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Rebellious Instinct
*It's not FAIR!* Sharona screamed at the top of her mental extremities, her back spines bristling indignantly. *I don't WANT to go to some DUMB PARTY THING!*
*It's not a choice, and it's not about wanting. It's obligation,* Ira said steadfastly, not a whit of him letting Sharona's dramaqueentastic self get to him. He was, after all, bonded to Tor. There were far worse things he'd been subjected to than a bit of preadolescent temper tantrum.
*I don't WANT to GO!* Sharona persisted. *I WANT to go PLAY with my FRIENDS!*
Kipfel lounged lazily in a corner and listened as Sharona threw her fit and tried to get Ira's attention while the latter closed his book patiently and sighed, shaking his head.
*You don't understand, Sharona. We need to go, and you are not going off on your own this time.*
*But I WANT TO!* she said, a hiccup of a sob sneaking into her breathing.
*Crying won't help, Sharona,* Kip interjected, eying his talons inquisitively.
*Yes it will!* Sharona persisted.
Ira looked at him, trying to to look desperate and pleading.
Kip blinked. *She's your kid too,* he said indifferently.
Sharona continued to force tears.
Ira knew there was an easy way and a hard way to handle it. The easy way was the way Kip would have taken, and probably was considering taking. The hard way, he knew, was what real parents did. *Stop crying, Sharona,* he said, adding a bit of sweetness to his voice and smiling down at her.
Sharona persisted.
*There there, sweetie,* he said, patting her delicately with the underside of his tail on her head. *There's nothing to be so upset about. It's really rather fun.*
Kipfel scoffed in the corner.
Ira shot him a glare.
Suddenly, Tor came up the stairs two at a time, and Ira intercepted him. *Oh Tooorrrrrr,* he called enticingly.
Tor stopped whistling "Sweet Child of Mine" and put down his foot to look around. "Ey what?" he asked cluelessly.
*Tor, I need to have a chat with Mr. Sunshine here. Can you please calm Sharona down until I'm done reaming him out?*
"Oh, sure. Does he deserve it?" Tor wanted to know.
*Immeasurably,* Ira said with a glare at the black's direction.
Tor couldn't help but chuckle piteously and glance at Kip. "Poor you," he said. "If you get the worst of it, let me know how you want to be buried, and I'll be happy to oblige."
*Fuck off,* Kip snarled as Tor deftly fought off gouging spikes. He'd had very much experiance with such things with Ira.
*I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE FIGHTING! I'M STILL NOT GOING!* Sharona shouted after them.
As the two dragons had "words" at each other (which would invariably end with one or both of them bleeding badly), Tor wandered over to their daughter.
"Hey, sprout," he said, crouching by her, and poking her in the forehead. "What's the trouble?"
She glared daggers into him, and then turned away haughtily. *There's some stupid party. And I don't want to go.*
"What stupid party is that?"
*Good Lady Nabel seems to think I need to visit my grandmother. So that she has a reason to visit Astrid. Like she needs a reason, and like I need to go to some dumb party.*
"Well, you know, Gunnhild is a good storyteller."
*No. I don't believe you.*
"Yep. And her friend, Havelock, is a half-demon. I bet he'd hang out with you if you thought you were going to go insane. He's pretty interesting."
*I don't believe you.*
"Fine. I don't care. But really, it won't be as terrible as you like to think. They're good people."
*Why aren't you going?*
"I wasn't invited. And besides. I'm visiting Miss Sandry today."
Sharona blinked. *Ohhhh?* she drawled.
"Yes. And that's all I'm saying."
*No, come on, you have to tell me more than that!*
"It's none of your business."
*Sure it is! You're my Uncle Salvatore!*
".... Salvatore?" he asked, looking not in the least bit amused.
She beamed at him.
"No. I'm not telling you, and that's final." He left, then, and went downstairs, having forgotten why he was going up to begin with.
