This metal piece was strong, but with enough effort, she did get it to bend backward enough to slip the strap out. By now the wreckage of the plane was burning hot, and Max was still stubbornly trying to help with his bag. Any metal he touched made him hiss in pain, mostly because it was hot enough to burn holes in his uniform, a few larger pieces actually burning him.
"I need to get my bag out, I'm not trying to touch the metal," He replied, shaking his head to force away the dizziness. Max yanked on the bag, gritting his teeth as the flames burned inches from his feet.
“But you’re still touching it,” Vasuki growled, slowly losing patience. “Fine, just get your bag out.” She hoped she’d pulled back the strap enough, because her attention was now on the flames. She attempted to stamp out what flames she could with her feet, but tried to avoid touching the metal for long periods of time. Vasuki wasn’t excepting any real progress - she just wanted to delay the fire, give the human more time.
He gave one more hard tug and the bag came free, landing heavily in his arms and causing him to stumble back against yet another piece of hot wreckage. Max yelped at that one, scrambling away and getting far away from the plane as the fire took hold of the place he had just been standing. There was no way he was getting his plane back. Even in his dazed state he could tell that.
He cradled the duffle bag to his chest as he staggered away from the fire, glancing at the massive dragon as he did so. Within seconds he was sitting, mostly because his knees buckled beneath him. "Thank you," He said, very much meaning it.
She peered down at him, moving away from the fire. “You’re welcome,” she responded after a moment or two. Even though she was still interested in the human, her voice was noticeably less enthusiastic than before, probably because of the whole fire ordeal. Though, Vasuki knew with happiness that she had successfully assisted in saving the human’s belongings.
As for the contraption…she cast a wary glance at it, covered in fire. Probably not. The thing would be a reminder of what happened once.
“..What is your name, human?” Vasuki asked after a brief pause.
"Max. Max Dimont," He replied, clearly searching for something in his bag. Max sighed in relief as he pulled out a smaller bag, this one clearly labeled in French, 'medical'. He wasted no time opening it, pulling out what he needed and focusing on wrapping up the gash on his forehead. There was surely other wounds, but that was the one he had to focus on the most.
"Do you have a name?" He asked after a moment. It seemed rude not to even ask if the dragon that had helped him save his bag had a name.
“Vasuki Es Sagolj,” her answer came quickly as though she were ready to give it right away. She watched him patch himself up.
This was the first time she’d ever met a human, and had a conversation with one. It was too early for Vasuki to give her opinion on him - Max, his name was. “It’s nice to meet you, Max Dimont. Where did you come from?”
He didn't respond until his wound was covered with thick gauze, and even then, crimson red blood was already seeping out of it. "I'm from France, born and raised there. I still live there too, even with the war. It's nice to meet you too, Vasuki." Max turned his attention away from his head as he talked, studying the cuts in his uniform and trying to determine if it was even worth trying to patch them up. They weren't as bad as his head, but they could still get infected. Yet, the amount of work it would take to get them covered was more than he had left in him. At least he could tell that.
What seemed to be a smile slipped onto her features, but faded when Vasuki went back on what he just said. France - it was a distantly familiar word to her, one she’d only read in books. But what really caught her attention was the word war.
“Wait. What do you mean, war?” Vasuki asked. The dragons had fought their own wars, but not in centuries. And they had very little outside contact with the world - most likely none - meaning they were not up to date with the events of the world.
(Pardon the late response, I had a longgg day with work…I'll get something up in the morning I promise)
"The war?" He replied slowly, seeming quite confused that she didn't know what he was talking about, "The second great war?" Max touched one of the harsh burns from the metal on his skin, the fabric around it burnt. It hurt like hell, but to treat it properly he would need to take off his uniform, which was going to be quite a task. "It's been going on for years now."
As he talked, he glanced around at the island, taking in more of the area with slight nervousness. The fact that there was a literal dragon sitting in front of him was finally sinking in, and he was growing much more nervous. If those teeth could tear through metal, he would be torn apart like paper.
Her voice was filled with puzzlement. “Second? There was one before that?” Vasuki knew of war - but the dragons hadn’t fought in centuries. She had no clue of what the humans were doing outside of everything. “I haven’t heard of any war. Any recent one, anyways.”
He nodded, looking up at her with a look of slight confusion, "This is the second great war in about twenty years, you didn't know that?" Even the smallest towns in Europe knew about the war, and it surprised him when Vasuki didn't know about. Somewhere as remote as wherever this was couldn't be that out of date with things with the world.
