Hraktar grabbed the drake and easily hid him in his two hands. “Oh, um, hi Ezekiel.” Hraktar glanced at Alejandra, who quickly got out of bed. “I, um…”

The drake’s little head poked from between the fighter’s fingers. Alejandra’s hand covered her mouth to stifle a gasp as Ezekiel noticed. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Is that a—”

The cleric had no time to answer. The baby drake sniffed, then let out a tiny squeal that, Alejandra realized, was his roar. He pushed himself to the top of Hraktar’s hands and leapt off, giving his roar. His toothless mouth opened, claws extended. Ezekiel’s eyes widened and backed away, though Hraktar caught the drake round the middle before it reached Ezekiel. Whatever attacking it could do, Alejandra wasn’t sure, but her baby drake was going to try.

Hraktar restrained the drake again, though the creature didn’t stop snapping at Ezekiel. The drake growled at the cleric, and it was totally cute. Alejandra placed her hand over the creature’s little jaw, holding it together. “Enough, little one. Ezekiel is our friend. You don’t need to do this.”

The creature kept his yellow eyes fixed on Ezekiel, growling. “This has to be a first,” Ezekiel said, staying toward the wall. “A baby creature far happier to be with Hraktar than me.”

The growling stopped. At first Alejandra was impressed at how well the drake listened to her, but soon noticed a d20 hanging in the air.

Make an insight check.

She gave it a nice roll, and it landed on a five. The +2 gave a small boost, but not enough to make it effective.

Hraktar frowned as the drake continued to pull against his fingers. “It makes no sense. No creature in their right mind would choose me over you unless something was wrong.”

“Something’s wrong! That’s it!” Ezekiel snapped his fingers. “I bet this little guy senses the lycanthropy in me.”

“Do drakes have that good of a sense?” Alejandra asked.

“This one does.” Ezekiel tried to pet the creature, but the drake growled before snapping at his outreached fingers. Alejandra forgot that, while rolling, she let go of the drake’s jaws. Rectifying her mistake, she pinched her fingers over the drake’s mouth again.

“Listen, little guy. These two will take care of you while I’m at school. This one has a disease we’re trying to cure this month. He’s good under… whatever it is you sense. We need your help to cure the darkness from him,” Alejandra said.

A curious frown flickered across Hraktar’s lips. “How is this little baby going to help?”

“By not attacking Ezekiel every time he sees him,” Alejandra said. Hraktar nodded, the answer enough for him. Her phone vibrated on the end table, but she ignored it and looked at Ezekiel. “Where’s Rafael?”

“At work.”

“Good.” She glanced between Hraktar and Ezekiel. “No one tell him.”

Both of them shot an uncomfortable glance at each other before facing her again. “Because you will, right?” Ezekiel asked.

“I…” Alejandra trailed off, looking again at the drake. She let go of his jaws, as he wasn’t trying to attack Ezekiel anymore. Instead, she scratched him under the chin, and the drake’s eyes rolled up into his head, his back leg twitching in delight. She again suppressed a smile.

“Alejandra?” Hraktar asked, his words helping her focus.

“Right.” She dropped her hand. “We’re all going through something, and I don’t want to add to it.”

Hraktar gave her a look, then dragged his hand down the side of his face. “You’re going to… keep this? From your brother?”

Ezekiel pointed across the hall to Rafael’s empty room. “I mean… you saw how horrible it was of him to keep the secret he did. It would’ve been better if it came out sooner. Isn’t this something we learn as a group and promise to never do again?”

Alejandra was stuttering, trying to get her brain to work. The drake slipped out of Hraktar’s fingers and jumped on the desk, his little paws slipping as he climbed closer to Alejandra. She was too distracted to remember what Ezekiel said until the drake ran and jumped toward her. She caught it around the soft belly before letting him scurry up her arm and relax on her shoulder. Hraktar certainly had a roomier shoulder, but the creature was still small. Alejandra started petting the drake, feeling the tiny scales under her fingertips before remembering Ezekiel’s question.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Our entire friend group is…” Alejandra didn’t know how to adequately explain what was happening, even though their characters had front seats to the drama of it all. “It’s hanging by a thread. I don’t want this to be the final thing that breaks it.”

Ezekiel blinked. “A baby drake?”

Alejandra shrugged. None of them were convinced, including herself. Hraktar crossed his arms, leaning to one side. “How do you expect to hide him?”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. “So… um…” She pushed her lips forward as she thought, closing one eye. “It’s really…” If the weight of everyone’s gaze wasn’t on her, maybe she’d think of something.

Her phone started vibrating, which meant someone was calling. Grateful for the distraction, she snatched it off her nightstand and saw Rafael’s name. She cleared her throat before answering it. “Hey, bro. How’s it…?” She was the worst at lying.

“Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah.” She glanced at Hraktar and Ezekiel, both of them watching her. Hraktar had the gall to look amused.

“I was worried when you didn’t respond to my text.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’m—” the baby drake leapt off her shoulder and onto the desk again. Faster than she thought possible, he scuttled to the ground, then went into his hunt mode.

“You’re what?”

The drake moved forward silently, then gave his midsection a little shake again before pouncing on a wolf spider Alejandra didn’t notice was there.

“Distracted,” Alejandra said.

The drake tore the spider in half before licking it up. Alejandra made a face. One less spider to worry about.

“I got a prompt to roll for insight. I’m assuming it was for Ezekiel.”

It was enough to pull Alejandra to the conversation. “Oh! Nice! Are you finally rolling from a distance, then?”

“You’re kind of missing the point. Do you see Ezekiel? Why do I need to do an insight check? What’s that cleric doing?”

“Uh…” Alejandra watched Ezekiel easing toward the drake, hand still out. When he got close enough, the drake spun his head, giving the most adorable snarl Alejandra ever heard. The cleric brought his hand back, glancing at Hraktar.

“Alright, so….” She closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. The words tumbled out of her before she could stop them. “Last month we were fighting these adult drakes and killed them but they were really protecting their egg, so I took it home without telling anyone and I’ve been keeping it hidden ever since and last night it hatched and now there’s a baby drake in our house. Ezekiel was being prompted for an insight check because the baby tried to bite him, and he figured out the creature sensed the lycanthropy in him, so… yeah.”

Alejandra let out a tiny breath, then glanced at Hraktar. He smiled, giving her a thumbs up. Ezekiel slowly let his hand toward the drake again, and the baby sniffed it, still keeping his dragon-like eyes squarely on Ezekiel.

She almost forgot Rafael was on the other side of the phone since he had fallen silent for so long.

“I’m sorry,” he finally sputtered. “What?!”

Alejandra winced. “I… answered your question.”

There was another long pause before he broke it again. “WHAT!?!”

“The baby’s fine.”

“That’s not… Alejandra, what did you… there’s a baby dr—” Rafael stopped, most likely realizing whatever outburst he was about to have would be in a public place. He couldn’t say there was a baby drake in their house. When he talked again, it was quieter. “I have an hour left on my shift, then I’m coming home. We’re figuring out what to do with the baby.”

That phrase also couldn’t sound too good being said out loud. Ezekiel had a finger on its head, slowly petting it even though the drake gave him a murderous look. And on a small baby, it was adorable. Alejandra had a feeling it would be much more intimidating once it was older. How fast did drakes grow? She’d have to do some research.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Of course! Yes. I’ll see you in an hour, and during that time, I’ll do some research.”

“Yeah. Like how likely it is to survive on its own in an Arizona desert.”

She gasped. “No! Rafael, we can’t get rid of him! He’s a baby! He’ll die on his own!”

“You haven’t thought this through.”

Alejandra shook her head. “I’ll see you in an hour.” She hung up, but kept her phone open. She turned on her camera, snapping a picture of the baby.

“While you’re doing research, let me tell you what Tyler told us,” Hraktar said.

She snapped another picture. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Hraktar watched her, frowning. “What kind of research do you want to accomplish in an hour?”

Alejandra pulled up an internet search on her phone. “Drake names.”

***

Evelyn finished her homework. Sure, there were still two thousand monsters in the world, and they would soon grow powerful enough to hurt Earth, but at least her homework was done.

She gathered her books, notebooks, and folders, stuffing them in her bag before she moved into her room. Clarissa was there, meditating. Evelyn quietly placed her things down, and Clarissa turned her head, watching.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to break your meditation,” Evelyn said.

“I was at the end.” Clarissa touched her brow with a rag. “Adding the imitation of blue mana to lure the saber-tooth tigers was hard in the beginning, but they’re getting closer, so it’s not as strenuous.”

“Right.” She leaned against the wall, then glanced at her druid character.

“Everything alright?”

Evelyn sighed. “No. It’s…” Tears filled her eyes again. “You ought to know. There is no portal back to the Shrouded Domain. The creator of the game… told us.” Clarissa continued to watch Evelyn curiously. She didn’t want to say it, simply because it hurt so bad. “So… your brother…”

“No,” Clarissa said.

Evelyn stopped, though there wasn’t much desire to keep her going. “Sorry?”

“I have a dear friend who’s a mana fusor. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

Evelyn frowned. “Milo?”

“Mindset is key. He told me that once. If you go into a project thinking it’s impossible, then it will.” Clarissa smiled. “It’s not impossible. It simply hasn’t been discovered yet.”

Evelyn watched Clarissa, but found she couldn’t disagree. She didn’t want to. Clarissa took this far better than she hoped. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”