"Pull the lever, Eri!" I shout with a dramatic wave of my arm. She gives me a salute and clicks her heels together before grabbing the stone lever sticking out of the wall and letting her entire body hang off of it to pull it down with several ratcheting clanks. It takes a mere two seconds after it hits the horizontal point for the trimmed down tree to swing down from the ceiling, the top…bottom?… one of the circle parts. It swings down into the hall with barely enough room on either side for someone to avoid the several ton chunk of wood. It swings down almost to the end of the tunnel before slowly completing its half arc back near the ceiling. And that's where the mechanical arms Mei set up grab hold of it to return it to the track before the rollers slide it back to its starting position, the lever having reset as it moved.
I look down at Eri and give her a wide grin that she returns, and I'm happy to see that her teeth are finally starting to transition into proper fangs! They're only a little more pointy than boring old human teeth (when they don't have a quirk that changes them) but it's progress!
"Now," I say with a serious voice as I raise a finger, "make sure to remember that this is the swinging log trap just in case someone gets into my Lair and starts chasing you."
She nods enthusiastically. "Right! And I shouldn't confuse it with the closing wall trap or the falling ceiling trap!"
I nod in agreement. "Correct. Now, while these are the ones that you can manually activate, you'll also have to keep in mind where the pressure plates are so you don't accidentally set them off yourself. Oh, and the pit traps too! Those are camouflaged so I want you to avoid those tunnels entirely." I pause. "At least until you get your wings. After that you'll just be able to fly through my Lair to get between the different rooms."
She tilts her head to the left, the side where her dragon horn is, before asking me in a voice brimming with curiosity, "When will I get my wings, Mom? I want us to be able to fly together!"
I chuckle and reach over to ruffle her hair, drawing cute noises of protest at how it's getting messed up. "You'll get them when you're old enough," I say with the wisdom that comes with being three times her age (I think)… purely because I have absolutely no fucking clue when she'll get her wings. I was nine when I became a dragon and I got them right away, even if I was too out of it to realize that I'd flown out of the volcano until later. Maybe that's the age she'll get her wings? I'm not sure if asking Long would get any more concrete answers considering she told me that all of the other dragons became dragons when they were older than me. Then again, she is the oldest dragon, so she has the most experience in dragon things. Plus it's been a good few months since I've seen her, maybe it's about time for a visit?
I shake my head, putting the thought aside for later. Leaving the country is a big step, one that not even I've taken! It would need a lot of planning and preparations to make sure we don't run into any problems on the way… Not to mention how we might end up needing to take human transportation since I don't want to risk my unicorn falling off my back and into the ocean while flying across it. Sure, I'd be able to find her quickly since she's part of my Hoard and shares my blood, but it would surely be traumatizing for her! I don't want to risk her developing some kind of phobia about flying!
Which, again, means human transport. Which also means that I'll probably have to talk with DAB about organizing the visit, which also also means that they'll probably make a big deal out of it which would delay the trip even longer and, ugh. Basically, organizing a trip to Long's territory is going to be a massive annoyance since I'll be bringing Eri along. It's not like I can leave her behind either since I do want to introduce her to Long before she eventually establishes her own Lair and claims a territory. Not that she or I will have to worry about that for many years, but still. I don't want her introduction with Long to be anything like mine. I'm still kind of scared of the loli-baba…
Which is perfectly reasonable considering she's literally older than quirks! She's a scary loli-baba, and anyone who disagrees is free to fight her and get the fact that I'm right beat and/or cooked into their overly thick skulls!
Anyways, that's why I want to properly introduce the two of them before Eri establishes herself. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to use the pity points I'm pretty sure I still have with the Eldest to make sure that she doesn't traumatize my unicorn. At the very least it will mean that they won't have to meet again later, so I'll count that as a win. Ooh, maybe I can turn it into a full on trip across the world and visit more of the other dragons! I know that Long said a few are basically hermits that don't want anything to do with anything, but it will be interesting to meet the ones who aren't! I'm especially interested in meeting the one Long kept complaining about being a 'useless drunk who fancies herself a goddess'. I don't think I've ever met a drunk before! I wonder what they drunk to get labeled a drunk? I tried asking Giran about it while I was waiting for my Lair to get put together when I heard the phrase before, but he just kept saying that that's something for grown ups to know, which annoyed me.
Thankfully for my relationship with Giran, he got me an ice cream as an apology for not telling me. Unfortunately for some random person whose quirk made them larger and stupid looking, they ended up bumping into me and making the ice cream fall off my cone. They then had the audacity to make the very much fatal mistake of laughing, so of course I had no choice but to fly them so high into the air we couldn't even see the ground and chuck them in a random direction. No idea if they died or not, but I stopped caring after I couldn't see them anymore. Out of sight out of mind and all that. I did manage to badger Giran enough afterwards that he got me another ice cream, though. He's basically my favorite human who isn't part of my Hoard.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Eri and wings. ….Now I kind of want to eat wings for dinner tonight. Ooh, maybe we can try out human transportation to see if people are going to be stupid! "Hey Eri, do you wanna ride a train?"
The small unicorn tilts her head to the right, the side with her unicorn horn, and furrows her brows, giving me an odd look. "I thought we were talking about my wings?"
I nod easily. "Exactly, so is that a yes?"
Eri blinks slowly, one eye closing just as the other opens before answering in an uncertain tone, "…Yes?"
I clap my hands together and nod my head. "Great! Where do you want to go?"
"…I don't know, where do you want to go?" She asks while scratching her head with her dragon arm.
