“How can you look like that?” The dragon girl scowled at me when I returned to our room.
I should’ve expected this.
That said, this was the first time I was experiencing this variety of anger from her. Her question really meant: You’ve got some nerve dragging yourself home without a fight. They were making a fool of you, and you just left?! As my servant, you’re making me look pathetic!
This side of her caught me off guard, because this was my first time getting into a quarrel with an acquaintance. I took a moment to figure out how to justify my actions.
I could tell her that they might have thought me pathetic and that they were still scared of her. But then she would accuse me of contradicting her and get mad. If I told her I didn’t think it was a big deal, she would say: I wasn’t asking your opinion, snake boy!
My thoughtful silence seemed to irritate her further, her tail twisting in the air. Essence was rolling off her in waves, making her even more intimidating. I sighed inwardly.
“I don’t care what they think. That’s why I didn’t say anything back to them.” I told her the truth. It was probably smarter than staying silent.
“I wasn’t asking your opinion, snake boy!”
Something flashed, and I put my arms up in front of my eyes to defend myself. Her tail slammed me into the wall like I was a ping-pong ball. The heavy impact on my back knocked the wind out of me. She had gotten stronger. She must have held back because I wasn’t bleeding, but I would definitely have lost consciousness if I hadn’t braced in time for the blow.
The dragon girl clicked her tongue, pulled herself to her feet, and left the room.
“Ow...” I muttered, rubbing my back. As angry as I was at her, there was some nostalgia welling up inside me. Like I found her endearing. Those emotions must have belonged to the boy. Suffering from violence made him happy. He was nuts.
The dragon girl returned almost immediately with blood on her tail. The punishment had been lighter than last time, then. Her arms would have been sticky and red otherwise. It was probably because Tiger hadn’t insulted her directly. I offered her a wrung towel.
“You’re going to get blood on your bedding,” I said. I didn’t explicitly tell her to clean herself up, because she would snap if I ordered her around. It was best to use indirect communication if you wanted her to do something.
“Tch.”
And by that she meant: Obviously I know that. You make me sick, sticking your nose in everywhere.
I had just about managed to avoid setting her off again.
She folded her arms and turned her back to me. Apparently, I was to wipe her down, since I was the one who suggested it. Her tail was rippling gently. I placed a hand on it and started wiping the dirtiest side with the towel. While we both had tails, I could spot several differences between them when I observed hers up close.
The most obvious one was the thickness. While my tail’s width was somewhere between my arm and thigh, hers was comfortably the same size as her thigh, and it likely held a strength proportional to that. It could probably do just as much damage as a kick, essence notwithstanding. Beneath her tail’s surface, which felt plump in my hand, I could feel the suppleness of thick muscle. Along its spine, hair grew much like a horse’s mane. I found this especially interesting because it was something snakes didn’t have.
Each of her scales was big, probably because of the overall thickness of her tail. They didn’t just sit flush to the flesh either. Whenever she lashed the appendage like a whip, they pushed up into a shape that would gouge out skin.
I gently traced the edges of her scales with the towel. They were fairly solid. She made a small noise, and I remembered how sensitive my own skin was between my scales. In a panic, I pulled the towel away. She turned to me, and I threw my hands up in a show of innocence. Her eyes glinted with doubt, like she suspected me of messing with her tail on purpose. It then seemed like she had enough, and she scooped up the towel with the tip of her tail and tossed it into the bucket. With that, she went straight to her bed and lay down.
I searched for the body pillow I had constructed before. It turned out she had taken it for herself, and so I found an abandoned duvet of hers instead. She didn’t like taking without giving in return. I supposed this was her way of offering a trade.
As was often the case, I had less time to meditate because of issues relating to the dragon girl. It seemed like I was going to have even less tomorrow. Sister was getting fed up with her rebellion, and our combat instructor was still trying to obliterate her spirit. More than anything else, the children were starting to become aware of the adults’ intentions. The time was soon approaching for us to begin working together.
✦ ✦ ✦
The day’s combat training was different, but it wasn’t due to the content of the lesson itself. There was a restlessness in the air before we started. When the instructor showed up, he had the dragon girl in one hand, as usual, but in his other, he held a thick wooden sword. A handful of the kids figured out what that meant, and their excitement was palpable.
“Yesterday, this girl conducted a vicious attack. I would like the victims to step forward.”
As expected, the tigerborn boy came forward. What was surprising was that the gnome did so as well. Purposefully or accidentally, he must have gotten in the way when the dragon girl was punishing the tigerborn. It was now the dragon girl’s turn to answer for her actions.
“Yesterday, this girl came to your room and suddenly started assaulting you. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir!” the tigerborn responded confidently.
“Yes, sir.” The gnome’s voice cracked. He must have been afraid of retaliation from the dragon girl.
“In that case, I will allow you to strike her ten times with this sword.”
The dragon girl let out an enraged roar, but the instructor leveraged his weight onto her, shoving his knee into her back to pin her to the ground, rendering her defenseless. It was only then I realized that her hands were cuffed behind her. As powerful as she was, even she would struggle to break free from her restraints in that position. She glowered up at the boys, her face inches from the ground.
Tiger let out a laugh. It was a message—I’m not afraid of you.
Then he heaved the sword upward. In that moment, his presence seemed to expand. He had learned to charge his essence at some point. Tiger was amazingly strong to start with, but now he used his essence to push his power to its limits. It was in that state that he swung the sword down.
“One!”
The dragon girl snarled.
Tiger laughed. “Two!”
She growled.
“Three! Four! Five!”
Barked.
“What’s the matter? Not gonna fight back?!”
Gasped.
“Six!”
Rumbled.
“Seven!”
Coughed.
“Eight!”
Gurgled.
“Nine!”
Stayed silent.
“Ten!”
Grunted.
The wooden sword clattered to the ground as Tiger tossed it to one side. He had struck the dragon girl’s head over and over, leaving her face bloody where it had crashed against the ground. Had this happened in my previous life, I would have expected her to suffer some serious lasting effects from how intensely he had beaten her skull.
Tiger wrung out the numbness from his hands and pretended to stumble, only for his foot to land on the girl’s head. “Oh, whoops! Look like I slipped!”
“That is quite enough,” said the instructor. “The punishment was to strike her ten times.”
“Sorry, sir. I’ll get back in line!”
“Fine.” He sighed. “Next.”
It seemed that Tiger had escaped any consequences for taking things too far.
“Yes, sir,” the gnome stammered.
He didn’t use essence to strengthen his strikes, each one as reserved as the last. Once he was done, the dragon girl began to rage again, leading to the instructor beating her until she could no longer make a sound. Then, he dragged her away from the training grounds.