OPEN: Dragons and monsters and demons, oh my! [nightmare event]

[hildago]

[here, there be violence, but if you've read the book, that won't really surprise you.]

Another grand adventure! Atop of Rocinante, who seems in fine form today, Don Quixote is venturing out, his cardboard visor in place, his twig-lance ready and able at his side, his rusty sword ready in its cloth sheath for what might come!

He needn't even wait very long. Just as he's looking at what seems to be a kind of bench, the very thing rears up! A lion! Never minding that there aren't any lions in Spain, he draws up his lance! "Vile beast!," he exclaims! "You must be vanquished to save the lovely women of La Mancha!" He stirs Rocinante up to a trot (once again, it is never recorded that Rocinante actually galloped) and levels his lance at the benchlion! Using great sharp teeth, the lion bites down on the lance and pulls Don Quixote to the ground in a heap. He must fight off the beast or else be food for the demon animal!

It is not the most glamorous of battles: the knight is sorely bruised and more than a little scraped up, his cardboard visor long gone. But he rests assured that he's not doing anythingsaved the women of the village!

So, off he goes again, back astride his majestic steed. Wait! Is that a dragon?! It is! Surely that will land him in the books of great chivalraic lore! He is yanking at his sword, stuck in its sheath as he spurs Rocinante forward!

[come join the fracas. Anything can be anything in Don Quixote's dreams and chances are, he'll be the worse for wear every time]

Comments

[clairedanvers]

Well, this isn't where she left her car. Not that she has a car. But if she left it anywhere, this would not be it. Normally there would be paved roads for a car, not dirt paths. Normally there would be other cars. But all Claire sees here as she squints into the sunlight in the distance, at least initially, is a loan rider on a loan horse not quite galloping in her direction.

How do you wave down a horse and rider? Is there a certain etiquette for that? Claire has a genius IQ. She's from Texas where there are horses and riders aplenty. She reads a thousand words per minute give or take a few. But she really and truly doesn't know the etiquette for flagging down a horse.

So what does she do? She pokes her thumb out and points it in a direction as if she's hitchhiking. It seems logical enough. Now she just has to hope he sees her and can tell her what's going on. And that he isn't a nefarious individual of some sort. Here's hoping there are no villains in this tale, only neutral-good types. She'd even take neutral when it comes to strangers on a seemingly deserted road.

[hildago]

"Young madame!" exclaims the brave Quixote, only slightly gored with blood (his own, of course. He might also have one less tooth than which he started the day) as Rocinante ambles to a stop. "It is not safe for such a woman here in this time where Dragons and their ilk will attack. Come with me to safety!"

Never mind that the horse hardly looks able to hold Quixote, let alone someone else. It's the spirit of the thing! And Chivalry and the romance novels of old bid the hildago to safe fair damsels in distress!

[clairedanvers]

Well, all of that sounds really good to her except for one thing. Her hands rest on her hips and she squints up at him in the afternoon sun. "If it's not safe for a woman, it's not safe for a man either."

Texas might sometimes be a pretty backward state (although not all of it) and she might be used to vampires who are a gazillion years old thinking medieval a lot of the time even though the leader of the vampires is a pretty bad ass woman, but Claire herself is a modern woman and gender specifications just don't work for her without some sort of rebuttal even if the fall on deaf ears.

She looks down to the horse. "Or a horse." He speaks of dragons. A horse would be a nice little snack for a dragon... if there were actually dragons. Are there actually dragons? Her gaze turns skyward.

[hildago]

There are always dragons! It's only a matter of time before one makes its appearance.

"There has already been an attack of a great beast. Surely others are coming, too," he says, drawing himself high in his saddle, looking not (in his mind) like an old man, but a noble knight! And he has fought windmillsdragons, already. He is an authority!

"Will you acquiesce to let me, a lowly Knight Errant, protect you, young madame?"

