Saffron waited for him to put his hands on her. He was shaking and angry. She had seen him like this once before and it had been when someone had hurt her. She gave him a loving smile. She seemed in one piece at the moment. This was serious and she was able to control herself better when she was explaining things. “It’s why I couldn’t control it… I let it get the best of me last year when the banshees were out. They tormented me. I… may have manifested my angry and hate into Mjerim. Mjerim is an ice scythe. Then I ripped their barely beating hearts out. Mjerim is my control. She took a hand and held the diamond pendant up, the icy temperature floating up and around him. “I’ve been doing it a lot better since I conjured it.”

When Desmond backed up from her she looked down at the little dragon and frowned. “It hurts us?” It was so small. She frowned and moved over to a gold pile and put it down. “Okay, we have to go little guy. I’m sorry I woke you up.” The dragon began to make noises at her as she walked away. She got up by Desmond and suddenly the dragon was scaling up her and nuzzling her.

“Dessie! It won’t leave me be.” She panicked a little bit as the dragon licked her cheek. It nuzzled into her neck and fell asleep. “Please help, it’s so vicious.” She teased Desmond but she understood what he meant. “No, you have to stay.” She picked it up and set it back down. However, it seemed useless as the dragon rescaled her.

“Mama,” the dragon spoke up at her.

Saffron began to panic as she danced around with it. “I’m no one’s mama! I can’t be a mama, I’m dead.” She fell on her butt as she tried to pry the dragon child off of her.

“Mama.” Again the voice cooed up to her.

Saffron looked up at Desmond from the pile of gold. “Help, it thinks I’m its Mama.”

This hadn’t been planned for, and frankly he would have just up and left the damn thing here for its mother to find it. “Not that thing, but its mother will if it finds us with it”, he corrected. He was dead serious on not being dragon food, and this little exploration plan only better served as to why he was worried about coming here. The little dragon might have been upset as Saffron placed it down and moved away but he’d prefer that over a meaningless death any day. He turned to walk out himself but was stopped before the first step could even be thought of. The damn thing seemed hellbent on sticking around Saffron, refusing to remain behind and without her company.

He didn’t know why until it muttered “mama” to her. He gave it an annoyed look, likely contributing its confusion to her being the first thing it saw. “Damn, that’s the last thing we need on our backs”, he spoke half snaring. Killing it was tempting, but unfortunately they couldn’t, not in this den. That and he was sure he would never hear the end of it from Saffron, that was if she would even let him do it in her presence in the first place.  The whole thing annoyed him as he helped lift her back onto her feet.

“I should have guessed that egg was the dragons, but how would I have known that? Aren’t dragon eggs huge in comparison?” It was really more a question to himself, but then again Desmond hadn’t seen one before, so it was merely an assumption on his part. But what were they suppose to do with it now? He started pacing back and forth, wanting to tear his hair out from his head. This wasn’t suppose to happen at all. Looking to Saffron, he continued to pace about as that thing still held onto her.

“Maybe we can hide it…no that won’t work. Or we can somehow fool it to go away?” That one seemed just as pointless given how latched on it was to the woman and he couldn’t wrap his mind on how else to rid themselves of the scaled baby. “Why, why, why did you have to pick up the pretty egg? Of all bloody things around us…”

Saffron let the dragon cuddle with her. It was her icy presence that attracted the dragon. It sensed all the ice underneath that sweet personality that she was letting off. Her mask. “Desmond,” the mask faded a bit more. The serious Saffron was in front of him. “The dragon in this mountain is a fire dragon.” She turned her eyes to it and tilted her head. “This dragon isn’t. I don’t think it’s mother is here.” She knew he wouldn’t be happy with her assumption.

Her soft red eyes stayed on Desmond. “You want to build an empire from these riches and gold, right?” She nudged towards the dragon. “It’s going to get bigger right? We could use it. We may be vampires but to have a dragon on our side, it will learn. I will teach it to use its ice. The dragon here never can. I can sense it’s icy power… it’s like mine.” 

