"Yet you plan to leave in six months?"
"I plan to get my life back by killing a blue dragon, but I only have six months to do it."
To his utter astonishment, Euclid's faceshattered.Hurt, anger, and a thousand other emotions filled it as he pushed to his feet and recoiled as though struck."Why is killing all you people ever want to do?Murder and bloodshed, that's all you come here for.What did dragons ever do to any of you?Nothing!We live in our territories peacefully and try to maintain that peace and keep everyone safe and what do we get for it?Murdered so some greedy human can have a head on his wall!"
Dipak's mouth dropped open."We?"
Euclid froze, all the color draining from his face, and then he was gone.Winked out of existence like nothing.Dipak had never heard of magic, or anything living, that could do that.
Then again, he'd never heard of a dragon taking the form of a human, either.Suddenly a whole lot of things made more sense.Euclidwashis little mystery trader from those first few days, and he'd been able to do it because wards may as well not be there at all where dragons were concerned.There was magic and then there were dragons.If magic was a river, dragons were oceans.Especially, say, a legendary blue dragon who traipsed about a terrifying forest like it was a harmless meadow.
A forest he'd consistently said washis, which it would be, because dragons were territorial, and only death removed their control of that territory.
Euclid, in all his infuriating sunshine and busybody ways, was the blue dragon who controlled the forest and had been nothing but kind and helpful to him since his arrival.And Dipak had just said he wanted to kill him to get his stuff back.
Somehow, he felt a lot more contemptible about this than he had murdering—
No, thinking about that wouldn't help anything.Damn it.
He looked across the clearing at all the stuff piled up and sighed.Carrying the tea things back into the house—a house that, in retrospect, Euclid had guided him to—he then returned to the stacks and piles of stuff.
No human could have carried so much, but a dragon with untold amounts of strength and magic?Wouldn't even notice the weight.
Sighing again, not really sure what else to do, he set to work sorting through everything.Some of the stuff was obviously from his list, that stuff he carried into the house or set right outside it.The rest he put where it wouldn't get damaged by weather or animals for Euclid to collect.
He also found his journal, with everything crossed off and, thankfully, notes on what was wanted in trade.A couple of things had an X by them, including the blacksmith, which must mean nothing was owed there.
Putting away all he could, Dipak then packed up to camp in the forest for a few days and headed out to do some hunting.
He managed to bring down not one but two stags that day, field dressing them and leaving them for Euclid to inevitably find and deliver.After that, it was past time to make camp before the dangerous things came out.
Not bothering with a fire, he simply climbed up a safe tree, set wards, and settled in for the night.
After hours of shitty sleep, feeling more exhausted than when he'd started, he climbed down and went back to work.Over the course of three days, he hunted stags, hares, and more, until there was more than enough meat, hide, and fur to cover the majority of his debts.Between hunts, he foraged, focusing on things like nuts that would keep for a day or so as he finally made his way back to the cabin.
By the time he made it, he was so exhausted he could barely see straight.Setting down the basket of nuts to deal with in the morning, he opened the cabin door—and tripped over something, crashing to the floor with a pained grunt.Well, part of the floor, but mostly other stuff.His entire cabin wasfilled.
Every bit of it familiar.His books.The supplies and tools from his workshop.Even his clothes were here.A couple of pieces of furniture.He didn't have room for all of this.
Climbing to his feet, he looked carefully through and around the piles—and finally found a piece of paper resting on top of one of the boxes, beautiful script filling it, written in dark green ink.
In exchange for my life
"Damn it," Dipak said, eyes blurring as he crumpled the note in one fist."I was never going to kill you after that, you stupid dragon."
He wanted desperately to apologize, but if Euclid was willing to see him, he would have made himself known over the past few days.Maybe he just needed more time.Maybe Dipak would never see him again.It shouldn't matter so much.He barely knew Euclid, and most of the time he was driving Dipak absolutely crazy, all sunshine and sparkles, effervescent and genuinely cheerful in a way completely foreign to him.
Yet he hated that he'd hurt Euclid so much, especially after all he'd done, and he wanted to apologize.
As ever, his only option was time.He'd focus on figuring out where to put all this stuff, what could maybe be traded away to other people.Hadn't Euclid mentioned a witch lived somewhere in the woods?
After that was attended, along with other things that needed done, he would turn to doing what he'd intended from the first: finding a dragon.This time with much better intentions.
Chapter Four
Thankfully, some more thorough exploring of his little homestead revealed an actual, proper cave behind the waterfall, something right out of a storybook.A few spells to control the moisture, and he had the perfect place to store almost everything, including the furniture, books, and other odds and ends that wouldn't fit in his cabin.
With that done, he went through everything, catalogued it, and then left a note for Euclid about what he'd be willing to trade to the witch and other mysterious occupants of the forest for other things he needed, or at least the supplies to make those things.