—Sally—

  The continuous sound of scuffing and the ripping of cloth was strange enough to make me curious, enough to tempt me to break my staring contest with the stone wall to take a look at Orion. But there was no way I was going to acknowledge that he was there and living life like he hadn’t do anything wrong.

  So, instead of letting him win our reverse staring contest, I sneakily took a look at what Orion was doing, peeking underneath a wing to see him cutting a strip of cloth from his quickly diminishing shirt. At some point it would stop being a dirty, damaged shirt and become a fashion statement, probably when it was reduced enough to finally reveal that st row of abs.

  And at the rate he’s been going over the st few days, he’s going to be shirtless by the end of the week. Hopefully we manage to make it to civilization to cover up his muscles soon, before the cognito-hazard that were his abs caused women to start jumping out of bushes and swarm us.

  But my thoughts were dragged away from the dangers of his muscles when he wrapped the cloth around his head. He'd just made a blindfold, but it was—to put it lightly—shit.

  It wasn’t very thick, and you could probably see shapes and light through it easily. There was a gap at the bottom because it was a band, and that made it flow over the ridge of his nose, stopping it from hugging his face. It simply allowed him to see everything around his feet easily.

  It reminded me of my cousin trying to cheat me in any game she could, but even most of her ineffective blindfolds were more reliable than Orion's strip of cloth. Though I suppose the better question was what did he need a blindfold for? I can’t exactly imagine a scenario where it helps.

  I mean… Maybe he wants to use it against the Ulun’suti? Looking at the gem is what caused him to stop functioning and become dazed. But there was already a more reliable—and simply better—solution to the problem, just don’t look at the magic gem like a moron.

  My thoughts quickly became chaotic as the Ranger picked up a stone and walked to the entrance of the house. I watched in disbelief and horror as he gnced at me for a moment—well, best he could given the blindfold—and threw the stone into the bck ke.

  I bnkly stared at him, rendered unable to think by how incredibly moronic his action was. Just because the horned serpent couldn’t cross the boundary physically that didn't meant that light wasn’t stopped. Orion had just been a part of the demonstration that showed that. I suppose that’s what the blindfold is for, but then what’s the point of tempting fate like this? I feel like this is asking for the shit to take a turn for the worse, and throw itself into the fan.

  Before I had the chance to recoup mentality, and try to stop Orion, I saw Ulun’suti’s horrid head silently rise out of the water. It stopped for a moment, silently observing Orion before it fully lifted itself out of the water. The monster moved quietly, with slow, methodical movements. Never accelerating or changing pace from that careful hunting prowl.

  It was eerily simir to how a cat stalked a mouse, avoiding any jerky movements that might spook its prey. I looked to Orion to warn him, but his head was already looking at the beast, bowed a bit so that the gaps at the bottom wouldn't face the snake.

  After a few seconds of nothing terrible immediately happening, I let out a high-pitched growl and gave up. I decided to let Orion do what he wanted, he was a big boy, he could pay for his own mistakes the hard way.

  I moved closer to get a clearer view of both of them. If Orion was the one happily paying the price, then I was not going to miss out on the absolute shit-show that was about to go down. It looked like he was going to make a fool of himself either way, so I might as well get a good seat on the sidelines.

  Though as I settled into a comfortable position near the entrance, I could notice the Ranger's attention focus onto the snake's gem. Even with the blindfold covering Orion’s eyes, the mystical rock still had some power over him, although it did seem lessened.

  I still couldn’t gleam anything special about the crystal, other than the fact it seemed to have grown out of the serpent’s forehead. To my eyes, it still looked like a weathered and dirty piece of gss.

  The snake’s head then rose further out of the water, and it began to hum an extremely off-tune, yet merry song.

  “One little fishy, fallen in my pond.” It sung, the genuine childlike wonder in its voice perverted by how monstrously inhuman, old and powerful it sounded. It really was one of the most off-putting things about the monster to me. One second it sounded like a godly thing, an immortal that should be wise yet feared for its eldritch knowledge. But then it'd be mentally reduced to a toddler, by age or something far worse.

