Delivery For A Farmgirl [For Tryggyr]

[Boom and Lockjaw]

Time and Date:: Winter. Painfully early in the morning.
Weather:: Cold, blustery, snow fell earlier in the night.
Previous Threads?:: None. This thread is standalone.

Resigned to the cold, bitter nip of the before-dawn air nipping at her exposed eyes, Boom trudged uphill in the snow with her eyes squinted in some sort of futile attempt to keep them from drying out. Rubbing at them with her gloved hand didn't do anything to help, but she kept doing it anyways because it helped pass the time. There was a warm huff of breath that warmed her knees, a very quiet growling of pained inquiry behind it.

"Your wings are louder than this, so no." Boom quipped back at her Gronckle's plea. She couldn't speak Dragonese, but she knew her Gronckle well enough to get the gist of things. "This is good for you, fatty."
Not that Boom had any room to talk. She wasn't exactly a specimen of balanced body types either, and knowing it is what made her grin over her shoulder at the gronckle in something that might've had some softness to it for just a moment. It was enough to inspire Lockjaw to lunge after her with a rather loud crunch of the snow, black pupil's wide with dragonish delight.
"Easy, lardo. This is a stealth mission for the potato princess." Boom turned her head back to look towards the farm house that was getting ever-closer. It was getting to be the time where night passed into daylight, and the last stars winked out into the greying skyline. The silvery light over the snow shimmered and sheened to pearl, easing into a pale lustrous gold. It was a beautiful thing to see, but Boom wasn't here to gawk and she wasn't here to be within eyesight of the farmhouse, either.

Knowing daylight was nipping at their heals, Boom nonchalantly reached back and pinched one of Lockjaw's stubby wing-shaped ears. The dragon gave a strangled sound that caught in it's throat as she was jerked behind her mistress and into the thick tree line where they wouldn't be seen. At some point she let go, but not without a stern ssh directed towards the stout dragon. It only took her a few seconds to sink to a sitting position underneath one of the trees with the trunk to support her back, letting loose one long aggrieved-sounding sigh while she was at it.

She had one arm over the sack she'd carried with her, utterly nondescript in it's ambiguity. It wouldn't be long until the girl that Boom called the Potato Princess got here, not with her Nadder's keen nose. Tryggyr and Moon-something. Whatever they were called, they'd be here soon.

[Deleted]

It was early. Too early. As a farm girl, born and raised, Tryggr was more than used to fighting the siren song of her warm bed on a cold morning. But Moonseed? Less so. And forcing a sleepy dragon out of the house in the morning, without waking the folks no less, was no easy task.

Moonseed chirruped in protest as his human forced open the door to the landing pad outside her bedroom, letting in a flurry of freshly fallen snow.

"Shht!" the farmer hushed sharply. "Please help me out here, please please please. As soon as we get back, I'll make you some nice warm breakfast, yeah? That sounds good right?"

The dragon gave her a withering look, but marched out onto the landing pad and crouched down just low enough for Tryggr to climb onto his back. No saddle this time. She couldn't risk taking more time than absolutely necessary. Horndottirs were light sleepers and early risers.

With an encouraging pat on the head and a gentle but stern kick on the haunch, the nadder took flight. The cold air stung Tryggr's cheeks, but she smiled all the same. Every day it seemed her dragon got a little bit stronger. It was hard to believe that there was a time when she worried he would never fly at all.

They touched down where the edges of the farmland touched the untamed forest. A natural tracker, it took Moonseed only seconds to locate the target: two familiar faces; one human, one dragon.

The sweep of Moonseed's tail covered their tracks as they approached, and Tryggr let out a small sigh of relief.

"Thanks for comin' all the way out here. I owe ya'."

[Boom and Lockjaw]

Boom's expectations hadn't let her down, and it was with a certain amount of smugness that the corner of her lip curled and her brows raised as she appraised the incoming farmgirl and her Nadder. Snap-fast things, and keeping their word made keeping her end of the bargain damn easy.

They made a pretty picture together, or at the very least a handsome one, and Boom allowed herself to look a little longer than what might be considered socially appropriate before cutting her appraising stare off the winning pair.
"Worth the wait." Were the only three words Boom needed as she hefted her arms upwards in a stretch, connecting her fingers and pushing the bridge of them skywards with a low-pitched stretching sound not unlike what an animal would make.

