Tribulations of a Dragon

As it turns out, Joras dislikes the cold and doesn’t know anything in particular about icy bears. Just that they’re big, dangerous, and have an affinity for the cold, but I already knew that.

I wonder how I should approach this. Considering it has an affinity for cold, I might be able to just fly above it and light it on fire. But then lighting things on fire isn’t conducive to making money off of those things, so I should think of a way to take it down without fire.

Ooh, all the money I could earn, I’d be the richest dragon in town! I’m gonna ask Joras what he thinks an icy bear might be worth. “Probably not much, you tend to leave things in a rather messy state.” I didn’t ask to be attacked!

“I’m not familiar with the animal, so I don’t know, but are you sure you should attack it? I’d imagine you could easily find somewhere to build your hoard elsewhere.” That’s a fair point, the bear is something I don’t know enough about, so I’d have to be cautious. But I really want that cave back and settle the score.

I don’t know why I feel so compelled to pick a fight with Frosty, but it feels like something I have to do.

No time like the present, so I tell Joras that I’ll be back soon, but I’m gonna go test out the strength of Frosty. And with that, I’m off! To the darn gate again… At least it’s a shorter trip since I don’t have to keep pace with others.

As soon as I’m out of the gate, I take off and fly towards the mountain I hatched in. This is gonna be the first time I ascend to such an altitude.

After some time flying, I notice that, to my surprise, it doesn’t actually get that much harder physically as I go higher, I just funnel more magic into my wings. While my ascent is slow, it’s also remarkably steady.

Which brings up a new thing to worry about; how much magic can I safely use? I’ll need to pay attention to my magic, and that turns this into a recon mission, rather than testing Frosty’s strength. I’ll figure it out when I get there.

Instead of going straight up, I’ve decided to circle the mountain to conserve my magic. Increasing my altitude gradually. I’m quite curious to see if there are other critters around here. Bears gotta eat, after all, and I doubt they can rely on random dragons showing up. Especially not when they knock us off the mountain.

Assuming this is my native habitat, I don’t really know anything about animals living in snowy mountains, but it feels like there are too many here. I’m seeing some that look like goats, bunnies, cats, wolves, and foxes, didn’t see any ice bears, though. But there’s quite a bit of life going on up here.

I’m definitely making a shopping list, in fact, perhaps I should have a taste test… Yeah, I’m definitely gonna do that.

I look around to see if there are any isolated targets, and it doesn’t take long at all for me to spot one of the goats digging in the snow. That goat is about to have a bad day.

As I swoop down, I ready myself to bite at its neck to make it a quick kill.

I manage to land on top of it before it realizes what’s going on, and as I pin it to the ground, I finish the fight with a quick bite. It is very delicious, and I want more. But that will have to wait.

I need to get flying again. Although… Yeah, I’m just gonna see what the goat was digging for. I use my tail to sweep across the snow a few times, clearing it in barely any time at all, and what the heck… just under the layer of snow is a bunch of moss and grass.

How do they even survive here?! I’m gonna have to bring Raya here to see what she thinks of all of this.

For now, back to the original plan; conquest of my cave. I try to take off, but that just ends as a repeat of my early days trying to fly around my lake… Right, I need to funnel more magic into my wings. At least I didn’t trip over myself this time…

Second try, go! This time is a lot more successful, and I have barely any mishaps. I think I underestimated how much I flew on instinct earlier.

The further I get up the mountain, the more I can feel my magic expenditure increasing, not just to keep me flying, but also to control my flight. That seems like it’ll be an excellent security measure for my soon-to-be hoard cave, if other flying creatures experience the same.

I haven’t actually seen any other flying critters, I wonder if they’re staying away from me. Okay, enough distracted thoughts, focus on reaching the peak.

I’m making good progress with my ascent, and as soon as I reach the top, I notice that I don’t notice my cave. Dang it! What exactly was my plan here, just fly up and go ‘there it is, in this exact spot on the mountain I happened to arrive at…’ At least horizontal flight is so much easier than vertical, so I can just soar around until I spot either my cave or the bear.

It doesn’t actually take that long until I spot Frosty, but now I’m wondering whether it’s the same bear or a different one. It seems like a dick move to attack some other bear, so I’ll just follow it from the skies.

Turns out it was a good call to keep my distance, because this freakin’ bear can launch icicles! How the hell is that fair?! Okay, maybe I’m not one to talk about fairness, but still, that’s some dangerous stuff. I wonder if they’ll melt before hitting the ground at the base of the mountain.

