This is a multi-chapter work. Please start the adventure with Part 1. I will assume you know what's going on and won't tolerate comments from those who can't be bothered to start at the beginning.
~~~
With the success that we'd had in the trades with the Missouri miners, Xill had quickly become addicted to the special attributes the silver offered him.
At breakfast, he told the girls that he was planning to send me to Arizona. He'd heard there was lots of silver there.
Liss expressed concerns about me traveling alone and grumbled about how long I would be away. Xill countered that - while he'd had quite the adventure traveling with me to deal with the hag - he would much rather remain in his lab. He reminded her that he was still working on her special project.
Everyone was quiet for a moment and then Liss asked if there was anything to prevent her from going with me.
Kuss started to open her mouth but her mother promptly said, "Don't tell me I'm too old - or that I have a family waiting at home who'll miss me. You and the boys wouldn't even know I was gone. You never visit."
I turned to my lover to intervene on Kuss' behalf but Kuss answered first.
"I can't live with you anymore, Mother. I have a husband. We've visited more in the last couple months than we have in years and yet you throw guilt at me for how little I care about you?"
Liss looked at her and got silent for a moment or two
"You're right. I'm sorry," Liss told her.
"What witchcraft is this?!" Xill exclaimed. "The dragon doesn't apologize!"
The absolute certainty of his words told me that it was the first time he'd heard his mother-in-law respond in that manner. I couldn't help it, I started laughing. The three of them stared at me like I was crazy but then finally joined me.
I got out of my seat, collected my fiancé in my arms, returned to my chair, and set her on my lap.
"Your daughter loved our gift, my dragoness," I told her.
After a moment, Kuss said, "I did. It is beautiful."
"You told me," her mother responded softly to her child. "It is not nearly so beautiful as my baby girl."
"I love you, mother."
"Then let me travel with my husband," Liss asked, softly.
Kuss' eyes shifted to me - then to her own husband - and back to her mother.
"To be quite honest, Mother, two months ago the boy was lying in a pool of his own blood because of his poor choices."
"I'll help him choose better."
"He's reckless ..." Kuss told her.
"Fearless ..." her mother countered.
"Dim-witted ..." Kuss said.
"Hey!" I interjected - both of them completely ignored me.
"Stout-hearted ..." my lover replied to her daughter.
"Ignorant ..." Kuss continued.
"Observant ..." her mother countered.
"Inexperienced ..." Kuss said.
"Powerful ..." Liss stated.
"Mother!" Kuss exclaimed in exasperation.
"I'll use the boy's logic on you then - as he did me. Do you think me incapable, senile, or unintelligent?" she asked her daughter.
"No," Kuss moaned, dropping her face into her palms.
"I have fire in my blood, again, for the first time in years," Liss told her, "because of this boy. I protected you, taught you, and nurtured you when you were his age. If he is willing, let me train him. Please. When he is away from me, I spend hours distracting him from his work just so that I can hear his voice."
Kuss went still.
After a moment, Liss turned to her son-in-law, and said, "Make the flying-machine fireproof and teach me to operate it."
"I will obey, mighty dragon," Xill said, lowering his head to her.
"Daughter?" she said, turning back to Kuss.
"Mother?" Kuss replied, not looking up.
"Make me a few healing potions, please, so that I can patch my reckless lover back together when he rushes headlong to his own oblivion. I'll pay you handsomely."
Kuss' whimpering sigh turned into a fit of giggles. She stepped forward to wrap her mother in a hug. I threw my arms around them both and held them as the rest of their pent-up emotions spilled out through their eyes, running down their cheeks in rivulets.
As we separated, Kuss looked at me and quietly began an apology, "My words were inaccurate ..."
"Not entirely," I said, kissing her cheek. "I still owe you so much."
"Less and less each day," she said, glancing at her mother.
Liss kissed her daughter's forehead and gave her another squeeze.
~~~
By the next day, Xill had upgraded the flying-rig and Liss had mastered operating it with her magic. After lunch, the four of us began making our way to the Prius. The plan was that my gnome lover and I would drop Xill and Kuss off at their home and head off to Arizona. Along the way, we'd collect up more foodstuffs, chocolate, and honey-mead. When we stopped for the mead, we'd check on the hag.
