Ramon hummed to himself while walking down the palace hall. There was a pink-eyed goat laying on his head. “Do you think Gloria’s feeling better yet?” the holy dragon asked, his eyes rolling up to look at Kozabokget.

“Trauma heals differently for different people,” Kozabokget said. “Although your grandma purged all the humans who had attacked her, it’ll still be difficult for Gloria to get over the issue unless she confronts it herself.”

“You mean Grandma Kondra should’ve let Gloria get rid of all the humans?” Ramon asked. His brow furrowed as he made his way to Gloria’s room. Gloria had raised a good point before; Kozabokget was a sealed evil. Were the goat’s conclusions common sense for normal people or common sense for evil people? Ramon scratched his chin. It did seem like Gloria would get over her newfound dislike of humans if she had gotten revenge for herself instead of letting Grandma Kondra do it.

“That’s not what I mean,” Kozabokget said. “If an accident happens in the air, and you crash while flying, you might be afraid of flying for a while. Getting rid of whatever you crashed into won’t make flying less scary for you. It’s the knowledge that you might get into an accident whenever you fly that’s the anxiety-inducing part.”

“Koza,” Ramon said and frowned. “For such a small goat, you sure do have a lot of words in your body, like, a lot of words, and they’re big too.”

The pink-eyed goat fell silent as her head tilted to the side. What did body-size have to do with vocabulary? “You’ll learn a lot of words in the future too. The more words you know, the more commands you can give things to do. Though, convincing things to work for you requires more than just knowing words. You have to describe what you want in a concise manner, or you might be misunderstood.”

“I think you misunderstood me just now,” Ramon said and blinked. He didn’t elaborate; instead, he raised his front leg and knocked on the wall in front of him. “Gloria? Are you in there?”

A muffled voice came from the other side of the wall. “Go away, Ramon!”

“I brought you some grapes.”

Kozabokget stood up and peered over the side of Ramon’s head. The holy dragon’s paws were empty. “But you don’t have any grapes.”

“You don’t have any either,” Ramon said and rolled his eyes.

Kozabokget blinked. “But you said…, you know what? Never mind.” The pink-eyed goat went back to her original spot and flopped down on her belly, curling her legs beneath her body.

“I don’t want grapes.”

“How about bear meat?” Ramon asked and knocked on the wall again. “Do you want bear meat?”

“I don’t want bear meat!”

Ramon scratched his head, almost knocking the pink-eyed goat off. “Well, what do you want then?”

“I want you to go away.”

“I guess she’s not better,” Ramon said, glancing up at the goat. “You’re supposed to be wise and experienced. Help me think of something to get her back to her usual self. It’s boring without her around.”

Kozabokget pursed her lips. “Just give her some space,” the goat said. “Time heals everything.”

“Time heals everything…,” Ramon muttered. After standing around for a bit, his eyes lit up. “What if we get Tafel to come here and speed Gloria up? She’s supposed to be a time mage, right? She can make Gloria heal faster.” He bobbed his head up and down, causing Kozabokget to fall off. He stared at her with big, round eyes. “Is there something you can communicate with to get Tafel over here?”

“No,” Kozabokget said and shook her head. She squinted her eyes and rubbed her chin with her ankle. “Actually, you could ask the wind to send a message to her, but the chances of it reaching her will be quite low. Without a vivid description, the wind might not find the right person.”

“What if we tell the wind to tell everyone in the world, ‘Tafel, come here’? Would that work?”

“I thought I told you this before. The wind isn’t a singular entity,” Kozabokget said. “One pocket of wind will have to tell another pocket of wind the message. How will one pocket of wind know if someone had already been told the message? If we tried something like that, the message might echo around the world repeatedly.”

“Isn’t that perfect? Let’s do it,” Ramon said.

Kozabokget shook her head repeatedly. “It’s abuses of power like this that got me thrown into the evil-sealing tower. If I let you do this, your grandma will seal me away again. Besides, if Tafel is somewhere the wind can’t reach, she won’t hear the message.”

“We can still try it,” Ramon said. “It’s not like it’ll hurt anyone.” He raised his head. “Hey, Mr. Wind? Can you call Tafel for me?”

Kozabokget placed her hoof on her forehead, covering one of her eyes with her leg. She sighed. “That’s not nearly specific enough of a command.”

There was a slight crackling sound, and a purple portal expanded by Ramon’s side. The holy dragon’s eyes lit up. “See? It worked!”

Tafel raised an eyebrow at the holy dragon’s expression as she walked out of the portal with Vur and the Recordkeeper following behind her.

“What worked?” Vur asked.

“I asked the wind to call Tafel, and now she’s here,” Ramon said and nodded. He stared at Tafel and took a step towards her. “I need you to speed up Gloria. She’s injured right now, and only time can heal her.”

Tafel furrowed her brow. “Only healed by time?” she asked. For some reason, she found it hard to believe Gloria could be injured with Leila, Kondra, and Kondra’s mate living here. “What kind of injury does she have?”

Ramon shrugged before knocking on the wall with his leg. “Gloria, open up! Tafel’s here to cure you.”

Gloria’s muffled voice came from the other side. “Go away!”