Time passed. I slept, Aqua minded the humans for me while I did. I awakened to find not much of interest, hunted some more increasingly larger wildlife. Slept some more.

  For some reason, Aqua refused to face me for the first few times I woke up.

  We finally did get around to choosing a spot to put our new lake in. Now, as it turns out, you can't just blast a hole in the ground and fill it with water to make a lake. At least, not one that is remotely a good place to be at, or which will have life in it, or many other things. I figured it would be just like a crater lake, or that it would work sort of like excavating a hole somewhere.

  So instead we had to do it slowly. It took several days of work even. Instead of just using my Breath to carve a hole in the ground, I used my breath to make a huge, big, wide and somewhat shallow crater, making sure to detonate my breath, something I literally learned I could do exactly as I did it, a couple tens of meters above the ground to get the right depth, and THEN we went about digging a deeper bit at the middle.

  Aqua also went off, swimming through the air, with some of her people, to bring about life from nearby lakes and rivers, while I...

  I refuse to admit I spent hours playing with mud.

  I'm even less willing to admit that I didn't, in the least, think for a single straight second about a place for Aqua to stay at under the water when I made that huge mud and clay palace. I just...

  It's not my fault that playing with mud and clay is really, really fun. Anybody who talks about that shall be silenced, permanently, and with great prejudice. No questions shall be answered regarding how or why mud got everywhere on me, especially not by the Elite Guard that knew to keep their mouths shut as they polished my scales to a mirror shine.

  After that, it was a very slow process of Aqua filling it up with water, and then going back and forth across freshwater rivers and lakes all around the place, sometimes far away enough that I had to fly her to those places because she still hadn't recovered from our battle, to fill up her new home with life.

  Until at last, I could sleep, and do so for as long as I wished, really needed after I went for an entire month and a half without a nap. I think anyway, honestly I kinda lost track of time playing with the mud.

  The next time I woke, it seemed like the Water Clan Tribe People, whatever the fuck I had decided to call them, had brought over their stuff and had set themselves up around the lake, mostly tents still, but they had already begun work on more permanent buildings, mostly cabins but I could see them digging into the forest around them, eating away at it to start setting up foundations.

  Not long after I fed, I called upon my guards to bring my Priestess about and prepare a tribute of fruit.

  They offered me jam instead, an acceptable compromise, apparently they had discovered how to produce Jam at some point while I slept and had prepared a large batch of their best work for me to enjoy.

  It was actually pretty good, though I question the wisdom of making tomato jam.

  At last, before I went for a flight around the world to stretch my wings, and also because I really don't know much about the world before my immediate surroundings and that one time I went to the ocean, the Dragon Priestess approached me.

  She was walking a little slow, and seemed to lean on the cane more than before, which was annoying because I had to wait until she made it up the stairs to the raised platform.

  "O Great One, we've called upon you on this most-"

  I turned one of my eyes to look at her, and very visibly so.

  She cleared her throat. "Sir there's a large worm monster thing that's been eating our crops, we tried to hunt it, but no matter what we do it slips away, even our great warriors have only managed to scarcely glimpse it," the priestess said, gesticulating with her staff. "It's not like, fatally bad now but it's been eating more and more of our crops and has progressed to killing our cattle too sometimes."

  "And you want me to catch it?" I asked.

  "And eat it!" she called. "Please?"

  I sighed. "You know what fine. But prepare a great tribute in return. Fish, I demand fish. Prepare it with your best herbs! And it better taste good!"

  I spread my wings to emphasize the immensity of the demand I was making.

  "Yes, Great One!" she responded. "We shall do our utmost to prepare you a worthy tribute, and if we cannot, then the cooks and chefs will give their lives-"

  I beat with my wings and almost knocked her down, forcing her to plant the staff on the platform to remain standing.

  "I said no human sacrifices, dammit!" I called as I took off to the sky.

  "SIR! THE CREATURE'S BEEN TRACKED TO THE HILLS TO THE WEST, PAST OUR PASTURES AND BEYOND THE CHOTATO FIELDS!"

  The fuck is a chotato? You know what I don't even want to know.

  I took off towards the east first, doing a huge u-turn and then carrying that speed as I head west, into and past the multicolored fields and flying over the small hills that... I wasn't even sure were there before, but you know what I don't care.

  I had to track a tiny creature, well tiny compared to me anyway, but luckily there wasn't much movement in the small hills, and there was even less once I killed and ate every living being I saw, slowly but surely narrowing down the movement and tremors I detected until I finally narrowed down the possible whereabouts of the crop eater to a singular hole.

