I dipped and spun in the complicated patterns of the Morning Song. Thankfully, my wing was up to such exercise now, and this outdoor garden run was large enough to allow the display. Taureen sat on a chair against the house, watching and recording me. I also noticed that a few people had stopped along the sidewalk to watch.

I couldn’t really care though; the Morning Song demanded my attention. As always, the Morning Song came to an end, and I banked away from where I had held my aerial display. I landed near a berry bush and searched it for ripe berries. Two were ripe.

It annoyed me that Taureen still insisted on hand-feeding me. This house was no easier to escape from than the apartment had been. All of the windows had sturdy metal screens on them, and the front door had a keypad that wouldn’t respond to me.

There was no hole or weak spot in the fence. I had even dug down almost twice my length without finding the bottom of the mesh fencing. I had quickly filled in that hole before Taureen spotted it.

When I finished searching for berries, I noticed that Taureen had gone inside. He probably had the cleaning supplies out as he usually did at this time. I flew over to a small door built into the wall and pushed through it. It was my own personal cat door, so I could go in and out as I pleased. I found it interesting that this house was set up more for me than for Taureen.

I flew into the living room, although it was setup almost exactly like his previous one. Furniture sat against the walls while facing a central coffee table. He had secured various perches to the walls, and there was a table in front of the large window with a tray of sand on it. Two of the corner had end tables, and the one beside the couch had a heat lamp above another tray of sand.

As I glided past the hallway, I glanced down it, but the rooms were all closed off. At night, Taureen left his door open, but otherwise, they were always closed. I had snuck into them while investigating the first day; one held his weapons and armor, one was being used for storage, one was his bedroom, one was the bathroom, and the other two were empty.

Taureen was sitting on his usual place on the couch as he waited for me. I flew over and landed beside him before walking onto his lap so he would use the scouring pad in his hand. I halfway closed my eyes as he scrubbed my scales gently.

We had been in this house for about a week, and Taureen was taking his role as a handler seriously. He had increased my training time by a considerable amount. Whenever he left he house, he always took me with him, much like a service animal. My harness had some odd pattern marked on it now, possibly reflecting my new status at Taureen’s side.

I hummed lightly as he oiled and massaged my back. My resistance had slowly been decreasing as the days wore on. One could only fight for so long before small details became the norm. I no longer balked at getting my scales scrubbed and oiled. I do still have some issues with being hand-fed though.

Taureen finished oiling my scales and simply petted me. On a whim, I rolled upside down and gently gripped his hand in my forepaws before kicking my back legs gently. I mouthed his wrist in a parody of play. I really missed wrestling and playing with the other dragonets.

I kept my claws fully retracted and was careful with them since they would pierce his skin easier than dragonet scales. He watched me with curiosity before moving his hand a bit and tickling my stomach with two of his fingers.

I squeaked and kicked a bit faster while gently chewing on the offending fingers. After a few minutes, I tired of it and rolled over to shake my scales out. Taureen picked up the harness from the table and put it on me.

I didn’t even bother with a token protest at this point. It hadn’t made a difference before, and it got me out of house. At least I got to see something new every day. Taureen held out his hand, and I stepped up without the command.

He clipped the leash on my harness before holding me up to his shoulder. I was used to the drill and hopped up on the shoulder pad. He left the house and went to meet our usual two companions, Tran and Vick.

Taureen really didn’t care what I did on the shoulder pad, as long as I stayed on his shoulders. I preferred to lie down, and I suspected that it made others wonder about my lazy appearance. It didn’t fool Taureen or our two companions, though.

Over the last week, we had stumbled across another crawler in a building as well as a young sicora on an incoming trading ship. The appearance of the creatures had the Kymari worried. They weren’t supposed to be on this planet, and they weren’t sure where the planet-bound crawler had come from.

We exited another trading ship, which was now cleared for landing. The man in charge of the docking area greeted Taureen before discussing several ships he was expecting this later this week. He wanted certain ones inspected due to where they were coming from.

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The man said, “I can’t wait for the day until there are enough trained fire lizards to check every inbound ship coming to this city.”

With a nod of agreement, Taureen replied, “It will probably only take two or three fire lizards to manage that, so I suspect such a thing should be possible within the next decade. Although it will probably take a century or so before every city on this planet has such protection.”

I hoped that day was long in coming. It was bad enough that I was being kept captive, but I knew it was only a matter of time until another dragonet got injured seriously enough that outside help was needed. We weren’t the largest animals in the park, and aerial blunders were always a possibility.

The man agreed with Taureen and went back to his work. We continued down the street and into more buildings.

