The dragon's harem

"Eris! Wait and get back here, she'll handle it." Aella shouted at her and Eris stared back, "You mean!"

Arad's rampage stopped and he fell to the ground asleep, his jet-black draconic body covered with several pink markings. A mouth appeared on his forehead and sighed. "[I got him to calm down and fall asleep. He should calm down when he wakes up.]"

"Doma stopped him." Eris sighed in relief; even she didn't want to face an enraged Arad.

"[Mom helped me put him to sleep. But even with us both working together, we barely managed that thanks to his body being split into two with Gemini. We wouldn't have been able to stop him if he was whole.]"

"Shift him back to human form. We'll carry him back home to rest. I doubt Betty can keep this place stable for any longer." Aella walked toward Arad and patted his nose.

"[He'll still be too heavy. Arad weighs over 200 kilograms of muscles and bones.]" Doma replied with a giggle as she transformed Arad into a large black rat.

The girls stared at the rat rolling on the ground. Merlin fell on her butt exhausted; this massive rat was a raging dragon a few seconds ago.

"Wait…" She gasped, "If he has a Gemini clone, what happened to it? No, didn't that clone rage as well?"

"[The clone didn't transform into a dragon thanks to Lydia. She was there and managed to prevent him long enough for me to calm him here.]"

****

On the other side of the world, Lydia stared at the fat black rat in front of her with a shocked face. "This is Arad…Doma said she calmed him down…but what should we do with him now." She sighed and turned toward Jack.

"I can't take him to the men's dorm as pets are banned on our side. Other students kept trying to bring monsters in and it was outright banned." He waved his hands.

"I can't keep him as well. We can't just leave him here, some vultures might eat him." She gasped.

"Vultures?" Jack extended his artificial arm forward and shot Arad. He was unharmed, "You can hit with all the mages of the university at once and he would be unharmed."

"He's that durable…" She shook Arad and his stomach jiggled from left to right. "Let's give him to Sena. She should be able to find a solution."

They went back to the university and Lydia took Arad to Sena's room while Jack went back to his room.

"Sena, it's me, Lydia. Are you inside?" She knocked on Sena's door.

Sena opened the door and looked outside with a yawn, she had just gotten into bed for a sweet nap, but this paladin had to come knocking on her door. With an annoyed voice, she asked. "What brought you here?"

"This." Lydia showed Sena a basket with Arad asleep inside, "Can you keep him with you for now? It's a long story." She explained what Doma told her.

"Oh, my! Of course, I'll keep him safe until he wakes up." Sena snatched Arad off Lydia's arms. "I'll give him a nice place to sleep in until he wakes up."

Lydia stared at her for a second then left. She can't keep Arad with her while going around with Jack. It's safer for him to remain with Sena.

Sena closed the door and rushed to her bed with Arad in the basket, she stared at him with a grin. "This isn't the real one, but it's the Gemini clone. Even so, Arad is Arad." She put him beside her bed on a table and sat beside him.

With one finger, she rubbed his head. "I'll lock you in this body for now so you won't suddenly transform and break something. Please don't worry. I'll let you go after this."

She lifted him out of the basket and laid him on her bed, she then covered him with her blanket and went back to sleep by his side.

Aella took Arad's real body back home and laid him to sleep on his hoard, which was a large pile of gold and gems that the kobolds dug out of the ground. As they saw Arad lying there in his draconic form, the Kobolds rushed everywhere and brought towels, blankets, and brooms.

They climbed on Arad's back and started scrubbing him clean, using ropes and ladders to swing everywhere. They even made a makeshift crane using tree trunks brought by Meryem's children to lift Arad's wing up so they could clean under it. A whole operation that took hundreds of kobolds two hours to finish.

As the cleaning ended, Meryem came in. She had just got out of the meeting of the wives in which Aella, Eris, Mira, Merida, and Isdis confronted Merlin about what happened. The decision was complicated, but the sentiment was clear. As long as Arad is fine with it, they generally don't mind.

Merlin sighed as she stood up from the couch and walked toward the table. She poured herself a cup of water and gulped it down, exhausted. "I don't know if this is good or bad, but it at least ended."

Amber approached her. "What good or bad you're talking about? They gave you the green light. What else could you ask for?"

"Arad is the problem. I just sent him into a mindless rage. I should've watched my words. I seem to have forgotten I was dealing with a dragon, to think me of all people would make that mistake." She looked at her. "Do you think he'll be angry at me?"

"I doubt it. Arad isn't a mindless dragon. He's more human than most humans I've seen in my life. I'm sure he won't be angry at you after he wakes up. And it's not like what you said is wrong."

Aella approached them, "You're right." She had Serin in her hands, Tina's daughter. "To her and Ignis outside, Arad is like a father figure." She smiled as Serin extended her hands, trying to grasp Merlin.

"Tina's little girl." Merlin took Serin from Aella's hands. "How old is she?"

"About eleven months. She had started crawling just recently."

Merlin put Serin on the ground and blazed away, crawling faster than any of them expected, and ended up beneath the table.

"She's fast." Amber gasped.

Eris approached, "That might be because of Arad. He always plays with her when he's around. Look at her crawl." Eris pointed out.

Serin wasn't crawling like a normal baby, her knees weren't touching the ground.

Tina approached, "I told Arad that she wasn't crawling when she should've been so he started trying to train her on how to crawl. It was funny seeing him running on all four around the house so let him teach her…"

"It worked too well. He is a four-legged dragon after all, what in the hell did he teach her and how?" Merlin rubbed her face.

"If memory serves me right, Arad said that void dragons communicate with physical magic, like telepathy. It's not like words but more like sharing intentions, emotions, and feelings. It's how a mother-void dragon could teach her children before they hatch on things like human language and such. He did the same with Serin, speaking to her mentally, albeit he said she can't reply or form any tangible thought yet." Aella waved her finger.

"It's not Arad alone." Mira walked in, "Loci worked on that as well. She's always playing with Serin whenever no one is around. Right?" She looked at the window and one of the flowers then sprouted a mouth.

"Serin is such a sweet child. A pure heart and overflowing energy." Loci smiled, "Now that I think about it, she isn't that much older than Arad."

"Wait what?" Amber gasped.

"Serin is eleven months old, Arad is seven. She's more like his older sister." They looked at Serin glaring at them from under the table.

"Nah, we could say he's way older than that. I mean he was learning before hatching and is accelerating his aging by eating souls. He's at least a few hundred years old." Eris waved her hand as Tina went and lifted Serin off the ground.

"Do you know what class she is yet?" Merlin asked.

"If fact we do. Martial class usually never show up until older age, but we can catch magic classes early." Tina smiled. "This little girl is a sorceress and a very special one at that." She lifted her up.

"Divine bloodline. She's an A-simar blood in her veins." The divine spark could be seen glowing in Serin's eyes like sunlight.

"Now that's rare. Did you get her apprised at the church?" Amber stared at them but Tina shook her head. "We didn't. Lydia said it's better to have a private appraisal as they might cause us some trouble, like asking to hand her to them so she can be raised as a nun or one of the clergy."

"Just ask me and I'll be prone to make a mistake and drop a spell on the church if that happened." Merlin waved her hand, "So, what was the result? What god does her holy or divine magic belong to?"

"Adam the first human. She has the blood of the divine Chad." Tina smiled.

"You know Chad isn't a true god? Some believe he's just a human that got too powerful he can't die and now lives in the heavens." Merlin stared at her.

"I know, Alcott was his hero." Tina looked at Merlin, "He said that Chad isn't a god, but a mere human fighting for humanity and granting his power to those who seek to work for the benefit of the human race."