Draconians

Briam landed with a loud thud outside of town where no one would notice him. It wasn't very often people witnessed a man fall from the sky, and in his experience, they tended not to respond to it particularly well. He dusted the soil that had covered him in his landing off of his clothes and walked casually into town. It was evening, so people wouldn't have noticed his arrival, but this particular evening was the town faire. People had come around from miles to buy and sell goods, as others danced and made merry. It was one of the few times Briam could enjoy himself around the normals as he referred to them, because they tended not to take much heed of his appearance.

At a glance, Briam looked more or less like your average individual, though generally worse for wear. He always had bags under his eyes, deeply shadowed, his face covered in lines, and his hair was was messy and white. His body itself was lean and clearly muscled, but looked off in some undefinable way, as if it didn't quite fit properly on his bones. Upon closer inspection, the lines on his face extended down on to his arms as well, as if the skin was stretched and pinched in various ways. His clothes were raggedly and old, clearly from a time gone past, but he never had the money to purchase new ones, and he hardly seemed bothered by them anyway.

His body moved smoothly through the crowd, managing to walk effortlessly through the crowds, both standing around the shops and dancing through the streets. He only stopped briefly on occasion to look into the shops. He didn't have the money to afford anything, but he found it was enjoyable to see what was available regardless. He could hear people debating prices around him. He had never fully understood that. What was the point of setting a high price as a seller? It just meant people weren't going to buy it. And yet they tried to anyway, apparently, but didn't want to pay the set price? It didn't make sense.

As he was making a transition between areas of the faire, he heard the sound of pounding feet as someone came running out of the alleyway. He stepped aside to make room, but heard the feet change at the same time, continuing to move toward him. Briam looked toward the sound, confused, as it seemed the runner was intentionally running at him, and saw the shape of a man drawing closer. Again, he tried to step aside, but the runner moved again, and a moment later came crashing headlong into Briam, sending them both sprawling to the ground amidst the crowds, causing shouts of confusion and pain as others were knocked to the ground in the process.

The runner leaped up to his feet almost immediately. "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted at Briam. Briam looked up at the man, confused. What was he doing? What was that supposed to mean? The man was the one who had run into him, not the other way around. "You want to start a fight? Is that it?" Without warning the man pulled a knife from his belt, and the people around them screamed in terror. Briam slowly and carefully rose to his feet.

"You don't want to do this," Briam hissed out. His voice was rough and sluggish. He didn't talk very much, and his mouth was unaccustomed to the movements. The man responded with a primal growl as he shot forward. Briam slithered out of the way, but grabbed the man by the collar, moving him in a circle so as to prevent him from hitting anyone else. The man lurched out of Briam's grasp and turned once more to face him, striking in the same moment.

Briam could have easily dodged the attack, but in that same instance, he could feel a woman running behind him, trying to get away from the fight. If he moved, the man would undoubtedly strike the woman. Briam's arm shot out, crashing into the knife and stopping it in its tracks. He heard shouts of fear as it happened, and he saw the man grin with satisfaction. It took a moment before anyone realized that there had been no sound of the blade sinking into Briam's skin, but instead a clacking sound, almost akin to steel hitting stone.

Briam stood, frozen in his spot by the realization that he would likely be unable to return to this town again. Slowly the man looked down, to see the knife point first against Briam's skin. The lines of his skin were beginning to twitch and shift, and abruptly it began to turn and flip around, revealing the true dragon scale that was Briam's outermost layer. Again screams rang out, now at the horror of the monster in their midst. As his skin began to change, moving along him like ripples coming from a rock in a pond, he pushed the man up against a wall and knocked the knife from his hands, falling uselessly to the ground.

A brief moment later, his wings emerged from his back in a panic, ripping the back of his shirt open, rendering it finally unwearable after so many hundreds of years. He stepped back from his attacker and, with one final glance at the crowd surrounding them, launched into the air and disappeared from the town faire.