I lay there and dewed for a bit.

I couldn’t stay. The heat, my thirst, the stinking vog, everything awful about this lake would get to me eventually. I don’t know why I lay there⁠ ⁠— but if I moved, where would I go?

I’d wanted things to be simple. When I came to the land of glass and secrets, it wasn’t for anything big⁠ ⁠—⁠ there were my brother’s plans, looming, but those were nothing but an excuse, a chimerical hope. I’d thought I wanted the simple life, somewhere small and cozy to live, maybe find a cute drake, maybe lay a few eggs.

All my life, I never really worried about death. It was something only the nadir had to worry about, something only my sister had to understand.

I — didn’t like it.

The sound of beating wings found me then, coming back around. I found the dark figure in the distant vog. Her flight looked faltering and lopsided. Why? Because her wing membrane is bandaged, because her wing was stabbed, because she fought the humans, because I had let her fly to the overhang alone, just like I was letting her fly to the last ape alone.

What difference would I make, anyway?

I’d bravely flown to the center of the lake for crysts⁠ ⁠—⁠ and got my lungs poisoned. I needed Hinte to save me from the glazed olms. I bravely slinked after a strange sound in the lake⁠ ⁠—⁠ and let the human escape. I needed Hinte to save me from that human.

I wanted Hinte to finally admit I was useful, and she didn’t because I wasn’t. She’d even warned me that being loud in the lake would wake rockwraiths. I was probably the reason the first human had been attacked at all.

This was all my fault. Maybe if I left the lake entirely, things would go right for once.

I stood up. This wasn’t giving up. I still had the crab blood, I could still brew the Munditi Sieve. I leapt in the air, and started winging back to where this mess started, where my bags still sat.

I flew my lonely flight through the vasty lake. The plates still rumbled beneath me, and the wind still seemed to laugh in my inner ear. In the distance, distorted by endless echoes, the last ape was whistling. It repeated the same sequence of notes, again and again. The spaces between them grew shorter and shorter, and the notes faster and frantic.

Then, it stopped.

Time wound longer, and I didn’t count ghost-swallows, after what happened last time I tried to drink while flying. At last, I came near where we’d left our bags.

All around circled a moat of molten glass, only a few strides wide. The glass revealed blasted the air above it, stirring it into a vortex of swirling dust. A wave of heat barreled into me like an angry varjotuoksu player with one last chance to win.

The swirling clouds here concealed whatever behind the moat with our bags⁠ ⁠— the clouds looked even darker than usual, an inky blackness.

At my pace, Hinte had to have already flown into the vortex, but I stayed, landing with only a small, light flex of the lake skin, and peering long into the swirling clouds.

You could hope it was just my bags and Hinte on the other side, but it was a windless hope. Who’d dug the moat?

My head twitched. I shook it a few times, the muscles of my neck seeming to have a mind of their own. Had the wuthering excitement of the day already caught up to me? Steady as I tried to be, the twitching in my neck grew worse, and burning.

I was pacing around the moat. The human had to know Hinte had another dragon with her. They’d expect me. But would they expect me to run? I just need to slip in the moat, grab my bags and get out of here. That’s all.

My looping around the moat continued. Could I enter on a side they wouldn’t expect? Maybe if I flew in, or crawled in, or covered myself in dust⁠ ⁠—

I needed to step in. My nerve was strongest now. If I flagged, maybe it’d never be done.

I took a breath, then leapt over the moat.

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First thing you saw was my crab stabbed and discarded on the fringe.

I had its blood, but still felt some kind of loss. I fluttered my wings to soften my landing, but I still crashed onto the dustone island.

A twang sounded, followed by jagged voice shrieking. My gaze snapped up.

The dark-green wiver faltered low in the air. Her right wing half-folded and she rolled to the ground, landing rough.

“Hinte!” I called. My eyes traced the path of the projectile back to a alien figure hobbled on the ground steps from our bags.

