“I think I might know a spot,” Elijah revealed once Kaelari told him what she was looking for. He’d always been afflicted with a bit of wanderlust, so he’d done a lot of exploring over the past few weeks. And with his speed, that meant he’d covered quite a bit of ground.
She gave him a broad smile.
“I knew you would.”
“You good to keep up? I move pretty fast.”
“I think I’ll be fine.”
Elijah could hear the challenge in her voice. He was tempted to shift into the Shape of the World Serpent, just to show her who was faster. But that felt inappropriate. So, he took on his dragon form instead.
Kaelari followed suit.
And Elijah’s jaw dropped.
Part of that was because she was huge. Probably twice his length, with a much wider wingspan. But even then, her ruby-scaled form managed to look graceful. Fire seemed to dance upon her wings and through her scales.
Majestic was the first word that came to mind.
“Are you okay?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Fine, fine. Just getting flashbacks to middle school,” he admitted. Back then, most of the girls were taller than him. He’d experienced a bit of a growth spurt in high school, but he’d never been a big guy. It seemed that that would remain true even as a dragon.
Not that it really mattered. Elijah wasn’t so insecure that he cared about something like that.
Much.
“Middle school?”
“Yeah. Think of it like your Academy, but with less magic and more hormonal adolescents. And acne. Can’t forget that,” Elijah explained. It clearly didn’t help, so when Kaelari cocked her head to the side, he moved on. “Guess we can get going, then.”
With that, he leaped into the air, flapped his wings, and cleared the canopy. Behind him, Kaelari followed. In seconds, he’d reached his top speed, and to his surprise, she showed no signs of being left behind.
As they flew, she called out, “Ahh. This feels so good. I rarely get the chance to stretch my wings.”
Elijah could empathize. Sitting still had never been his forte, and his penchant for exploration was the result. Or a coping mechanism.
They cut through the sky as only two dragons could. They didn’t fly in a straight line. Instead, they looped and twirled, often within a few inches of one another. At times, they passed through powerful auras, but due to Elijah’s nature as a Druid, they were left alone by the mighty beasts that made their home in the jungle.
Presumably, that was the reason Kaelari had asked for his assistance.
About an hour later, a mountain range smudged the horizon. And as they grew closer, the nature of those mountains became more obvious. Not only did they tower miles into the sky, but many of them looked as if they were on fire.
A perfect place for a fire-attuned dragon to cultivate.
As Elijah and Kaelari flew closer, he adjusted his course to a very particular spot he’d discovered only a week before. His companion followed suit, and after another hour, they landed.
“This is…”
“Pretty cool, right?” Elijah asked, already transforming back into his human form. She did the same.
“How did you find it?”
He shrugged. “I like to see new things. So, when I see a lake of fire, I feel an urge to investigate. That led me here.”
His initial discovery had come by accident. The lake of fire stood between two mountains, stretching along for miles. Within, there were hundreds of fish that swam through the inferno like it was water. Feeding that lake was a river of flames that led up the mountain.
When he’d first found the place, Elijah had followed that snaking stream of fire, awestruck to discover multiple waterfalls and swirling geysers made of contained flames. It had taken him almost an entire night to find the source – a flame-attuned natural treasure in the shape of a massive geode. The crystals within shimmered in a spectrum of colors ranging from orange to red and back to yellow, creating a hypnotic display that had held Elijah’s attention captive for hours.
Of course, he couldn’t get too close.
Even with his body cultivation and the Mantle of the Chimera working for him, laying a hand on that geode would have turned him to ash in less than an instant. So, he’d been forced to admire it from afar.
Later, when he’d mentioned it to Tura, he’d discovered that it was a famous landmark, protected by a lava basilisk guardian.
When Elijah met the creature – which looked like a huge, six-legged crocodile with red-and-black scales – he’d decided to call it Pepper, which he seemed to like. At least when the guardian wasn’t trying to bite him.
Elijah decided to treat him like a particularly rambunctious dog and spent another night just roughhousing with the guardian. Sure, if the basilisk wanted to kill him, he was more than capable of doing just that. The power level of guardians tended to be difficult to gauge, but Elijah suspected that the basilisk was at least as strong as a mid-tier deity.
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But Pepper didn’t want to hurt him. He just needed a friend.
And Elijah was more than willing to give him a little companionship.
When she saw the huge basilisk waddling out from behind the geode, Kaelari let out a sharp exhale, followed by a hasty retreat behind a boulder. Pepper raised his crocodilian head and let loose a pillar of intense flame before charging Elijah.
The following collision shook the mountain.
“Who’s a big boy? You are!” Elijah cooed as he scratched the basilisk’s soft underbelly. “You like that? Yeah, you do.”
Pepper’s tail swished back and forth like an excited dog’s, though in his case, the massive appendage sent cascades of blackened stone skipping across the ground.
“E-elijah?”
He craned his neck to see Kaelari holding a massive ball of fire as she peeked out from behind a nearby boulder. “Oh. I guess I should have told you about Pepper, huh?”
“Pepper?”
“That’s what I call this handsome boy,” Elijah said, wriggling out from underneath the basilisk. Not an easy feat, given the creature’s massive size. He was almost as big as Elijah was in his dragon form. And given his terrestrial nature and the thick, armored scales on his back, probably a lot heavier.
Pepper let out another gout of flame at the compliment. Then, he turned a circle before rearing up on his hind legs.
“Pepper, meet Kaelari. She’s into fire too.”
