"Thank CHRIST." I whispered in relief.

"I think that sound was the morning gerbil.'' Sarah whispered. "They keen loudly like that at dawn to attract mates."

"Fascinating." I whispered. "So should we go outside?"

"Not just yet." Ruby shifted herself off of my front and returned to her side. "If you're tired you should sleep. I'll wake you when it's safe."

"Do you think I could sleep after a night like that?" I hissed.

"Don't phrase it like that." I could hear the blush in her voice. "It makes it sound like we did something bad."

"You understood what I meant, yeah?" I knew we were just bantering like this just to relieve stress, but boy, did it feel good to let it go. "It's your dirty mind that warped it like that."

She didn't respond, but I could tell she was embarrassed.

I sighed and shifted my weight so I could cross my legs.

A while later, Sarah pulled on my pant leg and began digging out the soft earth that we had blocked our hidey-hole with.

"You helping?" She asked as she dug.

"Yeah." I nodded, though she couldn't see it, and began moving the dirt to fill the cave we were vacating.

Once we punched through to the surface, a breeze of gloriously cool and fresh air brushed past our faces.

I clambered out through the small gap we had created and helped Sarah out behind me.

"Sam." Sarah froze, still half-crouching from exiting the hole. "Look to your right."

I looked to my right and saw the largest snake I had ever seen.

It had scales the color of a midnight sky, speckled with stars to match. Its eyes were lapis marbles struck through by black and reptillian irises.

Its meter-and-a-half thick body had cleared a large and perfectly circular area around our hidey-hole, and it was staring right at us.

"Uhm...Hi?" I had no idea what to do in this situation, and my already tight-strung nerves just snapped and I began laughing.

The snake approached slowly as I wiped the tears from my eyes.

"If you're going to eat me, kill me first." I said, still laughing as I walked towards it.

The snake stopped when I was close enough to touch it and bowed its head.

"What the fuck?" Sarah asked from behind me.

I tentatively reached out and stroked those resplendent scales, relishing their smooth and cool texture.

The snake pressed its head against my hand, tilting it as if it were enjoying my head rub.

"I have no clue why it's letting me pet its scales, but I'm just happy to be alive right now." I stated.

Sarah began giggling uncontrollably, failing in her attempts to stifle her laughter.

"We brushed with death so many times in the last day and we have now met a friendly Shadow Snake." She laughed until she couldn't stand up properly and plopped down onto the ground, still laughing.

I glanced at the snake and helped Sarah back onto her feet.

"Why are they called a Shadow Snake?" I asked.

"Because they can hide themselves in any shadow." Sarah responded after her laughter finally subsided. "And because they are known for poisoning you and then following you through the shadows until you die so they can eat you."

"Oh." I said. "I'm naming you Kevin."

Kevin shook his body, as if pleased by my naming it.

After naming him Kevin I suddenly felt slightly weak, but I chalked that off to exhaustion from walking all day and then not sleeping for a night.

I had stayed up for longer at a time back in Iraq. I could shrug off a little exhaustion.

"Kevin is molting!" Sarah exclaimed. "Can you use naming magic?"

"What the fuck is that?" I demanded. "I only named him. What's so special about that?"

"Named monsters are much stronger than normal monsters, and even tend to evolve more!" Sarah yelled. "And you just named Kevin and now it looks like he's evolving! What the FUCK!"

"I don't know either!" I shouted back.

Kevin's body began shortening as his torso expanded. His skin he was shedding was pierced by spikes and slowly split as a newly formed Kevin pushed off the old skin.

Now, before me stood a proud lindwyrm, or basically a wyrm with legs.

"I have no clue what the fuck he evolved into but he's beautiful." Sarah said, approaching the newly evolved Kevin.

I patted Kevin's scales as Sarah let him smell her hand.

Kevin rubbed his head against her hand, signifying his approval, or so I thought, and we resumed our trek towards the city Sarah spoke of.

"You don't suppose Kevin would draw more attention, would you?" I wondered. "You said that Shadow Snakes could hide inside shadows right? Does that apply to moving shadows?"

Kevin demonstrated for me, diving into my shadow and vanishing from sight.

"Woah." I said as Kevin poked his head out of my shadow. "That's cool. We can smuggle him into the city like this, right?"

"Probably." Sarah nodded. "But to think that we're smuggling an evolved Shadow Snake in the first place..."