[clairedanvers]

Well, she can only take his word for it. If he's already fought a dragon then she has to believe there will be more, just like he does. It's kind of frightening to think about. Who has nightmares about dragons unless they've actually experienced them in their real life? Sort of like she has nightmares about Vampires.

With no other course of action, she nods. "Yeah, I have no idea how to fight a dragon." So she'll stick with the guy who does.

[hildago]

Excellent! He will certainly earn great fame and glory if he protects this young maiden from a dragon!

And how convenient it is that one should rear up right over her shoulder! It was once some sort of child's play apparatus, but now! NOW, it is a fearsome and great dragon! Far worse than any he had fought before. It rears up on its legs and tilts its head back, clearly taking in breath so that it can surely singe them with demon-fire. (And in this dreamscape, this really is a dragon; one with golden scales and great blue-black eyes. And it sure does seem as if it is going to breathe fire down on them.)

"Get behind me!" Quixote roars, drawing himself up to his full height, his armor creaking.

[clairedanvers]

When the man's eyes widen, Claire turns to look behind here and sees the dragon (omg) rearing up behind her. The man doesn't have to tell her twice. She's here without any weapons. Plus, dragon (omg)!

Claire runs to the other side of the horse the man is riding and looks up to him, eyes wide and wild because who ever thought she would be caught in the same space as a dragon? She's never in her life seen a dragon. This is now and sort of crazy.

"Do you have another sword?" She asks. Not that she knows how to wield a sword, but he has one and she wants one too. She mutters under her breath. "Or a bazooka?"

[hildago]

"I shall defeat you, beast! For all the books of old talk of taking the point of the sword under the firedrake's chin!"

Which seems to be easier said than done, what with the breathing of fire and the very long neck. Luckily for those in the dream, the fire seems to lack heat as it licks at both Don Quxiote and the fair damsel he is sworn to protect. When the demon runs out of fire-breath, the hildago urges his steed forward, now! To strike the beast down!

Except the horse is no fool. Rocinante decides it's in his best interest not to charge toward this thing and simply stands quite still.

No mind! Don Quixote launches to his feet, landing with a clang of armor as he rushes forward. All the dragon needs to do then, of course, is use it's great teeth to latch onto the knight's arm and toss him aside like a rough-hewn bag of kindling.

[clairedanvers]

The heat of the fire breath warms her skin so that she can almost feel it turn red from the close proximity. She dances back further behind Rocinante and the knight. Wow. He's a real knight. Look at his armor. He seems to know what he's doing too. Except...

Oh this is not good.

"Hey!" Claire screeches, still hiding behind the horse who seems very sturdy and steadfast in his life choices. She's used to dealing with vampires. What is she supposed to do about a dragon? Uhmmm...

Distraction. Give the man a second to recover and do his thing. Maybe. Hopefully. Without much thought, she runs in the other direction from the knight just a few feet from the horse. She waves her arms and jumps up and down a few times. "Hey! Over here! Nice dragon! Can you be a nice dragon, please?"

[hildago]

Whoosh. The dragon sweeps its head to look at the girl. And in the dreamscape, he turns promptly back into what Claire would recognize as a slide.

"There is no such thing as a nice dragon," Don Quixote groans, sitting up with a clang of armor. "The beasts are from the devil."

Which is an odd thing to say, since he's referencing a slide.

[clairedanvers]

"Well I mean... some of them have to be less ornery than others. Right? I mean they can't all be..." Right now she's thinking of Puff the magic dragon or the baby dragons from Game of Thrones before they got all huge. Or the movie How to Train Your Dragon. Welp. These are nothing like those.

Except now it's a slide.

Claire looks to the knight and then runs over to him. "I don't know about the devil, but are you okay?"

[hildago]

"I am in fine form!" Don Quixote says, though he's bleeding and his joints do not seem to agree, creaking and moaning. "I am so glad that I was able to protect you, fair damsel!"

