Chapter 114: Friends

Felix Sythias’ POV (continued):

Since all of Alex’s clothes and other items were back at our dorm room, we decided we’d head back there. So I grabbed a few large steaks from the pantry—I was here anyway, so why waste the opportunity to take some food with me—and then we left. We flew towards the dorm at a rather quick pace and landed on the outside of the tower. I opened the window to get in before anyone saw us. I hadn’t used the window before and it was a tighter squeeze than I was expecting but we made it work.

We could’ve just gone through the main entrance, but I really didn’t want people to start asking us a million questions about how we were and how we survived while we walked to our room. I was sure they’d have meant well, but I really wasn’t in the mood to tell the same story a thousand times. I’d show them we were safe later, if they didn’t hear the rumors first, but until then we were going to have some peace.

I told Alex to go shower first, and while he did so, I put a towel and some fresh clothes on a chair near the door. Soon, the shower was running, and from the way steam was crawling out through the cracks in the door, Alex had turned the heat way up.

I watched the steam curl up around the doorframe, dispersing into the room as it faded away. I stood there for a moment, just taking in the room. The still mostly empty bookshelves, the picnic table we’d ‘borrowed’ from outside, the loft with my soft nest-like bed, and more. I hadn’t really appreciated before how nice it was to have such a nice comfortable place to retreat to. I’d have to try not to take it for granted again.

With small, measured steps, I retreated into the corner of the room where we’d put down the thick, plush carpet for me to lie on. I sat down, resting my head on my talons, and for a few minutes, just… was. With deep breaths, I let the world settle around me as I listened to the sound of the shower. For the first time since we left, I felt home. I was safe here, in my own room, above ground.

Before long, Alex had finished showering. I stood up as he came out of the bathroom. His scales shone brilliantly again, dripping with water. I hadn’t even realized how dull they’d gotten until now. It was a world of difference.

He grabbed the towel I had put down for him and began drying off. He started from the top, moving in a way that I could only describe as sexy. He dried off his head, stretching nicely and showing off his genital slit, before moving down his body to his legs, bending over and lifting his tail slightly, giving me a nice view of his butt.

Once he was done, he wrapped the towel around his waist and turned to me with a smirk. “Shouldn’t you go shower, we don’t want to keep our friends waiting, do we?”

I shook out of my trance and glared at him playfully while I walked to the door. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” I asked, and his smirk widened.

“You noticed, then?”

I rolled my eyes. “How could I not, you show-off?” I said, rolling my eyes. I gave him a kiss as I walked by and gave his butt a slight squeeze. “If we had more time—and if I wasn’t so covered in dried blood—I would’ve asked you to join me in the shower.”

Alex glanced down at the floor, his tail twitching a little with embarrassment. “I would’ve liked that. Maybe next time?”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Maybe we can go swim beforehand, have a nice dinner, get a little dirty, and find a reason to go shower?”

Alex looked up, smiling. “I’ll keep you to it.”

I smiled back at him. “For now though, I’ll go scrub this blood off. You go put some clothes on so that when I’m done, we can leave immediately.”

Alex nodded, and I closed the door behind me. For a moment, I just stood there, letting my heart calm down a bit. Flirting with Alex was fun, but right now was not the right time to be horny.

After a few seconds, I turned the shower back on and began scrubbing away at my scales with one of the sponges while water blasted at me from all sides. The water running towards the drain quickly turned a red-ish brown, and any desire to pick Alex up and fuck him right here and now vanished with it. There were few things as unsexy as washing off dried blood.

It took a lot of effort, but with some serious scrubbing and a large amount of water magic, I managed to get most of the blood out from between my scales. There were a few places I just couldn’t quite reach, and where the grime was a little too stubborn to be removed by magic—like the back of my hind-talons—but I did my best and it would have to do for now.

When I was done, I grabbed the bottle of the nice scale polish—the one faintly smelling like pine needles and leather. I applied some and began rubbing away at my scales using the special cloth I kept for the exact purpose here in the bathroom. I was only able to give myself a quick once-over, as I didn’t have the two hours to do it properly. Still, my scales were now much better than before.

I stretched, feeling good. I reveled in not feeling the crusty dried blood every time I moved. And knowing I looked nice made me feel nice. I turned the shower off and with a quick blast of fire magic, dried myself off. When I got out again, Alex was already waiting for me, trying to clean my saddle a bit. I sighed when I saw the state my saddle was in.

