Harlan felt as though he was insane, letting a wyvern live in his city.

He knew he made that choice with a clear mind, it was only regret and worry after the fact that made him look back differently.

Yet despite her being 60 feet from tail to tip, covered in hard scales, and with wavy horns that curved under her eyes and then down like a set of fangs, she was one of the most gentle souls Harlan ever met.

“King Fomoria. Hello.”

“How has your time here been so far?”

“Children crawl on me. I have many cats now.”

Wyverns, as reptiles, were technically cold blooded, but dragonoids had a fire in them that never quit; strays loved to sleep on her snout.

Even those with ice alignment were hot, and their breath only became cold on exit through the magic which formed in their throats.

“Have you done well with Elk?”

“She reads, I listen. I heal better now.”

“You’ve actually noticed a difference so quickly?”

“I don’t understand well, she made the words smaller for me.”

“Can you read?”

“Hmm… words are hard to speak, hard to read, so tiny, so many swoops.”

Harlan drew out the alphabet in the air with light and asked her to read each of the letters, then he wrote out a rather simple trick which was made to teach children the letters.

The quick brown fox jumps the lazy hound.

He noticed which words she had issue with, more specifically, which letters.

The eyes of a wyvern were sharp and vertical, letting them have up and down peripheral vision and the ability to telescope with multiple sets of eyelids.

The issue arose when she zoomed in, her left and right vision became so poor that she had to read each word more than once and piece it together letter by letter, it was active, not passive, it never felt entirely natural to her.

Harlan didn’t really have a solution, he had always written in the curvy swoopy letters, it was fast to do so, and with Godgiven being a language most beings just knew inherently, learning to read and write was not taught much unless someone had especially sloppy writing or some issue as a result of a naturally occurring mental disorder.

But he did recall someone who would know about this problem.

“I’ll be back later, I will be contacting someone who-”

Xol suddenly appeared.

“No need to wait.”

“I didn’t even call yet?”

“No, but I saw a change in the threads and expected this.”

“You mentioned being a writer, do you know a way that I could make reading easier for a wyvern?”

“You could give her rounded pupils like a drake.”

“I don’t want that. I like my eyes. I’m not a drake.”

She hissed the last part, her nature made her especially hate other dragonoids.

“In this world, you all write in what I could call cursive, or near enough to it, as yours is quite clear compared to what passed for cursive in my time. I was actually… No, you didn’t ask me for a dissertation on different writing styles and fonts. Your way of writing gave out to what we would call print, because it made each letter easier to create on a printing press. They are uniform and more clearly defined from one another.”

Xol wrote out the same words as Harlan had, he was after all the one who brought such a trick to this world.

“Oh. I read this easier.”

Harlan wasn’t planning to change everything for her, but with writing magic, so long as he knew the font, he could reproduce it very easily.

If Rekur had been a water wyvern of any kind, she could even do it herself, but with light and wind, she had to manually write words.

Harlan wrote out the alphabet on her wall in upper and lower case on her wall in bright white color magic.

“Nice.”

“I don’t see you writing much, but I’ll try to get you reading materials written like this. Elk can’t just read to you all the time, and if you continue being such a boon to the natoin, I would like you to remain comfortable and growing in body and mind.”

Rekur opened the door and stood on her hind legs, scratching into the gable in a messy font.

Rekur Home.

When she was done, she started writing on the ground outside.

Harlan knew better than to believe in omens, that a good start meant a good day.

No, if anything, a good start meant everything was going to be downhill from there, that he had already peaked.

During midday, Harlan heard a crash in town.

He recognized the soul when he drew near.

“King Thrash, to what do I owe the pleasure.”

“I want to talk, take me to your office.”

Along the way, Mercedes, who had come to find out what had happened, joined the two men.

Harlan had to break apart and extend the chair to fit the massive frame of the Goliath.

“What are you here for?”

“You took my scientist, I want her back.”

“She’s dead.”

“Give me something of equal value then.”

“What would be equal to you?”

“Give me what she should’ve given me, I want my magic.”

Harlan got a shiver down his spine, and they hadn’t even gotten to any veiled threats about if Harlan failed to deliver or refused.

“I have her research, even what she did for me after I… hired her. I could turn over every scrap of paper and work with her replacement until they are back to her level of-”

“You do it. People say you’re smart.”