"For you, too." Boom offered in arrogant-sounding charity as she pushed herself back up the back of the tree so she was more in a slumped standing position, gesturing towards the bag that was now at her feet with a grunt of encouragement. She then dropped her eyes down to her knuckles as she looked over the little scratches and scars that lined them for no particular reason other than to pass time and encourage the Potato Princess to hurry up and look into the bag.

Boom was confident that it would be good. Iron was not only easy to work with, but easy to make thin and into that fancy chain design that the Romans at the port so fancied- and leather was perfect to allow for flexibility. Highlights of lavender and red were painted into the leather to accent Moonseed's colors, a small and thoughtful touch.

Now, Lockjaw was an obedient thing and was clearly working hard to keep still and quiet. Her vibrant yellow eyes danced from the two girls to the dragon and back again in rapid succession before almost defeatedly letting out a muffled chirp of greetings. Abashed over it, the dragon threw herself backwards into the snow with a pronounced thud that Boom simply ignored as though this sort of thing happened all the time... and it did, so Boom couldn't help but roll her eyes once it was over.

[Deleted]

Tryggr opened the bag studied the armor within with the obvious fascination of a child unwrapping a birthday gift. She didn't know much about the art of smithing, but she knew quality work when she saw it. Words of thanks suddenly seemed clumsy and useless and died on her tongue half-formed.

Moonseed, unappreciative of any armor that didn't grow naturally on one's hide, sniffed the bag and its contents disinterestedly. He trotted over to inspect the squatter dragon, who oddly enough seemed to smell even stronger of metal than the armor itself, but that proved to be no better a source of entertainment. He looked at Tryggr and made a drawn out whine of a squawk. Where was that breakfast she promised him?

"This is perfect," Tryggr said in hushed exclamation. "How much for everything?"

That question might've been asked in too much haste. Her pockets, though they contained all the coin she'd managed to stash over the past few weeks, were still relatively light. If she spent too much, the others back home might start to wonder what she was doing with it all. They wouldn't swallow those old excuses forever.

"And, er, on that note, is bartering on the table? Not that I need to but, ya' know, just in case I come up a little short." She shrugged sheepishly.

[Boom and Lockjaw]

With a little bit of effort and a little bit of helpless rolling, the round-shaped beast called Lockjaw was able to get herself right side up. Her little wing-shaped ears flapped in delight along with a beat of her stubby back-wings, which dusted the snow right off of them and back onto the ground. She looked dazedly back at the lovely Nadder who had been sniffing her and broke out into a friendly grin with rows of dragon teeth and a shyly lifted front paw. <Sorry 'bout that. Can I help you, sugar?>

Boom paid the Dragon's no mind, entirely satisfied with Tryggr's rapt awe. She couldn't have asked for a better reaction, and glowed in that self-satisfied confidence that so became her and her trade. Of course it was perfect, it couldn't have been less.

It wasn't about to be free, either, though. None the less, Boom had started thinking about price the moment that Tryggr let the question fall. A pokerface was the best way to explain the borderline reptilian stare she gave over her knuckles. She flexed her fingers and looked back down at them, wiggling them as she let the question sit in the air for a while.
"Two silvers," That was about half price. "and some breakfast." Boom let her toothy smile flourish right then and there, lightly and playfully crashing her fist into the other girl's shoulder. "Gotcha!"

Boom laughed openly, giving a little twirl in the snow before settling her full attention back on the brunette holding her new little back of wonders. Having a return customer was more important than the full pay. Anything to beat out Kenna's business. Besides, a full stomach could never go wrong.

"It'll be easier to sneak into the house, y'know... Company and all of that." Boom urged this with a wink, offering her hand to the other girl with something in between a curtsy and a bow and entirely full of the mischief that glowed in those amber eyes. "Strange people you find in the forest, gotta take care of 'em. Yep. Especially the hungry ones."

[Deleted]

The farmgirl fished out the two silver with a grateful grin. The blacksmith was a lot more... agreeable than she'd originally predicted. Tryggr wasn't shy by any means, but Boom, well, it was said she lived up to her name entirely too well and Tryggr had had some reservations.

"I'd, ah, invite you in and all, but if my folks wake up..." She shrugged apologetically in place of an explanation. "Don't worry though, I wouldn't let a guest go unfed. 'S not the way we do things 'round here.

