“I sent him north to be safe, Kira. I gave him a token so he could show you to prove that I sent him, so you wouldn’t hurt him… I didn’t know he was a cultist.”
“I’m sorry, Raya. The person I met had the cultist smell, and I don’t think we can let them go. If they spread that affront stuff, it could be trouble for everyone.”
“I know… Shut up… I don’t blame you, I’m just sad that it happened… Just don’t eat Jarna too.”
Nudging her, I reassure her that I won’t harm anyone she asks me not to harm, so of course I won’t eat them. With a tiny bonk on my nose, she starts gathering up her things and putting her clothes back on.
“Jarna, Kira wants to apologize for almost eating you. She’s very sorry.”
I am? I don’t remember that.
“Kira, tell him you’re sorry and apologize. And do it in the blessed language.”
“I’m sorry for almost eating you, Jarna. I didn’t know you weren’t food.”
It’s not my fault they’re terrible at defending themselves. All I did was swoop in and catch him with my mouth, and now I’m the bad person.
“Thank you… I hope it never happens again. By the Gods, I hope it never happens again…”
Well, he might be a little traumatized.
Leaving that for someone else to deal with, I nudge Raya again and ask how she’s doing. As far as I can tell, she’s had quite the busy day and now we’re past midnight, so she might need someone to listen to her.
She mentions this Kanen person again, but I don’t think I can do anything other than apologize for now. I should make it up to her since it’s pretty clear that this is my mistake.
She continues talking about him and what they talked about, and it sounds like I’m not the only one with an affinity for picking up strangers. When she mentions Kanen’s unstable magic, this Jarna person chips in and explains more about unstable magic. According to his rant, most people affected by it choose to become fighters, as they can still empower magical weapons.
It keeps surprising me how many people are bilingual in this world, and here’s Jarna happily chipping in with tidbits about unstable magic in that blessed language. Prodding him for more information, he’s quick to stare at me with a blank expression.
Ah, I guess he doesn’t speak Raya’s language.
“My apologies. I interpreted the meaning of your conversation based on keywords and body language. I do not speak the godless tongue.”
Raya lets me know that she needs to find the goblins again, so we can bring them back to Tuiran. They should be in the woods nearby, so she runs off, leaving me to enjoy some awkward silence with Jarna.
I want to tell him to calm down, since it’s pretty clear that he’s quite afraid of me, but even I can admit that it’s a justified fear. It was pretty close to too late for Raya to save him.
I’m gonna try being friendly, since we’re letting him live. Mages seem to love my fire, so I give him a little show, hoping that he’ll like it too. With a partially open mouth, I spew a burst of flame, lighting up the camp. He seems to watch with interest, but he’s still not making eye contact or looking at me much now that Raya isn’t here.
Giving him a puff of smoke to the face, he seems to be caught up in his interest as he waves a hand through it, feeling the magic, I’m sure. Oh! I know what he might like! Pulling one of the seating logs to me, I split it with a claw and blow air onto one of them, which doesn’t do anything, but he’s paying attention. So I blow heated air on the other, blackening it.
That got his attention! He’s approaching now and touching the burned area. Pulling out a knife, he starts making cuts to see how deep it goes, I think.
Those mage types are so easy to lure in. Giving him a nudge, he moves to the side, and I scorch some more wood, eliciting wide eyes and ‘oohs’ from the increasingly giddy mage. He’s throwing a little magic around as well, trying to mimic what I did. Most of his attempts end in a flame, but he’s getting closer to just creating heat. I think this guy might be quite smart.
Watching his attempts is quite fun, so I lie down around him as he burns the logs. I’m not sure he even remembers that I’m here.
The smell of wood smoke is quite enjoyable, so I take a moment to just close my eyes and relax. The small tingles from Jarna’s magic are like tiny pokes massaging me.
“Jarna, psst! Jarna! I think it’s sleeping, you can escape now!”
Someone’s at the gate, but Jarna is too busy with his experiments to hear them. At least one of his friends didn’t abandon him, good for him!
