I woke up to the sound of tapping and I opened my eyes to see Esdeath looking at me with slight concern. I tried to move my neck to look around but I was met with resistance. Then I noticed something. There was a giant ice storm while I slept, and I also realized I couldn't move anything else either.

I didn't feel like using the fire still stepped up in the sac behind my chest, so I just used my strength. The ice came apart with a deafening crack every time I moved to spilt it apart. I first freed my head and neck, and then I opened my maw and the ice around my face splintered before falling apart in several large pieces.

Next I moved to stand, and while it was a little harder than freeing my neck and face. It was still easier than it would've been should the storm have kept me sleep for a while longer than I was. I looked around and saw that the rest of Esdeath's army were standing behind her looking at me in shock and awe as I broke apart my ice prison.

I lashed my tail, flexed my paws, rotated my neck, shoulders, and opened my wings and mouth to get ride of the remaining ice.

"Good, is you were any later I would've had to leave you there" Esdeath said and hugged my chest. The rate show of affection confused me, but I accepted it and put a paw around her to rest on her back for the moment. I could feel her feelings of partially grief, sadness, and relief. Was I her only friend? Was she really that worried about me? I had too many questions towards her emotions, but I let them slide for now as she pulled away and went into commander mode.

She ordered her soldiers to form a circle, and then she told them to get on another platform with chains. One that she built just as she was saying to her on it. I lowered into my stomach and she hopped on my back as her soldiers got onto the platform. I looked at her and she nodded, we were going home, after two months in this desolate, cold, empty continent. We were finally going home.

I lifted up into the air faster than I meant to and then I turned to fly off, but I stopped and hovered for a second. I used my extraordinary vision to look past the ice and into the giant pit. The soldiers there were already half-dead and sleeping...dying. I looked over to the building that Esdeath chained up that man in and saw that he was still alive and pacing. I flicked my tail and shot three ice spears at the house.

It didn't matter if I hit him or not, I just was wanting to open up the building to the elements, so that he could suffer in the cold of loneliness. Then without checking to see if I had hit the human. I turned and shot South, in the direction of home, not caring about the soldiers screams of protest, or Esdeaths emotions through the link we had. All I could think about was the cities glittering nights, the innocent and scampers people there, and the feeling of freedom.

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I got there the same day, arriving at the step of the giant castle, palace the humans called it. They also called it fortress, or castle but I didn't really think snot or more as I set the speakers down and landed. Esdeath slipped off my back and I looked at her to see, and feel the same emotions: gratitude, thankfulness, and happiness at being home again, but a longing for something still lingered there.

I nuzzle her and she pat my head in thanks and understanding, and then we both looking at the soldiers, who were literally crawling from the platform, to see that they were all in fact there, and half frozen to death from the long and speedy flight.

I grinned and walked past them, next the Esdeath as she made her way to the front Hayes of the palace. The eyes of the guards in front of the gate widened in surprise as they saw her, and then when they saw where she was going they scrambled and strained to open the door quickly for her as they knew that if she had to wait they would be thoroughly punished.

I grinned as they pulled against the doors for a second before bringing them closed behind us as we kept on walking. I sent her a picture of what I thought would be the anticipation or surprise of the king when he sat that we had finished with the North so quickly. Guards dressed in gold opened the second set of giant doors smoothly as we walked by, and then closed them in the same fashion, faster than the previous people as well.

I hummed in disappointment when I saw the human child looking at a servant his face in a bow, the fat human had a smug look on it's face. Looking between the fat man constantly wasting meat and the servant shivering in his vow infinity of him. I lashed my tail against the concrete pillar beside me and the sound of my tails sword like tip going through the metal made them look up and give is the reaction that I wanted. Surprise.

The fat man, probably the Emperors advisor stepped down to the four to pull Esdeath into a hug. Then he turned and went back to the child's side.

"What shawl we do about his dishonesty?" The child looked at the advisor who looked at me, and grinned before looking back at the servant and telling him to stand.

"Now" it said "is you would look behind you, you see that you have three choices: death by one of these two, death by your own hands, or running away and death by any means." The servant looked at me, then a Esdeath, and then a door about five hundred steps away, and made a break for it, me and Esdeath looked at each other and she sent the image of an enchanted ice sword and I sent the image of a volcano erupting.

She sighed and looked away in defeat. I grinned at her and flicked a flat blade of ice in his direction before looking at the emperor again. I heard the shink and thud of the head and then the body as they hit the floor. The smell of fresh blood reached my nose but I ignored the impulse to rip apart the newly killed body and harvest out for the little meat it had.

I got on my belly, my forepaws crossed and my head resting on them as I watched Esdeath walk up to the steps and kneel.

"My liege, I have returned from the quest that you've sent me and my companion on" she said and the fat man nodded tearing at another piece of jerky.

"Well done my faithful general, I expect you got back safe and uninjured?" the child said, speaking like a noble...or trying to.

"Yes, but—" she trailed off and the fat man seemed curious.

"Then what could possibly keep you from celebration of this momentous event? Our enemies in the north will no longer bother us again"

"I-I've felt a sort of emptiness ever since coming back. Yes I have my companion, and he makes me happy from time to time, but I have been unable to shake this emptiness, this...loneliness I have"

"Hmmm, I think I know what it is" the creature said coming down a step, " have you ever thought about love recently?" Esdeath looked shocked for a second, like he had read her mind.

"In fact, yes, I have had thought about a lasting relationship, but my job makes finding one...difficult" she said and the creature smiled.

"Then I guess you'll just have to find them then, and you can worry about your duties after you have done this thing that you desire" he said and Esdeath looked up, and then stood up.

"I shall have a list of properties that I desire ready, but I leave it to you to do something to fine them" she said before turning sharply and stealing towards the gates, which opened for her, and then closed. I looked at it in thought before sitting up and making my way after her.

"Hold dragon" the creature said suddenly from behind me. I stopped and tilted my neck to look back slightly. The man came up and tried to touch my tail but I released the spikes at the end so they faced outward and he shrank away with a slight tremble. Good, you should fear me you meat driven, insane creature. Not even I have that tolerance for such high amounts of meat, especially dried rubbery meat. I let my spikes retract into my tail, and I slapped the ground to snap him out of his shock.

"I-I, yes, you want to know why I want you to stay here don't you. W-well that isn't actually my decision—" I looked at the child on the throne to see an empty throne. Then I found something on my left foreleg and I looked down and recoiled in surprise at the child, who was hugging my leg fiercely. My legs went up, my body backwards, and I let out a shameful squeak at the sudden surprise. Then I slammed into my back, my spines stabbing into the palace floor, and the emperor still attached to my leg somehow, even as they were upside-down.

I retracted my spines and rolled back to my feet while looking say the creature, who was looking at my predicament in glee. I growled at it, shutting it up, and then lifted my leg up again. The child was asleep attached to my legs, and I watched it in shock. How in the universe is such a small creature able to hold on to something so tightly? It felt like my leg was being squeezed by a giant.

"He was worried about you the entire time you were gone, sometimes even crying himself to sleep thinking that you wouldn't come back" I looked at the creature in shock, why would the child want me to survive so badly? "He was even thinking about bringing you, just you back so that he could have you at his side, but you came back today, he was going to issue the order to have only you come back home tomorrow"

The creature was staring at my neck, at the collar seated around it, and I smiled. It had the wrong idea, it thought that I had been collared by Esdeath, marked as hers forever, but I was never going to be marked as someone's property...well maybe the child if they escaped from the terrible reign of the fat, meat devouring creature before me.