissed my tears away and hugged me.
I said yes and he took me then and there. Afterwards, he asked me to find you to ask as well, but he said that he loves me and I know that dragons do not lie. I have been running even since, looking for you."
Copper was more than a little shocked and wondered if her friend had lost her marbles. It hadn't been all that long since her last misadventure. Yuan knew what Copper was thinking. "It is different between trolls and us and it is settled in an instant. Both of our kinds need each other and to find a willing troll and one so beautiful..." She turned to the troll again.
"He loved you well?" Yuan asked and Luddy nodded with a shy smile.
"Because of something which happened to me, I have been keeping to myself – even more than my usual way. But to see one like him and to know what you both are, I wanted him so much for how he made me feel better. It is good to find dragons if you are what I am. For the first time, I know my place in the world, since he was kind enough to take me as his pet right away."
Yuan chuckled as she nodded, "Then you know how it feels to be helpless when he smiles. You should know that if it was done after you offered yourself, then you are accepted by me as well. I would accept you anyway, because it was Sheth, but I can say that you are so lovely and I hear much in your voice as you speak. I accept you, Luddy." She put her arms at the sides of the troll's neck and, carefully maneuvering herself past the troll's tusks, she kissed her for a moment. The troll-girl's groan seemed to come from everywhere in the snow-covered forest around them.
"So, you're a pet now?" Copper asked afterward, "How does it feel?"
"Pretty good," Luddy replied quietly, "Sorry about all of that, but if I belong to her and the other one, then I had to say it. Momma told me I had to. Nobody in my family has had a dragon to serve for longer than anybody can remember, but Momma knows how it has to go. I serve and I get taken care of and somebody loves me."
"Really?" Copper had a clue here, but the way that her friend said it and the tone of her voice, ...
Luddy looked down, "Copper, I know I'm not pretty to most folks, ok? We used to always bitch and hate all of the other girls, the human ones who could get a boyfriend with a look. Well, that was a long time ago and, ... well, you grew up and got a lot prettier.
