He had left her in the forest, briskly walking away towards the university again. Sasha sat down on the moss. Elias remembered her betrayal, but not his own, and there was nothing she would do about it. She was sure her mother could clean the foul magic of the queen, but why bother? Elias would come around and help them, and then. Well, then it wouldn’t matter what he thought. Maybe the queens curse was a blessing in disguise.

The king would be free, and the queen would get her punishment. Maybe then Elias would remember how dearly he had missed his father?

“You are not coming back?”

“Denise”, Sasha nodded. “No, I have no intention to smoothen it out. Isaak will see to that Elias comes around.”

“Are you sure?”

The pink dragon twirled around on the spot, and then laid down beside her.

“He trust Isaak with his life, I do not need to convince him”, she said and stroke the dragons scales. Denise purred slightly and Sasha smiled. She liked sitting her, listening to the sounds, looking at the birds. “Its a good life not having to care about politics.”

Denise chuckled.

“It is”, she agreed. “But you have the dragon in you. We can enjoy the fine moments, the stillness, but eventually.”

“Yeah”, Sasha said, “eventually we would need to go kill something.”

“That’s my assassin”, Denise chuckled. “I haven’t roasted a magician for a while. Care to go on a quest with me?”

“As much as I like hunting the bad people, today I just want to rest”, Sasha said.

Denise nuzzled closer, and the pair of them looked at the tree creeper searching for food on the birch stem, none of them feeling the urge to catch it today.