Parker was definitely fired. He’d left in such a hurry that he didn’t tell anyone he was leaving, not even Ryan! He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that no one knew where he was, since he was confident a human search party would only worsen the situation.

Regardless, he doubted any job would keep an employee after they didn’t show up for two months. It was hard to believe he’d been rotting away in that cell for so long.

Luckily for him, the orcs hadn’t taken away all his belongings before tossing him in the slammer with no release date. And while he was pretty sure they were trying to underfeed him, they were going off the portions an orc would eat, so he still got plenty of food.

With nothing else except the occasional short visit from Lasair or her father, he was left with nothing to do in all that time except exercise.

Using all that food the orcs gave him and his in-depth knowledge of anatomy, he was able to gain quite a sizeable amount of muscle in such a short period. Honestly, he kind of impressed himself. Now, while his new muscle was nowhere near enough for him to take on one of the orcs keeping watch nearly 24/7, he still believed it would help him just in case he got the chance to run.

Just as the thought of escaping left his mind, his cell door open. He whipped his head around to see who his mysterious rescuer was, finding an orc he’d never seen before. From the looks of it, he was shorter than Alex. Well, at least Alex’s body.

“The chieftain has requested your audience.”

Alex was proud of himself. After dedicating almost all of “his” time to practicing speech, he finally saw some progress. He still had a pretty severe lisp, and precise control of his tone and volume was still out of his reach, but progress was progress.

“Aleckth,” he kept repeating.

“Aaaalekth… Al. Eck. s.”

“Alex.”

He nearly jumped with excitement. He finally did it!

He spoke his name! No lisp or anything! Sure, he didn’t quite have his old deep and buttery smooth voice, but he was willing to work with this small victory.

“It’s not just from your practice, you know.”

That annoying voice in his head would never leave him alone. Every waking moment, it pestered him with everything that came to their head.

“A dragon’s voice develops six moons after they hatch.”

“Six moons? Really? Can’t you just call them months? You know the English vocabulary.”

“And you know the draconic one.”

“Well, six moons sounds stupid. A “moon” as a physical object.” He drew out his last two words.

“You can’t measure time with it. A month, however, is a measurable amount of time.” Alex stated matter-of-factly, sitting back on his haunches and crossing his arms.

“A length of time denoted by the cycle of a moon.”

Well, it had him there.

“Where are you getting all this from, huh? Aren’t you supposed to be, like, six months old?”

“Like you said. I have the English vocabulary.”

“Touché…”

And for all of this, he didn’t particularly dislike the little bugger. It wasn’t either of their faults that they’d been jammed together into the same body. However, he still had to fight for control over it constantly. At least when he was in control, his “other half” could still be conscious. To say it was jarring to wake up in a different place two or three days later than when he fell asleep would be an understatement.

Every night, whenever he fell asleep, the mental barrier between the two was broken down, allowing the dragon to pull him out of control and put itself in his place. To be fair, he would do the same to it every time he got the chance.

A kind of system emerged where they would switch off every day or two. Even then, Alex felt he was getting the short end of the stick.

No matter where he was when he fell asleep, he would wake up back in that damn cave. No matter how far he flew, how hard he tried to mix up their sense of direction, or how much he exhausted their body,

Even if it meant they didn’t eat or drink the entire time he was unconscious.

After about a month and a half of spending all day getting as far away from the cave as possible, and waking up with the full brunt of the consequences of not eating, barely drinking, walking, running, and/or flying for two or even three days straight, he quit trying to leave the area. It was more important to live than to leave.

Speaking of living, he was thirsty. One good thing about this body was that it seemed much more resilient to water-born illnesses, given he’d drunk out of a lot of questionably clean water sources and had yet to get sick. That still didn’t make him want to drink out of every little puddle he ran into, though. Luckily, both of their favorite water source was not too deep into the chambers of the cave. No matter how many times he did it, it was remarkable to Alex just how well he could see in the darkness of the caverns. The black granite stone barely reflected any natural light, but even the tiniest charge of electricity between his horns was enough to fully illuminate any chamber he stood in, and that was only if he needed the extra light. He wondered if his eyes glowed at night now, like a cat’s. Parker probably wrote that down somewhere in his notebook.