Whoever it is, they’re sneaking closer as they attempt to get his attention. They keep repeating his name with such frequency that had I been asleep, I would have woken up for sure. Passing by my nose, they spot Jarna playing with fire as they place a hand on my nose. This person is really bad at sneaking, geez.
“Jarna! We have to get out of here! We have to go before the Dragon wakes up!”
“Oh, Ulla, when did you get here? You should see this. The Dragon did this thing where it created heat without flame, like holding your hand over heated metal, and I’m trying to replicate it. Imagine what it would do for other elemental magics! You could create a wave of cold without ice, or a burst of healing light without a specific target! It could be a whole new way to shape magic!”
“Jarna! Focus! Do you want the Dragon to kill you?! We have to go before it wakes up!”
“Oh, it’s already awake.”
Ulla was already afraid, but now she’s terrified as she stares right at my eye. Giving her a friendly wink, she starts screaming, which is just rude. I’m right here. I’m not sure where she lands on the list of whether Raya wants her alive or not, so for now, I’ll err on the side of caution and assume she’s on the alive list. She did come to save Jarna from me, after all.
“By the Gods, woman, please stop screaming!”
Jarna’s quick to move to her and calm her down, which is a relief, considering how impressively loud she was.
Jarna manages to calm her down a bit, but all that screaming is making it very tempting to remove her from the ‘alive’ list. I guess I should consider all of Jarna’s friends part of that list. From now on, anyway. The building is a bit more vacant than it was before I arrived. It’s a little boring, but I don’t want Raya to be mad at me.
“Come, watch this, Ulla!”
“Are you serious, Jarna?! How can you be so calm with that beast lying there?!”
Rude. I’m a delightful and well-behaved dragon, not some beast. And to prove this, I swipe her feet away with a flick of my tongue, causing her to fall on my face.
As she slides off my face, it occurs to me that she seems to have passed out. Jarna is quick to come to her rescue, but I’m sure she’s fine. My snout isn't so big that she had to fall that far, so she probably didn't fall that hard.
“Kira! What did you do now?!”
“I didn’t do anything! She suddenly passed out, and it was entirely on her own!”
It’s pretty obvious that she’s skeptical, but I’m more innocent than guilty here. Nudging Jarna, I tell him to tell her that I’m innocent, and he’s quick to comply.
“Yes, Ulla suddenly passed out, a bird must have startled her.”
Well, he gave it a try, but now Raya looks even more skeptical... If someone told me that she didn't believe me, I might think they were right.
“Enough of that. Kira, do you think we can bring everyone back to Tuiran? Four goblins, four mages, and myself. We can’t really leave them here, since the wolves might come in the morning.”
That’s true, it would be safer to get them back. The weight shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m not sure how I’ll carry them all. If they can hold onto my spine spines, then we could do that, but they’d have to hold on tight. I suggest it and Raya is quick to pass it along. Jarna seems very interested, and even suggests that Raya cast mage sight during the trip. I didn’t know she could use that spell.
I’m not sure this Ulla person will be as interested as Jarna is, but I’m sure it beats getting attacked by wolves. Looking around, I don’t see four mages, there are only Ulla and Jarna here.
“Jarna, could you find the two others? We should get them to safety, too.”
For some unexplainable reason, he looks at me for a moment with a tinge of doubt in his eye. Geez, you almost eat a guy one time and all of a sudden, he thinks the worst of you. Well, I’m not gonna let it get to me. Raya seems to have noticed our little exchange as she puts on a cute little frown.
“You know, Raya, you and Lauren are starting to sound alike. She also told me to leave some adventurers alone.”
“I’m not like Lauren…”
This feels like an excellent opportunity to tease her!
Being not at all dramatic, I tell Raya the tale of my epic battle against the hammering giant and the tiny stick wielder. How they managed to knock me out of the sky, and I wanted to bring them home to play some more and for them to teach me how to fight something like that.
But then the fearsome Lauren arrived and told me that I couldn’t just kidnap people. Not even promising to feed and exercise them worked. I even asked them if they were fine with it, and Punchy thought it would be fun, but Sarah wouldn’t have it. She kept yelling at me, and then she started yelling at Punchy, calling him a muscle-brained toddler stuck in a perpetual loop of looking for his next beating.
