Gliding is easy, once you get high enough in altitude. Although occasionally it is hard. Your wings can get sore and it is not fun. At all. It is even less fun when there is a nagging little dragon behind you asking you all sorts of out of context questions.

“Do you prefer to drink groundwater or water from a cactus?” Prick asked. Wish had given up on trying to stop him from asking questions, So he just ignored him. This was still not an effective method, though. “C’mon, Wish!” Prick pestered. “Give me your opinion!”

My opinion is that you should shut up. He thought. And of course, Marmoset was there with the mind reading.

“He thinks that you are being a sand-snorting toad-faced nuisance.” She said, speaking for Wish’s brain. Marmoset had also heard of his forbidden love, which was a bit of another secret that only he and Marmoset knew of.

Wish flapped hard until he caught up with Willpower. “Hey, how in Pyrrhia do you handle this guy?” Wish asked him. “It’s like an ant that just won’t let go, it’s so frustrating!”

“Eventually, he will die down on the weirdness the more he gets to know you. That’s just his first impression.” Willpower said to him, shrugging like it was no big deal.

“Yeah, but in the meantime, what do I do? He’s a rather obnoxious dragon.” Wish added, uncertain of what is the true meaning of Prick’s words and actions and his thoughts.

“Just… play into it. Be a good friend to him until it wears off.” Willpower fumbled in the air for a moment, still getting the hang of flying.

Wish pulled over a bit until he was next to Pansy. “Hey,” he said, trying not to let his earlier thoughts creep into his words.

“Hey.” She replies. She sounded happy. Was that because Wish had made her happy somehow? Or was she just in a good mood right now?

Wish pushed ALL thoughts aside and asked her a question. “Do you think Copper will listen to us?” He asked. “I mean, if he’s any good friend, he will brutally deny that Onyx is an assassin. How would we prove it to him?”

“Well, we could always use your scroll.” Pansy tells him. “That piece of parchment is always useful. And would absolutely never use sarcasm on us.” Pansy appeared to be aiming her words towards the underside of Wish’s wing. “If he won’t listen to that, then we would just let him ask Onyx himself. Sounds good?” Pansy asked him.

“Yeah, it does.” Wish said. “And again, the majesty’s brain simplifies Wish’s thoughts into common knowledge. Pansy II, Wish zero.”

She bumped him with her nose midair. “I wouldn’t say zero.” Pansy tells him. “I’d say more like a half.”

Wish thought for a bit. “What have I done that was any bit smarter than what you would’ve done?” He replied.

“Well, there’s the nursery. You did that, and that was smart.” Pansy reminded him. She retrieved some more thoughts before saying, “You were able to pass your graduation test, at age five. So you could go on epic adventures with me, and you must’ve really memorized the curriculum for that.” She rubs her wrist before adding, “I haven’t passed mine yet, though. I keep failing in writing, and it’s only because I don’t understand abbreviations! What is the purpose of combining two words when you could just say both of them? It makes no sense to me.” She admits to Wish.

“And then there’s the other chart, where it counts up bravery points.” She adds. “In which case, it would be Pansy zero, Wish six.” Pansy said honestly.

“What?” Wish asked, stunned. “I have six bravery points? For what?!”

“One: you stood up to all of the queens on this continent in order to keep your rights. Then you chased after an assassin with your name on their list. FOUR TIMES, WISH. YOU SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH WITH THE FIRST ONE. And finally,” She pauses for dramatic affect. “You refused to get me breakfast that one morning. That is a bold move.”

“Oh no! I must be beheaded at once! Such treasonous crimes!” Wish joked.

Pansy poked him with her tail. “It’s not a joke, Wish. You told me to get up and do it myself, and then you sent me bananas with a note that said you were going on a suicide mission! Not cool!” Wish patted the tiny squirrel in his pouch, alongside the scroll. Pansy was clearly not serious, but Wish could tell that she wasn’t going to let that one go.

“Now, there’s the good friend chart, keeping track of all the times one has been a good comforting presence to the other.” Wish thought for a minute to recover memories. “Pansy seventeen, Wish two.” He told her. “Care to hear me explain?” He asked.

“Be my guest.” Pansy said.

