Mercedes stared at the wall.

The wall stared back.

She stared at the wall.

The wall stared back.

Mercedes' eye twitched in annoyance.

The wall stared.

Sighing in frustration, the elf queen ran a hand through her hair. Why is she frustrated you ask? To say she was bored would be understatement, if one had to guess, a better description would be downright freaking pissed. She dropped in on the elders, but they had nothing for her to do. She also checked the training grounds and the library of Elluel, but they were too packed to do anything productive.

Disappointed, she went back home. In a desperate attempt to do something, she cleaned her house from top to bottom, but that at most took up three hours and very soon after, she was back to square one.

So here she was, stuck in her room with inanimate objects as company. Her eyes shot daggers at the wall, but it remained motionless, as it was after all, a wall. She struggled internally for many agonizing moments as she tried to resist the temptation of destroying the wall, but finally managing to put it off after concluding it was just not worth the cost.

Deciding the fireplace proved much more of an entertainment, she shifted her attention to stare at the flickering flames, mesmerized by the reddish orange flames, swaying back and forth.

Lighting up with an idea, she rushed down to the kitchen to grab a pack of marshmallows and wooden sticks, and then ran back to her room. Soon, fruity flavored marshmallows on sticks were roasting over the fire, filling the room with the heavenly aroma of roasted marshmallows.

As she cheerily watched the marshmallows sizzle over the fire, her thoughts drifted back to one of her fondest memories..

She was sitting before a campfire, roasting marshmallows in the woods. To her left was her only fellow female comrade, Aran, who was polishing her treasured mama, and to the right was the genius dragon master, contently reading one of those humongous scholarly books that made her head spin. She remembered watching the master thief and the light mage sitting across, bickering non-stop about almost anything and everything.

They were unfortunately forced to sit together by Freud, who thought this was good opportunity to 'get to know each other better and connect with each other', which in the end, only resulted in fists connecting with each other's faces. The fight was promptly broken apart by Aran tackling Phantom to the ground in a move that put renowned wrestlers to shame, and herself pinning the light mage down with the aid of several restraining spell from Freud.

Giggling at the memory, an even greater idea struck her. Why not host another camp and hopeful try to get the thief and the light mage to stop attempting to throttle each other at first sight? Of course, with plenty of rope and magically weight just in case someone gets too passionate.

Patting herself for such a brilliant plan, Mercedes grabbed her calendar and checked her schedule. Ensuring that she was free, Mercedes grabbed her coat and the few sticks of marshmallows, before zooming off to a certain thief's flying ship...

Meanwhile, the master thief was lying on his beloved couch, lazily twirling his cane in his hand. Apparently, the couch had become quite the dear companion after Phantom had taken up his role as a mentor to the new dragon master and temporarily renounced his 'occupation'.

Said dragon master was currently trying out a complex fire spell, and having quite the difficulty in doing so. Shifting his attention to the young boy in front, he stared as the boy's features scrunch up in concentration, frustration written all over his face. His dragon companion, Mir, was not looking any better at all. It's face was a sickly shade of green, well, as green as an onyx dragon can get, and most likely cause to be mana exhaustion from trying to use such a draining spell to many times.

Phantom seriously wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at constipated look on Evan face.

Pushing down the urge to send a few flying cards to smack the boy, he stood up, ready to carry out his duty as a mentor. He marched towards the boy, only to be stopped halfway by Gustavo, announcing the arrival of a guest.

"Sir, lady Mercedes is waiting outside and requests to see you."

Well, so much for mentoring...

Giving a quick nod of approval, Phantom straightened himself and neatened his hair while waiting for Gustavo to fetch the Elf queen. After all, one must look presentable to a lady, even more so in the presence of the elf queen.

Soon, footsteps echoed from the hall way and the door opened, revealing the elf queen, dressed in her hunting clothes, with her usual dual blowguns hanging on her hips and eating...marshmallows? Phantom really did not know what to make out of the powdered candy.

In a few quick strides, she was in front of him, with a huge grin on her face.

"Here," She held out a stick of marshmallow, offering it to the master thief.

"Uh, thanks," he said, accepting the candy awkwardly. How did one react when confronted by an Elf Queen who you had-not-seen-in several-months offering you a marshmallow? Phantom decided he definitely needed a handbook on facing awkward situations.

Finishing his share, Phantom suddenly realized he hadn't properly greeted his old comrade.

Back in familiar territory, his entire demeanor changed. With a flick of well-cared for hair and his most charming smile, he changed from awkward to a down-right lady killer.

"My, my, where are my manners? To what honor do I owe this visit to this beautiful maiden? I'm deeply honored for you to spend time gracing your presence upon this humble gentlemen, my lady." He bowed, before holding out her hand to place a gentle kiss upon it

"Oh stop that Phantom, you and I both know that never works," Rolling her eyes, she waved her hand irritably, "and the day it does would be the day you and luminous willing kiss each other."

