It's only about another hour's walk to the camp, and it passes without incident and without spoken words. Not that those are necessary, not with me and her, but I don't send anything and maybe she senses that I need time to think or maybe she's just constructed to abide by my wishes without complaint, and that second maybe bothers me but I'm not clear why.

But of course I do know, but also of course I'm not going to think about it too hard until I learn to keep my thoughts truly reigned in.

The camp is carefully guarded. It's not a resistance camp, not quite. That would get found and razed in short order, we've tried that before, and by "we" I mean humans, not any group I've ever been a part of. And by "not a resistance camp," I mean that if any of the fey were to show up at our gates, or really our pair of entrance alleyways, we'd scatter. Because the high ruined buildings surrounding our little courtyard of tarp-tents and simple workshops and hydroponics pots might look like they're completely filled with the the aftermath of their own partial collapse, but they're not. There's a small maze of mostly-intact utility tunnels down there, intact because we've dug them out and shored them back up.

Sure, whatever poor bastard was on guard duty would be willing to kill a few fey to buy time for the rest to escape, if it came to that. Hopefully it wouldn't; there's nothing forbidden in the camp, no real weapons, and if it doesn't look like any inhuman visitors are there to cause serious trouble, we'd just let them in. (Killing would, if necessary, be accomplished by pushing rubble out the upper windows and letting it fall on anyone in the alley, also hopefully blocking up the passage at least temporarily.)

Nothing forbidden in the camp, at least until now, because I'm going to bring a motherfucking dragon in there, and it kind of horrifies me just how much danger that puts us all into. And I'm going to do it anyway because I can't do this alone, or even just do it with her, this strange creature plodding along behind me in a hard-light disguise that seems to confirm a dozen impossible old stories all at once.

And here it is, perhaps five blocks down. The alleyway. it's crooked, because one of the buildings sort of twisted as it collapsed, and because the other leans in on its neighbor, making contact at about the fifth of a dozen storeys. People used to live here, and not just humans, but also fey who liked the benefits of human culture and engineering and were ultimately declared Tainted-Touch by their fellows, all rounded up and killed or worse after we lost the Collapsing War.

Humans, as I understand it, were allowed to continue to live in the buildings but not maintain them, not even to repair any of the war-damage they'd suffered. The fey liked the sight of their hated enemy living in what amounted to slow decay. That's what we say now. Maybe it was just a practical thing. Maintenance and repairs are perilously close to construction and engineering, after all, and humans with those skills had been rooted out almost as ruthlessly as fey considered to be Tainted-Touch.

That last statement is kind of heretical among the Not-Resistance I'm about to introduce my extraordinary new

friend? find?

to. It's held as sacrosanct that no one suffered during the Collapsing War so badly as the humans, or in its aftermath, but I've had the privilege to read a few preserved sources and unredacted histories here and there. The Fey Alliance hated humans, sure, but hated those it perceived to be "Traitors of the True Ways" even more. Still does, to the extent that it still exists.

Operator Kella sends jumbled thoughts of long-past.

The words come into my head as a shock after the long silence, and I actually do jump.

Yep, I send back, on purpose this time. Look, a lot has happened since the beginnings of you were put into that egg. This is a very different sort of world now.

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The not-donkey nods her head, then lightly nudges me with it. That fur still feels so real, as does the warmth.

Maybe it is real? The warmth, I mean? I suddenly realize I've never touched her, not once since she was hatched, not the real her under this disguise, not felt her since that one time she nudged me when newly-hatched. Had her snout been cold?

DRAGON unit is kept at optimal operating temperature slightly above human-internal. Heat is energy therefore useful therefore permitted to escape as little as possible when not used for purpose, therefore DRAGON unit is not warm to the touch, but not cold, no heat absorption into hotter place of unit-internals.

"Okay," I say aloud, and laugh. "Good to know." And I kind of want to touch her, now, and of course she'd let me, why would she not? I'm pretty sure she'd...well, do anything, and that I keep tightly chained-back in my head. But maybe I still should ask. Maybe that's a better way, even if it isn't necessary.

The not-donkey cocks her head, sends nothing solid but I know what she means.

Just trying to sort it all out, I reply to the unasked question of what's-in-your-head. I don't want to overwhelm you with my thoughts, or send you half-formed ones I don't really mean.

We're coming up close on the alley opening, and I raise my arm to give the agreed-upon sign. Maybe a bit much, since I'm obviously human and almost certainly someone the guards peeking out of high windows will know personally, but still. Can't be too careful, not now, not for a thousand years.

The not-donkey exhales sharply through her fictional nostrils, or at least produces a pretty convincing facsimile of that sound. What is meant by half-formed-not-meant? How can thought be not meant, thought is thought thought cannot lie.

Humans have to be very careful with intentions, just because we think it doesn't mean we mean it. We scorn those who do not think before they speak, and this...communication with you is basically like speaking, for me. I don't want to confuse you or waste time with thoughts I'm no sure I mean or not.

I feel a very un-donkey-like flutter disturb the air, like the flutter of wings, and along with a strange almost-scent I'm getting from her direction, I wonder if this conversation is somehow causing her distress, and also thinking we're too close to be dealing with it.

Humans are weird, I send, we don't even always understand ourselves, don't let it worry you if you can't either all the time.

Maybe a sense of relief, now? A calming, a slow stilling? This is not fully understood but Operator Kella is trusted, intent is difficult as concept, concepts are not meant for deep-probing by DRAGON unit beyond improved-heuristics.

I'd say pushing deep with your thinking is generally a good thing I want to encourage, but now is not the time, we're almost to the entrance. Please follow my lead, I just don't know how this is going to go.

Now has the necessity, she sends back, and I squeeze into the alley ahead of her, wishing we could fit side-by-side, understanding why the narrowness is such a good thing for us, for our possibilities-of-survival.

"You go out trading?" It's a familiar voice, up ahead. Kether, my uncle, my dad's adopted brother, really the only family I have left since all my blood is gone. "How'd you manage to buy a scav-donkey? For that matter, why? I thought you didn't like them, said you had to squeeze into smaller spaces? Thought they brought too much attention when loaded up? And for even more matter, how? You come on some kind of sudden wealth instead of more ancient history for cramming into your head?"

I laugh, and there's no relief in it, here, every one of these questions is needling at the well-sprung ball of tension wrapped round my core, so I decide to cut right through.

"It's not a scav-donkey," I say flatly, and then correct myself as she comes into the cracked-fiberstone courtyard behind me. "She's not a scav-donkey." I take a deep breath as she ambles up to my side. At least a dozen people are watching, now, pausing tasks, looking up from conversations. Might as well just cut the whole thing open at once. "She's a dragon."

Kether laughs, but there must be something in my voice because it's short and harsh and staring. "Not a good time to joke, Kella, not when you're already doing something so unexpected."

"Not joking," I say, and breathe in deep. Go ahead, it's time to drop the disguise.

She does. The not-donkey is gone, instantly, no fade, and she stands glorious and mirrored in the near-midday sun, throwing tiny shards of sunlight against ancient dull metal walls.

Someone lets out a tiny scream of disbelief.

My dragon bows, and for the first time since she was hatched, produces audible words.

Greetings. It is honor to serve, it is sorrow to see your plight.

Kether looks at her for all of the ensuing silence, then turns to me.

"Good gods and foul, Kella, what. Have. You. Done?"