"Sir you can't just keep hiding forever."

  "Yes I can. I'm a Dragon I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me!"

  Deep, deep beneath the earth, in a tunnel of my own creation, a place I made for no reason other than I remembered dragons have lairs and mine is a clearing in a forest so I figured I needed a proper cave lair, I don't really remember when I made it, but since it's dark, cramped and kinda cold, I mostly just use it as a place to store the stuff I have no use for but can't really throw away or destroy.

  I guess it's my hoard in a way.

  My Kobolds have been visiting me ever since I came down here, bringing me news from outside, though not much was happening in my absence, since we basically ran out of nearby hostiles, even after the Priestess wiped out every, uhm, non-compliant we shall say, tribes surrounding us.

  There were even multiple settlements of former slaves now, some of which were even setting up to be independent of the Capital, with armed militias working security to slowly replace the Dragonguard on loan from the capital, so that they could actually start farming and even manipulating the land around them, diverting rivers.

  Aqueducts were, unfortunately, not easy to create without my direct help yet, but they were slowly figuring out the machinery, it seemed like the Scribes were energized after a recent breakthrough involving the creation of concrete, which I only vaguely remembered how to make, they had to figure out everything past a generic description of it.

  "Sir are you paying attention?"

  Ah, right.

  I put down my final card, moving it with my mind, after having managed to pull off my favorite combo. "I pass my turn."

  Castille was the one most comfortable coming down here to spend time with me, and when she did, she almost always was in her fully lizardy form. I've noticed she has grown quite a bit bigger, she's got huge biceps and muscly thighs now, and you could shred cheese on her abs, some of the few parts of her hide not covered by scales.

  Certainly, the proliferation of exercise equipment was helping, but that level of progress was due to her own exclusive effort.

  "That is a very tough board to break... or it would be if literally any part of it was in any way resistant to non-targeting destruction," Castille hummed. "Okay, my turn, I draw, standby, and now," she pulled out a card that did exactly what she said my board was weak to, which she was right about, because why wouldn't she have exactly what she needed?

  Dammit.

  Add another loss to my tally, I suppose... I'm so proud of seeing people being so much better than me at the game... I'm totally not bitter that people who've only been playing for a couple months have far outclassed my own abilities, no sir, no way.

  Wait, no, she bricked the rest of her hand! She only put down a single card...

  What would follow would be both of us bricking over and over again, because I managed to disrupt her with a single card that screwed over her burn but she still had me controlled and I couldn't do much.

  It came down to simply trading blows in the most hilariously pathetic way, but I did win, not because she screwed up, but because I happened to draw exactly what I needed near the end of my deck. Deck building trumps lucky draws, go me!

  "Thanks for the duel sir! I should've known you wouldn't give up so easily!" Castille said, shaking her head. "I have much to learn still."

  "No, no, you did excellent, perhaps you should play more with the kids, their abilities are out of this world, why, some of them are even better than me!"

  I nodded, trying not to sound as smug as I felt.

  "Alright then, are you ready to come out yet sir? Transporting the tribute down here has become a logistical nightmare," Castille asked, looking up at me from her position, sitting cross legged in front of the small stone table I had created using my power so we could play.

  "No I don't wanna come out," I huffed. "She's waiting out there isn't she?"

  "Lady Aqua? Yes, she is sir," Castille said. "Uhm, sir, why don't you wanna come out?" she asked. "You never told anyone. Everyone's worried you know."

  She uncrossed her legs and put her hands on the stone table to get up, cracking her neck and stretching from the tip of her snout to the tip of her tail, even extending her claws to the limit before retracting them to their standard length. It had been a few games we played in a row, so she was sitting for about an hour or so, in a really uncomfortable position.

  Maybe I should've made a taller table and a chair.

  "I don't wanna talk about it."

  "But you have to, sir! You've been here for..." she raised her fingers in front of her face and began counting on them, moving to both hands after a few seconds, "an entire season! The warm season's going to end soon!"

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  Wow, it's been that long?

  "You don't get it. If I go out there, she's gonna get me..!"

  "You mean Lady Aqua?" Castille asked. "You're... hiding from Lady Aqua? Why?"

  "You don't get it at aaaall!!" I was so frustrated, no one understood it, none of them got it. "She's just... relentless! Day in, day out, every day, nonstop, she just- she just keeps coming, keeps coming at me and, and I've got my limits, alright? A man's got limits, we've gotta have some limits!"

  "So- so you're just-"

  She looked dumbfounded.

  "Can't you just say no? You, uhm, sir, you taught us that, you know?" she said. "You codified it into law even!"

  "Of course I know!" I protested raising a claw and pointing it to the ceiling of my little cave lair. "But if I do, she'll be disappointed in me for being a loser that can't keep up, and I don't want that!"

  "Uhm... have you, have you even talked to her about maybe slowing down a little?" Castille asked. I must've made a face because she flinched. "Sir I'm sorry if my advice doesn't help..."

  "No- no no no, I get it you're trying to help I'm just upset at myself not at you," I rapidly interrupted her, leaning my head down slightly, coming closer to her and lowering the volume of my voice, "it's just, it's hard you know? It's not like I don't want to..."

