“Are you sure the elves won’t kill me?” Lo-Ru Xiashou asked.

“Unlikely,” Leo said as they neared their destination.

Ru wasn’t convinced. “What if I accidentally knock over a merchant stall?”

Leo rolled his eyes at the hundredth iteration of this question as he floated between Hugh, who was carrying their soot-and-swamp-water stained goods, and their new companion Ru. “I don’t think they will, but I’ll admit, I’m not a hundred percent positive. But no one bothered my friend here beyond a few stares when we first showed up. Also, you look less like a threatening kaiju and more like an overgrown chia pet, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Ru frowned and rubbed the center of his face. “The image that accompanied that statement was not flattering.”

The dragon snorted from beside Leo, even though Leo was pretty sure he had never mentioned chia pets before. He wondered if Hugh was just laughing to laugh, or if the tongues ring translated enough to make the joke understandable.

It was hard to care about Ru’s concerns. Leo had a mere two days until the dragonflight started, by their best calculations. He found himself barely able to think about anything else, and he’d had a dream the night before about returning to warn the town only to find the whole thing burned to the ground—except the city had been made of lego, because dream logic, Leo guessed.

Following his own thoughts, Leo turned and stared at Ru. “I doubt they’ll even have time to care about you given how little time to prepare for the real threat.”

“Or maybe they’ll shoot the messenger,” Hugh said.

“Not helping,” Leo said.

“Wasn’t trying to,” the bronze dragon said, rolling his eyes at Ru.

“Hmph…” Ru sneered at Hugh as the other dragon chuckled. Although Ru’s own tail was curled low around his back legs.

Leo stared up at Dayblossom, the capital of the Empire of the One Land. The outskirts of the city they approached, the capital city had no wall. It was a strangely incongruous feature to Leo, who was used to seeing walls around all the major cities on Toth. It made sense though—when everyone could fly, both elf and the enemy dragons, why build a barrier to keep ground-based enemies out?

Instead of walls, the city had a sort of large, cleared space around it where all plant life was cut back, and then a row of gorgeous pink-blossomed trees around the outside of the great metropolis, defining its outer borders.

Ru kept glancing nervously at the city as they approached it.

“Keep it together, courage,” Leo said. “You decided to come to my realm because we work together well. Again, I don’t think anyone will kill you.”

“But you don’t know that.”

Leo exhaled noisily. Ru was obviously imaginative and brave in the ‘life choices’ category—like immigrating to the city of a different species on another dimension or choosing to be a dragon studying esoteric magic instead of fighting. equally clearly, Ru was a total coward when it came to actual, or even potential, physical violence.

An elf flew from the city, carrying a spear with a ridiculous ornamental spiral down its haft, and landed in front of the group. “Halt, wyrmkin! In the form of the treatises, and in the name of the emperor, I demand to know who passes.”

Ru flinched and shuffled backward.

Leo floated forward. “I, Leo, King of Averia of the dimension of Toth, have returned to victorious from my gifting quest. I beg leave to be taken to Emperor Ro, that I might present my gift.”

The elf twirled the spear, despite its huge size, and then slapped it into the ground point up. “You are welcome with the gift you bring, King Leo! I shall seek Wall Warden Fulin-Ro Arin, use name Lin, and we shall pass the message on. Remain as you are.”

The elf flew into the sky, leaving Leo to wonder why they had a ‘wall-warden’ if they had no walls—maybe the ring was translating things oddly.

A moment later, the guard returned with another winged elf—hawk feathers and metallic red hair, which he hadn’t seen that he could remember. The new elf stepped forward. “Follow me please, King Leo.”

The elf started a stately walked into the town, and Leo floated after him. The two elves ambled along.

“Hey, how come these elves can fly even though they can level?” Hugh asked. “I mean, they’re not as crazy huge as dragons, but still, they’re not birds, either. Bird-brained, sometimes, but not birds.”

Leo had already been thinking about the logistics of flying people, and answered in middle averian, with two English words he hoped would be translated by the ring. “I think it’s a combination of things. The atmosphere is far thicker here than on Toth, elves are a lighter species, and the base magic is higher but the flying elves have no special magical abilities—so they probably use the excess magical energy to make up the differences that were probably insufficient for physics alone.”

As Leo spoke, Ru’s eyes had gotten as wide as dinnerplates. The “Glorious Moss Spirit Wyrm” might appear more like a hobo weed lizard, but he had a great mind if nothing else. Leo was willing to be that the concepts translated by words ‘atmosphere’ and ‘physics’ were hitting just close enough to be fascinating rather than confusing.

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Hugh worked his jaw as they walked in, under an arch of fine grained and sanded wood between two of the pink-blossomed trees. “I never really understood how your home dimension could be so cool without magic, but everytime you use words from your home language that I don’t know—now that the tongues ring is helping—I feel like my brain hurts with revelations I can’t quite grasp. I think the upshot of what you said, however, is that they won’t be able to fly on Toth.”

Leo smiled at his friend. Completely bro and frequently foolish, but not dumb by any stretch. “Exactly. They’ll be able to glide, I think, but not fly. They’ll be at a terrible disadvantage on Toth, in fact—they have giant wings that take resources and reduce their other stats, effectively, that will do little for them.”

“Unless they develop actual Air magic,” Hugh said, slowly nodding his giant head. “I see what you’re saying.”

I… hadn’t thought about Air magic or been saying that at all. I still, after almost two years, don’t think a hundred percent like a native about stuff that might really matter. I need to keep integrating the new stuff into my world-view.

