Changed the first two chapers a bit. Please read first!


Chapter 3

The next morning Duncan woke up to Louise shouting his name. He remembered that after he had calmed down the day before that he had talked with Louise and Siesta about his "country" and they had told him about theirs. Both had been fascinated when they found out how the cities there looked and how only very few "people" could use magic there. They also found out that humans had been able to create powerful weapons that didn't need magic to work and how cars had replaced carriage and didn't need horses to move forward. He told them that "commoners" where he lived had a much easier and better live since machines helped them with hard work. He gave a few hints between the stories of his word that he wasn't human but Louise was to fascinated to notice and so still hadn't found out that he was a dragon at the end. Siesta who had sat down after Duncan had asked her had listened to him with awe and hope, but she hadn't really talked. She had only commented sometimes when Louise told Duncan about their country and had said nothing about him being a dragon. Duncan wasn't so sure if she respected his wish for Louise to find out herself and ask or if she had a bit of mischievousness that the noble didn't know but she did. They had talked long and about many things that had made Duncan sometimes raise his eyebrow or become awestruck himself. At the end of the talk he had decided that he at least ones had to try out those flying ships himself.

After one loud shout Duncan opened his eyes and looked at Louise who gave a sigh and said:

"Finally! I thought you would never get up." Duncan gave her a small smile before sitting up, yawning and stretching and finally getting fully awake.

"Good morning Louise, have you slept well?" He asked her with a soft smile. She returned the smile even thought a bit hesitate before she gave him a quick look over and muttered to herself.

"We definitively need to get you new clothes since your old ones seemed to fall off you any seconds now." She suddenly said making Duncan look at his own clothes for the first time. It was only now that he noticed that his clothes wouldn't survive much longer and he gave a short nod. What came next surprised him a bit. "We also need to get you a weapon, preferred a sword since I can't leave you totally unprotected. You need to be able to protect yourself and me after all." He nodded even thought he really didn't need a sword since he had claws. It was for the first time that he was thankful that his father taught him how to use a sword. At least that would protect his cover for a bit longer.

"Shall we go after your lesson is over then?" She gave him a short nod before the both moved toward the dining hall. He opened the door and moved the chair for her like the day before so before turning around without a second glance and firstly moving to the familiars, waiting for Siesta before moving with her to the kitchen where they gave him his coal. The familiars had followed him here like the last time and they all ate enjoying the company of the others before they heard the shouting and went to their 'masters' again.

Louise had asked him if he would like to come with her to her classes and Duncan could pick out her thoughts that she wanted him to be there so he said yes. At first he found the lesson interesting and listened to what the teachers and students said. When the teacher wanted Louise to demonstrate a spell in the front his good mood quickly vanished as the students all tried to stop Louise from trying. The red haired girl named Kirche that had tried to make a move on him since after the speech was the one who shouted the loudest for Louise not to but that only did the exact opposite of what they wanted. He could feel that Louise wanted to prove herself in front of the other nobles that she was worth the title and the respect she wasn't getting and so she went to the front. The spell itself was easy. She was told to turn stone into brass or gold but the second she started the spell he could fell that something was going to go wrong.

He flipped two times and in the first created a very small barrier around the stones so the explosion wouldn't get out and with the second loud flip of his fingers he cast the spell himself on the stone so it would seem that Louise did it. Her classmates had already moved into safe positions and Kirche told him to do so as well but Duncan sat still like a statue and waited to see if he had succeeded. The explosion that should have destroyed the room was stopped by the barrier as planed and Duncan waited with anticipation if his second spell had also worked. For the others it took mere seconds but for him it took like forever before the stones slowly turned to a golden color. The teacher and her classmates stared at it before for a few seconds before the students moved their heads to look at Louise with shock written all over their faces. Louise herself had the same look on her face. The teacher however gave her an approving smile and nodded before she gave the stones a closer look and stared in shock at it.

"This is gold!" She suddenly screamed. He didn't know what she was so surprised about but it seemed to be a big deal since all of them had their eyelids so wide open that it almost looked like their eyeballs were about to fall out. Louise was beaming such a proud smile that he almost didn't have the courage to tell her the truth but I had to. He couldn't always correct her spells like that. He wouldn't always be there.

It was after class when they were on their way to the town that he started to tell her the truth.

"Louise" Duncan tried to get her attention.

"Mmm?"She asked dreamily

"You know that your spell would have blown up right?" She seemed to snap out of her dream like state and look at me in shock before she asked:

"What do you mean with that?" Duncan almost didn't have the courage to tell her. Almost!

"I stopped your spell and used my own so that the explosion wouldn't be noticed and the spell that you cast would seem to have gone right." She looked at him and he could tell that she was near tears.

"Do you know why your spell would have gone wrong and why it would have exploded instead of doing what you wanted it to do?" He thought he imitated his father pretty well when the times came and Duncan had cast a spell wrong and it had exploded in his face. He came out of his thoughts when he heard Louise's almost inaudible answer came.

"… Because I am a zero! Because I can't do anything right. Because I am a failure." Louise's tears started to roll down her face, but Duncan whipped away before they could fall.

"No, that isn't the reason why it would have exploded." She looked at him with teary eyes and Duncan could feel the curiosity and the shock that came from her.

