"You will never be chief with that softness," my mother would say whenever she caught even a hint of softness from me.
Soft scales.
Soft fists.
Soft heart.
My clan called me the runt. I was all the size and strength of a proper Embersoul, with none of the bloody cruelty they wanted. While the others came back from sparring with split lips and cracked ribs, I was the one who hesitated. Not because I could not fight… I know I could! I hit hard enough to crack a skull and breathed fire longer than most of my war-siblings.
I just don't think killing is right unless it's deserved.
That was worse than weakness. In our clan, mercy was for idiots and hesitation got teeth put in your throat. Unfortunately, I carried both like sickness no amount of training could beat the living shit out of me. Every time I held back, my mother would look at me like I crawled from the wrong egg.
"You are no Embersoul."
Those words hurt more than any blow I ever took in the pit because I was not just another daughter of the clan… I was her daughter. And sucks for my mother, I am her only one. The sole heir to the Embersoul bloodline, next in line to rule a matriarchal dynasty built on fire and fear. It did not matter that I trained twice as hard as anyone else. It did not matter that I could break ribs with one punch. Truth to be told, none of those shit mattered. Strength only counted if there was cruelty behind it. If you're not willing to make somebody scream, what the fuck were you good for?
And my mother, Chief Galega, was a perfect example of that cruelty. She was a war goddess in mortal flesh mixed with our dragon ancestors; scaled and terrible, she was a presence that bent the entire clan around her. When she inhales, draconian would listen. When she speaks, all obeyed with fear in their eyes.
One day, my trial finally came.
The clan called it a rite of strength. A coming of age. A test of whether I was fit to stand among them. Proof that I was fit to inherit what she would one day leave behind.
They dragged a man into the pit at dusk. He was bound at the wrists, bloodied, bruised, and barely conscious. They even threw a sword for him to use. But he was just a petty thief, they said. He'd stolen rations while his children starved. That was enough for the old bastards whispering at my mother's shoulder. To them, hunger was no excuse. It was just another weakness to punish.
The arena roared around me as the scales, claws, smoke, and chanting voices rising with the heat. My mother stood at the pit's edge with her arms crossed and expression carved into that same unforgiving shape I had spent my life trying not to disappoint.
"Prove yourself," she said as she looked me dead in the eye.
"End him."
So, I stepped forward. I raised my axe. Fire gathering at the back of my throat. The clan howled for blood. But then, the man looked at me.
He did not beg nor cry. He did not promise he would be better if I let him live. He only looked...tired. Defeated even. He was just… human. And by gods help me, I saw myself in him. It was the shape of someone cornered by a world that had already decided what he was worth.
For one stupid, miserable moment, I thought I had the strength, but then, my hand dropped. The silence hit harder than a blow. And then, the shouting started. My war-sisters bared their fangs as their insults rained down from every side of the pit. I heard coward, disgrace, weak-blood, runt. Some surged forward like they meant to tear me apart themselves for bringing shame into the arena. My mother moved before any of them could touch me. I barely saw her coming.
One moment I was standing in the dirt, the next I was slammed hard into the stone wall, breath punched out of me so violently I saw white. Pain burst through my ribs. Her forearm pinned me in place. Her face was inches from mine, her eyes bright as molten metal.
"You shame me," she hissed. "You shame your blood. You shame everything our ancestors built."
I could barely fucking breathe. Blood filled my mouth while every instinct in me screamed to bow my head or beg forgiveness. One apology. One strike. One dead man in the dirt, and maybe they would let me crawl back. Or at least enough to be let back into the barracks.
My hand lifted. Just one swing.
I looked past my mother's shoulder and saw the man still kneeling in the dirt, half-dead but breathing. And again, I saw myself as my hand fell.
"This man did nothing wrong," my voice shook.
My mother said nothing for so long I thought the whole pit went home because of the silence. In that moment, I knew I was fucked.
"Then you are no daughter of mine."
She looked at me the way a chief looks at a corpse before ordering it burned.
"You walk out of this clan," she said, "or you do not walk out at all."
