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---   Sally   ---

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I woke up with the warm sun on my scales, feeling that lazy heat permeate through me. I opened my eyes and stretched out my back, gaining a new insight into why reptiles enjoyed the heat so much. I mean if I could I’d spend all day just lying on a hot rock in the sun if it felt this nice.

But sadly it couldn’t last forever, and I eventually got up from my spot next to the burnt-out fire and admired the world around me. Everything here seemed so much more vibrant and alive, the sun felt brighter, the air crisper and simply existing here was nice. But I couldn’t tell if this world was simply better than the previous one or if it was more of a personal change.

But honestly I felt a bit weird about liking this place better, so far my whole life here had been one long nightmare until yesterday.

But really I couldn’t stop feeling optimistic, it’s a brand-new magical world to explore while being a dragon, what could go wrong?

Hmm….

I quickly ran over to where Orion was still sleeping, clambering onto his shoulders before giving his head a good nock with a closed fist.

The first step to avoiding any jinxing, touching wood. Or if wood is not in reach, something as dense as wood works as a substitute.

I quickly retreated as Orion awoke in a panic, the man grabbing the hunting knife that’d been laying by his side and waving it around wildly, looking like a mad man as his dishevelled hair fell onto his face, making him look like wild and unpredictable.

But he eventually saw me sitting by him, patiently waiting for his episode to end, the man letting out an awkward cough as he put the knife away.

“Sorry” Orion quickly apologised, as I just slowly and scathingly nodded in response, making sure that I expressed how much him panicking was his fault and not mine for messing with him while he slept.

Yup, all his fault.

But I let him believe that as I happily walked away, finding that my legs felt much more stable than back in the caves, and walking felt easy and smooth. Maybe it was a result of levelling?

Wait, since my class, [infant dragon], represented my race, dragon, and age, infant, did that mean if I levelled up more, I’d get older, develop and no longer be a bumbling baby?

One problem of many solved.

After pacing around a bit, just to enjoy being able to walk smoothly I looked back over at Orion to find that he’d already gotten ready to leave, packing up his few belongings into his jacket.

“Ready to leave?” Orion asked, ready and rearing to go, even though the sun had barely risen and the pale morning light was barely passing through the trees. Where were we going to go?

Does he know where we are, or if there’s a town or something nearby?

Well, while I want to ask where he plans on going, I can’t ask and he just… hasn’t mentioned it. At least he looked confident so I’m going to trust him for now.

I ran up to his leg and patiently waited for him to let me up onto his head, eager to depart on what’d probably be a long hike while riding my sedan.

But Orion did nothing, only frowning a little as he stared down at me, the two of us just awkwardly staring at each other as the stifling silence dragged on. I wondered if I’d done something wrong as he obviously stressed about something, his usually stoic, I-don’t-feel-emotion-because-that’s-only-for-women face was showing confusion about something.

I tilted my head to the side while feeling a bit lost, waiting for him to say something, anything.

“Is it fine for me to pick you up?” he murmured, his words helping me realise his problem. He must be feeling weird about me being a human rather than a wild animal, the whole treating me like a pet must be confusing him. Well, I got over… most of the weirdness of the situation a while ago.

As long as there’s proper respect and he listens to my wishes, I don’t mind us having a strange relationship, if it works, don’t fix it.

So, I just nodded, Orion face going through a few changes in emotion before he gave in and picked me up, plopping me on his head like nothing happened. It still felt a bit strange to get pick up and moved around by someone else, but I’m just going to have to live with it, and so will Orion, it’s not like I’m going on day-long hikes yet.

As soon as I secured myself, Orion began walking off, seemingly at random as he walked towards the rising sun, pushing through foliage and moving fast. Yet again I was reminded that I knew nothing about Orion, he seemed like a hunter, catching wild animals easily, gutting them with practised precision and now trekking through a forest with confidence and speed, like he’d done it a thousand times before.

I wish that I could just ask or talk to the guy, because I wanted to know more about the guy I was entirely relying on for survival, but I can’t.

