Not a Princess Ficbit – Hairballs

~ crossovercreativechaos

“Father went looking, and found you.” Sharl cast a wry look out the window. “He said he waited until the guards took a nap, so they’re fine, don’t worry.”

That was not nearly as reassuring as Will had probably meant it to sound. “Guards.” Hank leaned back against the headboard, trying not to tense. “It’s been two months, and no one’s come looking?”

“Father kept you out of sight in his cargo harness while his escort walked him north the next day,” Sharl said, almost innocently. “They stopped a few towns later for some drinks. Father just took off and kept flying.” A glint of rueful humor, so like William’s. “He’s sorry about the sheep, but he needed to get you to help as fast as he could.”

She was putting up a good front, but from that slight hunch of her shoulders-

And the shift in her scent, how can I read that, it took me months to know my unit that well–

-Sharl was expecting blistering fury. And why not? The herders and farmers she knew likely counted every head of livestock twice a night, jealous of their income, and sometimes their pure survival.

Soldiers were a little more flexible. Not that they were supposed to be, but William and a lot of the unit just couldn’t eat hardtack. Hell, no one ate hardtack. You just wrapped your throat around it and endured. “I hope you left the wool this time,” Hank said plainly. He slid Sharl a wink. “Your father with a hairball is the most pathetic looking dragon ever. Miles had to mix up something with fish oil, and I don’t want to remember the gory details.”

20 thoughts on “Not a Princess Ficbit – Hairballs”

  1. Every girl deserves a big brother who’ll hand her a gun. Blood related or not. This was an amazing scene. And I love the idea that the Incarnates were escorted home.

    Thanks for sharing!

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    1. The escort was apparently canon – both in the anime and the manga. Which gave me a little interesting wiggle room as to how soon Will left. Who drew lots to take the dragon back?

      And yes. Every girl deserves someone to help her defend herself. 🙂

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  3. The hairball must have been from when he was really hungry (just ‘nom a sheep in one go) or before he had fire-breath 24/7. Because one low-power blast of fire and all the wool would have just been seared off.

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    3. Just “burning the wool away” might not have worked, depending on how draconic internal plumbing is rigged. If a dragon’s fire is propelled by exhalation and the flame generation takes place in the throat or back of the mouth, then the wool could easily have gotten stuck “below” the “flame zone”, in his esophagus-equivalent. Or even made it into his stomach, which would mean the wool-ball would also be soaked in saliva and/or digestive juices (not to mention the sheep’s blood).

      So, Will would have had to hork the wool-ball up most of the way just to get it to where his flame could *reach* it, and even then it would plausibly have been very hard to ignite.

      Of course, this is all speculative. But with how little we know of Incarnate physiology, we’re free to handwave almost anything.

      Like how easily Hank is reading Sharl’s scent. Could be second-hand exposure through William (Vathara’s other Incarnates story touched on this), or could be he picked up on it unconsciously over two months of steady exposure while she was nursing his comatose carcass. I pick the latter. 😉

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    4. /Just “burning the wool away” might not have worked, depending on how draconic internal plumbing is rigged. /
      I meant fry the sheep with a fireball before eating it.

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  4. The ‘can’t eat hardtack’ thing actually reminds me of something. The show had aquatic/amphibious Incarnates. Sure there was the Siren (fish tail) but there ones that looked like a kraken or fishmen. Depending on how well they could survive on land when they couldn’t turn back into humans, they could have been worse off then Beatrice.

    In that if they don’t stay close to/in a body of water; they’d die.

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      2. For some reason I can’t respond to your response. But I really hated the people in that episode, Behemoth looked like he would have been capable of climbing out of the canyon and I think that if he had reached the ocean he would have disappeared into it.

        About the biblical Behemoth I have heard arguments that the tail like a cedar is like a middle eastern cedar which is actually whippy. Or that they may actually be talking about the elephants genitalia in an euphemistic way.

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      4. The type of cedar referred to there is only “whippy” on the ends of the branches. The trunk is immense proportionally thick and heavy compared with most familiar european and american trees. Really, it looks more like someone took a bonsai pine, and scaled it up to upwards of 40m tall, so it’s got these (relatively) thin fragile branches clustered around a disproportionately huge trunk. And the reference in the Bible is specifically to the trunk of the cedar (explicitly states it), not to the branches.

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  5. Actually my first thought when I saw this was something I found when looking up very simple recipes. (I was housesitting and the only ingredients I had on hand were flour and water.)

    Hardtack is a very hard cracker that can last for years. In other words, it’s an edible rock. I do not suggest making hardtack unless you are preparing for emergency situations.

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    1. You should look up the Wikipedia entry on it and the poor guys in the Civil War stuck eating it… theirs was often left over from the Spanish-American war, as in over 20 years old!

      (And Sacred Beasts is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to that, so… yeah.)

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