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lesbian-sora · 6 years

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Mirror, Mirror Part 1

Author: Me! :D

Artist: @rupls

Beta: @phansromance

Summary: Dan and Phil get invited to stay at a historical castle with Martyn and Cornelia. Contrariwise, Daniel and Philip aren’t invited anywhere, but not many people can say no to a highly trained thief and a dragon. But that’s totally unrelated

Part Two

Word Count: (Total) 57K (This part) 31K

Warnings: Fantasy Violence (specifically there are some dead dogs later), and swearing

Author’s Note:

I have......... been working on this since August of 2015. So it makes sense that not only is it a day late (what are dates?) but it’s also not QUITE done. Lana has been great, but also really busy so xe hasn’t quite finished editing everything, and we’re going to keep working on it! So, if you see any mistakes, or something you would change, feel free to send either of us an ask! Thanks so much for reading!

Dan stretched long and lazily, blinking in the bright light streaming in from the window of his room. He laid in bed for a few minutes trying to suss out how long he had slept in and if Phil was awake or not. Upon realizing the angle of the sun and the distinct lack of coffee smell in the air, he decided he was definitely up way earlier than Phil. Yawning one last time, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and shuffled out into the hall. He took the opportunity to peek into Phil’s room to check on him. He smiled when he saw his boyfriend still snoring away, hair in complete disarray. He made his way to the kitchen where he went to poking about in the fridge to see what he could make them for breakfast. He decided on omelettes after finding some onion and peppers left over from a few days before.

As if summoned by the scent of cooking eggs Phil stumbled into the kitchen. Or well, he would have if he hadn’t run face first into the door jamb. He rubbed his head and grumbled under his breath and properly made his way into the kitchen. All the while Dan cackled at his misfortune.

“Morning, sunshine,” Dan cooed sarcastically. Phil glared and started mixing up his mandatory morning coffee.

“Your eggs are burning,” he said in lieu of a greeting. He smirked behind his coffee cup and watched Dan swear and whip around to try and save his omelette as best he could.

“You’re the worst,” Dan scowled, pouting at his extra-crispy eggs.

Phil cocked a brow and grabbed the unburned, cheese-free breakfast Dan had made for him. “I mean at least I warned you instead of letting you turn them to charcoal.”

“I deserve so much better, honestly.”

“Of course you do,” Phil agreed breezily, pulling Dan in for a quick good morning peck. “So, how’d you sleep?”

Dan shrugged noncommittally. “Alright, I guess. I actually went to bed before sunrise so I got a few hours. You?”

“I actually had a super weird dream. I hate I can’t remember any more of it than I can because I’m pretty sure I was flying at one point.”

“Yeah, I can’t remember much of mine, either. I think I robbed a bank or something, though.”

Phil snorted and grinned. He was clearly more awake now that he’d gotten caffeine and conversation. “You? Robbing a bank? You sure about that?”

“Oh, don’t laugh too much Mr Lester, you were driving the getaway car,” Dan snickered. “Honestly, I can’t decide what’s more ridiculous: Me somehow managing to steal money from someone or you managing to drive us anywhere but off a cliff.”

“You mean you wouldn’t want to Thelma and Louise it with me?” Phil pouted.

“Sorry, babe, but I’m not planning on dying with or without you any day soon.” Dan grinned, flicking one of the darker burn spots across the table at Phil.

“Well, then I suppose we’d best avoid robbing any banks today.”

“Shit, there goes my plan for the day.”

Phil huffed out a little half laugh and let a comfortable silence fall over them while they finished eating. “Hey, do you actually have any plans for today?” Phil asked, grabbing Dan’s plate and cup and putting all their dishes in the dishwasher. “Martyn and Cornelia are in town and wanted to meet for a late lunch if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dan shrugged and stood up. “I was just going to spend today editing that gaming video, but I’m going to need a break around then.”

“I hate to distract you from your super productive day, but do you maybe want to watch a couple episodes of Erased?”

“I suppose you could manage to convince me,” Dan grinned. “Might need to really twist my arm, though.”

Phil rolled his eyes fondly and shoved Dan toward the lounge. “Shove off, and get everything set up, it’s your turn.”

_________

Several hours and answered emails later, Phil’s phone chirped. On his screen was a reminder that he and Dan needed to start getting ready if they wanted to make it to lunch on time. He wrested himself from the couch’s comfortable grasp and meandered towards his room. popping his head in Dan’s room to check on him and remind him of their plans. He was expecting to see Dan hunched over the computer, headphones blocking out all but the loudest distractions. Instead, he found Dan leaning back as far as the desk chair would allow and aimlessly staring at the ceiling. He turned in slow circles and listened to the soft indie music drifting through the air. “How’s the editing going?” Phil asked to announce his presence, already knowing how well editing was going.

Dan jolted at the sudden interruption, but recovered and smiled at his boyfriend. “Ah, well, not great,” he admitted. “It’s just been one of those days, you know? I swear I can’t focus on anything for more than two minutes before I’m back to staring at the ceiling.”

Phil walked over and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You need to talk about it?” he asked, clearly concerned.

Dan smiled and shook his head, grabbing Phil’s hands in his own. “Nah, I promise it’s nothing to worry about. It just feels like there’s something really big coming up that we’re not prepared for and there’s nothing we can do.”

Phil frowned and hummed in thought. “Any idea what it could be? I mean we don’t have any super big projects going on and we’ve pretty much finished unpacking everything. Is there something we need to do for YouTube that I’m forgetting?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t think there’s actually anything it’s just one of those things that you can’t really explain away.”

Phil hummed. “Yeah, I know those. Well, we can get prepared for our lunch date, so take a break and get dressed.”

“See you in an hour and a half, then,” Dan joked.

Phil snorted and gently shoved Dan’s shoulder. “Better not take you that long or I will leave you here.” Dan squawked about how he’d better not do that if he wanted a boyfriend for long. Yet, his cries fell on deaf ears as Phil stepped into his room to get dressed.

As usual, Phil was ready to go long before Dan and decided to wait for him out in the lounge. Fortunately, Dan was actually joking when he said how long it would take him to get ready. He appeared not too long after in fresh, neat clothes and brushed but not straightened hair. “You ready to go?” he asked, digging around in their junk bowl for the keys to the flat.

“Yeah,” Phil answered, standing up and popping his back.

“Cool,” Dan muttered absently. He ushered Phil out the front door before following him out and clicking the lock. “Where are we even going, by the way?”

“Misato!” Phil said with emphasis in the last half of the word.

“That place is good, we ought to go there more often.”

“It is really good but the tube ride is so long is it worth it?”

“Yeah, good point, maybe we shouldn’t.”

Phil grunted in agreement and they fell into an easy silence as they walked to the station. Dan seemed lost in his own world of thought, but Phil was very carefully watching him. It wasn’t unusual for the two of them to spend more than average amount of time in their relationship in silence. Once you got that comfortable with another person you get quiet. But there was some unspoken thing going on with Dan and Phil could tell. Unfortunately, no matter how long he spent staring at his boyfriend, he couldn’t read his mind. He was no closer to finding the source of whatever it was that had Dan so off balance without asking. Something told him that would get absolutely nothing done.

“So, I never asked, what’s Martyn doing in town?” Dan asked as they swayed from side to side with the motion of the near-empty train car they were in.

“Not sure, he didn’t say,” Phil shrugged. “Maybe he’s wishing you an early birthday?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Phil, I don’t know if you remember, but we’re spending three days up north with your whole family for my birthday next week, so I doubt it’s that.” He quirked the corner of his mouth up into a devious grin. “Maybe he has some salacious gift he doesn’t want to give us in front of your mum.”

Phil wrinkled his nose, looking vaguely green at the mere idea of it. “Sorry, but even if he is here to give you that we’re not keeping it. There’s no way I’m even risking thoughts of my brother while we’re fucking.”

Dan smirked and bumped their arms together. “I doubt that’s his goal. Besides, he’d be hard-pressed to get us anything new anyways.” Phil turned absolutely scarlet and Dan bubbled over with giggles. For a man who enjoyed sex as much as he did, Phil was awfully bashful when it came to discussing it.

“You’re the worst person,” Phil pouted, pulling out his phone to double check their directions.

“Should I tweet that then?” Dan teased, retrieving his own phone from his pocket. “Dan Howell, statistically speaking the worst person in the world according to Phil Lester.”

Phil huffed indignantly but otherwise ignored Dan until his phone lit up with a Twitter notification.

Daniel Howell Tweeted: lol so apparently im statistically the worst person. thanks for the update @AmazingPhil

Phil looked up at Dan, who was grinning widely at him, and quirked a brow and went back to typing on his phone. Dan puffed his cheeks at the disappointing lack of response and went back to scrolling. That is until his phone lit up with a notification of its own.

Phil Lester replied: And you’re the one who said to keep the online flirting to a minimum. smh

Dan sputtered and gawked at Phil who was pleasantly smiling at his phone like he’d done nothing wrong. To be fair, he actually hadn’t done anything wrong. But it was a well-known fact that nothing made Dan more embarrassed than being called out on his flirting. “I should tell everyone that we’re actually on our way to get super kinky sex toys from your brother,” Dan threatened.

“You totally should. Make sure you tag my parents and your grandmother while you’re at it.”

Dan narrowed his eyes, trying to ignore the tingling in his cheeks that came from the blood ever so slowly retreating back to where it belonged. “You win this round, Phil Lester.”

Phil grinned and pulled his pouting boyfriend in by the waist. Glancing around, he rose up slightly on his toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Cheer up, love. The wind will change and your face will be stuck like that.”

“You know, the more you say that the less I believe your mum actually told you that.”

Phil snickered and shook his head, so Dan went back to ignoring him in favour of his feed. He was actually in the middle of a rather juicy Twitter chain when Phil nudged his arm to alert him of their impending stop. When the car shuddered to a stop they shuffled onto the much more crowded platform. Thanks to years of practice, they made their way to the street without losing sight of each other. “Alright, Mr Map, where is this place?” Dan asked, looking around. Maybe if he searched the sushi restaurant would materialize in the middle of the street.

“Around the corner here,” Phil said with all the confidence of a man staring down at a set of Google provided directions. “Assuming Martyn is early like he always is, we’ll get there just in time to order drinks.” Just as Phil predicted, they made it to the restaurant in time to see a waiter taking Martyn and Cornelia’s orders. After explaining to the hostess that their party was already seated, they managed to catch the waiter and request their drinks.

“Long time no see,” Martyn joked, reaching out to shake their hands while Cornelia gave them both quick hugs around the neck.

“It is always lovely to see you both,” Cornelia beamed. “We should do it more often; I feel like we only ever get together for work.”

“We see each other at vacations,” Dan corrected. “So it’s more like we only see each other for work or when we’re being babysat.” Cornelia snickered a bit, and Dan smiled at them both. “So, what prompted you to summon us?” As soon as the words left his mouth, Dan blushed while the rest of the table laughed. “That didn’t come out quite like I expected it to.”

“What Dan means is, what’s up, you two?” Phil clarified, bumping against his boyfriend fondly.

“Not much,” Martyn shrugged. “It seems like the whole YouTube community is taking a break after last year. We’ve mostly been working on some smaller projects for people.”

“It’s letting us meet loads of neat people,” Cornelia added. “There’s this one lady who runs the tourist department of Hever Castle. She was actually so impressed with the work we did she offered us a complimentary night this weekend.”

“Holy cow, that’s cool,” Phil marvelled. “I hope you two have fun.”

As he said that Martyn’s phone dinged loudly, announcing the arrival of an email. Martyn quickly scanned the email and looked up, pleasantly surprised. “Funny enough, that’s her now. Apparently, there was a last minute cancellation. She’s told us to invite some other people to come with us this weekend. What do you say, a free night in a luxury castle hotel with your big bro?”

“We’re in,” Dan beamed. Phil raised a brow at his eagerness but Dan just rolled his eyes. “Oh, please, you know you want to spend the night in a castle. Plus it’s a great chance to take a break and hang out with Martyn and Cornelia.”

“Well, it’s not like I was going to refuse, but maybe a bit more conversation next time?”

“Don’t worry, Phil,” Cornelia grinned. “Martyn and I already know the two of you communicate telepathically; your secret is safe with us.”

Dan barked out one of his signature goose laughs, garnering the attention of the nearby table, but he paid them no mind. “Well, I guess that means I’d better finish editing that video in the next couple days if we want to upload it Monday.”

“I can help if you get stuck,” Phil offered. “I’m pretty good at Daniel Howell editing if I do say so myself. They’d never even notice.”

“Well, I guess that’s our weekend plans sorted,” Martyn said. “Now, we’ve just got to decide on lunch.”

When their waiter returned they ordered their sushi. They spent an hour or so swapping stories. Phil told a rather dramatized version of an incident a lady walking her three dogs. But as he stayed quiet when Dan demonized their neighbours Dan figured they’d both let it slide. After, Cornelia regretfully reminded Martyn that they had a meeting to get to. Another round of handshakes and hugs later they were on the street to their next destination.

“Crazy how that worked out, isn’t it?” Dan asked, squinting up at the suddenly dark sky to see if they’d make it home before they got soaked.

“Yeah,” Phil mumbled in agreement. He didn't need clarification to know Dan was referring to their sudden weekend trip. He felt there was something off about the whole thing, but he shrugged it off, choosing to focus on the good. “Crazy.”

_______________

“Halt!”

Daniel laughed jovially and put on a burst of speed to outrun the guards hot on his trail, quickly losing them in the dark trees. The reasonably large satchel of coins and jewels attached to his belt bounced against his thigh with every step, jingling merrily. Skidding across loose gravel and dirt he darted through the woods until he came to a sudden stop at the sheer edge of a cliff. He grinned, looking over the edge that went straight down to a ravine that ended in a lake several hundred feet down, and waited. The guards soon came tumbling out of the woods to see the dark elf smirking victoriously with one foot over the edge of the cliff.

Philip, I hope you’re ready for this Daniel thought offhandedly. Then with a jaunty wave to the guards and a sarcastic “Better luck next time,” he took that last backwards step

Falling had always been a very odd feeling for Daniel. On one hand, there was the absolute terror that always accompanied plummeting towards your death so quickly your breath was left far above your head. On the other, there was the absolutely exhilarating feeling of knowing that he’d be fine at the end as long as he had Philip. As predicted after only a few seconds of falling Daniel found himself safely (albeit harshly) landing on the back of a great black dragon.

You shouldn’t have done that, Philip nagged telepathically while Daniel panted in efforts to regain his lost breath. There’s a line between doing what has to be done and recklessly endangering yourself and you and I both know you crossed that line.

“What does it matter?” Daniel whined, flopping back dramatically. “We got the jewels and everyone is fine so it’s not a problem. I didn’t even kill anyone. You’re just a worry wart.” Suddenly Philip’s back spines shot up a bit, harshly poking Daniel all down his back causing him to shoot up with a cry of pain and rub his back. “What was that for, you overgrown lizard?”

If I’m a worry wart then you’re a dramatic little nuisance. It’d probably be better for both of us if I found a travelling theatre troupe and left them to deal with you.

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel pouted. “Just take us home. I’m hungry as fuck. I’ll probably waste away and die before I get any decent food.”

Philip chuckled, a strange sound to come from a dragon as it sounded more like a hissing earthquake than laughter. There was also the minor inconvenience that when he did it smoke unfurled from his nostrils which sent it straight into Daniel’s face when they were flying causing him to squawk and sputter. You are the biggest baby I have ever met.

Daniel muttered something about dumb winged snakes but settled back down for the ride. It wasn’t very far to the cave they had claimed as their lair (Well, Philip claimed it as his lair. Daniel showed up and made himself at home, a fact Philip never hesitated to remind him of.) but he always enjoyed any time spent riding Philip as it was something he actually didn’t get to do all that often. Most of their time was spent in and around their cave with Philip lounging about admiring his hoard, but whenever Philip got a thirst for gold or Daniel for adventure they had to travel and the quickest and easiest way was flight.

However, Daniel’s favourite times were when Philip decided he needed to stretch his wings and they would aimlessly fly around for hours. Usually Philip snap that he’d had enough of Daniel and that was the main reason he was leaving in the first place (Daniel honestly couldn’t blame him. Dragons were, by nature, jealous and solitary creatures so the very fact that Philip hadn’t already eaten him already was a miracle in and of itself,) but every now and then he’d smile at Daniel, all sharp-toothed and welcoming, and invite him along. They’d fly and fly with no destination in mind, Daniel clinging to Philip for his life as they soared and dove and flipped and spiralled through and above clouds, both of them loving every moment of it.

After an hour or two Philip would land in some forgotten meadow or on an abandoned beach to let Daniel back on solid ground for a rest and to get his heart rate back down. As always, before long the boy was begging to get back in the sky, much to the dragon’s amusement. There was just something about the way he could feel every last muscle of Philip’s wings beat beneath him combined with the weightlessness he felt and the rush of excitement every time Philip did anything outside of the normal that made Daniel’s chest tight with joy.

As if reading his mind, (which, knowing the sneaky lizard was probably accurate) Philip beat his wings extra hard, sending them shooting up before taking a nosedive towards the lake below, pulling up at the last minute to the sound of Daniel’s cries of joy. Daniel leaned over Philip’s shoulder as much as he knew he could just to see his own grinning face reflected in the perfectly smooth water they were almost skimming over. He was tempted to reach down and trail his fingers over the surface of the water but he knew from experience he’d just lose his balance and fall in and hitting water while flying at high speeds is never fun. Also, he knew (again, from experience) that Philip would just fly off and be absolutely no help and he’d have to swim to shore and walk home, which was never any fun.

Sensing Daniel’s ever-weakening restraint, Philip snorted with an eye-roll and beat his wings hard a few times to get them back up, past the tops of the trees and amongst the clouds. Traveling at night had more than its fair share of advantages in addition to Daniel’s sensitivity to sunlight, and Philip’s personal favourite was the fact that his dark body blended in seamlessly with the night sky, meaning they could fly undetected without worrying about tree cover slowing them down.

