usir | [closed]

Strange is indeed awake. He was also planning on going back to sleep, but when he arrived back at his room, there was a tiny dragon in the middle of hatching and his animas looked absolutely terrified about the prospect. So, instead of sleeping, Strange got to introduce this baby dragon to physical contact and reassure Bell that this thing wasn't going to eat her.

Shura's voice is a welcome distraction. As he answers the courier, the dragon happily chirps in the background. He could explain that later.

"Back in my room. I'm out of silver, if that's why you're calling."

Because why else would Shura call him?

What was that sound?

“This ain’t about silver,” she replies automatically. It’s a fair assumption, but there’s something else taking priority right now. “I’m coming over.”

She could explain herself, but this is something that was best shown, and what better way to show him than in person? Shura isn’t going to wait for his reply, hoping that the few minutes it takes to gather some dried meat and a blanket to cover herself and the tiny little thing that Shura is in denial over is enough time for Strange to make himself decent. If it’s not, he’s out of luck because Shura isn’t stopping to check her courier before softly knocking on his door.

“Let me in.” She’s not going to explain herself when he opens the door, just shoving past him. One of Shura’s hands is busy holding a small bag and keeping the blanket around her shoulders. Her other hand is cupped to her chest, half under the blanket. There’s a tiny little face trying to peep out between her fingers.

Wait, she's coming over? No, he's got eggshell all over the room and a dragon he still needs to hide! Still, Strange knows that it's no use trying to convince Shura otherwise: he quickly starts picking up his room, wrapping up the leftover eggshell, and desperately trying to convince the young dragon, who seems super intent on hanging out next to Strange, to hide until Shura shows up.

When she does, Strange opens his mouth, as if to try and tell her that no, really, she's got to leave, but she pushes past him and opens the door. Well, she's in here now. Strange quickly closes the door before turning on Shura. "Shura, I don't see why—"

And then Strange's protests just die out as he notices a tiny little fuzzy blue dragon head sticking out from underneath his bed. The hatchling squeaks, looks over at Shura, then squeaks again.

"Alastair!" Strange gently chastises. He's had this thing for like two hours tops and he's already named it. "Alastair, I thought I told you to stay underneath there!"

Shura was going to just cut any of Strange’s protests off before he could get too far, but now Shura’s distracted by the little blue head making noise at her. Ah. That’s what she heard on the courier. Also, shit, there’s more than one.

“Strange,” she says, sounding... Tired. She’s exhausted on a physical level, and that’s just not helping her. But rather than trying to ask questions or explain herself, she’ll just move her hand. There’s a tiny little baby dragon clinging to her, one clawed hand wrapped around the cord she keeps her vial on, another one of its hands wrapped around a lock of her hair. Shura’s supporting most of its weight with her hand, but the little thing is still holding tight to Shura as she peers at Strange, taking things in slowly.

"You've got one as well." How many dragons were there? He looks over at Shura's, then looks back to his dragon underneath the bed. "Mine has fur."

The way Strange talks, it's obvious that this entirely hasn't sunk in for him. He's still in a little bit of a tired shock because yep, he has a baby dragon and now Shura has a baby dragon as well. He was not expecting his day to end like this. Bending down, he gestures for the dragon to come. It happily walks over to Strange and he scoops it up in his hands.

"Are you going to keep yours?"

"Keep it?" Shura is still stuck on the entire 'There's a dragon' part, she hasn't quite thought about what to do with said dragon. She sits on Strange's bed, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders now that she isn't trying to hide it. Her body feels heavy from exhaustion, and she's still wearing the clothes she wore out in the streets, so she's got some werewolf ick on her. Now that she's still, she can drop her hand from the dragon. It seems content to resettle itself, taking full advantage of Shura's boobs, though still clinging to her hair and the fabric of her top.

"I have no idea what I'm supposed to do." And she looks at Strange, completely bewildered. It's probably the most honest she's ever been with him.

