Chapter Three Hundred and Eighty-One - Beauty and the Dragon

“Wait, really?” Amaryllis asked.

“Who’s Booksie?” Caprica asked as well.

I took a second to calm my pitter-pattering heart. “She’s a bun friend of mine! We helped her on her first, uh, sorta dates! I think it must be her wedding that's being targeted! It has to be! And Rainnewt would know about it because it’s happening in Port Royal!”

“Wait, back up a moment,” Amaryllis said. “Where did you learn about this wedding?”

“The receptionist. Oh shoot, the food.”

“Nevermind that,” Amaryllis said. “You heard that Booksie is getting married? To Rhawrexdee? When’s the wedding?”

“Well, not exactly that, but I think that’s what’s happening. It makes sense. Well, some sense. It’s a bit fast for a wedding, if you ask me. But yeah! We need to go to Port Royal.”

Amaryllis huffed a ‘calm your horses’ huff. “That hardly sounds like a confirmation to me, more like a suspicion at best.”

“Well, yeah, but if it’s real, then I wanna be there. I bet she’d allow us to attend.” I gasped. “We could be bridesmaids!”

“You’re getting about twenty steps ahead of yourself,” Amaryllis said. “First we need to confirm if there’s really a wedding going on, and if it actually is Booksie’s, then... Well, Port Royal isn’t next door.”

Awen and Calamity stumbled into the room behind me. “What?” he asked.

“You think Rainnewt will go after this Booksie friend of yours?” Caprica asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “It would make sense.”

“Is she important?” Caprica asked.

“She owns a nice little bookstore,” I said.

She didn’t look impressed.

“But her boyfriend is Rhawrexdee, and he’s a whole entire dragon,” I added.

“A dragon,” Caprica said, her tone seemingly completely dead. “A dragon. As in a large, fire-breathing, magic wielding, apex predator, Sylph-snacking dragon?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And he’s marrying... a bun?”

I nodded. “I think they’re very cute together.”

“No, we don’t know how they make... things work,” Amaryllis said, without actually enlightening anyone about what she actually meant. She patted down her feathers and shook her head. “In any case... I don’t know what to think about this. If you’re correct, Broccoli, then it might mean some serious trouble.”

“I don’t know, if Rainnewt is trying to kill a dragon, I say let him,” Caprica said.

“Caprica!” I gasped. “How could you say that?”

The princess just seemed entirely confused. “What do you mean? What part of that was so controversial? Either Rainnewt succeeds, in which case one less dragon will terrorise the skies, or he fails and is turned into dragon chow.”

“Hmm,” Tharval grunted. “Wouldn’t want to fight a dragon myself. Though... I might be able to think of a way or two to make the fight a little more fair.”

“Yes, you keep thinking about those things, as long as they stay thoughts,” Willowbud said.

I ignored the two of them for a moment. “Caprica, Rhawrexdee is a friend. So is his sister Cholondee, and even their mom, though I don’t know her as well.”

“They’re dragons, Broccoli,” Caprica said. “Do you know how most interactions between a sylph and a dragon ends?”

“Uh, no?” I asked.

“It ends in the dragon’s stomach.” She crossed her arms. “Dragons have their own language, you know. And in their tongue, we’re known only as ‘snacks.’”

I recoiled. I didn't know that. My autotranslate let me speak and understand Dragon perfectly, but it didn't provide any kind of explanation for the words. While speaking it, I could easily call a sylph a snack and not even realise it. But ... yeah, that kind of etymology might make sense for a dragon. When I’d met Rhwarexdee way back in Rosenbell, he was planning on burning down the town and eating the townspeople, which are objectively mean things to do. Still... “I... I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I think that maybe even dragons can grow past their own instincts for princess-kidnapping and town-burning. It might not come naturally to them, but I think that dragons can become friends too, you just need to try.”

“Well, we have a history of trying with dragons,” Caprica said. “Goldenalden is dragon-free, and has been for two generations now. Whenever a lizard so much as looks at one of our peaks, we teach them a valuable lesson about the strength of sylphs. It took centuries to rid ourselves of the last dragons who wanted to make our mountains their home. Unlike the harpy, we never settled for appeasing them.”

“So, you’ve never met a dragon yourself?” I asked.

“Of course not,” she said.

“Well, maybe you should? I’m sure they’re not as bad as you think. They might be... a little bad, sometimes, but they can be reasoned with.” I winced. My argument wasn’t very convincing when the other side was basically ‘but they ate us.’

“Caprica’s cultural hang-ups aside, we do need to address this,” Amaryllis said. “If Rainnewt crashes that wedding in particular, then it might start exactly the kind of war we’ve been trying to avoid all this time. I can picture it now already. He hires some mercenaries. Sylph, cervid, harpy, whatever, arms them with the best Snowlander crossbows they can afford, and they make a mess of the wedding which, if it does occur in Port Royal, will be attended by dignitaries from all over. Then the dragons will retaliate, and they might not be as ... precise with their retaliation as we would hope.”

“Precise?” Calamity asked.

“If they think Rainnewt is in a particular city, they might just burn the whole thing down then wait for him to come out of the ashes,” she said. “For a creature of their scale ... that might make a crude sort of sense. They’re not sized for the cities of most civilised people. They can either ask the authorities to work with them, which has a small chance of success, or they can burn everything and wait to see if that worked.”

