What the heck was that dream… Oh shit! Joras! I have to check on Joras! I quickly get up and look around. There’s a new face, and they’re all standing around someone.

I move closer and it’s Charo. Oh no… I nudge my head between Joras and new guy. She’s dead. Then I feel a jab, Joras standing with his dagger and I feel a familiar tingle.

“She did this to herself, Kira. It isn’t your fault.” Easy for you to say, but she literally died because she touched me. And she knew it was happening…

Oh, I almost got swept up in those negative feelings again, but I feel strong enough to stand against the spiraling.

I still feel bad that she died helping me, to be honest, but it’s comforting to know that she wasn’t angry with me. I don’t even know why Charo and new guy came out here, or what happened to Joras.

His new tattoos look snazzy though, like his veins got highlighted or something. I wonder whether I should focus on apologizing for that thing I did, ask about the veiny, burny things, or ask about new guy.

It should be fine to postpone the apology, since Joras seems fine and we’re getting closer I think, so a proper apology in private is in order.

Now that I think about it, I guess the obvious thing to prioritize is finding out what the new guy and Charo are doing here.

“They came to offer appeasement to prevent you from burning down the town, killing everyone.” WHAT?! I’d never do that! Geez, I just got over thinking of myself as a monster, and here’s someone assuming I’m a monster!

Not nice, buddy. And why can I understand other people now? That’s peculiar.

“Is she angry with us, Joras?” New Guy appeared quite perturbed as he inquired about my sudden growling. But nah, I’m not actually angry. I was frightened and upset, but I never had any intention of hurting anyone.

“She is quite upset with you for the offense caused, Turo, but I believe in light of Charo’s sacrifice, a minor gift of wealth may be sufficient to appease her.” That’s not what I said! So, of course, I bump my head against him to make sure he actually says what I said.

“She is displeased with me for not conveying her intent properly, a significant gift of wealth will be required.” What?!

That’s REALLY not what I said! Alright, I’m gonna lie on you for this, you rascally elf. With a quick swipe, he lands on his ass and I pin him. That’ll teach him to behave.

“Ah. My apologies. I haven’t been entirely truthful. I’ve been hoping to gain a more favorable deal. The town is to be surrendered to her, and tribute paid, and in turn, she will do what she can to defend it.” Okay, that actually sounds like a pretty good deal. I feel like I could use some more wealth.

Wait, that sounds like questionable behavior from me. Isn’t that like taking the entire town hostage?

“I accept your terms, dragon.” What?! Why’d you accept that, new guy?

Does he even have the authority to just accept it? This feels like it might become a headache, but on the other hand, this tribute sounds pretty good. Better than pretty good, even. My interest in tribute feels like it’s tied to my being a dragon.

I suppose I should let Joras up, even if I feel like he deserves to get dirty for being so rascally. I glance at Charo’s body again and ask what we should do about her.

I don’t know their funeral rites, so it’s really up to them. I give the now-standing Joras a poke and ask him to ask New Guy.

“We don’t have many corpses to deal with. Most of our people who die do so in these woods, so nature takes care of it. And the ones who die in town are dealt with by the families, but Charo was alone, she had no one.”

I guess that sounds reasonable, but I kinda wanna do something more, especially now that I feel like she and I could’ve been friends, so at the very end, she had me.

We certainly didn’t get the best first impression of each other, but I think I’d have been in trouble if she hadn’t helped me. How did she know my name, anyway? That’s weird…

I tell Joras that we should bring Charo back to town because I’d like to hold a funeral for her, which, apparently, he isn’t interested in letting Raya and New Guy in on.

Nevertheless, who’s gonna stop me? I’m a dragon! I can give respectful sendoffs to whomever I want. For the first time, I feel like I actually meant it when I said I’m a dragon.

Joras picks up Charo and we start heading towards their town, and I notice that Turo is leading the way a bit further ahead than necessary.

He definitely smells of fear, but he’s doing an impressive job of keeping calm. He takes us down the same trail they used to get here, which was not made for dragons, it’s narrow and overgrown.

The trip is spent mostly in silence. Mostly because I can hear Raya snickering behind me, watching me dodge and bump into branches. Oh, she is building up a lot of punishment debt.

It takes a while before we actually get to the town, and I notice that as we get closer, I don’t feel the uneasy sensation from last time.

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Instead, I’m confident that I could not only defend myself, but also put up a rather destructive fight or even burn the town to the ground.

Yeah, that’s not super villain thinking at all, Kira. At least it’s just an interesting thought, instead of something I want to do.

It’s approaching nightfall as we leave the forest, Turo leading the pack, he shouts out to the guards to alert them to our presence.

They respond quickly and make their way towards us, seemingly unsure what to make of me. They seem conflicted about whether to ready themselves for a confrontation or not. It would be kinda fun having a tussle, so maybe I should goad them a bit.

“Don’t do it, Kira.” How did he know?!

“If you want to fight the guards, you can do it tomorrow, but today we have business to attend to, remember?” Right, Charo. That certainly calmed me down, so I just lie down and relax a bit.

I ask him if he could ask Turo to have the townsfolk prepare a funeral pyre to give her a proper send-off, which he conveys quickly, and one of the guards calls out for someone else, who quickly runs off.

For now, we just sorta hang around outside the gates, inconspicuously. Well, sort of. There’s a bit of a crowd gathering, seems word of a dragon waiting outside the gates is quick to spread. There’s a surprisingly high amount of folks ready to just stand around this late.

