Leo awoke in a flurry, his heart pounding through his chest.
He sat up quickly trying to get his bearings.
The lantern beside him flickered as his hyperventilating subsided. He looked around the room, his forehead slowly dropping into a frown. He looked down and sure enough, Lucille was laying there, sleeping peacefully
Leo slowly crawled out of the bed, muttering to himself in the agitation that often came with waking up in the morning.
One of the farmers had granted him refuge in a spare room he had in the house. It was dusty, clearly unused for a long time. But it was there. After the battle that had raged and after he had witnessed what Leo could do, he treated him with a high amount of respect. It almost seemed...fearful.
Leo buckled his belt and strapped his new sword to his hip.
Twilight. Can you hear me?
The dragon was far off. But his voice came back clearer than a freshly cut sheet of ice.
I hear your thoughts even if you'd prefer i don't. Good morning.
Leo smiled.
He turned around and nudged the Succubus.
"Wake up Lucille. We have to go."
The girl groaned and rolled onto her back.
"Why?" she whined.
"Because! We just have to."
He grabbed his coat and threw it on.
"I think I'm going to go to the Capital."
She sat up, her wings fluttering, stirring the dust.
"Why the capital?"
It was clear that something about Leo's statement certainly woke her up. She looked almost like she'd been up for hours.
He didn't know how to answer that question though.
He scratched his head as he tried to figure out why it was he wanted to go to the city.
Then it clicked.
"I need to speak to the king. I need soldiers. And a lot of them."
Lucille blinks and rubbed her eyes.
"Trying to start a war? I knew I liked you for a reason, Master," She said cheerfully.
Leo mumbled. "It's 'Leo' for the record."
Being called 'Master' felt odd to him. All he could think about was taking back the peace that he had known for years before it was crushed so suddenly.
"You can say that. But i just want my people to not feel afraid anymore."
He stepped out of the room and down the stairs. The house was vacant. Leo had looked in the den, the dining room, the kitchen, and even the latrine. Not a soul.
He stepped outside assuming that the farmer was out plowing the fields.
He reached the town and saw the heartbreaking sight of people fortifying their homes and shops. It was awful to know that they had reached this point to where they felt the need to scavenge lumber or bricks just to make it so that their livelihoods felt less threatened.
Leo wanted to get rid of this threat and soon.
But he truly didn't know where to start.
"A new era has formed. No peace. No comfort. Only little joy for when the time allows. Every blacksmithy shop around shall take our pitchforks and turn them into pikes. They shall make our shovels into axes of war. They shall turn our trowels into arrows. They shall make our rakes into swords. May the Creator look upon us and praise us in our triumph when we have ridden ourselves of this nasty enemy."
So were the words of the priest upon the steps of his church.
"These days will be dark. They will be hard. And we will need to muster the courage to stand up against those who dare to take what's ours away...."
Leo walked on to the edge of town, shouldering the pack he had gathered.
He made his way to an desolate area where the road met the sky far in the distance.
Twilight circled above. He spotted his rider and spiraled to the ground, landing lightly.
Twilight had grown an exceptional amount since he had hatched from his egg. With his wingspan stretching far beyond the length of his body, and his body alone being longer than a horse barn, it was only right to say, he had gotten huge.
Leo looked up at him in relief, his shoulder burning from the weight of his pack. He tossed it down and unclipped it, and with much labor, pulled out a large brown finished leather object. The saddle he had been working on during his time in town. He took this and threw it up over Twilight's back and then backed away to assess the sizing. Being inexperienced in saddle making, he prayed that the end result would satisfy both him and his dragon.
Leo reached into his pack and drew out a long thin but sturdy length of leather and began to loop it through the edges of Twilight's new saddle. Here it wasn't an issue since he'd asked Halafrid to make some silver rings. Those had been used for this purpose. After about half an hour of constant adjusting and measuring, he stepped back to admire his work. It fit perfectly and it had hand grips Leo had improvised into it so that he wouldn't come off the saddle in flight. He gathered the rest of his things and closed his pack. As he moved to step off, dull thud can be heard as something impacted beside his boot. He froze and slowly turned his head to look....
An arrow... and not just any arrow. He knew this arrow. Only his best friend made these.
"Jasper?"
He straightened up. Jasper never missed his shots. This was a deliberate miss.
He reached down and pulled it out of the packed soil and scanned the horizon.
Sure enough, Jasper appeared at the edge of the massive clearing, walking toward him. But he wasn't alone. Sateria was with him in her dark red dress, her thighs teasing in the sunlight from the slits.
Leo relaxed as he saw his friends walking toward him but then began to tense up as it struck him that they might only be there to prevent him from leaving.
As they neared, he swallowed.
"And where in the Creator's paradise do you think you're going?" Jasper demanded as he finally came to a stop.
"You think that we're going to let you just pop off into the nothingness without us?"
Leo's heart grew fuzzy and warm as an overwhelming sensation of emotions passed over him.
"I....didn't think it would be safe for you to come."
"Shut up, Saphire," Sateria piped at him. She snatched the arrow from his grip and handed it to Jasper.
"I should slap you for assuming we're so weak. After all that happened to our town? The Disciples? My family died. And so did yours. And Jasper...."
"They've been dead for awhile, Sateria. Can't hurt my feelings if you say it."
"Right." Sateria shouldered the barbed pole axe that she held. It used a unique design, one end concluding with a savage pointed blade like a spear and the other grinning in the light with its double edged axehead.
Leo looks at the two of them in turn.
"I guess I can use the company. Come to think of it, I'd love to have you both with me. But I have a question. How did you know it was me? How come you didn't attack Twilight?"
Jasper and Sateria both exchange glances.
"Truth is," Sateria explains," your dragon was no big secret. He was always seen floating above Juniper in the early morning hours. My father told me about him. At first I didn't believe it because, I'd never seen one before. But when I woke up early one morning to help father with his work, I just happened to look up and see him soaring just before sunrise. His scales catch the sun's rays long before they touch the ground. It's beautiful."
Leo shot an annoyed glance at Twilight.
What? It gets boring flying in the dark.
Leo sighed.
"Okay. I don't know if he can carry all three of us but I guess it doesn't hurt to try."
I'm certain that I can carry all of you, you condescending bloat.
Leo rolled his eyes and hopped onto the saddle and held out a hand for the other two.
Sateria took it and hopped up behind him.
Jasper followed suit.
Twilight spread his wings and they launched off into the air.
They floated low over Juniper. Halafrid looked up and locked eyes with Leo.
Sateria was right. It was no secret now.
Halafrid's eyes twinkled and he began to cheer, his voice bellowing. Within moments the whole town followed his lead, cheering and celebrating before the trio of friends and their aerial steed pointed their flight south.
A new era indeed. A war would rage. But this time, they would make Fos ' Lorone a force to be reckoned with.