Vet Students and Dragon Nests

[Katya Balik]

It had been an incredibly long day and Katya Balik was soon to be walking out of this little clinic and heading out, on her way to her dingy little apartment. It wasn't much, but she liked it, it didn't cost much and it was close to her school. She had always wanted to be a vet even as a little girl, so when she had graduated, the first thing she had done was go and find a place that she could learn Veterinary Science. As it turned out, she had found a place that taught her both the magical side and the muggle side of it and she was more then a little happy with that. She was sure her mother would be extremely proud of her. Her father, she wasn't sure about, he had really wanted her to be in the ministry like him, but she just didn't think she could be a paper pusher. It just wasn't her thing. She munched on an apple that she grabbed out of the fruit basket and swivelled herself around on the chair. She really loved these chairs, they were great fun. She swivelled herself around more to try and find some lift from her boredom. Her supervisor had gone out to get dinner and had left Katya on her own. As confidant as Katya was, she didn't think she was confidant enough to be terribly good in a crisis, she still had three years to go on this after all. It wasn't like she was an expert or anything. When she was treating a Kneazle earlier that day, she had to look it up in a text book. Her supervisor didn't, at all, approve.

Katya looked around the dull waiting room. Their last patient, a fruit bat, had been about half an hour ago. She really didn't know why they were even open this late. She shrugged and tossed her half bitten apple in the trash. She wasn't really in the mood for apples anyway. What she would kill for were those little strawberries and chocolate sauce, oh, that would be heaven in a blanket! She spun around in the chair when she heard a noise from the alley. She froze. Why would there be a noise in the alley. She stood up and whipped her wand out of her pocket. Merlin, she really hoped this wasn't a cat or something. Or maybe she did, she wouldn't know what to do with herself if is was some punk kid trying to break in for medication or something. Considering she barely knew where anything was in the first place. She stepped carefully over to the door and listened. She couldn't hear anything. Maybe she was mistaken. She was about to leave again when she heard another noise. She turned around and yanked the door open. What she saw nearly knocked her over. The light in the alley way was very faint, so she could see very little. But she could see a some one, with a something and she wasn't happy. "Excuse me, what exactly do you think you are doing back here?" She asked, raising an eyebrow and leaning on the door frame, wand gripped in her hand, but at her side.​

 

[Ramses Teodov]

He was trying to be quiet, he really was, but how quiet could anyone be with a twenty kilogram infant trying to struggle its way out of your arms? Ramses was covered in burns, bites and scratches from the lower torso up. It wasn't the dragon's fault; in lizard language, it was being downright affectionate. Yet still its love was going unappreciated as Ramses tried very, very hard not to swear (or at least not whimper too loudly).
The predicament they were both in was entirely his doing, of course. Ramses spent most of his time outside study hours sifting through the rocky mountain side behind his valley-set house searching for dragon egg remnants, or dragon scat, a piece of scale, anything that might help him add to his thesis (and collection). It wasn't the first time he'd found dragon eggs, to be sure, but they were always cracked, unfertilised ones that posed no danger. The entire area should have posed no danger, really. It had been a long time since dragons were last spotted in the Bulgarian valley; ten years, on his father's count. Ramses had not been prepared to find a completely untouched nest, eggs still present yet mother suspiciously absent.
There'd been no harm in practicing a cook. Really. If ever he needed to raise a hatchling from the egg in his work later in life, Ramses had to know how, so why not try it out on an empty one? He'd stoked the fires every evening, dispersed the excess smoke with his wand (Merlin forbid his parents found out. Ramses was hiding his project like a cheesy porn mag owned by a pre-teen boy), counted the days out, and when it was time to measure the egg's 'hatching temperature' ... it hatched.
His life in the next few days was filled with a strange kind of elated terror. The new baby dragon seemed absolutely certain that Ramses was its mother, and proceeded to treat him like so. He was bitten, climbed upon, burned, poked, slept-on and mostly used as a play gym until Tobias Teodov gave up the pretense of apathy and demanded to know what on Earth was going on, and was that a dragon?.
Ramses was summarily marched to the front door, dragon in a blanket, and told not to return until the baby was either in a hatchery or a dragon sanctuary.
He'd tried, he really had; there was a grand total of zero places he could think of to take the dragon that was within walking distance, seeing as he'd left his broom in the house, and he'd rather be eaten be a hippogriff than transport it during the day, so he was forced to 'babysit' til night fell, then hop along to the Vet Centre two towns away.
"Come on, please!" Ramses begged the dragon in a whisper, who was stubbornly clinging to his arm. "Please, get in the box!". He felt like a criminal, kneeling in a back alley behind the Centre trying to force an animal into a cardboard box, but in truth ... no, actually he was a criminal, just not a very clever one. The dragon seemed to think that it was all a game. Ten minutes later and it was in the box, but the box was no longer a box, it was a pile. It was snorting and crooning, trying to coax Ramses into a game of tug-of-war, when the back door of the Centre swung open, flooding the immediate opening with light. Ramses and the dragon were half-shrouded behind some bins, but it wasn't enough to save him.
He'd stopped dead and the dragon, almost bleating now with excitement, let its joy boil over and expressed a terrifying burst of flame. The left hand-side of his face caught the worst of it as his attention was turned to Katya, and Ramses let out a genuine cry of pain as his face was scorched.
"Crap, damnit!"​

