By the time we arrive, the sun has risen fully, banishing any former tendrils of the night’s cold. In the dry heat of the sun, the encampment doesn’t look like much of anything. There’s a big pile of ash encasing the woolly drake I killed, and then there are the two tents in the distance, next to the cave. Everything else is covered in soot.

I pause in my step once we’re here, but Simel moves on ahead with brisk strides.

Only to step on a minute raise in the soot, his foot going right into something soft and crunchy, making him lose his footing and fall, but before he can fall into the burning hot ash I’ve leapt out to put my body below his, catching him just before he can scald his face and hands on the stuff below. With his body atop mine, I can feel closely how the stuff below the soot isn’t just sand anymore, but also hard, dry things that still wear clothes without needing them.

Standing up, I lift him along with me, only letting go of him once he’s upright and standing fast. “You alright?” I ask him. He gives a short nod and I sigh in relief. I look out towards the tents. “We’ll need to be careful,” I say. “You can’t really see it, but below the soot…” I frown and reach up to my shoulder, peeling off a bit of the soot that got branded onto it alongside some skin. Trying to scoot around the real subject at hand, I point towards a nearby bump of soot. “Avoid those. Stick to where it’s even.” I try to give him a look that shows my worry properly, alongside how grave this really is. “If you trip, and I’m not there to catch you…” I swallow. “You might not die, but you may certainly wish you did.”

He looks at me and then follows my finger over to the protrusion. Slowly, he turns his eyes down to the soot as a whole, searching for bumps—for the unmarked graves of his men. I watch him carefully. At least he understands how dangerous this is. —For him, that is.

Carefully, Simel steps forward, his eyes glued to the ground, each step large and meticulous. It’s not quite a minefield, but by the number of soldiers lying here, you could almost assume that that’s what it was.

Following Simel, I keep my eye on him. It’s times like these when I’m almost glad he doesn’t speak.

It takes some time to move across the battlefield fully, but we eventually reach the tents. I had expected him to go into his own tent, and he was almost about to do so, too, before he suddenly veered away and went towards the prince’s tent.

His body was still sitting in the same place, wearing the same things. However, as happens with fresh meat left in the open, a number of animals had clearly made a feast of the place. The skin and flesh on his thin arms and face remained, though it had dried to the point of mummification, but almost everything else was taken. His chest was just one big open cavity with only skin and bones remaining. His eyes, lips and tongue had also been removed, making him a pretty grisly sight. Though, since he didn’t smell like much of anything, it wasn’t that bad.

Simel seemed to think otherwise.

Removing the hood from his head, he put his hand to his chest—to the emblem—and gave a deep bow to the prince’s remains. And then, once he’d straightened back out, he started looking for something. At first with mere interest, and then as frantically as a mother-of-three who can’t find the car keys on an early Monday morning.

Humming, I rub my chin at the sight. Maybe…?

Reaching into my inventory, I pull out one of few things that is neither hide nor meat. The little crown glimmers with regal authority in my hand. “Hey, Simel, is this—” and that’s about all I have time to say before he notices what I’m holding and snatches it out of my hand, simultaneously casting Chain. as he does.

I’d almost be impressed if I hadn’t expected it. I shrug it off.

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“You didn’t need to rip it out of my hands, you know? I was giving it to you.”

But he’s clutching it to his chest like a mother cat with its kitten, so there’s nothing left for me to do. I sigh a little. “Was that all you came here to do? I could’ve given you that at the crib,” I say. If you’d asked for it, that is.

He can’t hear that last part though, so my thoughts join the air.

“So, are we going back now, or…” Going by the look he gives me, he’s still got stuff to do. It’s not like I want to go back to the crib and clean up everything. It’s just that it feels vaguely nostalgic in a bad way to be dragged around without knowing exactly what it is we’re looking for. If I knew what he wanted to find, I could get it super easily! Because, as you know, I got a really good sense of smell. A god-given one, you might say.

Turning his back on the prince, he exits the tent. I follow.

