Chapter 1301 You Don't Eat People
Karl nodded and opened a portal into the Tiny World.
"Dana, if you could lead them through, we will start at the lake so that they can meet with some of the other residents." He offered.
They didn't have to wait that long, as Button came flying out of the portal in dragon form to crash into Dana, then spin her in circles by flapping while holding her shirt.
"Here, we have Button. Our resident foodie Forest Dragon helps with egg collecting, and likes long swims in the lake, or naps on the black stone of the mountains." Karl joked.
Button nodded happily. Yes, those were both good things, but it was breakfast time now.
{We need to go. It's shakshuka day.} She insisted.
"Alright, let's go. Here, have this until we get there." Dana replied.
She wrapped an arm under the dragon and carried the metre long, thirty kilo reptile like a baby as she fed Button a pancake.
Matron Aliah, the new matron for the Tiny World's dragons, chuckled at Dana's attempts to calm the forest dragon. It was doomed to fail in about five seconds, as you couldn't turn a forest dragon upside down without confusing their sense of direction.
At least not the young ones.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Button was leaping out of Dana's arms to fly around her head. Then she noticed Hawk, who was in Demon Crow form, and realized that there were other flying creatures her size.
Maybe she could keep up with this one. Everyone else was too big and fast, or didn't have wings.
She was doomed to disappointment, as even in this reduced form, Hawk still had the speed that he always had, and that had only increased with his advancement to the Mythic Rank and his evolution into a Dark Flame Phoenix.
As with most forms of Phoenix, he was incredibly adept in the air, and could fly close to the speed of sound.
There was no way that the young Forest Dragon could keep up. But on the other hand, Hawk despised putting that much effort into anything that didn't end with food, so he was much more comfortable flying at her speed than anyone else.
So, not a total loss.
Hawk followed her into the portal, as he had heard the magic words 'food is ready'. There had better be meat.
The Elves were bad about making enough meat.
The rest of the dragons followed Dana and the two flying miscreants through the portal, then paused as they heard the cook cussing at Button. "Did you deliberately bring me dozens more people to cook for? You know that you're supposed to warn me." She was grumbling.
"Miss, don't be too mad at the little one. We have already eaten, she was just excited to bring her Dana Mage and the bird to see you." Patron Axel replied.
"And she brought men into the space? Now I'm going to have to get dressed in the morning." The elf added.
The dragon laughed, the glow from his red eyes flickering with amusement. "If it helps, I spend almost all my time in dragon form, so pants are definitely optional."
The other men shrugged, and Rashid smiled. "The Bronze Dragon isn't a prude. If the rules say no clothes needed, then there are no clothes needed."
The druid on cooking duty gave him a long look over. "I think that this might work out just fine."
The Bronze Dragon gave her a cautious smile. "I'm not sure that we're thinking of the same set of duties for this deployment."
She just shrugged. "You're a bit young, but I can add it to the regulations if it makes you feel better."
That made Rashid smile. He was three hundred years old, but given her middle-aged appearance, the Elf should be closer to seven hundred. Maturity wise, they should be close, but she was definitely more aggressive about relationships, when he had always focused his energies on legal analysis.
Button frowned. "Sister Cara says that if you want to find out what someone tastes like, you should just lick them."
That brought the flirting to a screeching halt.
"Pardon?" The incredulous bronze dragon asked.
"Auntie looks like she would like to eat you, but you're not allowed to eat people. I asked the badger big sister, and she said that it's alright to just taste test them if you don't use teeth." Button explained simply.
The cook winked at him. "You hear that? It's fine, just a taste."
Rashid cleared his throat and made a mental note to look into the 'creative interpretations' of legal precedent that the Chaos Badger might have been teaching the young dragon. Letting her babysit was a mistake, but he suspected that it was actually impossible to stop her.
The badger and forest dragon were the same size, and they could escape through spaces too small for others to follow them without a transformation spell or teleportation.
Bertie, one of the youngest of the red dragons present, giggled. "I am getting visions of random people being licked by a forest dragon."
The cook shook her head. "That was two weeks ago, she knows what all the species taste like now."
Axel, the new Patron assigned to the Tiny World, turned to Karl. "We really do need to have a talk about the parenting methods of the Darklight Host. Did you at least assign a responsible adult to her care?"
"Well, there are all the ones in here. But..." Karl began.
"But Ophelia the Werebear is the closest thing to a responsible adult caretaker that we have in the Guild, if you don't count Red Dragon Priestesses." Dana finished.
Karl mentally checked the space, and found that Tessa and Thor were not here today. Nor were any of the other ladies, so it must be a dungeon run day. Thor liked to wait outside for them to exit the Overlord Rank dungeon.
Axel nodded. "We were informed that there was an Overlord Ranked High Priestess here in the Darklight Host. If it weren't for the unique circumstances, she would have likely been nominated for the role of Matron.
However, with so many dragon eggs, it was deemed to be appropriate to send actual dragons for the job, so she wouldn't get bullied."
The thought made Dana laugh quietly. Bullying Tessa was not easy.