He noticed as he headed up the hill that people were giving him a little distance. Then, he noticed a child pointing not really at him, but Path, Oh, she must have transformed where they could see her do it. That might complicate things.

He noticed something similar when she knocked for him on the mayor’s door. The butler wanted to give a wide berth to Path. “Uh, can we make arrangements for a bath?” Dainin said, as if things were perfectly normal.

The man nodded uncertainly. “The mayor’s down at the beach right now, I think.” He seemed unsure whether to admit a man and a dragon in disguise.

“Sure! I will be happy to talk to him when we get in. I can fill the tub and heat the water. Do you have one?”

His gentle talking to the man got him to just comply with setting them up in a room near the kitchen with the large tub. “Clean clothes?” Dainin asked. “Can I pay someone to launder what we’re wearing? It was a little tough fighting with the sea god.” Dainin knew he didn’t have to put it that way, but something about the situation was bothering him a bit.

Path was quiet in the tub as he got himself a change of clothes and one for her. He found she was sleeping, and he sprinkled cold water on her, “Come on, finish up, and you can go to bed.”

She groaned, complained a little about the change of clothes offered her being “rough,” but she was clean and in bed well before he got up the stairs.

His chest still ached as he soaked in the warm water, he had a feeling that there may have been a broken rib, and Elene had not fixed any of the bruising associated with it so she could have more magic for others.

He was still awake and just getting dressed when the man returned to his home with the captain of the galleon that had been under attack.

The man bowed to Dainin immediately, “Thank you, sir, for your help.”

“You may thank Mysteera,” Dainin said with a return bow. “I helped you in her name.”

He nodded. He is not dressed like a captain, I feel like. There’s nothing on his clothes setting him apart. There was a pause in his thinking and a little bit of a somber feel. “Can I ask what happened?”

“It walked up to us. The wind was not in our favor, and we could not row enough to outstrip it. We had been planning to put into port here at Quiet Wharf to resupply a bit because Corian was supposedly recovering from a disaster. It got ahold of a mast, and drug us into shore.”

Dainin frowned, “Is it some sort of crab?”

The mayor answered this one, “Hermit crab. There are many of them on the beaches, nesting in empty shells and garbage. They usually don’t get bigger than a man’s hand.”

“How bad are the casualties?” Dainin asked, running his hand through his still-damp hair.

“Captain and six others killed. Everyone else is looking likely to make it since Rayale’s priestess came to us.” He bowed again to Dainin, “I do not know what would have happened if you and your dragon had not come for us.”

It felt distinctly odd to him to have Path referred to as his dragon, but at the same time, he knew that it would look that way. “The Goddess was looking after you. What city are you from?”

“We are retuning to Panopoly from Midburg, which is several leagues north of here.”

“There a dragon in Panopoly?” Dainin asked.

“Yes sir, called Kalagra. She serves the royal family and defends our city. It’s why we all have uniforms,” he indicated the striped black and blue nature of his clothes.

He made idle chatter with the mayor and the sailor for a little longer, but he was feeling more and more tired the longer the conversation went, so he eventually excused himself.

He was not surprised when Path got him up, but he was surprised at how light it was in the room. “What, let me sleep through the dawn?” he teased her.

“I am still mad at you, so no. I slept through it. I am really hungry.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Dainin could feel it too, that he was starving.

Their clean clothes were hanging on their door, with some basic mending done for Path’s dress which had gotten roughed up by her transforming. He left her to change, and she left the clothes she did not like still on the floor.

They were offered a big lunch. There were a lot of visitors. People kept trying to ask Path about whether she was a human that could take dragon shape, if she was a priestess of Mysteera, or if dragons could take a disguise.

He could see, with every question, her disposition getting worse as people came in with various excuses to “report” to the mayor and then lingered to try and talk to the two of them. They also tried to offer Dainin gifts - which he mostly rejected. “We will be traveling, so I hope that you will keep this fish for yourself and say a prayer of thanks to the Lady Luck,” he said several times.

