Chapter 850 — Father and Daughter

During her years in the human world, Maggie had imagined more than once what it would be like to meet her father again.

Not one of those imaginings had resembled what now stood before her.

The black dragon clad in mechanical armor regarded Sir Gorosh, who stood before it; the mana-crystal lamps around the landing platform lit the whole square, and now that a small accident had dissolved the subtle awkwardness of the reunion, Maggie found her own mood far less tense than she had expected.

She even smiled again. "Tomorrow I'm going to file a request to have this place repaired, Father—the crater you've stepped into is a serious problem."

Sir Gorosh spread his hands. "At least it isn't entirely my problem."

Maggie froze. For two full seconds she stared in astonishment before she looked at her father in surprise. "You actually make jokes now?"

"I studied with Sir Keximir for quite a long time..." Gorosh said, a trace of embarrassment in his voice. "After you left... I thought that when you came home, you wouldn't complain anymore that your father was as stiff as a rock and couldn't even recognize a joke..."

The black dragon's long, massive tail suddenly swung across the open ground without conscious intent, its horny plates striking a string of bright sparks from the hard stone.

"It seems you've done well enough in the human world," Sir Gorosh said, clearing his throat softly and lifting his head to look at his daughter. "The Cecilians built you such an astonishing suit of armor—more astonishing than any king's or knight's. It cannot have been easy to make."

"This is Steelwing. It lets a congenitally deformed dragonkin fly freely," Maggie said, gently rolling her neck as layer upon layer of flowing light rippled across the armor plates of her upper body. "You're right—building it consumed a truly astonishing amount of manpower and resources. But it wasn't made for me alone. It's only the first suit of Steelwing."

"The first suit..." Sir Gorosh immediately caught the implication hidden in her words, and his eyes widened. "You mean the Cecilians designed this armor for all dragonkin—that it's a... a mass-produced commodity?"

Having only just been introduced to Gao Yang Cecil's investment plans and trade proposals, the knight's thoughts turned at once toward "commodity."

"You could put it that way," Maggie said with a slight nod. "But it isn't on the regular trade list. His Majesty Gao Yang knows of the constraints upon the Holy Dragon Duchy, so for now this suit is a 'gift' to me alone. I'm showing it to you this way because I want you to judge whether it can be presented before Grand Duke Bayang'er. If it can, Steelwing will enter mass production. If not, then there will only ever be this one suit of Steelwing in the world."

Sir Gorosh listened to his daughter's words with astonishment and deep thought, and only after more than ten seconds of silence did he finally break it. "...Maggie, Cecil has already given me too many surprises and shocks, and this one is the greatest of them all.

"I'm afraid I can't give you an answer at once... This thing is too astonishing, and as you know, it openly challenges the traditional order of the Holy Dragon Duchy. If it truly can be mass-produced, you and I can both imagine the sight—young dragonkin would stop at nothing to possess it, and then fly recklessly through the sacred mountains of the North. The Duchy is indeed changing now; we are even actively engaging with the human world and opening trade with the South. But that does not mean we are ready to break every tradition."

The answer did not surprise Maggie. She only felt regret, and sighed within it. "I knew it would be so. The Holy Dragon Duchy has countless traditions and taboos, yet across a thousand years some traditions always change—only the taboo concerning the sky... that one has never changed. Father, I truly am curious: what is in the sky, that we creatures born with wings should be so averse to it?"

"...When I was young, I was as curious as you," Sir Gorosh said with a shake of his head after a silence. "But His Majesty Bayang'er and the Dragonblood Council will tell you that the highest taboo is the highest taboo, and that even asking the reason for a taboo is itself taboo. Maggie, as a courtier of His Majesty Bayang'er and as your father, the only 'leniency' I can tell you behind that taboo is this: at least south of the Far Northern Mountains, you are permitted to fly."

"South of the Far Northern Mountains...?" Maggie caught the strange qualification and could not help repeating it under her breath. "Why south of the Far Northern Mountains? Is there... something in the North?"

Sir Gorosh sighed and told her a secret known only to some of the upper ranks of dragonkin. "That is the direction of Talond."

Maggie was struck dumb, and for a moment did not know what to say.

Sir Gorosh shook his head. "In any case, I will still report the matter of Steelwing to Grand Duke Bayang'er. Whatever the reason, the Dragonblood Grand Duke and the Dragonblood Council must know of it. In addition, I will express my thanks to His Majesty Gao Yang Cecil—for the gift he made you, and for the fact that he actually took the traditional taboos of the Holy Dragon Duchy into account. Humans possess the technology to build this Steelwing, yet they did not use it directly for profit; instead they sent you to seek my opinion. Between two different peoples who once had no dealings at all, I think that counts as a considerable degree of respect."

Sir Gorosh's response left the air between father and daughter somewhat stiff. Each fell silent, sunk in private thought, but soon Maggie asked another question. "Father, then if some young dragonkin were willing to accept a certain degree of supervision and restraint, to operate only in the human kingdoms of the South and use Steelwing only within permitted limits—do you think the Dragonblood Council and the Grand Duke would allow it?"

Sir Gorosh had clearly never considered this direction before; astonishment showed plainly on his face, and after a brief moment he frowned. "You mean bringing young dragonkin to Cecil just to experience flight in these mechanical suits? That is..."

"Strictly speaking, they would be exchange students, Father," Maggie corrected him at once. "The civilian exchange channels and the official student channels between Cecil and the Holy Dragon Duchy are about to open, are they not? Then dragonkin who come to Cecil naturally leave the 'no-fly zone' of the Far Northern Mountains—just like me, their use of Steelwing clearly violates no traditional taboo. Ah—and for the two nations this doesn't even involve 'trade.' Cecil merely produces these devices on its own soil and does not sell them to the North, and the dragonkin merely experience a few 'local attractions' on Cecil's soil..."

The torrent of words made Sir Gorosh's eyes grow wider and wider, until at last he was fairly dumbstruck; only when Maggie finished did the knight look at his daughter with a peculiar expression. "Maggie, you... where did you learn such peculiar... ideas? You never used to..."

Maggie opened her mouth. "I..."

"My child, you have truly learned too much in the human world—you've learned their cunning along with it. In this respect you even resemble Lady Asarena," Gorosh said, his tone caught somewhere between laughing and crying. "The way you think now is simply like a human's!"

Not far away, Asarena, who had been maintaining the soundproofing ward, protested at once. "Hey! I'm just standing here listening!"

Maggie blinked at Gorosh. "Father, whatever my way of thinking, at least what I say is logical, isn't it?"

"I..." Gorosh hesitated, then shrugged with a helpless, bitter smile. "Very well—from a certain angle, that is true. I will consider it carefully and then report to the Grand Duke."