"MOVE !"

Arbutus shouted, and the six of them bolted in the opposing direction, running away from the dragon.

They rushed toward the end of the corridor, only to take another one. Ashley looked back and saw the dragon sprinting towards them.

It roared, "The scavengers escaped !"

Ashley's heart was pounding, he heard loud and fast stomps coming closer and closer at a fast pace. He could see the others in front of him, running like never before, clearly, it wasn't the first time for them. The dragon leaned forward, ready to catch him.

Cardinal shouted, "There ! On the right !" And they all jumped in an opening. The dragon missed them by an arm and ran past them, the woosh of his speed nearly throwing them to the ground.

They ended up in a small green courtyard enclosed inside of the palace, with high walls surrounding it, and a view of the blue sky above.

Ashley heard a wingbeat behind them, two new dragons had noticed them and were now heading towards the fleeing humans. He turned back to Cardinal.

"Get back inside ! Quick !"

A shadow leaned over them, and one of the dragons dived, landing in a big stomp and cutting them off. The group dispersed to escape the creature's talons, and Ashley found himself dodging a winging tail, nearly losing his balance and almost hitting the ground with his face.

Arbutus joined him from behind and helped him get back up, they both ran towards the closest doorway they could see.

They ducked inside of an empty sas with no windows, where Ashley let himself fall on the ground, panting like never before. They immediately closed the door behind them.

"Holy shit." Ashley let out seconds after regaining his breath, his legs were burning and shaking, "That was scary."

"Yeah, it was..." Arbutus said, still breathing heavily from the run. Ashley could notice how concerned he looked, "What about the others ?"

"No idea, they ran the other way. I think someone got caught though, no sure who."

Cardinal frowned, they both stopped to listen but heard nothing approach their location. Ashley noticed a faint noise behind the other door but didn't think much of it.

He advanced towards it to get a peak of where they left the others. He tried to listen for a moment then went on to open it slightly.

"Alright, I don't hear anything suspicious yet."

"Do you see them ?"

Ashley squinted his eyes and opened slightly more, looking around the courtyard, he could see a red creature on the other side preoccupied with a small figure in its claws.

"Fuck" He turned to Arbutus, "They got someone."

Arbutus immediately looked even more worried.

"Who ?"

Ashley turned back his attention to the scene, only to be greeted with nothing. The dragon had left with his prey.

"Wha- huuh..."

"What is it ?" Arbutus' voice had tensed even more, filled with concern.

"Erm, well... they're gone, but at least they looked al- HOLY SHI-"

Ashley cried as something appeared right in front of him, before he knew it, a hand covered his mouth and he was pushed back inside the room. Panic filled him in an instant, and his ecstatic eyes couldn't make out who was his opponent while he tried to leave their grasp.

He tried to reach for his backpack, but then the hand released him and he heard the door shut in a slam.

He finally got back to his senses, and looked at the newcomer, which was no one else than Teheron.

"What the fuck was that for !" Ashley shouted at him.

"Shut it unless you want those dragons to find us." The man spitted back with a bitter-looking face.

Ashley gave him a dark stare, I swear if this guy does that again...

Teheron turned to Arbutus, who standing on his guards, "Anyways, we need to go." The man gave a small nod and headed to the other side.

Ashley heard a muffled voice from outside, but couldn't make out what was said. It prompted the two other men to bolt into action with fearful eyes. Ashley quickly followed them.

They opened the double door just enough for them to go through, and proceeded without a noise, closing it behind them.

They found themselves on a sort of small balcony that gave into a tall room, with stairs on the sides to go down into it. Approaching the edge, the three of them studied the place under them.

They were hit with the unexpected sight of a very ornate room, carved walls and decorated pillars with glimmers of gold and incrusted rubies. The walls wore paintings, mainly of red-crowned dragons, and refined tapestry, the stone floor was partially covered by carpet.

Around a dozen or so dragons seemed to be preparing the room for whatever would come afterwards, and just a few armoured guards were standing at the entrances to the room.

