It's A Long Story ~ PPAU Quest

    That was an odd thought to wake up to. 

    Plover’s head hurt as if they’d used it to fight a goat. A very angry goat.

    ‘Otherwise known as a normal goat.

    Weird though. Things never hurt in the morning. If there was one good thing about chronic pain, the remedies made everything numb for a good part of the night. Usually, that feeling still clung to them when they slipped out of bed, only leaving when they stretched out their scars.

    But not this time.

    Yeah. Weird.

    Mezzo was plenty weird, though. It just might be one of those odd days.

    Blinking blearily, Plov huffed, stretching out in the morning sun—only for lightning to shoot down their spine. 

    With a pained squawk, Plover shot awake, their scrambling claws twisting in the blankets as they arced away from the pain. Plov was rolling over to put pressure on the pain when the bed suddenly stopped existing underneath them. Plover fell. Their head and shoulders hit the ground. Their tail and hind feet jerked to halt mid-air, tangled in blankets.  

    First off, ow.

    Second off, this wasn’t Plover’s bedroom, was it?

    Glancing to the side as much as they could, their gaze surveyed the room. Plov was lying on a purple carpet, with stars and constellations embroidered with (itchy) gold thread. Paper and sticky notes covered the walls, but the handwriting was unfamiliar, and the notes hung on star-studded stone.

    Definitely not their room. Though Plover had to admit it, the room’s mysterious owner had good taste. They were making purple look subdued. 

    The creaking of the door startled them out of their trance. Plover was still hanging upside down by the blankets when a certain tiny Nightwing poked her head in. Her forehead was more creased than usual in worry as she surveyed their situation.

    “Are you alright?” Starfinder asked in a voice as small as she was.

    Wings spasming, Plover fumbled for their bag, only for their claws to meet scarred scales. No medicine bag.  Plover went through the first four stages of grief instantly and accepted a painful death.  

    Just as they were closing their eyes in dignified resignation (they hoped), Starfinder pressed the bag into their talons, her eyes wide with worry. 

    Plover grabbed at one of the pouches, pulling out a drawstring bag of plants. With barely a thought for how deranged it looked, they shoved the remedy in their mouth whole. Grimacing at the sting, they kept chewing until their mouth went pins and needles numb. Swallowing the medication, Plover sighed in relief. Great, now just thirty more minutes of torture left to endure.

    Turning back towards Star, they gave their friend a shaky smile. It wasn’t nearly as reassuring as they wanted it to be. Plover was still awkwardly tangled upsidedown. 

    After a long pause, Star hummed, cocking her head to the side, “...I have a few questions; if you feel up for answering them?”

    Plover settled their wings back against their spine (as much as they could while still tangled). Pulling out their planner, they wrote out an explanation for the questions sure to come. “Chronic pain caught up to me; I’m alright, though. ‘Guess I somehow skipped last night’s prescription.”

    Star nodded, though Plov’s answer didn’t get rid of the deep furrow in her brow. Though, to be fair, it seemed like very little did.

    Looking around the room once more, Plover paused. “Quick ?: where am I, and how did I get here?”

    Starfinder sighed, “That leads into my question if you wouldn’t believe it. You came into my room highly caffeinated, signed something that you thought was very important to me, and passed out. Would you mind telling me what that was all about?”

    Blinking, Plover huffed as the memories slowly returned to them. “I had a lot of coffee: It gets a bit hazy after cup five. But the rest of it…”

    They’d have this in the bag.

    Of course, god decided to punish them for their arrogance, all starting in Wilderness Survival class.

    Plover was already relatively out of it when they walked in when Professor Calypso glanced up at their arrival to the lecture hall. Looking the dragonet over, she hummed in thought. “Plover, would you mind meeting me after class?”

    Plover froze on the spot.

    Oh, good sea spirits, what the hell was this going to bring? They hadn’t done anything (that they remembered), which just left surprise questions or execution, which was about the same thing when you got down to it.

    Jerking their head in confirmation, Plov scrambled to their seat, trying to control their breathing quietly. So much for learning anything. Though in Wilderness Survival Class, that would be a miracle on even the best days.

    Unfortunately, the class passed in a blink, and in no time at all, Plover was squirming under the professor’s gaze.

    “Ah, thanks for meeting with me.”

    Like they had a choice. Though, Plover just softly nodded, tapping their claws on their planner.

    Shuffling through her papers, Professor Calypso continued. “I noticed you’ve been working hard, always handing in assignments on time. Good work on that. Which is why I wanted to bring this up early.”

    Plucking a paper from the pile, she put it down on the table. It was a small file, a document that teachers kept after handing assignments back, an easy-to-access copy of the grades when needed. This one was empty.

    “You never got graded on your Mountain Survival assignment. And, as far as I can tell, you never did it,” the professor sighed. “It’s a significant portion of your final grade; I was hoping we could work out some way for you to make it up. ‘Wouldn’t want you to fail because of a missed assignment.”