As Shura looks at him, Strange realizes something: he's supposed to be the person taking charge here. After all, he has a hint of an idea about what to do. He wrote an entire book on dragons. Granted, he hadn't ever interacted with one before this, but he should at least have an idea about what to do.

There's a moment where Strange pauses. He's assuming that Shura not answering means that she wants to keep the dragon. He sits on the bed next to her. Strange's dragon perks up a little, makes a chirping noise, and moves to try and sniff Shura's dragon.

"Well, I have some good news for you. Your dragon won't start flying or using magic until seven or so weeks from now. Dragons aren't picky eaters, though you'll need to feed them both plants and meat. And since dragons don't name themselves, you'll have to give the dragon a name."

Shura's little dragon raises her head when she hears the other dragon chirp, peering curiously at him, the spines on her back rising up and flattening. She's curious, but sleepy and full from the food Shura gave her. It'll take a second to gather the motivation to try and crawl to him, still clinging to Shura's top. Shura isn't worried about it falling; her grip is surprisingly tight, and she's using all six of her limbs to maneuver. It'll be fine.

"A name?" This is Strange's time to shine. Shura is actually trying to listen, but even if she's being treated to an abbreviated lecture, it's a lot to take in. But names are Important. But naming something means taking responsibility for it and she's not that kind of person?? "The hell are you supposed name a dragon?"

... Spikey?

"Name it whatever you want." Strange is petting his dragon as it moves towards Shura's. The dragon continues to make the chirping noise as he tries to shove his snout in Shura's dragon's face.

"Dragons have had a variety of names over the years. For instance, I think I'm going to call mine Alastair Tourmaline. Alastair because it's a regal sounding name, Tourmaline to match the color of his fur."

Considering that he's continuing to happily chirp, Alastair Tourmaline apparently likes his name.

“Alastair Tourmaline—“ This time when Shura echoes Strange, it’s with an incredulous tone. That’s way too big of a name for a tiny little thing!! “That’s too long!”

Shura’s dragon doesn’t mind Alastair’s invasion of her personal space, happy to bump her snoot against his as she returns the sniff-down. She might not be quite as energetic, but she’s curious about this new thing, letting out a soft trill and reaching out a clawed hand to try and hold Alastair’s head still while she sniffs.

"It's a perfectly fine name!" Strange rebuts, a little too defensively. "He's only going to get bigger, he'll grow into it!"

Shura's dragon succeeds in holding his head still. Alastair honestly has no idea what to do in this situation and just looks a little confused before trying to wriggle out of the clawed grasp.

"The longer you stay with the hatchling, the more it will imprint on you. Dragons might spend their whole lives with the people they've imprinted on."

Shura clearly doesn’t think that’s a name that anyone is going to grow into. Alastair, fine, but Alastair Tourmaline?? Too much, Strange, too much.

“Imprint—like some bird?” This is more and more troublesome. How would someone go about unimprinting this thing from her?? She frowns, looking down at the two little dragons. Shura’s dragon has Alastair’s head in a very firm grip, grabbing at him with another hand once he starts wriggling. Shura lets her have her way for the moment, at least until she thinks Alastair might actually be distressed. Let them learn to settle it out, it’ll be fine.

“I can’t deal with this right now. The hell is going on?”

This is the first time in the tiny dragon's life that he's been bullied and he has no idea what to do. Alastair makes a whining noise, looking up at Strange with a frown.

"I think it's obvious what is going on. You found a dragon egg and it hatched." As he talks, Strange reaches over and gingerly tries to remove Shura's dragon's paw away from Alastair's head. "Dragons can only hatch when certain magical conditions are met. I suspect that the alignment of magics during the full moon caused that condition."

Don’t worry, Alastair, there will be plenty of bullying later on. For now, she’ll let Strange distract her from Alastair, looking up at him and trying to gauge whether or not this person is Safe. Well, Shura isn’t stopping her, and this little dragon has a friendly and confident demeanor by nature. So yeah, she’ll let go of Alastair and just start climbing up Strange’s shirt sleeve.

