Chapter 29

Ethron growled and spun around. With considerable effort, he lifted himself all the way up onto the main floor, and took off down the hall, breaking it a bit to do so.

"After him!" Frederick shouted.

He drew his sword and ran out, passing Merek on the way. It seemed the knight was still alive, and no longer on fire, but he wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

"What? There's no reason to!" the Doctor called out to Frederick. She made a face. "Peter, Selim, come on."

The trio ran, following the Doctor. It seemed Ethron had forced the main entrance open, pieces of metal from the gateway flying everywhere. As soon as Ethron was out, he leapt into the air and spread his wings.

Wind slammed into the ground from the beat of his wings. It wasn't as bad as Arthur using his air alchemy, but at Ethron's size it was something.

He rose higher into the air, getting farther away. He was obviously still bigger than you'd expect for a creature in the sky, but it was getting hard to see he was a literal dragon.

Then there was a sound of a canon behind them. The sky lit up, a canon ball whistled by, and it obviously hit Ethron. Ethron roared again. There was another launch, another hit, and he fell from the sky and behind a hill, out of sight.

The three slowly turned around. A guard stood on top of the castle wall with a canon. It was the same one who stabbed the dragon in the eye earlier. Maybe he should be their top knight. Frederick was up there with him, so maybe he'd notice.

"There," Frederick said. "It's finally done. Dragon's are more trouble than they're worth."

"Should we check on him Doc?" Peter asked. He frowned when she didn't answer. "Doctor?"

The Doctor was looking off in the distance. She must've been pretty upset about this. She wasn't even telling Frederick and the guard off.

"Do what you like," she said. "There's no point though."

Pride sighed internally. "I'm sorry." He wasn't, but he didn't like the Doctor being like this, and it was easy enough to lie. "I know you wanted Ethron to live."

"No one needed to die here," the Doctor said. "We could've all lived. Ethron could've gone his separate way. But now he and Arthur are gone."

"Isn't it a good thing Arthur's gone?"

"Other than kidnapping you he hadn't done anything yet. That doesn't warrant being snapped in half. But, we should get moving." She turned to Peter. "It's been a pleasure meeting you at least."

Then with a nod to Peter, she turned and walked off. Didn't they have to go back inside to get to the TARDIS? Pride frowned, but followed her.


"Well, should we move on?" the Doctor asked, the two of them securely back in the TARDIS.

Pride had been surprised to find it the next hill over. Apparently, it had left the castle sometime, and the Doctor must've known.

He thought about her question. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to go hoping off to the next adventure yet, and his eyes kept falling on the phone. He hadn't called Mrs. Bradley in a while. Had it been a while for her? Would she worry he got killed by the military, or just think he was late from lunch?

Mrs. Bradley was the only human he actually enjoyed spending time with. At least without tremendous effort on his part. She'd been intriguing before the Promised Day. Then she'd taken him back afterwards, after Ed and the military told her at least part of the truth. Okay, but she thought he had no memories. He could still essentially be a replacement. Then she found out he'd never forgotten, and she still continued to raise him, hiding his identity from anyone else for years. And she wasn't good at hiding anything.

It was flabbergasting. She'd been pulled in Father's Philosopher's Stone on the Promised Day, along with everyone else in the country. It was very short lived, but hard for anyone alive at the time to forget, and she had to know he'd helped with that, for years. But she continued to see him as her son. Honestly when she first found he remembered, she seemed more upset he lied than the fact he was, from a human perspective, a monster who regularly killed people. True, she'd married Wrath, and he'd been pretty openly war mongering. But that was her husband, who was ruling the country. It was a different story for her son, and if he wanted to kill someone he was still not going to mention it.

But he was getting a bit off topic. The point was, the Doctor didn't know he was Pride, Mrs. Bradley didn't know anything about the Doctor, and the odds of this blowing up in his face were mounting. At the very least, he knew he couldn't do this for the rest of his life, unless his life got cut short like some of the people they'd encountered.

"I think I'd like to go home now. Not for good," he quickly elaborated. "I'd just like to tell my Mother where I've been."

"What, all of it?"

"Well, maybe not everything, but we can't say we've been at lunch this whole time."

"She might not want you to come with me, if she finds out," the Doctor pointed out.

"It'll be fine," Pride said, and he believed it with complete confidence.

The Doctor frowned. "Okay. I'll take us back. You might want to look a little less singed though."

Right. Being so close to a dragon all night would do that.