A cave in the Northern Mountains.

A silvery glint in the sky cast a crow-shaped shadow at the base of the cave. A few seconds later, the pair descended. His great wings flapped, and his talons hit the rocky floor with a little click.

The horse-sized demon crow preened his feathers clear of snow, and Jun reached for a scroll in her side pouch while trying to catch a snowflake on her tongue. When she found what she was looking for, she swallowed what was left of the snowflake and trotted over to the side of the entrance, where she unraveled the paper scroll and stuck it to the rock like a poster. The scroll had a sigil drawn on it, characterized by concentric circles interspersed with runes. The black ink periodically throbbed into a softly luminescent cyan.

Blackbean, the crow, stared down at the cave's void. Jun patted herself, making sure her cloth armor and dragon scale accessories were in place. She tapped her helmet, shoulders, hips, sword sheath, and each boot. Her eyes shifted while she tapped her groin through the thick enchanted cloth. Yep, all the armor was in place. She stepped back a few paces and detached a large sack that was tied to the demon crow's avian cataphract armor. Then she turned to face the cave again.

"Hello!?" "Si mi vi thurirl!"

The first phrase was, of course, just a greeting in common. The second phrase was in draconic, and translated it meant "I am a friend." She wasn't necessarily expecting a response. She just wanted to make sure there were no dragons lurking before beginning her experiments.

Although the dragon glided down silently, its shadow alerted Blackbean to the dragon's presence just before it reached his friend.

The next thing Clama would feel was a solid thump to its side as the guardian's chest armor crashed into it just before it reached Jun. The creature's iron black beak would immediately aim for its face, and its ferociously beating wings would attempt to disorient Clama with curtains of feathers. The monstrosity would attempt to force the dragon into the stone wall outside the cave.

In any case, Jun dropped her sack and swiveled around, her hand snapping Resonance from its sheath. As the sword's metal touched the air, it blared with a blinding silver which didn't harm the eyes, but could still obscure vision. The mountain air quickly became a golden desert breeze. A chorus of alien instrumental hums seemed to accompany the mage's wrath as she began gathering power. She held the sword over her head, giving her better sight and illuminating everything around her.

"Ritrekil!" She cried in earnest.

The draconic word "cower", contextually meaning "take cover", told the dragon to turtle so she could safely call off Blackbean. She chose this word instead of "surrender", as dragons were more likely to follow direct instructions than concede their pride to a human.

Blackbean's helmet hissed and frothed as the acid ate it away. What were cries of anger became cries of panic as it struggled to dislodge itself from the dragon's teeth.

"NO!"

Though the shriek came from Jun, Clama's eyes would miss her as the glowing mage suddenly disappeared from her current position. She'd reappear right next to Clama, right in front of the teleportation beacon that Jun had placed on the rock wall earlier. The safety measure's sigil burned hot red, though not as hot as Jun's presence as her body quickly encased itself in what looked like a crystalline substance, as she charged forward.

Before the acid could make it to Blackbean's feathers, two light tendrils would spring into the crevice between Blackbean's head and the hinge of Clama's jaws. These structures were malleable yet solid, translucent, like water filled with sunlight. They would force Clama's jaws open with the unbridled strength of a frightened parent to release Blackbean.

Jun's physical body was encased in a globular mass of the strange substance, from which these tendrils sprung.

"Aurthon!" Enough! Her voice shook the cave walls as she would attempt to slam Clama's head against the wall.

Nobody fucks with Blackbean.

Though perhaps her flesh was thick enough to not feel it, she would notice that Jun's encased form was scalding hot.

With Blackbean free, Jun's temper ebbed. She was now more curious about the dragon's sudden change in demeanor. It took her a second to process that the dragon wasn't apologizing and giving her a hug, but actually trying to grab her. Huh, well that wasn't very bright. Jun was still safe inside her construct, which she could sustain for a while as long as she kept feeding it magic. Her tendrils, less inclined to try to piledrive the dragon than before, gently came down to lift Clama's wrists from her glowing case, bouncing them up and down in a mock handshake.

"Oh... you speak common. That's convenient." Her voice was coherent, but came off as watery and synthesized through the veil of her light construct protection, which itself hummed softly with magic.

Blackbean shook off the remains of his destroyed helmet and cawed angrily at the dragon. That helmet was both a shiny and a gift, both things exceedingly valuable to a crow of any size. The goopy, rusted mess continued to hiss in agony on the rocky floor.

One of the tendrils lifted into the air. Its tip crooked like a finger.

