Rakon trained diligently for months. He grew in strength and endurance quickly, it seemed as if every day he was getting visibly better. He was gaining a very solid foundation in hand to hand combat, and while he still could not land a blow on Loch, he was at least able to dodge some of his own now. He was very different from the person he was a few months ago. Every morning he woke up and he went through his warm up pattern by himself, however one morning while he was performing his blocks and punches, Loch stopped him.
“You have come a long way from the weak, helpless boy you once were.” He stopped and Rakon narrowed his eyes suspiciously, waiting for the inevitable insult. “You’re still very weak of course,” Loch continued, “but you are no longer completely helpless.”
There it is, Rakon thought. He knew it was coming, Loch couldn’t help but hand out insults left and right. He was rare to deliver compliments, and what he said meant something to Rakon.
“What you have been learning however, will be almost completely useless if your opponent has a sword.” Loch completed with a straight face.
Rakon didn’t react at first, it took him a moment to fully process what Loch had just said. When it clicked, he was a little confused. “You were the one that made me practice fist fighting! I told you I wanted to learn how to really fight, and you told me this made up story about a boy that killed himself for trying to learn too much too quickly.” He was a little angry now. Could he have been practicing with a sword this whole time? He surely would have been able to beat that annoying bully of a boy if he had just started practicing with a sword from the very start, he didn’t want to wait here any longer. He was starting to think that if he ever got into a fight, he would just turn into a dragon in order to win.
Loch gently slapped Rakon across the face. It was fast enough that he didn’t see it coming, but not so fast that it would leave a mark. There was a moment of awkward silence, then Loch did it again. The second time Rakon was ready, he brought his arm up into a simple block. He then ducked Loch’s other hand and threw a sweeping leg to knock Loch to the floor. Loch easily stepped over his attack and responded with a blistering counterattack. Rakon was able to dodge or block most, and even get in his own attacks which were always blocked or dodged, but eventually Loch was able to get him off balance and quickly sweep his legs out from under him.
“Do you understand now?” Loch said with a straight face.
Rakon sighed, long and slow. Don’t turn into a dragon and eat him, Rakon. You can do this, he thought to himself. “No Loch, I still don’t understand,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I thought it would be obvious! It took me more than ten seconds to take you down, that is an achievement.”
Was he being serious? “Fantastic, an entire ten seconds, I’m quite the fighter now aren’t I?”
Loch shook his head impatiently, “No you don’t understand. Before, none of your attacks were even close to hitting me, now I have to block many of them. When I say ten seconds is an achievement I mean it, boy. I can take down most full grown men in about six seconds, the fact that it takes me ten means-”
“I’m really doing that well?” Rakon interjected excitedly.
“What? No, look at you, you’re on the floor covered in dirt! I was going to say it means I’m an amazing teacher, which I already knew actually so in this case, yes, it means you’re doing alright.” He let a tiny grin show on his face before helping Rakon to his feet.
“Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” he raised an eyebrow at Rakon, “you’ll be in trouble if you go up against somebody that has a weapon. For that reason I will now train you to use a staff.”
For a split second Rakon thought about complaining how a staff was nothing compared to a sword, but he stopped himself. Complaining never got him anywhere with Loch, he was used to just doing whatever Loch said at this point.
Loch saw the mixed emotions flit across Rakon’s face and waited for the lad to say something. When he didn’t he was inwardly proud of him. He knew that not every boy wanted to train with a staff, but it was not about want, it was about need.
“I will train you in the way of the staff,” Loch said, “because the sword is for warriors, and you are not a warrior.”
“I know I’m not a warrior, but I’m try-”
“You are not a warrior,” Loch cut him off, “you are a mage.”
Rakon paused at that. He was a mage? Technically he was a dragon, so he wasn’t sure what to do now. He was getting much more involved with Loch than he ever planned on doing, but things just kept getting more and more interesting. He had always been better at using earth than other dragons, but how would that compare to people? Dragons generally had more power over the elements compared to normal people and warriors, but mages were a close comparison.
“I sense much power inside you, I only hope to help you unlock your potential, that is all.” Loch started pacing. “Like I said, when you are in a fight and you begin to use your element, you are also inviting your opponent to use his element as well. That means the fight will become more deadly.”
