How could it end like this?

I found Dolly looking at me from the window of her house. I waved at her. She glanced behind her, then opened the window.

“I’m under house arrest.”

“Are you?”

She glanced back again, then tossed the basket to me. I stepped inside it with Harl in my hands—a brief flash, and I was in her room.

“The father—” she started, but then did not continue.

“We could run away,” I said.

“The father said he was proud of me. For standing to the mother.”

I blinked a few times, and noticed that Dolly was on the verge of tears.

“He loves you, doesn’t he?” I said.

“The version of me who can do amazing things,” she chuckled through tears. 

I was glad for her, and smiled back.

We sat in silence. Well, not total silence: there were riots in the streets.

But that, one could say, was simply the pendulum swinging back from where this king had kicked it for so many years.

Dolly shrieked, and pulled out from her robe a card that was on fire; she tossed it on the floor.

“The quest?” I asked and looked closer at the quickly charring paper.

I heard a voice of that clerk in my head. “The dragon quest was rescinded on account of the death of the customer.”

After a pause, the voice continued. “I also heard that you dealt with the dragon in your own way, so…”

I felt the energy surge into me, and, thankfully, had the wherewithal to toss Harl out of the window: he enlarged mid-flight. Had I not done so, me and Dolly would’ve been splattered on the walls.

“Master!” he said from the ground. “I’m afraid I’m not small again.”

Dolly giggled, and I did too.

* * *

The days ahead weren’t easy, nor were they light. But it was balance, of sorts.

We helped where we could—Harl was of particular use in hauling heavy logs for rebuilding the city.

I had found out that when I summoned Harl in the mother’s cave, Daphne was riding him. When he disappeared, she fell into mud and didn’t speak to me for a long time.

I haven’t told her who the dragon is.

The castle wasn’t to be rebuilt. Its charred remains are standing here to this day.

In a sense, I failed as a hero—the kingdom was no more. But seeing people laugh was good enough for me.

We employed Small Folk as administrators: the king’s guard was corrupt through and through. So in the end, they did achieve their world domination, albeit a peaceful one.

And as for me—I did take Dolly, Harl, and even Bert to visit my village. But we got lost in the woods, and I haven’t been able to find my way back to it.

So instead of that we set out north, to visit mountains once again, and break the dragon free.