She didn’t want Desmond to kill it but it was quite obviously attached to her. “Even if I left it here, it would die or worse. The atmosphere here isn’t good for it. I say we take it and we leave. We have enough treasure and we haven’t woke the Dragon up. I saw we take it as a good omen and just leave.” The dragon changed everything. Saffron lifted a finger up and formed a little ice ball. She let it hit the little dragon and the dragon almost purred. “It wouldn’t be able to live here in the fire.”

She stared at Desmond. “I didn’t know what it was. I remember reading about the eggs that royal uses, they are quite expensive. I didn’t expect it to be alive or have the ability to hatch.” She made her way around Desmond and smiled at him. “We’ll figure it out. At the very least, I have a new way to torture someone if they piss me off.”

The dragon stayed snuggled on her neck as they walked out of the vault. She was sure it was aggravating Desmond but there was nothing they could do to get rid of it. It was a valuable tool. She seemed… icy towards everything but she had a feeling they weren’t just going to walk out with the dragon. Something about it being there just didn’t seem right.

They got out of the Hoard and down the hall. Sure enough, her thoughts were interrupted. “Boss, you won’t believe it.” A group of twenty were in front of them. They were staring at the dragon and then Saffron. 

“We’ve been searching for that last dragon egg and we can’t even hatch ours. This one will look beautiful as part of scalemail. Girl, you  don’t want to mess with us.” The boss got closer to her. “We need that dragon for our patron. We always complete a job and well… we aren’t afraid to hurt a little flower like you.” He took a dagger out and went to grab the dragon. She grabbed his hand and crushed it the scream echoed.

“Are you a fucking idiot?” Saffron’s words were harsh as she growled. “You think twenty humans possibly intimidate me? Threatening my baby?” It did think she was it’s mother. She teleported away and tickled the dragon’s mouth. “You need to stay with Desmond.” She put it in his arms. “Stay.” She pet the dragon and cupped Desmond’s face. “One moment, I won’t let this dragon cause you a headache but I am keeping it. So..” She disappeared back to where she was.

“You get to live, but only by my grace. You will not spit on this gift but in exchange for your life… You’ll take your patron something.” She threw the boss to the wall and Mjerim transformed. It was a beautiful icy scythe. The small quarters began to ice over Saffron reached out. “My mother had a song whenever I would piss her off… You know the dandelion game?”

The men looked scared at her. “WELL?”

“Yes… Mama had a baby and its head popped off.” One squeaked up at her. “I remember it.”

Not that it would save him as she swung the scythe. She began to take off heads and the bodies got burned by how cold the ice was. Killed the last one with no effort and looked back at the boss as Mjerim reformed on her neck. “You are going to take a present to your patron.” She took one of the treasure bags and threw it at him. “Bag the heads of your companions.” The man looked scared at her. “Did I stutter?” She hissed at him.

The man got up and bagged the heads one by one. He was like a sniveling child. Saffron crossed her arms and watched. “If I catch anyone trying to take my dragon EVER. I will kill them much worse than what Mjerim did. One more thing. You know about those eggs. Tell me what you know before I start taking fingers next.”

The man began to tear up at the thought. She had reduced a strong man into a child. “They are boons that the Fire Starter took from the icelands up in Canelux. He killed a ice dragon and took her eggs as boons. They are valuable and rare. Sometimes they don’t get big. Yours is on the smaller size.” Saffron got closer to him.

“So it doesn’t belong here? You were going to do what with it?”

“The eggs make great mantle pieces. We didn’t honestly know they could hatch. Collectors pay thousands in gold for the blue color of those particular eggs.” The glare he was getting from Saffron as he picked up the last head terrified him. “Please don’t kill me.”

