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Lord of Minos

_ _

The Flameseeker flew steadily north, and the days passed on without trouble. The days were mildly warm in the height of autumn, and the clear skies offered no hope for any spectacular weather phenomenon.

Indeed the days had become very boring for Kalios, Marinai, Ray, and Eliza, and they all hoped for a snowstorm, earthquake, or perhaps even another folbat attack to enliven their daily routine. Kalios and Marinai had become strong enough to fly the entire five hours they needed without a single rest stop, and after they finished they would set up camp and have nothing to do until the next day.

"Some ridiculous scenario," Eliza often commented. "As if we'd only fly five hours to get out of enemy territory."

"Eliza," Marinai would usually say in reply, "the mission was difficult in the beginning, remember? At least we know that I've grown stronger thanks to it."

If Kalios was ever in earshot, he would usually add in, "Hey, me too!" Then he would usually follow with something like, "And I bet I've gotten stronger than you!"

Marinai would shrug him off, of course, to Kalios's annoyance.

For the dragon and his rider, however, their nights were as fun as their days were boring. Ever since they had both accepted each other's bodies and love, they had sex every night in whichever position they felt like. Sometimes they would start slowly with their mouths and then move on, and sometimes they would go at it twice in one night. Ray had even embraced the idea of letting Kalios mount him, and it was a most pleasurable romp for both of them despite the initial difficulty in loosening himself enough to take his dragon.

It was a good thing the sheet they used was Ray's spare since it had become visibly stained with semen despite the man's best attempt to clean it in the river water. He made sure not to damage his regular sheet so he'd never have to bring out the stained one and made sure to remember to toss the spare into the river before their last day out in the wilderness.

Kalios didn't need as much sleep as either gryphons or humans did, so even with his late-night activities he still woke up first every morning. On the nineteenth morning, he woke up and walked to the river to quench his thirst alone as usual. As the trees cleared away near the river, Kalios looked to the north and saw the three great spires that marked his home. Fayn, the country of dragons, was a short mountainous region, aside from the great spires, just south of Minos. Their lands extended from sea to sea just like the kingdoms north of them and the continent of Veilin looked much like a layered cake on maps that detail the realms. Since Fayn only neighbored Minos and the vast wilderness, dragons only served in Minos's aerial fleet unlike the gryphons whose nests and mountain range rested between the two warring countries.

Kalios, his bright blue scales shimmering in the morning, smiled as he walked over the area he had mounted Ray only some hours ago and took a couple of gulps of the fresh and cool river water before he heard the crinkling of foliage behind him. He turned his head around on reflex and saw Marinai. Her light brown feathers now looked a bit frizzled compared to two weeks ago, but that was to be expected when there was no soap or formula to bathe with. Still, she maintained her proud and regal aura as she strode over to him.

But she stopped. She stopped right over where they had fun last night and sniffed. Kalios shivered and almost panicked as he tried to come up with plausible explanations in case Marinai figured out what they had done.

The gryphon sniffed the air some more and then looked at Kalios. "The smell is stronger earlier in the morning."

"What smell?"

"I'm not sure what it is. It's...strange."

The dragon sighed in relief. Marinai hadn't caught him, but he had to lead her away from an undesirable conclusion. "I don't smell anything."

She flicked a talon at him and said, "Pah, dragons. Sometimes I swear your senses are as dull as a human's. No, I smell something that I've smelled for the past ten days. It was very faint at first, but then it became stronger and stronger, and it's always by the river like it's following us northward. It's even clearer now since I woke up early."

Kalios waltzed up next to her and sniffed the air as well. "I think you're crazy, there's no smell here."

"There is. But since there are no other gryphons around to confirm its existence, I suppose it's best for me to ignore it."

"I smell nothing, and if you continue to insist then I shall consider you insane and ignore you."

"Well, since I already consider you insane, I'll choose to ignore you." Marinai waved her talons to make Kalios move out of her way, and then she proceeded to drink from the river.

When the gryphon passed him by, Kalios did smell something. It smelled like Marinai, but deeper, sweeter, and somewhat different from her usual scent. He sniffed the smell up into his nose as if it were precious air and he was drowning, and then he couldn't help but stare at the gryphon's raised feathery rump as she bent down to quench her morning thirst.

The dragon decided to join his wing mate for a drink, and when he stepped closer to her the smell became stronger and stronger. He could've sworn he could taste Marinai just with her strange scent, but he acted normal and settled next to her before plunging his head into the water and splashing some water onto her.

That really ruffled her feathers. She raised her head out of the water, drank down a gulp, and then playfully tackled the dragon.

Kalios was surprised by the attack, and he was knocked onto his side right on the edge of the stream. Before he could even fold up his wings and react, Marinai jumped on top of him and dipped one of her wings into the water. "Oh," she said, "you think it's funny to splash other people, hmm? Let's see how you enjoy it!"

