(Untitled)

[burbonmilkshake]

Faye is wandering around, trying to find something to do. She misses her friends, and wants to figure out how to go home. Being bound, in her opinion, gets boring after a while.

It feels like one of those "what did the character forget to do? why are they reliving their day over and over again?" type books, and frankly, Faye is tired of it.

Mun

Comments

[twoeyesonthesky]

"Having trouble, miss?" says Quinn, who's just come in from outside. When it gets too dark out there, he keeps waiting for something big to cross the sky. It's unnerving.

[twoeyesonthesky]

Quinn nods. "All right, then. We'll start with the fact that when I was twelve years old, a team of engineers drilling a new tunnel for the London Underground hit a pocket that wasn't on any of the old seismic charts. Turned out they'd managed to wake up a hibernating dragon- as in great big lizard with wings and fire breath."

[burbonmilkshake]

Faye holds up a hand. "Let me get a drink for this one. It sounds a bit fantastic without some alcohol in my system." She catches one of the waiter-creatures and orders a rum and coke.

[twoeyesonthesky]

"Fair enough," says Quinn with a wry smile. "If ever there were a good reason to drink, this'd be it."

[burbonmilkshake]

"You want something?" she says, looking over at him. "My treat."

[twoeyesonthesky]

"Nah, I"m good," says Quinn. "Well- maybe something in the way of coffee. We can make our own liquor, but we can't grow coffee plants."

[burbonmilkshake]

She nods, then turns to the waiter. "And one large coffee," she adds, before watching it skitter away.

[twoeyesonthesky]

"Thanks," says Quinn. "They do a pretty good cup here, from what I've seen."

[burbonmilkshake]

"I make coffee back home," she says with a shrug. "It's comparable." She pauses and shakes her head. "A life with booze, but no coffee. God."

[twoeyesonthesky]

"Could be worse," says Quinn. "We only just got someone from the Bar to sell us some hop vines this spring. All our liquor's been the stuff you get out of a bathtub still up to now. We might actually have beer by this time next summer."

[burbonmilkshake]

She makes a face. "Ugh, moonshine. Does it double to clean metal just by pouring it over?" The waiter skitters back, and Faye grins and nods in thanks.

"Sir, your coffee," she says, handing it to him.

[twoeyesonthesky]

"Makes a good paint stripper, too," Quinn agrees. "You've got to drink it quickly, so it only burns your stomach, not your throat."

"Why thank you, miss," he then answers with a smile, taking the mug in both hands. "Now- where was I?"

[burbonmilkshake]

"Delicious acidic burny booze," she says with a smirk.

"The first dragon. In London." She sips her rum and coke.

[twoeyesonthesky]

"Aged two whole weeks in a steel barrel, no less."

"Ah, right." Quinn sips his coffee. "That was when I was twelve. Fifteen people died when the thing woke up- that would be the drilling crew- but it flew off as soon as it found its way to the surface. The papers all called it a mystery inferno, 'cos nobody had pictures of the thing, but it wasn't too long after that that others started rising. I suppose the first one found a way to bring the rest out of hibernation, 'cos the scientists talked about how old the species was... and then they started breeding, fast as cockroaches. It wouldn't've been so bad if it weren't for that. They eat meat, like in the old stories, but they need ash to survive, so they burned anything they could find and swallowed the ashes."

[burbonmilkshake]

"That's horrible," she says quietly.

[twoeyesonthesky]

Quinn nods. "Yeah," he says. "The scales'll bounce back anything less than fifty cal ammo, so you can guess how well the military did against 'em. Given twenty years, a breeding cycle like that, and the way every madman with dreams of putting himself at the top of the heap came out of the woodwork as soon as the systems were overtaxed..."

He shrugs a little. "We're working on outlasting the things, up at my castle. As nearly as we can tell, they're starving. The Americans who showed up're trying to hunt them with a helicopter and explosive harpoons."