We returned to the inn first.

  Preparation for travel required minimal equipment but still benefited from basic organization. I retrieved my emergency notebook and some water, secured the straps of my bag, and verified that nothing essential had been forgotten.

  Nicholas leaned against the doorframe while I finished.

  “You know,” he said, “most people would leave immediately after receiving an order from the king.”

  “That is exactly what we are doing,” I replied.

  He looked around the room. “You spent ten minutes packing. Just for something to drink and another book.”

  “Ten minutes of preparation reduces several hours of inconvenience.”

  He sighed.

  After a short while we stepped outside and began walking along the road that led toward the dragon’s territory. A few moments later I turned onto another street. Nicholas noticed immediately.

  “Wait.” He pointed behind us. “The dragon is that way.”

  “Correct.”

  “And you’re walking this way.”

  “Good observation.”

  He stared at me. “…Did you change your mind?”

  “No.”

  I continued walking. “Now that we are no longer visiting an intruder but a neighbor, we must bring an appropriate gift.”

  Nicholas stopped again. “A gift. For a dragon.”

  He looked at me as if evaluating whether a recent head injury might explain my statement.

  “There is a dragon,” he said slowly.

  “Yes.”

  “A very large dragon and another three on top of that.”

  “That is correct.”

  “And your plan is to bring it a present.”

  “Of course.”

  Nicholas rubbed his face. “What exactly do you bring a dragon?”

  “That is currently under evaluation.”

  We reached the small market square. Several stalls were open. Most of them sold vegetables, bread, cloth or tools.

  Nicholas immediately pointed at a basket of apples. “Those. Let’s just take some apples.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Incorrect symbolism.”

  He pointed at a rack of smoked meat. “What about that?”

  “No.”

  “Why? Dragons like flesh, no?”

  “It implies we assume the dragon requires food.”

  Nicholas pointed at a bottle of wine. “This?”

  “No. Alcohol may negatively influence conversations.”

  He pointed at a jar of jam. “This.”

  I considered it.

  Nicholas stared at the jam. “It’s jam. The least offensive thing here.”

  “That is precisely the problem.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “An overly neutral gift communicates a lack of intention.”

  Nicholas inhaled slowly. “You have rules for dragon gifts.”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course you do.”

  He gestured toward the stalls. “So what exactly are you looking for?”

  “A gift that fulfills three conditions.”

  He groaned. “Of course there are conditions.”

  “Yes. It must signal respect. It must not imply superiority. And it must not imply ownership.”

  Nicholas looked around the market again. Then back at me. “You realize normal people would just bring good mood if they visit other people.”

  “Dragons are not normal people.”

  He sighed. “This is going to take a while, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Nicholas looked around the market square again. “You’re sure this is necessary?”

  “Yes.”

  He folded his arms. “Is this something people normally do where you come from? Isn’t there some kind of… standard gesture?”

  “What do you mean?”

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  “You know. Something people bring when they meet their neighbors. Something that’s always acceptable.”

  I thought about that. “Yes.”

  Nicholas waited. “Well?”

  “Where I come from,” I said, “it is customary to bring a package of salt and a loaf of bread when someone moves into the house next door.”

  Nicholas stared at me. “Salt?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s incredibly valuable. That’s not a gift, that’s a financial decision.”

  “One kilogram should be sufficient,” I said.

  Nicholas stopped walking. “A kilogram?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re not buying a kilogram of salt.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s insane.”

  “Incorrect.”

  He shook his head. “Salt is expensive.”

  “That does not matter.”

  “Why doesn’t it matter?” Nicholas frowned.

  “Salt represents preservation. Bread represents sustenance. The gesture communicates stability.”

  He looked unconvinced. “And that’s supposed to impress a dragon?”

  “It is supposed to demonstrate that we understand the concept of coexistence.”

  Nicholas rubbed his face again. “I feel like the dragon would prefer a goat.”

  “That would imply we believe the dragon requires feeding.”

  “…And?”

  “That would create an imbalance in the conversation.”

  Nicholas sighed deeply and muttered, almost to himself, “…Fine.”

  We approached one of the market stalls. The vendor stood behind a wooden table with several small sacks arranged on it.

  I stepped forward. “Do you sell bread and salt?”

  The vendor nodded cautiously. “Well, depends if you pay. How much do you want?”

  “One loaf and one kilogram.”

  He froze. “Don’t jest, boy. A kilogram?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you need that much salt for? Do you have thirty children and have to feed them for half a year?”

  I opened my mouth.

  Nicholas stepped forward immediately. “We’re collecting supplies for the royal kitchen. The delivery arrived late.”

  The vendor relaxed slightly. “Ah… of course. I figured. That makes sense.”

  I looked at Nicholas. “You would prefer that I do not explain that it is for a dragon.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “I‘ld welcome it.”

  The vendor weighed the salt and poured it into a cloth sack.

  Nicholas paid, then he looked at the remaining coins in his hand. “We’re going to have to talk to the royal treasurer soon.”

  “That is probable.”

  Nicholas put the sack of salt and the bread in his bag and we turned toward the road that led to the dragon’s territory again and began walking toward our destination.

  By the time we reached the outer fields again, the sun had already begun its slow descent. Not night yet, but the light had changed. Less vertical. More horizontal. The kind of light that made poorly constructed roads appear slightly more respectable than they actually were.

