On her way back to Efron's island, Gretel's instincts warned her of danger. Every part of the juvenile wind dragon’s body screamed for her to stay away, to turn around and flee to the prairie, because something ahead was extremely wrong. But it was precisely those feelings that drove her to keep going; her friend was there, and she refused to leave him on his own to face whatever it was.

The purple-striped wyvern silenced herself when she reached the familiar lowlands, glancing toward the foxhole Efron had often sheltered in. Gretel didn't have time to check on him before a large shadow passed overhead, and she dared herself to look up at what had cast it.

Her heart skipped a beat to see it was seven-foot-tall violet revealer dragoness. Her green eyes scoured the trees of the small forest before she spread her white wings after landing, and Gretel’s sharp eyes noticed their webbing quivering in the chilly autumn breeze. The wind type recognized that wing motion: it was the same tactic Efron had used during their first ever game of hide-and-seek; he had used that tactic to find his friend because her volume control stopped the air from circulating around her whenever she used it for silence.

That's Efron's mother… But she's looking for… me? Why? Gretel quickly landed and released the air around herself, holding still so as not to make a sound and hoping against knowledge that the large revealer wouldn't spot her through the falling leaves of the canopies. I can't let her find Efron! I have to stop her! she thought, but restrained herself. No–I have to stay hidden, or she'll find us both…

Then that same impulse Gretel had felt on the prairie took a hold of herself. She did her best to retain self-control, but the more she repressed it, the stronger the impulse seemed to grow. She felt trapped, fighting an internal war on whether or not to fight the external one with the bipedal dragoness.

Gretel was distracted from her thoughts by a faint glow from within Efron’s foxhole. No… No, no, no! I'm sure he's using conceals to resist his mother's reveals, but if she sees his gemstone glow, it'll be the death of him…!

“Is she gone?” sounded a younger male’s voice, the sound of which Gretel recognized as Efron's cousin’s.

“We all heard her sing from the prairie isle. That means she must have moved from here, since she claimed it,” his aunt said. “But something's not right.”

“W-What do you mean…?”

“You know exactly what I mean. You think I'd call you down here with me if I thought she'd interfere?”

The red-winged juvenile cowered slightly, but seemed to use a conceal without reliance on his red gemstone as he maintained composure. “Interfere… with what, Aunt Kendra…?”

“Don't play dumb with me, Auden,” she hissed, towering over her nephew threateningly. “I know you've been hiding something about that wyvern. You know the reason she stuck around here for so long without claiming this territory as her retreat.”

Auden backed away from her, his hazel eyes looking for an escape. “I don't know anything about the wind type… I swear…!”

Kendra leered at him. “Funny. You sure have been using conceals an awful lot ever since you crash-landed down here–where she was.”

Gretel heard his breathing audibly quicken. Somewhere between Kendra's active reveal and the wyvern’s waning efforts to resist it, the striped juvenile felt the need to protect Auden. She relinquished her self-control and boosted her volume to call out rather childishly, “If you have something to say about me, say it to my face!”

Instantly Kendra rounded on her.

“Why did you come back here?!” Auden roared at Gretel, but his voice carried a worried panic instead of anger. “Run!”

“No! I'm not gonna let her keep abusing everyone!” the wind type snapped. Solitary dragons didn't have rulers; Kendra's authority meant nothing to her.

“Abuse?” the adult huffed as if offended. “I gave my family everything they needed: warm bedding, fresh food, and protection from predators… And what did these ungrateful brats do for me in return? This one betrayed me by keeping your little secret about his cousin’s survival all this time. And his cousin? He was just an embarrassment; couldn't even figure out how to set a basic hunting trap!”

“That's not true… He had me tutor him after your rant about how ‘dumb’ he was,” Auden said in his cousin's defense. “He did figure out…”

“No–he had deliberately left with you behind his alpha’s back!”

Wait… Efron’s mother is the alpha?! Gretel realized.

“Only because the way you taught it was hard to understand…” he hesitantly admitted, no doubt due to her active reveal. The wind type could hear genuine fear in his nervous voice, as if they'd had this conversation before… and the last time hadn't ended well. “When I showed him my way, he did understand… He's not stupid; you were just… going about teaching him all the wrong ways…”

“...What did you say?” Kendra hissed. “You're calling my methods wrong?!”

Auden grimaced and shrank submissively. “N-No! They were right, but… they weren't right for him in particular–”

“Then you're admitting he's a failure for not learning it right! I taught it the correct way my mother showed me, and how she had been taught by hers. This foolish boy was the only one in our lineage too stupid to understand it!”