Freakin’ heck! This bastard is far too good a shot, what gives?! As the next one comes flying towards me, I try melting it before it can hit me, but apparently that’s not a thing I can do. I barely manage to dodge it by lowering my head, causing it to bounce off one of my horns. Geez, that hurt! Ice is way too durable.

There’s no way I can dodge these icicles if I get closer, so I’ll have to think of something else. For now, I need to break line of sight for sure, so I make sure there’s no ground immediately underneath me, and then tug in my wings and drop. Try to catch me now, sucker!

Moments later, I unfold my wings and catch myself, and that’s when I hear quite the ruckus. The freakin’ bear is following me down! I had not expected that, but from the looks of it, neither did the bear, because it’s just tumbling down the mountainside.

Geez, I hope it doesn’t land on someone…

I guess I technically won, but that is a very hollow victory. I also doubt the bear will be worth much if I manage to find it. I’m gonna fly back up and find out why it fell, surely no animal just jumps like that.

Yeah, I’m just gonna fly up again and see what went on, and it’s pretty clear that it went to the edge to see where I went, and the edge gave way. What an unfortunate bear.

That’s enough pitying the bear’s failed flight attempt, time to look for my cave again.

It turns out that these ice bears are more common than I expected. I’ve seen another three while flying around here. This time, though, I’m not gonna just stalk one. I don’t particularly feel like playing dodge the lethal ice projectiles again.

To my surprise, not only do I not get attacked again, but I also manage to find my cave just after midday! Go me! So many things you can do when you get woken up very early by an inconsiderate sun.

With no hesitation, I land and enter my cave, I wonder if I can find my old eggshells and see how much I’ve grown. Pretty sure I used to be quite small.

Looking around, the cave isn’t quite as big as I remember, but it’s quite deep. If I had to guess, it’s three of me deep and wide enough for me to turn around comfortably. Yeah, this is a pretty good cave.

I even spot my egg on the rocky ground, well, what remains of my egg. It’s just a bunch of cracked pieces strewn across a small bit of the floor, but they smell wonderfully familiar, like a forgotten dream. What the heck does a forgotten dream smell like?

Just gonna disregard that. I inspect the shell pieces and they’re surprisingly tough. How’d I ever manage to break out of that… The pieces themselves show that the outer shell of my egg was covered in some deep blue scale-like structure. Quite pretty, if I do say so myself. I wonder if the pieces would be worth selling.

That’ll be for after I somehow get a dragon-accessible satchel. For now, I’m gonna go to the back of this cave and ‘deposit’ my money. As soon as I do, the familiar rush washes over me and I’m gonna lie on my little hoard.

I wanna fill this entire cave with gold and trinkets! I’ll need to get rid of a few of those stalactites and stalagmites, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s gonna be great! Even that ominous growling agrees!

So I may have been a bit hasty here and left myself somewhat vulnerable. I look back towards the entrance and that is an ice bear. It might even be Frosty. Okay, plan, plan, I need a plan… The bear is blocking the exit. I’ve already got my hoard down. I don’t feel like giving up my cave, so it looks like I definitely have to fight.

Since I’m bigger than before, and I know sharp claw magic, I’m gonna rush it and go for melee combat! And the bear seems to agree because it is charging at me. Shit! I expected icicles, but this one is very melee-oriented.

I manage to dodge out of the way, but the bear just pivots and swipes at me. I feel its claws sink into my thigh and it freakin’ hurts! And why does it have ice claws?! That’s not fair.

The cold from the slash bites into me and feels like it’s spreading, so I take hold of my magic and push it into the wound. I can’t help but let out a deep growl as the pain spikes, but the cold does subside.

My turn, you freakin’ snow cone! I flip around and face it, then start running towards it. The bear readies itself to counter my attack, but just as I reach it, I let out a plume of fire, hopefully blinding it. With that distraction, I can jump on top of it and start clawing at its back. I really wanna do some damage here.

I manage to land on its back, but just as I’m about to rip into it, I feel a horrible tug on my tail and I’m pulled from the bear’s back and thrown to the ground. Shit. At least I manage to land on my side instead of on my back, small victories….

For whatever reason, the bear just pins me to the floor and keeps growling. I have no idea what its plan is, but I need to do something. What the hell can I do? It shrugged off my flames, I didn’t manage to do any significant damage with my claws, and I can’t feel my lower body anymore.

Fuck, I don’t want to die… Why the hell is it approaching my head… To bite my face off, it seems. The bastard opens its massive jaws and envelops my muzzle. The crushing hurts so much… I need to do something, anything, what can I do?

