Chương 59: The Golden Dragon

The roar came again, so close now that I could feel it vibrating through my bones. Pierre was positioned at the window, his shotgun raised. Shelly and Luke had moved to look out one of the other windows. Mort had wisely retreated behind my recliner. Tala was moved to stand between me and the window. I could feel the massive amounts of magical energy approaching. It was overwhelming, like standing next to a bonfire made of pure mana.

The trees at the edge of my clearing swayed from the gravitational force of a big black hole that hovered near the ground.

"Here it comes," Pierre muttered. Unable to resist the impulse, I scampered up onto the window sill. Tala looked annoyed but said nothing. She just climbed up with me while Mort trailed reluctantly behind us. Something gold flashed between the trees and I heard angry roars through the portal, obviously furious that they had been separated from whatever had just come through the gate. Then, with a final tremendous crash, it burst into the clearing. It had golden, metallic scales. It also had wings.

It was a dragon, a gold dragon. It might have been more impressive if it wasn't pony sized. But still, it was an actual, honest-to-god, dragon. And it immediately tripped over its own tail and face-planted into the dirt with a heavy thud.

"Ow," the dragon said in a voice that cracked slightly, like a teenager going through puberty.

"Ow, ow, ow. That hurt." Although I was fairly certain Pierre was going to think that 'ow' of pain was from tripping, I knew better. The dragon had plowed through the underbrush. There was no way a small fall on its face would hurt. That meant it was either playing with us, or more likely, that the passage through the portal was painful for the dragon. Considering he had to pass through Gaia's defenses into a high mana area, I was pretty sure it must have hurt a lot. Nobody moved. Luke looked absolutely floored.

His mind seemed to have shut off. If he wasn't standing upright, I might have mistaken him for Mort. As for the rest of us, we all just stared as the dragon scrambled upright, dirt clinging to its golden snout. Then it shook itself like a wet dog as it looked around. After that, it seemed to notice us for the first time as we stared at it through the window. Its eyes widened, and it quickly tried to strike what I assumed was meant to be an intimidating pose.

Except one of its wings was still folded wrong, and it was standing on its own tail.

"Behold!" the dragon announced in a cracking voice.

"I am Ignis the Magnificent! Descendant of the Ancient Wyrms! Terror of the…" It paused, looking around the clearing.

"Wait, where am I?" Sighing, I hopped down from the window sill and waddled through the doggie door. Tala immediately followed, along with the others. Even Mort peeked out from behind the door, although he didn't leave the safety of the cabin. Pierre slowly lowered his gun as he stared at the dragon.

"Are you kidding me right now?"

"I never kid!" Ignis puffed out his chest, clearly not recognizing a rhetorical question.

"I am deadly serious! And extremely dangerous! You should all be cowering in fear!" Nobody cowered, but Luke did seem to be recovering from… whatever had caused him to go silent. Even Mort managed to say, "He's just a baby."

"I am not a baby!" Ignis's voice went up another octave.

"How old are you?" Shelly asked, curious. I could almost see the motherly instincts starting to ooze out of her pores.

"I don't know. I'm not good at math, it's boring." Ignis finally noticed he was standing on his own tail and stepped off it hastily.

"Anyway, the point is, I'm very mature for my age and you should all be terrified." Tala made a sound that might have been a laugh.

"Terrified. Right."

"You dare mock me?" Ignis swung his wedge-shaped head toward her. Then he paused, his glowing eyes narrowing.

"Wait. You're... you're a spirit animal."

"Observant," Tala said dryly. Ignis looked at Mort, who was still mostly hidden.

"And that one too. Lesser spirits, clearly, but spirits nonetheless." His tone became marginally less dismissive.

"I suppose I can tolerate your presence."

"How generous," I said. The dragon's attention snapped to me. And something changed in his expression. His pupils narrowed to slits. His wings twitched. The arrogance in his posture wavered.

"You," he said carefully, taking a small step backward.

"You're... what are you?" Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"I'm Abe," I said.

"Welcome to Earth."

"Abe." Ignis tilted his head, studying me with those molten gold eyes.

"That's not a proper name for a divine being."

"Divine?" Pierre asked sharply.

"Why is Abe divine and the others are spirit animals?"

"Abe's obviously divine," Ignis said, not taking his eyes off me.

"I can sense it. He's a demigod. Low-tier, probably. But definitely divine." He took another step back.

"Which means I should probably be... respectful. Because it's strategic. Not because I'm afraid." He then looked at Pierre as if he suddenly realized that he should be offended, which he then put on.

"Not that I should answer a puny mortal… human," he paused momentarily here, as if not sure about Pierre being human, but then pushed through.

"Anyway, the others obviously get their divinity from Abe here." The gold dragon then nodded toward Tala. While she might be a higher level spirit beast than the timid one back there, she's not a god without him."

"So what's a baby dragon doing here, all lost and afraid?" Tala asked, definitely annoyed by the Ignis' words.

