Leo kept half an eye on Hugh as they climbed down the mountain, toward the cave of the other dragons. Hugh kept away from any ledges, and Leo was glad that he hadn’t become suicidal, or that his fear of heights was at least keeping him from using that route.

            “Merdrek’s Weeping Eye!” Hugh suddenly shouted, swiping a small boulder from his path, which went crashing down the side of the mountain for a bit before lodging between two much larger boulders.

            “Why?!” Hugh cried out again. “Why am I always the loser, always pathetic?! It changed nothing. Everything we did changed nothing!”

            Hugh collapsed where he was on the path they’d been following, and tears started to run over the bronze scales of his face. Very quickly, he was sobbing.

            Leo rushed to him, kneeling and trying to drape his arm over Hugh’s huge back with limited success. Hugh’s always-tucked wings alone fouled up the attempt, never mind his ridiculous size.

            “You’re not pathetic, Hugh, I swear. You are not. They’re wrong.”

            “N-No,” Hugh said, talking through his crying. “T-They’re right. I was pa-pa-thetic for t-thinking I could ever be p-popular.”

“Take a breath, buddy,” Leo said. “It’ll be okay.”

Hugh paused for a moment and got himself a bit more under control. Lily came up and rubbed his back. Even Zir came close, although he didn’t touch the dragon.

A tiny bit calmer, Hugh continued. “I was pathetic for thinking I could ever be mighty. For thinking anyone would ever care about me. I suck, Leo. It’s true, what they said. You saved me. You saved me from the harpies. You saved me from the golem. I’d be dead now, Leo. Or I’d have just failed, and been poor, and gone back to live in the loser cave with Tea and Cal and Zun until we grew too old and they came and kicked us out. I’d have died a bit later instead. Big accomplishment.”

“Pretty sure you saved me from those diseased wolves and rats, buddy. That’s two each.”

Hugh hiccupped and laughed. “Well, maybe.”

            “Maybe nothing. It’s the peacock problem again.”

            Hugh gave another hiccupping laugh. “Don’t bring that up again.”

            “You guys have never explained that,” Lily said. “I want to hear about these peacocks now.”

            “I’m serious about the peacock thing, Hugh. Those dragons are crazy survivalist types, but their worship of purely individual power is limiting—really limiting. A thousand-year-old dragon is basically unstoppable, right?”

            Hugh nodded and wiped his face with his claws. “Yeah.”

            “And a baby dragon is still stronger than a human warrior, right?”

            “Well, about the same, I guess, right out of the egg. Why?”

            “Who controls more territory? Humans or dragons?”

            “Humans,” Hugh said, his voice becoming less and less despair-filled as they talked.

            “How much more?”

            “Way more.”

            “Exactly,” Leo said. “Exactly. Now, picture in your mind a world where all the dragons worked together all the time. Where they coordinated strikes on humans and defended their territory with agreements, so if one dragon was attacked, all the dragons defended or avenged him. Think it through. What does that world look like?”

            “A…All the mortal races would be slaves to the dragons and we would rule everything.”

            “Again, exactly. That’s why dragons and their hoards are so dumb. It’s making your entire species stupidly individual warriors, and they’re losing, being pushed back to weird geographical niches, like mountain caves. Places that no one really wants. Yeah, your sire, one of the most dangerous dragons in existence, managed to sit on the ruins for fifty years. But sooner or later, a champion would have slain him, and his whole realm would have been claimed. But not if he’d had five hundred buddy dragons with him.”

            That was the real glory and strength of a nation. The ability to work together—to build toward a greater goal. One individual could never accomplish what a nation could.

            Hugh sniffled and nodded. “All right, I get it, Leo. You make sense. But how does that mean I’m not a pathetic dragon?”

            “I don’t get it,” Lily said, flicking her hair. “Where do the peacock tails come in?”

            Leo ignored her for the moment, still trying to get through to Hugh. “Hugh, you’re not pathetic. You’re advanced. You have two, well, let’s call them ‘mutations.’”

            Hugh rubbed his snout and another tear feel from his eye. “Oh, joy. Now I’m a mutant.”

            “You’re being sad just to be sad now.”

            “Fine, continue,” Hugh muttered with a wave of his paw.

            “Your first mutation is obvious. You have Earth magic and can level. That’s pretty sweet, but it’s honestly neither here nor there.”

            “Okay…”

            “The second one, however, is that you’re a team player. You ally and coordinate. It wasn’t I who made those things happen, like you keep thinking. It was you. You were the one who decided to rescue Zun, and you were the one who convinced Tea and Cal to help out.”

