Chapter 10: The Only Difference 

"Is everyone bundled up?" Brandon asked as he checked on Brunhilde, Arnold, Michel, and Brenda. 

"More bundled up than we can't get them," Brunhilde said as she placed a small barrier around the wagon, making sure that everyone inside of it was warm. 

"Then let's go!" Brandon said as he urged Horace forward. 

"Brandon," Pan asked as he looked as the village was getting smaller and smaller.

"Yes, Pan," Brandon asked, as he gave Pan a soft smile. 

"Why? Why are you leaving with me? Why don't you just stay, and...?" before Pan could finish the sentence, Brunhilde was already slapping him upside the head.

"Silly boy! What is he supposed to do? Leave you to fend for yourself?" Brunhilde asked. Oh, she did not understand kids these days. They wanted their soulmates. But as soon as they got them, they started chickening out."

"But I just…" Pan said, only to be hit upside the head again. 

"No! Brandon will go through fire for you," Brunhilde snapped as she handed Brenda to Pan. "Make yourself useful. Sing her to sleep."

Pan did so. As he began to sing to the little girl, he noticed that Michel, Arnold's, and Brunhilde's son, was also looking at him. 

The boy even scooted closer to him and took a hold of his hand. And so, Pan sang. He sang about a grotto. About two murder muffins. About a merman with a heart of gold.

About an apple nymph who had never done a single bad thing in her entire life. 

"Hold, this is a paid road!" someone yelled. Soon, Pan was looking at an ogre as big as a tall tree who was rushing towards them. "If you don't want any trouble, you will have to pay."

 Then, much to Pan's amazement, Brandon actually took out a coin purse.

 "Is it the standard two coins?" Brandon asked.

 Pan looked on as the ogre blinked, then simply reached out. Soon, the coins exchanged hands, and the wagon was moving again. 

"Why did you do it?" Pan asked as soon as the ogre was out of earshot. 

"The only difference between me and that man is the fact that I have money and don't need to rob people for my survival. Didn't you see him? He has only two teeth. And his tusks," Brandon said. 

Pan looked back at the ogre, who was simply standing there and looking at them as Horace pulled them further and further away. 

"But how did you know?" Pan asked.

 "He was very hard to understand," Brandon said. "That gold won't help him much. In the forest, if one wants a loaf of bread or a cut of meat, then two gold coins would be enough for a meal. It's practically a robbery."

"And you had to pay such prices before?" Pan asked. Not being able to imagine why a dragon like Brandon needed to shop for his food.

"Yes,pretty much," Brandon said. "Still do. Once we get to the inn, the goblins will have a bit of trouble with you. But I think I can manage to talk them into letting us stay."

 "I am a nymph," Pan protested.

"Part nymph," Brunhilde corrected him. "For the goblins you are probably no better than a human."

 "But I'm really a nymph," Pan protested once more.

"But you are also part human," Arnold finally said, as he placed a hand over Pan's shoulder and gave him a little squeeze.

"Just because some people will not acknowledge that does not mean that you should ignore who you are," the guard said.

 He had kept quiet during the entire ride, and now that he saw how Pan was eating himself up, he decided that it was time to speak.

 "And what do you suggest I do then?" Pan asked.

"You can always say we are to be married," Brandon said, more than a little hopeful. "I have an engagement ring you could wear; it doesn't have to be the truth."

Brandon knew that if he ever hoped to take Pan inside the temple, then he would need to marry him. The dragon's temple was the safest place a dragon could wish for. 

Brandon was big enough to take it over, knowing that the last dragon who had owned it had died a couple of months ago. Right now, the news had not spread as widely, and he knew that, should he get to live with Pan there, they would be untouchable. 

"You want to marry me? We don't know each other! Pan hugged Brenda closer to himself. The little baby began to cry. Soon, Brunhilde was rocking her daughter once more, as she was eyeing Pan with narrowed eyes.

Brandon is the kindest man you'll meet," Brunhilde said, and she placed her baby in Arnold's arms as soon as Brenda stopped whimpering. "But if you don't want to marry him, then that is fine as well. He can make you happy with or without a ring."

"Brunhilde, stop being such a matchmaker!" Arnold said, a smile blossoming on his lips. "Let Brandon romance him. It's his job, after all."

"But Brandon, couldn't you have defeated the ogre? Why did you give him the gold coins?" Pan asked, trying to steer the conversation back towards safer waters. 

"The only difference between me and the ogre is that I can actually hunt for myself. I am one misfortune away from ending up like him," Brandon said, knowing that it was not the answer Pan wanted to hear, but it was the answer he could give. 

"And you should be kinder to the forest creatures. They are down on their luck, but most of them are good," and so, as Brandon made Horace stop before a strange inn that looked like the tent of a goblin shaman, Pan decided that maybe he should have an open mind when meeting these goblins. 

The goblins he knew were only after plunder. But if Brandon trusted these goblins, then he could trust them too.