Having drawn in a crowd, Raya wastes no time climbing up on my snout again, preparing to address the crowd.

  "If anyone wants to help the Dragon, then she likes food, especially meat and candy! It helps make her strong and heal her wounds, so any help is appreciated!"

  That feels a little too direct, but it appears to be working as a few people run off, darting down alleyways and others get closer to offer whatever treats they may be carrying. To my surprise, even a few adventurers join in, offering me their rations. As I accept them, folks smile and scratch my scales some more.

  I half-expected the foreman to chase them off, so we could get moving, but he seems to just take in what little he can see with his short stature. Being a rascally rascal, Raya invites the foreman to sit on me as well, and he seems to be a bit of a rascal as well, as he accepts the invitation.

  The two tiny people start discussing the dagger, talking about the engravings, and Raya appears to be soaking up the information as the foreman goes through each rune. He's doing a good job of explaining what they mean and the effects they have. As it turns out, I was right about it being a language, and with the right combinations, they can be used to invoke certain effects.

  According to the foreman, the runes on Raya's dagger mean 'Extend' and 'Intensify,' which just sound dangerous. And he did it with such ease. I'd ask him how come they don't use that on all weapons, but I'm busy accepting offerings from people. Some of the folks who ran off have returned with baskets.

  I could get used to being lazy like this as people rush to feed me. I do want to make sure they don't give me more than they can afford, though. If they starve through winter because of their generosity, I'd feel bad. Now that I'm thinking about that, I let them know as much.

  Before I know it, the crowd becomes cyclical with people feeding me and moving away to let others approach, and as the process continues, a few folks sprinkle in some words of appreciation. Even the adventurers appear to be thankful for my efforts, which makes me uncomfortable. I just don't trust most adventurers. They feel like they're moments away from attacking me every time they're near.

  Ignoring the looming threat of trigger-happy adventurers, it becomes obvious that this is an excellent time to relax a little instead of worrying about everything around me. Getting a proper look at the buildings, it appears there's a trend of flower pots hanging by the window sills.

  "Raya, we should get you flowers for your windows like that. They're so pretty!"

  "It's too late for that, Kira. The flowers won't grow in the cold."

  "I know that! But wouldn't it be nice to have flowers with lovely scents to wake up to? Or maybe spices or herbs for your food?"

  From the looks of it, she hadn't considered the option of growing herbs ready for use. And if we start using glass windows in Tuiran along with some insulation, she could grow herbs indoors at home! That would be so neat.

  We can't lie here all day enjoying free treats and scritches, though. So, turning my attention to Foreman, I ask what his plan is. With some intensity, he turns to face me, looking me right in the eyes as he clears his throat.

  What I expected was a quick rundown of his plan, but the dang guy launches into a lengthy explanation without touching on any of the actual things we'd be doing. It turns out he wants to perform an aptitude test on my fire to test its purity along with the durability of my scales. There's even mention of some innate affinities, and I'm getting the impression that this guy knows dragons.

  Asking him why he knows so much about dragons, his natural frown turns into a deeper frown as he starts mentioning a few things about his past. It seems he used to work with dragons and forgework in his hometown, but I'm pretty sure Kaldren and Shae Tara Nenka mentioned something about dwarves and dragons not being friends. So I'm not sure it was consensual on the dragons' part.

  As I bring it up, he eyes me for a moment, seeming to gauge whether I'll hold it against him or not, but I'm not affiliated with any dragons, so what do I know? The best I can do right now is tell him that I don't like keeping prisoners like that. Speaking of prisoners, we still need to find Henry. I'm sure it isn't unreasonable to arrest him for punching a noble, especially considering the beast of a man can make my skull rattle. That doesn't mean I don't want him back, though.

  As I bring up Henry and how I want him back, the crowd starts murmuring and I hear words about how he fought for the city as well. So essentially, the guards arrested a hero of the fight because of some cocky noble.