Loch motioned for Rakon to follow him as he walked into the house. He brought him to his room then said, “Wait here.” Loch opened the door and slipped inside. Rakon heard little sound, he wondered if he was going to be able to go inside. He was very curious at what was in there, Loch always kept it shut.
After a few moments Loch came out of his room with a staff in his hands. It was very simple and made out of some kind of black wood that Rakon had never seen. Taking it into his hands Rakon could feel how sturdy the material was, and looking closely he noticed a small engraving of a dragon at the top of the staff. It wrapped around the top end of the staff and the dragon was depicted as eating its own tail. Rakon almost chuckled at that, dragons didn’t do that unless they were very young and bit their tails by accident. Holding the staff in his hands Rakon was suddenly awed at the beauty of such a simple thing.
“I want you to have this,” Loch said. “It was meant for my son, but he… no longer needs it.”
Rakon was speechless. “I- I will gladly accept this, thank you Loch. I will treat it with the utmost respect.”
“Good,” said Loch simply. “Now that that’s settled, let's get back to work.”
Loch taught him the basics on the first week with the staff. How to block, deflect, strike the head, strike the torso, and strike the legs. Part of Rakon still thought it was silly that he was training with a staff when he could quickly morph into a dragon and easily bite a man in half. The other part of Rakon was almost proud of himself for leaving his cave, and actually doing something with his life. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing, but at least it was something.
After Loch was sure Rakon had the basics of the staff down, or at least mostly down, Loch had Rakon do something different.
“We are going to start sparring now, you’ve had enough time to get used to your staff I think, and the only way to learn is through pain.” He said that last part with a wide smile.
“The only problem is, we don’t want your staff to break.” He grabbed his own staff and shook it under Rakon’s nose for emphasis. “If I hit your staff too hard with this, it’ll break as easily as one of your bones.”
“How do you know your staff is the one that won’t break?” Rakon asked, genuinely curious.
“Because my staff is special, and that’s all you need to know. Now, you control the earth, right? Don’t speak, that was a rhetorical question,” Rakon rolled his eyes at Loch. “You are going to enchant your staff with earth magic. This will ensure that it doesn’t break.”
“How am I going to do that? I’ve never done something like that before.”
“If you’ll listen I can tell you, so stop talking,” Loch said with exaggerated exasperation. “You’re going to grab your staff, like so,” he held his staff vertically out in front of him. “And then plant the bottom end in the ground hard.” Rakon copied Loch’s movements exactly.
Loch’s voice grew soft. “Now close your eyes. I want you to feel the earth, but this time you have to go through the staff to get there. Ignore the gourd under your feet, we don’t want that. You want the earth directly under the butt of your staff. You need to feel it through the staff though. The staff is wood, wood is from a tree, that tree was grown from the earth. Everything you touch comes from earth, so feel it through the staff.”
Rakon struggled to do as Loch said. It just didn’t make sense, feel the earth through the staff? He could feel the earth fine when he touched it, or even when he was near it. It was like he had another sense, one that could feel and control the earth. However, when he thought of the staff as a piece of earth and really focused on where it came from, he felt something. He felt his sense of the earth extend past his body and through the staff. He felt the ground through the staff. It was difficult to explain, it was almost as if he was drinking through a straw, but instead of drinking he could actually taste what was at the end of the straw without drinking it.
“Okay, I can feel it now.” Rakon said after many minutes of concentration.
“Good, good.” Loch said softly, “Now here is where it gets tricky. You need to pull the essence of the earth through the staff. Imagine you’re drinking water through a straw, you need to suck it up through the straw. We don’t want the earth though, you can’t pull earth into a staff, but we want what makes the earth earth. When you find that, then draw it into the staff just like you would normally do when pushing the earth around.”
Rakon breathed slowly as he concentrated. He understood what Loch was saying. He could feel the earth under the staff, and then felt deeper. He grabbed what felt like ‘essence’ of earth, and pulled it into the staff. It was like earth using, just like he would create a wall out of earth he was able to move the earth, but without the dirt part. He slowly pulled it into the staff until the staff could take no more, then he stopped.
“Okay,” he said slowly, “I think it’s done.” His staff, which had felt like a piece of wood before, now felt different. He wasn’t sure exactly what to call it, but it just felt more real. It felt more alive in his hand, almost as if it was a part of him.