“I think-”

Thrash used one hand to pin Harlan to the wall, and no matter his resistance, Harlan could get him to budge through might or magic.

“I need living people, prisoners, rapist and murderers, I will not work on petty thieves and political prisoners.”

“Fine. But I’m also going to pluck your limbs off a few times. I heard you would be fine even if I did that.”

Harlan tried to struggle against him, to use his black bone gauntlets to grant him the strength to force the king off, but they couldn’t even handle the force Harlan put into them, and began to crack.

But where a hard hand could do nothing, a soft hand might.

Mercades ran her fingers through the thick hair of the king’s arm.

“Or perhaps you could find something else to do with that pent up energy.”

He looked up and down her body and shrugged, letting Harlan loose from the wall.

“Get your hands off of-”

“I’m not your wife, just your bed warmer, what I choose to do with others should matter little to you.”

Still he attempted to punch Thrash, who simply flicked him, sending his right arm flying off.

He was ready to keep trying, but she just shook her head.

Harlan gated away, he couldn’t stop him in any way, but at least he wouldn’t need to feel her mind..

Carmilla refused to help, explaining that even if she were to do so, the city of Kor would not survive the first volley between them, let alone a full battle.

Harlan could do nothing, an overwhelming force came to him, made demands, and took what he wanted.

He could see the irony, that he had done the same to nearly every other people of this stripe outside of Lith, and that Thrash perhaps had the time to come here because Harlan pushed the Cast out.

But seeing irony did not do anything to better his mood, nor did it change his opinion on what he had done, and would continue to do.

What was right was what one could do, and what was wrong was anything they didn’t like.

And Harlan was wrong now, because Thrash was stronger than him by an insurmountable margin.

The hours he spent in his lab looking over the notes that the Goliath scientist left behind did not make him feel any better, he just stewed in anger.

Mercedes called him on the amulet.

“Are you alright? Did he-”

“I convinced him to leave. You may return now.”

Harlan was back there in an instant; she was fresh from the bath.

“I bought you a better deal. You’ll be free to go to prisons across Lith, and I got him to reveal some secret prisons, even mark them on the map.”

“Mercedes, you don’t need to do this now, if you’d like to rest-”

“I made a choice. Just like you would’ve done.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“No, I wouldn’t make you-”

“You made me do nothing. I believe that your reaction comes from how you view sex compared to me.

I was able to broker a deal and prevent him from tearing you apart until he got bored.”

“You didn’t need to do that for me.”

“Are you the only one who is allowed to sacrifice your body for this nation?”

Choices, choices were what brought him here.

She came to trust him, she respected him, and his ideology, along with the way he used his power.

He had given limbs, gallons of blood, he had thrown away certain morals of his, he had suffered for his nation, and she too would do so.

Sleeping with a man seemed small compared to what Harlan had done and would do.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry that I made you feel like you had to do that.”

“If I see you wallow for a second longer I’m going to be sick, you will be the great and terrible monster I follow with my heart and soul, or you might as well give up.”

He didn’t even know how to respond.

Harlan had spent the last week on this work, and from the first time he had unlocked their aura to now, it became three hours before death rather than three minutes.

His amulet became to glow.

“Can you give me magic yet?”

“No.”

“Maybe I was unclear before. I want my magic.”

“Then you will wait. Your scientist before me was only getting close to unlocking a form of internal magic, she didn’t know a single thing about getting you real magic. So now I need to start with the internal magic, and then find out if I can give you elemental magic.”

“I will wait, but you must show me progress.”

“One more week and I am sure I can show you something.”

“I will be there.”

Harlan carved a new sigil into the Goliath in front of him that was supposed to vent out the pressure.

An oddity that Harlan found was that Golaith’s could look right at a sigil and not feel a thing.

What this meant, Harlan had no idea; he marked this in his notes, four hours until death.

As he was getting ready for another round of testing, Larenzac called.

A human came into the city, and he began fighting the guards and killing the golems.

He was planning to just shoot the man, but something was odd about him, and he was yelling about wanting to duel Harlan, so Larenzac decided to call him.

When Harlan appeared the man took a fighting stance with his left hand ready to strike and his right to block.