“I didn’t know there were any left! How was I supposed to know that thing was going to hatch?” That Thing doesn’t seem to mind Shura’s tone, merrily doing as she pleases.

“But that ain’t what I meant, and you know it.” Overall, the grand scheme of things. Dragon eggs in the woods, dragons mysteriously emerging from the sea. Weren’t they all supposed to have been wiped out? Shura sighs, letting herself fall on her side on the bed now that she doesn’t have any little dragons crawling on her.

Strange has now found himself acting in the role of cat tree. Because as Shura's dragon starts to climb up his shirt sleeve, Alastair happily hops over to Strange's lap and snuggles up inside it. Great, turns out that this little guy likes attention as much as Strange does. Now one hand is perpetually stuck in 'pet the dragon' mode.

He'll let himself be climbed on for now. He can just yank the dragon off if needed.

At Shura's question, Strange pauses. He doesn't have an answer. But he wants to give her something close to one. "I don't know what's going on. Things are changing in ways that I doubt any of us could have planned. We'll just need to go along with the changes until we figure out what caused them." Something that he's honestly not sure if it would even happen.

It’s just about the only answer he can give, and Shura knows it’s true, but she’s going to moan in reply anyway, too damn tired to deal with all of this.

Shura’s dragon doggedly makes her way up his sleeve to his shoulder, sniffing her way up his neck, standing up on her hind legs to try and stretch as far as she can. If she can reach his hair, she’ll take hold and try to scale up his scalp. A cat tree or jungle gym, Shura’s dragon isn’t about to let her tininess stop her from anything.

Strange lets himself continue to be a jungle gym for the moment. She's a tiny animal and while it stings a little to let the dragon climb up his scalp, it's pain that he can withstand. Besides, he'll just yank her off the moment it starts to hurt.

Alastair makes a soft purring sort of noise as Strange continues to pet him. Not really knowing what to do, Strange just continues talking.

"Dragons eat most things—plants, small animals, fruits, and so on. They also need to be regularly exposed to magic. The land itself is usually good enough for magic exposure, but I don't mind giving your dragon a more controlled type of magical exposure if you want."

'A controlled type of magical exposure' and 'Jonathan Strange' are not phrases that exist in the same universe. Shura knows this, and she's honestly not a fan of straight up 'feeding' dragons magic when they can apparently do it on their own.

"Mm, let it get its own magic." Were the big guys exposed to magic like that? Maybe that was part of why they went batty. Dragons had been around for a long time before they intermingled with other races, so it was probably going to be fine.

The little dragon feels quite please with herself when she reaches the top of Strange's head, sitting up on her hind legs and looking over the room from her new vantage point. Everything is so fascinating! She gives a happy chirp, turning to look down at Shura. And it's right then, when she decides that she wants to go back down to Shura that she realizes that she has no idea how to get down to Shura, and she's really high up!! This is scary, suddenly everything is not good and she needs help!! She does try to kinda make her way off Strange's head, but this is different than climbing down off Shura, and she lets out a shrill growl-bark.

For her part, Shura is less than impressed with the dragon's panic, waiting a moment to see if it'll get over it. But she's too tired to let it work through it's fear right now, and she'll reach a hand out. "Give it to me, it won't stop that until you pick it up."

Edited 2019-03-27 16:06 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, Strange has no idea what that little dragon is doing on his head. He can feel her claws as she climbs up, hears her chirp, and then starts scrambling downwards.

Strange represses a small laugh as he reaches up to take Shura's dragon off of his head. But instead of giving it right back to Shura, he looks the little dragon in the eyes. "That's the first lesson you've learned: don't let yourself get caught in a situation you can't find a way out of."

His words are matter-of-fact. Strange isn't babytalking the dragon. Instead, he's talking to her like she's an actual adult capable of understanding what he's saying.He then gives the dragon a few scratchies before handing her off to Shura. "She's a girl, by the way."

