The ocean was a vast blue plain of nothing.

  Nothing to my left.

  Nothing to my right.

  Only blue water down below, and multiple clouds of water up top, also tinted mostly blue, though the dark blue faded into gray and even a thick black as the clouds formed into gigantic storms and vortexes of hostile winds. I knew oceanic storms could get rough, but I could feel that one was gonna be bad.

  But that was so not my problem I could write a book about how much it wasn't my problem. I'm not here to dictate the course of nature to serve my whims and fancy, I'm here to look for the island I'm supposed to meet Aqua in.

  I had come across many islands. I had come across volcanic islands that popped up from the ocean floor like the most massive pimple one could ever think of, I had come across islands that were floating on the backs of giant tortoises, though none as big as the one we'd killed up north, and I had come across islands that were actually floating on the ocean, clumps of plants that were just drifting like rafts across the blue water.

  Some even had people living in them.

  First time I've seen humans with black skin, and I don't mean like, brown or dark brown, I mean black, like onyx black, I'm talking so black that the off white markings on their bodies looked like they were painted on an actual blackboard.

  They seemed fun, dancing around a campfire upon which a huge shark was being roasted.

  That may or may not have caused me to veer off course for several hours, which may or may not be part of the reason why I can't find the island I was supposed to go to.

  Spying another island in the far distance, I began to head towards it. From afar, the big tall mountain in the middle that smoked a little looked like a regularly active volcano, but given the dense life, with its many green trees and monstrous birds and flying fish.

  It was positively teeming with life.

  No humans though.

  The last island inhabited by humans was extremely far away, in fact, and moving away, considering it was one of those gigantic rafts.

  The volcanic island also had a very strong presence in it, I can feel it! It must be because it's my lover, of course, my girlfriend, Aqua, I would sense her, anywhere in the world, because I am of course a very powerful dragon who can do these things.

  The next thing to do was to create a sphere of flame, breathing a powerful conflagration right in front of me, making it as hot as a burst of plasma from the sun, maybe, probably, I don't actually know how hot that is, point is, I made it hot enough that going through it would vaporize all the water that clung to me. Luckily, I hadn't actually taken a dip in seawater, I was only sprayed with the occasional shower from the sky.

  Ready to go, I descended and-

  Wait, the presence I'm feeling is coming from the Volcano. That is not where I would expect a water dragon to be. That's not a good place for a date at all. I mean volcanoes are stunning but even as I approach I can tell it smells like death and ass. And not the good kind of ass that is tasty grilled or otherwise cooked, I'm talking rank and spoiled ass.

  I could go for some flank steak while I'm-

  Wait no Volcano, as I enter the column of smoke and look down, exhaling a blast of freezing breath to clear the way, pushing the hot smoke aside and freezing much of the volcano's internal walls, I realize, this is not a volcano, this is a hole.

  Which yes I know it sounds weird to say volcanoes kind of are holes but, they're usually full of things, they're not just open holes that go underground, and they're certainly not filled with purple lights and dozens, nay, myriads of strong presences.

  Now that I'm close enough I can tell, they're ants compared to Aqua or myself, but, there's so many of them that they're actually somewhat threatening.

  Wait! I think I know what this is!

  This must be one of those hidden dungeons that the protagonist only gets access to near the end of the story, or maybe it's a bonus dungeon of some sort, the kind that contains the best items in the game but also the most dangerous and powerful monsters. Yeah, that made sense, of course there'd be one of those.

  What that meant, unfortunately, was that this was not the place I was supposed to meet Aqua in.

  Unless it was, and they had somehow captured her, drowning her in sheer numbers. But there was no way that was true, I'm not some plucky young hero needing motivation, something silly like saving my girlfriend.

  Unless...

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  No no no, no way.

  Actually I'll just come down and- and they're throwing spears at me.

  They're bouncing off my scales but, it's like somebody's throwing sand at me. It's not painful but I can feel it. That's surprisingly potent. Slightly annoying.

  I continued coming down, I saw them. Humanoid creatures, not quite human... actually very human for the most part. Everyone had at least two legs, and at least two arms, two eyes. Some had two heads, some had tails, some had more than one tail. Okay there's that one who has only one arm but it doesn't count if it's obviously been cut off at the bicep.

  They started throwing flaming spears at me too.

  "Okay seriously can you guys stop?" I asked. "I'm being polite this one time but the next I'll sit you on your asses."

  Most had bluish gray skin, almost every single head I saw had long, knifelike ears. For the most part, it seemed like I was looking at a mostly unified species, some had extra limbs or heads but they all felt roughly the same to my senses.

  "IT SPEAKS!?"

  Ah, and we have communication! "Yes I speak you fool, I am a mighty Dragon!" I chastised the one who spoke, a large, muscular... man? with dark gray skin wearing a loincloth. He had white markings all over his body, and I'm realizing they look pretty similar to the guys with painted black skin I saw before.

