Egan's POV:
I really miss the days when I could laze around as much as I wanted. Since the event of the nightmare our life has changed radically. I mistakenly believed that it would be me who was the most impacted by this experience, but I was seriously mistaken. The little protector has changed drastically from caring and serious to paranoid and tyrannical.
As soon as he recovered, he imagined all kinds of tortures that he calls training and imposed a hellish pace of life on us.
He first imposed training for our mental defenses by attacking us in turn and for the first time I got the better of him in training. I thought that would have offended him because I knew well this humiliating feeling of being dominated in an exercise but, to my great surprise, he was sincerely happy and after congratulating me he said that it would allow him to progress more quickly.
I can't count the number of times he gave me terrible headaches even though I was winning these exchanges. He said I was stubborn but he harassed me to practice the exercise as soon as he had recovered enough because the consequences of our clashes were much harder for him who lost than for me. With each attempt he gave his all until I broke his mental defenses leaving him weak and nauseous with a severe headache.
I swear that this little biped that serves as my partner must be a masochist. He imposed on us a rhythm of life that was only limited to training. He always found an idea to overcome a weakness, strengthen our physique or our skills. The only times we could escape his torture exercises were for food, sleep, and exploration.
He was quickly irritated by the length of my sleep time and after thinking about a solution, he ended up finding one...
One morning when I barely emerged from my sleep, I saw him all smiles and excited like a flea. He then told me about his discovery...
He found a way to allow us to go without sleep for several nights by feeding us our energy to stay awake and in good shape, thus being able to almost double our quotient training time.
This was my first outburst of anger:
'Are you kidding me? I was more than patient and accommodating with you little brother but now it's going too far, it's too much! I don't even know how many years we've been training nonstop. If this is the kind of life you have in store for us, I won't be able to follow you'
Surprised by my anger, he replied defensively, "I thought we agreed, that we have to do our best to be strong enough to defend ourselves. »
'I agree with you that we have to get stronger in order to survive but what's the point of surviving if it's to live this life? How long has it been since we took a day to relax, to fly together just for the joy, just for fun? Our life has been on hiatus since your crazy workout obsession. How many more years do you plan to waste to satisfy your paranoia? Unlike you, I take no pleasure in only stopping when my body, mind, or energy reaches its limit. This life is becoming a real torture and you are starting to make me regret having chosen you as my partner.'
I saw him flinch strongly at that statement and even though I didn't really mean it, there was a kernel of truth in it so I swallowed my guilt and carried on.
'This madness must stop. If I have to die tomorrow, I want to at least be able to say that I enjoyed my life. I would hate to die having endured this pointless life. From now on I will train at the frequency that suits me, if you take pleasure in the suffering that you impose on yourself mornings and evenings then do the only thing but do not impose this life on me anymore!'
This memory makes me laugh today since my life has become much more pleasant after this moment and I cannot forget the indignant expression that he approached then. He was so upset that he ignored me for several days.
After slowing down on the time of my trainings, he decided on the contrary that he had to compensate for my laxity and reinforced his trainings even more, sleeping only once or twice a month. The more time passed, the more the ideas they came up with to improve became crazy! I had to intervene many times to limit the madness of his ever more twisted ideas.
We ended up finding out what was wrong with the water in the waterfall at the expense of my little brother who took to bathing every time he found the opportunity because I quote "Unlike you, lizard my sense of smell is refined and bad smells bother me"
One day he surprised me screaming to death while we were bathing in a river. We had previously believed that danger could only come from large creatures capable of devouring us, but we have discovered that the smallest creatures can be the most terrible.
When he came out of the water he had two larvae on his back which were now digging into his flesh and starting to gnaw at his bones. On those days He screamed his agony so loudly that he had a loss of voice for several weeks. I had to intervene by using my fire breath to scorch them because I couldn't use my claws or fangs to help him without doing even more damage and during our training we discovered that he didn't fear my fire when I huffed with rage after one more humiliating loss missing the grill.
He then had the stupid idea to use them later as training to better endure the pain and to work on his concentration. He had a hard time using magic without giving it his full attention. Either he was no longer paying attention to his surroundings or he was losing the thread of his magic and dividing his attention.
The worst part is that it's just one of his stupid ideas. He decided that to test his physical condition, he was going to face predators without being able to use magic offensively.
He started by facing wolves, only having to dodge until they got tired, then finding the exercise too easy, he stopped using his energy to strengthen his body and confront them purely physically.
Once he succeeded, he moved on to more dangerous opponents repeating the process. He found his happiness in meeting new, tougher creatures and taking the opportunity to confront them. We've found wolves more than twice the size of regular wolves, huge felines, bears, and even mindless dragon-like reptiles that use their minds to try to paralyze their prey before physically attacking. They also couldn't breathe fire, although that ability wouldn't have made any difference to my partner. Their species is an insult to dragons. I took pleasure in facing them too to make my meal.
I have lost count of the number of times I have felt the ghost of the injuries he suffered during his training. He was never short of ideas for finding training that would push him even further and refine his skills. He was going so far that I had to learn to always have a part of my mind with him to watch him and intervene in time if he needed my help.
It took me a long time to manage to share my mind between the two of us without it handicapping me in my daily life.
Our explorations made us discover a beach and the immensity of the ocean. We followed our exploration along the beach. We ended up going around it to return to our starting point so we could conclude that we were on an island.
The pace of our exploration was slow because as soon as we came across something that could serve us in our training, my masochist couldn't help but use it until he got tired of it and we resumed our exploration. .
I don't know how many years have passed by alternating training and exploration, but a discovery has fortunately ended up changing our lives.
I now had an honorable size and even my little brother who has grown well does not even reach the middle of my bust. He is about 1.9 meters and his face has become harder, wilder but still perfect without the slightest flaw which made me secretly proud, my partner must be as perfect as I am.
This famous day we discovered the ruins of a vestige of a bewildering size. I could easily pass through what remained of the entrance doors of the vestige, it was at least 20 meters high by 8 wide and all the architecture of these ruins are of a similar proportion.
At first we believed that a giant species lived here but we found some carvings that showed dragons and next to them were elves. Looks like we found where the village males were. They were affiliated with the dragons and lived in a place that could accommodate them.
Exploring we found what is the center of the building and the room was huge. In the center was the remains of a table with dozens of seats and at the back of the room, there were the remains of chapters alongside huge seats that were surely to accommodate dragons. They were placed in a semi-circle, the middle one being closer to the center of the room. It is on this chapter that we found what will make us leave the island where I was born.