The second I exit the tent my instincts flare up and alarm bells explode through my brain but I don’t have time to dodge as a massive steel beam of a tail smashes into me, sending me flying back into the tent, a crunching in my chest making me all too aware of the ribs broken. The second I touch ground, I instinctually pull myself into the fetal position, falling into a roll to spin back around to leap out of the tent, claws ready and back hunched.

It’s a drake. But it looks really weird.

Much like the sprint drakes, it stands on both hind legs, with short front arms and powerful legs. But the legs are, like, beyond that. They’re downright chunky, the most curious aspect being the ankle parts, which are extremely thick and almost blubbery, as stout as the foot of an elephant. With the rest of the leg being more or less muscular, this makes the ankle look kind of like the pom-pom feet of a poodle. Its tail is also as girthy as a log, though not all of it is just muscle. Still, considering the way it broke my ribs, it’s more muscle than fat.

The rest of its body is slim, with an intelligent pair of eyes glaring down at me. Aside from the lower part of the legs and arms, it’s covered with long, silky white hairs, though the underbelly is smooth. It looks as though it was made for an arctic climate, but that isn’t what startles me too much to attack properly.

After all, in its arms, held in the same way a child holds its teddy bear, is Simel.

My mind splits into several different directions. What? Where did this thing come from? Why is it holding Simel so protectively? Why isn’t Simel fighting at all? No, now that I look at him, if anything, he seems gently worried rather than scared. Why? What does that mean?

I hunch down further. It doesn’t matter. For now, the safest option is clear.

I’ll fight.

The second I fall down into a crouch, claws bared, teeth snarling and visible, the drake following suit by turning sideways, angling Simel away from me, the whole game is suddenly flipped on its head as Simel almost effortlessly wrestles out of the drake’s grip, falling to the ground with a slight stumble. I watch him, stunned, as he regains his footing and hurries to take a stand right between me and the drake, one hand raised to hold each of us back. For a moment, all that can be heard is Simel’s panting.

“S—Simel?” I ask, tentatively straightening out just a little. “What are you trying to…?”

He looks at me, eyes boring into me, telling me with words even I can understand, ‘don’t move.’ I obey. Slowly, moving with measured steps, still keeping his eyes on me, he approaches the drake. The drake simply watches his approach, the only sound it makes being a gentle murring. I want to tell Simel to be careful, but I can’t bring myself to speak. Even when he’s right next to the drake, Simel doesn’t seem slightly afraid to touch it, pushing some of the hairs on its back aside to show what is clearly a brand. A brand of a city on fire. The fire being in the form of a phoenix.

“Is that…” I say, “your mount?”

Simel nods at me.

I look up at the drake and whistle. “Not a bad-looking thing,” I say. “Not bad at all.” Stepping closer, I briefly pause as it hisses at me. I bare my teeth at it. “Some attitude problems, but if we skin it, I’m sure it’ll make for a great coat.” That little expression is enough to get Simel to glare at me, too. “What?” I say. “You can’t expect me to let you keep that thing.”

Ignoring me, Simel leads the drake towards the other tent. Right. Great. The second I get my chance, I am going to kill that thing. My ribs aren’t going to heal for at least an hour! Oh, but I can’t complain about that, because he’s got to keep his precious oversized lizard. Of course.

As I trudge after them, silently seething, Simel stops outside the second tent. He looks up at the drake, before making some little hand gesture which I can only imagine means something like ‘stay.’ He enters inside and I follow, the drake growling at me as I pass by. I growl back at it.

Inside the tent, the first thing Simel does is rummage through the crates until he finds a couple of reins and a saddle of some sort. It’s a pretty big saddle though, so although he can pull it out, he can’t really carry it. He looks over at me. I almost want to let him struggle for the sake of his precious lizard, but that wouldn’t be very friend-like, so after grumbling for a second I finally assist him, grabbing the saddle. As expected, he then makes me also put the thing on the lizard, the lizard being almost as unhappy as me about it. In the end, though, after only a few minutes, the lizard is fully ready, with everything any sort of steed might need.

Right as I start thinking that this might be the last thing we need to do, Simel heads back inside the tent. I follow.