Various members in robes ran around trying to make way for me as we landed near the ornate statue in the courtyard. I didn’t understand how they managed to make this place look so nice despite the lack of proper tools, time and materials. We landed in the midst of their murmuring, it was annoying how they did that in front of us as if we couldn’t hear them. Aureus must have been annoyed as well or reacting to my annoyance because instead of dissipating the wind that carried us there he shot it out in all directions.

It ruffled their robes, some gasps rang out but for the most part it just stopped their incessant yapping. I glanced down at him and he had a sharp toothed grin. Huh, I’m surprised I hadn’t noticed those teeth before now. Looking around the crowd they all looked the same except one man who stood closest to the entrance of the temple. I walked towards him and without hesitation the crowd made way for me.

“Is Caroline here?” I asked.

Once I was close enough I saw he was about middle aged, he had a more ornate robe and a crude staff. “She should be in the Saint’s chambers. Hazel, guide her.” His voice was gentle but firm, he gestured towards a young girl. She couldn’t have been older than eight. She was a bright child, large dark brown eyes that resembled her warm skin tone, a huge smile, and tight black coiled hair.

She grabbed onto my robe to guide me, the man opened his mouth to scold her but I shook my head and went along with her. She chatted about the building as we walked. Apparently people didn’t usually take the path we were on since it was created before the building expanded to how large it was now. It was a much faster route than the one I was taken down in the past, but it wasn’t as decorated. I wonder if they’re using this as some kind of servants’ passageway. I thought as I looked around at the drab interior.

“Alright this is it! Bye-bye savior!” She exclaimed while walking off, but turned around and glanced at Aureus while she walked.

“What?!” He asked defensively.

She stuck out her tongue and escaped quickly around a corner. He muttered something about humans as I walked into Reid’s room. “Reid? Caro? Y’all in here?” I called out.

“We’re over here.” They responded from the side room. I walked into an office-like area and they were sitting at a table snacking on some rat jerky.

“I need a favor Caro, do you have a way to make him some clothes quickly?”

She glanced over at me and froze with her mouth open, she was in the middle of putting another piece of jerky into her mouth. Her hand dropped, “Aureus?”

“What?”

“Oh my god! He’s so cute!”

I laughed as I sat him on the floor, “I know right? It’s weird, it's like I’ve got a kid brother. So weird.”

Caroline walked up to him and squatted in front of him, “I need to take this, is that alright? Do you want Reid to leave?” She asked while holding onto the blanket.

“I… No, it's okay.” He handed the blanket over to me and she pulled out a strip of fabric that she used to take his measurements.

“Why’s he like this now?” Reid asked from the table, I wondered if he felt uncomfortable with the idea of it.

“Oh it’s a new skill. He’s still a dragon; he only looks like this temporarily.”

“I’m not sure how long it’ll take me. What do you want? A shirt and shorts? Pants? A robe or dress?” Caroline was glancing between the two of us.

“I want pants! Cool pants!”

“We’re in a rush, Aureus, and anything she makes will probably be made out of leather so it won’t be as nice as it could be later. What if we plan to get a better outfit later and right now you just get something to cover up.”

“She’s right, I won’t be able to make anything nice right now unfortunately. When we get better materials I’ll make you a really nice outfit. How about that?”

He groaned, “Fiiinee!”

I patted his head, “that’s great, thanks for being understanding.”

The four of us chatted for a while as she created a crude pair of pants that had a hole for his tail. We joked about our adventures, Aureus made fun of us and we made fun of him. We talked about what we missed the most or what we wanted to do in the future. It was healing. The safest I’d felt in a long time, it was surreal. I had a feeling like someone was going to run in and yell about how something awful was about to happen. Or some notification was about to pop up.

The conversation ended uneventfully, Aureus received his pants and was fawned over by us for a few minutes before we left to find Rosalynn. Mateo never messaged me to say that she’d found them so we ended up wandering from place to place before we found her at Tali’s section of the wall. She was standing next to one of the craters as she looked into the distance.

“Hey, you doing alright?” I asked gently.

“Yeah, how about y-OH MY GOD! Is that?” Her eyes went wide when she saw Aureus next to me. He was standing proudly, but it didn’t make him look as regal as he did when he was a dragon since he was holding my hand. Plus he had the disadvantage of looking like a child.

“Hello, I am the great dragon Aureus!” he proclaimed.

“Of course you are!” She said with a smile as she squatted down to his eye level, “So what’d you come to see me for?”

“I still haven’t gotten my share of the red crystals.”

“Oh, are you leaving early? I thought you still had a day or two before the week you said you’d stay was up…”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Yeah, everything looks fine here so I thought it’d be better to go ahead and leave now. Before I get too attached to this dreary place.” I said as I gestured around us.

She handed me five crystals. It was significantly more than I’d been expecting. “Wow, I didn’t think we’d get this many!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah we were pretty lucky, though it’s weird Adventurers can’t use them.”

“Really? How’d you find that out?”

“I tried to give one to Rosalia.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate. Is she doing alright?”

“Yeah she’s in the infirmary with the rest of the injured. How are you feeling? I’ve been feeling like shit about the people who got hurt from our fight…” She looked up at the murky red sky as she talked.

I felt the blood drain from my face, after everything that happened how did I forget about the people I’d hurt? What is wrong with me! I didn’t even go see if they were okay! “How are they? Any complications or fatalities?” my voice cracked as I asked.

“Everyone was fine, there were mostly minor injuries. Honestly you ended up with the worst out of everyone. I think the only fatalities we had were unrelated to that specific incident…” She gripped one of her arms tightly as she responded.