            “Yeah, I did that,” Hugh said, staring at Leo quizzically. “I wasn’t strong enough to follow my dream of being a badass and help all my friends both. But that’s what makes me weak.”

            “No… it makes you strong. No dragon your age could have done both by themselves. But you managed both. And now, you’ll have at least three buddies, and you’ll lead them. You’re stronger for your supposed weakness.”

            “Leo, I know you don’t believe this stuff. I’ve listened to your speeches—you’re all about individuals making themselves as strong as possible. You practically worship the idea of people making themselves as cool as they can, for their own purposes.”

            “You’re not listening hard enough, Hugh. I specifically mention that the benefits accrue to the whole. Defense against outsiders being the biggest one. But it’s only part of it. I don’t think explanations of economies of scale or division of labor are really relevant to the discussion we’re having, but trust me—I believe deeply in the group. I believe deeply in helping others to excel. I just also believe that every person should try to be all they can be, personally, in the manner they think is most appropriate.”

            “I guess you did say stuff about ‘woe to he who strike at all of us combined’ and stuff.”

            “I’ve never said ‘woe’ in my life.”

            “You’ve said ‘whoa,’” Hugh said, chuckling slightly and then giving a sniffle. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be weak like this. Let’s go get the rest of the defective brigade.”

            Leo wanted to facepalm. “Hugh. Please listen carefully. You. Are. Not. Defective. Additionally, when you say ‘defective,’ I think you mean ‘loser,’ and not the actual word. Defective is just that—something is wrong. What it means is you must work harder to overcome. Your friends are actually defective. One’s missing a foreleg. She needs more effort to fight and walk and probably can’t carry much. One is missing a jaw and loses a bite attack and the ‘d’ sound, apparently. The last one is very defective, made so by others, when she was too young and weak to fight back.”

            “I guess… I guess maybe I did mean losers, yeah. But what are you saying? What do you mean by it?”

            “Again, they have more work to do to advance their lives. But it’s one more hurdle, it’s not a final judgement. Especially in an immortal species. A loser is one who gives up and accepts their fate. And I talked to those dragons. They’ll all succeed, trust me. I’m going to show them how, but they’ll all be amazing. They all, already, in their own ways, railed against fate and fought to change it.”

            “Even Zun?” Hugh asked, his eyes wide.

            “Especially Zun. She’ll be stronger than the other two before I’m done. You still think wrong, Hugh. At the risk of sounding like a complete jackass, this entire society does. Greatness is achieved by hard work for yourself, and not over others. And supposed defects are just one more step—especially in this land of leveling. You guys have no excuse for not always being optimistic. You can—literally, concretely, measurably, and permanently—change who you are if you don’t like it.”

            “And we’re going to change Zun?”

            “We’re going to help Zun change Zun.”

            “Let me guess,” Lily said, her hand still on Hugh’s back. “You want to know if there’s a monster lair or a dungeon around, right? So we can make Zun levels in order to make her stronger? That’s your plan?”

            “Damn straight,” Zir said before Leo could agree. “Zir needs some new levels as well.”

            “Well, then enough pep-talking me. Let’s go kill shit,” Hugh said, his eyes again dry and his teeth bared in that familiar Hugh grin.

            Hugh was quiet most of the way down the side of the mountain, carefully picking his way across rocks so that he didn’t fall. Leo could see the fear in his eyes.

After a bit, he asked, “How do you know, Leo? How do you know my friends’ll be awesome?”   

            Leo hopped a few feet down their mountain path to another rock, using a willow branch to slow the fall and landing in a slight crouch. “Because they already overcame so much. They were being picked on, and then Zun was broken by her evil mother. Instead of giving up, they followed you. They managed to get a cave and fend for themselves. They also take care of her. For all of Polly’s bitchy take on you being a baby, she’s the one who hasn’t left the nest. You got out, your friends got out, and you all looked after yourselves. Which is what adults do. Everything else is secondary to the basic moral and mental fortitude to take care of yourself.”

            “And how do you know Zun will succeed?” Hugh asked as he carefully lowered himself, scrabbling a bit, down the side until he let go to fall six inches onto the rock next to Leo.

            “She didn’t die. At some level, she wants life, badly, and already fought for it.”

            “Hmm…” Hugh said.

            He went silent again as they continued the descent, his attention seemingly split between his footing and Leo’s words.

            “How come we never have these kinds of talks?” Zir asked as they descended.

            “You want some good advice, tailored to you?” Leo asked as they dropped off the last large rock and started along the easier, flatter path that would lead them to the cave, sidestepping small boulders but otherwise ignoring the terrain as they walked.

            “Yeah, I’d hear what you’d say to me.”

