"The open skies…" Zery muttered, looking up at the vast expanse of blue. Her meaty, long tail was swishing back and forth, kicking up a gale.
Her wings were also twitching.
"Go ahead," I told her, "stretch your wings. I know you want to."
She looked at me and grinned like the happiest girl, before taking off running. Her stride carried her forward at great speed until she finally leapt into the air, her wings beating once, then twice, then some more. Each powerful flap carried her up and up, unsteadily at first, until she finally got the hang of it, old muscle memory resurfacing, and she stabilized herself.
The bond was flooded with sheer joy and happiness, and through her eyes we saw the world from up above, felt the freedom of the skies, the wind on our skin, while our earthbound bodies watched her recede into a tiny dot. The silhouette of her wings and tail made her look like a powerful, mighty dragon; her nimble body ended in a thick tail that tapered before expanding into large fins, with wings outstretched, gliding against the setting sun.
Then she returned, not quite sticking the landing and rolling on the grass, upsetting the soil as she struggled to get a grip on it with her clawed feet. She tumbled, her wings digging little moats in the ground, then rolled again, getting all dirtied up, but laughing all the time, enjoying every moment, from success to failure.
"Sol," she said, looking at me with wide, round eyes.
Her slitted pupils had expanded until they were orbs of darkness ringed by the gold of her irises, and her heart was beating in her chest like crazy. She had been flying for a good ten minutes, and never once had I left her thoughts. The girls and I had been there with her, not just as a presence, but as the ones who had saved her and let her return to her skies.
As she kneeled before me to accommodate for her height, I walked up and cupped her face. She wasted no time and kissed me deeply, before wrapping all of us in a massive hug.
We ended up watching the sunset all slumped against the big tree, safe inside its shield. Zery was in the middle this time, with her wings spread wide to act as pillows. Calla and Elyra were on one side, Vespera and I on the other, and the dragon enjoyed her moment of prominence in the middle, with all attention on her. Her arms were easily long enough to wrap around us all, and she stretched her legs and made cute little noises.
"It felt good to finally fly again," she said after the high of the flight had turned into a warm blanket of contentment. "I'm sorry I depleted the whole mana pool," she added.
"It's okay," I said. "The mana pool will get a lot bigger with the levels."
There was a moment of silence, during which we enjoyed one another.
"Hey," I finally said. "Do you think you'll be able to carry us eventually?"
"I think so," the dragoness said. Then she paused. "How, though? My wings come out of my back, you'd have to either cling to my neck or be lying on my ass!"
"I'll take the ass!" Vespera said immediately.
I shrugged. "We'll figure it out."
"No harnesses or saddles," Zery deadpanned. "I'm not a pack animal."
"But you liked the collar," the demon teased her.
The dragon's eyes narrowed and she shifted her wings, dislodging Vespera and making her roll on the soft grass. The demon woman scoffed, outraged, before she decided to tickle the dragon. This made her twitch and twist to defend herself from the onslaught, which ended up with all of us on the grass and Zery's bulk on top of us, with her wings acting like a blanket.
"You know," I said. "Feels nice to be under your wings. Think we can stay here a while?"
"You just like the pheromones and the smell of sweat," Vespera said.
"And you don't?" I countered.
Above us, the first stars were coming out, and we enjoyed the show. Well, all of us save for Zery, who was forced to stay with her belly on the ground in order to provide us with her wing blanket. She didn't seem to mind, though, relaxing and using her forearms to rest her face.
Seeing this, I shuffled over and rested my head on some free space near her.
"No fair, you're hogging up all the Zery," Vespera complained.
"Use Elyra," I shot back. "She's soft."
"Where?" the demon argued. "Her body is too toned. And she doesn't even work out!"
The angel undid her bindings, letting her chest spill out. "…here."
The demon dived in, screaming "pillows!"
Meanwhile, I felt Calla snuggle up to me. We stayed there for a while, until Zery shifted a little and turned to face me. I also turned to the side, so that our eyes met, looking at each other's sideways faces. Hers was so big, so close. I felt her heat, still radiating from her body because of the flight. The air cooled her while she was up there, but now her body was still hot and there was no air, just us. It was slightly damp under her wings, like a salty sauna.
"Things just… keep happening to us, don't they?" the dragon mused.
Vespera's voice reached us. "Yeah, it almost reeks of fate. Or outside intervention."
I smiled. "I mean, I was transported here by someone, after all."
"I'm glad you were," the dragon said.
"We all are," Elyra confirmed. "He is the star of our lives."
My smile widened. "It's been a while since you called me that."
"We shall make up for the lost opportunities," the angel said.
"Star of our lives…" Zery echoed. She knew of stars and space, of course, from my memories. They had hit her differently from the others, as they had Calla, both of them having different reference points compared to Elyra and Vespera. But still. "You also gave them their names, didn't you?" she asked.
I nodded.