“Hold your staff out in front of you as if you are deflecting a sword thrust” Loch commanded. Rakon did so, holding it horizontal out in front of him with both arms. Crack! Moving quicker than Rakon’s reflexes, Loch had taken his staff and brought it down hard on Rakon’s staff. The two pieces of wood met with a loud crack and neither moved.
“Ow, what was that for?” Rakon demanded, shaking out his hand. The reverberation of the hit had turned his hands numb.
“That was to make sure you did it right, if you had messed up then it would have broken in half very quickly. You did well,” Loch added quietly. Rakon quieted at that, Loch was slow to deliver any kind of praise.
“What you did is an art that not many know about. I would ask you to not speak about it to anybody else, understand?” Rakon gave a quick nod. “Good, you have not only strengthened your staff, but it will actually help you use earth more efficiently. Mages nowadays don’t understand the first thing about their elements. When you were doing what I told you, what did you feel?”
Rakon thought for a moment before answering. “I felt as if the earth was alive? I’m not sure, it felt different than ever before.”
“That’s exactly right young Rakon, it is because earth is alive. Being a mage means you feel the earth and it obeys you, but doesn’t mean you control it. It means you feel the connection that you have with the earth, and you can manipulate the energy that you feel.” Loch stopped abruptly and waved his hand as if it didn’t matter. “Don’t mind me though, I’m just an old man talking of old ways. All of this is too much to really comprehend for you, but now that your staff is ready we can actually train.”
They almost immediately went into sparring. Rakon was an incredibly fast learner, which helped things progress much quicker than it normally would have. A few strikes in, Loch would stop Rakon and correct his form or footwork. Rakon would do it correctly a few times and rarely make the same mistake twice. It was almost impossible to keep up with Loch, but his confidence slowly rose as they continued to trade blows day after day. Rakon was glad that they had started without weapons, but he was loath to admit it to Loch. He could tell that his coordination and strength was so much better than what it would have been if he had tried to start immediately with a staff. It was moments like these where Rakon had to admit to himself that Loch’s ways, while strange, were effective. Rakon had even continued to practice his reading and writing, while that progressed somewhat slower.
One morning after Rakon had done his warm up patterns, Loch did something new. He walked over to Rakon with a small scrap of paper in his hand. Rakon finished his pattern and then turned to greet Loch.
“Are we sparring today?” Rakon asked expectantly.
“Not today, I need you to run into town and grab a few things for me.” Loch had gone to town a few times while Rakon had lived with him, and Rakon had even gone with him once. Rakon had never gone by himself however, and the thought filled him with a little bit of anxiety. He had been dying to fly and feel the air underneath his wings again, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to hold himself back if he was left on his own. What if he took off and never came back? It’s not like he could realistically explain these fears to Loch.
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“Sure I can do that, you aren’t coming with me?” Rakon questioned.
“Do you need me to hold your hand?” Loch said with a raised eyebrow “I had thought you were capable of doing things on your own, but if I was mistaken…” he let the question hang in the air.
“No, no it’s fine. I’ll leave right away,” Rakon said defiantly, snatching the paper out of Loch’s hands. The trip would take him most of the day, so he would pack a small lunch to take with him and he would be back before supper if everything went right. Loch nodded approvingly and sent him off, telling him to be back before sundown or he would assume Rakon was lying in a ditch somewhere. Rakon chuckled at the thought, thinking Loch would love to be rid of him that easy.
The trip to the small town was made easily. He got there a little after noon and stopped to eat his food. He figured he would eat what he brought, buy the things that were on the list, and then get home before dinnertime. The market was easy to find since the town was so small and he quickly set about finding everything on his list. First on the list were apples. Loch didn’t have an apple tree, but he actually had a surprising skill of baking. He would occasionally bake apple pies for them when they had the ingredients, and it would always taste amazing. Rakon thought that without a doubt human food was better than dragon food, this was something he would not want to give up if he went back to being a dragon.
He actually never bought the apples, while he was deciding on a price with the vendor, they were interrupted by a loud commotion.
“Stop! Somebody stop that man!” Rakon and the vendor both looked down the street at what was taking place. There was a man with a frantic look on his face running down the street. He had a bag clutched in his hand and several paces behind him was an older man, older than Loch even, lying on the ground holding his head. The man with the bag took a turn around a corner and was quickly lost from view.
The apple vendor ran to the old man that was lying on the ground with Rakon close behind. When they reached him they saw there was a little blood on his forehead, but the bleeding had already subsided.
