The blue colored grass around me waved in the wind. I was sitting in a field somewhere between the army base we’d been stationed at and Suma’s home city of Zach-Ahshem. We’d been traveling for hours and needed a rest. Suma was in my lap, eating a piece of sponge cake mum had sent for me in my bag. A few days ago, we left the base for a while. With my hand, losing Odens, and… well everything really, neither one of us has taken a rest in a while. Actually, come to think of it, I think the last time we were alone with nothing to do was before we’d joined the army one and a half years ago.

“Mmmmm, the only thing that could make this better is if I had a piece of raisin bread too.” Suma said, eating the last of her sponge cake.

“Want some water?” I asked, offering the opened bottle to her.

“Yes please.” She said, and I poured some of the water into the screw on cap for her. I felt bad about doing it this way at first. Like I was watering a pet, but her beak is too big to fit into the bottle, and the last time I tilted it into her mouth she nearly drowned.

“How much further?” I wondered, putting our things away. Doing it with one hand was hard, but Suma taught me a few tricks on how to use mana molding to do simple stuff like this… at least until I can get my hand back. As bad as losing my hand had been, using magic to move stuff around without touching it did make me feel like a Jedi sometimes.

“Another four hours. How is your mana holding up?” Suma asked, standing up from my lap, then flying over and landing on the hoverbike.

“It’s fine.” I said, filling up four more daljars for the rest of the flight, and sending my bag away. Suma had been saving her strength and stamina by riding on the bike with me. However, since there was no real perch for her to hold on to while it was in motion, she’d mostly been either on my shoulder, or in my shirt.

“Traveling without needing to fly is quite nice, but I do wish that it was a bit faster.” She said, landing on my shoulder as I climbed on the bike and inserted the daljar. For a moment, before the noise cancelling runes could turn on, a high-pitched whirr cried out as the wind runes turned on, and then they were suddenly silenced.

“I guess I could create a tailwind, but you or I might fall off if it gets too turbulent.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Yes, I know. Best not to risk it.” With that, we were back in the sky again, cruising along for her hometown. We were about fifty meters above the ground, and moving one-hundred kilometers per hour. Below us were windswept hills, some barren, some rocky, and others covered in blue-grass and vines. In the distance was a forest, and beyond that were the wastelands.

“Are you excited to be going home again? We haven’t been back since before joining the Drakes.” I asked. There was no need to shout, since most of the wind and noise were being suppressed by the runes.

“It would be good to see my friends again. It has been too long.”

“What about your family?”

“… They will also be there, yes.”

“You still haven’t made amends with them?” I asked.

“Nor have they attempted to make amends with me.” She said, sounding sour at the thought of her parents.

“You should be the bigger man… er, bird… Neame and try first.”

“I already know what they will say. They will say they were right about me joining the army, and about you being too dangerous, and…” She complained.

“Do you think they’re right?” I asked, not even thinking about why I was asking.

“What? No. Of course not. At least… not about you.”

“I know… but Suma… listen. I’ve been thinking, and I think we should get out.” I said, swallowing the nervous lump in my throat.

“Out? Of the army?”

“Yeah. What do you think about that?”

“… Okay.”

“What?”

“I agree. We have been in the army for a rather long time, and it has cost you so much. I can understand why you want to leave. And I have thought about the Queen’s offer more than once, and whether or not it was right to turn it down.”

“Me too.” I said. “Honestly, I was worried you might disagree and want to stay in. With what you told me about why you joined, I just assumed you might want to stay.”

“I do not regret joining, but I do regret dragging you into it with me.”

“You didn’t drag me anywhere. I followed you here.”

“And if you had not, if I had simply asked you to stay, then you would still have your limb.”

“I’ll… I’ll get that back. We’ll figure it out.” I said.

“But Jake, what about the dragon? I thought our plan was to train in the army to defeat him?” Suma asked.

“It still is. I can’t go home with him still around. But I don’t think I need the army to get stronger.”

“Then how?”

“I don’t know, really. I guess we’ll have to figure that out too.”

“Is this why you asked for leave away from the base?” She wondered.

“Yes and no. It was a part of it, but I really did just need some time off to look into my hand.” I said.

“Have you found anything about that in Zachariah’s memories?”

“No, as far as I can tell, Zachariah didn’t know anything about the spell Deyja used in my body. I’d thought I’d seen one before, but I was wrong. It wasn’t Zachariah’s memories, it was Deyja’s.”

“So, the only one who knew how to do it, was the Chaos Dragon himself?”

“I think so. Which means if I want to learn how to get my hand back, I have to look through his memories too.” I said, feeling sick to my stomach at the mere thought of it.