Only one thing. I force my mouth open inside the bear’s mouth and push everything I have into my flames. I have no idea if this will work, but hopefully the bear is more vulnerable on the inside.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to find out because I pass out…

Some time later, I wake up to the cave covered in blood. What the fuck happened… The bear’s head is still attached to my face and everything smells like blood and burning. Most of the bear’s body is still in one piece, but geez, that is some serious damage. Wait…

Did I explode a bear?!

Yeah, I’m just gonna lie here for a bit. I’m just gonna curl up and take a break… Except I’m not, apparently. Okay… Can’t move my lower body… That is a pretty bad situation, hopefully I can heal that, but geez, that’s gonna hurt…

I reach for my magic and… I’m basically empty… I don’t want to be stuck here.

At least I can still move my wings, so I just need to pull myself out of this cave, not encounter any potential foes, and fall off this mountain without crashing into anything below before I can start flying…

Easy peasy. Easy peasy…

Okay, Kira, you can do this. Just pull yourself out of this cave, one claw at a time. I wanna eat the damn bear, but the jaws seem to have been pushed further onto my head from the explosion, so I can’t open my jaws at all. Even using my claws, it just won’t budge.

Frustratingly, my vision is also quite obstructed, and I need to constantly turn my head to see anything.

Back to getting out of here. My claws dig into the rock with each pull, and I’m really struggling here. I wouldn’t mind someone just showing up and helping me right about now.

By the time I make it to the edge of this platform, nobody has shown up to help me, the bastards… Okay, now I just need to fall off the cliff and fly. Any minute now, I’ll do it. Don’t think about how you usually use your tail to steer, Kira, there’s no other way to get help.

I don’t want to do it. I don’t think I can do it. Okay, I need a way to force myself to do it… I move to the very edge of the cliff and, this is probably a bad idea, I start jumping with my arms to cause a break in the rock. It’s definitely a bad idea, but it isn’t jumping off, so I can manage it.

The rock cracks shortly after I start my weird coward dance, and I’m off. I’m falling more than I’m flying, and my tail is flapping uselessly in the wind. Steering is really freakin’ difficult.

I mostly settle into a rhythm of manipulating my wings to stay on a somewhat straight path. If I couldn’t just soar for most of the way, I’d be fucked. It hadn't occurred to me that I also need magic to fly, and my reserves are still very low. That’s another layer of danger… Great…

Soon enough, I’m practically at Tuiran, and I need to prepare for a landing, which I have no doubt will be a crash... Now, how the hell do I do this? I need somewhere open where I won’t hit someone, but also somewhere near Joras. I’m considering just crashing in front of his store, but it’s not the widest street, and I can’t really warn people with a roar because of this stupid bear head.

I also wouldn’t mind if it didn’t block so much of my vision, but at least my long neck helps with that.

I feel lightheaded, so I’m just gonna stop thinking so much and aim for Joras’ street… I spot his house and lock in. I’m gonna nail this landing. As I approach Joras’ street, I even out my flying to hopefully mitigate some of the upcoming regret.

This feels almost as bad as having to fall off the mountain, except this time, I can’t stop. I do manage to crash roughly outside of Joras’ place, and it sucks. Everything hurts, everything sucks, and I regret going to that damn mountain… And now my money’s up there! Damn it!

With all the noise I made, Joras and Lily were very quick to reach me.

“What the fuck happened to you, Kira?!” Great, we’re back to questions when I’m nonverbal. Stupid bear head…

Joras is surprisingly quick to start giving orders to those standing nearby. He has sent for everyone who might have a way to dislodge this freakin’ head, and Lily seems to be inspecting me. She’s gonna have her work cut out for her if she wants to catalog every injury I’ve managed to get.

“Joras, fetch some Magic Potions, she’s close to death.” What?! When did that happen?! I feel like beaten shit, but I don’t feel close to death.

“Here, Lily. See if you can get this tube between her jaws. I don’t think she can drink them otherwise.” Where are these fabled head removers?

I can feel her trying to push the tube into my mouth, but it isn’t really working. I can’t even help out. Oh no… Joras just pulled out his dagger. I don’t like his dagger…

“Please raise your head, Kira. If you can.” Maybe I don’t want to… Dang it… I can’t really go against the doctor’s orders here. As soon as I lift my head, he jabs me right in the throat. I knew he was going to do that…

To her credit, Lily is very quick to follow up Joras’ jab by jabbing me with the tube. I feel some sort of liquid in my throat, forcing me to swallow. I can’t tell whether it’s one of these magic potions or my own blood, but I’m gonna assume potion. I don’t really feel like bleeding into myself right now.

Turns out my assumption was correct because I can feel magic flowing again. A little bit, anyway.

