Chapter 20

The following morning Jason was waiting at the entrance to his estate with four bleary eyed and very grumbly children.

The morning mist clung heavily to the ground, like a slug too reluctant to leave its branch. Dawn was breaking as the sun slowly peaked over the city of Iona, its lazy eye illuminating the bedraggled company.

The reluctant band stood in front of the gate. Peyton, crouching and drawing something in the shit and dirt that adorned the cobblestones. Nasha, staring off into the distance, a picture of patience and fortitude if you discount the sound of ripping leaves emanating from her hands. Illios and Gwandere, quickly trying to redo their hair after it came undone in bed and Jason, playing on a Gameboy, the 8-bit sounds of death and destruction all but audible to the rest of the group.

“Jason?” Nasha asked.

“Yo.”

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Conducting an experiment. “ Jason said, lazily mashing the buttons.

“What kind of experiment?”

Jason sighed. “An experiment to see who asked me first what I’m doing.”

“Oh.” was all that Nasha said.

The silence stretched on for uncomfortably long time, well, uncomfortable for Nasha, everybody else was wrapped up doing their own things.

“Jason?” Nasha asked.

“Yeeeees?”

“What are our tutors like?” She asked.

“Dunno.” Jason responded, content to put minimal effort into the conversation.

Nasha sighed but refrained from asking further questions.

Suddenly a giant grandfather clock appeared in front of the group and started dinging. The immediate reaction of everyone there (barring Jason of course) was to scream as loudly as possible while scrambling back from the wooden monstrosity that lay in front of them.

Jason looked up from his game, “Oh, looks like its eight o’clock.” He said as the Gameboy disappeared from his hands, he looked down at the shell shocked children.

“From now on I have an excuse to be mean to them when they get here Jason said, grinning evilly, as the clock disappeared.

Confusion was evident on everyone’s faces, and then the questions started.

“Couldn’t you have picked a less obnoxious wakeup call?” Ilios snapped, annoyed.

“Why didn’t you just get a pocket watch or something?” Gwandere huffed imitating her sister.

“How do you keep doing that!” Nasha said in awe, meanwhile Peyton just grumbled and said.

“We should have killed it, killed it with fire.”

Savoring the reactions of the children, Jason turned his attention back to the road, only to see three figures calmly walking towards them.

They looked like something out of a comic book, with the rising sun behind them, cloaking their faces in shadow. They made a strange bunch.

The first one was a man, blonde, hair slicked back, eyes as blue as the morning sky, he wore a confident grin and strode with purpose, robes flapping around regally around him.

The second was a woman, covered in black like a funeral dress and wore her hair in a tight bun, her face showed age and she wore a serious, almost scowling expression.

The third was a dwarf, his expression was vacant and his ginger beard covered most of his clothes but what set him apart from the other two the most is that he wore a sword at his side.

All three stopped in front of Jason and gave him a formal bow. The robed one started speaking “Lord Fyr, it is a pleasure to meet you. We are to be the instructors of your children.”

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Jason merely sniffed disdainfully. “You’re late.” He said.

The speaker merely hung his head. “We apologize for our tardiness.”

The two parties stood there in silence, Jason with his head held high, looking down at his new servants. While the trio made no move, content to keep bowing until Jason told them otherwise.

Finally Jason broke the silence with a grin. “Alright, you can look up now. Do you know which one of these kids are your charges?”

Their headsman, yet again, inclined his head. “Indeed we do my Lord. I am to be young Nasha’s tutor, Madam Hough is to be Gwandere and Ilios’ while Ruck is to be Peytons.”

“Wonderful!” Jason said, clapping his hands. “Well, don’t let me keep you, I’ve got things to do. Oh, one more thing. I don’t want you showing lack of discipline just because they’re nobles, they’re in your charge and I want to see them grow up into responsible adults.”

The leader once more bowed. “Of course my Lord.”

With that Jason turned back to the bewildered children. “Oh stop being so scared you lot, let me tell you what’s been happening. All this-” Jason gestured to their surroundings “Wasn’t done for any grand plan, I wasn’t trying to fill a hole in my heart by surrounding myself with a fake family. I wasn’t doing it for you guys out of the kindness of my heart either. I did it because I was bored, understand? I have set this up so that you could be something other than beggars, but I am going now. I gave you a step but it’s all up to you from here on out, you will hardly see me anymore. You might hate me but I honestly don’t care, now goodbye.”