I wavered but I wish I could say I did not. And to add insult to injury, my mother made sure to kill the man right in front of me with a quick stab. Fuck, I wish I could say I turned my back on them with pride and fire in my chest. But the truth is, I just wanted to stay and be accepted.
I turned anyway with dust in my mouth, a broken rib grinding every time I breathed, and footsteps that did not turn back.
The world outside the clan was too fucking quiet.
Back home there was always noise: boots grinding dirt, sparring in the pit, the crack of bone, the hiss of meat over flame, somebody shouting, somebody laughing, somebody bleeding. Even sleep had noise in it. Snoring. Fire farts. The low growl of draconic voices in the dark.
Beyond the borders of our clan's small village, I found only wind. It made me nervous.
I walked for hours before it sank in that no one was following me. Just me, Juria, a bedroll, an axe, my cracked ribs, dried blood on my jaw, and a stretch of road that did not give a shit where I went.
Draconians do not travel alone. We are born into packs, raised in ranks, taught to move as one body. We hunt together, fight together, sleep in guarded circles. A lone Draconian is a bad sign as it means exile, madness, or death.
I knew what I looked like from the outside.
The first village I passed froze in their tracks the moment I arrived. A woman gathering washing froze with a sheet clutched in her hands while two children vanished behind a fence. Nearby, a man near the well fumbled desperately for his knife handle nearly dropping it. By the time I reached the road's centre shutters were already slamming shut one by one.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I was like a storm rolling through. I should have kept walking but instead, I foolishly stopped. Nearby, a bakery wafted the enticing aroma of warm bread and burnt crust. My stomach twisted that I nearly doubled over. It had been a whole day since I last ate. So, I stood there like an idiot while the baker stared at me through the crack in his door as if I would've bitten his fucking head off for a loaf.
"I've got some coins," I said, though my voice came out rough which only made him flinch.
He glanced past me first likely expecting the rest of the raiding party. Unfortunately, it was only me.
He opened the door a bit wider enough to push out a stale bread heel wrapped in cloth. "Take it and leave."
I stared at the bread, then at him, and finally back at it.
"I said I have the coin."
"Then keep it," he snapped, fear making him rude. "Just don't stay."
That should have annoyed me but it hollowed something in my chest. I took the bread and left without a word. That became the norm for most places afterwards. Even bandits initially kept their distance until they realised I wasn't there to burn their camp or tear through their horses. Then a few of the less intelligent ones hatched a plan. They usually regret those plans.
I quickly realised people preferred stories to truth. A lone Draconian on the road had to be a monster hunting for prey, one bad breath away from turning their patch of mud into a funeral pyre. The truth was less impressive, though.
I was just fucking lost.
I avoided villages unless absolutely necessary. I slept in the treeline and collected water from streams uphill from farms to prevent accusations of poisoning. I spoke only when absolutely necessary and even then kept my sentences short. Fewer words meant fewer opportunities for people to hear the growl in my voice and misinterpret it as a threat. Sometimes I would catch my reflection in the water and understand their fear.
The horns, scales, heavy shoulders, coupled with a face that was built for war even when I was too exhausted to stand straight. This made me look exactly like the thing mothers warned their children about to force them to behave.
I made myself smaller wherever I could. Not very easy given my size. I kept my hood up during the rain and wrapped my tail tightly. I folded my hands when I spoke to avoid drawing attention to my claws. I ate and healed alone and kept moving forward.
The nights were the worst. By day, I had roads, trees and things to watch and places to go. At night, I had time to think. And thinking was a bastard. I would lie awake beside the fire with my axe across my lap and hear my mother's voice in every crack of wood.
You are no Embersoul.
Some nights I got so angry I would get up and split logs until dawn just to stop hearing her. Other nights I would sit there staring into the coals, wondering if I should have just done it. That's fucked. Despite everything, I hate that a part of me still yearned to return.
It took me far longer than I'd care to admit to realise the only living things that weren't staring at me like that were the animals. They did not care how I look. They did not give a shit about prophecy or clan shame or whether my mother had named me a disgrace before I walked out.