They flew for almost an hour when the forest started to thin out before finally letting out into the sea. Philip rumbled his delight along with Daniel as he swooped down so they could find the mouth of their home along the craggy shore. When Philip found the cave - about a hundred years ago, long before he and Daniel crossed paths - it had been much smaller than it was now, but after so many years of carving it was more than suitable for a dragon his size and age. In fact, if he kept up work on it, it would be an impressively large lair for when he was an ancient dragon and merely had to worry about guarding the hoard he’d amassed instead of trying to grow it. As it was, it had a main area that was mostly devoid of any indication of his presence to dissuade intruders and two antechambers, one for his hoard and sleeping and the other for everything else. Before it had stayed mostly empty as Philip wasn’t fond of kidnapping royals or challenging knights, but Daniel had taken over and filled it with creature comforts. Philip found most of them useless and a waste of space but even he could admit that sometimes that bed Daniel had stolen was more comfortable than a pile of gold.

As soon as they landed and Daniel was off of his back, Philip polymorphed into his humanoid shape. He was rather proud of his polymorph shape as it was mostly human, but with very distinguishing dragon features including his wings and tail, and had taken him years to perfect. There was no bigger shame amongst dragons than someone who couldn’t control their powers enough to change shape, but it was a well-known belief that if you could do it completely perfect then maybe you weren’t a real dragon and deserved to stay human. “So, what did you manage to get?” he asked eagerly, eyeing the rather small bag in Daniel’s hand.

“Eh, mostly the usual,” Daniel shrugged, digging around blindly. “Mostly a few handfuls of gold pieces, and a few jewels we can sell in town for a very shiny copper piece.” He suddenly grinned and pulled out what he was looking for and held it up for inspection. “However, I think you’ll be much more interested in this.”

Without blinking, Philip snatched up the offered necklace with a clawed hand and brought it up close. It was made of gold with a small, thin but strong chain with a bright red jewel no bigger than the tip of Daniel’s littlest finger. It was pretty, but common and was worth more than most people had seen in their lives, but was far from the most valuable thing in the castle. No, it wasn’t the monetary worth of the necklace that had Philip so entranced, it was the craftsmanship. Every link of the fine chain had been forged and smithed into the exact perfect shape so that it fit in with its neighbour and the tiny jewel had been ever so carefully cut so that the light glinted at every angle. Something like this would have taken a master jeweller at least a few days to create, but based on the tiniest imperfections it had to have been done by an amateur, and that was the sweetest bit of all. It had taken someone at least two weeks of dedicated labour to craft this and Philip had stolen it, essentially stealing that time away as well. It was absolutely wonderful.

“Is there anything else in there you want for your hoard?” Daniel asked breezily, admiring himself in his big mirror after decking himself out in gold and jewels from head to toe.

“That crown you’re wearing looks very nice.”

“Oh, boo, you great bully of a lizard,” Daniel scowled, taking off the crown and tossing it to Philip who caught it easily. “I never get anything I want.”

“You know where I’m putting it,” Philip said dismissively as he dug through the other things in the bag. There was nothing as impressive as the necklace or gaudy as the crown, but there was a fairly shiny cup he was rather fond of. “If you like it so much you can just get it from there.”

“You get all moody and growly whenever I touch your hoard,” Daniel complained.

“That was one time about three months after you showed up. You’re lucky I didn’t just eat you.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “You know, you say that all the time, but I actually have a hard time believing it. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have the guts.” Philip snarled and Daniel felt the room grow much warmer as he was suddenly and vividly reminded just who his best friend was. Yes, he and Philip had grown very close over the year they’d been together, but he was still a dragon and a mean one at that. He might not want to hurt Daniel at this moment, but with little to no warning he could change his mind and Daniel could find himself back at the mercy of the world at best or a soot stain at worst. He quickly changed the subject. “We should go out tomorrow.”

Philip cocked his head curiously. “Why should we? We literally just robbed them; I doubt they’re going to have much unless you’re saying you did a bad job.”

“Of course, I did a great job. What kind of elf do you take me for?” Daniel scoffed. “I meant going into Bricstow to buy and sell things. Are you aware of the fact that we’re out of food?”

“Considering I don’t eat the food you do, I was completely unaware,” Phil said. “I don’t know why you don’t just go foraging or something while I hunt.”

Daniel huffed. “Because I had to forage and steal food for the first forty years of my life and while I have the money to eat like a king I’m going to do just that.”

Philip yawned, he could almost feel the first rays of sunlight peeking over the hills. “Alright, fine, we’ll go to Bricstow, but not until the day after tomorrow. We’ll have to be out during the day and you get whiney if you don’t have enough rest.” Ignoring Daniel’s offended protests, he transformed back into his full dragon self and took his new treasures to his room. His hoard wasn’t astonishingly large by any means, but it was big enough and only held the very best so it made Philip happy and that was all that mattered.

With a deep rumble Daniel would call a yawn, he curled up in and around his hoard, waiting for sleep to wash over him. However, before it could, he felt a small, warm body worm its way under his wing to rest in the (relatively) soft fold where his front leg met his torso.

And what do you think you’re doing in here?

Oh, like you don’t know. You know I meditate better when I know you’re there.

Philip snorted and rolled his eyes, but he ever so slightly brought his wing in a little closer to his body in a protective manner to shield the prone body beneath it. Much as he loathed to admit it even to himself, much less to anyone else, Daniel truly was his favourite addition to his hoard and he planned to keep it that way.

_______________

“Move your lazy arse,” Daniel growled, fruitlessly shoving his whole weight against a fully grown dragon like he legitimately thought that would make the slightest bit of difference.

Philip snorted. Yes, I’m the lazy one. Let’s ignore the fact that I’m flying two hours to take a skinny little elf on a shopping trip I have absolutely no interest in because he doesn’t want to just make the journey on foot.

“Name one half sane person who would make a six-hour walk when he can fly instead,” Daniel argued. “Now, come on. We’re burning daylight and I hate being up and about at this hour.”

Philip let out a rumble from deep within his chest to show his unhappiness but heaved himself to his feet, much to Daniel’s delight. He took his time stretching his neck, his wings, and all four of his legs while Daniel stood to the side tapping his foot impatiently. When he was done he blinked at Daniel to let him know it was time to go.

Grumbling the whole way, the dark elf clambered his way up and when he was settled he flipped up the hood of his cloak to protect from the sun. “Let’s get the hell out of here, shall we?”

With that, Philip weaved his body back and forth like a snake for a moment as if getting used to the way it moved before suddenly darting forward through the mouth of the cave and diving down the sheer cliff face towards the sea below. Right before they crashed into the water, he unfurled his great wings and let the ocean wind lift him up to his cruising altitude before he began to slowly flap.

It was a beautiful, perfectly clear day, and under normal circumstances, Daniel would have been absolutely tickled pink and looking around to see everything possible, but as it was daylight he couldn’t do that. Instead, he was huddled up under his thickest cloak, trying his best to both stay cool and keep as much sun as possible off his sensitive skin. He was fine - albeit uncomfortable - when he was out in the sun so long as he had at least partial shade, but when they were flying there was nothing to protect him, so all he could do was suffer through. Philip would never admit it, but it greatly concerned him to see his friend in such distress and he almost subconsciously started flying ever so slightly faster.

Bricstow was the perfect city for Daniel and Philip to sell the treasures they decided not to keep. It wasn’t by any means the largest city around, but it was big enough that it garnered a rather large market full of merchants who had learned not to ask too many questions, and it was only about twenty miles away from their cave and through some very dense forest which made traveling there and back in a day easy for them, but rather more difficult for anyone who decided to follow them. There was also a very convenient meadow not too far out of town where they could land out of view of prying eyes, which, after nearly two hours of unfortunately silent flight, Philip was hovering over as he looked for the ideal place to touch down.

“Thank fuck,” Daniel sighed as soon as he was on the ground and in the shade of some trees. “I hate flying during the day.”

“You and me both,” said Philip, who had transformed into his humanoid shape. “Now come on, let’s go get your stuff.”

Together they made their way into town, Philip garnering several terrified glances that he absolutely revelled in. Daniel rolled his eyes and tugged him along to his favourite stall, run by a Kenku by the name of Bofraran. Like most of his birdman people, he was far too interested in gold to ask questions and usually forgot to wonder how an allegedly homeless drow came across the items Daniel had for sale. He underpaid for most of the things he acquired, but all of his deals came with an unspoken vow of silence that he wasn’t about to break anytime soon.

“Ah, Daniel!” he crooned as soon as they stepped in. “It’s been quite a while since I last saw you, how have you been? Did you come to visit your old friend?”

“Cut the bullshit, Bofaran,” Daniel said narrowing his eyes. “You and I both know why we’re here so stop wasting time.”

Bofaran merely shrugged his feathered shoulders. “Nobody ever wants to just talk these days. It’s always rush rush rush with you folk. No manners. Now, let’s see what we have here.” He peered into the bag and pulled out a few items to inspect closer. There was one ring that he seemed particularly keen on as he started chattering delightedly after looking at it for a moment. “Why, Daniel, you always do bring me the prettiest things.”

“We keep the prettiest,” Philip corrected him flatly, perusing the wares set out with disinterest.

Bofaran clicked his beak together in agitation for a moment at Philip’s tone but soon turned back to Daniel, returning to his oily business tone. “I’ll give you one thousand gold pieces for the bag.”

Daniel actually laughed out loud for a moment. “Try again, Bof. That ring in your hand is worth more than a thousand. Aim a bit higher this time.”

Bofaran narrowed his beady black eyes. “One and a half.”

“Three.”

“One and three quarters.”

“Two and a half.”

“Two.”

Daniel pursed his lips and snatched the ring from Bofraran’s talons. “Maybe you didn’t hear me; I’ll repeat myself. Two. And a. Half. Take the deal or we walk birdman.”

Bofaran clicked his beak together a bit more, staring longingly at the ring Daniel was rolling through his fingers. After a moment, he sighed and pulled out his chest and started counting out tiny bags of gold. “Deal. Two thousand five hundred gold. It’s more than I’d pay for just about anything but that ring will more than bring it back and I’m fairly certain between you and your dragon friend I don’t stand a chance.”

Daniel grinned wolfishly and swept the money into his bag with one arm. “Pleasure doing business with you, Bofaran. It’s always good to see old friends.”

Bofran ruffled up his feathers beneath his baggy robes. “You would say that after you’ve robbed me blind. Now, go. Get out before I get it in my mind to call the guards.”

Daniel laughed right in the unhappy kenku’s face. “Right, yeah. You’ll call the guards. Will that be before or after you stash away the illegal scrolls and magic weapons?”

“Out!”

Still cackling, Daniel grabbed Philip’s arm and dragged them outside. “Come on, it’s food time. I think I saw someone up here selling foods from the Underdark.”

As expected, a few stalls down there was an old, pretty High Elf woman named Sisar selling all manner of Drow delicacies along with her usual wares. As usual, Philip found most of what Daniel loaded into his bag distasteful, but he did wind up picking out some forest strider drumsticks and some delightfully pungent goat sausage for their meal in town. With their newly bought food, they managed to find a secluded area where they could eat without being disturbed or leaving town.

“You’re not going to like that,” Philip said breezily, sinking his fangs into his drumstick after giving it a quick charbroil with his flames.

“What are you talking about?” Daniel scowled, looking up from his comically black meal. “I’ll have you know these foods are a cultural delight for my people.”

“You say that every time you manage to find someone selling this stuff,” Philip argued. “And yet, every time you wind up hating at least half of it. I noticed you only got more than one meal’s worth of stuff for about half of what’s on your plate.”

As if trying to prove Philip wrong, Daniel grabbed the egg he had bought (some kind of faerzress infused duck egg, if Phil was remembering correctly) and took about half of it into his mouth in one big bite. He immediately regretted this decision. Philip raised his eyebrow as Daniel’s face seemed to almost turn inside out at the sudden, unbearably salty flavour that flooded his mouth. “Maybe that particular thing isn’t for me,” he squeaked out after fighting to choke it down.

“Well, I’m fairly certain those are supposed to be a soup starter,” Philip laughed. “Come on, now, you know what you do and do not like, just skip to the good stuff.”

“I’ll eat whatever I want!” Daniel snapped. He looked down at the Donigarten Moss Snails he had next up for eating and did his best to swallow down the bile at the back of his throat. “You know what? Maybe I will skip out on this today.”

“Why don’t you tell me about the stuff you do actually like?” Philip suggested, not unkindly.

Daniel beamed. “I have black velvet ear fungus, which are these dark brown things that kind of look like wood shavings; black truffle rothe cheese from Menzoberranzan, which is super savory and creamy and delicious; and I have some blind cave fish caviar, which mostly just taste like salt, but they’re good with the mushrooms.”

Philip nodded and did his best to not look sick to his stomach. “You people are certainly… fond of your heritage as far as food goes.”

“Humans are the worst about it,” Daniel shrugged. “I mean, they have food specific to their race and where they came from and even their specific families. I mean, yeah, there are slight differences from place to place with everyone, but from what I remember pretty much everyone in the Underdark ate basically the same thing.”

Philip hummed, but he was quickly losing interest as he had spotted a very wealthy looking orc lady who was carrying an absolutely stunning tapestry bag over her arm. “Wait here,” he said to Daniel, effortlessly getting to his feet with a short flap of his wings. He smoothly cut his way through the crowd until he was walking right next to his target. “That’s a lovely bag there you have, Miss,” he said, charm dripping off every word. “Might I ask you a bit about it?”

The orc looked positively terrified at the sight of a rather large mouthful of very sharp teeth grinning at her. “I-I bought it not long ago.”

“Any idea who made it?”

“M-Malement,” she stammered. “He’s the-the Dragonborn weaver in Lundy.”

“Oh, it’s a shame we’re in Bricstow, I would love to have a bag like that,” he lamented. Then he smiled again, wider and sharper and more dangerous than before. “Say, you wouldn’t mind giving me yours would you?”

“But I-I had to wait two months for him to finish this one for me!”

“Even better,” he cooed, completely delighted. “Now, why don’t you give that to me and I won’t have to do something we’ll both regret.” The colour quickly drained from her face, and without another word, she shoved her bag into Philip’s waiting hands. “Don’t even think about telling the guards about this, yeah?” She nodded quickly, and as quickly as she could she darted down the street. Philip chuckled to himself as he made his way back to Daniel, closely inspecting his find. It wasn’t quite two months worth of work, but it was perfectly and expertly made and it was rather pretty.

“Find something fun, did you?” Daniel asked, cocking an eyebrow and immediately taking the bag so he could look through it. Much to Philip’s displeasure. “Why was this woman carrying around so much garbage?” he whined, dumping it out. “She has like four gold, but she’s got a jar of… griffon grease?”

“Maybe she’s a wizard and these are her spell components,” Philip rationalized, looking at a vial of fingernail clippings in mild disgust.

“The fuck kind of spell needs this horse shit?” Daniel demanded, shaking a bubble pipe at him.

Delighted, Philip dropped the nail vial, grabbed the pipe and started blowing smoke-filled bubbles. “Whatever she had it for doesn’t much matter anymore as it’s ours now. Just take what of it seems remotely valuable and leave the rest.”

Daniel frowned, looking over the pile of stuff, before grabbing a teardrop shaped necklace that appeared to be made of an actual teardrop and left the rest. “Well, again, most of this is worthless and I don’t much fancy being weighed down, do you?”

Philip shrugged and tossed the necklace and pipe back in the bag. “I only really wanted the bag in the first place.”

“Come on, then, I have a few more things I want to get before we head back home.”

Philip grumbled under his breath, but acquiesced, following Daniel around as he purchased all sorts of boring things like chests with locks, silk rope, clothes, ink and parchment, more armour and weapons, lanterns, healing potions and candles. He was honestly convinced the drow was just spending money to spend it at this point, and to make Philip carry heavy things.

“Alright, I think that’s everything,” Daniel announced, checking over his list one more time. “Time to head on out, I guess then.” When Philip didn’t make yet another sarcastic comment, Daniel looked up to see him staring with complete focus at a tent with a modest sign that said “Estelaria: Fortunes Told.” “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

Philip turned and scowled at him. “We came all this way for your trivial things; we’re going in this tent.”

Daniel huffed, and rolled his eyes, but followed Philip inside, leaving their possessions just inside. It was dark and humid within the canvas, and the air was filled with smoke, but the fortuneteller was suspiciously absent. “Well, looks like nobody’s home. If we leave now I promise not to make fun of you the whole way back.”

“There’s someone here,” Philip hissed, looking around eyes narrowed and tail lashing. “I can sense it.”

“Look, can we just-”

“You don’t seem to have much faith in my abilities, Drow.”

Daniel whipped around to see a pretty aasimar woman sat at the previously empty table, her chin resting on her folded hands. Her skin was a warm copper tone and she had a pair of purple stars painted onto her cheeks; however, her most defining features were her bright purple eyes and dark purple hair that looked to have the very stars from the sky woven into it. “My name is Estelaria,” she smiled, offering a gloved hand in greeting. “You’re Daniel and Philip, I presume.”

“How did you know that?” Daniel demanded, eyeing her suspiciously.

Philip rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure between her being able to predict the future and us being wanted criminals it wasn’t too hard to guess.” He turned to Estelaria with a smile and pressed a kiss to her hand. “Never you mind him. You know children these days have no manners.”

She laughed and withdrew her hand while Daniel scowled. “Don’t concern yourself with me; I’ve had more than one doubter come through here.” She grinned and leaned forward to stage whisper conspiratorially, “I haven’t had a doubter leave, though.”

Philip chuckled but Daniel just frowned deeper. “Is that supposed to be endorsing your own abilities or a poorly veiled threat on my life?” He was completely and totally ignored.

“So, what do you charge for a fortune reading?” Philip asked, hands already going towards their coin purse, which Daniel regretted making him carry now.

“Oh, for you two?” Estelaria asked with a knowing smile. “Absolutely nothing.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed further. What kind of person didn’t charge for their services? Even if those services were completely phoney, you should still get some coin from it.

Philip, on the other hand, didn’t seem remotely phased by the refusal. “So, how do you predict the future? Crystal ball, tarot cards, palm reading?”

She beamed at him like she’d been waiting to hear that specific question. “Actually, no. I do things a bit differently.” She then revealed her wand, it was red and ended with her signature purple star, and waved it. Suddenly the room grew pitch black before little spots of light all around burst into existence. “I read the stars.”