  “The taste of their meat, I grew fond!” It rhymed, and Orion continued to simply stand there, head bowed in the face of the snake. I found it interesting that he hadn’t reacted yet, in the st couple of encounters if he looked at it for more then a few seconds, he would've violently thrown up. I suppose the blindfold did something at least.

  But, much to my confusion, Orion slowly raised his head, almost matching the methodical careful pace of Ulun’suti as he exposed the holes underneath the blindfold to the snake. If I had to guess, he must be attempting to test his tolerance to the snake. But I don’t see how this ends without him ending up in the same stupefied state as before.

  “The Hunter’s were so mean, so I made them fish-ies too!” The snake warbled, completely absorbed and lost in its song. I would’ve assumed that it’d forgotten about Orion if it wasn’t still moving methodically towards him.

  While it sounded like it was lost in memories, its body still remembered to hunt. It was still capable of showing a scary amount of intelligence and skill when it needed to. Which made me think that it was just pying with us, like a cat with a mouse trapped between its cws.

  A groan from Orion caused me to gnce at him, and I saw that he was looking ill, his face pale and sickly. A bubbly burp hinting at bit of liquid rising up to his mouth prompted me to move closer, until I was just a metre from his side.

  I looked up at him and watched just in case he did something even stupider than this weird stunt, because it would be a complete waste of resources and effort to let him die now.

  I haven’t risked so many life or death scenarios just for my magic meat shield expire without reaching his full potential. Even if he'd made a few egregious mistakes recently.

  “But I ate so many, I angered the birdie!” Ulun’suti spat. Its words suddenly turned vicious, happiness curdling into spite the instant it mentioned ‘the birdie’. If I was a betting ma-dragon, I would say the cause of the injury that scarred it and burned out its eye was a ‘birdie’. Though I honestly wonder what sort of bird was capable of permanently injuring a monster like this and giving it a scar. Even if it was senile when it was attacked.

  “I will kill him and drag him under the mountain and I will drown his thunder in blood-poisoned water. He and his hunter's progeny will boil and burn in my cesspit, my bckened ke.” It whispered to itself. Savouring the thought of killing this bird and his kids with a need so deep that it bordered on the opposite psychotic end of the scale from its usual chaotic insanity.

  Orion, in the meanwhile, was somewhere in between sobriety and being reduced to a drooling head-trauma victim. He even took a clumsy step forwards, almost falling over before he seemed to regain some of his sanity. But the snake had finally moved to the entrance of the house, its head blocking the doorway.

  Maintaining its pace, it lowered its chin until it scraped the stone just outside of the [Checkpoint], and then it opened its maw. It’s not like I’d forgotten how big it was, but there was something frankly disturbing about looking down its maw to see a fleshy throat that’s at least five metres in diameter. It was a repulsive strain of body-horror to be only a few metres away from a gullet bigger than the tunnels we'd taken to reach here.

  “But for now I’ll settle for… ” It whispered. Even though the snake’s gem was out of sight, because the roof of its jaw blocked the light from above it, Orion seemed just as out of it as before.

  “Snak time!” It finished its sentence, goofy mania returning to its tone on a flip of the dime.

  As the snake talked to itself, Orion took another step, getting disturbingly close to waltzing into the snake’s mouth all by himself.

  At this point I decided to intervene before he could throw himself into the allegorical volcano like the virgin sacrifice he was doing his best impression of. I cmbered up his clothes like the st time I had to do this, and from my spot on his head, I leant down to get a clear view of his face. To get a better understanding of the damage, I tugged the blindfold up so I could see his eyes. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that he wasn’t in as terrible a state as st time.

  Instead of resembling a lobotomy victim—like he did in the first encounter—the dazed look in his eyes was only at a minor concussion level of severity. Closer to being stunned, and how he looked when he was caught off guard running to our current [Checkpoint]. It only took a couple of pokes around the face until he blinked, which woke him up the rest of the way.

