The next day, he patiently waited for the shuttle to arrive. Despite its apparent size, Dragon Retreat turned out to be a rather small settlement, easily walkable from one end to the other within an hour. Airo spend his time wandering aimlessly along the elevated walkways and grounded thoroughfares. The locals gave him a wide berth, intimidated by his armor and dark expression. He paused in his walk from time to time to appreciate the bitter irony. Of all places on this planet, he was stuck in a shrine-town dedicated to dragonkind. Statues of the hateful winged reptiles gazed at him from every corner, as if mocking him and taunting him to take them down with his sword. He was half-tempted to do it, and to the void with this forsaken place.
Night fell, and no shuttle came to pick him up.
On the next day, he asked Kiana to contact the Consortium again. She was mulish and refused at first, yet she consented angrily once she couldn't endure his coercion anymore. He presented himself to the command staff at Kryoon again, with no better results than before. Yes, they would sent a shuttle. No, it couldn't be done ASAP, he was in a hot zone. No, they didn't know why the previous request was ignored. Yes, in a couple of days at most; he had Omega-level clearance, after all.
Airo spent the second day indoors. He took an ordinary datapad, and browsed the shrine-town's database for something to read. When he became bored, he practiced martial arts on the small landing before his room. The hours dragged by. The third day he tried climbing some of the canyon walls; it was an activity he enjoyed in his youth, alongside parkour and swimming. He scaled the smooth vertical surfaces recklessly, clinging to the smallest ledges and handholds in the crystal inlays, heedless of danger, knowing the power armor would prevent any falling incident.
Again there was no shuttle.
On the fifth day, with one very pissed off and furious Kiana, he made one last attempt to contact Kryoon City. By sheer will he refrained from throwing threats at the desk-bound commanders on the other side of the line, knowing the futility and foolishness of such actions. After long arguments and lots of bureaucratic maneuvering, he realized he had been written off. Nobody was willing to send valuable military assets deep into the paraworld's wastelands to recover a single person, even if they would've been a living Ancient. His clearance meant only he couldn't be refused outright. He was promised an extraction again, but this time they didn't even bother giving him an ETA.
Days passed. Airo alternated between staying in his room, and wandering outside, growing increasingly restless and angry. He didn't notice when he swapped the reading datapad for a bottle. He contemplated taking one of the town's ATVs or landcruisers and just get out on his own, but groundside travel was useless on Terra Para without the Beacon Highway; he could become trapped in a spatial maze again, or caught in the open by a warpstorm. He instructed Yeoman Cloud to begin fabrication of an aerial vehicle, anything that could reach the high stratosphere and the nearest Consortium base, even if it took months to build, even if there was a one-in-five chance of a catastrophic design flaw showing up mid-flight.
Kiana and Zuckeroff completely abandoned him, and acted like they were on a vacation: they socialized with the locals, explored the shrine-town, and behaved in a generally care-free way. Airo grew more and more isolated, quietly ostracized by Dragon Retreat's inhabitants. He stopped returning to his room, and instead began to spend his nights in the few bars the shrine-town had, taunting the patrons into fighting him, and flinging curses at them when they ignored him.
And, of course, there was that stupid dragon. Airo thought he had gotten rid of her; yet she came by every evening, asking incessant questions, poking her damned snout in his efforts to distract himself, and being an utter nuisance. He tolerated her, barely, clinging to the thought the moment he left this cursed town, she would stay behind, one way or another.
In the end he abandoned all reading, training, climbing, and other recreational activities in favor of drinking, dampening his grief and subduing his anger, waiting for a bloody extraction shuttle to appear on the frozen horizon.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
***
Time went on, and Veralla learned as much as she could about Dragon Retreat and its inhabitants.
She explored the shrine-town thoroughly. She found vast caves beneath the northern canyons, full of natural crystals which the townspeople harvested to use for lights and fabrication materials. She walked around the twisting labyrinth of passages and caverns, marveling at the beauty of nature which held no less splendor than the achievements of humankind.
During the passing days, the people of Dragon Retreat gradually became used to her. They always treated her kindly, and she talked with many of them at length. As her understanding about the world evolved, she was surprised to see there were no old people, only adults and children. She liked the second group more, as they always played with her when she wanted, laughing and running and tugging at her tail and wings. Her wings became bigger, looking more like those of the dragon statues, though she still could not fly no matter how hard she flapped. People also told her she should be able to breathe fire but she could not or did not know how to; this did not bother her much, as she liked to breathe air, even if it smelled bad sometimes.
She began to distinguish the differences between humans, and the words they used to describe their origin such as Mistlander, Drylander, Stonelander and so forth. She also learned why they called themselves transhumans, and they had different appearances, some of them having bodies made of metals and other inorganic materials, and others had no bodies at all, and instead existed inside machines in a so-called virtual state. This variety amazed her, and she wondered how so many diverse individuals interacted between themselves. She also learned about some beings called artificial intelligences, which also had no body, yet they had no soul either, though they talked and acted like real people even if they were a bit strange. She sometimes had difficulty distinguishing between them and virtual transhumans, yet in time she learned to look for the presence of a soul to make a distinction.
She ate all kinds of meals, like soups, fruits, salads, desserts, candies, drinks, stews, ice creams, cakes, and even drank fusion fuel when some children offered it to her – yet she liked meat most. She also ate with great delight what was called 'real food', which people told her came from the geodesic dome, and it looked just like normal food the nanomachines made yet it tasted somehow more... fully.
She wanted to learn more about everything: how the town was created, how the fusion power plant and nanofactory worked, how new humans and AIs came to exist, why there were plants only in the geodesic dome, and many other things. Yet while people gladly told her those things, they often ended their explanations with the advice that she should read more in the Viirt network or the library. Veralla did not know how to read, so she asked Kiana to teach her. She quickly grasped how written language worked, and after several days was able to read without difficulty, and Kiana showed her how to program and use electronic devices. Veralla absorbed all that knowledge enthusiastically, spending much of her time interfacing with the vast databases of the town's mesh, reading about all kinds of things and topics and practicing basic system instructions.
After she learned to read and interface, she balanced her time between her offline and online states as she still found many things intrigued her outside of virtual reality. As she spoke with humans, she realized they were not all happy and kind to her – some were gruff and rude, others were shy or loud or talked without end, and some were sad – though none of them were as sad as Airo or had a deep cavern in their soul like him.
Veralla stayed with Airo during the evenings, trying to learn more about him and what he did before coming here. She had little success: as always, he was like a dark cloud, those piercing grey eyes filled with sadness, and he constantly drank something called 'alcohol'.
Yet even though she liked Dragon Retreat and its people very much, she was disappointed there were no dragons, only statues of such. There were the dreyks, and Veralla liked them very much too, talking to them and asking what flying feels like. Yet the fact that she was the only real dragon in a shrine-town dedicated to dragons made her feel a little lonely.
Lonely... and sad.
Veralla startled. Sad! She was sad! Why, why, why? Oh, but she was lonely because there were no other dragons around. And after she felt lonely, she felt sad. Her sadness was caused... by feeling alone.
The revelation startled Veralla. Was this the reason Airo was so sad? Because he was very lonely?
It could be. Veralla poked at the tiny gap in her soul. Loneliness. She was sad because she felt alone because there were no other dragons around.
She did not know why Airo felt sad. There were plenty of humans around now. Even before that, he had Kiana and Zuckeroff with him. Yet he still was very, very alone. Veralla was sure of it now.
She wanted to help him. He gave her her life and her name, and he did not deserve to be alone. So Veralla told herself she would always keep Airo company, and try everything she could to make him feel not lonely.