"I don't think…" Wesley began but decided to end that thought.

The bribery didn't work and Wesley had a feeling even if they had a trove of treasures, the dragon probably still wouldn't want to have anything to do with them. Wesley watched as Belen climbed up the hill and used his pendulum on the dragons. When he came back down, he explained what was going on. The dragon they were looking for was the same golden dragon they had woken up. Wesley pondered for a moment before an idea hit him.

He didn't say a word and instead began collecting some twigs and branches off of the ground. There weren't many trees so he was relying on whatever birds or animals dropped. He then began gathering anything that looked burnable, including some dried grass and weeds. The pile he made was small and he realized they would need more burnable items in order for this to work.

"What if we tried a dare?" He finally revealed his plan to Belen, "Dragons are supposed to be prideful creatures, right? If we dared the dragon to hit a pile of wood or some sort of target from far away, then it would have to use its golden fire breath. We'd get the flame while keeping the dragons on friendly terms."

He then looked at his pathetic little pile and smiled softly.

"Though I suppose for that to work we'd need something a bit bigger." He commented, "I wouldn't expect the dragon to be able to see this from all the way up the hill. Got any ideas Belen?"

Perhaps his friend had some trick or item that would work well as a target. It would have to be burnable and something Belen didn't mind losing. Wesley began looking through his bag, but he didn't find anything large enough to work as a target. His magic was shadow but on a day as bright as this, it wouldn't last very long. Placing his hand on his chin, he began thinking for some sort of solution.

"Hey…you have a point." Pacing around slowly, Belen had his arms crossed in thought. "Well if we need a target, who says we have to make it ourselves?" There was that mischievous grin that hinted the start of shenanigans, and with Wesley's suggestion–he had an idea. Sure he didn't have anything worth burning in his bag, but he did have something that could create illusions. A little sleight of hand or misdirection never hurt anybody. And those were things he was very good at. The biggest gamble was getting the dragon to care about using its fire breath. "So~ If we're gonna take advantage of the dragon's pride, what better way to get a dragon going than to say it can't do something? I thought I had some nevermelting icicles in here, but I guess not. However I do have this cool shell that makes illusions." Tossing the shell up and down, the half-fey continued. "Whaddya say we use this to make a big ice elemental and bet that it can't melt it down?" Combining the shell's powers with some ice weaving, it wouldn't be hard to make a dummy target. It was a crazy idea, but maybe…just maybe it might work. Emphasis on 'maybe'.

The entire plan hinged on the dragon not realizing it was being duped, and how well they could convince it to take the challenge. They also had to make sure that they didn't make the dragon too angry, or else they'd be the ones getting melted. Belen was working out tons of different scenarios in his head to see the best way to snatch up the flames without letting the dragon know what he was doing. "The moment the jig is up, we bail. Deal?" The way he said it was almost like he knew that the trick wouldn't last very long and that they should be prepared to run. With a few years of experience in surviving his girlfriend's experiments, Belen was confident he could pull this off. If he could bluff his girlfriend out of getting reamed by her grandmother, who could say he couldn't do the same thing with a dragon? Said grandmother was the boss of several full-sized, adult dragons belonging to the White Court of Sularia. 

At first, Wesley's eyes were confused at Belen's suggestion. They needed a target and one wasn't going to appear in thin air.  His new friend had a mischievous grin, showing there was a plan brewing in his mind. Wesley had a feeling whatever he was planning, it would be clever. When the shell was brought out, Wesley stared at it with confusion for a moment until the fact it made illusions was brought up. Now he understood! They could trick the dragon to create a target for the dragon to use. A smile formed on Wesley's face as he nodded his head in agreement with the plan. What could go wrong?

"That sounds like a perfect plan to me!" Wesley said, "So I'll go challenge the dragon then I'll signal you to create a target. When the dragon blows its golden flames you collect it and we run. I'll give you a thumbs up when I've gotten the dragon to agree to the challenge. Once I give you the thumbs up, you create the illusion."

The plan relied on challenging the dragon and the illusion. The fleeing for their lives thing wouldn't be too hard. They would either die or not die. There was little in between. Wesley took in a big breath then nodded his head to Belen before marching up the hill again. He was scared but the adrenaline pumping in his head helped push him forwards instead of looking back. He was doing this for a friend, which made him feel like he could do anything. He finally stood in front of the golden and slightly annoyed dragon. He gave Belen a thumbs up before looking back to the golden dragon.