He was the most relieved he had ever been that when he carried Path to the blacksmith that the armor was done. He got dressed in it, and when he picked up Path she huffed, “I am glad this is safer for you, but I do not like the feeling of it pressing to me,” she complained.

Her shoes were also done. “Well, let’s get Oberon and get out of here,” he said as he shooed away another woman with an offer of some sort in her hand.

“Let’s do. I do not want to be asked one more time whether I am in disguise or not,” she huffed.

They passed by Elene who was walking up to the mayor’s to have a nap to try and recharge. “Headin’ out already?” He nodded. “You’re a terrible missionary,” she teased him, “not staying and trying to speak to your adoring people and showing them the righteousness of Chaos,” she teased.

He huffed. “I will be heading to Arulteer next.”

“I will look you up when I get there!” she grinned, waving him off and patting Madge that it was time to go.

“Is that because we are going there?” Dainin asked with a raised brow.

“Could be! Was my destination when I set out from Coriander. I genuinely do not know if my God is serious about you and I forming a party. You seem like you could certainly use full time looking after.”

Dainin huffed. “Well, I will see you there then.”

“The shoes are better,” Path said as she walked circles around the horse and waited for him to saddle it. “Is Arulteer the next city?”

“Yes. I am thinking we should stay there awhile, and give you a chance to get used to your body and people, so that you are not having to deal with the strain of travel and also the struggles of things being new.”

The walked together, waving to people as they escaped the town. I think I could have done without the Hero of Fishermen ability, he thought as they moved forward.

Once they were alone on the road, Path would admit that she was feeling pain in her heels, and so he would lift her up on Oberon. “This is also painful.”

“Well, sore muscles are going to be less of a bother to recover from than blisters and soreness.” It was all that he could offer her to make her feel better.

“Why aren’t you with your family?”

“Why aren’t you?” he countered, not sure he wanted to answer that.

She blinked. “Because my mother is dead.” She looked down at him. “My father is another wild dragon. They did not stay together after me, so I didn’t really meet him or know where he was from. I like the ocean, so I picked here to live after I was on my own.”

He felt considerably sobered by that. “I see. How long have you been on your own?”

“I am not sure? Twenty-five years or something like it? You know time doesn’t feel the same to a dragon as it does to a human.”

“Yes, I know. Elves also do not feel it the same as a human.”

“So?”

“It took me quite a while to mature compared to my siblings, because I am half-elf.”

She tilted her head, “What does that mean?”

He tried to think about how to put it, “It means that when my little brother was flirting with girls and able to master his emotions, I was still looking for someone to comfort me when I skinned my knee, even though we were only a year apart. It means that he was twice as big as me most of my childhood and had an easy time beating on me.”

She stared out at the trees, “I did not have any siblings. Dragons usually do not, you know. But that sounds unpleasant.”

“It wasn’t all his fault, I don’t think,” Dainin said as he listened to the wind through the trees and took in the salt smell that always persisted in the air, mixing with the scent of the trees around the road they traveled on. “Humans have complicated relationships, it sounds like, compared to dragons. My father had a human wife, and they were supposed to be committed to each other, but he also had me, with an elf. So, there was tension about that through most my childhood.”

“Tension? Your father’s wife did not like you?”

“Not even a little.”

“So you became a knight for a Goddess who likes pirates?”

“Pretty much.”

She huffed. “It seems wrong.”

Dainin smiled. “I have been told so many times. But chaos is not always violence. Sure, the two go hand in hand with one another, but it is also change and unexpected diversity. I think of myself like that.”

“A profession usually associated with honorability and order being out of place in chaos, going around changing things.”

Dainin felt color on his cheeks. “Yes, something like that, I suppose.” He cleared his throat, “Let’s talk some more about what you might be interested in experiencing as a human.”

“Nothing. I still hate it.”

But he ignored her grousing and started to talk about markets, and, as he predicted, the idea of interesting stuff got her attention and held it quite awhile.