The Littlest Manakete

Morning Nowi doodle for an earlier thing on Twitter 

Still, he wrapped a towel around his waist and wandered back to his room, feeling strangely at ease. His roommate wouldn’t be around tonight, which meant he had the place to himself. Which meant he could do whatever he pleased, for the first time in ages. Sirius slipped into the room and made a move to turn the oil lamp on —

Before realizing someone else had already turned it on for him.

At the sight of the elf-eared girl at the desk, Sirius started so badly that he almost dropped his towel — but thankfully saved himself (and the girl) from that unpleasant act. Still, Sirius sputtered and staggered, leaning back against the door to brace himself.

“What the hell — Who the hell are you?" 

Her triumphant noise was countered by the startled cry of the other occupant. It took Nowi a moment to realize that it hadn't been Henry that entered the room, and a ink smudged face turned towards the dark haired man who was standing at the door. 

Her eyes lit up brightly, like a child at christmas and she scrambled off her chair to rush up to him, standing on her tiptoes to get whatever height she could to peer up at him. 

Although, it was a bit amusing to watch a tall dragon run away from small children. The game continued for a couple of rounds before Takane had to stop and catch her breath. She wasn’t used to having a physical body, or the feeling of fatigue, as she had been pre

viously trapped in electronic devices. “Sorry. Please continue, I just need a minute!” She called out in between gasping for air. 

Takane wanted to figure out how this dragon was able to keep running despite her rather cumbersome size. Children always had boundless energy, but the hacker didn’t know if it translated to dragons as well. Still feeling a bit lightheaded, Takane took a seat on the ground, watching as the dragon and children continued chasing one another. 

She wobbled off to the side to where the other woman was, glancing back at the children still screaming and running about, before flopping almost ungracefully onto the ground beside her. She shifted her large head into the girl's lap, rolling over onto her back. "Thank you." She murmured, sighing deeply before she let herself shift back into her humanoid shape.  

She still remained in the girl's lap, grinning up at her. "Nah seriously, I haven't had this much fun since I got here. It's all be work work work, no time to kick back and be a kid." Nowi kicked out her booted feet, thumping her heels against the ground as she laughed happily. "Thank you for playing with us! It's always better with new friends right?" 

He had only ever met one person who was also a dragon. Ancient and powerful, neither mage nor abomination but something else entirely. She had seen directly into his soul and known its secrets.

His skin prickled. This girl did not have Flemeth’s presence or power about her. Yet she claimed to become a dragon. And she believed him to be one of her kind.

Not a manakete. Her fingers closed back on her dragonstone, and her brows furrowed. Not a manakete, but something called an Elf? 

"I've never met an Elf before." She stated simply, the previous traces of sorrow on her face vanishing into a pleased beam.

"I've met Taguels and Humans and Laguz but I have never met an Elf before." She inched a little closer and stood on her tiptoes to get a good look at his face, shoving her dragonstone back into her pouch. "Do all elves have such pretty markings like you do?" Her ears twitched as she spoke, violet eyes wide. "I've seen ink inscribed into skin, but it never is as bright as what you have. Are you born with them? Or do they come in as you get older? Gosh, I wish I had some of those. Then maybe people wouldn't think I'm just a kid." 

Well…finally someone who appreciates heroic timing!

"Not at all, miss," Owain said, with as much false modesty as he could muster. "Tis the duty of all able bodied champions of light to banish the cold, blackened grip of the-"

She spoke again, the familiar country’s name on her lips jarring him out of his monologue and rendering him dumb for a moment as he processed the sight before him. 

"I…y-yes I am!" Owain said, feeling an airy sensation of relief filling his stomach like a balloon. "I’m from…wait…" 

He looked the girl over, glancing between her long green hair and the tips of her pointed ears, grin becoming toothier and more painful to hold by the minute. 

"You…you must be Miss Nowi!" Henry said, snapping to attention. "A Manakete, right? I’ve been looking all over this blasted town for any sign of the Shepherds!" 

He could have skipped if skipping was the second least heroic thing imaginable (after vegetarian cooking). And if Henry was with her too, then the rest of Chrom’s army couldn’t be far behind either. 

Lissa? Henry's crow?

"I'm sorry." She apologized quickly, giving his hand a small squeeze. "I'm from a different time then Henry." She tried to recall what he had mentioned about their timelines and the fact she hadn't met them in her time yet. "So I don't know if your mother is okay, but Lissa is with Henry, and last I checked she was doing okay. She's such a good girl with delivering my messages." Nowi's grin returned, and she giggled as she spoke fondly about the raven. "She even takes treats from my hand! I've never had anyone so comfortable around me." 

"But if you're wondering about the others, we could always ask Henry about them! He knows way more than I do about these things. We can ask him about the herders." 

There was no Tevinter Imperium to drag him back to  here. No Danarius to heap vast riches upon whoever might catch him. Whoever followed him now surely did so out of curiosity, or some other misguided notion.  Well, let them look. They would grow bored soon enough, or perhaps grow bold enough to speak.

He went about his morning with that same sensation of being watched prickling at the back of his neck. Perhaps he should say something.

And then, she appeared. He almost took a step back in surprise. Two eyebrows arched up at the blond girl— elf?— who spoke to him.

He was not sure what to do with the sudden deluge of conversation. He reached out, hesitantly, for the offered sweet roll - he hadn’t eaten one yet. Why had she given this to him?

But then he asked the question that deep in her heart she had worried would be brought up. Every ounce of actual courage deflated from her, her brows furrowing together and her gaze wavered from his face, focusing somewhere around his shoulder. 

She had screwed up. 

But...but maybe he didn't know. 

