"You are not a dirt poor Wyrmling anymore, whereas I'm a mere Emperor Beast who not only can rely solely on her bloodline legacy, but also was abandoned by a certain ungrateful apprentice without him doing anything nice for me." Faluel said.
Lith had to admit that she was right.
Sure, he had gifted the Hands of Menadion to the Hydra and had purified her stockpile of magical metals, but the former had been a gesture of friendship while the latter had been part of his training.
'Without Faluel giving me plenty of materials to practice my mastery over the purifying ability of the Origin Flames and her input whenever I made a mistake, Xenagrosh would have been forced to teach me from the basics.
'The time we spent together would have not been enough to refine my skills and I would have never learned how to use the Void Flames on my own. Both the missions in Jiera and Urgamakka Faluel assigned me were for my sake. I never really did anything for her as an apprentice.' He thought.
"Fine. This is blackmail bordering on sexual harassment, but I'll play along. Faluel, would you like to go out with me?" Lith took a red rose out of his dimensional pocket, offering it to the Hydra and doubling down on the teasing.
"What?" The girls said in unison.
Solus was too stunned to even think while to Phloria those words felt like a punch in the guts. Yet they hurt way less than what they would have done before that morning.
"I meant that I want half of the Dragon's organs and you to do something for me." Faluel had an unamused look, but she took the rose nonetheless.
"What about taking you to dinner? I promise that I'll pay for it. No excuses to share the tab." He kept playing dumb.
"No. Yes. We'll see. As I said before, someone has messed up with my turf during my absence. There is so much to do that I even had to call in a few favors, just like now."
"Really, half? Isn't half a Dragon a lot of stuff for someone who just told me how the Awakened community doesn't like exploiting a corpse?" Lith replied.
"I'll just take half the organs." Faluel said. "There's not enough skin and scales for the both of us anyway and I want to keep my reputation. By the way, I suggest you to keep the ribcage to reinforce the breastplate and to turn the skull into a helm."
"Half?" Lith liked the suggestions, yet kept repeating himself like a broken record.
"Yes, half. You can have Salaark recycle your share if you fail something whereas mine is lost forever no matter the outcome of my experiments. Be thankful that I don't ask more." Faluel poked at his nose with the flower.
"Okay." Lith slumped. "What about the rest? Do I have a deadline or what?"
"It's a date, not a job interview. We'll set the details once I catch up on the backlog. I want to enjoy my night without having to worry about work. As for you, come with a full wallet because I'm going to eat to my heart's content." Faluel shrugged.
"I meant the mission." Lith felt a bit awkward at the idea, but he didn't want to be the one to blink first in that game of chicken.
"Oh, that." She nodded. "I'm too tired to keep teaching you today so the spell will have to wait for tomorrow. Which gives you two days to put your business in order before you go."
"It sounds good to me."
"Friya, you'll accompany Lith. You need to pull your weight as my apprentice and the experience might help you break through to bright blue." Faluel said. "Before you go, I'd really love to have a tour of Menadion's tower.
"I've heard a lot about it from my mother but I've never seen a real mage tower in my whole life."
"Sure." Solus replied too fast and with a voice too stiff for her liking as she opened a Warp Steps to the Trawn woods.
'Are you really taking her out on a date?' She asked via their mind link. 'She's over ten times your age and she had children.'
'It's more like going out with a friend.' Lith couldn't see it any other way. 'We both went through a lot recently and as you always say, I could use spending some time with my friends outside of work.'
'Yeah, except that I meant me, Nalrond, Protector, or even Morok, not our teacher.' Solus grumbled.
"Excellent choice." Faluel said after taking a look at the tower's usual location. "A medium-sized geyser which currently spawns no resources and is in the middle of nowhere. Even I had forgotten about its existence."
It took Solus a few seconds to materialize the tower and let them in. The Hydra envied and marveled at Menadion's legacy more with each floor she visited, ending the tour by flipping Lith off for always being so stingy.
The sun had reached the zenith and it was lunchtime. Elina invited Friya and Phloria to share the meal with the rest of the Verhen family and they gladly accepted. Quylla had gone out with Morok, and without their parents, the Ernas household felt too big for just the two of them.
Lith told his parents about the events of that morning and Solus proudly showed everyone Threin's painting before using a hologram to share with them the memory she had recovered.
"I can do better." Aran was unimpressed by the bold and dramatic brushstrokes that Threin had used to express his emotions while also adding a feeling of movement to the flying petals surroundings the scene.
To Lith, the painting reminded of a Van Gogh, to Aran, it looked like one of his drawings when he smeared the colors on purpose to cover a mistake.
"Get your hands off!" Solus scolded the children whose first reaction was to touch the paint with their small fingers covered in gravy sauce.
Thanks to the stop at the tower, she had regained most of her strength and could enjoy the meal in her human form.
"Silverwing may be too overprotective, but she could have helped you to regain your memories." Raaz said. "Why didn't you at least ask her for a way to find her in the case you need help?"
"Dad, if Aunt Loka wasn't so fixated on the idea of "rescuing me", I would have invited her here for lunch and introduced her to you." Solus replied. "If I give her an inch, she would misinterpret it for a call for help and make our life impossible."
"I can't condone her actions either, yet as a mother, I can understand how she feels." Elina said. "Everyone that Silverwing loved is dead and the world she knew no longer exists. To her, you are the last remnant of a past that she can't let go of."
When Lith told them about Faluel's lesson and how the mutual teasing had ended up in planning for a date, he received mixed reactions.
"I'm proud of you, son." Raaz patted his back.. "You are finally back in the game and Faluel is a keeper."
