My lungs burn, and not from mana. My muscles are pained, my body is heavy, my entire existence hurts, yet I still fly. Stopping isn’t an option. Edith struggles in my grasp, I cannot blame her. Mother stopped using her mana to force her voice into reaching me, instead turning her focus to the battle. It is distant, but I can hear her roars mixing with the sound of speedy projectiles and explosives. No, not only that, I can actually see the battle if I move some mana into my eyes. These monstrous eyes that can reach farther than any animal’s could, and my vantage point up here in the sky, mean that I can clearly see mother’s form as she rains down death and orders the forest itself to murder anything in her sight. Trees sway, water falls from the sky in deadly torrents, overall there’s only death that awaits her targets. Which are human…

For some reason, humans are attacking. It’s the only explanation for what I see. There’s tiny flashes of light flying towards her, but they are swallowed by her vibrant breaths. There are boulders and arrows that must come from artillery pieces, yet they are all useless. Sometimes I see her angered and retaliating against something particular, but it is clear she is winning easily. She destroyed the landscape when father came for a visit. Whatever a medieval army may have, it will not be able to compete with her.

Still, she ordered us all to run home, in spite of her dominance. I am burning my mana, I am running out, all to get home as fast as possible. I will crash before I get to the cave, there’s nothing I can do about that. My plan was to stick around for a few hours, recover my mana in that time, and then make it back home at a brisk pace. Instead I am using up all my electric mana just to get that much more speed. I would have made it if I didn’t have the girl in my arms, maybe, but I do have her so I will end up on the ground much sooner.

Why did I take her? Sure, she walked away from her own, clearly needing time to process everything. But even with that considered, I took her away, back to the cave, back to imprisonment, making things that much harder on myself. Why? Was it my instinct to protect my hoard? Was it simply my desire to not lose a friend?

I let out a gasp, I lost my rhythm, my magic fizzled out, my electric mana is gone and I have very little air still in my body, so I glide downwards at higher speeds than I’d like. I cry out and when I get close to the earth, I roll to take the brunt of the fall, holding Edith tightly, protected by all my limbs. I let go to catch my breath, letting her calm herself too. I can hear her heartbeat, as I hear my own. I can smell the blood rushing through her veins… adrenaline is pumping freely through my body. My head is a mess. Just a bit away from where we are, mother is slaughtering humans that for some reason decided to attack us. So much death…

I let out a hissing scream, a strange frustration building up. That’s wrong… that’s the wrong emotion. I should be horrified, scared, something! I know people are dying, I can just barely feel mother’s thoughts flowing through the words she occasionally shouts with enough volume to make the leaves on trees tremble. She mocks them. She’s angry that they think for a moment they can contend with her again… How many times has this happened before?

“Wh-what is happening? Why… So much…” Edith breaks down. She was already on the verge of tears when she saw her family being so happy without her, but the sudden rush, the sounds of a wrathful dragon, and the fall we took all led to her simply letting go and crying.

I wish I could sit here, let her cry, but I can’t. I tug her malformed arm, and despite her protests, she lays on my back, hugging my body. I run. I am already low on mana, but still I run, burning through it to give me whatever bit of distance it can. I need to get home. Mother’s spell, if it even was that, has faded after my fall, but still I know that there was a good reason for her using such powerful magic and from so far away just to get me home…

What if a human passes by her? What if they try to come after her treasure while she’s busy. What if they meet me or my siblings… I feel bile rise to my throat, but I hold it down a while longer. I just need to make it home… I just need to-

Voices.

I hear voices. There’s still five to ten minutes of full speed running between me and home, yet I hear gruff voices… Male voices. I stop running. Edith opens her mouth, but I wrap one of my tails around it, silencing the girl.

“Verka! See somethin’ yet? Lotsa hole here but nothin’ dragon-sized so far…” He’s close. And tense, despite the lax tone and rough speech. My heart quickens and I drop fully, hiding between tall grass, long fallen leaves and bushes. How? When? Mother’s been fighting them for close to an hour, but still…

“If we needa’ bigger hole we shoulda gone to Bertha!” Older voice, further away, looks like a search party rather than a squad. They couldn’t have reached here through mother and still be so relaxed as to joke around… They came from a different direction, clearly wanting something. It sounds like they’re trying to find our nest, so it might just be treasure they’re after. Or maybe they’re here to rescue the humans… no, it’s unlikely that they would mount an assault so late…

“Ya say something ‘bout mum’s one more time and I’m tellin’ the cap that you hit yer big head on a rock and died like a moron.” Talking won’t work, I just know it… You don’t mount enough soldiers to keep an angry dragon occupied just to talk your way into a few coins. Do I kill them? They’re close. They’re dangerous. I can see one… the younger one. That’s a human man alright, maybe 30-ish, has a spear and veritable medieval armor. It’s some kind of thick, brown-ish cloth with an emblem painted on a red triangle sewed on top of it. I click my tongue, then force myself to make a quick sound spell. I don’t have a lot of air mana left, but it’s enough to make the roar of a bear come from a bit further away, getting them distracted and focused. They rush to stand together, 5 other men coming within tens of seconds… but I am far enough away that I do not care.