"Now lemme see, I can run over and grab some eggs from the chicken coop, and I got some pork packed in ice in the barn," She looked over to her dragon and gave a short whistle. "Moonseed, c'mere."

The nadder perked up and trotted over, head cocked in curiosity. Tryggr rested a hand on his side. "There's a firepit behind the house we use to smoke meat. It's probably a bit iced over right now, but Moonseed can fix that up real quick. His fire burns like nothin' else." she beamed, looking up at the dragon affectionately.

"Whaddaya think, boy?" she cooed. Moonseed flapped his wings excitedly. "Gonna help me out. There's some juicy pork in it for you."

The dragon seemed perfectly willing to follow the farmer's lead. It was hard to say how much of the transaction he had understood, but by the hungry smack of his jaws it could be assumed that he at least knew the promise of food when he heard it. He bounded forward and Tryggr, with a soft laugh, took the hand of the blacksmith and made to follow.

[Boom and Lockjaw]

Boom listened to Tryggr's excuse with a face that was progressively unimpressed as she pocketed the silvers- first her brows dropped to furrow, then the light of mischief dimmed from her amber eyes, and it wasn't long until her bottom lip puffed out in a pout. She gave a huff.
"Pfft. There's nothing suspicious about me. What, would they consider me a bad influence?" With a roll of her eyes and a thumb jerking back to point at herself. "They'd be right, y'know." She sighed at this great burden of responsibility.

... And then breakfast was back on the proverbial table.

"Oh? Oh." Boom tried not to sound too interested, though it was hard not to notice the way she leaned forward just a little the more the plan was detailed. Rustic eggs and pork? The older and shorter of the two girls swallowed hard, no doubt salivating over the plan. She lurched forward a little when Tryggr grabbed her hand, trotting at first to keep up before her beefy and scratched fingers got comfortable in the other girl's hand.

"Now that sounds like the right way to do things. You're alright." Boom managed over her signature cocksure grin, letting it linger for Tryggr for just a moment. Boom was looking over her shoulder with an irritated arch to her brow - this look was intended for her Gronckle who was watching the procession and looking terribly unsure of herself. "Fatty, breakfast!"

Recognition bloomed over Lockjaw's comely face, and with a rahrf of determinable enthusiasm the beasts stubby little legs pushed over the snow, bounding behind Boom with all the loyalty in the world - loyalty that she probably didn't deserve.
"Lockjaw is a dumbass," Boom offered by way of explanation. "you telling me your Nadder can cook?"

[Deleted]

"I can cook. But Moonseed can get the fire started, so I think he deserves some credit too, yeah?" She patted the dragon on the snout. 

Sure enough, with a single blast the old firepit was alive with white hot flame, and Moonseed was rewarded for his efforts with a generous slab of meat and a couple of raw eggs, one of his favorite snacks. Gross, thought Tryggr, but whatever made him happy she supposed. 

With breakfast cooking on the fire, Tryggr cleared a spot to sit down and warmed her hands by the fire. She was well accustomed to the cold of Berkian winters, perhaps more so living in the mountains, where a particularly cold wind could cut like a blade if you weren't careful.

Still, she appreciated the warmth the fire provided, not as good as those rare sunny days in the summer, when she and Moonseed could sneak away from the farm and just soak it all up, but still somehow reassuring.

"Hey, ah, about the whole sneakin' around thing," she said. "It's not you or anything." You seem like good company, she considered saying. Or maybe more accurately, my life out here is as dry as my aunt's overcooked chicken and I'm just glad and kinda amazed you stuck around this long. Then, predictably, she talked herself right out of it.

"It's my family. They're a traditional lot and they'd never let it go if they found out I was still," She lowered her voice conspiratorially, purely from an instinctual nervousness that had been drilled into her over the years. "...Dragon racing."

[Boom and Lockjaw]

"He doesn't burn the food, lady. That's a fair shot better than anything I can do." Cooking. It was the one thing that Boom knew she couldn't do well and wouldn't twist herself in knots over to become the best at. "I'll just leave it to the professionals." There was humor glittering in Boom's eyes besides the suddenly flickering firelight, glittering at Kenna and her precious Nadder at some unspoken joke.

