--- Lava
Going to the dragon kingdom was a monumental waste of time, and now Jali suddenly wants to come along to stay after previously moaning over having to travel so far.
Maybe I should have said 'hell no' instead of allowing it.
"I feel so much better now that you're safe, little sister!" Ria exclaims while rubbing me for attention.
I thought I was going to have to deal with that the whole time, but Jali decided to finally be useful and scoops Ria up on his back instead.
Ria hates that and wails at me hoping I'll take her back. A different dragon to touch and pet isn't good enough, it seems.
How strange that she wants to be the big sister, yet gets so worked up over losing my attention.
"Oh, this human isn't that bad. Maybe the rest will behave too!" Jali hopes.
As if! That's just because Ria wants to be on top of me instead of you!
It was getting late when we finally reached the village, and when I got past the entrance, the first thing I see are a couple kids fighting over Ria's toy version of me.
They are pulling on each side of it trying to have it to themselves.
"They're going to break it! I wasn't even gone for that long!" I alarmed in concern for my cutest self.
"That's normal, Lava makes the monsters in the night go away!" Ria laughs.
One of them looks over to me and realizes the real thing is better than the toy, so he releases it and comes over to me instead.
They seem to be fine with Jali's presence too, but I can still tell they prefer the smaller dragon they perceive to be cuter-- which would be me.
They would break if I actually tried to be cute.
I'm so tired. All the flying and saving Ria got me absolutely nowhere and now I just want to fall over and sleep.
It'd be rude not to warn Jali of how things work around here first, though.
"There are some rules you need to know if you want to be able to sleep here."
"I'm good at sleeping, what would I need to know? Do I have to sleep in a specific way or something?" Jali replies sarcastically and snorts as if it's a crazy idea.
"See? You already get it! The first rule to sleeping here is to never, ever, EVER move your tail around. They love that. Now that you know, I'm going to sleep right now."
That was a sudden info dump, but I don't feel the need to elaborate further before I close my eyes and try to sleep through this bitter aroma filling the air.
Whatever kind of food the village has cooked up smells terrible. I definitely don't want something that bitter, and I'm not sure how they can stand it either.
I'm just trying to fast travel to the next morning, but Ria is all over me.
Too bad, I'm ignoring you! Let me sleep now!
I stay still through all her poking and prodding until finally I'm hit with a super sweet smell that makes me open my eyes.
A delectable homemade candy is right there in front of me!
I move just enough to take it and it's pulled away from me.
"Nuh-uh! No treats until after dinner!" Ria commands.
I growl a little in anger at having the sweet candy held away from me.
"You can't scare me like that, silly sister!" She exclaims and tries to shove a bowl of green slop into my body.
Yucky! It's more bitter than coffee to me! Sensitive taste sucks!
"Give me the candy!" I demand and reach farther while it's dangled in front of me and moved away last second along with her giggles.
"You're so funny!" Ria says after I miss again.
"And you're not going to like it if I have to get up and catch you! Then you'll finally learn not to mess with your giant sister." I warn and finally get the sweetness I was chasing after.
Not even Ria is stupid enough to hold something sweet away from me.
The enhanced sense of taste makes even this world's primitive candy taste amazing, it's even worth taking it from a baby. Ria might as well be a baby.
"You can play with me all day tomorrow, stop pouting."
It took long enough to finally get sleep, and when I woke up I thought I would be refreshed, but instead I felt like something was missing.
It's not normal for me to wake up without Ria waiting to make me play as soon as I get up. Was I too harsh earlier?
I should be happy for a little moment of peace, but I couldn't help but look everywhere and even check to make sure she didn't get squished under me.
Nope, she was just gone.
That aside, with two dragons here, the village is getting a bit cramped.
Especially with everyone having to walk around both me and Jali.
I'm sure that lazy lizard is loving this, getting to just lay there as idiot kids try to feed him.
Rich behavior coming from someone that tried to scare them off before.
I would never have a problem being lazy if I could just scare them away with noises, but growling never works after they learned I was harmless.
I start questioning everyone I can find to learn where Ria went, only getting a bunch of useless answers until Mino comes to keep me from stopping every villager passing by.
"Isn't it funny that you try to escape her all the time and when you finally get a break you can't stand it? Just wait a little while, I'm sure she just has something important to do." He attacks me with such dirty logic.
What?! I don't-- Actually, he's right! Why in the world am I freaking out over Ria not being here to dote on me?!
That realization calms me so much that I could go back to sleep.
Though, what do I do when I'm not playing with Ria? Now that I think about it all I ever do for fun is fly her around or dangle my tail around her to make her chase it around.
Hunting used to be fun, but now I'm way too overpowered for that.
When you have nothing to do, useless thoughts start to come into your head as well.
Like am I technically still an orphan? I pretty much live here.
