Stalker (pt.3)
Story by Remmon133 on SoFurry
Looks like the Russians met a dragon. what will happen now?
Stalker (pt.3)
“I’m sorry!” I gasped after I managed to recover my breath somewhat. “I thought you were a criminal or something, and then I realized criminals don’t wear military gear and gas masks, so…“
The masked man lowered his shotgun.
“What are you?” He asked with a heavy Russian accent. He sounded… confused?
“What do you mean, what am I? What does it look like?”
“You… Drakon?”
“You mean Dragon?”
“Yes, Drakon.”
“Dragon.”
“Yes, I said Drakon.”
“You keep saying Drakon.”
“I do not.”
“You're not hearing yourself talk, are you?”
“Is that… Idiom?”
“What? No! Where did you learn english?”
“Why does that matter?”
I sighed in exasperation. “Well it might help me help you, for starters.”
He sounded even more confused now. “Why would I need help? You have been gasping for air for past few minutes. All you did to me was scratch me.”
“I-”
There was a loud, sorrowful howl that rang throughout the ruined buildings.
The gas masked man looked up sharply, towards an empty street.
“It is time to leave.” He said shortly. He picked up his backpack, putting his shotgun and the rifle on little straps on the bag.
I inspected the man closer. He was covered head to toe in military gear; gas mask, steel helmet, bundled gray camo uniform, boots, gloves, bulletproof vest and belt. I had a hard time telling what species he was. He didn't have a visible tail, so it was even harder to tell, along with the fact I could see absolutely nothing through that gas mask of his.
It was entirely understandable why he was bundled up, however. It was freezing cold. I hadn’t planned on being outside at all, so I was still wearing my cyan t-shirt and gray cargo’s. The only warm thing I had on was the leather hiking boots I had on, which just barely fit my clawed, big feet.
He grabbed my paw, pulling me up with surprising strength, and then started leading me down a dark alleyway that led to another main street, looked both ways, then turned left and walked down that way.
“So, what's your name?” I asked the Russian.
“Andrei.”
“Andrei…”
“Glukhovsky. You?
“Daronean Mäkinen.”
“Finnish?”
“I’m of descent, yeah. But I'm a third generation American.”
He looked back at me for a moment, inspecting me, then dryly added “I can tell.”
“There’s no need to be rude.”
“I am not meaning to. Out of the female gender, I have only ever seen Americans wear cargo pants. A lot of men? Da. But…no women.”
“Is that bad?”
“Why would that be bad?”
“You sound like you expect women to wear dresses all the time.”
“I am sorry if I came off that way, but you must remember that this is Russia, not America.”
I nodded. “Valid point.”
“However,” he added, “most younger women wear jeans. Lot better than traditional sarafan.”
He made a sharp loop around a burning car heap, and then made a right turn down a smaller side street, which was lined with rows of office buildings.
“So,” I asked,”what are you?”
“I would think it would be obvious.”
“Oh really?”
“Fine. I am a Stalker.”
“You're a Stalker?”
“That is what my job is called.”
“No, no, no, I meant your species.”
“Oh… Human.”
Wait…what?
“You're what?”
“Human. I assume they do not have us where you are from?”
“Uh…no. Over at home, your fairy tale creatures that are always the bad guy’s and wear spandex.”
“Interesting. To be fair, we do not have winged, black, anthropomorphic dragon ladies walking around here, tackling people with guns.”
I winced. “I said I was sorry about that!”
“You do not need to be. Your strength is impressive.”
“...Thanks?”
“My point is,” he continued.”Is that you don’t have us and neither do we have you. Is it just dragon people there?”
“No, there's all sorts… dogs, wolves, cats, oh, the list goes on…”
“We do not have them here either. Just humans.”
“Sounds boring.”
“I assure you, it is not. We are constantly at war with each other.”
“Oh… the last war we had was about 70 years ago.”
“WW2?”
“Yep.”
“Sounds peaceful.”
“Oh, there's plenty of problems here and there, but for the most part it is.”
We continued on in silence down the street for what seemed like eons, although it was probably only a few minutes before Andrei spoke.
“So, you have family?”
“Yeah… half my family's dragon while the other halves fox.”
He stopped right in his tracks, looking at me in what I knew was definitely confusion.
“It's a bit weird, I know, but it's a good story.”
“How does that work?”
“I’ll give it to you simply, since it's a long story.”
“Okay.”
“My great grandparents met. One’s a dragon, others a fox. They get married, have kids, kids get married to either foxes or dragons, or most of them, anyway, and then the same things happen again, and then you have my generation.”
“So you are tiny bit fox?”
“Yeah.”
“Interesting.”
“What about you?” I probed. It was harder getting information out of him than some of my teachers. “Do you have a family?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“My job.” he said simply, then started walking again, back down the road. I followed him.
“You're saying because of your job, your family left you?”
“No.”
I didn’t try to ask further questions. Clearly I had hit a soft spot, and I didn’t need to upset a Russian with a gun right now.
We continued down the road. The office buildings had stopped, and had been replaced with a massive brick building on the right, which looked like a university, and more of those ugly concrete apartments on the left.
“Do you know where you're going?” I asked Andrei.
“No. I was trying to get away from the howling as soon as possible, because I feared it was more timber wolves.”
“Well why don’t we stop here? The university looking place looks like a good place to take a rest in.”
“Fine.”