Cessilia jumped to cover her mouth, a second too late. A lot of people had already turned their eyes to the little group of girls, curious or doubting their ears, and her cousin’s jaw fell too.

“You should shout it louder,” grumbled Tessa, poking Naptunie’s flank.

“B-b-but I thought you were just teasing me!”

“Who are you guys?” asked Nana’s cousin, frowning and staring at the two of them from head to toe. “What do you know about the dragon?”

“S-sorry,” said Cessilia. “He c-came with us...”

“More like we came with him,” added Tessa. “...Did he hunt anything yet?”

“It sure did! That dragon killed three cows already!” exclaimed Beli. “And everyone is scared it will eat them next!”

“He d-doesn’t eat humans... anymore.”

“Anymore?” repeated Nana, shocked.

“He’s n-nice,” added Cessilia quickly, a bit embarrassed. “Anyway, we c-can t-tell him to stay away from the c-cattle. He’s j-just hungry... We will p-pay you for the c-cows he ate.”

“Fine...” said Beli, her eyes on Cessilia’s golden choker. “If you can guarantee it really won’t eat anyone, I guess... I’ll try to talk to the others. But can’t it eat anything other than our livestock? We already don’t have many!”

Tessa looked around them.

“Well, I guess as long as we give him enough, he probably can go on a fish diet...”

“N-Nana,” said Cessilia, turning to her. “C-can we b-buy three really b-big fish like the ones we saw? The b-biggest ones should b-be enough for now.”

Nana’s eyes lit up right away.

“Of course! I’ll ask my uncles to get them ready for your dragon!”

She immediately ran to talk to one of the men behind the stalls, explaining the situation quickly. Meanwhile, Cessilia turned to Beli again.

“I’m r-really sorry ab-bout that,” she said.

“Oh, as long as it doesn’t kill anyone and you can pay for it... You guys are from the Dragon Empire, then?”

Cessilia nodded, and Beli let out a little sigh, putting her baskets down to put her hands on her hips. She kept scrutinizing the two of them, their clothes, and jewelry, and wasn’t hiding herself from it.

“I see. Well, if you buy those fish, you’ll most likely be our biggest customers of the day, so we’re even, I guess. A little piece of advice, though, you may not want to carry so much, uh... gold around. You’re safe here, but if you go past the Inner Wall, you’ll definitely get robbed, assaulted, or worse. We don’t send our girls out because of all the criminals out there, and you two are walking around with all that on you... Not only that, but a lot of people aren’t really fond of... your kind, you know. Our tribe doesn’t have many warriors, but we still know the War God of the Dragon Empire killed many of our men a couple of decades ago. Whether that guy is real or not, some people remember and most aren’t fond of the Dragon Empire at all... If you’re really from there, you two girls should seriously watch out.”

“Thanks, but we are not defenseless,” said Tessa. “We can fend for ourselves.”

“Good for you, but Naptunie doesn’t have a dragon,” retorted Beli. “Our Dorosef Tribe is rather welcoming to strangers, but honestly, not all the other tribes are as passive. And if anything happens to you, nobody wants retribution from the Dragon Empire...”

“We will b-be careful,” promised Cessilia.

Beli nodded, visibly unconvinced, but she had said what she wanted to. In fact, Cessilia didn’t mind her honesty. At least, she showed some genuine concern for them, not just for her cousin. Beli was probably a few years older than them, and from what they had seen, the Dorosef Tribe was indeed a large and caring family...

Nana came back a couple of minutes later, a bit out of breath and followed by a very large man, whom she introduced as one of her uncles. He was also very tall, with an impressive braided beard, and a striking resemblance to Counselor Yamino.

“Good morning, younglings,” he said, nodding. “I heard you ladies want to buy our biggest fish for a... dragon? Really?”

“Well, apparently it’s either that or your cows,” chuckled Tessa.

“Oh, for sure we’d rather have it eat our fish!” nodded the man, pulling up his pants. “Where shall we deliver it to? We can have our three best catches of the day ready within the hour!”