  "Raya, do you know why the guild didn't stop Henry's arrest? He's the one who brought me here, and he fought the undead as well. I would think that would earn him some leniency."

  "They aren't like us, Kira. They don't try to help each other like we do."

  I'm confident that she knows that she's wrong about that, but the protests from adventurers around us do appear to be funny to her.

  "You shouldn't tease them like that. They might use it as a reason to attack us. Remember in Oakhold when we were attacked for just being there? Or Plainshold when Lauren was attacked for trying to get them to stop attacking me?"

  "Hold up. What's this 'bout Plainshold? Stories from the Guild sayin' a feral Dragon attacked outta nowhere."

  Crap, that was a secret, wasn't it? Well, Foreman is staring at me with a very demanding expression. It's obvious that he wants more information, and the mumbling crowd appears to be interested in the topic as well.

  "Raya, could you tell the story? I don't think I would do it well."

  "Good time for you to practice, then."

  Dang it! Well, time to confess my sins, I guess. It's probably unwise to do so in the middle of a human city when I can't fly away, but here goes. I explain everything from my point of view, starting from the attack that brought Lauren. I make sure to bring up as much as I can remember, up to and including the burning of Plainshold.

  The foreman doesn't seem fazed at all. If anything, he seems... Dang it. He already knew. He brought it up in his address to the people as he mentioned what the tradefolk talked about. From the looks of it, I'd wager that it was for the benefit of the people present, since they're now talking about what I've said.

  "Now, Dragon-"

  "My name is Kira. You can just call me Kira instead of dragon, and none of this 'Kira the Dragon' nonsense."

  "And me name's Hralthar."

  Okay, that's a name I'm going to struggle with. I try to pronounce it a few times, but I'm struggling to pronounce a hard H followed by an R. Sudden laughter from Raya brings my attempts to a stop, and standing below me is a saliva-covered dwarf. He's looking somewhat annoyed as he wipes away the mucus.

  "Foreman's fine... Just stop tryin' ta say me name."

  Oh! That's much easier to pronounce. Though the sound of sizzling does warrant investigation, and Foreman seems to agree as he pulls off his apron and most of his clothes in a rush. I hadn't expected him to strip all of a sudden, but in mere moments, there's a practically naked dwarf pulling off bracelets and piercings.

  "Open yer gullet, Kira!"

  As I do, he throws all of his jewelry into my mouth and it's delicious and tastes powerful! A moment later, he orders me to look to the sky and as I do, I feel a burp building. Letting it out isn't uneventful as it's followed by a gout of flame. We should get more spicy jewelry for me to eat.

  "What was that?"

  "Ya didnae tell me 'bout the acid. Rare for Dragons ta 'ave two 'finities. Makes it all the more dumb ta try ta bind ye."

  He goes on to explain how his people used to feed unstable runecrafts to dragons. It turns out our stomachs are able to digest the unstable magics. The result is that the magic is added to our own instead of blowing up. I can see how that's helpful.

  Rather than focus on his lost things, or put clothes back on, he calls out for one of his friends to bring him a bucket. As soon as he has it, he tells me to open my mouth as he starts scooping saliva into it while telling Raya to join him. The two of them start walking to one of my arms as Foreman talks to Raya about using the acid to ruin the enchantment so Raya can use her nails to weaken the shackles.

  "Kira should have thought about that, but she can be a little dumb sometimes."

  If anyone but Raya called me dumb, I'm sure I'd get quite angry, but I know she just has a bad habit of calling everything dumb. We might have to look into curbing that.

  "Nay, not dumb. T'is a common problem for Dragons. Why learn ta pick a lock when bringin' the whole castle down is easier? Too much power's the problem. Dragons're easy to lure because of it. If ya ain't got anyone huntin' ya, why fear anythin'?"

  Raya is definitely getting a puff of smoke, but I appreciate Foreman's defense of me. It is something I should be wary of, though. I'd rather not leave myself vulnerable because I grew too confident. In fact, I should probably take a moment to hear the guild leader out. I hope Lauren's doing okay.