Wish cleared his throat. “So, literally every time you’ve given me a hug, or just sat with me and been there. Every time you blow my mind, or change it, or-” Wish pauses. “Anyway, and then there’s that one time when I stood for your opinion when several other queens denied it. And when I saved your dignity by sleeping in the dirt instead of a hammock.” Wish met Pansy’s eyes. They were wide with kind interest, and Wish felt like he could get lost in those eyes. “I can add even more to your side of the chart, actually.” Wish admits.

Pansy lands on a small plateau, overlooking the mountain range. “Actually, we’re here.” Wish looked in the opposite direction of where they were flying. He saw the large spiraling pillars of the Sky Palace, laminated with gold and jewels.

Wish shook himself and breathed deeply. “You need to hear this, though.” Wish tells her, facing her even though the small plateau made it a little awkward. “I can add several hundred more to your side of the chart, for every time you make my heart feel on fire. For every time my head wanders back to you, and what you’d like. For every time when my gut has lurched and groaned at the fact that there was a dragon out there trying to separate us. For every time I’ve wondered why a fraction of my brain is constantly whispering to me, in a never ending argument, ‘She’s your queen’ ‘She’s amazing’ ‘You have other worries’ ‘She’ll help me through them’ ‘You are a worthless lab experiment to her’ ‘I’d change her mind’ ‘She never would think of you that way’ ‘But I do’. For this one thought that has been hard to ignore for the whole time I’ve known you,” Wish breaths again, touching his snout to Pansy’s. WHAT ARE YOU DOING??! His brain screamed. What needs to be done. Wish was going through a haze, life moving at a mile a minute again

“I love you.” He said to her, tears leaking from his closed eyes. “I’ve thought about it for a long while now, and I will protect you with my life. You mean everything to me.”

“Wish…” Pansy said to him. “You give me fireworks in my chest every time you talk about me. I wonder what goes through your head all day, knowing that you know what’s in mine. Every time you do something dangerous, I’m on the verge of tears at the thought that I’d never see you again.” Pansy pulls him into a tight hug. He hugs back “You deserve way more than what you give yourself credit for, and all I want to see is you when you can see yourself the way I do. I love you too.”

Those words hit harder than when Pansy had told him he was an animus. He did it. He told her, and She told him. They stayed in a hug for a bit, and broke apart as Marmoset and Willpower flew by.

“What are you two doing up here? We have to warn Copper!” Marmoset screams at them.

“Okay, but actually,” Willpower starts. “What are you doing here?”

Wish and Pansy look at each other. “Stuff.” Pansy said, shrugging.

“Hey,” Wish tells her. “That was some pretty good stuff.” They flew down, and scanned around until they found the plateau where Copper lives. It wasn’t too hard, the plateau and the house being quite large.

The house itself was made of wood, a strange choice for a constantly aggravated fire-breathing dragon.. Marmoset knocked on the door.

“Hello?” She calls, after no response. “Is this Copper’s house? We need to talk to him!” There was an eerie silence, almost like there was a dead body inside.

Marmoset pushed open the door, and she straight up passed out. “Guys…” Willpower said, holding the unconscious dragon in his front talons. “This is bad…”

Wish and Pansy step around their friends, and into the house. At first, it seems like a quaint cottage. A nice red rug, a couch, some paintings on the wall, a dining room, and then you look closer at the paintings.

One of them is a nice landscape view of the mountain range at sunset, and the other is a painting of a dragon that Wish could only assume to be Copper. And Copper’s severed head is mounted on the painting.

Wish took a look at the red rug. Now that he was looking for it, the carpet was bloodstained. It was also quite lumpy. “I think the rest of him is under the rug.” Pansy shudders, gripping Wish’s wrist nervously. “This is the most grotesque thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Onyx beat us to him. She’s got information about us.” Wish backed up. The haze was surrounding him. His thoughts were drowned out by his own shock. “We’re all going to die.” Wish backed out of the house, bumping into Prick as he did.

“Watch it!” He yelled as Wish turned around and flew away. He didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t care. He was just getting away from Onyx.

Away, away, ignoring the desperate pleas of his queen, away, away, from everything and everyone.