Without saying anything Taylor sprang up and began to run across the lake to the north, where the boy was. He threw his voice back toward Melody, “stay there and watch the food, someone’s here and I need to see if they’re a threat or not. I’ll be back soon.”

Melody sat back down as she had jumped up after he started running to follow him. The trees in his way seems to know what he was doing and moved out of his way upon his approach making a sort of path. They couldn’t pull out their roots in time but they did lean out of the way so he could go in a fairly straight path.

Taylor kept mana synch on as he ran toward the boy and soon enough he could see him with his actual eyes. It was just barely at the edge of the woods but he could see the small figure. He slowed to a slow job and came up to the boy at a calm walking pace.

“Hey there!” He called out, “I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to know why you’re all the way out here.”

“Help,” the boy cried, “sen took salen nys! She’s ni ent sal don’t millentu if she’s okay!”

Taylor stood in shock for a moment, they boy was elvish like him, but his ears weren’t nearly as long as his. He wore a simple brown burlap shirt and shorts with no shoes and had short dirty blonde hair. His eyes were blue and were filled with tears.

He didn’t know what to make of it, this was the first time he ran into a language barrier here. But he heard something about ‘help, took, and if she’s okay’ so he knew something bad happened.

He turned around and crouched down putting his hand behind him and gesturing to the boy to get on. Luckily he seemed to understand and grabbed lightly around his neck and hopped on. With that Taylor took off into the woods to get help from Gaia, and maybe Melody too, he still didn’t know quite what was going on.

After a short run he came up to the water and the boy said, “careful of the-“ and stopped as he began to run across the water again. To him it was nothing new but this boy must not have seen it before.

Upon reaching the shore he set the boy down and entered mana synch, “Gaia this boy needs help but I don’t understand him, could you-“

The boy grabbed his shirt, “why don’t you understand me when you can speak elvish so well?” He asked.

Now thoroughly confused he looked at Gaia, who was now sporting the biggest shit eating grin he’d ever seen. “Surprise!” He said still smiling.

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

Melody came up and crouched next to the boy who seemed to have no fear of her at all, he was much more interested in looking at Gaia, the tree that was anyway.

“You’ve been using magic to translate for me this whole time haven’t you?” Taylor asked accusingly, “why didn’t you tell me?”

“You never asked” Gaia retorted waving a hand.

Turning to the boy Taylor knelt down, “I’m sorry, the tree here, Gaia, translates languages here so I don’t know what you said earlier. What can I help with?”

The boys eyes almost bulge out of his head as he remembered the important something he was going on about. “My sister! You need to help her! They took her and I don’t know if she’s going to be okay without me!” He suddenly seemed desperate.

“How old is your sister?” Taylor asked trying to gauge how much time he had to prepare as he stood to talk to Gaia.

“We need to go now!” The boy pleaded, “she’s only five years old. They took us after they-“ he choked up a bit without finishing the last part.

Taylor could guess what happened, maybe their parent or parents were killed, or maybe a whole village sans the women and children. It’s a cliche that happens in stories but he hoped it wasn’t that bad here. He turned to Gaia, “no time, I-“ and Gaia cut him off.

“Go, and take this,” a glowing stone floated into Taylor’s hand, “I’ve enchanted it to continue translating for you even while you’re gone. I’ll wait here for as long as I need to for your safe return.” He said confidently.

With a nod he put the rock in his pocket and turned to Melody, “you can stay if you want.” He said to her.

Melody looked almost insulted, “I’m coming, you wouldn’t last a minute out there without me.”

With that he used magic to put out the fire for the deer, regretting only a little that he won’t be able to eat first but the kid is more important than one meal. He picked the boy up and put him on his back again.

“Once we’re out of the woods you tell me where to go, I’ve never left the forest before” Taylor told him, “so I’m gonna need you to be my map, do you think you can do that for me?”

“Yeah,” his voice cam from over Taylor’s right shoulder, “I’ll do my best.” And they were off.

After they broke through the tree line Taylor stopped for a moment to catch his breath a little and make sure Melody was keeping up. He turned to see her next to him and he decided to stay in mana synch for the rest of the journey to keep tabs on her. He didn’t want to lose the only dragon- wait, dragon.

“Melody,” he said, “I hate to ask this but would it be faster if we ran or if you were able to fly there?”

She was huffing a bit but replied, “well I’m not proud of it but you run faster than I fly.”

Well that plan was out the window, but it seemed she couldn’t keep up on foot very well. “Hey, go ahead and fly from here, keep an eye on me and follow me. I don’t want you to wear yourself out too much before we get there.”

Melody nodded and took off her dress and handed it to Taylor. He stuffed it in his pocket as the material was rather thin and she began to grow. Her face got longer as did her tail and horns. He breasts flattened out into the large chest of a mighty dragon and wings sprouted out of her back.

Once she was fully in dragon form she jumped up with a flap of her wings, blowing air everywhere and making an absolute mess out of Taylor’s hair. He spit the strands that went into his mouth as his hair had reached the middle of his shoulder blades now and he quickly brushed it back and cracked his neck.

“Ok so where are we going uh-“ he paused not knowing the boys name yet.

“Atreus,” he answered, “and that way.” He pointed to the right.

“This has gotta be a sick joke at this point” he muttered to himself as he took off in the direction indicated, “if there’s so much as a scratch on that girl, heads will fly.” He promised himself out loud, no more than a grumble so he doubted the boy heard him.

He picked up the pace going into a full sprint aided with magic, if he had to estimate his speed he’d say about sixty miles an hour was his top at the time. Far too slow for his liking being used to cars and all but probably better than most people can manage. He refused to let this girl be hurt, she couldn’t be hurt, and if she was, there would be hell to pay.