001; Audio - The one where Mike tries to make sense of this.

[michaeljangelo]

[Mike knows the rules, and he knows them by heart: When you're in a new place, and you aren't sure of your surroundings, you stay hidden to stay safe. Someone will come and find you. So when the kedan deliver him to his suite, Michaelangelo stays there.

It's only after he's lowered all the shades, explored the suite from top to bottom, and booby-trapped the front door with common household items, that Mike turns his attention to the communication console. Mike's access and familiarity with all things computer has been limited at best, with the bulk of his exposure coming in the form of play-testing what ever new video game Donatello had been coding. So it comes as more than a little bit of a shock to him that the console is as easy for him to work as the skim-milk blue guy with a similar number of fingers on his hands said it would be.

It doesn't matter that he's not home, or that the people who found him aren't quite human, or even that anyone who saw him on this vidscreen thing could easily just assume he was some sort of special effect added in post production.]

Um...hello? I.
I'm just looking for my brothers. There was a light from some sort of machine. They started to disappear without me. I just. I just want to find them.

Leo? Donnie? Raph? Please tell me you're out there. Please?

Comments

audio

[michaeljangelo]

....holy hippo spit.

video;

[dracobin]

You see, I am not having you on at all. [Pause as he draws back, a little uncertainly.]

Are you all right? Only it sounded as if you did not believe me, so--

audio;

[michaeljangelo]

...you're a dragon. like a talking dragon. not like an animated talking dragon, like Pete's Dragon, but like a dragondragon. great googly moogly dragons are real. dragons are real?

...

I said all that out loud, didn't I.

video;

[dracobin]

Yes, you did, but that is all right, because there are a great many people here who do not have dragons in their worlds, only stories about them. Which is very strange; it means that dragons must have existed in their worlds at some point, which in turn raises the question of where they have all got to.

But you are not frightened, are you? I will not eat you, I promise.

audio;

[michaeljangelo]

I don't know that frightened is the right word, I mean...shocked sure, but I'm not scared.

I think the distance helps with that, you know? You're on the other side of a screen from me. Distance makes the heart grow...er...bolder?

video;

[dracobin]

Oh. [His ruff droops a little anyway. He certainly did not mean to startle anyone.] Am I really so large?

video;

[michaeljangelo]

I would be the last guy to ask about that, because as I've been reminded of time and time again: I'm kind of short myself.

[dracobin]

[Oh video! Temeraire leans in again, nosing curiously at the screen.]

Why, you are the size of a human! I had expected you to be much smaller. There is nothing wrong with being short, if you are not a dragon.

[michaeljangelo]

And if you are?

[dracobin]

Well, normally when we are eating, it is the heavyweights that go first, and then the middleweights and lightweights after; but of course a heavyweight will require more cows than a lightweight will.

[This is a little awkward because he doesn't think it's all fair, but it's what he's used to and it is mostly how European dragons are.] But of course in China it is quite different, and nobody has to fight for a place at all.

[michaeljangelo]

Thaaaat sounds strangely like what dinner time is like where I'm from.

[dracobin]

Really? Are there many different sizes of turtles?

[michaeljangelo]

Sort of? But it's more a size of personality, rather than a size size. I find the trick is to be the one who makes all the food.

[dracobin]

You can cook! [Congratulations, you have found a subject near and dear to Temeraire's heart.] What sorts of things do you make?

[michaeljangelo]

[\o/!!]

Pretty much any, and everything. Do you cook?

[dracobin]

No, I do not think I could have managed it when I was larger, but if I am to stay here, I should very much like to learn. I do not know what sorts of animals may be found here, and I have not seen even a single cow since my arrival, but there must be some kind of meat here, surely.

[michaeljangelo]

...did you shrink?

[dracobin]

Oh, yes, I am a quarter of my usual size here. Mr. Kenway says the Emperor must have done it on purpose, though I do not know to what end. It was a very rude thing to do, in any case.

[He falls glumly silent for a moment, his ruff drooping, before he attempts to perk himself up.] But now I may learn to cook for myself, and sleep in a house, like people do, and that at least should be interesting.

[michaeljangelo]

I do have to say that living in houses with actual windows that look outside? Are pretty awesome.

[dracobin]

Oh, yes, it is very nice to be out of the wind, and the houses look very nearly like the ones in China. But where did you live before, if not in a house?

[michaeljangelo]

The sewers mostly, though in the last few months we've been living with a friend of ours who has a whole apartment building.

[dracobin]

[Frown.] In London the sewers are very dirty and do not smell nice at all. You did not live there by choice, did you?

[michaeljangelo]

Heh, they're pretty much the same in New York, too.

[Mike can't help but speak of the sewers and storm drains with more fondness than a person oughta.]

Well, yes, but only in the way where it was the only real option open to us.

[dracobin]

Oh, you are an American! I have never been to America, although it cannot be very nice, if they make you live in sewers.

[michaeljangelo]

Are you kidding? The City is great! It's just that, well, the people that live in it don't really know that me and my family are down there. We're kind of hideous freaks of nature.

[This is followed up with a rather bright smile.]