《The Inconvenient Life Of A Dragoness》Fire In The Hole

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Oh, oh yes. This is perfect! Doing my best to ignore the forest storm above, I slide a claw along the interior of the soon to be bowl while rolling with the scaly parts of the other claws digits leaving a -perfectly even- bowl behind.

Just looking at it makes me feel all tingly! How did using the the fleshy parts of my claws like fingers not occur to me until now!? It would have made my carving attempts so much easier! Not to mention the sheer ease my claws move through wood compared to stone! Well, they were just sharpened...

Looking at my claws, they have a shiny texture where the layers came off while sharpening. My claws have a really nice pattern on them now too! It's like a wave pattern or the one on muscle shells!

Let's get back to appreciating the sheer finery that is my new wooden bowl! I've managed to get it perfectly round by rolling the wood chunk with my left claws digits and holding the right claws edges against it like a peeler, thus proving that cooking and clay modelling skills are applicable to survival crafting. Cutting the wooden ball in half by rolling it with my left claws digits while my right claw edges were held against the centre worked rather well, if a bit messy.

Looking at the floor just fills me with despair...

There's so much dust and so many wood shavings! Some have been pressed into the dirt where the floor hasn't been compacted. I really should have crushed the dirt into something resembling a floor... Could I use my tail for that? Guess I'm going to be using the sword tail for another non-sword task.

Have I even used it as a sword? Oh well, it'll get its day at some point...

The sound of stuff hitting the ground is really annoying me now, they had better shut up with that racket and go away soon or I'm going to start losing my temper...

Now I just need to finish carving my second bowl, designate a storage area, sweep my new breakfast supplies into said storage area instead of leaving them scattered on the floor, smack the dirt floor until it's compact with my tail and then have second breakfast using one of my new wonderfully made bowls.

Chewing on my bowl of pine nuts, all I can hear is more food and branches hitting the ground. It's been nearly two or three hours now and they just haven't stopped. It's incredible that they still have things to throw honestly!

Ah, I've finished... These really aren't that filling... Cutting open a few more pine nuts to eat I begin to ponder the possible recipes possible utilizing only pine. The nuts and needles are edible and happen to be rather chewy which I happen to be a big fan of, the bark is incredibly tough and it has a tendency to break into chunks that are as tough to chew as an old boot with a tenth of the flavour. The inner bark is much softer and fibrous while having a fresh flavour to it almost like citrus.

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Remembering the fibres getting stuck in my teeth I drag my tongue across them occasionally finding a gap where the tooth had been knocked out... hopefully they grow back soon...

As I'm giving my gaps an inspection the sounds and shaking finally seems to be calming down. They stopped? Took them long enough! I was running out of things to do.

Heading to the entrance and peeking out through the gaps only lets me see pine nuts... I'm going to give it a few minutes... I don't want it to start again immediately.

Grabbing the bowl I want to fill with water I head back to the entrance and resume my wait. I just have to be patient. That's all.

Any minute now. Just ignore how thirsty you are, It won't kill you to be thirsty for a while.

It should be fine now right? No, I should keep waiting...

Screw it.

Shoving my door aside with some effort sends branches flying and let's an avalanche of nuts fill my lair...

Guess I won't need to go foraging for those anytime soon.

Tossing some branches down the entrance to strip the needles from later I pick my bowl back up and resume my waddle walk towards where I saw a break in the canopy. I just need to leave my bowl in the rain to get water while I look around for something other than pine to eat. It's got a nice texture and smell but it doesn't quite feel filling... It's essentially junk food.

What I wouldn't give for a steak right about now...

Entering the tree break I immediately freeze. The entire area is coated in green and brown furry bat creatures with flat triangular noses, four legs, claw tipped hands and bulging bug eyes...

I really started to expect normal animals huh? When I'm a dragon?

I think they noticed me... I can't hear them but they all just turned to look at me... maybe they use a frequency I can't hear? They do look like bats after all... They're leaving so it should be fine to get water. Placing my bowl in the rain I stare at the weird bat things as they climb and fly back into the branches.

*ROOAAAA-!*

...WAIT A DAMN MINUTE!!!

The moment I accidentally roared they scattered like roaches and vanished into the needles and branches.

Those little pests!

I know what has been annoying me all day now... I wish I'd caught one while they were gathered around the puddles of rainwater now...

Gulping down a bowl of water and putting it back down to refill I begin my plans of revenge...

Revenge just so happens to smell like barbeque...

Outside the forests boundary I get ready for my third or fourth attempt at breathing fire. I'm still not sure which it is...