  "Lauren, are you doing okay?"

  As my focus turns to the mental bridge between us, a wave of frustration and general annoyance flows my way.

  "Yes... I just don't like dealing with leadership, they're so fucking stiff."

  "Sorry for dumping that on you."

  "It's fine. She would have tried to leverage your past to gain favors."

  I knew it! Freakin' politicians! At least Foreman is too gruff to be dishonest, I hope. My attention is drawn back to my immediate surroundings as a sudden jolt hits my wrist. Looking back, it appears Raya carved a gouge into the metal of a shackle, and now the dwarves are using chisels and hammers to break it apart.

  "Raya, do you think your fire sword can melt it?"

  Her expression changing from neutral to mischievous implies that she hadn't considered it, and now I'm thinking I might have brought up a bad idea. The hammering stops as she approaches the shackle. Pulling out her dagger, she empowers it with my magic, turning it into a fiery blade.

  With a careful hand, she lowers it to the metal and it seems to be heating up. So it could work, but a dwarf is telling her to stop. Instead, they instruct me to lift my arm, so they can cut from underneath. The blacksmiths are quick to go over do's and don'ts, talking about how to stand relative to the project and why. They're being very thorough, and Raya is studious as always.

  With two dwarves pulling on the remaining chain, Raya starts heating the metal as Foreman goes through the rest of the shackles with the bucket of saliva. As the glow of heat starts spreading, they call for Raya to step away as they run underneath my arm with the chain, telling me to lower my arm as they pass. As a result, the glowing bit is on top now.

  Wasting no time, they pull out a pry bar and push it between my wrist and the shackle, working the soft metal wider as another dwarf hammers it. It's uncomfortable, but they seem to know what they're doing, even calling in Raya to keep it hot. The metal stretches under their assault and they're using enough force that I'm having to empower my scales to not get hurt.

  Freakin' dwarves are strong. Every time the hammers strike, I can feel it through the pry bar, but the dwarves don't seem to mind it at all. They're just taking the impacts in stride.

  Having finished his round, Foreman joins the others as he inspects the progress with a bunch of grunts and noises. As the group exchanges a few words and more grunts, they appear to reach the conclusion that the metal isn't hot enough. And with that, Raya extinguishes her sword, which begs the question...

  "If your jewelry got ruined by my saliva, how can we protect Raya's sword from it? Accidents happen, after all."

  Looking at his hands, Foreman laughs in agreement.

  "Aye, accidents do happen. Ya'd hav'ta proof it."

  All of a sudden, Foreman launches into a lengthy and technical explanation of extracting and refining sap and a byproduct of a forging process to create a sort of rubber-like material, but his list of things is lost on me and just serves to confuse me. The list includes some ore from hell veins, where even breathing the air can kill you.

  From his description, the ore contains a valuable and lightweight metal that can be used for all sorts of things, from armor to cookware. As they process it, a yellow byproduct from it can be used for the creation of a sealant. Depending on the percentages, they wouldn't have a lot of byproduct from a process like that.

  On top of that, we would also need the sap from some trees growing in high vegetation areas, often in mountainous regions protected by predators and wood elves. Both of which are highly lethal. The tree in question bleeds white and... wait, that sounds like latex. Is he just talking about rubber?

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I think they might be underestimating the utility of rubber when they're still using wooden wheels on wagons and carriages. We might have to look into acquiring some supplies for that as well. Ooh, the Trade Empire of Tuiran sounds good.

  Circling back to Raya's dagger, though, I'm curious how it works. It seems odd that they'd make a fire sword like that. Nudging Foreman about it, he responds with a sigh.

  "It ain't a flame blade. Th'chain's made of high iron, but whatever ya did ta it turned the iron. How'd'ya learn ta do tha'? I ain't never seen such a thing before."

  "I learned it today by trying. More importantly, what's high iron, and what did I turn it into?"