It was mostly indestructible to anything near our power level, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t get dirty and worn out. I’d have to get it professionally cleaned to get all the bloodstains out. But there was nothing I could do about it right now, so without further ado, I put it on. Though, I did shudder a bit as the grimy leather moved over my scales. I couldn’t really feel the dirtiness of the saddle through my scales, but the idea of wearing a dirty saddle just felt wrong to me.

The moment I tightened the last strap, we were off. We didn’t really know where anyone was, so we went to Tiki’s room first, only to find the whole building was empty. We spent a full minute puzzling over where everyone could’ve gone until we realized it was a weekday and everyone had simply gone to class.

“Right, that makes sense,” Alex said. “It’s mostly just been a normal week for everyone here, I almost forgot about that. Do we just go to the school building, then? Or do we wait for them here?”

I thought about it for a moment and then turned my head to the shadowy part of the hallway. “Jade, do you think you could help us?”

Jade, the janitor who ran this dormitory, stepped out of the shadows and nodded. “Of course, young master. I will run ahead and arrange something with the principal,” she said, then hesitated. “I’m glad you’re back okay.”

And with that, she stepped back, vanishing into the shadows once more. I turned to Alex. “There, problem solved.”

Alex stared at where Jade had been only a moment ago, a wide look in his eyes. “Has she been there the entire time?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Nah, but she gets alerted by the enchantments anytime someone calls her name in the hallways, and likes to appear from the shadows.”

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“Oh,” he said. “That explains some things.” He shook his head. “Anyway, let’s go then.”

We went outside and decided, after a quick discussion, to just walk to the school building. Alex understandably didn’t want to fly. In his words, his ass felt like mincemeat. His [Dragon riding] Skill and his Attributes compensated somewhat, and the former had leveled up a ton from all the flying we’d done, but in the end it only helped. It didn’t prevent soreness—yet.

We arrived fifteen minutes later and walked inside, heading to the principal’s office. I hadn’t met the man or woman yet, since they mostly only did administrative work, but I’d walked by the office a few times. Alex knocked on the door for us, and we were let in.

“Please wait here until your friends arrive,” the principal said, shaking our hands. “I’m really glad you two are okay. Saves me a whole ton of paperwork, I’ll tell you that much.”

She chuckled at her own joke and sat back down to continue doing her paperwork while we waited, occasionally asking us a question about how we were doing. I didn’t mind the wait. It felt oddly… normal. There was no big fanfare or ruckus about us returning safely—just a wait for friends. In a way, this was also nice. It gave me a sense of normality I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. I was just a guy waiting for his friends. Hopefully, everything else would soon turn back to normal as well.

It only took a few minutes for the first of our friends to arrive. There was a knocking on the door, and Viggi poked his head through. His face lit up when he saw us, and he rushed forward to embrace Alex in a hug.

“Alex! Stars, I’m glad you’re okay!” he said. “When I asked for some time apart, I didn’t mean you should disappear!”

They both chuckled at that, and I smiled at them. I did still feel a little sad that I didn’t really have friends like that—not counting my boyfriend—but I was happy to see Alex getting along so well.

They separated again, and Viggi turned to me. But before he could say anything, there was another knock on the door, and Tiki and Sekara came in. Sekera rushed forward to give Alex a quick hug, and Tiki, to my surprise, rushed forward to give me a hug.

“You made it back okay!” she said after she let go, wiping away a few tears. “After that explosion… when I didn’t see you guys anywhere… I really, really thought the worst had happened.”

I smiled at her. “It takes more than a few rocks to kill us, though I will admit that your brother got pretty close.”

Her smile dropped. “Yeah…” she said. “I’m sorry that happened. I knew he didn’t like you, but that he would go as far as to try to kill you… I really didn’t think he could do something like that. If I’d know, I would’ve stopped him. But I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.”

I held up a talon. “Whoa, calm down. I’m not blaming you.”

She took a step back, limping a bit. “Sorry. I’ve been wondering if there was something I could’ve done ever since they caught Alfred.”

I shook my head. “I doubt there’s anything you could’ve told him that would’ve changed his mind,” I said. “Anyway, how are you doing? How is your leg? I was told it had to be amputated.”

She grimaced, rubbing a hand at her leg, as if it still hurt. “Yeah… It got crushed by a falling rock, but it’s fine now, mostly. There’s some annoying stuff I’ll tell you about later, if that’s alright? I want to go say hello to Alex, too.”

I smiled. “That’s fine, we’ll catch up later.”

“And maybe you could do it outside my office next time,” the principal said. I turned around to look at her and shot her a sheepish smile.

