Of cause it had been irritating to be disturbed when in a dream of power, but one had to be able to adept, as mother often told him. One did not say no to a quick snack, when it presented itself, even if the snack was a bit dirty. Now if it had been elves he would have taken time to get one of the better wines to go with the meal.
Alecti pounded the situation. If orcs had chosen to run into his lair, there was a reasonable chance that something dangerous had come into his forest. It could be a hill giant or maybe an adventure party.
If it was a hill giant it had to be either eaten or enslaved. It would be impossible for him to attract a mate if he weren’t able to keep his lair and his land free of that particularly pest. Mother had told him in a stern voice, that if he didn’t present her for a nice girl soon, she would be cross with him. And mom being cross, well, there was worse thing, although being impaled on a lance was preferable to mom being mad at him.
Maybe it was a knight; it was a bit time since Alecti had heard news from the warring states to the south or about the invasion from north on the Great Plains to the east. And the last knight has proven both good entertainment and a very good meal.
Alecti raised himself from his bed of gold and precocious stone, and started to walk out of his lair, down the tunnel to the entrance and slowly, very slowly, pushed his head out. No reason to take any risk of someone being intelligent enough to attack him from above.
Before him stood a young male, human, no armour, no lance, no sword. Incredible, had the orc been running from that puny one. Alectic quickly scanned the area, what did he se, glorious days, a handful of elf maidens.
With those as basic for a romantic dinner or two, he would be able to get a female to visit him, no doubt about that. Alecti could already taste it. YUMMY. Maybe even get a girl to stay the night. A promise of an elf maid in apricot brandy for breakfast could do much for a guy chance to gain the claw of a nice girl, eh hopefully not to nice a girl, since she wouldn’t stay for the night then, even with such a promise. But mom would know, if the girl weren’t the right for him. And staying over before marriage was probably something she wouldn’t like in his wife to be, even if it proved that her son was a real male dragon.
But he had to catch the bait, before he tried to catch the fish.
Now, should he just slay the boy and take the girls or do it the fun way, making them quiver in terror before his might.
Ranma looked on the scaled thing, which had come out from the tunnel. Cool, some sort of dragon, not the eastern type, more like the western type displayed in some of Nabiki’s manga. Of cause he didn’t read all Nabiki’s manga, no no. Only those with martial arts in, they were all right. He never looked in those with magical girls; Nabiki was so fond of, never, no, absolutely not.
Alecti decided that since that didn’t seem to be any danger, there was no reason to deny him some fun.
Alectic came out from the tunnel, shoving his full 100 feet of glorious strength. Alectic opened his mouth slowly, very slowly, giving his future meal good time to appraise his long and very sharp teeth’s, saying, “Young one. What are you doing in my territory?”
For effect Alectic let his statement follow with some gases from his nose. If Alectic should say it, he was one terrible good-looking dragon. All right, he was a bit short in the tail department, but better to lose some of his tail then his head, and he had kept his life. It was much better to live 100 eons with a shorter tail, then live as a hero and die in one.
The elf maidens seemed to agree with his view of himself, as several of them felt to the earth, crying. They had just being rescued by a hero send by a deity, but now.
Only a paladin, a mighty wizard or something like that had the power to slay an adult green dragon. Mist started to pray as she had newer prayed before. Only a miracle could save them and their rescuer. Thorn decided it was time to run, but found it was impossible to move. The effect of dragon fear being something she never had been unlucky enough to have experience with before.
Ranma decided to play it cool, he could recognise a challenge, when he saw it: “Hey, green and scaly, passing through, taking care of trouble. Are you trouble?”
Alectic looked with interest on the boy, who hadn’t pissed himself as some of his other “guest” had done, when Alectic had announced his presence.
The boy had to come from far away, since he wasn’t talking in the common human language.
Alectic doubted he would have been able to understand him, if it wasn’t for his ability to understand intelligent creature in general. Mom had always been pleased with his ability to that from the time he was a hatchling.
Alectic lower his head to the same level as Ranma: ”Oh, you are one of those heroes then? Maybe you are here to challenge me for my treasure. Another word for hero is thief. But you have neither lance, nor armour or horse. How can you challenge me like that”?
