365 Days of Drabbles, Day 190 + 191

[jeriendhal]

For colliemommie: “Mutually assured destruction”

* * *

A look of horror settled on the mother's face as her son shuffled from his hiding place, the human baby balanced carefully in his left hand.

“Son, what did you do?”

“It's not my fault,” her son pleaded. “I went to the Old Tree in the forest to take a nap, and the fairy there gave it to me for safekeeping.”

“The Old Tree. In the Old Forest. The one I told you never to go near.”

“Er, yes?”

The mother thumped her forehead against the wall, making the cave shake and the baby let out another cry of distress. “Oh, son.”

“I couldn't just leave her!”

“It's a human baby, kidnapped by fairies and given to a dragon to hold,” his mother growled. “Didn't you ever LISTEN to all those stories I told you?”

“It's not that bad,” her son pleaded. “I'll take care of her!”

“We are going to have Heroes coming to rescue this child! Not the short clever ones, but the ones with mighty thews and axes! And you're going to have to fight them! Then I'm going to have to fight them when they cut you down!

Comments

[seawasp]

I'm waiting for the explanation of why she can't just hand the baby to a human right away.

Oh, and I guess in this world fairies are dicks.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Well, for starters they'd have to figure out whom the baby belongs to. Mighty thewed warriors tend to be short in the Pause and Listen Patiently Dept. if Mom tried to explain things to them.

Also, some fairies are dicks. The one by the Old Tree is to be avoided. The swamp hermit Miriam was/will be sent to is more reliable.

[seawasp]

I was thinking of handing the baby to the Princess, or ANY human woman of station, to do the "find out who it is". That way there's no baby in the Dragon's Cave and no steely-thewed warriors to come to rescue her. Even if the evil fairy sends out the alert right away, it will take at least a LITTLE time for the Heroes to hear about it, gear up, and get to the cave, and that's plenty of time to deliver the child elsewhere.

Plus, unless the Heroes fly, couldn't the dragons just bug out of their cave when the Hero came, rather than have the little one get chopped up and the momma avenge her little one? (or, I suppose, if the Thews are particularly Steely, Momma could end up dead too -- heroes HAVE been known to do that)

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Bugging out and handing the child to the Princess would make the most sense. I have to figure out how stuck Mom is on defending her hoard, which might be an issue. Hopefully not a big one, otherwise she'd have adventurers knocking on her door all the time.

[seawasp]

I don't recall -- do we know what Dragons do with their hoards? And unless it's "buy lots of cool stuff", why they gather and defend them? With Smaug it was "MINE! Everything's MINE! and PRETTY SHINY! MINE!", but Mom doesn't seem at all like that.

[seawasp]

The other thought is, if this Old Tree fairy is such a dick as to set her son up to get slaughtered, and a baby to potentially get killed in the crossfire, why doesn't Mom just flambe' the tree and fairy?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Re: Hoards. In my Dragons Companion universe, the size of a dragon's gold hoard was directly related to their size. The more gold they amassed, the larger they could grow. With Philosopher essentially having the whole of the British Isles to himself, that added up to a very large dragon.

Fortunately Dragon Mom doesn't live in the same universe, but the rule might still apply. She'd hate to lose her hoard and have her son grow up scrawny and small...

re: Fairies. Presumably Mom reducing the Oldest Tree in the Old Forest would be a Bad Thing. Either it would kill all the land in immediate vicinity or the Tree Fairy has enough magical backup to scrag Mom. (I'm imaging some convoluted treaties with the other local residents resembling pre-WW1 Europe)

I think a long chat with the Fairy may be in order...

[seawasp]

"We had a treaty, yes. But if you put my SON in danger, you are stepping over ANY line of tolerance I have. I don't CARE if he wandered near your tree; boys do things like that. You set him up to be killed, I will *BURN* you."

Do NOT endanger a child and expect the mother to be understanding.

[stasia]

I'd change that to "children do things like that". My daughter certainly would have and she'd have been following in my footsteps, so...

Stasia

[shadur.livejournal.com]

Or reasonable. Or even remotely concerned with long-term consequences or repercussions.

[colliemommie.livejournal.com]

Have Maryanne take the baby to the princess. Dragon mom should also make sure that she accepts the princess' offer to be a fine upstanding citizen, and possible member of the council Then have the princess write some sort of document to post outside the cave, letting any steely-thewed types know that Dragon mom is as much a citizen as anyone else, and therefore she and hers are not to be molested, under penalty of law.

[colliemommie.livejournal.com]

Meriam, not Maryann.