The flowing river calms me down, fishes taking a ride on or fighting against the currents, the bacteria powerless against it remain ignorant. Every molecule of water, be them free or imprisoned by life, marches on in their every choice of different paths. And in the many  they may drum through take with them some of my anxiety. I stop playing with food in the simulation to pay attention to every molecule breathed out by mom and dad, the speed of which could tell when they would charge or chant some magic with practiced silence.

“I will take the gift.”

Said the hungry mom in a roaring smile while walking forward on her two powerful legs to cross the river, the banks ceding under her weight.

“Wait, Marag!?”

I had thought to throw the “gift” so she wouldn’t have the opportunity to close the distance between us, but it seems fine…

“Don’t feel stranged, toothy, i’m just hungry and a guest brought ME food! And you, don’t be worried, that guraj should be enough for lunch. I wish my daughter is born as cute as the youngling you are caring for.”

Dad takes a step back in submission. Mom claiming my tribute all for herself and insinuating I will need to get more later, walks deep into the river until only her head is outside the water. Her strides disrupt the chaos in the river with some more and her vertical pupils stare straight at me keeping me unease. If my breath wasn’t regulated mechanically I would be a mess.

I take the carcass with me to the bank. Neither of us break eye contact and in a minute she’s rising again, water flushing down her back and tail causing a small maelstrom that promptly disappears.

She takes the bear in her mouth and, with her claws, rips the pelt with practiced movements. Her claws vibrate a bit with magic and in seconds it’s only flesh. Chewing, she turns around to leave going back into the river. Dad too, turns back and walks into the jungle, by his direction i think he is walking towards the nest.

‘Success.’

I put the logs over my shoulders but on the vertical, so she won’t drown while i walk in the river floor. But as i wobble towards the bank i pick up the plans of some sneaky bastard.

“Hey! Rena! There’s a giant-” ’(chicken)’

A kuklo!

“A kuklo is heading towards your nest! You can intercept it if you run towards-”

There’s a... gemmed rock?

“The gemmed rock!”

The shiny rock is, I supposed, a landmark some distance away from the nest. It’s kinda of my fault they are so far away from their nest, I would feel bad if something happened. Dad looks back at me, his eyes growing even sharper as the pupils narrow to a perfectly vertical line. He crouches, turns his head forward. Infuses magic to his legs. Chants a roar. Sprints. Splinters of wood and falling leaves the path he left behind. Mom speeds up to jump out of the water as I wonder what to do with my clothes…

‘Other than the leather of healing juice and the poultice, let’s just ditch them. We look even more perverted than naked like this. God knows we tried to get a snake’s clothes to cover our whole body. Someone stark naked in a forest is probably someone who needs help, someone wearing a shirt but no pants means YOU need help.’

We don’t have to change clothes or dry them, It’s fine if we keep them on and just don’t care about them.

‘And have them get all ripped and unseemly? What’s the point, i’m taking them off.’

Walking forward, soon i’m fully submerged and carefully holding the hammock so the girl isn’t unfurled from the net.

It’s great we don’t have to breath and can’t get wet, but we should get some large leaves to cover her from the rain.

‘Yeah, sure. Anyways let's keep going. Told you that everything would be alright.’

Yeah, so what’s the plan now? Talk to them in the nest about the part system?

‘We don’t have to say it’s the system but yeah, ‘We can powerlevel your dragon chic, bro and sis.’, ‘Protect our chic while we do it, okay?’, ‘yeaaaah, you guys roooock.’, is all we need to do. By the way, have the villagers crossed the plains yet?’

Okay, i will leave that to you. They have started, and they should be fine.

‘Hm? Should be fine, yeah?’

They are taking it slow due to their injured, and the patch of jungle we cleared really helped them move out. The shaman used up all their stock of herbs and other healing stuff so they could get as many people moving on their own as possible, there’s plenty of that in the magic forest we cleared.

