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Chapter Two

Vertigo almost never had dreams. She just didn't; but it never bothered her. She was more interested in things that happened in real life than things that would never be real. But that night, the night of the first snow, it was different. Vertigo had one of the first dreams she'd ever had. And boy was it weird!

For some reason, she was stuck in a beard. She was very, very tiny and stuck in someone's beard. She spent the better half of the dream just trying to crawl out, and once she was free from the medusa-like hair, it was a looong way down to the ground!

The impact didn't hurt at all, in fact, it felt like landing on pillows. But once she hit the springy ground, she bounced back up, and mid-air, she started to grow. She went from itty bitty, to just plain tiny, to normal sized to giant in a matter of seconds. Her feet landed on someone's house and practically crushed it to the ground, and the Vikings at her feet were all screaming.

"No, no, it's me, Vertigo!" she'd call, but all the tiny Vikings did was cover their ears and scream that much louder. And just when she thought she was about to cry, she woke up.

It was a sudden waking, not peaceful in the least. She sat bolt-right up, panting and still on the verge of tears. The dream had really affected her; but she couldn't understand why. She didn't even know what it meant!

"Naw, never saw it." said a voice outside her window. "I'd remember it if I'd seen it."

"You're so full of it!" cried a second voice. "I saw you with it yesterday! My master will be furious if you took it!" It was funny; Vertigo had never heard these voices before. And master? Perhaps they were thralls….?

"I'm tellin' you, I don't have it!" The first voice repeated, rising in pitch. "What would I want with a smelly boot?"

"I dunno! You're a hoarder and everyone knows it!" At this, Vertigo just had to get up and see who was speaking, and why they were being so loud! Didn't they have respect for the people in the house, trying to go back to sleep?

It was light outside when Vertigo reached the window, and peering out, she couldn't see a soul in sight, except for a couple of terrors.

Now, the thing with Vertigo's village was, while the great peace had been a considerable advantage to the people, they still hadn't taken that much of a shine to the scaly beasts that they had not long ago been killing. Vikings couldn't change that fast. So most people tried to just keep out of the dragons way, marveling at them when they flew overhead or letting them have a wide girth when one would fly next to a fishing boat. Almost no-one kept them as pets; much too dangerous. But there were some, mostly young Vikings, who liked to keep terrible terrors at sort of lap-dragons. They were mostly quiet and didn't breathe all that much fire and mostly kept out from under-foot.

"Just admit you took it, you lying thief!" Vertigo let out a shrill scream when, to her great surprise, the red terror to the left opened its tiny jaws and started to speak. At her shriek, both dragons looked up, wide-eyed, and froze.

"What was that about?" the green terror asked, glancing at its companion. The red terror shrugged, and shook its head.

"That's just that ditzy merchant-girl. She's always doing weird things; what can you expect from an airhead?" Both terrors laughed at this, but immediately went back to arguing over the lost boot from before. Vertigo had slapped her hands over her mouth, and backed away from the window. Had she just heard those dragons….speak? That…that was impossible! Everyone knew dragons couldn't talk, just roar and grunt and blow fire! But Vertigo had seen it, seein it with her very own eyes; those dragons out there were having a conversation!

"Verty!" her father busted through Vertigo's door, breaking one of the hinges, and Vertigo spun around to face him, look of shock and horror still on her face. "What's wrong! Are ya hurt? Why'd ya scream like that!" he said, looking around her room furiously, perhaps looking for some sort of intruder. Vertigo had to slap the shock from her face before she could answer, and took a moment to compose herself.

"N-no, Daddy!" she stammered, still a bit shaky. "I'm fine, really I am! I just…just….uh….stubbed my toes, that's all!" she said, lifting a foot and grimacing. "Owwww! It really hurts."

Her father's eyebrows slumped, and he scowled. "Vertigo, you can't go around screaming yer head off fer a stubbed toe! I thought sumthin' bad had happened to ya! Ya just about gave me a heart-attack!"

"Sorry, Daddy." She said, putting her foot back down. "I'll be good!"

"Ya'd better be." He gave his daughter one last stern look, and then left the room, shutting the door behind him. Vertigo waited until his footsteps faded and she heard the front door slamming, and then rushed back to the window, which she threw open and leaned out of.

The ground was only slightly frosted with snow, but the tiny lizard's footprints were still visible and ready to be tracked down. Vertigo wasted no time in vaulting out of her window and running off through the village, looking for the tiny beats.

"Okay, okay." The red terror said, huffing and whipping his tail around. "You were right and I was wrong. Happy?"

"Yes, very!" the green one was wagging his stumpy tail as he sat down next to the boot. It was leaning against the side of a house, NOT stolen.

Vertigo watched through stretched eyes as they continued to converse. It was almost surreal, listening to dragons talk! What they said wasn't very meaningful, but hey. They didn't really sound any different than the humans. But there was something bugging Verty; she could hear them talk just fine, so could they hear her talk? She was almost reluctant to try, but curiosity got the better of her, and she stepped out from behind the corner she was hiding behind. The tiny Terror's head snapped up to meet her gaze as she approached.

"Um, hi," she said, half-smiling and giving a tiny wave. The Terror's jumped almost as high as she had jumped when she'd first heard them talking; both wore identical looks of shock.

"Greenbell, did you hear what I just heard?" one asked, not looking away from Vertigo.

"I…I-I think I did, Firebelly!" the other replied, taking a step forward. "How can you speak our language?" it asked, narrowing its eyes and flapping it's little wings. "Only dragons can speak dragonese!"

"I…I really dunno," Vertigo said back, and the dragons flinched again. "I woke up this morning, and I could hear you guys talking. I'm still really confused, too!" at this, the red terror stepped up next to his friend and glared at her.

"You listen to us, girly!" it said, scratching at the dirt with his claws, trying to look tough. "We dragons don't like black magic, you hear me? If you're some kind of devil's-agent-"

"I'm not, I swear!" she said, kneeling down. "Cross my heart and everything!" the dragons glanced at each other, both looking a bit skeptical, but lowered their haunches and folded their wings back up.

"Okay," the green one, Greenbell, said, sitting down and licking his eye. "So if you can hear us and speak to us, can you still hear humans and speak to humans?" Vertigo nodded yes, and Greenbell wagged his tail again. "Great! Because I have a few things to say to those humans!"

Vertigo hauled herself back up the hill towards her house. It was just about sunset, and she'd spent the whole day talking and listening to the Terrors. They had a lot to say, and were rather cheeky fellows, but Vertigo was still in shock that she could understand them. More than once, she'd thought maybe she was still dreaming, or that maybe she was just plain crazy! But either way, this was quite an interesting turn of events.

And oh, if only she'd known of the events still to come!

Thralls = Viking-age slaves