A few more folks trickle in, carrying logs and branches, which seem to spur others into joining, and suddenly there are quite a few folks working on this pyre. For some reason, the bustle of the work is quite relaxing.

I give some thought to recent events and realize that it’s only been like, what, four days, or is it midnight and this is the fifth day?

Geez, I’ve grown. Starting out as just a runt getting knocked off a mountain by a sparkly ice bear, and now I’m towering over Raya. To be fair, I was pretty much towering over her the moment we met, she’s quite short.

I kinda wanna know how tall I am, so the obvious one to ask is Joras, but he just goes on a rant about something or other. I’m not here for a math lesson, buddy, I just wanna know how tall I am.

Fortunately for me, I managed to not listen to his ranting long enough for him to start drawing in the dirt as he talks about length.

“And this is one Murak, which is a hundred Cimurak.” Yeah, those are definitely meters and centimeters. Apparently he’s two hundred and forty centimeters tall, which means I am about the same. I am a large dragon. Rawr.

Wait, how long am I? Eh, I’ll leave that mystery for some other time.

I just let my thoughts wander back to all the events, I feel pretty good about how well I’ve handled it all. With hindsight, I can definitely see things I could’ve done better, but that’s just how it is.

The more I think about stuff, the more I feel what coma dragon felt. Abandonment, worry, fear, loneliness, and wanting to be accepted. Geez, I’m gonna have to make an effort to make both of my sides feel accepted.

I don’t know why, but I also feel like I’ve got a much better sense of who Charo actually was. My impression of her was just her being an evil bitch trying to mindfuck me, but that turned out to be… Well, it was that, maybe not the evil.

But now I at least know that she genuinely felt it was for the best for the town. And having such a potentially powerful protector wasn’t something she could pass up. I get it, but I still don’t approve. It is a bit odd how I seem to know more about her than I should.

Bringing my focus back to what’s happening around me, it looks like the townsfolk have been getting into a very nice lumber-carrying flow and the pyre is being built very quickly.

Their wariness of me seems to be waning, as they focus on the task at hand. Even if Joras hadn’t rascal’d his way into this weird deal with Turo, I could find myself being inclined to stick around.

I’m impressed at how willing they are to just work on this random project in the middle of the night. And all Turo and Joras did to make it happen was ask for help.

It hadn’t occurred to me to keep an eye on Charo. Seems folks have brought out a table to lay her on, and felt it necessary to dress her in some quite fancy clothes.

She looks quite nice, and I can feel regret for her death creep in. Maybe she did manage some mind trickery in the end because I kinda wanna protect this town on her behalf.

From the looks of it, the pyre is ready, and Joras is instructing some folks to bring Charo onto it. Turo walks up in front of the crowd and clears his throat.

“Hello everyone. As you no doubt know by now, Charo has fallen, and now is the time for us to put her to rest. But first, I’d like to share a few words I’ve carried with me for some time. I’m sure no one here is surprised to know that I did not particularly like Charo. But in her last moments, she showed me how foolish I have been to have judged her so harshly. I’ve been prideful and attributed many of our town’s benefits to myself. Reality is such that those benefits would not have been if not for Charo’s incessant pestering.”

The crowd seems to be listening to every word. A few chuckled at his comment about not liking Charo.

“No matter how much we Elders argued, Charo always fought for the good of our town. No matter how infuriating, she always walked away with a smile and a chuckle. And I have no doubt that even now, she’s laughing in the realm of the dead. But know that her death was not meaningless. She died to save the very dragon she had harmed. No one could ask for a more noble death, and yet, she goes even further than merely undoing her greatest sin. Her sacrifice has resulted in the very thing she tried to do on the day she was burned. As you’ve no doubt noticed, the dragon who burned Charo is right there; her name is Kira, and she has agreed to be a guardian for the town to help protect us!”

Wait, guardian? I guess that’s a pretty clever spin on the whole thing. I might have to keep an eye on this guy, seems like he might be another rascal.

“In her final moments, Charo not only saved Kira from a terrible affliction, but brokered an alliance between her and us! From this day forth, Charo shall be celebrated as a hero and Guardian of Tuiran! And so, through this funeral pyre, she will be blessed by the very Dragon Fire that caused her such pain. Through the flames, she will be reborn in the next life, ready to face far greater dangers, and she will be victorious!” The crowd cheered quite enthusiastically at that, but I get the sense that he’s just making it up as he goes. Which is fairly impressive.

“And now, Kira, if you would be so kind as to send Charo into the next life.” Sure. I slowly walk up to the pyre and unleash the most intense flame I can muster.

The wood quickly catches fire, and I step back. Judging by the quiet crying and murmuring, I get the impression that she was actually quite beloved by the people here, despite New Guy saying she had no one.

All things considered, it was a pretty lovely makeshift funeral, and I’d imagine Charo would approve.

Morning is approaching quite quickly, and most folks have already left, so I think I should as well. Both Raya and Joras have kept close by, and I appreciate that they’re looking out for me.

I give Joras a nudge and point towards Raya with my tongue out so he can recast his spell. “You know, you could just tell me, I’m still maintaining our comprehension spell."

Right… Well, he understood what I wanted, so it’s fine. A quick cut later and I tell Raya that I’m gonna head off and get some sleep, prompting her to hug my face again, she’s great.

I tell them I’ll be back later in the day, and we say our goodbyes as I get up. Trudging further away, I spread my wings and take off, I can definitely tell that I need to get some sleep.

Luckily, it doesn’t take long for me to arrive at the lake, and I find my tree. It's time for a snooze.