“You’ve got more talent than any mini-dragon I’ve taken care of so far, but when push comes to shove, you can’t get the job done. You’re going to have to train back up from the basics.”
“Pyaaa-ah!”
“What’s up? You seem really chipper.”
I can handle it! Piana had jumped at the boy.
“It’s a big difference from when you set out. Did you have some kind of good experience?”
The boy smiled and picked up Piana with one hand, then mounted the wind dragon along with it. “I apologize for the trouble, everyone. I promise to repay the favor!”
“Pyauw!”
The boy called out as he gripped the dragon’s reins. As it looked at them, Tee let out a small, sad chirp. Perhaps it had thought that it would be able to stay with Piana forever.
After this, Piana would once again take the necessary training for joining the Dragon Postal Service. One day, it would carry loads of letters and follow a new path for itself.
Lacey suddenly felt a strange sense of kinship with it. She herself had just taken a new step forward with Starseeking.
“Um, if you pass the exam...!” As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she found herself shouting out. “Can you come visit us again as a courier...?!”
Lacey regretted it as soon as she said it. She went red to the tips of her ears and bit her lip. But the tamer boy met eyes with Piana to check, then nodded with a grin.
“Of course! It seems Piana’s memorized your scents perfectly!” the boy interpreted for Piana. Then the dragon soared upward.
They were buffeted by a breeze, but only for a moment. The dragon quickly vanished. In the middle of the field that had gone uncannily quiet, Lacey and her friends just looked up at the now-vacant sky.
A sky that was clear blue as far as the eye could see.
∗ ∗ ∗
“A lot’s happened, but it’s about time for me to head back to the capital,” Wayne murmured to himself. Next to him was one of the monsters: the boar. Tee wasn’t expressing its feelings outright, but looked somewhat forlorn, so Lacey was busily picking out tasty herbs to cheer it up.
Wayne finished gathering up his things and set up a mailbox to the house just in case. “Last up, I’ll do some food prep,” he said as he stood steadfastly in the kitchen. Just then, Wayne spotted the boar nestled under the table with his back dismissively turned toward him.
“Well, you had it kind of rough this time.”
The boar was a species of monster known as a feral pig. Wayne of course knew that that boar understood every word that he was saying.
“Lacey can get fixated on the weirdest things, but hanging around its owner...well, not exactly, but she’s really rubbed off on Tee, I think. I get dragged around by her all the time. Must be a lot of trouble for you too.”
Though he said this, it made Wayne a little happy to go through the trouble. While he was mystified by this, he felt that one day, he’d be able to understand his own feelings in clear terms.
The boar still made no reaction, so Wayne decided to just keep speaking by himself. “Maybe you overheard, but Piana...or well, we didn’t know it was named Piana yet. I had asked Lacey if she wanted to give a name to the mini-dragon. But she said no.”
He was talking about when they had been discussing what to do with Piana. Would she release it into the wild or keep it in the mansion? In the latter instance, just calling it “mini-dragon” would be inconvenient, so he’d casually made a suggestion. But Lacey had looked somewhat sour.
“I think she was scared of shouldering the burden. It was the same way when she named Tee. She was feeling really self-conscious and insecure about it.”
To put it less nicely, she was hopelessly scared of taking responsibility. However, one could also say that she was just being cautious. Lacey was currently figuring out what she was and wasn’t capable of. She was trying out one thing at a time and was adding to her pile only when she finally felt like she could handle it.
It was plain frustrating to watch her. He just wanted to drop a whole stack onto her pile. But that wouldn’t be what was best for her, so Wayne was constantly trying to restrain himself. His habit of folding his arms was to prevent his hands from acting on their own. Of course, there had been plenty of times when he couldn’t hold back anymore.
He was doing the same thing even now.
“Hey, want me to give you a name?”
The boar didn’t have a name, and nobody called him anything. He had started out as a freeloader, but now, he was like Tee’s family. Instead of making a reply, the boar clamored under the table.
Seeing this, Wayne could more or less guess what the boar wanted to say. He bent down and looked underneath. The boar shot him a sharp glare.
“I guess it’s pretty safe to say you hate me.”
“Grr-oink!”
“What, that’s the only time you give me a response? Excuse me for living. You tried to attack Lacey when we first met, remember? So come on, all right? In fact, if you wanna complain, tell it to Brooks.” The boar had traumatic memories of getting strung up by Brooks as a gift of meat. “But come on, isn’t it inconvenient? I can just give you a name, quick and easy.”
“Grr-oink!”
“You don’t like that idea, huh? You’re gonna wait for Lacey?”
“Grr-OINK!”
“All right, then, if you insist.” Wayne stood up. The boar sniffled with his large snout and wildly swished his skinny tail for good measure. Turning around so the boar couldn’t see him, Wayne narrowly managed to stifle a smile.
He tied an apron around his waist and thought for a brief moment about what to make. He quickly started to rhythmically chop with a kitchen knife, envisioning how the food would turn out.
Lacey would come in soon. When he imagined how she would react once she arrived at the lunch table, Wayne broke into a smile.
He had to return to the capital soon after this, but when he thought about Lacey, it filled him with energy.
This might have been Wayne’s new goal.
∗ ∗ ∗
The Demon King had been defeated, and the world kept on turning. Everyone was on their way to their next destination, moving forward, pausing, and sometimes getting lost.
Anytime, any place, new beginnings awaited for them.