“YOU KILLED MY FATHER, NOW I HAVE COME FOR YOUR LIFE.”

“You have no idea how shockingly little that narrows this down.”

“IN THE SOUTHERN SECTLANDS, AND YOU KILLED HIM IN COLD BLOOD.”

“I’ve killed thousands of men, but I’ve killed few in cold blood, and I don’t know what The Sectlands are.”

“LIES.”

The man’s hands glowed with a slight yellow tint to them, and he came at Harlan.

In theory, he should’ve been able to stop the punch without issue.

But when it struck his palm, there was an unreasonable force behind it, and Harlan’s hand was pushed away.

The man then landed a proper punch, and Harlan felt it.

It didn’t exactly cause much damage, but that he felt it was strange.

Instead of blocking, Harlan deflected, and man jumped back.

“Good instincts. So how about this, you can use your best attack, and I will take it.

Either you kill me, or we have a civil conversation when I’m not busy anymore.”

The man brought his hands to his waist and held them as if he had an orb between his palms.

Harlan watched the flow of magic in the air and from the man went into his palms, and a light formed like the birth of a star.

Harlan cast the sigil of shield, something big was coming.

The vortex pulled in dust and dirt, the physical was converted to energy, not unlike how the sigils on Harlan’s bones let him convert flesh into mana.

The man screamed as his veins bulged, unlike Harlan, his body rejected this energy that overflowed and attempted to enter him.

Harlan watched very closely, trying to understand if he was seeing what he thought that he was.

The man thrust his hands forward, and a beam of faint golden light tore up the street as it passed.

Harlan was confident that this could kill him, or rather, destroy this body.

Yet the void formed from the sigil sucked up all of the energy behind this attack.

What was left behind was nothing but the trench where it passed, and a man who laid on his face, his arms bloated like a dead man left in the sea up to the elbow.

“Take him to Elk, make sure he is healthy, I can’t talk with a corpse.”

“Your majesty, may I ask a question.”

“You just did.”

“Then another.”

“And you did once more.”

Larenzac was getting more than a little fed up with how Harlan refused to grant him any respect just because Joan was his predecessor.

“Why are you letting him live?”

“I am interested in how that attack worked, and I want to know what makes him so confident that I have murdered his father.”

Harlan returned to his work.

After another three days, and another eight dozen men, Harlan got one with an unlocked aura who hadn’t exploded yet.

“Lift this.”

The man reached with his hands and Harlan smacked them with an enchanted switch.

“FUCK YOU LITTLE MAN.”

Harlan backhanded the 13 foot tall Goliath, shattering his jaw and sending him to the ground.

“If you cannot use telekinesis with an aura then you are worthless and I’ll move on to the next man.

And you will not be going back to a cell.”

The man fearfully looked up at Harlan.

In the last week and a half, he had not once dropped his scowl.

There was only a single day left until it was the promised time with Thrash.

Harlan had gotten the man to use telekinesis, but the soul of a Goliath was like an infant’s, it would take years to cultivate it into something usable by a low rank mage, and from the way Thrash spoke, he wanted to be a grand wizard.

He needed a better way if his plan was to work.

So naturally, he contacted The Darkness.

He knelt in the void, but unlike any other time, she was not there.

“HELLO?”

His voice echoed in the endless reaches of that place, but he saw neither glint of her teeth, nor glimmer of her eyes.

After a time, another man appeared in that place.

The other him, the one who had taken his life.

Truly, he couldn’t hold it against him, he had after all been given a chance to get it back by killing him, and he did not.

But more truly, he was in a foul mood as he had been for some time, and he kept their conversation short.

He was back in reality for not more than a few minutes when Xol called him.

“Rosewell wants to know if you can help with the war.”

“I’ve got my own war, I don’t have time for bullshit stemming from their constant refusal to put down the mangy dogs of Ragne.”

“That place is still your home.”

“No, it just happens to have people I care about. If they wanted to come here, the rest of it could burn.”

Xol appeared before him moments later.

“What in the fuck is your problem?”

“I’m busy.”

In the lab the Goliath looked away, Harlan had been rough whenever he refused to do something.

“With what?”

“I need to give a Goliath magic for revenge.”

“For whose revenge?”

“WHAT DOES IT MATTER?”