The dragon stares at Strange, listening dutifully. She has absolutely no idea what he's saying, but she's trying so hard to figure it out. Whatever she did, it must be right, since Strange is scratching her. And then she's back in Shura's hands, and everything is right again with the world. Shura sets her on the bed beside her, and the dragon settles beside her, happy to enjoy the feeling of being safe.

"A girl? How do you know?" Did it even matter to dragons?? It never seemed to matter much to her snake familiars. But those were snakes and this was a dragon. It probably wasn't the same thing.

"There's certain signs one can look for," Strange explains. "The size, the coloration, how they sound...though I've got to admit, I haven't seen a body type like the one your dragon has before. Most dragons are wyvern type, like Alistair Tourmaline."

Alistair happily chirps. Does he know what's going on? Nope. But he heard that word Strange keeps saying and he's still being scratched, so this is a good sign! Strange continues to yammer about potential dragon names.

"She's a pinkish color, so what about Primrose? Or Azalea, that's a nice name."

Shura's gaze flits to Alistair, wondering if he's making noise because he's happy he's getting pet or if he actually recognizes that Strange is saying his name. She had a weird dragon? Of course that woud be her luck, not that Shura was certain what was weird about one dragon to the next. She had only seen Thymoeides before.

In her search for a nice spot to nestle, the dragon tries to shove her little head under Shura's arm. It's an annoying spot, and honestly Shura's vaguely concerned about squishing her. Shura tugs her back a few inches, cupping her palm over the dragon's body and letting the weight of her hand act as a passive weight to keep the dragon in place. This seems to satisfy the dragon, who sticks her head out between Shura's thumb and forefinger, suddenly remembering that she is, as a matter of fact, quite tired.

Shura's tired as well, though she is actually listening to Strange list off names and is actually seriously considering them. Unfortunately, she's also very tired and her sense for naming is about as bad as Strange's, just in a different way.

"Spike?" Because... she's got spikes on her back. It's the same as basing her name off of the color of her scales, right??

Strange gives Shura a look that's pure 'I can't believe you're suggesting that nickname.' He even stops petting Alistair for a moment, just to give her that you've got to be kidding me sort of look.

"Dragons are dignified creatures. You can't name her Spike." Dragons used to rule the land, Shura! No king or queen would be named Spike, it's just the principle of the thing! So, Strange looks over at the tiny dragon again, giving her a once-over as he resumes petting Alistair.

"What about Aconite? Or Antirrhinum? Both of those are good names." Never mind the fact that Antirrhinum is a mouthful.

Yes, dignified creatures that get stuck on top on heads. Shura is too tired to argue with him, but she’s definitely returning that look with one that expresses her disregard for the inherent dignity and regality of dragons. Besides, what was the difference between naming her after the spines on her back and the color of her wings??

“Call her Aconite if you want,” she replies. Fine, she hatched on a night when Shura had been out killing werewolves, it worked. Shura can deal with this name. The dragon seems fine with the discussion going on around her. Being oblivious was bliss, and she’ll start to doze off. Shura isn’t honestly that far behind her. She knows she should get up and out of Strange’s bed, but if she moved, then she’d have to move the dragon, and who knew how long it’d take to get her calmed back down if she got excited.

"Aconite it is," Strange remarks, with a triumphant little smile. The smile shifts to something more gentle as he looks over at the dragon. She's about to pass out—as is Alistair in Strange's lap. Looking over at Shura, he suspects that it's the same with her. After all, they've all had a long day.

"You can stay the night, if you wish. Alistair, Bell and I can sleep on the floor."

Never mind the fact that Shura's probably got some werewolf gunge still on her. He can clean up after her in the morning. And truth be told, Strange is starting to feel the effects of tiredness as well. The high that he worked himself up to when the dragon first hatched is slowly coming down as his body and mind remind Strange that hey, you've been doing a lot of work recently, let's pause for now.