    This class was hell; Plover was back in hell.

    As Plov was silently dying in front of her, the Professor paused. “Why did you miss the assignment in the first place? Should we start with that?”

    A pause.

    There was a particular lie that Plover had told, right? One so they didn’t have to explain that they would likely murder whoever forced them out into the wild once more.

    “My pet bird, Helena, developed an ear infection. I got the old professor’s permission to stay behind and take care of him,” Plover wrote.

    The professor nodded, “That does ring a bell, yes.”  She started looking for her files. “How is your bird doing?”

    Another pause.

    How did you explain that the bird you claimed had an ear infection because he had trouble hearing, was deaf. And he always had been.

    The answer, you didn’t. Calypso would be shocked and appalled, throw them in jail for the rest of their mortal life, and leave their bones to rot. Fun times.

    “He went deaf,” Plover’s claws wrote before their mind could catch up.

    Plover, you’re a dumb moronic idiot of a dragon.

    Oh yeah, just lie to everyone. Not that it’s going to come back to bite you in the tail later. These things never do.

    Idiot.

    “Good Clearsight!” Calypso swore, clapping her claws over her gawking mouth. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry to hear that. This class must be hard for you, bringing back bad memories.”

    After a bewildered blink, Plover suddenly nodded desperately. Yes, this class was extremely hard for them because of their sick bird, nothing else. Please, for the love of the sea spirits, don’t go looking into anything else. They didn’t even care about the weird historical figure swearing; just please don’t make them go back out there.

    “Okay, how about we make a compromise?” the professor began, a sad smile on her snout. “I’ll give you some extra make-up questions on the exam. You score high on them, and we’ll just say that it covers the assignment you missed. Deal?”

    And that’s how Plover found themself sitting at their desk, their carefully prepared studying schedule thrown out the eighth story window. 

    It wasn’t like Plover couldn’t adapt. But adapting meant changing notes and calendars. Which meant that things could and would fall through the cracks, and Plover, with their horrible memory, wouldn’t know until it was too late. 

    Not like this would be the first time that it happened.

    Setting their trusty planner on the book stand, they flipped through the latched section, pointedly ignoring the new note they had to place in the front:

    Dear Plover: if you don’t know what’s going on, or you can’t remember how you got here, or you don’t even know your name is Plover (your name is Plover, like the bird), write down everything you can think of, including eyewitnesses to check with later. 

    ‘Love, future Plover (writing this in the past).

    What would Plov do without their planner, they didn’t dare imagine. It practically was their long-term memory at this rate. If their parents had never bought it at the market, Plover would have gone to Mezzo floundering without a diving line. Yet another thing to forever be thankful for. 

    Plov finally arrived at the pink bookmarked Calander with a painful sigh. 

    No. No, Plover had spent too much time working out a studying schedule for their needs to throw it away now. They couldn’t change it after weeks of use, right before exams rolled in. That was stupid.

    So Plov would pull an all-nighter to force this new obstacle into their preexisting plan.

    Plover pulled an entire shelf’s worth of books from their bag, setting it on the desk with a thump. Snowy, who’d been napping to the side, jumped to attention. She hissed at the items with an enthusiasm that would’ve been terrifying if the objects weren’t inanimate. The scrolls were for Master Sphinx’s class, animus knowledge, something Plov had been working on in their free time. 

    They’d even bought the scrolls they’d needed, with their allowance. It was nice to have them on hand, to keep up the appearance of their supposed curse, plus they were surprisingly good reads. For dry textbooks, they had a sense of wonder about them. The subject matter may have been a help there. Darkstalker’s Legacy - The Mad King’s Known Enchantments and A Natural History of Unnatural Abilities were now permanent pieces in Plover’s cherished rotating library of scrolls. 

    So, honestly, this was going to be easy—

    ...

    Why was it dark outside?

    As Plover blinked against their dry eyes, their heart raced in their ears as they tried to deny the obvious truth.

    They’d lost time.

    Shoving themself up and away from the desk, Plover silently slipped out of their dorm into the empty hallway. They needed something to combat the numbness, something to give Plov energy.

    They needed caffeine.

    Luckily for them, their fellow sleep-deprived students had plenty of ‘hidden’ coffee stashes to raid. So at midnight, Plover snuck around the dorms, stealing from their talonmates to serve their own selfish needs, like a true hero.

    
    Chugging the admittedly burnt black coffee, Plover tapped their claws as they waited for it to kick in. 

    Snowy glared at the noise, beeping her displeasure. With a snort, she settled back against tonight’s pillow: the old plushie that sat on their desk, calmly overlooking every mistake they made. Yet, Chinstrap kept an air of forgiveness about her. The penguin plushie probably got it from Manatee, who had lent Plover her for their new life on Mezzo. 

    Plov would shyly admit that they still sometimes hugged her close, smelling the salt air on her felted feathers.

    It felt like their dad’s hugs.

    Plover only noticed the wetness in their eyes when their jittery claws brushed against it.

