Gretel slowly regained consciousness, a male’s soft voice fading in with it. She opened her hot pink eyes, confused at first by the dim lighting of her new location before she recognized it was the foxhole she had hid in during their first game of hide-and-seek. Efron was lying on his belly beside her, his arms crossed under his chin before he lifted his head to speak more respectfully.

“Are you okay?” he murmured the slightest bit louder, as if repeating the phrase to be sure she heard him this time. His green eyes were glistening with concern.

Gretel blinked. “Did I faint?”

He nodded, and looked away guiltily. “I'm sorry… I never should have asked you to help me fly again so soon after the force test… I should've known it'd drain you like that…”

“What? Don't apologize! You didn't do anything wrong; I just pushed myself too hard… and I knew it, so it's my own fault, really.” She got to her paws and moved forward to exit the den, then realized with horror how late it was; the dim lighting wasn't just from their shelter. Her heartbeat quickened. I should have recovered after a half-hour, at most–but the day's almost over now! “How long was I out?!”

His ears flattened from her volume. “I'm not sure how to tell the difference between being fainted and sleeping,” he admitted, “but you looked exhausted, so I let you rest…”

Every instinct she had screamed for her to take flight and leave the island until morning. “I-I gotta go,” she stammered anxiously.

“Go… where?”

“Anywhere!” she yelled. “I'm an idiot for pushing myself so hard after I didn't sleep properly last night. Now I'm a sitting duck here! I can't just wait around for another predator to find me–”

“Wouldn't one find you easier if you left the foxhole at this hour?”

The white-and-purple hatchling froze. “You're right, but that doesn't change how I feel…” She forced herself to turn away from the exit, but ended up pacing as an outlet for her increasing anxiety.

“Did something happen last night?” he pressed gently, referring to what she mentioned about not sleeping.

Gretel paused. “Kinda. I just pushed myself too hard back then, too,” she partially lied, not wanting to admit how scared she'd been after the light- and water-type dragons had attacked her.

“Oh. I've… always wondered where you go after you leave every day.”

“Every day, I wonder that too,” she said with a half-hearted laugh. “I don't usually visit or stay in the same area twice unless it's a retreat that I know is safe.”

“Huh. Does that mean my island here is a retreat? You visit me daily. But I guess, if you want to leave, you don't exactly feel safe here…”

“Y-Yeah, but that has nothing to do with you,” she assured him; “I don't feel safe anywhere.”

The violet revealer yearling calmed slightly to know it wasn't his fault, but then seemed even more worried about her. “Why not…?”

“I told you before that if wind types stay too long in one area, we risk getting hunted… We don't have set territories or home ranges or families to protect us. The closest we have to territories are retreats–so we can get a little protective over those safe spaces whenever we return to them. But I'm… still kinda looking for retreats of my own.”

“And you're okay with that…?” Efron asked, his face scrunched up as if struggling to understand how she could be.

“With what?”

“Not having a home or family…”

“Well, yeah. Wind dragons are solitary; we don't need family." More optimistically, she continued, "But that doesn't mean we're completely without help if we need it! Wind types may not travel together, but since we travel, there's usually one that will hear us if we call for them. That's why we can get loud, and why expressing ourselves with singing is so important!”

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“So singing isn't just for fun?!”

“Who says important things can't also be fun?”

“Wow,” was the only word he could muster, but it was clear he was impressed. “Why don't you travel together, though? Wouldn't that make things easier? Why travel at all, for that matter? Social dragons stay in one place with their families and society; we protect each other.”

“We don't have homes on purpose, because we're liable to be hunted if we stay in one place too long. As for why we don't travel together, well, we do sometimes–if it's with a mate or if we're being guided to someone else’s retreat. But again, sticking together means there's a greater chance more of us will be hunted at the same time. It's better for one of us to get killed on our own than for all of us to be killed at once, y'know?”

“Hunted… by revealers?” he asked hesitantly.