  With no better idea, I simply landed right in front of the hole and... waited.

  You know one of the understated advantages of being an incredibly long lived flying lizard that can breathe all sorts of fantastic forces and forge the very world itself around himself as he sees fit?

  I don't get bored easily. I guess I have an immortality brain, but I can just sit there, for hours at a time, just waiting, waiting and waiting, without even really noticing the passage of time. In fact, I'm pretty sure the sun went down and came back up before I really noticed that I'd been there just waiting for a single creature to pop out of the hole.

  And the moment I did spot the creature I'd been waiting for, I caught it in my claws, I did have to basically grab an entire chunk of the ground with it, but I got it, the elusive and quick-fleeing groundworm monster that had recently become a problem for my people, devastating their fields, and which the Priestess had begged me to nab and defeat.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  She also told me to eat it, but it looked gross, so I wasn't about to do that. Besides, humans don't give me orders, I give the humans orders. No matter how good they get at scratching that one reversed scale that I have just under each of my horns.

  "But what do I do with this thing now?" I asked myself. the worm had a flat middle section that was about as wide as one of the wicked tips of my claw was long, and though it was struggling like crazy to make it out of my hold, I wasn't actually holding it with my physical hand, I'd constructed a prison out of invisible force, with nothing but my own power to hold the air together.

  I even made sure to leave holes in it so the worm didn't suffocate, how magnanimous of me.

  Killing something I wasn't going to eat felt a little strange, so instead, I made a cage of hardened earth. I'd leave this thing's fate to the villagers, it was gross and I didn't want to have to deal with it any more than I absolutely had to.

  I had to go pretty deep into the hills just beyond the huge fields my people had set up, but hey, I got the worm!

  ...

  Shit.

  Which way was the village again? I took to the sky, and looked for the huge green forest that was my lair, and caught it, starting to head towards it.

  Huh.

  You know, I never really think about the village all that much, but it's really grown into a town now. They have a huge plaza close to the middle of it, three huge buildings directly next to it, something which I think is some sort of gathering spot. They're kinda rough and shoddily made, but they're not tents or shacks anymore. They're building houses, too, there's dozens of them, big ones and small ones.

  There's a huge district with what I think are stores of different kinds, lively, with loads of people going around.

  In fact... there's a fuckton of people. Is there some sort of festival going on? Have I missed something? Why does it always seem like there's something going on with the humans?

  Spreading my wings and slowing down I decided to go check what was going on. I noticed that there were remnants of walls in some places, seems like the town had grown and they had torn the walls down to get more space and build more stuff. The walls at the edges of the town weren't huge but they were no longer just some cheaply made pallisades, there were covered towers at key strategic points...

  Nice.

  As I touched down upon the center plaza, the only place which was large enough for me to land without doing damage to the surrounding area, and in fact, the plaza even had a huge platform in the middle of it, must've been made to have me in it, as it was just about wide enough for me to stand on it with all four of my hands, feet, claws, whatever, on the ground.

  Looking around, I saw that there were people wandering around the causeway at the edges of the plaza, and even though they had stopped moving post my arrival, there were large wagons being pulled by creatures that looked like bulls with horn mohawks and spikes growing from their backs.

  I ignored the murmurs, and looked around, it only took moments of waiting before I spotted people approaching me.

  The first one I noticed was Aqua, who was coming at the head of a procession, flanked on one side by the Dragon Priestess in her full regalia, and a much shorter woman in clothes similar to the ones the Water Clan wore, wearing the pair of glasses I had crafted, and carrying a quill and a huge scroll of papyrus.

  "You've returned!"

  Aqua's voice pierced the din and noise of the lively town around us and I turned my attention fully to her.

  "Yeah," I said, "now what's going on?"

  "O Great One, Silver-"

  "Look I've already told you, you don't have to do that, just answer the question," I said.

  "But you didn't-" Aqua sighed and shook her head. "You know what nevermind."

  "Yes! Great One, we're celebrating the forging of an alliance with the Black Hill People!" the Priestess called, stepping forward, raising her hand and waving her staff around. Man humans really age fast, huh? I can already see her developing some wrinkles around her eyes.

  You know what...

  I don't like that.

  I raised a hand and put the tip of my claw in front of her forehead, and then tapped her forehead with the tip of my claw, willing my power to clear up that little skin issue, green energy coursing through her body and then seeping into her skin, clearing up her little problem. Hm... that wouldn't last too long. You know what...

