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This is Nadec, my adventure. Written down in a better way than I can tell it.
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Nadec, episode 14: talking to a drunk guy
‘Will he talk?’
The dubious look Nadec shot toward Wyny spoke volumes; she already knew the answer to her own question. She had quite a few things to ask the zlurp. How much truth his answers would bring, remained to be seen.
‘I can not be certain of that. He might not even know many things. Perhaps he is merely an empty-headed minion.’
‘He mentioned a search warrant before. Maybe he’s a bounty hunter? Or a… You know what, it doesn’t matter, we should stop guessing and just wake him up. It’s the only way to know for sure what he knows…’ She trailed off as they stepped into a small cave room, thoughtfully looking at the purple creature. He was lying unconscious in front of them.
‘Hold on a second, I’ll be right back.’
She left the room to walk toward another one, where she looked around, picked something up and came back. The look on Wyny’s face made her grunt in amusement. He had no idea what she was doing. She stepped closer to the zlurp to place a cloak over his gender.
‘Much better.’
Noticing Wyny’s raised eyebrows, she added: ‘I’ve seen enough balls to last me a while, thank you very much. Anyway, don’t we need to tie him up or something first?’
Wyny chuckled. He chuckled! Was that for the balls comment or some ignorance of her? Whatever it was, he did appear much looser around her than in the beginning. He even seemed to start understanding her sense of humour, weird as it was sometimes. She’d never expected that in any royalty, no matter which world they were from.
‘I do not believe it is necessary to tie him up.’ He glanced toward Blackie, whose head peeped in while her body sat outside of the room. Kitty was asleep on top of it, curled in between the horns, like a fluffy cat-ball hat. ‘I am quite certain the dragon can wake him partially, which should make him too drowsy to stand up, let alone attack.’
‘And he might work along with us better too, being half-drowsy and such,’ Nadec mused, seeing the advantage.
The dragon started panting, just like a dog would. Although in her case it looked more like a sign of agreement instead of a need to cool herself. Nadec took it as a smile. A smiling dragon. What else will you astound me with? she asked herself purposely in her mind. She did wonder it, but she also wanted to test something. Blackie looked at her, and winked. This time Nadec was certain it was a wink, aimed at her! Test successful. The large animal had heard her thoughts and understood them. Well, bloody heavens take me, that’s pretty amazing.
She added mind-reading to the list of ‘special things dragons do’. The Dragon’s White Gas was on that list—with expansion because there appeared to be more to it than she first thought—and the ability to relief pain. When the dragon had put her tail onto Nadec’s cramping tummy, she’d thought it was only the warmth softening the pain. But when she woke up this morning from a brilliant sleep, she realised it was more than that. Even now the cramps were still reduced to a soft, nearly imperceptible throbbing.
‘Ready?’ She jumped at hearing Wyny’s voice, she’d been too caught up in her thoughts about Blackie. He chuckled. Again! What was going on with that man? He’d been extremely uncomfortable the day before after the ‘red food is taboo’ thing. Was he trying to make up for the discomfort his discomfort had caused?
‘Yes. No, wait!’ She held out her hand to Blackie, who stood waiting eagerly to wake the zlurp. ‘One small question first. I need to know. Do you… have tomatoes?’
Wyny stared at her. His mouth fell open slightly, and he blinked slowly. She snorted at his expression and wished she still had her phone on her so she could take a photo. It had been blown up together with her couch though. His head shook, as if he needed to make himself physically snap out of it.
‘Tomatoes? No, I don’t have tomatoes here. Oh, you mean? Yes, we have tomatoes in Paralelo. What does that have to do with waking the zlurp?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just wondering. I like tomatoes.’ Their tomatoes must be yellow or other colours. She was suddenly very much looking forward to discovering Parallelogram, no, Paraleo, no, eh, his kingdom. Why was it so difficult to remember? He’d only just said it!
‘Well, what are you waiting for, go ahead!’
Nadec expected Blackie to stretch out her neck and burp again, the same way she’d make the zlurp pass out. Instead, she retracted her head, turned around, and shimmied her backside in. Both Wyny and Nadec had to move aside or be pushed out of the way. Blackie held her tail to the side, so it was still mostly outside of the room. She lifted it up at the base, in the way a cat would lift their tail when someone scratches their back at the very end.
The black dragon farted onto the zlurp.
It wasn’t a silent expulsion of gas either. It was as loud a fart as she’d ever heard. It sounded more like a trumpet. No, it was a tuba. Not a sound produced by a living being. It was actually impressive.
No matter how impressed she was by the sound, Nadec wasn’t keen on getting the same extreme as a smell. She lifted up parts of her shirt automatically, hiding her mouth and nose in an attempt to filter the air.
When the dragon’s head replaced her ass again, Nadec noticed Wyny grinning at her.
‘It is quite alright, there is no nasty odour. Oh, there we go. He stirs.’
She tentatively lowered her arms and breathed a shallow breath through her nose. The zlurp groaned. She jumped and uttered a high-pitched aah. What in Frank’s name was that? That was the second time today that something surprised her enough to make her jump.
‘OOooOOh, Princess.’ The zlurp’s speech was drawn out and thick, his accent heavier, the gravel replaced with pebbles. ‘I still got you trap.’ He did his imitation-laugh, which surprisingly did sound more like a real laugh in his dazed state.
‘Dude, your sight must be seeing double, you’re our prisoner now.’
‘That’s not how I look at it! Welcome to my crib!’
The zlurp fell sideways, his whole body shaking with exaggerated shudders, hands slapping his thighs in too hard cracks. The movements made the cloak fall away from his sex. Nadec sighed, frowned and shared a glance with Wyny, walking over to him. The creature was trying to imitate laughter too forcibly. She nodded toward him.
‘What do you think that meant?’ Her whisper sounded a bit shaky. All of a sudden she had a bad feeling about this.
‘I do not believe it means anything. The creature is not all there, Blackie did not wake him up enough. It is alright,’ his voice softened as he grabbed her by the shoulders, ‘Come now, we will dig to the bottom of it and see if we can get anything reasonable out of this abomination. Just try to imagine you are talking to someone intoxicated.’
‘Like talking to a drunk guy hey. I can do that.’ She nodded, a short, curt nod.
‘I can definitely do that.’
Thank you for listening to Nadec, episode 14, Talking to a drunk guy. Narrated by myself, Nadec. Adventure by and lived through by Nadec. Written in a better way than I can tell it, by Astrid Jef.
Don’t go just yet, we’ve got bloopers coming up. Before we get to those, [music on background] we just want to say that if you head over to astridjef.com, you can find transcripts and full chapters of this podcast. Even more, you can find the unedited draft of Nadec at least up to 15 chapters further than the podcast goes. So if you’re keen to know how the story continues, you have the option to go and read. Find us on Twitter @astridjef and @nadecandkitty.
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**bloopers**