[YANS] (aka Yet Another New Story!) NaNoWriMo 2017 (COMPLETE)

Day 23 - And Then They Fight!

"I feel like we're starting every single day having to repeat the idea that we're not far enough behind that we'll lose." The Dragon had roused itself from the bean bag nest as the Writer stumbled in from the story mists. "We need to get to 38,333 words to catch up to where we're supposed to be for today, can we make that?"

"Eh, probably not." The Writer yawned and settled down into the writing desk chair, spinning it around to look out into the living room. "But I think I can pull off two 5k days on Saturday and Sunday, so realistically I only need to do, what, 10k on all the other days?"

"400 words in a 15 minute sprint is 1600 words an hour," the dragon countered. "That's one day an hour and we have plenty of hours."

"Eh, it's more like 1k an hour, but I need to know what I'm going to write to keep up speeds like that. I'm still hashing out what the heck is going on. Sort of." The Writer ignored the plot bunnies who were all conked out and snoring at her feet.

"You mean you're still trying to find a good way to tie the nice neat little ending you started back to everything else." The Muse was curled up in a blanket burrito on the couch because it was finally winter out and omgcold. "Plus we still need about 18k to win NaNo and you've got maybe 3k of work left to stitch the story together."

"Well then, I'd better get to work!"

There was a pause and they all looked expectantly at the Writer. Who did nothing.

"It's not that hard, right? I mean we left off in the middle of the final-ish confrontation," the dragon said. "Just keep going."

"Wait, are we finishing the end fight or are we going back and finishing the training?" The Muse asked. "I just realized we never really linked that back in to rest of the story. We do need to storyboard it at some point-- but we also need word count, so I vote word count first. At least until we run out of ideas."

"If we do the fight first, we'll know what to train her for in the training montage," pointed out Dragon. "Besides fight scenes have to use up more words, right?"

"Never underestimate the power of exposition," the Writer said, but twisted the chair back around around to face the writing desk and got back to work.

~*~*~*~*~

"It's not our fault," Jashn argued. "If you let us cleanse the pools everything will go back to the way it was. This is helping you, not trying to hurt you."

"There is nothing in the pools," the dragon muttered, pulling back to hover, twisting and undulating over the waters. "There is nothing there because you have brought the darkness with you and you have come to poison them against me."

"I don't want your city," said the younger dragon calmly. "I have my own."

"A town, a village, a tiny scrap against the wilderness," she scoffed. "I have the City by the Sea, the jewel of the river, the place where all roads meet. Why would you want that crumb when you can have a feast?"

"Some of us like crumbs," he said. "I don't want your city or your magic, I want you to look into the pools and see what we can see. Listen to the truth of things instead of the wild falsehoods that the shadow is feeding you."

"All you have to do is listen," said Khany and the elder dragon turned its piercing gaze on her. She tried not to shrink, but the dragon was just as old and just as powerful as her own dragon's teacher and the feeling to doom was almost unbearable. "You can hear lies, right?"

There was a pause and the elder dragon considered.

"I can tell if you lie," she said finally. "But what good is that? You'll only know what you've been told and they are more than capable of feeding you false truths."