wildmage_daine | (no subject)

This all could be a good deal worse, as Daine often reminds herself.

Kitten's not as big as she could be, first off. Not as big as her ma had been, just big enough that there's no question of her being grown up. Which means the farmhouse wasn't completely wrecked when the change happened, and that what damage there is shouldn't be too much trouble to fix.

(Though there's nothing to be done for the potting shed. That's a complete loss.)

And though Kitten's mind and magic seem the same as they've always been, Daine knows enough other folk with powerful magic to help at least keep her hid. They've found a place out in the forest well away from any hiking trails, and Magnus has done a wonder with glamours and other magics to keep folk from noticing Kitten's there. The dragonet (well, dragon) doesn't seem overly fond of it -- she keeps sneezing when she gets too close to the invisible line where the magic sits, and Daine can't quite tell if it's involuntary or if Kit's trying to make a point -- but she's been staying within the bounds of it. So far.

The two real difficulties are keeping her both fed and entertained. Kitten can eat most anything, which is a small mercy, but it's still hard to buy (and haul) thrice Daine's own body weight in food every day without getting odd looks from folk at the grocery store. Worse, there's just nothing for Kit to do out in the woods. Daine's been keeping her company and reading to her, but she can tell the dragon's getting restless. And a bored, large dragon is the last thing the city needs.

Daine's on her way to Kit's hiding place after yet another food run, a stuffed backpack slung over her shoulders and a bag dangling from each hand. It's a trip she's made often enough for her formerly brisk march to have faded into something closer to a trudge (can she really blame Kit for being bored with all this when she's bored with it, too?), but she's fair determined to just get to her charge without incident.

Tired and preoccupied as she is, when a body appears in front of her, she moves to sidestep them with an absent, "Pardon," not even giving them a glance.

[ooc: who wants to meet a big dragon?? Hopefully someone Daine already knows, because tbh she's not gonna trust a stranger with this. But friends and acquaintances are welcomed and encouraged -- especially those who have met tiny!Kitten before.]

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"I s'pose that's fair." Daine lets her hands drop, then tips her head in the direction they're going before starting to walk.

She waits until there aren't any other pedestrians nearby before starting to explain. "It's Kitten," she says quietly. At least Rowan has met her already, so she doesn't have to explain that she has a dragon in the first place. That simplifies things. With a nod towards the bags he's carrying, she adds, "This is all for her. She's grown up. Not as much as she could've done -- she's not as big as her ma was -- but she's... plenty big, now. Too big to fit in the house."

"Wait, what?" Rowan frowned at her in confusion, but didn't stop walking. He immediately took what Daine was saying to be true and factual; his brain didn't refuse it. After all, they lived in Darrow now. Anything seemed possible. But the how was where he has having difficulty.

"How did she grow up in just a few days? I thought it would have taken... years, or something."

"It wasn't just a few days," Daine says, wincing a little at the memory. "It was overnight. She was fair bursting out of the house. We had to get Magnus to magic her out without the whole place coming down around our ears."

The how still eludes her, and she shrugs, the backpack rising and falling. "I've seen Darrow muck with folk's ages before, so it might be something like that," she hazards. "It ought to have taken her hundreds of centuries to get to the size she is now. I never..." she pauses, clears the hoarseness from her throat, and continues, "I didn't expect to ever see it, myself."

All things considered, and relatively speaking, Rowan was still a stranger to Darrow's magic when it came down to it. He had been attacked by elves and made to say stupid things, but he hadn't had anything like this happen to him or the people he cared about. Until now.

Kit sort of counted. Daine counted more.

"Well, at least there's that?" he offered. He assumed that it was a good thing for Daine to see her all grown up as she was. A gift that mortality wouldn't afford her.

Daine nods, and the smile she musters is still sheepish, but comes more easily than the first. "I've taken a lot of pictures. For me, mostly, but for Kitten, too. She can't especially appreciate them now, but once she's back to normal, she might like seeing them." It's too bad no one else from home is here to see it, and too bad she won't be taking her phone with her whenever Darrow sends her home. But on the off chance anyone shows up one day, if Daine's still here, she'd still have the pictures.