Watching Tryggyr down his raw food didn't seem to bother her too much, rather to the contrary her stomach gave an audible growl in response to the show. This didn't encourage much more than a one-syllable bark of a chuckle, and her rubbing a hand over her belly while the farm girl set up the food. She licked her lips as the smell hit the air, and she let herself collapse unceremoniously onto her bum a good few feet away from the fire.

That's when Tryggyr started talking again.

Boom's twinkling yellow-amber eyes hefted an unblinking glance up at the farmer's in a rapt silence and she bumbled along. She didn't look away once, leaning back on one hand to support her weight while she waited for the farm girl to finish - and once Tryggyr dropped the bomb, Boom's face exploded into her toothy smile.

"Dragon racing, Hel yeah!" She didn't mind letting her voice swell, clapping her hands together and sitting up a little straighter. "It'd be a shame not to test out your equipment." Thrills and competition became her, as did the mischief that kept the edges of her lips quirked at the corner. "You've got the best Dragon Rider to test it out on. Y'know, whenever." She raised just one brow a titch to offer the unspoken challenge at her leisure even as she waved one hand by her face to fluff off the time and place so Tryggyr could set it up however it worked for her.

That was when a big, moist Gronckle nose pushed into her elbow, which abruptly shot out into a straight line refusing Lockjaw to trespass.
"Oi! You wait, we're guests today. Sit." A whumph and crunch of snow meant that Lockjaw had obeyed.

[Deleted]

"The best dragon rider, huh. That's a pretty lofty claim." Tryggr teased lightly, testing the waters of this new companionship, as she pushed the hot breakfast around the stone cooking slab with the tip of a firestoker.

With the heat of Moonseed's flame, hotter and longer burning than what could be started with any flint, it wasn't long until the meat and eggs were ready to be eaten. After they cooled a bit at least. Food fresh off the fire would singe even a dragon's tongue.

As she set the cooking aside, Tryggr again began to rifle through the new armor. She tested the weight of each article in her hands and looked over to Moonseed.

It would be good to take a test ride before she went and did any "official" racing (ie any racing where a wager of coin or other valuable goods was on the line). Her nadder was a hearty creature with more hyperactive energy than one dragon should even have in her opinion, but any extra weight had the threat of slowing down their ride with the added weight. The armor didn't feel too heavy, but how would they know for sure until they were in the air?

And then, she could never really turn down a friendly challenge. She might've shrugged off such a proposal from a pushy stranger or two in the past when the risks were too high, but this was different. She'd just met the blacksmith and she was good company, a commodity in these parts; she didn't want to risk looking like a coward so soon.

[Boom and Lockjaw]

Boom took the teasing with an arching of her brow, that smug girl of her lip just expanding further up one corner into a self-satisfied sneer.
"I live up to it." She spoke earnestly, seeming to mean every one of those words even as she kept to her good humor. "You've heard about me." She said those four extra words with so much confidence it should have been illegal, and they did make an adequate testimony for both her talent and her arrogance.

Boom let the sound of the low fizzle and pop of the food compliment the silence, even as she licked her lips and stared at the plate with a little bit too much interest. It was clear that she wasn't too far from jumping off her feet to attack the food herself, the plate's intense heat the only thing encouraging her to break away from staring at the food and staring back at the farm girl who looked like she was thinking so hard.

"You're in, right?" She edged the question in, canting her head encouragingly to one side as she let herself relax into her elbow that was beginning to put a little bit more weight on to Lockjaw's broad wall of a nose.
"We can set a date. I just want to see what you've got. Both of you." She looked from Moonseed to Tryggyr and back again. Nadders were renown for their speed as well as their offensive capacity - a fact that made her stomach knot into uncomfortable jealousy disguised as as her signature toothy grin and all the more encouragement to win.

"I also wanna see that food over here." She lifted a finger and drew a little circle in the air above the ground just a few feet away from where she was sitting. "It should be illegal for something to smell that good." Boom stared at at Tryggyr plaintively, her desire to eat overwhelming just about anything else as the smell settled into the air.

[Deleted]

Tryggr couldn't help but grin at Boom's natural confidence. It didn't cause her envy exactly... oh who was she kidding, she was completely jealous of the way she not only bragged but seemed to earnestly believe the words she said. But there was something else too, a certain sense of ease maybe that she didn't have with new people. Boom's openness made it surprisingly easy to be open herself.

