Levo launched forward again, faster, with more frantic energy than before. He swung the blade twice. The first time she jumped again, the next she rolled. Then she frantically ran when more electricity came out of it.

This had happened in one of her other fights as well. She was pumping guilt into people. For some, that made the battle easier to win. They didn't want to fight anymore. But for others, they simply wanted to remove the guilty feeling. And that meant removing the source of the guilt, her. At least, that's what she and Fleck were guessing after it took her completely by surprise the first time.

Fleck definitely leaned more on the fight side of fight-or-flight himself.

Levo tried to grab her shoulder. She turned, grabbed the wrist holding the blade, and yanked. He lost his balance, but she felt electricity course through her.

Levo tumbled to the ground. Wren kicked him. The goal was to kick him out of the ring, but that would take more than one kick, and then he drove his blade into her leg, right near the ankle.

Wren kept her mouth closed, but a pained noise still came out. She stumbled. He grabbed her ankle and dragged her to the ground, already caught off balance as she was.

"Stop doing that!" he shouted. He tried to punch her face but she moved her head to the side and his fist hit the rocky earth instead.

Thing was, Wren might not be very strong, or armed, but she had been trained to fight. She had been trained to fight by a cult that put a lot of importance on it, for several years, thanks to her comparatively longer lifespan.

Levo was frantic, desperate, and one of the most important things in a fight was to have control. So she needed to focus, and win this thing, like she knew she could.

She let him punch the ground again, and kneed him in the side, causing him to roll over. She kicked him in the jaw and tried to kick him in the side, but pulled her leg back when he brought his blade up, not daring to touch that or the arm holding it if she could avoid it.

"Levo is out of bounds!" the announcer declared. "The fight is over!"

And with that realization, Wren dropped the emotional manipulation she'd had on him.

The announcer was still talking, but Wren wasn't paying attention. She was done for the day. That had almost been a loss, and it had certainly been unpleasant. She stood up, and almost fell again, her ankle bleeding and showing signs of burns.

She stumbled out of the arena as best she could, and let the cleric on hand for the day heal her up, his eyes getting a glowing white ring about them as he did.

She sat back down on the ground, having some of the water she'd brought with her. (The first time she hadn't brought any. That had been a horrible mistake. Had to buy some overpriced stuff from the nearest vendor to avoid passing out.)

The cleric had fixed her bleeding, and most of the lightning damage from when she'd grabbed Levo's wrist, or when she hadn't completely missed the lightning he'd sprayed. Unfortunately, his blessing hadn't done anything to the lightning burns on her ankle. She'd have to heal those in other ways. Wasn't uncommon for a cleric, since their powers existed on the whims of gods. But hey, she literally lived with a magical healer.

She was just going to take a moment to catch her breath, the conversation from behind her drifting into her ears.

"Have you seen Mik?"

"Not since we rescued him. Seen his sister though. She seems very grateful still. So I assume he's doing well."

"If she was that grateful, it would be nice if she repaid us."

"That rather defeats the point of being a volunteer rescue agency. If she had anything to bargain with, she would've gone to Desert Crest, yes?"

"Volunteers still-"

"What was that?" Wren asked, turning around.

The two people looked down on her. Literally. She was still sitting. One was a human woman with black skin and braided hair. The other was a tanned elf man with red hair almost to his waist. Both of them were surprised to hear her talk, and maybe a little judgemental?

She pushed herself back to her feet. "Sorry. It's just, what organization were you talking about? Something about rescuing?"

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"The volunteer rescue agency, yes," the woman confirmed.

"The Desert Crest is competing with the Faradays and the Divergence. They want money or resources out of their good deeds. While I can't really blame them, I certainly don't want the Divergence to win in their quest for power, it does leave some things to be desired."

The Desert Crest hadn't asked her for anything when she'd gone to them about the Dalton Labs, but they had gotten to loot the place.

And they wouldn't want to face the wrath of the adult dragons, if they heard about the trafficking and did nothing about it.

The woman crossed her arms. "The volunteer agency can help when the Desert Crest doesn't think they'll get anything out of it. Why? You planning on asking for something?"

"So you just help people? Voluntarily?"

"It's sort of in the name," the woman pointed out.

"Using our own resources and time," the man added. "What we can spare."

"Time isn't really a sacrifice for you," the woman pointed out.

Wren just stared.

