Harsh sun blasted down on Einar as he trudged over seemingly endless dunes while Caprifexia flapped lazily along beside him, gliding on the heavy thermals. The air was still, and had a pleasingly sterile smell.

  "Ugh," he said, wiping some sweat out of his eyes. "And you're sure you can't make another portal?"

  "I told you, I'm tired," she snapped. "You're the one who said you wanted to visit the desert."

  "What? When did I say that?" he said.

  "Oh … that must have been in part of your brain that I burnt out."

  Caprifexia wasn't keen to venture back to the hellscape that the space between worlds had been revealed to be once she'd broken the perception filter, or at least enough of it to see the corruption everywhere: the tentacles and eyes and… everything.

  "But you're making loads of ice, how can you not make a portal?" he said, holding up the chunk she had conjured for him a few minutes beforehand to get him to stop whinging about the delightful heat, and which he had been pressing against his neck.

  "That's different," she said.

  "What? How?" he asked.

  "Because I'm the wizard and I say so," she snapped.

  She wasn't actually entirely sure why the opening of portals seemed to be qualitatively different to the rest of her magic – she didn't seem to actually be channelling energy anywhere when she opened the portals, which is one of the reasons she had some very small difficulty in conjuring them.

  "And you're sure the oasis you saw isn't a mirage?"

  "Of course I am," she said. "Unlike you squishy water-filled mortal bipeds, my kind thrives in the heat."

  They trudged onward, arriving some half an hour later at a small pond of water surrounded by rocky outcroppings that provided deep shade. There wasn't even a hint of plant life, which was a bit strange, nor were there any of the usual horrific bugs that usually lived around sources of desert water. Not that Caprifexia was complaining, a world without bugs seemed all right in her books.

  Einar moved immediately to the crystal clear water, dunking his entire head before stripping out of his sweat-laden clothes and jumping in.

  Caprifexia on the other hand didn't like water at the best of times, and instead flapped over to one of the sunnier outcroppings, intending to have a well deserved nap in the blistering sun after an exhausting day.

  The encounter in the Void had shaken her, insofar as a dragon could be shaken, and she was not looking forward to going back in there now that she could see it more for what it was.

  Moreover she was confused. Despite travelling through the Void several times, the domain of the Old Gods, she had not heard the Whispers until one of them had gotten close. And even then, it hadn't been anything like what they had been like living on Azeroth. It had been muted. Weak. Obviously outside and without any real ability to reach into her as it once had.

  Something had happened to her when she'd first summoned up a portal to the Void, something more than just losing her homeworld, something fundamental.

  A pity she didn't have the first idea how to actually go about researching herself.

  Resolving not to think about it anymore she found a nice flat part of the rock near the top of the outcropping's sunny side, and was just settling down and about to close her eyes when something caught her attention in rock. It was faded picture of a winged humanoid, below which was faint, but still legibly a script of some kind, a simple message of six pictographs repeated over and over and over again.

  The angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close-

  She contemplated this for a few moments before shrugging and closing her eyes.

  "Mortals are weird," she muttered to herself, before falling into unconsciousness.

  "Capri!" came a plaintive cry, waking her from her slumber.

  The sun was setting in the west, casting the dunes and rock in a purple glow as the twin moons rose in the east.. The desert was beginning to grow cold, and although Caprifexia wasn't particularly bothered, she wasn't a squishy mortal after all, she did prefer the warmth to the cold.

  "Capri!" came another Einar-like cry.

  "Ugh," she said, stretching and yawning before flapping down towards the cry. "What?"

  "There you are!" he said huffily. "I thought you'd abandoned me."

  "I was sleeping," she said.

  Some small part of her felt vaguely hurt that Einar thought she might just abandon him, but Caprifexia quickly pushed the confusing feeling away and replaced it with the far more comfortable irritation at being woken up.

  "Well wake up you lazy dragon, there is something you need to see," he said, beckoning her over to a small crack in the rock. "I was exploring and… come see for yourself."

  Caprifexia landed on his shoulder as they entered the dimly lit fissure. Like the area she had been sleeping there were inscriptions on the walls, another set of repeating characters beneath a winged figure.

  They are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out-

  "No that isn't- wait, is that writing?" he said, pausing. "Can you read it?"

  "Of course."

  "I've been meaning to ask – how exactly can you do that?" asked Einar.

  "I am a dragon," she explained.

  Einar groaned. "That doesn't- no, you know what, fine – what does it say?"

