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[noble_sin]

Date & Time: Morning, 12 Feb 3312.
Location: Initiative Hold, outside.
Characters: Magr'ateth, open to anybody else.
Summary: Holy shit, a dragon!
Warnings: None, unless small animals getting eaten bothers you too much.

It's not something he should be doing. He knows that—but he does it anyway, because it's too much like a sharp itch at him. The place isn't right. He has to see it—and that means being high up. Higher than the buildings, high enough to get a view of everything all at once.

Which is why there's a shape overhead, as people go about their business... a looming, huge-winged shape, easily some thirty feet across from wingtip to wingtip, reptilian and feline in qualities all at once, and certainly not at all the profile of anyone seen in that transport room. Its body isn't so huge, like the size of a large wolf with a long neck and tail, but the looming wings make it seem much bigger. Now and then it lands deftly on the edge of a building, like some shining gold-hued gargoyle—and at least once it goes into a short dive and simply plucks a frantically-flapping seagull out of the air with its jaws.

Comments

[notthatjason]

Jason woke up and decided to wander. He wasn't completely sure of this place yet, but the best way to learn was to get out of his room and explore. He had mostly done his talking over the network set up so it would be good to get out and stretch his legs at the very least. He also decided to take his sword because, well, they expected him to use it, right? Might as well get used to carrying it as well (he had a similar one at home, but there were always slight differences between swords).

As soon as he stepped outside he sensed something different in the air. At first he brushed it off as simply not being familiar with his surroundings, but the tingling feeling at the back of his neck wouldn't leave him. He felt drawn to the sky and he looked up in time to see a large dragon sweep low and snatch up a bird. Jason wasn't quite used to dragons, like REAL ones and yelped with surprise as it flew over. "Woah! What?!"

He spun on his feet, following it's movements. Was this...a monster attack or was this another of the transports?

[noble_sin]

The dragon banks and curves, and lands on the edge of a building—one-story, this time, out of reach but well within range to get a good look at it. It stares at Jason, head high. It's a rather handsome beast, with the way those golden scales shine like armor in the light.

And then it launches again, those broad wings raising a low gust, and almost skims the earth before it curves up. Just to judge by the look of it, there must be incredible muscle power in those wings, even to lift a body size that's not all that great among dragons. (Somewhere, a stray cat yowls and runs in exactly the opposite direction.)

It circles, slowly, lingering, watching him.

[notthatjason]

Jason stared up at the dragon, not wanting to move but also not wanting to stay there. This thing was HUGE and clearly now interested in him. Already his warrior-trained mind was scanning the scales for chinks or holes that he could exploit, but something inside told him not to attack it. So he stood and stared at it instead.

You know what's disconcerting? Having a dragon circle you like a hawk circles a field mouse. Jason stood his ground though, hand resting on the sword but not drawing it. He wasn't looking to fight and so far the dragon hadn't attacked, but it was hard to fight instinct and his instinct was telling him to be ready to start dodging flames or something.

He had to admit though, it was a pretty cool looking dragon. Leo's mechanical dragon might have been cool, but there was no competition for the real thing in Jason's mind (though Leo would probably have argued that until the end of time). The way it flew was impossible and yet Jason had seen more impossible things in his few years of life than most adults could claim, so there was that.

[noble_sin]

The armored scales are obvious, but they don't make the beast invulnerable... well, unless the flesh and muscle underneath is tough enough to deflect blows anyway. But going after any of the obvious weak points, clustered around the neck and shoulders where the scales thin out in favor of flexibility, would be tough—even aside from that long neck letting it bring teeth to bear in any direction, a single bat from one of those wings could probably knock a man off his feet. And that's before the claws and the long, muscled tail.

It would obviously be an incredibly efficient predator even without the risk of firey breath, but at that, much too big to live off birds and stray animals while spending so much energy flying around like that. If it's anything native, it would have to have hunting grounds somewhere else.

And then it glides down and lands, wings half-folding, and stalks towards him like a tiger. It's not big enough in the bulk of its body to quite fit as one, but close, and it moves in just the same sort of exceptionally fluid way.

[notthatjason]

Luckily for Jason he's used to facing down things bigger than he is. He was raised by wolves and trained by the Roman legion. He looked death down more often than he would like to admit. Most importantly, he was a son of Jupiter, lord of the skies, and this dragon was just another creature like that.

So, it goes without saying, Jason didn't budge. He stared the dragon down, not provoking it, but certainly not acting like prey either. He wasn't prey. He'd survived Lupa's test and that meant he could survive this (most likely). He followed it's movements, tracking it. He still couldn't tell if it was just curious or if it was planning to eat him.