"This belongs to me now, but I'm not sure how to take care of it." I show off my newest possession to the two DAB agents, who are looking at it with their mouths hanging open and expressions that say that they're already done with the day.
"Do we want to know?" Ora asks with a sigh of resignation. I shrug.
"I dunno, do you want to know?" I'm not really sure what she's asking about, but probably about my unicorn's missing arm? Or where I found her? It's not often you find a person unicorn wandering around, after all. Especially with how all of the actual magical creatures were hunted to extinction.
There's a moment of silence before Ora shakes her head. "No, no I don't think I do." She sighs again. "Well, do you know how old she is?"
I look down at the girl and get stared back at in return before she looks back down and rotates Bastard's head in her hand. I look back at Ora and shrug. "Nope."
She sighs once more before turning to Kami and raising an eyebrow. He hums and rubs his chin. "Well, she's clearly old enough to eat solid food, know how to use the bathroom, all the stuff that makes infants difficult to care for. So…" he shrugs, "just, treat her like a person? Make sure you have stuff for her to do, eat, and entertain herself? Oh, and make sure she gets an education?"
I blink at the golden haired man - making a quick mental note to get some gold accessories made for my unicorn - and look back down at the girl. "You're Lair trained, right? Because I don't want you making a mess of my Lair when I have a perfectly good bathroom."
She looks away from Bastard's head to look back up at me, though she continues to absentmindedly spin the head back and forth by the hair. "I know how to use the bathroom…" she says uncertainly, causing me to nod and look back at Ora and give her a thumbs up. "She's Lair trained, so we're good on that part." I tap my chin with a claw. "Though I'm not sure what to do about her education… Online schooling, maybe?"
Kami opens his mouth to say something but Ora jabs him in the stomach with her elbow while smiling at me. "That sounds like a good idea, though you'll have to make sure she knows how to use a computer."
I frown. "True…" This is turning out to be kind of a pain, who knew that adding a small child to my Hoard would cause so many extra details to pop up. Maybe I should drop her off for the Wild Wild Pussycats to take care of and just give her a calling card and my mark…
I blink and look down when I feel something pressing against my leg, only to see that she's put down the head and is now pressing herself against me in a hug. She looks up at me with wide eyes. "I-I'll be good. So- so please let me stay with you."
Cuteness detected. Must keep.
I pick her up and give her face a lick, causing her to giggle. "Don't worry little unicorn, I don't plan to let you go to anyone. You belong to me now. What do you want for dinner?" Her giggles taper off as her expression shifts into a serious thinking face.
Cuteness detected. Must keep.
After a few minutes of her being unable to think of something, I decide to throw out one of my favorite things to eat when I was little. "What about chicken nuggets?"
Her eyes light up and she bounces in my arms. "Yes!"
I nod and turn to Or and Kami. "You heard my unicorn, get us some chicken nuggets made from people with chicken quirks!"
The smiles the two had on their faces abruptly become stiff, though I have no idea why. It's not like me eating people is anything new, after all. After a few minutes of the three of us silently staring at each other, Kami clears his throat. "Er, what about for… actually, what is your name?" He directs his question to my unicorn, who blinks at him before tilting her head to the side.
"My name is Eri."
He nods before turning to me. "Right. What about Eri? Shouldn't we bring regular chicken nuggets so she can eat too?"
"Huh." I tilt my head to the side before shrugging. "Sure, I guess." A thought suddenly strikes me, and if I wasn't holding Eri I would have tapped my fist into my palm. "Oh yeah! And do you know anyone who can make sure my unicorn's head doesn't rot? She seems to like it, so I don't want her to end up getting sick while she's playing with it."
Kami looks between Eri and me and Bastard's head on the floor, opening his mouth to say something before Ora's elbow makes another introduction to his stomach, harder than before. The three of us ignore Kami's wheezing breaths while she smiles at me and says that they'll see if they can find someone to do that. Which is good. I don't want to make Eri sad if we end up needing to throw it away.
After that the two leave to collect our dinner, and I turn to the child. Hmm… I'll need to get her some new clothes too. I probably should have mentioned that while they were here, but oh well. That just means that I can take her shopping later!
…Maybe I should ask one of the girls in my Hoard to come with us. It's not like I know anything about clothes in the first place, what with the fact I don't wear any anymore. Oh! After she gets a bit bigger, maybe I can give her what I used to wear before my nap? First things first though.
"Do you care about being a human?"
She blinks at me for a moment before shaking her head, and even speaking for good measure. "No."
I raise an eyebrow. "Really? So if I said I could make it so you weren't fully human anymore, would you be happy to accept?"
This time she takes longer to answer, falling into thought. She sits on the ground cross legged and puts Bastard's head in her lap. She pokes the eyes in thought, frowning to herself. Eventually she looks up at me, her expression worried. "Would… would I be like you?"
