Just My Luck -- TDP Soren Fanfic

Chapter 2 (Soren's POV)

Okay, sooo what the heck.

Were humans.

Doing.

In Xadia.

I mean, besides us. We were here, obviously, but this looked like a whole village.

Actually, some of them looked kinda familiar...

"Crown Guard Soren!" someone called, making me jump in surprise. "Thank goodness you're here!"

I glanced around and saw who was speaking -- hey, it was that physician from the hospital where I'd stayed from my injury for awhile.

So that must mean...

"What are you all doing here?" I asked, completely confuzzled. "Is it...is this the whole village? Why are you in Xadia???"

She shook her head. "It's a long story."

Other villagers were starting to take notice of me. "It's Soren!" one of them called. "He can help us!" A crowd started to gather.

I bit my lip. "Uh, what do you mean? I'm gonna hafta warn you, my dragon slaying days are over."

"Don't worry," one man said, clapping me on the shoulder. "There's no shame in being afraid. We've all been frightened out of our wits...but now that you're here, we know you can do it."

"Do...what?"

The man lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. "The dragon came back."

I blinked. "Uh. No it didn't." I knew that wasn't a thing. Like, positively one hundred percent.

"It did," he insisted. "It caused an earthquake in our village!"

"...Did you actually see the dragon?"

There was a pause. The growing crowd was completely silent.

"Er, no," the man admitted. "But it caused an earthquake with its magic!! It happened right after the dragon left. Our village was devastated! Nothing left."

"Aaaand so you came to Xadia." My voice was flat. "So the elves would finish you off?"

A woman stepped to the front of the crowd, taking over the narrative. "Our mayor was a brave man," she said. "He said the only way to stop the dragon from coming back and completely obliterating us after it recovered from its wounds would be to find it and defeat it once and for all. We had nowhere to go, so we decided to journey towards the border to Xadia. When we camped there, we realized that there was a path across the lava lit by the moon. We used that to come into Xadia so we could find the dragon and slay it with our bravest men before it could come back and destroy us all."

"Okay, so," I could see a lot of problems with this plan. "Where is this mayor guy right now?"

"He's gone. A few days ago we sent a party our foraging for food, and they were attacked by...some sort of creature," the man said. "He was in that party, and he was killed by the creature. We no longer know what to do except keep searching for the dragon. But we still have our women and children with us; there was nowhere else for them to go."

"We cannot abandon our search!" the woman cut in. "We can't let that monster wipe out our people."

"Sooooo here's the thing," I said, looking over the crowd, which was growing by the minute. It was basically most of the village by now. "I don't think that earthquake came from the dragon."

"What?" The woman sounded shocked. There were collective murmurings from the crowd. "But it had to be -- we've never had any before, and it happened right after the dragon!"

"But like...that was a sun dragon that attacked the village, and it only attacked because we-- because I... provoked it." I winced slightly, but then moved on, thinking about what Rayla had said earlier. "And well, sun dragons can't do Earth magic. If it was a fire, maybe. But I know for a fact that dragon was... somewhere else. Maybe when you guys were trying to rebuild stuff you dug too deep into building foundations and it weakened the earth enough to make an earthquake possible. I don't know. I do know that if there was an earthquake, a dragon did not cause it. Not directly, and not on purpose."

The crowd's murmurings were louder now, and it seemed like everyone was kinda freaking out. "Well what do we do now, then? Why did we even come here?" The questions were voiced by someone bear the back, and it seemed like everyone was saying similar stuff.

And everyone was looking at me to answer.

"Whoa guys..." I held out my hands. "I'm nnnot your new mayor. Though it sounds like the old one did an even stupider job than I would if I was. Um, but I might have an idea where you can stay for now. It might be a good thing you're here in Xadia actually. Elves and humans are going to be getting a lot more friendly in the next little bit."

"What are you talking about?" The physician spoke again, looking confused.

I sighed. "It's a long story. Can we all like, sit down and make it an official storytime? And hey, I'm kinda starving. Do you have any food? Oh! And while we're waiting on the food, who wants to hear my newest haikus?"

There was a collective groan. As I'd spent a week or two in the village recovering from my broken ribs enough to walk, people had heard a lot of haikus when they'd come to hail the Great Hero Who Saved The Village (From The Problem He Created). Obviously they weren't tired of them, because no one could ever get tired of such pure genius, but maybe they were just so overwhelmed by all the greatness and couldn't take any more in.

Oh, well. Another time.