Chapter Fourteen

The ground was dry and sooty. The breeze stirred up by the vacancy of the field inevitably caught the dust and soot—which then found its way up Draq's nose. Of course.

He wanted to sneeze. Or, even better, he wanted to jump into the open, stretch his wings, and fly away with Arlena clamped tightly to his back. Preferably before any other humans saw them do so.

But no, Arlena was determined to talk to the unicorns. Which sounds dumb even in my head, Draq thought rebelliously, and he growled to himself under his breath. He was tempted to raise the growl a little in a last-ditch effort to make the unicorns run.

However, Arlena was ready to go by now. She had decided to leave the pack she usually wore with Draq, supposedly because it would be easier for him to carry in case of an escape. They didn't know if the unicorns would be hostile, after all. "You can stop grumbling," she remarked. "If the unicorns really do prove dangerous, you can just leap out and chase them away. Remember?" She was still trying to reassure him. How cute.

What's with all these sarcastic thoughts? He noticed that he really shouldn't be so bent up about his companion—a mere human—putting herself into danger for him. In fact, he should be thrilled. But the thought of Arlena being harmed only made him feel . . . awful. It didn't make sense.

"Well, let's do this thing," said Arlena brightly. If anything, her evident cheerfulness only made his mood worse. He wondered what the deal was with girls and unicorns, anyways.
His answer to her was a grunt.

She left then, plowing through the last couple of bushes between Draq and the open, empty ruin of the forest.

The unicorns lifted their heads immediately. Draq instinctively slowed his breathing, although he had no desire to hunt these animals. He only wished to remain undetectable while his human girl did the work.

To occupy himself in the meantime, he wondered when Arlena had made the transition from "a human girl" to "his human girl". It quickly turned into just another mystery he couldn't seem to figure out.

Meanwhile, Arlena had considerably slowed her pace as she approached the first of the herd. The closest unicorns sniffed warily in her direction, but she didn't back down. She even kept one hand out before her with the palm turned up. It puzzled Draq. Why wasn't she being more careful? That hand could get bitten off by those nasty brutes. Or kicked—but he didn't want to think about that right now.

He eventually decided to quit brooding like a sooty, orange storm cloud and simply watch. After all, if Arlena got into trouble, he was their best chance against the unicorns. He knew he had to be on guard.

He glanced back up—to see Arlena touching one of the unicorns, on its face. She was literally rubbing her small, human hand down its nose—and the unicorn was enjoying it, butting its head toward her for more. Draq could hear Arlena's light laughter from where he was crouched. Evidently, the unicorn wasn't the only one enjoying it.

Draq grimaced. That was something she usually did to Draq's nose. He felt some powerful emotion well up inside him, and it wasn't a pleasant one. He'd also never known anything like it; it was a new one. Because I definitely need more of those, he thought in frustration. It was all he could do to stay perfectly still and just watch; it was pure agony and it was from a part of himself that he didn't even understand.

After a moment, however, Arlena's initial laughter resolved into her usual clear tones. Her voice carried well—of course, from being trained, Draq assumed—but she was still far enough away that he couldn't make out the words. At least the unicorns seemed to be listening intently. He hoped that was a good sign, since at least they weren't stomping her down. Literally.

The minutes dragged by very slowly. Draq shifted. After a while, he shifted again. They sure are taking their time out there. It took every ounce of willpower not to start growling in earnest.

It seemed like a long time before the unicorns started to—finally!—disperse. Arlena began to head back in Draq's direction. He twitched anxiously, his ears flicking forward.

When Arlena reached him, she sat down with her back to his side to lean against. It was becoming a habit that Draq suddenly noticed he didn't really mind anymore. "I managed to get a few younger ones to speak to me," Arlena reported.

Draq snorted. "So I saw."

She continued as if she didn't even notice his attempt at being rude. "Mostly they wanted to talk about grazing, but I asked them about the forest. They said that the tree-line does eventually start again, miles out." Her gaze darkened. "It seems that a huge fire swept the area. From the sky."

That sent Draq's tail flicking. "Could that be a human technology?" he asked. It sure sounded like dragons to him—or at least, he could always hope. It still made no sense that dragons would burn forestland, but anything was better than the idea of humans still chasing them.

Arlena frowned. "Uh . . . maybe bombs or something," she all but mumbled. "I'm really not sure. Bombs specifically blow up stuff—not ignite it."

Draq could only imagine whatever that awful piece of technology must be. He suppressed a shudder. "So . . . could it be . . . dragons?"

Arlena sharply glanced up at him, her dark eyes wide. "Why would dragons do this?" she asked reasonably, gesturing to the miles of ruined land.