I nod, showing off my fangs in a bright smile. "Yep! You'd be closer to what I am than a human."
The corners of her lips immediately tick up in a small smile and she rapidly nods. "Yes please! I want to be more like you!"
That's adorable, and I make a promise to myself that I will get a full smile from her someday soon, one that will be sure to show off her teeth! So, without hesitation, I bring my thumb up to my mouth and bite into the pad of it, letting blood well up before I thrust it down at the child, who's jumped up in surprise at what she undoubtedly thinks of as an unprompted action.
"EAT THIS!" I blink and shake my head, wondering why I said it like that. I haven't done an All Might impression in years…
Her eyes rapidly dart between my face and my bleeding thumb uncertainly, distrust clear in her eyes, for some reason. Did Bastard make her eat or drink weird stuff while she was with him? I should have hurt him more than just tearing off his arm and head… Stupid Bastard, making my unicorn sad.
Still, it doesn't take long for her to screw up her face and let her head dart forward to lock her lips around my finger. Her tongue immediately starts lapping at the blood while she simultaneously tries to suck it out, though that doesn't work very well considering the wound had already healed by the time she finally got around to taking my blood.
As such, it only takes a handful of seconds before she lets go of my finger and looks at me with dipped eyebrows. "I did it…" I can't help but chuckle at how utterly confused she sounds, which causes her to pout. Cutely, I might add, but her cuteness has already been established. Unfortunately, her cute pout doesn't last, shifting into a grimace as she clutches her stomach. "I feel weird…"
I nod. "Understandable, you are shifting away from being human."
I'm pretty sure. Long did say that our blood can extend a person's life if they get any, but she also said that dragons have never given their blood to humans. According to her, the only reason they know dragon blood expands lifespans is because of humans accidentally getting it. Like one dragon was trying to sing while she was flying and bit her tongue, then a few drops fell on someone. Since dragons have an innate sense for others of our kind, that individual was identified twenty years later, and claimed they looked the same as they did before.
Long killed them for personal reasons or something afterwards, but the blood still extended their life span.
So, if that's what it can do if it's an accident, what can it do if it's on purpose? I had a theory, based around those pathetic half-breeds - that I'll probably have to remind myself not to kill if I ever come across them - about what dragon blood freely given can do, and that's what I'm basing this off of. I mean, dragons are magic, and fiction has widely spread the idea that magic is bullshit, so why can't I use magic dragon bullshit to do what I want it to do with my blood? I'm a dragon, I do what I want!
I can't help but smile as a shudder visibly shakes Eri's body and she tightly closes her eyes, letting out a groan. I'm not smiling because of that, though, I'm smiling because of what I can see changing. Where the stump of her left arm was, something begins to grow. I watch over the next few minutes as the growth continues, and then I let my green scales completely encompass both arms and compare before nodding.
Her left arm has completely regrown, but it's not the same as her right arm, no. Instead it's covered in glittering silver scales, her hand ending in wickedly sharp claws that curl slightly over her fingertips. It's incredibly pretty, as befitting something belonging to my Hoard. But that's not the only thing that's new. On her forehead, on the opposite side of her unicorn horn, grows another. It's not the same, curling around from the side of her head with the point ending above the eye on that side instead of rising above her hair with a slight curve. It's not the same as her unicorn horn, or my horns, but that doesn't matter.
Eri will be her own dragon.
I give her a wide smile after she slowly opens her eyes. "Congratulations, Eri, it worked!"
She opens her mouth to say something, but before she can she catches sight of her new arm and stares at it in wonder. With her mouth still open, she raises the arm and twists it, trying to get a look at every part of the silver-scaled beauty. She opens and closes the clawed fingers, seemingly amazed over the fact that they don't scratch her palm. She even cautiously scratches the claw against the pad of one of her fingers, her eyes becoming even wider when it doesn't so much as leave a scratch.
I know that's probably because she didn't put a lot of force into it, but she looks much too adorable for me to even contemplate mentioning that to her. I'm mentally kicking myself for not having a camera ready to take pictures of how cute she is right now! But it's not like I knew it was going to turn out like this when I gave her the blood! I just thought she'd regrow a boring human arm! Not a beautiful dragon arm! And that horn! She's so cute!
I manage to push back the cuteness overload I'm being subjected to enough to speak to her, which is no mean feat! I clearly have the strongest of wills to manage to get past the weaponized cuteness before me! All should bow to my magnificence! Well, they should have been doing that already, but now they should absolutely bow deeper! And more!
I shake my head, actually managing to speak to her this time. Though I'll admit that I have no idea how long I just spent staring at her while she was examining her arm and feeling her new horn. "I welcome you, Eri, as a dragon half-blood. May you grow well into your right as a full-blooded dragon!"
She gives me a small smile, though larger than the last, before throwing both arms around my leg and hugging me tightly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mom!"
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