Sharona sighed. People were weird, she decided, and knocked on the door where Daddy and Daddy were locked in the room together. They sounded busy. *OKAY* she called at them. *I'M GOING TO THE STUPID PARTY NOW. YOU JUST COME WHEN YOU'RE DONE, BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO KNOW.*
She started slithering down the stairs. What this place really needed, she decided, was an elevator. Or legs. You couldn't go anywhere just slithering all the time. And flying was scary, so forget that.
FINALLY she reached the last set of stairs. She started down, and was not in the least surprised to find Clet and Rudie on their way up to see her.
"My lady!" Clet said, bowing on the stairs, which were too narrow to fly up.
*Busy,* Sharona told him flatly, and slithered down passed.
Rudie blinked after her. He stared back up as she went. "What's gotten into her?" he asked.
"Haven't a clue," Clet replied. He started walking the rest of the flight, since it was quicker to just fly down again and go ask her.
Of course, when they got down there, she wasn't anywhere to be seen. Instead, she was shimmying through the high early summer grasses, across the fields and forests to the city, on the other side of which Astrid and Gunnhild and all their Old Norse people lived.
"Old Norse" being what Daddy called them. While Daddy called them "meddling idiots." Sharona wasn't really sure what the first meant, but she was pretty sure that Good Lady Nabel, as she'd taken to calling Daddy's bondmate, was not friends with a "meddling idiot" as suspected. She was almost all the way to town when she started ranting to herself.
This is dumb, she ranted. What do I care to talk to Gunnhild and Miss Astrid? I don't care about that. They have nothing to do with me, and I don't want to talk to Grandma. I should bring them flowers, though. No, no, no. That would make me Little Red Riding Hood. I don't want to meet a wolf in the forest. Nothing to eat me, please, and no big lumberjacks to split them open to pour me out. That wouldn't be nice at all.
And then she was at town. She skirted it, slithering painstakingly by the outter buildings, which had not been incorporated enough yet to have cobblestones. Palvion and Abvindor were in the forest, clearing trees for more farmland and houses. Farmers and their children were in the fields. Storm clouds were brewing on the horizon. She muttered mutinously at the world.
Then she was out of the town, just slithering along with the single-minded purpose of getting to Astrid and Egil Berntson's house. Maybe she'd get to play with Dagmar. She vaguely remembered her being a nice little girl.
She took a deep breath as the house came into view. It was such a tiny place, really. Hard to believe it fit about thirty people in it over the winter. Hard to believe winter was already gone. Still, it was, and she had to go visiting. Stupid world.
She slithered up the lane to the house. There were flowers all around, and some chickens that should probably get locked up before Daddy found them. She slithered up to the porch steps. There were only five of them, and she was used to stairs from playing in the Tower so long. She took them easily and muttered that legs would make such adventures SO much easier. Then, she slithered across the sun-bleached wooden deck and over to the door. She smacked her tail against the door three times, and was rewarded with her tail getting stuck in the wood.
Further up in the door were other marks, obviously places where Daddy had gotten caught in the door. They were the right height and shape and size. Oddly, though, there were no marks from Grandma. Maybe she was more careful, since she was used to this sort of thing.
The door opened with her still struggling to get out of the wood. She was slid along the deck, and she squeaked angrily.
"Who's out there?" someone obviously not Astrid called.
*I'm down here!* Sharona shouted, still trying to flail her way free of the door.
A blonde-haired, brown-eyed young man about fourteen years old peeked around the door. He had freckles and a friendly face that was sun-tanned. Sharona had seen him time and again, since he was Xylon's apprentice, Havelock.
"Sharona!" he laughed.
*Don't open the door any further!* she snapped, still flailing to get free. *And tell Astrid she needs to make her doors out of harder wood!*
"I had no idea you were so cross," he laughed.
*I am when peoples' doors try to eat me!* she protested.
He just laughed and reached down to help her out.