So I decided right there and then to use all of the time I’d spend lazing on Orion’s head today to learn how to speak again, it can’t be that hard. What’s a good place to start…

Sounds maybe? Like vowels and the alphabet, it feels like the building blocks of speaking, saying each letter until it sounds right. So without delay I got started without delay, eager to ask Orion about the <soul bond> and a thousand other things on my mind.

“Aah”

“aaAAah”

“AaAah”

“What are you doing Sally?” Orion asked abruptly, sound terse as he investigated the random noises coming from my mouth, or maybe that was just his normal tone. In response I stretched my neck and dropped my head into his vision, staring at him while upside down in annoyance. I sarcastically raised my eyebrow with all of the ire I could, trying my best to convey the rhetorical message, ‘How in hell do you expect me to answer the question?’.

“Right, can’t talk.” Orion quickly apologised and I retracted my head with a temperamental scowl, feeling much more annoyed than I thought I could’ve been. I didn’t even feel this emotional when I was late for my exams, which I never even got a chance to go to.

But I pushed aside my moodiness to focus on my speech, concentrating on the movements my mouth makes when I make noises. Thinking on how my tongue moves and my throat constricts, changing the movements with each generation of noises and refining them continuously.

“AAAH”

Hmm, shouldn’t sound like I’m at the dentists.

“AAA”

Better…

“A!” I happily shouted, my first vowel conquered as I happily repeated the ‘A’ noise, getting ready to move onto ‘B’.

“psh”

I quickly realised that this was going to take a while, my first attempt at ‘B’ illuminating me on how much lips are used in making words. And how little I know how to use these lizard-y lips. But I took a deep breath and regained my resolved, finding my determination again, my whole being focused on the task of talking to Orion about how much he’s stuffed up.

 

…

 

After a while of practice, I managed to get around halfway through the alphabet, feeling happy with my progress that’d taken me a few hours, but before I could continue, my concentration got broken by an annoying ringing noise.

I listened to the annoying ticking for a bit, wondering where metallic tinging was coming from, it sounded like a watch or some other piece of clockwork. I glanced down at Orion, the man sorting through the pockets of his jacket in search of the noise, the man eventually pulling out a cracked wristwatch, a surprisingly familiar object for this primitive world filled with swords and bows.

It was a modern thing, the simple looking metal wristwatch trying to tick without success, the second hand trying to move but continuously moving back and forth. Where’d he gotten it from?

“It came from the moon god as a reward” he quickly answered, leaving me stunned as to how this guy guessed my thoughts. After giving him a suspicious look, I used <appraisal> on the watch.

 

[using <appraisal>]

[A watch made to track day and night:

An enchanted watch

A strange curio given as a reward for being the first to traverse the dungeon <mountain of rotting memories>.

This watch reacts to the energies of day and night, of order and chaos, moving closer to midnight as you approach the energies of night, chaos, or the moon, and closer to midday with the presence of the sun or order. Its default state is at 6pm, resting between midday and midnight.

Enchantments:

Sensitive machinery:

It feels the presence of order and chaos, day and night, sun and moon. It will also alert you to these energies with the ticking of its clock, the closer it is to midday or midnight, the stronger the energy.]

 

Energies? This sounds ominous, I glanced back at the watch, watching the watch try to tick in the clockwise direction, towards midnight.

Which means we were approaching something with the energies of chaos. Yaaay…

I considered trying to use hand signals in order to convince Orion to go another way but was interrupted by the increase in ticking from the watch, the time slowly beginning to move forwards, which I think meant it was getting closer. F#ck.

Orion quickly stuffed the watch back into his jacket and took out his bow while I stuck my head up and looked around for the approaching danger, looking like a meerkat as I peered between the rows of trees.

*squaak*

I instantly pirouetted my head towards the noise, spotting a large black bird flying through the trees, the raven or crow was easily had the same wingspan as an eagle, spanning two or three metres from tip to tip.

[using <appraisal>]

[Raven mocker – level 3

Evil spirit that steals hearts

A raven mocker is a depraved species that lives off of the hearts of its victims, gaining years of life equivalent to how much longer their victim would’ve lived. They usually target the weak and old, tormenting them in their final days before taking their heart.

They are cowards in nature, never taking risks unless they become desperate, then they might target the young, delicious prizes that are often hard to get.

