A Dragon's Tale Ch. 34

*You're ready to arrive?* He asked.

*I am now.* She said, and he got the distinct sense that she'd just closed the gates of her mental fortress to block them all out again.

Taloni had walked up to him during the conversation and was beaming at him. "She's going to love it here master."

"Love it here?" He raised his eyebrow. "She'll be here for like, five minutes to drop off the weapons and then she'll take off."

Taloni gave him a look much like his mother used to give him when he asked her a particularly dumb question about girls. "Master, I think she'll ask if she can stay on the Argo."

"Why?"

"I don't know." The Fey shrugged. "I just feel like she will."

"I'd say you were nuts if you hadn't been right about everything involving Kendra so far."

A minute or two later, Ethan saw a portal slowly opening about a hundred yards above the Argo. He was mostly looking at the underside of the portal, so it appeared to be a line instead of a disc, but it certainly was a portal. Moments later, the prow of Kendra's canoe-sized airship appeared. It was among the strangest things that Ethan had ever seen: to be standing underneath a portal and watching the airship glide through it. Since he was underneath it, her airship looked like it was appearing out of thin air. It was so strange to watch it slowly appear as it slid through.

Once the airship was through, Taloni didn't waste a moment. Her wings became a blur and she started flying up towards Kendra.

He smiled.

It had been just over a month since Taloni had been freed and started exercising her wings daily. At the beginning, she couldn't even lift herself off the ground without the weight reduction necklace. Now she was flying a hundred yards straight up and didn't seem very strained while doing so. He imagined that there must be some kind of magic involved for her wings get that strong that fast.

Regardless, it was good to see.

He took a deep breath as he realized that it had only been a month. He felt like time had somehow slowed to a crawl lately while simultaneously moving so fast that he couldn't keep up. Yesterday had been a good example, what with meeting Sarah and all.

"She really loves flying." Beth said from beside him.

He hadn't noticed her approach, and he put his arm around her shoulder. "Hey angel, yeah she does. It's good to see."

The blonde leaned her head on his shoulder. "I keep feeling like this is a dream; a wonderful dream that I'm going to eventually wake up from and have to face real life again."

He smiled and gave her a pointed look. "I know what you mean."

She sighed and kissed his shoulder. "Can you pinch me? Just to make sure."

"Eep!" She jumped as he gave her butt a little pinch.

"Still awake?" He asked.

She nodded dreamily, and spoke in much the same manner. "Yes Dominus, and I couldn't be happier."

He smiled and gave her another pointed look. "I know what you mean."

He looked up in time to see Kendra's head poke over the side of the airship. Apparently she'd finished her 'hello hug' from Taloni and...

He felt the dragon.

It stirred at the sight of the dragon huntress, and it took more self-control than Ethan liked to prevent the dragon from taking over, flying up there, and bending the dragon huntresses over in her own airship.

*Ethan...* Alana thought directly to him.

*Yeah, I hate how much my dragon side is trying to assert control.*

*Should we be more dedicated to wearing you out in the bedroom in the future?* She asked, and he knew she was serious because her comment didn't contain an ounce of flirtation.

He looked around the deck until he saw her up on the quarterdeck, and then shook his head slightly. *No, it doesn't help. Might actually make things worse.* He sighed in frustration. *If I ever meet my dragon side, I'm going to pound him.*

Alana gave him an ironic smile. *I'll get you a mirror.*

He chuckled, but it still took a lot of effort to stop his dragon side from pouncing on the dragon huntress.

* * *

"I um... I don't..." Sarah looked down, wishing she had a better answer. It was lunchtime and she'd just served Lady Ekthros, who had started inquiring about Sarah's wedding.

"I've never seen a woman look so down about her wedding dress." Lady Ekthros said. "Surely you're having one made, or making one yourself?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, the inn isn't... I mean I don't have money for..." She looked at her shoes. "And I don't know how to sew. I can mend things, but I don't know how to make a dress from scratch."

"Ah." The auburn-haired woman looked around the inn and nodded. "Well, we can't have that now can we?"

"Huh?"

Lady Ekthros smiled at her. "I need to go into town today to get..." She waved her hand carelessly and spoke with the air of someone coming up with a lazy excuse. "...get a new clasp for my cloak."