“Oh… Sweetheart, no. I need you to deliver a message for me. I would never hurt something as valuable as a messenger.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “If I catch you or anyone else trying to take my dragon.. I’ll rip your dicks off and feed them right back to you.” She patted his head. “Understand?”

“Completely.” He was sniveling again..

“Get out of here.” She stepped over several of the dead bodies as she got back to Desmond. “There problem solved.” The man was falling over himself as he hauled the heavy bag out of the hallway. “Now you’ve meet Mjerim.” She took the dragon from him and gently pet it. “We’re keeping her. If anything as a weapon so I can burn down everything that pisses me off.” Well, wrong element but Saffron’s demeanor changed and she gave a childlike look up to him once more. “She’s so pretty Dessie.” 

The dragon made cooing noises at Saffron and towards Desmond now. “Daddy?”

Saffron was ecstatic as she nodded. “Yup, that is daddy. You are a good girl.” She smirked up at Desmond. “The best weapons come in small packages.”

Pacing up and down, Desmond was trying to find a way to rid the pair of the newly hatched hinderance, but no mattered he schemed up, there was a major drawback. His attention to turned back to her and that baby dragon once he caught wind of what she was saying. He didn’t know what Saffron was going on about, fire dragon this and it’s not like it that. When it came down to its actual mother not being around, he groaned loudly before interrupting himself. “Wait, that means we are in the clear…” At least they wouldn’t have to worry about a pissed off mother chasing after them. But now they were stuck with the little “darling”. It was at least worth something, but he also had a feeling she wouldn’t be keen on selling it since she revealed her plans for it. “It doesn’t matter to me if I have an empire or not. I merely want something grander for my fate. These riches can help, but it will take more than just gold and trinkets to do so.”

He would have argued against this whole idea, but it seemed like wasted breath. Saffron had it clear in her mind that it was coming with them, and as long as it didn’t get in his way, he would grudgingly agree to this. The only thing that he favored out of this was that they would be finally leaving this forsaken place. Desmond was as happy as a dog with a bone with some meat still on it. “Fine, fine, let’s just get out of here” Soon they would be home free and not burnt to a crisp or eaten. Just the way he liked things to go. Unfortunately fate had other plans and the next thing he knew, they were surrounded by some thieves and from the way it sounded, they wanted the baby in her arms. Twenty were nowhere near enough to handle one vampire, let alone two and before he could tell them how foolish they were, Saffron had beat him to the punch. “Well, don’t say you all didn’t deserve this…” he shrugged as she took control of the situation with ease. He could tell that something in her snapped and with the dragon in his possession, he could only watch as she ripped them into pieces with her scythe, the one he assumed to be the Mjerim she fancied so much. He had only seen her like this one other time, when she slaughtered her own father for his negligence and mistreatment. Only this time it seemed much worse and it eventually came down to only one of them still being alive. Had he had a say, he would have had him killed as well and left his bosses without any sort of answer. But it was rather hilarious to see him tripping over himself with the bodies of his former comrades as he escaped. “Where in the hell did you get that thing?”, he asked as she came to him. He had already knew that she was going to keep the blasted thing before he could say anything against it. But as long as he wasn’t bothered by it, he didn’t mind it.

When it called him “Daddy”, he merely shook his head and held his hand against his face. “Just..great…” Placing his other hand behind her back, he led her away pass the dead bodies. “The little munchkin better grow a bit bigger than this then. Ankle biters are annoying but I’d hardly call it a weapon, my sweet”  

Saffron moved the dragon up so it appeared to be talking. “Saffron says, she has a grand fate right now. She isn’t use to things at all.” Her red eyes looked over the dragon at him. “We’ll have all those things love.” She pulled the dragon back to her.

After she had mercilessly killed the thieves she looked down at Mjerim. “I didn’t find it… I made it. I was so sad and so upset with the banshees in the forest… Mjerim just appeared. It told me that was it’s name. It speaks sometimes, but only when I can’t hear reason no more. It’s a madness and it is so sorrowful with its song.” Mjerim was just a piece of what was her.