Ranma smirked: ”Don’t need that to fight, I’m an martial artist, not a knight. Weapon is for the weak, and I’m not here for any treasure. But I don’t refuse a challenge nor a good fight”.
Alectic felt a bit confused by that statement. Not a knight and what was a marital artist? He had never heard about that kind of warrior before.
Mother hadn’t had any stupid children, as she said.
She had learned them all to think and to play carefully with their food, as not to become the food instead. Hill giant had learned their barbaric custom of eating green dragon to some group of human, claiming that they tasted like chicken. It was a scandal that intelligent creature would eat a greater being like himself. It was wrong, very wrong, that the other races didn’t recognise their natural place in the food chain, below dragons.
Alectic: “A material artist, how do you fight then?”
Ranma smiled, jumped and landed behind Alectic. Alectic followed quickly with his head. That had been impressive. The boy had jumped like the goats Alectic sometime hunted in the local mountains.
Alectic: ”Not bad, but jumping don’t make a kill. For that you need weapon or teeth and claws like mine” Alectic gracefully lifted his right front claw and showed his nails, long, sharp and deadly. Mother had always taught him that cleanliness was very important in taking care of your body.
Now all girls except Mist or Thorn were down on the ground. Some had passed out due to the shock effect.
Ranma laughed: “Ah, I didn’t need no weapon to take out Herb, the dragon or kill Saffron, the god”.
Alectic decided to slow down. Had the boy just claimed to take the life of a god?
Alectic: “So you are a god-slayer then?” Alectic had heard about those kinds of warriors. They also came with that warning sign that told dragons like him, that there was a good chance of ending up like a roasted chicken.
Ranma became a little depressed, the killing of Saffron had been his first kill: “Ah, it was alright, Saphron is a phoenix, so he came back to life as a little kid. But he had it coming, he shouldn’t had kidnapped Akane”.
Alectic was now both confused and a bit worried. The boy seemed to be telling the truth. Mother had them trained at the best finishing school. Even their guest-professor Lord Voldemort had been impressed with his ability to read the body of a stranger for sign of lying.
Maybe this Akane was a princess; there was rule about princesses and their heroes. Rules Alectic didn’t want to get caught in. Absolutely no, those scary stories with princess and heroes always ended up with the dragon as ornament above the fireplace while the prince and princess lived happily ever after. Mother had frightened him and his sisters and brothers many a night with those stories. Alectic starred into the boy’s eye: “Is Akane a princess?”
Ranma laughed: “That uncute tomboy, a princess, ha ha, that was a god one, nope, no, is not”.
The girls on the ground, those who hadn’t passed out, looked up as they heard the laughter of their rescuer. He had to be a true hero, laughing in the face of death. Mist stopped her praying and stared in wonder. It seemed that the boy was able to speak with the dragon. Was the boy / girl a dragon lord? One of the legendary being that had commanded dragons in the wars of the skies in ancient time.
Alctic became even more confused. The girl Akane wasn’t a princess, so why should a god kidnap her. They didn’t generally eat humans, preferring to have them as worshippers and gain their power through that. Maybe his misunderstand the boy; much could be confused due to the boy's language or lack of it. “Why did this Akane get kidnapped?”
Ranma shacked his head. “I don’t know. She always gets kidnapped, be it by a prince, a king or a god. I don’t know why. She can’t even cook. I have to rescue her every time. But that’s alright, it’s a martial artist duty to protect those who can’t protect themselves and she also my fiancé, so I have to do it”.
Alectic began to feel fear. This was not good. No doubt about it. That boy had to be a bona fida hero with absolutely no clue. Those were the most dangerous of all kind of heroes. They could get you killed in a blink. No wonder those orcs had be running as fast as possible. Being eaten by him was preferable to be in the hands of a true hero.
Alectic consider the situation. Maybe it was time to visit mom, no maybe even better, visit grandmother. That would be a fairly safe place and he had been a bit negligent in his family duties in late. Yes, visit grandmother and get mother to go with him. That would give him the best chance of survival.
But then, maybe he should do something else. Not many green dragons got the chance to talk with heroes and survive. Normally they got the news of a family members death in the next legend being told.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Thu, 25 Dec 2003 12:37)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.