Which ... doesn't exactly represent what happened, but when does it? "You are well, I assume?"

[clairedanvers]

"Yeah, I'm glad too and I'm okay. I've never seen a dragon before." He doesn't look in fine form. There's blood, and his joints seem to be creaking and protesting even more than his armor is. She glances to the slide and then moves closer to the knight. Is he actually a knight in not so shinning armor? She's never seen one of those either.

So forgive her, Don, when she raps her knuckles against the metal at his shoulder, then hums and nods when she's assured herself that it's actual armor. She bets that's heavy. "So you're a knight of some kind?"

[hildago]

The armor, Claire might be interested to know, has been passed down in the Quesada family for generations. How it might have been earned? Well, that is a mystery.

Regardless! Don Quixote has saved a damsel from distress! "We should move somewhere else lest the beast wake from its slumber," he tells her with grave knowledge of the inner-workings of dragons. "Come, fair maiden! I shall whisk you away to safety!"

But where? As he turns, he hears what others might construe to be a car driving by. To Quixote, it is a beast bent on their destruction! And lo, and behold, that is what it becomes! Wide and heavy and growling smoke, it comes barreling at them.

[clairedanvers]

Of course she would be interested in knowing that. Claire is always interested in learning new things. She's one of those people who has always actually enjoyed school both when she was younger and into college. Too bad her overprotective parents had kept her from continuing on to Harvard or MIT immediately after high school.

"Fair maiden?" She asks with a smirk-snort sort of thing. Myrnin is super old and even he has never called her that. But she starts to walk with him back toward his horse.

Then there's a car and right when she's thinking of flagging it down, it becomes something else. "Another dragon! Incoming!" She yells and points. "Where's your sword?"

[hildago]

Where is Don Quixote's sword?!

In his hand, dream-magically enough. Thank goodness!

He brandishes it at the beast. "You will not smite us!," he declares. "We will destroy you!"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that does little to stop this wide, heavy thing from coming at them, opening its mouth, seemingly to devour them whole!

Which it does.

Oddly enough, they are able to stand up in the beast's mouth. "Well, this is interesting," Don Quixote noted, nonplussed.

[clairedanvers]

The knight seems like he's really ready to kick some ass. And she's ready to back him up if he needs it. She's good at back up. She's even good at leading. But this is a dragon. And apparently an old night and a girl genius are no match for a dragon.

Everything is suddenly dark and... ew what is that smell? Are they?

She thinks they are. They're in the dragon's mouth and Myrnin is so gonna eat this dragon for eating his girlfriend. A peek between what appears to be razor sharp teeth shows them high up in the air as the dragon soars.

"Okay." She says, starting to panic. "Okay." Deep breaths. Deep breaths will keep her from panicking. But she still smells sulfur. What happens if it breathes fire?

She turns to face the knight, her feet on squishy tongue. "We have to get out of here. You have to get us out of here."

[hildago]

"None of the great romances spoke of being swallowed by a dragon," Don Quixote mulls. "I - "

And that is when he has the most brilliant (aka stupid) idea! "Hold tight to my waist, fair damsel!" And he raises his sword, bringing it down in a point in the dragon's tongue!

With that, they are spit free.

Of course, being spit free means they are now falling. The books never covered this either!

[clairedanvers]

She's about to ask him what he's going to do when she actually sees it, rendering the question null and void. She didn't grab onto him quickly enough. Now she's free falling with that never ending weightlessness made of the stuff of nightmares.

Claire grabs onto the first thing she can touch, his foot. And oh wow it's a long way down.

The wind whips past her hair and clothes and the ground is getting closer and closer. "You have to stop this!!" She yells. "You can stop this!"

[hildago]

It's funny the way dreams work. Whereas Don Quixote lands with a bone-rattling thud, Claire seems to have been caught by a very large bird and swooped into the air.

"Oh, dear," the hildago wheezes. "I hope it doesn't eat her."