#and also there's gonna be fey influence bc duh

[bosspigeon]

"no cis nonsense in this house" please 🤲🤲 i must know

oh this one's fun! so for the last couple years, i've been outlining a plan for a potential future NANOWRIMO project when i'm in a better headspace to sit down and properly focus on it? (also, maybe when i'm actually appropriately medicated lmao)

i’ve only got a vague idea for the plot, but it mostly revolves around Urraka, a 7+ foot dragon-man, and essentially a remnant of a culture/race thought to be entirely either extinct or just a myth, and his adopted kid, Talon. Urraka is a traveling mercenary, and has been for a loooong time, and Talon was sort of raised on the road from infancy, so he’s a bit of a wild child lmao. this whole bit makes me giggle, so it’s kinda long, but i can’t decide which tidbit to cut off, so you just get all of it!

Talon's left a trail of discarded clothing in his wake, and Urraka sighs gustily. He does not change his pace, but periodically he bends down to pick up Talon's battered leather breastplate, his vambraces and kilt, and a sideways glance every now and then to make sure Puck is still keeping pace notes the progress of a mottled flush working its way from the fidgety scholar's ears to his neck and further still beneath his starched clothes.

“It has been a while since we've had a proper wash,” Urraka explains as he catches the flash of his ward's bare backside streaking its way towards the river. Urraka can only hope no wild animals make off with the lad's breeches before he can retrieve them.

“I suppose regular hygiene is difficult to maintain with such a lifestyle,” Puck mumbles, burying his nose in his book pointedly. Talon's too far ahead of them at this point for his weak [human] eyes to make out any details beyond “probably nude” but Urraka keeps this to himself and simply nudges the squirrelly creature away from any obstructions in the path.

When they reach the river, Urraka has gathered most of Talon's gear, and he dumps it on a dry patch of sun-warmed gravel and starts the arduous process of hauling off his own kit.

It's the height of summer, so the river is more of a stream than anything, just barely waist-deep where Talon's splashing around more than he's truly attempting to get himself clean.

Urraka spots a few darker spots that may be deep enough for him to sink himself at least to the hips, maybe to his waist if he sits. But anything is better than nothing, especially when it comes to clearing out dirt between his scales. He rolls his shoulders, and swears he can hear the grit grinding in his scutes.

“Hey, Da, can you toss me the soap?” Talon shouts. Urraka hardly has one foot in the water (warm at the edge, but he's hoping there's at least a few cool spots) but he still rumbles his irritation loud enough for the boy to hear as he lumbers back towards his haversack where it sits slumped on the bank.

Puck stands alongside it, fidgeting like he always seems to do, squinting up towards the sky in an effort to avoid looking at either of his naked traveling companions.

“Doesn't make much sense to blind yourself on our account,” Urraka hums, bending to retrieve the hard tallow soap from his bag. “Modesty has no place on the road, but I'd recommend turning around if it bothers you so much. Better than staring at the sun, at any rate.”

His ruddy cheeks go even ruddier, and Urraka can nearly feel the heat radiating off his ears. His eyes flicker downwards for a split second, and, unfortunately for him, where they'd rest at about chest-height on an average-sized person, they land just at Urraka's groin. He makes a strangled sound and spins around, and the Dragoi bites the inside of his cheek so he doesn't laugh out loud.

“If it makes you feel better, my kind don't keep our bits on the outside.” Puck's back goes ramrod straight, and Urraka's not sure if he's going to start scribbling that in his journal or run for the hills.

“Hey!” Talon hollers from the river. “Where's that soap, old man?”

Without looking, Urraka tosses a bar over his shoulder, and smirks when he hears a satisfying thunk, then an indignant squawk and a splash.

He glances back to see Talon sputtering as he drags himself upright. “Fuck you, ya big bastard lizard!” he roars, sweeping his arms together in a furious thunderclap that sends an arc of water towards him.

Urraka doesn't flinch, seeing as, to him, it's hardly enough water to be anything other than slightly refreshing. But it is more than enough to entirely drench Puck's back. The lad fair squeals and darts away, but it's too late to save his clothes, and he turns a miserable gaze towards the river, where Talon's laughing so hard he's liable to drown himself.

Urraka strides forward into the water, scoops up his insufferable brat before he can gather himself, and hurls him towards deeper water, where he hits with a shout and a resounding crash that echoes down the valley.

“May as well join us,” he calls out to Puck, who appears to be frantically checking his satchel to make sure none of his tools, supplies, or books have been damaged. He looks up, face still fair glowing red, and before he can protest, Urraka adds, “Your clothes will dry faster without you in them, and you've been on the road with us for two days without a bath yourself.”

Urraka doesn't wait to see if the scribe will take his advice, since Talon's erupted from the water like a wrathful sea-beast and is striking out furiously towards him. He's almost twenty feet away, but a quick enough swimmer, so Urraka at least tries to wash his face and crest before he's got the little monster clambering all over him and trying, in vain, to drag him under the water.

A delicate splash at the water's edge and he turns towards Puck, who huddles in the shallows where the water is still warm, and squawks indignantly when he catches Urraka looking.

He simply arches the heavy ridge of his brows and looks away politely, lathering up his own soap and scrubbing the sage-scented suds over his chest.

Talon seems to have tuckered himself out, between the run to the river and the following shenanigans, and when he reaches Urraka he just punches him solidly in the hip and finally focuses on washing up himself. He grumbles something about being lucky the river is clear enough for him to have found his soap.

Once Urraka's sloughed off the worst of the grit and grime of two week's rough travel, he breaks off a bit of his own soap and offers it to Puck, making sure not to look directly at him. The lad mutters a quiet thanks and begins his own ablutions.

Talon rises from the deeper water and sloshes off to the bank to find a nice warm spot to lie down and dry off, and behind Urraka, Puck makes that scandalized, choked sound again. Urraka turns to him, brows quirked, to see those wide eyes staring at Talon as if he can't help it. A prickle of protective instinct itches under his scutes.

“You're really a g-urgh!”

Urraka's claws wrapping around his head and pushing him under the water cut his words off with a gurgle, and he comes up sputtering, his dandelion puff hair wetted down in sandy tangles around his face. “No,” Urraka rumbles at him, dangerously low, and up to this point, he's been careful with showing his teeth, because every time he's so much as smiled, the porcine stink of the scribe's fear-sweat was nigh unbearable. But now, he bares them with clear intent, and Puck goes from blotchy red to starkly sallow, eyes bulging wide with terror. “He is not.”

Talon hasn't taken notice of the exchange, too busy sprawling out in the sun-warmed grass just beyond the riverbank, and Urraka stares hard at the scribe, daring him to say anything more on the subject.

The lad is bumbling, awkward, and wastes all the energy that should go towards walking on chattering endlessly, but he's at least clever enough to figure out, in this moment at least, it's wiser to be quiet.

#pidge replies #ask games #pidge writes #fhdsjahdgkj #this is literally my favorite scene ive written for them #just talon being a horrible feral brat #and urraka is just: *chucks him twenty feet away* #i put human in brackets bc im not sure exactly what kinda fantasy bent im putting on this #like i know about the dragoi #and also there's gonna be fey influence bc duh #but idk how much other high fantasy stuff i wanna include #so #yeehaw #anyway urraka's working name before i actually named him was 'big bara dragon dad' #also in my self indulgent daydream universe #where i actually get this written and it becomes like #idk a movie or a netflix series or something #urraka is played/voiced by idris elba #so do with that information what you will #cryptikoh