A great many dragons lived on the Refuge and most of them were very young, mere wyrmlings actually with there being only about two hundred adult dragons for the eight hundred children so the spirits of dragon's long past were a huge help. Now, you'd expect that in a place governed by metallic Dragons that a chromatic dragon would stay the hell away right?
Well... not exactly. There are five species of evil dragons three of them The Corrupting Blacks, The Genocidal Reds and The Bestial Whites had no adult hold on the Refuge although there were some rescued wyrmlings being raised by their metallic counterparts. However two of the calmer but no less evil strains did live in relative peace on the island. The Backbiting Greens and the Covetous Blues. Where Blacks, Whites and Reds would simply try and slaughter everything in near mindless rage the Greens and Blues knew that patience and self discipline were valuable assets.
Two Elder Dragons one Green one Blue were even on the council! They had played on the sense of morality of the good dragons to gain safety among them, and with Riikano supervising the Council hammered out a set of inviolate rules for living upon the island.
First: There is to be no fighting amongst dragons, if you have a grievance take it to the council. Duels, childish scraps even are permissible but no killing nor the use of breath weapons on another Dragon are allowed under any circumstance save life or death. Failure to abide by this is not only ejection from the Refuge for a minimum of one century but forfeiture of one tenth your hoard to the injured party, or their next of kin.
Second: Under no circumstance will theft be tolerated, period. If you have a suspicion of theft the council will investigate the matter and the injured party will receive double their loss as compensation from the offending party. However if one steals more then three times their entire hoard is forfeit to the injured party.
Third: There will be no alignment based wards on any portion of the island. All Dragons who come in the name of peace are welcome, there is no exception to this. Although you may place elemental traps upon one's lair and hoard as well as the other typical defenses. If an alignment based ward is discovered the caster will be investigated and one tenth their hoard will be distributed towards those the warding shielded against in compensation.
Fourth: Whatever grievances occur between dragons in the past are not to be brought up within the Refuge. The past is done, move on. If you do not like your neighbor you may simply move to another portion of the Refuge. If you must fight a duel may be arranged through the council to whatever level the combatants desire, even unto death, but both must agree to it while in a rational mindset.
Fifth: All unattended wyrmlings and unwatched eggs are to be brought to the Refuge for care and nurturing. Under no circumstance is allowing a child to fend for itself acceptable for any reason.
These five rules were the reason why there were so many children in comparison to adults, and how many beings with very different personalities and goals were able to live in close contact with one another without infighting.
Unfortunately for Ranma these rules didn't extend to humans so he was at a loss as to what to do with his strange... guests. He was privately hoping an older Dragon maybe around five hundred or so would arrive and help him out a little. He didn't have much experience with humans having only rarely left the Refuge, and those times he stuck under water and poked around wrecked ships for the gems and coins that now made his hoard. Being the fastest swimmer on the island he had earned respect by swimming faster then some other dragons could fly.
Mumbling arcane words to himself and making a few gestures Ranma then hurled a bolt of energy onto his hoard that wrapped itself around it as an unstable spiderweb like net of electricity under the water held in place with magic. A basic and crude ward but seeing as humans couldn't breath twelve feet under the surface it would be enough.
"Now if you'll all follow me we can discuss things." he said walking slowly leading them away from his now electrically charged hoard. He noticed how the woman with the short cut brown hair had a great deal of difficulty tearing her eyes away from his treasure, there was greed there. He'd have to watch her.
He led them up the river for a few minutes before he got to a bend where it thinned and a boulder was dead center allowing the ones on the other side to join them. Hearing a flap of large wings Ranma inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. An older dragon had noticed and he was no longer going to be floundering in the dark as to what to do. He expected a huge thump as a being many times his size touched down and gasps of surprise and awe from the humans while he would bask in a sense of safety and calmness the elders brought him.
What he got was slammed in the side by a green blur and tackled into the river by an overly affectionate wyrmling. Ranma shifted quickly into an elven form that still held many draconic traits such as claws and fangs and he shot out of the water dragging the still smaller dragon by the tail.
"Chlorine! What are you doing ramming into larger dragons?!" he asked setting the four year old green dragoness down.
"Saprise attack! I challenge you to duel!" she shouted latching onto his still scale covered arm. "I hallange you o a figh fo ha riva lor hihal!" (I challenge you to a fight for the River Lord Title!) she declared and he sighed and picked her off the ground by simply raising his arm and she refused to let go. He then deliberately, slowly, flicked her right in the nose and she let go with a yelp.
"Waww! Ramma you meanie!" Chlorine protested. "You know my nose is soft!" she protested rubbing it with tears in her eyes.
"It didn't seem so soft when you slammed it into me and put us both in the river." Ranma remarked and Chlorine turned purple around her cheeks in a blush. "Alright now that the usual pleasantries are aside why are you here?"
"Wanted to see what the funny things were!" she said pointing her tail at Cologne and looked up excitedly.
"That's an old gnome Chlorine, you should be able to tell at a glance." he said and Cologne gave a cough.
"It may surprise you to learn that I am human Ranma." Cologne said stiffly and he stared at her long and hard.
"What kind of curse are you under?!" he asked.
"Only age boy. I am over three hundred years old and humans do not age as gracefully as Dragons do." she said tightly. "It may startle you to learn but in my youth I resembled my granddaughter here quite closely." she said pointing to Shampoo.
"So you had funny things hanging off the front too?" Chlorine asked and Nabiki snorted in amusement. "What are they for anyways? They look really funny."
"They're called breasts, they're for feeding children." Ranma said as Shampoo and Ukyo both blushed while Nabiki had to hold in her laughter.
"Really? Can I try? I'm hungry!" Chlorine blurted and Shampoo eeped before taking a few steps back and covering her chest, Nabiki just started laughing at this point.
"Um... well you see they only make food when they uh... can I have some help here?" he asked looking around a little desperately.
"Oh, no Ranma I'd say you're doing fine!" Nabiki said as she gasped for air. He shot her a loaded half lidded stare. He gave a groan and put a hand to his forehead trying to come up with a smart solution to this mess.
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(Posted Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:29)
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