The gryphon scooped up a wingful of water and dunked the cold liquid over Kalios's head. She did it again and again despite the dragon's protests, and she kept doing it until she was satisfied that she had put the dragon in his rightful place beneath her. Playfully speaking, of course.

Kalios wasn't going to let her get away with it, but he found it difficult to resist her. When she jumped on top of him, he received a huge dose of her delectably different smell and couldn't bring himself to push the source away and off of him. The constant splashes of cold water knocked him out of his senses, however, and he eventually managed to throw the gryphon off of him.

Marinai backed away a bit and locked her eyes on the blue dragon to wait for his next move. He rather expectedly went for a full out charge, so she prepared to dodge while tensing up her rear leg for a gentle kick, but then she froze as Kalios went wide-eyed. The dumb dragon had tripped over a rock, and before he could even spread his wings to turn it into a strategic advantage, he had crashed into the gryphon's body and together they tumbled a bit in one whirling mass.

When the mass came to rest, Marinai came out on top. Her beak rested between the dragon's hind legs, and Kalios's muzzle was buried under the thinner fur between her crotch.

One whiff of each other's loins was enough to intoxicate both of them, and they both figured out what was causing each other's noses to go off.

"You're in heat," Kalios said.

"And you've been masturbating by the river."

The dragon was relieved that she hadn't figured out the whole truth, and apparently she thought he was capable of pleasuring himself. However, right now he was more occupied with the awkward position he was in. He wanted to just shove his snout into the gryphon and take in all of her tangy scent, but he managed to keep some civility and reluctantly said, "We should, ah, get off each other."

He heard the gryphon take in his own potent male smell before he heard her say, "Yeah. That would be the correct thing to do."

Kalios felt the gryphon slowly move off of him, and then he started to flip himself onto his legs. But then a feathery mass dropped onto him, and Marinai's beak opened around his muzzle sideways in an awkward sort of kiss. She then stuck her bright yellow beak against the dragon's neck and took in his musk. "Heavens, I need you. This is the worst I've ever been in! I'm sorry little Kal, but I won't be denied."

Being called "little Kal" had bothered the dragon when he had first met her, but he eventually got used to it once he started thinking of her like she was an older sister. Despite the sentiment, he knew she really wasn't and had no qualms about letting her do what she wanted. It was a good thing reproduction didn't work that way too: he was sure there would be plenty of half-breeds flying around if gryphons and dragons could procreate with each other.

Marinai would get what she needed anyway. Her heat was creating that heavy scent of female need, and his mind was being bogged down by primal lust. He couldn't help himself, and without any contact down there he had already become rock hard. If his mind were clearer, he would've laughed at the irony of what was happening. Marinai was in heat, but here she was on top of him taking him like he should've been mounting her. Then again, she actually could be on top in terms of physical dominance: in her position she was capable of tearing his throat out. He noted somewhere deep in the back of his pheromone addled mind to practice reacting to tripping with Ray so he wouldn't end up on the bottom in a serious scenario.

Impatient desire drove the gryphon, and the male musk she constantly inhaled demanded her to act. She needed to alleviate her ailment with the proper cure: Kalios's essence. She wasted no time extracting it either as she began to grind her furry groin against the dragon's hard cock with great vigor.

The way the gryphon's feathers and fur tickled his member and scales as she moved was different, not like the smoothness of Ray's skin at all. It wasn't unpleasant, however, and it was certainly pleasurable in its own right. He especially enjoyed how her stiffer little fur hairs would brush along his cock ridges. He planted his forepaws between them so he could help heighten her arousal. Though his paws weren't very useful in the way of handling objects, he still used them to caress and knead the gryphon's relatively small pair of breasts that were hidden under all of her feathers. He felt them up and decided that Eliza's mammary glands were larger, strangely, and even though most quadrupedal mammals had multiple breasts as he had learned one time he tried to steal some free milk, Marinai only had two just like her rider.

After she had her breasts played with for a while, Marinai grew tired of what amounted to teasing in her state. It might've been great foreplay if she weren't in heat, but the dragon's touches only drove her insane. She needed him, all of him, inside her. And now.

She let her fur comb over his scales until she had caught the tapered tip of his cock. With a great needy thrust of her waist, she stuffed half the dragon's shaft into her hole, and still she demanded more. Her heat made her literally hot with need, and her feathers started becoming wet with sweat that dripped down and glazed the dragon's belly scales that would shine and glisten if Marinai's shadow wasn't over them.

She lifted up until only the tip of Kalios's shaft was enveloped by her lips, and then she pushed herself down again, this time taking the dragon cock down to where its three bumps started. They both moaned, half in pleasure and half in want.

