Damon was learning how to breathe without actually breathing. Riding on Sivares’ back was exhilarating, sure, but the lingering stink of spider guts clung to her like tar. Coal dust, squid ink, webbing goo… all fused into one unbearable cloud that rode the wind just behind her wings.

  Hours into the flight, the wind finally started to strip away some of the worst of it, but not fast enough. Damon glanced down at her scales. What was once sleek black was now mottled and crusted in grime. She needed more than just a bath. She needed an exorcism with hot water and soap.

  Even Sivares was beginning to twitch, her wings shifting uncomfortably with each flap. It was sticking to her too, gumming up her joints, drying in the folds between her scales.

  “Almost there,” Damon muttered, shielding his eyes as the sun dipped toward the horizon.

  They crested a ridge, and there it was, Homblom. The familiar walls bathed in an orange glow.

  “Took us a week instead of four days,” Damon noted aloud. “Guess that detour south added a bit.”

  Between the visit to Dustworf, the unexpected drop into Honiewood, and that last stop in Baubel, their route had stretched by three days. But finally, they were back.

  With a long exhale and a tired flap, Sivares angled down toward the same grassy field just outside the town gates where their journey had begun.

  They’d made it.

  As Damon approached the gates of Homblom, he noticed the shift right away.

  This time, it didn’t have that “we’re all gonna die” vibe.

  People were still peeking out of their windows, sure, but fewer were hiding. A few even stood out on their porches. No screaming, no mad rush indoors. Just… quiet curiosity.

  “Hey,” Damon said with a grin, glancing over his shoulder. “Told you they’d get used to you, Sivares.”

  At the gate, Gerrit stood with his arms crossed like a carved statue. “So. You’re back.”

  “Yup. Runner Damon and Sivares, reporting in.”

  Gerrit’s eyes flicked to the dragon, then back to Damon. He sighed.

  “Just so you know, some dragon hunters came looking for you the day after you left. They should be arriving in Wenverer right about now. Just... be careful out there.”

  He glanced at Sivares again, expression unreadable. “Well. Welcome back, I guess.”

  “Just don’t break anything. You can manage that, right?”

  “Uhh…” Sivares let out a sheepish little noise, her wings drooping slightly.

  “I was actually thinking of heading off to, y’know… clean up a bit,” She

  said quickly.

  “Sure. Go ahead. We’ll manage,” Damon said with a wave.

  Sivares nodded gratefully. With a running start, she launched into the sky, her wings stirring dust into the air as she lifted off without Damon. He watched her silhouette shrink into the horizon, her form finally free again.

  “Well,” he muttered, brushing off his coat, “time to visit the postmaster.”

  And with that, Damon strode through the gates and into town.

  As Damon walked through the center of town, he passed the old stone well, and paused at the bulletin board nearby.

  Two posters caught his eye.

  The first made his stomach twist.

  WANTED: BLACK DRAGON – DEAD

  REWARD: 100 GOLD COINS

  Damon let out a low whistle. “That’s more gold than my entire village could make in a century…” he murmured. With that kind of money, his dad would never have to work again. They could repair the roof, buy real tools, and maybe, just maybe, live a life that didn’t involve scraping by each season.

  But Damon wasn’t interested in that.

  It was the other poster that held his gaze.

  Scale & Mail You sign it, we fly it!

  But unlike the handmade flyers he’d been using, this one was professionally printed. Clean, bold lines. Full color. And the cartoon dragon actually looked good, sleek wings, proud pose, and a cheeky wink that made the company look halfway legit.

  Damon blinked at it, stunned.

  “Someone… made these?”

  He glanced around, then picked up his pace.

  As Damon stepped into the postmaster’s office, the little bell above the door gave a cheerful ding-a-ling. He called out, “I’m back.”

  From the back room, Postmaster Harrel shuffled in, blinking behind thick lenses. Damon couldn’t help but notice the man’s hairline had retreated a bit more since the last time they'd spoken. Didn’t it used to be halfway forward? He mused silently.

  Harrel squinted, then his eyes lit up. “Damon! You're back already?”