The ape turned to me, whipping around a gray weapon. The bow!

I rolled. My wings curled on their own. The arrow flew over my body. I whipped my head around⁠ ⁠—⁠ but this new island had no cover at all, at all.

A biting spear of pain stabbed into my shoulder. I screamed. My legs scrambled under me. I managed a stand, and faltered in the very next second as I half-leapt, half-stepped away.

The straight bow tracked my movements with precise jerks. I leapt, threshing my wings, and flew up.

From up here, you could see the breaks in the skin, still glowing, where Hinte and I had played around, and steps from the hobbled figure you could see the bags I’d snuck in here to grab; but only in the that single moment of calm before you saw the human and its jerking its gray weapon up at you, its face contorted in some toothy expression.

I swerved and twisted in the air as three more arrows stabbed a course toward me. On the ground, trails of blood streaked all along the moat, and led to and from the spot where the human sat hobbled.

Another spear of pain bit into my wing! My next flap faltered, and the wing was spasming. I spun in the air. Breathless, I made a scream empty and choked.

At the very edge of the island, the lake skin crashed into me. Forelegs, hindlegs, wings, tail, head, all scrambling. It was all I could do to not fall into the lake.

Live.

My wings writhed, and pain flooded them to the tips of every finger. The arrow had hit the base of my wing, and not punctured the membrane. My breath drew back into me, and I clamped down on my scream.

Maybe the human would hope I was dead?

Another twang came and went with a splitting pop of the ground beside me, and answered was my question.

But a growl had come with it. Did… did Hinte ruin the ape’s aim at the last moment?

I struggled to my feet. Hinte stood by the human, and in her claws gripped the human foreleg. The human now crouched, gray bow dropped by its side.

The humans other forefoot swung at her, and she backed off just as quick.

Bronze gleamed between them, catching molten light.

The human had a shortsword and waved it at Hinte.

If Hinte pressed the attack, it would stab her. If I flew at it, it could stab or slash either of us. The human looked weak, holding itself in a crouch, supporting with its other leg. If I’d learned anything in the last few minutes, I couldn’t underestimate the ape. It thought it could give one good hit before we killed it, and I would too.

“Put your blade down, ape,” Hinte said between growls. “We will kill you. You cannot win this. Ground yourself, and we will let you live.”

The ape looked to me. When its gaze moved, Hinte stepped forward. The ape jabbed its blade forward. “Smite you dragon. Betrayer,” it said. “Either move I kill.”

Hinte flared her frills in anger. Her bloody wings spread, but she did not step forward again.

I looked to my bag. There had to be a way out of this that didn’t end with us more injured than we already were. “Hinte,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ her wings hitched without her gaze leaving the ape⁠ ⁠—⁠ “that raisin⁠ ⁠—⁠ gemstone we found, it wasn’t a cryst, but is it worth anything?”

“Ja.” Hinte hadn’t even paused. She leapt backward. I wondered why for all of a heartbeat. The ape said it would kill us if we moved, but it now couldn’t even reach either of us.

I leapt without more hesitation, and crashed down beside my bag. Now, both of us stood on either side of the ape. The ape, stepping after Hinte, flinched at my landing.

My forefoot slipped into my bag. Past the crab blood, I grabbed the raisin-looking gem. A third the size of my sole, it slid into my foot.

The ape half-turned, the shortsword still angled at Hinte. But then, it reached to its side, pulling out a long knife and pointed it at me.

What? Wasn’t I worthy of a whole sword? I was a fearsome dragon too! Just because I was smaller than Hinte didn’t mean anything.

I groaned. When I snatched away indignance, worry bubbled. Just how prepared were these humans? “Hinte, how did you even fight these things alone?”

Hinte paused a bit before answering, not looking at me. “They were sleeping.”

The human waved its blade.

Okay. Time for action. “Don’t kill us, please!” I said. The hairs above the human’s eyes shifted, moving closer to its eyes. “We’ll let you go, we don’t want to fight anymore. Look, we’ll even pay you.” I lifted my forefoot, showing the gemstone.