“Depends on where we are. Revealers are a danger to us when we're in dry, open spaces like the highlands, but water dragons are a danger to us everywhere. I've never been around revealers until I met you, though, but I guess both of those types of dragons take advantage of their prey’s needs to survive–by luring us with food and water, respectively. The whole reason wind dragons travel is to fulfill those needs and not become prey,” she explained, and with a humorless chuckle, added, “You can see our dilemma.”

“Hm. What about other dragons? If wind types don't need families, how do you protect yourselves from them?”

“Depends. If they're small or flighted, I'd do exactly what I just did to you today: blow them away–and then flee before they can steady themselves. But if they're bigger and more skilled at flight, like seer dragons, I'd probably have to roar them away.”

“You can scare seers away with just a roar?!”

“Not just seers, and not just any roar; one that's at a high enough pitch would do more than just scare them,” the hatchling giggled, widening her stance to let her folded wings spread from the backs of her forelimbs in a mock battle-pose. “Depending on our pitch, they may not even hear it, but they'll sure feel it when it rattles their brains!” She playfully growled the last three words.

Efron gulped. “And I thought reveals were scary…”

“Don’t worry! It takes a lot out of us, so we wouldn't do that unless we have to. Besides, I may be loud on accident sometimes, but volume and pitch are to-o-otally different. Pitch is purposeful.”

The violet juvenile gave a thoughtful hum. “Pitch, huh? Is that why you're so perfect at singing?”

Gretel beamed. “Yep!”

“How come volume can be accidental when pitch can't be? Wind types have volume control, don't they?”

“Well, yes, but… solitary dragons only know how to use their abilities based on instinct until we're old enough to figure out how to use them on command--or to suppress that instinct, which is the part I'm still struggling with."

His jaw dropped. “Really? I thought all solitary types were skilled from the get-go!”

“Heh! That'd be nice, but no. We're just as unaware of everything when we first hatch as social dragons. The only difference is instinct–it activates our abilities on its own to keep us safe before we even gain awareness. Just last night I accidentally sent a distress call, and boy, it nearly caused a water dragon to shoot my face in!”

He recoiled. “What…? Are you okay?”

“Uhh, yeah? It was just a warning shot.”

“Warning…?! For what…?!”

“He got scared of my distress call.”

“You mean he wasn't the reason for it?!”

“Well, kinda? I was startled by him, but only because I was already in a panic from the light dragon.”

“Light dragon?!”

“Well, not the light dragon itself,” she said, and he relaxed slightly, only to become horrified when she clarified, “it was their heat ray.”

He froze, then let out another hysterical laugh to release the tension. “Where exactly did you go last night…?!”

“The volcano.”

“Where the fire dragons live?!” he exclaimed. “Do you have a death wish?!”

“Rela-a-ax, it was an accident. I'm not dumb enough to approach predators like that on purpose. They didn't even know I was there!”

He caught his shaky breath in an attempt to steady his nerves.

Gretel tilted her head. He isn't using a conceal this time, she noticed, and wondered what that meant. “Uhh… Are we good?”

“Huh? Yeah–why?”

“If conceals are a sign of respect because you don't want to panic around me, why not use one right now? Do you not respect me anymore…?”

“What?! Gretel, I'm stressing right now because I'm worried about you! You almost got killed three times in one night!”

“Three?”

“The heat ray, the water shot, and the fire dragons…”

“Oh. But usually you use conceals when you get like this.”

He shook his head. “It’d be disrespectful if I did use a conceal in this instance. My concern for you is honest; concealing it would make you think I don't care that you nearly died. I do care, so why hide that?”

Conceals are more nuanced than I thought… But I guess that makes sense. Then she grinned playfully at the other juvenile. “Heh, you must care about me a lot if you get this worked up over nothing!”

“It's not ‘nothing,’” he argued. “And of course I care about you! You're like a sister to me–” Efron stopped himself and covered his mouth with regret given how she had just explained solitary dragons’ lack of necessity for family. “S-S-Sorry…! I didn’t mean to say that– I just–”

Gretel laughed genuinely, flattered. “It’s fine. You social dragons value family, so I'll take that as a compliment.”