The Stray

Scars, Pt. 6

Dawn had started to spill across the sky by the time Valencia showed Timothy to their guest room. Miss Larue had hustled Meri off to bed already, and Kate had been content to rest in her seat at the table as everyone bustled off. Mat'd already worked a triple shift, so he staggered off to get tidied up downstairs with a somewhat slurred goodnight. Maisie surprised him by saying goodnight and then slobbling off to the actual bakery building.

Valencia, having already cleaned herself up, instead got charged with finding a towel and some spare clothes for the wolf. So the curious wolf found himself following the dragoness to her room.

"Alright, fair warning, the place's kind of a mess." She rubbed her arm. "I'm just gonna find you some of my old gear, it oughta be stuffed in the closet somewhere."

"Thanks, Valencia." The wolf wasn't entirely certain about being alone with Valencia, if he was bein' honest. She wasn't gonna beat him up, obviously, after all the trouble she'd gone through to help him stay here, but... she had more muscle in one arm than he had in his whole body. It was a little intimidating, for multiple reasons.

She chuckled as she opened the door. "Only mama calls me that. You can just call me V, arright? Everyone does."

V's room was done up in purples and blacks, with posters hung on almost every inch of every wall. Pictures of other really buff men and women flexed at him from all sides. He thought they were characters from something, maybe, since many were in elaborate costumes and harnesses. He'd seen the radio downstairs, and the dragoness had a bigger one of her own, built boxy and with a sturdy handle on top. Her bed was tossed and rumpled, with a mix of long pillows and normal ones. Several big jars with names like "PROTE-MAX" and "ARM FUEL" were stacked atop each other in triangles along the walls, like they were a display. And there were tons of thin books all over, with extremely colorful covers featuring action of all kinds, from gunslinging horses to the same lioness from her shirt punching out some wizard lookin' guy. V blushed as his eyes fell on a poster above her bed of a particularly handsome silver dragon posing across a durawn-drawn carriage. Timothy's jaw went a little slack.

"I—"

"S-shut up." V coughed into her fist. "He's hot."

"Y-yeah." Timothy blushed a little, not quite wanting to look away from the immodestly dressed drake. Were— were guys like that just walking around in towns like this? Cuz if so, holy frass, there really were perks to living outside the woods. Not to mention the war party of attractive men and women that were plastered on every wall. Of course, the staring got a double take from V.

"Oh, you like guys?"

"I like both." He managed to tear his gaze away, a little embarrassed to be so distracted. "You?"

"Just dudes. The, uh, badass chick pictures are more've a 'goals' thing, y'know?" She had a silly little smile on her face as they both examined the pinup. "Ricardo, man..."

"That's his name?"

"Hell yeah. It sucks he lives in Sarro-dur." She sighed. "Wish we had more sexy dragon guys around here. Or even regular ones."

The wolf blushed. "Not a lot of'em?"

"Nah." She said it wistfully and tore her eyes away from the poster like she was dropping a jewel off a deep cliff. "I ain't ever met a dragon who wasn't my blood. Sucks." After a moment, the dragoness seemed to feel vulnerable, crossing her arms and blushing. "A-anyway, the clothes should be in here," she gestured at a closet door with her hips. "You can sit on the bed, this might take a minute."

Timothy carefully hopped up onto the bed. The dragoness planted her feet before hurling open the closet door. Not a moment later, an avalanche of more booklets, flat cases with bands on the fronts, a few battered chunks of chitin armor, and more rolled up posters smacked into the dragoness. It ended a few moments later with a stuffed animal bouncing down the top of the pile.