So it turns out someone out there can (or could) severely hurt fully grown dragons. Not that I think they have a sword like Jillsenbane, no, that would be an uninformed, childish hope. Or any kind of weapon like her, for that matter. There are records of other dragonslayers, men and women that in part due to skill and in part due to the luck anyone needs to be in the right moment, in the right place, and exploiting the right openings to strike a killing blow, were able to reliably kill them. Jillsenbane, fashioned from a fragment of the —long ago shattered, or so they say— god of dragons, just has an easier time penetrating their armor and finding their heart and soul. You don’t need a holy sword dragons fear to slay them, but lacking one gives them the more reason to slay you instead of running away.

My captors fear Jillsenbane, too, and I think I am starting to see the power dynamic here: Scarreladai may be leagues more powerful than Gadorprims. He’s prudish and sometimes cocky, but, in the end, always gives in to her demands. He got severely hurt on one of his expeditions, meanwhile the only injury I ever managed to inflict on Scarreladai was a superficial cut in her hind leg while she was distracted with Abeline’s spells. Furthermore, I am alive, despite having killed some of their whelps. The fact Gadorprims cares so much about the children he has with Scarreladai tells me that he isn’t able to easily procure a mate, or at least not of her caliber. The converse is also true: Scarreladai could do better, but is settling for Gadorprims for some reason, and if a few of the children they had together die to my blade, well, that’s a minor loss, a bit of unexpected eugenics. A small price to pay for keeping Jillsenbane contained, away from her chest. Why Scarreladai would settle for Gadorprims could be none of my business, but if the chance to glean that information ever presents itself, I won’t let it go to waste. Any small advantage is a welcome aid on my quest to free Abeline and Carmela, after all.

And many may think my newfound obsession with the bear is the start of a natural, non-dragon-induced madness. You may be right, but I’d rather believe the opossite. It’s the right thing, a litmus test. Saving the bear hampers not my ability to work towards saving Abeline, and the raise in morale could be the straw that breaks the camel back, pushing me to face Scarreladai once and for all. If I fail or if I succeed on vanquishing her then, it won’t change the fact that at least the bear will be free. And If I fail on releasing the bear, how can I ever save Abeline?

Carmela is not afraid of the glyphs if she is exposed to them as soon as she wakes. She is disoriented, but it seems that making sure she sees reality first thing when she wakes up has calmed her down. She let me approach, without touching of course. I kept some meters of distance between us. Enough to react if she tried anything that would put me in jeopardy.

Now and then, I threw a bone across the room to see if she would fetch. She never did.

It seems that, despite their evolutionary proximity, you cannot turn a bear into a dog. I miss dogs. Proper ones, the ones who drool and bark and, sometimes, fetch. But I better get that idea out of my head. There are no dogs in my life, not anymore. There won’t be. Carmela will be the closest thing to a dog, and the closest thing to a human, I may ever interact with.

I will try to pet her. If I never write past this page, consider me thoroughly mauled.

Two hands, ten fingers, one nose, two eyes, two legs. Making inventory, every body part seems to be where they should. Carmela is excessively open to human touch for a wild animal. I have the strong suspicion the dragons sequestered either the companion of a beast master, or a circus animal. I have no idea of how to give orders to either, so even if my theory rings true its applications are, and will keep on being, limited.

Anguish. The mere thought of the existence of such a needed knowledge that I may never get access to takes the lid off a bottomless well of anguish and despair. I am a slave! One granted some privileges by his captors, but a slave in the end, a slave all the same. It’s not the lack of freedom of the body that worries me, it’s the lack of freedom of the mind. Any word I forget is erased forever, with no dictionary to aid me to remember it. The language I flaunt today will be eroded tomorrow, or, hell, next hour maybe. We never know what we are forgetting in any given moment, after all. Only the words I spill on the paper may persevere untouched, so long as their material support remains readable.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Carmela is sniffing me, taking in my scent for reasons that do not concern men. I wonder, what is the facet of freedom that makes bears what they are? Because humans, it seems to me, could be defined by the thirst for knowledge, their pathological seeking of an ever greater understanding. But what makes a bear? It could be the desire and act to catch salmon while the fish struggle against water, hunger and exertion to reach they place they were born in. It could be the drive to look for sweet, golden, glossy honey, for which hundreds of bees slaved away and died. It could be the need to fatten up and look for a lair to spend the winter and raise her cubs. But she wouldn’t do none of these things, weren’t she a bear. Maybe animals, unlike men and their dragons —or dragons and their men— are without the need for a justification.

