The few humans inside the outpost were, understandably, quite panicked by the sight of a massive snake completely encircling their small building. Less panicked now that Alyssa had arrived to help defuse the situation, but she could still see a bit of a jittery tension to their movements. They had known friendly monsters were on their way. More than one communication had gone out to them over the past week. The caravan had been expected.

The snake had not.

It was a good thing that no one at the outpost had any weapons that would have been capable of seriously harming such a creature. A sword could probably puncture Lueta’s scales if the humans tried hard enough, or came at it from the right angle, but the giant snake could have simply rolled over to crush the humans. Something that the guards well knew and thus hadn’t even attempted such a thing. They hadn’t even had an arcanist up here that could have caused more problems until the caravan arrived with a Rank One guy—any messages before had to be delivered by a horseback rider until now—and without an arcanist, a half dozen people would never have been able to take on Lueta.

It helped that Lueta hadn’t actually attacked them. A cornered animal was the most dangerous, a saying that applied to humans just as much as it worked with anyone else. By leaving the guards alone aside from having slithered up to the outpost—which had not been completely encircled as Alyssa had thought from afar, rather Lueta had simply been on the side between their caravan and the outpost—she hadn’t scared them enough to warrant a suicidal attack.

“You should have found us,” Alyssa said, arms crossed as she stared into those nuclear green eyes. “And Volta should have told you to find us. Or at least to have waited until we arrived. What if they had attacked you? Would you have just sat there and taken it? You could have gotten hurt. And if you had attacked back… everything we’ve been working for might have been lost.”

Lueta did not respond besides a slow blink that might have meant just about anything. Being a giant snake that couldn’t speak English, she really couldn’t respond. At the moment, she couldn’t even use much body language.

Despite having been told by Rokien that Lueta was a prideful introvert who didn’t particularly like interacting with the other monsters, she was currently allowing most of them to climb all over her. Not everyone was. Especially not the older monsters. But they had all crowded around, happy to see a familiar face. Once Worrik started climbing onto Lueta’s back, a few others were emboldened and tried joining him. Before long, Lueta had turned into a living playground attraction.

It was somewhat amusing to watch, though Alyssa kept any such emotions off her face, not wanting to diminish the seriousness of her complaints against Lueta’s actions. But the small cadre of gremlins were by far the most active in trying to scale Lueta’s scales. Being even smaller than normal humans, they weren’t entirely successful until they started hopping up onto each other’s shoulders. Once one got up, they could generally get more and more up by chaining themselves together. That usually left two or three that just couldn’t get up high enough to reach the claws of one of those up on Lueta’s back.

So they all slid off like she was a slide, reordered themselves, and did it again. Laughing all the while.

“Now, now.” Brakkt, somehow, managed to restrain himself from joining in with the celebratory monsters. He definitely looked like he wanted to. It was a bit of a surprise that he had managed to help Alyssa calm down the humans before actually approaching Lueta. “None of that happened. We don’t have to worry about what might have been that much.”

“And you,” Alyssa said, pointing a finger in Brakkt’s face. “You shouldn’t let her off easy just because she has scales.” Frankly, she was surprised that he had even come on this journey in the first place. Dragging him away from Companion had been a chore. The first few days following the ritual, they had been nearly inseparable. Brakkt had bombarded the dragon with question after question. That was where Alyssa had learned the most about draconic culture or lack thereof. The dragon seemed to have endless patience.

Irulon did not have endless patience.

Which, honestly, was probably the reason he was here. A way to at least temporarily appease Irulon.

He hadn’t known that he would be getting rewarded with a chance to meet the apophis.

“Speaking of scales… Can I… touch them?” Brakkt asked in the exact tone of voice that someone might use if they wanted to touch a pregnant woman’s stomach.

Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Fine. Do what you want. Don’t blame me if you get eaten alive. I don’t want to sleep outside tonight. I’m going to get my tent up. And then see about getting food going. I can’t be the only hungry one after that walk.”

Fela’s ears perked up at the mention of food. Brakkt, on the other hand, didn’t even glance over his shoulder. He started shambling forward like an entranced zombie.