    Oh good, the caffeine was kicking in.

    The good thing about Plover’s decaffeinated tea habit was that coffee worked when they needed it. They would hate to be one of the students with a caffeine dependence, especially during finals season.

    Shoving the tears aside, Plov sighed as they slipped back into studying mode, no feelings allowed.

    ‘And got only three pages further into the textbook than before.

    Blinking back to reality, Plov resisted the urge to swear and set the scrolls aflame. Okay, plan B then: more caffeine. 

    In all fairness, the first plan had helped; Plover had gotten further with it than without. Besides, it couldn’t hurt to try again. Where would anyone be in life if they gave up after the first failure?

    So another bitter cup went down the hatch.

    With that, they got down all of five flashcards.

    Another cup, and they broke through the first half of Camping For Squid-Brains.

    One more, and Plover had jotted down all of their notes from The Big Survival Dictionary.

    A— Which number was this? Plover probably should know that. But they didn’t.

    Plover’s claws shook violently, something sharp digging into their palms with every tremor. Unfurling their webbed claws, they blinked down at the snake-like ruby pendant they held in their grasp. 

    Oh, that. The necklace Plover had bought for Olive a few weeks back and had yet to give her because they were a coward who hated confrontation. While Olive was a good person, she wasn’t much for feelings and admitting that they’d bought her a glorified friendship bracelet on a whim would undoubtedly lead to questions.

    And questions were always the worst.

    They set the pendant aside for another day, the movement shaking Wrybill awake from where she was sleeping in their arms. She glowered up at them, wondering why in the world the dragonet would spend beauty rest time grinding their mind into a fine if knowledgeable paste.

    Wrybill quietly preened her flockmate’s scales with a tired chirp, the sharp nips almost soothing if painful. 

    Eyes watering only partially from pain, they looked over the other two birds. Helena was perched smugly on top of their scrolls while Snowy stared up at him, feathers fluffed. The two were close, and Helena was the only bird that Snowy would let play with her. Even Plover had to be careful not to get bit.

    But still, even though dragons had hurt all of them, they trusted Plover.

    Snowy with her traumatic past, Helena with his deafness, and Wrybill with her missing wing, all trusted Plover. They loved the Seawing enough that they would’ve thrown a fit if Plov left without them. 

    What Plover had done to be deserving of such pure unconditional love, they didn’t know.

    Tears dripped down their snout that Wrybill tried to preen away, only leading to more crying because ow, sharp beaks hurt. Loving birds biting because they didn’t know any better still hurt.

    So much for no feelings during study sessions.

    Plover was just an idiot, and they couldn’t change that. They might as well drop out of the university now before they made any more a fool of themself. Plov’s a traumatized runaway child with dreams of grandeur which had even needed help on a kindergarten level assignment. How—

    They had gotten help before, from Mezzo with its overly kind inhabitants.

    They could get help again.

    They just had to go to one of the kindest and most intelligent dragonets they knew.

    Plover lept out of their desk at three-thirty am, running to find Starfinder.

    Silence sat heavy in the room as the two dragonets quietly stared at one another.

    Plover hadn’t given Starfinder the whole story—like hell were they telling anyone about the specifics of Death-Trap—but it was enough to garner slack-jawed gawking. Which was the exact expression that the Nightwing was wearing.

    They played with their claws webbing, now untangled from the blankets and sitting on the bed, as Star blinked, trying to compose an answer to Plov’s story.

    “Well, that’s an interesting night you had. Are you feeling alright now?”

    With a jerky nod, Plover massaged their brow with a wince. “Never drinking coffee ever again, but okay.”

    A pause.

    “Thanks for thinking I’m one of the kindest and most intelligent dragonets on Mezzo?”

    Plov’s snout went hot as they smiled, partially turtling back into their scarf. “Does that cover the breaking and entering?”

    “Oh no, you’re okay. I’ve been there before.” Star smiled sweetly, humming in consideration. “Though it doesn’t answer what you signed to me just before you passed out.”

    Squinting against their headache, Plover searched their thoughts but found nothing. “‘Don’t remember. Could you try to sign it back to me?”

    Nodding, Starfinder tapped her talons to her chin in thought before beginning. The movements were uncertain, stopping and starting but getting the general gist of it right. Star was a quick study; it was clear she had a small amount of practice.

    It was Plover’s turn to gawk.

    Their pale ears went red as their eyes went wide. 

    “Don’t repeat that in polite company.”

    “Wait, why?”

    “Just don’t.” Plover wrote, bitting their tongue as their ears pinned themselves back.

    They didn’t want to explain why they’d used the sign for ‘murder’ in the same sentence as ‘that red-haired having motherfucker.’

    Another pause hung in the air as Starfinder looked them over with shock. “Okay, I won’t. But do you still want help with studying? I can help with flashcards, and you can run Sign-Language drills with me?”

    Plover smiled, eyes lighting up in relief. Maybe they’d pass their classes after all.

    “Deal.”