“You were a lot more arrogant before, I think.” Christoph glanced back at the elf as she rode behind him, the skimmer soaring over the cracked desert floor.

“I was,” Diana replied. “I treated the other races as though they were trash.”

“Well, it’s hardly fair to compare everyone to the elves,” Christoph said. “So what happened?”

“He showed me their lives,” she said, leaning back and feeling her long blonde hair brush off her face in the slight breeze the skimmer’s wards let through. “As though I had lived them myself.”

Christoph frowned, banking the skimmer around a dip in the clay. The smallest disturbances could be the mark of a landshark’s den. “Like you had lived them yourself…”

“What of your past, then?” Diana asked. “How much do you remember?”

“Enough to recount my life’s history,” Christoph said. “Not enough to answer any questions about it. I remember my mother, my father, who they were and what they did… but not exactly how, and not much of the world itself.”

“What about your life in the village?” Diana asked.

“I don’t think he took any of that,” Christoph replied. “I remember most things that happened to me in this world. As for the village… I remember the rituals, Emilia, Leila, Oliver and you, being attacked by the Templars, escaping and defeating Claude… after that, Liam got to us.”

“And then?” Diana leaned forwards to look over Christoph’s face.

“And then… am I missing something?” he asked, letting the skimmer slow down for the moment. “After Liam, we made our way to the Bay, met up with Geoff as he had arranged, and set off onto the plains.”

“No, that sounds right,” Diana said. “It’s just odd, knowing that you were different in the past… the old me would have destroyed the Council’s office in an instant.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Christoph said with a frown. “But for them to provoke you so much anyway… does that mean Liam clued them in to your changes?”

“It’s likely,” Diana said. “He is an adventurer, after all.”

“That makes sense,” Christoph replied. “Assuming he is the source of your urge to rejoin the guild, he might have planned all of this.”

“I wonder if there’s a way to undo the changes he made,” Diana said. “The memories he implanted might be permanent, but the ones he altered…”

“You shouldn’t dwell on it,” Christoph said, trickling mana into the skimmer and speeding up once more. “You’ll just become paranoid.”

“Wait up.” Diana tapped at Christoph’s hands, sliding her own over the gem-studded steering bars and taking control of the ship. “Let me fly for a while, you can take over again when the sun goes down. We’ll go on until we reach the first patches of sand.”

Christoph nodded and allowed the elf to take his place, hiding his grimace as he wrapped his arms around her for support. The skimmer might be built to transport two people at once, but it was little more than a large saddle atop an intricately formed crystal-wood frame. If he wasn’t careful, he could easily tumble from the back of the craft and onto the hard earth below. Stifling his concerns, he endured Diana’s whimsical piloting until darkness claimed the plains, sighing in relief as he dragged her off the controls at last.

“Fine,” she said. “It’s your turn again. Can you see well enough?”

“Of course.” Blinking his eyes, Christoph glanced over the plains. It might be dark, but the desert was a place monsters roamed. The clay itself held enough mana to illuminate the plains, even if Diana couldn’t see it.

“What were planning to do if I hadn’t volunteered to help you?” Christoph asked, banking the craft around to correct where she had strayed off course. “I assume you would have taken the skimmer whether you had my permission or not?”

Diana shrugged. The arrow-head shape of the skimmer was streamline enough, but it took on another meaning while the craft was in motion, dust rising up behind the ship to form the shaft of the missile as it sped across the plains. More than a display of craftsmanship, though, the ship had shortened their journey dramatically. They had travelled almost halfway to the pits already, a feat which would take more than three days on foot.

“I wonder…” she said, smiling back at him. “You’re not the only man in Manitas City with access to one of these skimmers, you know?”

“Oh?” Christoph ignored her smile as he steered the ship. Was she waiting for him to ask? Silence drew out between them, the elf staring up at him until he gave in to her grin. “Who else is there?”

“Lord Benvolio,” Diana said. “He might not own one, but if the guild requested it, he could certainly find one for us.”

“Lord?” Christoph asked. “I thought Manitas was a free city?”

“It is,” she replied. “Benvolio does not lord over the people, he owns the city itself.”

“Whatever.” Shaking his head, Christoph reached up to place his hand over Diana’s forehead, draining away a portion of her mana with his touch. “Go to sleep, I’ll keep the skimmer running until we get to the sand.”

Leaning back against her pilot, Diana grumbled as exhaustion overtook her. Entering the city, meeting the council, begging for aid at the guild, and leaving the city again in one day – it had been stressful, even for her, and her hours of piloting the skimmer had not helped to ease her exhaustion. Closing her eyes, she slumped onto his chest with a sigh, drifting in and out of sleep until she felt him slow the craft to a halt, landing gently on the cracked earth as she stirred. Careful not to jostle her, Christoph carried her down onto a blanket he had spread out for bedding, draping another over her body for warmth.

Diana summoned the strength to place the wards around the camp as Christoph crawled into the blankets beside her, her thoughts returning to their conversation earlier in the day. How much had he forgotten? Did he remember meeting Liam for the second time at all? She had escaped unharmed in that encounter, but Christoph… His limbs jerked suddenly, tangling himself in the blanket as he twisted in his sleep.

