The journey home was short. In fact, it was far more abrupt than I had expected. The roads seemed far busier than usual, and I was actually picked up by a royal guard after only a few hours on the long path back.

  My homecoming was a grim one. My family already knew something was wrong since they had contacted the Adventurer’s Guild when they realised I should have returned with Chance long before then. Darkrose was incredibly happy to see me and leapt into my arms, showering me in kisses. Our growing age gap hadn't gotten too noticeable yet because as a half-elf, I may have been 18 years old, but I probably looked like I was only about 12 or 13.

  My father was all business and rather untalkative at first. He was quick to acquire due restitutions from the Adventurer’s Guild. In addition to the original bounty many times over, I was also granted full membership with the adventurer’s guild plus perks including novice memberships in the other union guilds.

  I don’t know why, but at first I hid the dragon egg from my parents; I guess it was because its father had killed Chance. I showed it to Darkrose and we planned to care for it together. But I soon thought about the little runt and what Chance said about whelps sometimes becoming dragons, and I wanted to give the little guy the chance to be the best he could be. So I asked my parents for help. They seemed quite hesitant to accept this puny little white whelp as a pet at first, but after seeing how attached Darkrose and I had become to the thing, they quickly became attached themselves. My parents knew all kinds of stuff about dragons, like how they stopped interacting with humans, and how there was no known dragon kingdoms in the settled world. They also sent away for specialised books, some regarding the ideal diet and developing conditions for dragonkin, and others containing runic inscriptions for improved mana-flow.

  I put my projects on hold for a while and visited the local Adventurers Guild, a small office that had only recently been established. There was a curious contract regarding a fallen star, the description reminded me of the night we found Darkrose. The contract was actually a few years old and had been mostly ignored due to the large distance from any guild offices, and the low reward level. And also I guess the age of the contract. It simply requested investigation, information or items acquired are the only rewards offered. The location described was not far from where Darkrose landed. So I left town with my katana at my side carefully avoiding the caves just south of town and made my way to the original impact site; it had grown in quite a lot over the years. Darkrose must have been staying with us for something like 10 years now. That’s when I realised that this crater could not have been 10 years old, unless it had been impacted a second time a few years later? I began to search near the center, pulling out the grass and brushing away the dirt. Just as I was about to give up, I felt a smooth cold object. I dug my fingers into the dirt and pulled a ring from the earth. It felt like iron, cold and heavy but it was translucent. I slipped the ring into my pocket and made my way back home. Along the way I heard a few creatures scampering about within the nearby caves, and for a minute I thought about trying my luck. But I thought about Chance, about Darkrose, and my parents. I also thought about my main project, forging some proper armour, so I hurried back to the main path and made my way towards town.

  Later that day I tried the mysterious ethereal ring on for myself. I could feel a great power from within it, but it somehow felt like it did not belong to me, and in fact, it felt obvious to me that this object was seeping with Darkrose’s aura. I had planned to wait until the anniversary of her arrival but I couldn’t wait. I mean, this was sort of my first reward for a solo guild contract. So I gave the ring to Darkrose. She stared at it in wonder for several moments before carefully taking it from me with both hands. She stared into the shimmering band and looked to me for a moment. I awkwardly gestured, very nonchalantly implying she try it on. She kind of shrugged and started to giggle as she slipped the ring onto her finger. Just then her body began to emit that same soft blue light from before. The light grew more intense and her form began to change. My stomach sank and my face started to twitch uncontrollably. I couldn’t believe that Darkrose could have been a dragon, but I did. For the most gut wrenching second of my life, I was sure that she was. But she wasn’t. A second later the light began to fade, revealing a much older girl, maybe in her mid teens. Actually, based on appearance alone, she now looked older than me for the first time! We stood in awe, rather dumbstruck for a period of time. I tried to think of something clever, or funny to say, but all I came up with was “Wow you look incredible!”. I guess she hadn't noticed her physical change, because she looked down at her body and flinched when she saw herself. She tried to cover herself embracingly even though her clothes were still covering her, be it, a little more tightly then before. Finally, when she also realised this fact, she started to laugh at herself, and I just exploded into laughter. Finally the tension was broken, or so I thought. Darkrose’s laughter soon turned to tears, and they didn’t completely stop for days. Between her tears she tried to console me and tell me it was okay, and that it was not my fault. Eventually she explained that her memories came back to her, not all of them, but enough; maybe too much. But she was happy to know more about herself and where she may have come from.

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  Finally after a few weeks of activity I was able to settle down and begin my craft. People were upset to see I was making gear that would not fit on a human: first the greaves, then the gauntlets. "Oh! Is that a half-elf heart guard?" they would ask. Eventually they stopped coming by the workshop, but my father was proud. He told me it was the best craft he had ever seen.

  As I worked on my craft, I also kept up with my studies, of which I had actually chosen my own curriculum. I studied the books I had been given on my trip to the capital. They had a lot of boring and trivial information, but I found the prophecies endlessly fascinating. Although after studying them for awhile I came to realize they were kind of stupid as well. The Prophecy was made in the age of heaven; before the sky was sealed, when the stars moved freely above the world and a bunch of other absurdities. The human translations claim that a royal half-blood will bring ruin to the world's kingdoms. The elven translations state that the child of two great kingdoms will unite the world. The elven translations seem to date back further, but the original prophecies were allegedly written in dragonic and have been lost to the ages. Anyway, that explained why so many people hate half-elves, hence why I find the prophecies kind of stupid. Anyone who’s already xenophobic will be looking for any reason to prevent unity, or interracial coupling. And this superstition directly affects me in a negative way more often than I’d like to admit for growing up in such a small village.

  Eight months of hard work and study later, the whole set was done: defence enchants, health enchants, strength on the gloves. Still all a little too big for me, but with 4 months left, I could make one hell of a sword…

  First I would have to make a plan for the perfect weapon... of course I decided on the katana. I started to practice with the kendo stick. I loved to challenge the adults to a spar. They would always take it easy on me the first time, but I had a natural skill to parry and deflect using my opponent's momentum against them. Too easy...

  While researching weapon plans I found a few obscure references to the Blacksmith King, a royal human bloodline that never actually held the throne, but served the crown for many ages. Most of the books I had access to were quite old, and I had never heard about them before, so it seemed like they weren’t around anymore.

  I started on the craft with 2 months to my 19th birthday using the best enchants I could think of. I was worried it would not be finished by my birthday but after a few sleepless nights at the anvil I managed to complete it in time. Forged to perfection with the blacksmith tricks I learned from my father and polished off with a life-draining enchant I created using a twist on some enchants my mother taught me and a few things I picked up on my own and from books. My first life-stealing katana was complete.