  He almost seemed startled by the sight of a massive maw repcing the view of the ke, only blinking a couple of times before he regained his posture just as quickly. It made me wonder if he was ever surprised in the first pce. But instead of retreating like I’d assumed any sane person would, he seemed to take the opportunity to do something that I’d thought he’d learned not to.

  “Sally, Look, Bark.” He instructed, while pointing at the Ulun’suti’s mouth. I didn’t respond, mostly out of shock that he would try to do this training thing again, but why would he do it now?

  Was he trying to train me to bark at the Horned Serpent?

  “Sally, Look, Bark.” The Ranger repeated, and I felt disgusted with myself for even entertaining the thought of following his commands. But as much as my pride and self-respect hated the idea, I was caught off guard by the realisation of how desperately he wanted to train me. He'd almost literally thrown himself into the monster's mouth, just to try and teach me to bark at the serpent.

  His desperation was enough to make me question why he needed to train me this badly. After a second of mentally battling my choices, I admonished myself for being curious enough to follow along with this crap again.

  I let out a noise, and barked.

  I did try to tell myself that it didn’t really sound like a bark, that it was just a loud sound that I made, a short and succinct noise. But that really didn’t stop the humiliation of it making me feel… lesser, less of a person, and lesser when compared to Orion as well.

  I despised that feeling. It made me want to cut something.

  “Oodgay irlgay!” He praised, and I really wasn’t bothered at the moment to figure out what those two words meant at the moment.

  I wanted to leave right then and there, but I realised that Orion—I begrudgingly admitted—must have had a good reason for trying to ‘train’ me how to do this. That's when it clicked.

  He can’t really look at the monster to see where it was, so why not use me—someone who's immune—as a warning system. If Orion could know when the beast was about to strike, without having to worry about the gem, then it'd mitigate Ulun'suti's greatest weapon.

  It really was the cherry on top for this emotional roller-coaster. Orion's survival, and unfortunately by extent my own, hinged on me being trained, so that the ranger had a way around the gem's light. I despised even having to py along with this farce, but for Orion to trust that I protect him, I had to pretend to be trained.

  It genuinely made me feel nauseous, and I promised myself that the first moment I could talk, I was going to set some professional boundaries. I’d jump into the Deer woman’s cesspit if it meant that I could be free of this garbage situation a minute sooner.

  “Sally, arnway.” he said, pointing at the Ulun’suti again. After a moment I decided to copy what I did before, a short noise when I looked at the monster.

  “Oodgay irlgay!” He confirmed, his extremely forced positive tone affirming my answer. The word though… It had to rete to looking for something, and then making a noise to warn Orion. Was it warn?

  The word ‘warn’ clicked into pce in my subconscious as Orion gently grabbed me and pulled me into the crook of his arm. He turned around and ignored the snake with a sort of casualness I couldn’t ever imagine replicating, leaving the monsterto patiently wait for him to walk into its mouth.

  I almost bit Orion for picking me up and moving me without warning, but the surprise I felt from his sudden actions stopped me from protesting before I was let go.

  The action toed the line, but for the sake of getting past this snake, and the knowledge that I don’t have to tolerate this behaviour the second we escaped this cold hell, I restrained the urge to bite him. Though I did take some revenge for the constant, unconsensual touching, and dug my cws into his forearms, drawing out a couple of rivets of blood.

  “Naughty Lizard stole my lunch again!” Ulun’suti childishly bemoaned. But unfortunately I couldn't see the look on its face, as Orion’s chest blocked my sight of it.

  “Next time little blood, I’ll have my meal. Next time.” It whispered, before it slid beneath the water with an inaudible spsh. It was truly a monster driven by a terrifying madness, somehow its logic was completely rotted, but it could still be sharp and witty when it needed to be. Not scary at all.

  As the terror of the bck ke slipped away, Orion sat down in his usual spot, and I found myself realising that I had a ‘usual spot’ in his arms.

