I think the thing about the war that causes me most grief, aside from the whole monsters-got-sealed-Underground thing, was that Firhaur had to die.

Because Firhaur Wyngblaise was, without a doubt, my greatest friend, my biggest inspiration, my best mentor.

Of course, I did not think of him as such when we first met. In fact, back then, I was fully convinced he was just as idiotic as the rest of the world.

... I regret that.

It was a Saturday, I believe, sometime in the summer. I had been testing the latest flyer. It had a new arrangement of runes that I had hoped would prevent the burnout. After nearly the entire morning of soaring across the mountains, I had crashed onto the rim of a little valley. At the time, I was sitting on a boulder, looking at the runes on the wings to see if the crash had been due to burnout-damaged runes, or merely my clumsy landing skills.

This was no small task, as there were over five hundred runes spanning the entirety of the flyer, and each individual rune had to be carefully inspected.

I had just finished with the left wing and was moving on to check the right when I heard voices behind me.

Unfortunately, they were speaking in Common, which, as I have already mentioned, my skills in which were sorely neglected. I was only able to catch a word or two here and there, and what I heard made little sense.

So I made to ignore the voices, instead focusing on my task.

I was successful in this until someone shouted to me in my native language, Hands.

Speaking in Hands is a tricky thing to learn, especially if you're not native to it. It's really almost two languages, with any combination in between- you can speak it purely vocally, or simply through hand gestures, or gestures and voice. And don't even get me started on the written language, that's a whole other day-long tangent.

Needless to say, not many people knew how to Speak in Hands. In the town I went to for supplies, population of four thousand five hundred monsters, there was a grand total of two people there who knew the language... kind of. Between their grasp of Hands and my knowledge of Common, we usually managed to get things done as needed.

It was one of these two people who had shouted to me.

"Hey, doc!"

I breathed out a slow sigh. It was Maurice.

I suppose, in hindsight, there was nothing especially wrong with Maurice, but he was the more irritating of the two Speakers. The bird monster already had a very bright disposition, and his extreme extroversion got on my nerves. He also refused to call me anything other than "doctor" or "professor," despite my having explained to him many times that I did not have a degree. I suppose I could have alleviated this by telling him my real name, but I was rather self-conscious of my name then, and disliked being called by it. (Granted, I am still somewhat conscious of my first name, but I have long since gone by my last name.)

"Maurice," I sighed, looking up but not back at the people approaching, "I have told you time and time again, I am not a doctor."

There was a soft murmur of voices, one of them Maurice's, as he presumably translated to the people. I, meanwhile, looked back to my work.

It was a moment or two before Maurice spoke up again. "Brought people to see you."

"Well, I've no interest in seeing people, so if you could leave..."

Another few moments as he worked over that. I found it had indeed been a rune burnout that had caused my crash. Nothing particularly difficult to fix, though. I could do it there by writing a few runes on a piece of duct tape with a permanent marker, and putting the tape over the burnt out runes.

I started to pull the duct tape and marker out of my inventory.

Duct tape, I will admit, is an example of human ingenuity. I don't think there is a resource in the world I have used nearly so much as duct tape.

As I started to draw out a few runes on the topmost layer, Maurice spoke up yet again.

"They are big people."

Now, I assume he meant important people, but, like I said, he had only a limited grasp of Hands.

I muttered a few words I maybe shouldn't have, and, finishing with my duct-tape-and-marker rune repair, stood up and turned around.

There were at least two small squeaks of embarrassment.

Maurice had brought me three visitors. The first was a tall, muscular fish- or, rather, shark- monster, going off his sleek grey skin, pointed face, and jagged teeth. He was dressed in thick armor that couldn't have been easy to wear up the mountains at all, only more testament to his physical strength. This was Dagiel, a soldier in the Royal Guard, later to become the Elite Captain of the Royal Guard.

Next was a tall, white goatlike monster- one of the bossmonster species, I realized- wearing a purple robe decorated with a symbol I recognized as the Delta Rune- symbol of monster royalty. If I had to guess, I would have said she was the same age as I, but I know that bossmonsters stop aging once they reached a certain point. This was Princess Toriel Dreemur, recently betrothed to Prince Asgore Dreemur.

Finally was Firhaur Wyngblaise. Firhaur was also a bossmonster, although not of the goat variety. He was a dragon, a dragon of legend. Standing nearly ten feet tall, he was the most brilliant green color, with his eyes, belly armor, wing membranes, and tail fan a deep purple. Six long horns protruded from the back of his head in a sharp crest. He stood with his wings supporting him as his front feet, with his hands tucked against his chest. I never learned how old exactly Firhaur was, but he claimed to be the grandson of the first dragons.

And he was the Royal Scientist.

Of course, I didn't know any of these people's names or rankings, I only saw them as I've described. Expression-wise, Firhaur looked faintly amused, and the others awkwardly embarrassed.

