With a dirty face, Lucifer came running towards William. “You really do love to get messy, don’t you?”, William teased the creature.

At their current speed, they didn’t have to run for long before they reached the boy’s home. Or rather, the camp that the boy lived in. This camp was set up right outside a castle city’s walls, with hundreds of inhabitants making a living there. Some of the dwellings inside of the camp looked like makeshift houses, while others stood as skimpy tents. As for the camp’s inhabitants. They all looked poor and crummy, but at least they laughed and seemed to be ordinarily kind people. It was just their living-conditions that were the lowest of the low.

“Is this your home?”, William asked the boy slightly concerned. The boy called Ottis climbed down from his savior’s back, then he replied, “Yeah… Hey, lady. Won’t you please follow me?... I need to explain to my mother what happened and-...”. Amidst the lively camp, a female’s voice rang out, “Ottis!? Oh, you’re finally back? Thank goodness!”. Soon a short plumb woman could be spotted.

She wore a torn apron and her hair in a messy bun. “But... Where is Nicolas?”, she inquired while her eyes flitted across the group. Ottis shrunk his shoulders further as his gaze drilled the ground beneath them. It was clear for all to see that the child didn’t want to come clean.

William was about to explain the situation to her when the woman slapped Ottis on the top of his head. It was with enough force to make him falter. “Shame on you!... SHAME!”, she half-screamed at him with wet eyes, before grabbing his arm only to drag him away. William gaped. He didn’t expect her to go full-on berserker-mode, right there at her own son. So he said, “Hey! Don’t be so harsh to him! He didn’t do anything wrong!... They were attacked by a pack of dinosaurs. So, of course, one of them paid a price! You shouldn’t-”. But before he could preach his morals any further, she snapped him off with a bitter, “And who are you to speak!?... Hrmph!? People these days… No manners… Think they can just walk up to strangers and expect a free meal… Listen here, you! I don’t have anything for you to have! Now leave us alone! I have enough on my plate as it is!... Oh… Nicolas my poor...”, the woman was about to break down in tears but withstood the urge. Then she continued to ignore the stranger as she dragged her remaining son away to safety.

William clamped his mouth shut. Suddenly, he didn’t feel so entitled anymore… As the illusion broke, it was first then he realized, that he had expected something else… Along with the glee he had felt from his earlier victory, his urge to boast also soon faded. In the end, what was there to boast about?...

When he came down from his high, he also realized that he had just been saved by this woman’s fierce outbreak. For how was he going to explain himself? Now that he was a girl who happened to be a bonded person... And as stupid as he was, William had totally forgotten to sort things out with Ottis before he whisked him away to his mother. Surely, that kid knew 100% from the start that he was a bonded...

After a while, William had come to collect himself anew. Thus he took an awkward glance at Lucifer who was covered in arteries and said, “We really should get you cleaned, huh Lucifer?”. The cub licked its mouth and cawed happily. It knew what was waiting for it: A nice scrub and some pampering!

****

Outside the castle city, that William soon learned was the ill-famed Denckwood, he found their dirty moat. Alas, it was the only available water source nearby. The other one, people of Denckwood had warned him not to touch. It was apparently owned and guarded by the Ponile clan. A clan that had been, at first, a group of bandits that wished to overthrow Denckwood. They had set up siege between the castle city and their main food source: Lake Trian. Slowly this siege got bigger and more complex until it evolved itself into a fortress. Now they bred and lived in front of the river. Teasing and fighting against the Denckwoods here and then. Fortunately, it had been some time since their last conflict, thus William took his time cleaning the little devil.

As for those he made contact with, he made sure to tell them that Lucifer was not his dinosaur but his master’s and that he simply looked after the creature… And if the worse case should occur, in which Ottis blabbed about his circumstances to the wrong people, William knew that with his speed he should be able to evade capture or whatever they would want to do to him…

Near the moat, William used some rags of his former dress to clean Lucifer’s face. During the cleansing, the dinosaur purred and sometimes shied away from the cold water. Nonetheless, it liked the attention.

As he worked on an especially nasty area of filth, William thought back to the scene he had chanced upon in the wilderness. With a dying youngster clawed up by a group of dinosaurs and another sobbing up in a tree… A 10-year-old to boot… William sighed. So that was what a failed bonding-hunt looked like. He had heard of many unfortunate souls that had gotten this exact same fate. However, meeting such an event in person was, of course, something entirely different…

He muttered to himself in thought, “I wonder... Do these failed bonding-hunts happen often?... I hope not...”.

Lucifer crawled up from the moat’s edge only to shake itself dry. The splattering drops of dirty water got flung onto William, who in turn, screamed and went for some cover, “No Lucifer! Don’t!”. The dinosaur blinked for a second only to come waddling over. It thought they were going to play a game of hide-and-seek. But seeing as its human didn’t put much effort into hiding, it was quickly let down. “Rraw!”, it cawed disappointedly at William. For Lucifer’s heart was still that of a cub’s. It wanted to play, eat and frolic as much as possible, but this its parent seldom encouraged.

William poked up from the rock he had hidden behind; wearing a frown and a face dripping with dark water. “I should have known this would happen…”, he said. Admitting his own carelessness...

Soon night drew near but William didn’t want to use his money to enter the castle city. Instead, he wanted to go into the wild to sleep for the night...

He was about to wander closer to its looming darkness when screams entered his ears. One of them came from a man who yelled with all the power of his lungs, “They’ve come again! Flee into the moat or perish, I say! FLE-ARghh...”. William spun around towards the direction of the sound. All the chaos he heard, came from the road that led up to the city’s entrance. Like domino pieces falling, the screams and panic quickly spread throughout the camp.

While it escalated, William was taken aback by the sudden outbreak of conflict. For there had been no signs of war when he first arrived! He thought: Why aren’t they sounding any horns!? And why are the castle gates still closed!?

William stood on the edges of the forest, waiting for any development to come from the castle city, but none came. It was as silent as before. Being witness to their passive ways, William realized why the camp outside the city looked so shabby. It was probably not seen as part of something the castle city’s lord should protect. The people who lived in the line of fire were all paupers and beggars too poor to legally live inside of the city walls. So why should the castle send out their men to help those poor people?...

Having come to this cruel conclusion, William hesitated. He was unsure whether he stayed or not would make any difference.

It was clear that the army, the Poniles had sent out, was vast as it was big enough to encompass the majority of the camp within a few minutes.

The more William saw, the more he lost his hope in them. At least, that was until he heard the upset woman from earlier cry out her son’s name, “Ottis! OTTIS!?”.