When we got to the temple, the dragon was—
"…"
"Uh. What is going on?"
"Crystals!" the dragon said, looking excited. "There are a lot of them in the caves."
Um.
I stared at the small color-coded mountains of crystals already covering a good part of the temple floor, even surrounding the dragon's bed. If they weren't so shiny in the light of the chandelier, they would have almost looked like Legos.
"When did you do this?" Llewellyn asked, looking around with raised eyebrows.
"While you were gone," the dragon said, the shard we'd left with him flying in the air next to him, looking at ease.
I mean… This was impressive. We'd been away for barely a day, and he'd brought enough crystals to stock a geological museum.
Penguin chirped excitedly and immediately went exploring.
"Don't pull any out from the bottom or they'll all collapse on you," I warned.
He chirped.
"There's nothing unusual about them," Llewellyn said. He'd apparently been running checks. "They're just crystals. Mostly quartz, according to the System."
Well, that wasn't too bad, right?
Dragons liked treasure. The System found a dragon-friendly temple near a source of water, food, and caves full of what, to a dragon, would definitely look like treasure, even if they weren't worth much. And with how much he'd collected already, if it became overwhelming inside, he could keep filling the cave behind the temple—or just move everything there. It was perfect.
On reflection, this wasn't too different from me relocating Gran, I suppose. Looked like the System and I had had the same instinct.
I cleared my throat.
"Anyway," I said. "We came here to see how you've been doing, but also because we finally have a name for you."
The dragon's eyes widened. He came closer immediately and sat on his paws in front of us, looking expectant.
Llewellyn gestured at me to continue.
"Um," I said. "Okay. If you don't know, the whole country we're in right now is called Innishae."
"I know," the dragon said. "The System told me."
"Good," I said. "Yes. So. Not everyone does this, but traditionally, Innishaeans used names as blessings. So when they choose a name for someone, they choose a blessing too."
"Ooh," the dragon said, looking intrigued. "Did you choose one for me?"
"Yes," I said. "Yes, we did."
The dragon stared at me, clearly excited.
Ah, this felt way more dramatic than intended.
I'd never had to do this before. I think there used to be a whole ceremony for it in the past, but I had no idea what it was, so I was just winging it.
Still, the fact that we were in a temple with a flaming chandelier gave this a certain gravitas, however you looked at it, even if the place was covered in Lego-like piles.
I gestured between me and Llewellyn, to signal that we'd come to this decision together.
"Our blessing for you is this: May you shine bright and be held in affection wherever you go."
I swear I felt the magic of the place tingle, but maybe I'd just imagined it.
We'd been sitting on this for a while. Normally, all blessings were about brightness, strength, and glory, or occasionally drawing from nature, like the moon blessings we'd considered. Those were the ones I'd thought of at first anyway.
But. This dragon was so friendly. Blessings of glory, if realized, often came with the downside of the wrong kind of attention or circumstances. I thought he might like this more.
"I love it," the dragon said, swishing his tail madly and almost knocking down a pile of crystals. "I've never been blessed before. I like it very much. Thank you."
Ah, I was glad. Llewellyn also looked amused.
"And," I continued, "the name we've chosen for you is Gléonwon."
The dragon's tail wagged faster.
We'd spent a long time on the name. In the end, we'd settled on Irish glé-, for "bright", Korean on (온), for "warmth", and -won which is very common in Korean names and, according to Llewellyn, generally comes from the Chinese hanja 願, meaning "wish", "hope", or "heartfelt desire". Hence our blessing: "May you shine bright and be held in affection wherever you go."
Well, I was pretty happy with it, so I hoped I didn't butcher the delivery. Hopefully that all sounded normal.
I explained the origin to him, but I'm not sure what he understood.
"Gléonwon," he repeated, eyeing the floating shard next to him. "That's my name now."
The shard kept floating placidly.
Well, that was done anyway. I considered sitting down on the floor, but then remembered what we'd been doing there last time, so I changed my mind.
"Oh, wait," the dragon—Gléonwon—said. "I have something for you too."
He went to the far side of the temple, where Penguin was currently investigating, and came back sliding two…
"Briefcases?" I asked, perplexed.
Penguin had climbed on top of one, and was enjoying being pushed across the temple floor.
Llewellyn frowned too.
"I've collected some crystals for you too," Gléonwon said, tail swishing. "You were very kind to me and I have a lot of crystals."
That was… very thoughtful of him.
But what would I even do with all these crystals?!
I suppose I could just put them in my inventory for now. Maybe Gran would like them.
Though, to be fair, she would probably whack me in the head with a book if she thought I'd started thinking of her as a crystal lady. She was an… herbs and murder kind of person; I wasn't sure she'd appreciate.
"Thank you," I said, kneeling down and opening the briefcase to check. They were surprisingly very shiny for raw crystals. "Are you sure? You didn't have to."
"It's fine," Gléonwon said, tail swishing. "I have a lot of them."
"Where did you even find the briefcases?"
I mean, I appreciated the sentiment, but I felt like I was a criminal being handed off money, like in one of those American movies. Except that it came from a dragon in a temple, instead of a seedy alley or a poker place or whatever you'd normally see in those movies.
…If Llewellyn's fans online found out, this would spin out so many Mafia AUs.
"System Shop," Gléonwon said. "The System gives me Coins whenever I collect crystals from the cave and bring them here, so I can buy things. I'm rich now."
Well, considering how much he seemed to have collected, I wasn't surprised.
But… what was the System up to now? Hadn't it said it didn't have any details on the caves at all?
"Did you buy anything good?" I asked instead.
"A polishing cloth for the crystals," he said proudly. "It makes them shine more. I also got a pouch for carrying the small ones and something to help with extracting them and transporting many of them at once."
"Good thinking," Llewellyn nodded. Penguin also chirped in approval.
"Do you want a crystal too?" Gléonwon asked Penguin, laying his head on the floor to look at him. "You're very small, I'm not sure if you can hold it. Maybe you should buy a pouch, too?"
Penguin chirped.
"I can put it in my inventory for him," I said. "I keep a section all for him."
Though so far it only had a tiny pirate hat and a handful of parrot feathers.
"You can choose one then," Gléonwon said, swishing his tail. "If there's one you like."
Penguin chirped and scampered off again to investigate.
"I can also show you the caves," Gléonwon said. "Would you like to see?"