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After closing up the tavern for the night, and returning to his quarters, Kang was glad to see that Astrid had fallen asleep in the spare bed he'd offered her. She desperately needed it. He was careful to be quiet as he slipped off his breastplate and kilt (unlike humans and other races, draconians didn't worry about modesty, and sleeping in armor wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing), and lay down to go to sleep himself.

He probably should have warned her that he snored on occasion.

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No, he did not. It was too late, anyway, 'cause she was splayed on her stomach, passed out. Too exhausted to dream of nightmares or mushy boyfriend/girlfriend stuff. At least she is sleeping now after a period of time fighting it.

ZZZzzz...

Sorry, Astrid, if his snoring does wake you up.

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He probably should have warned there would be a snoring, nude mass of draconian man greeting her when the audible sound much like that of a growl jars her out of sleep, her eye snapping open and the girl nearly startled upright from the unexpected sight on the opposite bed of her own.

She settles, quick to notice that it's...really not all that different than having Toothless in the room.

Hazily remembering where she is, Astrid groggily falls back on the meat mattress, throwing her arms over her face and head, trying to block out the noise. When that was futile, she then figures she'll just have to do something about it and Astrid moves, staggering over to him.

Finding his snout, she stuck two fingers in his nostrils.

Forgive me, Kang, but in order to save my sanity...

Being asleep, and having had this happen before (much to his annoyance and Fonrar's amusement), Kang's immediate thought was that one of his daughters had escaped her mother's watch and crawled up on the bed with him. He snorted, shaking his head and pushing himself up on his elbows, "Dammit, Yana, don't-"

Except it wasn't Yana.

"...Astrid? The hell are you doing?"

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She braced herself, but she's pleasantly surprised his body didn't react violently.

"Doing what your wife should be here to do," she quipped harmlessly. "You were snoring. Kinda loudly."

Now she's looking faintly amused he randomly mumbles out loud when disturbed. "...Yana?"

"Mate, not wife. She usually kicks me," Kang corrected, sitting up and pulling his wing back in to settle against his back. It was another thing Fonrar found amusing, the fact that one of his wings tended to end up hanging off the bed. "My daughter. She's got a habit of doing things like that to wake me up."

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Astrid wipes her hand on her suit, giving a nod. "Mate," she corrects herself and returns to the adjacent bed.

"We both know you wouldn't appreciate it if I kicked you, so I took the next course of action. Though if it were Hiccup--" She stops there, half-embarrassed that it is only reminding Kang of their sleeping arrangements and half-reminding herself of Hiccup's condition.

"...Your daughter sounds spunky. I haven't met her yet, but I like her already."

"Should have warned you I do that sometimes. Sorry," Kang apologized, scales clicking softly. He felt bad for waking her up when he'd offered her the other bed so that she could possibly sleep.

Smiling to himself, he lay back down, "She's a troublemaker, alright. Always pulling on her siblings' tails or tweaking their wings, or getting into things she's not supposed to."

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"I took care of it. If it happens again, I'll try to find other means without disturbing you," she joked lightly, shifting to rest on her back. She's kind of awake for the moment, but she isn't fretting over it.

"But you love her regardless. Must make Daddy proud."

Kang grinned, pillowing his chin on his arms, "Throw something at me."

He glanced over at Astrid. "She's my daughter. Of course."

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She gave him an odd look. That's a first. No one has ever straight out given her permission to throw something at them.

Watching the ceiling, she fell in to silence. And hooking her hands together to rest on her stomach, eventually she speaks up again--this time the subject drastically changed.

"...Just what happened back there, Kang? What happened on that planet? I can take it now. I'm ready to know."

Kang returned the look with one of confusion, wings shifting into a more comfortable position.

"Basically, bad intel. Stacy told us that the miners had left to fight a war on another planet, and that the mine was abandoned. We were ambushed by those creatures, and five of the others, including Hiccup, got dragged off. The rest of us had to retreat to the ship. They'd hit us so fast, and we needed to minimize losses," he sighed, voice quiet. He knew Astrid was more than strong enough to handle it.

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"That... must have been a hard decision to make. I cannot say I would have done the same..."

