-x- A Dragon Chooses It's Rider -x-

[Tasha]

She heard the growl before she saw the dragon.
Her automatic reaction was to freeze, but, suppressing it, she looked around, until her eyes found the flecks of blue among the shrubbery.

Aldis bit her tongue, so as not to cry out suddenly - this, after all, was all still very new to her.
She hesitated, wondering whether to approach the dragon, when suddenly she remembered the meat in her hand. Taking a breath, she held the meat out in the dragons direction, and spoke to acknowledge its presence.

"Hey, girl.. you came back.."

Aldis's arm was stretched out to its full length, and, making sure to now remain silent, she watched and waited.

[Neoni245]

Waer slowly lifted her head from the brush, her head turning to the side to get a good sight of the girl, aswell as the meat in her hand. The dragoness let a puff of air from her nose as she took a loud grunt. The nadder began to stick her tongue out from between her fangs, running it smoothly against the yellow-stained gleaming kanines in acknowledge of the food. But before she would take it, she just wanted to observe the girl.

Waer took a step to the side, her eyes fixed on the girl, black pupils thin as slits. She began circling the human, her eyes fixed on her and very slowly circling closer to the girl. Her breath could be heard as she walked, and her claws seemed to tap against the ground like a horse's hooves. She let her nostrils sniff around, the scent breaching into her mind.

Finally, her face met across from the viking's. So close she could sense the pounding of the human heartbeat. Eye to eye, face to face. Her curiousity satisfied, Waer very cautiously leaned torward the girl's hand. With her fangs, very gently, she took a hold of the presented meat held. Swallowing quickly, Waer stepped back, and gave a snort with a slight shake of the head.

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[Tasha]

Aldis froze as, with a grunt, the dragon began to pace around her, as if inspecting her.
It paced around her, much like vikings did before buying a prize sheep to check that it was healthy and net the requirements they wanted.
Then it stopped. Aldis remained frozen, face to face with the dragon, her heartbeat uneven and racing.

Then the dragon reached forward, and, unlike the previous time when she had snatched the meat, gently took the meat from her slightly shaking hands.
With that, the dragon snorted and stepped back.

A thought struck the girl as she watched the dragon.
"I wonder what your name is...? Do dragons even have names?"
With this she tilted her head to the side, wondering if she should give the dragon a name, or somehow try to figure out if the dragon had one already.

[Neoni245]

Name?

Waer knew one thing about names; she had been called a paticular name, and had gotten quite used to it. Between her and her species, nadders usually identified each other by the smell of their smoke. But for vikings, she used the scent of human sweat and salt. In short, dragons usually used scent to replace the use of names.

Waer could think she felt a bit unique to have been given a nickname, although she earned it in the slyest of ways. No longer paying attention, her smell strayed to a flock of wild canadian geese. The repetive and stimultaneous honks faded into the echo of the sky, until the nadder let out a repeating "Awk!" in mimic of the large, flying fowls.

Eventually Waer faded her honking, eventually silencing and once again focusing on the girl. She snorted, tilting her head in mimic of the girl. Names...Wait, what was the name of this human. As she looked at the olive-skinned human, she stalked down, spreading her wings to touch the moss-covered ground, meeting eye level.

What does your kind call you?

If only the dragoness could speak human. But alas, she could only try to express her question. She wanted to see the girl again, and no longer have to think her by "girl" again.

[Tasha]

Aldis wistfully watched the dragon, wishing for a way to communicate, and wondering if the dragon could understand her.
Other vikings had before told her that they were sure their dragons could understand them, but she had been quite skeptical of this. Just in case, she decided to tell the dragon her name.

She was surprised when the dragon lowered itself down to her eye-level, and suddenly she was sure it was trying to tell, or ask her something.

"My name is Aldis." She told the dragon, feeling slightly silly, but beginning to think that it was true that the dragons could understand humans by this dragons actions. If she couldn't figure out the dragons name, maybe she could call her something?

Aldis propped her chin up on her arm, staring up at the huge-yet-small dragon.
"What-oh-what to call you by?" She murmured. Her movements were still slightly slow, and slightly wary, but now curiosity had replaced fear, and taken over from wariness.

She felt an absurd and most likely unreasonable desire to know just how this dragon responded, to her. How intelligent it was. It was a strange feeling, and she didn't know why, but for one of the very few times in her life, curiosity took over.

[Neoni245]

Aldis?

Strange name, Waer thought. But if that's what vikings called her, the dragoness would have to adjust to it. While the girl pondered the name of the small nadder, Waer's nose picked up the thick scent of hot steam. Taking in strong wiffs, Waer strayed from her position, trailing through the brush.