Carmela just nuzzled me, and then grunted a bit, in the way bears do. How cute you are, Carmela; how disgraced we are, Carmela.

I wonder what would I need to release Carmela. First of all, I’d need to know who owns her: If she is property of Scarreladai, maybe I can talk her way to freedom, if only because her Lady Scarlet persona needs to keep certain appearances in front of the mad me. Now, the problem arises if Carmela is the pet of Gadorprims. Our enmity would make the matter of her liberation, just to understate it, complicated. It doesn’t matter if he feels attached to her or not, if he notices I am, indeed, bonding with his pet, he will do everything in his power to keep us apart, maybe get rid of it. This could stretch to the point of him sacrificing the bear just to see me suffer, I’d bet. Conversely, were him to suspect there is a rivalry of sorts gestating between the animal and I, he would send Carmela to every room I found myself in, hindering my chores as I’d need to keep the appearance of disgust up constantly.

My best bet is probably keeping a seeming ignorance of the bear in his presence. Make him not even suspect the connection and hope Scarreladai doesn’t comment about my little… date with the bear. But for this I’d need constant vigil, or the cooperation of my mad-self. Neither of those conditions are guaranteed, and true constant vigil is not even possible.

I wonder what Abeline would think of me, if she could see me planning this whole lunacy, if she could read my diary of dragons, sigils and bears. I should had accepted her proposal to buy a ranch with the money we made from monster hunting, settle down, have a normal family. Then I could write stories about our missed dear Earth for everyone here and there to enjoy, let someone else rise up to the challenge of handling the dragon menace. But no, the shiny sword had chosen me! Hail, the dragon vanquisher, the Holy Knight who abandoned the peace every man yearns for to save us all! A hero of the ages!

A moron of the ages. A greedy bastard that wanted the fame and honor. Which idiot thought a magical sword had the knowledge and wisdom to make a judgement of character? It was made form a dead god, for sanity’s sake. No deity able to see the future or perfectly predict things would have just… shattered in a thousand fragments. Unless he was as depressed and hopeless as I am.

Look at what all this heroism has led us to, Abeline. You were right, I am sorry. You were always right; I’ll always be sorry. I have to save the bear, Abeline, the bear, who I named like you wanted to name our future daughter. One of them anyway. Cast a final spell to undo this, Abeline. Bend reality to undo my mistakes and save yourself. I know you cannot, that logic and the rules of the world would never allow it, but I need a miracle right now. You knight in shining armor has failed, Abeline. He cannot even figure out how to properly liberate a fat-ass animal from our captors. We could have planted potatoes, Abeline, big, turgid, brown potatoes. We could have raised sheep, Abeline, all fluffy and white and dirty like sheep are. We could have worried about a seasonal flu together, Abeline, we could have been, Abeline. We could have, we could and we cannot anymore. We could have had a dog, one of those that look like Great Pyrenees, and I’d teach it to give a paw, sit, and talk. He’d have a strong recall, and our eldest child would choose their name, probably calling them Cotton, Sugar or Cloud, like children do. Abeline, never forgive this coward, Abeline, curse me, Abeline, make shadow and death take me to spare you, Abeline, Abeline, Abeline.

I need the cuckoo; I need Mister Hyde. He cares not about you, Abeline, and he barely reacts to Carmela. Francisco, spare me of this waking nightmare, let us go back into Lady Scarlet’s palace of wonders for a few days. Just keep the bear fed, yes, for the love of the god that forsook us, keep the bear fed.