“This is the greatest moment of my life!” Derb was screaming in one part excitement, two parts fear. What was happening at this moment was probably what he dreamed of as a small child. He was speeding through the hills and trees, ducking and weaving past everything like a bat outta hell.

“STOP STOP OH MY GOD.” at his command, his mighty steed slowed to a crawl. Unfortunately for Derb, that meant it shifted from about sixty miles an hour to a measly 5. Derb screamed as his grip slipped and he was thrown forward, landing in the grass like a ragdoll.

“Uuugh… ” He really felt that… getting up he felt the world start spinning, he bent over and threw up on the ground, trying his best to not get it on his robes. His teacher appeared next to him in a flash of light, healing him of his head trauma.

“You idiot, the order is ‘ease up’, you’re lucky you didn’t snap your neck.” he kicked Derb onto his back, away from the vomit. “Stay like that until the vertigo stops completely, it’ll be easier on you to have it go away on its own.” Gerald sighed, petting the wolf’s luxurious mane.

“You sure did get used to him fast… where’s all the fear gone? It was nice to see you actually considering risks for once.” Derb was still moaning on the ground, the world stopped turning blue, but he still felt like he was tied to a yoyo.

“Thanks to you… you should try it, it’s craaazy.” The man rolled his eyes “I’ve joined countless war trips, you don’t truly understand how fast creatures can get.” The old man straightened the giant wolf’s mane, making sure to get its fur back to before Derb rode it. “I must say, you hit a jackpot in terms of beauty, not many summoned beasts look as pleasing to the eyes like this one,”

Derb grinned in pride, his mount sure was pretty, now that it wasn’t ready to bite his hand off. It looked stunning, like a Canadian timber wolf. Its massive size only made it more majestic. He couldn’t wait to show it off.

“You haven’t shown him to Tiff and Hannah yet, right?” He stood up, still feeling a little woozy. He wanted to get back on his wolf. “It’s a female, and yes, they’ve already seen the wolf. Not because of me, though.” The old man jumped up onto the wolf, laying on its back like a hammock.

“Come along, boy. I have things to do, and you’re the only one that can command this beast. Speaking of, have you considered a name for it?” Derb already felt better, and hurriedly climbed onto the wolf. “Move aside, what do you think I should call it?” He ordered the wolf to move home.

Once they got there, Gerald jumped off the wolf and patted down his robes. “I need to talk to Deitre, we’ll be giving you a break for the month. In the meantime, you should focus on readjusting yourself with that arm of yours. I’ve got serious planning to do for the next few months. Now that you have a proper summon I’m planning to have you leave the barrier every once in a while.”

Derb, still trying to get off the wolf, froze in shock. “What!? Wait am I really-” In the process of shouting he slipped off the wolf’s mane, crashing into the ground. He looked up from his fallen position to His teacher, visibly excited. “Am I really ready to get out of this place!?”

Gerald looked at the pitiful state of his student, really wondering why he thought this idiot was ready for anything more than hitting trees. “...Yes… I feel like you’ve gotten a weak sense of danger when it comes to demons and other dangers. You’ve had nothing but your imp as a reference, it makes me worry about your life.”

He picked up his student, still on the floor. “We’ll be throwing you into the fire, if not any other reason than to have you feel the burn.” Derb scoffed. “Yeah yeah, I messed up with the wolf. But I know better now, it was an honest mistake.”

His teacher frowned. “No, it wasn’t… that was one of the worst things you could have done. I should honestly punish you for it, you’re lucky you lost most of your hand. I’ll be working you like a horse after this.” Derb shuddered, nothing like knowing you were screwed after a month…

“Do you really have to do that? Deitre’s already going to turn me into a lump of meat after all this is over...” Derb sighed, going inside. This was going to be a long month.

__

A week had passed and Derb was having a crisis. “What happened to doing what I wanted!? Hannah please, I didn’t do anything...” Derb was currently under house arrest, with Hannah as his supervisor. She facepalmed, what was this idiot thinking? “You went into the village and tried flirting with people with the damn wolf… you were basically threatening them to go out with you.”

Derb shook his head violently. “It was supposed to be romantic! No one could resist Adalia’s charm!” He quickly got out of his bed, trying to defend himself, only to be met with those evil glowing eyes of her’s again. He leaped back into bed and raised his arms in surrender. With a sigh, she stopped casting.

“Look, I don’t want to be here either.” She looked down, looking depressed to Derb. “Um… what happened? I’ve never seen you like this...” He got up from the bed this time and only received an indignant look this time. He took it as his chance. “Come on, Hannah, you’re usually so angry. What’s got you down?”

Hannah wasn’t having it. “I’m not about to give you ammunition for later, Derb.” He flinched. That had a little too much venom, even from Hannah. He sprawled in his bed in mock defeat. “Come on Hannah… I just don’t want you to be all mopey.” He reached under his bed to grab Connor, the imp started getting a habit of hiding under dark places. “Come on you ugly thing...” Derb said, forcibly pulling the thing out by its legs.