“And worst of all, Lauren gave away some of my money so they’d have travel funds! Pity me, Raya!“
“I agree with Lauren.”
“That’s not pity, Raya!”
Well, that didn’t go as expected, and now she’s looking smug with her arms crossed and a wicked smile. But she’s the one who’s about to adopt a bunch of stray mages, so I should get to keep one Punchy and a Sarah to keep him company, it’s only fair.
“How are you feeling, Kira?”
It's not where I expected this conversation to go, but she sounds a little worried, so of course I let her know that I’m feeling fine. I’m not sure why I wouldn’t, but now I’m curious.
“Shouldn’t I feel fine, Raya? I found you again and we’ll be able to go home for a snooze soon!”
“I was just wondering whether you were feeling particularly... poisoned. I did poison the adventurers in the building, after all.”
Aww, she’s worried I might get food poisoning, that's nice. But I’m not feeling any sort of ill, so I’ll probably be fine. Telling her as much, she gives me a smile.
“That’s good, I was a little worried I might have made you sick.”
She deserves a nudge.
As soon as she has been nudged, she starts wrangling up people and bossing them around so we can get going. She even bosses me around, wanting me to lie down as low as I can, as she starts adding people to my back. The goblins are placed on either side of one of my spines, so they can interlock their legs for safety, becoming each other’s seat belt.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
She even starts bossing around Jarna and Ulla, who have woken up, it turns out, and they’re being ordered to try to find the other two mages before we leave.
The two go shouting for the other two, and I hear Ulla tell Jarna that they should take the opportunity to run away. I don’t particularly care about them, but Raya seems to think she owes them a debt for helping her, so it’s not my call.
While we wait, the goblins start getting chatty about this and that, and one of them even mentions being from a tribe in the south. I’m curious why these adventurers even kept the goblins around. Listening to the chatter is nice, though. The group sounds quite happy about the current development, and they seem quite excited about visiting Tuiran. It’s a pretty great place, so I get it.
Just as I start to itch to get moving, Jarna returns with the other people in tow. I assume it’s the people he was looking for because it seems weird that he’d wrangle up some strangers and bring them to a dragon.
They seem very worried about this whole situation, but Raya and Jarna are quick to reassure them, and they don’t calm down at all. Instead, they point out that I’ve got blood coating parts of my face, which I guess is a fair point.
To get moving, Raya takes Jarna by the hand and pulls him toward me. He’s the bravest of them, but he’s still quite scared.
“Foot here, grab there, then pull yourself up. Just like climbing a tree, and then you sit behind those larger horns.”
He’s slow, but he starts climbing the side of my skull and settles in. That’s one.
With Jarna in place, the rest grow a little bolder, or Raya grows a little sterner. Whichever it is, they’re getting a move on and starting to shuffle toward me. As they start climbing up on me at Raya’s order, I feel Jarna scooting forward.
“Jarna, I carved a tiny line into Kira’s scales, don’t sit beyond that line.”
You what?! That’s vandalism! Or assault. I don’t know which, but I didn’t consent to having my scales defaced!
“Why not?”
“Kira, raise your head a little.”
We'll have to talk about this casual vandalism, but for now, I do as the little vandal tells me. Lifting up my head causes Jarna to start shouting something or other about understanding what she means.
“If you sit beyond that line, your legs will be crushed by Kira’s horns. That was just up and down, it’s worse from side to side. So stay behind the line.”
Maybe having a safety line is smart. I don’t want people paste stuck behind my head.
Somehow, Raya is able to fit everyone onto me as she sits herself between my eyes. Grabbing hold of my eyebrow scales, she tells people to hold on tight as she asks me to take off. Doing so leads to very mixed reactions.
“Raya! Mage Sight!”
Jarna calls out to her, and I feel a tingle of magic from her as she starts looking around with wide eyes and an excited smile.
All of a sudden, I feel more magic tingles as the other mages gasp. They all seem quite excited about whatever that mage sight is letting them see. Asking Raya about it, she starts talking nonsense.