“That’s not it! You knew his father wasn't from you and Dad's old society… Your method was foreign to both of them, but you didn't even let his father explain how he adjusted… Instead of trying to show him any other ways when he was struggling, all you ever did when he asked for help was go on rants about how ‘stupid’ he was for not learning it the way you were taught…”

“Because it's true! My mate did struggle to adjust at first, but even he figured it out; so what was stopping that boy from learning, aside from his own stupidity? His constant failures only dragged my reputation through the mud!”

“No… You ruined your own reputation by treating him so bad…” Auden muttered under his breath.

“You little brat! How dare you speak to your alpha that way? That boy was lucky I was patient with him for an entire year! What I should have done was abandon him the second he had hatched as a male!” she ranted. “I had such high hopes of leading this territory, but it turns out my only kin are either idiots like your cousin, or traitors like you! I have been nothing but merciful until now. You want to see mistreatment?! I'll show you mistreatment!” She swung her claws down at the cowering juvenile, who could only brace himself.

Gretel was still fighting off her instinct to flee against the self-control she needed to intervene, especially with the powerful reveal being active on top of it all. By the time she could move to defend Auden, Efron had charged out of hiding instead, shoving his cousin out of the way.

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Kendra’s claws raked open her disowned son’s arm instead, as he blocked her attack with it; the metallic scent of blood tainted the cold, crisp air.

The striped young dragoness caught up to her friend, but he gestured with his uninjured hand for her to guard Auden. Meanwhile Efron stood straighter, almost dignified, staring straight at his mother despite his injury.

“I knew it…” Kendra laughed humorlessly. “I knew you had a connection to that wind dragon down here. Why else would she be so afraid to claim the territory she visited so often?”

Her son said nothing, his neutral expression unwavering. The silence was so deafening that Gretel could hear the droplets of blood trickling down his arm splat onto the dried, fallen leaves underfoot.

“You’ve been telling that siren a-a-all about me, haven't you, boy?” she continued with a knowing grin that was devoid of happiness. “And you”--she rounded on Auden–“You made her confess that your cousin was still alive, and you've been concealing that fact from me ever since.”

Auden was shivering, still on the ground where he had fallen after Efron’s protective shove. His hazel eyes were wide and staring at her as he scarcely managed to breathe.

“Well?” the large revealer demanded more authoritatively, “What have you to say for yourself?”

“I-I… I didn't think Galen survived… Honest…!”

“Galen?” she repeated with mock-surprise. “Who is that? I had a son named Galen, once… Such a fitting name for a calm, obedient hatchling. But that name no longer fit him when he disobeyed me!”

Hearing his former name finally got a reaction from Efron as he reflexively winced when she had said it. His mother seemed to delight in the fact that she broke through his calm facade.

“He only defended himself,” Gretel snapped, unable to stand by while her friend was under such scrutiny.

Efron immediately faced the younger dragon, trying his best to stay calm even though his voice wavered when he warned her, “Gretel, don't talk back to her… It'll just make things worse. Take Auden and fly away from here.”

His warning came too late. Kendra laughed shamelessly. “Aww, what's the matter? Scared your new friend will find out how pathetic you truly are?”

“What are you talking about?!” Gretel demanded, tail lashing.

“Gretel, please,” Efron tried again, unable the hide the desperate worry in his tone.

“You have to ask?” Kendra replied, completely disregarding her disowned son. “After all of these months you've spent together, I'm surprised you haven't seen it for yourself. This boy is a failure who will never amount to anything. I had done him a favor by killing him, but he even failed at dying!”

Gretel felt sick as the white-winged revealer’s laughter continued, not attempting to hide how much the older dragoness was relishing every ounce of power she still held over Efron.

“He didn't fail at dying… He succeeded in surviving. And not only that, but he's been thriving–all because he’s not with you!” Gretel snarled.

“Gretel!” Efron cried out in a third warning for his friend to behave, but he was once again ignored by the females.

Kendra chuckled. “Is this what you call thriving: hiding away in a foxhole?”

“It is compared to his life with you,” the striped juvenile retorted. “He's survived happily on his own for months!”

“On his own? Really?” She scoffed. “Then what do you call your daily visits here?”

“It’s called companionship–something you've clearly never heard of!”

Kendra’s smile fell and she glared at the wyvern. “Are you questioning my intelligence?”

“Stop it! Both of you, stop!” Efron finally broke down despairingly.

I can't stop now; it's already escalated too far! Gretel thought, but felt remorse upon seeing how serious her friend was. She took a breath and suppressed her desire to argue with the adult further. Then that impulse from Kendra's active reveal overcame her and she was too upset to resist it. She rounded on the older dragoness. “There's no ‘question’ about it! You're an idiot if you think that, as an adult, being smarter than a juvenile makes you intelligent–or rather, makes them less so! What kind of leader are you?! Does it make you feel good to hold power over literal hatchlings?!”

