Isis held out a finger and pressed Ed's forehead, he couldn't tell if it was a fever or not, human temperatures were always too high for him. As a child, he preferred cold weather and just as much the warmth of human beings, but now ...... He had almost forgotten what it was like.

Ed woke up a few times, and each time he either said a lot of inexplicable things and fell asleep, or he couldn't even recognize his face, and even when his eyes were open, he looked like he was in a dream. Matilda says it's because he has a fever that burns out his brain, but Iss always thinks things aren't that simple.

He could feel a strange power in Ed's body, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, but he didn't know what it was. He always felt that his life had been good enough, but Ed's experience seemed to be no different.

Sometimes he can't help but feel a little jealous. He was always alone, while Ed had many friends with him.

But anyway, he came looking for him, and even though he knew he was a dragon, the grinning guy didn't seem to care.

Matilda walked over, reached out to probe Ed's temperature, and whispered to him, "He looks a lot better." ”

Isis was silent. He'd been turning around in front of everyone for the past few days, but Matilda, the woman he'd always thought was cowardly, stupid, and useless, showed surprisingly calm about it. She turned a blind eye to everything and kept her mouth shut, as if a dragon would become a human, or that a dragon would have a human friend, which was a matter of course and normal.

She had probably warned the two little girls that they couldn't help but stare at him as he transformed, but thankfully, they were always far away from him.

That's fine, he doesn't have a lot of patience with children, and maybe he can slap them flat if he's not careful, especially when he's in a bad mood.

"Is......"

He looked down, and Ed opened his eyes, staring blankly at him.

"Am I awake?" he asked.

"How do I know!" replied Is, exasperated. But Matilda was right, his face didn't look so bad.

"I must not have woken up yet. Ed sighed and muttered to himself, "Iss wouldn't be so fierce to me!"

Eth couldn't take it anymore and slapped the fool on the head - he couldn't have been more stupid anyway.

Ed screamed, rubbing his head vigorously.

"Well, I'm awake. He groaned.

"Really, do you remember how you got here?" asked Iss, suspicious, several times he thought Ed was back to normal, but he always started saying something inexplicable the next second.

"I hugged your legs!" said Ed, smugly, "I knew it would work...... And then I seem to be asleep?"

"That's not falling asleep, you almost froze to death!" said Iss, unhappily.

"Yes," Ed realized...... "no wonder I feel like I've slept for so long." I've had a lot of dreams, a lot of dreams. ”

He stared in confusion, not knowing where to look, and Ed shook his head when Iss was worried that he was going to start babbling again.

"It's weird, I don't remember it at all. He said. Those dreams were now shadows, dangling in his head, but he couldn't catch them, he only remembered in a trance a little girl, with long white hair and blue eyes, always repeated. The only thing he could remember was her last smile of apology and helplessness, which filled his heart with guilt, but he obviously didn't know her at all.

"Good. Isis said, his tone becoming cold, "You're alright." ”

Ed stared at him warily, immediately guessing what he wanted to do.

"You can't throw me back!" he shouted, rolling into the corner and curling into a ball.

"Can't you?" asked Iss coldly.

Ed began to think about whether it was too late to close his eyes and pretend to be dead...... But if he kept pretending to be dead, he worked so hard that he almost froze to death to catch Is, what's the point!

"Don't you want to know anything about Scott?" he used the same trick again.

"I don't want to. Is's face was cold, that wasn't true, but he didn't want to be blackmailed by anyone because of this.

Ed was stunned, which caught him off guard.

"You didn't throw them back!" he pointed to Matilda and the boys, "why can't you keep me with you!

His Ice Dragon Friend didn't have piles of gold coins and gems in the cave, but he did have a few children, which was a bit of a surprise to him.

"I've kept them to eat!" said Is, gritting his teeth, "Do you want to be eaten by me too?"

Ed squinted at him, "Yes, you know what? ”

Matilda laughed and walked away quickly. She liked to see them arguing like little children, but at this time Is's mood was not too good, and she didn't want to be innocently implicated - it was still a dragon anyway, although now she was sure that he couldn't eat them.

Sure enough, she had just walked away when a gust of wind blew through the cave, and a giant dragon lay next to Ed, opening its large mouth full of fangs and roaring lowly, "And now?!"

Ed involuntarily shrank back and sat up against the rock behind him, the mouth big enough to swallow him in one gulp, and it did make people feel an irrepressible, instinctive fear.

He watched as the ice dragon lifted its body, its huge golden eyes silently staring at him. He could easily tell what Isis was thinking, but now, all of the Ice Dragon's expressions seemed to be sealed under a thick layer of ice.

"What the hell do you want from a dragon? The ice dragon asked him, his voice low and his posture majestic, and he suddenly felt strange.

Ed stared at him blankly, speechless for a moment. He had fantasized about the same situation countless times, and he had prepared so many arguments that he confidently thought would be enough to convince a dragon, or even the whole world, that the story of Is-Chrisses would have a fairy-tale ending. But as he got here, it became more and more clear to him how pale those self-righteous sentences were, and he could no longer be naïve enough to say them.

He always comforted himself that as long as he found Is, he would always have a way, but now, Isis was in front of him, and his mind seemed to be confused, and he couldn't think of any way.

Then, perhaps, we can only go back to the original thoughts.

"I just want you to know, Is, that I'm your friend, no matter what you become. He whispered.

But the ice dragon stared at him for a long time and shook his head: "You call me 'Is', but that's not my name. You look at me, and all you see is that human shadow. But I'm not him...... He died, I killed him, here. The ice dragon pointed to his chest, "That's how I was born." Ed, all you are looking for is an illusion, he doesn't exist. ”

Ed glared at him, a small flame swishing through his heart—all efforts were so easily denied that even he couldn't help but be angry.

He began to understand why Naria was angry, and why Tess always called Iss an "awkward child" - he was so awkward that people wanted to hold his big head and shake it hard to see if he could sober him up.

"Then why do you care if I freeze to death, or what Nalya believes?" he asked angrily, "I don't even bother to ask why you still look like the guy you killed......!

"It's not a joke!"

His words were interrupted by a roar of rage, and his entire body was easily grabbed and thrown against the wall on the other side of the cavern, knocking every bone in protest. He heard Matilda's exclamation, and he slid to the ground in a daze, and was trying to get up, when a huge claw had pressed him firmly to the ground, as if it could crush him into a thin piece at any moment.

Fear captured his heart and made him struggle involuntarily.

"A dragon is no joke!" the ice dragon leaned its head close to the hateful fellow, and its anger melted its cold mask, and perhaps exposed its anger and panic and bewilderment to a human - the last thing it needed was to be reminded of what was bothering it all the time, and it didn't need anyone to tell it that it couldn't even be a real dragon.

It was born a dragon, powerful, ruthless, invincible, and that was its only remaining pride, but it had turned itself into a joke.

It probably really should have killed the creature writhing in its claws, trying to escape, and there was no way back, no more vain concerns—how was he different from the necromancer it had torn apart? just human, with the same fragile flesh and bones, the same weak and changeable soul...... Even though he had claimed to be his friend a moment ago, his eyes were filled with fear at this moment, as if he had finally realized that what he was dealing with was nothing more than a monster.

"Monster"—the distant, contemptuous name stabbed its heart once more, and it roared lowly, its front paws pressing down involuntarily and harder.

It remembered Naria's sad eyes, the tears she had once dripped on its hands...... Maybe after breaking her heart completely, she won't cry for it again.

It couldn't hear those voices anymore. Matilda's exclamations and pleadings, the suppressed sobs of children, the crunch of human bones breaking, they echoed in its ears, but they could not reach its heart.