  Not one to miss out on a rant, apparently, Foreman launches into another one until one of his friends stops him, shouting about trade secrets. The snippets I did catch suggest that high iron is a type of steel.

  "Damn Dragons. Leave 'em ta get friendly 'n' they steal yer secrets. Knowledge is yer hoard, then?"

  "Not that I know of. I think I'm more of a wealth dragon."

  "Kira is a treat Dragon. You can become her friend by giving her treats, but if you upset her, you become the treat."

  I can't even argue with that... At least Foreman and his friends are taking it in stride, but he's looking at me like he knows something.

  "Y'don't make sense."

  That's a little rude, I make plenty of sense. He just has to get to know me a little. Before I can defend myself, one of the shackle wrestlers approaches him and informs us that we'll need to return to his shop to get the shackles off. Looking at the one they've worked on, the metal is a mess of bumps and flat surfaces from the hammers.

  As I get up, the people around us back off a little, giving us some room. With a shout to make room from Foreman, the crowd divides, and the group of dwarves gathers up their belongings, making sure to bring along Foreman's clothes as they set off.

  Leaving the square behind, we're heading for a street built for multiple carriages with room to walk safely for bipedal people. Which means it's wide enough to not feel choking for me! Yush! Dragon-accessible streets!

  A benefit of being so tall is that I can look into buildings, and it appears most houses are quite sparse. Each of them has a definite flair of the people living there. Most places I see have a few chairs, a central table, and a dining room combined with a kitchen.

  "Kira, I bought some herbs for us to try. The seller said they were great for smoked meat, but I don't know how to smoke meat."

  "Oh, that's easy. We just need a small structure and then a fireplace underneath. Then you hang the meat inside the structure and light a fire at the bottom to fill it with smoke. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the idea. We can make jerky for you as well, so you have travel food."

  For some reason, I'm being watched by the Foreman, but I'm excited to find out what sort of stuff Raya has prepared for us. We might have to go hunt for one of these elzdir Henry mentioned. We should also get Henry out of prison. Do these people do bail bonds?

  "Foreman, do you think we can pay for Henry to get out of prison? We should get him out of there before we get into any other shenanigans."

  "Are ya up fer a deal? We'll get 'im out, and ya don't share yer know-how wit' me competitors."

  "Competitors in general or competitors in this city? Because I am going to share whatever I know with my people in Tuiran. I want them to have the best lives they can, and I can try to do that with what I know."

  "Yer'a strange one, Kira. Ain't ever met a Dragon willin' ta deal standin' on the same stones as others."

  That doesn't really tell me whether he accepts or not, but rather than clarify, he calls over one of his friends and sends him off into some alleyway. It smells like crap, and I appreciate that we're not heading that way. At least all the flowers hanging from windowsills help keep the air decent.

  With that settled, apparently, we begin walking further down the street and the scent of fire and forging becomes pronounced. It won't be long until we reach the shop, I'm sure!

  As our trip takes us further into an industrial area, the buildings change from delightful housing to more purpose-built structures. Most of the buildings feature an open facade, allowing plenty of air in. They're built of the same wood and bricks as everything else, but they carry clear signs of the profession of the owner.

  There are woodworking buildings featuring logs and planks stacked up and ready to be processed alongside beautifully carved chairs and tables. The air has a wonderful mix of wooden scents and the wafting smells from the forges make it perfect. There's even a hint of spices and smoked meat.

  "Kira, try this."

  Ooh, treat! Raya is holding a small strip of meat, and it smells perfectly seasoned. Opening my mouth a little, she grabs the side of my nostril as she hangs onto the side of my face to throw the meat into my mouth. It's so good! We must create a trade empire and import spices.

  "Do you have any other treats, Raya?"

  Climbing back up onto my face, she pulls out a pouch and takes out a handful of varied herbs and spices. Since she's arranging them on top of my face, I can't really see them that well, but I can smell black pepper in the bunch. She's got all sorts of good stuff for sure. I wonder where they get salt from, given that the ocean's salinity appears quite low.

