Dragon delivery service CH 88 Double Signatures
Damon finished sorting his receipts and notes, neatly stacking the last sheet. Then he pulled out a fresh form and a small slip of paper, turning toward Sivares.
“Hey,” he said, holding it up. “Can you sign this?”
Sivares lowered her head and took the page carefully between two claws, reading it line by line. Her brow ridge lifted.
“This is a guild registration form,” she said. “For a new guild.”
“Yeah,” Damon replied simply. “I figured it might help if we went independent. No middle routing, no shared cuts. We’d be our own bosses.”
He smiled a little.
“I want you as my partner. Officially.”
Keys’ ears shot up. Emily looked between them.
Damon tapped the title line at the top of the form.
“Scale & Mail,” he said. “Our own band. Our own banner.”
Emily grinned. “That’s actually great.”
Sivares looked back down at the paper, then at Damon. “You are serious.”
“Completely.”
“And Postmaster Harrel approved this?” she asked.
Damon pointed to the signature line near the bottom.
“He’s already approved it,” he said. “Signed and stamped.”
Sivares narrowed one eye. “He agreed that easily?”
Damon let out a short laugh. “Not easily. Loudly.”
Emily cocked her head. “Loudly?”
Damon slipped into a perfect imitation of the postmaster’s strained voice:
“Damon, every time you walk back through my door, something impossible follows you, a dragon, royal mail, cursed artifacts, talking mice, or something that will take more years off my life. I am not built for this level of stress.”
Keys snorted.
Damon continued:
“So please, please, take your chaos, your scales, your miracles, and your disasters… and put them under your own guild name so they stop being my paperwork problem.”
Sivares gave a low rumbling chuckle. “He actually said that?”
“Word for word,” Damon said. “Then he handed me the forms and said,”
He raised a finger dramatically.
“Here. Become independent. For my stomach lining.”
Emily giggled. “That sounds right.”
Keys nodded intently. “His eye jerked the time we brought in all of the mage mice from Honniewood.”
Damon folded the paper flat again.
“So yes,” he said. “Fully approved. For administrative and medical reasons.”
Sivares looked down at the form again. “Scale & Mail,” she read softly.
Then she looked at the pen.
“Damon,” Sivares said, “there is one problem.”
“Yeah?” he replied, still smiling. “What is it?”
She held up one massive foreclaw and gently tapped the paper. It crinkled from the impact.
“This,” she said flatly, “is made for humans with fingers. I am a two-ton dragon with knives attached to my hands.”
Keys leaned forward. “Oh. Yeah. That’s not a small problem. That’s a paper-ending problem.”
Emily covered a laugh with her hand.
Damon scratched the back of his neck. “Right. I may have overlooked the scale difference.”
Sivares lowered her snout closer and tried, very carefully, to pinch the pen between two claw tips.
The pen snapped with a soft tick.
“…I touched it,” she said.
“It died,” Keys confirmed.
“Okay,” Damon said quickly. “New plan.”
Emily came closer, thoughtful. “You could mark instead of sign. A claw-mark seal.”
Harrel, who had been pretending not to listen from behind the desk, spoke without looking up:
“That is legally acceptable,” he said. “We’ve had beastkin, soldiers missing arms, and one goat that signed a form. There are procedures.”
Damon grinned. “See? Bureaucracy survives everything.”
Harrel reached into a drawer, pulled out a small clay pad and an ink block, and slid them over the counter.
“Press, don’t stab,” he warned. “I just replaced that desktop.”
Sivares leaned in, dipped the very tip of her claw into the ink, then carefully pressed it onto the marked signature box.
The paper held.
A perfect curved claw mark remained, bold, dark, unmistakably hers.
Keys put her paws on her hips. “That is the most dragon signature possible.”
Damon signed beside it with his pen. “There. Partners.”
Sivares looked at the paired marks, the inked name, and the claw seal, and her tail gave a small, satisfied curl.
“Scale & Mail,” she said quietly. “Official.”
“And with that,” Damon said, carefully stacking the signed papers, “we just need to go to the bank in Bolrmont and turn this in. Once it’s filed, Scale & Mail becomes its own guild.”
Emily’s eyebrows lifted. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Damon said. “We open a guild account, register the mark, and we’re official. Then we can hire staff, choose our own routes, and take our own contracts.”
He glanced at Sivares and grinned. “And eventually buy land and build a proper headquarters.”