“What happened? Are you alright?” Asked the apple seller, who seemed more than a little panicked.
“Do I look alright to you?” Asked the older man incredulously. “I’m lucky that crazy fellow didn’t kill me! He took everything I had! I keep all my money in a box right next to me so I can keep an eye on it, and he seemed so kind at first. Then he hit me and grabbed the box and put it in his bag and took off running. I had never seen him before!” The old man started shaking with quiet sobs, “I don’t know how I am going to feed my family! He’s probably out of the city by now, and we have no real guards to go catch him so I’ll never get that back!”
“There there now Gerald, we’ll take care of you, it’ll be alright.” The people around him started to comfort him.
Rakon was angry. How dare this stranger steal money from an old man. Who would have the audacity to do something so clearly wrong? While he had learned much about fighting from Loch he had also learned some things about honor, and how a man should act and live his life. It was clear to him that this man had no honor, and he never had liked bullies. It made his blood boil thinking that a man like that would be able to go free, his feelings of anger threatened to turn him into his dragon form. He took a step back from the situation and forced himself to take deep breaths. He sat down putting his back against a wall and put his head in his hands, breathing slowly and counting until he could think clearly.
He was going after the thief, that much was for certain. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did nothing. The question was, how was he going to do it? He debated for a moment going back to Loch, he was only a few hours away. He decided against it in the end, he couldn’t afford to waste precious time and let the tracks go stale. With that thought in mind he stood up, staff in hand, and started walking in the direction of the thief.
The old man was right, the thief had gotten out of the city quickly. Rakon was following the imprints that he had left in the earth. While training with Loch he found out quickly that his staff helped amplify his powers. He wasn’t sure if he understood it correctly, but because he filled his staff with the magic of earth, it allowed him to do more difficult earth magic. One of these abilities was very useful for tracking. He could see the imprints of many footprints left in the earth, but each had a uniqueness to it. Luckily it was easy for him to see which prints were running away from the scene of the crime. He set off at a brisk pace, head hunched beneath the warm afternoon sun.
The path that the thief had taken was not exactly close to Loch’s farm, but it was closer than the village had been. It was heading in the general direction, and this gave Rakon a small amount of relief. At least he had a chance of making it back before it got too dark. It didn’t take long before Rakon noticed the steps looked less hurried. He assumed the thief could only keep up a fast pace for so long, he didn’t look very well nourished after all. All the time Rakon had spent training with Loch was definitely paying off, he was gaining ground on the thief.
After a few hours of traveling Rakon had come to the edge of some woods. He was not an amazing tracker, without the help of his element he would have surely been lost. He didn’t really know what to look for, but luckily the footprints glowed faintly to his eyes. The sun was starting to go down and he still had light to see his way, but he had to hurry.
He approached slowly, not wanting to make any unnecessary noise that would alert the thief to his presence. Traveling through the woods brought back good memories of time spent with Emberheart. He thought back fondly of when Emberheart taught him how to hunt or sneak up on his prey. He missed parts of his old life, but he could not deny the thrill that he felt being a human. Everyday was exciting, and he learned so many new things.
Using some tips that he remembered from Emberheart, he snuck through the woods. Not much time had passed before he spied a rugged looking shack built in a small clearing. Studying the small shelter, he was surprised it hadn't fallen over long ago. Some of the boards were rotted through and there were large sections missing from the roof. Using his power over earth, he quieted his footsteps so he could sneak closer. He kept a far enough distance away that he wasn’t worried about being spotted and moved around the house until he was able to look through a window.
He immediately saw the thief, who thankfully, had his back to the window. Rakon immediately took cover behind a large bush and peered through the branches at his target. The thief looked busy, he was moving things around and seemed intently focused on his task. Now that Rakon had found his quarry, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. Should he just barge in? That didn’t seem smart, he needed to distract the thief somehow.
Clutching his staff tightly, he let his mind reach out through the staff and into the earth. His mental reach traveled out in a line, towards the shack, then under it, finally past the shack. His control was starting to wane, he had never tried to affect something with earth from this far away. He had reached maybe fifty to a hundred paces past the house, then caused a small disturbance in the earth. Nothing major, but he made sure it was noisy.
The thief immediately raised his head and looked towards the noise. He gripped his knife that had appeared almost instantly in his hand, then nervously started towards the door.
