“I know who you talk about, and monstrous fish don’t make good lovers as humans do,” said Eliana before she turned around and pulled herself away from the hybrid.
Vaeludar sighed and looked at the starry night. Finally, after all these years, I can now be happy with humans around me, he thought. He proceeded to walk back to rejoin the party with the people who came to adore him after what happened that morning.
Hours passed like birds flying south for the winter. The party was dimming and the people were going back into their homes, having their stomachs filled with good food. In the middle of the night, Vaeludar saw the servants cleaning up after the people that left without cleaning up their own messes.
Vaeludar stood by and watched the servants clean up the piled messes as he also helped the few servants staying so near to midnight. He picked up bones and bitten fruits trashed around the fields in his hands and blew a small fire on everything he touched. His dragon fire turned the trashed food to ashes and spread the ashes around the fields, as ash from dragon fire make good fertilizer.
During his little cleanup, a long Unicorn walked up to the hybrid. Vaeludar ceased his cleaning production and gazed upon the first white unicorn walking to him.
“Taking responsibility for someone else’s duties?” asked the Unicorn.
“People working in the dead of night need some help with this big mess, so I’m deciding to help out. And if you don’t mind me asking, you’re the Unicorn King, aren’t you? The Unicorn walking around this village late at night.”
“Yes, I am the Unicorn King. There had been talk of you for years. We thought it was only rumors… until now. We all gaze upon the son of the dragon scientist Ralenskrit and the human scientist Belverda. Both were excellent partners in science affairs.”
“You know them?” asked Vaeludar.
“Everyone knows them. They must much renown throughout the island. They discovered ways to make life better without the properties of magic. They were a strange pair, strangely enough there are rumors they do unusual experiments. And I mean very unusual experiments at some laboratory somewhere down south, if I heard correctly.”
Vaeludar remembered something once the Unicorn King said “experiments at some laboratory.” He remembered seeing the word “Secret Laboratory” on the map of the island on the cloth he threw into the Greenwood Forest earlier that day.
“These experiments…” asked Vaeludar. “Where did they take place?”
“I don’t know,” answered the Unicorn King. “They only mentioned have some kind of secret laboratory. I never saw it with my own eyes.”
“Did they ever mention something about an ancient castle in the northern part of the island or talk of any Sirens in the southeast?” asked Vaeludar.
“No,” said the Unicorn King, suspiciously. “What are you getting at?”
“Earlier today, after I have slain the Minotaur, one of Geraldus’s twin boys had a piece of cloth. It showed the map of Shimabellia. It had three locations marked on every corner of the island. I really couldn’t tell what it was supposed to mean.”
“Where is this piece of cloth?” the unicorn asked.
“I threw it back into the Greenwood Forest,” said Vaeludar. “I saw the twin boys come running out of the forest, with the Minotaur behind them. Arron and Nerio nearly destroyed a village and I had to put down a monster just for a worthless piece of a cloth. A washcloth from what I saw.
“So I don’t know if it was supposed to be important or meaningless. I gauss at this point we’ll never know. I threw the cloth back into the forest.”
The Unicorn King tilted his head toward the Greenwood Forest. “Then I think it's for the best then. Shouldn’t bother going into the forest. Whatever goes into the forest will never come out.”
“But there is some concern of the boys,” said Vaeludar. “They went into the forest without anyone seeing them entering, and they came out without a scratch. I wonder what provoked them into going. They can cause a lot of mischief, but I never thought they would go that far.”
“You should talk to those boys,” said the Unicorn. “You should get the answers from them.”
“No, I really don’t need to. What would be the point? The Minotaur is dead, the village is safe, and no one died during my fight. And those boys are the sons of Geraldus. He has to be the one to discipline them…” He sniffed the air and he could smell the scent of more fur, but it wasn’t a bull’s hair he smelled; it was dog’s fur.
“What is it?” asked the Unicorn King. “What do you smell?”
“I smell fur, as I did this morning right before the Minotaur came running out of the woods,” said Vaeludar. He could smell the furry scent coming from the Greenwood Forest. “It smells like a dog.”
Vaeludar followed the strange scent close to the borders of the village and the Greenwood Forest. When he drew closer, there was a loud wolf howl.
It was the howl of a wolf but with evil snarling and bull grunts. The treetops were moving. A sudden hard gush of wind spread through the dark forest behind Vaeludar. Leaves were torn and being blown around Vaeludar’s dragon feet.
Vaeludar heard snarling coming from behind the darkness of the tall trees. He backed away from the blowing trees slowly, without turning his eye away from what may be lurking from within the forest.
Out from the bushes, seven black-furred, blood-eyed, hound-looking Black Dogs softly walking like wolves. They were walking menacingly towards Vaeludar, growling frightfully.
Vaeludar growled back; he wasn’t going to back down from another fight. He fought against a large Minotaur that morning and discovered his skin couldn’t be cut.