"True names," she continued. "The sort of thing that holds a power that is not easily quantifiable. The sort of things that make for indestructible bonds. Oh, Sol. I wish you had given me a name too."
"Would you really want me to? I like Zery, no, Zerynthia."
The big dragon smiled, showing her vulnerable side. Normally, her proud demeanor dictated her mannerisms, and only the bond allowed us to really peer inside. Now, however, with us under her wings all pressed together, she was showing us her true self for our mundane eyes to see.
"I like my name too. Well, Zery at least. Zerynthia is a bit pretentious."
"Then that's okay," I said.
She shook her head slowly. "I want more. A bond so complete that we won't be able to exist as separate entities."
She was about to speak again when Elyra's soft giggles reached our ears.
At Zery's inquisitive thoughts, she said, "It feels like ages ago, but, Sol, do you remember when we made love for the first time? Vespera joked that we had just bonded for life."
"I remember," I said. It helped that both Zery and Calla were digging through the bond's memories to relive that moment, vicariously through us since they weren't there.
"It's funny how it always returns to this, isn't it?" she finished.
"I think it's very wholesome," I said.
"What if there was a way?" a timid voice said. Calla.
"Is there? To bond for life?" the angel asked with sudden intensity.
The little dryad swallowed, but then gathered her courage to speak. "We are, by all means, bonded for life already. But there are ways to make it official. Even more official, I mean. To become so entwined together that we will not be able to stand being separated from each other."
"Even with the bond?" I asked. The bond was a perfect bridge for all matters of distance, since it allowed us to literally be with each other seemingly without range limits.
She nodded. "There is a ritual. The System knows it exists, but we will have to find it ourselves. It is considered a sort of curse, really. It was used to keep prisoners and wandering spouses chained."
"How does it work?" Vespera asked, short of salivating at the idea of being branded. Why was she thinking that?
"The person on the receiving end would start to feel discomfort, sadness, pain and even magic backlash the more they are separated from the other. In our case, we would curse each other in pairs, both ways."
I listened, feeling the girls grow excited and deciding that they weren't right in the head. Calla seemed to have given this a lot of thought too, which was worrying and utterly clashed with her quiet, shy personality.
"We'd need to travel far and wide to gather the necessary things."
"I'm in," Vespera said. "Where to?"
The dryad smiled. "We need three things. The ritual book with the instructions. A catalyst: the thing each of us holds most dear, that will be burned to make the caster master of the one they are cursing. And for the cursed, we need a pure, unadulterated source of each element we represent. For me, it would be nature, and my tree can provide it. For Sol, it would be unaspected mana, which not even the System knows where to find. As for you…"
"Angelic and demonic," Vespera said. "Shit."
"But there is one other we know where to find, isn't there?" I said, looking at Zery. I surprised myself by how okay I was with this plan. I mean, something that had absolutely no usefulness to us, and instead would only end up creating problems? We couldn't be separated! It would seriously limit the stuff we could do. But also, we could literally no longer be separated unless against our will. Never.
I looked at each of my girls and thought: Fuck it. Let's do it. The girls might not be right in the head for thinking this, but I wasn't much better either. I was wholly on their level, in fact.
"Abyssal. Your new element," I said. "Let's go look for it."
She scoffed. "Me? I don't even know what my magic can do! Flight is innate to dragons, it's not because of my element. Besides…" she trailed off, before shaking her head. "I'm the newcomer."
"Bullshit!" said a rather animated angel.
"What she said," added an even more animated demon.
"What they said," Calla chimed in, clearly enjoying this.
"Silly," I finished.
"That's set," Vespera said, jumping to a plan already. "We'll find the abyss, whatever and wherever it is, and start formalizing our bonds for life. It better be something the System recognizes, by the way. Show everyone just how inseparable we are."
"Vespera…" I said softly. "We are hiding our status. They don't even see that your last name matches mine."
She paused, sputtering. "That's! That's unacceptable!"
I paused, feeling that all the girls were on board with this. They all wanted to show off our bond, consequences be damned.
"Fine," I said, getting up and earning a frown from Zery. I sat by the tree again, beckoning them to me. They all came, piling up against me, even the big dragon. "It'll be a big statement we make, you do know that, right?"
"Of course," Elyra said. "A statement of our love."
"That's very wholesome," the demon commented. "Makes me almost nauseous."
"It makes you horny," Zery deadpanned. "Can you stop being horny all the time?"
"Nope!"
"Good," the dragon said. "I love you for who you are."
"Damn," I said. "Stunned Vespera into silence, of all people. Good one."
Zery preened.
"Well," I said, yawning. "We'll start our search tomorrow, how about it? What should we start with?"
"The abyss," angel and demon both said. "After we fix that problem with the System's cracked crystal."
"And we gain some more power," I added.
"And levels," Calla said. "We will be far away from our System sector."
"And deal with our obligations with the city," I also said.
"Fuck the city," Vespera snapped.
"Bad girl, behave," I said, and she immediately pouted. Her chest also grew hot with desire, though.