It took a bit of time for Ashley to realize what he was actually seeing, as the scale of everything was much bigger compared to his little human size.

They are preparing, for Scarlet's hatching day and Burn's arrival.

He glanced at his pairs, only to see them completely bewildered by what they were looking at. Arbutus seemed completely stunned, and Teheron, while also taken off guard, was trying to keep his composure and not show any surprise.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

His eyes were looking around and darting at the dragons with nothing but a cold and heinous stare.

He hates dragons, whether they are sentient or not doesn't matter to him, he just despises them. That doesn't explain the stunt he pulled earlier though.

As he was thinking, another dragon entered the room and approached one of the guards. It was the dragon that had run after them earlier.

The new creature started talking, and the three humans made themselves smaller, from the glimpses of words that Ashley could catch, it seemed that they were warning the dragon about them, he also heard something about making the queen angry and not killing them, he shivered on that thought.

"I feel like they are playing with us right now." Arbutus whispered.

Still observing the scene, Ashley answered, "Wouldn't be surprising, they literally see us as entertainment."

"I'd rather die than provide them some fucking entertainment." Teheron shot.

Ashley snorted, there was no denying this feeling, even though he wasn't particularly fond of the 'dying' part.

Teheron pointed to an area on the side, "We can take those stairs, then we follow this wall." His finger flew from one side of the room to another. "We can use the furniture as cover, seems like there's some space between the tapestry and the walls too."

Ashley observed the location and found what he was talking about, Wow, this guy is good at noticing escape routes, no wonder he survived so far. That isn't a good sign for us though, he will probably leave us as soon as anything turns bad, I'm calling it.

"As long as we stay careful, we shouldn't get noticed, they seem pretty busy with whatever they're doing. There must be a way out somewhere near, I'm sure of it."

"But what about the others ?" Arbutus asked.

"What ?"

"The others, we know they've been caught again, we can't just leave them here."

"We can and we will." Teheron coldly prompted, "We're already lucky to have managed to come here, so I'm not risking it even more. There's no way we can escape a second time, so consider them as already dead."

Arbutus looked down, looking defeated, and Ashley gave him apologetic eyes.

"If you want to save them and stay here, you're doing it alone." Teheron concluded.

Ashley wanted to at least try to comfort him, being forced to abandon your friends mustn't be very fun, but then he noticed a worrying scent.

"Hum... does anyone else smell fire ?"

Teheron gave him a frowning look, and at the same moment, they all noticed a shadow leaning above them. They looked back and were met by a dragon standing right where they came from, dark fumes were coming out of his nostrils, and he was visibly pissed.

"AH ! THEY'RE HERE !" The dragon roared, then bolted forward to catch them.

The crew of three ducked, avoiding the dragon's talons by just a few inches, the creature hissed before striking again. Ashley had to jump backwards, while the two others ran down. One claw managed to slice through his right arm, but not deep enough for it to be worrying.

When Ashley touched the floor again, he nearly slipped on the stairs. His heart stopped for a moment before he turned back and followed his pairs, tailed by a dragon.

Oh shit ! Oh shit ! Oh shit ! Oh shit !

His mind was going frantic once again as he turned into 'scared cat that must run for his life' mode once again. And by some unknown forces he didn't know existed, he managed to get back his balance and dodge 3 consecutive dragons. Running on the tables, throwing chairs, jumping over a talon, ducking another one from the side, and sliding under one of the creature's belly.

That move seemed to completely throw the dragon off guard, and while a part of Ashley's mind was amazed by himself, the part which screamed in his ears to shut up and run was stronger.

He was about to catch Arbutus and Teheron, still running, but just in front of them, a Skywing guard caught Arbutus.

Actually, he didn't 'catch' him, but slapped him with his whole talon. It stopped the human right in its course and sent him flying for a good few meters. The time seemed to slow down as soon as he heard the slap, a slap that was strong enough that he could hear multiple bones break in the man's body, which immediately took him out. He couldn't hear a single scream.