Hard, but necessary, she painfully understood to a degree. As a leader you cannot allow personal feelings to cloud you and risk dooming the entire group and recklessly sacrifice more lives.

"I'm grateful you went back for him. At least... he was spared from dying alone in darkness."

"Our pilot and the one person who could fix the ship quickly were among the kidnapped; it'd been sabotaged. Stacy sent us a message telling us that the power core was going critical, and that we needed to get off the planet soon, but..." Kang snorted. "We couldn't leave them anyways. I'd never forgive myself for not at least trying. All of them were my responsibility."

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Something didn't set right with Astrid.

"Bad intel. An abandon mine completely overrun with an infestation of beasts. ...Are you telling me the whole mission was a fatal error on Stacy's part?"

"Hiccup and everyone was carelessly thrown into danger--and now he's paying for that mistake," she says and narrows her eyes to the ceiling. Her clasped hands slowly squeeze together, making her knuckles grow white.

Kang's tail lashed moodily. "You're not the only one that's pissed about this, believe me."

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Pissed isn't the word she would describe her personal feelings on it.

"The word I feel is far more intense. Every emotion and instinct inside me wants to show it... and it's frustrating when I know it's futile and it'd be overreacting."

"--But if he dies, I can't promise you I'd let it go lightly," she declared.

Probably not the best thing to state to one of the councilmen, but guess it is better to warn him ahead of time, right?

"I don't really blame you for feeling that way. Just don't do anything rash," Kang said, shifting slightly. He knew that if such a thing had happened to Fonrar, he'd be beyond pissed, and vice versa. "One of Fonrar's sisters, Ogla, lost her mate about a year ago. There was some sort of misunderstanding, and a group of humans killed him. She... didn't take it well, and she insisted that we kick all non-draconians out of Teyr because of it."

Edited 2010-09-15 20:09 (UTC)

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"I don't think I can blame her... I'm not sure what I would do if--" She shakes her head, ridding the thought.

"So I take it she wasn't successful?"

Kang shook his head, "She was gaining supporters. Not very many, thankfully; with as tense as the political situation in Teyr was, kicking out the other races could have sparked conflict with one of the other nations."

"I am beginning to see why you are so wise, Kang. You must have seen it all with the perils of your world."

Laughing, Kang glanced over at her, "Practical, maybe, but I don't really consider myself to be wise. My experiences have been vastly different from most of the people on Krynn, and really, most of my kind."

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Pfft, you're wise, Kang. Don't be modest.

"Still, you moved around a lot, right? Must've be nice," she mused. "Before my abduction here, my sole experiences were simply constricted to our barbaric archipelago."

"We had to, during the war. Part of being a soldier. It was nice to have one place to call home, though," Kang shrugged. "Something that was ours, that we created."

Proof that they were capable of something other than destruction.

"It was no easy feat, I'm sure."

"Why was there a war, anyway?"

"...how much did you overhear when I was talking to Hiccup before?" Kang asked, after a pause. "I was never upset about that, by the way."

She scratches her cheek, glancing away. So he remembered that.

"...You were saying you were bred from eggs and trained to fight. Was it for the war?"

Kang nodded, "Yes. The goddess Takhisis was trying to take over Krynn, again, so she had us created to serve her as shock troops. She lost in the end, though, and I'm not really all that upset by it; no discipline, and all the officers cared about was power and wealth. Hardly a week went by without someone being found with a dagger in their back." He snorted.

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Astrid nearly snorted herself. "And the irony; you're brought here to be used and fitted in another role as a troop. It's just a different squad... and a different war this time."

That wasn't far from the truth when you regard the last mission forced upon Kang and the others.

"I noticed that, too," Kang said dryly. "I retired from the military for a reason."

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Now they were just going in circles, weren't they. The Ohm. That mission. Agitating stuff... and she felt far too drained to feel agitated.

She releases a quiet sigh of frustration, tired blue eyes falling shut. "Think I'll try this sleep thing again," she jokes lightly as she turns on her side with her back facing to him.

"If I hear anything else... I'll have my foot ready."

Kang chuckled, shifting to get more comfortable, and closed his eyes as well, "Good night, Astrid."

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