A scrappy little red fox began following me in the third week. Half-starved and with one ear torn, it was sly as a fox can be. At first I thought it was scavenging, hoping I'd drop some meat or die near the road. However, it persisted. For three days straight, it appeared just at the edge of campfire light with its yellow eyes fixed on my hands.
"You're a nosy little bastard," I told it.
That night I offered the little fella a strip of rabbit. It snatched the meat and darted into the brush. The following morning it appeared again.
By the second day it ceased its long runs. By the third the tiny creature curled itself just beyond my boots while I cleaned my axe as if we'd reached some understanding. When the cold and slanting rain came hard that evening, it emerged soaked and shivering. We both stared at each other.
"Don't make this a thing," I muttered as I lifted one side of my cloak anyway. It darted underneath so fast I had to laugh. After that, animals kept finding me.
Birds landed near my fire once they realised I was not going to throw stones at them. One morning beside a creek, I found a lame doe and helped her dig a thorn from her hoof. She trembled throughout but didn't bolt. And once, a bear cub climbed into my lap near the edge of a pinewood while its mother foraged nearby. It huffed twice, circled, and fell asleep against my leg.
I did not move for three fucking hours. My leg went numb. My back ached. Worth it.
I'd never admit it aloud but I occasionally talk to them. It was just stray thoughts, complaints about the weather and curses when my firewood was damp. I'd also apologise if I startled something smaller than me. They came close if they wanted. Left if they did not.
Then came Luna.
By the time she found me, I was half-dead but too stubborn to admit it.
Two nights earlier, I pulled the wrong root from the ground. It smelled sharp when I sliced it open but I thought it was the plant you could boil down with meat and wild onion. However, it was actually the shit that attempted to shut down one organ at a time.
Brilliant. Juria Embersoul, mighty exile, brought low by a stupid fucking root, eh?
Initially, I experienced cramps. Then the shaking began followed by sweating. A searing pain made breathing feel like a terrible idea. I managed to reach the riverbank before my legs gave way. One moment I was crawling desperately for water the next I was face-down in the reeds with mud clinging to my teeth and my chest tightening so painful I thought my ribs were turning to iron.
A pathetic way to die, really. Felled by a stupid fucking root because exile had not been humiliating enough.
The river's sound was the most vivid memory. It was too close. The water moved too fast for me to control. Lying there, poisoned but trying to stay calm, every time I opened my eyes I saw the current gliding past like it was waiting for me. My claws tore strips through the mud where I desperately tried to pull myself back from the bank. I was shaking violently that I could barely keep my teeth together. Next thing I knew, footsteps came in.
I thought I was hallucinating with some fever-induced nonsense my dying brain conjured to soften the end. However, a shadow fell across me and a very calm voice spoke:
"Oh, you poor thing."
Poor thing. I would have laughed if I had enough breath for it.
I strained to lift my head, managing just enough. Through the haze I glimpsed her pale hands, silver-white fabric and a satchel slung at one hip. A face obscured by the blur remained a mystery.
"Don't move," she said. And because I couldn't resist, I immediately tried to move.
Pain knifed through my gut so hard my vision flashed white. A raw and humiliating sound tore from my throat – not quite a roar nor a gasp. Her hands were on me almost instantly, one bracing my shoulder and the other at my neck.
"You'll live," she reassured like I was a frightened horse instead of a draconic wreck twice her size. "Easy now."
I wanted to tell her to fuck off. Instead, a wet and ugly cough erupted. She did not flinch at all.
Most people would be put off by the horns, scales, and tail before I even spoke. But Luna… she just knelt there in the mud beside me with warm hands, studying me calmly rather than treating me like a threat to her survival.
After a moment, she asked, "You ate something, didn't you?"
"B-brilliant deduction," I glared at her from the dirt.
"Good," she said. "If you can be rude, you can probably be saved.". From her satchel, she retrieved a small vial containing dark liquid. The smell alone nearly made me gag.
"Fuck no," I rasped.
"Yes."
"It smells l-like arse."
"It's medicine."
"N-no!"
She uncorked the vial anyway. I attempted to swat it from her hand but my arm barely twitched. She caught my wrist with an insulting ease and held it long enough to make her point. There was no fear at all. She then tipped the vial against my mouth.
