The pair of women who walked beside the lord could not have been more different if they tried. 

The first, hovering uncertainly near the lord’s side as though unsure where she should position herself, was remarkably short, making even her diminutive husband look comparatively a giant. That, at least, was how it should be, or so his - father? Grandfather? Had sneered at her the previous night.

Then again, the old man had said all kinds of things. Not once before had anyone ever likened her demeanor to that of a puddle of slime ooze... she shivered slightly under the memory of his icy glare, carefully adjusting the hood of her cloak to not muss the pair of braids that were pinned tightly around her head. 

He was right, she supposed, and that was the worst part. 

Miry Loravyr, Warden of Time, professional puddle of backbone-less ooze. It had quite the ring to it, she thought idly, tapping her fingers on the edge of the stretched silk screen she carried under her arm. She peered up curiously at the short lord - her [i]husband[/i], Naia’s mercy - as he started speaking, and belatedly realized the enormous creatures that occupied the courtyard were nothing at all like she’d expected.

Lord Zakroti had mentioned a ride that evening, and she had thought, of course, of horses. Even when he’d alluded to their unfamiliar nature, she had thought- the hardy draft horses from the south, maybe, or even the winged ice spirits of northeastern legend... or perhaps even a wyvern, from the far north of Drakka. She’d read about those in several narratives, though now she wasn’t too sure of the pragmatics of trying to [i]ride[/i] such a beast.

Miry hummed anxiously, and despite her fear of overstepping her lord’s boundaries, found herself quickly huddling under his arm, shielding her face against the chest plate of his armor, fingertips rapidly flailing between the signs for ‘big’ and for ‘dragon’.

Dragons. That was the first thought that crossed her mind; bloated, wingless dragons, perhaps the offspring of the sort that had razed so many gemmenian cities in the third era... 

But the beast made no move to raze them. After a moment, Miry’s eyes popped open again, curiously, to regard the creature’s - now much closer - face. It flicked its tongue out; Miry chose to believe it was in greeting. She chirped nervously, a high-pitched squeaking in the back of her throat, and gave the large creature a slight, incredibly shaky bow. 

She did not particularly wish to call the creature ‘a creature’ forever, but she wasn’t about to ask the lord to repeat something he’d surely just said! She half turned, meeting her sister-bride’s eye for a moment before glancing back at the creature. [i]Nenra! Name?[/i] she signed, drawing the point of the question out from her chin towards the beast for extra emphasis.

The taller bride, hovering a few paces behind them, raised her eyebrows incredulously. “I’m not sure I can say that, Miry. Gun-OUT? That’s what they’re called?” She mumbled the words, turning to face their lord and forcing herself to slouch down in her boots, bending her knees slightly and sinking her shoulders. It did little to match their stature; as she had noticed the previous night, her chin was on a level with his nose even if she was barefoot! 

Nenra stopped into a vague approximation of a bow, ears and neck reddening as she remembered the words thrown about her ears for the last two weeks of ‘training’, said by guards as though she couldn’t hear them. They joked about all manner of things, most often that she been a Drakkan recruit run away from the southern border in disgrace. After all, for those who defect, there’s nowhere to go. It made sense that she must’ve sawn off her horns and gone to live as a gem. Especially with a nobodies’ name - no record outside of her own tiny village of her surname.

Despite her best efforts, her lips curled into a vague snarl, but she was quick to school her features into blankness as the soldiers looked to her. 

Some of them saw her as dangerous, she was sure of it, and maybe she could even see why. She was tall, of a height with most Gemmenite men, her hair short and fluffy around her ears, and she wore a simple linen tunic and trousers that showed off her broad shoulders and muscular arms. 

She shook her hair out of her eyes and approached one of the creatures, tentatively extending a hand to be sniffed. She half expected fangs to sink into her palm, but the creature was serene, extending a scaled muzzle into the curve of her hand and pressing forward, as though expecting to be scratched under the chin. She obliged it, careful not to catch herself on the sharp edges of its chest scales.

An image pressed into her mind, sleepy and warm, of sun-baked mudflats on the banks of a river, several of these creatures laid out on heated rocks. Curiously, Miry popped into existence in the picture, running with a herd of smaller - or just young, perhaps - creatures, all of them squeaking and chirping.

“They think you’re a baby, Miry,” she mumbled, the sleepy inflection of the picture spilling over into her voice. “Because you squeak so much. They’re not gonna hurt you; this one just wants to go home and soak in the sun.” 

At length, she pulled her hand away from the creature’s chin, ignoring its pointed, plaintive chirp. “If I may be remarkably dense, my lord,” she stumbled over the honorific, but stubbornly kept speaking, turning to regard the top of the lord’s head rather than meet his eyes, “how are these creatures... to be ridden?”