Yeah, yeah, enjoy it while it lasts. Shura’s going to call her Spikey no matter what Strange says. But she’s not really paying attention to everything he’s saying. She’s in a bed, even if it isn’t hers, and she’s exhausted. Tomorrow she’ll have to check in on the captured werewolves and report to Lykos. And the dragon. Shishi could stay with her, but she’d have to come up with something for that, and so she’d have to gather some herbs. Shit, that might mean traveling out to Didymos or Krimnos. Her attention being focused elsewhere means that she only hears part of what Strange says, and so her reply might sound a little odd.

“Sleep in the bed, Windbag.” If she had heard his initial offer to stay, she would have gotten up and left. Her room was just down the hall, not across town!! But all she heard was him saying he’d sleep on the floor, and that’s a stupid idea. But if he asks any questions, she won’t reply, zonking out before he can say anything. Unless Strange tries to wake her, she won’t stir until morning. Aconite is going to wake up hungry, and she’s not afraid of expressing it.

Occasionally, Strange uses that one brain cell he has. He's not going to sleep in the same bed as someone who rejected him a few weeks ago! He's not an idiot. "Oh no, you can sleep on the bed. I'm fine with the floor."

He waits a moment, expecting Shura to rebut...but nothing happens? Frowning, Strange looks over at Shura. His expression shifts a little bit when he spots that she's already asleep. She must be tired. So, smile on his face, Strange goes to the closet, grabs a second blanket and pillow, and cuddles up on the floor with his dragon and his animas.

And thus, Shura discovers that Strange isn't a morning person. Aconite is the first one to wake up with Alistair soon afterwards. He's also not afraid of expressing the fact that he's hungry and has decided to do so by essentially jumping on Strange while chirping very loudly. Considering that Strange is sprawled out on the floor, there's a lot of space to jump on.

A rare display of wisdom from the squishy wizard. But the real challenge comes in the morning, two exhausted new dragon parents, neither of them morning people, with a couple of hungry dragonets, and no Saturday morning cartoons to distract the shits. Shura’s first reaction is to groan at being woken up after only a few hours of sleep. It’s way, way too early. Whatever’s making that noise needs to stop, and wait, shit, this bed smells like a dude—

The memories of the night come to her slowly, between Aconite’s increasingly insistent cries. The bedding rustles as Shura sits up, taking in the scene around her. What a mess. She’s sore, filthy, and still tired. Sure, this isn’t the first time she’s woken up under this sort of circumstance before, but is takes the cake for rough mornings. She had to check in on those werewolves and talk to Lykos.

“I wanna puke,” she finally announces. Aconite chirps, feeling more optimistic about her survival now that Shura’s making noise. She tries to scale up Shura’s thigh, but smooth skin proves harder to scale than cloth or hair. Shura picks the dragon up in one hand, groping around the bedding to try and find the pouch full of dried meat she had snagged before leaving her room. On finding it, she’ll tear off a piece, then throw the bag in Strange’s direction. She’ll have her hands full feeding the little shit pieces small enough that she won’t choke, Strange can take care of the other one.

Strange is also sore, tired, and filthy. While sleeping on the floor was doable, it certainly wasn't comfortable. He can feel his body already start to protest as he moves and stretches somewhat.

Alistair continues to jump on Strange. The magician makes a noise of annoyance, and then another noise of annoyance as the bag of dried meat hits him on the head. That's at least enough to get him to sit up, just in time to see Alistair stick his nose in the pouch of dried meat and start chowing down. Hmm. Hopefully that's safe for dragons to eat.

Strange is moving very slowly as he gently removes the pouch from Alistair's mouth. The dragon makes a noise of irritation, then continues to scarf down what he had yanked from the bag only a few seconds earlier. "What exactly is this?" Strange groggily asks.

"Jerky," Shura replies, glancing briefly over to Alistair. Little pig. Not that Aconite was any better. Patience didn't appear to be a virtue of hers by nature, and consequently, neither was thoroughly chewing her food before swallowing. Shura had already experienced that particular adventure, and she wasn't in the mood to have a repeat. So Aconite will just have to wait until Shura has the meat shredded. It's a terribly difficult thing for a little dragon, and she paces excited circles in Shura's lap. She remembers this!! She's not going to starve to death and she gets to eat something tasty!! Life is AMAZING!