Kalios was amazed by how Marinai was treating his cock. His wings flexed open widely as she took more of him, and her scent became even more powerful. He almost felt guilty for having sex with someone other than Ray, but he had always wanted Marinai for some time. Was it so bad that he loved both of them enough to have sex with them? In either case, he couldn't let the gryphon know about the true extent of his relationship with his rider, though he also couldn't help but wonder if Eliza had ever helped Marinai with her female needs.

Then a huge problem hit him in the head and slightly cleared his head. Their riders were not too far in the forest, and if they were any bit louder then they might hear them. Through the haze of sex, he managed to cast a general sound dampening enchantment around them. It wouldn't silence the area like a proper spell contained in a circle would, but it would, hopefully, turn enough sound into heat so that their noise wouldn't reach the camp.

The dragon made another mental note: apparently fear was even more powerful than lust. With the volume toned down, Kalios returned to reveling in the gryphon's ministrations. Her moist hole felt like it was suckling on his cock and trying to massage the cum right out of him. He could feel that area becoming wet with a mix of his pre and her juices, and some of the mixture even found its way into his slit. It was spectacular, and he loved how Marinai's clit created its own lube so there was no delay for penetration. Her scent made him feel harder than ever, and then she pushed again to take the rest of him.

One push took his first bump, and another the next. With one more grunt, Marinai took the last bump and had the entire piece of dragon meat inside her. She squawked in pleasure and agony; just having the dragon's cock throbbing inside her wasn't enough. It was just a tease; she needed what it had to give to cure her heat.

Kalios was too aroused to be patient. Marinai's walls rippled around his cock and were ribbed so that they ground against his ridges and bumps. He started trying to hump against her to fill her with as much of him as he could.

The dragon's encouragement broke any form of restraint Marinai had, and she started sliding herself up and down that long dragon cock in tandem with the dragon's humping. The dragon's ridges tickled her special spot multiple times when it slid back in, and she squawked with pleasure every time she lowered herself.

Kalios could feel his climax coming quickly. The speed at which Marinai took him was rough and fast, fueled by her heat and need instead of sensuality like the way he and Ray fucked each other. He also loved how the gryphon's little furs brushed up and down his cock as she thrust onto him, and the little tingles added up quickly. The gryphon's scent grew stronger and stronger, and he could feel the fur send those tingling feelings down into his internal balls.

Marinai also smelled the dragon's male musk amplify, and she ground her sex onto him even harder. The dragon's spell was dampening the sounds they were making, but it was literally making the area around them hotter, and her fur and feathers became slick with sweat as her heat finally made her reach her peak.

The gryphon let out a loud squawk that was enough to make the temperature rise an entire degree or two and fully extended her wings, and then her juices spilled out of her sex and rubbed onto Kalios's shaft. Her walls contracted and tried with desperation to suck the cum out of the dragon's cock.

Her body succeeded. Kalios came hard, his tail twitched and wrapped tightly around one of her legs while he dug his horns into the ground and roared to the sky and shot loads of his seed into the gryphon's sex. He came even more than he did with Ray despite how short a time he had mated with the gryphon, and soon his cum was spurting out of her and mixing onto his crotch with her juices.

When Kalios finished, he pulled his head up with some dirt still clinging to his horns and looked down. He saw Marinai on top of him with her eyes shut, her face content and pleased. Below her, his entire lower body was covered with sticky body fluids, and some of it clung onto her fur and made it white while the rest of her fur was glistening with sweat. He was ravished as well, and he dropped his head back onto the ground facing the river.

Marinai dropped onto him a little later and rested her beak on his cheek just below his ear. "Thank you, Kal. I guess you're not so little after all."

The dragon grunted. "My pleasure."

"We should go wash up before they wake up."

"Will you be alright now?"

"Yeah, my heat cycle either ends after a couple of days or after I take a male's seed. Let's bathe in the river."

Kalios nodded, but he waited a few minutes before moving since he liked how Marinai's sweaty fur felt against scales. When they walked out of their immediate area with their sexual fluids still dripping under them, they felt the temperature drop nearly twenty degrees; a testament to how much noise they were making. Kalios let the enchantment break, and then they dunked themselves into the river.

Ray and Eliza were none the wiser and Kalios still tumbled with his rider that night, except now he was more attuned to the man's musk.

The twentieth day finally came, and in the morning the Light-Commander issued a message to all her trainees to return to the Flameseeker by noon.

Kalios and Eliza bathed in the river to enjoy the natural water's soothing coolness one last time before packing up and taking their riders up to the airship that was parked a little to the east and waiting for them.

They landed on the deck of the Flameseeker next to the ship's signature main cannon, and beside it near the base they saw two people, a white-haired young-looking man and a similarly aged man that was shorter and had dark brown hair, were discussing something.

They moved towards them and heard the shorter man say, "How do you propose we stow the motor cables? It needs larger electrical cables than initially estimated, and there's not enough room under the floorboards."

"We could just build a housing over them, couldn't we?" the white-haired man asked.

"But that would look ugly, no?"

