It ended up taking about the same amount of time as last time to get them back to the cave, even though he knew right where he was going. Oberon was tired, he was tired, and the dragon disguised as woman was sore. So, they had to take a couple of breaks along the way.

It was afternoon when they finally arrived at the foot of the hill where the cave was. But… it was already evident that there was a problem. All the grass all the way up the hill was trampled. Path wiggled a bunch until he let her down.

She tried to run up the hill, but she was still not used to the boots, so it slowed her down and she nearly tipped over a couple of times, but she clambered up to find…

An empty cave. Not even a coin left. Path let out the most devastated whimper Dainin had heard in his entire life.

He got off Oberon. The cave yawned at him, dark, echoing as his feet hit the ground. There was a little glitter of blue a little off, and when he moved to pick it up, he realized it was a dragon scale. From Kriseya? Or some other dragon?

He tossed it, the memory of Chandler being a bit smug looming in his mind. This is terrible.

Path was on her knees, pawing at her face with her hands, reminding him somehow of a dragon with the movements as she was subjected to her life’s work vanishing.

Mysteera, Goddess of Fortune, was this completely needed? He prayed fervently in his heart as he moved toward the sobbing dragon.

I am only answering you because of your empathy, he heard the Goddess’s voice, which I approve of. This is necessary for the objectives of your quest and future quests in mind for you.

Just like that, the warmth left him from the Goddess’s presence in his heart and mind, and he had a definite feeling he should not dare to question her again.

He moved over to Path and picked her up. He did not know quite what to do about this whole situation. He thought she shouldn’t stay here in this empty cave though. She didn’t even fight him, she was completely limp.

“I am sorry,” he said, sitting with her outside, petting her hair.

“Why… did you ever take me from my home?”

“You needed to be healed.”

“But… you took me away, and now there’s nothing left.” She wailed the last word, big tears coming down that she pawed at.

He crinkled his brow together, feeling his own eyes burn, “I am sorry,” he said again. He put his arms around her and squeezed her like she was a regular person in need of comfort. She responded by collapsing against his body, his shirt absorbing some of her miserable tears. He didn’t talk to her about the Goddess or the ring on her finger, or anything that had gotten her to this point. He could not quite comprehend being her. He had come to Mysteera to free himself, but not to start over. She did not have her true body, her magic, or anything she had ever owned.

She cried until she had hiccups while he patted her and held her. Then, he gave her his canteen to drink from until they faded. “I felt the priest at Aurell’s temple was acting off, so I didn’t give him any of these,” he pulled the small bag of jewels that they had saved to try and make a peace offering to the town.

She took it, hiccuping a little, “These were some of my least favorites.” She drank more water. “But now I’m so glad to see them.”

He patted her shoulder. “I am sorry this happened.”

“You don’t happen to have a quest to go smite the blue dragon, do you?”

“No, I am afraid not.”

She looked at the ring still on her thumb. “I guess this is what I get for angering a Goddess of Fortune,” she said weakly, lower lip trembling.

“I am sorry,” he said again. “I can assure you that my quest is to look after you, and to help you, moving forward. Maybe we can start a new hoard for when you may be a dragon again.”

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“I will be a dragon again,” she said.

“For then, yes?”

She huffed. She looked miserable and was quiet for awhile, trying to master her own emotions in a visible fashion. “Fine. What now? Do we go back to the stupid town?”

He saw how near the whole idea put her to crying. “No, we will never go back there, yeah? They don’t deserve anything from us.”

She took several deep breaths. “So, where will we go?” she rubbed at her face a bit.

“Anywhere you want. Pick a direction. Work usually appears when we arrive somewhere that the Goddess is interested in.”

She sighed. “You want your armor repaired, right? So, I guess we should go south. There is a town not too far to the south from here.”

“I think that is a great idea. Are you ready to go?”

“This place is dead to me now. I never want to come back. I will never feel like my home is safe again.” She started crying all over again.

He sighed, and he pulled her up in his arms, carrying her back down the hill so they could follow the coastline away from Corian.

She didn’t want to get back on Oberon. He let her walk along with him until she started favoring a foot a bit. “Blister?” he guessed.

“What?”

He lifted her up on Oberon, “Let’s have a look at your feet.” He undid the lacing on her shoes and pulled it away, pulling down her sock. “See these?” he gently touched the edge of a red welt against the side of her foot and by her ankle, “we call these blisters.”

“I have never had one of these horrible stinging things in my life.”

“I am sure your dragon scales are tough and would not get them,” he removed her other she and dug out salve and covered the blisters with it. Then he tied the laces together and hung them off his saddle. “You should have felt that hurting, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I have not liked the shoes since I put them on. It only felt uncomfortable. I feel always uncomfortable.”

He sighed. “All right, well, no more shoes for a while if we can help it until these fade.”

“How long does that take?”

“A day or two. Do you know how far the other town is away?”

“It would only take me a half a day of flying to see it. That is further than Corian from here by a little.”

“All right, well, we should be able to keep you out of shoes once we reach there and we can see about getting these ones customized better to you.”

That evening, they could see a ship anchored a bit out at sea. It had no colors flying. Path saw it also, “Those are going to be pirates.”

“You interacted with pirates?”

“I scared them sometimes. They sometimes looked for opportunities to get into my… into my old home.”

“I see. They have been the reason a lot of towns along the coast are looking to get dragons that are willing to support and protect them.”

She huffed. “They protect themselves fine, without a dragon. Dragons come at a price. Even I wanted them to do a certain thing for me.”

“What was that?”

“Leave me alone and not hunt in my forest or my part of the ocean.”

“You think the new dragon will be like the ones in Myraduil?”

“Maybe. I hope not.”

He hoped not as well.

They kept riding, only to get stopped on the road. “Whoo, a man and his woman?” said an elf in highly accented human common.

“Looks like the lady’s got money,” said another one. There were five of them in a group. “We’re looking for donations to use this road.”

They all had the jewel tones of sea elves, one with skin like an amethyst, another a metallic gold, another just faintly green with shorter ears (likely a half-elf like himself), one with dark skin that resembled onyx, and the last a dark red.

“Well, I have no coin to spare for my brother’s in fortune,” Dainin said calmly, “It is the way of the Lady of Luck that you must find a way to win it.”

There was silence, and then some laughing. “Knight-brother? Whoever heard of that?” they all cackled together as they looked at the holy symbol he showed on his ring as he held out his hand to them.

Likewise, each of them had the clover shapes hanging from their ears, necklaces, or as a charm on long wild hair.

“I am the first,” he said. None of them had any kind of aura, they were not blessed and did not have magic. “Share a warm meal with us, since I am sure your crew camps on the beach, and I will bless you in the Lady’s name. For we are weary travelers.”

There was some chuckling, “I suppose we can accept blessings as our toll, please, down there toward the beach, there is a cove,” said the one that was like an onyx.

Path was very tense as he led Oberon down the hill. “What are we doing?”

“They all worship the same Goddess I do, we are going to have some hot dinner.”

“But they are pirates,” she hissed softly to him.

“So they are, what better worshippers of Chaos and Luck will you find?”

She made that attempt at a growl that didn’t work because she was human.