Rakon stayed kneeling behind his bush, trying to breathe quietly. His strength was almost completely gone, although it was returning steadily. Loch had taught him that the more a person does with their element, or the farther away from them they try to use it, the more exhausted they become. It was almost as if each person had a cup, and water was slowly dripping into it. Each time you used your element it was like using your water, and you needed to wait for it to refill. Some people had bigger cups or their water refilled faster than others, nobody really knew how it all worked, but that was how Loch had explained it.
Apparently, people have tried to perform too much elemental magic in the past, and the energy required from them actually consumed their bodies. Loch warned him never to try anything he wasn’t positive his body could accomplish. The trick he just pulled definitely stretched his limits and he was sure Loch would have something to say about it. If he ever heard about it, Rakon thought with a smile.
He took a couple deep breaths to steady himself, then moved in slowly. He didn’t have the strength to keep himself from making noise, so he relied on his natural talents instead. He was nowhere near as clumsy as he once was, but he still wasn’t perfect in his human form. He missed being able to glide through the trees as a dragon. Even though he was so much bigger in that form, he felt so much more graceful. Now he had to concentrate in order to avoid stepping on every twig and branch in sight.
With this task more or less accomplished, he was able to step inside the small shack through one of the large gaping holes in the side. Sucking in his stomach, he slid through one of the rotted openings and began his search for the man’s bag, the whole while questioning his own intelligence.
He searched frantically for a minute with nothing to show for his efforts. He knew his time was running short, so he threw caution to the winds and redoubled his efforts. There was so much junk to sift through, he wondered where the thief had gotten it all. Books, brooches, things that looked like trash to Rakon, some shiny things that looked useless, as well as random articles of clothing strewn about. Rakon figured that this particular thief made a habit of robbing nearby towns and bringing back all that he stole to his hideout. There was no way that he was going to be able to find one man’s bag in all this mess.
Just as he was about to give up, something made the hairs on the back of his head stand up. He whirled around just as the thief lunged towards him with his dagger outstretched. Rakon dodged out of the way, his heart racing faster than a hummingbird's wings. If he had reacted a moment later, he would likely be dead right now. It hit him just then that this was not one of Loch’s training exercises. He briefly thought about turning into a dragon and ending the fight before it got started, but he wanted to try out all the things he had learned from Loch. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice told him this was a stupid idea, but he shrugged it off. Besides, he didn’t want to kill the man and he could not let anybody see him turn into a dragon.
Dodging the man’s first blow, Rakon spun away and got into a low stance with his staff held loosely in his hands and studied his opponent. The man was filthy, had an unkempt beard, ragged clothes, scrapes on his hands, and dirty teeth. Everything about the man reminded Rakon of a wounded animal trapped in a corner, which was probably the most dangerous kind of fight he could be in. The thief had nothing to lose, and everything to gain from attacking Rakon. Rakon would be completely satisfied with leaving right now if only he could find the stolen bag.
The man advanced on Rakon like a savage beast, cutting wildly in front of himself. Rakon backed away slowly, dodging two blows and blocking a third. He tried to stay as calm as possible and keep his breathing even. He could tell by the man’s movements that he was not very coordinated and definitely not trained, but he had never been in a real fight before. He was being completely defensive so far, but he wondered if he should go on the offensive. He hesitated because he did not want to hurt anybody.
The thief answered that question for him. With a yell, he charged at Rakon with his knife held high. Rakon panicked, he backed away as fast as he could. In his efforts of trying to get away from his assailant he was unable to keep track of everything in the room. His foot got caught on some debris that littered the ground and he went sprawling. This was lucky because his attacker stabbed forward while Rakon was distracted with his misstep. A blow that would have pierced his chest only cut into his shoulder instead.
Rakon scrambled to his feet as fast as he could while the man regained his balance from his strike. Before he could regain his feet however, the man actually leapt at him with his dagger raised high. Rakon fell backwards and caught the man at the end of his staff as he came at Rakon. Using the momentum of the leap, Rakon growled and swung the man over his head to send him crashing to the floor behind him.
Rakon rolled over frantically, expecting another attack to come as quickly as the previous one had. On his stomach he could see more clearly, and when he saw the still form of his attacker he stopped moving. He slowly got to his feet and approached the man that was lying on his stomach, being wary of any trick that he might pull. After a minute of still no movement he poked the man with his staff. Again, nothing. Rakon used the staff to lever the man onto his back, and gasped in surprise.