Gods, it was foul.
It was so bitter that it made my whole tongue go numb. I tried to spit it back at her but she pinched my jaw until instinct made me swallow. I coughed. I choked. I swore at her in different ways. Unfortunately for me, she took it all with saintly composure.
"Gods, that was fucking unpleasant!" I told her when I could breathe again.
"I know."
"You could have warned me."
"I know you wouldn't like it. I certainly don't enjoy taking this medication myself."
I would've laugh if I had not been busy dying. Afterwards, she placed a hand over my chest and spoke in a language I couldn't understand then. I later discovered it was Elvish. Whatever she was chanting resonated within me.
It moved through my body like a cold water, easing the worst of the convulsions and loosening the iron grip on my lungs. The pain did not vanish but it pulled back enough for breath to become possible again.
I remember staring at her afterwards. It wasn't because she was beautiful though she certainly was in that unfair elven way. Her calmness, a trait I grew up distrusting, was the reason for my stare. In my clan, calm usually meant someone stronger than you had already decided how the pain was going to go. Her calm was different though. I just couldn't explain it.
She stayed with me until nightfall and then through the night into the morning. She built a fire and brought clean water. She checked my breathing and pressed another dose of that vile medicine into my hand when my fever spiked again. There was a time I woke with my head pillowed on a rolled cloak that was not mine and found her sitting nearby with her hands wrapped around a tin cup while watching the river.
"You're still here," I croaked.
She looked over. "Yes, I am here."
I should have told her to leave. Probably would've if standing had not still been an ambitious fucking dream. Instead I glared at the fire and said, "You know I could kill you, right?"
"Not today," she replied as she added more twigs to the flame.
I was genuinely dumbfounded I hadn't realised I was staring at her. Against my will, I let out a laugh that quickly turned into a cough. That was the first time I saw her smile. We didn't speak much afterwards, not at first.
Once I could stand, I tried to leave. She'd saved my life and therefore I was supposed to go. That was how things worked. People come and go. Help had a price. Kindness had an end. But as I stood up, swaying and on the verge of falling, she was there at my elbow yet again.
"Sit down," she said.
"I'm fine."
"You're swaying. I don't suppose you're drunk?"
"I am not."
She looked at me and I sat back down. That became our unspoken rhythm before I realised it existed.
She healed for both of us. Once I was able, I hunted. She then brewed things in neat bundles and glass vials. I brought back rabbits, fish, whatever I could catch without collapsing into a bush. She hummed when she worked while I pretended not to listen.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
She did not leave.
She stayed with me even when I snapped at her because the aftermath of my ribs hurt. She stayed when I woke from nightmares, choking on smoke and flames curling from my mouth. Stayed when I split kindling harder than usual, or swore too loud, or paced the edge of camp like a caged bastard because the silence in my own head had gotten mean again. Gradually against every instinct, I found myself staying as well.
I learned to trust Luna. She was the first person who looked at the parts of me my clan called soft and did not sneer. She never took my anger as evil. She saw strength in the buried tenderness I'd spent years treating as a flaw. I didn't understand it but I felt it every time she offered me a cup before I asked.
I had been raised to think power only counted if it frightens people but Luna walked into my life carrying bitter medicine and ruined that lesson for me.
Then the little shit crash-landed into our lives. Metaphorically and literally.
One moment, the evening is as normal as life ever got with me and Luna skulking around the edge of civilisation. I just got the campfire going properly after a row with some damp wood for the better part of an hour. Our pot hung over the flames filled with rabbit stew. It was thick with onions and wild herbs Luna insisted would "bring out the flavour" though I suspect they were simply leaves she enjoyed the smell of. The forest was quiet and the light was low, so for once nothing hurt badly enough to ruin my mood.
The world above began screaming and I looked up. Some sounds are so familiar they instantly signal trouble. This one was new but my gut recognised it: metal rattling itself to death, a mechanical shriek like a boiling kettle and beneath it all, the deeply concerning sound of a person yelling with far too much confidence.
