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“How do we approach this, dear?” Vernon asked, ignoring the two squabbling atop his mate’s head.
Sera clicked her tongue and frowned. “What is it that those pesky adventurers did? They sent a scout first?” Her eyes rolled up to stare at Lindyss. “I think I found a job for you.”
Lindyss froze, a fairy struggling against her fingers. “What kind of job?”
“Figure out how strong it is,” Sera said.
“You mean, right now?” Lindyss asked. “What do you want me to do, fight it?”
Sera nodded. “That’d be ideal. We’ll watch.” After a brief moment of silence, Sera tilted her head. “Go on. What are you waiting for?”
Lindyss’ eye twitched. Purple wings sprouted out of her back, and she rose off of Sera’s head. “Come on,” she said, pulling Erin along even though the fairy queen was trying to fly away. “If I have to, you have to as well.”
“Can’t you feel the aura coming off that thing? I don’t like it!” Erin’s wings beat so fast that they weren’t visible, but she couldn’t get free of Lindyss’ hand. “How about you take this chance to flee?”
“And then what?” Lindyss asked with a snort. “Then I’ll see them again in a few hours. What else can I do?” She passed through the layer of clouds underneath her and stopped, hovering in the air above the giant’s head. “This thing is a lot bigger up close.”
“That’s how things tend to be,” Erin said. “I don’t think there’s anything that gets smaller the closer you are to it.”
Lindyss ignored the fairy and stuffed the queen into her hair. She sighed and spread her arms out to the side. A black rift appeared in front of her, and a series of bones fell towards the ground. The giant’s eyes snapped open, revealing round red orbs that had no pupil or iris. The giant tilted his head up and made eye contact with Lindyss, who was still maintaining the rift. Bone upon bone fell out of the black portal, but all the giant did was stare. When the bones on the ground wriggled and crept towards one another, the giant turned his gaze onto them. Like a baby, he stared at the forming bone dragon without a sound.
“I thought you said you needed a sacrifice for those,” Erin whispered. “And that giant thing is really creeping me out.”
Lindyss shrugged. “I’ve seen worse,” she said and closed the rift when the last bone fell out. It landed on the ground and attached itself to the end of the bone dragon’s tail. “And this thing doesn’t require any sacrifices because it’s really weak. It can’t cast any magic, it can’t fly, and it has almost no mass behind it. It’s probably as strong as an almost newborn dragon.”
Erin’s eyes widened. “And you can casually summon something like that?”
Lindyss shrugged again. “If I have the bones for it.” She sighed. “But it seems like I’ll be losing a set today.”
Erin peered over Lindyss’ head towards the ground. The giant had climbed to his feet. He was easily twice the size of the dragon skeleton, the skeleton only a little bigger than one of his limbs. The giant’s muscles rippled as he reached down towards the skeleton with his left hand. The dragon skeleton let out a soundless roar and rushed towards the giant, biting down on his finger. The giant’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened. A wailing sound hit Lindyss like a shockwave, nearly knocking her out of the sky.
The giant pulled back his hand, one of his fingers missing. His face contorted, his lips baring to show his red teeth that were the same color as his gums. He punched down with his right hand, but the dragon skeleton dodged to the side. The earth shook as the giant’s fist made contact with it. An instant later, the giant shouted and withdrew his hand, shaking it before blowing on his knuckles that were now bleeding. The dragon skeleton took that chance to dart in and bite the giant’s ankle, tearing a chunk of flesh off of his Achilles tendon. The giant buckled and fell to one knee.
“Was it weaker than we thought?” Sera asked Vernon. The two dragons were still flying above the clouds, staring down at the fight going on below.
Before Vernon could respond, the giant grabbed towards the dragon skeleton. It scuttled forward, but the giant’s fingers managed to close around its tail. With a pop, the dragon skeleton disconnected it and waddled away. The giant roared as he ground the tail in his hand to bits, turning the whole thing into bits of bone powder. Vernon scratched his chin. “I wouldn’t want to be grabbed by that.”
Once the dragon skeleton lost its tail, its previously smooth movements turned clunky. Instead of running, it waddled while limping as if it would fall over at any second. The giant hobbled after it, dragging his one lame leg behind himself, supporting the rest of his body with his left hand. Like a man chasing after a cat, the two scuttled and limped around the pit that the giant had been sitting in, going in circles. The giant stopped chasing, and the dragon skeleton stopped moving. The giant leaned to his left, and the dragon skeleton leaned to its left. The giant leaned to his right, and the dragon skeleton leaned to its right. The two stared at each other, the giant circular pit separating them. With a roar, the giant leapt over the pit and grabbed towards the dragon skeleton. It waddled away as fast as it could, but it tripped, and the giant caught ahold of its leg. The dragon skeleton whirled its torso around and bit and clawed at the giant’s arm, shredding its skin, but the giant didn’t let go. With a crunch, the dragon skeleton’s leg was crushed into powder, but it didn’t seem to mind. It clawed and bit at an even faster rate, but the giant swatted down with its free hand, crushing the dragon skeleton’s skull. But its legs didn’t stop moving, still tearing deep gouges into the giant’s right arm.
Lindyss sighed and flew up past the clouds and towards Sera. “There goes a perfectly good skeleton,” she said. “There. I scouted. Are you happy now?”
Sera stared past the elf at the giant on the ground. It was stomping on the rest of the dragon skeleton, turning it into powder. She clicked her tongue. “Grimmy was right. If we fought it, we’d win, but one of us might get hurt really bad.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Vernon asked.
Sera ignored the elf that was landing on her head. Her golden eyes narrowed. “We go back.”
“We … go back?” Vernon asked.
“Right,” Sera said. “We go back and get my sister and her husband and Grimmy and the trio plus Alora.” She paused. “Vur can come too. Then we swarm it.”
Erin’s face paled. She leaned over and whispered into Lindyss’ ear, “Do dragons usually engage in mobbing behavior?”
Lindyss sighed. “I’m not an expert on dragons, alright? I don’t know if this is normal, but it probably won’t be very fair to that giant.” Her eyes were filled with pity as she stared down at the giant nursing his wounds below.