  After another stretch of walking, we began noticing the signs.

  Literally.

  Wooden boards had been hammered into the ground at irregular intervals. Each carried some kind of warning. At least that was the intention.

  The execution suggested that whoever had written them possessed either limited literacy, limited patience, or a writing instrument that had given up halfway through the process.

  The letters were crooked. Some leaned forward. Others leaned backward. The spacing suggested that whoever wrote them had discovered halfway through that words required planning. The result resembled a linguistic landslide.

  Nicholas stopped in front of one and squinted. “…What does that say?”

  I examined the board. The writing appeared to attempt the word danger. Or possibly dragon. Statistically both interpretations were acceptable. The drawing resembled a skull if someone did not know human anatomy.

  “It is a warning,” I said.

  Nicholas folded his arms. “This looks less like a warning and more like we’re entering pirate territory.”

  “That comparison has merit.”

  He looked at the sign again. “Who even wrote that?”

  “The idea itself is sound,” I said. “The implementation is… developing.”

  We continued walking.

  The signs appeared more frequently as we approached the border of the dragon’s territory. Some had arrows. One had a drawing that might have been a dragon. Or possibly an aggressively shaped chicken.

  Eventually the landscape changed.

  The ground became darker. The air warmer and we reached the border itself.

  At first glance everything looked exactly as before. The same mountain. The same distant ridge. The same entrance to the dragon’s territory.

  But on the second look the difference became obvious.

  Wooden stakes had been hammered into the ground as far as the eye could see. They stood in uneven intervals. Between them ran a rope. The rope sagged in several places. Some stakes leaned. One had already fallen over completely.

  It was technically a barrier, but only in the same way that a polite suggestion is technically a rule.

  Nicholas stared at it.

  “…This is the fence?”

  “Yes.”

  He walked closer. The rope hung loosely between two posts, approximately at knee height. He poked it. The rope moved. “That wouldn’t stop a goat.”

  “That is correct.”

  He looked back toward the horizon. “This is supposed to stop people from entering dragon territory?”

  “It communicates the concept of separation.”

  “That’s not the same thing as stopping someone.”

  “No.”

  Nicholas looked at the rope again. “You said something about standards once.”

  “Yes.”

  “What standard does this meet?”

  “It meets the standard of effort.”

  He stared at me. “That’s not a real standard.”

  “It is a very common one.”

  Nicholas sighed. “So we’re trusting that people respect a rope.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the dragon is fine with this?”

  “That remains under evaluation.”

  He stepped over the rope and looked back at me. “If this works,” he said, “I’m going to lose a lot of faith in humanity.”

  “That would be statistically consistent.”

  I crossed the rope too. No alarm sounded, no magical barrier appeared and no dragon descended immediately.

  From a risk-management perspective this was encouraging.

  From a realism perspective it was concerning.

  The land beyond the rope looked exactly as it had before. Dry and quiet. Way too quiet.

  Nicholas noticed it as well. “You know,” he said, looking around, “last time this place already felt dead.” He kicked a small stone. It rolled several meters before stopping. “But now it feels… even deader.”

  That observation was accurate. “The absence of activity has increased,” I said. “Probably because every living being who values survival has stopped coming here.”

  Nicholas nodded. “That makes sense.”

  We continued walking across the barren ground.

  Eventually the ruined village appeared again.

  Collapsed walls. Burned beams. Stone foundations that had outlived their buildings.

  We walked past it without stopping.

  Nicholas looked at the remains as we passed. “Every time I see that,” he muttered, “I remember why talking to dragons is considered a bad career choice.”

  “That correlation is understandable.”

  After another short walk the mountain rose in front of us. At its base stood the same stone steps as before.

  Nicholas stopped and looked at them. Then he looked at me. “You’re not going to walk next to the stairs again, are you?”

  I examined the steps.

  They were still uneven. Several heights varied slightly. But they appeared stable.

  Then I looked up. “I believe that will not be necessary this time,” I said.

  Nicholas blinked. “You’re becoming almost normal.”

  Before I could respond he suddenly stopped talking.

  His eyes followed my gaze. Toward the cave above us.

  Then he sighed. “…Of course.”

  Something large moved in the air.

  Nicholas murmured quietly beside me, “Not one day with you goes peacefully.”

  The creature descending toward us was not the dragon we knew. This one was different. Its scales were not black. They were a deep blue—dark enough to appear almost black at distance.

  It was also significantly larger.

  Its wingspan alone would have been sufficient to reorganize the local wind patterns.

  Which it immediately did. It descended with the enthusiasm of a bureaucrat who had just been informed that the office would close fifteen minutes early.

  The ground shook when it landed. Air surged outward from the impact. The pressure wave pushed against us hard enough to force several involuntary steps backward. Dust lifted from the ground in every direction.

  The dragon folded its wings slowly.

  Up close the size difference became even clearer. The black dragon we had spoken to before had been large. This one appeared to belong to a different category of logistical problem.

  Its eyes fixed on us. Then it spoke. The voice was deep enough that the sound seemed to travel through the ground before reaching the ears.

  “LEEAVE.”

  A pause.

  The dragon leaned slightly forward. “While I still allow it.”

  Its gaze remained on us.

  “This teerritory has been granteed to my daughter.”

  Addendum: