“Hey, Abba,” she crooned upon seeing him. It should be noted, only she got away with that ridiculous shortening of his chosen name.
“I assume there is a reason for your call.” Dragons didn’t play around with words like humans and tended to jump right to the point.
“I was bored,” she admitted. “It’s been storming the past few days.”
“Afraid to get wet?” he teased.
“More like everything yummy is hiding. The only good thing about this weather is I’ve been charging up on all the lovely lightning bolts,” she admitted. While Abaddon possessed the gift of fire—the kind that could melt almost anything—Pollita inherited that of electricity.
“It’s still cold here. The snow’s now several feet deep all over.” Apparently, winter would last a few more months. Just his luck to be hatched in a country that spent half the year suffering from frigid temperatures.
“I can’t wait to visit you. I’m so tired of doing nothing.”
“Dragons aren’t supposed to do anything. That’s what servants are for,” he reminded.
“My humans have been catering to my every need. Even the ones I didn’t know I had. It’s making me feel quite useless,” she grumbled.
Abaddon masked his expression to hide his jealousy. His own retinue remained rather sparse given the fact Pip thought they needed to be discreet about who learned about his existence. Pollita, on the other claw, had lucked out. Her first servant, a Peruvian named Mathias, came with a rather large family who’d been eager to pledge devotion to Pollita. “What is it exactly you wish to do?”
“Something. Anything!” Pollita exclaimed. “I want a meaningful task. Something that will advance us towards our goal of world domination.” A feat all dragons strove for.
“We’ve already begun the steps,” he reminded. They’d been investing their wealth in something called stocks, a way to apparently gain control of human industries. With enough ownership came power, with power came influence, with influence came the eventual revelation that dragons existed. Once that secret was unveiled, they would begin the conversion of the population from obeying human mismanaged governments to dragon rule. Or as he liked to call it, Dragocracy.
“I know we have, but it’s such a slow and utterly dull process,” she lamented, pouting prettily, not something he was used to seeing from the usually happy dragoness.
His muzzle pursed. “You haven’t shed recently.” He pinpointed the real reason for her discontent. Hormones.
“No, I haven’t,” she sulked. “I don’t understand. I’ve been eating so well and yet it’s been weeks since my last molt.”
“It’s coming,” he promised. “Females have ever been slower to grow.”
“So unfair,” Pollita grumbled. “Here you are, hatched after me, and yet look at you. Much larger already.”
She’d noticed? He casually expanded his chest. “Your growth will come.”
A sigh huffed from her, the heat of it momentarily misting the camera. “I know. I’m just impatient. On to other matters. Have you had any luck with the locations of the other eggs from our spawning?”
According to Leo, who’d uncovered some ancients scrolls, their maternal progenitor had allowed a human scribe to note where she’d dropped her eggs. Although “note” was being generous. The clues left behind were vague, saying things such as “where the mountains rise and touch the clouds” and “overlook a lake with serpentine creatures”. It didn’t help that it had been eons since those references had been penned and the landscapes that once might have seemed distinctive had changed.
“Leo’s been working on the clues and has come up with some possible locations.”
“As have my servants,” Pollita interjected. “But we won’t know if their theories are correct until we find an actual egg.”
“Hence why I’ve begun a subtle effort to recruit people to scout those locations.” So subtle, Abaddon didn’t have anyone yet, but he wasn’t about to let Pollita know that he’d been lax about forming a scouting team.
“You really think a human can tell a dragon egg from a regular rock?” she scoffed.
“Probably not. Most likely, once I get to be a proper size, I shall go hunt for them myself.”
“Destroy the competition before it hatches. A wise plan of action if this were another time. Given the way humans have exploded population-wise, we might need allies.”
“Allies that will later require elimination if we’re to rule the world,” Abaddon countered.
“Are you scared of competition?” Pollita purred.
“No,” he blurted. As if he’d lose.
“What of the scientist Malone? Have you eaten him yet for being insubordinate?”