“Joras, do you think she can handle another potion?” Didn’t they just give me one so far? Surely I can handle more than one drink, and I am feeling a little thirsty.

“No, any more, and the potions will start draining magic from her. You’ll have to handle the rest from here, Lily.” That seems irresponsible, surely it’s better to have both of them helping me. Why is he touching me? Oh no. Wait, did he mean he’ll die?! What the hell is he thinking?! You can’t do this, Joras!

Stupid broken body! I wanna stop him! I can’t let him do this… “Kira, calm down! Why are you so riled up all of a sudden?!” That’s pretty fucking obvious, Lily! Joras is about to kill himself to save me, how can you just sit there and watch it happen? That’s insane…

As Joras puts his hand on my body, I try to pull away, but I’m not having much success. Then I feel it, his magic is being drawn into me and he collapses… I didn’t want this…

With his magic, I start to feel my body again, and it is painful. Before I have a chance to do anything, the magic I have been given is pulled into my spine and begins healing me. I slowly and painfully gain control of my lower body again.

I can’t help but cry. “What’s wrong, Kira?” What the fuck do you mean, Lily?! It’s pretty obvious what’s wrong with Joras collapsing like that! How the hell do you not see that…

I can’t help myself as I pull Joras close to me and curl up around him. I just want to be near my friend one last time as I fall asleep and forget this stupid day... He’s been so helpful and kind, he didn’t deserve this… Exhaustion is taking its hold, and I can’t stay awake anymore… I’m so tired…

———————

As Lily looked around, quite a crowd had gathered. “Does anyone know how to share magic? Or if you want to learn, step up! We need as much as we can get!” She didn’t have much hope for her request, goblins weren’t known for their magical affinities.

To her surprise, some did end up shuffling closer, and those who already knew how to share magic got to work, while those who didn’t, received instructions from Lily.

Any time someone stepped up to Kira to help, they quickly found themselves drained of magic and unable to stay conscious. If Lily hadn’t known better, she would have been convinced that this was something they had planned for.

Any time someone passed out, a couple of others rushed to their side and carried them away to the infirmary.

Lily kept at it until no one was left to help, so she told the spectators to go home for the night, as they had done all they could. For her own part, she was thoroughly exhausted and needed sleep.

———————

The following morning, I decided to just stay where I was. I may be recovering from my injuries, but I’ve lost my friend.

I feel like I’ve done something truly terrible by not stopping Joras. He could’ve continued to help so many others if he had just left me to my fate. Instead, he chose to be his usual kind and noble self and saved me.

I regret being so suspicious of him, and I really just want my friend back…

I’ve still got this stupid bear head stuck to my face. What happened to those head removers? It was practically Joras’ dying request. I need to think of a way to give him a proper sendoff. He deserves the best.

As I’m considering what to do, Lily exits Joras’ house, I guess it’s her house now.

“Kira, are you going to lie there all day? It might interfere with the shop’s customers.” There are more important things than money, Lily. Geez…

“I wouldn’t mind if you got up, Kira, you’re kind of heavy…” Oh dang! Joras is alive! This is fantastic news!

“Kira! Kira! Stop rubbing the bear against me, it’s disgusting!” Okay, fair point… I should probably get rid of it before nuzzling people. Not that I can do that on my own. What happened to the head removers anyway? Surely they’d be here by now.

“Lily, why did you let her abuse me like this?” I didn’t abuse you, Joras, I just snuggled a little!

“I may be prone to dangerous activities, Joras, but I’m not going to stand in the way of a delirious dragon.” Uhm… Delirious? How’d that happen? I’m gonna need some answers here…

Oh right, I should probably actually get off Joras. “Finally…” Okay, the relieved sigh was a bit much. I have feelings too, and honestly, I’m not feeling very heard right now. And if anyone brings up my current inability to speak, I’m gonna tail-whip them, or maybe not, someone could get very hurt, but I’m definitely gonna give them a fierce glare!

I give Joras a side-eye look, then indicate toward the bear head. I kinda want it removed already. “We would have removed it last night, Kira, but we could hardly have people approach a dragon in the throes of delirium. Although it's comforting to know that you would grieve my passing.”

Maybe he’ll find a little less grief next time, when he’s just laughing at me now. Jerk. I wanna know how he didn’t die. I definitely feel like I saw him die. Do elves reincarnate as themselves? That seems super strong.

I’m waiting patiently, but he isn’t getting busy explaining stuff. Maybe if I nudge him just slightly. So I bring my tail around to poke… So I attempt to bring my tail around, but it’s now lodged in a wooden beam. Dang it.