Harrel muttered from behind the desk, “Preferably far away from my office.”
Damon ignored him smoothly. “Dispatch board, storage sheds, landing tower, maybe a heated roost platform.”
Sivares’s wings shifted with interest. “Heated.”
“Yes, heated,” Damon confirmed. “Premium partner benefits.”
He looked back at her, voice warming. “And the best part is, you’re in this with me. Equal partner.”
Sivares lowered her head a little, pleased but a little shy. “I would have flown with you anyway.”
“I know,” Damon said. “Now you get paid for it.”
Keys had climbed onto the counter and was rereading the form upside down, lips shifting silently. Then she stopped.
“…Hey,” she said. “Wait. What about me?”
Damon blinked. “What about you?”
She pointed at the document. “You’re making a guild. You need staff. I am staff-shaped.”
Emily inclined her head solemnly. “She does meet the size requirement.”
Damon tapped the page. “You can’t be listed as a founding partner. Guild law says at least two primary signers have to be major contractors.”
Keys squinted. “That sounded like a fancy no.”
“It’s a fancy not yet,” Damon corrected. “But you can absolutely be our first employee.”
Keys looked up sharply. “Is the pay good?”
Damon pretended to calculate. “Let’s see. Competitive benefits package… hazard exposure… rodent mobility bonus…”
“Damon,” Harrel warned.
“One hundred sunflower seeds a month.”
“Sold!” Keys cheered, throwing both paws up. “I’m in!”
Sivares rumbled a laugh. “You negotiated very hard.”
“I did,” Keys said proudly. “I accepted immediately.”
Harrel pushed a blank employment slip across the desk. “Sign here, Seed-Salary.”
Emily bent in so only Sivares could hear. “Doesn’t she know that’s like two copper coins for a bag of seeds?”
Sivares watched the happy mouse. “She seems satisfied with it.”
With the papers signed, Damon let out a long breath, some of the tension finally leaving his shoulders.
“One more thing,” he said. “I found this on the news board.”
He reached into his bag and pulled out a folded sheet, worn at the creases, and handed it to Emily.
She opened it.
Her breath faltered.
The ink was bold and official, stamped with a border seal.
WANTED — ROGUE MAGE EMILY
For the unlawful assault upon dignitaries of a foreign nation.
Armed and dangerous.
Bounty: 25 gold, dead or alive.
For a moment, the room went quiet.
Keys moved up onto Damon’s shoulder and squinted. “Wow. That’s… a lot of gold.”
Emily’s hands quivered slightly. “They’re calling it an attack. It wasn’t. I was defending myself.”
“I know,” Damon said calmly.
Harrel leaned over the desk. “You brought a wanted mage into my post office?”
“She’s with me,” Damon replied evenly.
From the doorway, Sivares’s voice rolled in, low and protective. “Then she is under my wings as well.”
Harrel sat back down. “Of course she is. Of course she is.”
Keys tapped the poster. “Foreign claim. That means politics.”
Emily swallowed. “That means they want me silenced.”
Damon folded the notice and tucked it away. “It means they’re loud. Not right.”
“We’ll handle it. We plan routes more carefully now.”
“Less main gate,” Keys said. “More side door.”
“Or dragon door,” Sivares added.
Emily let out a small, shaky laugh.
Damon packed the papers away. Emily still looked shaken.
“He attacked first,” she spoke quietly. “He tried to bind Sivares. I fought back.”
The poster didn’t care. Only ink did.
“Paper lies,” Keys murmured quietly at her boot. “Paper also says I’m ‘non-standard cargo.’ Paper is wrong a lot.”
A weak smile appeared.
“You’re not alone, outlaw,” Keys whispered. “You’re with us.”
“You defended me,” Sivares added. “That is not wrong.”
“If the Crown believed this,” Damon said, “we’d have chains, not contracts.”
Emily nodded her head slowly. “I’m still scared.”
“Good,” Damon said. “Scared keeps you careful.”
“Also,” Keys added, “scared people still get snacks.”
Emily giggled for real this time.
Damon closed his bag.
“Route first. Oldar. Then the elves. Then the capital at High Moon.”
“Our own guild,” Keys said proudly.
“Our own sky,” Sivares added.
Emily advanced forward with them, not behind them.
Damon opened the door.
“Let’s get moving, partners.”
The bell chimed once behind them.
The road waited.
Posted Feb 10, 2026, 9:32 AM UTC