"Well, it's true it wouldn't look very aesthetically pleasing. I'll be damned if this beautiful ship suffers such a blemish before it even sees battle."

"Why are we worrying about how it looks if the ship's going to be scarred anyway?"

"Battle scars are sexy, don't you know?"

"By that logic, you'd probably want a battle maiden wouldn't you?"

"Hey, I'm an engineer not a fighter! If I get mugged in the streets I'd like to have a lady that could bash the thief's skull in and get my money back!"

They shared a laugh, but then the white-haired man lifted his head when he noticed the four trainees.

Ray was at the head of the group so he greeted them. "Excuse me, where is Light-Commander Roslyn?"

The white-haired man recognized them. "Oh, it's you four! Hello, my name's Robert Pulli. I'm the ship's chief engineer and I'm the one who suggested using the cannon to bring down those pesky folbats that were after you the other day."

Eliza stepped forward and said, "That was highly appreciated, sir. My name's Eliza, and that was Ray. My gryphon is Marinai, and his dragon is Kalios."

Robert gestured at his partner and said, "This is my lieutenant of engineering, Ratherion."

Ratherion bowed, and when he straightened himself up he stared Eliza. "A pleasure, friends."

Robert sighed. "Anyway, I'm glad the Scattershot worked well enough, but I miscalculated the dispersal timing and the shot exploded 0.2 seconds too late. Otherwise it would've hit all of them, I'm sure."

"That's quite alright," Eliza said, "we got away, so I call that a success."

"Zero point two seconds is that big a difference?" Kalios asked.

Robert nodded. "Yes! The scatter area expands linearly with time and distance. Like a cone. A Mach Cone, if you will."

Rath patted Robert's shoulder. "Chief, I'm sure it was just a minor flaw in the air resistance enchantment or something. Even a microscopic crack in the spell would increase air friction a lot."

"Maybe, doesn't make me feel any better though. Hey, what am I doing now, I never answered the poor man's question! You'll find the Light-Commander in her room just under deck." Robert pointed to a large steel hatch on the deck. "Head down there, go down the hall on the left."

"Thank you," Ray and Eliza said.

They led their beasts with them to the hatch. It was actually a sliding door rather than a hatch, and Ray gripped the handle to pull it clear. It was a gentle ramp going down to the first floor under the deck and the hall was suited for even war dragons to stride through.

When they went out of sight, Rath said, "Wow, did you see that lady? She looked so tough and strong, but so beautiful too."

Robert grinned at him. "Like the valkyries of old. Battle scars, Rath, battle scars."

"She was beautiful! I think I'd like her for myself."

"Sadly, a lady like her is probably taken already."

Rath sagged his shoulders and sighed. "Probably."

As the four trainees walked down the hall to the roosts, they could hear Light-Commander Ilia Roslyn's voice mingling with another man's.

"Adders, your gryphon is still having trouble with fatigue flying five hours a day."

"Yes sir. I don't know why he's having so much difficulty."

"You need to check his diet and create a more rigorous training regime. I'll help you with the training, or I'll let your next trainer know, but I want you to understand that a gryphon his age shouldn't have any trouble staying up that long."

"Yes sir, he's trying sir."

"I know. I've also scheduled a physician visit. There's no way for me to say this kindly, so I'll be blunt. If he doesn't get stronger then you're both going to be put on city patrol."

"I- yes sir, I understand."

A young man near Ray's age walked out of the commander's room at the end of the hall. He looked at the four without much expression and walked past them as quietly as a ghost. Ray would've considered it a blessing if he were in his place with Kalios.

They reached the end of the hall. The left side had a normal human sized entrance into the commander's room, and the right side had a much bigger entrance, half-closed with a sliding door, that led into the dragon and gryphon roosts.

Kalios leapt forward and opened the door before gesturing to Marinai and Eliza. "After you, my ladies."

The gryphon trotted past him and said, "Well, thank you very much."

Eliza rotated her head sideways in utter confusion. She couldn't figure out if the two beasts were genuinely getting along or if they were both somehow trying to mock each other. She glanced at Ray and he shrugged his shoulders to show that he was equally confused, so she also shrugged her shoulders and followed Marinai into the roosting room. "Thanks?" she said as she passed by the dragon.

Ray tried to follow after, but Kalios whipped around and went in first. The man could hear a subdued chuckle come from his dragon, and he couldn't fathom what sort of game he had just played.

There were five other gryphons in the room, already comfortably seated in their nests, and Marinai joined Kalios in two patchy nests away from them. Their nests weren't like bird nests, of course, but rather they were soft mattresses shaped like nests. They were oval-shaped and low like a donut with a flat bed in the middle.

Marinai cooed as she laid into her nest and said, "It's been a while since we've had some comfort."

Kalios purred and stretched his wings out over the raised circumference when he set himself in the nest next to hers. "Agreed."