*I can do it myself!* she snapped and made a chomp towards his hand. He recoiled, and crouched back on his haunches.
"Let's see it, then."
She flailed aimlessly, thrashing about for a moment before she finally snapped her tail out of the door. She went rolling, end-over-end, then, and landed flat on her back on the deck - with her spines embedded in the wood.
Havelock laughed long and hard.
*Don't just sit there laughing,* she muttered. *Please help me.* She glared at him when she said this so it didn't sound like begging.
Still laughing, Havelock wrenched her out of the deck.
*I hate wooden structures,* she muttered, and slithered in through the open doorway. *HELLO!* she called, glaring at Havelock, who just could not stop laughing.
*Sharona!* Grandma coo'd as she came sailing out of the kitchen, which smelled like pastries. *Hello, sweetheart!*
*Hi, Grandma,* Sharona said quietly, averting her eyes. *Um, nice to ... er... See you.*
*And where is your father, sweetheart?* Grandma asked, Sharona noting that she used the singular form of the word.
*Well, Daddy was being a prick, so Daddy's chewing him out.*
*We don't say words like that, sweety,* Gunnhild chided sternly but kindly.
*Tor says words like that,* Sharona protested.
*That would be my point, deary,* the elder red said through gritted teeth set in a permanant smile.
Sharona watched her grandmother for a very long moment before she decided that no, she really had nothing at all to say to her. After all, Grandma would not approve of her friends any more than she approved of her fathers, and Sharona was well-aware that that approval was negligeable at best.
Hell, even Grandma had gotten over them both being male since word came of the other mutations. The least Grandma could do would be to get over it and move on.
Sharona slithered away, then, and into the kitchen. *Hello,* she called up to Astrid and Egil.
"Hello, Sharona. Where are your fathers?" Astrid asked.
*Coming. They sent me ahead. They were fighting.*
"Kip and Ira? Fighting? No!" Astrid said with affected sarcasm.
*Hah hah,* Sharona said dryly, clearly not amused. Family gatherings were really really boring as far as she was concerned. She already knew all their stories, and the ones she didn't know were probably dull as .... as.... She looked around for something properly dull. As dull as that pot that was so scratched, it had lost all its luster.
No, that was really lame.
As dull as .... as ... as....
She was on the verge of comnig up with a really good simile when there was a blood-curdling scream that probably rocked the little house to its foundations.
"Dagmar!" Astrid called idly.
"MOMMA!!!!" the five-year-old little girl wailed, running in to cling to her mother's leg. "MOMMA!!!"
"Inge, what'd you do to her?" Egil asked sternly.
Ingegerd was lingering in the doorway, glaring murderously. "We were playing dolls," she said tonelessly.
"SHE WON'T PLAY HOW I WANT TO PLAY!" Dagmar wailed.
Astrid sent her friend a pleading look.
"Hey, I played the 'bark like a chicken, cluck like a dog' game for centuries. I do not need to play it with a little girl," Ingegerd said sternly.
"Inge," Egil said pleadingly.
*I'll play with her,* Sharona piped up.
Everyone looked down at her.
*Hello, yes,* she said caustically. *I'm still here. I haven't left yet. I'm still waiting for Daddy and Daddy to show up.* She rolled her eyes and slithered over to Dagmar.
"Yes!" Ingegerd said with a bit too much enthusiasm. "Dagmar, meet Sharona. Sharona, remember Dagmar?"
Sharona looked at the Valkyrie sternly. *Of COURSE I remember her,* she said, narrowing her round eyes. *Do I look like I have an IQ of less than seven?*
"Erm, no?" Ingegerd said, cowing just a little. Wrathful power must run in the family, Sharona decided brightly.
*Come on, Dagmar. Let's go make a story with your dollies.*
"Are you a Gunnhild?" Dagmar asked, following her out of the room.
*No,* Sharona said with a wide grin. *I'm a Sharona. We're more awesome than Gunnhilds.*
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