When Rakon had flung the man over his head, apparently he had landed on his own knife, for it lay there embedded in his stomach. Rakon grew nauseous and turned away, unwilling to look at the gruesome scene in front of him. Had he killed this man? Was he becoming more and more like the humans he had heard about from Emberheart? Growing up he had heard many stories of humans that killed for the pleasure of killing, for the lust of bloodshed. The more time Rakon spent with Loch helped him realize that some humans were wise and kind even. Rakon did not want to be like the disgusting bloodthirsty humans he had heard so much about. What if the more time he spent in his human form, the more he became like them? He worried he was going to lose his mind in this form.
Steeling himself, Rakon turned towards the man and kept his eyes averted as much as possible from the blood that was pooling around the corpse. He found the old man’s bag attached to the thief’s hip. He fumbled with the straps, trying to untie it as quickly as possible, the sight of the dead man making him more than a little uncomfortable. Once he had the bag in his possession, he left the shack without a second glance.
On the walk back to the farm Rakon was wrestling with his thoughts. As much as he wanted to say that he did not kill the man, he knew his actions had caused the man's death. It was funny really, he thought grimly, Emberheart had spent years and years trying to get Rakon to kill a human and after only a few months on his own Rakon did just that. Rakon felt terrible, he didn’t think people deserved to decide who lived and who died. What gave him the right to kill that man? Suddenly he realized he didn’t even know the man’s name. This thought sobered him, and he tried not to think about it the rest of the walk to Loch’s home.
It was well past dark by the time he made it back. Rakon walked up the steps to the front door and paused, mentally steeling himself to the verbal thrashing he was about to endure. Before he even reached for the door handle, the door flew open and Loch was standing there with a scowl on his face.
“You want to tell me what took you so long?” He asked, motioning Rakon through the door.
Rakon walked in slowly, not looking Loch in the eye. Loch didn’t say anything else as Rakon took a seat at the table. He could tell there was something wrong, so he waited for Rakon to start.
Rakon started telling the story slowly, but his voice gained confidence as he spoke. He spoke clearly and didn’t falter until he got to the part where he threw the thief over him onto the ground.
“He landed on his own knife, Loch… But there was nothing I could do, he- he was going to kill me.” Rakon said very quietly.
“I know you know this, but I will tell you anyway. You did the right thing,” Loch said firmly. “If you hadn’t killed him, he would have undoubtedly killed you as well as other innocent people before he was stopped. I’m sure all that stuff he had in that shack of his wasn’t his to begin with right? How do you think he got it?” He began dressing the wound on Rakon’s shoulder. “And judging from this wound, he wasn’t playing around.”
Rakon kept his eyes on the ground. He knew Loch was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. “Have you ever had to kill a man?” he asked, dreading what the answer was almost certainly going to be.
Loch was silent for a moment before answering. “Yes, yes I have, but ask yourself this before you go wallowing in self pity. Is it okay for good men to kill bad people, when these bad people are trying to kill and steal? Look at me boy.”
Rakon met Loch’s gaze. He had so many thoughts in his mind. Emberheart had taught him that humans were ruthless killers, but Loch did not fit the description at all. He had killed before, but Rakon had grown to trust the old man and although Loch was a little crazy, he would never do something so horrible unless he absolutely had to.
“I don’t want to be a killer,” Rakon said simply.
“If only the rest of the world was as good as you.” Loch responded with a sad shake of his head before saying, “You should get some sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Rakon looked at him quizzically.
“We are going on a little journey, I have some friends at the capital that I need to talk to and you’re going to come with me. That is, unless you’d rather stay here and keep things clean and tidy for me?” Loch asked with a grin.
“No!” Rakon nearly shouted, “I mean, no please. I’d love to go to the capital with you.” While Rakon held some reservations about being around so many people, he was also excited. After all, he had left in order to find out more about what people were like. He had spent so long with Loch that he had almost forgotten that there was more out there to see.
Loch chuckled, “Of course you’d like to go. Well, pack up your things and be ready for a journey. Hopefully we’ll beat the snowfall, it’s been getting colder the past few days, but I think we’ll be alright. Rest up, we leave tomorrow at first light, we can drop off the bag you recovered on the way.”