“That’s... not good,” I said. It was something of a massive understatement.

“Very not good, yes,” Amaryllis agreed.

Caprica nodded. “My point stands then, dragons are no good.”

I pouted. “But Rhawrexdee let us fly on him. Did you ever fly while riding a dragon before? It’s really cool!”

“I’d rather fly with my own wings, thank you very much,” Caprica rebutted.

“I think we should go,” Awen said. “We should be there. To stop Rainnewt if he tries something, and to be there for Booksie if not.”

“I’m down for a dragon wedding,” Calamity said. “Bet they’ve got great food.”

Caprica gave him a very stern look, and Calamity winced out an apology.

Amaryllis rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Yes. We should try to be there, even if I’m not sure what we could do to help. We’ll have to cross through the Harpy Mountains to get to Port Royal in any case. So we might be able to toss the baron out to some proper authorities as well. Or... no, that’s not clever. Let’s inform the authorities of in the Harpy Mountains, then let them come pick him up. I’d rather not have to keep him onboard the Beaver if we can avoid it.”

“We can keep him here,” Willowbud said. “It wouldn’t be a big imposition, and I’m certain that after a few days of commoner food our dear baron will crack. But I don’t know if you have a few days to wait.”

“Adventure doesn’t wait for you,” Tharval complained. “Best you kids get going. You’ve got half a continent to cross to get to Port Royal. Hmm... is that place still filled with frogs?”

“You mean grenoil?” I asked. “Yeah, it’s mostly them. I don’t think it’s very nice to call them frogs.”

“Bah, one of my best friends was a frog,” he dismissed. “But Willowbud’s right. You’ve brought enough excitement around here. About time you scamper off to the next spot of trouble. And get that weird ship of yours out of my docks while you’re at it.”

I didn’t let Tharval dismiss us so easily. He got his share of hugs, and then I glomped onto Willowbud too.

We might have been in something of a sudden hurry, but there was no point in rushing out the door and not saying our goodbyes properly.

“Stay safe out there,” Willowbud said. “It’s a long flight from here to Port Royal, and there’s plenty of room for things to go sour along the way.”

“They’ll be fine, you worrywart. They’ve got each other to rely on, don’t they?” Tharval said.

I nodded along. The dwarf was right. As long as we had each other, we’d figure things out.

With a final few hugs (to spread Huggism) we left the Exploration Guild and headed back onto the confusing streets of the Storm Tower.

“We’re going to have to come back here,” Amaryllis said.

“Hmm? Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because we haven’t seen half of what this place has to show. It’s not fair that we have to leave so soon.”

I laughed. “I didn’t think that you’d get so caught up in the spirit of adventure,” I said.

“I did join the Exploration Guild for a reason beyond the pragmatic, I’ll have you know,” Amaryllis said. “Now that I think about it though, we’re rather terrible members.”

“We are?” I asked.

“Broccoli, we haven’t taken a mission in months,” Amaryllis said.

I blinked. That was true. “We were busy with other things, I guess. Maybe some of the stuff we did could, ah, retroactively count as exploration?”

“I could draw up a sloppy map of the plains, and maybe of that pirate tower,” Calamity said.

“See,” I said. “That could count, right?”

Amaryllis rolled her eyes. “Well, whatever. We have been doing important work, so I doubt anyone would actually begrudge us the time spent outside of exploring. Plenty of people treat guild membership as a sort of privilege instead of as a career.”

“Ah, I think what we’re doing is a lot like what uncle did,” Awen said. “He just went around and found things. At least, that’s how a lot of his stories started. With him hearing strange rumours and then heading out with an expedition to find out what they were about.”

“Well, I want to go around and find people that need friends, and see cool things, and meet cool people,” I said.

“Hmph,” Amaryllis said. “I suppose I want to discover new magics and make a name for myself.”

“Ah, I guess... I just want to become strong,” Awen said. “And maybe see a bit of the world, the way Uncle did.”

“Are we doing mission statements?” Caprica asked. “Is this some kind of rousing speech?”

“Just play along!” I said as I bumped hips with her. “It’s fun!”

“Fine then. I suppose I want to see the world a little as well. Away from the obligations and restrictions of my lineage. And... I wouldn’t mind growing stronger either, to impress a certain someone.”

“Well, ny’all have got some fancy wants and such,” Calamity said. “But I’m just along to eat new foods, see new sights, and beat the stuffing out of new stuff. Oh, and make it rich. That too.”

Amaryllis huffed, unimpressed. “The least complicated of us, aren’t you?”

“Ny’up!”

I laughed, then bounced ahead of my friends, ears and beard flopping with every step. I had a lot of fun in the Storm Tower, and in the Snowlands overall, but yeah, I was ready to keep moving.

I wondered, for a moment, if I was getting some sort of wanderlust addiction. That would make it hard to settle down in the future.

But then, I could just live the rest of my life aboard the Beaver Cleaver, surrounded by friends and always on the hunt for the next adventure.

That sounded like a blast, actually.

“Broccoli, wipe that smile off your face, your face will get stuck that way,” Amaryllis said.

“Hah! I don’t care!” I proclaimed. “Come on, you could stand to smile some more too, you big grump!”

“Ah, this is nice,” Awen said.

And it was!

***