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His first insistent thought is to lure the dragon away from the ship. Charles soars in the sky so fast his breath catches — he hasn't done it for a while. His heart leaps and somersaults in wild anticipation as he readies a spell. The house-sized dragon is silver — a truly beautiful sight, the terrifying jaws are different matter though.
Charles' shield withstands icy breath and he hits the dragon with a hammer-like cluster of pressured air from above, forces the beast to plummet down. But not for long, of course. Enraged, the creature roars and darts after him, their ship thankfully forgotten.
And Charles experiences the thrill, maybe, for the first time in his life he tastes the exhilaration of challenge.
It's cool up there and the dragon's breath makes it even cooler.
This time Charles responds with an old-fashioned fireball and wraps himself in protective shield like in a cocoon. He takes an evasive action and attacks with another fire spell: dark magic colours fire black this time as it burns the dragon's wing. Charles nearly gets whacked by spiked tail, but gets in another hit.
They freeze among clouds, then, face to face. In awkward stalemate.
How old is this dragon wonders Charles briefly? Is it as insane as the rest of its' kind, mysteriously losing their mind after the velum was erected by gods. So much was sacrificed to protect humankind.
"I don't want to hurt you!" he cries. "Awfully sorry for your wing!"
The dragon sniffs at him with regal amount of disdain.
Charles feels like walking upon air, which he literally does, well.
"You understand me! You're sane, thank gods!"
He mentally peruses everything he's ever read on the subject of dragons.
Bargain.
What would make a good bargain?
The silver dragon peers at him curiously after he voices his proposal and Charles senses scream in alert at powerful, large presence inside his head. He endures it and only a small sound works loose from his throat. You can't lie to dragons, for they can see everything you are, down to the deepest secrets and darkest corners.
"All right," he says daringly, when the presence retreats, "that settled, I might need a little favor. Could you please pretend to be dead and fall into the ocean? Pretty please?"
He lands back on the deck, which is drenched in water. The dragon could have chosen to dive a little bit farther, but no, of course, the beast has opted to drench them at least.
A fairly pleasant moment when Erik darts to him is ruined by the Prince, who springs out of nowhere:
"Gods almighty! That was the most elegant dragonslaying I've ever seen."
"Maybe because that's the only one you've seen," retorts Charles, but his words get drowned in cheering.
Erik finally manages to push through the crowd surrounding Charles.
"Charles, let's get out of here," he simply says.
Only when they are back in their cabin and Charles drops on the couch, Erik asks:
"What exactly did you do?"
It's particularly hard for Charles to keep his tongue tame as it is, so at some point he stopped even trying.
"That obvious?"
"Yes, it is. Not buying it. You, killing a dragon without second thoughts? You didn't even want to roast that unicorn, though the bastard certainly deserved it."
"Well, I detest senseless violence," slowly says Charles.
They sit through a short-lived pause before Erik gives in:
"Will you tell me?"
"I… might."
"Today, if you please."
"Um. However, I am fairly sure, that I shouldn't tell anyone about it."
"Charles," Erik prowls closer, looming as usual, and Charles sits up straight, not that it helps much with the looming.
"Charles," repeats Erik silkily. "Why do you think I follow you no matter what crazy escapades you get us into? Any idea why I'm still here, with you?"
"I care for you a lot too… Erik?"
"You are an amazing person, and it must be some instincts within you to make people so fond of you," Erik announces as if this is a well-known fact. "And also a great joy and despair of mine. It's more of a moot point. On this account, Charles, can you tell me what has happened to the dragon, so that I could stop worrying over the unknown and worry about a new predicament of ours instead?"
Erik is so brutally caring — Charles thinks, as heat levels inside the cabin rise dramatically.
"I made a deal with the dragon."
"Neat."
"I promised — "
He is interrupted by loud, rapid knocking on the door and the Prince's voice calling his name and shouting about snakes and barriers.
"Later," Charles gets up to stand, but Erik doesn't move an inch.
So Charles consoles him with a kiss, which quickly turns mutual, yet regrettably brief.
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What Erik first notices about Elpinuki is extremely hot humid air, immediately absorbed by his clothes. A truly disgusting mix of sweat and earthly fumes ensured. Next, there are these snake people Charles can apparently communicate with.
Fortunately, those snaky creatures are listening to Charles with universal open-mouthed awe. They may erect a couple of shrines in Charles' name ponders Erik with dark satisfaction, when he glances at the neglected Prince.
"They are inviting us to a feast," translates Charles and prudently advises. "We should go. Not so sure about eating though, but we can always politely pretend."
The Prince looks disappointed.
"Our goal is to reach a dead mountain in the center of this island and soon."
"We are only guests here and a common courtesy suggests that we honor the Snake Clan's wishes," Charles offers promptly.
Erik, who hasn't got an ounce of path-breaking spirit, agrees, because Charles will go anyways. And when a fairly predictable thing happens, he likes to be nearby.
The Prince frowns and agrees, because without Charles he wouldn't have gotten this far. He passes his impressive morning star to one of sailors, who nearly doubles under its' weight. Everyone was surprised when their royal hirer came ashore holding that monstrosity.
"What a merciful weapon you have here," points out Erik with fake amazement when they trail behind the welcoming procession.
"Huh, wouldn't call it merciful," grins the Prince. "It was my great-grand father's."
"Who was he exactly? A marauder?" dumbly asks Erik.
But Charles is already here to spoil fun by initiating some small talk with the Prince.
As soon as the Prince is beyond striking distance, he turns back to Erik.