Sarah starred.

She wasn't wearing a cloak, and judging by her luggage, she probably didn't have one with her. It sounded like she was making up an excuse to go into town so she could...

No.

No she couldn't be planning to...

Could she?

The older woman smiled in a grandmotherly fashion. "I might as well stop by a tailor while we are in town and get you a nice dress for your wedding."

"Whilewe are in town?" The girl felt her jaw drop.

"Of course; unless you want to get married in your current dress?"

"You can't do that; it's too much." Sarah replied quietly.

"Of course I can; I never had kids, and just want to pretend I have a daughter to spoil for a bit." She winked. "You wouldn't deny an old woman that simple pleasure, would you?"

"Thank you." She could feel her eyes filling with happy tears. This woman was so nice; nearly as nice as Ethan, Selene, and Ethan's wives. She counted herself extremely lucky that Illuminar had brought her into her life.

* * *

Ethan busied himself sparring with Serif as Kendra docked, trying to distract himself and his dragon side from her. It wasn't attraction; it was pure unbridled lust and horniness that was being fueled by his dragon side. He growled and found himself being more aggressive with the war-sword sized longsword that he was using.

He'd actually been doing nearly all his sparring with a longsword since the trip to Nalatia, and especially since they had told Serif about Lord Delmar's attack. The wiry crewman decided that the best way for Ethan to beat the longsword was to learn it, so that he knew its strengths and weaknesses from experience. He would've been lying if he said it wasn't a dream come true; learning to swordfight that is. Serif was a master and he had learned so much in a very short time.

Eventually, Kendra's ship finished docking and she stepped onto the Argo with Taloni in tow. Ethan paused his sparring match to look at her, feeling the dragon urging him on. It wasn't exactly hard to resist, but it certainly wasn't as easy as he would've preferred.

"Ethan." The dragon huntress greeted him in a strange tone that was at once both terse and seemed like an attempt to be nice.

"Kendra." He nodded back at her.

"I've got your weapons." She said after an awkward moment.

"Weapons?" He raised his eyebrow. "Plural?"

"You didn't think he needed all that dragon scale to make a single spearhead, did you?"

"Uh, I guess not." He said, thinking about how many dragon scales were in the satchel compared to how much metal was in a spearhead.

The raven haired newcomer seemed to bite back a retort, then turned to the ship and pulled out four wooden boxes.

He noted that none of them was over five feet long and raised his other eyebrow. "Spear?"

"So, about that..." She told him what Graflex had told her about the designer of the weapons as his other wives arrived. All of them -- himself included -- were staring at her open mouthed when she was done.

"Gabriella designed these?" He looked at the boxes, thinking that they would probably be pretty special if she had.

"Apparently." Kendra shrugged.

"I bet Illuminar did." Taloni said in awe.

"I wonder what they are." Beth said, curiosity burning in her eyes.

"Well, let's look." Ethan stepped forward but Kendra held up her hand.

"Graflex said you shouldn't even open them until they'd been enchanted to be self-repairing. He said he'd put an insane edge that would need to be completely reshaped if it was nicked."

Alana shook her head. "No, he just wanted to make sure Ethan didn't go testing it and dull the edge before it was enchanted."

"So, I can't open any of them?" Ethan said feeling a bit crestfallen.

"He said you could open that one." Kendra indicated the large box made with cheaper wood. "That's an unsharpened training version. He said just don't spar with it until it's been enchanted to be self-repairing."

He rubbed his hands together in delight. "Okay, let's take a look!"

He grabbed the box and pried the lid off.

"Huh." He said, leaning over the box and staring.

"What?" Selene asked since she couldn't see into the box from where she was. "It's not a girl in cryo-stasis with psychic powers and a tendency to be 'morbid and creepifying', is it?"

Everyone stared at her.

Ethan shook his head. "No, it's a sword."

It was long; about four and a half feet long. Being a training weapon, the blade edges were dull and the tip mushroomed slightly for safety. Otherwise, it looked like a sword. The hilt was a little over a foot long and had a medieval disc pommel on it. Oddly, the back half of the pommel had a wide slot cut into it around the back half, but you couldn't see the slot from the top or bottom. It looked like a long strip of leather had been coiled and slipped into this slot.