“Maybe we should go outside?” I asked.

We thanked the principal for letting us wait in her office, then made our way outside and walked a small distance to the park, where we sat down beneath some tall trees.

“So, what happened?” Viggi asked. “I know there was an explosion that caused a cave-in, but what happened after that? How did you manage to survive?”

I shrugged. “We managed to outrun the cave-in until we came across a hollow to shelter in. I reinforced the stone with my magic and it held, so we survived.”

Alex stared at the ground. “It was terrifying, honestly. Even from Felix’s back, it felt like the very world was shaking. And the rumbling just kept growing closer…” He shuddered. “I’m glad we’re under the open sky again, let’s leave it at that.”

I pulled Alex against my side and wrapped a wing around him. He leaned into me and murmured a thank you my way. We then told them the rest of the story, like we’d told dad. Both Alex and I left quite a few things out, though. None of them needed to know we were the cause for the Title system. They were enraptured by the tale of the lost ruin, and by the time we were done telling the story, the sun had moved a lot closer to the horizon.

Since it was getting late, we decided to get some food. We went back to the dorm together and made a quick meal for all of us. While we ate, they all told us what they’d been up to these last two weeks. Unsurprisingly, their time had mostly been normal. Sekera had studied and went to class, though she told us she’d hung out more with Tiki and Viggi than before. Tiki had spent most of her time dealing with the fallout her brother had created and dealing with her leg. Viggi had mostly done the same as Sekera, except he’d also worked in his restaurant on the side.

“Fuck, the restaurant,” Alex said. “I’d totally forgotten about that. Do I still have the job?”

Viggi nodded. “You should. Though I’ll have to ask dad to make sure. Will you be coming to the next meeting? I can tell you then.”

Alex nodded carefully. “I’ll be there, I think,” he said, then paused. “When is that? Actually, what day is it today?”

I froze. Alex was right, what day was it today? We’d been stuck underground for long enough that time had lost meaning. I knew it had passed, but without the sun to keep track, I had no idea which day it was now. And neither of us had asked anyone at any point, either.

Tiki chuckled. “It’s Tuesday. You two were missing for a little over two weeks.”

I stared at her. Had we really been gone for that long? I knew it had been quite a bit of time, but more than two weeks? Fuck.

“Seriously, two weeks?” Alex asked, looking as shocked as I felt. “That’s way longer than it felt like.”

They looked awkwardly at us. “I’m guessing no one told you?” Viggi asked.

I sighed. “It hadn’t come up so far, no.”

“Well, you’re back now. That’s what’s important, right?” Tiki asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. And hopefully life will be back to normal soon enough.”

She smiled. “I suppose you’ve had enough adventure for a while?”

“Yeah,” Alex and I said at the same time. We chuckled, and Alex continued. “We’ll probably go on more adventures before long—we’ll definitely want to see if we can find that ruin again—but right now I think we both want a little peace and quiet for a while before we go out again.”

“That’s fair,” she said. “Speaking off, when are you coming back to class? Or are you taking a little time off to decompress? I’m sure the teachers wouldn’t mind.”

I glanced at Alex. “We haven’t really talked about it yet, honestly. But I know I will take at least a few days before I see what I’ll do next. I’ll probably use the time to switch a few of my classes to something that I’ll get more use out of.”

Alex nodded. “Same for me. Though, I’ll keep the classes I have right—ah!” Alex clutched his head as he yelled out in pain. I rushed to catch him before he fell, but he waved me off. “It’s fine, I’m okay. Fuck, that stung. It’s my damned Path and Title.”

I blinked. “The thing finally unlocked?” I asked, referring to the Dragon Rider subsystem.

“It did, and it dumped a ton of information into my head all at once,” he said with a grimace. “Fuck.”

“Is he okay?” Viggi asked, looking concerned.

I glanced at Alex. “Probably, yeah. Without saying too much, I’ll just say he has a new Path and it's been giving him some trouble. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to cut this reunion short a bit. We’ll catch up later, okay?”

“Yeah, no, of course,” Tiki said. “We could meet up tomorrow after class?”

“I have to work in the evening,” Viggi said, “but I can probably drop by for an hour.”

“Same for me,” Sekara said.

I nodded. “That’s settled then. We’ll see you guys tomorrow then.”

We said our goodbyes, and Alex climbed onto my back. We quickly flew back to my room and crawled in through the window.

“So,” I asked once we were inside and the window was locked, “what does the new subsystem do?”