"You could say that you have too much power. When you cast a spell you but too much magic force into the spell and because of that it explodes right into your face. I know out of first hand experienced that a spell has a specific limitation of how much magic force can be used. If you cross over that line you overload the spell and it explodes. If you really were a zero than your spells wouldn't do anything but the powerful explosions show that you have the magic power. You just have to know how to use them."

Louise eyes widened the longer she listened and she nodded with new found hope. Her spells didn't go wrong because she was a zero. They went wrong because she put too much force behind them. That would even make sense.

The rest of the trip till town was quiet leaving Duncan to his own thoughts, even thought he could also hear Louise's thought but he blocked them out. He had quickly learned how to block out other thoughts since it could give a huge headache if he was surrounded by a crowd and you could hear every single random thought that came your way.


In town they quickly found a clothes store and brought Duncan a few black pants and a few red and black colored t-shirt with short and long sleeves. They weren't the prettiest things around but he had seen worse and those clothes would do their purpose.

The next thing they went to search for was a sword. It took some time to find a store that sealed weapons but ones inside Duncan was very tempted to just turn around and leave the shop again. The only thing stopping him from just doing that was his 'master' right next to him that looked around in awe. She probably had never been in a weapon shop before, not that he had ever been but he probably would have only looked like that if the shop had guns and not old things like swords that no one used anymore, well at least in his world they weren't used anymore.

Duncan had the habit to listen to the thoughts of the salesman or shopkeepers. This one was a fraud that would do anything to sell his swords for higher prices then they actual were worth. The first thing that came to the shopkeeper's mind when he saw them was that they probably would be easy to defraud and since Louise looked like a noble it would be easy to get a huge among of money out of her. He even went so far as to call her naïve.

The first sword he tried to get them to buy looked more like it was made as a decoration for the wall instead for the use. Duncan didn't listen to his rubbish and concentrated on something that had bothered since he had come to this shop. He could feel another mind real close right here in this shop but he couldn't see another human. That would mean that a sword would have a mind and that was such an interesting thing that he wanted to find it if something like that was here. Duncan didn't care if the sword had flaws, if it had a mind and its own thoughts than it was high on his 'to buy' list. Something like that could just not be left alone. He felt like a little kid that was with his mom in a toy store and searched for that special present that he wanted.

So he started to move around and listened where the thoughts or more like whispers could be heard the loudest. It was in one stand where many swords had just been put in all together that he finally found it. Louise had long since stopped talking to the salesman and was watching Duncan move around the different swords. He pulled the right one out and looked at it intensely. He had taken the right sword. This one really had a mind of his own. He pulled it out of his guard and looked at the blade. He was pretty delighted when he noticed that it seemed to be almost perfectly made and that the rust had only formed on the outside of the sword and hadn't damaged the sword itself.

"I want to take this one" he finally said looking at Louise with a childish gleam in his eyes. He noticed the uncertain in the shopkeeper's eyes before he made a hand motion toward the decoration that he called a sword in front of him and said: "This one is much better than the one you have right now. Do you really want that old, rusty sword?" I could tell that he was already formulating a plan how he would raise the price of the sword I held in my hand if I would still want to buy it.

"I want this one and no other sword." He nodded and started to tell me since that it was a pretty rare sword that I would still cost pretty much and thousands of other reasons why it would be so expensive.

"Ha, you really are a fraud like I always say. You always try to get as much cash from the swords you sell as you can, even if most of the swords here are stolen from dead warriors after a war." A new voice suddenly said. Duncan looked down to see that the sword he still held in his hands had started to talk. A grin spread over his face and he somehow had the feelings that he heard Christmas songs somewhere in the background.

"Before you said that this was an old, rusty blade and now that I still try to buy it, it suddenly is a very rare sword that could have ones been owned by the king himself. Why, if it is such a valuable and pricy thing is it under those cheap swords that would break after a few swings through the rust that has already destroyed their blades. Shouldn't it hang on the wall like that decoration that is right in front of your nose?" Duncan said with such a scary and almost insane looking smile that the shopkeeper went pale. He stammered a few new attempts but soon noticed that it wouldn't do anything against me. We bargained a bit and Duncan's arguments were so good that he soon had the cheapest price possible and it was very low compared to the real worth. Louise looked skeptically at the sword before shrugging her shoulders when she saw how big a smile Duncan had.

"Hey partner, you really showed that shopkeeper what a bargainer is. He has swindled so many people with to high prices that this one sell should give him a low blow in the stomach. Let me ask you thought. Why did you choose me?" The sword asked.

"I had a feeling that there was another one with us that had a mind in that shop and since no other human was there I thought that maybe a sword was it. I searched and found you and it was even better when I discovered that you were a very good sword. I would have brought you even if you hadn't been, because it's so cool that you can talk. By the way, do you have a name?" Duncan wondered after he came back from his childish thoughts that were running through his mind right at the moment.

"Of course I have a name partner. My name is Derflinger" And that was only the beginning of one of the many friendships Duncan would form.


Hope you liked it.

I changed the first two chapters a bit and I hope you like them better now.
I tried to correct a few mistakes but I am not sure if I really succeeded since English is my second language and I am not that great at it.

Please tell me what you think!