 

[Katya Balik]

Katya could not believe what she was seeing. Was that fire! She quickly jumped forward to the man as he was seemingly burned alive. She grabbed him and with as much force as she could she shoved him into the clinic. Merlin! What was she supposed to do now! She'd never dealt with Dragons! She wasn't even that far into the textbook! She didn't know what she was supposed to do. Was it sick? Was that why he had brought it here? She quickly ran into the waiting room and looked around for something, anything that would help her out. This man was burned and she had nothing! She turned to look at him. "What are you even doing with a Dragon! Are you crazy!Do you know what that could do to you?" She asked, freaking out a little. She pushed him into the operating theatre and pushed him, a little more forcefully then she had meant too, into the chair there. She was starting to calm down a little, but she was still riled up about the fact that their was a burnt man and a dragon in the clinic. She breathed in and out as many times as she could manage before looking down at the sorry excuse of a man before her. She breathed out again and leaned down to examine his face, trying desperately to ignore the pointed head of a dragon nuzzling her breast. It was unbelievably uncomfortable and totally and completely awkward. Why was it doing that? She looked down at it and finally got a really good look. "Merlin's Beard! It's a baby!" She was so shocked she jumped. She thought it was a miniature dragon or something, not a baby dragon that could grow up to eat her body in one bite. "Why do you have a baby Dragon? Did you steal it? You do know it is against the law to disturb a Dragon's nesting right?" She asked, leaning back over the Dragon to examine his face.

She walked over to the cabinet in the far corner and looked for any of the pastes she could use for a person. She was sure she had seen something for Dragon burns around here somewhere. Surely it would be in easy- She nearly knocked her head on the cabinet as she jumped up, the Dragon paste in her hand. She turned around and held it up, showing it to the man triumphantly. She had decided that this was a test. It had to be. It couldn't just be a coincidence that her supervisor go running off and then this guy show up and have a baby dragon in tow. She walked over to the man and his... uh, pet and placed the paste on the bench. She pulled her swivel chair closer to him and sat in front of him. The baby Dragon was going to be a pain in the arse, but she didn't want to risk moving it, she had no idea how she was supposed to handle a Dragon and it kept groping her. She had to keep pushing it away, but eventually she just let it go right ahead and nuzzle her. It was only a baby after all. "This is going to sting, um, quite a bit actually. I think it is rather acidic in nature." She brought her hand up to his face and dabbed the paste on his face and looked down at his torso. There were scratches, bite marks and burns, along there as well. She was going to need more paste. "Please excuse my... hands." She ripped open what was left of his shirt and proceeded to apply the paste along his chest and arms. Merlin this is so awkward!
​

 

[Ramses Teodov]