"How about tomorrow afternoon. Everyone around here will be working on the farm, too busy with their heads down looking at ice, ice, and more ice to look up and see us in the sky," she laughed.

"I can make up some excuse to get away. I'll tell them, hm... I'll tell them I'm going down to the village for supplies in case the snow damages the barn roof or somethin'. I can say I need Moonseed to help me carry stuff."

At last she started to dole out breakfast, and judging by the blacksmith's expression and wholehearted praise, not a moment too soon.

"I try," she smirked. "When ya' gotta cook for a house as crowded as mine with nothin' but what we've got here on the farm, you pick up a trick or two."

[Boom and Lockjaw]

Tomorrow afternoon - had Boom heard right? She straightened up a little bit, no longer slouching against her Gronckle's nose as her back straightened.
"Tomorrow?" She echoed, and certain that she'd heard right that look of smug satisfaction so much like a cat that had gotten the cream curled over her lips. "Perfect, it's a date." She more purred the words than said them, giving a quick bob of her head in encouragement.

"Where exactly did you want to go for our race?" Boom didn't mind leaving such discretion to Tryggr, confident regardless of location. "If you're coming into town anyways, we could..." Wait, wait - was that food being pushed on to her plate? Not only was Boom sitting straighter but she was shifting her weight over her folded legs as the brunette passed her a plate.

She wasted no time lifting a slice of the newly smoked ham and popped it into her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment, eyes roving to eye the surroundings with a thoughtful hum caught in her throat until she swallowed.

"Now that's what I am talking about!" She unceremoniously licked her fingers free of the juices, giving the farmgirl a thumbs up. "Could get used to this - you ought to commission the Doomhammer smithy again. We are the best." Kenna and her stupid smithy could go die in a hole.

[Deleted]

"Well, if you had a place in mind..." she had begun to say, before realizing that food had won out priority-wise over discussing their race. Well, she was pretty hungry herself. Planning could wait a moment more.

Tryggr, opting to go with the flow on this one, hummed happily around her own mouthful of breakfast, trying and, quite frankly, failing miserably not to look overly flattered by the praise of her cooking skill.

"Who else would I possibly go to?" she asked, only half joking. She didn't go into town often and while she had heard word of the Doomhammers' reputation it was only by way of a stray bit of gossip, and the fact that Tryggr had become their customer was really just an act of serendipity.

It was a funny thing, that serendipity business, and she was finding herself more grateful for it by the minute.

Moonseed didn't seem quite as thrilled. He had always been a high-energy dragon, especially just after being fed, and in comparison she suspected he found the blacksmith's more lethargic looking companion quite boring. Maybe he'd find a new perspective after they raced.

Tryggr caught herself watching Boom suck her fingers clean with a fairly disconcerting amount of interest. She blinked and felt herself start as if struck. Maybe she was finding a new perspective too.

[Boom and Lockjaw]

Whether she noticed the other girl's a little too long a stare or little start was a question, but one that wouldn't take too much figuring out to solve. It was safe to assume that her notice was not the case as she fingered her food with the rapt attention of a bear fishing in a stream for the ideal morsel; it was apparent that Boom enjoyed the visceral activity of eating.

Boom gave a low rumble of a chuckle, her eyes twinkling at Tryggr's rhetorical question. Her ego was being stroked, and therefore she was pleased - and altogether rather tame as she picked up an egg and slurped at it inbetween words; wildness ever chipping away at her little unrefinements.
"Well, sure... There was this one place I was thinking of, yeah." She brushed her face into the crook of her elbow to clean off her chin, her mischievous and toothy grin unselfconscious in it's display. "Coast, just off the port. Not too many boats coming through this season."

She hazarded a wink, and brought a finger up to her lips playfully in the universal ssh symbol. She nodded then, as though the deal were sealed at that. "We can meet by the shop, since you've got a pick-up to make."

A huff of hot hair and a rumph from her dragon companion had Boom giving a long-suffering sigh, looking back at her lazy companion with thinly disguised fondness.
"Alright, I get it." She waved one hand as though to wave away her dragon's lukewarm request. She now favoured the farmgirl with a look not unlike that of a mother pestered too many times by a child for candy.
"You need your rocks for anything? My girl is hungry and I don't know dragon dung about farming."

Was it an attempt at being considerate, a desire to look good, or a way to prolong her dragon's suffering? Only time would tell.