“I’ll help out in a few minutes,” he lied. He probably wasn’t intentionally lying, but if he could tear himself away from Lueta within the next thirty minutes, Alyssa would eat her sunglasses.

Alyssa spent the next little while unpacking and getting set up. She didn’t just unpack Izsha’s load, but Dasca’s and Ensou’s as well. Knowing it would probably be a while before Brakkt did regain his senses, Alyssa couldn’t leave them carrying a huge load. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one getting to work. Fela helped out, though Kasita was still talking with the humans, both those who had come with the caravan and those who had already been stationed at the outpost. She was apparently trying to get some contacts here, following along with the Yora intelligencer’s advice of cultivating a burgeoning spymaster career. Alyssa had no complaints about that. If people here were willing to send her Messages with little updates every now and again, it could help should any problems arise.

If problems did arise, Alyssa might not even need to help out. It was part of that delegation plan. Kasita, having contacts in both Illuna and here, could maybe coordinate assistance should crops fail or livestock fall ill or worse events befall one of the two towns. Alyssa wasn’t sure that it would be completely useful in this particular situation since these people already had close ties to Illuna and would probably contact them before her, but the practice might be nice should she have to do similar things elsewhere in the future.

As for getting things settled here, most of the monsters who weren’t climbing all over Lueta were working to set up their own tents alongside Alyssa. The large ones that had been up around Illuna needed lots of work to get set up properly.

The humans helped out as well. Mostly with the food as they already had the outpost’s barracks as sleeping quarters. None of them were at all interested in getting too close to Lueta, though that wasn’t to say that Lueta wasn’t a distraction for them as well. Any time Alyssa got close, whether that be because she was helping with food or delivering equipment from a wagon to the main outpost, they would stop and ask her something. Most of the questions revolved around the giant snake in their midst. Despite her and Brakkt explaining things, they apparently had not explained enough.

Others, especially the watchpost guards who hadn’t been around Illuna as much recently, would simply ask questions about the monsters in general. For a lot of them, it was actually their first time seeing regular, non-demonic monsters. Even if they had seen the occasional elf or ogre, there were a lot of different types of monsters here today. Were this Earth, she imagined that any place like this would have been fully briefed on incoming oddities that they were expected to watch over and care for. But this wasn’t Earth. They didn’t even get a copy of relevant pages from the guild’s bestiary. If it helped to set them at ease, Alyssa was more than happy to respond.

By the time everything was set up, more and more people had joined in the helping. It only took a good twenty minutes to acclimatize to Lueta being back for most of the monsters. Worrik had probably taken longer when he appeared in the middle of the camp. While most everyone knew Lueta, Alyssa suspected that only Worrik was really close with her.

Brakkt, expectedly, was not one of those who left Lueta alone. He stayed in a one-sided conversation with Lueta right up until all that was left of the public stew was cold dredges. Leaving him with practically nothing wasn’t the intention by half. More than one person had gone up to him to tell him that the food was ready. Every single time, he responded by saying that he would be around in a few minutes.

He did, eventually, make his way over. Whether that was because he had satisfied all the questions he had thought up or because Lueta was tired of him wasn’t a question that Alyssa cared to answer. Though she suspected the latter reason.

After having to scrape the bottom of the cauldron to fill a quarter of a bowl, he sat down next to Alyssa on a toppled log not far from a large bonfire. The fire had been set up in advance, more as a welcome present to the traveling monsters by the men at the outpost.

“Few minutes, huh?” Alyssa said, feeling almost like she had taken too much herself.

The food had been surprisingly tasty for a public meal.

“Got a bit carried away,” Brakkt said with a shrug.

“Yeah, I noticed. Fela and I set your tent up. We didn’t know when you would finish poking and prodding at a poor snake that can’t even run away from your adulations.”

“Adulations? No. I was attempting to have a polite conversation.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. “Did Lueta converse back?”

“Not with words. I have a lot of experience in understanding nonverbal communication. In nonhumans, anyway.”

Of course he did. The draken couldn’t talk. Dragons probably couldn’t talk either and somehow he had found out that Companion was ill and dying, though Alyssa hadn’t actually asked Companion about whether or not it could talk. For all she knew, dragons could breathe words or understanding or some other nonsense. Maybe she had heard that they couldn’t talk somewhere else—because it sounded right—but she couldn’t remember exactly where at this exact moment. It wasn’t important.