  "Do you think we can use these things?"

  "Absolutely, Raya! You've done very well!"

  With a big smile, she starts packing up the goods again. She's definitely got the right idea buying a bunch of random stuff. I haven't moved since she started unpacking, and from the looks of it, Foreman has been waiting for us to conclude our little verbal detour.

  As I turn an eye toward him, he grunts and starts moving again. He seems entirely unfazed by walking around in his underwear, and his clothes, while somewhat drenched in saliva, are right there.

  "Oh! Raya, could you jump down and hold out Foreman's clothes so I can dry them?"

  "Don't burn me clothes!"

  Wasting no time, Raya begins her descent down my neck, ending in a jump as she braces against my wing to turn around and jump to the ground. As she reaches the wheelbarrow, she rummages through the clothes, pulling out a shirt, which she holds up for me. Time for some heat breath!

  With a skeptical look, Foreman appears to be paying close attention to what we're doing. Raya is turning the shirt around a few times as I blow on it with just a little extra heat.

  With the shirt mostly dry and the saliva forming a stiff surface on it, Foreman takes it from Raya and starts inspecting it before cracking it, letting shards of whatever my saliva consists of fall to the ground. That shirt might be too full of jagged shards to be comfortable now.

  "How'd'ya learn ta weaken yer flame?"

  I'm pretty sure telling people that a dream version of me taught a human version of me and then we merged and now I don't know which I am more of. Not that it matters, I'm all Kira. I'm half-expecting Raya to start talking, but she's keeping quiet about this. Good job, Raya! Although...

  "Raya, how come you ran off with the treats back at the square? It was a little mean."

  "Sorry. I thought you could free yourself if I tempted you. I have another one here."

  Ooh, she does have another one, and as she unwraps it, the most obvious difference is that it's orange.

  "How many do you have, Raya?"

  "This is my last one."

  "Let's share it! If you cut it in half, we can each have a piece."

  Pulling out her old knife from my hoard, she cuts the square piece of candy in half and throws one to me as she eats the other half.

  "This right here! What fuckin' Dragon shares?! Yer fuckin' strange, Kira!"

  His outburst is a wild contrast to his merry laughter following it. I'm great at sharing, though, so take that, conventional wisdom!

  We shouldn't dwell on that and how I don't fit the mold. We have places to be and shackles to dismantle. With a nudge to Foreman, Raya takes the opportunity to climb my face again and... no other movement happens.

  "That means she wants you to lead the way, Foreman."

  Yeah, that should be obvious. Good thing Raya gets me because now Foreman has begun walking, but not before giving a shrug.

  "So, Foreman, you know a lot about dragons, right? So how come I use magic to fly, but the undead jerks could shred my wings to ground me?"

  "Aye, I do. You've never seen yerself with the sight? Strengthen yer eyes with magic an' take a gander at folks. Every fucker around has diff'rent magic veins. Cut the vein an' ya cut off the magic. Cut off the magic and y' can't strengthen the limb. No matter how strong me arms, I can't hammer the iron without a hammer."

  Ooh, so I need my wings intact to take in the magic and make me fly. It's a combined effort, and I need both my wings and my magic. I'd imagine that's why I can just throw more magic at it when I'm trying to fly with something heavy.

  "Same as yer talons. If they grow blunt, the magic ain't gonna make 'em sharp, but if y'keep 'em sharp and use magic, y'can cut through most anythin'"

  "So how come you know so much about dragons, and why did the annoying elf lady bring up your history with dragons?"

  "Noticed that, did ya? Aye, me know-how on'ya kin runs deep. Worked beastforges back home. Young Dragons were used ta fire th' forges, had ta learn how they behaved. Destruction follows 'em, they steal, they kill, they hunt for sport. The beastforges were us fightin' back. An' tha's how I know yer strange! Worked with 'em for centuries, yet yer the oddest Dragon I've seen!"

