~~~

  Veronica was incensed by what was happening! She and Wyrmwood were discussing potentially trying to escape right when their captors opened the cage when someone had said “Do it.” And then a strangely hued purple-ish fog had been blown into the cage, likely with magic! Wyrmwood had tried to keep his head away but with the only ventilation in this solid metal prison being where the fog was coming from, it was only a matter of time until the place had filled up, forcing Wyrmwood to breathe it.

  She had the unique perspective, thanks to her happenstance of being a part of Wyrmwood’s body, to watch as the fog swirled in his lungs and dumped an astounding amount of sleeping and paralytic agents into his bloodstream!

  By the time her brother succumbed to the fog’s effects she was already half-way through establishing countermeasures. The unnatural length of their body gave her extra time as the sleeping and paralytic agents crept their way through the blood vessels towards her own brain.

  She first directed the fungal colony that either thrived in or made up Wyrmwood’s lungs, (she wasn’t yet sure which it was), to actively avoid the agents in the fog, leaving the exacts to the ever hungry colony.

  With them being trapped with not much to do, Veronica had spent most of their journey examining the inner workings of Wyrmwood’s draconian body, paying specific attention to the other significant organisms that inhabited him. The first she had found and been able to tentatively contact was, of course, the carnivorous dryad’s seed. She had originally directed it before even truly awakening, helping it to settle on Wyrmwood’s chest as a sort of flexible wooden breastplate made of incredibly hard tree bark.

  Or at least, that was the eventual plan, for now it was still just a piece of bark and tuft of fluffy grass covering Wyrmwood’s reverse scale at the dip between collar bone and neck.

  The seedling was still primitive in way of thought, but she and it had felt to be on pretty good terms. Sadly, it was useless to her in the current situation.

  The second had been a surprisingly well off and thriving fungal colony in (or in place of) his lungs! To her senses the colony felt like many tiny voices all desiring the same basic things. They filled up the usually empty space in the lungs, yet were quite porous as far as she could tell. Honestly, she didn’t yet understand how Wyrmwood could breath at all with his lungs filled up like that, but was currently assuming they traded a bit of his dragon blood for the oxygen and magic that they took from each draw of breath. Though if it worked like that, perhaps they could eventually even let Wyrmwood breathe underwater? Clearly this body was full of potential!

  The colony was unsurprisingly a collective in the mental department, though Veronica supposed it was surprising they had thoughts at all. She had to actively trade extra blood with the colony to get them to listen to her requests. They were at least fair in their dealings so far… so far being this one time as the flow of chemical agents stopped flowing into the blood and instead were actively drawn in and absorbed by the fungi.

  Veronica now needed to stop the chemical agents already in their blood from reaching her and then possibly force it out of the body to help Wyrmwood recover faster. For this task, she contacted the last entity she had discovered so far. This one being a fellow parasite similar to her original self!

  However, the tiny creature she contacted now was a true parasite. One that lived in its host’s body their entire life. She named it Tina. Tina is what is known as a “blood wiggy.” Blood wiggy’s are as small and thin as a single strand of hair except they’re blue and have hundreds of tiny webbed hands all over their body that help them move through their host’s blood vessels. They naturally help clean up their host’s circulatory system yet are disliked as problematic parasites as they tend to eat their host’s platelets, causing a lot of extra blood loss and in many cases, death if a scratch is missed.

  …With all her discoveries so far, it occurs to her that Wyrmwood should likely be constantly on the verge of anemia. Is it a dragon thing, or is there another being she hasn’t noticed yet helping with that?

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  Anyway, Tina the blood wiggy is a loner by nature, so it won’t listen to Veronica, but luckily that doesn’t matter in this instance because it naturally wants the blood it calls home to be relatively clean and healthy. Veronic watches for a bit as Tina collects and moves all the drugged blood towards Wyrmwood’s kidneys.

  Now confident that she won’t be drugged and paralyzed like Wyrmwood’s upper half, Veronica has a new problem: does she risk revealing herself to check on what’s going on?

  Throughout their capture so far she’s mainly been piggybacking off of Wyrmwood’s senses. Seeing through his eyes and all that. She hadn’t actually revealed her antenna or maw while any of their captors were nearby. Trying to make herself seem to anyone on the outside like she was just the tail end the hatchling hadn’t figured out how to properly control yet.

