The Quantum Wanderer

After we have breakfast on the next morning, we put on our adventurer gear. It is the suitable kind of clothing to wear while riding the girls. Muninn opens the portal, it is about a 100 miles away, in a secluded clearing. Far enough that they wouldn’t see us taking off.

Cecilia is really excited, I put the saddles on the girls. Muninn and Huginn shape shift into their normal size. Muninn is apparently a little excited with this as well, but when I look at him he tries to play cool.

We all take off. Muninn and Huginn have no trouble keeping the speed of the dragons, and the girls are flying really fast. If I had to guess, possibly faster than they did during the parade. But it is hard to check.

We see a single cart on the road, right where Muninn informed us that Cecilia’s parents would be. She wanted some emotion, so we land around them, with this hard hit on ground. Some dust pops up.

The horse extends his head up and neighs once. Then he falls to the ground, limp. Cecilia’s mother put her hand over her chest, and her eyes go blank. She falls to the side, where here husband would be. Except he dropped everything, and started running towards the forest, without looking back.

“FATHER! WAIT! FATHER!” Cecilia screams. He reaches the forest.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

I look to the side, Muninn is laying on the ground, laughing. I don’t really know what to do. Shandon turns her head back, looking at Cecilia.

“You should probably go after him.”

Cecilia jumps out of the saddle, and goes after her father. She is going to reach him almost immediately.

Muninn is still laughing. He manages to stop for a moment.

“And if I had been the one to suggest this, I would spend a whole month on a tree in the outside…”

He is standing up, still giggling. I get off Ruby, she is giggling a little bit as well. I come over Cecilia’s mother, and I check her state. She is ok, just passed out from the stress. I let her sleep it off. I turn to the horse. Dead. It went into shock, and then dropped dead. I feel a little guilty and wonder how much is a horse.

“Should we change back, my lord? Looking less conspicuous might help…” Opal asks.

I extend my senses, and the only two people around are Cecilia and her father. He is against a tree, trying to get his breath back. They are going to take some time to get here.

“Sure, you can do this behind the cart. It is safe.”

They still think it is funny how I don’t like anyone else seeing them naked, but oblige. I collect the two saddles and place them inside the holding bag. I unchain the cart from the dead horse. I check the weight of the cart, and it is not heavy. At least, not for my current strength. I am guessing we can just pull it back to their city. We are only about 50 miles away from there. I could portal it to a closer place on the road, and then just pull it back.

I look at the horse. I like horses. They are these big dogs in terms of behavior. I remember myself of an old tv show that mentioned that, in the wild, horses are attacked by predators jumping on top of them; that they would allow humans to mimic that and still stay calm was something against millennia of natural selection.

The girls are now in human shape, dressed. I carry Cecilia’s mom to the shade of a tree. I turn to the girls.

“I am going to deliver this back into the city, and pay for the horse. I will be back in a little while. Huginn, can you open a portal the closest to the city, but away from any prying eyes?”

“Sure, father.”

“Thank you.”

The portal opens in front of me. I take the stuff out of the cart, there were not bringing too much stuff with them. Only a couple of boxes. They had another couple of boxes of food, and a barrel of water. I take everything out of the cart, and put it all close to Cecilia’s mom. I pull the cart through the portal, and I am in another part of the road.

I carry it to the village. There is a guard by the gate. He is giving me a very strange look. My mithril tag helps him understand, though. I go straight to the guild’s branch, and I leave the cart outside. The attendant inside is behind the counter, reading something. Her feet are on the counter, she is almost laying down.

“Hello?”

She lowers her book, and looks at me. Then she notices the mithril tag I am wearing.

“Hello, adventurer! How are you?”

“I am well.”

“How can I help you? I am sure you know how we work, right?”

“Yes…” I scratch the back of my neck. I continue.

“Do you know a couple that left the guild, a couple of days ago?”

“Charles and Lucille?”

“Yes… I have their cart with me, I am going to take them the rest of their trip. The horse had an untimely demise…”

“What do you mean, you have their cart with you?”

“It is outside.”

She stands up, and goes outside. She looks at every crane and part of the cart. The belts that were used to hold the horse. The inside of the cart. She examines every little detail. She looks at me with a suspicious expression.

“What happened?”

“The horse was about to be attacked, I intervened, but then it went into shock. They stayed in our convoy. We are going to take their things with us.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I am Cecilia’s fiancée… We were doing them a surprise. But then we saved them from some beasts, but the horse…”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

I can feel the attendant relaxing.

“How much is a horse?”

“It is two gold coins.”

I hand her the gold coins, and I turn back, to get back to everyone. Once I am hidden, I open a portal and go back. Cecilia and her father are arriving as well. Cecilia turns to me.