Philip seemed delighted with the display as he always was when people performed magic, but Daniel’s skin immediately began to crawl. The darkness that filled the tent was definitely of magic - very powerful magic at that - and even with his Darkvision, he couldn’t see anything not illuminated by the summoned stars. Judging from the power evident in the spells necessary for this he was sure Estelaria could beat him handily, even with Philip’s help, and he didn’t like spending extended periods of time with people he couldn’t handle in a fight.

Estelaria hummed to herself for a moment as she peered at the twinkling lights around her. “You two have been busy, I see,” she said, cocking a brow at them. Philip laughed, producing a small flame that filled his mouth, just to be a showoff. “You aren’t really after monetary things, dragon, which I must say I find a bit odd.”

Philip shrugged. “Every dragon has his own taste.”

“Yes, and it seems yours is more handcrafted, preferably magic,” she noted. She turned to Daniel and smiled. “You, however, are much more direct. Orphaned at a young age and facing prejudice from surface dwellers, you had to fight for every meagre thing you had, and now that you have the means your only drive is gaining as much money as possible and spending it on your slightest whims.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel huffed. “That’s the exact same sob story of pretty much every drow up here. I was just lucky enough to be kidnapped by a picky dragon instead of left to starve on the streets.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Regardless of how many shares your story it is yours. But this is all in the past and matters not, for I am a fortuneteller, not a history book.” Daniel snorted, but she ignored him and instead went back to studying her stars. She was mostly silent for a moment as she wandered around her tent, measuring the stars with her hands and muttering, “No… no, that doesn’t make any sense.”

This went on for a solid few minutes before Philip’s infamous dragon temper wore thin. “What exactly doesn’t make sense?” he snapped.

Estelaria blinked at him for a moment. “There’s only one path written in the stars for the both of you,” she explained. “Not only should there be a separate set of paths for each of you, those sets should have more than one option. I was trained to be read the possible paths and tell you the most likely one and how you could stray from it. This… this is unprecedented, impossible even.”

“Why don’t you just tell us what you have found instead of wasting our time marvelling over the things you can’t?” Daniel suggested snidely.

She sighed and collapsed in her chair, rubbing her temples. With a wave of her wand, the lights disappeared and the darkness faded. “You’re about to face your greatest challenge yet,” she said after another moment. “You will face and triumph over one challenge and you may trick yourself into thinking you’ve won, but you have only just begun. You will face battles you can’t fight in a place you’ve never even dreamed of. You will discover things about yourselves during this challenge that you never knew you never knew. Your pasts are incredibly important and you will learn just how much they have shaped you over the years.”

Daniel and Philip met the other’s gaze for a half second before Philip loudly said, “Well, that was incredibly vague and useless, and I mean even more incredibly vague and useless than I was prepared for, and I was prepared for a lot.” He bent down and scooped up their belongings. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll be taking our leave.”

“Wait!” she shouted after them. “I have one warning for you! One way you can diverge from this path! Whatever you do, don’t take the next heist you hear about.”

“We’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Daniel simpered, already halfway out the door.

When they were back on the road, Philip turned to Daniel, so angry that smoke was furling out of the corners of his mouth. “How dare she waste my time like that?” he snarled. “Future sight is a noble art and for her to claim the title with none of the skill is a slander to the profession.”

“You’re surprisingly butthurt over this,” Daniel chuckled. “I mean, I knew you were the superstitious type, but this seems a little much.”

Philip looked like he was about to snap back a retort when suddenly his face changed to one of curiosity and he cocked his head to get a better sound. When he did begin to speak it was in the shrill, rough voice of a young aarakockra girl. “- I heard there was more gold there than you’d ever dream of having. A magic mirror and everything! The place is empty, too; all for the taking!”

He spoke again, but now with the slow speech of a Goliath. “Yes, but how many people must die before the place is marked for what it is - a cursed trap for any and all adventurers.”

This time a male goblin used his voice to say, “Oh, do you really believe all that nonsense? The only thing cursed about that place is your own perception of it.”

“You can’t disagree with facts,” the goliath argued. “And the fact is that too many people have died going after this. I won’t be another.”

“Well, you are replaceable,” the aarakockara pointed out.

“You’d leave me behind, Resa?” the goliath asked sounding hurt.

“Yes, we can and we will,” the goblin snapped. “Now, are you coming with us to Eadhelmsbrigge or not?”

“I still think it’s a bad idea but-” Philip stopped channelling their conversation as soon as he realized there was no more information to be had. “I know what castle they’re talking about,” he said smugly.

“You’re joking,” Daniel grinned. “Why haven’t you said something before now then?”

“I didn’t know exactly where it was,” Philip explained. “I knew there was an old castle in the east of Umbria that was full of treasure and allegedly cursed, but I didn’t know which one exactly it was. If they’re going to Eadhelmsbrigge, though, there’s only one castle there and that’s Waldorf castle.”

“How far away is it?”

“About a day and a half’s flight.”

“Think we can beat them there?”

Philip smirked. “You know we can.”

_______________

“You know, considering we’re supposed to be going off on an adventure, you sure are making this incredibly boring,” Daniel groaned, flopping dramatically over his favourite lounge chair.

Philip growled at him. “Well, if I didn’t have a needy little flesh bag tagging along I would have left by now; instead I’m stuck here making sure he has everything he needs while he lazes about and bitches at me.”

Daniel snorted and rolled off the couch, not taking a word the irritated dragon said to heart. “Look, it’s just going to be five nights we’re gone. Two to travel there, one to steal everything we can carry, and two to get back. Easy. I don’t need you to pack everything I’ve ever owned. Look, I’ve got a pre-packed bag of basically everything I could possibly need.”

“And just what do you have in there?” Philip huffed, narrowing his eyes.

Daniel scoffed but started digging through his bag at Philip’s behest. “Uh, let’s see, I’ve got a shitload of ball bearings-”

“Why the hell would you need that?”

Daniel shrugged. “I dunno, setting off traps? Tripping people who might be following you? I’ve used them loads. Do you want to know what else is in here or not?”

Philip pursed his lips. “I’m almost scared to find out, but, yes, I do.”

Daniel grinned and began to list off the things he dug out which included his lock-picking tools, a tightly wound ball of string, a bell, candles, hammer and pitons, and a thick coil of hempen rope. “All I really need is water, food and a couple medicine packs,” he said, listing them off on his fingers.

“What about all your bedding and clothes?” Philip argued.

Daniel wrinkled his nose. “Okay, a change of clothes would probably be ideal, but I definitely don’t need blankets or anything. It’s the middle of summer and I sleep on you all the time anyway. Anything else is just taking up room.”

Philip frowned as Daniel went about gathering up all the rations he’d need for the trip. “If you’re sure. I just feel like there’s something going on that we don’t know about.”

Daniel snorted. “I swear to Lolth if you’re going to bring up that worthless fortune teller from yesterday I will leave and never come back.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on mentioning her, but with that kind of offer how can I refuse?”

“Fuck right off.”

“I am completely serious, though,” Philip insisted. “Something big is about to happen and I’m not sure we’ll know what to do when it does.”

Daniel sighed and stood up to look Philip in the eye. “Look, everything is going to be fine. You’re just on edge because you’re superstitious as hell and believe every story of castles being cursed ever. You know what’s going to happen? We’re going to get there and because we’re damn good at what we do - far better than most - we’re going to take care of all the traps, fight any monsters we have to and get rich. It’s going to be great and you’re going to have a cool ass mirror for your hoard.”

Philip rolled his eyes, but morphed back into his dragon form and let Daniel load their things onto his back. When he was done they set off, fortunately under the cool cover of night this time. As it was night there were few people awake and outside to see them and even fewer who could actually make out Philip’s dark form blotting out the stars as they soared overhead. Much to Daniel’s dismay, Philip kept the course straight and true, not dilly-dallying to do his usual flips and tricks. They weren’t in a race against time by any stretch of the imagination, but they did have a schedule to keep and he didn’t see much point in wasting time or energy on unnecessary aerial acrobatics.

This left Daniel rather bored during the two hour flights between breaks and after counting his bag of ball bearings for the fifth time (he had 916 every time he counted) he decided to inflict his misery on Philip. So, tell me more about this allegedly haunted castle we’re about to rob he thought casually. He laid back and made a game of trying to keep his eyes on a single star as the soared past them. The sun was just beginning to make its presence known and the sky was now a couple shades lighter than the inky blue it’d been all night. Fortunately, this meant they were going to be landing probably within the hour; unfortunately, this meant that the stars were even harder to stare at which drastically increased the level of Daniel’s game.

Well, I already told you that it’s Waldorf Castle, Philip explained. A couple hundred years back it was owned by the Waldorf family and the daughter married the king, leaving the parents alone in the castle as they had no other children. The story goes that they were really shitty to their servants, so one day the servants all gathered together, stuffed their pockets with as much gold they could carry, and just left. The lord and lady had absolutely no power to punish the servants into coming back, and they were too proud to change their behaviour, so eventually, they wound up dying right there in the castle because they didn’t know how to feed themselves.

Serves them right Daniel snorted. Probably had a loaded pantry and everything, the problem was just between their ears. Imagine starving to death in a castle because you’re too foolish to eat while there are actual people just outside your door starving because you won’t give them food.

It’s just the story Philip shrugged. There’s probably another answer, but I haven’t found one nearly entertaining enough to replace that one.

Daniel snickered for a moment before asking So, what’s the treasure inside like? Surely it’s a spectacle to behold.

Mostly just the normal things you’d find in a castle: Clothes, jewels, gold, and the like. The most interesting thing is the magic mirror the lady allegedly has. Nobody’s quite sure what it does, now or then. It’s got no functionality other than a normal mirror, but it’s got such a magical aura that even non-magic users like you would be able to feel it.

What good does that do anybody?

None, but there have been years of research put into discovering its use, and if I get it that time belongs to me.

So, tell me more about this curse then.

Philip rolled his eyes and snorted, sending a trail of smoke whizzing above Daniel who was glad he wasn’t sat back up. There’s no curse. Yes, a dozen or so parties have tried to get in and failed but that’s no reason to assume it’s cursed. Worst case scenario is that another dragon has taken it as their lair-

We could have has a castle for a lair?!

I could have taken a castle, but I didn’t because caves are more like where I grew up, and they’re easier to hide and protect. Anyway, it could be a dragon, but I haven’t heard anything and if they’re this close to my territory they should have come to see me by now. If it is a dragon it’s a young one, probably just out of the wyrmling stage and after its first lair.

Alright then, no dragons who would actually pose a threat. Got it. Will there at least be traps for me to set off?

Most likely.

Cool. I hope we come across a ghost. I’d love to fight a ghost.

Not really, you wouldn’t.

And why not?

You only have physical weapons. How well do you think punching a ghost is going to go?

You ruin all my fun.

Philip rumbled out a deep laugh from within his belly but said nothing. Instead, after spying a nice clear meadow surrounded by trees for them to camp under, he started to gently dive towards the ground. Once he was on the ground and unloaded, he transformed back to his humanoid shape grinned smugly. “I bet you’re glad I insisted we take those bedrolls now.”

“Well, you were supposed to be a great bloody lizard for me to rest on!”

“That form would have been way more conspicuous,” Philip argued. “Now, help me set up camp.”

Together they managed to set up a crude, easily dismantled shelter for the day and ate their meal. Finally, Philip collapsed across the pile of bedrolls they had set out (he didn’t quite grasp how they worked, but he was happy with his mini bedding hoard) and fell asleep immediately. Daniel joined him after making sure everything was picked up, and just as the first rays of sun peeked over the horizon his eyes slipped closed.

After a few hours of meditation, Daniel looked around and realized that there was absolutely nothing to do, so he closed his eyes again and attempted to sleep. As elves lacked the biological need to sleep, their sleep was different - generally lighter and more fitful - from other creatures, and this was particularly true for Drow who tried to sleep anywhere but the calming darkness of a cave. Thankfully, this quirk was actually far more helpful than detrimental for Daniel this time around.

“Philip, wake up,” he hissed, elbowing his sleeping friend in the side. Philip quickly startled awake with a slurred, “Wassamatter?” to which Daniel replied, “I think somebody found us.”

Philip yawned widely but silenced himself to better hear his surroundings. Everything was quiet for a moment and he was about to tell Daniel to go back to sleep when the sharp crack of a stick breaking jolted him into full alert mode. With a snarl, he rose to his feet, and before he was even stable he fell forwards onto all four dragon legs, his tail lashing back and forth angrily.

“Who’s there?” Daniel called out to the seemingly empty woods, grasping the handle of his short sword. “We know you’re there, and maybe if you come out we won’t hurt you.” Philip snorted at this so Daniel corrected himself. “Okay, we won’t kill you.”

“Oh, we’re not too concerned about you killing us.” Daniel whipped his head around to see a clever looking goblin emerging from the trees and running his fingers over the blade of a scimitar. Behind him, a Goliath and a young aarakocra followed carrying a greatclub and a light hammer. Daniel quickly thought back to the previous day and realized with a groan that these were the people they had overheard. The goblin smirked at the sudden realization on Daniel’s face. “Oh, you do remember us. Yes, we knew you were listening, because I just so happen to have a little device that tells me when unscrupulous people are prying.”

“Look, we don’t mean you any harm-”

“You mean to take our treasure!” the aarakocra interrupted, her voice just as high and sharp from her own beak as it had been from Philip’s. “That’s just as bad!”

“Hush, Resa,” the goliath soothed. “Deyoram and I will handle this.”

The goblin nodded. “Yes, we’ll handle this. Now, if the two of you don’t mind, I’d quite like to see the tail of this one-” he gestured to Philip, “-soaring through the air as the two of you make your way home.”

Philip growled, the sound rumbling in his chest and Daniel smirked. “Well, then it looks like we’ll just have to settle this the old-fashioned way.”

Before anyone else could even think of reacting, the aarakocra raised a taloned hand in the air and three glowing darts flew straight from her palm and into Philip’s side. The dragon scoffed at the weak attempt at harming him and breathed a cone of fire at the three challengers. The aarakocra flapped her wings quickly and only caught the very edge of the attack, but the goliath and goblin didn’t react quickly enough and were surrounded in flames. As soon as the flames subsided, the goblin let out a ferocious cry and rushed Daniel with his scimitar. However, Daniel nimbly stepped out of the way and brought his own sword down in a vicious slash. The goblin cried out in pain and Daniel was about to make another attack, but was buffeted away with a swing of the goliath’s club.

From her position in the air, the aarakocra levelled her crossbow at Philip and let off a shot, which bounced off his thick hide. He returned attack with his claws, attempting to slash her out of the air. After a few missed swipes, Philip caught her with one of his claws and sent her hurtling straight into the ground. After taking a moment to make sure she was still breathing, the goblin growled and slashed his sword at Daniel again. This time the attack caught him right across his belly, sending him stumbling back with a cry of pain. Gritting his teeth, he attacked, smirking when he felt his sword pierce right through a chink in the goblin’s armour. His victory was short lasted, however, because at that very moment the goliath attacked again with a harsh blow across the back of his head.

The aarakocra groaned and with what remained of her energy she cast another spell that created a cloud of daggers that floated and spun about like a swarm of bees. Daniel would have honestly been very impressed if he weren’t too busy being slashed by a hundred knives all at once. Philip had apparently grown tired of the fight because he reared back and shot another cone of fire at their attackers.

When the smoke and fire cleared all three of them were very still and covered in a good amount of soot and none of them were moving, not even when Daniel nudged them with his foot. Smirking he sauntered over to the goblin and rooted around in his pockets until he came across a shiny silver acorn about the size of a date. He quickly pocketed the item, knowing that’s what had tipped their rivals off to the presence of listening ears; this would definitely come in handy.

“Do they have anything good?” Philip asked, once again on two legs.

“Not that I’ve seen,” Daniel admitted as Philip went about searching the bodies. “I found the goblin’s listening device, but you can’t have it for your hoard.”

Philip wrinkled his nose. “Don’t think I’d want it anyways. It may be magical, but those things are fairly common as far as artefacts go.” He also took a moment to nudge the goliath, frowning when they didn’t respond at all. “Did we… did we kill them?”

Daniel frowned and went over to the aarakocra and held his dagger just below her beak. He waited with bated breath for a moment until a tiny cloud of condensation formed on the blade. “Well, the magic user is still alive, and pretty much every magic user at least has access to a healing spell so once she wakes up I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he reasoned, standing and sheathing his weapon. Philip looked almost a little disappointed that he hadn’t managed to actually kill anyone, but Daniel was relieved. He’d manage to live 124 years without killing anyone himself (he’d definitely had a hand in more than a few deaths, but he wasn’t present for them so they didn’t count) and he wasn’t too interested in ending that streak.

“Well, come on, then,” Philip yawned. As usual, as soon as the threat was gone he’d gone right back to his lazy sleepy state. “We’ve got a few more hours of daylight before we can actually get anywhere, and I don’t want to be even close to these fools when they wake up.”

Daniel grunted his agreement and started helping Philip break down their small camp before they set off on foot, making sure to stay in the shade of the trees. If they just so happened to forget a few healing potions then that was their business. By the time the sun had properly set they had made it to a nice open field great for takeoffs and had eaten their fill for their pre-flight meal. Fortunately, they had made it almost two-thirds of the way to the castle the previous night, and after only a half night of flight, they made it to the surrounding forrest. They spent an hour or so setting up a much sturdier camp than they’d had the previous night, then had a good meal. They were just getting comfortable when the first rays of dawn started shining over them.

“So, what all do you think we need to prepare for?” Daniel asked suddenly. “I mean, I know there’s going to be some traps but do you have any idea what kind? You know more about this place than I do.”

Philip huffed, thinking for a moment. “Well, there’s not a dragon in there, that’s for damn sure,” he said eventually. “It’s a lot smaller than most castles, so I don’t think there’s going to be anything too big in there.”

“Will you be able to get in there in your obnoxious lizard form or will you be stuck like this?” Daniel demanded, suddenly a bit more concerned. As a dragon, Philip could take on pretty much anything with no effort, but in his humanoid shape, all of his attacks were much weaker.

Philip shifted uncomfortably, tail lashing back and forth; he was just as - if not more so - uncomfortable as Daniel about fighting like this. “I’m afraid I’ll have to stay like this. If I go in there huge there’s a good chance I’ll wind up knocking in the walls and collapsing the whole thing right down on top of us.”