They settled in and their riders stayed a bit to make sure that they had everything they needed. Ilia popped in and interrupted them, however.

"Ray Valyn, Eliza Fory, Kalios Noldin, and Marinai Lightfeather, I want to congratulate all of you on a job well done. You've managed to escape those folbats while helping the ship's engineer at the same time while meeting timing expectations, and your performance on this training mission has overall been exemplary. I've reviewed all your previous marks, and they are beyond satisfactory. You are all trainees no more."

The four exchanged confused looks at each other and then focused onto the Light-Commander.

"As of today, you are Sir Valyn, Sir Noldin, Light Adept Fory, and Carrier Adept Lightfeather. Official ceremony and assignment will occur once we return to the capital, but I'll let you know now you'll most likely serve on the Vigilance, but with the current state of the plague on the eastern coast you might be assigned to the Salvation."

Eliza accidentally let out an outburst. "The _Salvation? _ I didn't intend to serve as a nurse on that floating hospital until I retired from the aerial service. Why would they need us anyway?"

Ilia raised an eyebrow and replied, "The Salvation is still part of the service, even if they're non-combatant and mostly civilian, so I'm sorry but if you're assigned there you will go."

Eliza realized her mistake and apologized. "Of course commander. Sorry."

"As for why they'd need you, well the situation in Easthold is a little more serious than first reported. The entire seaside city has been quarantined and locked down, and I know the Salvation is low on manpower and is hard pressed to handle a plague of such magnitude. With the border as quiet as it is, it seems less likely you'll be assigned to a warship if the Salvation's captain asks for more people."

Secretly, Ray was not at all unhappy about their possible future. No fighting meant no danger, and no danger meant Kalios could never be harmed.

Eliza was unhappy, though she still would not refuse any assignment: it was still a surprise that she, along with the other three, had finally achieved ranking. With a bit of reluctance, she said, "I understand, commander."

"Eliza, correction, Light Adept Fory, you know I'm only here as head trainer because of you right? You're the only light mage trainee this entire year to date, and now that you're done they're going to transfer me back to wherever they need me. It's most likely wherever you go, I will go too since you're going to still need to be trained in advanced light techniques. And believe me, I wouldn't dare to complain to the admiral if they sent me to the Salvation."

Eliza repeated herself, "I understand, commander."

"Very good then. You all have a day's leave when we get back to the capital, so make the best of it. Then you'll be knighted or given ranks and assigned the next day."

The four of them nodded and said in unison, "Thank you, commander."

The Flameseeker flew on north over Fayn and reached Minos without any complication. The airship had operated brilliantly on her maiden flight, and her chief of engineering couldn't wait to finish up the main gun's motor control since practically all the weapon shots performed to within 0.1% of specification.

The capital of Minos, Rho, was located approximately fifty miles off the western coast. Minos was surrounded on its north and southern side by mountain ranges, and the oceans surrounded its western and eastern borders. The southern mountain range called Fayn was the dragon's land, and since they were in the south and had no direct contact with Eios, only Minos possessed dragon riders. The northern mountain range called Unio was home to the gryphons, and they served on both nations' aerial force. The Treaty of the Four Feathers made Unio a neutral zone, and nothing was allowed to fly over the gryphon's realm without their permission. If Unio were ever attacked or the Treaty otherwise broken, all gryphons serving outside of their homeland would join the enemy of the aggressor of the Treaty, and that aggressive kingdom would have to deal with the combined might of the other kingdom and the whole of Unio's gryphons.

Unio splits the country as a natural border, but the mountain range tapers off near the middle of the continent enough to make land travel possible. In fact, the Griffith Pass was the only way to travel between Minos and Eios by ground, and it was the only area that either side's aerial forces were allowed to combat and fly over without permission in Unio. Thanks to the Treaty, surprise aerial assault was impossible: the only other way was to go around via the sea, but Rho would have plenty warning of such an attack from the west since the gryphon's mountains still rose above the sea for some miles west of the rest of the beach line.

Rho itself was a well fortified city thanks to Minos's early age when it was still comprised of many fragmented states. Its white walls stood proudly, and on a map it would look like a big circle connected by roads like they were veins and arteries: trade was the lifeblood of any city after all. At the center of the city lay the king's palace, shaped like a classic castle of older times. Four great turrets jutted around old grey walls, but the palace was much more renovated on the inside.

The capital had also set itself up so that two of Minos's airships could dock at the same time. The airships were huge and there were few cities with docks in Minos, but they rarely needed to refuel thanks to the energy dense fuel Dilyrium anyway so there were never any problems with docking space in Minos.

The Flameseeker docked onto the western platform. The docks were the tallest buildings in the city, but Ray, Kalios, Eliza, and Marinai flew off the ship before they arrived so they could avoid the long docking procedure.