"H-hey dragon. I mean HEY DRAGON! You don't seem very strong! I bet you can't even hit the target at the bottom of the hill!" He shouted, trying not to sound too nervous.

The dragon stood up on all four legs and peered down at the little Wesley, who was now starting to regret his life choices. The regretful Wesley pointed towards the target nervously. The dragon smiled and turned towards the target with a confident look in its eyes. The massive creature's jaw opened and a golden flame erupted from its mouth. A large stream of fire flew towards the target and would have hit it, if it wasn't an illusion. The entire area was burning with golden fire, including the little pile he'd made on the ground.

"That seems very good I was wrong I'll be going now!" He said quickly as he darted down the hill.

The dragon, realizing it had been duped was furious. The creature had been woken up from a nap, challenged, and now this little rascal and its friend was running away! The dragon flew into the air out of rage and began flying towards them. Wesley managed to run down the hill and attempted to grab Belen's arm to get him to run. He was running towards the shore they had been near earlier in hopes to use the ocean to avoid being burned alive.

"RUN RUN RUN RUN." Wesley was shouting unhelpfully.

Making a fake ice elemental wasn't hard. Convincing the dragon to set fire to the fake elemental wasn't hard. Running away from an angry dragon wasn't hard. Collecting the golden fire while running away from the angry dragon on the other hand–was a little bit difficult. He whipped out the magic lantern as soon as he could, and the magical protection spell helped make sure he wasn't roasted. Snagging a portion of the fire, he was practically giddy now he had everything to make the ring. "I got it! Uh-oh…" While Wesley had gotten a running start, Belen bailed and began to teleport spam as fast as he could. Were dragons always this fast? He made the mistake of looking over his shoulder to see golden scales incoming. Hugging the magical lantern containing the colored fire to his chest–the brunet was tackled and pinned to the ground. Letting out a wheeze, he was being stared down by a very disgruntled and irritated apex predator who could easily swallow him like a piece of taffy.

"WAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAITTTT" The half-fey screeched the moment he saw the dragon's mouth move. "I CAN EXPLAIN I SWEAR! DON'T EAT ME PLEASE!!!" With words pouring out of his mouth, at this point the stress of trying to outdo his younger brother and impress Tempest while being faced with a life-and-death situation finally came to a head. 

Despite the bluffing, smooth-talking, and silver-tongued shenanigans he had pulled up to now; Belen had a breakdown. That was the problem of putting on a smile in spite of the danger. All this time he had been keeping it all in, and had finally cracked. "I'm sorryyyy–I just-I just wanted your golden fire! I didn't think you were gonna listen to me so I had my friend help me set this all up! I wasn't trying to do anything to you I swear!" The dragon narrowed its eyes, clearly not buying any of it. "And what makes you think I'm going to believe you? Give me one reason why I shouldn't just snack on you right now!" Hiccuping, he weakly showed the lantern. "See this lantern? I've been using this to collect a bunch of magical fire. I-it's for my girlfriend! I just wanted to impress her, you know?! My little brother pulled off a really romantic proposal to his girlfriend months ago and everybody really liked it! But I can't just do the same thing! I tried everything, but I couldn't think of anything that could beat that! He even pulled out a horse drawn pumpkin carriage and everything…" 

While Wesley was no longer being targeted, Belen was spilling his guts figuratively and it had devolved into a full blown rant. "–And then, I thought that if I made something out of a bunch of different types of magical fire that'd be pretty awesome. So I went all over the three continents trying to get everything. They're supposed to be for a ring–a magical ring with all the fire made into a stone! Is it so wrong to try to do something for the person you love?? Is it wrong?!?" At this point it was hard to tell what was going on; as the dragon had a foot atop a blubbering mess wearing a very perplexed and slightly disturbed look on its face. " I JUST WANT HER TO THINK I'M COOL OK?!! I DUNNO WHAT TO DO ANYMORE–" The golden dragon silently lifted its foot and then muffled the sounds of his screaming. All the other dragons were staring, making the situation incredibly awkward. 

When Wes ley turned around he realized Belen wasn't behind him. His stomach dropped as he saw the giant dragon holding his friend down. Panic ran through his head as he realized how much danger his friend was in. He was panicking so much that his own shadow began to circle around his body, hiding him completely. When the shadow dispersed, a wolf with horns and three white eyes stood where Wesley used to be. In this new form, he ran towards his friend who was now being muffled by the dragon's foot.