At this point Auden got up and tried to pull the wyvern away from the scene, but when Gretel growled at him to release her, he instinctively obliged and exchanged a helpless look with Efron, who was panicking. The youngest revealer gestured wildly for his cousin to flee, and Auden gave a nod, taking flight on his red wings back to the highlands.

“Insolent brat!” Kendra roared loudly at her, not acknowledging any point she had made.

“Brainless brute!” the young wyvern roared back immaturely, using her volume control to be even louder than the adult. Her instincts screamed at her again to flee, but she consciously ignored them, as she had trained herself to do when she'd get stir crazy during her recovery over the past few months. Someone needs to put her in her place!

The large dragoness moved to attack her in a fit of rage, and Gretel was too heated to react in time without relying on her instinct.

Efron instantly leapt up with the aid of his wings and latched onto his mother's lashing arm, biting down hard on it with his sharp fangs to stop her.

This infuriated her even more. Kendra grabbed him by the throat with her free hand and forcefully yanked him off, holding him at arm's length and visibly tightening her grip until he could barely inhale.

“Let go of him!” Gretel shrieked, and Kendra’s green ears flattened from the volume alone; the wyvern copied Efron by pouncing up and biting his mother's wrist, hoping it'd make her drop him. Wind dragons’ wide jaws were strong in proportion to their bodies, designed to crush any prey whose scales were too tough for their fangs to pierce. But even so, Kendra simply used her free arm to swat the little juvenile off of her as though the latter were a mere pest.

“Let him go!” Gretel cried even louder out of sheer desperation. She bit the large revealer’s ankle, but that earned her a harsh kick from the other clawed foot.

The wyvern’s light frame skidded across the fallen leaves on the ground from the impact.

“Last time, I didn't wait to make sure you bled out before I let my father ‘bury’ you out here,” Kendra hissed at the young revealer. “This time, I'll just bury you myself.”

Efron's struggles were growing weaker by the second.

“Stop it!” Gretel's overwhelming fear for his life caused her cry to instinctually raise in both volume and pitch, the echo physically palpable. Both of the other dragons’ ears pinned back as it had visibly pained them, and during that brief moment of distraction, Kendra had loosened her grip enough for Efron to finally get a breath in.

Seeing that reaction urged Gretel to try her sonic attack on their assailant, but she didn't want to harm her friend in the crossfire. That's when she got an idea. If I can use my wind direction to still the air around my attack, I can contain the sound so it won't spread to Efron, she realized

“Gretel, run,” Efron begged his friend, now that he could breathe enough to speak.

“Shut up,” his mother snapped, tossing him down where he landed in a dizzy, breathless heap.

Now! Gretel concentrated as much magical power as she could to create a horizontal vortex of wind as a barrier that doubled as a pathway aimed directly at the adult, making sure her voice's sound waves would be contained by it, then shrieked as high and loud as she naturally could straight through the eye of it, amplifying her voice with yet another wind summon directly at her target. She felt her head throbbing from overextending herself, but adrenaline loaned her the strength to push past her limits.

Kendra’s mouth opened as if in a scream, but whatever sound she made was drowned out by the wind dragon. Blood trailed down from her ears even between her fingers that were covering them in a vain attempt to shield herself.

Gretel felt her own stamina depleting fast; she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep up the attack without passing out.

Luckily, Kendra fainted first; blood pooled under her head from her ears. Gretel immediately ended her abilities at once and looked to make sure Efron was okay.

Her friend was staring, stunned, at his unconscious abuser, but aside from the bleeding gash on his arm and the bruising imprint on his neck, he seemed unharmed… physically.

“We need to go before she wakes up,” Gretel called to him, snapping the blue-winged revealer out of his daze.

“...Will she wake up…?” he asked voicelessly. His companion couldn't tell if he feared his mother would wake up, or wouldn't.

“She's still breathing,” Gretel reported. “And if we want to be, we have to get out of here!”

“...What about Auden… and my dad… and Gramps…?”

“What about you?!”

He winced, hugging himself across his ventral scales with indecision.

“Neither of us are any help to the rest of your family if we die here,” Gretel pointed out. “Your arm is still bleeding, and I feel too drained to stay awake for much longer… We have to go--now, before we both pass out here and she finishes us off.”

Her determined hot pink eyes bore into his watered green ones as he stifled a distressed sob. Then he drew in a hoarse breath through his injured throat and finally decided to take flight, letting his friend lead the way to their new retreat.