Eliza and Marinai flew off their own way and went shopping for some bath soaps and other luxuries they had missed on their training mission. Eliza didn't live in Rho, so she had asked if they could crash in Ray's home before their assignments and Ray had no qualms about it.

Ray dropped Kalios off in his home. "Looks like Yolun isn't home. I'm going to go find Sir Jovik and tell him the good news, okay?"

"Sure thing." He had missed his bed nest for so long, and he just rolled around to revel in the simple pleasure feeling it after so long. Not even the Flameseeker's could compare. "I'll just be napping."

Ray nodded and walked out into the city streets. He couldn't wait to tell Sir Jovik about his promotion. Sir Jovik was his foster-brother, and his family had adopted him when he was very young. Their house, located in the more wealthy area of Rho, was big enough for a family to live in, but only he, Jovik, and Yolun lived in it now so he was sure Eliza and Marinai would be welcome guests. Jovik had been his inspiration to join Minos's aerial service and as he walked down through the city, Ray remembered how he had met the knight.

He remembered he was only eight when those boys had cornered him. He was an orphan: his mother died during birth and his father was killed in a skirmish with Eios near the border when he was too young to understand. The orphanage he was in gave their charges a bit of free money to use every month, and he had gone out that day with five coppers to indulge in a box of chocolate.

Some other boys, most a few years older than himself, saw him buy the chocolates alone. They stalked him as he walked back to the orphanage and cornered him in an alley. There were five or so, all bigger than him, and they demanded his chocolate and whatever money he had left on him. Ray refused, and they descended on him like dogs.

After his nose was bloodied, Ray still clutched onto the box and laid over it while they pummeled his back. The leader of the bunch told them to stop and offered to leave him alone if he just surrendered the box, but Ray refused. He wouldn't give away what was his, even through all the pain. The flying fists and kicks resumed, and he hurt everywhere but would not give up.

He suffered through a minute of their assault before a loud voice echoed through the alley. "Hey, what are you kids doing?"

The boys fled another way out of the alley, and Ray let out a weak laugh as he thought of how pathetic the kids were to act so tough and only flee when they were caught. Still, he was more than happy to take the man who had stopped the beating's hand. The hand helped him up, and he looked at its owner. He was a young man, probably the same age he was now, but even then Sir Jovik had an aura of strength and confidence around him.

"Why were those kids beating you up?" Sir Jovik asked.

"They wanted my box of chocolates."

He held his head up with another hand and made a sound of disgust. "I admire your persistence kid, but you should've just given them what they wanted."

Ray tried to chuckle, but coughed instead. "I still have my box, don't I?"

"You do. Good point I guess, but-"

Ray only remembered that he passed out at that point. He had walked onto the main streets now, and the streets of Rho were bustling with people, human, dragon, and gryphon, walking around every which way. Shops lined the main street, everything from jewelry stores to bakeries to armories, and the king's palace stood high directly in front of him, but it was still a long walk away. It looked completely out of place in the capital where all the stores and buildings had a more modern appearance, but the castle still held a quaint sort of charm. There was a taller building on his left side and when he passed it he noticed it was a hospital, and when it no longer obscured his field of vision he could see the Flameseeker parked at the western dock. He could even see, though without detail, a group of people were going down the dock's elevator that was visible between the cross beams that made up the majority of the airship dock's height. A shadow flew over him and he looked up to see the very faint outline of a dragon. Dragons and gryphons were not allowed to fly in the capital unless they were in the military, so they were forced to fly over it at a required minimum altitude.

Ray flipped his head back to look at the hospital one more time and remembered waking up in a little healing ward after fainting in the alley, and it was the first time he had seen a light mage work up close. The nurse working there was patching up a cut on another man that had somehow sliced his entire arm open in a practice sword duel. The nurse's hand glowed with white light and hovered over the long cut, and he watched the skin the hand passed over looked as good as new. It seemed like his injuries were nothing in comparison, but the nurse came over to him when she noticed he was awake and told him he was okay, but he would have to wait for his father to pick him up.

He didn't understand what she meant and tried to explain to her that his father was dead and that he was an orphan, but she said I did and that his head had probably been knocked on too hard. Nonetheless, Ray remained persistent, but the nurse finally gave up and told him he couldn't leave until the man who had brought him in to the ward came back to take him out. Ray tried to protest, but the man returned before he could annoy the nurse enough to let him go.

He looked him over, and the nurse went off to deal with other patients. Ray asked, "Who are you?"

"Sir Joseph Jovik. Where are your parents?"

"You're a knight?"

"Aye, dragon rider actually. Where are your parents?"

"My parents are dead. I live in the orphanage."

"Oh. I see."

"Can I see your dragon?"

"What?"

"I don't want to go back to the orphanage yet. You said you're a dragon rider. Can I see your dragon?"

"Well, I don't see why not. Your chocolates are at my home anyway."