  A little more pale, and with more exaggerated features, but I hadn't looked at those humans. Maybe they weren't so human after all, would explain the impossibly black skin tone.

  They panicked and started scrambling away.

  "Oi, you, you're the leader here?" I asked, looking at the guy who spoke. He had long white hair and a long white beard as well, but he didn't look wizened or elderly, he looked young and healthy actually, with strong, mighty and defined muscles, which his loincloth did little to hide. "Respond!"

  I demended respect. These beings had attacked me, they were refusing to communicate, and I'm not about to take this shit.

  "Y-Yes I am the leader of my people, we are the-"

  "Yeah yeah whatever," I cut him off. "I won't take up too much of your time. I'm looking for a woman - a female dragon - about yae high, should be wearing a human body as a disguise," I said, holding my hand up from the gray stone floor at the bottom of the volcano, only now realizing there were many purple lights and an entire underground city around us, with only a little sunlight filtering from the top of the volcano.

  Notably, there was also a waterfall that seemed to be pouring from the ocean, and a huge pool of magma that was sending out the plumes of smoke.

  But I was getting distracted again.

  "She has blue hair about the same length as yours, wears clothes like yours but..." I tried to articulate myself, "more complex," I settled on, seeing as everyone here was basically wearing what appeared to be tanned leather and little else, "and has horns, a tail and fins."

  They looked confused.

  "I take it that's a no. Well, good knowing you, nice mushrooms," I said, looking around, I think their houses were built out of mushroom rings? Like, mushrooms the size of huts. Looks like they hollow them out and live there. There were also pillars of stone. The hollow of under the volcano was huge...

  I spread my wings and prepared to fly away.

  "W-Wait, you come from outside - you, you can fly, you can, we've been here so long, please- help us, we must escape, we've been-"

  "Yeah I'm not about to ferry all of you out of here riding on my back like I'm some kind of dragon taxi service," I said, "only one person gets to ride me and you're a head shorter than she is," I said. I looked up.

  There was an overwhelmingly massive distance between where the opening that lead outside was, and the closest stone pillar to climb on. I could stand to my full height and not touch the ceiling.

  I think this really might've at some point been a regular volcano but only the pit with the magma remained and now everything else was hollowed out and full of mushrooms.

  I decided, well, fuck it, why not try something out.

  I used my power and willed the Earth to obey my commands, raising rivers and piles of magma, causing the nearby flowing river that disappeared into the underground to boil over as some of it came into contact with the magma I was manipulating, shaping and then cooling.

  At regular intervals I created columns to hold up the structure I was making, a spiraling stairway, going up, and up, and up, and up, and up, and up, seriously I went up so much I was starting to wonder if I had seriously underestimated how big the volcano was, but then at last I got to the big tube that carried magma out when the volcano erupted, whatever its proper name was, and then could just use the stone already present, having to scrape out a ton of ash as I went, to create a further stairway.

  Until finally, I reached the top.

  This might've taken me a good hour or so, just working at it, just kept working at it, trying not to get distracted. I still got distracted and made a loop out of boredom, better fix that, I don't think these people can ignore gravity, if they could, they wouldn't need help getting outside.

  "Alright that should do it," I said, "so yeah gather your supplies and head on up, I made sure to include a few rest areas but don't take too long, I don't know how long the stairs are going to survive," I pointed out.

  On top of that, since I had used so much of the magma to make the stairs, I had actually made it go even deeper into the pit, and the cave had cooled considerably with both my previous flash freezing breath and me forcibly chilling the magma I shaped into stairs and... I'm sure they'll be fine.

  "Everything else's on you, I'm out."

  "W-Wait, great one, oh grand savior, what is your name? I promise on the name of the Underground Dweller Tribe that we shall never forget you!"

  "I am the silver dragon, Argentum," I spoke, then, I lifted myself, spreading my wings and flying towards the sky, quickly clearing the mouth of the volcano.

  As I did, flying high in the sky, was the large body silhouette I could recognize anywhere, even the movement I expected from someone who moved through the sky as if she was swimming through water, Aqua had come to fetch me.

  "I've found you," she said, simply and clearly. "Come, the date spot is ready," she spoke.

  "Oh! I was looking for you, I've been unable to find you, I think I forgot where we were supposed to meet," I said.

  "Yes, I figured that would be the case so I made sure to come out to search for you. Luckily, you stick out like a reverse scale," she informed me, "especially when you were using so much power so blatantly."

  Her tail whipped, the fin making a cracking noise as it slapped the air.

  "Come now," she said, "I wish to ride your head once more."

  "What, flying gets you tired now?" I asked, taunting her.

  "Nay," she responded, "I find sitting on your face to be quite comfortable," she said.

  I rolled my eyes, and offered her my head, and then she began steering me via my horns to where we were going to have our second date.

  Already, I'm excited, I'm sure that this time we'll be able to have a nice, charming and sweet time together, and won't be getting interrupted!