“Finn! Finn! Wake up! It’s morning, and I had a sleepover last night! I got to hang out with Harper and Rebecca and… Finn? Are you awake?” Vessa said, hopping on my chest.

  Groaning, I opened one eye, looking at the happy little dragon. It was bright, and she was reflecting light off her scales right into my face. Looked to the side where Arilyn had been snuggled up to me, yet she was already up and gone. “Good morning, Vessa,” I said. “Sleepover, huh?”

  Arilyn thought of everything.

  “Yeah! It was so much fun. Food and stories, and cuddles! Thank you for closing the mental gate last night, too, by the way.”

  “Umm, yeah,” I replied, suddenly embarrassed. “Have you seen Arilyn? I need to talk with her about something.”

  Vessa cocked her head as if listening. “I think she is almost here. Are you going to put on your clothes?”

  Before I could answer, Arilyn entered into our private little campsite with three plates of breakfast. “Oh, you’re awake! Well, that ruined my plans,” she said with a small pout. The pout disappeared quickly, and she moved to sit cross-legged next to me and Vessa.

  I remembered I was dressed only in a blanket, and my face heated up. “This young lady woke me up,” I said, gesturing to the small dragon on my chest.

  “Oh, is one of those plates for me? Thank you, Heals!” Vessa said in my mind with a nudge to pass it on.

  “Vessa is hoping that one of those plates is for her and is grateful that you were so thoughtful,” I passed on.

  “Why yes, it is,” Arilyn said with a smile for my ward. “I figured you might join us.”

  She placed the plate to the side where it wouldn’t be spilled by my sitting up. It was placed so that Vessa was still part of the conversation, which was nice. Sitting up, I re-arranged the blanket and accepted my plate from my—deific girlfriend? Who was now smiling at my bare chest as her cheeks reddened?

  I was starving, so I dug into the plate of eggs and sausages. There were also some grilled vegetables. I scarfed the whole thing down and nodded in thanks as I was handed a mug of coffee from a giggling Arilyn.

  “I see Vessa has really rubbed off on you,” she said. I watched as she took a small bite of eggs, careful to not get the yolk on herself. It was her first or second bite.

  I pulled a handkerchief out of my inventory and wiped my face clean. I looked at Vessa, who was also done with her food, but without a smear of egg or drop of grease on her snout or forepaws.

  “Finn, you have egg and sausage in your beard,” Vessa pointed out primly. “You should trim it, you know. It’s getting kind of bushy. Or better yet, just shave it off!”

  “Thank you, Vessa,” I said, feeling put upon by the small dragon. I still did my best to get the food out of my facial hair. I had thought about shaving the thing off, yet something always got in the way. Come to think of it, I had been on the move from day one, rarely having a chance to look for the bare essentials, let alone shop for toiletries.

  The only reason I had handkerchiefs was that there was a cloth merchant trying to sell all their stock in one of the small towns Harper, Vessa, and I had passed through on our way back from Mining Camp. I got a pack of fifty for forty coppers, and a literal pile of rag squares I grabbed for cleaning off from looting. The pile was only twenty pounds, and the merchant was happy to see it go for another forty copper coins.

  “Has Harper and the other climbers started their descent yet?” I said, changing the subject.

  “Not quite. But I believe they will be heading down soon. They took some time to get their climbing gear ready and set out during the wait for breakfast.”

  That’s not much time. “Vessa, do you mind going and locating Harper while I get dressed?” I asked out loud. “I need to chat with Arilyn about… stuff.”

  Vessa looked between the two of us. “Okay!” she sent me before bounding out of the enclosed campsite.

  I turned to Arilyn, who was already plopping down into my lap. “Oh! Um—” Her lips met mine, stopping me from talking. The kiss short-circuited my mind, and I couldn’t think of anything but her.

  Yet there was something bugging me, and I needed to talk with her about it. About her being a Goddess. My arms were around her. She was running her hands along my back. There wasn’t very much room in my head for anything other than the moment.

  When she pulled back to catch her breath, eyes bright with mischief and desire, my mind basically rebooted.

  “Arilyn, can I ask you something?”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “If it has something to do with what we’re about to do, then yes, I think we have time,” she said with a grin and a wiggle.

  “No, I… it’s about what you are, and everything that happened when we met.”

  She had been doing something with the blanket, but froze and my words. “When we met? What about it?”

  “I wasn’t acting myself, and when I found out Missana was the Goddess of storytelling, I chalked it up to being under her influence. Did you put some sort of spell on me or influence me? So that I would answer your questions — and fall in love with you?”

  Arilyn sighed. “I wondered when we would have this conversation,” she said, smoothing out her skirt. “I am the Goddess of Knowledge and… and Love. The influence you felt was mostly from me — but only for information gathering — and I stopped doing it before the music.”

  So she did do something to me, I mused. And the thought saddened me. Was any of this real? I looked into her eyes and she looked so vulnerable, afraid even. “Did you make me fall in love with you?” I asked, slowly.

  “No! I mean, you shouldn’t have from my power. It doesn’t work that way. I can make someone desire me, and feel desired… but I can’t make someone fall in love. I can make someone fall into lust, but love is a choice, Finn,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “That night, I fell in love with you, but I hadn’t realized it.” Her eyes fell to her hands, which were twisting her skirt.