“Well, that makes things significantly harder,” Daniel frowned. “But you’re right, if you can’t fit in there then likely nothing else will either. Besides, we’ve faced worse challenges before; remember that time you managed to get arrested when we went to Lundy? They put you in adamantine chains and everything.”

“I think you wound up breaking three lockpicks trying to get me out,” Philip chuckled.

“I like to imagine I’ve gotten better at lockpicking by now,” Daniel grinned.

“Oh, what about that time you got kidnapped by mermaids?” Philip recalled fondly.

“That was awful!” Daniel pouted. “My potion was wearing off and I don’t think we even managed to get any treasure from that.”

“I dunno, you came away from it with a nice case of pneumonia.”

“You’re the worst!” Daniel whined. “Now, lay down so I can lay on you. I’m so exhausted I think I may actually sleep for a bit.”

Philip cocked a brow, knowing it was unusual for an elf to be so tired they craved actual sleep. Their fight from earlier must have taken more out of him than either of them realized. However, he didn’t say anything, just turned into his dragon form to enjoy the last few hours he had before he was crammed into his smaller form and stuck in a tiny castle for who knows how long. As he settled, curled up in and around himself, he made sure there was an elf-sized pocket of space, and as expected it didn’t stay empty for long.

Good morning, Daniel he thought lazily as he quickly drifted off to sleep.

Good morning, Philip.

_________

Waking up from a sleep his body actually needed would never stop being a weird sensation for Daniel. When he was just meditating he was very quick to come to his senses when he was done and always felt refreshed and reenergized, but when he woke up from a deep sleep it was like he was moving and seeing the world through a big vat of honey and he somehow always felt more tired than when he went to sleep. The one and the only reason he ever did it, other than light catnaps meant to waste time, was because he knew that the energy he got from sleep would last him longer and make him more alert whenever he was back to full functionality.

Another odd thing was waking up alone when he knew for a fact that he fell asleep surrounded by a dragon. In fact, said dragon was back in his humanoid form checking once again that they had everything they’d need. “Oh, good, you’re up,” he muttered, recoiling the rope in his hands. “You know, for a creature that doesn’t generally require sleep you sure do sleep for a long time. Do you think we should bring torches and or candles?”

Daniel graciously chose to ignore the comment about his sleeping and instead went about eating the breakfast that had been left out for him. “I don’t think so. I mean, the both of us have Darkvision, plus you have Blindvision and you can breathe fire.”

“What if for whatever reason we get separated and you need to light a fire or something?” Philip argued.

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Fine, we’ll take a few torches, but I’m only carrying one. You have to carry the rest.”

Philip scowled, but conceded. “Alright then. Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

“Neither of us is getting any younger,” Daniel shrugged, swallowing the last chunk of bread. He shouldered his bag (which was considered the lighter of the two) and led the way into the woods with a jaunty skip in his step. He hadn’t really done much delving into dungeons in his career as a thief; when he was younger he was much more interested in getting food to survive and when he joined up with Philip he just found that he preferred the challenge of stealing from the living. Philip had done more than his fair share of dungeoneering in his time and had an active distaste for it, but they generally had treasure that even he couldn’t ignore, plus Daniel always got a kick out of a new adventure.

Fortunately, Philip had managed to land a very short, uneventful walk from the castle, and Daniel waltzed right up to the door and yanked as hard as he could on the handle.

It didn’t budge.

Daniel coughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to hide the rosy blush colouring his normally purple-grey cheeks. “I, uh, I think it’s locked.”

Philip laughed and stepped forward, taking a door in each hand and effortlessly drawing them open. “You loosened it up for me,” he smirked, stepping inside.

Daniel followed close behind, still pink-cheeked and muttering something about being a nasty showoff. Inside the castle was almost pure darkness and as he blinked to better adjust his eyes he thought for a half second about lighting a torch before his pride got the better of him.

Fortunately, Philip took matters into his own hands. “Tiamet, it’s dark in here,” he swore, squinting. “Can’t you do some kind of magic that makes light? I haven’t been somewhere this dark in at least a century.”

Daniel flushed lightly. Yes, all Drow children were capable of and taught how to perform the cantrip Dancing Lights, but he had never been much good at it, and his lights were always dimmer than those of his peer’s. It was a bit of a sore spot to this day. “I’m not sure how much help it will be,” he mumbled, deliberately looking anywhere but at his friend. “Besides, it’s still light enough to see. When it’s so dark I’m blind we’ll talk about using it.”

Sensing Daniel’s reluctance to continue down that line of conversation, Philip charged deeper into the room. The entrance hall was grand with impressive wooden doors on all three side and a pair of grand staircases curving up to the second-floor landing. If he had to guess, at least one of them led to the grand hall and another to an entertainment room and the last to the kitchens. He turned to Daniel and said, “Left, right or centre?”

Daniel puzzled over his choices for a moment, wrinkling his nose before finally saying, “Left.”

They made their way into the room and Philip was delighted to see that he was correct in thinking this was the sitting room. Well, in its prime it had probably been a sitting room, but now it was devoid of anything other than a nearly shredded rug, a couple ugly paintings depicting the previous owners and a nice sized fireplace to keep the inhabitants warm during winter. Apparently, whatever curse was on this place wasn’t good enough to keep thieves out of this room.

He pointed out his observations to Daniel who just snorted. “Come on, this room is a waste of time. Let’s get on with the show.” He led the way on through the door to the next room which appeared to be a smaller dining area, probably for meetings and such. Things continued to be unproductive throughout the following rooms of the great hall and the kitchen, but when they made it to the larder, Daniel found something rather interesting.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, throwing himself to the ground and digging under one of the shelves. A moment later he sat up with a delighted expression and a jar clutched containing what looked to be an orange sugar crystal in his hands. “This is mephit honey! This stuff is super hard to come by.”

Philip frowned; he, of course, knew about mephits - the impish little elementals that served no other purpose than to be a nuisance - but he had never heard of them making honey. Humanoids were so strange sometimes. “Surely it’s gone off by now. This place has been abandoned for almost two hundred years.”

Daniel gleefully shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong! For whatever reason, this stuff never goes bad; I should know, I carried around a jar for years when I was on the run to have as a treat. Right now you would have a hard time eating it because it’s sugared over, but we can melt it and you’ll understand.”

Philip narrowed his eyes suspiciously but took the jar being thrust at him. “And you want me to…?”

“Breathe fire on it? Yes, definitely.”

Still not one hundred percent convinced but still trusting, Philip produced a small flame that licked up and around the jar which he was slowly turning. As if by magic, Philip watched as the crystal inside began to melt until it turned back into liquid. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Daniel beamed. The jar was still very hot so he left it in Philip’s heatproof claws, allowing him to get a better look at it. To be perfectly honest, it looked and seemed to act like normal honey, but it somehow looked… alive. It was a much more orange and red colour as opposed to gold and with the way the light shifted in and around it seemed to glow and swirl around all on its own. “I think this one is from a magma mephit,” Daniel explained. “That usually has a spicier orange taste. It’s still sweet and hard like all mephit honey but it’s got different stuff in it. I had a jar of ice mephit honey and it was kind of minty and bitter.”

“Do you want to have some now?”

Daniel bit his bottom lip. “I don’t know, shouldn’t we be getting this thing done with?”

Philip rolled his eyes and started digging around in his bag for a spoon. “It’s not like we’re on a schedule or something and it’s not like this has to take all night. Have some damn honey.”

Daniel grinned and took the spoonful of honey when it was offered to him and popped it right in his mouth. As predicted, it was sharp and spicy like peppers but had a sour sweetness like oranges. Somehow, it even managed to make his belly and chest feel warm as it went down and he was suddenly assaulted with highly romanticized memories of his time spent wandering the Underdark. “Fuck, you need to try this now,” he moaned, shoving the spoon back to Philip.

Philip chuckled, obviously doubting the endorsement, but as soon as his lips closed around the handle of the spoon his eyes shot open. “Mother of mountains, that’s good,” he mumbled around the spoon still in his mouth, looking like he’d just had a religious experience.

Daniel laughed and took the jar back, ignoring the quiet growl he received. “Come on then. This castle won’t explore itself.”

“Well, we’ve done about all we can down here,” Philip said. “Upstairs it is.”

They made their way back out to the grand entryway and up the stairs. Standing tall and proud at the top were a pair of plate armour suits both holding matching longswords. “I wonder why these haven’t been taken,” Daniel muttered as he investigated the armour.

“Maybe they just assumed they’d get better stuff later,” Philip shrugged. “I mean it’s nice armour and all, but unless you suddenly needed armour I don’t see why you’d want it.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed easily, deciding it was time they moved on.

However, the castle apparently the castle had decided it wasn’t time to move on. As soon as they stepped off the balcony to investigate there was a loud creaking as a quiet whistle and they both turned around. The armour had suddenly sprung to life and was swaying back and forth like it was being worn by someone made of porridge while the swords were up in the air slashing about as easily as when a master swordsman held them.

Daniel grinned at Philip and pulled out his shortsword. “Honestly I’m rather glad something has happened on this trip. It was getting dull.” Without waiting for a response he quickly lunged forward to attack the suit of armour nearest to him but completely missed. “Um… whoops?”

Philip rolled his eyes and swiped at a sword with his claws. The hit landed perfectly and sent it spinning through the air to hit the other sword which didn’t much appreciate getting hit and flew back with a wide slash that Philip was lucky enough to block with the thick hide of his tail.

As if it was only just now understanding what was happening, the suit of armour Daniel had attacked slammed its entire weight against him, sending the drow sprawling to the floor with the wind knocked from his lungs. Following the attack, the sword Philip hit slashed down at him as well, making him cry out.

At the sound of Daniel’s distress, Philip glanced over which gave the second suit of armour a chance to attack. The first time it threw itself against him he was able to keep standing, but it attacked again and this time he was sent stumbling back. Fortunately, as it was about to attack for the third time, Daniel swooped in and smacked it away with the flat of his sword and it collapsed in a heap.

Philip growled under his breath, growing tired of this fight. Noticing that the remaining suit of armour and the two swords were conveniently right next to one another, he sucked in a deep breath and let out a blisteringly hot cone of flames. When the flames died down, the only things left indicating there had been anything there in the first place were a few charred - mostly beyond recognition - piles of metal. Philip smirked, pleased with his work. “Let’s get going, shall we?”

Daniel crossed his arms and pouted but followed along. “You always manage to get the final hit in with your dumb fire breath,” he whined.

“Benefits of adventuring with a dragon, I suppose,” Philip mused, wandering towards the left.

The first room they came across was bare save for the giant bed frame dominating the space. Assuming it had at one point been a bedroom, Daniel frowned, noticing something was off. “Philip, we’re pointed north, yeah?”

There was a grunt of agreement as he dug through a mostly empty trunk.

“People usually put windows on the north wall to keep cool in summer, yeah?”

Another grunt.

“Then why haven’t we seen a single god damn window in this place?”

Philip suddenly looked up, what once had been a fine silk scarf in one hand. “What did you say?”

Daniel gestured at the wall before them which was flat stone and nothing else. “There haven’t been any windows on this place at all. The great hall, kitchen, hell there wasn’t even one in the larder.”

“That… is odd, yes,” Philip admitted slowly. He stepped forward and placed an ear to the wall, rapping on it slightly. “It’s empty on the other side.”

“Well, if it’s leading out to the woods, yeah, it’s empty.”

“No, there’s definitely a room on the other side,” Philip argued. “The stone is warmer than it would be if it lead straight outside.”

“Is it a servant’s passage?” Daniel guessed.

Philip frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Look at the corners of the room. I don’t think this wall was put in by professionals.”

“Do you think it’s part of the traps this place is known for? Because other than that armour there haven’t been many traps.”

“Could be,” Philip shrugged. “Could be nothing. We’ll have to find the entrance to know for sure.”

Daniel hummed in agreement, shoving a nice enough looking gold candlestick in his bag. They left that room and continued on to the next room, whose door looked much more imposing and regal. “Lord and lady’s room?” he guessed. He reached out to turn the knob, but it refused to budge. “Oh, yeah?” he muttered, crouching down and pulling out his lock picking kit. “You want to keep me out? We’ll see about that.” He fiddled about with the long delicate tools before he heard the ever-satisfying click of a lock being opened. However, as he was about to pull the tools out there came the dreaded clunk of a lock being fastened and the near-silent snap of his tools breaking cleanly in half.

Everything was silent for a moment before Philip said, “Well, that was unexpected.”

Daniel scowled up at him as he gathered his remaining tools. “Oh, really? I would never have guessed. Next, you’ll be telling me that you spit fire during battles or something.”

Philip snarled, but Daniel just narrowed his eyes further, completely unintimidated. “Sulking like this will solve nothing,” he said instead. “It’s obviously got some kind of enchantment on it that keeps the lock from being opened. Now, if there’s a magic lock, there must be some kind of magic key we can find.”

Daniel sighed deeply but grudgingly agreed. The rooms to the left were much the same as the first one they came across, empty save for a few trinkets they took for themselves. Philip found a glass ball full of smoke that swirled around, a golden whistle and an odd stone block that was somehow weightless. Daniel came away with a shard of obsidian that burned his hand when he held it, a set of bone pipes, a solid silver skull about the size of a coin and a multi-coloured stone disk. He planned on selling the skull and pipes in town, but Philip said the obsidian and disk were charged with spells he could potentially use in battle.

They made it back around to the right half of the floor and found a room that appeared to have a second room attached to it. Daniel went to open it until there was a loud grunt and the sound of something very big sitting down on something very small. He turned back to Philip a bit pale-faced and shook his head.

“You don’t want to go investigate it?” Philip hissed quietly.

“Not particularly, no,” Daniel squeaked, quickly shuffling towards the door. “You can go in and have fun getting the shit kicked out of you by whatever is in there, but I’m going to be not here.”

Philip rolled his eyes but he, too, saw the error in picking a fight they didn’t exactly need to be in. They both made their way back into the hall and up the flight of stairs conveniently right next to where they were. The highest floor of the castle also appeared to be the bleakest . While it was true that the other two floors showed definite signs of wear and theft, they also had a distinct feeling that they at least used to be elegant with the ornate rugs and furniture and paintings. This floor, however, was completely stone from what Philip could see and had never been anything but the bare essentials. “I think we found the servants’ quarters.”

“Yeah,” Daniel murmured back, wandering up the main hall of the floor. When he got to two doors, one on either side of the hall, he opened the right and walked into what used to be the servants’ sleeping chambers, complete with a chest of belongings. “Philip, come here! I think I’ve found something!”

Philip came as he was called, but unfortunately, Daniel’s call hadn’t only alerted him. From the beds appeared a sleepy looking, but very large bugbear. When they finished blinking the sleep from their eyes, they focused on Daniel and Philip and let out a shout of alarm.

Philip leapt into action, hitting the creature in the stomach with his tail, cutting their cry for help off in a gurgle. Daniel quickly pounced on the winded bugbear, both daggers out and stabbed them right in the chinks of the armour. The bugbear roared in pain before bringing the morning star in their hands straight down on Daniel’s back twice. The first hit landed painfully, but Daniel managed to drop down to the floor and dodge out of the way of the second attack so it instead landed on the bugbear.

While they tussled Philip took an opportunity to morph his mouth into a much more dragon shape, which he then snapped down on the bugbear’s arm as they reached back to swing at Daniel again. While Philip had it restrained, Daniel drew his sword and with a decisive movement, stabbed it into the bugbear’s side.

“Enough!” the bugbear growled out. “I forfeit, you win! Take what you want and go!”

Daniel and Philip shared a quick glance and a nod before Philip brought a fist down on the top of their head, knocking them unconscious. They glanced up at one another and made eye contact for a moment before they both burst out into snickering. “Come on, show me what they were protecting!”

Philip chuckled and went over to the three small chests gathered in the corner and began to dig through them. However, it seemed that with everything he found he became more and more frustrated. “It’s garbage!” he declared. “It’s all garbage! The most interesting thing in here is a broken sword hilt and a knitting needle that claims to be unbendable, but there’s no mate.”

“What?” Daniel snapped, stomping over to investigate. Philip was right and all three chests were virtually empty and among the few things he did see were empty bottles, a bit of faded parchment, and a tiny cage. “This is all useless; we can’t even sell it!”

“I know,” growled Philip, more than a little displeased. He stood in a huff and hissed at the unconscious bugbear for wasting his time while Daniel went about collecting his daggers from their back. “Come on, maybe there’s something actually half decent across the hall.”

However, it seemed that they hadn’t managed to halt the bugbear’s call of alarm early enough before because just outside were two dire wolves sniffing around trying to find some way to help their now fallen master. Before either of them could react, one of the wolves leapt at Philip’s teeth bared, but the dragon simply grasped it in his claws and sent it skittering down the hall. The second wolf snarled and attacked Daniel who stepped aside and stabbed it with the daggers still in his hands.

“We don’t have time for this,” Daniel snapped, shoving away the first wolf back towards its pack mate. “Roast them for Lolth’s sake!”

Philip nodded then took in a deep breath and let out a bright cone of red-hot fire. One of the wolves made it out of the blast only mostly on fire, but before it could do anything Daniel swept in and stabbed it with his daggers. The dire wolf let out a short whimper of pain before collapsing with the other. Without a second glance, they made it into the other room which was a direct mirror of the other and most likely served the same purpose. Even the chests were in the same spot and they eagerly dove into them to see what they could find.

“Oh, this is much better!” Daniel crowed, pulling out a pair of statues. One was of a rather smug halfling, but the other was of some creature straight from his nightmares which he showed to Philip. “Okay, I don’t know much about magic, but this one creeps me the hell out so there has to be some kind of magic on it.”

Philip glanced up from the painted egg display he was delicately clutching in his claws and actually flinched when he saw what Daniel was holding out to him. “I’ve had one of those used on me. It’s got some kind of necromancy spell put on it, and judging by the vibe I’m getting from it, it’s a pretty powerful one. Have you seen this egg? It’s wonderful!”

Daniel peered in close enough to see that every bit of the shell had been carefully hand-painted with scenes of human suffering in horrifying detail. It made him a little sick to his stomach, but even he could see the time and effort that went into making it and that was exactly what Philip loved more than anything. “It’s great.”

Philip carefully put it in his pack and picked up a vest that looked to be covered in at least a hundred near uselessly tiny pockets, but tossed it back into the box. “Well, I think that’s all we’re going to get here, yeah?”