I shrug. "I don't know, where do you want to go?"
Eri furrows her brows. "I don't know, where do you want to go?"
I shrug. "I don't know, where do- now don't go starting that again!" I cut myself off and wiggle a finger at her, seeing her confusion increasing for some reason, which causes my own brows to furrow. "…Do you want to go out to get something to eat for lunch?"
The confusion instantly clears from her face, lighting up with excitement instead. "Yes!"
I give her a wide grin before pumping my arm in the air. "Yes! We can go to that one buffet my Hoard showed me after I woke up!"
Eri manages to perk up even more at that piece of information. "Oooh, is big sis Kyo coming too? Can I meet everyone else?"
I hum thoughtfully, trying to remember what the date is. I'm… pretty sure that students are out of school right now, so there shouldn't be any problems with texting them and seeing if they're free. It wouldn't be a big issue if they aren't though, Yui and Hitoshi would just have to meet her another time. She's already met Kyoka, obviously, and Mei asked for a few scales to compare to my discarded ones when Eri went exploring and found her working in her workshop. Which wasn't a problem since Eri has shed a few and agreed to it, but I doubt she'll end up finding any notable differences apart from them being softer than mine. At least until she bonds with her own Lair in a few years and experiences her first full transformation.
"Maybe," I muse aloud, "I'll make sure to check with them when we leave, but don't be too disappointed if they're busy or have already eaten. It is already around that time, after all."
She nods her head understandingly. "Yes, Mom."
I give her a smile and reach out to ruffle her hair, garnering a whining sound that comes from her throat even though she nuzzles into my hand before she abruptly freezes. "Um… Mom?" I hold back a frown at the sudden uncertainty in her voice, having come out of nowhere as it has. I nod for her to continue. "Will… will there be a lot of humans there?"
That… is not what I was expecting. But I was expecting to not know what to expect which means that I was in fact expecting it. I'm so smart~. "Maybe," I answer with a tilt of my head and a curious look on my face. "Do you not like it when there are a lot of humans around?"
She looks down and fidgets with the hem of the oversized shirt she's wearing. It's one of the ones I got before I went to sleep and grew into my current body, so it's too small for me to wear unless I make an active effort to shrink myself and I honestly don't see much of a point to that. Then again, that is one of my favorite shirts. It's dark black with the words 'I am a dragon, your argument is invalid' stamped across the front in white letters. I got it after my first meeting with DAB because of how funny I thought it was to find it in the store I was wandering in at the time. Not to mention that I'm of the opinion that it serves as a valid warning to people that they would annoy me at their own risk, regardless of what Ora said to the contrary.
Maybe I should see about finding another copy of it in my current size… Or any clothes in my current size, now that I think about it. I haven't bothered going clothes shopping in the last few months for myself since I don't really care about covering myself. I got a bunch for Eri since she doesn't have her own Lair yet, but I didn't think to get anything for myself while I was there. Which isn't a problem for me since I can just use my scales to cover the bits humans would have problems with seeing, but there have been a few times people have made themselves a nuisance when I've gone out…
Eventually I just shrug the thought off. If we end up turning our practice with human transportation into more of a day in the city, I'll consider it more then. For now though… "Do you want to invite Himiko and Mei too?"
Eri tilts her head to the side to think about it before the sound of an explosion echoes through the tunnels, followed by the sound of loud whooping that's swiftly silenced by the sound of an even bigger explosion. "…I think big sis Mei is busy."
I nod in agreement. "Yeah, it sounds like it." I frown. "She must really want my saliva…"
Eri's face screws up in disgust. "Eeeeewww!"
I laugh, ruffling her hair even more before she ends up slapping at my hand to get me to stop. I do so before poking her in the side and continuing my previous question. "What about Himiko? Do you want her to come?"
She giggles and squirms away from my finger before giving me the best attempt at a deadpan look she can accomplish, which is disturbingly reminiscent of Yui. "I think she's still mad."
I pout at the child and cross my arms under my chest before looking away in silent acknowledgement. "…I told her I was sorry."
"You forgot to let her out of the new time out room."
I look up at the ceiling, refusing to outright admit how justified Himiko's annoyance is. "I forgot I moved her there and thought I already let her out."
"She was stuck in time out for three days more than she was supposed to be." Eri has no mercy, targeting the biggest sticking point about not letting her out when I was supposed to. "And you didn't give her any food those days!"
I throw my arms up in exasperation. "I thought I let her out already! And she still had leftovers from the big meal I gave her on the last day of her time out!"
Eri just humphs at me and crosses her own arms before turning away, which is understandable. Eri was actually pretty mad too when she found out Himiko was still stuck in there after she was supposed to be freed. Probably because of something relating to Bastard - which she still refuses to talk about! I still won't try and make her talk about it, but I would like to know more about my unicorn.
I sigh, relaxing my shoulders and leaning over her while my arms hang limp by my sides. For a moment I consider letting myself drop on her and seeing if she can support my weight but swiftly dismiss it. Himiko's punishment getting brought up has upset her so it's not the time. I'll just do it later.
"…So do you want to go now?"
"…Yes Mom, I just need to put on my clean clothes!" I can't help but chuckle at the sight of her dashing back to her room while I let my scales grow to cover my bits in the pattern I usually prefer; trailing from my waist up my sides and around my lower back and chest, reminiscent of a one piece swimsuit. If you took out the part that covers the stomach and most of the cleavage. Sometimes I cover my arms and legs with scales too but I don't feel like it today. While I wait for Eri I send the message to the First of my Hoard, seeing if anyone is free to eat with us.