Chp.40: The reunion

It was Haku's first time traveling using a portable gate, and he promised himself it would also be the last. It was as if every single millimeter of his body transformed into pure energy in an instant and traveled through space with unimaginable speed, so fast that he was unable to see anything as not even light could reach his eyes. He felt as if all the world had disappeared and he himself was no longer a living thing, but only a beam of light energy traveling in an inaccurate direction.

The whole thing lasted less than a thousandth of a second; after that, his body regained physical consistency and the world reappeared around him. When his paws touched the ground again Haku felt dizzy for an instant, as if he had just been running in circles for about two minutes. It took him a while before he understood what had happened and realized that he was no longer in the arena, but on the bank of a river beyond which he could glimpse some sand dunes.

The realization hit him suddenly: they had succeeded! It was out! He had escaped! His heart leapt: finally, he was no longer a prisoner! He felt the urge to roar in triumph, and only stopped himself because he wanted to maintain a modicum of dignity in front of all the people who were there with him. Turning around he could see that even the gladiators and slaves seemed dazed, and looked around completely unable to explain what had happened.

"Where... Where are we?"

"How did we get here?"

"Does it matter? It's enough for me that we're not in prison anymore!"

"He's right! We are free!"

"Freedom!"

"FREEDOM!!!"

The gladiators erupted in whoops of triumph and raised their weapons in the air in celebration. It didn't matter to them where they had been taken: from their point of view, any place was better than the arena. Even the slaves, though still very scared, couldn't suppress a smile.

Zamor looked at Haku intensely, who returned his gaze. The dragon knew the lizardman had never fully trusted him, but he didn't care. By now they were out, therefore Zamor had fulfilled his function. Haku didn't need him anymore, so the lizardman could think what he wanted. As promised, Haku would help him with his people (which, in Haku's mind, meant just giving him some advice) and then they would part ways. Very soon neither of them would ever see the other again. Therefore, let Zamor think badly of him: he didn't care.

Haku looked away from Zamor and looked for Misune. He found her kneeling and with her hands joined, as if she were praying; which she was probably doing, thanking whatever deity she believed in for letting her get her freedom back. When she was done, she scooped up a handful of dirt and grass in her hands and seemed about to kiss it, and with tears in her eyes she stared at the sun in the sky as if it were the greatest gift she could receive. Haku didn't blame her: unlike him and the gladiators, who at least once a day went out to fight and therefore could feel the touch of the sun, the slaves could hardly ever go out in the open air. Misune up to that moment had only seen the sky through the gate through which Haku entered the arena to battle. No wonder her complexion was so pale. Therefore, it was normal that now that he could finally breathe fresh air again instead of stale prison air, he felt he had received the greatest gift of life.

Haku normally would have tried to talk to her, at least to make sure that everything went well, but at that moment he had other things on his mind: he lifted his muzzle and sniffed the air, and immediately perceived a familiar smell. As soon as he felt that, something inside him snapped and he started running towards some rocks, oblivious to the stares of others. Although he wasn't making any extreme physical effort, his breathing was labored and his heart was pounding. And these symptoms became even more intense when from behind the rocks appeared a silvery creature, similar to a giant lizard, with large horns and spines on its back. Haku almost cried seeing Rhaegal. He too was running towards him. When they were within a yard of each other they stopped, looked into each other's eyes for an instant, and then rushed at each other and embraced with such force that it would not have been surprising that they would have broken bones.

"Brother… sorry it took me so long" Rhaegal whispered.

Haku squeezed him even tighter; hearing his brother's voice almost seemed to warm his heart as if he were wrapped in a blanket. "Don't be sorry. I can never thank you and the others enough. I think I owe you some..."

"Brother, we'll talk later" Rhaegal said shaking his head. "Now let's just enjoy the moment"

Haku nodded. Yes, Rhaegal was right. This was not the time to argue, just to enjoy each other's company. There would be time for certain things later; now, all that mattered was to be reunited with his family. And as he was about to say something, other four paws grabbed him from several sides and squeezed him.