I need to get home.

----------------------------------------

I am back, and somehow, Edith was silent the entire time. She didn’t cry out to be saved, just quietly sobbed on my scales. I don’t have time to think about how messed up this is for her. My siblings weren’t by the entrance to the cave, no one was, so I made my way in deeper, only to find more emptiness. The human room? Empty. The nest? Well, not actually empty since there’s still plenty of riches and trinkets… but it’s empty of people and severely lacking in crystals. Even the light gems are missing here, making the place look eerie. I do find a few mana gems sprinkled deeper into the pile, but someone intentionally took whichever they could see at first glance…

I try to think but my mana’s dangerously low. I take a deep breath, gathering some mixed mana, but it’s not enough. It still takes me hours to be fully stocked up, and eve for a pit stop I will need to spend a while. I do not have a while. Humans are dangerously close and I still don’t have any idea how to approach this situation, so I gulp and bite down into the pile of coins and gems. It sucks. I can do it with terrifying ease, but it still feels wrong to straight up eat gold and silver. Chewing doesn’t help much with the feeling, or the texture, but I manage to swallow. My stomach isn’t happy, all things considered, but I can feel mana radiating out into my body. I take another few bites and then turn away.

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Edith is trembling. She’s terrified. Still, she is quiet, despite no longer needing to be. She needs help, support, something warm and soft and safe, yet I am a very sharp, tough scaled, lizard. I need to find the others…

I rush through the tunnel, over to the only other possible place. Mother’s mind spell still lingers around here, a mild protection compared to the impenetrable wall it was before she let us in, but that is for me and my siblings. Edith sways and tries to get off me, but I force her through, which results in her calming down, at least once we’re in the church-like area. My siblings turn to look at me, then back to each other. Crown cries of warm, flowing water that doesn’t belong. Red Tail is angry, hissing of the scorched land and overall destruction the invaders brought. Spots grumbles of hardened rock and heavy barriers of stone. Crown is afraid because of the massive bloodshed, RT is angry and wants to go out and fight like our mother, Spots wants to fortify our position and hunker down until all is done.

“... that the dragon would sound so angry… What could possibly be happening out there?” Yvonne’s voice… I see everyone else sitting in a corner, on a bench that was moved there, surrounded by a tiny pile of coins and gems. They got the hoard treatment… it’s better than being left behind to be fair. They are on the opposite corner of the room and just now did Ayrah notice us, probably because of Edith’s sobs. Speaking of, I go towards them, letting them take the girl. Yvonne looks worried and comes to hold her as Ayrah helps her down. They try to calm her, but things get chaotic with my siblings coming right after, asking me what to do.

Draconic sounds rough and terrifying, or at least that’s what my human sensibilities say. RT stomps and demands aggression, Yvonne asks Edith what is going on out there, Alek trembles and lets out small waves of cold air, Meredith just mumbles about her death, Spots cracks the ground as he sways his tail over it, pushing forward the idea of going into the vault, but it is dismissed by Crown who doesn’t know how to open it. Actually, they speak of how they tried, but failed earlier, before Spots got back as he was outside like me.

I let out a roar that carries my frustration. It silences everyone for a few seconds, but it won’t last, so I speak of being patient like a mountain. Of throwing out scraps to lure predators away from our big prey. It is absurd that merely talking in such an inconvenient way is so taxing, but I make do.

My siblings get what they need to do, and go out of the temple. I turn to the humans and with much heavier focus than I tell everyone about what is happening in the simplest way I can imagine.

“VeRkkkaa…. Nothiin drag- drag gonn sizeeed” I cringe. My focus is slipping, my mana is violently answering to my worries and exhaustion… my memory is muddled and my control is weak. Regardless, I see someone twitch in recognition. Meredith gets up and rushes over to me, grabbing my head, which surprises me. She’s been… well, not covert about her dislike of me and any other dragon, for which I don’t fault her.