  "'They are already in, we cannot get out,' over and over," she translated. "There was another one, near where I was napping: 'The angles do not add up, the circle does not close.' And it had the same picture of the winged mortal."

  "Creepy," he said with a shiver.

  The cave went quite deep, and twisted about on itself several times, and as they went further and further in there was more evidence of previous habitation. More phrases repeated over and over, and, here and there, faded and worn pieces of wood that might have once been a structure littering the floor and occasionally bolted to the walls with rusted pieces of metal.

  Then they took a sharp turn, and came upon five bodies of some kind of lizardmen type creatures.

  They had clearly been there a long time since their scaly skin completely dried out. Their faces, reptillian and therefore easier to understand, were contorted into looks of terror, and their eyes had been scratched out – by their own talons, judging by the gore on their hands.

  "These poor bastards must have been the ones who wrote those messages," said Einar, squatting down next to them.

  "Why exactly did you think this important enough to wake me up for?" said Caprifexia. "Some dead mortals? Big deal – that's what mortals do, they die: it's in the name."

  "Capri –you're a hero, apparently, remember? Heroes care about people dying."

  "Oh… yes. Um, terrible, just terrible – a real tragedy! Damn you cruel yet entirely predictable and inevitable fate! Damn you entropy! Damn you!" said Caprifexia, shaking a taloned paw for a moment. "But what am I supposed to do about it?"

  "I wanted your opinion – you are, despite everything, a far better wizard than me."

  "Well, of course, I am a dragon."

  "Tell me then, little Ms. Wizard, why is there no rot?"

  Caprifexia frowned. "What?"

  "Rot and decay," said Einar pedantically. "Those are the results of tiny living organisms breaking down dead tissue – right?"

  Caprifexia scrunched up her eyes and accessed some of her ancestral memories.

  They weren't as good as learning something herself, and she had to consciously reach for them, which meant that she couldn't really use them to synthesise new insights until she went through them bit by tedious bit to put them into her own memories, but they meant that dragons didn't need to spend the first twenty years of their existence learning to read, write, and do mathematics like some kind of pathetic mortal.

  "Right, OK," she said after she had run through some basic biological concepts. "So what?"

  "They've just dried out. That's it. And since we arrived here we haven't seen a single skerrick of life, have we?" said Einar. "This is an oasis, but there aren't any plants, not even some moss – why?"

  "Minion, you are being boring. What does it matter?"

  "Capri – everything on this world is dead. Everything. There are no plants, no insects, no bacteria. Aren't you the least bit curious what happened to these people?"

  "Not really-" she began, before she remembered she was the Saviour of the Multiverse now, and she needed to care. "I mean- yes, of course, a few dead mortals? By the Titans! How will I sleep at night unless I uncover the reason for this totally unexpected turn of events?"

  "Real smooth," said Einar drily. "So can you cast some kind to spell to see if we can work out how they died?"

  "Of course," said Caprifexia, raising her claw and focusing her magic. "Diagnóstico." Then she blinked in surprise as impressions and information filtered into her mind. "Huh."

  "What is it?"

  "Void energy," she said. "They were exposed to massive quantities of Void energy."

  She turned the spell away from the corpses, scanning the wood.

  "Residue in the wood too," she said. "Everything has been saturated – the life just ripped out."

  "Is it dangerous?"

  "No, it has dissipated," she said. "A while ago – maybe three or four years."

  "So this world was scoured of all life less than a decade ago?" he said. "By the Void? Maybe those Old Gods?"

  Caprifeixa turned the wall, reading another of the messages.

  It is inside me, it is inside me, it is inside me-

  Caprifexia grimaced as she stepped into the Void and hundreds of eyes swivelled towards her. There were no whispers, thankfully, but the thought that somewhere out in the hellish non-euclidean realm there was at least one Old God was enough to mildly perturb even a dragon.

  "What's wrong?" asked Einar, glancing around, the perception filter saving his tiny little mortal mind from unravelling.

  "Nothing," she said. "Come on. And be quicker about it this time you lazy mortal – otherwise I might have to burn out more of your brain."

  Thankfully her minion's map made it easy enough to get back to Nirn, and as she stepped through a portal into the chilly windswept tundra she let out a sigh of relief.

  To their south lay the still rather charred town of Whiterun. Although the local mead-club had succeeded in bringing down the mongrel, it was only after a large swathe of city had been reduced to ash.