“It’s like there’s a barrier of magic around you, Kira, and it takes in the magic in the air and pushes it out behind you. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s so beautiful. The colors in the magic all dance around and mix. It’s your magic, but it’s also the wind’s magic becoming one as you fly.”
I wanna try focusing my magic in my eyes to see it too, but I feel like that’s a bad idea right now. If I get startled or overwhelmed by it, I could hurt someone by accident.
Given how Raya explains it, I would imagine it’s quite beautiful against the starlit night sky, and it’s definitely something I want to explore under safer conditions.
For now, though, we’re nearing Tuiran and I’m gonna immediately disregard that, since I just got curious. How will they react if I push more magic into my wings? Doing so leads to a bunch of yelps as we speed up and those yelps are quickly followed by excitement, so I guess there is a difference to be seen.
Circling back, I slow down as we aim for the town square of Tuiran. Morning is approaching fast, and folks need to get some sleep. With a mostly soft landing, I lie down and folks start climbing off. Raya is quick to help anyone struggling, and the mages seem quite happy to get away from me. They might have been excited to see my magic in action, but they still very much fear me.
The goblins are much more excited to be here, and as Raya calls over a guard to find somewhere for them to stay, they run up to the guy who seems woefully unprepared for this task. With them taken care of, she turns her attention to the mages and tells them that they’re free to leave if they want, but she can also find somewhere for them to get some rest.
Jarna seems wholly on team get-some-rest, but everyone else appears to want to leave.
“Follow that road north and you’ll reach the northern gate. If you cause problems, you’ll be volunteering to be Kira’s breakfast.”
Ooh! Do we have any troublemakers among them? Judging by the scent of fear, I’d say no, but I could be wrong. The trio is quick to start moving as they discuss things among themselves, talking about plans for the future and such. Jarna waves them off as they leave for the north.
“I didn’t expect any of them to stay, Kira. What are we supposed to do with Jarna?”
Hah! I’m not the only one who ends up in situations I’m not prepared for! Of course, I try to help, so I suggest throwing him at the kiln project or the blacksmith so we can keep him distracted and make him someone else’s problem.
“That could work…”
Calling over another guard, she tells him to bring Jarna to the blacksmith and find a house in the production district.
With all of that taken care of, Raya lets out a yawn, indicating that she finally has a moment to rest. Nudging her, I suggest we head for my den and get some sleep, and in return, I get an adorable sleepy nod. She climbs onto my head and we enter my den. It’s clear that she has been far busier today than she expected.
Settling in, she nuzzles up to me and falls asleep almost immediately. I don’t see anyone else around, so it’s just the two of us tonight.
————————
Delicious smells wake me up, alerting me to a most delicious development! It smells like food stall day! Shuffling a little, I wake up Raya too, she should get to enjoy food stall day as well.
“Lie still, you overgrown lizard… The feast was yesterday…”
I refuse! I can smell deliciousness, and I must have it! Nudging her some more elicits more groaning until she finally wakes up. She doesn’t seem all that keen on being conscious, but a creaky stretch later, she looks better.
We’re ready to head out for snacks!
“Kira, I’ve been thinking and… how come you’re fine with eating people? I would have thought you would have a problem with it, given your past.”
That’s a pretty good question, and I can’t say I’ve given it much thought. Postponing my departure for food stall day, I settle in to talk about it with her.
The best I can figure is that I have two sets of memories surrounding it. My human side being against it but liking delicious things, and my dragon side being for it and liking delicious things. So that ends up being three positives and one negative.
On top of that, it’s like parts of me are dormant in both my human side and my dragon side. I like money and wealth, but I’m not ravenous for it, so I’m not really as greedy as dragons are supposed to be. And at the same time, I’m not feeling any human attraction to others. I want friends, sure, but I don’t want a partner, romantic or sexual. It’s a little weird.
At least my urge to eat my friends is becoming much easier to control, as if there’s a line being drawn between them and what my dragon side considers food. Although adventurers I don’t know sit firmly in the food section. To Jarna’s benefit, Raya vouching for him has moved him a good way closer to the not-food side.