There, she met at clearing, basined by a ride of cliffs. The dragoness could feel the heat slither across her scales. Letting a content grunt, Waer padded farther in. It was a hot spring, filled with small pools of hot water with clouds of water vapor flowing from the surface.

Waer let out a loud growl of satisfaction as she let her mouth feel the temperature of the spa; she slowly but so seduced by the warm heat, stepped into the pool, laying down slowly until only her head was unsubmerged.

She let out a loud bellow to signal Aldis...
This was one of her favorite places.

[Tasha]

Deciding to give up on the name thing for now, Aldis noticed that the nadder was wandering off. She was unsure of whether to follow.
She waited around awkwardly for a bit, before hearing the dragon call out loudly.
Thinking that it may be a signal, she decided to head in the direction of the sound.

The closer Aldis got to the area, the warmer things seemed - only slightly, though, and she wondered if she were imagining it. Then she stepped out into a clearing, and heat washed over her like a wave of warm water had suddenly splashed down and upon her.

Aldis let out an 'Ooohhh' as she saw the source of the heat, and the dragon's head poking out from the hot-spring.

Assuming the dragon had wanted to show her this, Aldis looked around. She walked up to the pool and stuck her hand in, testing the water, and smiling at its near-perfect temperature.
Stripping down to her under-clothes, and placing the rest of her clothes aside, Aldis fist placed her feet into the spring, before slipping in beside the dragon.

Just then she remembered that she should check the time, and the thought that she should be at home doing jobs vaguely crossed her mind, but she ignored it.

[Neoni245]

Waer let out a low purr of satisfaction now that Aldis had joined. With that, the dragoness laid her head on the dirt, relaxed as she felt the warm water sweep around her body. This took her to a point where she began to stick her tongue out, hanging from the side of her mouth like a dog with it's mouth shut.

She was enjoying the company

Waer turned her head, focusing on the girl. Once again meeting at eye level, Waer tilted her head.

Waer
Waer
I'm
Waer

[Tasha]

Aldis chuckled as she saw that the dragon had its tongue lolling out, much like a content dog.
They stayed like this for a while, but then the dragon did what she had before - brought her head down to Aldis's eye level.
She once again had the strange sense of the dragon trying to tell her something.
Her name, maybe.

Something tugged and nagged Aldis, at the back of her mind.
she thought hard, trying to think about what it was, when suddenly she remembered.

"That dragons been at it, again! did you hear, Aldis?"
Aldis looked up, her concentration being broken by these words. "Hmmm?" She questioned.
"That dragon! You know, that Nadder thats been stealing... the chickens.... and.. uck..."
He trailed off, giving Aldis a withering look, as he registered the blank look on her face. "You really don't know? That small Nadder thats been stealing our chickens? You need to get out more." His tone was slightly annoyed, but he wasn't exactly mocking her.

"Hmphf. Sorry, I'm don't really listen to people when they talk about dragons..." She said, with a shrug.
"What?" He was surprised. His eyes lit up as he began to talk about how interesting dragons were. Aldis sighed as he launched into a 'dragons are awesome' lecture of sorts.
When he'd finished, Aldis said "Okay, okay, I get it... Dragons are interesting, and ones been stealing the chickens and ducks..."

"Yeah. I heard that some of the vikings had nicknamed her.... Something the spiteful... I think it was Waer? Yeah, thats it, Waer." The boy gave Aldis another look as he saw that she'd stopped listening again. Without bothering ot say goodbye, he left, and the girl went back to studying the book she'd been reading on something-or-other.

Aldis looked up at the dragon, who was staring intently at her.

"Waer." She said, slowly, as if seeing how the name tasted on her tongue.
"Your name is Waer."

[Neoni245]

Waer let out a slow, yet almost cheerful, growl of satisfaction.

Aldis was the girl's name,
and Waer was the dragon's name.

Waer lifted her head, settled it back onto the ground, and slowly but surely, turned it torward Aldis to glance at her. Waer was tired. Time had passed since meeting again, but Waer still had her interests high.

"The dragon, we found it, we found it!"
"What was that, Codcutt?"
"We finally spotted that nasty culprit that's been stealing the hens!"
Stoick turned in response of the Vikings news.
"It was a Nadder, wasn't it?" Asked he.
"Indeed it was, Stoick," Codcutt began. "but very small, small enough to creep into our large chicken coops. It looked female, and she was quite fast, spite her size."
"We can call it 'Waer' then."
"What was that?"
"She's gone unspotted for the past few months, right? She'll be easily distinguished by her size,"
Stoick turned darkly
"And soon, by the blood that will seep from her wounds."