  “Yeah,” Damon said with a sheepish grin. “Took a little longer than planned. Ran into a few… unexpected delays.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He dropped his mail bag onto the counter and began pulling out the reports and signed receipts from the towns he’d visited, Baubel, Dustdwarf, even Honeiwood.

  Harrel leaned in, jaw slowly dropping. “You actually made all these deliveries? Some of these places ain’t reachable on foot. Half these roads are closed!”

  “Good thing I didn’t walk,” Damon said, smirking. “We flew.”

  Harrel blinked, then chuckled. “That dragon of yours, she’s something else. Might need to give her a medal.”

  “Oh, Harrel.” Damon grinned. “I saw the new posting from Scale and Mail.”

  Harrel let out a groan and reached behind the counter. “Don’t get me started.” He pulled out a stack of forms, the sheer weight of bureaucratic suffering evident in his posture. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork I had to do because a dragon wanted to be a mail carrier?”

  He thumped the stack on the counter, then sighed and pulled a crisp, official-looking sheet from the middle of the pile. “But… she’s signed. It’s done.”

  He handed Damon the paper.

  “Congratulations,” Harrel said, shaking his head. “Your dragon’s an official courier now. Career status. Uniform optional.”

  Damon raised an eyebrow. “What about the tailhole who posted the bounty?”

  Harrel made a face. “That one’s… trickier. Officially, she’s still a dragon, so someone could come looking. But unofficially?” He leaned in. “The stamp on this document outranks bounty board posters. You just make sure she keeps delivering mail, and I’ll keep her out of trouble.”

  Damon exhaled in relief. “Thanks, Harrel.”

  “So…” Damon asked, eyeing the mountain of paper. “Why’d you go through all the trouble, Harrel?”

  Harrel shrugged, leaning back with a groan. “Well, about nine parts of it were ‘I didn’t want to be tormented for saying no’… and one part ‘having a dragon is really good for business.’”

  He reached down and hauled up another stack of papers, just as thick as the first, and dropped it onto the counter with a solid thunk.

  “These are all commissions. For you.”

  Damon blinked. “Wait, all of these?”

  A small voice piped up from his mailbag. “That stack is higher than me.”We’ve got a backlog big enough to buy your own town.”

  Damon just whistled low. “Guess we’re in business, then.”

  Harrel squinted at the mouse poking her head out of Damon’s mailbag. “Please tell me that’s a normal field mouse you picked up somewhere.”

  Keys blinked. “Define normal,” she said flatly, brushing her ears back as a few more hairs fell loose from Harrel. “I talk, read, cast spells, and carry mail.”

  Harrel groaned and clutched his face. “You picked up a magemouse*.*”

  “She decided to come along,” Damon defended. “She pulled her weight too.”

  Keys climbed up onto the counter and, with an impeccable posture, extended her tiny paw.

  “Assistant Mail Carrier from Honiewood. Keys, at your service.”

  Harrel stared at her like he’d aged ten years in ten seconds. Slowly, he rubbed his temples.

  “Damon… you do realize magemice aren’t supposed to leave the bureaus around Honiewood, right? I mean, really not supposed to.”

  Damon shrugged, guilt creeping into his voice. “She… may have mentioned something about not being allowed to leave.”

  “I’m not going back,” Keys huffed, folding her arms with all the defiance as Keys crossed her tiny arms with all the authority a six-inch mouse could muster. “I’m a licensed mail carrier. That surely means I can go on a route.”

  Harrel looked between them, deadpan. “You’re going to get me cursed. Or sued. Possibly both.”

  He let out a long sigh, muttered something about retirement, and waved them off.

  A few minutes later, Damon stepped out into the evening air. The sky above was thick with dark clouds, stretching across the horizon like a blanket ready to smother the last light of day.

  He pulled his coat a little tighter.

  “Ha,” he muttered to himself. “Looks like we won’t be seeing Sivares today.”

  The wind carried a faint dampness, and somewhere in the distance, thunder grumbled like a waking giant.

  Keys poked her head out of his satchel, yawning. “Good. She smells like spider stew after a week in a moldy cellar.”