  So it's clear that there's some bad blood going on there, and I'm getting the impression that he keeps his history lesson short on purpose, so I don't get offended. With dwarves loving the forges and dragons loving shiny metal, it makes sense that conflict would arise.

  The obvious question now is to ask why he's helping me so much, given that he doesn't seem overly fond of dragons in general. Wait, before that. Going back to empowering my wings, does that mean I can empower my tail to improve my maneuverability? I have to try that out at some point. I could become the most agile flyer ever! For some reason, Raya steps onto my nose instead of lying by my brow.

  "Kira, focus."

  "Hey! That's my internal monologue, Raya! You are right, though, so stop laughing at me."

  "Or I can keep laughing, and you can have this piece of meat."

  She drives a hard bargain, and I think I might have to accept it. She's standing in a pretty excellent spot for me to play with her a bit. She's right on my nose, so moving my head upward, followed by leaning backward, I throw Raya straight up into the air. The laughing goblin twists in the air, facing me as she pulls a treat out of her pouch and throws it down to me. Opening my mouth, I catch it like a freakin' expert!

  Following my glorious catch, Raya falls toward me, preparing herself to land on me, and as I lower my head, she manages to land on top of my nose, sliding toward my brow.

  "Done that before, have ya?"

  "Nope! First time. Raya is just that good!"

  I have no idea what happened to her after sliding past my eyes, but I can feel her climbing up my neck again, so I'm sure she's fine. And I got my treat!

  With a soft guffaw, Foreman starts walking away again and from the looks of it, his friends have left us behind. We're down to just one dwarf! I'm sure they'll start appearing out of nowhere again, or I could start looking at the people around us and spot a few.

  Now that I am looking at the people, they don't appear scared at all, and there's no hint of fear in the air. From what I can tell, they just appear excited to see something unusual. Puff of smoke!

  Rather than linger here all day, I should get going now that I can take a few steps at my own speed to catch up with Foreman. And just like that, I'm caught up. Dang it.

  "Hey, Foreman, are we there yet?"

  "Yer th'reason we ain't there! Ya keep stoppin'!"

  "He's right, Kira."

  "Nonsense. We'd be there if I could take larger steps, but the two of you have such short legs! Look at me, Raya! My legs are like five times your height!"

  Well, she is looking at me now, but instead of accepting how reasonable my argument is, she bonks me on the head. It isn't much of a counterargument, but I get the message. Her arms are too short to get any leverage for a proper hit. I shouldn't point that out.

  "It's not my fault that you're an overgrown lizard."

  Dang it. She's looking really smug, having turned it around on me...

  "She ain't a lizard."

  Darn right I ain't!

  Leaving it at that, we're closing in on the familiar wheelbarrow and it seems they've unloaded the crucible. The most notable thing about his workshop is the green awning. It seems not a lot of people use awnings around here, but it makes sense to me. Especially this time of year. It has a beautiful shade of green that matches Raya's skin color before she started turning into a half-dragon. At least as I remember it.

  "Down in front o' the shop and me crew'll sort ya out in no time."

  I do as he tells me and block the entire street. Moments later, a bunch of dwarves come running out with a bunch of wooden beams. It doesn't take them long to build scaffolding around my wrist. It's a little exciting to watch them work as they seem to anticipate each other's needs and act before a request is made.

  Finally, they bring out a large wooden wheel, bigger than a dwarf in height, with what looks like dragon scales attached. Those scales are far too pretty to be used for machinery. Going through the middle of the wheel is a beam, which I believe works like an axle.

  Four dwarves work together to lift it up and place it atop the structure. It's resting between two narrow support beams, but it's looking a little risky. The only things keeping it from smacking my wrist are two small pieces of wood holding it up by bridging the gap between the vertical beams.

  It even has two beams sticking out toward my claw, but I can't see what they're for. It's obvious by now that it's a saw or grinder of some sort, but I'm not sure how it works.

  "Foreman, what is that and how does it work? And are those dragonscales? Where did you get them?"

