The dragon's harem

Standing at the frozen cliff, Alicia fell to her knees, shaking in fear just from hearing the wind blowing by her side, feeling the cold, and seeing the curvature of the world. She couldn’t even stand; she knew what she would see over the edge, an endless drop, unlike anything she had seen before.

“Jump, a leap of faith, literally, figuratively, and one done in reality to prove your own will and obedience. Can you follow orders even when they sound absurd?” Isdis stood behind her, looking at her with a large smile, glowing blue eyes, and fluttering hair beneath the radiant cyan sky.

Alicia giggled nervously, “Sadly, it seems that I can’t. My knees are frozen, my legs are paralyzed, and my guts are turning. I feel lightheaded, and I might pass out any second now.” She growled. “This is the end of the road for me; I physically cannot force my body to move.”

“Then? Are you giving up?” As Isdis asked, Alicia smiled.

“Me? Give up?” She laughed, “If I was such a reasonable person, I wouldn’t have had the courage to pull a stunt and try to sneak into Camilla’s test.”

With one swing of her hips, Alicia rolled aside and fell over the edge, screaming. “LOOK AT ME GO!” And she then passed out of fear, then woke up, and passed out again the moment she found herself still falling.

Isdis looked over the edge and asked herself. “Now, how do I catch her?” After a moment of thinking, she jumped after her with a nonchalant face.

Isdis fell, and she was falling fast, faster than Alicia, since she was heavier thanks to her armor. She reached the maid in seconds and grabbed her with one arm while extending the other toward the ground.

Unlike Ceil, who took Camilla into a part of Merlin’s labyrinth, Isdis took Alicia with her all the way to Arad’s small world, and this was the planet they were falling toward. Merlin couldn’t help them, but Isdis could still call Arad or one of the drakainas living in this world. It won’t take a great wyrm more than seconds to fly into the upper atmosphere to catch them.

But, Isdis wasn’t going to need their help. She was one of Arad’s wives, and even though she wasn’t the strongest, the fastest, nor the most magically gifted, she was still far more powerful than regular people by a lot.

The longer they fell, the faster they got, and due to their combined weight, their falling speed was enough to cause the friction of the air to start heating them like they were a meteor. Throwing one of her arms forward, Isdis absorbed the heat into her body to prevent them both from getting incinerated.

For now, they survived getting burned, so what is next? She had to figure out a way to land safely from this height. It took her a few moments of thinking before she could dig a memory that she almost forgotten, one of her as a mere four years old sliding down a long slide in the castle’s playground with Rey and Ray.

She smiled, “That might work.” She started absorbing more and more heat from the surrounding air as they fell and stored both the heat and cold generated from her temperature magic inside her body.

Temperature magic allowed her to freely manipulate thermal energy as long as her body could bear the load, and so, she tried to see her upper limits. Parts of her body burned, and other parts froze as she reached the peak of what she could handle, but Isdis never stopped, and instead expanded her magic outward like an elemental expansion, trying to create more space to manipulate heat than her body.

As she collected more and more thermal energy, she quickly reached a peak, and it was time to act. On the ground, several drakainas had already sensed her aura and were looking up, terrified and wondering whether they should help her or not, would they be getting in her way?

Isdis swung one arm toward the ground and shouted. “FLARE!” A burst of compressed blue flames exploded from her fingers and flashed downward, reaching the sea in mere seconds, and exploded like a nuke. All of the heat she collected was released in a single point, resulting in a blast powerful enough to splatter the sea and cause a several-kilometer-wide wave to emerge.

Isdis’s second move was coming right after. She swung her other arm and unleashed a cloud of freezing cold magic, charged to the absolute limit of her ability.

When the cloud of cold magic washed over the wave, it froze it solid on the spot. The drakainas watching gasped, some of them fled, and most just growled, unable to believe their eyes as they saw a wave almost eight kilometers tall standing in the middle of the sea.

Isdis reached the peak of the frozen wave with Alicia in her arms, and she hit it at an angle, sliding down at its side to slowly dissipate the force of their fall. But even with that, it was still a massive stress on her knees, and she had to use the ice to coat her legs to strengthen them.

As Isdis slid down, Alicia never woke up. She had passed out several times and eventually stopped waking up. Isdis was a bit concerned with her, so she had to slow down quickly and give her a healing potion. Soon, she reached the bottom of the wave and could see the sea ahead of her. She was sliding at a massive speed, so Alicia would die if they crashed into the water, so instead, Isdis jumped and immediately began running as she landed on the water.

Each time the sole of Isdis’s steel boot touched the water, it froze a path of its surface for her to stand and use as footing, and when she jumped, the force would shatter that ice, consume kinetic energy, and slow her down.

Minutes later, Isdis was walking on the sea surface, heading toward a nearby beach with Alicia in her arms. On there, a white wyrm drakaina looked at her with a scared face; even her pale white scales looked paler.

“Did you… just fall… from space, and survived? While keeping that human alive?”

Isdis threw the drakaina a glance and smiled. “Do any of us look dead to you? Don’t worry about that mountain of ice; it will slowly melt in the coming days.” She walked toward the drakaina and put Alicia on the ground.

“Can I have a healing potion for her? One for me as well.” Isdis spoke and the drakaina nodded. “Of course, I’ll bring some from my layer immediately.” But before she could fly away, Isdis sighed. “I’m not talking to you.”

It was only then that the drakaina realized… Arad was standing between her two massive front legs. When did he get there? Why couldn’t she sense him? And is he angry that she didn’t fly up to catch Isdis?

With one step, Arad appeared beside Isdis with two potions in his hands. He handed one to her and poured one down Alicia’s throat before casting healing magic on them.

“That was too risky, jumping down without a plan.” Arad stared at Isdis, and she smiled. “Shows are boring when you know their ending. And don’t lie, you like it when we manage to achieve something crazy.”

Arad smiled. “Indeed, but I don’t like the risk involved. You managed to fall from the upper atmosphere without dying, but that would only work if you were falling into the sea, if you had enough magic, and if the density of the air was just right.”

Isdis smiled and approached him. “You would’ve saved us if I couldn’t land.” She reached up to his face and kissed him. “Do I get a reward for such an achievement?”

Arad pulled her tighter, “What do you want?”

She could feel his massive hand on her butt, and she couldn’t endure it any longer. “Let’s play a bit here before she wakes up.”