            “Stay in school and don’t do drugs.”

            “What?”

            Leo chuckled. “Sorry, it was a joke. But seriously, you can’t kill everyone who upsets you, and you need reading and writing and numbers to be a good leader, not just stabbing skills.”

            “That seems… way less insightful than what you said to Hugh. Am I just not worth your time?” Zir asked.

            Leo glanced over at him. “Zir, I spend a lot of time training with you. I take you on adventures to gather experience, all those things. You’re clearly worth my time. But you also aren’t prone to any real errors—yet—except a deep-seated belief that everything comes down to the knife. You’re angry at your father’s killers. Good. That’s the right response. You already work like a dog. Again, good. You already know that the path to greatness is self-improvement. For the third time, good. The only thing I’d currently say to you is—don’t let your anger consume you.”

            “Hm.”

Leo hesitated, trying hard to resist, but he couldn’t help himself. “It leads to the dark side.”

            “Maybe,” Zir muttered.

            “And, with that bit of fortune cookie wisdom, we’re at the entrance to the dragons’ lair,” Leo said, gesturing at the small, slightly musky-smelling cave entrance as they came around a corner in the path.

            Zir started to ask, “What’s a for—”

            “Ssh,” Lily said. “It’s best not to engage when he waxes obscure.”

            Leo laughed, finding himself in a good mood for no reason at all, given how the day had gone.

They all entered the shallow cave, more of a large overhang really, that was the lair of the dragons that had gone to live away from the main dragon lair. It was easy to quickly spot the three dragons.

The moment Hugh entered, Tea lifted her head.

            “So, will you and Polly be picking out a cave?” she asked.

            “No,” Hugh muttered. “She called me ‘a pathetic, worthless loser that no dragoness would ever want.’”

            Tea winced. “I’d bet a pretty big hoard that some dragonesses will want you.”

            “I dou…” Hugh started, then trailed off, no doubt remembering Leo’s talk with him about Tea’s feelings.

            “Maybe,” Hugh said instead. “Once I get over my deeply sad desire for Polly, I hope that whichever dragoness I’m lucky enough to land, she’s way nicer than her. ’Cuz oof.”

            Tea chuckled. “‘Oof,’ huh? It works.”

            “So, what is the plan? Did you figure out how to ‘save’ me, Leo?” Zun cut in.

            “Yes. Although, a lot of the work will be on your end. But I have a plan. It’s not even a new plan, but it has specific elements for you.”

            “Quit chewing. Swallow your words or just spit them out, mortal,” Zun said.

            “You’re going to level up until you get the telekinetic field power.”

            “What’s that?”

            “An ability. Lily, our resident walking library here, knows everything about it.”

            “Hey, I resemble that,” Lily said, and Leo chuckled at another person picking up on his joke style.

            “How do you know about it?” Zun asked Leo.

            “When I was making early levels, way back when I first escaped the forest of Averia and was taking a boat to Steelport, I asked Lily about builds. She talked to me about all the long run Telekinesis powers. Inertial weapons and armor. Telekinetic flight. But the ability I thought most interesting was the Telekinetic field. It lets you ‘see’ everything in a range around you by pushing outward with an extremely subtle telekinetic field and getting feedback from it. Almost like three-hundred-and-sixty-degree bat sonar.”

            Leo expended some essence to cause a small rock to float to his hand. “She mentioned it as a very advanced power. But your Perk makes clear you can get advanced Mind magic abilities.”

            Zun’s face was obviously becoming hopeful, but just as clearly to Leo, she tried to maintain cynicism. “How would I level? I’m a cripple.”

            “That’s where we come in,” Leo replied. “But you’ll have to do some of it. We’ll take you to Zadrid’s Hallow before we go. We’ll fight, and you’ll fight alongside us. When you make levels, take mostly Perception and telekinesis powers.”

            “I’m blind and I have a mangled leg,” Zun said.

            Leo walked up and put his hand on her head. “Then stay here and die, if you really are without hope. Or join us at the hollow and fight the undead. We’ll all make levels except for Cal and Tea, and we’ll give them any treasure we manage to find, although I understand it’s pretty picked over. But we’ll also consider it the first day of their employment year for earning their salary from me.”

            “That, or I should just give up.” The blind dragon’s face twisted into a sour grin.

            “Yeah,” Leo said. “I can’t carry those who won’t at least try to learn to walk. But if you’ll give me the effort, I’ll make you a powerhouse, one who can be a part of something grand. I give you my word.”

            “And mine,” Hugh said lifting his head high.

            Zun quirked a smile. “You’re all insane, but what do I have to lose, right? Let’s do it.”