  "So y'don't know everythin'. T'is a carving saw. We mount the sawblade up 'ere. Two of me crew hold the depth logs-"

  Oh! So those two beams sticking out are for raising and lowering the saw thing.

  "-while other crew spin it by pullin' this 'ere rope when we attach it. Got a couple o' gears t'make it faster. And yer right, these're dragonscales. From the battle."

  That explains why they're so pretty. Ooh, now they're bringing out a couple of gears and a wheel with a groove in it. They're quick to set up the gears as they bring out a brace to keep it steady, while allowing the setup to move up and down alongside the saw. So now they have a way to make the whole thing spin faster and be much more dangerous.

  Geez, I really want some dwarves of my own when they're capable of using mechanical energy like that. Ooh, there's even a wheel on the other side to keep the rope in place!

  "Ready lads?!"

  Oh, I guess they're about ready. They've got the rope secured and it's quite long. As they give it a quick test pull, the saw starts rotating and I find myself a little nervous, since this whole setup looks like something they've just slapped together and that's my freakin' wrist they're approaching!

  As they all take their positions, three dwarves stay by the rope, another behind the wheels to keep track of it, and two dwarves stand by my fingers to raise and lower the saw. As they raise it, Foreman climbs up and pulls out the two stoppers, allowing the slowly rotating saw to descend.

  "Get it movin'!"

  Or maybe we can talk about some other way to free me. This whole thing seems very rushed, and surely whoever the jerks were who chained me in the first place has the keys somewhere. There are keys, right? They wouldn't just slap shackles on- Oooh! It's cutting! Geez...

  Each time the peak of a scale connects with the shackle, a small sliver of steel is carved away and thrown at my bicep. They're definitely making progress, and I'm definitely not sure I can sit through this three more times.

  As they get going, the rope dwarves start pulling on the rope faster and faster as the structure starts shaking. As a result, the two dwarves managing the height are having to also stabilize the whole contraption. This is definitely unsafe! Where's the worker's union?! What if the axle breaks? Then the saw will fly right at the height dwarves! And my claw!

  "How does that thing work, Kira?"

  "Gears convey mechanical power, and by utilizing a larger gear connected to a smaller gear, you can make things go faster, but they're weaker for it. If you do it the other way around, you make things go slower, but they're much stronger. As such, you can amplify the torque several times over to the point that you can create a system making you capable of lifting me."

  "You sound nervous."

  "I AM!"

  In response to my obvious distress, she lies down on my nose and wraps her arms around my muzzle as far as she can, which isn't very far.

  "Now how th' fuck does a Dragon know all that? Y'like engineerin', do ya?"

  "Kira's smart even if she looks dumb sometimes."

  I didn't really need that second part, but I appreciate the assist nonetheless. The dwarves are making great progress shaving away the shackle and I'm choosing to ignore Foreman's suspicious stare.

  All of a sudden, the dwarves lift the still-spinning saw up, but they haven't cut all the way through the shackle.

  "Move yer arm back a smidge. Gotta cut the rest."

  Dang it... Okay, you're a dragon, Kira. Your scales are stronger than some saw and you have amazing healing abilities. Don't pay attention to the lack of magic, we can do this.

  Moving my arm back gently, Foreman aligns the shackle properly, getting right near the saw, but having the confidence of a mountain that he won't get hurt. They didn't even secure it or hit the emergency stop! Oh, no! They didn't build brakes! Reckless fools!

  They aren't paying attention to my distress at all as they just start cutting the last bits of the shackle. At least we're almost done with this one. Wait, we don't have to cut the other side of it as well, do we? I'd rather not have to have eight cuts made.

  "Foreman, do we need to cut both sides of it?"

  "Nay. Little magic'll heat the high iron an' we pull it wide."

  Oh, geez. That's a relief. That's half as many cuts as I feared.

  "Hold on, Kira. I'll go get something for you to eat. Then you can relax a little."

  Everyone needs a Raya. She may be sassy at times, but she's always there to help.