“No..” She shook her head. “The dragons haven’t fought in centuries. You say this is the second one in twenty years? And who are you even fighting against?” Vasuki pondered what was out there that the humans had to fight against.
"The Axis powers," Max replied, his voice taking on a harder edge, "Germany Italy and Japan as well as several other countries." He shook his head, "My country surrendered three years ago, but I've been trying to fight for the remaining countries against them." He looked up at the dragon, still amazed by her sheer height compared to him.
Vasuki took in what he had to say. Countries were inhabited by humans, she knew that much. But what really took the dragon by surprise was…
“So you’re fighting against….other humans?” Her tone was one of disbelief. The stories she’d heard portrayed humans as a perfect species, with no need to fight each other. For her to learn that what she knew was far from the truth was hard.
He nodded once, head tipped to the side slightly in question as he asked, "Who else would we be fighting against?" Ever so slowly, once he was finished looking over his wounds, deciding that all the ones that weren't bleeding were fine, he stood. It took effort, and he was dizzier than hell when he finished standing, but he had gotten to his feet. Ever so slowly, he grabbed his bag, then shakily made his way over towards of the trees that he hadn't crashed into.
There was a long pause. “..Other dragons?” Vasuki couldn’t quite comprehend the idea of humans fighting. All the stories she’d heard were of humans, the perfect species, who turned against the dragons long ago, hence why the dragons keep to their little island. Her head was slightly tilted, and as she watched him, she followed.
"Dragons are myths, the don't exist in the real world," He replied, shaking his head as he sat down. Though calling him collapsing to his knees him sitting was very much a compliment to the attempt. Max looked up at her and shook his head again, "You're most likely nothing more than my imagination, and even if you aren't…I'm not sure." She had to be part of whatever was left of his messed up head, no matter how many times she had proven that she wasn't.
She stayed silent, before a smile seemed to cast onto her features. “I’m not apart of your imag-“
There was something that suddenly seemed to catch Vasuki’s attention, something the human was unable to detect at first. She spun around, careful where she stepped, as whatever caught her eye became clearer. There were footsteps, but not of a human, something of similar size to Vasuki. And they were fast. Two of them emerged from the trees, one, Vasuki could recognize. The other was of familiar scent, but not visually recognized. One of her aunt’s warriors.
And there was Nokae. Nokae was one of the only dragons who had white scales, meaning she stood out, both against the environment and other dragons. She had a frill of spikes around her head, and two long horns in them. She caught sight of Vasuki, first.
“Vasuki, we’ve been tracking you down, ever since we heard that explosion. We-“ She stopped, as her eyes wandered over to the other individual.
The other warrior, who had brown scales, whispered something in draconic to Nokae.
Whatever friendly features she had before vanished, for Nokae‘s scaly lips curled back and she let out a low rumble of a growl. “Vasuki, come to me…” Nokae switched over to Draconic immediately. To a human, the language would sound rough, guttural.
“Nokae, wait. He’s fine. He’s a good human.” In attempt to calm the other two dragons down, Vasuki tried to convince them that any fears they had against the humans were misplaced.
If one dragon was enough to freak Max out, then the two that emerged were enough to thoroughly terrify him. Almost instantly he froze, sure that these two new ones were going to eat him. Vasuki had assured him that she wasn't going to do that, but he wasn't sure about these two. Especially with the rough noises they were making between each other.
All he did was stay right where he was, reaching around slowly for his bag to grab whatever semblance of a weapon he could. His eyes never once left the white scaled dragon, as she seemed the scariest between the three of them if he had to decide. That was the one that was going to kill him.
Nokae shook her head. “Humans have not been here in centuries. How could this one have gotten here?”
Vasuki paused. “I don’t know,” she admitted, switching over to Draconic. “But I’m sure we can figure it out! He’s fine. He’s in no place to be attacking any of us either, I think he could be injured.”
Naokae stopped, sniffing the air, and turning to her accomplice. The two lowered their voices down to a mere whisper, a feat for speaking in Draconic since it was a loud language to begin with.
Vasuki turned back to Max. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of this. Nokae’s nice, I promise you. We just haven’t seen a human…ever. Well, I haven’t seen one.” Until now, of course.
Max didn't respond to Vasuki, a swiss army knife held tightly in his hand as he watched the white scaled dragon. They still were speaking in the rough guttural noises that he assumed were a language, though they definitely weren't one he was familiar with.