"-Do you know what that could do to you?"
"Well, yes, I-" Ramses tried to respond, but the vet nurse was having none of it. He'd instinctively bundled the dragon back into his arms despite the burn, after all the trouble it took to get it 'into' the box, and his left eye was shut with the pain of his burn. Unfortunately he was already too familiar with fire from his short experience with the baby, but this was the worst he'd received so far, not to mention the worst-timed. Ramses was herded inside the clinic and into a sterile room without even having the time to look around. The baby looked quite pleased with being carried again, and showed its enjoyment of its new surroundings by nuzzling everything it could find; including, it seemed, the breast of the poor vet nurse.
"Stop that," Ramses hissed to it, mortified, though the nurse didn't seem unduly affected. Distracted from its game, the dragon infant spit and crackled at him, making the researcher flinch in preparation for a bite or scratch.
The nurse's ministrations were making him flinch, too. He was told that 'this' was going to sting, whatever 'this' was. Ramses opened his mouth to protest and found himself studiously covered in a bright orange paste that made the burn smart even worse. He closed his eyes to prevent some very unmanly tears from leaking out.
"This isn't really necessary," he tried, trying to hold still for the nurse while grappling with the playful dragon. Ramses was trying to prevent it from climbing onto her, the second human it had ever had any real contact with. She exuded all sorts of interesting smells, and was almost close enough to- ... Ramses yelped as the dragon got its way and leapt into the arms of the clearly unprepared nurse. During his struggles, she had gotten his shirt off to tend to all of the other minor injuries the baby had caused, and he couldn't decide what to react to first. Ramses had never so much as taken his socks off in front of a girl, let alone his top. He flew to his feet with a strange jerky movement, torn between retrieving the discarded material to cover himself and helping the dragon off of the poor nurse.
"I'm so sorry!" he gasped, prying the cat-sized dragon off of her shoulders. Displeased, the baby sunk its claws into his shoulder and perched there like an eagle. Ramses was left standing in front of the vet nurse; bloody, shirtless and covered in orange goo with a dragon puffing like incense on his shoulder. For the first time since their arrival, there was silence.
The baby was the first to break it with a whine, looking longingly at the nurse, and Ramses was the second, crossing his arms over his chest with embarrassment.
"Um. Yes, er ... I do know it's illegal to disturb a dragon's nest. This wasn't exactly a planned endeavour." He began to blush as he was able to focus on the nurse's face. Not only were they in a terribly awkward (and dangerous) situation, she was strikingly beautiful. His left eye was still closed against the paste, yet he could see that much.
"You didn't have to do this," said Ramses, pink cheeks turning to red. What a mortifying habit. "I didn't even intend anyone to see me."​

 

[Katya Balik]

Katya eyed the Dragon suspiciously. She didn't like the look of it, not at all. It was too young to know it's own strength and it seemed to have adopted this man as it's mother. That was never good. Whilst Katya knew next to nothing about Dragons, everyone knew that it was difficult to separate them from their mothers. They needed to be looked after until about two years, if she remembered her education correctly, so what was she supposed to do with this dragon? She sighed and stood up, about to put the paste on the table when the Dragon suddenly jumped her. "Woah!"She instinctively thrust her arms out to catch it, though she didn't know why. Perhaps because it couldn't fly? She stared at it wide eyed at the baby and back stepped a little with the weight. It may have only been a baby, but it felt like it weighed a tonne, even though that was impossible or she would not have been able to hold it at all. It, she, he, whatever it was, continued to nuzzle her breast and she got the distinct feeling that it may have been hungry. But what was she supposed to do? She didn't know what baby dragons ate and she could hardly give it any meat. That would mean having to actually go out and she didn't feel comfortable leaving this man and this dragon here, by themselves. Earlier, she had thought that maybe all of this was a test. She was slowly starting to think that, perhaps, she had been wrong about that. She very much doubted that this was a test at all, which meant that this dragon was even more dangerous then she had first thought and that was a bad thing, because she had thought that it was extremely dangerous, but now to find out that this guy was possibly just a clueless about dragons as she was, Katya had to refrain from screaming at the man about how careless he was. She finally toppled over under the weight of the dragon and landed with a rather loud thunk, on her backside. Yelping at the pain.