It's completely possible I could have been adopted at any time, but this village is quite remote and I was too busy hiding from outsiders most of the time.
I had to be thankful that never happened... I'd probably be returned right away when they figured out they adopted a dragon.
--- Saer
Having control over the underworld of a city is like having unlimited power, at least within that city, nothing could happen without Saer knowing about it.
But now that the first war in what amounted to hundreds of years is finally breaking out, information is even more important.
What a headache it was trying to control the intrigue from such a low position, no one was going to be officially telling him anything until the enemy was already marching their way to his doorstep.
If only it was easy to gain noble status from nothing. It took immeasurable efforts just to become a lord over this city, while nobles get assigned to places like this with no management ability at all, when everyone knows they're just going to do a bad job or delegate it to someone competent.
At the very least, he was able to acquire a list of the mages participating in battle. The mage association was trying to pry itself free from Prazia to span multiple nations, and after many years they managed to acquire enough autonomy that they didn't have to tell the kingdom who they were sending.
Saer could simply buy this information, though. Money was not something to be underestimated.
He figured if they sent someone too weak he could just find a replacement himself to do the job in their place.
But the person they decided to send made him choke on his water and slam the table.
"What's wrong?" He heard from the side of the room.
"They chose to send that 'dragon mage' girl to the battle out of everyone! How can they be so stupid?" He complains to his retainer.
"So, does that mean I should go?" Recherta assumes.
"Yes, please hurry." Saer orders.
Why was everyone else such an idiot? Has humanity really become so bad at waging war that they send the one thing to the front line they should never put in danger?
This is what happens when an organization is slipping out of government reach. They make stupid decisions with no second thoughts!
--- Ria
Ria was too happy for a mage that was going to a battlefield, anyone else would already be dreading the first war in what could possibly be generations.
But she was excited that she finally gets to protect her little sister. Ria knew she couldn't be caught cowering under a comforting red wing again if she wants to be a big sister.
Even if all she got was a support role, she needed to punish every last person that dared to call Lava evil! There must be no one left bold enough to slander her special little sister.
They only gave her the job of blocking off routes with fire or taking potshots at the back of their army.
So boring! She wanted to do more, but she's stuck in the back being protected again!
"Huh, so this's the so called 'dragon mage' they made such a big deal out of? Shouldn't they be sending someone older?" She could hear the guards gossip about her without even bothering to check if she was still right there or not.
"Hey, don't say anything stupid! Haven't you heard her 'sister' is supposed to be a dragon?" The second hushes the first.
"What kind of crazy fairy tales have you been reading?" He mocks seconds before a commotion interrupts.
"Help! The enemy is here! Augh!" A feeble soldier closer to the front yells before being stabbed in the back with a spear and collapsing.
"Impossible! How did they get past the front?! Take the mage away!" One of the guards that was supposed to defend their supporting mage shouts, but the enemy is too powerful for a pair of guards who weren't stationed there with the expectation of combat in the first place.
"There! Catch the demon!" The lead attacker shouts at the sight of Ria.
Ria didn't want to be hiding in the corner anyway, so she stops to launch overwhelming fire attacks at them instead.
The blade users are forced back and they sent forward a younger man that looked only slightly older than their target.
Every fire attack is shoved away with powerful wind currents, and he dodges everything else with supernatural speed.
Ria's brute force method of just spamming overpowered fireballs and flame spells didn't work against other mages with magic strong enough to redirect it somewhere else.
All it achieves is turning the immediate surroundings into a charred mess.
"
This was it, all he had to do was maintain this until she passed out and everything would work out from there.
That thought was interrupted by the screams of the men behind him.
They were supposed to be elite fighters, what could they be having trouble with?
The spearman found himself stabbed in the back, leaving barely any time for the other two swordsmen to attack what they only saw as a blurry female figure.
In an instant one was downed and the other was joint-locked as the figure drew a small crossbow mounted on her back.
Ria's attacker groaned at their incompetence and abandoned Ria to deflect the incoming bolt with a sharp gust of wind, all while Ria is too busy gasping for air to attack right away or start running.
Recherta threw out the spent crossbow and drew a thin blade that was slightly longer than a dagger just as the enemy gets ready to lunge forward.
Rush attacks weren't uncommon, and she was more than ready for it.
But something was clearly wrong with this, he was way too blurry for a straightforward attack.
Feeling her suspicion come to fruition, she barely kicked away a stab from behind.
"
She had just enough time to cover her mouth and retain enough air in her lungs to teleport away.
Now there was no other option but to follow them.
Wind magic was much more intimidating in practice than it sounds, as was any attack that completely prevented you from talking. No talking meant being magically defenseless.
She just had to get the girl back somehow. But teleporting took too much energy to go beyond keeping up.
Failing on a mission like this would just be unacceptable!