“Onwards, then,” Daniel grinned, leading the way back into the hall. Luckily there wasn’t anything waiting for them this time and they made it to the overcrowded dining area unmolested. “What the fuck happened in here?”

“The wall collapsed,” Philip said unhelpfully.

Daniel glared at him before going in so he could closer investigate. As Philip had pointed out, the wall had fallen in right near the corner of the room. As he looked around he noticed that the other side of the wall was empty and led into a long narrow hallway. “You know, I’m sorry I criticized you for wanting to bring torches because it’s way too dark in here for me.”

Philip smirked at once again being right as he too came to look at the wall. “I guess this was the servants' passage at one time,” he noted.

“I bet it has a way into that room downstairs,” Daniel grinned, already stepping over the rubble into the passage. “Hand me a torch.” Philip rolled his eyes but handed over a lit torch. Daniel looked around for a bit before his eyes settled on a pile of rocks that was probably supposed to be the stairs. “Well, I guess we’re not going that way.”

“Left it is then!” Philip said cheerfully, walking off. Before he got even a couple metres away he stopped and said, “Ah. Well, I think we’ve finally found the thing that actually turns people away from this place.”

Daniel cautiously stepped forward to see lots of spikes. They were all at least knee high and wickedly sharp, and they completely filled the corridor from wall to wall and down a good five or so metres. “Can’t you just fly us across?”

“Normally, yes, but this hall is too narrow for me to spread my wings.”

Daniel frowned a moment in thought before he snapped, grinning. “I’ve got an idea. Sit on the floor with your feet flat to the wall.”

Philip narrowed his eyes but did as he was told as Daniel did the exact same thing behind him. “All right, now what?”

“Push against my back at like a quarter strength and when I say ‘go’ take a step with your right, my left foot. Okay? Go!” To both of their surprise, they managed to get the one foot off the ground. “Okay, next one!” Again it worked. “Next!” They somehow managed to actually walk their way up the walls of the narrow hall until they comfortably cleared the spikes. “Okay, now we’re going to go down the hall.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Against my better judgement, yes.”

“Then we go down the hall.”

It was slow, difficult work, and Daniel actually slipped once, but they did make it. When they were back on flat ground Daniel brushed his hands off with a look of surprise. “Wow. I thought for sure we wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Philip turned on the young drow and got very close to his face. “If you do anything like that ever again I won’t have to worry about spikes killing you because I’ll do it myself,” he hissed, and Daniel at least had the decency to look sheepish.

“Everything’s fine though?” he said cautiously. Philip just growled and he quickly and wisely shut his mouth.

Fortunately, Philip’s attention was grabbed by a set of three gold chests in what should have been the corner tower of the castle. After giving Daniel one final glare he made his way over and tried to open one of them. Unfortunately, it was locked as would be expected so Daniel knelt down beside it and started fiddling with his lockpick set again. With a resounding click, the chest swung open and he moved on, meeting a similar success.

“Oh, yes, this is much better,” Philip cooed, pulling a long sword inscribed with runes from its sheath. “I may actually use a weapon if it looks as nice as this.”

Daniel smirked, grabbing a small pouch of fine, black dust. “Do you know what this is? This is Dust of Disappearing This is going to be so useful when we actually have to sneak into someplace.”

Philip hummed in delight as he investigated the armour he had found and thought about how it would look tossed on his hoard. He gathered up the rest of the useful items, including a lantern that turned invisible things visible, a second set of daggers in case anything happened to Daniel’s, and a wand used for detecting magic. “Come on; now that I know there’s useful stuff in here I’m a bit more excited about the rest of this place.” He started confidently strutting down the hall, but he didn’t get more than ten steps away when his foot suddenly slipped out from under him. Eyes wider than they had ever been, Philip fell straight on his ass in the least graceful tumble of any dragon any time anywhere.

“O-oh my fuck,” Daniel positively cackled, leaning against a wall and clutching his sides. “You should have seen your face!”

Philip scowled, refusing to acknowledge the warmth blooming under his cheek scales, as he carefully scooted along the floor until he was on normal ground and could stand. “Okay, so slicked floor. How do you suggest we get across this time?”

Daniel just grinned and started running towards the slick floor. Just before he hit unstable land he leapt in the air, pulled a tight flip and landed in a power slide which sent him whizzing down the hall. When he got to the end his feet hit friction first and he turned a somersault and landed perfectly on his feet. “I’d recommend doing it just like that!”

Philip grumbled something about show off elves and how they’d get their comeuppance as he gingerly stepped onto the slicked floor. Clinging to the wall with all his strength he slid forward one foot at a time, slowly but steadily making his way to safety and completely ignoring Daniel’s heckling for him to hurry up.

“Took you long enough, old man,” Daniel sneered.

“Well, that’s certainly no way to treat your elders,” a rough, high-pitched voice said from behind him.

“No, it’s not,” agreed another, deeper and more gravely than the first.

Daniel whipped around to see what looked like the statues of two hulking dog demons standing in the corner, facing towards one another as if they were gossiping. “Did you hear that? I could have sworn someone said something,” he asked, stepping forward to investigate. “Is anyone behind there? Come out and talk if you think you’re so clever.”

“Oh, we know we’re clever,” the high voice said.

“However, it’s quite obvious by now you aren’t,” the deep one added.

Philip scowled at the statues for a moment before his eyes widened and he shouted, “Daniel, look out! Those aren’t statues, they’re-”

“We’re gargoyles!” the high voice delighted as the other gargoyle darted its arms forwards to ensnare Daniel in a tight, bruising grip sinking its claws into his sides as he let out a pained yelp. The first gargoyle took its chance to attack Philip while he was distracted with Daniel’s situation, managing to get a deep gash across his arm. Snarling, Philip retaliated with a cone of fire right in its stone face causing it to leap back to its partner wailing “That hurt!”

“Don’t make this any worse than it has to be,” the other said slowly and sunk his claws deeper in Daniel’s side. “Leave the loot where you found it and get out and we’ll let both of you live.”

“Yeah! Maybe we’ll let you live!”

“You think you can kill me?” Philip snarled, fanning his wings as far as they’d go and puffing out his chest. “I think you’ll find that I can eat a pair of gargoyles like you for a mid-afternoon snack.”

“That’s true, but your friend here doesn’t seem to be as sturdy as you are,” the second pointed out, nodding at Daniel.

Philip growled lowly in his chest at the now very real threat. He was a dragon for the mountain’s sake! How dare these puny monsters challenge him or threaten his charge? He was about to tell them they had crossed the wrong dragon on the wrong day when his gaze fell on Daniel who had been squirming in the gargoyle’s grasp the whole time. Clever drow that he was he had somehow managed to worm his hand into the pocket he was storing his multi-coloured stone in and had his fingers pressed on the yellow section. Philip turned his attention back to the gargoyles with a smarmy grin. “You’d be surprised at how he overcomes his lack of sturdiness.”

The first gargoyle wrinkled its face. “And just what is that-”

It was very suddenly interrupted by a cube of lightning emanating from Daniel’s stone, freeing him and sending the two gargoyles hurtling back into the wall. “Let’s go,” he gasped, grabbing Philip’s arm and dragging him away from the fight. “Let’s go now!”

Philip quickly followed behind him, more focused on shielding Daniel (who wasn’t looking so great after three fights and getting captured by stone monsters) from any attacks from behind. Unfortunately, because he was so focused on protecting Daniel and Daniel so focused on just getting away, neither of them noticed Philip stepping on a pressure plate. With absolutely no warning, the floor tilted down into a chute that sent them bouncing against walls as they made their unwitting way down, down, down. As if to add insult to injury (or maybe injury to insult) there were four light hammers on the way down all positioned to perfectly smack both of them right between the eyes.

As soon as they were on solid ground Daniel collapsed face first to the floor clutching his forehead. “This is the worst day of my life!” he wailed, rolling back and forth.

Philip rubbed his forehead as well, but mostly in sympathy as he knew the damage didn’t affect him as much as it did his friend. “I think it may be time to heal up,” he said in a gentle voice even Daniel rarely got to hear. Daniel, in turn, just whimpered a bit and allowed himself to be propped right side up against a wall while Philip dug in his bag for one of the health potions he’d insisted Daniel bring along. “Come on then,” he nearly cooed tilting the blue mixture into Daniel’s mouth. As soon as the liquid touched his tongue, Daniel started convulsing but Philip managed to make him drink the whole thing and slapped a hand over his mouth to keep him from spitting it back up.

When he finally swallowed the last of it, Daniel gave a mighty shudder and shoved Philip’s hand away so he could curl up in a ball. “I hate that stuff,” he panted, trying to regain his breath as he recovered from the health potion.

“Well, do you at least feel any better?”

Daniel was quiet for a moment as if taking inventory before he shrugged. “I mean I feel like death but I don’t feel like I’m about to die from getting the shit kicked out of me.”

Philip chuckled and handed him the waterskin to at least help wash the taste out of his mouth. “Well, you up for starting again or do you want to call it quits and go home?”

Daniel shoved himself up and looked around. “Can we even get out?” he wondered. “I have no idea where the world’s shittiest slide dumped us on our asses.”

Not a moment after Daniel said that Philip noticed a smell on the air: old ashes. “I… I think I might actually know where we are,” he said cautiously, following his nose towards the corner. Sure enough, when he found where the scent was strongest he noticed a little hole no bigger than Daniel’s pinky in the mortar of the wall. Curious, he stuck a claw in the hole and started scratching until it was wide enough for him to look through. “Yeah, we’re right outside of the kitchen.”

“That’s neat and all and I’m super interested that you managed to figure out where we are,” Daniel said, far more interested in the treasure he’d found. Most of it had just been gems and coins, but two things had garnered his attention. “Listen to this it’s kinda fucked up.” He put a small rectangle box of metal to Philip’s ear, and much to the dragon’s horror he soon heard the scuttering of a hundred spiders. “Cool, isn’t it?” Daniel grinned, taking it away. “And look! This is like a reverse flint. It sparks when wet!”

Philip cocked a brow at his excited companion, again wondering how he always managed to go from being on Death’s door to rambunctious and eager to start any fight he thought he could win. “That’s super useful. Too bad you don’t have someone who can literally breathe fire, that’d be really convenient.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Shove off. I almost died; I’m allowed to have all the fun I want.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a light glinting at the end of the hall. “Come on, maybe there’s a way out this way.”

Philip nodded and they were almost to the end when they heard someone talking. “Do you smell it, Lucy,” an oily male voice cooed. “Can you find it for me, darling?” There was a deep bark for an answer. “What was that? You say we have visitors?”

Daniel froze, back instinctively against the wall. He motioned for Philip to do the same and he did, both of them holding their breath.

“You’re here, I know you are,” the oily voice said. “I can hear you and Lucy smelled you.” The creature stepped forward and Daniel took a sharp breath in for they were being hunted by an imp - a small, bright red man with bat wings and a scorpion tail. The imp heard Daniel’s breath and he turned so their noses were right next to each other. “Found you,” he said with a nasty grin.

Philip went to attack him, but he apparently heard him coming because with a snap of the fingers he was invisible. “Get out here and fight, you coward.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will,” the imp cooed. “I just wanted to make sure Lucy got her fair share, too.” Daniel and Philip turned around to see a giant black dog with fire in her eyes and foam around her six-inch fangs. The imp appeared with another snap of the fingers. “Get ‘em, girl.” The hellhound bonded forward, fangs bared and pounced on Philip, who snarled in pain as she sunk her teeth into his shoulder. Daniel went to attack the beast with his drawn sword, but a sharp sting in his thigh brought him down to his knees. When he turned the imp just grinned at him and snapped out of sight.

“Make him visible!” Philip snarled, slashing at the hellhound with his own claws and teeth.

“How?!”

“I don’t know, maybe some fucking magic!”

“Right, right!” Daniel took a deep breath and focused all he had on the childhood memory of learning magic with his peers. He ignored his past failures at performing the spell and concentrated on the spell itself. Suddenly, everything was glowing with a brilliant violet light, including the hellhound Philip had by now soundly bested, and the imp. Who happened to be right in front of him.

“Well, shit,” the imp muttered under his breath.

Daniel just grinned and slashed him with his sword which sent him stumbling towards Philip who took great pleasure in smacking him against the wall with his tail. There was a large puff of smoke that cleared as quickly as it appeared, taking the imp and hellhound with it. “I have to admit, I was impressed with the magic,” Philip grinned. “I thought you said you’d never do magic.”

Daniel sputtered indignantly. “You’re the one who told me to!”

“I was actually expecting you to use the lantern,” Philip shrugged. “You know, the one we just got that turns invisible things visible?”

Daniel slapped his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. “I forgot we had that.”

Philip just chuckled and nudged him gently. “Come on, this way was a dead end. Grab what we can from the chests and let’s go.” Within the chests, he managed to find a shelter orb that would fetch a nice price on the market along with a faintly glowing crystal that wasn’t magic, but that he could probably convince someone was.

“These are for you,” Daniel muttered, distracted, shoving a set of pretty earrings shaped like teardrops at him as he investigated the pair of daggers in his other hand. “Holy shit I think this is a poison dagger.”

“Can I see?” Philip requested. Daniel grunted and handed one over while he went through the rest of the stuff, shoving anything that looked even remotely valuable in his bag. Philip returned the dagger when he was done investigating it and with an impressed nod said, “Yeah, it’s definitely poisonous; magic, too. Keep an eye on that thing.”

Daniel nodded and attached the sheaths to either side of his belt, then turned and made his way back down the hall. Things were quiet as they made their way back to where they had been, and on down the hall, but just before they got to the corner, Daniel heard some unfortunately familiar chattering. “Quiet,” he hissed. “There’s some mephits down in the corner. If we’re careful we can get the jump on them.”

“What kind of mephits?”

“Probably magma if the mephit honey is any indication.”

Philip scowled. “I’m guessing fire won’t be super helpful here, then.”

Daniel bit his lip in thought before snapping his fingers and retrieving the multi-coloured stone disk. “You said this had Ray of Frost on it, yeah? Magma mephits hate that shit.”

Philip nodded and took the stone. “So I’m guessing we’re doing a range attack?”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, pulling out his sling. He didn’t use it often, but he was rather glad of it now. “On three? One… two… three.”

As one, they leapt into action, Philip shooting a spell at the one on the left while Daniel shot a rock at the one on the right. Unfortunately, Daniel didn’t do quite as much damage as he’d hoped with his sling and the two mephits that Philip didn’t freeze near solid didn’t enjoy being attacked, and the one in the middle that hadn’t gotten hit yet flew straight at Philip while the other shot a cone of flame right at them. Fortunately, Philip managed to step in front of Daniel so he could take the worst of the damage.

Before the flames even managed to completely die down Daniel leapt over Philip’s shoulder with his sword drawn, slashing it across the startled mephit’s chest, then ducked down to allow Philip to follow up with a harsh smack with his tail sending it flying back. The third mephit had by now defrosted itself and together the three of them breathed fire at Daniel and Philip. Philip bent forward to shield Daniel with his wings, but one of his legs got caught in the worst of the flames. However, this didn’t stop Daniel because he dashed forward and slashed all three of them with one stroke.

As soon as he did two of the mephits began to shake violently and Philip had barely enough time to grab Daniel tight to his chest and turn around before they both exploded. The final mephit shrieked and swooped in for an attack, but Philip held up the stone and shot another Ray of Frost at it, freezing it solid so it couldn’t explode.

“Okay, so maybe attacking three fire-breathing elementals with no cover while my fire-proof friend had to jump in to keep me from being charbroiled wasn’t the best idea,” Daniel said after a moment of silence.

Philip snorted and shoved him good-naturedly. “If you crave death so much you could just tell me; that way I’d at least get a good meal out of the deal.”

Daniel barked out a startled laugh and stumbled off to see if he could find something of value in the mephits’ nest of three chests. He threw open the middle one and was delighted to find a full set of Sylvan battle regalia including armour, shield, and a scimitar. It was all very pretty and somehow even the leather armour and wooden shield managed to shine with a rainbow pearlescence. He quickly shod his regular armour and posed with his arms out. “What do you think?”

“You look lovely,” Philip said, not bothering to look up and instead focusing on the chest to the left. Daniel was about to get upset over the lack of attention but Philip interrupted him by saying, “Do we have some kind of stick somewhere?”

Daniel frowned and bent forward to investigate the chest as well. He could tell there was definitely something wrong but he’d be damned if he could put a finger on it. “Er, not that I know of? I mean we have a couple of swords, but I don’t think those would be very helpful?”

Philip bit his lower lip and squinted harder at the box as if that would help him unlock its secrets. “Okay, so we’re going to back way up and you’re going to shoot both of these boxes with your sling, okay?”

Daniel nodded and once they were a safe distance away he grabbed another rock from the ground and hurled it towards the chest on the left, hitting it with a resounding thunk. As soon as the rock made contact, the lid of the chest flew open to reveal a set very sharp teeth and a long sticky looking purple tongue. It thrashed about for a moment trying to find its prey but when there was nothing to be found it quieted down and went back to looking just like a regular chest. White-faced, Daniel looked up at Philip who nodded and he sent another rock flying at the other chest which did the exact same thing as the other.

When the chests were completely still Daniel whirled around to face Philip. “What were those things?”

“Mimics,” Philip said gruffly. “They sit around looking like normal chests but if you try to open one they eat you.” “Why haven’t I ever seen one before?”

Philip shrugged. “We normally rob places that still have people living in them. Mimics usually only go for places that have been abandoned.”

“Well, I’m sure as fuck glad I’ve never had to deal with one,” Daniel shuddered. “How did you even know they were there?”

“I didn’t, that’s the thing. They’re impossible to distinguish from a normal chest until they attack; that’s why I had you attack them first. I just smelled something off in that corner and I wasn’t willing to risk it.” He grinned, all of his abnormally pointy teeth showing. “Normally I would have just let you open it so I could see the look on your face when you were attacked by a box, but we’ve already had one close call today. How are you doing, by the way?”

Daniel grimaced at the reminder of their fight with the mephits. “Well, considering I’ve been caught mostly on fire twice in the past ten minutes after drinking a health potion that feels more like poison than anything I’m doing pretty good.”

Philip narrowed his eyes. “And on an objective scale?”

“Probably somewhere around a twenty-nine out of seventy.”

