One Skill Short

The Things we do for Nobles

(Maven)

It had been a joke.

So why were we in this part of the Hinterlands? The camp was cool and all, but why were we going downhill?

"What can you tell us about this dragon?" Those words were really coming out of Odessa's mouth. The ground wobbled beneath my feet, now clad in much better fitting boots. It was like water had seeped into my gloves and I removed them while we were still perched at camp and wiped them off on rough leather pants before my gaze wavered to Drusilla, who had her eyes closed for longer than a blink.

"Really?" She snagged her water skin and took a swig. Then her eyes met mine. A silent message passing between us, a reminder of Haven. The archdemon sighting.

"Right, of course...fuck." She hissed under her breath.

"First off, the valley is where we meet it's babies while she flies around and spits fire at us from above. The smaller ones shoot fire too. Female, fucking huge, and called a Fereldan Frostback. She lifts any of her legs for longer than a couple of seconds you get your ass away from that leg. Her tail too. There is a very obvious stance where she will sweep the shit out of you, so keep moving. I cannot emphasize that enough. If you see her stop and start flapping her wings, Sera, you especially, move in. The motion will cause a pull and it is safe inside the ring that forms. Once it stops, you're good to put distance between you and the dragon."

"Don't get crushed, burned, or smacked by the huge waving tail. Easy, yeah?" It was strange to be in a group up with Sera since Drusilla and I rarely used her...but we knew she liked killing dragons. She got a rush out of it and always commented during that rare occasion.

So, of course, there was no coming out here without the Iron Bull. There was also Cassandra, brought along for family history even though she was the least excited of our Dragon Age born group to be fighting one.

The word scared was an understatement.

"Maven, you going to be okay there? Remember, this is a dragon not a T-rex." Drusilla was doing her best to lighten the mood despite the tremble in her tone.

I smiled but my brain was working overtime, trying to figure out what had happened for things to turn out this way. This was way sooner than usual for us to be facing a dragon. Neither of us crossed into full on dragon fighting territory in the Hinterlands until at least level twelve.

We were not level twelve yet. Even without a level system, I was not confident and I didn't feel ready.

Wait...there was only one way this situation would occur so prematurely and it had a certain redheaded spymaster's name all over it. I could hear her persuasive voice in my head now.

"Word of the Inquisition hunting down a dragon and bringing back it's head would be momentous. Imagine a party built around it to celebrate! It would catch the eye and ear of the most influential nobles around...maybe even the Empress herself."

That catty pitviper.

Drusilla and I seemed to have come to the same conclusion as we marched the rest of the way down the hill from the camp, newly motivated.

Which was really just a nicer synonym for pissed.

Odessa and the others were already digging into the dragonlings spotting the area while actively dodging dragon fire. We marched passed them, only fighting dragonlings when they got in our way.

We stopped when she flew passed us to the real fighting grounds.

"How did you know it would do that?" Sera asked, slightly out of breath from her multitasking. There was a tearing sound as she yanked an arrow from the flesh of a dragonling. She seemed like she was having a little fun.

"We didn't, but this valley isn't where the fight was held. It was there." Drusilla answered, with her index pointed towards where the dragon now waited.

"You're just going to go after it?" Cassandra asked, finally saying something.

"Well, yeah," I started, my voice more like my sister's.

"And we're going to pretend it's the spymaster today." My twin finished, her words sickly sweet at first before ending in a growl. Rage was one of the only feelings that could compel us to willingly fight a dragon.

A real life, scaled, fire breathing behemoth.

"Drusilla, we need a plan at the very least."

"Do we, though? Why can't we just wreck it? Destroy this bitch to help build our confidence enough to face Leliana."

"To be fair. It was us who mentioned dragon fighting. We brought this on ourselves earlier than usual. Why wouldn't Leliana use every piece on her side of the board?" I reasoned.

"I hate that that makes sense," She grumbled.

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