The dragon looked incredibly uncomfortable and like he just wanted to go back to bed. The dragon lifted up his foot to check if the human was still making noise, and he was. He put his foot back down and noticed the changed Wesley. The scent was still the same as regular Wesley, even if the form had changed so the dragon recognized the cocky young man. The dragon was embarrassed by the eyes of the other dragons and just wanted this whole situation to go away. They were all staring at him and thinking the dragon was making the problem when it was the stupid humans.

"If I lift my foot, I need you to get this human to shut up. I don't care how." The dragon spoke, "Then both of you are going to leave and never bother me ever again."

Wesley nodded his head and the wolf rushed over to Belen the moment the dragon lifted its foot. The wolf put his paw over Belen's mouth to get him to shut up then watched as the Golden Dragon flew off towards the top of the hill to get some well-deserved rest. Wesley paused for a moment, trying to remember how to speak in this form to other people. He didn't dare remove his paw before he got to talk to Belen.

"It's alright Belen. It's me, Wesley. The dragon just wants us to leave." Wesley mentally said to Belen. "We'd better go before the dragon changes its mind."

Wesley removed his paw and began swishing his fluffy black tail back in forth. Despite the wolf's strange eyes and unique set of horns, he had a dopey smile on his face that resembled a happy dog. Wesley began nudging Belen to his feet and began to pull on Belen's pant leg away from the dragons and the hill. The larger the distance between them, the better. Soon they were near the shore and Wesley was looking towards Belen.

"Well did you get the golden fire?" He mentally asked.

While Wesley dragged him away to safety, Belen was still recovering from cracking under stress. He was clutching the lantern like it was life itself, and his face was…a mess. Something pressed over his mouth, and he heard a familiar voice inside his mind. "Huh? Oh, hey." After almost getting eaten by a dragon, seeing a strange fiendish tri-eyed beast wasn't so terrifying. Or maybe that was just the adrenaline talking. His breathing was normal again and he had cleaned up his face. The half-fey's eyes were a little red, but he was fine. "Well did you get the golden fire?" Wesley asked him. "Yup~" Belen replied, though his smile seemed like somebody had taken the wind out of his sails. "That's the last one. Thanks for the save back there. I really owe you one." After all that had happened, he was relieved. He had gotten all six colors, and now it was time for the big moment. "Whew, I'm beat. I'm going to head back to Sularia. I can't wait to get these made into the best ring ever." He gave his new friend his signature grin, and he was back to his old self.

He couldn't wait to tell Tempest the crazy stuff he went through to forge her engagement ring. If there was one thing his mom had taught him and his twin, it was that what mattered wasn't how expensive the gift was or how rare the parts were–it was the effort behind it. 'It's the thought that counts most,' she said. That was why Cyril's proposal blew everybody away. It wasn't because he found the rarest flower in all the Harena, it wasn't because he had a pearly white pumpkin carriage prepared to send Sapphire off like a princess. It was because he took the time and effort to show that he cared and that he was serious about spending the rest of his life with her. That was what Belen wanted to achieve. He wanted to recreate that same sort of display of honest-to-goodness sincerity for his genius of a girlfriend. Waving to Wesley as he hurried back to board the airship he had arrived on, he leaned against a window and watched the rainbow isles of Maisha Maua grow smaller. "It'll be the only ring of its kind in the entire world." He mused to himself. "Whadd'ye say laddie?" Haskell's thick accent piped up as the platypus was helping himself to some complimentary food. "Nothing, nothing." 

The dragon had left but Belen still seemed fairly shaken by the events. Wesley was used to dangerous situations and having his own life on the line, it was how he passed the last five years. Wesley leaned against his friend's leg for a moment, trying to see if that would help clam him down. Their goal was complete and the golden flame had been retrieved. As long as Belen didn't lose it on the way home, he would be able to make that ring for his beloved. Wesley silently wondered how Belen's mysterious girlfriend would react to such a ring. Soon Belen was back to his old self, with that cheeky grin and confident behavior.

"I'm sure she will love it." Wesley said to Belen.

He followed Belen down to the ship to make certain his friend didn't get up to any more trouble. Wesley shifted back to his human form and gave Belen a wave as his friend left for Sularia. He had a feeling one day they would be able to meet each other. Wesley would have to ask about the ring then. Soon the ship became a little dot on the ocean and Wesley realized something very important.

"I think that was the last ship for the islands…." He muttered to himself, "Guess I'll be having to find another way off the island."

Wesley shrugged and began to walk around the edge of an island, wandering around. Eventually he would find a way back home but for now he was just enjoying the island and staying far away from any dragons.