  Focusing my power on the staff made from a piece of wood I had once burned, I turned it into an extension of the power I had just used, so that it would radiate the same energy that I had just poured into the Priestess.

  "Ooooh, I feel- I feel vigor like never before!" the priestess called, as she struck a pose, raising her arms and then turning her hips to her left, curving her arms like the horns of a bull, while bending her knee to show off her leg. The robes of the priestess were more than able to show off her limbs, since they covered mostly just her torso and the front and back of her lower body, leaving her legs exposed. "I've not felt like this- in so very long! O Great One, to experience this joy once more- I cannot thank you enough!"

  "Yeah, yeah whatever," I said, she'd probably be walking faster now that I dealt with that. "And you-" I turned to the nerdy chick scribe.

  Yep.

  Perfect. No, almost. Not quite yet.

  Well... I looked her up and down. Needs a hat too.

  I closed my eyes and focused my mental image, then gestured with my claw, and wrapped her in my power, creating one of those graduation caps I remember seeing college students wear, and replacing her lame clothes with black cotton robes.

  "Henceforth this shall be the uniform of all intellectuals and scientists for formal occasions," I declared. "Unless otherwise stated they shall wear clothes like these or in this style and it will be considered appropriate."

  "Write that down, write that down!"

  I spied the writings the scribe was putting down. The scribbling left much to be desired, but there's only so much you can do with an actual quill after all, especially considering they don't even have paper and much less technology to bind it to a hard back to more easily write on it without a solid surface.

  They were at least picking up what I had laid down and developing it even more, the letters were a little too ornate but at least they could write.

  "Anyway so where's the fish I was promised?" I asked. "Priestess if there is no fish-"

  "A, Great One, we prepared the fish, but-"

  "You realize food rots if it's left out right?" Aqua said. "Humans get sick if they stay close to rotting stuff too long."

  Okay, fair. I did lose track of time there.

  "Well okay whatever," I said. "Now can someone explain what's going on in town? And since when did Argentum get this big?"

  "Well, we're winding down after the diplomatic delegations departed," the Priestess explained, "the council of elders has decreed that due to the success of the negotiations and since it happened to line up with our harvest festival, we would hold a festival - today is the last day."

  I looked around, and realized that it did look like it was winding down and people were packing up and leaving. Well, no scales off my nose.

  "If we had traders from far and wide- then you should've-"

  The priestess suddenly stepped forward. "Ah, Great One, I'm way ahead of you! BRING IT!"

  Suddenly the crowd that had formed on the causeway surrounding the plaza near the largest building of the three surrounding it parted, and a group of really tall and muscular women in the Water Clan's attire, except modified to look fancier, with silver accents and with more weaponry than usual, marched towards me with-

  Oh me oh my.

  "Yessss...!" I hissed, as I saw the new and improved giant cushion they had obtained for me. Large, massive, fluffier than life itself, filled to the brim, in a royal red color, bound with golden ropes on its edges, and decorated with silver thread with the name "Argentum" sown into it.

  Perfect!

  It was even larger than my previous cushion, by a fair margin.

  "Excellent..!" I said, knowing that I couldn't smile but really wanting to. It was too bad I didn't feel like sleeping because I kinda wanted to just to test out my new cushion.

  "We shall deliver it to your lair as soon as possible!"

  Great, great... that, unfortunately, left me with nothing to do until that point in time where I could sleep on my new bed.

  That was when Aqua stepped forward. "I've also finished preparations. I wish for you to come with me... for a date!"

  Oh. A date? "A date?" I asked.

  "Yes, you said you wanted to go on a date before you'd agree to mating with me, correct?" Aqua asked. "I believe, in your own words, you told me that if I was going to ask you for that, I should invite you to dinner with wine, and before that, I should ask you for a nice walk along the beach," she said, "so I've chosen a beach, I've prepared the food for a picnic - all that remains is for you to join me for our date."

  Oh!

  Ooooh! I'm excited! Not to brag but, I'm being asked out on a date! Man this is great!

  Wait, should I wear something special? Should I bring a gift? Should I prepare my heart?

  Today was going great!

  ...

  Wait.

  Now that I think about it...

  Whatever did I do with the worm monster?

  ...

  Well I'm sure whatever happened to it is probably not important. It's someone else's problem now, surely. I have no time for that, I'm going on a date with a water dragon!