The dragons, owner, as she would refer to him for now, immediately came to the rescue and was able to pull baby off of her, at the risk of his own skin being ripped to shreds. She kind of felt sorry for him actually. He had no clothing to counteract the claws and he appeared to be in rather a lot of pain. She pulled herself off the ground and gave him a sympathetic look. There was a pause and silence ensued, quickly disrupted by the baby and Katya simply shot it a filthy look. She was angry at the dragon, at the silly, yet annoying good looking man and at herself. She was also angry at her supervisor. She looked at the clock. She she be back soon. What was Katya going to say to her? She looked over at the man as he spoke and she shook her head frowning slightly. Not a planned endeavour. What was he doing then? How in Merlin's name could he have simply happened across a hatched baby dragon. Unless, no, he didn't look like a moron. Did he. "You didn't just-" But before she could finish speaking, the man had continued on. She suddenly realised how this all must look. Her face went bright red, the same colour currently working its way onto the man's own face and she spun around. She hated it when she blushed. Her whole face including her ears went red, like a tomato. It was why she hated going anywhere or doing anything that could possibly make her blush. Like, ripping off a man's shirt all of a sudden. She bit her lip and peeked over her shoulder at him. I'm sorry I-" She bit down hard on her lip as she turned red again, drawing blood from the split lip she had just given herself. Wasn't she doing just fine and dandy, her first time alone?

Katya sighed, she had no idea what to do. The best thing she could think of was trying to ignore the half naked man in the room with her and focus on trying to find a book that might tell her a little of what dragons eat. Unfortunately, as she knew this hospital was not equipped for Dragon's or babies, she very much doubted that she was going to find anything that would be of much help. She shook her head and refused to give up. When her supervisor came back and demanded to know what was going on, Katya really wanted to be able to tell her. But she was far too shy to be able to talk to the man about what was going on. The initial shock of finding him in the alley had gone and her body had decided that it no longer was going to allow her to hold up a very coherent conversation. She moved about the room, sifting through cabinets, drawers, bookshelves and she was having no luck. She was about to give up when finally she found an old book, at the back of the last bookshelf she checked. She had no idea if it would be any used to him. She held the book up, still refusing to look at the man and walked back into the room, keeping an eye on the dragon and still managing to ignore the bare-chested owner. She hoped that it wasn't a favourite shirt or something she had ripped off of him. He was never getting that shirt back to its original state. Not with all the magic at Christmas. She thunked the book down on the metal table, leaving a resounding noise to envelope the room. Katya was tired, she was hungry and she had to find something to feed the little guy. Who knew how long he was going to be here. Her supervisor should have been here by now, so something must have happened. She ground her teeth. "Goddammit Ally!" She cursed her Supervisor. Maybe she would appear if she cursed her enough.

Sorry babes, got a bit carried away
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[Ramses Teodov]

The reality of the situation appeared to strike the nurse at the same time it did Ramses. She began to apologise, the dragon-'mother' starting to shake his head in mollification, but she did not continue and they fell back into silence again, broken only by the nurse's sigh. Almost abruptly she started around the room, tossing books out of shelves and Ramses seated himself with a sigh of his own. He did not yet know that the nurse had as little idea about what to do as he did. As far as he was aware, he'd been caught.
The hatchling began to sniff around his chest again, and despite Ramses' repeated efforts to get it to sit in his lap, it managed to climb his chest again (this time thankfully without claws) and proceeded to lick the orange paste off of his face with a slithery, forked tongue.
"Gerroff," he grunted at it quietly, pushing a little at the beast, but it was not biting or squirming so eventually Ramses allowed it to lick the rest off of his body. The burn on his face began to smart as the dragon licked off the last traces of paste yet it wasn't as bad as before; beggars couldn't be choosers. At least the baby wasn't breathing fire again.
Dragon and wizard jumped as the nurse slapped a book onto the table beside them. The hatchling puffed in protest, Ramses automatically wincing in reflex. No fire rushed out at him, so he chanced to look at the book she'd put down. Finally, it looked like he could be of use.
"Oh, um, I don't think you'll need that." he ventured softly, placing a hand on her forearm to get her attention. "I know what to feed a dragon, how to care for one ... that's not why I'm here. I was just going to ..." Ramses paused awkwardly and decided to admit the truth. "I was just going to drop it off. So ... so that's not necessary."
A horrible thought occurred to him. "Unless that's for you?". Surely she'd know something about dragons. Enough to ... but no, who was he kidding? He'd walked into a little township clinic that probably spent most of their time treating kneazles and crups. He'd had no choice but to drop the dragon off here, but now that he'd tried and failed, how could he place the dragon in the care of those who couldn't care for it? It was unfair on the dragon and the staff. Yet until he could contact a sanctuary to take the dragon (the thought made him ache), Ramses couldn't return home. Either way, they would have ended up at the clinic simply for a place that could accommodate a dragon (albeit just a hatchling).
Ramses realised that he was still holding onto the nurse's arm; he let go as if (ironically) burned. He had to stop thinking of her as 'the nurse', too. Her name badge was written in Bulgarian, but he could read and speak enough of the conversational to piece together the letters. 'Katja' ... Merlin, she's beautiful. thought Ramses in despair. Why did she have to be beautiful, too?​