"That's a perfectly good question," Draq remarked. "I have no idea. But what else spits fire from the sky?"

"You've got me there," she answered drolly. "But anyways, they said that the fire went away days ago, and that it's safe now."

A promise from beasts of prey? How reassuring. "That doesn't mean that 'whatever' caused the fire isn't still in the area," Draq pointed out.

Arlena was quiet for a long time, staring off into the forest as if it might throw answers at her. Evidently, it didn't. She sighed. "Well if we don't go through it, we have to go around it to keep going; if we want to continue in this direction, then we should probably take our chances. Or, at least, we could fly; that might be safer if nothing else."

"Flying . . . in the sky? Where those unicorns said the fire came from?"

Now Arlena scowled. "And what's a bit of fire to a dragon?"

She had him there. At least, she did as long as he didn't want to admit that any creature riding him was most likely quite flammable, even if he was not. And if the fire was the fire of dragons after all . . . well, even his tough anti-flame hide might not stand the heat.

His response was to snort.

Comfortingly, Arlena patted his scaly shoulder. "It's past noon. We can leave the decision for tomorrow," she suggested. "It's not like we'd be physically incapable of walking all the way around the clearing—it would just take longer."

Abruptly, Draq pushed to his feet. "We go through the clearing, and we leave now," he said gruffly. As soon as Arlena had backed down, he'd seen that he didn't really need to think about it. This wasn't meant to be a 'safe' journey; they'd both seen that even before getting involved. The point of the journey was to get him home, and the faster he got there, the sooner Arlena could return to her own life. As much as he liked the idea of her staying, after all, he knew that humans desired human company.

And above all else—he wanted her to be happy, too.

Arlena blinked. "Okay then," was her response. When Draq leaned down for her to clamber on, she did so without complaint or question. It made Draq wonder what was going on in her head. Unfortunately, the only explanation he could think of was that she'd somehow manipulated him into traveling quickly through the clearing, which wasn't exactly farfetched since that was what she'd wanted in the first place.

That idea didn't exactly sit well.

"Okay. Are we walking or flying?" Arlena asked.

"Does it matter? I don't see why I need to warn you every time I'm about to move," he grumbled. If she really had tricked him into this then it was at least fair that he be in charge of it. This was his journey, and she was the passenger; the big decisions didn't need input.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Because then I know how tightly to hang on," she said, her mouth close to his ear.

Oh.

"Well, hold on tight then," he relented grudgingly. "We're flying."

He strode into the open, stretching his wings. The last of the soreness had left them, thankfully, and he arched them over his head. Still, he wouldn't strain them again anytime soon.

At the sight of him, the last of the unicorns fled. Draq was tempted to run after them, snapping at their hooves, but he didn't want to waste any more time here. "Are you ready?"
He felt Arlena's arms and legs consequently tighten their hold. "Yes."

His wings swooshed downwards, catching the air and flattening it against the ground as he lifted into the sky. Charred debris stirred in his wake, but he was quickly free of the aftermath his ascent created, leaving the swirling dust behind on the ground. His tail streamed behind him as he first flew straight up, his neck held erect and his body stretching out like a snake on the hunt.

After achieving a decent height, he leveled out. For a moment he even hovered there, staring at the landscape breathlessly. For endless miles, the destruction was plain and devastating. Their previous view from the ground simply hadn't done the horror justice.
"Wow," Arlena commented.

He couldn't have said it better himself.

Leaning forward with the wind, Draq began a steady glide over the clearing. Charred remains littered the sooty earth in places, but even those debris had been completely devoured by the flames in other places, to leave large patches of bare ground visible. The only evident survivor was some grass, in scant patches; otherwise, there was hardly any life to be seen. Even the unicorns were well on their way to Draq's left, and heading north.

"I imagine the forest here wasn't always so . . . desolate," Arlena supposed.

Draq was pretty sure that he'd never been this far into the forestland before, but he knew what she meant. The terrain was—well, had been—similar here to the forests of his own home. It meant they were getting closer. I hope so, anyway.

"You're right," he rumbled. "Where I come from, the forests are lush and alive and decidedly not-burned." He realized that he might sound like he was bragging, rather than being sarcastic, but it was simply true. The forests had been good to his kind, providing all the prey and shelter necessary, and the pleasant scenery was always a plus.

They flew on in silence for a while. There were no beautiful landmarks to mention, and they certainly didn't feel like pointing out different aspects of the destruction for conversation.