  I didn’t speak for several moments, trying to get a read on her. Despite what she had just said, I couldn’t pinpoint the moment things had changed that night with Missana’s troupe. I knew I had felt perfectly normal when I saw her in Las Trussen, and again at the Royal Library, but… it was a lot. I didn’t know what to do.

  So I went with my gut. “Arilyn, all of this god stuff… I don’t know,” I said.

  Still not looking at me, she nodded and started to move away.

  I immediately reached out, placing my hands on her shoulders. “What I know is that I am in love with you, too. And though it’s going to take me some time to work my head around all this, I want… I want to do it with you.”

  Her eyes had tears in them when she raised her head to face me. “Truly?” she asked.

  “Truly.”

  Arilyn sniffed, grinned, and leaned into me for another kiss.

  “Hey, are you two decent in there? Like I don’t want to see anything I shouldn’t!” Harper said from outside our little camp.

  “Give me a minute!” I exclaimed while Arilyn giggled.

  Dressed with some help and distracting kisses, we went out to talk with Harper, who was cuddling my adorable ward. Neither Arilyn nor I had gotten fully dressed, meaning I was just in my jeans and drawstring shirt and Arilyn in a simple dress, not much more than a slip.

  With one look at us, Harper snorted out a laugh. “Okay, Heals, you were right.”

  Confused, I looked from Arilyn’s grinning face to Harper’s. “What did I miss?”

  “Oh, just something we were talking about yesterday,” Arilyn answered. “Nothing to worry about. Girl stuff.”

  “Yep. Heals and I had a good convo,” agreed Harper. “But our little dragon friend here seemed insistent that I come find you. I don’t have much time, but what did you need?”

  “I just wanted to wish you good luck,” I said. “And ask you to be careful down there.”

  “Or what, you going to come save my purple ass?” she replied with a shit-eating grin.

  “That’s right,” I replied, grinning back. “Even if I have to climb down and fight God knows what.”

  Harper laughed and handed Vessa to me and slapped my shoulder. “Heals, you and Vessa watch after him, okay? It should take us the day to get all the safety ropes set up so we can all get down safely and in a large enough force.”

  We watched the twelve people climb down the cliff, including Harper, attaching anchors here and there on the cliff wall for the ropes, spaced out for safety. I kept watching until after they had entered the mists. It was too nerve-wracking at that point to continue.

  Vessa had fallen asleep in my lap, and Arilyn still sat with me. “I need a break from this. Should we go grab something to eat?”

  “Hungry again, huh?” Arilyn asked.

  “Well, after last night, yeah.”

  She smiled. “Maybe the cooks have something to refill your energy so that I can empty it again later.”

  I laughed nervously. I didn’t want to say something foolish, so I kept my mouth shut. Besides, I didn’t think I could top what she had said for smoothness. I carefully picked Vessa up into my arms, and she continued to nap, even when I stood up.

  We walked to where the Allied Army cooks, who had technically defected, had set up their cooking area. There was some prepping going on for lunch, although it was still a couple of hours off. Considering the number of people we had in camp, it was probably wise for them to do so. I was willing to bet that they were always prepping for the next meal and therefore not having to rush.

  I’d never worked in a kitchen before, so I didn’t really know. It made me think I had even more gaps in my education than I had been aware of. Maybe when I wasn’t on the run all the time, I could put in the effort to learn this stuff.

  “Excuse me,” Arilyn asked. “Is there anything available right now?”

  The nearest cook to us gestured with his head at a table with some covered pans. “Leftover sausages and bread on the table. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you!” she said with a smile.

  We were heading back to our secluded spot—me eating sausages on the way—when we heard a high-pitched whistle from the south.

  “Oh shit. That’s the alarm.” I said. “They’ve found us.”

  We ran for our spot, waking Vessa up.

  “Why are we running? I don’t like this!” she exclaimed worriedly in my mind.

  “The scout’s alarm was given, the Allied Army is on its way,” I answered. “We have to get ready.”

  “Oh. Okay. Are those sausages from breakfast?” she replied as we reached the bush-enclosed spot.

  I stumbled a step, looking down at the baby dragon in shock. “Didn’t you hear me? They are coming for us!”

  I heard as much as felt her sigh in my head. “They won’t be here for a while, and those sausages smell nommy. I’ll eat them while you get fully dressed and come up with a plan. Maybe you can talk them into helping us or something.”

  We reached our spot, and I set Vessa down while Arilyn placed the plates on the ground. The small dragon leapt onto the plate and started eating the sausages while I mentally grumbled about needing to be the one to come up with the plan. It only added to the stress.

  My fingers twitched, thinking of the alternative. The alternative to killing them with my magic.

  My poncho went on with some struggle, considering I was putting more of my attention to figuring out what to do. I didn’t want to kill them, let alone fight them. But maybe we could work something out.

  I mean, why couldn’t I convince them to help retrieve a war hero’s body?

  It could work, right?

  I am so screwed.

  Alright ya'll, sleepy time for me. Gotta write another paper towmorrow. And a discussion. yay!

  Thanks for reading!