‘Ok, if you say they are fine they are fine. I thought maybe we could ask for bro to escort them.’

Eels were startled by the half submerged logs, surrounding it and swimming around in greeting and defiance. They quickly lost interest due to the logs lack of response, or when they looked down at me. But the molecules remain excited and vibrant, making turns around the logs and heating up, many rising from the river to become part of the air.

Rena? He is faster than mom, but it would still take him a day to get there and the escorting would last a week. Can you really separate him from the nest for that long?

‘I’m not confident about that. It would be stretch to ask for that since we “saved” their egg. Is there anyway we can catch those eels? Or any of these fish?’

Nope. If Mom carnosaur couldn’t, we have no chance. We could fish with bait, but we won’t catch anything with a spear or bare hands.

‘Did bro catch the cradle robber yet?’

Yup, he was so pissed he didn’t even use his jaws. It is kind of sadistic, but i guess he was just venting.

Rising again on the other side of the river, we make way to the route i found which we can walk through just fine.

‘Aren’t we going to meet them at the gemmed rock?’

They will be back in the nest by the time we get there, Dad should get to the big chicken in a few minutes.

‘That’s a weird thing, an egg stealing chicken.’

Yeah, and it is quite powerful. It can’t defeat a dragon, but it can run from them. We can’t defeat it since it would run around real fast, we could keep running after it until it got tired but it would take a really long time.

‘Ok, get back to coming up with a new mix of food for the blackholes. You’ve been using chocolate and Açaí for everything.’

It’s hard to come up with that kind of stuff! Give me a break, and i like it the way it is.

‘No it’s not. Stop being lazy.’

Immersed in our project of building the galaxy out of sweets, soon we are climbing towards the nest of the carnosaurs. We find them chewing the bones of the egg stealer.

“You sure took your time! Thank you, I have been trying to catch this sneaky bastard for a long time. But… how did you know where-, no. How do you know our names and speak our language?”

“It’s a gift from a greater god.”

I roar back a vague answer and lay down the hammock slowly.

"Another gift is coming. It will fall near the Uraak desert, are you familiar with that area?"

"Never heard of it. Shy?"

"If you, my toothy traveler, never heard of it, how would I?"

Mom looks quite content and carefree nibbling at the chicken bones.

"Maybe, you know it as the wastelands?"

"!? You are going that far with this youngling?"

Dad's roar was made more nasal out of surprise.

"Yeah, she will be fine. The /floating bed/, or hammock, is quite comfortable. And would help her heal had her body learnt autocasting regeneration."

"Oh? She is having a hard time, isn't she?"

Mom asked, her roar throaty and gentle like a purr, like a 15 meters long cat.

"Is the gift related to her health?"

"Yes. I will heal her to her full potential."

My roars are synthesized records. They sound no different from normal speech, but I don't express any subtlety like they do. I could, but I would have to make them intentionally and that feels weird.

"About the regeneration, there's a tradition in my bloodline that involves this plant."

Dad gestures with his eyes to what looks like a tentacle monster.

'HOLY-'

Yeah. But no, listen.

"We call it druid plant. When a youngling of my line doesn't learn to use Greater Regeneration as a passive magic, we plant these seeds on them."

'Greater? If she got higher regeneration I would be ecstatic, I hope she will at least get regular regeneration magic.'

With his tail, he tickles a bulbous tentacle which blooms like a wound. In its center is something like an apple's stalk.

"It eats through scale and injects its roots as talons. Since it feeds on their flesh and blood it infuses magic into their bodies, stimulating all their inner passive skills. This big guy is my own."

'Did you see that? Didn't it just giggle?'

Yeah, it's sentient.

'HOLY-'

"My parents planted it in me. I had learnt regeneration earlier than normal, but what I did learn was how to use speed for long periods of time."

"So kind, I'm so glad I found you. In my line, we just stop taking care of them."

'Isn't that a little too brutal? Nature is tough, but I thought dragons were above that.'