"Manakete." Nowi repeated, wiping away the shadow of disappointment off her face. "Dragon. We both have the ears." She would have reached up to touch his pointed ears if he hadn't been so tall, so she settled on plucking tiny bits from her sweet roll nervously. 

As Takane walked aimlessly through the town, she saw a group of children playing down the road, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was moments like these that caused Takane to think, for a split second, that she wasn’t in a strange foreign land. As if on cue to remind her exactly where she currently was, one of the children transformed into a giant green dragon! Surely that wasn’t normal for children here, otherwise Takane had a lot to get used to. 

However, the children seemed perfectly okay with the sudden appearance of a rather large dragon. Seeing as it must be friendly, Takane slowly started to approach the creature, making sure as to not startle the dragon. When the dragon started speaking, Takane could feel her jaw hit the floor, there were too many things wrong with this scenario. 

"Hey." She replied slowly, surprised that the dragon’s voice was so light, from all the movies she’s seen that involved these mythical beasts, their voices were always deep and rough. This one sounded almost childish. "To play?” Now Takane was lost, what she assumed was a child, turned into a dragon just to play. 

Apparently the children were just fine crawling all over dragon’s belly, so Takane had no qualms letting the dragon have what it wanted. “I guess I could play. Haven’t played those games since elementary school though.” 

"You will?" The squeal was giddy and the gold and emerald scaled beast practically wiggled for joy. "Yay! Oh! This is wonderful!"

Nowi leveled her serpentine head at the woman. Her bright eyes widened for a moment, before the grin curled along her snout and she reached out with a claw to give the woman the lightest shove imaginable.

"Tag, you're it." 

It was like a cue and the ten children squealed in delight and scattered.

Before he could comment on it, a pair of groans drew his attention toward the edge of the maze. Another pair of Risen (or whatever idiotic term the locals used for them) had clawed their way out of the maze and began their lumbering, dragging steps towards them. He threw an arm out in front of the girl, the other hand pulling Killing Edge from it’s sheath and leveling it at the monsters in front of them. 

"Worry not, young miss," Owain chuckled. "Your night of terror is at an end! I bring the warm sun of justice to banish the evil of this cursed maze and break the foul magical taint of this land!"

"As for you," Owain said, addressing the corpses. "I say only that your time on this earth is at an end! Whatever wicked sorcery has disturbed your slumber, know that soon you will…you will…"

Owain sighed as he realized that the monsters would reach him long before he finished his heroic proclamation. Scooping the girl up with one arm, he shuffled across the clearing, increasing the distance between him and the corpses and giving him more time to finish his speech properly. 

"Now where was I…" Owain said, clearing his throat and raising his weapon at the Risen again. "Oh right…ahem…you will soon slumber in so many pieces that nary so much as a hair of yours will rise again! Flee if some shred of self-preservation remains to you…otherwise…"

The edge of his blade glowed a milky white moonlight as Owain took aim at the soon to be disjointed creatures. 

“Pick a god and pray!”

With that, he lunged forward, blade swinging across in a wide arc as he rushed past. There was a moment’s silence as both Owain and the Risen froze in a moment he thought must look terribly impressive before a pair of dull thunks behind him told him his sword had cut true. 

Then he turned and the blade flashed in the moonlight and he cut them down in a single stroke. The pair of them fell where they had stood, neither having lain a finger on him.

She had never seen anything like it in her thousand years. 

Her eyes were bright as she stared up at him in sheer awe as he turned back to her, her cheeks flushing.  

"Ohmygosh! That was amazing! You are amazing! You are so amazing!" She clapped her gloved hands together in front of her mouth, bouncing on her toes. Her hunger was completely forgotten in the presence of her knight in (not-so) shining armor. Where had he been when she had been running across the sands back in...

Still, despite her age, she is wise enough to know nothing can be gained from nothing, and - thus - she remains required to return to the thieves’ guild at least every once in a while. Whether of her own accord or as prompted by a discreet summons.

Today sees the former sort of return. No senior member had whispered in the right ears to ensure a message of summons has reached her amidst all the noise of the capital: quite willingly has she slipped inside the guild’s walls to practise her handiwork with knives. She is no disaster with shorter blades (she knows where the heart is, after all, and knows drawing a line ‘cross the neck will stop a man’s breath), but she knows her particular strengths lies instead in the handling of needle-like blades ─ hence her stepping into the practise hall not long after a senior’s departure from it.

Though the meeting within is purely coincidental.

As first meetings go, she’s certainly had worse. A stray dagger clatters across the floor near enough the moment she sets foot into the sizeable hall, but she hardly blinks; the point stops just short of her foot, even if she hadn’t gracefully turned her body from the apparent imminent danger the split second before. Her stance is thus held for a second longer before she allows herself to relax and lower her guard, after which she lifts her gaze to the obvious offender.

"Oh good, here I was scared I may have killed someone and only on my third day here." She padded forward, collecting her dagger from the floor and slipping it back into the sheath in her boot. Nowi glanced up at the girl, wide violet eyes searching for a moment before her grin widened. "But I've been trying to improve my aim, that's why I've been here for hours. Though it just seems to get worse the longer I'm here." 

She pursed her lips and blew a soft raspberry of frustration, getting out of the girl's personal space. "Balance is easy. Turning myself into a pretzel is easy. Heck, even dragons are easy. Throwing daggers, not so much."

She wrinkled her nose as she glanced back to the shredded wreckage of one of the previous targets, laughing quietly. "Are you here to practice too? Do you have any pointers for a sad little manakete? The other lady wasn't very helpful other than-" Nowi puffed up a little, pulling her best impression of the woman. "Do it again."

The girl deflated, shaking her head. "Even as old as I am, things like this are real hard to figure out on your own."

cheer-up pixel of nowi