And that little shit suddenly burst through the treeline. I was on my feet before my brain caught up.
A mechanism of sort made of brass and steel coughed out frantic bursts of steam. Wheels — why the fuck did it have wheels? It spun uselessly while the rest of the thing bucked downhill straight towards our camp.
Straddling the bastard contraption was a woman holding on with one hand while the other yanked at something that had clearly stopped listening to reason.
"MOVE!" she shrieked.
It was a sound advice but it was too late. The thing hit our campfire dead on.
Flames exploded outward. The stew pot launched into the fucking air. A shower of sparks, dirt, and half-cooked rabbit rained down around us as the strange thing ploughed straight through the firepit and threw its rider clean over the front. She somersaulted through the smoke, hit the ground shoulder-first, and came to a stop face-down in the grass.
Silence.
A single boiled carrot landed in the ashes beside me. I stared at it then at the ruined campfire and finally at the stranger sprawled in the dirt. My hand tightened on my axe.
"What," I said, very slowly, "the actual fuck."
From the bushes behind me came the sound of fast footsteps. Luna burst into the clearing with a knife in hand, eyes sharp with alarm.
"Juria-"
She froze, staring into the crater where our dinner had been. The smoking wreck lay tangled against the tree and the stranger who landed on the grass.
Since gods enjoyed tormenting me, Luna simply looked past everything and asked, "Oh dear, is she all right?"
I turned to stare at her.
"Is she-" I pointed at the smoking remains of the fire. "Luna, she just obliterated the fucking camp!"
The little shit groaned. Ah, alive then, unfortunately. She pushed herself up on shaking elbows, coughed out a bit of grass, and lifted her head.
For a moment, I saw only a pitiful figure. Then the rest of her emerged into focus: short dark hair, enormous eyes concealed beneath a larger pair of glasses and clothes that once looked expensive but now struggling against the mud. A satchel strapped across her chest and a huge pack on her back resembled something that had just emerged from a war zone.
She looked up and saw me properly. The instant her eyes travelled from my tail to the axe, to the scales on my arms, to the horns curling from my skull, her whole face changed and froze right there. It was the look on someone's face when they realise they've made a spectacular mistake but too proud to admit it.
"Holy shite," she gasped. I bared my teeth. Then in a voice that almost like it came with its own silverware, she added, "Well. That is... considerably more half a dragon than I had accounted for."
Luna and I stared at each other in disbelief. This idiot sat up a little straighter, though the effort made her wince hard enough to suggest her joints were submitting complaints.
"I should like to make it abundantly clear," she continued, "that this was an accident."
"An accident," I repeated.
"Yes."
"You crashed whatever the hells that is into my fire."
Her chin lifted defensively, though she was desperately trying to hide her fear.
"It is... uhh.." she said stiffly. "I-it is still a prototype!"
I stared at the smoking wreck and the miserable remains of what had been a perfectly decent stew. Then I looked back at her and said, "Well, Your Majesty, your prototype crashed my fucking camp."
Something in her expression suddenly jolted. Her spine stiffened and her eyes widened. Then it vanished, quickly buried under indignation so intense I almost thought I'd imagined it.
"Don't call me that," she frowned.
Oh?
"Touchy," I narrowed my eyes.
"It is inaccurate," she snapped fast. Correcting herself with that strange tone only a noble would use, "and ridiculous!"
Ridiculous, my arse. Normal people do not react like that unless a nerve had been stabbed on accident.
Before I could dig at it, Luna hurried past me and crouched beside her. "Are you hurt?"
I turned towards her. "Luna."
"What?"
"Look at what she did!"
"Yes, I can see that." Luna glanced at the remnants of our food before returning her gaze to the stranger. "She might still be injured."
"Sounds like a her problem."
"I said, it was an accident!" she insisted. "A mechanical miscalculation under less than ideal terrain conditions."
"You came screaming out of the sky on that tin goat."
"It's a llama."
She made an angry face and attempted to stand but only managed halfway. She immediately swayed that I thought she might collapse. Fortunately, Luna caught her elbow just in time before she hit the ground again.