Xol sighed and put the Goliath to sleep with a wave of his hand.

“I care about you, we are friends, are we not? What is eating you up inside?”

“Thrash, the Goliath King… He came here, demanded magic, Mercedes, she…”

“God, I’m sorry.”

“She’s alive, she’s fine. She slept with that fucking bastard to prevent harm from coming to me.

She told me it was her choice, that I’m not the only one who can sacrifice for this nation.

It’s my fault.”

“Do you love her?”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“Then why is it eating at you? She’s a grown woman, she decided to do what she didn’t want to do because it was a benefit to your kingdom.”

“How do you know she really decided that? Thrash tossed me around like a ragdoll, she knew she couldn’t refuse.”

“Now you know how it feels, don’t you?”

Xol waved his hand, and Harlan felt his body change.

He looked down, and every inch of his body was covered in scars.

“You may put no meaning behind these, but each is a story, a life saved, a beast slain, an experiment failed.”

“I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want another pep talk with visions and stories and anecdotes.”

“Fine, let me be blunt. She is right, and you are being a whiny little hypocrite.

This is just like when that boy died, a friend of your student on some mission with you.

You were angry, up in arms, ready to do anything to get a little more power, but it was bullshit, you couldn’t even remember his name, can you even do that now?”

“I’ve forgotten again, but he was Charlotte’s friend.”

“If she wants to give up her body for your nation, that is on your head, because you inspire people, good and bad. Have you talked with her about this? About why you feel this way? Why it hurts you to see her do this?”

“I haven’t talked to her since that day, I’ve been avoiding her, I can’t look her in the eye, she’s angry with me for pitying her. Mercedes said that I make her feel sick.”

“I’ve seen women like her before, I’d say that I’ve seen every kind of man and woman there can be.

She likes seeing you as a pillar of strength, but now she saw you beaten, and that isn’t a problem, but you don’t look like you’ve gotten back up yet, you look like you lost your will.”

“Not a chance. This work that I am doing is important in showing that I cannot be fucked with by anyone, no matter their power, because I will get my revenge one day.”

“Then let us roll up our sleeves and get to work, because what good is a friend if you can’t ever count on them?”

----------------------------------------

Darrath trained every day, but since his fight with the giant hawk, he had trained double.

An object came at him from above, he sliced it clean in half.

“That wasn’t very nice. I just wanted to bring you a persimmon.”

“I’m sorry.”

Thyst flew down to him, the fruit had landed on the rind rather than flesh, so she wiped it off on her leaf dress and handed one half to him.

Darrath took half of the fruit from her, and they sat for a short time to eat them.

“I like peaches better.”

“Dawn said the trees need to rest, we shouldn’t grow too many so fast. I don’t think I got to say enough, but thank you for coming after me.”

Thyst blushed, but he wasn’t paying attention as he used a knife carved from ironwood to cut his fruit into strips as he ate.

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“I failed, I put you in more danger by not waiting for grandma. I need to be better, like papa.”

“Your father… I saw him once, when you were given away. He looked scary.”

“Papa is really nice to good people.”

“You talk about him a lot, how strong was he?”

Darrath sat there, his arms and legs crossed.

“He is really really strong.”

“But how strong is that?”

“Oh, I know.”

Darrath used earth magic to make a nice large boulder, just like when Harlan demonstrated his strength a great deal of time ago.

Well, it wasn’t that long ago, but Darrath was technically not more than two years old, give or take.

He reached back, using a proper stance, as taught by Harlan, and launched a straight into the boulder, which cracked deeply, but remained whole.

“Papa, he could blow away this entire rock with just one punch.”

“That is really strong then. But did he always train?”

“Well, no, he also played with me, and he talked with people, and he built things that people liked.”

She giggled and twirled.

“You can train later, and we can train together then. Let’s go into town and find something fun to do.”

She pulled on him, and he didn’t budge, but another look from her big eyes that shined like gems and reflected him changed his mind.

Darrath could see that he was dirty and sweaty, his clothes needed a good wash.

“I want a bath, like papa built.”

“That would be a lot of work.”

“I’ll make the boys help.”

“How?”

“Like papa would.”

Darrath and his friend flew towards the town.

Shortly after they were gone, the boulder could hold no longer, and finally crumbled.