“How did you get interested in scaled monsters anyway? I know I asked before and I know you said you kept a pet snake as a kid, but lots of people where I’m from have pet snakes. This seems far more of an… obsession.”

“I don’t know that I would go that far,” Brakkt said between spoonfuls of cold stew. “But I like learning about creatures. Monsters, really. Especially about their culture and just… how they live life in general. The snake I had as a child was fascinating to me. I watched it hunt, I watched it sleep, I watched it avoid danger—usually my father—and I watched it avoid its own kind.” He paused a moment, thinking back as he stared into the fire. With a light chuckle, he said, “I thought it might want a friend and caught a second snake. They did not like each other. I thought they might just have incompatible personalities, so I tried to get a few more snakes. Five in total. All of them stayed away from each other. All very isolationist. It was probably that last element that really got me interested.”

Setting down his now empty bowl—he would probably grab something from his private pack later if he was really hungry—Brakkt moved position to sit on the ground with his back up against the log. “At the time, I was well into my training. Not just learning to fight, though that was a part of it, but learning everything else that came with being a prince as well. How to act, how to live, how to eat, how to dress, how to greet someone, which wines to serve during what occasions… Manners and politics. Geography and territories. Tactics and strategy. I wasn’t the best student. Rather, I wished I could just be a snake, sit around, relaxing in the sun until I got hungry, then I could go find food on my own. Skipping my lessons generally ended up with punishment, so that put a stop to it rather quickly. But I suppose that is it. I wanted to be like a snake and avoid responsibilities.”

“And monstrous reptiles, having more intelligence and the ability to talk back in some cases made you want to know how they might handle such situations?”

“That might be how it started. Yeah. Now it isn’t so much that, but I’m still interested in monsters as a whole. Not even just scaled monsters. I talked with both Fela and Kasita quite a bit when they first came to my attention. And I spent many long hours talking with pretty much everyone here,” he said with a wave of his bowl around the bonfire.

“Did you?” Alyssa raised an eyebrow as she glanced to Fela, who nodded and shrugged, then to Kasita, who also offered a nod. “Huh.” He must have done so while Alyssa had been elsewhere. She didn’t remember any in-depth conversations taking place. They hadn’t mentioned it either, so it probably hadn’t been that big of a conversation. Or something notable at all, really. She did know that he spent a lot of time down at the camp, but she had thought that was mostly because the draken were living down there.

“But an apophis… I didn’t even know they were real. I mean, I didn’t believe they weren’t real, but seeing one with my own eyes… It’s like seeing a dragon again. It’s quite amazing for me.”

So it wasn’t just that it had scales that had him so excited over Lueta. That made a bit more sense. He wasn’t so much as herpetologist as he was a cultural anthropologist. Or monstropologist? Less interested in their biology than he was in how they lived. Though a few things he said made Alyssa want to know a little more about her friend.

“If you could, would you run away from all the royal stuff? No more being a prince, free to explore or live however you wanted with the draken and other monsters?”

Brakkt drew in a deep breath, held it for a long moment, and slowly let it back out. “If you had asked ten… maybe even five years ago, I probably would have said yes. Today, I mostly do what I want to do. I no longer have hours-long tutoring sessions on the intricacies of house politics and I don’t have to spend days memorizing thousands of details that a cartographer added to a map without really thinking about what they might mean. I keep up on my training regimen, but that is my choice, not a swordmaster forcing me to do a thousand drills a day.

“Now, I can look back and see the value in what I was taught. I might not have survived to today without all the skills and knowledge that I learned. I might have wound up ostracized had I made a mistake during a feast or ball, leading to me being banished or otherwise restricted from travel. I might not have found the draken or the dragon without my cartography lessons. Were it not for all that work and effort that I hated at the time, I might not be here with you, Kasita, Fela, and a giant monster that was effectively mythical for me until a few weeks ago.”

That was… almost sweet. Except he didn’t look at any of their little group as he named them. He just looked off to Lueta. It made Alyssa laugh a little, which did bring his attention back to her. “Well,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad you’re here with us too.”