Chapter 7.3- The Seadragon's Roar
Added 2025-06-25 05:32:46 +0000 UTC—
Marching in an army was harder than it seemed. Both harder and more annoying, to be honest. One thing was the rain. The rains were constant here. Wake up, it’s raining. Lunchtime, it’s raining. Time to sleep, it’s raining. It was the most prevalent issue, but one of the easiest to get used to. Manfred had made me spend whole days training under the rain so it was not the main factor that annoyed me. No, that was the mud. Marching in the mud was a slog— I spent my time making sure I didn’t slip and got my footing right. The whole thing was a workout on its own, and then there were the obligations.
Manfred was off doing whatever, and so I’d found himself assigned to his original Knight— Borros who rode at the head of the Caravan. Borros who made my wash and polish his armour day in and day out. Borros who wore a long cloak in the mud and expected me to wash it at the end of every day and somehow have it ready to go for the next one. Borros who insisted they spar at dawn in the morning and then spent half an hour kicking me about the place until he got bored and then fucked off to begin his daily pastime— drinking.
There was literally only one silver lining to this whole thing— Igneel. Borros was scared of the dragon, and he did a poor job of hiding it. Sure, when I dismounted and became mortal, he could heap indignities upon me without pause: wash my cloak, Laenor, shine my boots, Laenor, I have vomitted in my helmet, Laenor, come clean it. Over and over again. But when I was next to my first and oldest friend, Borros became mute as the wind. All he could do was whisper and grumble.
So that meant I slept next to Igneel every night. It also came with the advantage of not having to sleep in the mud as well. The first night of that had been far from enjoyable. Now that Igneel’s fire had grown hotter and he could spew much more of it, it was child’s play for him to turn the ground he slept on into clay, and it was n that clay, propped up against his wing that I slept on a daily basis.