Ray remembered walking with Sir Jovik back to his home and how he marveled at seeing the nobility's extravagant homes. Jovik's home turned out to be huge, but it was not so bombastically decorated like the others around it.

They went in the unusually large front door and Jovik called out, "Mother, I'm home!"

Jovik's mom, an elderly lady with white hair but an unwrinkled face poked out of a doorway down the entrance room. She was stirring a pot of what Ray assumed was dough, and she yelled back, "Hi honey! Is that the boy? Will he be staying for dinner?"

"Yeah mom. I suppose he will." He nudged Ray on his side and asked him, "Will you?"

"Umm, sure I guess," the boy replied.

Jovik's mom called back, "Okay honey! Do you know who his parents are?"

The young man shook his head. "Ah, he doesn't have any."

"Oh, alright." She ducked back into the kitchen.

After she went out of sight, Ray tugged on the knight's shirt and asked, "So where's your dragon?"

"I'll go fetch him out of his room, he's probably sleeping."

The knight went to another larger than usual doorway on the other side of the entranceway while Ray shut the front door. Sir Jovik came out a minute later followed by a big black dragon who, as he knew now, was the perfect size for a front-line assaulter and nearly twice as large as Kalios.

"Yolun," Jovik said, "this is Ray. Ray, meet Yolun."

Ray hopped towards the dragon with the energy that only a child possessed and paused before poking him in the arm. "Dragon!"

The black dragon smiled and said, "Name's Yolun."

"I'm Ray!"

Yolun chuckled. "So I've been told."

Jovik let out a fake cough. "Alright, I'm going to help mom make dinner. You two play nice!"

Ray remembered how he spent the rest of the afternoon asking Yolun silly questions about dragons and their homeland and how the black dragon would answer all his questions with complete seriousness. He remembered one conversation in particular where he asked how dragons flew.

"With our wings," Yolun said.

"How do they work?"

"We flap them, and that makes us go up."

"Why does flapping your wings make you go up? Flapping my arms doesn't do anything."

"Arms aren't wings, boy. Wings make lift."

"How do your wings make lift?"

The black dragon extended a wing to show how large they were. "See how big the surface is?"

"Yeah."

"That's why wings can make lift. Your arms are have no surface area to make lift. I'd suggest asking something else now unless you want to learn about how old mage-engineer Bernoulli's principle works with non-adiabatic compressible flow at subsonic speeds."

"What?"

"Exactly."

"Okay, tell me about those three spires in the south. Do the dragons live there like my matrons say?"

Ray remembered he went on like that for a while, just barraging poor Yolun with questions and questions, and he actually bothered to answer them all with a straight face. But there was one that knocked him off his feet.

"How do I become a dragon rider?"

Yolun snapped his head toward him with a frown. "Do you really want to become a dragon rider, boy?"

"If I get a nice dragon like you, then yes!"

"Hmm, well then. Are you prepared to kill other people?"

The boy didn't know how to answer, so he told the truth. "I don't know, sir."

"That is good. One who says yes is either a liar or a demented beast. One who says no is honest, but your answer is clever. Honest, but in a roundabout way. Very well, I shall tell you how."

Ray remembered how he memorized every detail of what the black dragon said. He did exactly as he had detailed: he joined the military first, of course, and then progressed to the aerial service. He trained in archery until his scores earned top marks, and then submitted requests for a dragon every year since he was old enough to.

And two years ago, his request was finally accepted. Now Kalios was his dragon, but he was also so much more. Ray loved him like a brother, even closer than his foster-brother, and he could not live without him now.

So now he was going to find Sir Jovik and Yolun so they could celebrate his true induction into the aerial service. Sadly, Jovik's mother had died from old age just a few years before he had been given Kalios. She was always a nice woman, and since she had elected to adopt him after the chocolate incident he always held her in his heart where his mother would've been if he had known her. She was her foster-mother, but he didn't consider Jovik's father to be his father. Instead, he thought of Jovik himself as his father. He rarely ever saw Jovik's father anyway since he was the Lord Commander of the King's Vigil at the time, and his duties kept him away from home almost everyday of the week. Jovik himself was also gone a lot for his duty in the service, but his schedule was different. He would be gone for months with Yolun, but when they came back they would have rest time for months too so he saw Jovik enough.

Those empty months were probably why Jovik's mother was so easily convinced to adopt him, and he was always thankful for the opportunity and he never disobeyed her orders or disrespected her in any way. Sometimes she even complained about how perfect he would've been as a son, and that Jovik was often the rebellious type! He truly loved her, and his tears at her funeral were genuine and flowed unashamedly.

Ray could not say the same for Jovik's father's funeral. As Lord Commander of the King's Vigil, he was the king's personal bodyguard. His duty required him to be at the king's side nearly all the time, and that was why he was almost never home. He always wore an expressionless face, and Yolun told him it was because he had retired from the aerial service without his dragon. When Ray was given Kalios, he understood why Jovik's father seemed to live without purpose or soul: if Kalios died, Ray was sure he would've lost the heart to live without suffering everyday. He was sure it would be worse for him, and he intended to keep his promise with his dragon so that he wouldn't end up like Jovik's father.

