"You never should have let her out of your sight," Eli said.

The party was gathered on a large branch that had been ripped from a redwood from the wind of the dragon's wings, one of many that now littered much of the northern forest. They were situated at the edge of a large, newly formed clearing. The thick layer of roots that covered the ground had splintered and compacted under the weight of the dragon, while the redwoods themselves had been mostly obliterated and crushed into mounds of splinters, bark and leaves. The sun peaked through parting clouds, and the humid air was growing warm.

For hours, as adventurers trickled into the latest rendezvous point of the expedition, they had waited for Iris to appear. Now, as new arrivals slowed to a stop and discussions of when to move out began among leadership, patience was waning.

"Don't do that," Titus said before Victoria could respond, "that doesn't help anyone."

"He's right, though," Victoria said solemnly, "I should have been watching her aura. If I'd been paying attention--"

"Then what?" Titus asked, "we don't know what happened, or where she is, so we don't know what could have happened either. You can sit there and imagine a thousand scenarios to feel bad for and none of them will be what really happened, and none of them will help Iris."

"What if you talk to Cole again?" Autumn said, leaning forward to look past Titus to Eli, "convince him to put together a search party--"

"He's made it clear that Iris is our responsibility," Eli said, "that's a dead end."

"Let's do it ourselves then," Victoria said, "we don't have to search the whole forest, we can trace a line back to the last place I saw her--"

"Our orders are--" Eli began.

"Fuck the orders!" Victoria yelled, standing from the branch and turning on him, "you act like you care so much about Iris and now you wanna talk about orders? Is this about Cole? Because--"

"No," Eli rose to face her, "it has nothing to do with that. I don't know if you noticed, but there's some fucked up shit happening in these woods. That was a dragon. We're standing in the footprint of a fucking dragon, Vic. Shock wizards dropped from the sky and attacked us, we watched a giant spider fight a wyvern-- it's fucked up out there. This is about you, and Titus, and Autumn. If I lose Iris I'll never forgive myself. But if I lose you three, too, I-- I can't. I can't take that risk."

Victoria and Eli shared locked gazes, exchanging as much information through their eyes as they had with their words. Eli's face was stern but fragile, while empathy slowly broke through Victoria's fierce expression.

Autumn rose from the branch and dusted off her trousers, speaking in a casual tone to break the tension, "well, dear leader, unfortunately it's not just your risk to take."

"She's right," Titus stood up beside Autumn, "if we're voting, then I say we go find our friend."

Eli glared at the two of them, then looked back to Victoria, "Vic?"

"You first," her voice wavered slightly, but her eyes were stern.

Eli stared back at her, his face shifting from anger, to pain, to weakness, and then to determination, "let's go find her," he said quietly.

A smile cracked across Victoria's face, "alright, we have about four hours of daylight left and a lot of ground to cover. We'll split up but stay within earshot--"

"You guys are gonna think this is hilarious," Iris said from her seat on the branch.

"Iris!" Autumn yelled, dashing over. She was short enough to pull Iris into a hug where she sat.

"You're fucking kidding me," Eli said, "how long did you sit there and let us argue?"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Not long," Iris grunted under the pressure of Autumn's hug, taking a deep breath when she finally let go.

"Yeah, actually I'm kind of mad too," Victoria said, placing a hand on her hip.

"I thought you'd notice me," Iris defended, "I even coughed at one point."

"This is why you need to make a noise when you blip," Eli said, pointing a finger at her.

"We could get her a bell," Titus suggested.

"I am not wearing a bell!" Iris said.

"Where were you?" Eli interrogated, "what happened?"

"That's a long story," Iris said, "and every time someone talks it hurts," she pointed at the dried blood trails under her ears.

This prompted the others to inspect her further, and notice the blood soaked, poorly bandaged wound on her stomach, her misshapen hat, and the needle-like redwood leaves stuck in her messy hair that spilled out from under it. These were just the newest additions to her appearance, added to the now familiar gash in her robe just below her collarbone, the puncture near her shoulder from the wasp sting, and the mud stains from the battle in the ravine. That was to say nothing of the various kinds of blood that stained her all over, and the countless scratches that covered her skin.