  "We still need to get that axe sometime," said Einar. "Otherwise Brynjolf-"

  "Who?"

  "Ugh… 'Binbolf.'"

  "Ah, Binbolf, yes, my other minion," she said. "I wonder how he is doing."

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Capri, you're a 'hero' now, remember? I'm not your minion, and neither is Binbolf."

  "Oh yes, I wonder how my other… my other… err?"

  "Friend."

  "'Friend' is doing, yes," she said, making air-quotes with her talons. "I suppose liberating an axe from the local drinking club is a worthy enough quest."

  "Drinking club? What drinking club?"

  "The 'Comparisons' or whatever they're called."

  "The Companions are a bunch of elite mercenaries, it is not a drinking club."

  "I don't think that's right. You're probably misremembering things," she said.

  "I'm not, and also, we're stealing it, not liberating it."

  "Didn't you tell me off for that just yesterday?" said Caprifexia suspiciously.

  "I'm not a hero; I've never claimed to be."

  "Oh… that doesn't seem very fair," she said.

  It took them nearly half an hour to make it to the still somewhat crispy Whiterun, which had been rather badly burnt by the proto-drake after Caprifexia had spared it. The town was built on a rise a little way into the planes and not too far from the snaking river. It had stout stone walls, and several tiers clearly visible from afar.

  The highest of them was dominated by a large wooden fortress – which was honestly one of the stupidest things Caprifexia had ever seen. A fortress, made of wood. Hah! Mortal stupidity never ceased to amaze her. It was still smoking and smouldering, but didn't look in imminent danger of burning down.

  Inside the town, things were quiet chaotic, with mortals rushing about in a frenzy, carrying water, putting out small fires, tending to wounded, or distributing apples and other revoltingly sweet food to grubby, snotty faced children.

  According to what she overheard, the mortal hero responsible for saving the town had been a small shouty elven woman whose apparently 'unique' power seemed to be that she had a voice and could speak loudly. Einar had been very impressed by the tale for reasons that Caprifexia couldn't identify; she could shout as well, but he told her off when she did that. It was probably just some weird mortal thing like money, or cheese.

  Anyway, all in all, as far as Caprifexia could tell, it had been rather poor heroing. Although the town had been eventually saved, much of the upper district and a swathe of the hilltop fortress had been burnt very badly. Vastly inferior to her own efforts. But then again, she was a dragon – she supposed it wasn't fair to put mortal heroes in the same category as herself.

  "OK," said Einar in a hushed tone as they sat down in the corner of the mostly abandoned Bannered Mare Tavern. "We need to plan how to get this axe. Otherwise Brynjolf-"

  "Who?"

  "'Binbolf,' otherwise he will be very annoyed with us – and the thieves guild aren't the best people to get off-side. Any ideas?"

  "Fire?" suggested Caprifexia.

  "No. No fire!" he hissed. "What is it with you and burning things?"

  "I am a dragon."

  "And what if someone gets hurt? That wouldn't be very heroic."

  "Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good."

  "Greater good? What greater good? We're nicking an axe."

  "They're just mortals after all, they're just going to die in a couple of decades regardless."

  "Hey, I'm a mortal!"

  "I'm painfully aware."

  "You are such a bigot," said Einar rubbing his eyes. "And no, no fire. We need to come up with something less needlessly destructive. Something stealthy."

  "Hello, have you thought about purchasing some life in-sor-ance?" asked Caprifexia as the door to the hall opened.

  The Jorvaskr Mead Hall sat a little way away from other buildings, on a raised, rocky outcropping that stuck out from the lowest tier of the city. It was long and made of wood that thatch, but had been spared any damage in the attack. Perhaps because even a being as pathetic as a proto-drake had realised that mead enthusiasts weren't a threat to anyone, and were therefar very far down the list of priorities when razing a town.

  Not that Caprifexia razed towns anymore. She was a hero. Heroes didn't do that – or so she'd been told.

  "You mean 'insurance?'" said the tall dark haired man in fur-lined armour, looking her over with an air of faint disdain.

  "That is what I said."

  "I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to try to sell us life insurance," said the man with a snort. "You do know this is Jorrvaskr, right?"

  Caprifexia wasn't really sure why someone wouldn't want to sell in-sor-ance to alcoholics, but then again, she wasn't really sure what it was in the first place. She didn't need to. Although many would never have suspected otherwise, she was not actually an in-sor-ance salesdragon. It was, in fact, a clever ruse.