He could have ordered it to do so, but that wouldn’t have been as fun. “Connor, pull Hannah towards the bed. I can’t have a conversation when she’s at a safe distance.” Connor nodded, flying towards Hannah at a shocking speed. It’s been getting more powerful recently, to Derb’s happy surprise.

Hannah swung a punch towards it, and derb swore he saw the air shake a bit. His imp used this moment to spin just out of the fist’s direction, closing in just enough to clamp down onto her other arm. He span in the air, bringing Hannah up. He flew back to my bed and dropped her on top of Derb, reminding him that he was going to hurt the imp very badly someday.

“Hey, Hannah, get off of me… AUGH.”

While Derb was pushing her off he was met with a punch that coulda hurt Deitre, let alone poor weak him, right in the stomach. He was gasping for air, swearing without any air in his lungs. He was lucky he’d been conditioned with punch’s from that damn blacksmith, or else he’d have spewed right then and there.

She tried to get off the bed, already successfully separated from Derb. She was furious, how could an imp do that to her?! While she started walking away she felt a weak tug on her robes. It was Derb, still messed up from the punch she gave him. She was about to deliver another before she heard what he said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want him to do that. I just wanted to talk without you treating me like a wild animal.” She grimaced, too late for that. “You literally dropped me onto you, on purpose or not, only a beast would do that.” He laughed, she was right after all. “Look, we’re family, right? At least, that’s what Gerald told me. I only tease you at most, I’d never want to do anything bad to you, Hannah...”

Hannah looked surprised, he thought of her as family? He only ever hanged out with Tiff and her teacher, she never really took part in his shenanigans. “Seriously? You expect me to believe that? I’m not important to you, you’re only saying that to get out of this room.” She started getting angrier at every single word coming out of her mouth. Who was he to manipulate her like that!?!

“Not once have we had a proper conversation! The only times you were nice to me were only to get your way! that’s not my brother!” She leaned in and slapped him, she was tired of acting nice, especially to someone who only ever acted around her. She expected more excuses, even a cry of outrage from him. It was all she ever heard from him either way.

“I’m... sorry?” …what? She could barely make out the voice from him. It was meek and quiet, never once had she heard that from him. “We never really hung out, huh? You’re like a stranger to me, guess I shouldn’t have said all that.” Those words from him came out like jagged glass, and it hurt both of them. Wait, why did she get hurt? She said all those things to him just now…

“I… Hannah, we’ve got a month, do you want to do something at that time? You don’t have to do it or anything just… Nevermind, it’s useless anyways.” He got up from the bed, not looking back. He didn’t say anything else, already walking out the door. Hannah didn’t know how to respond. “Hey, wait… you’re not supposed to be unsupervised or-” Derb waved his hand in a carefree manner. “I’m going to get Tiff, she’ll be my new supervisor. You can do whatever you usually do.”

Hannah flinched at the cold words. She became angry, tears threatening to come out. “You COWARD, this is my responsibility!” She ran towards him, attempting to pull him back into the room. In the moment he was pulled back, she saw his face. She realized she hadn’t seen his face since the moment he tried to run. Tears were falling down his cheek, his eyes red and distraught, same as her. They both looked away from each other, both clearly embarrassed at the situation. Were they children?!? Well, Hannah got a pass but Derb was definitely not acting his age.

“Hannah… let’s leave the house for a bit, we’ve got a lot of time to catch up.” Hannah was protesting, but Derb was insistent, pulling her along. By the time they reached outside, they both stopped being such sniveling messes. Derb let go of her arm and breathed in deeply, filling his lungs with as much air as possible. “ADALIA, GET OVER HERE.” Two seconds of silence passed before the heavy thumps of his wolf shook the earth.

Hannah wasn’t impressed. “What, are you going to ride me around? I’m not a goddamn princess, I won’t fall for it.” Derb grinned, ordering his Wolf into a kneeling position. “I’m not going to ride him, you are! I’ll be the ‘princess’ this time!” Derb was still grinning wildly as Hannah looked on at his stupidity. “I don’t know how to ride him, idiot. He also can’t take orders from anyone other than you.”

He kept grinning. “I know! I’m going to teach you how to ride him! Think of this as precious family bonding time.” She rolled her eyes at his stupid word choice, but a smile couldn’t help but escape at what he said. He was trying hard to get her to accept him, and she realized all she was doing was pushing him away. She walked towards the wolf and tried touching it. It was massive and scary but she had gotten used to it in the past week.

“Pet him! I promise you she won’t bite! ...Adalia, don’t bite Hannah under any circumstances, ok?” The wolf nodded, looking directly at Hannah with what Derb swore was hunger. He shook that thought away, hoping it was just a demon thing. “Adalia, obey everything Hannah commands you to do.” He hopped on, leaving a space in front of him, and reached his hands towards Hannah.

Derb and Hannah looked at each other, remembering the embarrassing fiasco they just had earlier. “It’s… really fun you know? I almost died the first time I rode him.” she looked at him incredulously, before giggling and taking his hand. “How was that supposed to make me want to ride it?” Derb, laughed, scooting back a bit to give her more space. “Hey, it worked didn’t it? Now, before anything else, I need you to know the importance of the order ‘ease up’...”