  "Have you considered asking her out on a date again? You always have fun on your dates don't you? Maybe it's because you've been letting her take the lead! Usually when me and my partner are stuck in a rut we just need something to shake things up!"

  I stopped.

  "Wait wait wait, you have a significant other?" I asked, shaking my head a little. "How come- I didn't know, did you guys get married?"

  She seemed surprised. "What is that type of union?" she asked.

  Ah, right. Translation woes. "Are you getting permanently attached to this partner of yours?" I asked, trying to use more generic words this time, I'm mostly guessing at what would make us more easily able to communicate.

  "Oh! No," she said, shaking her head. "We've only been dating for six seasons, we're not ready for such a commitment yet!" she said, "but I am very proud to say I've taken in all the lessons given to us by Lady Aqua about dating!" Castille said, puffing out her chest and lifting her head, closing her eyes and looking about as smug as a lizard could.

  Aqua... didn't even know what dating was or what the concept of it referred to before I taught her but ok I'll just be happy for you I guess.

  Hopefully it's working out.

  "Alright, sir! You've been down here far too long! You're covered in dirt and mud and food bits! You've not cleaned yourself nor allowed anyone else to clean you! And that's no good! The Dragonguard is panicking, Lady Aqua is worried, and the Priestess has been jumping in her pants!"

  What?

  Was that an expression of some sort? Or did she just mess it up? Accursed magic translation strikes again!

  "Ugh, fine, I'll come out," I guess it's been long enough, why, maybe Aqua has calmed down by now and I won't end up on my back before the day is through. "But you'll go ahead of me, and you'll tell everyone to prepare a feast, and then, then we shall have cake!"

  And so she did. I couldn't do water as well as Aqua could, but I could do it well enough to clean myself off some, using water, steam and an excessive amount of fire, I managed to mostly clean myself up. I consumed most of the oxygen in the cave doing so but that was okay because I was coming out and I'm sure the stuff stored in there won't be destroyed by carbon monoxide poisoning, probably.

  Hopefully.

  After I was done with that, I finally stuck my head out of the cave and then I saw her, big, tall, muscular, blue haired, her body covered in scales already, her horns and fins bigger than ever, her right fist meeting her left palm, eyes shining with power.

  A wave of blue power erupted from where her fist met her palm and then the entrance of the cave was blown wide open as a massive arena of ice was created around us.

  "You," she said, pointing a finger at me, then she brought that finger back to point at her chest, between her breasts, which I realize now, were actually covered by an entirely too literal example of a scale mail, similar to the armor I've designed for some of my more, uhm, gifted Dragonguard. "And me."

  I gulped. "Am I in danger?"

  "We're going to fight."

  Oh thank whatever's out there.

  She then rushed forward and punted me in the face at full strength, causing me to go flying high up in the air, and then blasted me with a powerful wave of pressure that I countered by sending a spiraling lance of lightning and fire, blasting right out of my mouth, as I caught myself in midair.

  "I believe I've not made my position clear in recent days, and that you've lost sight of yourself as well," she said as the blasts nullified each other, my weaker attack managing to go through hers to destroy it completely, neutralizing her attack but losing its form in the process. She grew in size a little, her legs becoming fully draconic and her hands becoming webbed, her neck lengthening.

  In mere moments, she was almost up to her full size, in the blink of an eye, she was bigger than me once more, and by the time I snorted flames through my nostrils to clear them, she was already up to her full size, and a mighty storm began firing around us.

  "Should we not do weather? I feel like if we do weather it could-"

  "That wasn't me," she corrected.

  But the storm really did feel like it was caused by draconic power so-

  I tuned things out and sensed with my mind's eye instead of my physical senses, pinpointing the source of the storm.

  "Oh! Hey! It's one of those Storm Wyverns again!" I said, cheering myself up with the idea that I would be able to eat one of those again, I barely remember what it tasted like but I have good memories of liking it! "Wanna go kill it?"

  "Yeah I do," she admitted easily.

  This one was bigger, looked meaner with more spikes and horns, and it was even more aggressive than the one I vaguely half remembered meeting, it was like a porcupine and one of those, pteranodons I think is the name, the dinosaurs with wings and big wedge shaped heads, those things.

  Lightning arched between the spikes on its back and tail, strong winds exploded with every wingbeat, a tornado formed around it as the dark gray clouds gathered to conceal its form.

  "Man it's a good thing I decided to come out today, otherwise, I would've missed it!"

  As we turned and prepared to face the enemy, I noticed- something, nay, someone, was flying in front of it.

  "LADY AQUAAA I FOUND THE WYVERN NOW WE CAN- Oh- Great One! I've brought upon you a sacrifice of a Storm Wyvern!"

  That was- yeah, the one who would be my Priestess, approaching me as she was chased by the excessively ill tempered protobird.

  "Really? Was this thing just an attempt at getting me out of the cave?" I asked, turning to Aqua.

  She shrugged. "This was my idea. Her idea was-"

  "I guess we won't have to set up that human sacrifice ritual I was talking about," the Priestess said.

  I sighed. "I said no-"

  "human sacrifices!" she interrupted me. "I figured that if I set it up you would come out just to say it!" she added, a cheerful smile on her face.

  "You forgot the Dammit," I pointed out, rolling my eyes and preparing for battle once more.

  I don't want to consider the fact that she's learned to manipulate me this well.