Pushing down against the bottom of my mouth with my tongue and dragging it back sends a steady stream of sparks flying out.

So step one, aka, ignition is understood. Now I need to find out what is connected to that gesture to spray that weird liquid. It's evidently not spit since my saliva is a clear liquid as I discovered when I thought about a medium well-done steak. Dragons drool too apparently...

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Playing around with dragging my tongue isn't doing anything but making my face spray sparks like a grinder... Do I push instead? Let's give it a try.

Placing my tongue at the back of my mouth and pushing forward along the bottom causes a small geyser of blue-white flame to spray out of my mouth sticking to the ground and burning everything...

Holy crap I spit napalm...

It isn't burning in my mouth or exploding either... what went wrong with my previous attempts in that case? Was it just a freak accident? Whatever happened was probably something stupid knowing my luck.

The fire is still burning bluish white... on soaking wet grass... pretty sure that's some of the hottest kind of fire. What the hell am I spraying?

Let's see if I can spray a larger amount this time!

Drinking out of my bowl I push my tongue forward as fast as I can sending a small spray of burning liquid in a sort of pseudo-fireball.

Awesome! What happens if I do it slower?

Pushing as slow as I can sends a firehose stream of burning death across the ground for about twenty seconds. Definitely good enough to barbeque some pests...

Looking at the lines of fire I have left everywhere I can't help but feel satisfied. My inner pyromaniac approves! Taking a drink I almost start to laugh. Probably not a good sign but I now have a permanent source of fire! No more raw meat!

The last thing I want to test is moving my head around to create a sea of flame. It's gotta happen.

Repeating my last attempt and moving my head back and forth just leaves burning lines where the liquid lands... that's disappointing. I'll have to figure out how to create flame swaths and cones later.

For now it's time to roast some nuts.

Drinking everything in my bowl and heading back towards my lair I can't keep the grin off my face.

Are they seriously?

*Clack*

Yeah, They are... Well! No time like the present! It's time to cook!

Spraying a liberal amount of burning doom down the entrance to my lair I pull the bark I was using as a door across the opening and lie on top.

They really should have known better than to enter the dark scary hole in the ground...

Watching the smoke rise out of the gaps in the door I can smell pine smoke and cooking meat! There's also the smell of burnt hair but I'll just ignore that...

*Thunk*

Did I miss one? Guess it's going to get slow cooked...

*Thunk*

It's rather lively, smoke inhalation should fix that.

*Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk*

There's more than one?

*Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk*

Holy crap! How many were down there!? The smoke is getting thicker too...

*Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk*

*Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk*

*Crack*

Uh oh...

Falling through the broken bark and down the smoke filled tunnel in a tangle of fur and scales I see a rapidly approaching scene of horror on every downward facing roll.

Fire.

Lots of fire...

Lots of burning things too...

Digging in with my claws and tail I just barely stop myself from plunging into the raging inferno that was once my lair and adding to the rising amount of burning things.

The bat creatures weren't quite as lucky...

Dragging myself back up the tunnel accompanied by the billowing smoke I catch a glimpse of bat creatures fleeing through the remaining branches.

I guess they got the message.

Pulling myself over the broken bark and out of the hell hole I now realize the mistake I have made...

Everything in my lair was flammable.

Everything.

Including my perfect bowl...

Ugh... Fuck!!!

Time to go dig another lair... good thing I brought my water bowl with me. I at least have something to eat out of...

Waddling away from the scene of my stupidity deeper into the forest I can almost hear the fire burning underground.

Look at me, I've learned to breathe fire! I've set my house on fire! What should I do~?

I'm such an idiot.

That wasn't even cooking! I just set everything on fire! I didn't even kill or prepare the ingredients!

Next time I breathe fire as it were I'm going to have an actual reason.

It's a good thing these dirt lairs are so easy to dig otherwise I would be sleeping outside tonight.

Flattening the dirt inside with my tail I hear a pine nut smack the ground just inside the entrance...

I've had enough.

Walking outside and ignoring all the pine nuts hitting me I cleanly shave a section of bark off the nearest tree, drag it back over to my entrance, kick some nuts down the hole and shut myself inside.

I will deal with those pests in the morning.

For now I'm just going to dig some dirt loose to use as a makeshift bed. It won't be as comfy as my usual stone dust standard but it should do for now.

Gouging deep into the root filled wall fills the lair with the smell of pine... that smell is really getting on my nerves.

Separating the roots and stones from the dirt I brush the loose dirt into the bed nook and throw everything I've separated out to the side. There is a lot more roots than stones surprisingly.

Climbing into my dirty bed and trying to get comfortable I can't help but plot revenge...

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