  In the planning stages Einar had correctly realised that her peerless guile and incredibly skills of misdirection far exceeded his own, and thus she had been given the most important part of the operation.

  Or something like that, she hadn't been really listening to his overly complex plan. Personally, she would have just preferred to set everything on fire. It would be easy, even. The apart from its stone foundations, the whole building was made of inflammable material.

  "It is a strong belief of mine that everyone should have the opportunity to have in-sor-ance," she said. "Even mead enthusiasts. May I come in?"

  The man looked confused for a moment, before shrugging and stepping back from the door. "Fine, just don't break anything."

  Caprifexia bit back an insult at the idea that she would break something, by accident at least, instead nodding her head and smiling, doing her best idiot-mortal impression as they headed inside.

  The hall's ground floor interior was a long and smokey room, with a fire-pit in the middle surrounded by long tables piled high with food and drink – the club's focus, after all.

  There were a set of stairs leading to some kind of basement at one end, and the walls were adorned with various tapestries and weapons and armour and other mortal knicknacks. On the far side she stopped a very old axe, the target of the operation, mounted above a slightly raised table. It was slightly magical, but only very slightly, and Caprifexia didn't really understand why it was worth stealing.

  Still, Binbolf wanted it, and… well she wasn't actually sure why that was a good enough reason to steal it, but Einar probably would have whinged and whinged if she did something more productive, like napping. So here she was, liberating an axe. Heroically.

  "So, what are the premiums?" asked the scruffy mead-conissiour, sitting down and taking a long swig of his horn.

  "The what?" said Caprifexia.

  "The premiums – how many imperials every month?"

  Caprifexia blinked in surprise, realising she had no idea what the man was talking about. This was what she had Einar for – she didn't even really understand what an Imperial was. Was it different from a gold coin? And if so, how? She knew that the other city had 'honours' that were made gold – was it like that?

  Why did gold even have value to mortals? It had some marginal usefulness in enchanting, although platinum was more thaumically conductive. Einar had tried to explain something about 'use-value' and 'exchange-value' to her back on the desert world, Astanor or something, but it had been confusing and boring, and she hadn't really been listening. Was it because it was shiney? That was probably it. Mortals were foolish like that.

  "Ten thousand?" she said confidently, picking a number at random.

  "You're having a laugh," said the man, taking a long swig from his mug before standing and grabbing her by the arm. "All right, I get it, you wanted to see the hall, but this isn't a tourist attraction-"

  "-get your hands off my you mangy mortal drunkard-"

  "-hey, stop struggling you damn elf-"

  "-how dare you-"

  "-ow! She fucking bit me-"

  "-I will not be mortal-handled-"

  "-don't make me smack you-"

  "-Augis!"

  Fire blossomed from Caprifexia's hand as her patience snapped, smashing into the alcoholic man who had grabbed her and sending him flying back – straight into the firepit.

  Coals and burning wood went everywhere as the man yelled and rolled from the blaze, both magical and mundane, spreading fire as he went.

  There was a scraping of steal as the half a dozen or so members of the mead-drinking club drew their weapons, and Caprifexia wondered for a moment if all such groups were so heavily armed, before such musings flew from her mind as the now burning man lunged at her with a ridiculously large sword.

  "You'll regret that!" shouted the man, whose armour must have been quite high quality indeed to ward off a point-blank fireball.

  Caprifexia shifted her form, flitting under him as he brought his sword down into the space she had just been occupying and opening her jaws, the mighty furnace is her chest beginning to glow orange through her scales. Einar wouldn't be pleased, but her plan had been better anyway.

  "What the fuck?" yelled the man as his sword cut straight through a table and stuck into the floor. "A damn wizard! Get her!"

  Caprifexia swooped down, opening her mouth and letting loose a powerful torrent of flame along the length of one of the tables.

  There was a movement to her left, and she yelped as she dived under a wild swing of an axe, barely avoiding being cut in two and not quite managing to pull up in time before she crashed into a float of gravy. The sticky brown liquid went flying, covering both herself and the surrounding area, but after a few tumbles she managed to return to wing, spewing more fire wildly as she went. The mead enthusiasts shouted and scaremed and rushed about like headless chickens, some trying to put out the fires, others chasing after her.

  Caprifexia banked at the end of the table, blasting the axe from it's hangings with a bolt of magic and in a breathtakingly deft movement caught it in her claws as it fell.