“C-can you have a c-cart ready?” asked Cessilia. “It’s b-best if we d-deliver to him.”

“You can’t go out!” exclaimed Nana, panicked. “We need a lot of authorizations to go out and come in again, inside the Capital’s Inner Walls, like I explained earlier!”

“Nana, it’s either that or we have that dragon land in the middle of the Capital,” sighed Tessa. “No offense, but he’s a bit too big, even for this plaza! And I don’t think anyone else will volunteer to feed him, right?”

Nana and her uncle exchanged a glance.

Indeed, their people had only seen the dragon from afar, but no one would willingly approach it from up close, especially not to give it its meal. They’d be too scared for it to want some human flesh for a dessert... The fisherman scratched his shaved head with a grimace.

“Oh, well, I guess we can give you younglings one of our passes... Nana, are you sure?”

Since the two young women were strangers, he turned to his niece, but Nana visibly wasn’t sure either. She had only met Cessilia and Tessa just a couple of hours ago. She nervously touched her ear and her earrings, hesitant. Seeing that she couldn’t make up her mind, Cessilia put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“It will b-be alright, I p-promise. K-Krai would n-never hurt us, and he d-doesn’t eat humans, either.”

“Unless they’re very bad ones...” muttered Tessa.

Thankfully, only Cessilia heard that, and she kept smiling, ignoring her cousin’s remark. Nana frowned a bit, but she eventually nodded and turned to her uncle once again.

“I will accompany the Princesses outside, okay? I will ask Sabael to accompany us, and we will be careful too. They really are from the Dragon Empire, and Uncle Yamino asked me to stay with them. We will come back right away!”

“It will b-be fine,” nodded Cessilia.

“Alright, then. Well, we can have our prizes ready right now, and I’ll send one of the boys to meet you at the southeast gate with the cart and the passes for you. Your brother’s still stationed there, right?”

“Yes!” nodded Nana. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“Yeah, yeah... As long as that thing leaves our cattle alone...”

“We will buy more fish to keep him fed,” said Tessa, “so you might want to keep your large prizes for him in the next few days. In weight, it should be enough if you keep aside... about five cows’ worth of meat? That should keep him fed for two or three days.”

“Fine, you ladies can pay us tomorrow then,” he said, his eyes going down on Cessilia’s golden choker. “I’ll tell the boys to keep our biggest ones for your dragon. ...I can’t believe we’re fishing for a dragon now!”

The man waved his arms in the air and turned around, probably to go and make sure everything was ready. Nana turned to her cousin this time.

“Sorry about all that, Beli. Can we grab some beignets before we go? I’ll get some for Sab too!”

It seemed like the perspective of those fish beignets was enough to chase all of Nana’s worries away, which made Cessilia smile. Those beignets ought to be really delicious... Without any more questions, Beli guided them the rest of the way to her sister’s stand, where, exactly as Nana had said, a long line of people were queuing up for those famous beignets. Luckily for them, though, Beli sneaked past all that, whispered something to her sister who was working and began preparing their order herself. Cessilia was impressed by how simple and small their stall was for such a long line of customers. Everything was indeed done right on the spot: the fresh fish Beli had brought was cut by a man at the back, and the chunks split into several buckets depending on the species of fish. Then, a pair of young boys grabbed a handful of fish and rolled it into something that looked like a flour mix, before Beli’s sister covered it in several layers of dough and fried it in one large oil pan in front of her. She was working incredibly fast too, pouring one after another and grabbing the ready ones with a pair of large chopsticks to wrap them in seaweed and hand it to the customers. Completing this human chain was a young girl, happily smiling at the customers while taking their payment and loudly announcing the orders to the rest of the family as they went. In the midst of all this, Beli dropped the basket of fish, went to the younger boys to get the fish, and squeezed herself next to her sister to get some ready for them.

Just like that, their orders were ready in a couple of minutes and handed to them by Beli.