We were both crouching behind a bush as Josh gave me a rundown of the situation,

"Okay so the main problem is, the tree, you see it?"

I nodded. It was the only tree between the lines of berry bushes on this field so of course I saw it.

"Well officially it's on the property of a rich berry farmer. Its guarded like crazy with thugs and all. Last time I came here no one bothered to tell me about that part, so while there was a golden dragon trying to rip my throat out, who mind you according to the villagers was barely a 'lizard' , there were also five guys trying to bash my head in at the same time."

I craned my neck to see,

"A dragon? Where? I don't see one. Man, what's up with this weekend and snakelike creatures. Seriously."

Josh never got a chance to explain because in that moment a very dragon looking like thing popped its head out the dense crown of said apple tree and then quickly retracted back in.

"That thing is surprisingly big." I marveled.

"I know."

I let myself fall back on my heels and asked him further,

"Do you have a plan? What about the thugs, when are they coming?"

"They will be here soon. Usually they patrol the farm but if the old guy does it like last time, the entire peninsula will know I'm here by the next hour. As long as they don't come though, I should be able to defeat the dragon this time."

I teetered back onto the balls of my feet,

"All right then let's keep it simple, you distract the dragon and I get the apple before anyone else shows up."

Josh nodded and picked up the sword he had borrowed earlier. We walked out from behind the bush and approached the tree slowly, as if we weren't interested in it at all. You know just the usually berry pickers doing their job. Both of us knew the dragon only attacked once it thought someone wanted the golden apple.

We were halfway there when someone hollered from behind us,

"Ahh Herakles, you again!"

I turned to look and saw a group of five burly fighters coming up the row of bushes towards us. One of them smirked and hollered again,

"I thought you would have died by now!"

Next to me, Josh looked like someone had just punched him in the gut. Little did he know this was about to suck even more because the commotion had attracted the attention of the dragon, who had poked his head out of the foliage once again.

I needed to fix this fast. But what the hell could a Nymph do against a dragon and a bunch of thugs on a berry farm?

Oh. Wait.

I turned to Josh,

"You said you can handle the dragon so handle the dragon. I'll take care of these guys."

He stared at me for a second to figure out if I had meant that seriously and then asked,

"Do I even want to know how?"

I pointed at myself and explained,

"Nature nymph."

Pointed at a bushes,

"Nature."

And lastly wiggled my fingers in front of his face.

"Magic."

He smiled and we had a little moment there. Sadly, it didn't last long because the guys were only a few feet away and the dragon had begun climbing out of its tree. Josh made a beeline for the dragon and I stood my ground and pulled out my dagger. The thugs laughed at the sight of me brandishing it and probably thought I was just messing around.

But they were berry berry wrong.

The apparent leader of the group was hardly two steps away from me when he said,

"Move woman, I have no interest in hurting you."

I laughed in his face,

"Oh, but I do.... hurting you I mean, not myself."

And then the thorny vines of a blackberry bush whacked him in the face. The bushes around the men erupted into knee high thorny tornados, each one wrapping themselves around a leg and dragging the respective man to the floor. It took all my magic to keep the bushes at it and the thugs writhing on the floor, trying hard to fight their chlorophylled enemies.

One guy did manage to get free, so I did it the analog way and threw my dagger at him. He went right back to writhing on the ground with the rest of his friends.

I felt a blast of heat on the back of my neck and I glanced over my shoulder to see. Josh was now in open combat with the fire breathing dragon whose screeching echoed through the entire valley. It was large and golden, almost blinding in the sunlight and it was a 100% pissed off.

I couldn't move since I was only able to do this kind of magic in close range but nevertheless, I tried to help by shouting dragon facts I had learned in myth middle school,

"Get him below the wing, it's where most dragons have a weak spot! They don't like the smell of celery! "

Josh sliced the air in front of him to make the dragon back off,

"Why the hell are you only telling me this now?!"

Good question.

Despite not fighting very traditionally, Josh at some point managed to gain the upper hand. The dragon spit fire and he dodged to the side and into the creature's blind spot. Not being able to see its opponent from the ground, the dragon lifted its wings ready to fly, giving Josh exactly the opportunity, he'd needed. He leaped forward and drove his sword down to its hilt in between the dragon's scales. Almost instantly the dragon exploded like a ginormous piñata filled with golden dust. Now all that was left to do was to get the apple.

Josh ran over immediately to grab it, but the apple was just out of his reach. No amount of jumping would do, and he was about to start climbing the tree. I let my control over the vines go, the thugs had finally given up out of exhaustion.

"Wait!"

I yelled as I started running towards Josh,

"Boost me up, I'll get it!"

Josh didn't have time to prepare because I basically jumped him. One minute of clamoring limbs later and I was able to pluck the Golden apple from its stem. There was no magical transformation or godly sign after freeing the tree but the one thing that did happen almost made me fall over backwards.

A tiny little golden lizard appeared on the branch I had picked the apple from.

"Landon thanks you, young heroes." the lizard said to us.

In English.

********

We had barely made it back to the village when the old guy came running, shouting at the top of his lungs,

"Herakles you have defeated the dragon! The tree has been saved!" by the time he reached us he had both arms raised to the sky, "and you have brought us the golden apple of fortune!"

Josh marched over to him and stuffed the apple into the old guys hand,

"There take it. I'm willing to trade it for two horses and some cash."

The old guy clearly didn't understand and just stared at him blankly.

"Damn it. I meant money."

No reaction.

"Coins? Golden drachmas, the shiny things you can trade for food?"

I couldn't hold back any longer and laughed harder than I had for days. It took me a while to compose myself.

"How about trying to say all that in Greek, Josh." I suggested as I wiped the tears out of my eyes.

The poor guy turned beet red and it made me laugh harder.

Josh switched from English to Greek and when the old guy eventually understood what was being asked of him, he immediately set off to get it done.

Allowing myself a little break, I sat down on a rock and Josh followed my example.

"What do we need the horses for?" I asked.
He glanced over at me, "To send you home of course, didn't you say the portal opens tomorrow morning?"

Right. I had somehow forgotten about that.
"True, but can we even make it back that fast? This place seems really remote."

"We can. I remember how I got here the first time so we can go back the same way. We should maybe just wait until it gets cooler in the evening before we set out."

I didn't say anything, and he continued,

"Funnily enough, it's also less likely something will bother us at night. The trial stuff is mostly a daytime thing."

In all honesty I had stopped listening after the word 'horseback'. My mind was already occupied with the guilt I'd feel after leaving him behind.

Thinking that I wasn't paying attention anymore, Josh let his head fall into his hands. I could tell the pretense of everything being okay was crumbling again, just like it had in front of me all weekend. I couldn't bear to leave him here like this, especially knowing everything I did, but there was nothing I could do to change it.

I removed a leaf that had caught on my toga and threw it to the ground. Time to think about less depressing things. I got up from my rock,

"Hey, do want to go for lunch or is there still like paperwork to sign or something, to do after completing a trial? I never did this before so-"

Josh sighed and lifted his head to look at me,

"I never had to sign anything for the trials, once it's done, it's done."

The wheels in my head started turning,

"Wait never? Not even before you left for the past?"

I felt my budding little lawyer heart flutter when he answered with the simple yet profound words I had hoped to hear,

"No, never."