  It seemed to be another realisation in a long series of thoughts that genuinely perturbed me. Some of the things I promised I wouldn't get used to, I was now disturbingly comfortable with. Like him touching me or picking me up, the casual petting or stroking of my spine, and the myriad of other things I’d accepted over the st couple of traumatising days.

  Even if I still found a multitude of the things he did disgusting, the little comforts—that should've beenkept at arm's distance at all times—I'd started to become accustomed tothem. Avoided, just to stop the very situation that I found myself in now. Every time I get too comfortable being this close to somebody, it always bit me in the ass.

  The only reason that Orion was doing this was because right now I’m not the graduating high school boy who got turned into a baby dragon. I’m Sally, an infant dragon in his eyes who he’s raising, unintelligent, non-human, and his pet. Ugh.

  And the moment that I finally got around to telling him that, he was going to be pissed. I mean who wouldn’t? Learning that the thing you presumed was an innocent infant, was actually a fully grown man, will be rough. Especially given that he’d spent the st week doting on it like it was a little mb.

  He’ll probably get mad that I’d—in a roundabout way—stolen his chance at getting an animal sidekick. One that could’ve been a cute little thing, but he’d been tricked into being all touchy-touchy with a guy instead of an infant pet.

  But even given that impending camity, another issue was far more aggravating to me.

  Even now, I still found myself despising more and more with every moment was the reliance I had on Orion for survival. I still had my pride, in fact I would say it was stronger now that I’m a dragon—Well, technically a drake, but I'm still a dragon in my heart-of-hearts.

  But my pride was the thing screaming in pain and humiliation every time he helped chase away the numbing cold, and it raged when it realised that Orion had tried to train me.

  No matter what it cost, how awkward or strange it’d make our working retionship, or change how the [Soul Bond] affected either of us, I was going to find a way to communicate to him that I’m human where it mattered. I'd do it just to avoid the greasy, nauseating hate flowed through me every time I had to tolerate being treated like an unintelligent animal. The anger that rose whenever I had to rely on him for basic needs or stomach futile training attempts.

  I wouldn’t do anything now, for the sake of whatever pn Orion has probably put together—but eventually I would have to burst his bubble. The [Soul Bond] too, it wasn't going to be reliable to keep around if I didn't have the initiative on how the retionship functioned. It’d probably be the right decision to just break it, before it did something unpredictable and strange to me.

  I did have high hopes for it, but in the end, I’d rather not have it if I wasn't able to control it.

  Orion on the other hand… I might not be the person in charge of the two of us—not for now at least—but he’s proven himself to be a capable person when it came to most monsters.

  He was a cut above the rest when it comes to fighting, and he’s lucky enough to get away with some of the stupidest shit I’ve seen one-to-one from a cheesy action movie. Also, he’s physically blessed in ways that look unfair. It's enough to make me feel jealous, even though my body is much better than anything with soft, blubbery skin by default.

  I’m fine with letting him py protagonist until I got the strength to get what I was owed, then the real star of the show can take to the field. Until then, I would have to swallow my pride and accept that Orion is the one who gets to make decisions, and act like the main character, while I’m just the supporting cast.

  Congratutions, Your feelings of: [prideful humiliation, honest scheming, and mildly-rational self-analysis], has caused your [Soul Bond], to evolve.Cruel Reparations:Whenever Orion receives General XP or Css XP, You will leach twenty-five percent of it. Orion must receive that XP when he is either protecting you or acting in your best interest for you to sap his reward.But if Orion receives XP while assisting you, while you do not need his help, and yet appreciate the act, Orion will keep the XP. Do not fret, because you will still receive twenty-five percent of the total, like before.

  Speak of the devil, I was hoping for something with a bit more shock and awe than before, but this would undoubtedly be useful in the future. Soon, to be sure.

  Well, once I can actually do something with XP without the System having a panic attack.

  Cherrys_chapters