The handle was a flattened hexagon in cross-section and wrapped with thin leather that looked like it had been forced over a wrapping of cord. The cross guard was exactly as wide as the hilt was long, and it had a very subtle sweep towards the tip. The ends of the cross guard were pointed too, and could deal a lot of damage if used to bash someone. Forged into the cross guard were two large oval 'rings' which stuck out directly opposite each other on either side. He assumed they were intended to provide additional hand protection, since the side rings would completely protect his knuckles.

Other than the side rings, it looked plain.

Very plain.

Honestly, it looked a bit underwhelming. It looked like any other sword except for the side rings and leather at the back of the pommel. At least, it was underwhelming until he reached into the box and pulled it out.

"Damn." He whistled as he moved it around experimentally.

It was perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

The weight, the balance, the feel, the handling, the grip size and shape; everything. He had initially been surprised at how lightweight and maneuverable medieval style swords could be when he'd first handled one in the Ten Kingdoms. Most of them felt quite light and nimble in the hand, whereas he'd been expecting something a bit more crude from what he'd seen in movies and video games. But as good as those swords were, this one was better.

It was perfect.

Not 'almost perfect'.

Perfect.

It was perfection itself.

He set the tip down on the ground, and the pommel would've fit perfectly into his armpit without being uncomfortable or falling. The blade came up to where his bellybutton would've been if he had one. He waved it around experimentally a few more times and grinned widely as he realized that this sword had literally been made for him, and it felt like it. It almost felt like it responded to his thoughts, though obviously it didn't.

"Damn, that's a nice sword." He grinned. "Though, I wonder what the blade looks like on the real one."

"Open it and see." Beth urged.

"It should be fine as long as you don't take it out." Alana assured him.

He popped the other large box's lid off. The real sword was identical to the training sword in every respect except for two. First was the blade. It was about two inches wide at the base. The blade tapered slowly for most of the length, but then a foot from the end it smoothly transitioned into a slightly sharp taper which ended in a wicked looking point. The blade itself was slightly hollow ground, and had a smooth, satin polish to it.

The other difference was the pommel.

It was identical to the training version, except a golden version of Illuminar's star was emblazoned on the disc-shaped pommel. It was a seven-pointed star, but the circular center was slightly disconnected from the points, making it look a bit like a sun. His dragon senses told him that it was real gold too.

It was beautiful.

He whistled.

"Someone wasn't being subtle." Rachel observed, nodding at Illuminar's sigil on the pommel.

"This feels so amazing that I really don't mind." Ethan replied, waving the training sword around a bit.

"May I see it?" Alana asked.

"Sure." He handed it to her.

It was far too big for her since she was only five feet tall. She did move it a bit, but then closed her eyes and ran her hands over the metal as if feeling something he couldn't. While she did that, Ethan replaced the lid on the real sword's box.

"This training version has a bit of dragon steel in it." The wood elf finally said. "Just enough to take a self-repairing enchantment, but nothing else, except for the grip." She ran her hands over the grip. "It's wrapped in very high quality enchanting leather, and I could fit both a self-repairing enchantment and summoning enchantment, but nothing else."

"That should be fine; it is a training weapon after all." Ethan nodded. For the next several minutes, it was passed around to the rest of his wives plus Selene, who all expressed appreciation for it.

Finally, it ended up in Kendra's hands. "This is a masterful blade." She said after moving it around a bit. "It's equal to the finest blades I've ever handled, and I've handled blades made for kings."

"May I?" Serif asked.

"Sure Serif." Ethan said.

Kendra froze.

She looked at Serif with wide eyes for several moments while staying rooted to the spot.

"Serif?" She finally got out in an awed whisper. "The Serif."

Ethan looked at his wives, who all looked as confused as he felt. As he thought about it though, Kendra hadn't heard the crewman's name before now, despite having been on the Argo before. Everyone had been too tired for introductions during dinner, and Anthiel had shooed them away from breakfast in the morning so everyone could recount their stories.

"Yes, he'sthe Serif." Anthiel finally said, then turned to Beth. "You didn't think that your father would send just anyone to protect you, did you?"

Beth looked both stunned and confused. As usual, it didn't take too long for her curious personality to assert itself as she looked at him. "But who is 'the Serif' though? I mean, I know my father spent a ton of time getting you to come to Gralden, but apparently there's more to the story?"