These new dragons were still terrifying, no matter what Vasuki told him to assure him that they weren't. Until he knew they weren't going to hurt him, he was going to be on constant guard. No matter if that meant he was up for hours at a time or had to ignore whatever injuries he had, he wasn't going to give them a chance to harm him at all.
"What are they talking about?" He slowly asked after a moment, the tiny blade still clenched in his hand.
Vasuki debated on what to say. “I don’t know. They’re just discussing on what to do. There isn’t really a protocol for humans. But don’t worry,” she repeated, “Nokae’s my aunt. She’s pretty reasonable.”
Her eyes watched his knife, but she said nothing.
At last, Nokae returned to them. Her voice switched back to French, and she announced her choice. “The human may stay, but Queen Vellayl will make the final choice.” Wariness was still in her tone and stance. She looked to the other brown dragon and nodded to them; who headed off, leaving Nokae alone.
Against a dragon, Max was sure his knife wouldn't do anything but annoy them, but it made him feel safer with it in his hand. At least then he had some semblance of protection.
"Who's this Queen Vellayl?" He asked after the dragon he assumed was Nokae spoke and the brown dragon left. Max watched them the entire time before glancing up at Vasuki for a split second, then his eyes focused back on the white dragon, who looked no less likely to eat him. At least she had spoke in a language he understood. If anything that made him relax a tiny bit.
“Queen Vellayl is my mother!” That was the first answer that came to mind. “She’s also what you would call the leader around here,” Vasuki quickly adds.
Nokae approaches, her movements slow, as if she were cautious. “Correct. And she is the one who will be judging if you can stay here or not.” Though her tone carried a sense of harshness to it, it wasn’t necessarily aggressive.
Max slowly nodded at Vasuki's words, then shot another wary glare at Nokae before glancing at the more familiar dragon once more. "When do I have to meet her?"
He didn't like Nokae still, and it took willpower and force to keep himself from moving away from her as she stepped closer. Still, she looked like she was ready to bite him in half at any second, whether he did anything or not. It didn't help that her words held a hard edge to them, much different than Vasuki's tone, and Nokae's french in general sounded slightly more guttural and rough, like the language she had been speaking to the other dragon.
"What will happen if she decides I'm not allowed to stay? I can't fly home. My plane is wrecked," He continued, pointing at the flaming wreckage with his small knife for emphasis as he continued talking to Vasuki, "More importantly, what will happen if I do stay?"
Vasuki glanced back at the plane. So that’s what it was called. She returned to give her answers. “If you stay..your injuries will probably be treated for one, and we’ll decide what to do from there. If you don’t..well..” she hummed, unsure. “..I don’t know?”
Nokae didn’t have much to add, as it seemed she too was unsure of what lie ahead. But she did interrupt by saying, “We should begin to head towards the city.” Her black eyes flicked towards the flaming wreckage of the plane, wondering just how that thing might’ve flown before.
Max nodded once more, the movement familiar and easy enough for a response. He knew getting his injuries treated was a good idea, but going to whatever city was mentioned sounded terrifying. Was this city going to be one of dragons. "Do I have to go into the city?" He asked, not letting his fear into his voice, "I can stay here if it's easier, Then as soon as I get a way to leave I'll be out of here."
He glanced at Vasuki for response, tapping the blade of his knife against his boot in a soft pattern. Anything to take his mind off the idea of an entire city filled with dragons, especially ones like Nokae that would crush him in an instant.
Vasuki made a move to answer, but it was not her who spoke. Nokae was instead, stepping forwards and shaking her head. “No. I am sure the Queen would like to see any and all foreign arrivals to her land, especially humans.” Noticeably, her tone had somewhat relaxed, but she was definitely still cautious.
“Don’t worry,” Vasuki was well aware that was a term she’d repeated many times. “Camiguin city is fine. Everyone is careful about where they’re walking, and most people don’t retain a dragon form while within the city,” she added, without considering the fact that the human might not know what she meant by ‘dragon form.’ Nokae glanced up at her.
"Dragons have different forms?" He asked slowly, most of the rest of the information flying by him. There were different forms that these creatures could take on? Were any of them more deadly to him?" Max didn't hide his still wary glance at Nokae, especially as he tugged his bag closer and fastened it shut. If he was going to go into the city of dragons, he would have to be prepared.
"And do we have to go right now? I suppose the faster we meet this Queen, the faster I can get back here and work on trying to get home." He kept his knife out even as he pulled his bag slowly onto his back. That much was easy, but getting up with weak legs was going to be a different struggle.