"It ain't spicy or anythin', so it should be fine for them--Ow!" Aconite's excitement was too much to bear, and when Shura offers a piece of meat to her, she goes for it without thinking, grabbing both the jerky and Shura's thumb in her sharp little teeth. "That hurts!"

That sharp tone is enough to wither the dragon's frenzy, and she wilts, dropping her head and making a rather pathetic noise. Shura sticks her thumb in her mouth, dirty as it may be, and wonders if this is a bad sign.

Now that he's secured the bag away from Alistair, Strange peeks in himself. Fortunately, only a few of the pieces inside have dragon slobber on them. He gingerly starts to tear off the slobbery bits, idly tossing them down on the floor for Alistair.

As soon as Shura makes that noise of pain, both Strange and Alistair turn to look. The dragon makes a small little noise of interest before he goes back to eating the jerky—though he's eating it more slowly, watching Shura as he does so. Strange, still half-asleep with a terrible case of bedhead, stands up from the floor to try and look at Shura's thumb.

"Let me see that. If she drew blood, I have some herbs to help stop the bleeding." Never mind the fact that his knowledge of medical care is basic at best. Still, this is probably just a bite, not Shura missing a finger or something like that!

Shura gives a quick hum in reply, dropping her thumb from her mouth. She moves the jerky shreds into her other hand, opening her palm flat and shoving the jerky under the dragon's face. Aconite cautiously looks to Shura, then at the meat, and very carefully takes a shred in her mouth and chews slowly. She'll watch Shura's face very carefully as she eats.

"It ain't that bad," Shura tells Strange, holding her thumb out for both her and Strange to inspect. It isn't a bad injury by any means, a series of pink puncture marks, the tiniest bit of blood beading at the deepest ones. It'd heal quickly, Shura isn't about to worry about that. It's only then that she looks up to him properly, noticing just how bad his hair looks. So fine, maybe she didn't look her best, but damn, that hair is something.

"Worry less about my finger and more about your hair." Tease him, that's the trick!

His hair? Why would he...oh wait, he slept on the floor. And then, Strange realizes the extent of how terrible his bedhead must be. He sighs, before sitting on the bed, next to Shura. Of course he's going to take the chance to get up from the floor, why wouldn't he?

"I slept on the floor," Strange complains, with a little sigh. "Of course my hair would look terrible." Still he attempts to run his fingers through it in the hopes that it will make his hair look less terrible. It doesn't work, but Strange doesn't seem to realize that.

“”You should have woken me up.” Because he should have. Shura wipes her thumb on her shorts before gently stroking Aconite’s head. The dragon stills, feeling uncertain after getting scolded, but since Shura doesn’t seem annoyed and head pets are nice, she will go back to very carefully munching on jerky. With Aconite seeming comfortable with that, Shura will run her fingers down her back, one finger in either side on the spines. “It ain’t like my room is that far.”

Didn’t he have have a spell for his hair?? “Just check a mirror before you leave.”

Alistair walks over to Strange, not wanting to be left out of the party. He puts his paws on Strange's legs and sadly chirps. Awkwardly, Strange hoists the dragon up and puts him on his lap.

"You were passed out on the bed," Strange teases, as he gives Alistair a few under the chin scratches. "I wasn't going to be the person to wake you up. Besides, I've slept in worse places than my room's floor."

"That ain't a good reason!" Actually, it is, but Strange hasn't ever had the joy of waking Shura up before, so it isn't that good of a reason!!

As soon as Aconite finishes her breakfast, she'll turn her attention immediately to Alistair. Yes, she remembers him! She didn't get a great sniff on him before, but he's close to her size and like her!! It's very exciting, and she'll scurry off Shura's lap, falling to the bed with a soft thump and stand up on her hind legs to try and peep up at Alistair and get his attention. She isn't quite big enough to see him, but she can smell him, and she opens her mouth wide to make a chortling sound. It's time to play, come on!!

