A week later, Sir Maverick rode up the drive on his horse. As Helen came out to meet him, he dismounted and ran to her, lifting her up and spinning her around, princess style, while she laughed.

The first words he said were: “I’m home, Helen!”

The next words he said were: “Now, what is that thing you’ve got here in the garden?”

She laughed.

“That is Thera’s. Why don’t you ask Thera to show it to you later on?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Margie had already gone back to school, but Sir Maverick found another likely victim when he saw Thera in the hallway. “Theraaaa!” He cried, breaking into a run.

Thera shivered, and turned to look. That one look was enough. She took off running…in the opposite direction. She soon speedily rounded a corner, putting the speed spell on her boots to good use.

“WHYYYYY!?” He cried, falling to the floor in defeat. “Thera, don’t you remember me? THERAAA!?”

He asked, reaching his arm out in the direction she had disappeared.

“Stop being so melodramatic, dear.” Helen said, smacking him on the head. “She hasn’t seen you in five years, you know! She’s probably just shy. She’ll come around once you’ve calmed down enough to be nice and quiet.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sure enough, once he had calmed down and became quieter, she poked her head around the corner again. She studied him, gauging the closest she could safely get without being crushed to death in a bear hug.

Now that she had diamond bones, he couldn’t break any of them. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t squeeze the breath from her body for so long that she’d die of suffocation. She had seen many small animals meeting such a fate at the hands of unsuspecting toddlers.

He was now seated at a table, with a mug of hot apple cider in his hand, recounting all that he had been through during the past five years.

It had been a band of fire dragons that had settled down in the old abandoned mines in the mountains. They had terrorized the surrounding animals so well, that the dragons had to go farther and farther afield in order to get enough food, because dragons need a lot of meat.

As he talked, Thera got closer and closer until she was also sitting at the table, listening to his story, allowing Sir Maverick to get a good look at her.

A small frame, with wavy brown curls, she looked a lot like Helen as a child. But, those golden eyes were quite striking. Even though he had heard from Helen about how they changed because of her sickness, he wasn't prepared for the sharpness of expression they made her seem to have. While Thera sat there, unsmiling, her eyes reminded him of a hawk. Seeing he had her attention, he threw himself into telling his tale.

First, they had tried making realistic-looking ice sculptures, but the dragons had turned up their noses at them.

To a fire dragon, ice was a near instantaneous poison. Therefore, something so obvious would surely not go well. Thera was beginning to wonder whether Sir Maverick's tactician had not had his brain cells frozen in the process of the undertaking.

After thousands of battles and trying a variety of different plans, they had waited until winter, when the dragons would go into hibernation, in order to survive. Then they had walked straight into each den and chopped their heads off.

Well, Sir Maverick had chopped their heads off, since he was the only one with sufficient strength to slice clean through the neck.

He had only kept enough of a dragon to make Thera’s boots, and the heads as proof of subjugation. He then gave the rest to his men, to share. Dragon parts are quite expensive, so each had a rather large sum at the end of five years.

When Sir Maverick had presented the dragon heads to the king, he had received a rather large reward of seventy thousand gold. Considering that 70 gold is how much the maids and cook make in a year: that was quite a big sum.

He had been offered an alternative reward of a raise in nobility rank, but he had chosen the gold. Perhaps he abhorred a higher rank of nobility because he dreaded the increased paperwork.

When he finished, he looked over at Thera, who was immediately on guard again, and sighed.

“Thera, aren’t you going to say ‘welcome back’ to me?” he asked.

Thera stayed on the other side of the table. “Welcome back….” She said, having no intention of getting closer.

“What about my welcome back hug?” He asked.

“And what do I do if you hug back? Death by suffocation is what’ll happen.” She replied, calmly.

“Well, what if I don’t hug you back? What if I just want your hug?” He insisted.

She tilted her head to the side. “Maaaybe. I wouldn’t know. I don’t know you.” Her words cut into him like a knife, but he persisted.

“You would have known me.” He replied. “You would have known me five years, if not for the dragons that kept me away, whose skin you are now wearing in the form of boots. Don’t you think it’s about time we got to know each other?”

Thera sighed. “I guess so…”

He opened his arms. “Then, where’s my welcome back hug?”

Thera gave in and gave him a hug, while he resisted the urge to hug her back and squeeze her hard. Helen was right, he sometimes forgot his strength, and could easily cause injuries to someone as young as Thera.

Having been gone for five years, he had to rebuild a sense of trust between Thera and him. For now, he placed his arms around her carefully, as if he was holding a basket of eggs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thera woke next morning to Sir Maverick exercising in the garden. He didn’t exercise quietly, at all. Every swing was accompanied by a “HAAAAA!!!!” Or a “DORYAAAAA!!” Or something like that.

Oh, right. He’s back. Who does he think he is? Link? She thought as she looked at him out the window, while rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

While she had never really been much of a ‘gamer’, she still knew several of them, in her previous life. She even knew just enough to appreciate jokes based off of them. But, after playing a few videogames, she had lost interest.

She liked doing things! She liked being, and feeling things: the feel of the wind in her face as she ran, the adrenaline of looking down from high up places, the endurance of trusting her entire weight to her muscles and gripping strength— not sitting around and pressing buttons with her thumbs. That was just a monkey’s game.

Thera yawned and stretched before hearing a knock at the door. Martha had come to help her get dressed and ready for the day. Thera could do most of it herself, except for the insufferable amount of buttons on the back of her dress.

There was no such thing as a zipper in this world, after all. But, Thera could have sworn they put on such a large amount of buttons in order to keep children from dressing themselves. Well, at least, for now, she didn’t have to deal with corsets.

Of course, the celebratory breakfast was pancakes. Sir Maverick was both surprised, and delighted by the new creation.

“But why call it pancakes? It doesn’t even taste like cake!” He said afterwards, confused.

Thera replied indignantly. “I named it. If you think it doesn’t taste like cake, just you wait! Me and Ruth’ll show you!” Her plate had already been emptied of their small stack, along with a large amount of jam and clotted cream.

And with that, she left the table and went to the kitchen. Of course, she already knew what she would do. She spoke with Ruth, and had her make the pancakes as thin as she could without burning them.

They made around 100 of these pancakes. Once they had cooled, Thera carefully restacked them, spreading sweetened whipped cream in between each one, until it became high enough. Then, she frosted the whole thing in whipped cream, so that it looked very much like a cake.

That afternoon, at tea time, Thera instructed Martha to give Sir Maverick the first slice of cake, which she had dribbled with a chocolate-raspberry sauce and a caramel sauce.

Thera watched as Sir Maverick took a bite. His eyes opened wide.

“What is this delicious thing?! It’s the best!” He exclaimed.

“Heh? You think so, do you?” Thera asked.

“I guarantee it.” He replied.

“Do you know what that cake is made of?” She asked.

“Whipped cream and chocolate…raspberry….caramel…and…what is this? This thin flexible wafer-like thing in between?” He asked.

She smiled sweetly and said in a voice dripping with mirth. “That, father, is a pancake.”