  Unfortunately for the dashing and amazing and heroic whelpling, the massive double headed battleaxe was far, far, far too heavy for her small wings, and she didn't even hold it for a second before tumbling to the ground, smearing gravy along the floor as she rolled.

  She heard footsteps behind her as she tried to clear her spinning head, and looked up just in time to see the scruffy, and now very crispy man who had let her in raise his sword and step towards her.

  Then his foot slipped on the watery gravy across the floor, which with her incredible draconic foresight she had obviously smeared there for just such an eventuality.

  He fell hard, and Caprifexia flapped back into the air, breathing more fire along the upper walls as the silly little mortals ran about in a frenzy.

  The smoke grew thicker and thicker as Caprifexia completed a second and then third pass of the large room, landing and switching back to her elven form next to the axe and scooping it up once she was reasonably confident the mortals wouldn't be able to really see her.

  A flaming rafter smashed down next to her as she rushed towards the exit, strangely lupine howls echoing behind her as she emerged into the Skyrim air.

  "Capri, what the fuck!?" yelled Einar, who was rapidly descending from the side of the burning building, a rope tied around his waist and all manner of thieving equipment slung across his body. "I thought we agreed no fire!"

  "That doesn't sound like something I would agree too," she said as he cut himself free from the rope and dropped the last foot or so to the ground.

  "And why are you covered in- is that, gravy?" he said.

  "Shut up minion," she said, tossing him the axe. "Here, carrying things is your job."

  "Not your-"

  "The wizard has stolen the Axe of Ysmir!" came a bestial sounding voice from inside the smoke. "After her!"

  Einar and Capri looked at each other for a moment, before turning and breaking into a run down the slope towards the main town, Caprifexia transforming as she went, flapping up to a safe height. She glanced back at the now burning and collapsing building to see a group of five humanoids, covered in fur and with wolven faces burst from the smoke, loping on all fours.

  "Fucking werewolves!?" said Einar in an unusually high voice. "The Companions are fucking werewolves!?"

  "I'll rip you limb from limb!" snarled the lead pursuer in a surprisingly feminine voice.

  "You should try and run faster," said Caprifexia, helpfully, from above Einar.

  "Make a damn portal!" yelled Einar as he pelted down the stone path. "Make a damn portal!"

  "You'll run off the edge of the platform," she said.

  "Do you promise you can make it straight away?" he said, glancing over his shoulder at the closing werewolves.

  "I am a dragon," she explained confidently.

  "If you get me killed…" he said, as he skidded a halt, trembling as he turned to face the angry and apparently moon-cursed mead enthusiasts. "Capri!"

  Caprifeixa focused, remembering what it was like to open portals and flexing her will.

  Nothing happened.

  "Capri!"

  Caprifeixa redoubled her effort, a tiny, strange, doubt emerging in thee back of her mind, and with it, the realisation that Einar was in rather grave danger, and that although it was still his own responsibility, she may have been very, very tangentially involved.

  "Capri!" screamed Einar as the Werewolves leapt.

  Straight into a portal.

  "See," said Caprifexia, shifting her form to elvish as she landed. "No problem."

  "Uh, Capri-"

  "You really should know better than to doubt my brilliance by now," she said, pointedly ignoring all the fleshy noises as she walked into the Void and over the eyeballs and tendrils, trying not to slip in her gravy covered boots. "I think that went rather well, if I do say so myself – and I do."

  "Capri," hissed Einar, grabbing her shoulder pointing to the edge of the Void-platform, where there were two scrambling grey-skinned hands attempting to find purchase on some smooth Nordic-themed stone. "Look!"

  "Honestly, do I have to do everything?" said Capri, stalking over to the edge and raising her foot.

  "W-what is going on?" said a short elven woman with greyscale skin and blood red eyes who was desperately trying not to fall, both her hands scrabbling against the rock.

  Capri stamped on her left hand, making her let go with a yelp.

  "Capri, wait!" cried Einar as Caprifexia lined up her foot over the woman's other hand.

  "What is it now?"

  "You can't just kill someone in cold blood!"

  "I… can't?" said Capri slowly, scrunching her face up.

  "No!"

  "But she tried to kill us. Well you mainly. Still, I think that makes her a villain, which means she deserves Just-This," she said, indicating to her shoe. "'Just-boot' in this case."

  "You're supposed to be a hero! Heroes have mercy!" said Einar.

  "I can't have both Just-this and Mercy, the first one is an exclusive – it's in the name," she said. "Honestly, don't you know anything about heroism?"