Later that afternoon, we hitched a ride on a hover vehicle to the other side of town. When we got out, I spotted Alec farther down the street as he waved at us. He jogged over, looking relieved to see us. “We found the other fire lizards.”

That immediately caught Taureen’s attention, as well as mine.

“Where? Are they all right?”

I raised my head higher in surprise, waiting impatiently for Alec’s response. When did they had found Drake and his group? And how? Drake hadn’t mentioned anything to me last night when he had mindlinked me for our daily conversation.

“Yesterday, a wall guard on top of the north wall thought he saw a glimpse of red in the park along the wall and mentioned it to us. This morning, I took nearly fifty volunteers with me, and we managed to find them dancing as they usually do during the sunrise. We kept our distance and tried to stay out of sight as we did a head count and compared pictures; every single one that was missing is accounted for.”

Taureen paused, clearly confused, before asking, “What are they doing in that park? How did they even get over there?”

Alec shrugged cluelessly. “We have no idea. All we know is that they are there now, and that all of them seem fine from what we could see.”

“Did they see you?”

“We hope not, but we aren’t sure. They aren’t any easier to spot or follow in that park. The forest is denser there, and the ravine runs through it, so the terrain also complicates things slightly.”

“Hey Drake, are you aware that you had an audience this morning?”

“What?” His voice was full of shock; he clearly had no idea that the Kymari had located them.

“Someone managed to video you this morning. They are quite relieved that they have accounted for every missing individual. You have seriously confused them by going to that park, though.”

He growled some rather unflattering words before sighing. “So much for that plan. I’m tempted to head back to the main park now that they have discovered us. I miss the company of the others. There is safety in numbers as well.”

I considered the matter. “We know that they’ll be trying to watch you now. You might try searching around as if looking for something. Perhaps throw in some odd behavior before heading back. With luck, we can keep them searching for that mystery plant we supposedly need. Anything that throws them off balance and makes them reluctant to try and drag us into captivity would be a good thing.”

His agreement and determination to confuse his spectators came across the mindlink. “We can definitely do that. In fact, we can increase our searching over several days before leaving. Perhaps it will add some leverage to you getting your freedom.”

I sighed slightly in resignation. “I can hope, but it’s highly doubtful since I’m not ill. We can scent the sicora, so they’ll never forget about us at this point.”

“Well, I see someone skulking around in the distance. Let’s see what I can do to confuse them in the meantime.”

“Take care.” The mindlink faded out as Alec and Taureen kept walking.

Alec walked with us as we finished our shift. When we reached our house, Alec joined Taureen in the living room, discussing how much progress I had been making lately.

Taureen removed my harness and used a bit of fruit to bribe me into doing most of the commands he had been teaching me. I went from his hand to his shoulder, then to various objects. I sat and came when called along with a few other simple commands.

I cooperated, but both of them could tell that I wasn’t entirely thrilled about it.

“That is pretty good considering you have only had her for a few months and she was wild at the beginning. I wonder… Tasha, to fist.”

He held up his arm the same way Taureen had, but I snorted in derision at him. It was bad enough listening to Taureen. I am not a dog…

Alec dropped his arm back to his side before saying, “Tasha, Sit.”

I remained standing on Taureen’s shoulder, watching him with narrowed eyes. Taureen turned his head to look at me as he held up his hand.

“To fist.” Just to irk Alec, I jumped onto Taureen’s hand.

“Tasha, Sit.”

It wasn’t the easiest to sit on his wrist, but I still dropped my rear end down, digging my claws into his glove for balance. The look on Alec’s face was more than worth it. Taureen seemed to find it quite hilarious that I would ignore someone else’s commands.

Alec shook his head. “Well, it looks like Tasha is a one-person fire lizard. This makes me wonder if the others will behave in a similar manner. Whoever becomes a handler will have to be prepared to do all of the work.”

“That does make things quite difficult if I have to go off-world for some reason. She won’t be able to follow me to many places due to the atmospheric differences. Even if she remained on the spaceship, malfunctions do happen, and I’m not sure how she would handle zero gravity.”

Alec shrugged without much concern. “The Elders would have to give their approval, and it will likely be centuries before they even consider letting them go off-world when the population is so small. They won’t risk any of them.”

That was a relief for me; I had no idea what we would do if they started scattering us across the galaxies.

Alec pressed a few buttons on his wrist comm before commenting, “It looks like they spotted another crawler outside of the wall. This is making me wonder if there is a hive somewhere out there.”

Taureen was silent for some time. “That would explain the sudden appearance of the creatures. It’s rare for them to establish a hive, especially on a newly-colonized planet. You may want to mention that to Leo. He can send a few scouts out to see if they can find any signs.”

Alec nodded before changing the subject.