"This makes me want to learn magic." I chuckled. "With magic I could probably replicate this."

"I doubt humans can use magic." Sarah stomped on my dream as soon as it was born.

"Why not?" I asked curiously.

"Because humans are born in a world that doesn't utilize magic." Sarah responded. "The lack of magic makes it almost impossible for humans to use anything more than a simple water drop spell."

"But I wanted to learn magic." I complained emptily.

"Who knows? For all you know you might be able to use magic on the scale of the nuke you spoke of." Sarah laughed.

"I wish." I sighed. "Hey. We still haven't decided on what to do about entering the city."

"Just wear a hood." Sarah said flippantly. "It's not like they'll check everyone. They don't have time."

"And what of my clothing that doesn't match yours?" I pointed to my jeans and STARSET sweatshirt.

(STARSET is a great band. Check them out.)

"Uh..." Sarah was at a loss for a moment. "Say you got it as a gift from a human."

"Are you sure that wouldn't draw more attention?" I asked patiently.

"It shouldn't." Sarah responded. "It's not uncommon for humans to make and give gifts to people."

"So I just have to wear a hood and I'll be fine?" I demanded.

"Probably." Sarah sounded uncertain.

"Probably?" I felt like strangling her.

"It's better than staying in the forest again." Sarah pointed out.

That shut me up.

We reached the city Sarah spoke of by noon, and were queued up behind nearly a thousand people.

"I'm your bodyguard, alright?" I suddenly spoke.

"Why?" Sarah glanced at me.

"It'll be easier to explain that I'm guarding you, rather than explaining you found me in a forest and decided to keep me, isn't it?" I chuckled.

I was looking forward to a bed more than anything.

"Fair enough." Ruby nodded as we stepped forward in the queue.

It took hours for us to reach the front of the queue. During those hours I spent my time memorizing the thousands of large runes that had been carved into the massive stone bricks that made up the city walls.

I didn't memorize very many, but I figured I could write down a good many when I wanted to recall them later for study.

The guards of the gate looked curiously at my hoodie before dismissing me and Sarah into the city.

"Told you." Sarah giggled.

"Yeah, yeah." I waved her off. "What did you want to do in this city anyway?"

"Well, I wanted to have you make my gun here, since there are plenty of raw materials, as well as magically refined materials." She pointed to a stall that sold glowing ingots. "Orichalcum is mana-infused copper, adamantium is mana-infused diamond, and manasteel is mana-infused iron."

"You can't make steel yet?" I asked curiously.

"What do you mean?" Sarah pointed to an iron ingot. "Iron is sometimes referred to as steel."

"Steel is different." I responded. "It has carbon in it, which makes a much stronger alloy."

"Carbon? Like a footprint?" Sarah looked at me strangely.

"Carbon is an element." I said. "a carbon footprint is what you leave when you burn large amounts of fuel. When you burn fuel it releases carbon dioxide. That is what referred to as a carbon footprint."

"You know a lot of things." Sarah said, impressed.

"Say, what did the other humans that came here look like?" I suddenly had an idea as to why no weapons had been introduced.

"Their skin is darker than yours, their eyes are narrrower, their irises are black, and their hair is black." Sarah struggled to recall their exact appearances, but was able to give general descriptions.

"I think they're all Asian." I said thoughtfully. "That would explain why they haven't brought weapons."

"What does their nationality have to do with their ability to make weapons?" Sarah wondered, avoiding a clump of tightly packed people shouting bids for a piece of red metal.

"I came from America." I replied. "In America we have access to many types of weapons due to the country's constitution. In many Asian countries, they have either a weak constitution or it has been discarded by their government in favor of acquiring power."

"What does that have to do with weapons?" Sarah asked, pulling me through a crowd of elves who were gawking at a sword made of orichalcum.

"When a government wants more power, taking away a civilian's ability to protect themself is the best way to pave the way for a dictatorship." I recalled a world history lesson back in ninth grade. "Take North Korea for example. Their leader has completely disarmed the people and now is able to rule with an iron fist, entirely able to ignore the wishes of the people. Why is this? Because none of them have anything more than kitchen knives."

"So the humans hailed from nations like that?" Sarah asked, stopping in front of a building I could only describe as a mansion.

"Probably, yeah." I responded, wondering why Roman inspired architecture was present here.

I pushed the thought to the back of my mind as I followed Sarah through the arched doorway and into the white marble room behind it.