Leo looked down at the ground he was telekinetically floating a few feet above and laughed. Probably won’t be hard to do.

Hugh raised and eye ridge at him, but Leo just waved it off.

Ru was glancing around, his body slightly low to the ground as he walked forward. “You guys don’t care at all that we’re completely surrounded by elves?”

Leo glanced around him. He was walking through an open-air market filled with stalls and upward-facing signs. A surprising number of elves walked among the stalls—forced to the ground to shop like common schlubs since the stalls couldn’t fly, Leo joked to himself. The majority of them stopped to stare at the dragons, but not all—some were to busy—or too jaded to magical wonders—to be bothered.

It boded well for future elf-dragon relations, Leo thought… but poorly for dragonflight readiness.

“Eh, I’ve seen elves before,” Leo said.

Hugh also swiveled his head to look at the mild crowd around them. “These ones are way outside the normal range of attitudes elves have when they’re about to try and kill shit. Although, Leo and this one stabby kid I use to know aside, elves are really bad at killing shit anyway.”

Individually, perhaps, Leo thought as he stared around at the giant city around them.

Although, given the discussion I just had, maybe we won’t have a crazy invasion or slow overwhelm of my realm… not sure.

Leo floated after the elf as his flightless dragon buddies followed. He was led through the town to the central cathedral-esque palace complex, and taken up the path to the main, upper-floor entrance.

As he walked in, a sky elf wearing a blue-and-white silk kimono-toga hybrid with great white feathered wings and metallic golden hair not dissimilar from Leo’s own landed on the bridge next to him, just outside the palace gate.

“El!” Leo said, absurdly pleased to see the man that had welcomed him to the world.

El—Golden Cloud researcher Liu Vellein, technically—bowed and made a complicated hand gesture, then rose and smiled at Leo. “Welcome back, Gifter. The guest went well, I assume?”

Leo wasn’t sure how to easily answer that, and scratched the back of his hair. “You could say that… but it came with some bittersweet discoveries.”

El raised one golden eyebrow a millimeter. “Hmm?”

“You’ll hear in a minute,” Leo responded. “It concerns the realm, and I’m going to tell the emperor.”

Some of the guards walking with them exchanged glances, but no one acknowledged his claim past that. El joined them as they were led through the series of mural and statue filled rooms that bracketed the route from the front of the giant palace to the back, until they reached the massive throne room where he had first accepted the gifter quest. Emperor Tang Ri’an, now called Emperor Ro, was holding court, looking very much the young but dignified scion, surrounded by an extremely over-dressed court.

Leo waited through an interesting but completely legalese filled case that he thought was about the sole rights to utilize a pottery style for profit, but wasn’t sure, looking around as he did. Fire Wing General of the Central Winds Tang Xi’Shao and First Wingless Po were present at the Emperor’s sides, but back a bit. First Wingless Po was dressed in an ornate blue and white garmet halfway between a yukata and a toga that left his wings free, and General Xi’Shao, who was also Emperor Ro’s uncle, was dressed in magical bronzed chain mail and a billowing, intricately woven pink-blossom cloak with a long spear at his side.

Magenta? Our battle mode color is Magenta? Leo thought to himself, stifling the giggle before it could disturb the fussy but powerful and advanced people around him.

After a bit, the matter appeared to be tabled for further references to the ‘treatises.’

“Applicant gifter not-yet-an-emperor Leonard Emmanual Evans il Stardew, upon his return, has been moved to the front of the non-active queue as per the ancient traditions outlined in he treatises,” a herald called after stepping forward, his voice not loud but carried to Leo as if he spoke next to him.

“The throne is pleased by his presence. Let him approach,” Emperor Ro said, languidly waving one hand to his servants.

Leo floated across the mosaic-tiled floor, and the two dragons started to follow, but guards with spears stepped forward in unison and held them forward. Tolerance for the ancient enemy didn’t seem to extend to tolerating them approaching the emperor—or perhaps they just hadn’t been called. Leo wasn’t sure.

“You have returned with a gift suitable to demonstrate your worthiness to serve the throne in the highest capacity?” the young emperor asked, the slightest of smiles playing at his lips.

“I have,” Leo said, bowing at the waist in midair.

Fire General Xi’Shao and First Wingless Po both grimaced at his proclamation.

“And what did you bring?” Emperor Ro asked him. All the various ministers and functionaries shifted forward the tiniest bit around him, waiting.

Leo hesitated, not sure if he was okay to float away from the emperor, and just settled for motioning back to Hugh. “It is carried by my companion dragon Hugh, Emperor.”

Ru reached over slowly and extracted his magic-reading device. Leo had promised him, repetitively, that they would make him another, but even so, he handed it forward very reluctantly.

A guard took it and brought it forward, and another wingless—not first wingless Po—rushed forward and took it, running his aged hand across it with a slight pulse of Mind magic. Then the new wingless took the object and held it in front of the emperor.

The emperor glanced at it. “I can see from the Mind and Soul shards attached that it is worth far more than the minimum, but what does it do?”

“It reads ambient magic energy extremely precisely, and the alterations and flows in that background energy with the same precision.”

The emperor looked up his, brow faintly furrowed. “To what purpose?”

“Predicting dragonflights.”

Fire general Xi’Shao laughed. “It tells us more precisely than fifty years? To what purpose? Shall we know that it comes in fourty-nine years and three hundred and fifty days, instead?”

Leo took a deep breath. “It will start in less than forty-eight hours.”