Saffron seemed pleased as he led her out of the tunnel. She stared down at the dragon and chuckled. “She will be a weapon some how… maybe a paper weight?” She looked up at him as she joked. “I kid, I’m sure she will get bigger. If anything she will be a good deterrent. I grow stronger everyday and maybe she will as well.”

When they started to walk past the entrance for Baltil, she stopped him and looked at the city. “Let’s get a room here. We can go back to Kurayo or wherever you want after we sleep and eat.”  And sex but she wasn’t about ready to ruin the surprise him. She found them the tavern and got a room. Up in it she took no time at all in making the dragon a nest and covering it’s head.

“Tsk tsk.” She waved a finger at Desmond. “You’ve been a good boy today.” She gave a smile before she jumped him. She took her sweet time stripping him and when he least expected it she handcuffed him to the bed. She gave a smile to him. “A very good boy!”

Desmond didn’t know anything about this ridiculous idea with the dragon or the story of Saffron’s scythe. Or the business that those men had with the former, making armor or whatever with its scales. All he knew was that he wanted out of this place before he would be introduced to another thing he wasn’t in the mood to deal with- the dragon here. He gave her a serious look before rolling his eyes. “As long as it doesn’t kill me in my slumber, it can stay.” He really didn’t care either way, but after what he saw, he wasn’t keen on telling her to leave the damn thing here. “The pipsqueak had better, or it will be a paperweight.”

He felt a breath of fresh air when they finally made it out alive. His pockets were filled with gold and other little trinkets to sell off. But for what, that remained for only him to be aware of at the time. Desmond couldn’t just wait to get out of this bloody city in general, but Saffron had a different thought in mind and before he knew it, they were getting a room up in a tavern. He suppose that he didn’t mind since he could get some rest after the madness today.

Removing his treasure out from his pockets, he started to pile them up onto the nightstand nearby, seeing what he had truly gained from the venture when he felt her pouncing down onto him, nearly ruining his work. He would have hissed at her had she not explained herself a second before the thought came into his head. His eyes lingered on her as she undressed him, taking the initiative for once. He remained still up to the point where she handcuffed him to the bedpost. “If I have been such a good boy, then why is this on me”, he asked, gesturing to the handcuffs.

He couldn’t remember if she had answered him or not, but he did recalls moments afterwards once they were done. He laid awake in the bed and went to work on breaking the blasted thing on his wrist, which took him some effort before it eventually came off. “Where on earth did you get that?”, he asked in a confused tone as he rubbed at his wrist. “Perhaps a little less tight next time you are in the mood for such fun.” He wasn’t even sure where she picked up such traits from. Certainly it wasn’t from him, but then again, he really didn’t know her all that well, and the events that occurred earlier suggested it heavily.   

Honestly, if he would have hissed at her it probably wouldn’t have helped the cause any. She had her eyes set on what she considered being the prize. She hummed softly as she stripped him and handcuffed him to the bed. “Well, because that’s what good bad boys get… isn’t it?” She gave him a smile before proceeding to continue with their night.

Ellura was snuggled up into some cold gold that Saffron had managed to fill her pockets with, a little hoard for her. 

After their fun, she smiled as he rubbed his wrists. “Only a little loose next time.” She kissed his neck and thought about it. “I had them, was saving them for the right moment.” She purred a bit. Did she want to admit she how? “So I was talking with some vampires in Kurayo and they told me what they liked to do with their masters. They are old like you but don’t like to learn new things… apparently being chained up and stuff is enjoyable to them.” She stared at him with puppy eyes.

“You’ve been so good to me I just wanted to make sure you had a good time since you let me drag you here.” She made the handcuffs disappear before snuggling into his chest. “You, me, and Ellura can travel all over Revaliir now. We can have whatever we want… What do you want right now Desmond?” Her red eyes stared up at him. She knew he wouldn’t say her but it was what she wanted.