"Brother!" Serengal screamed, who seemed to be on the verge of tears. "Finally... you're finally here again..."

"If you get caught again I'll leave you there, you are warned!" Corgorin said, who despite the situation was trying to keep the mocking smile. But despite this, she couldn't help but wipe away a tear.

"I saw you" Haku jokingly told her.

"No, no, one of the soldiers hit me in the eye... even if I was in a different body it still annoyed me..." Corgorin tried to justify himself, but then she let it go: "Oh, shut up! I'm not made of stone!". And with that she squeezed him even tighter, even leaning her head against his and nuzzling each other's horns.

That scene was watched in a very confused way by all present. Gladiators and slaves were already surprised and frightened by the appearance of three new dragons, but they certainly didn't expect them to show such mutual affection. Given their experience with Haku and the stories they knew about dragons, they didn't expect those creatures to be capable of such intense emotions. Zamor had lost his composure for a moment and even Misune was shocked to see this, since she didn't expect to find more dragons. Efren, Carlos and Sarah, after an initial moment of bewilderment, couldn't help but smile at seeing the dragons reunite with their brother. And Isaac, who was still trying to figure out what had happened, was immediately interested in that scene so simple and familiar, but at the same time so strange and unthinkable. In the end it was Gord who broke the ice: "So... there were four of them?" he exclaimed. "Man... this was totally unexp..."

His words were cut short by the amazement as he saw more dragons appear from behind the rocks and run to hug Haku. Everyone squeezed into such a compact mass that it was difficult for him to figure out exactly how many there were. "Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen!? How many are there!? Darbi, did you know? Wait... where is Darbi?"

It was only then that Gord realized that the red lizardman was nowhere to be seen. Even the woman who had brought them that strange object was gone. In their place on the ground were two corpses, which while similar in build were completely different in appearance. But then suddenly one of the dragons raised his head and waved his paw to get noticed: "I'm here! Sorry guys, we'll talk later!" and having said that, he returned to embracing his brother.

It took Gord a few seconds to process what had just happened. "Wait... Darbi!?"

"Are you kidding me!? Was he a dragon all this time!?" Brenno exclaimed, shocked too by that revelation.

Efren walked over to them and patted them on the shoulder. "I'll explain you later. Now let them enjoy the moment"

The number of siblings that wanted to hug him was so big that Haku almost got crushed, but he didn't care; he had been separated from them for too long, he wanted to enjoy the contact as much as possible. Sisna almost jumped on him and playfully bit his neck. "Finally you're back with us, you grouch!" she said smiling and crying at the same time.

"Yeah. Welcome back, Haku," Kotaru murmured as she fought her way through all of their sisters to hug him back.

Haku accepted that affection with great pleasure. She looked one by one at her sisters, and could not help feeling happy to see that all of them had grown up healthy and strong; their bodies, despite having different constitutions, had remained robust and their scales had hardened. Their horns had lengthened, even if they had remained much smaller than those of their brothers: Rhaegal in fact had very showy horns, similar to those of Haku, while Darbi had the largest of all. Like Haku they had all grown up during that year they had been apart, and Haku was extremely happy that they had grown up so well.

Darbi gave him a small punch on the head. "It's good to see you with my real eyes, brother" he said. "We must celebrate! Let's party tonight, guys!"

Haku immediately agreed with that proposal. Even though wasting supplies and time was illogical behavior, for once she didn't want to follow logic. "Right! Let's celebrate!" he exclaimed, and all his siblings exploded into cries of assent.

The gladiators and the slaves felt a little uncomfortable hearing those words. "I hope they didn't bring us here just to 'use' us for the festivities" Gord whispered, and many others agreed. After all, dragons were known to have no qualms about eating anything... and they were therefore quite literally a feast for them.