The Hercules bats they both oh-so-fondly remembered had grown much braver ever since the dragon family moved out of the cave. However, Alex and the young dragon had grown much larger since then, so the bats left them alone.

The perfectly still cave water acted as a mirror, perfectly reflecting what little light was left bouncing around in the caves.

Alex wasn’t happy to admit just how much he was used to seeing a different face stare back at him. At least he wasn’t so small and weak anymore. He guessed that he was around the size of a medium dog at this point.

His horns had grown, too. His top set grew thicker and longer, wrapping around and over the top of his head like a crown before turning up into a point. His bottom row stuck out just behind his ears and wrapped along his jaw, curling around his face to point forwards. They were still nearly flush with his face, and their angle made them useless as a weapon, but he thought they still looked cool. He found it interesting to watch the notch in his horn push further and further from his skull as his horns grew, growing smaller in comparison to his body. It was suitable proof the bottom set wasn’t only for looks.

To his dismay, his proportions still hadn’t changed much. While he had grown, it hadn’t stopped him from looking like a puppy. Now he just looked like an oversized puppy instead.

After inspecting himself, he finally decided to get that drink of water. Once satiated, he left that cave chamber and entered the main one.

Luckily for him, his other half went hunting the other day, and he had a good amount of leftovers. He’d been able to teach the young dragon how to start fires, and most importantly, use that fire to make jerky. Of course, it was much worse than the stuff he’d make himself, but it was better than watching most of an animal rot away and become inedible.

He staved off his hunger for the foreseeable future with some jerky, and with that, decided it was time for some exercise. No matter what body he was in, Alex was a bodybuilder at heart. While he preferred weight training, the lack of a gym containing exercise equipment for dragons left him with only cardio and calisthenics.

“Why do you do these things? You are wasting energy! You’re not chasing anything, or even running from something!”

“I may not be running right now, but this way, when either of us needs to, we’ll be much better at it. And I know there’s no chance you’re doing squats while you’re in control.”

“This isn't fair! You don’t need to feel sore the next day! By the time you take it back, my limbs don’t hurt anymore!”

“Well, you could always just not take control back for a few days after leg day.”

After that, the young dragon was quiet. It turns out muscle soreness is actually not as bad as a total lack of agency.

Besides eating, drinking, hunting, and exercising, there wasn’t much to do in his day-to-day life. Avoiding a monotonous schedule and boring life was the main reason he wanted to become an adventurer. He didn’t even enjoy that for three days after he graduated.

“If you think my life is so boring, why don’t you just give it back to me?”

“Well, I would very much like to. I don’t want to be stuck here with you any more than you do with me, but until you stop bringing us back here to this cave, I can’t get my old body back. I get that this was your home and all, but your family isn’t here anymore. Staying here isn’t going to achieve anything! It’s not like you’ll wake up one day, and they’ll just be sitting here. You need to get over it already.”

Alex immediately regretted what he said as he felt a lump in his throat form.

That was one of the worst parts about sharing this body with the young dragon. Any time he experienced a strong emotion, Alex felt it too.

“I-I didn’t mean it l-like that! I-hic-I meant th-they might be some-hic-where else!” Alex choked out between breaths.

His began to water as the young dragon retorted.

“They would never leave! I know they’ll come back and I can’t miss it! They’re coming back any day now!”

Alex had guessed that his little mind-meld with the dragon had been a one-way street, but this confirmed it. While it may have picked up on language skills through his thoughts, it must not have gained access to any of his memories.

After letting himself calm down for a while, Alex decided that the young dragon deserved to know.

“I’m sorry, but… I think it’s time I told you about my father. The first rank one adventurer.”