Jovik's father died a year after his wife, and his funeral was full of royal ceremonies. Even though Ray was an adopted son, he was still expected to follow all of the ridiculously complicated and unnecessary traditions of such a funeral, but thankfully Jovik led him through most of it. He never really knew the old man, however, and whatever tears he shed that day were forced and only for show.

The funeral was the day that Jovik was forced to retire from the aerial service and join the King's Vigil. Unlike his father, however, Yolun joined him and they quickly went up the ranks in the king's personal guard. In fact, he remembered how he had heard the news that Sir Jovik had taken his father's place as Lord Commander only a few months after he had been given Kalios. It was to be expected after all, Jovik and Yolun had served on the Spartan, fought on the front lines against Eios, and won many major battles that led to the tense peace they had now. He still remembered the letter that Jovik had sent when he was inducted into the King's Vigil. The last part went something like, "PS. Don't die out there now that you're in the service. I wouldn't want to have you miss out on my royal funeral and mess up passing the fruit bowl again!" Ray remembered that he laughed at the comment. What else was there to do about death? It was ruthless and inescapable, and Jovik was at least a decade older than he was so it was inevitable that he would attend his funeral. But he brushed the thought aside: it was unpleasant, and he was still too young to worry about losing those he loved to the cold clutches of time.

Ray thought about how he could've just sent a letter but this promotion was a really big deal to him; he had finally earned the title of Sir Valyn! Before he knew it, he was already in front of the king's palace and he couldn't wait to share the news with his foster-brother.

The palace was large even before reaching the more secured areas. The entrance only had one guard and the entrance hall had another. Past the entrance hall was a waiting room where two guards stood, and then there was the long aisle where two massive wooden doors, guarded by another two, led into the throne room.

Ray walked up to the two guards standing in front of the entrance to the throne room's heavy wooden doors and asked where Sir Jovik was.

One of them replied, "King Lorian sent the Lord Commander out for some green tea packets this morning since he heard a shipment from Avlar had arrived. He should be back any time now."

"Okay, thank you," Ray said. "I'll just wait out here then."

The guard wasn't a fortune teller, but Ray might've suspected him to be one because right as he turned around he saw his foster-brother walking up the palace stairs in his shiny king's guard armor and carrying a bag.

When Jovik saw him, he dropped the satchel he was carrying and ran up to give him a hug. "Ray! What are you doing here?"

"I've got great news! I'm Sir Valyn now!"

The knight released him from his hug and smiled. "That is great news! Has Kalios grown bigger than Yolun yet?"

"You know he won't!"

Jovik laughed, but then his face turned serious. "So it's final then? You'll be guarding the light mages in the back? Still partnered with that Eliza girl?"

"Yep, and she's a Light Adept now."

The king's bodyguard patted the younger knight's shoulder. "Well, that's alright, it's still a noble thing to do. If it weren't for our light mages, I probably would've died about, hmm, six or seven times."

"Really now?"

"Oh yes, been shot in the chest three times, back twice, and belly once or twice. Never told you, thought it would make you worry. Protect them - protect her with your life, Ray. They'll save your life enough times to be worth it!"

"Will do, Lord Commander."

Jovik laughed again. "I'm serious now! The Salvation has been having trouble in the east, and they've been stretching our supply of light mages thin. Believe me, it will be nice to have one by you all the time."

"Thanks, I think I could've figured that out myself!"

"Well, Sir Valyn, I think we should celebrate."

"With booze?"

Jovik glared at him. "Not funny Ray. You know I don't touch that stuff."

"Right, sorry. Was a joke is all."

The knight smiled again. "No worries, but before we plan something let me get the day off. I'll go drop this stuff off and ask the king, yeah?"

"Sure, can I come?"

"Eh, it's better if you stay out here."

"Okay, not a problem."

Jovik went back over to pick up the satchel and then the guards let him pass through to the throne room.

Ray waited, and then he waited some more. He must've waited fifteen minutes before he started wondering if something was wrong. Did it really take that long to ask the king for leave? Was the request denied? Did he forget to buy something for the king? Or maybe the king just wanted him to brew one of the tea leaves for him?

Ray's guesses were all wrong, however. Nearly twenty-five minutes later, Sir Jovik burst through the throne room's massive doors with his eyes bulging like he hadn't slept all night.

He screamed at the two guards in front of the wooden doors, "Lock the palace down, lock it all down! Lock the capital down! Nobody gets in or out! Assemble the King's Vigil! Go!"

The guards scurried off to carry his orders, and then Ray ran up to him.

"Jovik! What's wrong, what's happening?"

The knight grasped onto his shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

"The king is dead."