This close to the dragon’s lair, he should be more careful, and he knows it, but the sight of the dragon’s girl stumbling toward him in tears shocks him into dropping his defenses. He tries to soothe her when she wraps her arms around his waist, but also curses her in the back of his mind for obstructing his access to his sword.
“Thank the gods, thank the gods,” the girl sobs over and over.
“Ma'am, the dragon,” he hisses, his hand groping for his sword.
“Oh, him,” she hiccups, wiping at her eyes with one emerald sleeve. “He’s left the cave for now, thank the gods!” She clutches at his breastplate, fingers scrabbling against the smooth metal. “We should leave, and quickly!” She unwraps her arms from around him and stumbles toward the surrounding forest, glancing anxiously at him as though worried he won’t follow.
He follows, of course; he only really came for the girl. He’s relieved to not have to fight the dragon itself.
They travel in silence, at least until nightfall. Then, the girl opens her bag and presents to him a bottle of fine wine. “To celebrate my escape,” she tells him, her green eyes shining with gratitude. “Please, have some tonight!”
They’ve made good time, and so long as they don’t create a campfire he’s reasonably sure that the dragon cannot track them now. “Gladly,” he tells the girl, accepting the bottle.
He’s not sure when he falls asleep that night, but when he next wakes the next morning he’s been stripped of his armour and weapons, propped against an unfamiliar wall in an unfamiliar street.
“Sid,” an unfamiliar voice rings out, “we’ve got another one!”
All the men who have gone after the dragon and its captive girl have never returned. It’s with this in mind that he does not partake of the wine. “Thank you, milady,” he tells the girl.
She curtsies back. “Sir,” she offers, green eyes shining, “if you wish to rest better tonight, I can brew tea for you. Please sir, I wish to aid you as best I can.”
“Aye, that’d be good,” he says. “I’ll make a fire. Carefully not to let it burn too bright, lass.”
The next morning, he too wakes stripped of his valuables in a strange town to a boy with bright blue hair and equally bright blue eyes peering down at him curiously.
“Girl, I must defeat the dragon,” he insists. “It has killed too many of our men now.”
“Men who came of their own volition,” the girl says sadly. “Sir, I beg you, do not join their number. I could not bear it. Please leave with me,” she begs.
He shakes his head, resolute. “Nay, girl. I must avenge those who came before. Leave if you like.”
The girl shakes her head as well, flaxen pigtails swaying. “I would not last on my own in the woods. The dragon knows this. That is why he leaves me unguarded.”
“Then help me slay the dragon,” he commands.
She bows her head. “I shall do my best,” she speaks to the ground.
She guides him through the lair. “Here,” she tells him, stopping in a room full of lit incense. “The dragon sleeps in the treasure room next door. I know not when he will return, but he will not smell you here. You may kill him as he sleeps.”
He bows his gratitude. “Thank you, fair maiden. I will guide you out of the wood once the deed is done.”
She bows back. “I cannot stay here,” she tells him regretfully. “He cannot smell well around this room, so if he cannot smell me from the entrance he will come straight here and find you. I must return to the entrance and await him.”
After she’s gone, the incense lures him to sleep, and he wakes stripped to his undergarments in an unfamiliar street.
They are strong in number and in body, and they are uncertain in the presence of a woman. She leaves them in the incense room with a bottle of liquor to strengthen their hearts and their minds before their terrible battle to come.
They wake to a sympathetic crowd of men. “Sly dragon she may be, but she’s merciful too,” they say.
His sword is already out when she stumbles to him, so she pulls up short, her eyes wide and confused and brimming with tears.
“Are you alright?” he asks the girl.
“Y-yes, sir,” she replies uncertainly, her gaze on his sword.
“Where is the dragon?”
“He’s gone for now. He comes and goes as he pleases, though, so I know not when he will return.”
He nods crisply and lowers the sword as he strides toward her, and then past her, into the lair.
“Sir!” the girl calls, scrambling after him.
“Milady.” His eyes, red and piercing, slide to her. “What is your name?”
She startles. “Ah— Maka.”
He nods again, white hair waving, his eyes sliding forward. “I am Soul.”
“Soul,” Maka says, tasting the name. “Soul, sir, you must leave before the dragon returns. Please, I don’t want to see more bloodshed.” Her voice turns ragged.
Soul responds, sadly, “Would that I could. The dragon took someone precious from me, and I swore I would defeat it.”
Maka hesitates. “Then let me aid you, as best I can?” she asks. “I’ve been here much too long. I’ve dreamed of ways to defeat the beast.”
“Lead on.”
So she guides him to the incense room.
“The scent is thick,” Soul agrees, “but drugging, too. I’d fall asleep here in no time at all.”
Maka shrugs helplessly. “It is the best I can offer. Anywhere else, and you’d be found immediately.”
Soul studies the room and then turns his gaze on her. “No choice, hm?”
“The choice is yours,” Maka points out. “This is merely where I believe you would have a chance.”
He studies her for a moment longer. “Maka,” he says suddenly. “You are the dragon, no?”
She stutters to a halt. “How?” she asks dumbly.
Soul smiles a razor smile. “I’ve spent all my life around actors. I’ve learned to spot the signs.”
She backs away from him. “I—”
“Maka. Is that even your name?”
“Yes,” she confesses. “Soul—”
“Did you learn their names before you devoured them?” he growls, quiet, deadly.
“I never!” she bursts angrily. “I never hurt a one of them! I just want to be left alone! Drugged them and stripped them and flew them to a town half a world away so I could be sure they would never come back!”
Soul has stopped advancing. “They’re alive?” he asks, blankly. “Wes is alive?”
So she takes him to the village she’s created, a trading outpost now. They all recognise her here, but they had nothing to leave behind when they came to her, and do not begrudge her her deceit. Some were even reunited with family that they had thought dead.
Soul greets his brother in a daze.
“She never told us her name,” Wes tells his little brother. “Then again, we never asked.”
“Surely, if we simply tell the village—”
Wes smiles. “Nay, Soul. Dragons will always be dragons to them.”
Soul glances to Maka, new understanding in his eyes.
