As Simple As History (OPEN)

The dried prairie rustled softly as a large bluish green serpentine shape parted an ocean of yellow grasses to get to its destination. It was hot and dry as the clear sky and midday sun beat down on the lengthy creature. The shadow beneath the beast turned its darkened skin and fur a deep blue, while the harsh sunlight instead brought out metallic green iridescence. In the dappled forest this would be fantastic camouflage, but in a dry prairie changing into desert this creatures colors were vibrant and noticeable.

  Thankfully the short legged serpent was a vain dragon, so her vibrancy did not perturb her.

The creature barely used her legs and claws, instead using her long body and plentiful muscles as a snake would sliding through the grass. That blue coat of fur stretched over her entire body thickening at her dorsal a bit and lengthening at the end of her tail. Spikes hidden in the fur at the end of her tail lay flat for now, ready to flex outwards should she need to tail whip an enemy.  As always her tail spikes were coated with her own venom, for that backup that she might need if she were in real trouble. In one of her front claws she firmly held a clear crystal, not allowing it to leave her for an instant.

 Her vibrant blue jeweled eyes narrowed in the sun light ever watchful of her surroundings. With a more pointed muzzle like that of a canine her sense of smell was more useful than her sight, but even more useful was her sense of taste. A long slippery forked tongue flickers out of her maw tasting the air every few seconds. It, along side her sense of smell, told her a great many things of the environment and creatures around her. The air carried thousands of scents for her to sort through as the she dragon concentrated on one thing in particular. The smell and taste of antelope blood.

  Rii was not sure how the antelope had been injured, but if it wasn't a kill claimed by a dragon she was definitely going to try to take it. There were many predators around, but dragons were the apex predators in most cases. Maybe the deer had simple broken a leg tripping in a ground hog hole, but the female did not scent infection and the blood was somewhat fresh. So The injury was not more than a day old at least. Soon she would have an easy meal.

"Well. This was a bad idea." Cassius thought, rising onto his hind legs to attempt to peer over the endless sea of grass for any sort of landmark. But there was nothing. Grass, the occasional lonely tree, and yet more grass. It was unbelievable. "This is just great. It's fantastic, really. Does this ever end...?" Cass huffed, annoyed with both himself and the stubborn grass's refusal to just suddenly relinquish a town from its dastardly golden clutches. "That's right, go ahead and gloat about it. I'll find one eventually.." he muttered, was talking to inanimate objects a sign of dehydration? He didn't think so, at least not yet. He'd only finished his canteen.. What, an hour or two ago? So that part was just him venting his frustration at an empty field. Fantastic. How very princely of him.

It was funny. Less than half a day ago, he'd been perfectly fine and working in his study, trying to solve the energy issue that had been brought to his attention. Then, one of the experiments had backfired and, without his knowledge, damaged his teleportation sigil. Thinking he'd cracked the code, he tried to use the damaged sigil to get to the Archives- Only for the thrice blasted thing to fling him halfway across the globe. "Arrrrgh.." Sometimes he wondered why he bothered with arcane advancement at all, especially if it insisted on being so- so- Finicky all the time! The next time he had to visit somewhere, he decided he'd just walk there.

"Bah, questions for later." He took a second to catch his breath under one of the few trees, not that it did much for him. Hopefully he'd- Aha! That was it!! All he had to do was find a stream, that solve his water problem, and his soon-to-be food problem. After all, even animals in wherever this was must need water, right? So he took to the air, broad half-feathered wings soon catching an air-current as he just glided over the savannah. Why he didn't think of this before? He wasn't sure. But nevertheless, he circled in increasingly wider loops untill he finally, finally found what he was looking for. Ironically, it wasn't that far from where he'd started. It was just partially sheltered under an overhanging thicket of thorny vines, so he didn't notice it until the shade had moved enough to allow the sunlight to glint of the surface of the watering hole.

Perhaps his luck was turning for the better, as there were several antelope drinking from the pool and grazing nearby. And all were utterly unaware of the circling dragon. Cassius grimaced at the thought of killing any of them, but his rumbling stomach  clearly had no qualms about it. He'd leave any mothers and babies alone, he decided, but the others would have to be fair game. But how many did he need? How did one cook and clean them? He had no experience with this sort of thing, but he thought he recalled one of the books he read speaking about cleaning a carcass..? Lets face it, Cassius had no ideas what he was doing in this. But he wasn't likely to anything from several hundred feet in the air. Quickly selecting his targets, Cassius swooped lower and loosed two bolts of force at the antelope. The majority of the herd scattered, but his two chosen victims dropped neatly to the ground. Killed as cleanly and as quickly as possible. Once they were down, however, was where Cassius's limited experience ran out. "Well, what now?" he asked the empty air, not at all expecting any sort of response. It was, after all, just air.

Rii had not gotten to the oasis yet, but she had spotted a large flying shape that could only be a dragon by its size in the distance. It was in the direction the injured antelope scent was wafting from. Pausing in the grass a moment the female tensed and thought about her options. The dragon was still in the air as far as she could see, but it was a single dragon, and by the looks of it he was smaller than she.

More tongue flicking. The air tasted of many antelope scents despite her concentrating on the single injured one. It also smelled of water which she didn't need right now. Even more fresh antelope blood drenched the air though, to which Rii assumed the male had caused while hunting the same herd she was after.

Great so the herd will have split up by now... She thought miserably. She'd have to actively hunt instead of just picking off a weak injured beast. Finally she decided to advance forward. One on one the dragon might hesitate to fight if he was the aggressive type, and she might be able to snag a meal away from him through intimidation.

No longer having to hide, Rii got on her feet, raising herself far above the grass. Her neck arched like a swan into a c shape as she slowly and confidently strode forward. It was still a distance from the watering hole, but she wanted the male to see her coming so he had time to decide whether to be nice or try to shoo her off.

Cassius floated slowly downward, coasting towards his pair of prizes in the hot sunlight and pondering what in the world he was supposed to do with them now. Cook them...? No, there had to be something before tha- Cassius paused, one foreleg partially raised off the ground as he twisted around to better scent the air. There was.. Something. Something off. Rustling, the scent of another; he wasn't alone here. More rustling before the large dragoness revealed herself, causing Cassius muttered a mild Vuarish oath as she did so, "She's so big!" Of course, his father was far larger, so he'd seen larger dragons before; but a large decidedly friendly dragon was a far cry from a large stranger encountered in the middle of nowhere. And- oh gods above, she was approaching quickly.

He was paralyzed with indecision for a moment, to try for an intimidating presence? Or rather to back down and see if a gift would placate her? Nope, too late for that! So instead, Cassius stepped over and in front of the two antelope, splaying his wings out slightly in an unconscious attempt to appear bigger than he truly was, "Hail, stranger." Both his tone and body posture were kept carefully neutral, although polite, neither overly aggressive or too friendly, but everything about him screamed "wariness". From his ever so slightly glowing eyes, to the slow rhythmic swishing of his tail reflected the persona of one who was ready for something to happen. Again, not aggressive, but definitely on edge