When it began to grow dark, Draq picked up his pace. He felt energetic enough to fly all through the night. The wind turned chilly and whipped his face, but for some reason, he didn't feel cold at all. He risked a glance back at Arlena and saw her contently gripping his scales with her hair streaming out behind like a wave. She seemed placid and not chilled in the least, so he decided to keep moving. The more distance they could cover, the better. And she wasn't mentioning shivicks; Draq certainly wasn't about to remind her to be afraid of them anytime soon by landing on the barren ground. So they flew on.

The stars soon faded in the sky and the far-distant wall of the darkness that made up the horizon seemed to light with a faint glow. By the time the glow was bright enough to cast shadows across the relatively-flat ground, Draq knew he was ready to rest. He was tired.

Bringing in his wings quickly, he managed to plummet toward the ground at exhilarating speeds. On his back, Arlena gasped and gripped him so tight that her arms squeezed his throat nearly closed. Whoops. He spread his wings almost immediately, getting the fall back under control. Arlena shouted something at him but it was lost to the wind.

Swinging his body so that his momentum wouldn't make the landing difficult, Draq searched for a clear area of ground. The one he found was small, but it would do, and he glided to it and finally set down.

Arlena slid down at once. "Can we sleep now?" she asked.
Draq was feeling rather weary himself. "Sure," he growled, and lay down where he was. Arlena quickly curled against his side and they slept.



In the exhaustion of yesterday—and the near-darkness of early dawn—Draq hadn't been able to see much of their surroundings. Now he stood surveying the ruined land. This area, if anything, was far worse than the other end of the clearing. The debris were fewer, but this only made the fact of its demise more dramatic. The place was a wasteland. Not the single husk of a tree trunk could be seen, meaning that the fire had probably swept through quickly, white and hot. But the lack of remains also meant that the fire must have been of the hottest degree:

Dragon fire. There was no other possibility.

Arlena stirred groggily at his side. "I'm stiff all over," she complained, uncharacteristically. Draq hoped that the unexpected commentary didn't mean she was in a lot worse condition than she let on, from the extended amount of flying.

"You're out of practice," he attempted to tease her. It was hard to be in a lighthearted, teasing-type mood with all the destruction around them, though.

She climbed to her feet and stood there in the strange, unique way of a human hind-legged stance. Draq gave up on wondering how they balanced like that. Come to think of it, I've given up wondering how they do anything at all. Nothing about humans made sense. Least of all, their anatomy.

Arlena stretched out a foreleg, pointing into the distance. "Look," she commanded. Draq turned his head to follow the line of her gesture. "I can see the tree-line from here!"

He swished his tail, catching sight of it too. It was a welcome sight after all the destruction. "Good," he rumbled, not much in the mood for words. He was becoming hungry again, and even sleep wouldn't be enough to stave off his needs for long. I'll have to take care of that when we make it back into the forest, he decided. There'll surely be wild prey there.

Meanwhile, Arlena was pulling her own store of food from her pack. The substance she held was whitish and creamy. "We call it 'cheese' in the human world," she explained when asked. "It's really good."

"It smells funny." Draq turned his head away, uninterested.

When they were ready to leave, Arlena climbed stiffly onto Draq's back. "Should I just walk today?" he fretted. If she fell off in midflight, he wasn't overly confident that he could catch her before her tiny body hit the ground.

"Just because I'm sore from yesterday doesn't mean I can't hold on," Arlena insisted. "I would never let go of a flying dragon!"

Not voluntarily, Draq knew, but he decided not to press the issue. He spread his wings, flapping them a few times to prepare. They, unlike Arlena, felt fine.

Launching into the sky, he felt the same fierce joy that always came with flying. He felt powerful, free, in command of the natural world. It took all his restraint to keep the ascent as even as possible so as not to jostle his passenger. He was reassured to feel the steady pressure of her body clinging to his back in return.

From the air, the forest was clearly visible. What had seemed like a dark shadow on the land the night before now blossomed into miles of trees. The line between the edge of the forest and the wasteland was a stark distinction, as if someone had put up an actual wall to keep the fire at bay. It still looked like dragons' work to Draq, although he was as puzzled as ever by their seeming lack of motive.

"It's so green," Arlena remarked in wonder. "The farther from the city we get, the healthier everything seems."

Draq blew a puff of smoke from his nose to clear it. "Well of course; the only reason the city is so bad in the first place is all those chemicals in the air." He didn't mention that he'd been able to smell the sticky chemicals clinging to surrounding grass, although he figured Arlena's human senses hadn't picked it up.

He felt her shrug. "When there are that many machines running, there's not much to be done about the smog," she said.

Before he could ask what 'smog' meant, Draq spotted a tiny break in the canopy below. He began to descend. "I see a place to land," he informed the human.

"Why would we be landing so soon?" she asked.

