Work Text:
Arada tamped down the impulse to hug SecUnit. It wouldn’t do her any good. SecUnit hated hugs and hated signs that it belonged to anyone.
Still, the hoarding instinct was very real. She had been worried about SecUnit since they’d left the safepod (and that had been even worse for her hoard, although she would have been okay and had been mostly casting spells to refresh their air while Overse fixed the safepods. Just because she was fine didn’t mean her sapients were), and now that they’d agreed to make a deal with the transport, she was waiting for it to come out of the bathroom. Ratthi and Amena had been in there negotiating for a while.
You are not human, the transport said in her feed.
Well, that was an unwelcome surprise. I’m not. Your point?
You leave your hoard for this long?
Of all the– my hoard’s here, thank you very much! I have Overse and Ratthi and SecUnit and then Mensah and Bharadwaj and Pin-Lee are home and so is everyone else in my hoard!
You do not hoard gems or gold or currency? You are an odd dragon.
Hoarding behavior is a biological instinct on par with the instinct to mate. Most dragons experience some form of a hoard instinct, Arada sighed. How that instinct manifests differs. I like having friends.
Honestly, shouldn’t a hyperintelligent transport have a better grasp of biology?
She resisted the urge to go back to her proper form and paw at the ground. The others mostly don’t know. Overse does. I would prefer you not tell them.
The Perihelion didn’t answer, and she returned to shifting her weight.
Arada crossed her arms. “I know you’re upset but this will save us a lot of time.”
“Rescuing you — or trying to recover your body — will not save us time,” Overse said, giving Arada a look as pointed as her ears. And it’ll be worse trying to drag a dragon corpse back, you know that, she added in the feed.
Ratthi pressed his hands over his eyes. “We need a plan. What are you going to say?”
“I know,” Arada grumbled, keeping it from being a growl. “I’m going to go over, tell them the explorer attacked us, and trade supplies for information and currency. And I’ll use just enough of my magic to make them think we have access to a lot more resources here than they can pull on short notice.” (As a wyrmling, she would have been on an equal level with any magical that would work on a ship like this. As a full adult with centuries of magical practice and a biology doctorate, she was more powerful than anyone short of a dedicated ship’s mage. Anyone with the resources to get good at magic was by necessity either a high-level corporate, a special shock trooper type, or outside of the Rim. Just because Arada pretended to be a low-level human sorcerer and a biologist, didn’t mean she was either low-level or human.)
Arada de Makeba, lately of Preservation, carried herself in the guise of a human most days. She was quite familiar with transforming her human face just a bit, replacing the need for cosmetics with the slightest polymorph. Still, Supervisor Leonide’s appearance was far too perfect to be anything but magically altered, which felt somewhat obviously gaudy.
The supervisor was, however, as ruthless as anyone could be, with or without magic. Really, taking a hostage?
Arada had been in this guise for thirty years and alive for more than three hundred years, and she still didn’t understand why so many sapients liked to cause harm to others.
SecUnit was doing perfectly fine protecting her, however, so all she did was cast a minor illusion of a SecUnit control orb in her hand flashing. Leonide got the point and let them go, especially after SecUnit’s show.
Thanks, she told it after. Why did she do that? Did I sound weak? I’m sorry I messed up. She truly and utterly hated pretending to be a corporate. Never again, she’d make Overse witness a magical oath or something this time.
No, it wasn’t you. I think she told us too much, in front of her crew, and she realized it. She wanted to make sure they knew she was in charge.
She would have shrugged, had she had the ability to transmit a non-verbal cue through an EVAC suit. Well, at least we know what to do next. Then she switched back to her chat with Overse and sent a heart. Babe, I’m sorry. When we get onboard we can talk?
I’m still mad, but sure. Overse’s sigh was implied, it didn’t send. I don’t want to lose you this young. This was maybe the best case scenario, I guess, but all I’ve been thinking about is how easy it is to kill a human. A good gun or a decent spell and you wouldn’t even have a chance to change back.
I know, Arada said. I’m sorry. I had magical armor up at least?
That’s not that much better than the EVAC suit, Overse laughed. She was an engineer, among other things, she knew these sorts of things. We’ll talk more when you get back? I love you. I’m just worried.
Love you too, babe, Arada said. Talk when we get back.