Philip snorted out a laugh. “I have no idea where you got those numbers but I think you’re gonna be fine for now.”

“Honestly I’ll say just about anything to keep you from forcing that health potion down my throat.”

Philip thumped him on the forehead. “How’s this: I won’t make you take it until we come up against something I don’t want to fight.”

“Yeah, but you want to fight everything.”

“Well, then it’s your lucky day.” Daniel chuckled and Philip smiled and shoved him down the hall. “Go on. And be careful you don’t accidentally knock into one of those things.”

Daniel made a face at the mere thought of touching one of those monsters, and with his eyes narrowed at them and his back flush to the wall he scooted past with Philip following behind as normal. He made his way around the corner and let out a deep sigh. “More spikes,” he warned Philip. “And this time they’re in a pit. Since you didn’t seem to care for my solution of getting over them last time, why don’t you figure it out?”

Philip snorted. If I recall correctly you carry around a set of pitons. You could just scale the wall like a normal person.”

Daniel pouted but fished the small spikes from his bag. “You sure know how to suck the fun right out of everything,” he muttered, quickly and skillfully making his way across the pit. When he was on the other side he turned to Philip who was still in the same spot. “Well? What now? How are you getting over here?”

“You’ll see!” Philip called back, grinning. He looked over the pit once more just to be sure he could do what he was planning, then he took a deep breath and ran as fast as he could.

When his foot hit the very edge of the floor he pushed off with both legs with all his strength, sending him hurtling through the air towards Daniel. However, the pit was a good ten feet long and even at his best he had no hopes of clearing it with a mere jump, so when he felt himself start to fall he unfurled his wings as wide as the hall would let him and flapped tucking into a backflip and landed perfectly safe on the other side.

Daniel narrowed his eyes and shoved him in the chest. “Bloody show off you are.”

Philip grinned and bowed. “Don’t worry, even at my worst I’m nothing next to you.” Daniel just sputtered, his blush dark enough that it even coloured his grey skin. Philip snickered and pulled him along by the shoulder. “Let’s go the stairs are right there, and I bet we can get out of here if we make it to the next floor.”

Daniel grunted and moved ahead, starting up the stairs. He very suddenly wished he hadn’t gone up first when about halfway up the step beneath his foot suddenly gave way sending him tumbling forward and his left foot dropped into a hole lined with wickedly pointed knives all facing downwards. The blades had torn his leather boots to ribbons and he could already feel tiny cuts all the way up to his knee so in a tiny voice he squeaked out, “Uh, Philip? Can I get some help please?”

Philip wrinkled his brow in confusion but when he looked down and saw the problem he went a bit pale. “Well, shit.”

Daniel cackled hysterically. “Have I ever told you I fucking hate dungeons? There’s never any decent shit in here because everybody’s already taken it, there are traps fucking everywhere, and monsters of every shape and size crawling all over the damn place. I really just want to get this fucking mirror and go home so we can swear to only rob living people. I hate this.”

“I know,” Philip rumbled as soothingly as possible. “I know you hate it and as soon as we get out of here I promise you never have to go in another dungeon for the rest of your life.” He reached down into the hole to grab one of the knives and started wiggling it back and forth to break it. “Now if you just hold still-”

“What are you doing?” Daniel screeched, grabbing fistfuls of Philip’s hair. “I swear to fuck if you make me lose my leg I will de-wing you! You’ll never fly again!”

Philip rolled his eyes and managed to snap the blade off its holster and slapped it on the ground. “There. Happy? Now, hold still.” Unfortunately, the remaining eleven knives didn’t go quite as smoothly; Philip’s hand was severely cut up and Daniel got stabbed in the calf more than once, but Daniel was free. Philip took one look at Daniel’s leg and winced. “Okay, so you definitely need another potion if you even want to make it to the top of the stairs.”

“I won’t even argue with you,” Daniel panted, eyes screwed up in pain. He grabbed one of his remaining potions and uncorked it with his teeth then proceeded to drink the entire thing. As usual, it took a moment for it to settle in his stomach but when it did he had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from being sick. However, it did do exactly as advertised and his leg magically stitched itself back together; it wasn’t perfectly healed, but it would be enough to get him out of this damn castle and home where he could rest. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Philip said, staring at his palm. He focused for a moment on all the magic coursing through his body that kept him alive and directed it to his injuries which started to fade until they were just faint red marks. “Alright, no more games, we need to get out of here. Follow behind me.”

Daniel nodded and Philip marched up the stairs, careful to test every step with his tail before putting any weight on it. They made their way up to the next floor without any issue. Daniel tried to pass him as to take the lead as usual, but Philip stuck out an arm to hold him back and glared. He took a step forward and right onto a pressure plate that sent a hailstorm of ball bearings raining down right on him causing him to lose his balance. He turned and glared at Daniel who had started giggling like this was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

“Holy shit I’m so glad that was you and not me,” he wheezed between laughs. “I just don’t think I could take being on the shit end of another one of these traps without straight up bawling my eyes out.”

Philip growled but his glare lessened as he shakily made his way back to his feet. This was even worse than that time Daniel had dragged him out to that frozen lake so they could slide around on the ice. “We need to figure out how to get across.”

“You need to figure it out,” Daniel corrected. “I already know what I’m doing.” Without another word, he tied his rope around Philip’s waist and ever so gracefully glided across the slippery marbles.

He very slowly started to pull Philip along but the moment he started to move Philip fell to the floor with a loud thump. “Just drag me like this,” he sighed, draping one arm over his eyes while Daniel giggled and tugged him along. Eventually, but not soon enough to save his pride, he was back on his feet. “Let’s, er, let’s go,” he mumbled. Daniel once again tried to take the lead, but Philip grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him back.

This was rather convenient because as soon as Daniel was behind him an arrow whizzed through the air directly where he was standing. Philip whirled around and snarled with his wings spread out to brush either side of the corridor and keep Daniel from view. He narrowed his eyes to see further down the hall and as he did another arrow came at them, but missed by a mile. From the gloom two gnolls emerged, their hulking furry bodies hunched over at the shoulder and saliva dripping from their snouts.

Before Philip had any time to react, Daniel had scrambled up his back and thrown both of his daggers at each of the creatures, piercing each one in the thigh. “Can’t you sit back for two minutes?” Philip scoffed, rolling his eyes. He took one look at the gnolls and decided that any time spent fighting them was time wasted, so he took in a deep breath and roasted both gnolls in one go.

“No fair, you ruined my daggers,” Daniel scowled, investigating the blackened blades that used to be his knives. “I mean, they were the extra ones that we picked up, but I still liked them.”

Philip scoffed and picked them up and put them in Daniel’s bag, unaffected by their scorching heat. “Once they cool off they’ll be fine for throwing. Just don’t throw around your good ones like that.”

Daniel scoffed under his breath but sulkily followed behind Philip who found the gnolls’ bag that he presumed they had been stuffing with the loot they had come across. “Hey, you know how to use a crossbow, yeah?” Philip asked handing over the weapon. “I’m pretty sure that one’s got some magic on it, too.”

Daniel frowned but took the crossbow to examine it. “Yeah, I know how to use one,” he said, stashing it in his own bag. “I don’t like using them though. I much prefer one on one when I can.”

“Don’t I know it,” Philip grumbled under his breath; Daniel pursed his lips and smacked him on the back of the head. “What is this thing? I saw you looking at one in town the other day.”

Daniel snatched up the long, thin metal tube and grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. “This, dear Philip,” he said grandly, “is a Chime of Opening. You can use it to unlock anything.”

Philip cocked a brow. “You think it would work on the main chambers?”

“Only one way to find out.” He then tugged the bag away so he could look through it himself. “Holy shit, they had the best stuff! Look at this!”

Philip puckered his lips as he investigated the tattered-looking hat in Daniel’s hands. “And that is?”

“I’ll show you.” Daniel slapped the hat on his head and after the resulting puff of magic cleared, Philip found himself looking at… well, himself. “Ta-da!” the false Philip said in Daniel’s voice.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Philip said, clearly impressed while Daniel took the hat off and returned to his normal self. “Anything else of note?”

“Actually, yes,” Daniel said, producing a ring to show Philip. “I think this may be of interest to you?”

Philip inspected the ring in delight. “If this is what I think it is, it could prove to be rather useful.”

Daniel cocked his head. “What is it? I thought it was just a pretty magic ring.”

Philip shook his head. “No, according to legend these are supposed to be able to summon an elemental that you can command.”

“Well, that’s going to come in handy.”

Philip nodded and tugged Daniel away from the now mostly empty bag. “Come on, there’s nothing else of note.” He and Daniel headed down the hall, Philip once again in the front. Oddly enough, there was a curtain covering the entirety of the hall and he glared at it suspiciously. “Step back.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “It’s a curtain, Philip. Not everything is trying to kill us.” He went to move it himself but Philip snarled and smacked his hand away. “Alright, alright,” he huffed, clutching his hand to his chest. “I’ll wait back here while you fight the big bad curtain.”

With a dramatic flourish, Philip tore open the curtains, but absolutely nothing happened. He sheepishly turned around to tell Daniel he was right but was met with only a blank stone wall that definitely hadn’t been there before. “Daniel?!”

“Hi, yes, hello, Daniel here!” Daniel shouted from the other side of the wall, far more concerned with his own issues at the moment. As soon as the wall had silently slotted down between him and Philip another one had appeared at the end of the hallway and the room they created was quickly flooding with water. “Uh, yeah, can you please get me out of here before I drown?”

“I’ll get you out!” Philip swore, ramming his shoulder against the wall, which didn’t even budge. He went to attack it again but was slammed into the wall. He whirled around only to see Daniel looking at him confusion on his face.

“Philip?” he asked nervously. “What was that?”

“Daniel? I thought you were on the other side of the wall?”

“I am on the other side, you stupid overgrown lizard! And if you don’t hurry up you’re going to have to deal with my drowned corpse!” came Daniel’s muffled voice.

Philip turned to the Daniel in front of him just in time to see it grin maliciously and slam into him again. “This is going to be much easier than I thought,” taunted the Daniel Philip now knew was a doppelganger. “You know, I thought beating a mighty dragon would be much harder.” Philip snarled and shot fire at it, but it dodged with a sly smirk and slammed into him again. “Oh, you’re going to have to do much better than that.”

Philip slashed his claws, managing to catch it off guard and hit it across its face. “Philip! I need to get out now!” Daniel called an edge of panic now in his tone.

Philip slammed against the wall again, still unable to make a dent. “Look for some kind of switch! Maybe there’s-” he was cut off by a grunt as the doppelganger once again slammed into him from the side. He growled and batted it away with his tail then threw himself at the wall again. “Daniel!”

Daniel took a deep breath and dove down into the water, squinting through the darkness to try and find anything that could help him escape. He emerged several times to get a quick lungful of air and check on the fight, and it didn’t sound too good on Philip’s end. Once he made it to the end and saw nothing he quickly swam back just in time to hear Philip get thrown into another wall. “There’s nothing in here!”

“Then start hacking at the wall yourself!” Philip shouted, slashing his claws into the doppelganger. He attacked the wall again but turned around in time to catch the monster and throw it off before it could hit him again.

Daniel grunted and got out the daggers he had thrown at the gnolls and started trying to chip away at the wall. He heard Philip throw himself at the wall again before the water finally rose overhead, leaving him unable to do much of anything but float and hold his breath.

“Daniel?” Philip called. When there was no response he yelled a bit louder. “Daniel!” The doppelganger took its opportunity to attack again, but Philip caught it in his unforgiving claws. Then with a loud, angry roar, he threw it at the wall separating him and Daniel, which cracked in several places before it suddenly burst temporarily flooding the hall and knocking Philip back. As the water drained away he sat up and saw two Daniel simultaneously sitting up and rubbing their heads.

One of the Daniels blinked at the other for a moment as if trying to comprehend what he was seeing before turning to Philip. “Philip, listen to me. It’s me. That guy is the fake, okay?”

The other Daniel just rolled his eyes and stabbed him with the daggers still in his hands. The first Daniel froze for a moment and looked back at the Daniel who stabbed him in shock. Then he began to twitch, flashing from Daniel to Philip then a dwarf, a gargoyle, an elf, faster and faster before it settled on the blue humanoid shape of its true form and died. “Well,” said Daniel, yanking his daggers out of the doppelganger. “I have to admit I wasn’t expecting that.”

Philip sat in shocked silence for a moment before bursting out into loud, bright laughter. “No, I can’t imagine you were,” he said, shaking his head. He stood and walked over to help Daniel to his feet. “So, how do I know you’re the real Daniel, hmm?” he teased.

Daniel arched an eyebrow and said flatly, “Maybe you don’t. Maybe I just used magic to make the real Daniel look like a doppelganger when he died. Maybe the Daniel you knew was always a doppelganger. Who knows?”

Philip snorted. “Well, the doppelganger might have had your face, but it certainly didn’t have your sharp tongue. I’m pretty sure even if you are really a doppelganger you’re the one I can trust.”

Daniel dropped his act and beamed at him. “I guess you have me pigeonholed. Now, are you going to make me wait back next time we have to do something or are you going to let me fight, too?”

Philip rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. Fight everything in this castle and die. See if I care.”

“You’d care a little bit,” Daniel smirked. “Admit it. You’d be pretty put out if I died.”

Philip glared playfully and pointed down the hall. “Go. Unlike you, I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives in this castle.”

Daniel proudly took his place at the head and went ahead. When he got to the corner he grinned, noticing that there was a good portion of the wall that had somehow collapsed, leading to the room inside. “Philip! I think we found our way out!”

“Thank Bahamut,” Philip muttered. He stomped forward but froze when he saw what was inside. He turned to Daniel with an infuriated look on his face. “There’s a troll in there! Why can’t anything go our way in this damn place?” he hissed.

Daniel swore under his breath. “Is there any way we can get past it?”

Philip peered into the room again. “I think it’s asleep right now. This is probably that thing we heard earlier when we were going through here.”

Daniel pursed his lips. “Okay, we’re going to try to sneak past it, but I’m also going to put these ball bearings on the ground around it so if we do wake it up at least we’ll have a moment while it tries to stand up.” Philip nodded and they carefully crept into the bedroom and Daniel silently emptied his bag of ball bearings so they pooled around the sleeping monster. They made it all the way to the door which opened with the loudest creak either of them had heard.

Unfortunately, this woke up the troll who jerked and immediately went to stand. Fortunately, Daniel’s careful planning paid off and it went tumbling to the ground again and again as it tried to get on its feet. “Let’s go let’s go let’s go!” Daniel shouted, pushing Philip out the door and slamming it shut behind them. With the door closed, he began piling as much stuff as possible in front of the door, finally stabbing the two daggers he’d ruined on the wall into the doorframe to block the door from opening. “Hopefully, that will keep it occupied long enough for it to get bored of trying to hunt and kill us!” he said with false cheerfulness as he quickly walked through the door.

When they were both out on the landing Daniel let out a relieved sigh at the familiar sight. Until this moment he hadn’t dared hope they would actually be getting out, but now he was sure they could make it home. “Come on, let’s get this stupid fucking mirror and get the hell out of here.”

Philip grunted in agreement and they went to the previously locked door which Dan smugly pointed his Chime of Opening at, causing it to swing open. As predicted, the room inside was grand, far nicer than any of the others they had seen. Thanks to the magical lock, nobody had managed to get inside so everything was untouched since the lord and lady died.

That included the pair of corpses lying on the bed.

“Holy fuck,” Daniel swore, covering his nose with his shirt. “How long have those been there, you reckon?”

“Who’s to say?” Philip grunted. He managed to keep his composure a little better than Daniel, but only just. “All things considered, they’ve most likely been here since they died over a hundred years ago.”

“Then why the fuck do they still smell like this? Surely they should have turned to dust by now.” Philip furrowed his brow in thought, but suddenly the corpses moved, giving Daniel his own answer. “They’re ghouls,” he groaned, drawing his sword. “I hate ghouls.”

“You were telling me on the way over here that you wanted to fight one.”

“I said I wanted to fight a ghost.”

Philip scoffed and shot flames at the shambling corpses. Fire alone apparently couldn’t stop them; before the flames even finished dying down the two monsters leapt at Daniel and Philip. Philip was taken by surprise and snarled as one of them latched its teeth onto his arm, but Daniel managed to shove the one attacking him away with his shield.

“I bet ghosts don’t smell this bad,” Daniel grouched, stabbing the one that had attacked him and kicking it away.

“You’d be surprised,” Philip said, swinging around and smacking both ghouls with his tail. One of them exploded into dust upon hitting the wall but the other one let out a shrill cry and attacked again. It managed to swipe its claws against Daniel’s arm, but he retaliated with his sword and it too exploded into dust.

Daniel sheathed his sword dusted his hands off. “You know there’s something awful behind that door, right?” he said nodding to a door that most likely led to a closet. As the mirror was nowhere to be seen in the room, the closet was the best guess for its location.

Philip snorted. “Based on our experiences so far I’m thinking there’s probably two terrible things.”

Daniel smirked, and offered him the last potion in his bag. “You want this? I’m doing all right, all things considered, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look this rough. That doppelganger really did a number on you.”

“Don’t remind me,” Philip shuddered. He took the potion and drained it and Daniel was once again bitter over the fact that potions didn’t make everyone sick. Philip definitely wasn’t completely better, but he didn’t look like a strong breeze would knock him over anymore. Daniel counted that as a win. “Alright, open it up.”

Daniel nodded, and magically unlocked the door. Inside was something a bit odd. The mirror was propped up in the back surrounded by several glowing orbs of light in a rainbow of colors. Piles of shields scattered around the mirror, but no armour or weapons anywhere. He was about to point this out to Philip when the door slammed shut, startling them both. Philip immediately tried to force it open by ramming his shoulder into it, but it didn’t budge. Daniel stepped forward and tried to use his Chime again, but all it did was produce a pretty ringing sound.

“This is bull shit,” Daniel snapped, kicking the door. He soon regretted this action and hopped around on one foot while holding the injured one in his hands.

As he was hopping around the cramped room he managed to knock into the mirror. This triggered a response and he watched in slight horror as the shields all formed together into the shape of a large humanoid. He gently tugged on his friend’s sleeve. “Uh, Philip, we have a-”

He nervous warning was interrupted as two fists made of shields swung at them. Daniel managed to yank Philip down with him as he ducked to avoid the attack so they were both unscathed. Philip started off with a fire attack, and Daniel followed up with his sword which bounced uselessly off the shield guardian’s shields. The guardian again attacked, this time managing to catch Philip in the chest. Philip snarled and bit down on the guardian’s arm and slashed with his claws.