I crossed my arms and I scoffed again. "Magnificent recovery, Your Majesty."
"I told you, stop calling me that," she said. That got another flash from her. Fucking weird rich people.
"Why?" I asked. "You sound like you ride fancy horses." Her glare was so intense it was getting uncomfortable.
"I was not doing anything of the sort."
"Maybe we could have a conversation after I make sure she does not have a concussion," Luna looked at both of us and as she kept her hand on the stranger to keep her steady.
"I believe do not have a concussion," the stranger said.
"And I believe you flew into a tree, but we do not seem to be relying on your judgement tonight."
She almost considered rebutting Luna but ultimately chose silence. Luna smiled, confident she'd won the argument.
"What is your name?" Luna asked.
Her gaze flicked between me and Luna then to the wreckage of her ridiculous machine as if calculating how many lies she could get away with before one of us noticed.
Quietly, she finally said, "Claudemund."
I snorted before I could help it. The name snagged on something in my mind. It's a familiar irritating feeling of having heard it somewhere distant and unimportant.
"Is there something hilarious?" She looked offended.
"It sounds stupid."
"No, it bloody isn't."
Ohhh… She knows how to swear.
Before I could speak further, Luna interrupted, "I'm Luna and this is Juria."
Claudemund turned to me again. Her gaze travelled up my arm scales, over the scars, and finally to the horns on my head. I watched her struggle not to stare. Brave, I'd say, or maybe too stubborn to recognise fear as the sensible choice.
"Right," Claudemund said. Apparently self-preservation doesn't seem to be one of her skills so she squinted at me and muttered, "You're significantly larger up close."
I stared back at her, "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Nothing, really," she replied, raising both hands. "You are furious and look like you could snap me in half. That's threatening to someone like me."
I locked eyes with her for a long time and she stared back. For the love of the gods, I could not tell what in the hell was going on inside that tiny little human head of hers.
"You built that?" I asked.
And with that, everything else vanished. The fear, the offence, any sort of negative energy that was present on her face was replaced by an expression that glowed from within with a bright smile.
"Yes!" she exclaimed.
"It looks shit."
She gasped like I had insulted her whole bloodline. Luna laughed then. Claudemund looked at her in wounded disbelief. "You don't think it's wonderful?"
"I apologise," Luna said, not sounding sorry at all. "It is simply a surprising machine."
Claudemund let out a small, genuine sigh of anguish and attempted to stand up again. Luna swiftly caught her shoulders.
"No."
"I need to see-"
"No."
"If the pressure valve has cracked-"
"No."
"It may be salvageable-"
I rushed in before thinking, stepping in front of the machine just in case it decided to end its life with a dramatic flourish before the night was over. Claudemund froze and looked at Luna's hands before turning to me that is standing between her and the wreck. Her expression changed – tiredness perhaps, or a sudden vulnerability. Young as it is in a way she hadn't seemed to be just moments before.
"I genuinely thought," she said faintly, "that I was going to die."
"Somehow injured," Luna's grip softened instantly as Claudemund looked at her, "but you are not dying."
"Yet," I grunted but Luna gave me a piercing look. Claudemund managed a tiny laugh.
She pressed a hand to her ribs, inhaled carefully and said with brittle dignity, "I would like it formally recorded that this has been an appalling evening."
Luna nodded and glanced toward the ashes of the tragic stew decorating a nearby bush. "We still have dried provisions," she said. "And some root vegetables in the satchel. The dinner is salvageable. We can start again."
I turned to stare at her. "We can?"
"Yes."
"Nope! She can," I pointed at Claudemund.
"I beg your pardon?" Claudemund gasped, clearly shocked by my words.
"You smashed your shitty little toy," I said. "You get to cook." All of a sudden, she looked like I just sentenced her to public execution.
"I hardly think assigning culinary duties to an injured guest is reasonable!" She replied with her chin lifted.
"You're not a guest," I corrected.
Luna, traitor that she was, said softly, "Claudemund."
"Yes?" Claudemund turned to her at once.
"Can you cook?"