But the most important thing about a raven mocker is its corpse, prized by many for its beneficial properties, their ability to steal life lingering in their dead bodies. Many witches would pay a high price for a chance to gain a few more years of life.]

I see why the watch considers it to have evil energies, this thing is C-R-E-E-P-Y.

Orion quickly turned around as well when he heard the noise, focusing on the bird as he raised his bow, an arrow appearing in it as he drew back the string. Without hesitation Orion released the arrow, the projectile flying towards the bird with determination, I lost track of it as soon as it left Orion’s hand, the piece of wood and steel becoming a blur as it sped towards its target.

A second after the arrow disappeared, I heard a caw of pain and watched the raven tumble to the ground, rolling to a stop as the bird went limp, lying there without moving. That was easy, much better than trying to fight those things in the dungeon. Was it because it was such a low level?

Orion walked towards the bird, poking it with the tip of his bow, the large animal unmoving and limp, obviously perished.

“Should we have lunch?” Orion asked, picking up the bird by its feet and inspecting it.

Well, I guess <appraisal> said it was evil, not inedible.

Orion gathered some sticks into a pile and I lit them on fire with a fiery spit ball, the man quickly taking out his hunting knife and began to prep the bird for eating. I watched curiously as he began plucking the bird, putting all of the larger feathers into a pile as he got started on the monotonous job of defeathering a bird, which seemed arduous to say the least.

With Orion happily taking up the job of prepping lunch by himself I decided to get back to training my voice to be speech worthy, the task always at the forefront of my mind.

But as I sat down by the fire and began to relax, a faint noise that’d been forgotten since the raven swooped towards us, much quieter and slower than before, but I could still hear that faint ticking. I let out a sigh and immediately got back up, realising that this wasn’t something I could just sit through without going insane. I marched myself over to Orion and began rifling through his pockets without warning, not bothering to try and use hand gestures to remind him about the watch.

For a moment Orion panicked, which is a pretty natural reaction for when something that was similar to an iguana started going through your pockets. But after that he immediately went deathly still, almost afraid to move as he awkwardly held the barely plucked bird in his hands.

After another few seconds I found the watch, pulling it out and getting my hand- paws, off of his chest, waving the ticking watch in his face until I saw his ‘oh I get it now’ face. I sat back down on the ground beside him as I investigated the watch, trying to figure out what made it tick.

It was a bit strange when compared to before, it was much less vigorous than when the crow came and it hadn’t moved at all, the hand struggling to move off of the standard 6pm.

“Something up?” Orion politely asked, leaning in a bit to look at the watch, seeing that watch had started reacting to something again. But when I thought back to the event before with the raven mocker, the hand had begun to move faster when the raven got closer, probably meaning that this new source of evil energy was probably staying still, and not an immediate threat.

I pointed at the sluggish hand with a claw, hoping that Orion could get the message too.

“Its not moving?” Orion immediately guessed correctly, leaving me wondering if he could read my mind or something. Oh, oh god I hope the <soul bond> doesn’t do that, I don’t think it does but that’d be a worst-case scenario.

But ignoring the archer’s newfound psychic abilities I investigated the watch further, wondering if there was something more that could learn from it.

I held it up to the sun, nothing.

Rotated it in my talons, no reaction.

Looked on the back for some buttons to press, just flat steel.

Feeling dejected I turned around to hand the item back to Orion, but paused when I noticed the watch’s noises slow down. Under Orion’s confused gaze I returned to my original position, finding that the watch ticked faster when I faced towards the fire.

I curiously began circling on the spot, finding that the watch ticked fastest when I faced in a certain direction, and the slowest when facing away. This thing worked like a compass!

“What’s happening?” Orion asked impassively, with a slight bit of nervousness. Unfortunately, this was something he needed to know, and while I’d love to explain my discoveries using words, it seemed that it was time to dust off my miming skills. Yay.

I waved my paw in his face, making sure that his attention was solely focused on the watch, deliberately moving around in a circle to show Orion how the watch’s ticking changed with direction.

“I don’t get it.” Orion said stoically, leaving me looking at him incredulously, wondering how Orion could say that with a straight face. I sighed and placed the watch into his hands and then I ran around to his backside to nudge it with my head, trying to get him to stand up.