Alistair peers over at Aconite, blinking a little as he spots her. The dragon is obviously hesitant and makes a small chirping noise before he looks up at Strange. And in return, Strange just looks down at the dragon.

"What, are you asking my permission?" This is new. Nothing's ever asked Strange for his permission as long as he's lived. He gives Alistair a wry little smile before he gestures at Aconite. "Go ahead, chase her or whatever the two of you want to do."

That's good enough for Alistair as the dragon makes a happy little chirp and bounds over Strange's lap to move towards Aconite. Strange can't help but look over at the two, with a small smile. This is absolutely adorable...and also a stark reminder that Strange has no clue how to raise a baby dragon. He knows theoretical dragon raising, not practical!

"Gods, we really have no damn clue what we're doing."

Yes!! Aconite trills at Alistair when she sees him, spreading her wings wide. She's not quite used to this, though, and she falls flat on her back. Unbothered and undeterred, she'll roll right over and scampers off, running on all legs. Shura watches, feeling even more exhausted now that she's getting to see how much energy just one of them has. Two of them together was just going to be double the trouble.

"You're the expert," she mutters, not bothering to question the we part of that statement. There were other things to take care of first, like clothing the werewolves she captured. She rises to her feet, moving off the bed and hoping that Aconite will be too distracted with playing to notice.

"Watch her for me." Shura's afraid to leave the thing alone right now. What if she got spooked and started making that shrill growling noise again? She doesn't have any spells set up to conceal her identity, so things could only go poorly if she was discovered.

At Shura's request, Strange nods. Though they have no clue, he's the one out of the two of them who has something close to a moderate clue. And though he doesn't know where Shura's going, they caught a werewolf last night. Whatever she's doing probably has something to do with that.

"King Ardis gave me some gold in exchange for the silver I gifted him. With that and some money I received from the expedition, I think I'm going to buy some property near Didymos. If you ever need to leave Aconite with me again, at least there she'll have some space."

There's a pause, like Strange is about to say something, but he decides not to. Instead, he turns his attention to the dragons, who are happily play-wrestling with each other on his bed.

"Didymos?" It isn't really much of surprise if she stops to think, but she isn't stopping and it sounds further away than what it really is, now that the distance is easily traveled by air. Still, something lingers about this that annoys her. Strange is a man who doesn't hold back when he wants to say something, and though she has the feeling she doesn't want to hear what he's holding back, she doesn't like keeping things secret. She'll blame it on that.

"If you have somethin' to say, then say it." She follows his gaze, watching the dragons wrestle and squeak. What a handful, the two of them.

There's a pause as Strange obviously tries to figure out how best to say what he wants to say. "If the two of you are ever near Didymos, you know you're more than welcome to stay at my house. It would be cheaper than an inn, after all."

Obviously, Strange would kind of like it if Shura stayed at his place longer than just a visit. But he's still treading lightly around the whole 'I really like you' concept. Hopefully framing it as an act of convenience would make the whole thing go down smoother.

So, about what she expected.

"Ah, yeah. Sure." He's... not wrong. And it'd be nice to be able to have both Shishi and the dragon in a safe place. So Shura doesn't rebuff him, though she looks away from him to hide the way her face turns just a little pink. And then, to prove that this is a super casual reaction, she'll turn to leave. But she pauses at the door, hand hovering above the knob for a second before she looks over her shoulder.

"I'll be back."

The dragons continue to romp and wrestle on the bed. When Shura looks back at him, Strange gives her a little nod. This is also about what he expected: not much of a reaction. But she at least gave him a little bit of a reaction and didn't shoot his idea out of hand, so Strange is taking that as a good sign for the moment.

"I'll keep her safe until you return."

And probably try to lecture poor Aconite on the history of dragons. Hey, it's learning!

[closed]

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