To the Stable

The scream of a little girl reverberates through the ceiling from above us. French Braid and Lace jump at the sound. It has also caught my attention.

Soon following that, footsteps storm down the stairs. Astra appears out from the staircase and stomps toward me with her face fuming.

She shoots her finger at me and shouts, "Kris! Your dragon is crazy!"

Oh, dear.

"Dragon?" Lace asks.

"What's going on?" French Braid asks, both of them bewildered.

I sigh and turn to the elf girls. "That's just a nickname for our friend. Um… can you go make us some breakfast? I will take care of this."

Lace looks at the livid Astra, and then back at me. "Ah… sure," she says.

The two leave into the back kitchen.

I get down from my chair and walk toward Astra.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask.

"Your dragon slave went mad!" Astra cries.

"Just call her Lohikaarmi. You know her name."

"No! I will not address her by her given name, because look what she did!" Astra shouts and turns around. She points her thumb down over her shoulder.

Around her rear, a patch of the brown dress is gone, bordered by charred fabric, exposing her bottom.

"Whoa! Cover yourself," I say while blocking my view with my hands and looking away.

"Cover myself? That's the point! I can't exactly do that, can I?"

Astra turns back around.

"What happened?" I ask.

At this time, Lohikaarmi nonchalantly walks down the stairs, cool and unbothered.

Astra redirects her finger at her. "She burned my butt! That's what she did!"

"I apologize, Master," Lohikaarmi says as she strolls toward us, "I thought it would have been an effective method to obey your command."

"To wake Astra up?" I say and look at the little reincarnation of a woman cuckolded to death and ready to strangle someone, "Yeah, I'd say you've done a great job."

"What?! A great job?!" Astra screams.

"Thank you, Master," Lohikaarmi nods with a faint smirk on her face.

Wow, Lohikaarmi is like a completely different person from last night. What changed for her? She had learned that her purpose was to protect people and that she was once saved by an elf. Does that mean Lohikaarmi had been grumpy before because she was not happy to call a human Master? Well, whatever the case is, this is the first time I've seen Lohikaarmi smirk like that.

"Kris, you can't just let her off the hook like this!" Astra continues.

"Astra, how I about I give you a syrup candy, and you forget all this?" I ask.

Her eyes widen as if I have just said something terribly offensive to her.

"You think you can just buy me off with one candy? Try three!" Astra punches her hand forward with her fingers gesturing the number.

"Alright, three it is," I say and take out three candies from my pouch.

Astra grins and waddles toward me to snatch the candies from my hands.

"But I'm still mad!" She says and chucks the candies into her mouth and begins to chew loudly.

"Right, right."

…

The elf girls brought us some food for breakfast. Astra, the Goddess, devoured her plate like a hungry dog, while Lohikaarmi, the dragon, ate like an angel. I watched the offbeat duo while I tried to be the normal one.

I asked for an extra dress for Astra. This time, the size fitted much better.

French Braid and Laces gave us a warm goodbye. It seemed like there was an intimidating atmosphere around Lohikaarmi that made the girls shut up about bringing me with them.

We left the tavern a minute ago, and we are now walking on the town square.

A couple of elves stroll past us and give us warm greetings. Just as I had thought from my encounter with the girls back in the tavern, the word had spread.

I wave back at them. I am used to having strangers greet me, but I am not used to being addressed as Your Excellency, but it's a fitting title, I must admit. I should try to get Cisca to do that, too.

As we walk off the square onto the dirt road leading us to the north of the village, Astra asks, "Kris, where are we going now?"

"We are going to leave for the Holy Capital."

"The Capital? Why?"

"My plan is to learn more about Terradivina before we actually do anything. There's no better place to do that than the capital city, is there?"

"I guess, but it's so far," Astra says.

"That's not a problem." I point to the little house at the end of the road with a fenced-off horse pen behind it. I didn't see it the first time I was here, but there is a field right across the road where half a dozen carriages sat.

Two elves are standing beside the pen and talking to each other. As I get close, I realize that one of them was part of the group of elves drinking in the tavern last night.

Before they notice me, I overhear their conversation.

"You still ain't seen Faye?"

"Nah, not since yesterday."

"That girl, always going around worrying about the village. She never knows when others are worrying about her."

"You don't think the bishop…"

"No, 'course not. He definitely ain't that kind. Also, I'm pretty sure His Excellency is still in town."

Wow, their attitude toward me changed drastically overnight.

I walk up beside the pen, and the two elves see me.

"Oh! Your Excellency. Fancy seeing y'all again out here," the man from the previous day calls out.

The other elf sees his friend's reaction and looks over at me. "It's an honor to meet you, Your Excellency," he says with a slight bow.

"At ease, guys," I say, "What's up with Faye? I overheard you talking about her."

"Faye? Oh, it ain't nothing Your Excellency needs to worry about. She just hasn't come back from her hunt, yet, but that's normal. The girls love to spend a few nights out in the woods. It's just… we thought she'd have come back for the festival," the elf says.

"Yeah, but she probably just got caught up with a herd of dears or something," the other elf adds.

Oh, that doesn't sound to be too big of a problem. I don't know what I was so concerned about all of the sudden ago.

"Is that so?" I say, "Anyway, I was told you have a way to get us to the Holy Capital."

"Yes, Your Excellency. We got horses and carriages. My name is Selmer, I run the stable here in Alventyr. We met last night," he says, and then points to his friend beside him, "This yokel is Keavan. He is our horse handler."

Keavan nods at his introduction.

"Great. How much would a horse and carriage cost?" I ask.