A long pause came as I heard the wind passing by. Claudemund looked at Luna then at me before her gaze went into the trees thinking that the answer might be hanging on a branch to save her. I narrowed my eyes.
"Well?"
She cleared her throat. "I can understand the sequence of tasks required."
Well, that was not an answer I was looking for. I took one step closer right in front of her face to intimidate her. "Can you cook?"
Claudemund's whole face tightened with reluctant humiliation. "In theory… But uhh… Not with any practical success. Yet."
I stared at her. Then at Luna. Then back at this tiny pathetic shit who had nearly turned herself inside out trying to sound dignified about not knowing how to boil a fucking root.
"So, let me get this straight: you can build that thing," I said slowly, "but you can't cook?"
Claudemund crossed her arms, then immediately uncrossed them when the motion pulled at her ribs. "Cooking and mechanical engineering are not remotely comparable disciplines."
"No," I said. "One keeps you alive."
"I am aware of that, thank you."
"I don't think you are."
Her nostrils flared. Dear gods, she is so easily provoked. I jerked my chin at Luna, who was calmly gathering vegetables from the least contaminated patches of ground.
"What, your parents never taught you how to feed yourself when you were little?"
Claudemund hesitated. Then she said, a little too carefully, "I, ah… lived comfortably."
What in the ever-loving fuck did that mean?
"That is the most suspicious way anyone has ever admitted they have money."
"I did not say I have money!"
"No. You just said it like a person who's never roasted their own food in their life."
"Well… There were… other people more qualified for those tasks," she finally admitted with all the offended grandeur of someone lodging a complaint with the gods. I barked out a laugh so loud it startled a bird from the branches overhead. Luna hid a smile behind her hand.
"Other people," I repeated.
"Do stop saying it like that," Claudemund's expression turned murderous.
"How else am I meant to say it?"
"I don't know," she snapped. "Less… peasantly."
Luna made a soft but scandalised sound that was absolutely not helping because she was also laughing now, shoulders shaking while she sorted what remained of our supplies. Claudemund looked between us in mounting outrage. "I have sustained injury," she informed us. "I would like that noted before the mockery continues."
"Oh don't you worry. It's definitely noted," I snorted.
Luna stood and brushed ash from her skirt. "There. We still have lentils, dried mushrooms… onions… and a few roots that survived." And in that same gentle voice that carried more authority than a shouted order, Luna continued, "Claudemund, you are staying. You are injured, alone, and it is getting darker. This is not a debate."
"Huh?" Claudemund asked in confusion.
"You need rest. Your injuries need watching. I would like to make sure there is no internal bleeding. I also do not trust you not to fall out of another tree if left unattended."
"That is very kind, but I cannot impose," Claudemund drew herself up again.
"You already have," I muttered.
Luna went on as though neither of us had spoken. "You will stay until I am satisfied you are able to travel safely."
Both me and Claudemund looked at Luna with confusion. The clearing went quiet aside from the occasional hiss from the mechanical abomination slumped against the tree. Then I turned slowly to Luna.
"What the fuck, Luna?"
Luna looked back at me with one hand resting lightly on the hilt of the knife at her belt while the other held a rescued vegetable.
"She is injured," she said.
"She is the reason I no longer have dinner."
"Ah, but we are making more, Juria."
I threw both hands up and said, "Oh, fuck me. Excellent. Fine. Wonderful. Let's keep the suspicious posh woman with a death wish and a homicidal weapon of destruction. That sounds wise."
"How many time do I have to bloody fucking tell you it was an accident!" Claudemund finally snapped, visibly offended on behalf of the machine. "It had several very important functions, most of which were performing adequately until an unforeseen issue with the descent ratio-"
"LUNA," I interrupted with a louder voice, not taking my eyes off Claudemund, "I am begging you to tell me we are not adopting this."
"We are not adopting anyone," Luna smiled as she handed me the surviving food bundle. "Juria, start the fire again."
I should have said no but instead I swore under my breath, stalked back toward the ruined firepit, and started rebuilding it.
And that was how the three of us ended up sitting in the ashes of my ruined evening, making a second dinner while I wondered what fresh bullshit the gods had decided to dump in my lap.