"I'm not afraid!" Ignis insisted, his voice cracking again.

"I'm just being appropriately cautious around an unknown deity in an unfamiliar realm! It's called wisdom!" I looked at this golden dragon who'd just crashed into my clearing, tripped over his own tail, and was now trying desperately to maintain his dignity while clearly terrified. Of course, I thought. I was definitely getting the impression that someone high up on the food chain was having fun at my expense. There was no other possible explanation for everything that kept happening.

"How about we start with why you're here," I suggested.

"And how you got through Gaia's defenses."

"Gaia's defenses?" Ignis perked up slightly.

"Oh, that. Yes. Those were quite impressive. They stopped my parents completely. Very rude, honestly."

"Your parents?" Now it was Pierre's voice who went up an octave.

"Well, yes. They tried to follow me through the dimensional breach but this world has some kind of... defense system?" Ignis waved a claw dismissively.

"It classified them as 'extreme threats' or something equally dramatic and refused to let them through."

"But it let you through," Shelly said slowly. Ignis looked offended.

"Are you suggesting I'm not a threat?"

"Yes," Tala said flatly.

"That's exactly what we're suggesting."

"Anyway, that's not true. It was going to stop me too but my parents started to barge in after me and sort of opened a hole in the defenses small enough for me to squeeze through." Ignis seemed unreasonably smug and satisfied about what he was saying. Then he continued, "Anyway I'll have you know I'm very dangerous! I can breathe fire! Watch!" He opened his mouth and a small puff of smoke came out. Then he coughed.

"Sorry, I'm still getting my fire glands working. But when they fully develop, I'll be incredibly lethal!" I felt a headache building. From what I could remember, even baby dragons could breathe fire, or whatever breath weapon they possessed, when they were born. The fact that this dragon couldn't do so meant one of a few things. One, he was…. special, as in remedial. Two, he was actually much younger than his speech patterns indicated. Three, the stories were wrong.

Personally, I think he's all three, I thought as I looked at him. Then after a sigh, I said, "Ignis. Why did you come through the breach?"

"Oh. Well." The dragon shuffled his feet.

"I saw this new world opening up. All shiny and full of weak mana. Thought I'd take a look. You know. Exploration. Anyway, I was bored."

"You ran away from your parents," Tala said.

"I did not," Ignis deflated slightly.

"They were being unreasonable.

'Don't go near the breach, Ignis.'

'It's too dangerous, Ignis.'

'You're not old enough, Ignis.'" He mimicked what I assumed was his mother's voice, which came out surprisingly high-pitched for a dragon.

"I'm at least… uh, a month or two old now. That's old enough to make my own decisions!"

"Clearly," Pierre said dryly. That was when I noticed that he was discretely taking a picture of Ignis. I fought the impulse to roll my eyes and imitate Mort by playing dead. This is fricking ridiculous.

"And anyway, this world looked harmless. Low mana saturation. Perfect for a young dragon's first solo expedition." Ignis looked around at my damaged cabin, the soot-covered clearing, the boarded-up windows.

"Though I admit it's less impressive than I expected. Did something attack recently or does your place usually look this bad?"

"Yes," I said.

"And before we'd even finished cleaning up from that attack, you showed up."

"Oh." Ignis had the grace to look embarrassed.

"Sorry about that. But you see, once the breach opened, I just sort of... went through. Before I really thought about it."

"That sounds like someone we know," Luke muttered, apparently finding his voice. I was impressed that he had the decency not to look at Pierre. At least, he had better be talking about Pierre, I thought.

"I'm not a teenager! I'm…" Ignis paused.

"Actually, what's a teenager?"

"Never mind," I said.

"Let me get this straight. You saw a hole in reality, jumped through without permission, and now you can't get back?"

"I didn't jump! I flew. Gracefully. Like the apex predator I am." Ignis puffed his chest out again.

"And I can totally get back. My parents will figure out a way through. They'll be here any year or two." Wow, he's terrible with time, I thought. Unless he's being serious. God. Don't let that be a realistic time period.

"Your parents," Shelly said carefully, "who you just said were blocked by Gaia's defenses. The same defenses that classified them as extreme threats." Ignis's wings drooped slightly.

"Well... yes. But my dad's really strong. And my mom's really smart. They'll find a way. I'm their favorite. Probably. Also, I'm the runt of the litter. They said that makes me special. That's how it works, right?" Ignis was looking less confident by the second.

"They have to come get me. Because I... I don't actually know how to open a breach myself yet." The clearing went very quiet.

"So you're stuck here," Pierre said flatly. I glanced at him and noticed that he was doing something on his phone, probably uploading that picture he'd taken earlier.

"I'm not stuck. I'm just... temporarily residing in an alternate plane until my parents negotiate passage rights." Ignis lifted his head high.

"It's completely under control."

"Right," I said.

"Completely under control. Great, I rubbed my face with my paws. Another mouth to feed. As if life wasn't already complicated enough.