Sokar and Declan sit in Sokars apartment quietly, both of them sitting at his dining table in awkward silence.

“Sokar. so I know it must have been pretty uh, shocking to hear that there’s a dragon resting on your head but I mean, aren’t you kind of overreacting?”

Sokar sits opposite of Declan with his head face down on the table.

“I’m not doing this because I’m upset. It’s because this thing on my head is so damn heavy that it hurts to raise my head.”

Declan looks at the little dragon which only he can see, that is now resting on the back of Sokar’s head. Its eyes remain closed and small breaths can be heard from it. Declan thinks for a moment and then reaches his hand towards it, and places his hand on the dragon.

“Just wait a sec Sokar. I might be able to help you with your little problem.”

Declan then places his other hand on the dragon resting on Sokar, and then slowly begins to lift it. However as he begins, the dragon shakes awake with its eyes finally opening. It’s pupils glow a dark red and it begins to bat its wings and shakes off Declans head.

Hey, the weights gone!

Sokar lifts his head and looks at Declan, about to thank him for his help. But as he does Declan has a scared look on his face as he slowly stands up and begins to back away from the table.

“Declan, what are you doing?”

“This thing does not look happy that it was touched by me Sokar, it looks like it might fly at me any moment.”

That doesn’t sound good.

The little dragon stares intensely at Declan, waiting for its moment to strike. Declan begins to reach for the blessing in his pocket, but the moment he does the dragon shoots towards his hand and bites down onto it.

“Shit! Sokar help get this damn thing off me!”

How am I supposed to help him, I can’t even see the thing. Wait… but it can see Declan!

“Declan close your eyes!”

Declan does as he’s told and as he does a ball of light grows over Sokar’s right hand quickly and then explodes in a flash. The dragon gets stunned by the explosion of light and releases it’s clamp on Declan’s hand. Sokar also closed his eyes before the blast of light, of which he’s had one too many experiences of.

Well I guess the First Day isn’t completely useless, I can at least use it as dragon rep...ellent.

Sokar is greeted by a shocking sight as he opens his eyes, in front of him he see’s Declan except his body seems to be wrapped in a small white glow. More shockingly however, he sees a small black dragon floating in the air, repeatedly blinking its eyes.

“Declan i-is that the dragon you were talking about? And why are you surrounded by that weird light?”

Declan opens his eyes and looks at the dragon in the air, and is incredibly shocked that Sokar can see it, but is more shocked at what Sokar had just said.

“A weird light? Wait, if you can see that does that mean you can see essence now? That weird light is a result of my essences purity! But how did you awaken the ability to see essence?”

The ability to see essence, is it possible that this is the true ability of the First Day? That thread from before, is it possible it was made of essence too? But it disappeared after the First Day exploded and this dragon didn’t. What’s the difference between the two? I’ll have to ask Declan at a later time, but for now I should worry about this thing.

Sokar looks at the still disoriented little dragon and then at Declan who has his blessing in his hand, clearly on guard in case the dragon lunges at him again.

This thing came from me so, maybe it’ll respond to me better than it did to Declan. Here goes nothing.

Sokar reaches his hand towards the little dragon and places his hand on its head, the dragon looks confused for a moment and almost bites at his hand, but then it looks at Sokar and strangely calms down. The dragon then floats over to Sokars head again, and tries to lie down on it. Sokar quickly backs up and the dragon slightly falters as it tries to set itself on nothing but air.

“Sorry little guy, my heads off limits.”

The dragon looks confused for a moment and then pauses for a moment, before flying over to Sokar and coils around his neck.

Well, this is better than my head I suppose.

Declan cautiously puts his blessing away and stares at the dragon now coiled around Sokars neck before approaching him.

“Well now that you can see my essence but more importantly that thing, we should probably figure out where it came from. I mean, most people don’t just normally have dragons born from their essence.”

This dragon was born from my essence and the pollution that it put off, so that means it has something to do with Greed. But Declan wouldn’t know that, he doesn’t know the intricacies of my ability. Though neither do I really.

“Declan, I have no idea why this thing exists. Although I don’t think any brainstorming we do will help us find out the answer, I don’t truly know what my essence is, so could you explain it a bit more to me? It probably won’t help but it’d be good to know.”

“Sure! You already know the basic behind essence so I won’t go into that, I’ll just focus on what makes yours so unique. As you can see on me now, the special essence of my essence is purity which is represented by this white glow around my body. The essence of your body though is, well it’s like a miasma that leaks out of you. And when you come into contact with other people, that essence of yours drills into everyone you come into contact with, and as far as I can tell there are no exceptions. Alice, me and almost everyone in the cafe today had all been affected. But it’s weird, I don’t think it had any negative impact. Most pollution can cause sickness or spread disease, but yours was just there silently growing. And then today happened. That pollution and your essence all pooled together to make that dragon. And now it’s like you almost have none of that original essence, just a small bit of it around your heart.”

Around my heart? That’s where my brand is, the Ouroboros. Could this just be a natural progression for Greed, or was it spun into action by my visit into that place. I don’t know, but the fact remains that this dragon was born from Greed.”

“Thank you Declan, that doesn’t give me any idea about why this thing came to be but it did give me one idea. If my essence continues to infect people and grow, then this little guy might grow into an actual full fledged dragon.

Declan looks shocked, but his shock is replaced by glee as a small grin covers his face.

“Yeah! Let’s just hope you can keep control of it. I mean, could you imagine what you could do with an actual dragon? You could fly through the skies unmatched, in fact you’d be unmatched in this whole damn city! If that reality can really become true then…”

Declan is interrupted by a knock at Sokars door. Sokar looks confused and Declan heads over to the door to open it and see who the visitor is.

This is weird, I wasn’t expecting anyone today. Is it Alice?

Declan opens the door and his face goes pale as he looks towards the man towering in front of him. His form dwarfs that of Declans. Sokar looks at the man from behind Declan and is equally as shocked though for different reasons.

This guy is huge… 8… No! He has to be 9 feet tall! Wait, that matches the description of one of the Seraphims Declan was talking about. Could that be-

Sokars thoughts are interrupted as Declan is sent flying back crashing through the table in front of him. The man at the door begins to walk into the apartment, breaking off the top of the door frame with his hands making room for himself.

“Declan, you disappoint me. You should have been more on guard after what you did this morning but you were so vulnerable I was almost able to end you with one hit!”

Declan struggles to get up from his position on the ground surrounded by the broken table. As he does he looks over at Sokar and barely mutters out a single phrase.

“Sokar… Run!”