“How is mom?”

“She is ok. It is just stress, she should be waking up at any time.”

I see her father scratching his neck. He is looking at the ground. We can all smell him, he spoiled himself. Cecilia introduces him awkwardly.

“Father, this is Marcelo, my fiancée.” Shandon gives her an eye, and she fixes it. “Our fiancée. Marcelo, this is my father, Charles.”

I extend out my hand, and he shakes it. Then he looks around, staring at each one of the girls. Cecilia keeps the introduction.

“This is Shandon, this is Opal, this is Aquamarine and this is Ruby.”

Shandon and Opal do a very short head bow. Ruby extends her hand, and shakes his. Aquamarine bows her head, more than Opal and Shandon. Muninn flies down from the tree, and lands on my shoulder. Charles raises his left brow at that. Muninn caws. Cecilia gets it.

“And this is Muninn, and that one still on the tree is Huginn.”

Muninn bows his head to Charles, that ends up bowing his head as well, by reflex. He only realized that he bowed to a crow after the fact, but then lets it go. He looks to his wife, and the boxes around. Then he gets stressed all of a sudden.

“Wait! The dragons! We have to run!”

“Don’t worry, old man.” Huginn says.

Charles stops on his tracks. He looks at him. Then at me. I can see some primal fear coming over him. His flight reflex doesn’t even come up. He just points at Muninn.

“THE CROW TALKS!”

“You are surrounded by dragons in human form, and you are worried about the talking crow? Talk about priorities.”

He starts looking at the girls. He looks at Ruby. She nods. He looks at Shandon, she nods. His eyes roll back, and he faints. Cecilia picks him from falling, and lays him by her mother. The girls all make a disgusting expression.

“You are the one that is going to carry them…” Says Shandon, pointing waving her hand at Cecilia’s parents, as if trying to spread the smell. Aquamarine sighs.

“I am not even going to remind you all that I thought this was a bad idea.”

I giggle at that. Muninn is laughing again. Huginn flies down, and lands on the other shoulder. She sighs. Cecilia sighs. I open a portal home, and I carry the two boxes with stuff. The food and water is just not worth it.

We arrive in the living room, Cecilia carries her parents to a guest room, one on each shoulder. They are really light for her now. Rudolph comes over, and gets shocked by the smell. He tries to understand where it is coming from, and realizes that it is Cecilia’s father, than pretends nothing is wrong.

“Lord. What are these?”

“Those two Cecilia is carrying are her parents. This is their luggage. Can we have this carried to their room later on?”

“Of course, lord.”

“Thank you.”

The girls and I stay in the living room. Muninn is still having a couple of laughter spasms here and there. This was a shit show. Cecilia is the one facing the backstage, though. I turn to the girls.

“Cecilia is going to spend some time to deal with her parents. What do you girls want to do?”

“What do you generally do when we are in school, my lord?”

“It depends. A couple of days ago I did a quest in the guild, just for the kicks. Sure, it paid a couple of 3 platinum, and that is already a big sum, but I did it more to pass the time. I didn’t even care much for the carcass, I left it with demons. A reward for their collaboration with the centaur issue.

“But on average, I just go there, I hear on the news, and drink some ale.”

“How was the fight with the squid?” Ruby asks, curious.

“After what I had already passed with the kraken, it was… Underwhelming. The same strategy works, I just dived to where it was, and then I portaled us both to the beach, but it wasn’t very deep in the sea, so this time the pressure was child’s play. Muninn was the one that killed it, actually.”

“Which beach did you use, my lord?”

“The one we always use, in Drakonia. I met Troggar there.”

Opal looks at the floor, dejected. I continue.

“But he hid whatever he was doing there, and I did not pry. I know there is something, but I still don’t know what what it is.”

She gets back to smiling mode. I still don’t know what they want to do.

“So, what will it be? What do you want to do?”

I am looking at the girls. They also don’t have much on their minds. Shandon then has an idea.

“What about the hot spring? The actual hot spring?” Shandon inquires.

“Where can we find that?”

“There is a group of volcanos to the south of Drakonia. There are some lakes around.”

“Is there hunting ground disputes around that?”

“No, it is like the desert, it is not a fertile land for prey.” Aquamarine informs.

“Ok, let’s do it. Let me leave a message with Rudolph, so that Cecilia doesn’t phreak out.”

I come over to Rudolph, and tell him that we are going to go out, and to pass that message to Cecilia later, when she is done dealing with her parents. We should not be too long out.

We go up to our room. The girls undress. I stare at them.

“Are you going to go like that?”

“Why not, my lord? Afraid some other dragon is going to look at us?” Ruby teases me.