I glanced at Maurice, who had a similar expression of embarrassment. "Is there a problem?"

"Ah. Um. Your clothes-..."

I didn't have to glance down to know I was wearing nothing. "What about it?"

"... You are not-..."

"Well, no. Of course not. Cloth is heavy, not to mention the extra drag it creates."

Maurice blinked a little, no doubt confused by my answer. Finally, "Do you have in your inventory-"

"Yes. But I'm not going to put anything on. Besides, I am a skeleton. It's not like I've got much to be modest about, anyway."

As Maurice translated, the dragon bossmonster burst out laughing.

After another moment of hurried conversation in Common I could make little sense of, Maurice turned to me again. "Can you at least... put on some pants...?"

I threw my hands up in exasperation, almost dropping my flyer in the process. "For crying out loud, if you don't like it, don't look!"

Again, Firhaur burst out laughing.

Dagiel, though, looked mad. The muscular shark monster strode over to me and proceeded to give me a long lecture in the Common language, complete with wild hand gestures and more than a few fingers jabbed at my chest.

Throughout the entirety of his rant, I kept a perfectly straight face. When he had finished, though, I allowed myself to break into a wide grin.

"My apologies, but ninety percent of what you've said was complete gibberish, and what made sense, well... it simply made no sense. However, from the gist of things, I presume you were either scolding me or insulting me, neither of which I deign to stand here and accept. And, as no other reason has been given for your coming to see me, I will take this as my opportunity to leave." With that, I slung the flyer onto my back, tightened the harness, and walked to the opposite side of the boulder I had been standing on.

Now, I have told you that this was the rim of a particular valley. To be more specific, though, this was a cliff that jutted out over the valley. The drop had to be at least seven hundred feet.

I glanced once more over my shoulder, grinning. "It's here that I must say farewell. With any luck, our paths won't cross again."

And then I lunged off the cliff.

The roar of the wind was not enough to drown out the sharp cries of shock behind me, and I have no doubt that, had I looked back up, I would have seen their faces peering over the edge of the cliff.

But I did not look back up. I leaned into the fall, diving nearly straight down, gaining speed. After a moment, I pulled at my Magic, sending it into the runes. My wings spread out behind me, and a purple film overlaid my vision. I angled myself forward, and then...

I was flying!

I was speeding through the air, my shadow skimming the ground beneath me, then over the water as I sped over the lake at the bottom of the valley.

As I suddenly found myself coming up at the opposite side of the valley, a shift of my weight and a twitch of my legs (as I have said, the configuration of the harness made my legs act as a sort of rudder) and I was banking on a leftward turn, suddenly flying along the length of the valley.

And then, in my peripheral vision, I saw a flash of brilliant green and deepest purple.

Firhaur had leaped off the cliff, his own wings dwarfing mine. And he was flying towards me.

I was irritated, of course. I had been sure that my jumping off a cliff would have been evidence enough for them that I had no interest in talking to them, but evidently, I had been wrong.

I may or may not have screamed a number of very rude words over my shoulder at Firhaur.

Nonetheless, the dragon followed me.

I knew there was no chance of me outracing the large dragon, his wings were bigger and stronger. He was also using physical strength rather than Magic as I was, and I had little doubt that I wouldn't be able to outlast him.

Thus, I had to outmaneuver him. I was smaller and lighter and could turn on a dime, not to mention I knew the mountains around there better than anyone.

So I continued down the valley, dragon hot on my trail. I flew for all I was worth, sticking close to the ground or the walls of cliffs. I ducked around trees and only took the sharpest turns.

At one point after a steep dive, I remember, I used my momentum to propel myself straight upward to nearly touch the clouds. Only moments before Firhaur caught me, I pulled in my Magic, letting my wings fold, suddenly plummeting. I remember that, in that one moment as my upward momentum lost its hold on me but gravity had not yet reclaimed me, I gave Firhaur just about the most cocky wink I could manage. And then I was plummeting downwards, laughing wildly.

The chase lasted for a long time.

And that was the problem. I could feel my Magic draining, and I knew I would have to end this soon.

But really, that was the least of my worries.

I don't know if Firhaur attacked with the intent of catching me before I fell, or it was simply a rune blowout. All I remember is one moment, I was flying, and the next, my shoulder was burning and I could see the remnants of my left wing falling apart below me as I fell. And then I was smashing into the ground, tumbling head over heels over and over.

When I finally stopped rolling, I only just have the faintest memory of looking up, blurring seeing a green shape hovering above me...

And then I passed out.

§

A/N

So I headcanon that there were more kinds of bossmonsters than just the furry goats that we all know and love. I like to think that dragons, true dragons are also bossmonsters.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Votes and Comments are my Favorite Things, and every notification I get makes my day!