 

[Katya Balik]

Katya began to flick through the book. Looking for anything that may tell her what she needed to know about what Dragon's ate. She was completely at a loss after all. She had no idea. Not one single thought in her mind about what they would eat. After all, she had yet to learn about them. She jumped, startled when she felt a hand on her arm. She stared down at it. The hand on her arm. She followed it along to the rest of the person. She wasn't surprised at who it was. Her eyes went back to the hand and she continued to stare. "I don't know anything about...Dragons." She admitted, her eyes still focused on the hand that was on her arm. She didn't know whether she wanted it to stay there, or whether she wanted to throw the arm off of her and tell him to never touch her again. She didn't say anything. She just continued to stare at the hand.

Suddenly, the hand was gone and Katya almost missed it. Except that she was incredibly angry right now. He had said that he was just going to leave the little dragon. Just leave it here and not return for it. That was like abandoning a child. Just like her parents. She turned her eyes on him, they shrunk into slits and she placed a hand over the book to calm herself and closed her eyes. She was not going to yell at this man. She was not going to yell at this man. She was not going to yell at this man. It wouldn't be fair. It was a Dragon. Not her parents. He wasn't at fault. It wasn't his fault. This was a completely different situation. Completely different. Nothing was the same. Nothing. Not a damn thing. Except the fact that he was going to leave the little baby in an alley without it's mummy. Poor baby Dragon.

Katya opened her eyes and glared at the man, but she did not say anything. She returned to flipping through the book, looking for more information to go on. For example, how to pry a baby dragon from the arms of what it thinks to be its mother. The previous thoughts of the hand on her arm were gone from her mind, as if they had never been there. She was furious and she didn't even know why. Her feelings were completely against everything and made no sense at all. She continued to flick through the pages, but she could find nothing off use. It was terribly out dated and she didn't even know what half of the things written in there even meant. She decided it would be easier if she just, at least tried, to examine the Dragon whilst it was non violent. It seemed to have calmed down and wasn't hiccuping fire everywhere, so that was a start at least.

Katya walked over to the man and the Dragon and started to check the Dragon's body for any possible injuries. She didn't know why the man had it, where he got it, or why he had brought it here. The important thing was that he had, brought it here and she needed to know why. "Could you at least tell me, why it is you brought this Dragon here. I need to know for my report. Also to make sure it has not been harmed." Not that she really thought he would have hurt the creature. But she did not know this man. She could not tell for certain would her would have, or would have not done. It was not for her to know. She was just the vet. Not even that. She was just a vet in training and she was at her wits end trying to accommodate all of this. She also noticed the Dragon had licked all of the paste from the man's face. She would likely have to reapply it later. Preferably after they did something with the Dragon. She was going to have to find the contact details for a Sanctuary for it. Not that she knew any. Hopefully there would be a list somewhere. Hopefully. "Where did you find...it?" She asked, carefully rubbing its snout to get its mouth open. She needed to see its teeth. Make sure it was healthy.

​

 

[Ramses Teodov]