A very (but not obviously) confused Orion put down a now half plucked bird and stood up with the watch in hand. I grabbed onto his pants with a snap of my jaws and begun pulling Orion around in circles, the man letting me as he tried to work out what I was doing.

Luckily it didn’t take long for him to start looking at the watch with a hint of suspicion, his brain eventually putting together the pieces of the puzzle and lift up the watch by himself, turning and staring in the direction that the watch ticked the loudest.

“Good timing.”  Orion muttered, leaving me wondering if he had just made one of the worst puns I’d ever heard or if there was something I was missing.

“Gives me a direction to go in.” Orion explained when he looked down at me, leaving me with two very important questions.

Was my face really so easy to read that he could practically see right into my head?

And two, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, ‘DIRECTION TO GO IN’?

Have we really, been wondering, AIM-LESS-LY, this whole time?

“Well what else was I meant to do? Sit there until we starved?” Orion rhetorically asked, not helping me deal with my anger in the slightest. You might not know where we are, but that doesn’t mean follow the watch towards what is most likely some evil monster.

But the only response my angry glaring got was a nonchalant shrug from Orion, the man going back to plucking the raven. I let out an angry huff before getting back to practicing my voice, eager to be able to use some of my more choice insults.

 

 

…

 

 

Soon after the bird was chucked onto the fire, the two of us eagerly waiting by the fire as the raven slowly became golden with charred brown edges, looking as good as I remembered it.

(For fellow Australians, imagine the whole roasted chicken from Coles)

When it was done Orion carefully picked up the stick he’d skewered the bird on and took it out of the flames, and as soon as it was in reach I jumped at it, snapping my jaws around the juicy meat. But I couldn’t quite tear the meat off, leaving me dangling there awkwardly as Orion looked at me with a slightly raised eyebrow.

“Why?” He muttered as I started to wriggle my hanging body in an attempt to tear off the bit of meat I was clinging to. Eventually with a bit of swinging I managed to tear off a chunk like a starved crocodile, falling to the ground and scoffing down the chunk barbarically.

I snapped out of my starved state and looked at Orion, who seemed to be feeling a mixture of mild disbelief and shock.

I’ve really gotten a bit wild, huh…

Back on earth I’d never act like that even if I’d got threatened, and yet I’d just acted like some sort of goofy animal. Was it a side effect of becoming an animal? Did I mentally change too?

Let’s just lock that away in the ‘please don’t let that be true’ box, the fact that something had messed with my mind without me knowing, changed me is terrifying. Not being in control of myself was… honestly one of my worst fears.

After that I felt dejected and no longer hungry, lying down on the ground and digging through my memories to find evidence of how much I’d changed since getting reborn.

From my change in taste to how I just acted weirdly sometimes there’s been allot of things that I’d never dare to do while I was human. I have been acting weird haven’t I?

I’ve gotten so handsy and I’ve been climbing all over Orion without a care in the world, he must think I’m weird right?

How could he not think that? I mean I’d think that if some little freak start clambering all over me like I was a playground, if someone was that touchy with me I’d call them ga-

“You… okay?” Orion hesitantly asked, sounding like an awkward father who didn’t know how to engage with his son as he crouched by me, even this big oaf was able to tell that something was wrong.

Though I just ignored him, turning my head away from him as I continued to mull over my miseries, the things I’d have to try and fix about myself.

But before I could stew in my emotions any longer, a piece of roasted chicken was plopped in front of my face, the delicious aroma tickling my nose and making it impossible to ignore.

“Might as well eat” Orion suggested, before helping himself to the rest of the roasted bird, ripping out small chunks and offering me a piece while eating some with his other hand. While he was terrible at giving out advice, I did it anyways, latching onto the piece of chicken and scoffing it down.

I guess it did help a little bit…

But the food couldn’t distract me forever from my problems forever, and I was just left wondering how to fix myself. It felt surprisingly reminiscent of going into high school, trying to fit into one of the three personality types that boys get offered.

Fit in, or don’t. It’s your problem if they don’t like you.

But while Orion may be fine with me being a weirdo, I don’t want to finally meet up with a group of normal humans and they all think I’m some sort of feral weirdo. Once is enough for that kind of experience.