This was it. A solution to her problems. Evin might be right that getting locked away was selfish, and she didn't want her friends to hate her. But there should be some consequences, shouldn't there? And no, helping against the cult's final attack wasn't enough. No one was talking about that. Udo had technically hinted at it in their conversation, but he hadn't been sure what those consequences should be either.

She remembered Hathanier, and how Amier had wanted to punish him through community service, essentially. She could do the same.

'If you save six people, does that make up for your deeds?'

'No. That's not how it works.'

Individual people were just that, unique individuals. You couldn't swap one out for another. But she suspected Fleck knew that. From his tone, he'd been making a joke, of sorts.

It wasn't about saving a certain number of people. It wasn't about evening the scales at all. It was about doing something actually good and productive, and not sweeping the first thirty years of her life, and six murders, under the rug.

"Is there a way to sign up for this group?"

The two exchanged glances. "If you're interested, there are some questions we can ask. See how you might best help, and see how we can get in contact with you. That alright?"

Wren nodded.

~~~

Fleck stood in one of the underground tunnels with two other dragons. One was the dragon working under Aqua, the snaky dragon the riders called Quoise. (Short for turquoise.) The other was a pastel pink dragon with a gator-like shape the riders called Rose.

The tunnel was narrow and unlit, unlike the parts most dragons navigated and lived in. It would be too small for say, Glimmer. It might be too narrow for him eventually, but he wasn't done growing, so he got to follow these two.

"The passage goes underwater after this," Rose said.

"Well, that's not a problem for me," Quoise said.

"I'm going with you," Fleck said, taking a step forward.

"Excuse me?" Rose asked.

"You heard me."

He couldn't swim with the speed and grace of Quoise, but he could hold his breath for a while.

The three were exploring the unknown parts of the cave on purpose. This area started out dry, unusual for a cave, and ignored. Finding water down here was arguably a good thing.

The little explorer's group was bigger than these three, they were just the ones who could slide through this far. If the cavern opened up again later on, and had another exit, that would be helpful. Another place the dragons could live.

"Alright!" Quoise cheered. He jumped, tale snapping, scales rattling. "Come on Fleck!"

He dove into the water. Fleck could tell by the sound of splashing.

"You guys better give me some cue that you're not drowning," Rose warned. "Otherwise I will get our friends to smash through this tunnel to get to you."

Then she opened her mouth, flame crackling in it and lighting a small bit of the cavern.

Fleck didn't think any dragon, no matter how strong, could dig through meters of pure rock to widen this cave, but he kept that to himself.

Now able to see a little better, he held his breath, and dove into the water. He could see the vague shape of Quoise going deeper into the darkness and followed him, spreading his wings and flapping underwater to help him move. He lifted his tail and let it press against the ceiling of the cavern as he moved forward, so he didn't lose track of where it was, even as it got too dark to see again.

He couldn't see, and underwater he couldn't smell. He was surrounded by water at all ends except the ceiling, until the tunnel got very narrow, and he felt the floor with his claws and walls with his shoulders. He was, of course, forced to close his wings back up. That was not better.

His lungs weren't screaming, but he was getting uncomfortable. Then the walls around him disappeared, and his tail poked into open air. He kicked, giving himself a boost up, and his head burst above water.

Fleck took a deep breath, and cleared the water from his eyes.

"Oh."

The cavern they were now in had no floor, it was all water. It had no other exit either, as far as he could tell. But there was light. The cavern was an almost perfectly round dome above him, lined with tiny crystals. They twinkled a sort of silver light.

"Cool, isn't it?"

Fleck turned. Quoise was bobbing in the water beside him, toothy grin and orange eyes flashing, reflecting the silver light.

This exploration project had been one of Glimmer's (many) ideas. Another way to get him involved with other dragons.

He'd taken to Glimmer's ideas with unenthused acceptance. He knew there was no talking her out of it, so he didn't bother. But he didn't see the importance. He saw and talked to dragons in Xentron City. Wren was a half-elf, and most of her friends weren't either of those species, so why would it matter so much for him? He wasn't convinced he'd stick with any of Glimmer's projects.

But he was getting more out of it than he expected. All that time on Iva and Morivion, struggling to talk to anyone, might have factored in. As much as he and Rasha made it work, it was nice to just be able to talk to people again. And he was liking getting to explore the new spaces, and bragging to the others about the sights he'd gotten on other planets.

He looked back at the glistening ceiling. "Yeah."