"Do you want to see her?" she asks, the question coming out more shy than most. It's easier to be charmed by a baby dragon than a big one, and though Kitten isn't here to catch Rowan's answer, Daine can't help feeling a little trepidation on the dragon's behalf. Neither of them like the idea of folk being scared of her, and Kit's already feeling lonesome.

Rowan hadn't thought about it from Kitten's perspective, that she would want to know what she looked like. But every kid wanted to know what it was like to be a grown up, didn't they? Wanted to see that little piece of the future, even if they couldn't see the whole picture? Maybe an animal, Rowan supposed, wasn't all that different from a kid. Kitten wasn't, that was for sure.

"Sure," Rowan said with casual enthusiasm. He figured she meant pictures, but on the off chance that she didn't, he didn't want to see too excited to see a living dragon and then have Daine feel bad that she's disappointed him with her phone images.

"Who doesn't want to see a real life full sized dragon?" he chuckled. "As long as I'm behind you."

Daine lights up, shedding some of the weariness that had been bogging her down. She knows how much visitors mean to Kitten -- especially ones she doesn't see more often than not, anyway. That Rowan agreed so casually is nice, too, in its way. It seems to suggest he won't get worked up, no matter how shocking the sight of Kitten full-grown might be.

Maybe it's to do with not being able to die. Things probably scare you less when that's off the table.

"She'll be glad to see you," Daine assures him, "and you won't come to any harm. Folk keep expecting her to breathe fire, but that's not how dragons work in my realm. She'd have to be a stronger mage to call fire like that, and she's only grown in size, not learning."

Just as well, Daine thinks. It's enough that Kit could probably fly if she put her mind to it; she shudders to think of what the dragonet might accomplish if she knew more magic on top of it all.

"So you needn't hide behind me," she adds, punctuating it with a roll of her eyes and a playful bump against his arm.

"Hey, she probably likes you better than me. It's only smart," Rowan said, returning the bump with a nudge of his own. Honestly, obviously, he wasn't actually scared of Kitten or anything she might do to him. Incineration was one surefire way to be rendered completely dead back home, but given that Daine assured him that that particular attack would definitely not be coming, Rowan could proceed with every confidence. (Not that he suspected Kitten would even attack him in anyway, but there was always a chance that something might go horribly wrong.)

"So is there anything she can do now, other than be bigger?" Rowan wondered.

If Kitten were newer to being big, Rowan might have a bit more to worry about. She'd made short work of the potting shed completely by accident -- though, to be fair, it was never an especially sturdy building. But Kitten's learning to work around her larger size, and it's been a day or so since she's crushed anything by accident (though a few trees have fallen prey to either boredom or frustration).

Her grin widens at the nudge, but fades at his question. "I think she could fly, if she had a go at it," Daine admits, lowering her voice as if there's some chance of Kitten overhearing her, even though they're not yet within earshot of her hiding place. "Her wings are full grown, too. But folk would notice that for certain. I've told her not to try, but..." she puffs out a sigh. At the end of the day, Daine doesn't think she can stop Kitten from doing anything.

It was plain enough that the thought of Kitten not being able to fly depressed Daine, at least a little bit, or was something she struggled with. Rowan's mouth twisted into a slight frown. He could understand Kitten's predicament, not being able to fly when she wanted to, when she could.

"I wonder if it would really be that bad," he said carefully. "I mean, with all the weird things that happened here, a peaceful dragon just soaring through the sky wouldn't seem that odd. Would it?"

Truthfully -- and a bit selfishly -- Daine's about as upset over the thought of her not getting to see it as she is over Kitten not getting to try it. Kitten will be able to fly, one day, and she won't have to wait longer than any other dragon for the privilege. But that won't be for centuries, so when it does happen, Daine won't be there to see it.

So when Rowan cautiously suggests that it might not be so bad, there's a large part of her that wants to agree with him, though a small part wishes he wouldn't make this harder.

"Have you ever seen a creature learn to fly?" she asks, wryly amused. "They don't just take off into the sky as easy as breathing. They do little hopping flights to test their wings and get the hang of things. And Kit's practically the size of a bus. Can you imagine what that would look like?"

Daine can, and she grins in spite of herself, even as she buries her face in her hands and groans. "It'd look like a tornado hit by the time she figured it out."