“Still… I should go see them.” I was still in shock that it’d slipped my mind.

“Sure, if you want to. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see the two of you.”

“Alright, thanks for everything, I’ll see you later probably!” I hollered as I ran back towards the center of camp.

We spent the next hour or two chatting with the people who had been involved in the accident, everyone seemed pretty understanding. Apparently Rosalynn had already visited all of them and explained that it was her fault, and they were all quite pleased with the fact that Reid’s temple had treated them free of charge. Which was shocking to me since I hadn’t realized they’d started charging people.

[ Witch of the Wellspring: hey so are we doing a get together before I leave orr should I just go?? ]

[ Call of the Void: Let’s do something together. I think most everyone is at Mateo’s so why don’t we go over there? ]

[ Witch of the Wellspring: is it a good idea to have aureus around alcohol? ]

[ Call of the Void: How should I know? ]

[ Witch of the Wellspring: good point. ok see you there ]

Everyone welcomed us cheerfully and we played cards, drank, and played various drinking games for a few hours. Eventually Aureus walked up to me, “Master!” He was pulling on my robe. I took a stumbling step to the side as he pulled.

“Oh yeah I forgot I need to get my clothes back from Caro…”

“Masterrrr!” He whined.

“Yes my precious little dwaagoonn???” I was using baby speak towards him in my drunken state, which only made him more upset.

“MASTER!”

“What?!” I shouted back.

“They won’t give me a drink, why does everyone else get to have some but I can’t?”

“Oh… That’s cause you’re too young, this isn’t something you can have. It’s bad for you.”

“Ha. As if some weak human poison could hurt me!” He retorted.

“I mean it wouldn’t kill ya, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Okay?”

“This is dumb. I’m bored, can't we go now?”

“Okay okay, then let me get my clothes from Caroline and we can go.”

We wandered around the party, and I kept getting pulled into various conversations and games but Aureus was determined and constantly pulled at my robe to keep me going. Eventually we made our way to where Caro was and asked for my clothes.

“Oh, they’re here somewhere…” She said as she started looking through her inventory, “yup some … where… here… Ohhh. Here it’s this one.” She pulled out my dress with a smile.

“What about the cloak?” Aureus asked before I realized it was missing.

“Oh yeah what about the cloak?” I repeated.

“Ohh okay yeah, hmm…” she looked around for another minute before she found it and handed it over. “You should try to find some new materials because this isn’t gonna last you too long if you keep exploding yourself.”

“I didn’t do that on purpose! You KNOW that!”

“Uh huh, still you…” She started to choke up, “You’re always getting yourself hurt! Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if you did it on purpose. I’m sick of fixing your clothes!”

“Then don’t! You don’t have to fix them. Because I’m not gonna mess them up anymore!”

“You better not! You promise it! Say it!” She started to wave her pinky around in front of my face.

I grabbed at the air with my own failing to grab hers. Annoyed, I snagged her arm with one hand and promised with the other. We shared a long hug and both cried for a while before I gave into Aureus’ tugging. “Fine, I’m going I’m going. I’ll see you later!”

“Why are you being so weird Master?” Aureus asked, annoyed.

“I’m not being weird. You’re being weird. Silly Aureus.” I stumbled a bit as we walked out of the building, “Ah, it’s finally time to leave. Aureus you gotta get naked.”

“What?!” his tail wrapped around his waist and pants as he backed away.

“How did you think we were gonna travel? By foot? You can’t walk that farrr” I replied as I walked towards him.

“So? How is me being naked better?!” He yelled as he continued to run from me.

“Come here, slow down!” I ran after him as the horizon shifted. I fell but ended up snagging one of his ankles, “Gotcha!” He started screeching, “Why are you screaming, you’ll just rip your pants if you transform back like this?”

“AAaahh… oh… Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” He asked as he fiddled with his pants as he tried to figure out how to take them off. Eventually he managed it and I stored them in my inventory.

“Uhhh I did??”

“No you didn’t?”

“Oh. Sorry about that. Anyway let’s go magical girl transform woooo!”

He gave me a side eye, but transformed anyway. I tried to climb on his back but fell down instead, “Oh yeah, the saddle… We never got her to make us a saddle.” I mumbled as Aureus used his tail and head in an awkward effort to push me onto his back. It was oddly effective.

“Wait, Aureusss! No I gotta go get the saddle.”

She never made it, just hold on. He replied with annoyance.

“Ok ok ok ok ok. Ok. I’ll hold on- AH! Wait wait! I’m not ready!” I screamed as he took off.

We would have been here forever if I waited for you to be ready.

“In your rebellious streak already? Ugh.” I clutched at him as I started to feel a little nauseous. I took a deep breath and the wind helped soothe me.

This will always be amazing. Flying like this. I said to myself as I leaned back and enjoyed the flight.

Yup, walking around like a human was dumb.

Rude after all I went through to get you that ability you don’t even want it. I’m hurt.

It’s not like I meant it…

I laid back and stared up at the faux red sky, I couldn’t wait for the pink one. I had been yearning to return for weeks now. I smiled and wondered if the potatoes I’d left were growing well. I made some mental notes to expand the garden and search for more varieties of Underhollow foods. I wondered if the forest would have anything good, I hadn’t discovered anything about it yet. We never even stepped foot in the forest, we were much too busy getting rid of those pesky slimes. Wait, since I’ve been gone and the repopulation happened that means… “Fuck. The slimes will be back again. Dammit.”