Arbutus, who was pretty much turned into a ragdoll at this point, landed heavily against a decorative armour, crashing head first into it, leaving a trace of blood, and impaling himself on a spike.

Everyone in the room had stopped the frenetic chase for a moment and was looking at the flying human, and one of the younger dragons even let out an "ew" when Arbutus struck the spike.

"Very well done Peak, we've got one less, she's not going to be happy about it." One of the elder guards let out.

This Peak glanced back at the elder, clearly wanting to answer, but held his mouth. He was one of the younger dragons here, Ashley could smell some teenage rebellious intent in the dragon's mind, but his size clearly showed him to be past the dragonet's ages.

Teheron took the dragon's change of interest as an opportunity and fled, and was quickly followed into the hallways by Ashley.

"Hey !" Peak shouted and tried to grab them, but was interrupted by one of the guards.

"Let them run, we'll pick them up once they're too tired to continue. Plus, they have nowhere to go anyways, at worse they get caught by someone else."

"Well, if we want to tire them out, we should make them run then." The young guard stated, and before his elder could respond, he turned back and leapt in the pair's trail, much to Ashley's horror.

"Fucking run !" He shouted, running past Teheron, who looked back before doubling his efforts.

They bolted through a large and surprisingly empty corridor if you didn't consider the decoration. It was long, and rather dark, there were small windows on one side of the corridor, which only let in a dim grey light.

The dragon behind them, though, was bright red, and his scales were fully reflecting the light of the many candles that helped light up the place. The beast was running frenetically, almost with excitement, the scene was reminiscent of a T-Rex chasing its prey.

I'm about to be stomped like in Jurassic Park, but there's no audience, and it's a fricking dragon. Ashley thought as the dragon came closer, and, for much as he hated it, he was happy to be in front of Teheron, which meant he wouldn't be the first victim of the creature, thus granting him more time.

He reached the end of the corridor, where a tall wooden door was fencing the path. He looked multiple times, only to see Teheron coming with the beast on his tail. The door was heavy, but he managed to slowly open it and enter the next room. Teheron managed to reach the end before the dragon, and they both went on to shut the door. Just right before it closed, Ashley noticed a glimpse of fear in the dragon's eyes, as it stumbled on the stone floor to stop, then, as they closed the door, they heard a "bonk", meaning the dragon had hit the door. They backed but didn't hear any more noise coming from the creature which probably managed to take itself out.

They both finally let out a sigh and took their breath back. After some time, they took a look at their surrounding. Now, they were in a truly glorious room, it was a large and tall room, with a roof supported by heavily decorated pillars, the walls were sculpted, and all incrusted with what appeared to be gold.

The two of them started walking, not exchanging a word, with Ashley almost shivering at each step, still completely shaken by the chases. But the more they advanced, the more he could feel something was wrong. His senses, while maybe not completely trustworthy at the moment, all seemed to cry in his head to alert him of something, and the more steps he took, the more uncomfortable he felt.

Slowly, he came to a stop and prompted Teheron to do the same. The man seemed annoyed at first, then, when looking at Ashley, he noticed something behind, and his face went pale.

Ashley didn't need to turn, he already understood what was happening, he saw it on the man's face, and everything was lining up with what he already knew. He didn't need to turn, but he did it anyway. Slowly, he faced the direction his pair was looking at.

He was met by the sight of five completely different dragons.

A brown and large one, with a disappointed over himself look, was looking at the ground, showing his back. A black and smaller dragon was giving the two humans looks of deep interest, a blue one, also looking at them, seemed pretty tense, and ready to claw him as soon as he would come close. A purple-blue-green multicolour dragon was leaning in a dead tree's branches behind them. And lastly, there was this tall and imposing red dragon, with what looked like rubies' reflection between her scales, smoke was coming from her nostrils, and her yellow eyes seemed deep enough to pierce through Ashley's soul five times, he felt like he was being torn apart. The dragon was laying on some imposing stone chair above everything in the room and wore what appeared to be a crown.

He gulped.

There was no doubt.

This was Scarlet.