While Philip had it distracted, Daniel snuck up behind it and stabbed it with his daggers which were once again useless. The guardian swung at them, which they rolled away from to dodge. Philip leapt on it to slash and bite, and Daniel started digging through his bag. He knew his usual weapons weren’t affecting the guardian, so he needed to fight magic with magic. He soon found what he was looking for, and with a shout he threw the tiny nightmare statue at the guardian. It bounced off harmlessly and fell to the ground. Daniel was worried for a moment that it hadn’t worked, but hellish flames erupted from the ground at the guardian’s feet. Once the flames were gone, the guardian stood still for a moment before collapsing to the ground in a pile of shields.

“This damn mirror better be worth it,” Philip snapped, marching towards it. He examined the window for a moment then nodded. “It is actually pretty nice. What do you think?”

“I dunno, there’s something about it…” Daniel trailed off into silence, eyes locked on the mirror. Visions were flashing across his eyes, visions he couldn’t understand. He saw unpulled carriages of metal that roared down streets swarmed only with humans. He saw a man on a hill and music played but there wasn’t a bard, just a strange black box. He saw the same metal carriages, only much much bigger that flew through the sky with the birds. Strangest of all, he saw human versions of himself and Philip sat nearly on top of one another as they looked into a strange rectangular portal that showed moving pictures. As he watched the Daniel and Philip on the couch smiled gentle smiles and moved their faces closer-

“Daniel!”

Daniel was snapped from his vision and looked up to see his Philip staring at him in concern. “I don’t think I like this mirror,” he slurred, then collapsed to the ground.

“Daniel!” Philip snarled, shaking the drow to try and wake him up. He swore at himself for taking the last health potion and hoisted Dan up into his arms. He ran out of the castle and as soon as he cleared the door, he transformed into his full size and carefully placed Daniel on his back in the safest way he could. He spread his wings and took to the sky, not even stopping to break down their camp. He flew all night, not stopping for rest once just furiously flapping his wings.

He made the journey in just ten hours. The sun had made its way into the sky by the sixth hour and Philip could feel the warmth prickling uncomfortably at his dark scales, but pressed on. He made it to their cave and fell into a heap, completely exhausted. He was so tired he couldn’t summon the energy to transform, so he just curled up around Daniel in his dragon form and let the exhaustion wash over him. He was safe, Daniel was safe, and nothing could happen to them so long as they were in the cave.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Phil let out a deep sigh and fell back on Dan’s bed watching the other man dart around the room grabbing as much stuff as he could hold and shoving it in his suitcase. “You really are the worst packer ever, you know that?” he yawned.

Dan paused what he was doing and narrowed his eyes at him. “You could help you know.”

Philip snorted. “Yeah, right. Every time I’ve tried to help you you act like I’ve never packed a bag before. I’m pretty sure last time you actually smacked my hand.”

Dan winced at the memory and zipped his bag shut. “Okay, well, you don’t have to just sit there and watch me. You could call the train station and see if we can get a later ticket.” “I already know we can’t,” Phil pointed out. “I deliberately got the latest ticket possible. If we miss this train we won’t be able to leave until morning.”

Dan whipped around and looked at him wild eyed. “Well, shit,” he said before rushing out the door for the bathroom.

“Try not to blind yourself this time!” Phil cheerfully called after him. He hummed to himself and puttered around the room, making sure Dan had everything. Sure enough, he picked up Dan’s phone charger and wallet and packed a couple pairs of socks. He stashed the charger and wallet in their travel and zipped the suitcase right as Dan stumbled in. “You ready now?”

Dan shoved his toiletries bag into his suitcase and whirled around. “Yes. Let’s go right fucking now.” Without waiting for a response, he shoved past Phil and out the door. By the time Phil made it outside he was already shoving his bags into the boot of a cab he had waved down. “Phil! Come on, we’re going to miss our train!”

Phil rolled his eyes fondly but complied with Dan’s need for speed. “Liverpool Street Station, please,” he ordered the cabby after Dan ushered him in.

“Traffic over there is terrible right about now,” the cabby warned. “It’s gonna take us a good thirty minutes.”

“That’s fine.”

Dan gawked at Phil. “No it’s not! Our train was supposed to leave at a quarter to five and it’s already half past!”

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” the cabby apologized. “I’ll get there as fast as I can, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Phil insisted. “We have more than enough time to get there.”

“Phil,” Dan hissed, “if we miss this train because of traffic I’m going to scream.”

Phil cocked an eyebrow. “Well, first off, if we missed it it’d be because someone didn’t pack.” Dan quickly broke eye contact, his ears ever so pink. Phil laced their fingers together so he could press a kiss to the back of his hand. “Luckily I know and love the person in question and our train doesn’t leave until a quarter past five.”

Dan snapped his head back around and narrowed his eyes at his grinning boyfriend. “You, Phil Lester, are a criminal mastermind.”

Phil laughed and dropped their hands. “I prefer to think I learn from my mistakes.”

“That was nearly a year ago, drop it, you ass.”

Phil hummed, pretending to think about it. “Well, we nearly missed our tour to take you to A&E because you were too lazy to pack. It’s probably best that I keep that in mind when booking from now on.”

Dan crossed his arms and pouted slightly. “That was one time.”

“What about when we went to New York and you didn’t pack socks, your laptop charger, or any money?”

“Okay, fine, I’m not good at packing. Maybe I should just let you do it from now on.”

“I offered this time.”

“Shut up!” Dan slapped his hands to his ears. “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t deserve this kind of harassment!”

“Of course not, dear,” Phil chuckled, rolling his eyes and looking back out the window. Dan stuck his tongue out at him and the driver chuckled, but the commotion died down quick enough. The ride was mostly quiet spiced with Dan leaning over to show Phil something from Tumblr while the driver asked the typical non-prying questions about their upcoming trip that Phil had to answer ass usual. As the cabby said earlier, the drive did take over a half hour, but thanks to Phil’s prior planning, they got there in plenty of time. Dan climbed out of the cab and started to unload their bags while Phil paid the driver and after weaving through the crowded station and showing their tickets to the appropriate people they were sat in the waiting area for their platform.

They were completely absorbed in their phones when there was a soft cough in front of them and as one they looked up to see a slightly nervous young woman smiling at them with a very young boy hiding behind her legs looking at Phil like he hung the moon. “Uh, hi,” she said awkwardly. “You’re Dan and Phil right? What am I saying I know it’s you two I don’t even know-”

“Yeah, it’s us,” Dan interrupted with a kind laugh, and she looked absolutely relieved to be stopped mid ramble. “I’m guessing you watch our videos?”

“Er, well, I used to?” she admitted, blushing a light pink. “I quit watching you guys about a year ago, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, tastes change,” Phil assured her. “Do you still want a selfie or…?”

“Well, the reason I came over isn’t for actually for me,” she said smiling. She leaned down and grabbed the boy’s hand and pulling him out to stand in front of Phil. “This is my son, Todd, and he’s the biggest AmazingPhil fan I know.” She looked at Dan and winced. “Sorry, Dan, he’s not getting his hands on yours for a while yet.”

Dan snorted. “Honestly, I wouldn’t want him to.”

Phil ignored their short exchange and stood so he could crouch down to Todd’s height and smiled his brightest smile at him. “Hi, Todd, my name’s Phil. It’s nice to meet you.”

Todd’s eyes got bigger and rounder before he bashfully ducked his head and looked up through his dark curls. “Hi,” he said in a voice so quiet Phil almost didn’t hear him.

“Do you like watching my videos?”

Todd nodded furiously. “I like lions, too,” he said, grabbing the pull in his hoodie and began chewing it.

“I bet Lion wishes he could hear that,” he chuckled. He pointed at Dan who was watching their interaction closely. “Do you know who that is?”

Todd nodded again. “That’s Dan.”

“Yeah, Dan’s my best friend. Who’s your best friend?”

“You.”

Dan made a strangled noise, but Phil managed to hide his reaction to the adorable answer a little better. “Well, you’re one of my best friends, too, then.”

Todd’s jaw dropped, the string dropped from his mouth to wetly hang where it belonged. He looked up at his mother who just laughed and nudged him forward. “Can I have a hug?” he asked tentatively like he really thought he could possibly be rejected.

Phil laughed and after glancing up to get an okay from his mother he said “You absolutely can!” He opened his arms as wide as they could go and after Todd flung himself in them he was wrapped up in the best hug of his life.

“I love you, Phil,” Todd said softly and Phil’s heart melted and he hugged just a bit tighter. When Todd finally pulled away he beamed at Phil like he had single handedly saved Christmas.

After clearing his throat of the lump lodged inside it, Phil asked, “Do you think we could take a picture for your mom?” He had noticed her taking pictures almost the whole exchange and she smiled and mouthed he thanks.

Todd nodded, and after a moment of scrutinizing Dan said, “Should we ask Dan, too?”

Phil chuckled. “Whatever you want, buddy. It’s all up to you.”

Todd thought it over for another moment before finally deciding, “Dan can come.”

Dan bowed grandly, “Thank you very much.” A moment later he and Phil were knelt on either side of Todd who had his arms around Phil’s neck like a grinning kohala.

“Thanks so much, you two, you have no idea how much this means to him,” the mother gushed. “I honestly picked the best guys ever to stan as a teenager. Almost jealous I didn’t get to meet you when I was a super fan.”

“We love meeting people who watch our videos,” Dan said. “People of all ages. Also, I don’t think I caught your name?”

“OH!” She blushed, and stuck out her hand. “Sorry, how rude of me; my wife is much better at this kind of thing. My name is Viviana.”

“Well, the two of you have a great kid,” Phil said, standing and shaking the hand.

“We’re lucky to have him,” she smiled down at him. “Speaking of my wife: Todd, honey, we have to go, mummy’s waiting on us. Say bye bye.”

Todd got in one last hug around Phil’s knees before taking his mother’s hand as they walked away. With the other he was waving at them and giggling. “Bye bye, Dan! Bye bye, Phil!”

“Bye bye, Todd,” Dan and Phil said in unison, waving until they saw Todd and Viviana go sit with another woman and Todd climbed into her lap and began to animatedly talk to her.

“Can we have like twelve kids?” Dan sighed dreamily, watching the family.

Phil laughed. “Well, let’s see how well we can take care of a Sim baby and maybe we’ll talk about getting a real one. Maybe not twelve, though.”

Dan rolled his eyes, and gently shoved him. “You know what I mean.”

Phil smiled and laced his fingers around Dan’s left hand and brought it up to kiss the ring finger on it. “Maybe we’ll get some kind of decoration here first.”

Dan breathing hitched for a half second before he was back to his usual teasing demeanor. “Well, you better hurry up, old man. Neither of us are getting any younger.”

“No, I guess we’re not,” Phil said, thinking about the little black box hidden away in his props chest. “We’re really not.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Hever Castle was beautiful, and anyone who got the chance to go should really take it, Dan would never begrudge them that. However, it was rather difficult to get to, even when you knew where you were going and what you were doing. When Phil is driving a rental car in the typical South England downpour it was apparently impossible.

“Dan, face it we’re lost,” Phil whined like the quitter he was. “Let me pull over and ask for directions.”

“We have directions!” Dan protested, waving the printed out directions from the website. You must be doing something wrong.”

Phil sputtered indignantly. “I’m doing exactly what you tell me to! Maybe you’re doing something wrong.”

Dan pursed his lips, refusing to admit there might even be a flicker of truth to the very thing he’d been thinking for the past ten minutes. “I’m literally reading off a sheet of paper. Unless you’re trying to imply I can’t read, I doubt it’s me.”

Phil groaned and dragged his hand down his face. “You know I’m not. Maybe we’re just both really bad at directions. Come on, just let me pull over real quick.”

“Give me five more minutes?” Dan wheedled. “Please? I promise if things are just worse that we can just ask for directions.”

Phil narrowed his eyes. “Why is this so important to you anyways? You wouldn’t even let me use my phone.”

Dan shrugged. “I dunno. My mum and dad always used to navigate for each other using real maps, and I definitely can’t read a map that well so this was the logical second. It just seems really grown up to me, I can’t describe it.”

Phil sighed. “Well, asked and answered, I guess. We’ll go another ten minutes and then ask for help.”

Dan leaned over the console and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just drive, okay? We’re looking for a road called Hever Road.”

“Dan, we turned onto Hever Road already.”

“Shit. Well, now all I’ve got is ‘turn left, turn right.’ I’m in hell.”

Phil laughed fondly. “Well, in that case I guess-”

“Holy shit, I think that’s it!” Dan interrupted, gesturing wildly out the windshield. Sure enough, the rain was slacking off just enough so that they could see through the trees and there was Hever Castle and Gardens looming in the distance. “Fuck, I thought we’d never get here!”

Following the road before them, they drove up to the castle, excitement growing steadily. “I’ve never stayed in a castle before,” Phil admitted. “I mean, yeah, I’ve visited them, but I never spent the night.”

“I have,” Dan said. “Mum and dad send me and Adrien on a bunch of little community field trips to get us out of the house during the summer. Adrien had loads of fun but I was at that age where I obstinately made everything I didn’t want to do torture so I thought it was awful.”

“You mean like your age now?”

Dan narrowed his eyes playfully. “Yeah, well, I was going to let you tweet about us staying at a castle, but now I’m going to.”

Phil sputtered indignantly. “That’s hardly fair!”

“Too bad! I’m already typing it out!”

“Ugh, you’re the worst.”

“You know, you say that all the time and I don’t think you know what it means.”

“It means I secretly hate you and as soon as Janet from the shops is ready I’m running away with her.”

“Won’t change the fact that I got to tweet about a castle first.”

Phil looked like he would have normally kept their banter going, but he was too busy pulling up to the valet and rolling down the window. “Hi, we’re here under a reservation for Lester? Also, this is a rental car and they said we could just leave it with you and they’d just charge my card?”

“Yes, sir,” the valet said, opening the door so they could get out. “We have staff who return rental cars for our guests.”

“Great! Well, I’ll just, uh,” Phil trailed off as a bellhop apparated at the boot and started unloading their luggage onto a luggage cart. He moved to help, but the bellhop was so efficient any assistance was thoroughly unneeded.

“Here’s the keys,” Dan said, mercifully stepping in and taking the keys from Phil’s hand. “We just need to check in at the front desk correct?”

The valet nodded. “Yes, and when you know what room you are, just tell Jay here and he’ll deliver your luggage.”

“Thanks!” Dan beamed, and steered Phil towards the main lobby. This seemed to snap Phil out of his stupor and he quickly informed the front desk of their situation and found out what room they were in and told Jay who led them right to it. The room was spacious and had furniture in it that was probably older than Dan, but the only thing he was interested in was the big cushy bed which he fell back on immediately.

“Dan, there’s a clawfoot tub in here!” Phil called from the bathroom excitedly.

“That’s cool as fuck,” Dan murmured, doing his best to melt into the luxurious duvet.

Phil wandered out of the bathroom after giving it his customary inspection and crawled in the bed next to Dan. “Come on, don’t give in yet. We’re supposed to be meeting Martyn and Cornelia for dinner, remember?”

“Can’t we just skip?” Dan whined. “We’re going to be spending the weekend with them, I doubt they’ll miss us for one meal. Tell them we’re too busy fucking in a fancy hotel room to go to dinner.”

Phil barked out a laugh and pressed a kiss to Dan’s curly hair. “I don’t think that will work. I’m pretty sure we’re going over a schedule so we don’t have to spend the weekend in each other’s pockets.”

Dan flopped over and grumbled into his folded arms for a bit before sighing and sitting up. “Alright, then. Let’s go to dinner with the in-laws.”

Phil’s eyes flashed deviously and a sly grin worked its way across his mouth. “Well, we don’t have to be there for a couple more hours. Cornelia insisted we get a chance to settle into our room.” “Thank god,” Dan sighed, collapsing back down on the bed. “Let me sleep here until I die here.”

“You know, the bathroom here is really cool,” Phil said conversationally.

“Oh, yeah? Great.”

“Yeah, it’s got probably the biggest shower I’ve ever seen in person. It’s like they made it for two people.”

Dan froze as Phil pressed a quick kiss to the nape of his neck. “Anyway,” he continued brightly. “I’m going to go take a shower, you just lay here.”

Dan laid in the bed, still frozen, for a moment and watched Phil practically sashay into the bathroom before scrambling to his feet and following him.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Dan was a great boyfriend, and Phil loved him more than words could say. He was clever and kind, loud and loving, brilliant and beautiful. He enriched Phil’s life and improved it in ways neither of them would probably ever fully understand. Phil adored him and wouldn’t give him up for the world.

That being said, he was shit at wake up calls.

“Come on, Phillip,” he sang, making sure to pop the “p” right in Phil’s ear. He was currently bouncing up and down on his knees on the bed right by Phil’s side, and had started his routine by re-creating a video to the Numa Numa Song.

And some people thought romance was dead.

“Please,” Phil whined, shoving his face under his pillow. Maybe if he pressed down hard enough he’d pass out and Dan would quit trying to get him out of bed. “Please just let me sleep I beg.”

Dan had the audacity to snort and even though Phil couldn’t see him he knew Dan had just rolled his eyes. “You wish. They serve breakfast in the gardens and if you think I’m going to miss out on posting the most aesthetic instagrams of eggs benedict ever then you’re dead wrong. Louise is in Venice and we have a bet on who can post the best pictures this weekend.”

“Can’t you just go by yourself?”

Dan snorts, and Phil takes a hot second to be a bit offended before Dan dug his knees into Phil’s side, quite effectively forcing him out of bed. When he was on his feet he turned and scowled at Dan who just beamed up at him. “Oh, good, you’re out of bed,” he had the audacity to chirp. “There’s a breakfast being served in the garden if you’re interested.”

Phil huffed, but he was already awake and out of bed, so there was no real point in denying it any more. “Sure, Dan. That sounds great. Let me get dressed and we can head down,” he yawned, making his way to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

“Don’t forget, I’m posting pictures, and you’re going to be in them,” Dan called after him. “Wear that bird shirt you got for the BONCAS.”