"Wow, you look like shit," Autumn observed.

Iris cracked a weak smile as Titus moved in to examine her. He crouched beside her, first tapping her on either side of the head with a glowing finger to heal her ears. She winced and hissed in pain, but it was thankfully over quickly.

"I'll need you to lie down for this one," Titus said, peering at the bloody bandages on her stomach.

Iris nodded and stretched out across the branch. While Titus tended to her wound, Eli picked up a piece of the discarded bandages he tossed aside, noting the distinctive silver trim that lined some of the scraps.

"Are these from a shock wizard's robes?"

"Uh, yeah," Iris said, then stalled with an awkward, forced laugh, "it's a crazy story, really--" she cut herself off with a hiss as Titus sealed the wound.

"Did you fight one of them?" Eli asked, "What were you think--" he stopped himself, looked down at the scrap of robe, then back at Iris, "did you win?"

"Yeah," Iris smiled.

Eli smiled back, nodded more to himself than her, then dropped the scrap back into the pile, "Good job, I'm proud of you."

"Really?" She asked.

"Yeah," he said softly, "I'm glad you lived. How'd you pull it off?"

"That's a whole story," she replied, sitting upright after Titus finished healing her, "I'm still kind of processing it."

"There's no rush," Victoria said, sensing the upheaval in her aura and giving Eli a warning glance to drop it, "you can tell us when you're ready."

"What do we do now?" Iris asked.

"We wait for orders," Eli said, "and hope those orders are to go home."

----------------------------------------

"This is a clusterfuck," Commander Bridge said.

He was perched on a patch of recently cooled obsidian on the outer edge of the dragon seared plateau. It had been carved into a bowl shape as the beam formed a crater in the middle, with long, drooping rock formations spilling over the sides from the overflowing magma. The highest points along the ridge of the bowl had cooled quickly in the wind, but much of the inner surface was a thin layer of soft, half-solid rock covering still hot magma, and the deepest parts of the center still glowed red.

"I think I'd rather deal with gods than dragons," the Dreamweaver said, standing on her own patch of obsidian.

"At least gods can be reasoned with, sometimes," the Commander nodded, "I guess we should just be glad we weren't in the way."

"You know, I rarely get tired of being a Titan, but it's times like these when I wish I was one of them," she turned to look down on the forest, to the distant clearing where her expedition regrouped, "you know we'll have to call a council over this."

"You can't outrun the responsibility of power," the Commander said with resignation.

Her eyes still lingered on the footprint of the dragon, "all the weight that comes with being us, and we're still small enough to be stepped on."

An Agent of Morose shimmered into view opposite the Commander, his mask marked by a tear under either eye, "there's an issue."

The Commander released a sudden laugh, "Really? I guess Morose does observe."

He imagined a glare coming from behind the dark pits for eyes of the agent's mask.

"The Wyvern's egg is missing," the agent said dryly, "we have reason to believe it wasn't taken by the Mandate."

The dragon's words had been heard by all for a hundred miles, and both the Titans recognized that name.

"You want to tell us what the Millennium Mandate is?" the Dreamweaver asked, "or why you even care about our business?"

"Don't bother," the Commander scoffed, "you'd be better off asking the rocks."

"Your business overlaps with that of Morose," the agent said, "it is within their interests for you to recover the egg as planned. We've swept the forest for the egg's aura, it is nowhere to be found."

"Probably obliterated by the dragon fire," the Commander said bitterly, "I'm really finding it hard to keep giving a damn."

"It was not," the agent said, "investigate your subordinates. I will be in attendance to the council, and you will report your findings."

"We're not taking orders from you," the Commander shook his head tiredly.

"These are the orders of Morose," the agent said, "defy a God if you wish."

The agent shimmered away. There was a silent moment as clouds moved in front of the sun and a cool breeze drifted past.

"Drinks when we get back to the city?" The Dreamweaver asked.

"Yeah," the Commander sighed.