I stop to think about it for a moment. Whenever they are in dragon form, they are completely naked. However, I never really felt any shame. There are no people around. I realize how weirdly my mind works. They are not wrong. I undress as well. I turn to Muninn.

“Do you know of any bird around the area?”

“Sure, father. Do you want me to open the portal?”

“You can also give me the anchor, but either way works.”

The portal opens in front of us, and we jump through. We are met with a lake, That touches a mountain on one side.  The lake is not small, it must be one mile across. On the other side, there is a lush forest. I extend my mana senses, and there are no monsters around. The water has a high temperature, and I can feel that the air around is not completely healthy. The lake occasionally bubbles up.

Ruby and Aquamarine run and jump in the lake. Shandon and Opal look at me. I can see that they really want to go, but are trying to keep appearances. I gesture to the lake, and they also run towards it.

I run after them, and jump into it. The water is hot! Really hot. My fire resistance is really put to the test in this. The three calmer ones go to a place near this big boulder. The collection of big rocks around that part provides us with natural seating. And quite comfortable, for something made by nature.

Ruby jumps in the middle of the lake, and she goes back to her dragon form. She swims a little bit, using her tail. I am curious, I turn to the girls.

“Are you good swimmers? Do dragons hunt in the water?”

Shandon is the one to reply.

“We are not bad swimmers, my lord, but we don’t really enjoy the sensation. We can’t dive too deep, the pressure messes up with some of our senses. But it is always a matter of how hungry one is, right?”

Aquamarine approaches me, and sits beside me. The other two get closer as well, while Ruby is playing in the water. She sees it, and approaches with her huge snout. I just relax in this sea of bodies.

Muninn and Huginn approached the water slowly. After touching it with their feet, they assumed their large size, and went deeper in the lake. They bathed, their feathers opened, throwing water all around them. After some time, they just sit, their wings kind of floating in the water.

I start looking at the sky, seeing the clouds. This feels so peaceful. My introvert kid inside is just happy in this weird land, relaxing around my girls.

The sun walked around 30 degrees on the sky, informing me that two hours had passed. Huginn turns to us.

“Father, aunty has already dealt with her parents.”

I see that the sun should be setting in another hour.

“I think that we can come back now.”

Ruby, still in her dragon form, pouted. A 100 feet long dragon pouting is an image to remember. It is just not that bad because the females don’t have horns, so at least it was a softer face. But it was still a huge head, full of very large teeth.

She jumped out of the water, and when she landed on me, she was in human form again. She hugged me. We kissed. I then kissed each one of them. We had a quickie in the lake. After that, we went to the margin, and I opened a portal to our bedroom.

We took a quick shower, to remove the bad egg smell from the lake, dressed and went downstairs. Cecilia was tired, sitting on a couch.

“Where were you?”

“We went to a hot spring in Drakonia. Boiling water hot. A really nice place, actually. Bad air, though.”

“How nice. I am sure you all have had a very bad time.”

I pretended not to see the hurt in her voice. The girls didn’t see it. Their lack of social skills is still amazing.

Muninn landed on the back of the couch.

“How are sir shitaton and sleeping beauty?”

“Sleeping beauty?” Cecilia asks.

“Don’t worry, it is a story from father’s world. It is supposed to be a story for kids.”

“Really? How does it go?”

“I only know what papa read. There was this princess, that was cursed. When she turned sixteen, she hurt her finger on a needle, and fell asleep. A prince passed by, and saw this beauty sleeping… He, well, enjoyed himself. The girl got pregnant. When the baby was born, it suckled her finger, and then she woke up. The prince passed around that place again, and then they got married. There were some other versions that were about the power of true love, but that one is a watered down version.”

We proceed to dinner. Some time after we are done, and we were about to leave the table, her two parents come down the stairs, slowly. They are looking at everything, eyes bulging. The glass map of Drakonia, the worked stair handrails, the carpets. They have never seen a noble’s house on the inside, and I have to admit that my home was raised to another level by the dwarves.

They stop in front of the huge slab of glass. He touchs it, and she slaps his hand. Then they come our way. Rudolph receives them.

“Should we add your places on the table, sir and madam?”

He nods at Rudolph, slowly, and looks at us. He comes over, and I gesture them to a couple of seats, one in front of the other.

They sit slowly. It is as if they were scared of sneezing. Cecilia stands up. I stand up as well. The other girls stay put.

“Ma, pa, this is Marcelo. Marcelo, these are my parents.”

Charles is clearly uncomfortable. He comes close, and I stretch my hand for him to shake. He grabs my hand with both of his, and kneels down. Now I am uncomfortable.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to kneel, bow, or anything like that. Welcome to our humble abode.”