While we were away, Xill would continue to work on finding a way for me to fuck a baby into his mother-in-law. He said that he would also be acquiring a second Prius so that he and Kuss would have transportation, in case they needed it, while we were traveling.
Thinking about playing Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, I jokingly told him that the next Prius should be blue and should be named Sapphire. He said that sounded perfect.
Liss had made us promise to stop for crème horns on the way back to the City of Champions.
Since Xill was going to have to walk anyway, Kuss didn't have me carry her as we followed the paths back to our waiting chariot.
Liss hovered and I walked in front; Xill and his wife tagged along behind. I had been distracted, talking to my lover, and I'd grown accustomed to making this trek without worrying about the trolls. I realized my error when I heard a guttural roar and looked up to see a small tree trunk flying towards us.
I put both hands on the flying-rig and shoved Liss forward as hard as I could. I had taken a half-step after her, to evade the troll's missile, but one of the branches caught me in the chest as it flew by. The force of it carried me with it for twenty feet before dumping me, barely conscious and in great pain, into the tall grass. I heard the tree trunk smash into something farther on.
Kuss and Xill were hovering over me in seconds. I could feel the healer working as her husband stood there, looking at my body, no doubt trying to figure out how much of his work I had just fucked up. I had no clue where Liss was but I hoped she was okay.
I heard a fearsome roar and Xill glanced over to where the trolls were.
"Liss!" I yelled - or tried to. I still didn't have that much strength.
I tried to get to my feet but Kuss wouldn't let me up.
"If he can stand, he should see this," Xill told his wife.
She sighed and the two of them got me to my feet. Kuss went back to healing me again. Xill pointed at a huge smoldering circle of charred earth. In the center of it were the trolls.
Liss was some sort of fire-mage. She had evoked some kind of spell that turned her into a Gods-honest dragon, made entirely of living flames of fire. As I watched, she continued to bathe the trolls in torrents of flame that gushed forth from the dragon's mouth like water from a firehose. The blazing stream hit the trolls and knocked them onto their heels. Only their anger and dim-wittedness prevented them from realizing the futility of their actions. Any thinking creature would have been running for their lives.
Five streaks of flame appeared in the air and slammed into one of the trolls as if the dragon had swiped at it with a physical claw. Blood oozed from their many injuries. Regardless of the fact that these beasts could regenerate health, it was obvious that they would both be dead before long.
Anything they picked up to throw at Liss combusted and turned to ash before it had made it halfway to where she was flying in the air. I suddenly realized why she had told Xill to make the rig fireproof. She hadn't said 'flame-resistant', she had said 'fireproof'. This little hottie who had stolen my heart was a fucking fire-breathing dragon!
Kuss stepped back. Everything she could do had been done. I began walking towards my fiancé. She was even more beautiful than usual. As she moved her arms and opened her mouth to scream, tongues of physical flame came into being, swirled around her, and bent to her wishes. I got close enough that I could feel the heat from her fiery form.
I watched as Liss slashed the fire-claws at the trolls' bodies one last time. They fell to the ground and stopped moving. She glared at them, seething with fury, waiting for them to give her another reason to attack. She caught sight of me and the flames disappeared. She leapt from the flying-rig directly into my arms. I hugged her tightly and kissed her fiercely.
When I had satisfied myself that she was unharmed, I asked, "Have you been keeping secrets from me, my little dragon?"
"Nothing you need to worry about, my faithful steed," she replied, nipping my lower lip and kissing me harshly once again.
After the kiss, I pressed my forehead to hers and stared into her eyes. I noticed "the kids" coming to join us.
"Come, my love," she told me. "Those brutes have been in this area quite some time. They will have a cave somewhere. Let's go and claim our loot."
She summoned the flying-rig. I used the snitches and my tracking skill and soon we found their hiding place. Among the decayed and half-decayed bodies, we discovered a small treasure of coins, weapons, jewelry, and stolen goods.
By the time we returned to the troll corpses, the charred area had cooled enough that we could approach them. Liss touched the bodies and stored them away, informing me that they would be valuable if we found the right armorer.
We walked the rest of the way to Ruby and set off on our journey.
~~~