Reaching out, the elf placed a hand on the top of his head, extending her mana towards his own as he slept. Was it the same dream it always was? Conventional magic might not approach the effectiveness of the world travellers’ gifts, but even so something as small as reading the mind of a sleeping human was almost too easy for Diana.

She let out as sigh as Christoph’s dreams washed over her, a deep sense of unease accompanying the images she managed to glean from his mind. Furred limbs, pale skin, dead eyes… The memories warped together in his head, and she resisted the urge to vomit as her discomfort intensified. Was this what he felt from the beast races now? Withdrawing her hand, Diana shifted back under the covers, looking mournfully at the human’s back. Emilia… Diana closed her eyes, seeing the beast woman as she screamed for help, blood splashing over the forest as a glowing blue hand plunged through her head and clawed into her very soul.

…

Christoph opened his eyes, turning his head in Diana’s direction before sitting up underneath their blankets. Morning… the sun had barely risen over the horizon, and the dull glow of Diana’s wards still shone brighter than the daylight for the time being. Stretching out, he rose to his feet, looking over their surroundings before kneeling to shake the elf awake.

“Oi,” he said. “It’s time.”

Diana mumbled at his touch, limbs jerking as he tore the cover from her grasp, folding it up to stow away on the nearby skimmer. Rolling her bodily from the lower blanket and onto the clay, he did the same to the second square of fabric, strapping the two covers down over the saddlebags of the small airship. Moaning on the cold earth, Diana curled up into ball, making no move to stand.

“You coming?” he asked.

Diana shielded her eyes from the pervasive blue glow of the wards, shaking her head in response. Sighing, Christoph scooped her up in his arms, draping her over the skimmer and taking a seat behind her. Opening the sack he carried at his waist, he scooped up a handful of crystals, crunching down on the gems as the elven ship lifted into the air, a ward appearing around the ship as Diana’s own winked from existence.

“Just once,” he said, propping Diana’s limp form up against his chest. “Just once, I’d like to travel with someone who’s at least passably competent.”

The clay blurred underneath them as they sped across the plains, the sun rising over the rolling landscape as they travelled. Christoph continued to humor the tired elf, holding her between his arms as he steered the craft. How long did she plan to sleep, though? Rather than cracked clay, patches of sand were becoming more and more commonplace, the curving silhouette of dunes clearly visible in the distance. Wouldn’t they be in the sand pits soon?

“Ah, we’re almost halfway there.” Diana reached her arms up, stretching languidly without care for the comfort of her pilot. Peering around her outstretched arms, Christoph frowned down at his passenger. Half way?

“Half way from were we stopped?” he asked.

Diana’s blonde hair tickled against his neck as she shook her head. “Halfway from the city.”

“What?!” Halfway from the city! Why had they set out so late yesterday night? It would be hours before they reached the sand pits. Christoph grabbed onto the elf’s shoulder, turning her roughly in her seat. “Are we supposed to fight the dragon in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the day?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I have a plan.”

“Let’s hear it then,” he replied. What possible plan could she have?

“Eh… well, it depends on what type of dragon it is,” Diana said. Leaning back, she reached around his arms to pat him on the head as her body pressed back against his. “More importantly,” she said, “I appreciate the intimacy, but shouldn’t you treat me to a meal first? Let’s say… breakfast?”

“You want me to kick you off?” he asked. Leaning back, he slapped her hand away from his head. “There’s jerky in the saddlebags.”

“Ugh…” Unclasping the leather bags, Diana reached in and began to chew at the dried strips of meat. “Did Liam show you much about the dragons?”

Christoph shook his head. “No, just a few stories. No first-hand experiences.”

“Hmmm… well, Claude was one of the Paladins, wasn’t he? He might not be too keen on sharing his knowledge with someone like Liam.” Diana swallowed her mouthful of jerky, tearing off another piece with a grimace.

“Well?” Christoph asked.

“Ah, the dragons,” Diana said. “The first thing you should know, is that dragons are always unique. Size, shape, intelligence, strength, behaviour, personality… They aren’t a species or breed of animal, they’re all handmade by the World Serpent, the great dragon god himself. All dragons are large, powerful, and immortal. They don’t sleep, they don’t need to eat, they don’t live as we’d think of living. They just are.”

“What about this one?” he asked. “Roethus must have told you something.”

“He said it can’t fly,” Diana said. “Which is fortunate, considering our own limitations. You shouldn’t underestimate it, though – if the Ouroboros chose not to bestow this wyrm with the power of flight, he’d have given it something else in return.”

“And we’re just coming out here to kill it without even knowing what it looks like?” Christoph asked. “Shouldn’t we do some scouting beforehand?”

“Scouting? Over the sand pits?” Diana laughed at his suggestion. “Even if we did, it’d still be us doing it. Look.”

Christoph followed the elf woman’s gesture to the sand below. What about it? Sand was sand, it all looked the same to… no. Diana turned back to him, grinning at his expression of displeasure.

“You see?” she asked.

“It’s moving,” Christoph said. The sand had seemed unremarkable as it sped past below, but now she had pointed it out, he could see it for what it was. In every direction, the sand was moving, shifting slowly and silently. What he had thought were dunes were actually waves, the grains of sand rising up to form peaks and troughs over the pits. Rather than the plains of a desert, it was an ocean that surrounded them, the skimmer soaring carelessly over the vast waterless depths.