  Damon snorted. “Not wrong.”

  Still, as he looked to the sky again, a small part of him felt a pang of worry. He knew Sivares could take care of herself, but flying alone in weather like this?

  He shoved the thought down. “She’ll be fine. Just enjoying a long bath. Probably soaking until her scales shine.”

  Keys flopped halfway out of the bag, dangling like a sleepy scarf. “As long as she doesn't try to sparkle. That’d ruin her whole ‘scary shadow beast’ look.”

  “Heh. Yeah.”

  They both stood there a moment longer, watching the clouds roll in.

  Eventually, Damon gave a small shrug and turned back toward the inn. “Come on. Let’s find a place for the night.”

  //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

  As Sivares flew, she could feel time nipping at her wings. She wasn't racing it yet, but it was close. The scent hit her before the first drop: rain.

  After dropping off Damon, she stayed airborne, wings slicing through the thickening sky. Drip. Drip. The first droplets splattered across her back. Rain never bothered her. In fact, it was the only time she truly let herself relax. Humans hated being out in storms, so it gave her the perfect excuse to be out of their cave.

  The coal dust, squid ink, and days-old grime began to loosen with every drop. She spotted a lake nestled below, familiar, near the old lair. Banking lower, she landed softly on the edge, a long sigh escaping her chest as the weight of the sky poured down.

  She looked back at herself. The ropes and blankets that made up their makeshift saddle were shredded, frayed where they’d rubbed against her scales nonstop for days.

  “I don’t think that would’ve lasted much longer,” she muttered, and with a swipe of her claw, one of the ropes snapped.

  The whole thing slid off her back with a wet thump.

  “Ohhhh, that is so much better.”

  Walking into the lake, Sivares let herself soak. She swam slowly, dipping and turning, letting the water rinse away days of grime, ink, spider gore, and soot. For once, she didn’t have to fight or fly or protect; she could just be.

  When she finally climbed out, her scales shimmered in the rain, bright, iridescent, too bright to be easily hidden. Her true colors. No more coal dust.

  Scooping up the shredded remains of her saddle in her foreclaws, she took off.

  It wasn’t long before she was home again, in her small cave, halfway up the mountain. It wasn’t much, but it was hers.

  There, beside the flattened spot she used for sleeping, sat her hoard. Small, modest. But growing.

  She dropped the bundle. Pull off the small bag Damon had tied to her back and tugged it open. Inside were her shares: the coins, the tips, the small commissions. With a careful paw, she poured them into a cracked cup. The sound, soft, satisfying, clink-clink-clink, was like music.

  She leaned back, eyes half-lidded.

  People didn’t want her head anymore.

  They saw her not as a monster but as a courier.

  She’d flown over villages that didn’t shoot. Landed in towns that offered food instead of threats. I tried alcohol in Dustdwarf. Roasted fish in Wenverer. Spiders in Baubel.

  Sivares looked down at herself. Still too thin, ribs still visible, stomach still sunken. But she wasn’t skeletal anymore.

  It would take months of good eating to reach a healthy weight again.

  But for the first time… she believed she’d get there.

  Looking out into the rain, Sivares narrowed her eyes at the clouds overhead. The soft hiss of falling droplets filled the cave, steady and unbroken.

  Smells like it's gonna keep going all night, she muttered to herself, breathing in the earthy scent of wet stone and mountain moss.

  With a low sigh, she padded deeper into the cave. A few pebbles shifted under her claws as she reached the entrance. Curling up and lying on her spot, watching the rainfall outside.

  Tomorrow, if the rain stopped, she’d head back to Homblom, back to Damon and Keys.

  But before that…

  “I’ll need to reapply the coal,” she murmured, already picturing the coal vein behind the rocks in the corner. Her disguise. Her safety.

  She glanced down at her bright, rain-cleaned scales. So obvious now. So… dragon.

  Her claws flexed slowly.

  Not yet.

  Not until the world was ready.

  For now, she'd rest. Let the rain fall. Let the mountain keep its quiet.

  And tomorrow… she'd fly again.