The truth was that he was hoping to leave Arlena somewhere safe while he hunted; he simply couldn't stand that weak, pitiful feeling that came from being hungry. If she stayed in a tree or something, he could easily stalk some small prey and be back quickly. It could argued that she'd be safer to just stay with him, of course, but some strange part of him didn't want her to see him ripping an animal apart with his jaws.

It was odd, seeing as how he'd never felt so . . . shy about it before.

"I was hoping I might find something to eat," he admitted in his most nonchalant tone, hoping she wouldn't become overly alarmed.

"Oh. Well why didn't you say so earlier?" She sounded so agreeable that for a moment Draq was confused. She did realize that he didn't mean eating anything out of her human provisions—right?

Setting down lightly, Arlena clambered off and Draq took several paces towards the trees. "I'll be back in a moment," he assured her. He hoped he would get lucky and be able to keep that promise.

Arlena sat down with her back to a tree. "I'll be here," she said quietly. She picked up a twig and began twirling it in her dexterous digits.

Turning, Draq plunged himself into the trees. They wound tightly together here, creating a safe concealment on all sides. Good, he thought. The prey will never see this coming!

It took a bit longer than expected to find anything at all, so when he finally came across a large, feathered animal, he pounced and snapped it up quickly. The smallish amount of meat wasn't as satisfying as he'd hoped, but he soon after found another small fowl. He ate that, too, savoring every bite.

Draq made it back to the clearing in better time than he could have hoped for. As he came out of the trees, he shook leaves from his scales. He'd already licked any gore from his jaws so there was no worry there, either, as far as Arlena was concerned. His breath probably didn't even smell—

Noticing his own over-thinking on the matter, Draq tried to quench his feelings for human sensitivities.

"Arlena?" he called softly. His eyes immediately adjusted from the darkness of the dense forest to take in the soft light of the clearing.

Arlena wasn't there.

His ears pricking with alarm, Draq's blood began to pulse quickly, every sense on alert. "Arlena?!" he repeated, louder.

There was still no response.

He dashed to the tree he'd last seen her. He almost sighed with relief when he found that her thick, human scent still clung to the bark; he could track her easily, if she hadn't gone far. She probably got bored and went exploring, is all, he told himself, willing to believe it. He couldn't imagine anything dangerous being in these woods without himself not noticing while so nearby, but—No, stop thinking about it, he told himself abruptly. She has to be alright.

He began to move around the tree, following her scent. He'd never been the best tracker, but any dragon with a nose could pick up a smell that was fresh and strong.

Human-scent qualified.

Shoving aside a few branches, he followed his nose behind several tall trees at the other end of the clearing.

"Draq?!"

Instantly, his head shot up and he scanned his surroundings. "Arlena?!"

"Come quick! I found something you'll want to see."

She didn't sound injured or afraid, so Draq let himself relax a little. If anything, she sounded eager. He wasn't even sure if he should be mad about her disappearance. She was definitely safe, and he was definitely relieved. What purpose would anger serve now?

Pushing his way through the last of the trees between himself and Arlena's voice, he found himself at the upper slope of a hill, which itself jutted sharply downwards into a shallow bowl-shaped valley. He froze.

At his side, Arlena put a tiny hand on his shoulder. "What is this place?" she demanded to know. "What happened to it?"

Draq stared blankly at the landscape, dumbfounded by the black, twisted trees and gnarled undergrowth. Everything was overlaid with a thick, all-encompassing haze, as if the vegetation itself oozed mist. Even the shivick on his shoulder—nearly forgotten, for inactivity—stirred uneasily as if awakened by the dark presence of this new terrain.

He only became more alarmed to realize that he knew the answer to both those questions.

"Well, this place appears to have been . . . magically altered," he tried to explain. "I heard about it one time . . ." he trailed off, suppressing a shudder.

Arlena merely seemed puzzled.

"It happened to another place," he tried to resume, seeing her continued confusion. "It was long ago, but there was a great war of magical beings, and so much darkness was released there that the landscape actually distorted."

She stared at the landscape before them with wide eyes. "It's awful," she murmured. Her voice had become so quiet that Draq barely heard her. Then, she turned and rested her cheek against his foreleg, as if for support. "I don't like it here. We should just go around the whole thing."

Draq felt inclined to agree. He, too, was made uneasy by the tainted lands before them.
Save for one thing.

"Well, as for your other question . . ." he trailed off, uneasy and dismayed and filled with a terror the likes of which he had never known before.

She glanced up at him, noticing the lapse. "Yes?"

He actually gulped. "I . . . I do know this place," he admitted shakily.

"You've been here?!" she demanded.

"Yes. I've been thinking of this place all week," he said. "Us dragons call it, 'Home'."