Someone was knocking on the door. Harmoni groaned and rolled over onto her back, arm falling over her face. The bed was so soft and comfortable. She didn’t want to get up yet.

“Harmoni? Are you awake in there?”

Harmoni’s eyes snapped open at the unfamiliar voice. And for a second, the room seemed unfamiliar too. Then the context came back to her.

Yesterday had been a nice break in the action. By the time she'd woken up, Udo and Aqua were gone. And she'd already asked about dragon bonds, so she didn't have anything pressing to do. She'd gotten cleaned off and tried to relax. She hadn't eaten much, lying when Udo asked, but it had been enough.

But now that was over. It was time to get to work.

“Harmoni?”

“Coming Udo!”

Harmoni swallowed thickly. She got up and looked at the small mirror on top of her dresser, in the corner. She was a mess. Her brown hair was matted. Her shirt was wrinkled, considering how many days she’d worn it while sleeping outside. She smoothed down her shirt and pants, and ran a hand through her hair. It didn’t actually make her any cleaner, but it did make her look a bit more presentable.

She opened the door. “So, where to?”

Udo gestures towards the stairs with his head. “This way. We’ll take Aqua.”

Harmoni was a bit confused by that, but it turned out, he was being completely and sincerely literal. Aqua stood outside with a foot extended. Udo climbed it like a ramp and sat on her shoulders, gripping one of her spikes with one hand. The skin flaps Harmoni had seen before, that should make that difficult, weren't there now. She could fold them down? Udo extended his other hand to Harmoni.

Well, she couldn’t reach his hand from the ground. She looked at Aqua. The dragon looked back impatiently. Harmoni took a deep breath and started up the dragon’s leg. It wasn’t steep or anything like that. But it was a leg. It sloped. It had the hard scales outside, but it was still soft. Different than climbing a solid path.

Harmoni slipped and wobbled on the smooth scales. Her hands swung out on either side of her, but Udo caught her wrist, and pulled her up. She took a seat behind him.

“Ready?”

Harmoni swallowed thickly, but nodded. Even though Aqua hadn’t seen, she must’ve gotten some sort of cue from Udo, because she launched herself down the street.

“Woah!” Harmoni cried.

Harmoni didn’t know if she’d ridden any animals before, obviously, but this was an experience. Aqua’s body moved less up and down and more side to side like a snake, even as she ran with four limbs. She didn’t have to pay attention to things like roads or rails like a vehicle, and just seemed to be taking the shortest route. Her body was wider than a horse, and the scales could be painful if Harmoni rubbed against them the wrong way. Fortunately, she’d have to be swaying back and forth to experience that, and that wasn’t happening. Harmoni was jerked left and right instead.

Udo didn’t seem to be having any problems. He even grabbed Harmoni when she slid too far to the right, almost losing her spot entirely.

As they reached the edge of the city, Harmoni got more used to the movement. She swayed less. Udo didn’t have to grab her.

Aqua ran across the sand as well as she ran in the city, but it was more than that. This was a direction Harmoni hadn’t gone in before. The ground was turning more to dirt than sand. The air itself felt less dry. Which was a relief. Harmoni’s face had stung before.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The desert plants fell away, trees growing instead. At first, they were very small. You could mistake them for bushes or grasses. Harmoni was sure Aqua must’ve stepped on some of the saplings sprouting up around them. Then they got bigger. Taller than Aqua. Taller than the buildings in the city. Taller and wider than Harmoni realized trees got. Aqua shoved off one of the trees with her leg, a good way to change directions without changing speeds. It didn’t even leave a mark in the bark.

It was darker now as well. Some sun got through the leaves, but even that seemed far away.

Then, abruptly, they were slowing down. Harmoni lost her balance again, and Udo caught her.

She looked out. It was hard to tell, with all the tree trunks, bushes, and vines, but there was a cave nearby. A tree was growing on top of a rock formation, and there was a small hole in that rock formation. It was too dark to see much inside, but the hole clearly went down.

It seemed a little small for dragons to go in and out of though.

“Well, this is the place,” Udo said. He slid off Aqua. (He slid off with a lot of grace, considering how wide and tall Aqua was.) “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she answered honestly.

Harmoni didn’t want to jump down like Udo had. She tried to climb down Aqua, slipped on her scales, and had to be caught by him.

(She was pretty sure she’d nicked her hand on a scale, but since blood wasn’t streaming out it wasn’t a big deal.)

“Is this really a dragon’s cave?” Harmoni asked, tilting her head.

“Yes.” A moment later, Udo seemed to realize the problem she was really thinking of, and elaborated. “This entrance is basically only used by us rider species. The dragons have a different entrance.”

Well that did make more sense.

The two walked up to the hole. Harmoni slid down. There was a bit of a drop at first, but not too bad. If you were tall, you wouldn’t slide at all. She turned back towards Udo, standing on her toes to see him.

He shrugged. “I can come with if you like. But I’d just be standing there.”

Well true, maybe she didn’t want him as an audience. Harmoni nodded, and hoped her head didn’t tremble too much. “I’ll go on my own then.”

She was so quick to turn away, she almost missed it when Udo smiled and waved. She waved back, and headed deeper into the cavern.

While the entrance to the cave had been small, dark, and unassuming, it didn’t stay that way. After dropping below ground and walking a few paces, the tunnel opened up into a large cavern. There were several other tunnels along the wall here. All of them were huge, large enough for the dragons she’d seen to get through. It was also brighter now. The cavern she was in had fire burning along the wall. She wasn’t even sure how that was possible, seeing as the flames just seemed to be sprouting out of the rocks. Rocks weren’t flammable last she checked. But it was happening. It bathed the round cavern in a mostly red light.

Harmoni took a few more steps forward and peered down the tunnels. They were lit too, either by more flaming rocks, or by rocks that glowed in the dark. One of the tunnels even looked like it had glowing mushrooms.

Harmoni frowned. She wasn’t sure which way to go. All the tunnels looked different because of how they were lit, or their general shape. So there was no going down the same tunnel twice. But she didn’t know where any of them led, so this would still take a while if she had to guess.

There was nothing here but the sound of dripping water. She couldn’t see where it was coming from. Probably one of the tunnels.

Then a clicking noise came from behind her. Harmoni tensed up and turned around.

There was a dragon there. It resembled gray mossy rocks near water rather well. If the cave wasn’t filled with fire, Harmoni might not have seen the dragon at all. But there was still something majestic about this one, same as the others. And Harmoni didn’t like the look it was giving her.

That was becoming a bit of a pattern. Oh no. Was she really here for bonding? Or were they going to eat her or something?

She shuffled back a step. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was told to come here by my boss. I’m . . . supposed to bond with a dragon?”

Would the dragon understand her at all? She didn’t know enough about dragons to understand how that worked.

The dragon stared at her impassively for a moment. Though that was better than glaring at her. Then it snorted. It turned around and started back down a tunnel. It had just fit its entire body down said tunnel when it looked back at her. It flicked its tail. The movement reminded her of a hand gesture when someone wanted you to follow them.

She hesitated, but took a step forward. When she didn’t become a pillar of fire, she took another step. As she got closer, step by step, the dragon snorted and continued walking down the tunnel. For a creature that size, it was moving slowly, taking small steps.

Well, Harmoni wasn’t stupid. It was clear by now that she was supposed to follow, so she did.