"Welcome to my humble abode." Sarah spread her hands magnanimously, fully expecting a gasp of surprise from me.

"If this is humble I would hate to see the king's castle." I remarked, looking around and noting the gold and silver accents on the walls and pillars.

"I've never been to the king's palace." Sarah admitted. "Come. I'll show you to your room." She led me through a series of convoluted hallways until we stopped in front of a gold-embroidered tapestry. "This is your room."

She pointed to the tapestry, dead serious.

I reached out to pull the tapestry aside and found a door behind it.

"Nice." I said, pulling open the door. "Secret rooms, however poorly hidden, are awesome."

"Poorly hidden?" Sarah demanded angrily.

"Yeah." I laughed. "In my world you had to find the right stone or something to reveal the door behind the tapestry."

"That sounds really cool." Sarah admitted, her anger evaporating.

I nodded, stepping into the room.

The room was richly furnished with a gold-accented desk and chair, along with a massive bed that dominated the floorspace.

"Do beds really need to be this big?" I asked, seriously wondering how they got it into the room in the first place.

"Large beds are a status symbol." Sarah explained. "And this chamber was initially built for my future husband."

"Why are you giving it to me, then?" I looked around again, trying to figure why someone would spend so much on furniture at the same time I wondered why she gave me her future husband's room. I then wondered why the future husband needed a secret room.

"Because you're mine!" Sarah held her face in her hands, blushing.

'Ah. She's a yandere.' It all made sense now. She clearly had tried to supress her nature, but it still shone through.

"Why am I yours?" There was no reasoning with a yandere. I knew this well, but I figured there would be a reason for her twisted affection for me.

"Ever since I laid eyes on you, I decided you were mine." She giggled, tilting her head to the side. "And since you saved my life, you must like me back!"

"That's not how human emotion works." I didn't want to destroy her dream like this, but I figured it'd be like a band-aid. "Saving someone's life is important, yes, but it doesn't denote love."

"Then I'll make you love me!" She laughed and pushed me onto the bed, landing on top of me. "You'll have to love me after this!"

I sighed, grabbing her wrists with my hands and transferring her hands to one of mine, rendering them immobile.

I then held her waist firmly, preventing her from moving her lower half.

"This is even less how human emotion works." I said, waiting for her to tire herself out from her struggles. "Perhaps by getting to know each other we could spark something between us."

She stopped struggling abruptly.

"What do you want to know about me?" She asked playfully trying to give me a kiss.

"Why did you decide I was the one for you?" I was genuinely curious.

"To start out with, humans are so much more attractive than elves." She grinned and struggled to free her hands again. "And you're so strong! I like it when you hold me down."

I was speechless. Elves had the same sentiment as many of the human men I had been close enough to discuss things like that with. While I shared that sentiment, Sarah was a bit much for me.

"And you kept pushing me to survive!" She continued dreamily. "No one I know would have stayed to help me. You were the first to stay by me when things got tough!"

"In my hometown, that is a given." I said, thinking that elves were the same as in storybooks.

"Are all humans like you?" She asked curiously.

"No, not at all." I responded immediately. "I grew up in a tight-knit community of people who would help each other. When I served in the military, that belief won me some amazing comerades. It's a shame I had to leave quarters on their graves."

"What's a quarter?" Sarah asked.

"It's a currency. A dollar is a hundred cents, a half dollar is fifty cents, a quarter is twenty-five, a dime js ten, a nickel is five, and a penny is one." I explained. "A penny left on a military grave means someone visited the grave, a nickel means you trained together, a dime means you served in the military together, and a quarter means you were there when they died."

"How many have you lost?" Sarah asked sympathetically.

"Eleven brothers-in-arms." I said, remembering their smiling faces back before we had enlisted.

"Every one of them must have been as good as you." Sarah said sincerely. "But you, alone, are for me."

"Can you collect some iron? And some coal?" I asked, changing the subject because she made me uncomfortable. "I'm going to make some steel for your gun."

"Yay!'' Sarah's attitude did a full one eighty as she struggled to get up again. "You need to let me go if you want to make that weapon. Unless...You wanted to make me yours...?"

I abruptly let go of her, letting her get up and run out of the room giggling to herself.

I sat up, smiling to myself.

Fuck. Was she growing on me?

I shook my head and began wondering what weapon I should make her.