Danica

Courtier Tales: Danica


Another day and another job. This one was at least not in the middle of a bog.... though the dragon had been a lot nicer then you had first thought. This dragon had no scary name. She went by the name of Danica. It was a strange name but you guess that dragons all had unique names. You had not heard much of a typical name from one yet anyways. Regardless a job was still a job and you had a mission to do. At least you were not stuck in the room studying for endless hours and countless maps that all seemed to be remarkably similar yet were supposedly quite distinct and different. In fact you are not quite sure how you managed to pass the latest lesson. Maybe Draca had taken pity on you. Regardless you were going to enjoy this job. And after deciding that you push those thoughts out of your mind. It was time to focus on the job.

As this was one of your first jobs it was supposed to be pretty easy. And you were assured there were no bogs involved. Just had to meet the dragon in a stone circle at the top of a hill. Easy right? And then you see the hill in question and you pause. That hill looks suspiciously like a mountain. And the grade was pretty steep. You are starting to wonder what an 'easy' job was. However you gather your nerve and start hiking up the steep hill. You are grateful for the well maintained path that you got to travel on. However you were not as thrilled about having to cling to the edge of the path whenever someone will wheels wanted to pass you by. Well it could be worse right? You mentally curse as you did it again. You are not supposed to think those things and right on cue it started to rain. Damn jinx really does work too well for it to be natural. You pull up your hoot and trudge through the quickly forming muddy gravel of the path. At least the path is not dirt. That would have sucked. And the carts keep on coming. And now they have the added bonus of attempting to spray you with mud and water. You heroically refrain from swearing at the worst offenders. Or to be clear you refrain from swearing at them aloud.

It takes more restraint to keep from flipping a couple off whose drivers seem to drive with the intend of causing massive mud sprays that you have to dodge. You also manage to not to swear however you do let loose the phrase 'damn mud' a couple of times. But as you are swearing the mud not the idiot driver you call it even. The driver had the gall to smile at you as he loosed the spray. The... no you won't say it, you won't say it. Your mother taught you better. And swearing on the job is a bad thing. You work to control your thoughts. And to your joy the rain fades away and the rest of the drivers you encounter seem to be at least as miserable as you are and are not in the mood to share their misery.

After an unknown amount of time you manage to get up to the top of the hill and see a massive ring of boulders who are covered in moss and some vines. It takes you a moment to realize that there is a design to the vines who seem to form various shapes on the rough stone. The moss clearly has been scraped away in some places as well so that it also forms shapes. You also see the dragon in question. She seems to be working on one of the stones scraping at the moss with her claws in an almost surgical way. She looks up and turns when you enter and smiles flashing her teeth in a somehow friendly way. "I see you arrived. I was worried the rain was going to down the poor courtier." Her tone is friendly and just a bit perky. You feel a flash of appreciation for her noticing your plight even as you assure her that you are fine and that things were not bad at all. In fact they don't feel like they were bad now that someone actually took the time to care about how you fared. You pull out the package and hand it to her with care and she takes it and opens it revealing what looks like vine cuttings, packets of seeds and some various tools. In return she hands you your payment and it includes what appears to be a bare rooted thornless rose that is the exact shade of the red of the sunset. Better yet it included instructions on how to plant and care for it. You tank Danica for her payment and can hardly wait to get home to plant it. Who also resolve to take any job that has to do with her in the future. With that you head home actually humming a tune and smiling at the reckless and slightly crazy drivers.