Okay, so minor problem. Apparently I’m not fully healed, because I am very much struggling to dislodge my tail blade. It’s really stuck in there. Joras is being no help at all, he’s just bent over and clutching his belly as he laughs at me…

“I could never have seen that happening. Imagine a dragon disarming itself. If I fetch some rope, will you tie up the rest of your limbs too, Kira?” This is no laughing matter, Joras! I’m a mighty dragon! Albeit a mightily stuck dragon right now…

Every time I try to tug my tail free, I feel a jolt of pain through my spine, so I’m definitely not gonna do any more of that for now. I’m just gonna lie down again and scowl. This is definitely not how I expected this morning to go.

I don’t even get much time moping before a bunch of goblins arrive with all sorts of tools. Seems safe to assume these are the infamous head removers. And to their credit, they are very quick to get to work, even looking at this scene.

An elf on the floor laughing his ass off, a dragon stuck to a building, and a lady elf looks exceedingly exasperated.

The group doesn’t really talk much as they work, mostly just telling me to stop moving. Turns out they want to dissect the bear right on my face. From how they work, the teeth are especially valuable, I assume, because they’re carving away flesh around the gums and chiseling bone to free the teeth.

I thought about commenting on how gross that is, but I exploded the darn thing. I don’t feel like I can complain about someone being gross when I’ve so thoroughly made this thing’s insides into outsides.

This entire skull ordeal ends up taking several hours of me being complained at for moving. In my defense, just lying here is very boring. I can’t even swish my tail back and forth, it’s still stuck!

Raya even stopped by, but she quickly got bored and asked if it was okay if she left to collect herbs. I nodded my agreement, which got me yelled at again. Stupid Joras keeps laughing at me every time the workers get upset.

When the bear is finally removed, some of the workers start freeing my tail, which is very nice of them. Finally able to move my face again, I’m almost overwhelmed with relief. Having your jaws clamped shut for half a day is very uncomfortable. I stretch out and warm up my tired jaw muscles, but then I hear a scream and more laughter.

Turns out Joras feels like commenting on my actions. “Today is a day that keeps on giving. Minor note on your conduct, Kira. If you’re gonna open your mouth as much as you can, don’t do it toward someone, especially not when you’ve just made eye contact with them.”

Okay, that’s a fair note… Luckily I’ve never done that before. But yeah, that would be a lot of very sharp teeth pointing toward someone.

Enough of that nonsense. I need to find out why he didn’t die. I recall someone mentioning that I was close to death from magic depletion. I demand answers, Joras!

“It’s quite simple, Kira. I’m a material being, you’re a magical being. You can survive and recover from far more damage to your material body than I’d be able to, but I can survive magic depletion far easier than you. So I’d recommend you don’t repeat whatever you did to drain your magic so significantly.”

I exploded a bear. Don’t you worry, Joras, I’m not planning on that being necessary again. In fact, I might just take a few days hanging around town. I am feeling very exhausted, and I think it might be because of this magic depletion stuff. I’ll definitely need to learn more about that, it seems very dangerous.

Huh, now that I think about it, I’m ending up hurt a lot lately. Maybe I should just take a nice and easy day helping out Raya. That should be safe enough, she’s been going into the woods for years.

“So in essence, magic depletion is simply the experience of your magic reserves thinning and becoming incapable of maintaining your body’s basic needs. And potions utilize ambient magic to grant their effect, but can only draw in so much before they start having to draw on your internal reserves.” Oh shit. Joras was talking this whole time…

There’s no way I’m gonna admit to not having listened to his lecture. Unrelated to that, I’m gonna go find Raya.

“Hey, Kira, where are you going?” A fair question, so I just tell him my plans and depart at a calm pace. It feels good to take it easy with this re-tenderized body of mine.

“You didn’t listen to anything I said, did you?” Another fair question, so I walk away at a brisk pace.

“The intricacies of magic depletion are important to know, Kira!” I’ll figure it out eventually, I believe in me.

I’m gonna start looking for Raya, but I’m also gonna think about those potions for a bit. How do magic potions cause magic depletion if they replenish magic? It also seems peculiar to call them magic potions, because surely all potions are magic.

I’ll have to ask Joras about that eventually.

After quite some time searching, I’m quite surprised that I haven’t found Raya. I did find the west gate, though, and a guard told me she had left to collect herbs. And now that I think about it, that was exactly what she wanted to do yesterday, so forest trip it is! Kira returns to the wilderness, come at me, wolves!

On second thought, don’t. I’m at a bit of a disadvantage right now. Nevertheless, I continue onward into the woods, I’m sure it’ll be fine.