"Where am I?"
"Interesting," noted a quiet voice. "I never knew anyone that actually said that."
It was all very dark, but it was an unusual kind of dark, which seemed to regard light with contempt: The kind of dark that light would nervously skirt around.
The voice, whoever it had been, had been quite close, and in the thick silence that followed, Irikas began to feel something in close approximation to fear. He shook himself uneasily. His kind didn't fear; they were the ones to be feared; the greatest warriors and the ones chosen to regulate reality itself. Whatever happened, Irikas was not going to show fear, so he did the one thing that could make him appear most at ease: he yawned, obnoxiously and at great length.
The silence which pressed in from all directions recoiled very slightly, but when it resumed its pressure, there was something different about its atmoshere. Irikas frowned, trying to figure out what it might be. Was it... amused?
He ignored this, well aware that something was watching him, and set about trying to figure out what had happened. His memory, however, seemed to have fogged up, like a disturbed fish−pond.
"I'm quite pleased, really," said a voice suddenly, with a conversational edge to it. Irikas jumped, and almost immediately rebuked himself. He was not scared. The voice was deathly quiet, but against the auditory background of total silence, it might as well have been a scream. It continued.
"I mean, you're obviously at ease here, despite what must be a rather disorienting series of events."
It had just been a normal, long−distance delivery, surely? Just a dozen pickaxes flown up to the dwarven stronghold. So how had he ended up here? The voice, oblivious to his worry, kept talking, now entering the state of chatter.
"I like it when people are at ease. They're much more... co−operative."
Irikas was beginning to realize how poorly he was keeping up his side of the conversation - if it could be called that - so he replied, even if it was merely to dispute a mis−wording.
"But I'm not at ease," he murmured. "I'm quite annoyed. And," he added, as an afterthought, "I'm not a person. You knew that."
It felt very strange, talking to someone that wasn't actually visible. He dredged up a memory, dragging it out of the metaphorical pond−muck.
...He was flying, an icy breeze whistling past him as he glided between the mountain peaks and through the valleys. Countless summits passed by, but only one mattered: the destination...
If darkness could smile, Irikas thought, that was what it would look like.
"Of course not, my reptilian friend. Now, I should turn the lights on, perhaps?"
Lights? Something as mundane as lights could dispel this darkness?
...As the sun sunk below the horizon, the icy breeze slowly escalated into a gale, howling mournfully. Before long it was a blizzard, and now it was a battle between him and the wind, as he was buffeted and blown off course. All he could see was the oncoming snow, and the faint outlines of a few mountains...
The dark was, indeed, receding. Points of blurred light appeared in it, spreading tentatively. With a whistling noise, the dark was sucked into several brass jars, like a very thick cloud of smoke, and disappeared. For the first time, Irikas could see the room.
...He was virtually blind, fearing that if he landed he wouldn't be able to take off again. The blizzard screamed heartlessly at him. With a sudden jolt, the package's ropes snapped and it tumbled off his back into the abyss. With a cry, he dived after it, but it was already receding, the snow was rushing up to meet him and...
It wasn't a dungeon, in the strictest sense of the word. Although the windows were high, small and barred, and slime dripped sluggishly from them, the floor was richly carpeted and the walls were wood panelled. A fire crackled in a massive marble grate, above of which a decorated shield hung. The furniture was equally impressive. Nevertheless, the door was thick and capable of being very firmly shut.
However, in the middle of the room, thankfully, there was some sign of life. A man stood comically still, head bowed, wearing a long white robe. With a sudden jerking movement, his head shot up, wearing a smile tailored to reassure people that have reason to be especially worried.
"Hello!" he said, almost absurdly cheerful. "Sorry about the fiendfog, but I felt it was best to ascertain your state of mind first."
"Fiendfog?" Irikas raised an eyelid with a snick.
"Basically darkness absorbed into a gaseous form. Ahem. My name is Jieara'kursin."
"I'll never remember that," Irikas mumbled, still a tad disoriented. Where was he, anyway? He'd asked the question, but so far not received an answer. The man shrugged.
"It hardly matters, as I expect you to refer to me as sir while you are here."
Irikas bristled, slightly annoyed. He'd never encountered a human daring enough to demand subversience from a dragon. Unless...
Another possibility occured to him.
"Hang on," he frowned. "Am I rescued or captured?"
The smile grew into an unruly grin.
"You are conscripted. I require your services for a while, then you are free to leave."
Irikas sighed, a slight rumble entering his throat.
"I, er, still have a delivery to make."
"What? A delivery?"
Irikas unconsciously saluted, something his profession demanded. He couldn't help feeling silly, though, especially when he noticed the large steel manacle attached to his front-left leg.
"I'm the long−range communications dragon, sir," Irikas grimaced. "From Sevenoak, the wizards' tower."
"Aha," the man nodded. "Near the coast. Nice."
Nice, in Irikas's opinion, was one word he could never apply to the tower, or the nearby coast, for that matter.
"Your name?" the man asked, barely a hint of curiosity left in his voice.
"Irikas."
"I see. Well, Irikas, a necromancer like me is always rather busy. I'd love to say and chat but there's something I need to attend to right about now," he said, already striding towards the door. A few italicized syllables fought their way into Irikas's befuddled mind.
"Wait a minute," he said, eyes widening. "You said you were a... what?"
But the door was already closing, hinges groaning as its weight swung inwards. Irikas strained at his manacle, calling into the rapidly closing gap.
"Come back here!"
Thud.
The italics are a bit broken and I don't have the time to go through and fix them all, but I've tried. Sorry.
It's copied almost exclusively off my calculator, where I've been writing it, so the formatting is mostly gone. The paragraphs looked much better on there.