And with that Jason levitated himself over the gate and back to the Manor, leaving everyone in various stages of shock.

“Err… I think we should start the lessons then.” Robey began hesitantly.

Jason flew to the door and opened a bit more forcefully then intended.

“Tilda!” he shouted, walking briskly through the halls of the mansion.

“Over here!” Came another shout off into the distance. Jason whipped his head towards the noise and ran through the corridors, nearly bursting into one of the rooms.

“Hey Til- What are you doing?” Jason looked at Tilda who was currently hanging upside down , tangled into a curtain without sign of getting free any time soon.

“I’m trying to-” She began but Jason cut him off.

“Doesn’t matter, just wanted to tell you I’m leaving.”

“What? For how long?” Tilda asked.

“Indefinitely.” Jason confirmed.

“WHAT! But you can’t just leave like that!” Tilda said, if she wasn’t tangled up. Jason was pretty sure she would have strangled him.

“Oh but I can, you’ve got the money, you’ve got the keys, It’s all taken care of.” Jason replied calmly.

“But Jason!” Tilda sputtered, outraged. “What about the children?”

“Just met their tutors this morning.”

“But! But-”

“Goodbye Tilda.” Jason said before walking away.

“JASOOOOOOON!” Tilda shouted after him but Jason was already bounding away to the door. Once outside he summoned a horse, jumped on its back and rode away, he cleared the gates in one jump and sped away into the city, whooping all the way.

Jason rode through the streets, dodging some and riding down others, those who didn’t jump out of his way fast enough were trampled, leading to quite a few deaths. At one point an Ent tried stop him by swinging one of his branches at him but missed and smashed a storefront’s window, needless to say where ever Jason went chaos followed in his wake.

Eventually he came to stop at the Mages’ Tower. Running up the stairs he flipped the secretary off before proceeding up the elevator. The bell dinged and Jason found Death sitting behind his desk jacking off with a laptop in front of him.

“Let’s go.” Jason said.

Death jumped up, “Wait, what?” he asked as he hurriedly stuffed his dick back into his pants.

“I’ll explain on the way.” Jason replied as he went over to the window and gave a whistle, suddenly the entire tower shook as the dragon flew down to hover just a few meters away from the glass pane. With a click of his fingers Jason made the glass disappear and, using superhuman strength, he jumped on to the back of the ferocious beast.

“What’s happening?” Death asked as he jumped after Jason, the duo quickly sat down between the ridges of the dragon’s spine as the monster slowly lumbered upwards, gaining altitude with each flap of the wings.

“I had a brainwave.” Jason said as he created a barrier to shield them from the wind.

“Oh yeah? And what was it?” Death asked.

“I realized that I don’t want to do this, why should I take care of children when there is so much else to do!” Jason laughed out loud.

“Wait, the kids? You’re just gonna leave them?” Death asked, incredulous.

“Yep! Why shouldn’t I? I finally understand what you said, that it literally doesn’t matter what happens. Look!”

With a click of the fingers, Peyton appeared next to them, looking momentarily confused before he fell, the wind ripping the scream from his mouth as he plummeted to his death.

“Dude!” Death cried, “What the fuck? You just killed him!”

“Ah but I didn’t.” Jason smiled. “I created a carbon copy of him. Exactly the same but different.”

“Jesus Christ! Are you mad!” Death cried!

“Mad? MAD? No! but I’ll be fucked if I will live by constraints that don’t even apply to me! In fact, you should be asking me why I haven’t realized this sooner! But don’t worry, we’re really going to start now!”

As Jason finished speaking he stood up and started running up the dragon’s neck, skillfully avoiding the spikes and weird runic symbols carved into its back. At the head he didn’t stop but instead jumped, freefalling all the while screaming with joy at the top of his lungs.

“WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

He fell faster and faster until he saw a speck of something else falling along with him, going closer he realized it was a still screaming Peyton. Snot and tears whipped past his head as he bawled for dear life.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” he cried between gasps of air.

Jason grinned maniacally “NOT ENOUGH!”

And with a click of his fingers Jason visage turned blurry as he turned himself in to a bird. Quickly stopping his descent and watching as Peyton splattered along the rooftops just a few meters below Jason, with a grin Jason flew back up to the dragon and settled back in to his human form.

“Alright, where to next?” Death asked belatedly.

“West.” Jason said with a grin as they rode off into the sunset.