I explain it as well as I can to her, but it’s hard to put into words. As far as I can tell, she gets it, but I’m not sure I do, not entirely at least. But she seems relieved, so it must have put her mind at ease and settled any worries that I would be at risk of going on a rampage.
I ask if she wants to talk about it some more, but she lets me know that she got the information she wanted, so now we’re ready to head out!
Walking ahead of me, she exits my den as I peek my head out above her. There are so many stalls, even more than usual, and everything smells even better than usual! The chefs must have taken advantage of the influx of traders to acquire new ingredients. Ooh! This is going to be good!
Looking around the crowd, I see a surprising mix of species, and I’m not sure where they’ve come from. Regular humans, tall humans like Punchy, dwarves, scalefolk, and fuzzy people. Goblins still easily outnumber them, but we have guests!
Oh! I should make myself presentable! Nudging Raya, I ask if she wants to join me for a trip to the lake for a bath before we get some food. She’s quick to agree, and we rush off. We’ll need to hurry, but I can’t just show up with a bloody face.
The trip to the lake is, luckily, uneventful, and as we land, Raya strips and leaves her clothes on top of me as she jumps into the water and begins scrubbing herself and my scales.
“Raya, I really am sorry about Kanen. I didn’t know he was your friend.”
“I told you, it wasn’t your fault, and I don’t blame you. If he were a cultist, then he would be an enemy.”
“Yeah, but it’s okay to be sad or upset about it.”
She just taps my side a few times as she continues working on my scales. It doesn’t take long before she declares that she’s done and swims to the lakeshore. As I follow, she tells me to do the heat breath thing toward her so she can dry off before putting her clothes back on, and that’s smart! Mighty Blow Dryer of the Lake!
Blowing heated air off to the side, Raya steps close to prevent herself from being burned as she uses the radiating heat to dry off. As soon as she’s satisfied, she climbs on top of me and puts her clothes back on as we leave for Tuiran again.
As soon as we land, a guard approaches with some guy following after him, and I get the mightiest bonk I’ve ever been hit with. Geez, Raya, that actually hurts…
“YOU TOLD ME YOU ATE HIM!”
I’m so confused. I don’t recall ever saying I ate this guy, I’ve never even met him before! He seems just as confused as I am about her outburst.
“Kanen! What happened to you? Why did Kira say she ate you? And are you one of the cultists trying to ruin things?”
I didn’t say I ate this guy! I said I ate a cultist who claimed to be sent by Raya. There’s a difference, and I’m innocent! I tell Raya as much, but she seems reluctant to take my word for it. This Kanen person seems to mumble something about me being huge up close before launching into an explanation of his survival.
“I hid in the woods, staying out of sight of any potential threats. I can’t say I know why… Kira… would say that, a possible mistaken identity, I’d wager. I did see her attack someone else. As far as being a cultist, well, the only thing I’m fanatical about is knowledge!”
He seems unsure of how to appropriately address me, so when he says my name, I give a little nod, which he appears to understand.
“Why didn’t you show her the token?”
“Raya, no offense meant, but we’ve only just met and, while I’m sure you are trustworthy, this is a piece of mundane wood. As far as I can tell, there’s not a shred of magic in the base or these carvings. I simply could not figure out how it was supposed to ward off a Dragon, so I decided to hide instead of betting my life on it working.”
She seems to acknowledge that it was probably smart to not just blindly trust a stranger like that. She doesn’t seem all that happy with me, though. It’s an honest mistake! Who here hasn’t eaten the wrong person only for it to turn out to not be the person your friend expected? Happens all the time.
That does make me a little curious though...
"Kanen, how come you trusted the goblin guards not to take you prisoner so you could be fed to me later?"
"I hadn't considered that..."
With another bonk for me, Raya jumps down and changes the subject, much to Kanen's relief. She throws various demands at him about teaching her magic so she can show off to me and tease me about my inability to learn fancy people magic. That’s a bit rude, so she gets a rough nudge! Take that, Raya! She sidestepped my nudge...
Kanen seems to laugh at our exchange, and on the outside, he appears quite calm, but it’s obvious that he is afraid, even though he was invited here. He's quick to agree to teach her as much as he knows, which brings a delightful smile to Raya's face before she frowns and looks at me.