"... You know what? Fair enough."

The light construct floated back and landed next to Blackbean. The pair was now on the edge of the mountain platform where the cave entrance was located, away from the entrance. This put Clama in between her home and her supposed transgressors.

"So, since we started off on the wrong foot," Jun said as she placed her tendrils onto the helmet's ruins. "My name is Jun. My friend's name is Blackbean. And we weren't looking for you. We were just seeking out empty cave formations so we could conduct some experiments. Sadly it looks like this one doesn't qualify." As she explained, something invisible seemed to pump in from the tendrils onto the helmet. The helmet's metaphorical clock began to rewind, and the helmet started to reform to its original, shinier state. As this happened, Jun's defensive construct shrank and ebbed away. By the time the helmet was fully repaired, Jun's body was exposed, and the tendrils were reduced to thin spaghetti strands which then flickered out of existence.

Jun picked up the oversized helmet and fit it on Blackbean's head. "So that brings me to my next question. Why do you need a human?" She spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. It was clear she had lowered her defenses as a sign of parley, and she had repaired the helmet so that the magic wouldn't go to waste.

Blackbean gratefully accepted his helmet. But then he leered at the dragon mistrustfully, indignant and not as quick to forgive as Jun.

Jun blinked.

"Ok." She said spryly. She shrugged at Blackbean and went to retrieve the sack that he had carried with her. She grabbed a couple of scrolls from her side pouch and held them along with the contents of her bag. Then she started ruffling through the contents of the bag. Her back was turned to Clama as she gazed off at the mountain range. She stood somewhat precariously close to the edge.

"Luckily it's a nice view, and my experiments were gonna take a while anywa- woops."

Two scrolls fell from her bag and slipped down the mountainside, beyond her view. "Ah, well, those were blank anyways." She continued ruffling until she found what she was looking for.

Blackbean kept giving Clama the stink eye the whole time.

As Clama got close enough, Jun pulled out her prize. "Ah hah! Here, smell!" She shoved the strange object in her nostrils.

It was a black, leathery, wrinkly bundle of something or other. It smelled of cinnamon and menthol.

"I know it looks like an old burnt book, but it's actually an edible lichen that grows in parts of the Saskatoon mountains. We call it manna lichen... for some reason. It doesn't have any mana in it, but it has medicinal properties and tastes good with pine nuts." She walked past Clama and towards the cave, gesturing to it. "The idea is to farm these at very high altitudes with the help of magic, and maybe even without it. That would make it easier for humans and other creatures to live in otherwise inhospitable environments."

In the few minutes that the dragon had been gone, Jun had been busy.

Already, there were four mounds of snow sitting in a row outside the cave entrance. One had gravel scattered on top and a sample of the lichen sitting on top of that. The second was just a pile of snow, with no gravel. The other two appeared to match the first pair. The difference was something only someone magically inclined would detect. All four of them had a slight magical signature buried within the snow, but two of the signatures were a bit stronger than the others.

Jun was pulling out two more lichens from her sack when Clama returned.

I didn't think there were deer for miles around here. She's a fast flier. Interesting.

Then she saw the scrolls. "Oh."

She grinned politely. "Aww, you didn't have to do that. Thank you."

Clama would notice that the giant crow was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was an indignant, normal-sized crow sitting on Jun's shoulders, dressed in a miniature version of the cataphract armor the giant was wearing.

Jun shrugged. "It's a long story."

She took the scrolls and placed them back into her pouch. Then she held up her lichens and peered into the cave.

"Mind if I set some of these up inside the cave?"

From her pouch, Jun pulled out a magnifying glass and began examining the cave floor. Her opposite hand raised a finger, and a candlelight-style fire ignited from the tip so she could see better.

"Mmmph, I guess I'll start by saying that I know being a dragon isn't easy. It's competitive and harsh, and their challenges often scale with their immense power."

She bent down and really examined the mineral content of the cave floor. She scanned her way over towards the stream where the carcass was being dressed. As she walked, she continued. "If there's one thing I know for certain about dragons, it's that there's one thing a dragon always keeps, and must always protect: its pride."

She raised her head up to look at Clama, her giant-sized eyeball blinking within the face of the magnifying glass. "And that goes for the good and the bad ones. Even the holy dragon I met has her pride, though she does a better job of hiding it than most."

She lowered her magnifying glass, causing her eyeball to return to normal size. She smirked playfully at Clama and then pointed at the carcass. "Nice job."