Caltyr had gotten into T’allyandria’s class, sure, but that didn’t mean she liked him. He’d simply completed the assigned task, one he was pretty sure she wholeheartedly expected him to fail. An actual friendship would require them to be on speaking terms outside of the classroom.

They had been on speahking terms before. That meant it was possible.

He remembered from their many recesses spent together that the shadow dragon was especially receptive to gifts. Her eyes became bright and wide at any worthwhile offering.

She had accepted and enjoyed any little trinket before, as long as he presented it as the rarest trinket in all the land in his special pretend voice. Now that they were older, he would have to actually go get her the rarest trinket for it to be worthy.

That was why he was laying with his belly to the grass, his silver eyes scanning the forest floor for motion.

He knew from the move that T’allyandria collected animal skulls. It just so happened that the extremely rare landolotl was migrating toward their mountainous school at this time of year for the flower blossoms that bloomed during a short window in spring.

Their skulls were tiny and unique. If they were properly dried, they maintained the array of wispy frills that decorated both sides of the landolotl face.

He was crouched in the tall grass of the overgrown forest, slowly following the fallen trails of purple petals. The landolotls would be wherever there was the highest concentration of lilablossoms, he was sure of it.

He wasn’t far from the cluster of mountains that made up his school. Part of what camouflaged it so well was that it was hidden amongst a valley of other, smaller mountains.

As he had been exploring the mountainside earlier, he had seen a promising shock of purple slashing through the other trees, but finding it on foot was proving to be more challenging than he thought.

Just as he was considering flapping back up into the air to take a second look, risking outing himself to wandering creatures, he heard tiny, rustling footsteps cascading through the blades of grass.

The water dragon pushed himself further down into the foliage, as close as he could get to becoming one with it. He stopped breathing to avoid drawing attention to himself. He was just a rock, a simple hump of stone that blended in with the background.

The creatures didn’t catch on to the reptilian blue thing hiding in the bushes and crept through the trees warily. Caltyr wasn’t aware how many natural predators they had, but they seemed like a prey animal from the fear in their faces.

Caltyr was one of the highest predators on the food chain. Before, he would have said the fearsome dragon was the highest of them all, but he knew the truth about how their numbers were dwindling next to the expansion of the humans.

The landolotls padded and weaved through the trees on furry paws. They had short fur and frills on their heads that looked almost like fuzzy antlers. Their faces were smooth, and their eyes were almond-shaped and about twice as big as they ought to be.

Right away, Caltyr could see one of them lagging behind the others, nursing an injured leg.

Aha!

The wound wasn’t a superficial one. The herd had been attacked by something with claws, and they had torn deep into the meat of the limping landolotl’s rump. From how much blood was trickling behind it, it wouldn’t be long for this world.

It was a bit sad, seeing the rare and majestic animal mauled like this, but at least he wouldn’t have to kill one himself. He could just wait for this one to collapse.

Just then, he heard more footsteps.

These ones had more weight behind them. The landolotls’ steps were audible only because of the grass around them, but these were from something much larger. Caltyr remained as still as a rock and watched on as a pair of bipedal silhouettes came into view.

Humans.

“Looks like we chased it off,” said the taller of the two triumphantly.

“Yeah,” agreed a pink-haired female, “it’s gone. Did you hear that, little guys?” She redirected her words toward the group of landolotls, who sped up at the sound of her voice. “Rats.” She snapped her fingers, driving them even further away. The injured one hopped off somewhere to Caltyr’s left, but he couldn’t risk chasing it. “I was hoping I could pet one.”

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“They’re too skittish for that. You should count yourself lucky that you saw them at all.” The gruff male nodded in agreement with himself.

“Sad. Say, do you think we’ll be back in time for the debriefing? We sorta got sidetracked… What’s the meeting about tonight?”

“Charles wants to talk more about how we’re going to approach the dragons. He thinks we should start with the group in the mountains, since there are so many young dragons there. He thinks they might be easier to convince.”

Easier to convince of what? Caltyr thought, wrinkling his nose to keep hot steam from puffing out of his nostrils.

“It’s going to be hard to convince all of them. People have been eating them for centuries now. We might have to offer them something juicier than our cooperation against the demons. But what?” The female tilted her head as she began to walk off, her voice getting further and further away.

“Maybe we can offer to let them eat Boots. He’s not pulling his weight anymore,” shrugged the tall one.

“I think we’d need to offer them like ten thousand of Boots if we were going to make big amends.”

“Big amends?” Laughed the man heartily.

Demons? Caltyr rose his head to hear more of their words now that their backs were officially turned, but all that reached him were murmurs and the snapping of twigs.

He had heard of the demons before. They had been a prominent part of their world before being sealed away to keep their ravenous hunger at bay. Like humans, they craved magic. But unlike humans, magical energy was the only thing that truly sated them.

If the demons were somehow back, had broken through the barrier to wherever they had been kept, the humans would no longer be their biggest worry for his people.

Admittedly, he wasn’t the most knowledgeable on this topic. His lessons were more practical now, and the lessons on magical theory and history trickled in at a rate of one per month, as opposed to their usual bi-weekly spread.

But the mention of ‘demons’ as if they were a real, palpable thing wasn’t good for anybody.

The dragons were already hidden, sequestered away underneath mountaintops and under the very earth itself. How much further would they have to dig if the demons were back?

Oh!

Caltyr suddenly remembered why he was out here. He shimmied hurriedly along the loamy forest floor toward the collection of lillablossom trees, hoping to catch the landolotls before they had fully moved on.

The trees opened up into a valley surrounded with trees dotted with purple flowers. The landolotls had left, but from the paw-sized impressions still mushed into the grass, they hadn’t departed long ago.

At the center of the valley, there was a messily upturned mound of dirt sitting loosely over what he recognized as the limping landolotl from earlier. Most of the flowers that had fallen to the grass had been harvested, eaten up by hungry mouths, but a single pile of them sat on top of the body of their fallen friend.

He had just missed a mini funeral. Momentarily, he was impressed that they had known to bury their dead, before he strode out and nudged the body from its resting place. It would be of more use to the world being used as a display piece than it would be decomposing here, he told himself as he began to cut into it with his claws.

It was still fresh enough that he could consume it without worry of decay. As he dug his teeth and claws into the departed animal, he couldn’t help but think that his fleshomagic would make this whole process easier.

He could tear the flesh cleanly off the skeleton if he used it. He could separate the body into neat little chunks by muscle group. He could tug the organs away without rupturing them. All without getting the gore all over himself.

He looked down at his hands, caked with blood, and shook his head feverishly. No. He couldn’t use his powers again, not ever, not if Kraven was going to let him stay at his school. Dragons didn’t tend to last long in their world anymore, and the lone ones had an even shorter lifespan.

Caltyr needed to stay on Kraven’s good side, or else.

He cleaned away what he could from the head and left the rest buried, as untouched as dragonly possible. He held the fragile skull in his mouth while he tossed the dirt back up so it covered the mauled corpse and gingerly placed the little flowers back on top of the mound. His claws came away covered in mud and smelling of copper.

As he went to bathe himself in a nearby stream, turning it a mucky red, his mind drifted back to the conversation he’d heard earlier. Now that he thought of it, hadn’t the two people mentioned where he and the other dragons were hiding in startling detail?

Didn’t that mean… the humans knew where they were?