“Where did you hear that name? When did you hear that!? If a buffoon like Verka is anywhere nearby…” Her smile would terrify my past self. It is still unnerving, but at least I don’t feel fear despite the sight. “This might be our way out…” There’s excitement in her tone, clear as day. This would be a good opportunity for her to escape. Even if they are here more to get riches than to save women, they would still probably take them, right?

Yvonne seems to disagree as she snaps at her. “Perish the thought, girl! A way out… you heard what the dragon said! If we betray her trust then she will eat our towns, and there’s no shortage of stories about dragons following through with threats! Even if somehow The Mistress is occupied enough to allow our escape, she will raze everything to the ground in her rage! It is far too dangerous… How long do you think a few guardsmen that only ever fight animals and the occasional tief would fare against her?!”

This is a perk of learning the language without speaking back much. None of them realize that I can understand everything. I imagine they think of me as a parrot. Someone that can mimic voices with magic. Regardless, I do my duty as a fly on the wall and listen to them have their verbal fight. It ends up being interrupted by Edith as she finally calms down.

“It’s not… It’s not just men from the towns. I saw… I don’t know what I saw… There were explosions in the distance, The Mistress was moving a lot, using a lot of magic… The man that said that was close by, but not part of the fight…” She doesn’t look good, but at least she’s holding together. What she says, however, lights a flame in Meredith’s heart.

“It’s the Duke. He’s been warring against her since before either of us… if he’s here he’ll be able to at least keep her very busy… We could run, maybe even beyond her territory! I heard some did that in his last campaign, escaped her land to be free citizens at last! If we stay here the only thing we’ll be is food! We almost died just from one dragon having a fit! What will happen the next time?”

People were looking apprehensive, but that struck a chord. Hell, I would have been convinced by that alone. Ultimately, everyone aside from Ayrah decided to try leaving now that there was a chance. I did feel something more like resignation from Yvonne’s acceptance, but still it seems they had made their decision, and so did I.

When my siblings came back, I simply told them to sit tight and that I will handle things. RT slaps his tail against the floor, launching dancing flames around. He’s angry. At me, not just at the humans. He doesn’t want me to burn brightest by burning alone, or at least that’s how he puts it. For such a short tongue, draconic can be quite poetic through the creativity it demands of less knowledgeable speakers.

Inane thoughts, just another tool to protect me from having to both admit that I am wrong in pushing my siblings away, and to feel the pain that they send as they think I find them weak or useless. I tell them of leaves, how frail they are, and how I want them to not break, so I have to handle things myself. They huff, they puff, but I am still the de facto leader, so they obey.

The humans are surprised when I usher them away, as they thought I wouldn’t understand their fight. Ayrah looks at me, then at Alek, then sighs and sits down on the floor, rolling a blood mana crystal in her hand. She’s sad, but understands. Everyone else simply walks as I push them, talking between each other. They were talking about distracting us in some way and using that chance to run, or waiting for the search party to get close and use that as the distraction… Either way, they accept the easier escape, and I try not to take it to heart that they were plotting in front of me. My draconic self isn’t as forgiving, but I smother it.

The walk is simple, but it feels bad. I am basically handing off four people and a bunch of valuable to some greedy humans that invaded our land and… alright, smothering my dragon instincts is as useless as ever. I’ll have to cope somehow… well, whatever, I bring them to the crossroads. True to form, my siblings sprinkled coins and even a gem towards the nest. I make sign for the humans to sit, then pointed at the gold and the general direction of the nest. Hopefully they will tell them that the treasure is there, and mother’s spell will stop them from even thinking of looking our way.

Once it seems like they understand, I just sigh and walk away, back to the temple. We just have to wait there for things to blow over. I hope they manage to live a good life…

I obviously don’t go all the way back. I walk just enough away that their vision of me is obscured, then I hug the wall on the inner side of the bend and make my way forward again. The greenery hides me well enough, so I lay low and watch. It takes a while, a much longer while than I’d expect, but finally I see movement even further away. A group of people meets the women and Alek. Meredith seems to be talking very eagerly to one of them… Now that I focus this looks more like a party from a fantasy game than a group of soldiers. Five people, missmatched in attire, demeanor, appearance… Two of them don’t even look like they could properly fight!

Things get weirder still. A rough looking man seems to say something that makes Meredith angry. She shouts something but it becomes unintelligible as blood gushes from her throat.

My life wasn’t in danger, time didn’t slow down. I did not have time to react to her murder.