Serif shrugged. "We all have more to our stories."

Kendra finally managed to scrape her jaw off the deck long enough to hand Serif Ethan's new training sword. She did it with a lot of reverence, and Ethan was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the sword.

"So..." Ethan looked at the wiry crewman. "...what's the rest of your story?"

"My story." Serif said curtly as he moved the blade around. After several moment he nodded. "The only blade that I've held that was this sword's equal was intended for a king." He tapped the side rings. "Excellent hand protection too. Were this blade not claimed, I would want it myself."

Kendra was still staring at Serif.

"So Kendra, what's the story with Serif?" Ethan asked.

"He's..." She trailed off as Serif gave a subtle shake of his head.

"He's got his own story; you'll have to ask him." The dragon huntress finished. Unless Ethan was much mistaken, Kendra seemed intimidated by the wiry crewman. Suddenly, he had a newfound respect for the man.

"What does that leather at the bottom do?" Beth asked as Serif handed the sword back to Ethan.

He took a closer look at it.

The leather appeared to be a long strip -- maybe two or three feet -- that was wrapped around itself in a tight roll and then slid into that slot at the back of the pommel, which you couldn't see from the top or bottom. It was clearly enchanted to be stiff, as it simply wouldn't budge.

"Hmm." He scratched his head, then held the sword out to Alana. "It's definitely enchanted; what can you tell about it?"

The wood elf took the sword, put a hand over the leather and closed her eyes for several moments. When she opened them, she looked impressed. "There's a self-repairing enchantment combined with a self-summoning enchantment."

"Self-summoning?" Ethan asked.

"If you were to cut the leather, the two pieces would attract each other and try to reattach themselves to each other even over great distances." The wood elf explained. "It's like how you summon your hammer, and it's a powerful addition to a self-repairing enchantment."

"Oh nice." He smiled, then frowned. "But why? What does it do?"

"Let me see." Alana closed her eyes again and ran her fingers over the leather. After a minute, she opened her eyes. "Okay, I think this is dragon leather because there's four different enchantments here. There's the self-repairing and self-summoning enchantments. Then there's also a very powerful fire resistance enchantment; you could throw this into a volcano and it wouldn't even be singed."

"Well that's good." He nodded, thinking about the fate of his poor spear. "What about the fourth enchantment?"

"It a hardening enchantment." She replied. "But the hardening enchantment is activatable like a regular leather shield. However, it's a more complicated 'double-sided' version that can activate in two different positions."

He cocked his head to one side. "Hmm. You mean that this is one position, but there's another position it can harden into?"

"Yes." Alana nodded as she handed the sword back to him.

"I suppose I should try it then." He said. He held the training sword out in front of him, tip up. He took a deep breath, then pushed a tiny drop of mana into the leather to activate the enchantment, just like he did with his disguise gem.

The leather instantly uncoiled itself, shooting straight to the rear of the sword at incredible speed. It stuck straight out, adding an extra two and a half feet of length to the weapon, putting the overall length at seven feet. The war sword by itself was about four and a half feet long, and the extension was just over two and a half. The resulting weapon was almost half blade, with plenty of hilt to hold onto. It almost looked like...

He grinned.

It was like a spear that was half blade.

It was a... spear-sword?

Sword-spear?

Sword staff?

He adjusted his hands into the spear stance that he'd become so accustomed to and moved the weapon around a bit with the extra handle. It was a bit slower than his spear, owing to the greater mass in the blade, but...

He grinned wider as he summoned his vambraces to his forearms and rerebraces to his upper arms; all four of which had strength enhancing enchantments. They landed and he locked them into place, then tried moving the sword-spear around a bit.

It was perfect.

With the strength enhancing enchantments nearly doubling his strength, he could move his new sword-spear around faster than his old spear. Plus it had a massive cutting blade; over three feet of razor sharp dragon steel on the real version. He activated the grip extension again, pulling it right up to the hilt and all of a sudden he had a war sword sized longsword again. Another activation and he had something that resembled a spear, but was so much better.

"Holy shit!" He breathed.

"Impressive." Serif nodded. "It has all the strengths of both a spear and a war sword, but being able to switch between them nearly eliminates the weaknesses of both."