“Welcome, adventurers to The Elaborate Not! Here at our inn, we hope to give you an amazing experience. We have breakfast at sunset and dinner at dawn, and please, no question about that.”

The team stopped at a small town in Alcray, the neighboring country of Sulkos, and decided to rent three rooms for the night at a local inn.

“How did that name come to be?” Rina curiously asked about the inn’s name.

“We are vague.” The clerk smiled.

“Can you elaborate- oh…” Pearl chuckled and quietly took the key to his room.

They rented three rooms with a double-sized bed. Even Rina’s room where only herself was staying. Mei was furious about not being able to have somewhere private for a bath, but she’ll have to make do.

The room is quite nice, with a warm welcoming atmosphere and cool air blowing through the opened window. Simple interior with one big bed, a round wall mirror and a cupboard.

In the room, Pearl immediately slammed his face against the bedsheet and yawned. After stretching intensely for a minute or two; he sat up completely tireless and grabbed his book, flipping through pages to find where he left off.

“Can you stop being so weird?” asked Mei, who sat next to him while dusting her hat.

“Can you stop wearing that old hat?” Pearl rolled his eyes over to Mei.

Mei’s tone immediately switched from an annoyed woman to a delightful girl again; she put on a grin and spun over to Pearl.

“It’s my reminder that my little brother, Pearl Magmal, could sometimes be cute.”

“And you remind me that sometimes, the older one could be more childish.” Pearl rolled his eyes, still staring at his book.

“Awareness and ideology are parallel, but an individual's perspective does not correlate with another individual. Therefore I’m not childish, I just looked like one in your blurry glasses.” Mei fluently and confidently said.

“Doomsday’s God, Chapter 98, Paragraph 226. Yeah yeah, that’s the only book you ever read anyways.”

Mei didn’t respond and the two stayed silent, smiling tenderly at their own thoughts. After a streak of terrible days, maybe some peace and quiet like this is necessary, and it sure is lovely.

“Knock knock knock!”

The frantic knocking resounded from their closed door snapped the two back into reality.

"Mei! Pearl! Please, she's not here!"

The two eyes widened in shock, that was Marc’s voice.

Mei rushed to open the door, to see Marc sweating and on the verge of tears. He put his hands on Mei's shoulders:

"Is she here? Please! She was sitting on the bed, and… and I went to the bathroom and came back… and and…"

“Calm down, we have to take serious things slow.” Pearl quickly stood up and approached them, holding Marc’s trembling hand still.

In response, Marc horrifyingly bursted out in emotions.

“Esmeralda is gone! It’s my fault, it’s me all over again.”

He began breaking down mentally— holding in terrifying screams and spinning around frantically. Mei and Pearl couldn’t do anything, some guests heard the commotion and peaked out, even Rina who was in her pyjamas.

"Marc, look at me, Marc!"

Before anyone could further ask Marc for details, he wildly ran off into the crowded street.

“Please no, not again…” Rina, traumatised, also began to panic and span around whilst taking deep breaths.

…

The whole city was bombarded with questions from a strange man asking about a kid and a small dragon.

He was a young, athletic build guy wearing simple plain clothing with leather gloves. His eyes were red from worries and haunts.

The whole world seemingly crumbled around him as his legs couldn't run anymore and his throat went dry. Soon three people dragged him back.

Marc woke up from the lights and noises from his inn room; he stared at the ceiling mindlessly.

He turned around to see the tired Mei, she sat on a stool next to the bed while laying her head down on it. When Marc woke up, she looked up at him speechless.

The other side of the room, Pearl is talking to two suited men. They have the word AAA on their badge, and Marc recognized them as the Alcray's Above Authority.

"There must be some way around this! We must wait 24 hours before filing a missing child report?" agitated, Pearl frowned and raised his voice. "A half human name Veldrielynth and a newborn hand-sized emerald dragon called Esmeralda, finding one means the other. How is this a problem?"

The conversation got heated as the AAA shook their heads sorry and made their exit— Pearl tried his best not to yell at them, soon he stopped completely. 

"Is this a dream? Or maybe… It was supposed to be like this, it always… was." Marc's eyes went blank and blurred. He sniffed while staring at the quiet Mei.

Mei sat beside Marc's bed, leaning in closer to wrap her arms around, hugging his head. On the other end of the room, Pearl furiously thrusted his fist against the wall several times, clenching his teeth.

"Mei?" said Marc.

A sudden pause as Mei sniffed, wiped something off of her eyes and sat back up.

"Yeah?"

“Where’s Rina? What time is it?"

"It's one hour until the moon peaks. Rina is still searching…"

thud

Mei would turn around to see Pearl walking out, slamming the door shut. Who knows what he was thinking. But surely it wasn’t positive thoughts.

“Do you think… Ciellia would forgive me?” Marc sat up, clenching his fists to try and stop his body from shaking.

Mei bit her tongue and exhaled tiredly, not daring or wanting to say a word. She looked over Marc’s rough, shaky shoulder and tried to lay him back down. 

“I’m here.” Mei whispered.

In her mind, this is what she would want in a terrible situation. Just a soul to be present and letting her know that they're, at that moment, existing to her selfish needs. Or maybe it's just her and Marc needs some alone time.

"Huh?"

Mei recoiled back her feet, the tip of her shoe touched something under Marc's bed.

"How huge are cockroaches here?"

Mei frowned, having the perfect excuse to change the subject. She pushed her stool back a bit and peaked down under the bed.

"Ek."

A creature, winged, dangerous city-destroying beast in mythologies and legends. A young greenish dragon crawled to approach Mei.

"Eik?"

A wild Esmeralda appeared.

Mei was left speechless and dumbfounded for five solid seconds upon seeing Esmeralda. The kid was literally under their nose all this time. Mei then happily jumped up and down while sitting and pulling Marc:

"Marc! Marc! Come here!" Mei exclaimed with a wide smile, the last two words she lowered her voice a bit, as if to reach both Esmeralda and Marc.

Pulling the pair of Esmeralda’s little front feet out. Mei almost burst out in laughter, bitter laughter.

…

Turning back to her human form, Esmeralda noticed it was hours past their supposed bedtime, and she’s the only one who's been enjoying herself sleeping.. 

“So... I was trying to scare mom a bit.” Esmeralda sat on the bed next to Marc with her head slightly bowing. “I hid under the bed and was planning to get out to “boo” when you came back. But then the ground just got too comfortable and I fell asleep…”

Mei stared at Esmeralda in disbelief as she sighed and tapped on her head.

“You’re gonna explain this to Pearl and Rina yourself. We’re not saving you from this.”