The human stared at me. I outstretched my forefoot, slowly. My toes fell away, freeing the human to pick it up. But it stayed where it was, keeping the two strides between us.

“Hinte, get back.” She looked at me, head tilted. “The human won’t take the payment if you’re right there, free to attack it. Get yourself back.” I injected a little bit of cold authority in my voice, just like mother had taught me. The same tone you’d use to order servants or hatchlings around. I hoped it didn’t sound too condescending.

Scowling, she stepped back, once, twice, thrice. The human stared at the dark-green dragon, nodded its sword toward the ground. Hinte crouched, and her wings folded back. The human stepped toward me, still keeping Hinte in its sight. I folded my frills back, hid my tail, anything to avoid looking threatening, avoid setting it off. When the human grabbed the gemstone, I grabbed its forefoot in return. My other foreleg came up to grab his sword leg, and I yelled, “Now!”

Hinte was already leaping, meeting the human on the other side in heartbeats. She dug her claws into the ape’s neck. Her venom smelled salty. She brought her claw up to rip at the other side of its throat.

Again, a human crumbled under her and died, eyes wide, feet searching for something to hold onto. It coughed and spat up blood, and I didn’t like how much like a grimace that look on its face was.

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I breathed. It was over. “We won.” I didn’t mean to say that aloud.

“You had a good plan,” she said.

“Not really my idea, the first ape did it first. I guess it was… revenge.” I heard her hum. “Is revenge supposed to feel good?”

“Yes. We gave them what they deserved.”

I look at the human, eyes and mouth widened even in death. “But they’re dead.”

“Yes,” she said, drawing out the word. She waved her tongue.

“It doesn’t feel like we fledged a difference.”

“We didn’t make things better. We stopped them from making things worse.”

“Oh… that makes sense.” I looked up.

Her wings spread and her bandaged tail stood straight, and she asked, half-growling, “What took you so long?”

“Um,” I started. I was leaving you to fight the human alone. “I wasn’t flying right into an obvious trap?” Shift the focus, shift the blame.

Hinte jerked at that, looking to her wing. I followed her gaze. There, an arrow punctured her wing.

That pulled a gasp. “They got your wing again! When did that happened?” I reached at her wing. She didn’t move, and let me wriggle the arrow out.

“That rat shot me as I flew in,” she answered. Then added, “It dumped our crysts in the lake.”

“How many?”

“All the crysts in my bag.” As she spoke, her fangs had unfolded.

“I’m sorry.” I looked down, shuffling over to my bag.

“For what?”

“My plan earlier with the cryst — I told the ape we wanted its stone, so maybe it told this one in its whistling code.”

“The ape was spiteful. It just wanted to destroy something we valued. A hatchling could figure out that the crysts were of value.”

I glanced at her bag. The left side was empty of crysts, only having a folded black cloth, and in the right bag, her mixtures sat knocked over and strewn about. I stepped closer and leaned over. “Hey, where is that flat pink container from earlier?”

Hinte looked down, and cursed. “That ashwitted weasel. Look.”

I followed her pointing wing. The pink container sat open by the ape’s gray bow, almost a third of it scoped out.

“Was it trying to heal itself?”

“It heard me telling you to use it for my wounds.” She snapped her tongue. “No dragon medicine will help the apes, let alone die Wunder. We are of different superclass.” The wiver kicked the ape’s corpse. Her foot hit something, and she flicked her tongue. Digging into the folds of the ape’s corpse, she found another of the blinding orbs.

“Ooh, are you going to study the humans’ alchemy?”

She hummed yes, placing it in her bag before grabbing more rope from it, and slipping the whole bag around her side, straps tightening. Near the bag, one of my glasscrabs lay with a knife sticking out, turned almost inside out.

I asked, “What was it doing with my glasscrab?”