Ramses shrunk back into himself at Katja's venomous look. He couldn't think of what he'd done in the last thirty seconds to earn her ire, but it was making his cheeks heat up again in a way that had nothing to do with the dragon. The lizard in question was putting up a good fight while she was trying to check it over, too. Ramses pulled it back a little, giving Katja an apologetic look, but the glint in the dragon's eye told him it was only a moment from biting her. It enjoyed being held on its terms only, and the dragon researcher had been clawed and snapped for trying to do exactly what the nurse was doing.
"If you want to get a good look, I'd suggest anesthesia. I've been trying to have a look at it all week, if at least to determine its sex, but, well ... dragons aren't very touchy." Ramses told Katja.
Apparently fed up with being prodded, the little lizard stretched out its two-foot wingspan and flapped madly, stumbling out of its keeper's arms and onto the tiles. He bit his lip, watching the dragon with an eagle-eye to try and prevent any shenanigans, but it appeared to be more interested in having a walk around. Its scaly snout dove into a pile of loose papers on the floor and flicked them up with a clever twist. With a little huff of fire, it incinerated them on the spot. Ramses had seen this new trick develop over the last few evenings, and it was becoming tiresome. He'd lost two note pads and one of his research journal, completely irretrievable with magic. It seemed happy to turn the rest of the scrap paper to ash for now, so the keeper returned his attention to Katja.
He knew these questions were inevitable, but he was dreading giving the answers to her in particular. The word 'report' filtered through Ramses' troubled mind and he startled badly.
"What? No! Please, you can't report this!" he blurted out, his scratched hands gripping the seat tightly. Lips white, he took a deep breath and continued. "I'll tell you everything that happened, including all that I know about the dragon, but after that I have to leave and you must not tell anyone how it came to be here. Tell them ... tell them that it was sealed in a box outside the clinic, and you heard it escape! That's how you found it." Ramses started at her imploringly. "Please. If it was just a fine, I'd pay it, but this would mean jail time, and if I'm not able to make sure the dragon is safe, I'll ... I don't know what I'd do, but I know I'd never be able to continue my research. The university would be closed to me, and the dragon ... they might euthanise it."
Sensing its keeper's distress, the baby dragon abandoned its paper-destroying game and wound its way around his legs, making crackling, worried noises.​

 

[Katya Balik]

Katya looked up at the man as he spoke and nodded. What he'd said, definitely made sense and he was proven to be correct when the baby dragon stumbled out of his arms and proceeded to make its way around to burn her scrap paper. Well, not all of it was scrap, she was pretty sure that some of it was actually pretty important but there was nothing she could, or would do about it. Really, Katya blamed Ally for this. It was all her fault. Katya wouldn't be in this situation if she would have just been here already. She sighed and turned back to the man. She really was completely out of her element here. This wasn't in any of the training videos, what was she expected to do. She watched for a little while as the Dragon made a complete mess of this office. Where was she even going to keep it until it got to a sanctuary? The pen in the back was surely not big enough and she had a couple of kneazles and a Puffskein in there, she couldn't very well put a carnivore with them. The biggest thing Katya had ever worked with to date was a Horse and that had been a pain in the arse too. But it hadn't been dangerous and right now she was sharing a space with one of the most dangerous creatures in the Wizarding world. Well, not just the wizarding world, the whole world.

Katya looked back at the man when he started to panic and freak out when she mentioned a report. She rolled her eyes and placed her finger on her lips, gesturing for him to be quiet and to calm the hell down. She shook her head. "Calm down! Woah, I'm not going to write a report about you. But I have to write a report on the Dragon. Every creature that comes throught here has to be catalogued. So I need to know its breed, gender and other specific things about it, like the age and what not. You should be able to help me with that. But just chill." She held her hands out in front of her, palm out. "I wasn't even going to mention you. Though I'm really not happy about you just abandoning it here, I can't really say that I blame you. Though I wouldn't have gone near the nest in the first place." She stared at him. "But that's just me." She turned her face downwards to look at the Dragon between his legs and clicked her fingers to get it's attention. "Now, are you going to play nice? Or do I have to do this the hard way?" She stared at the Dragon, almost challenging it to disobey her, which it did because it just seemed to look at her like she was an annoying pest. She glared at it. "Fine, have it your way. Anaesthesia it is."

Katya looked back at the man. "Sorry, what did you say your name was?" She didn't think he had said at all, but it was polite to ask either way. She gestured him over to where she was, knowing that this was probably going to hurt him. "Okay, I need to administer Anaesthetic. So... do you have any ideas about that? I know I am a terrible nurse, but right now we need to knock it out." She looked towards the Dragon who almost looked like a child listening in on its parents conversation. Katya shook her head at the ridiculous analogy and laughed at the irony. Parents indeed. Katya didn't really think she ever wanted to have kids. Not after what her own parents did to her. "Do you think you could just grab it?"
​