The Azra-El Series Ch. 18.2

"Are you a big kitty, kitty?" the naïve girl asked him, cutely.

He could not understand her words, but dragons can read thoughts, so he understood her. Though he did not know what a cat was, from her thoughts, he understood that she was comparing him with a cute, fluffy, little creature. He wanted to gobble her up, again, but he controlled his temper.

"I am a mighty dragon, girl. How could I be a puny cat?" he relayed his thoughts.

"You can talk?!" the girl asked in amazement, her naïve little brain assuming that she was hearing his speech.

"Yes!" his voice grandly boomed through her head. "And I can do anything you can ever imagine!"

"Can you find and bring me back my sister?"

"Easy enough. Just think of how she looks, and I shall know who to find."

An image of the girl's sister popped up in his mind. It was the woman he had evaporated ascended earlier by mistake.

"Erm... what's your name, little girl?"

"Eleanor, and my sister's name is Aela," she answered cheerfully.

"Er... Eleanor... your sister ... um ... went to heaven. Yep, that's right. She did so many good deeds in her life that your God wanted to reward her. A stairway descended from above and spirited her away. You can't go there until you grow up and do many good deeds. Go back to your parents. Your sister is in a good place now. If you love your sister, you shouldn't wish for her to come back."

God and heaven was a common theme amongst most sentient beings. Hehe. I am so smart. I thought of everything.

"But we have no parents..."

"Ack," the dragon coughed. "Go back to your village, child. I am sure someone will take you in."

The girl began to cry. "Sniff... sniff... I am all alone, now... sniff... sniff."

The magnanimous dragon's heart wrenched at the sight of the poor girl. Though her sorry fate was no fault of his, his kind heart made him reach out a paw and pet her head.

"There, there. Don't cry. Tears are for the weak."

**Betty (muttering under her breath): What a farce!

CD: What did you say?

Betty: Nothing, my Lord Dragon. Just wondering how a mighty dragon such as yourself can be so sweet and kind! **

The girl's eyes widened as a sudden thought came to her. "You said you can do anything, right? Can you send me to heaven?"

Should I just vaporize this brat and be done with it? She is technically asking for it.

"Er... I could, but the rules of heaven say that you can only go there if you are kind, and er... when your time's right. Those schmucks up there won't be too happy if I force you in. And... your sister... erm, just delivered me a one-way message. She wants you to live a full life before you go up there."

"Oh..." her tears started welling up again.

"Tell you what? Why don't you show me around for a year or two? I just landed on your planet and I don't know much about it. I could use a serv- ... erm, guide. I will take care of your food and stuff."

"Sniff... you will? ... sniff... thank you! Sniff... you're a kind dragon."

**Betty: Wow. Just... wow.

CD: Do you want to be punted out of the galaxy, Betty?**

Thus, began the adventures of the Capricious Dragon and his sidekick, Eleanor. The dragon took her around for a couple of hundred years. The girl did not age for as long as she was by his side, for time did not affect anyone near a time-traveling space dragon, at least in humanly quantifiable measurements.

However, the little girl ultimately got tired of immortality and wished to lead a human life. The gracious dragon that Capricious is, he returned her back to her home country of France. Then, he convinced a local duke to adopt her as his daughter.

**Betty: I wonder how many people were vaporized...**

Eleanor later went on to become the Queen of France and came to be known as Eleanor of Acquitaine.

** Dragon's Disclaimer: The Crusade was not my idea. The girl wanted to go to heaven and meet her sister, and she was convinced that waging a holy war was the best way. I was already out of her time by the time I heard of it. Tsk. You can't make humans smarter, can you? I wonder where she got the idea that there was a heaven... **

Next on Adventures of Capricious Dragon: Eleanor of Acquitaine meets Wu Zhetian. I may change my mind, though. After all, I am a capricious dragon.

**Reader who googled Wu Zhetian: This can't be right. Eleanor of Aquitaine lived in the 12^th century. Wu Zhetian is from the 7^th.

CD: Time and space are interconnected. An unforeseen consequence of condensing my mass to a size befitting Earth was that I began to affect the Time-Space continuum. As I traveled on land, I also traveled in time. Moreover, time is not linear. So, I ended up in random times and random places. That's all ya need to know. Don't ask questions your puny brains cannot handle.

Just be grateful. During my travels, I taught and saved humanity on numerous occasions. I enlightened Moses and Buddha, and it was I that killed Hitler. I-

Betty: That's obviously a lie. You aren't mature enough or wise enough to enlighten those great people.

CD: You really want me to erase you, don't you Betty? Seems like you're itching to be devoured and farted out as a black hole.

Reader: Didn't Hitler kill himself?

CD: That's what I made people believe. However, if I didn't intervene, Hitler was going to become immortal, using some artifact that he found in an ancient temple. Thankfully, I was in the right place at the right time.

Reader: That sounds like an Indiana Jones movie.

CD: Where do you think Spielberg gets his inspiration from?

Reader: ...

CD: Shut up and read the story, will ya.