Hinte glanced over, flicking her tongue. “Extracting pheromones from its glands,” she said. “They provoke aggression and cooperative defense in other crabs. It would be needed for its trick with the crabs earlier.”

“So what — did this human extract these… pheromones and then pass it off to the other?”

“Yes, when you fell for its urine bait, it gave it a chance to double back and grab the rag from the other human, scented with the pheromones.”

“All the way back? Stars above. How did they pull this off in less than a long ring?” I reached down to pick up the crab, but Hinte snapped her tongue.

“Leave it for the carrion-eaters. You have two others. That one is nearly ruined.”

I hummed. Stepping back toward my bag, I found a bottle of my crab blood spilled out. Desperation or pointless vandalism? I still had two glasses.

I nosed into my bag, and squeaked a little. Sterk was still alive! Was it because he didn’t glow? The human must have missed him. Hinte had twisted her neck to look at me. I pulled the drab green stone from my bag and set him on my head.

“Look, Hinte! We still have Sterk.”

Hinte’s neck just twisted further.

“He was the first cryst I found when I set off on my own. He was pretty weird, though.”

“You were pretty weird. Talking to yourself, talking to rocks, talking to glasscrabs. Did you shed your sense last cycle?”

“Hey, I talk to apes too! It saved our flanks twice now.”

“Every single ape here died by my claws.”

“And I pointed out the apes on the overhang and distracted the others.”

“You also were too scared to track down the first human, or the last human.”

I thrust the green cryst at Hinte. “Well, is he worth anything?”

Hinte took it with her wing, looking it over with wrinkled frills. “It is underdeveloped. It should have been buried deep in the lake. How did you find this?”

“Um. I sort of… pushed the lake down until I could pull it out.”

Hinte hissed a laugh. “Only you would think of doing something like that.” She turned Sterk around a few times. “Do you want to keep it?”

“Not really? I only found him for you, so you can keep him.”

But Hinte walked over to the two human corpses, leaving me with the cryst.

Watching Hinte heave the humans onto her back, my alula felt my chin. “So. You said only one human was left alive?”

“Ja. And I said the last one feigned death. Its wound was fatal. That is why it went nowhere after I left it here.” She walked over the other bodies.

“Okay, then make sure the last human is dead. I don’t want any more tricks.”

“It is dead. Otherwise it would have done something to help the other.”

“Okay,” I said, reaching into her bag to get some bandages for my neck. She pushed my foreleg away and passed the bandages to me herself. I looked up “You didn’t feel them moving or anything?”

Hinte took a moment to respond. “I felt them shifting. I assumed my steps had jostled them.”

“Alright, I guess.” I tightened my bag straps. “How did it dig the moat?”

The wiver pointed at a long metal rod with a rubber handle and a mesh sieve at the other end. I slinked over, picked it up. The cured-rubber handle slid right into my foot, my halluxes finding their grooves, and my toes wrapping and settling around it.

I waved it around some, and pointed it at Hinte in a challenge, and swung it with a yarl. She peered at me. As the rod swung, it folded limp in the air. A sigh, andI spat disappointed salty venom at it. It was folded further and fell into my bag.

I snapped my tongue at Hinte, daring her to laugh. She did. I crinkled my frills.

“So. Do you think I can dig up crysts with this?”

She nodded slow. I smiled and my frills bounced. After it found my bag, I said “I don’t suppose we can forget about the other corpses?” I held the end of my snout with my wings.

As Hinte stepped over to me, she was shaking her had. Grabbing a green container, she said, “Here.” It wiggled as she opened it. It was scooped in her claws and wiped across my neck. The pain of the bleeding line dimmed, feeling cool and sandy.

Hinte bent her frills a bit when she noticed the arrow sticking out of my wings’ shoulder. When she pulled it out, I yelped and the wing spasmed again; but the green jelly soon grounded the pain.

“Thank you, Hinte.”

She didn’t smile, but her frills relaxed a touch.

* * *