"Come on, my courting skills are excellent! I can even get grumpy old luminous to fall head over heels over me!" Boasted the master thief, puffing out his chest. Why, he could get the entire world to fall for him if he so wished!

"Oh really?" Mercedes questioned, and eyebrow rose. "Hate to break it to you, but from what I see, you're about as attractive as a dead log to luminous. So tell me, how does a person, equivalent to a dead log in the eyes of the personal they are trying to woo, get them to fall 'head over heels'?"

Taken aback by the comparison with a dead log, he feigned a look of hurt. "You're so mean, Mercedes! That was a huge blow to my ego you know!" He said, pouting.

"Says the narcissistic master thief who has the ego the size of a planet." Mercedes retorted, holding back a snort. "I think you can compromise."

Seeing Phantom threatening to use fake tears to make a fuss, she offered, "how about this, if you can get luminous to give you a kiss willingly, I'll never retort back to your cheesy lines AND get Aran to admit you are good looking?"

"Devilishly good-looking you mean." He added

"Fine, so will you do it?" Mercedes challenged, holding out a hand.

Between his manly pride and having to suffer three days trying to woo the light mage, Phantom choose the latter. He was after all, a master thief, and he'll be damned if he shirked away from a challenge, especially one that involved getting someone to kiss him.

Setting his mind, he answered definitely, "of course, it will be a piece of cake," giving her hand a firm shake, hiding the fact that he sounded much more confident than he felt. He pushed away the nagging feeling that this was going to come biting his butt very painfully.

Smirking at her victory, she said, "Okay, that settles it then! Since there are only three tents, you and luminous can share one, Aran and I can take the other one and Evan can occupy the last! You can count this as extra help on your 'bet', isn't that wonderful? Well, that is if you don't chicken out."

Ouch, retaliation came biting sooner and more painfully than expected. What a pain in the ass this is going to be, he thought.

"…good luck!" Was all Phantom could catch of Mercedes' words before she slapped a piece of paper containing the information on camp on his back.

Rubbing his aching back where he was slapped none-too-gently, he thought, damn, I must be getting old.

Though technically, he was actually a few hundred years old, but then again, being stuck in ice for those few hundred years didn't really count.

Seeing the elf queen cheerily wave before stepping out, he sighed in defeat. Mercedes had gotten him good this time. Not only had she lured him into the bet, but also in sharing a tent with luminous. He had to give credit to her though, for taking advantage of his egoistic nature to baiting him into agreeing such a dreadful bet, not to mention sharing a tent with the grumpy light mage thankyouverymuch.

Who knew the elf queen was so cunning?

He pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyance quite apparent on his facial features. Deciding he could deal with everything after a nice long nap on his beloved couch, he turned around, only to stare with jaws dropping to the ground at the inferno of flames where his hundred-million-meso couch used to be.

The flames rose and twirled majestically, forming a ten-feet-tall fire tornado that roared menacingly. Anyone who stood within a five-foot-radius of the inferno would barely be able to open their eyes and any closer would result in one's eyebrows to be literally singed off.

Phantom could only stare in horror and shock as his mind refused to comprehend the fact that his beloved hundred-million-meso couch was being roasted like barbecue.

Slowly, he turned to see the young dragon master fidgeting behind which immediately snapped him out of his state of shock.

Fury replaced the shock and he narrowed his eyes dangerously at the boy. Evan, who was somewhat an expert at reading people's mood, could straight away tell his current existence was being threatened. The master thief stood rigid and still, like a cat preparing to pounce on its prey. A dark, menacing aura was radiating throughout the room, causing the temperature to suddenly drop a good several degree, despite the inferno in the room.

Though Phantom was feeling very homicidal at the moment and would like nothing more than causing bodily harm to the boy, he decided to give the boy a chance to save his own hide.

"Evan, ten seconds," growled the master thief, turning to face the petrified boy who was cowering with his dragon companion in the furthest corner of the room.

No more was needed to be said as the young dragon master who valued-his-life-very-much bolted and bee lined straight to his room, with his equally terrified dragon companion zooming close behind. One would find the next day that the door of young Evan's room would be bolted down, enhanced by a dozen barrier spells and a mountain of furniture stacked against the door.

Phantom heard the door slam and he slumped into a nearby chair. Noting that the chair wasn't nearly as comfortable as his disintegrated couch, he stared at the inferno that has yet to completely disappear.

He would have admitted out loud that the boy did a rather good job at the first attempt of the spell, if not for the fact that his couch was barbequed by the flames. So he settled instead on not causing bodily harm to the boy, at least not fatally in any case.

When the flames finally died down, he slowly dragged his body up from the chair and into his room to pack.

Hopefully, he'll have a nice long sleep afterwards and wake up the next morning to find out this was all a dream.