Earth dragons are meat shields. If they don't have something as essential as in-combat regeneration, they are too weak to live in the eyes of their parents, who will go make or take care of another.

Blue dragons are the inverse, they value active over passive magic. That doesn't mean they are any less elitist. Those who take too long to become walking tomes of magic are scoffed at by their parents and mentors and deemed a waste of time. They would take their whole lifetime to learn all the magic available, and would never make powerful spells. At least that's what they think.

"So, if I plant that in her she will learn regeneration?"

"It works for us, it should work for her. Would you still need us if she does? We can't leave our nest, and there's at least a month before our girl is strong enough to break her eggshell. And after that there's a lot to teach, we can't go on such a long journey."

"On the way to the wastes there are dungeons. By going alone I can level up the girl, her name is Linda, while she is somewhere safe. The only problem is, nowhere is safe."

At this both of them showed disbelief. The mom quick to show hostility in a growl held down.

"It's another gift from my god. I can apply it to your youngling too."

The prospect of strengthening their child suspended the disbelief. Mom's growl going back to a delighted purr.

"To gain strength from another's work? Is that how that girl became a princess? That doesn't sound like actual strength to me."

"See it as me having the gift to grant raw strength. You can then present her greater challenges so she can grow. My piece of the bargain is that I can increase her potential, with the gift too."

'Though I didn't use the party system so far since it decreases the xp she gets from delivering the final blow.'

"Can you say more about this gift?"

"It is another kind of magic. I will be able to affect-"

'How do I say DNA?'

Awaken bloodline powers.

"And awaken bloodline powers. I could also infuse or make body parts with metal."

"You will spend a God's gift, as a reward for escorting you?"

"It is not a one time thing. I can do it every time I can get my hands on big magic crystals."

"Is that so? You can grant Metal Scale at will? And I assume you would transport our egg in that hammock of yours, together with your princess?"

"Yup."

After my answer, their eyes turned to each other, and for a long while they searched for hesitation in them. Finding just one, dad took the seed stalk with the tip of his tail and placed it in my hands.

"If you can find food like you knew where this egg stealer was, we are ready to go tonight."

"Don't rush it. You can sleep."

The dad acknowledged with a bite and, with a last look at mom, went without looking back to make sure everyone in the jungle and anything that walks into it knows it belongs to them, even when they are a third of the continent away. The determination in his steps made the ground tremble, his back curved with a pride only great lizards have.

'I wish I looked that cool when going to take a piss.'

Should we use the seed? It will hurt a lot at first bu then it will be fine.

'Bitter medicine. Maybe we can get some analgesics?'

Won't work, this seed is brutal at first and then very kind. What will work, is stuff like we used against the tiger-bears. She might have nightmares but there will be no pain.

'Cool, is that over there with this what we want?'

Those two herbs, exactly. Crumple them in front of her nose.

And i do. Soon it is almost like her breathing will disappear altogether. Through a gap in the net I place the stalk in between two scales close to her heart.

The innocent stalk answers to her heartbeat. Trembling a little, and wiggling closer. It tugs on the scales. Decreases in length, charging up. Shoots its roots into her chest and opens them like hungry needles. Quickly filling itself up with just enough blood to start coaxing her body with making more.

The back of the roots start nibbling at the scales too. Disconnecting then from the nervous system and telling a reptile's body it is in great danger.

Her breathing picks up. Sweat dribbles down and I get the leather of healing juice and open her little mouth to drip a bit of it in.

'You can do it girl. Fight it. Even if that means it wins since you will be feeding it more… fight it.'

MagicKing

Sorry for the delay, my new HD should have arrived Last Friday or Saturday, yet it disappeared and they are sendi g another one. I was only able to finish this thanks to the selfless sacrifice of my old HD that despite its diagnosed mechanical failures decided to come back from the land of the dead. It requires a lot of determination to do that every e hours or so. Thank you. And thank you my readers too! Im only feebly aware of your existence but still in love! ;p