I scowled at him. “Shut up. It’s not adorable. I’m not scared.”
“Okay, then,” he said, bending over quickly and scooping up a chunk of rock. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I dropped this down the hole just to see if we can get this thing up here.”
He held out his arm over the opening, stone in hand.
And smirked.
“Ho, don’t you do it!” I squeaked. And then coughed. “I mean, uh. We don’t want to hurt it, Ryan. Gosh. That would just be mean, okay? I’ll… I’ll take care of it.” I licked my lips.
“All right.” He took a step back and nodded toward the hole. “Get to it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll just… do. That.”
I took a step toward the edge, already imagining the snake dragon monster thing that would come for me the moment I opened my mouth. It would probably be the largest thing in the world and would have really big fangs and spit poison in my mouth as it wrapped around me and slowly choked me, its tail rattling back and forth, its slit-eyes trained on me as it slowly drove me insane from fear. I’d probably end up shitting myself.
We took the worst trips.
I hated destinies with a passion.
I looked down into the hole. Cleared my throat. Opened my mouth and said, “Hey. Uh. Dragon.”
Nothing happened.
“Um. So. Do you want to come up here or…?”
Silence.
“No? That’s… uh. Cool. I’m totally cool with that. You do you, dude. That’s the only way to be.”
Ryan snorted from behind me.
I glared over my shoulder at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, holding up a hand to placate me. “I just wonder what the rest of Verania would think if they heard the guy that’s supposed to save them trying to summon a dragon saying you do you, dude.”
“Oh?” I snapped. “You’ve got a better idea, asshole?”
“Sam, I think any idea is a better idea. You could’ve started with Flora Bora Slam and it would’ve been a better idea.”
“Hey! I only work with what I’m given, okay! Just because you wanted to drop a rock down the hole, doesn’t mean you get to make fun of my idea. And I’ll have you know, Flora Bora Slam is still considered to be one of the greatest nonspells ever created. They put that shit on shirts, Ryan. They sell shirts with Flora Bora Slam on them.”
“I’m in a calendar,” Ryan said smugly. “It’s always the most popular month.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “You have epic nipples. I used to buy it every year and masturbate furiously to—I mean, I read it for the articles.”
He frowned. “You read… the calendar for the articles?”
I nodded. “Exactly. Oh no. Look at the time. Maybe we should just come back tomorrow. Or never. Never is good also.”
Ryan started forward. “I’ll just drop this rock down and then we can go.”
I gave a hoarse battle cry as I jumped on his back, trying to reach for the rock to stop him from calling up the gigantic snake of doom.
“Oh yes,” he grunted, trying to hold the hand with the rock as far away from me as possible. “Because that was an appropriate response. Get off me, you weirdo!”
“Give me the damn rock, Foxheart!”
“Never!”