Jpzahren (a perceptive reader/commenter): So, you are a time-traveling space dragon... But you can't really control it, can you?

CD: Of course, I can. I just choose not to.

The real Jpzahren: I never said any of those words.

CD: You did in an alternate future. Since I've already mentioned it in this timeline, you won't be saying it anymore. *yawn* Anyway, I am getting sleepy now. Betty, come here.**

The dragon hugs the star as a pillow, curls up around it like a cat, and falls asleep.

Meanwhile, some hundred thousand light years away.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee. A star streaks around the galaxy with speeds unheard of before. The speed of light pales in comparison. Nothing can see or hear this star, but it leaves cracks in space as it zips by, appearing and disappearing each time it tears a hole in the spatial fabric. Somehow, it is not destroyed by its own velocity. Instead, it slowly grows in size as it picks up matter in its path.

** Artificial beings on Earth -- 2.54 million years in the future

SC347589237: Overseer, we are seeing an anomaly in the Andromeda galaxy. A star is flickering as if it is sending a signal.

Overseer: What do you mean?

S347589237: The flickering strangely matches that of the SOS used by the humans from the twentieth century.

Overseer: What does the message say?

SC347589237: 'Someone, save me! I can't take any more of this Dragon.' **

oOo

Response to Comments

JAFC: Did you receive any of my responses to your comments?

Anons: Thank you for your support. If you make an account, you get updates :).

Finbar: If you didn't get to finish reading 18.1 last time, I hope you get to read both now :). Are you still on reddit? I missed your last comment on there.

MasterPD: Haha. I hope 18.2 makes up for keeping you waiting. The Flyball games turned out pretty good, I think. It pleases me that they are good even for people who don't watch baseball or cricket - my editors' opinions. Thank you for your support, Patrick. I will try to get to the top of your 4-author list with the finale.

Jpzahren: Hope you don't mind me including you in my Dragon story. But, I am sure you were glad to have the opportunity to speak with a being such as I.

Fatherhood - I am sure it is, but not everyone is prepared for it. I sure as hell am not :P. How are things going for you, otherwise?

I hope Badava's reconciliation was good. I remember your words from chapter 11 - honestly, I wanted to keep up to those expectations.

Anonymous - Future Vision?: What's that in his ankles? Wings, fins, or something else. Probably wings like Hermes, but let's see. That's far away..

Upagainsttheredline: "Where we gathered around the fire to hear from the storyteller." Your little excerpt makes me wanna write more. My granny was an amazing storyteller. She only ever told me a few stories, but I would forget everything else when she did.

That's why I want to create a whole world. Write stories within stories... reforge my character's lives. Make them as real as they are fantastic! And if I have created it, it must exist somewhere - even if it is in my own mind.

Anonymous (Passing thoughts): You might be onto something with the geography teacher incident, but sometimes coincidences work in weird ways. You do something to achieve one thing and it does something else...

Lynn... you will know soon enough.

Anonymous (future back): Elyssa will meet Lynn. But the drama will come from elsewhere.

Anonymous (love the series so far): Is there a backstory to Blaze's transportation? There are two possibilities - either Blaze's transportation is just a freak occurrence of nature, or there is some back story. I am not gonna give it away so easily, am I?

Butt wings? That's just like Blaze. You've only got yourself to blame for if I ever implement this idea. Hermes has wings on Ankles, so I was going for something like that. Lets see... I still have time to finalize it.

We definitely share our ideas on what a good story means - Both my current editors do too. Birds of the same feather? I never liked info dumps. I like my readers to figure out and make interpretations from my writing, cause when you find the answers it is all the more satisfying. But I am not sure if I am a good enough writer to do that yet, so I include some Q&As

Glad that you want to write. My unsolicited advice is to keep writing, take positive feedback, and work on it. It does wonders. Good luck.

If you want to help. I would be happy to take it. Just send me a PM with your email. Or you can continue posting comments. They help too.

Readerreaderfic: Oh, no. How have things been? Go see some otters in the zoo with your gf like you did before - maybe it will help. I am glad reading about Blaze lifts your spirits. And oh, I imagine Blaze is gonna have several kids. Nova will be the first.

Jeffrey shall be back at some point. He is the 'mysterious stranger' of my story. There will be an arsenal of exotic animals, but they will not all belong to Blaze. Like how Badava belongs to Tonya. Splash is Rebecca's, and so on...

The tattoo on Seshat is not permanent. The ones on the Vikings and the smith aren't.

Blaze's house. Knowing how lazy he is, I doubt he'd ever build one. But hey, I can always make one for him. Just built by some other poor, hardworking angel. I could work on a design when time comes.

Tainted wings: Check out the Q&A section's last Q.

Techniques: Some of them are complementary but others aren't. You can't use one form of soaring technique and replace it with another, but you can surely use a flying technique alongside a combat one...

The ghost will remain a mystery for now, but that incident wasn't written on a whim. Some adventures can be incidental, but this one isn't. Not entirely.