He stood up. He turns to Cecilia.

“You didn’t mention that he was a noble, C.”

“Pa, just sit down. You too, ma. First of all, he is not a …” She looked at the other girls. Opal was staring daggers at her. “noble in the human sense. It is an… unusual situation. Besides, you are my parents, we are all to behave as equals here.

“Those are my… wife sisters. Opal, Shandon, Ruby, Aquamarine. We are all going to marry Marcelo in the wedding.”

Charles looks around.

“Five wives at once?”

Cecilia didn’t like the comment.

“Yes. Why?”

“I am sorry. By the gods, no need to be angry with me. At least he clearly can take care of you all.”

Cecilia sighs. The dragonesses, Opal in particular, agree with his statement. Charles continues.

“Are there any left overs?”

Cecilia slaps her forehead. I smile.

“Don’t worry about it, make this your home. Roberta is our cook, she was already expecting to have to provide food, your steak should be coming out in a little bit.”

At this point, I realize that I cannot feed them kraken. I gesture to Rudolph, that is in the corner of the room, and I whisper in his ear.

“Rudolph, please make sure that they eat Fenrir meat. I don’t think they can eat anything with more mana… Their levels are on the lower side…”

“Of course, lord.”

After some additional time, they receive their plates. As usual, the dishes are steak with some additional herbs and accompaniments. They look at it, but they don’t move. I turn to them.

“It is going to get cold if you don’t eat it.”

Charles gets the knife, and starts eating the steak. He turns to me.

“Do you eat this every day?”

“Not necessarily that, but yes. I have been lucky.”

“How? Are you a noble?”

“I am not a noble. I did gain a place in a council… But I am basically an adventurer that got lucky.”

“I never heard of an adventurer being promoted to noble before.”

“Again, I am not a noble.”

“What lands do you manage?”

I think that the information that I am not a noble is just not registering in Charles head. And Opal is apparently decided to not help.

“His hunting grounds are vast and large… This whole empire would not cover even a fifth of it!”

I look at Charles’ face, and apparently that is the piece of information that registers. Not completely accurate, though, but at this point I just give up.

They eat in silence. The girls and I are all waiting, having some juice or flavored water. Cecilia turns to them.

“Ma, pa, please don’t talk about the things here to anyone. It is a secret, to avoid unwanted attention.”

Charles stops eating for a moment. I didn’t think that would ever happen. He looks at Cecilia, then looks around the house. The chandelier, the elaborate chairs, the sculpted cupboard, the chandelier.

“Do you mean to say that other people have no idea he is a noble?”

“Exactly. And anything else you see in here as well.”

Her mother shrugs. She is the one to answer.

“Sure, as you wish. If I had a house like this, I would be rubbing half the city’s nose on it, though.”

After they finished their dinner, we went to the coffee room. They both sat on one couch, and we sat on the other.

“So, how was the trip, now that you are here?”

“It was a normal one, but then we had this weird nightmare, and then woke up here.”

“How are you feeling?”

“We are well now. How did we get here? How long were we out?”

Cecilia looks at me. I shrug.

“You might as well learn about how things are. What was your nightmare like?”

“We were traveling, and then we got surrounded by dragons. The horse dropped dead. It was a nasty thing. I must have fallen asleep in the cart, if we were surrounded by dragons we would either be ashes or dragon shit by now.”

“My lord, why does everyone think we are going to eat them?” Aquamarine asks.

I shrug. Charles is looking at this exchange, as if we were talking something absurd. Opal sighs.

“No, we are not going to eat you, don’t worry about that.”

Charles is not registering the information, just like the thing about me being a noble. Lucille is also numbed by the information. Cecilia sighs. I turn to her.

“Let them realize on their own. They are in a safe place, so there are no issues.”

Muninn is looking at them, while Huginn is behaving the same way the dragonesses are, not really caring about the situation.

“Are you sure they are alright, father?” Muninn asks.

Charles looks at Muninn, and points at him, shaking his index finger.

“He… He…”

Charles turns around, and starts looking at the dragonesses.

“Red, white, white, blue…”

He then looks at me, and soils himself again. Cecilia sighs, and takes him to a restroom to help him. Lucille is frozen, but she is in a better state.

“It really happened…”

I nod.

“Cecilia tried to surprise you guys, she thought that she would make you proud if she arrived riding a dragon. Not quite what she expected.”

“Yes… You could say that…” She sips some of the tea.

“But you are family, human. This is probably the safest place you would ever be in, in the whole planet.” Shandon comments.

Lucille takes another sip.

“Thank you.”

She stays on the couch, barely moving. After some time, Cecilia comes back to the coffee room. She takes her mother to the room Charles is in. We all retire for the night.