Noticing that the tension was rising, Haku reluctantly broke the embrace with his siblings and addressed their 'guests': "Listen to me, please! We had an agreement, and since I'm a dragon, I'll respect it. None of us will try to eat or kill you, if that's what you fear, and you can leave anytime, even now if you wish"

He hoped this would make all the newcomers, or at least most, leave in a hurry, but Darbi interjected: "Right! Why don't you join us? In less than an hour it will be night after all, and we've built some rough shelters not far off. And we can give you some animals we hunted long ago, so at least you'll all have something to eat! Who wants a good roast boar?"

At the mention of the roast boar, the gladiators immediately changed their attitude and almost all agreed to stay a little longer. Although they were occasionally given some meat in the arena, it was never roasted or grilled. The thought of finally being able to cook something succulent was enough to drive away the fear. And technically none of them had any idea where to go, so he might as well stop rather than walk blind as night was falling. Haku sighed in annoyance, but at that moment he wasn't able to get angry with Darbi, so he ignored it.

The dragons led their 'guests' behind the rocks, where there were some rough stone buildings that they had probably erected for more comfortable sleep. There Efren, Sarah and Carlos immediately noticed two familiar faces: Martha and Lisah were in fact there and were trying to figure out what all the noise was. The group of adventurers embraced again in a similar way to how the dragons had done, happy to have met again after a long time. Seeing them so happy, Rhaegal, Corgorin, and Serengal smirked involuntarily, while Darbi didn't even try to hide it.

The dragons took a few boars and a stag from their stock; since they had quite a lot of them, since they had also hunted a lot of game during that year, they could afford to give some to their 'guests', who accepted them willingly. The gladiators immediately began skinning the animals and preparing fires to cook them. "We too have to celebrate after all!" Brenno exclaimed as he ripped off the deer's antlers. "We are free, don't forget that! So let's eat like there's no tomorrow! Do you have any alcohol too?"

"Um… I'm afraid not" Darbi replied. After all, wine and beer had never been their priorities. "But around here there are some trees that produce fruit whose juice makes you very... euphoric, so to speak. If you want to try them..."

The gladiators gladly accepted that suggestion and ran to look for those fruits. Lisah and Martha pointed them out since they knew them too. Haku looked at Darbi confused: "How did you know that?"

His brother shrugged. "I tried one of them once"

Haku was kind of weirded out. "Why did you eat fruit?" he asked, since dragons were exclusively carnivores.

"I was trying new experiences, ok? Don't judge me, I was here all alone while the others were having a good time in the human city, I needed to distract myself a bit" Darbi replied blushing slightly.

Haku wanted to ask for further clarifications (just to make fun of his brother, of course) but suddenly there was some confusion among his 'guests'. In fact, one of the gladiators had tried to take one of the slave girls to 'have fun and celebrate together', but Misune had come between the two. "We are no longer in the arena! You have no right to touch us!" she was screaming drawing attention to her. The gladiator seemed somewhat undecided whether to try to argue or let it go since he knew she was protected by the dragon.

Seeing that the situation was heating up, Haku decided to intervene: "Calm down! There's no need to quarrel" he said aloud drawing everyone's attention to himself. "Let's do this: my family has technically lived in this place for a year, so we can consider it our home. To be more precise, let's make our home go as far as there" and he pointed a hill in the distance. "Beyond this radius, you can do whatever you want. But as long as you are inside our territory, respect our rules. There is only one rule: you can eat, have fun, celebrate and so on, but you cannot kill or injure anyone else, or force them to do something they don't want to. It doesn't matter what their social status is in the nation of humans or in any other nation. Obey this rule and we can all have a good party tonight; if you break it, I or any of my other siblings we will intervene"

The slaves seemed happy with that statement. The gladiators a little less. "What about the promise to not eat or kill anyone?" someone grumbled.

"I'll respect it. I won't eat or kill anyone. But there are other ways to teach someone their place. You don't need your arms or legs to breathe, do you? And neither what's between your legs, I suppose" Haku answered, making many gladiators tremble and instinctively covered their private parts. "Good. Now that we've set the record straight, let's go celebrate"