literature

Provider 1. Gungnir, Ymir, Fehu.

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Ymir stretched out his large brown wings, letting the blood run through them as he tried to relax his busy mind. Their city flight was growing with youngsters and hatching season was just around the corner. As wonderful as that was, lots of little dragons meant lots of big mouths to fill. They had a lot of prep work to do. Ingrid was coordinating the humans, finding the future little ones homes and ensuring all the hatching supplies they needed were on hand. Ymir supposed she had good reason for being late. He didn’t really mind waiting anyway.

He tried to settle more comfortably on his rock. He was watching as Gungnir kept himself entertained. The little male was hopping about in the deep snow banks, harassing large snowshoe hares and sending them scrambling across the unstable ground. He chased them around and around in circles without a care in the world, tripping and sliding about without concern. Ymir wrinkled his nose. Gunner was incredibly awkward and painful to watch on the ground, even more so than a regular dragon. He knew the little brown dragon wasn’t trying very hard to catch anything, but Ymir had the feeling he couldn’t if he tired.  He was… dare Ymir say it? Mildly deformed.

Ymir looked to Fehu, but the other male seemed unbothered by the youngest’s noisy antics. He was just quietly watching as the dusky sun struggled to inch its way above the gloomy horizon. There was a peacefulness in his yellow eyes that Ymir could never understand and wasn’t sure he ever wanted to. He sighed. Ymir was getting too eager to sit still, and it was making waiting less tolerable. He hated being in one place for long and the lazy mornings were the worst. If Ingrid didn’t hurry up, he would be the first to vote they leave her behind.

But Fehu wouldn’t tolerate that. He probably wouldn’t even acknowledge it. No, he would just sit there contently watching the day go buy. He would probably be pleased to skip out on the hunt entirely and just have a scavenge along the shoreline, the lazy bone bag. Ymir grumbled and re-tucked his wings around himself, trying to fend off the creeping cold of winter. His long, furred tail swished across the ground, the tip twitching up and down in the air. He had no choice but to wait.

Gungnir’s excited chirping signaled her arrival. Ingrid carefully hiked across the deep snow, struggling to keep her knee-high boots from getting swamped with powder. The white fur of her long green cloak was dragging patterns behind her, and already dampening with water. Fehu hopped up to her, sending snow crashing across the ground. He dipped down and scooped her up on his back, where she would be safe from the deepest of drifts. She was chatting quietly to him as she laced a thick leather strap around his neck to tie herself down to. Gungnir was quickly beginning to mirror Ymir’s impatience.

He had been told this was a very important hunt. A few years ago, an abysmal winter had caused a pathetically sparse calving season. A lot of adults had died as well. The following year had been good, but they were feeling the echo now, with few older reindeer in the herds. The humans were devastated by it, their only choice was to start killing their prime breeders or hope the dragons could do something about the impending food shortage.

Ymir grinned. Damn straight the dragons could help; at least, Ymir and Fehu were sure and shit going to try. The could kill a lot in a day and there were some less frequently hunted populations they had in mind. The pair snorted to each other in conformation. They knew where to hunt in such sparse times when massive kills would be needed. Gungnir looked to the both in confusion, but Ymir was sure the young male would have no problems keeping up. They were getting used to flying slow for him anyway, and Ingrid seemed to appreciate the less stressful pace. After all, humans weren’t made to tolerate aerial sprints.

Of course, Fehu liked the lazy pace as well, but he was the sort that would get lost on the thermals trying to avoid putting effort into a flight. Ymir snorted and stretched his wings in preparation for takeoff. Somedays he wondered if Fehu could even survive without Ymir protecting him.  It wasn’t that he really minded, he just felt the need to complain in order to maintain his pride.

Ingrid gave a whistle and the flock took off, heading towards the coast.

They were going walrus hunting. Ymir and Fehu grinned at each other, eager for the challenge.

The creatures were not hard to find. They could see the wriggling patch of grey on the horizon long before they could smell or hear it. The walruses were blanketing the gravely shoreline, crawling across the rafts of crushed ice and sleeping on top of the few rocks that managed to emerge from the snow. The colony was massive, hundreds of animals all clustered in tight chaos on the beach. Even the females were enormous. It was a horrifying violent meat pile just waiting to be plucked for treasure.

Gungnir swallowed, trying to hide his anxiety as he looked across the long white tusks and massive, flubbery bodies. They looked dangerous as anything he could have imagined. Ymir had warned him that they were more agile then they look, and that their hide was much thicker then it appeared. That only made them scarier.  He swore he had seen males as big as young dragons, but Gunner gratefully couldn’t see any that large today. He didn’t know what he would do if he did run into one. Probably scream and run.

And it was not that the males he could see weren’t enormous. They all had to be close to two thousand kilograms of muscle and fat. Furthermore, there were so many of them! The waves were crashing loudly against the shore, and the males were screaming and fighting amongst themselves. Gunner would rather jump into a fight between Valkyrie and Vanir then get involved with the dueling beasts! It was made all the more complicated by the fact that the enormous females were forming massive clumps of indistinguishable shades of brown blending together. How were they supposed to pick out a target?

Ymir dove down and swooped across the colony, just high enough to avoid their revolts and thrashes of fury. A few of the smaller walruses at the edge of the colony disappeared into the sea water, but all the prize targets merely roared in irritation before going back to napping and squabbling. The largest of the males didn’t even notice, and those that did clearly didn’t care.  

Ymir snorted in frustration and looped low across them again, hopping to break up the group. He was blatantly ignored that time. Gunner couldn’t believe his eyes. Fehu joined him, and the pair swooped low together, trying to invoke some sort of reaction, but nothing short of death was going to phase the beasts.  Well, they may have to give them exactly that.

Ingrid called the three dragons together and they started to formulate a plan.

The game started with Gungnir swooping low over the edge of the colony where smaller females were resting. He couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended, or where any of their vital parts were in the mess but that wasn’t the point. He had another motive. He dove down and slammed his claws into flesh, ripping a hunk and bolting skyward. He felt teeth on his wing tips but the screaming chaos he didn’t know what had bitten him. Fresh blood spilled out across the bodies as the wounded female tried to scramble and flee, blocked in by her sisters.

The panic started to spread. The edge of the colony was moving in a dash towards the water! Ymir and Fehu had to focus hard to pick out their targets, smashing down on them at the last moment and hardly managing to keep them pinned. Ingrid yelled orders that were lost in the noise. The dragons ripped and shredded, trying to get a lethal kill. Fehu failed, his badly injured prey managing to get into the frigid water where a whale would be delightfully waiting. Ymir succeeded, his female laying on the red gravel, bleeding out at his feet. Gungnir swooped down to meet them.

Now they just had to repeat that, a lot, and hope that nothing went wrong. As proud as Ingrid was of them, Gunner had the sinking suspicion that something would go wrong by the end of the hunt. He shifted uncomfortably before taking off to repeat the spook and swoop. At least the Walrus’s had been shaken up a bit by the scent of fresh kill. Though the ones in the safety of the center were still disturbingly apathetic.

Breeding (Essential Skill 3). 1504 words +15, background detail +1, added dragon +4, added handler +2, breeding +2, +1 personal art = 26pp.
for Gungnir 043, Ymir 084 & Fehu 111
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