  Veronica hid herself because she didn’t need to interact with the rabble, she was a queen-to-be! They were beneath her! She definitely wasn’t scared!

  Just because her powerful mother was brought so low by similar bipeds, that didn’t at all mean she was nervous about what they would do to her! Nor to her brother once they learned she and Wyrmwood were actually a package deal! She was strong! Unafraid! She’d extend her antenna to check what was going on right now!

  …

  Right now!

  …

  Ever so slowly, Veronica’s fluffy antennae emerged from the edge between scale and hidden maw-tip, wiggling this way and that with obvious nervous energy.

  She sensed a lot more air flow than when they were in the cage! Was it open? Could she perhaps try being the front half for once and try dragging her deeply sleeping brother out behind her? No, the drugs in the fog had been stopped, but the paralytic agents were still being cleansed from their blood, she didn’t have enough control of Wyrmwood’s half. It was still not fully responsive.

  !!!

  Something was approaching Wyrmwood! There was something in the presence's hand?!

  Fear quickly piled up in Veronica’s mind at what they were going to do. She didn’t really know more than the basics of civilization her mother had shown her! For example, she knew that most “civilized” races were bipeds, but she’d never yet known why they thought to cover themselves in plants and the skin of other creatures! Some things simply couldn’t be properly conveyed through mental images alone. And so, Veronica panicked.

  She reared up and opened her maw at the approaching presence in a visual threat display! With no lungs of her own, she had to settle with snapping her + shaped maw open and closed to produce a series of warning clacks, then switched to rubbing her antennae together, producing a sound somewhere between a hiss and a rain stick.

  She sensed the presence quickly, pause and drop whatever it was holding, some kind of large metal circle? Whatever creature was in front of them made a hasty movement and Veronica reflexively lunged, proboscis extending as she snapped forward, yet she missed as the presence dived out of the way with a shout of; rage? Fear? Surprise? She really couldn’t tell with just her antennae!

  If she had her own proper eyes she’d be able to get a better idea of things, but alas, her fusion hadn’t given her such a blessing. She’d really been taking Wyrmwood’s senses for granted. If she’d properly practiced using her antennae, she’d have at least been able to possibly understand what the entity was shouting right now! It quickly left her sense range after she retracted herself and readied for another snake-like lunge.

  Had she done it? Were they safe now? She tentatively kept herself in her safe, er, regal striking position. After a few minutes of alertness, she’d begun to think she’d successfully protected them and relaxed slightly, her antennae swishing this way and that, still on high alert even as she lowered her maw to the ground for a more comfortable stance. Feeling more confident and self-assured now that they were probably alone again, she took the time to better examine the object that the presence had dropped when she’d revealed herself.

  Sure enough, it was a metal hoop of some kind. Her long, fully revealed antennae drooped over and poked at the object, the sensitive hairs picking up layers of magic!

  What ever could this be for? She wondered.

  The size was big enough to fit around them… wait, it couldn’t be… no way!.. Were they offering Wyrmwood some kind of tribute? But then why were they captured?

  Veronica was still panicking on the inside and simply couldn’t put the pieces together! She had no actual experience with anyone other than the Bog Mother, Wyrmwood and that one gryphon! The bit of interactions Wyrmwood had with their captors had felt separate enough from her that it’d been like experiencing it from a third person view. As such, her mind was grasping for straight forward, positive answers.

  Trying to scoot the hoop closer to their coils with her closed maw, she shrieked internally as a pulse of mana flew into the cage and connected with the metal hoop, which immediately disconnected, reversed, and closed around one of their coils!

  She freaked out! Writhing all over as she tried to get the now snug metal hoop off! Another pulse of mana flew in and connected with the hoop, and Veronica was suddenly trying to fight off a heavy urge to sleep!

  Why?! Veronica panicked, she had taken care of the drugs! Was this sleep magic?! Strong enough to work on a dragon?!

  Ah. She thought as her head slowly grew too heavy to keep up, her consciousness darkening as sleep closed in.

  But I’m not fully dragon, am I? Were her last thoughts before fitful forced sleep took her.

  ~~~