[Tasha]

Aldis stretched drowsily, glancing over at Waer. Resting her head back again, she looked to the sky.
It was going to be a beautiful day, the sky was a nice blue, with only a few fluffy white clouds around. The sun was not in the middle of the sky yet, it had only made a quarter of its daily travels...

Which was the equivalent of 9am...

Which meant Aldis should have been home two hours ago...

"Oh, no..." She sighed dismally, knowing her father would be furious. With that, she jumped out of the spring and proceeded to try and dry herself off quickly.
"I'm sorry Waer, I gotta go, oh I'm going to be in trouble!" She told the dragon as she pulled her clothes on.

With this, she began to run, as fast as she could, in the direction of the village.
She knew that she would go back, though, the next morning, if not the same day, she would go back.

[Neoni245]

(Sorry I took so long. I was finishing up with school; I just got out yesterday :3)

"I'm sorry Waer, I gotta go, oh I'm going to be in trouble!"

Waer let out a groan as Aldis hastily leaped out of the hot pool, drying off as quick as she could. The dragoness tilted her head to the side, sitting up straight and stretching her wings widely. Her yellow-amber eyes focused as the olive-toned girl began to take off, rushing deep into the brush.

With a grunt and a snort, the runtish nadder climbed out of the water, shaking droplets from her rough skin. Before she could take another glance at the human, Aldis had disappeared. Waer was curious to follow her, but her fear showed greatly; she wouldn't dare go torwards the village. Especially when the sun was only three hours from reaching it's peak height.

Eyeing the sky, Waer finally began to pad into the opposite side of the forest, continuing to wander as she pleased. She would not know if the girl would or even could come back, but until then, the nadder could only wait.

[Tasha]

(Eep, sorry this reply took so long /brick'd. I'll try to reply quicker from now on ^^

The sun shone overhead, injecting its rays of light into the world. Aldis lay sprawled out in the sunlight, relaxing. It could be said that she was relaxing happily, but in truth her mind was racing. Behind her closed eyelids, thoughts zoomed around, each trying to claim her attention.

Aldis had came home, expecting a lecture, a punishment, and lots of shouting - but had instead found a few people crowded around her house, murmuring. Apparently her father had been injured. She felt panicky, and rushed inside before anyone could stop her.

Luckily, it wasn't too bad. A bloodied leg was nothing, when it came to dragon encounters. A dragon had attacked him. Weren't they meant to be friends with the dragons now? Or at least, past the time where any viking alone in the woods was dragon-food.

These thoughts were in Aldis's mind... but, as much as these thoughts sprung up, they were pushed back by thoughts of Waer. There was a bright side to this, her mind told her. She could see Waer more often now. She pushed this thought away, disgusted by the idea of anything about her fathers injury being good.

Footsteps on the gravel disturbed her. "Wow! I can't believe this, this is terrible!"
Rubbing her eyes, Aldis sat up. "What is?" It was the guy that had told her about Waer. She had made a vow to listen to him more often, so she paid attention to what he was saying to her.
"Stoick! He's real angry that your father was attacked... in fact, we're not allowed to go out into the woods to find a dragon for ourselves anymore! And hes saying that any dragon that steals food.. or anything, won't get a second chance anymore..." The boy babbled on. He stopped after a while, as Aldis (once again) seemed to be ignoring him. He went away.

In fact, Aldis was thinking. Breaking her fathers rules was one thing, breaking Stoick's rules... was a completely different thing. "Ah, no!" She groaned. What would she do now? It was actually quite obvious. She would continue meeting Waer, giving her some duck meat, and hoping she wouldn't raid the livestock again...

[Neoni245]

Waer lay there, eyes vigilant that night. Thoughts of the day earlier flew across her mind. The dragoness then recalled the day before. She memorized the girl's name over fifty times now. Aldis..Aldis..It was so strange.

Waer wondered if Aldis had done the same. What was occuring in her world apart? More important, what was occuring in the village itself? As much as the village had changed, the nadder wouldn't dare go near Berk, especially towards noon. Even at night, Waer wasn't hunting tonight...

What if Aldis saw her?

[Tasha]

Aldis tossed and turned that night, worry tugging at her mind. Multiple scenarios played out in her head, each ending with Waer getting killed and Aldis having some major explaining to do when she tried to protect the dragon. When she finally fell asleep, she was restless, oh do restless....

The next morning, everything was peaceful. Completely and utterly peaceful. Even the kid who always talked to Aldis had no news to report, no dragony events to tell people about.

Everyone was busy, in fact... too busy to notice Aldis. Quickly pulling on warm clothes, she slipped off into the woods. She knew her destination - the hot springs again. She hoped Waer would be there.