  "What- what are you even talking about?" said Einar, before he looked down at the struggling elven woman and blanched. "D-dovahkiin?"

  "What's a 'Proto-drake-born?'" said Caprifexia, translating Einars rather terribly pronounced proto-drake. "Is this another one of your silly superstitions?"

  "Dragonborn; a mortal with the soul of a dragon; honestly don't you pay any attention to what I tell you-"

  "Oh, so she's a proto-drake in elven form?" said Caprifexia, raising a boot over the woman last slipping hand. "Hah! I've been wanting to do this for ages! Say goodbye, you pathetic villainous imitation of a true dragon!"

  "What are you- no!" said Einar, lunging for her as her foot descended.

  He was too slow, however, and Caprifexia's boot smashed into the woman's remaining hand a moment before he tackled her to the side.

  "Unhand me!" she said, pushing him off her as a terrified scream began to fall swiftly away. "You might be my min- my 'friend,' but I am still a dragon! I will not be mortal-handled!"

  "Divines – Capri, what have you done!? What have you done!?" screamed Einar as he scrambled towards the edge of the platform that was now notably lacking the tips of any grey fingers.

  "Defeated a Villain," she said. "Heroically."

  "She was the hero," yelled Einar. "The only person in the whole world who could properly slay dragons! And you've killed her!"

  "No, she was a villian," said Caprifexia. "Keep up."

  "No she wasn't! We're the villains! We've doomed the world!"

  "I'm sure everything will be fine," said Caprifexia, picking herself up and looking over the edge at the rapidly fading elf-shaped spec, beyond which were a few other tiny humanoid shapes. "They are just proto-drakes – what's the worst they could do?"

  "Destroy Skyrim! Destroy Nirn!"

  "Pah! I doubt it – if my father, a proper dragon, couldn't destroy Azeroth, then an overgrown lizard isn't going to be able to destroy your world, admittedly inferior as it is," said Caprifexia. "You know, I think I'm getting rather good at this hero business. What's that? My tenth villain defeated in less than a week?"

  "No! Not 'nine villains!' A petty thief who you tripped, four guards trying to stop you stealing an old woman's bag, and five Companions trying to catch you for burning down their hall and stealing their axe. Oh– and one of them was the saviour of Nirn!" said Einar, pulling at his hair. "I was going to sneak in and take the axe without them noticing while you distracted them. No one was going to die! Nirn wasn't going to be doomed! The Thieves guild would have just ransomed the axe back to them, and that would have been that!

  "But no! You had to set the entire fucking place on fire and kill five of the greatest warriors in Skyrim! You're not a hero, your a menace! A tiny, megalomaniacal, sociopathic, bigoted, irresponsible, scaly little menace! Even the Dark Brotherhood doesn't cause as much chaos as you do!"

  "Calm down Ei-nar," she said, wiping some now cold gravy off her face. "I know you're a mortal, and thus can't be expected too much of, but you're becoming hysterical."

  "Don't you tell me to calm down, this is a disaster!" he said, squelching back and forth over the fleshy void tendrils.

  "Everything will be fine. If these so-called 'dragons' are such a big deal I can deal with them myself – in fact, that sounds like a worthy quest for a hero of my stature. Without that usurper I will be able to focus fully on carving out my heroic legend on this pathetic backwater!"

  "'Carve out a legend?' You won't last a minute against a fully grown dragon."

  "Honestly Ei-nar, are all mortals so dim? You just observed me heroically defeat the woman who apparently slew some of them, effortlessly I might add – I, therefore, am clearly more powerful than they are," said Caprifexia, shaking some increasingly cold gravy off her fingers. "It's simple logic."

  "You are completely delusional! That was luck and because you caught her off-guard by using magic no one has ever seen before," said Einar. "Those creatures you call 'proto-drakes' are about a hundred times your size and better at magic than you – and there are dozens and dozens and dozens of them!"

  "Perhaps. But as a true dragon I have an unbeatable advantage."

  "And what is that?"

  "I," she said, pausing briefly for dramatic effect. "Am a genius."

  Einar hit his head against one of the nearby crumbling pillars.

  A.N. If you like my writing, you might be interested in my fantasy adventure novel – – which is entirely pre-written and with chapters released every Friday!

  Mishka the Great and Powerful that isn't up on Royal Road yet!). However, I don't monetise or time-gate my fanfiction though (plz no sue!).