The quiet comfort of being in town vanished faster than I had expected.

One moment there were market stalls, city guards, and enough people around to pretend we weren’t walking toward possibly an ancient dragon problem. The next, the northeastern road thinned under our boots, the trees pressed in closer on both sides, and all my cowardly excuses to turn around began sounding a lot harder to defend.

Celeste kept a steady pace at the front. At some point she had decided stopping would only give me time to say something stupid. Reika walked near me with her ears turning toward every sound in the trees, her usual curiosity sharpened into something akin to being on edge. Her tail jumping every now and then at a new sound.

Valka followed on my other side, looking more comfortable away from the crowds, though she still went a little still whenever the Tyrant Dragon Empress came up.

"Does anyone else feel wildly underqualified for an ancient dragon rescue?" I asked, my voice sounding thinner than I wanted against the quiet of the road. "It just seems crazy to me that you all just accepted it so easily..."

"We are just finding the dungeon she’s being held in, Adrian..." Celeste said without looking back. "Not wrestling the dragon princess. At least, not today." She let out a soft giggle after.

"That last part didn’t really help as much as you think it did..." I said letting out an anxious sigh. "I hope this goes as well as you seem to think it will Celeste..."

"What could go wrong? Aren’t we just going to find a new friend?" Reika slowed a little, her ears twitching toward the road ahead. "The road is too quiet..."

I was about to ask what she meant when I saw the rope stretched across the road.

A cart had two wheels off and sat across the path, and four men waited near it in the kind of mismatched gear that looked official only if you squinted and had never seen what real authority looked like before.

One wore a stained officials outfit, likely stolen from the original owners of the broken down cart. Another had a dented helmet sitting too tight on his head. The one in front held a ledger, though I was pretty sure he was squinting at the book upside down.

"Official road crossing tax," the leader announced, puffing out his chest. "All who wish to cross must pay the fee,"

For half a second, I almost believed him. Fantasy bureaucracy sounded exactly stupid enough to be real.

"It’s definitely fake..." Celeste said instantly under her breath. She leaned closer, her eyes staying on the men. "Their boots aren’t right for guards, and that cart was set to block the way, not haul supplies..."

Valka looked at me with a sharp little glint in her eyes. "Am I allowed to..." She stopped for a moment before finishing her thought. "...remove them?"

"Let me try talking to them first, no need to go in with our guns blazing..." I said, stepping forward before our first official road problem turned into Valka testing how far a man could fly without wings.

The leader’s eyes moved over our supplies, then over the girls, and his confidence grew in the worst possible direction. "Dangerous company you’re keeping," he said, letting his gaze settle on Valka. "That’ll be an extra fee for a demi-human to cross,"

Valka smiled.

That was when I knew diplomacy had died.

She stepped forward before I could say another word. The man’s hand went to the rusted shortsword at his hip, but Valka caught his wrist before the blade was able to be pulled from its sheath. She bent the cheap metal just enough for it to audibly groan, then grabbed the chain she had bought in town and yanked the rope barrier down in one violent pull.

"Tell me," Valka said, her voice smooth and terrifyingly polite. "Does this toll include medical coverage for workers injured on duty?"

The men decided very quickly that it did not. They scrambled back, dragging their cart with them and vanishing into the brush with all the dignity of rats caught stealing bread. I watched them go, then looked at Valka, who seemed pleased but not even slightly winded.

Celeste started walking again like the matter was finished. "Not every problem is going to be just a monster, Adrian. Some are just predators looking for the unprepared. Waiting in the dark to take what they think is their’s"

"I thought you’d make fun of me for trying to talk to them."

"You tried," she said, glancing back at me. "That was the important part."

Reika lingered near the ditch where the fake toll men had dropped a few things in their hurry. She crouched down and pulled out a torn tarp, some dry cord, a handful of stakes, and a small tin that smelled sharp and unpleasant when she opened it.

"Isn’t that stealing?" I asked, watching my fox companion commit theft. "They did run off I guess..."

"They tried to rob us," Reika said simply, tucking the cord under one arm. "This is the real road tax."

Valka nodded like that was the first fair law she had heard all day, and Celeste did not object, which told me everything I needed to know.

By the time the sky began to darken through the trees, Celeste called for us to stop. I looked around at the dirt, roots, bugs, and general lack of anything shaped like a bed, then prepared myself for the kind of night that built character by making you hate the ground.

Reika took over before I had a chance to complain. She moved with sudden, practiced purpose, picking a spot on a slight rise where the trees were able to block the wind from one side. It was close enough to the road that we could find it again in the morning, but far enough back that no one passing by would see us unless they were looking carefully.

She checked over the ground, brushed aside leaves, studied the branches overhead, then started working like she had done this a hundred times.

The tarp went up first, tied between two trees. The cord followed, then stakes, then branches layered along the side to block the wind. She shaped the ground under the shelter with leaves and grass, then scraped out a small fire pit with enough care that it was apparent she knew exactly just what she was doing.

"It’s defendable, good job Reika," Valka said as she inspected the edge of the camp. "This will prove worthy," She shot me a look after those words.

Celeste checked one of the knots, then another, her expression tightening in the way I recognized it did when she was impressed and trying not to make a big deal out of it. "I’m not sure how, but this is actually very good."

"Where did you learn all that?" I asked, watching Reika finish the fire pit like she had been born annoyed by bad campsites. "You’ve been teasing me all day, and now you’re suddenly a... uhh survival expert I guess?"

Reika did not look up right away. "I spent a long time outside... before I decided people were safe to trust," she said, patting the dirt flat near the stones. "Soft beds are nice, Adrian, but safe cover matters more."

I looked at the small shelter, then at the darkening road beyond the trees. The mission still felt insane, and the words Tyrant Dragon Empress had not gotten any less ridiculous since lunch, but for the first time since leaving town, it felt a little less impossible.

I had expected the road to teach me how useless I was. Instead, it mostly taught me that Reika had been hiding an entire survival manual behind those ears. Then Reika crawled under the shelter first, stretched out across the layered bedding, and looked back at me with her tail curling slowly behind her.

"Master should join us and test it," she said, patting the space beside her. "Shelter is safer when everyone is close."

I looked at the narrow shelter, then at the three women already deciding how much room I was allowed to have, and realized the dungeon might not be the most dangerous thing waiting for me tonight.

I crawled into the makeshift shelter, it honestly looked bigger inside than it had on the outside. The girls all waited for me in a cluster, their arms open ready for some midnight fun. Inside I was screaming. How would I manage to please all three of them this time?

"You all want me? Now? In the woods?" I nervously asked. "What if something tries to attack us?" My mind kept going fuzzy at the thought of a foursome.

"Don’t make us wait too long Adrian..." Celeste said quietly, her face becoming flush after. "Just get over here!"