Pepper leaped up and down, causing a localized earthquake.
“Come meet him. He’s just a big softy,” Elijah offered. Of course, it wasn’t just his nature attunement working toward keeping Pepper docile. He’d also spent a while communing with the beast. Doing so took a slightly different application of Mantle of Authority than what he’d used with Treebie, but there were enough similarities that Elijah had quickly adjusted.
He did so again, trying his best to communicate that Kaelari wasn’t an enemy. Pepper seemed to understand that well enough, though it was difficult to tell if the lesson would stick after Elijah was gone.
“Elijah…that creature is…”
“A big softy. Like I said. He’s a good boy.”
Kaelari slowly stepped out from behind the boulder, looking for all the world as if she fully expected to be bathed in fire. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before stepping forward. Pepper, of course, ignored her. He was far too distracted by the belly scratches.
He even rolled over a bit to give Elijah a little more access.
It took Kaelari almost a full minute to close the gap. Elijah could tell that she was terrified, but she overcame that. Maybe it was because she trusted him, but he expected it was far more complex than that. The potential reward represented by cultivating next to such a powerful natural treasure probably played a huge part in it.
Elijah could sympathize. After all, he would and had done all sorts of crazy things in the name of cultivation. Perhaps Kaelari was like that.
“Scratch him right here,” Elijah said, resting his hand on a patch of leathery skin. It reminded him a little of sharkskin. Rough and incredibly durable.
Kaelari followed his instructions, but she flinched when she laid her hand on the basilisk’s stomach.
“It’s so hot!”
“Yup. Pepper’s a fiery boy.”
She tentatively scratched the indicated spot, and Pepper let out a pleased rumble. From what Elijah felt through his still-extended mantle, the basilisk very much believed that having two belly-scratchers was better than one.
Over the next few minutes, Kaelari grew a little more comfortable. And in turn, Pepper began to accept her as well. Though that was probably more due to Elijah’s efforts to commune with the basilisk than anything else.
The belly scratches just served to reinforce the idea that Kaelari was a friend.
But eventually, Pepper got hungry and wandered off, leaving Elijah and his companion alone.
“You might want to be careful if you come back here without me,” Elijah said, watching the basilisk waddle off. He snapped up a nearly-molten rock along the way. “I’m not saying that Pepper would attack, but…well, I’m not saying he won’t, either. And as I always say, safety first.”
“I get the impression that you never say that,” she said.
“Has Sara been telling stories about me? They’re all lies.”
“Even the good stuff? Like how you rescued her from cultists?”
“Well, that happened,” Elijah admitted, leading her away from the geode where the conditions were less fiery. Once they’d reached a comfortable distance, he added, “But it wasn’t as heroic as she made it out to be.”
“I think most people who do heroic things say something similar.”
Elijah shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, you know a lot about me. What about you?”
“There is not much to know. I have a fire attunement, and I –”
“No. Not your status sheet. What about you? What do you like to do? For instance, I make soap as a hobby, and I have a friend named Treebie.”
“Oh. Well…I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Hmm.”
Her shoulders slumped. “My entire life has been about progression, preparation, and politics.”
“And alliteration, I guess,” Elijah pointed out, grinning.
She giggled. “I guess so. I do like poetry.”
“You write anything?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I mostly just enjoy the works of others. I also…I know this is going to sound odd, but I truly enjoy delving into the structure of spells,” she admitted. “The way everything fits together, and the fact that the slightest alteration could completely change the effect…it just sends shivers up my spine.”
Elijah said, “I got that way when I was helping Treebie grow. He’s my giant tree friend in the abyss. The first time I saw that he was growing runes on his own – that was one of the happiest moments in my life.”
“You named your tree…Treebie?”
“Of course.”
“And you named a deity-level basilisk Pepper?”
“Because of the red and black.”
“You do know that this basilisk is kind of famous, don’t you?” she asked. “I think I read about him during my time in the Academy.”
“Oh? Cool. I’m sure Pepper will be excited to hear that he’s famous.”
“They don’t call him Pepper.”
“Really? What do they call him?”
“The Flame that Can Burn Eternity.”
“Hmm. Did he give himself that name?” Elijah asked.
“I don’t think beasts are capable of giving themselves names,” she ventured.
“Well, Pepper likes his name. And I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want something that ostentatious. You dragons with your names,” Elijah said, shaking his head.
“You named a tree Treebie.”
“Because it fit!” Elijah insisted.
Kaelari giggled. “I’m sure it did,” she agreed. “I would like to meet this Treebie someday.”
“Hopefully, that’ll be possible. I’m working on some ideas to get the planet out of the abyss. I haven’t found anything that’ll work yet, but I’m going to make it happen, one way or another.”
By the time he finished that statement, Kaelari was looking at him like he was insane.
“What?”
She just shook her head. “You talk about it like it’s inevitable. I wish I had that kind of confidence.”
“You should. I saw your seeding in the tournament. It’s higher than mine.”
“Politics.”
“I think it’s more than that,” Elijah countered. “But we’ll see when you start burning people to ash, right?”
She smiled a bit at that. “Perhaps.”
“Maybe we’ll meet in the final. Kaelari es Ignara versus Elijah Hart. Sounds fun, right?”
“Kaela.”
“What?”
“My friends call me Kaela.”
“Is that what we are? Friends?”
“For now.”
“Maybe more?”
She shrugged, then looked away. “Maybe.”
Elijah’s stomach fluttered, and he couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across his face.
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