All Ruka wanted to do was sell some eggs. He did it every other day like clockwork, bringing them to the village tavern for the next day’s meals. Even on a minor crossroads as they were, the tavern usually kept up a steady stream of business. This was… a little different though.
People lay strewn about like bodies after a battle or, given where they were, like after a particularly large bar fight. What was more, they all seemed to be concentrated around a singular table occupied by two patrons in the throes of enjoying some drinks. He couldn’t help but eye them as he approached the tavernkeep with his eggs, gingerly stepping over the haphazard bodies.
“Ruka, evenin’.”
“Y’lem.” He set his basket on the bar and turned his gaze back to the oddity. “What in the hells happened here?”
“New girl. Came in off the highway today.”
There was a thump and a triumphant “Ha!” that could only have been the mentioned woman. Her drinking partner was slumped over the table, moving enough to signify he was still alive, but not at all sober, and probably not conscious. It gave Ruka an easy view of her: dark cobalt blue hair, close cropped on the sides, and vibrant cinnabar skin. A tiefling? Maybe aasimar? They weren’t unheard of in these parts, but neither were they at all common. She seemed to notice his stare and rose unsteadily from her seat, carefully picking her way through the battlefield of inebriation toward the bar.
“Careful, Ru. She’s a feisty one.”
Before he could properly reply, much less ask what he meant by that, the newcomer drunkenly tripped against the wooden countertop, largely catching herself but aided by a sudden outstretched hand of Ruka’s. The way the collar of her tunic fell aside offered him a brief glance at more than what he’d bargained for, but notably a triangular collection of blue scaleskin that formed just under her collarbone and terminated in a point at her sternum. As he took his hand away from the arm he caught her by, he noticed a similar collection of scales running along the bony outer edge of her forearm from the elbow to halfway to the wrist.
What is she?
“Whoo, my thanks. You saved me there.”
“Are you well,” he asked, hesitating when her eyes met his, “my lady?”
They seemed normal, if a fetching combination of gray along the outer part of the iris and transitioning to ever deeper hues of blue as the color moved inward. The striking part, though, was the slitted pupils.
“Well? Didjoo say well? Where’s the well? I could use a drink. Heh. A well of beer.” She turned rather unceremoniously from the two men, forgetting whatever question she might have had as she meandered toward the door, muttering, “Think I saw a well out front.”
“Ay, is she going to be alright?”
“Probably best you keep an eye on her,” Y’lem grumbled, looking at the drunken, unconscious crowd. “I’ll clean up this lot in the meantime.”
Were he anyone else, Ruka might have grumbled about being put on babysitting duty for someone he didn’t know by someone he didn’t work for. But Ruka was the sort that looked out for others. Given she already had a head start, he left his eggs on the bar top and hopped through the morass to the door. Opening it revealed the red woman teetering dangerously on her stomach over the lip of the well.
“Heeere bucketbucktbucket. I want well beer. Or water. Water’s good toOoh!”
She had just started to fall forward into the dark and damp abyss when a hand caught her by the belt and — almost too swiftly for a drunken person to handle without violently evicting their stomach contents — hauled her up, out, and back onto solid earth. Her surprise at the rescue seemed rather quickly supplanted by intrigue as Ruka looked her over for any overt injury.
“Mnh, you saved me. Tha’s twice now.”
“Are you alright?”
“Very. And you’re not bad looking for a hairless ape. I’d be willing to repay your kindness.” She leaned in to whisper, “Ever fuck a dragon?”
He stammered back, voice going up an octave as he attempted to ignore the last part and hold her attention. He was supposed to be keeping her safe. “A hairless ape, ay?”
“Mmyep.” Her fingers walked up his chest, her drunken grin briefly broken by a bite on her lower lip. “Humans might be favored by gods and walk the many planes of existence, but there was once a time your kind were hunched over in caves, beating rocks together trying to make fire.”
“H-how about some water for the mistress? We can go back inside?” And away from the well.
“I am quite… thirsty.”