“Who did you eat, Kira? And have you done it before?”
All of a sudden, with no provocation at all, Raya starts throwing some completely unfair questions my way now. I can't answer either of those questions, but I know for sure that the person I did eat had that distinct cultist smell. So I can't say that I regret it, especially now that I know it wasn't Raya's new friend.
Nudging Kanen, he releases a puff of fear and I’ll just ignore that. Instead, I ask if he can teach me magic as well, since he seems like a great teacher if Raya’s enthusiasm is anything to go by.
“Uh… Are there any consequences to declining or failing should I accept?”
Before I get a chance to reply, Raya starts talking about how I won’t do anything to him and he’s completely safe. Watching her interrupt me seems to put his mind at ease and he agrees! He’s gonna try to prove Lily wrong about my ability to learn fancy magic! That deserves a celebration, which is a good excuse to go for some of this food stall day food!
As I leave the two to reunite, I overhear Raya ask about how someone else would’ve known to say they had been sent to her. Kanen just chuckles and waves it off as them not being very quiet and that anyone could’ve overheard them.
“Lauren! Food stall day is here!”
“I know!”
She’s here somewhere! I don’t know where she is shouting from, though. I can’t catch her scent with all this deliciousness filling the air either, so I’ll just have to get rid of it, I have no choice!
Approaching the first stall, I see skewers with a bunch of veggies I’ve never seen before, but I’m an adventurous eater, so I’ll give it a shot. Seeing my face approach the stall, the vendor is quick to explain how these are root veggies imported from so-and-so in the east and that the new traders bring all sorts of good stuff.
Giving it a taste, I agree! This is good stuff! Looking around, almost all the stalls are full of things I don’t recognize. I don’t even know where to go from here, I want to try it all, but it’s a little overwhelming.
“Follow me, you silly beast.”
Looking down, I see Lauren has found me, and she leads me through the area. The crowd splits ahead of us, and she’s quick to jump between stalls, grabbing anything that might be interesting and throwing it to me.
She seems like she’s in a fantastic mood today, so I’m not gonna risk ruining it with questions and such. I’m just gonna enjoy it. Caught in a moment of distraction, she lobs a piece of food my way and I don’t catch it. Well, I do, but not in my mouth. A piece of spicy meat is stuck in my nostril, and the spices are making me need to sneeze!
Pointing my head upward, I feel the sneeze come, and when it does, it’s followed by a gout of flame. Instead of taking responsibility for the incident, Lauren just starts laughing! At least my flames burned away the intruding spices, taking care of any sneeze risk.
“You should see yourself when you’re about to sneeze, Kira! You scrunch up your entire face and neck before it happens.”
Giving our surroundings a look, it appears I didn’t light anything on fire, so that’s good. Lauren’s laughter seems to have kept the strangers from panicking at the sudden outburst, but there’s a clear air of caution now.
With Lauren composing herself again, we continue our treat tour. There's a bit of a ruckus, but with more people noticing that I’m not, in fact, eating everyone, they start to calm down and the general atmosphere improves quite a bit.
“I prayed to Merciferus, Kira. She spoke to me, not just impressions and feelings, she actually spoke directly to me.”
“Really?! What did she say?”
“That you’re the most obnoxious creature she has ever dealt with.”
“Rude…”
“And that whatever you have planned could work. It isn't guaranteed, but it could work.”
That’s good! Now we just need to bring it all together. We still have a few kinks to work out, like how to keep my venom from infecting the rest of her. I don’t know if the blacksmith can make thin tubes to use as needles, but we’ll figure something out. At least we know for sure that we’re on the right track!
Thank you for not being useless, Merciferus.
For some reason, Lauren walks over and punches my arm with a laugh. It’s nice that her mood has turned around so much. I was worried she might end up shutting down and locking herself away.
“So, why did my Goddess just tell me to punish you, Kira?”
“I don’t know. I just thanked her for helping us.”
She doesn’t seem to dwell on it as she continues leading me down the aisle between the stalls, grabbing things from here and there. This is what I want life to be: hope for the future, joy in the moment, and everyone being welcome to have fun.