“I don’t think I packed that. Did I?”

“You didn’t,” he conceded, “but I put it in there when you weren’t looking.”

Phil stuck his head out of the bathroom and looked rather unimpressed and rumpled. “So, you’re telling me that you didn’t have enough time to pack your own suitcase, but you had enough time to make sure I had the specific shirt you wanted for your aesthetic breakfast photoshoot?”

“Every man has his priorities, Phil.” Dan grinned when he heard a soft “You’re impossible” that he probably wasn’t supposed to hear. “Hey, make sure you wear your glasses. Everyone thinks you look amazing in them and it will also help the ‘relaxed but posh’ vibe I’m going for.”

Phil shook his head and chuckled but did as he was ordered, and stepped out of the bathroom freshened up and bespectacled. He stepped in between Dan’s knees to press a kiss to his forehead, to which Dan responded with a soft, happy hum. “You know, we’re spending the weekend at a bed and breakfast in a castle. I don’t think you can get any more aesthetic than that.”

“Louise is in Venice,” Dan reminded him. “It doesn’t matter where we are, I’m going to have stiff competition.”

“I offered to take you to Venice before.” Phil would absolutely refuse to admit he was pouting, even under oath.

Dan rested his arms over Phil’s shoulders and beamed. “Yeah, and I still stand by my decision to stay at home.”

“What’s the point of having all this money if you won’t even let me spend it on you?”

“Aw, do you want to be my sugar daddy, Phil? I didn’t know you were into that.”

Phil sputtered, embarrassed, while Dan giggled at him. “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he whined.

"Yeah, but you’re fun to rile up,” Dan agreed, pecking him on the nose. “Now, get dressed. We’re going to be late.”

Phil hummed and did as he was told and before long he and Dan were headed down to the grounds hand in hand. “It really is a beautiful morning,” Phil said, breathing in the sweet summer air. He knew it would get hot later, but it was still early enough that the dew was clinging to the grass and the cool of night was still lingering.

Dan closed his eyes and lifted his face towards the soft periwinkle sky. “Yeah, it really is.”

Phil tore his eyes away from the scenery to stare at the man stood next to him. He had known Daniel Howell for eight years and he still managed to steal his breath on a regular basis. He thought again (it had been happening with almost concerning frequency as of late) of the small, black box hidden away in their flat in London. “Come on, we’re going to be late if we don’t hurry.”

Dan hummed happily and took another moment to soak in the morning sun. “Yeah, alright. Let’s go.”

The garden was almost magical in the soft morning light. Each place setting was decorated with flowers picked fresh from the bushes that enclosed the few little tables around. There were already people at all of the tables, but Dan made eye contact with one lady who was sitting alone, and she smiled and waved them over. Dan tugged Phil behind him as he gave the woman a second glance over. Her most distinctive feature was her long, dark purple hair that seemed to sparkle with its own light, and the matching stars she had painted on each of her cheeks. She looked younger than Dan but something in her eyes glinted with something Dan couldn’t quite name. “Won’t you two please sit?” she asked politely, gesturing to the chairs on the other side of the little round table.

“Are you waiting for anyone?” Dan asked as he and Phil sat.

“Me? Oh, no, I’m here alone,” she said. “I actually work here, but sometimes I like to partake in some of the activities we have around here.”

“What is it you do?” Phil asked.

“I run the tourist department; you know, the website and social media for the castle.”

Phil perked up at that. “Then you were probably the one who talked to my brother! He said he worked on your website recently. Martyn Lester?”

The woman brightened and smiled. “Yes, I did speak with him. That means the two of you must be Dan and Phil.” When the two men exchanged confused glances she laughed softly. “Martyn spoke very highly of the both of you, and told me you were going to be his plus two. Forgive my rudeness, my name is Estella Farfalla, but most people just call me Stella.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure meeting you, Stella.”

“And you two as well.”

The conversation was briefly interrupted by a waiter asking for their drink orders followed shortly by him coming back to serve their breakfast. Phil went to dig in, but Dan gently smacked his elbow to remind him of the pictures he was meant to take. Stella watched in amusement as they took turns photographing each other and their food and the scenery until Dan was satisfied that he would be able to find and post a picture that would knock Louise’s socks off.

“So, you said you work here,” Phil said while Dan agonized over what filter to use. “Do you have any recommendations? We want to get the full experience.”

“Well, as luck would have it I actually started as a tour guide here so I know pretty much everything about this place.” She drummed her fingers on her chin as she looked them over. “I’m guessing you two haven’t gone on the tour yet. Correct?”

“Not yet,” Dan admitted. “We only just got in last night, and we went to dinner then straight to bed.”

She nodded. “Well, the tour is all inside so wait until this afternoon, since it will be raining then.” Dan frowned. “The weather report said it was supposed to be clear all weekend.”

She shot him a mischievous grin. “Maybe I know something the weatherman doesn’t.”

“What are you psychic or something?”

She winked and tapped the side of her nose, and Phil looked about like he was going to burst with delight. “Are you, really?” he demanded. “What is it you do, exactly? Tarot or tea reading? I’ve dabbled in that before, but I doubt I’m actually any good at it.”

“You never know. I think there’s a lot of untapped potential, Phil.” She turned to Dan who looked markedly less impressed. “And what about you? Any interest in the preternatural?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, last time I had anything to do with fortune telling I had a banana shoved down the back of my neck, so no thanks.”

Stella looked amused, like he had said exactly what she had known he’d say. “You know, I had a feeling you’d feel that way.” Dan rose an incredulous eyebrow so she finally answered Phil’s question. “I do astrology. I decided to lean fully into the whole star theme, you see?”

Phil chuckled. “So, do you check the stars for the weather every day or was this a coincidence?”

“Not normally, no. I just knew something important was meant to happen this weekend, so I decided to check last night.”

“Any hints on what the big deal this weekend is?”

“Oh, I really shouldn’t,” she said with a coy smile. “I find that most people start meddling where they shouldn’t when they learn too much.”

“I guess I’ll just have to wait, then. I hope I don’t miss it.”

“Oh, I doubt that will be possible.”

Phil was about to ask what exactly she meant by that, but was interrupted by their waiter coming back. He whisked away their plates and glasses only to replace them with a couple serving plates of cakes and other post breakfast sweets. Dan was delighted and immediately proceeded to take just as many pictures of this food as he did the previous course. When Phil looked up after the final picture was taken, he saw Stella’s empty chair, looking like it had never been occupied. “She was nice,” he said to Dan. “A little odd, but still really nice.”

“You only thought she was nice because you were hoping she’d read your palm,” Dan teased. “Besides, she was obviously a fake. I mean, come on. Rain? Today? This is the most sun I’ve seen in years.”

At that exact moment a fat raindrop fell directly on the end of Dan’s nose, causing him to cross his eyes to get a good look at it. Phil snickered into his hand while Dan wiped his nose with slightly pink cheeks.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Dan glared out the window of their room in abject horror. He was beyond angry. He had checked no less than four different weather updates and they all called for the exact same thing. Hot, but not unbearably so, and sunny. With the A/C in the castle this weekend should have been absolutely perfect. But no. Right now it was pouring rain so hard he could see about ten metres before it was too dark. He checked the weather again. Sure enough, there was still a happy little sun falsely claiming that it was partly cloudy.

“Seriously, what the fuck?” he growled, turning to Phil who was sat cross-legged on their bed towel drying his hair after they were caught outside.

Phil shrugged. “You know how the weather here is. I would personally find a weekend of perfect weather more unbelievable than a surprise storm.”

“It’s not even storming,” Dan groused. “There hasn’t been any thunder or anything, it’s just a fuckload of rain.”

Phil grinned and lassoed Dan with his towel and pulled him closer. He started gently scrubbing at Dan’s sopping curls, ignoring the weak protests. “You’re just mad because what’s-her-name was right.”

“Her name was Stella and I still think she was a phoney. People aren’t actually psychic, babe.”

“Tell that to the rain.”

“Lucky guess. Like you said, it’s always raining here.”

Phil uncovered Dan’s face and placed a kiss on his scowling brow. “Psychic or no, it is raining and I think a tour would be a lot of fun. Change your clothes and we can go look around. We can kill a couple hours and maybe by then the rain will clear and we’ll get to go do the maze.”

Dan was still very clearly pouting, but did as he was told and started rummaging in his case to find new clothes while Phil did the same. When they were both dressed, Dan grinned and offered an arm to Phil, who rolled his eyes fondly but took it nevertheless. They went downstairs, only to see a rather familiar face at the foot of the stairs.

“Martyn!” Phil said happily, letting go of Dan to clasp his brother’s hand. “You and Cornelia about to do the tour?”

“Yeah. Bummer about this rain, though. We were about to go try our hand at archery.” He shrugged. “We were lucky enough to still be inside when it started pouring. Crazy weather, eh?”

“Yeah, me and Dan were still in the gardens when it started.”

“Well, you two want to join me and Corny? Come on, there’s someone I want to introduce you to.” Martyn led them to the front desk where purple eyes regarded them with thinly veiled amusement. “Guys, this is Estella Farfalla. She’s the person I worked with, and she’s the one who got us access this weekend.”

“I’m pleased to say we’ve already made our acquaintance,” Stella said brightly, handing over the guided tours. “We met at breakfast in the gardens this morning.”

“You’re telling me these two woke up for breakfast?” Cornelia mock gasped.

Dan gave her a mildly dirty look while Stella just laughed. “Yes, we had a lovely time. Are you two about to do the tour as well?”

“Yeah, the four of us are going to give the place a walk around,” Martyn said. “Well, I guess if you three have already met , there’s no point in delaying. Come on, you two.”

“Oh, there is one more thing!” Stella said urgently. “The tour has you going into King Henry’s room about halfway through, but I recommend waiting until the very end. That room is always my favourite.”

“Thanks for the tip!” Martyn beamed. “Well, see you around!”

“Good bye! Enjoy your tour!”

Together they left the front desk and started their tour. As usual, there was a room full of paintings from the Tudor era, along with some sculptures and furniture. Fuck man, idk how to appreciate art. Last time I was in a museum I liked this one exhibit because they all looked like TOS Star Trek props. My favourite piece of art is a pair of wings made out of spoons. Fuck. I could really really use your help here.

What Dan found far more interesting was the room full of miniature towns and houses. They were all in their little display cases and he rather enjoyed peering down on them in their little homes living their little lives. Or, well they weren’t living their lives, but they sure looked like they could as soon as his back was turned. Suddenly, his phone let out a chirp, informing him that someone had tweeted. Without thinking, he pulled it out and swiped to see the Tweet. It was from Phil, and it was a picture of him Phil had taken without asking of him looking at the miniature buildings.

@AmazingPhil: Sorry guys. This is how tall Dan really is. We just use editing tricks to make him look like a normal human. Real-not-a-model-town for scale

Dan cut his eyes at Phil who was grinning like he thought he’d told the best joke of the century. “When are you going to stop taking secret creeper pictures of me?”

“When you stop being the most beautiful thing in the room,” Phil said smoothly, but Dan just rolled his eyes. “Besides, you posted pictures at breakfast, I needed to post something.”

Dan hummed. “Yeah, guess you’re right. Come on, I think we were abandoned.”

They walked hand in hand past the room set up to look like King Edward’s bedchambers for about the third time, as Stella had recommended, and into the drawing room where Cornelia and Martyn were. Cornelia came up to them with a cheerful bounce to her step. “Looks like the rain cleared up. Would you two be interested in coming with us to the lake?”

“Nah, I think we’ll finish up the tour,” Dan said. “Besides, it’s kind of late, so we’re probably going to head up to the room afterwards.”

“Suit yourself,” Cornelia said with a shrug. “This isn’t really my thing, but the lake is supposed to be beautiful. If we run into each other I’ll tell you if it’s worth the walk. See you!” With a jaunty wave, she and Martyn left, and Dan turned back to Phil, who was investigating a painting. Dan was fairly sure it was a dog, but it was a little too… abstract for him to say with any confidence, so he stayed silent.

“So, what do you think it is?” Well, he had planned on staying silent.

Dan pondered the question and the painting as he stepped up next to Phil. “I, um, I think it’s a dog?”

“That’s what I was thinking, but it could very easily be an alien in a fursuit if you ask me. We should buy a print and put it in the lounge.”

“Why stop at the lounge? Let’s put one in every room.”

“Wallpaper the flat with it.”

“Cover the furniture with specially made fabric with it printed on it.”

Phil chuckled lowly and gently bumped their shoulders together. “You win. Come on, I think this dog-alien wants me to have its babies.”

“You’re so fucking weird.”

“You love it.”

Finally, after wandering the halls for over two hours, they allowed themselves to go into King Henry’s room.

Only to be disappointed.

Phil frowned as he looked around. Sure, it was all very pretty and incredibly well taken care of, but the rest of the rooms had done that as well, some even better. Phil personally would have made the tour end in the room with the costumed figures all about Anne Boleyn. Sure the not-mannequins were kind of creepy and always looked like they were staring at him, but at least they were interesting. And since it was Anne Boleyn’s house it kind of made sense for her room to be the main attraction, right? This room, just had nothing special. It had the bed and the curtains and art, but other than a grand floor to ceiling mirror against the wall, there was nothing remarkable about it at all.

“Am I the only one feeling cheated?” Dan asked on a whisper. “I was expecting a bit more, to be honest.”

“Me, too. I mean, I get that it’s her favourite, but I don’t see why. This is just a really fancy bedroom.”

Dan snorted. “Let’s at least get a look at this mirror, yeah?” Without waiting for a response, Dan walked over to stand in front of it. His reflection was vaguely distorted, but he couldn’t exactly put his finger on how. It didn’t make him wider or taller or darker or lighter or rippled in any way, he just looked wrong. “Phil, you have to come look at this.”

“I am.”

Dan looked next to his reflection, and sure enough, Phil was there. He was also distorted, but Dan could clearly see that he was paler with a weird green tinge. “It makes your reflection look weird. I don’t know how or why but- holy shit, Phil, are you okay?” The mirror hadn’t actually changed his reflection much at all, Phil just looked incredibly ill. “What happened?”

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Phil said, shuddering. “I just walked over here and suddenly-” He cut himself off with a groan, clutching his head. “Let’s- Can we just go to the room?”

“Yeah, of course,” Dan said softly. He wrapped his arm around Phil’s waist like he would break in half at the slightest pressure and led him back up to their room. When Phil was laid down, Dan went about closing all the curtains and getting a cold rag from the bathroom. He quietly pulled a chair up next to the bed and started petting Phil’s head and wiping away sweat. “Feel any better?” he asked softly.

Phil gave a full-body shudder and curled deeper in the blanket, but when he smiled up at Dan it was as warm and bright as it always was. “I’ll survive, I think,” he joked. “You don’t have to stay in here with me, you know. You could go hang out with Martyn and Cornelia by the lake.”

“What and get third-wheeled so hard I fly into the sun?” Dan snorted. His smile softened as he looked down at Phil who was blinking slower and slower. “I’ll stay right here, if you don’t mind.”

Phil chuckled weakly, and opened his arms. “You know I don’t. I’d mind even less if you got in bed, too.” Dan grinned and crawled into the space made for him and wrapped his arms around Phil in return. He pressed their foreheads together and they just laid there, sharing air for a while before Phil said, “Sorry I ruined your afternoon.”

Dan pulled back just enough to raise his eyebrows and give him a Look™ which caused Phil to giggle. “That’s such a ridiculous thing for you to say that I’m not even going to dignify it with a response.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Phil yawned, pulling them closer together. “Sleep now.”

“We’re going to hate ourselves in the morning if we don’t change out of these skinny jeans,” Dan grinned.

“I’ll hate you right now if you get out of this bed.”

Dan’s smile widened so much he feared his cheeks would split. “Alright, but you have to take full responsibility for any and all misery in the morning, got it?”

They slept through the night, Dan remarkably more soundly. All through the night Phil was tossing and turning

“Still not feeling good?” Dan asked the next morning, biting his lip and running his fingers through Phil’s fringe. Phil just groaned quietly and pulled the duvet over his head. “Alright, that’s it, we’re going home.”

“That’s silly, Dan,” Phil protested. “I’m sure it will go away in a couple hours or so.”

“Yeah, sorry, no. You were struck with a weird, sudden illness for no known reason and you didn’t sleep it off. We’re going home and you’re going to the doctor tomorrow. I’m calling Martyn now.”

Phil sighed, but knew that arguing at this point in Dan’s decision making process would just make both of them frustrated. “Fine, we can go home, but I’m not going to the doctor unless this lasts through tomorrow.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Sure, fine. I don’t want a boyfriend anyway, so just let yourself die of some random disease. See if I care. Hey, Martyn, listen-”

Phil groaned and rolled out of bed, ignoring Dan’s sharp glare. Fortunately, Dan had packed away most of their stuff at some point, so Phil just kind of puttered around gathering their smaller stuff while Dan made phone calls. Dan was over reacting, as per usual. Even just this little bit of getting up and moving was making him feel so much better. He was practically at one hundred percent. Oh, or maybe he wasn’t. He slowly straightened from where he had bent in half to pick up a sock, clutching his head. Okay, so maybe not one hundred percent, but it was definitely better than last night.

“Okay, everything is set up,” Dan said, clapping his hands. “The car will be here in about a half hour and our train tickets have been changed. Do you want me to go downstairs and see if I can find us some food?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Want me to come with you?”

Dan pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Nah, I’m good. I’ll be back up in a bit.” And with that he was gone.

Phil groaned and flopped back on the bed, closing his eyes. Staring at the back of his eyelids, Phil started thinking about his dream from last night. Usually, it was just the feeling of flying and some blurry pictures, but last night it was different. It had the flying, but it also had a very strong feeling of claustrophobia and for some reason all his muscles hurt. Also, everything was pitch black, and he couldn’t even make out vague shapes, which didn’t help the claustrophobia. However, the most worrisome part was Dan. Usually, Dan’s presence in the dream was just a soft, fond constant, but last night some part of his brain was convinced Dan was either dead or dying.

Just then, Dan waltzed back in, carrying two plates of various breakfast pastries, and Phil dropped all thoughts on his dream in favor of grabbing a muffin. Maybe he’d ask Dan about it when they got home

Part Two

#phan #phanfiction #phanfic #phan au #Bee Writes

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