His voice spiked again. “Can we go back inside for that?”
The coy look she gave him was as piercing as the eyes themselves, but she seemed willing enough to comply. She strolled lazily past, though it was evident there was still a strong sway of alcohol in her step. Ruka’s smile broke, leaving the concern evident as he followed her into the tavern, trading daylight for windows and candles all over again. Y’lem had managed to convey about half of the drunkards to seats or clear spaces against the walls, but plenty remained sprawled around the newcomer’s original table.
The tavern keeper gave Ruka a questioning look, to which he replied with a mimed question about serving the lady water. The response was hesitantly in the affirmative, allowing Ruka to dip behind the bar and fill a flagon with water from the designated cask.
“Here you are.”
She looked at it rather incredulously, gliding her finger around the rim of the large cup. “And here I thought I was unfamiliar with human ways. Pretty sure I was fairly obvious.”
“Obvious?”
“About my intentions.”
“My lady, I think what you should intend to do is to sleep this off.” He looked at the bodies still being collected like so much drunk dead weight. “Whatever this was.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m done with you. Which probably won’t be ‘til morning.”
Ilmater, this woman. “So what did happen here, if I may ask?”
“Hm? Oh, one of your people approached offering to buy me a drink. His aim was obvious, but I made it interesting. They bought the drinks, and I drank them.”
“And that just… worked?”
“You could kiss me and find out.”
The red woman closed her eyes and puckered her lips expectantly, even leaning forward a little over the bar top. Ruka pondered quickly what he could do with this flirtatious creature that claimed to be a dragon, and was so drunkenly intent on him. Y’lem grunted as he shifted a groaning drunk off the floor. An idea formed.
Ruka grabbed his little pendant that hung about his neck, manipulating his hand and fingers as he quickly whispered, “Ilmater, dilit dur.”
His hand glowed, the symbol he held hummed with energy, and he watched as the red woman was framed with a gentle glow. Sleep please, my lady. And he watched as a second passed. Two. As he passed the threshold where she should have all but collapsed and she began to stir instead, he quickly put his god’s symbol away and dropped his hands. Her eyes opened hardly a second later and witnessed Ruka standing there, a nervous and awkward smile on his face as they exchanged gazes.
Her incredulous expression was telling. “Well that was disappointing.”
“I… appreciate the sentiment, ay, but I have to say no.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I still…” She leaned closer, eyeing him intently and offering a glimpse of the blue scaleskin just above the minimal cleavage of her chest. “…am.”
“Pothoc.” She perused the contents of the basket by her elbow, noting the plentiful eggs. “I suppose I should find something to eat here that isn’t ale.”
Ruka’s jaw dropped. “You haven’t eaten?!”
“Not since this morning, no.”
Even Y’lem stopped what he was doing to share a glance with him. “Lass, how are you even still alive?”
“Because dragon. By Bahamut, you humans are dense sometimes.” She paused, curious. “Though I do feel oddly… how would you describe it? Swirly?”
“Yer drunk, lass.”
“Huh. Weird.”
Ruka’s internal voice screamed, demanding to know how this was weird, why she hadn’t eaten, and as she repeated herself on the matter: how she was a gods-damned dragon. Sure she had the scales, and it wasn’t unknown for them to polymorph into other forms — including that of humans — but they usually didn’t look so dragonlike when they did it, much less advertise it so vehemently. If she was telling the truth, and wasn’t just some dragonborn hybrid, she was clearly very proud of the fact. And perhaps a little naive to saying it so loudly.
“How is that… How much did you have to drink?” His question was vocalized to her, but his eyes went to the tavernkeep that appraised her carefully, if looking a little guilty toward Ruka.
“Enough that I’d be willing to give her a good plate of food on the house.”
“I accept your offer!” She gave Ruka an inviting look, adding, “I will be at my table.”
Grabbing up her water, she slipped off her bar stool toward her former abode. The first couple steps were somewhat unsteady, made worse by her attempt to showcase her assets before focusing on simply walking straight.