"Why are you antagonizing him?"
"It's in my nature."
"One day it's going to reflect badly," grimly repents Charles.
"That's a chance I'm willing to take."
The feast is actually like every other feast Erik has been to, except there's no music in the background and the food seems either half-cooked or alive and trying to escape.
Next to him, Charles has been vigorously helping himself to drinks. Erik reflects on Shaw's potion that the priestess said was basically a deadly poison. Watching Charles right now, he, kind of, comes to a realization: Charles can probably stomach much more than an average person ever could.
Magical, indeed.
All in all, they ended up celebrating till dusk to great royal displeasure.
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"Rather devious of you," murmurs Charles, stumbles over the fallen log and falls into Erik's arms, a touch too heavily.
"So you can get drunk. Here I was wondering," hums Erik speculatively.
"I prefer not to, unless it's a special occasion, or sometimes one needs to ease one's transition to sleep, or — "
"Fine, fine. I see you have a list of reasons on standby," remarks Erik.
The gap between tree crowns allows in only little moonlight and Charles hopes that his flush will go unnoticed. His embarrassment is short-lived, seeing that he is currently being held by Erik. He is quick to tilt his head up and press their lips together. Erik's hand slides up to his nape and tangles in his hair as he responds with softness never expected of him. When he pulls back first, Charles looks at him questioningly.
"Essentially, I'd rather spend some quality time with you. Unfortunately, that's not why I lured you in the jungle alone at night."
"A persistent whisper inside my head was feeding me false hopes then. Damn!"
Charles casts his eyes downward, chewing on his bottom lip.
"Are you hearing voices now?"
"A figure of speech. I'm a bit befuddled, yet I'm all ears."
"What a relief."
"Well?"
"His Highness disappeared. I guess, he must be either torn by wild animals by now— "
"Oh my!"
"But, mark my words, we can't be that lucky. That's why I think he's on his way to that holy mountain."
"Source of magic… Of course!"
"Any ideas why he might want to reach it so much?"
"He was persistently obfuscating the issue. My presumption is — the Prince is trying to gain himself magical powers by whatever it is… up there."
After a brief deliberation, Charles ends flying them to the mountain.
And, by the way, he finds out that this way of travelling makes Erik quite excited.
From the sky they watch the hollowed throat of the mountain and tiny lights crawling towards the gaping orifice.
"Did it occur to you that this island was sealed from the outer world for a reason?"
Erik really knows how to ask a right question at the right time.
"Probably. Only, that ship has already sailed, my friend," shrugs Charles. "Also, the dragon seemed bored by her guarding duty and so is the Snake Clan."
"That's a fine-grained reasoning, what can I add."
"Come on, Erik, get ready. I'm dropping us down now."
"Not literally, I hope," retorts Erik tightly, playing it cool.
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Charles makes their descend right into the dark, gaping hole quiet and smooth.
When his feet touch the ground Erik lets out a breath, he didn't know he was holding. He has taken to Charles' magical tricks recently, especially appreciating his creative usage of certain spells to ease mundane, routine tasks, like starting a fire or fishing, for instance.
Flying is so far the most exhilarating. Way better than astral projection.
"It was great," he honestly admits to Charles.
"Glad that you liked it. Flying demands lots of energy, but I seem to have plenty of it now. After all what happened lately it's a huge advance. We'll do that again, some time," says Charles, as lighting sphere blooms in his palm.
They discover the Prince and his lot farther to the center, near another smaller gaping hole, emitting weak rainbow glow.
"Your Highness, I was worried where you might be!" exclaims Charles nonchalantly.
The man in question nearly jumps out of his skin at the words. His people are none the better. Apparently, they have been too absorbed into staring down the hole. But not to hear their approach, gods, thinks Erik disdainfully. A way to go in the unfamiliar area.
"Sir Charles," cries the Prince, "I didn't want to interrupt your slumber!"
"Erik did," flatly says Charles. "I'm grateful, otherwise I'd have slumbered all these interesting discoveries away."
"That would have been such a shame," cheerfully adds Erik.
"All right. For what it's worth, we are already even," the Prince's tone turns dry. "I've paid you your share and even additional charge for boredom— "
"What?"
"Charge for boredom, Charles. It was not a lively voyage to be frank," fills in Erik.
"But that's," Charles coughs in vain attempt to downplay it, "unheard of!"
"Just you wait! It's going to be very heard of," smirks Erik.
"Have you finished?" asks the Prince rather snidely.
"We have. Please, go on," drawls Erik sweetly.
"In principle, we can call it square."
"Wonderful," smiles Charles after a tense pause. "Erik, may I have you sword?"
Erik unfastens the scabbard and passes his weapon to Charles without a word.
Charles grips the handle and advances towards the crowd surrounding the glow, which, Erik notices, gets brighter and brighter with his approach.
"This magic is mine!" shouts the Prince, grabbing his morning star. "You may not know that, but I'm invincible to almost all spells."
"Like a troll?" inquires Erik.
"Like a what? Argh!" he lifts his weapon threateningly. "You shall not pass."
"I am not going to, calm down," with that Charles leaps over the gawking gang to hover just above the intensely bright glow.
"Nice move," compliments Erik from sidelines.
While the Prince goes wild on the ground, Charles presses the sword to his chest and closes his eyes.
The glow suddenly swirls up like a spiral, and Erik instinctively realizes that something is not how it should be, before it envelops Charles and disintegrates into myriads of sparks.
In the darkness that ascends Erik curses at no one in particular.
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