“Is this its butt or its head?”

“Either way, you shouldn’t be poking it.”

Elden frowned. One corner of his mouth dipped slightly lower than the other, and created a grimace like crease that bled into his nasal furrow. His lower lip naturally pushed out into a slight pout, and Chait turned around to face him for just a moment to poke at the shadow formed by his lip on his chin. The pause was brief, however, and they went back to poking the light beige oval object on the ground. Elden’s expression wilted further; one thick eyebrow raised slightly and the other scrunched the skin over his glabella as he realized that he still didn’t have basic info on the Tamer in front of him. Other than their specialization.

Tamers were somewhat rare finds in the field. After all, not everyone had the patience for practicing ‘mutual spiritual connection’ and a variety of languages everyday for the sake of Creatures. The patience of saints was also usually accompanied by a thing called stubbornness, so, oh well. Which meant: his own patience bled out rather quickly; how the fuck was he supposed to deal with Chait? (and why he couldn’t leave Chait and travel on his own had its own long list of reasons which mainly began with Benefits and Deals (that poor nomad guild-less travellers like him couldn’t stand up when presented))

“Elden.” The boy was snapped from his reverie. “It’s moving.”

What?

“What?”

“The oval, it’s moving.”

True enough, the unassumingly plain and smooth looking thing shifted and uncurled slowly. Chait’s cherubic features took on an itchy sort of giddiness that melted into an exasperatingly smug grin, accompanied by a twinkle in searing eyes that contrasted their doe shape. The turn of Chait’s head in his direction was also very slow. Painstakingly slow. Almost as if Chait wanted to savour their smugness that towered over Elden’s previous doubt and annoyance of ‘why the hell do I have to stand here and watch you poke a thing that you claimed you saw move but I’m having none of’.

“I told you I saw it move.” Pale straw coloured hair, that was equally straw-like in texture, made way for a predator-esque flash of teeth.

“Erg..”

Elden swore that Chait’s beam, chock full of glistening white teeth, had its own ‘shiiing!’ kind of sound effect to it. He leaned back onto his heels to avoid being blinded. Also trying to get away from the stream of knowing satisfaction practically rolling off of Chait’s multi-coloured sweater and permeating the air. The thing rustled beneath Chait’s squatted knees.

Chait hummed and waited, patiently, for the thing to reveal its identity. A slight breeze picked up for a split second before it settled down again, and the shuffling of leaves both up above and on the forest floor died with its departure.

“So, what is it—”

“Shhhh!”

Elden’s eyebrow twitched. A tic of indignation.

There was a little bit of leaf rearranging and the soft sound of quality leather rubbing against leather and a slight clinking that lost its echo to the densely packed and damp soil of autumn in the mountains. Then there was an inaudible gasp that served no purpose as a warning to Elden to prepare for some sort of reaction was because, well, it was inaudible.

“Ohhweee!” Elden had no idea what kind of sound that was,

“It’s a dragon tot!” A head turn. “Can we keep it? Can it tag along? I’ll take care of it!” A pair of eyes shimmered, at this point, literally, not figuratively, and there was little time to comprehend.

“What?”

“I asked if we could keep it, but never mind, we will keep it.” What a dumb question that was. “Oh, it’s a she! And she’s fiery.”

He pushed his weight onto his left leg as he made to turn back to face the way they were going before this detour. A calloused hand lethargically raised and adjusted a knapsack strap.

“Anyway, we’re not taking it.”

“But we’re a team now! Don’t decide on your own!” He was mostly turned away from Chait then, but he could hear the vivid pout in their voice.

“Don’t decide on your own either.”

“A dragon is a good creature. A nice companion. Loyal. Chivalrous. Hm.”

Chait was a tough opponent in a battle of persistence and tenacity, but this was a matter of how much energy Elden would have to expend to hunt for extra meat so that the thing—dragon—could eat. Elden could do this. He could do this.

“No.”

“I won’t take no.”

This would take long, wouldn’t it?