Chp.5: Transport

"This is ridiculous"

"Haku, please..."

"No 'please'! I don't accept being humiliated like this!"

"It's just a muzzle!"

"Oh yeah? Then you put a bandage on your mouth, let's see how pleasant you think it is!"

Hara sighed. She had been trying to get Haku to put on a muzzle for over an hour, but as she imagined after the king gave her that task, the dragon wasn't happy at all.

Haku had been surprised that the king wanted him to be present at his party to celebrate the victory over the Baudonia City Alliance. However, it hadn't taken him long to understand his motives: having a dragon as a prisoner was undoubtedly a reason for prestige. From what Hara had explained to him, it was customary to exhibit rare beasts or important captives at meetings between the various rulers to demonstrate one's prestige. Haku's presence would greatly enhance Marcus' already great political power.

Haku was fine with that. It didn't bother him too much to be displayed as if he were a trophy. Even if it was an attack on his pride, it wouldn't have been too different from fighting every day in full view, so he could tolerate it. He would just have to show off and then sleep through the party, so he wouldn't risk having problems. For a moment he had in fact thought of using the party to escape, but he soon realized that it would have been suicide: both on the way to the royal palace and at the royal palace itself he would have been under the eyes of too many people. Escaping silently would have been impossible, and in an instant the entire royal army would have been upon him.

The only chance Haku could have had would be if the king also exposed the portable gate he stole from him. In that case he could have used the nullification rune to break free and reach it, and then he could have used it to flee away. However, Marcus was unlikely to display such a precious item, or at least without protect it with dozens of guards and thousands of enchantments. As a result, Haku kept open the possibility that he could take advantage of the party to escape, but he was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. Most likely, he would spend the party doing absolutely nothing, letting the guests stare at him as if he were a freak and enduring his wounded pride as he waited for all of this to be over and taken back into the arena.

The problem wasn't so much the party, but the conditions under which he was supposed to attend. Haku knew he really didn't have a choice, but he still refused to humiliate himself that much. Marcus in fact wanted him to enter a cage, have his wrists, neck and tail closed by chains and put a muzzle on his mouth. Haku was obviously not willing to stoop to that much: he was fine with being treated like a trophy, but being imprisoned like that was beyond his tolerance threshold. "I already have this stupid collar, what else do you need to make sure I can't escape!? Not to mention I could snap those chains and bars like they were toothpicks! They aren't even enchanted!"

The cage, chains and muzzle were made of simple iron. With his current strength, Haku could have smashed them without even trying.

"I know they can't stop you. They're just for show" Hara explained. "Haku, we're going to have to be transported halfway through the city and then you'll be exposed before the rulers of other countries and the most influential nobles of the realm. We can't just let you walk through the streets, or make you sit in one spot in the room"

"Why not?" snapped Haku annoyed.

"Because you're still a monstrous beast ten meters long and taller than a one-story house!" Hara exclaimed in exasperation, as if what she was saying was obvious. "If you walked in the middle of the street, do you think anyone would care whether you had a collar on or not? Everyone would run away in terror as soon as they saw you! It would be the chaos and someone could get hurt! And when you're in the palace, no one will feel safe with I set you free, even if you have the collar! That's how human beings think, they need to be deluded sometimes. I know this cage and these chains are useless, but I ask you to wear them to give those people the illusion that you are behind bars and that you can't get out, so that no one gets scared or has to spend all partying in fear that you will jump on them at any moment!"

Haku snorted and inhaled deeply. From his point of view that didn't make any sense: he could understand ordinary people, who hadn't been informed of his move and might have let their survival instincts prevail, but the people invited to the party? They would know he had a collar, what was the point of being afraid? The newcomers were indeed creatures without logic.

Unfortunately, he knew he couldn't oppose the king's decision. Marcus had decided that he would put on the muzzle, enter the cage and allow himself to be chained up, so Haku would have to do it. For the moment Hara was nice, but if Haku proved too persistent she would surely use the power of the collar of submission to force him to do as she wanted. So he might as well accept his fate and do as the king ordered, at least as long as he could do it while maintaining some sort of dignity.

Seeing that he seemed to have given up, Hara put the muzzle on him. It was a sort of small circular iron cage that wrapped around his mouth and remained stable through the ties that wrapped around his head. The muzzle didn't completely prevent him from moving his jaws: he could still speak, even if with a little effort, but he would no longer be able to bite and tear anyone apart.

Once he was muzzled, Hara motioned him into the cage. It was huge and sat on a very solid iron chariot drawn by eight horses, which neighed in terror as they saw him approach. It took a while to calm the equines, or at least to convince them that Haku wouldn't have tried to devour them, and only then was the dragon able to enter the cage without making them run amok. "Why don't you use wyverns like last time?" Haku grumbled as Hara started putting the chains on him.

"We can't fly wyverns over the capital. Many would be frightened and chaos would break out. And some would get hurt" Hara replied.

"And when did you bring me here then?"

"It was the middle of the night. There was no one who could see us. Now it's daytime"

"Can't we just wait until it's night then?"

"No, the king wants you at the palace before the party, so we have to leave now" Hara finished putting on the last chain. "Also, most of the winged riders were sent east to pacify the beastmen's territory. I doubt there are currently enough wyverns near the capital to lift you. You've grown quite a lot in just one year. How much more do you think you'll grow?"

"Dragons never stop growing" Haku answered simply.

Hara shook her head. "Come on, it's impossible. Even your kind must have a limit. How big do dragons get?"

"My mother measured one hundred and twenty meters and my father seventy. But once I also saw the corpse of a dragon that measured over one hundred and fifty meters" Haku responded.

Hara looked somewhat shocked: for at least ten seconds she stared at him with wide eyes. "Oh... ok... so they get very big" she said, then added softly as if she were talking to herself: "Very, very big..."

"I told you, we never stop growing. Our growth has an explosive period for the first few years of life and then slows down, but it never stops completely" Haku said, ignoring the existential crisis the woman seemed to be facing after realizing how small and tiny she was.

Hara seemed to wake up hearing her words. "I guess so..." she murmured, then asked him: "Where did you see the corpse of another dragon?"

"In my mother's territory. Most likely she killed him before I was born" Haku answered blankly.

"Oh..." Hara looked quite uncomfortable. After all, at least from his point of view, that should have been considered a homicide (or a dragocide? Who cares). "What did you do with the corpse?"

"Me and my siblings ate it" was Haku's flat and emotionless response.

Hara nearly spat out her saliva. "What... dragons eat other dragons?". Judging by her expression, she must not have been a lover of cannibalism.

Haku snorted and rolled his eyes. "When you're hungry, you eat whatever you can find. Dragon meat is still meat. Rather than leave it to the animals, you might as well eat it. If you don't eat it, that corpse is still a corpse, but if you eat it, you can avoid become a corpse yourself"

Hara swallowed. She remembered for the umpteenth time that Haku had lived in a very different way from her and put survival first, certainly not morality. "Didn't disgust you in the least to eat someone like you? Even just a bit?"

"I ate my parents too. Is that enough for an answer?" Haku asked rhetorically.

Hara shivered slightly. She already knew that Haku had killed his own parents, even if she still didn't quite understand how he had done it, but that macabre detail had escaped her. She decided she'd rather not know anything else, and she walked away without saying a word leaving Haku alone in the cage.

The horses set off and the cage began to move. Haku had a strong desire to break everything and get out of there, but he held back. On the other hand, he took advantage of that opportunity to memorize the route they were following: in that way, he would have had another way out of the arena in addition to the one he had already planned.

When they were finally outside, Haku was finally able to see the city, or at least a small part of it. As he already knew, he was in the merchant district; there the streets were smooth and well kept, and the houses were neatly arranged and built of solid wood and stone and designed to fit together. Thanks to the smooth road, there weren't too many jolts, so at least he didn't risk getting nauseous. As soon as they were out of the arena, the cage was surrounded by at least twenty armed guards on horseback, who cleared the to let it pass.

As that strange convoy continued, many people approached along the road. A large number of humans crowded the sides of the cage to get a close look at the infamous dragon, the absolute champion, the king of the arena. None of them showed the slightest fear; even though Haku hated being tied up with chains and holding that stupid muzzle in front of his face, he had to admit that if he was free people's reaction probably would have been a bit different. However, he couldn't help but feel terribly humiliated as he was observed in such a state. He had to muster all of his self-control to keep calm, and miraculously he succeeded… although, if anyone tried to get a little too close, he didn't spare them a glare so terrifying that they flinched back.

After some time, they came to the noble district; there the crowds drastically dwindled in size, and only a few people remained. Haku noticed that they were dressed much better than the others, a clear sign of their position in society. The place also reflected the status of the nobility: the road was made of smooth stone and specially designed to be beautiful and flawless, and the houses were huge and made of stones and bricks and covered with all kinds of ornaments. The difference from the merchant district was obvious.

And then, finally, they arrived in front of the royal palace. It was a huge building that Haku could barely see due to the limitations imposed by the cage and muzzle. He managed to notice that it had at least six towers, and that the central one was much larger and more showy than the others. The palace was built with much more expensive materials than the common villas of the nobles, let alone those of the common people.

"We're here" Hara announced. "Now get ready. I'll free you and help us carry the cage up the stairs, and then you'll have to go inside and let yourself be locked inside again. Oh, don't look at me like that! We'll never be able to lift it with you inside it!"