The door opened, and I flew straight into Taureen’s arms. He sighed in relief as he hugged me. I thrummed for all I was worth with our reunion. Aeria had remained sitting, and Taureen moved to his usual seat.

They sat in silence for some time as Taureen held me. Aeria probably didn’t want to be the one to start this conversation.

Taureen finally put me on his lap as he turned his attention to Aeria. “Please tell me that you weren’t alone when you went so far off of the main trails with so many crawler sightings recently.”

She shook her head. “No, a guard who just got off duty asked if he could accompany us. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Draven.”

He gave her a long look. Obviously, he knew of the guy and didn’t think highly of him.

Her reluctance to answer and vague wording were making him suspicious. His eyes narrowed slightly in thought before focusing on her belt.

“Did you lose your knife?”

It didn’t surprise me that he noticed her knife sheath was empty. He was quite observant, as he had demonstrated time after time.

I rolled upside down on his lap, commenting, “Do you believe the old saying that ignorance is bliss?”

Aeria shrugged, unaware of my words. “I used it in the park, although I’m not entirely sure where it is at this moment.”

That answer alone would raise suspicion since Kymari simply did not just misplace things. Taureen looked down at me as I lay on my back with my wings partially unfurled for comforts’ sake. He was silent for some time, possibly detesting the fact that he was unable to make his thoughts heard by me without other people overhearing.

He blinked and reached out with one hand to gently grasp my hand. He pressed lightly on the base of my claws, causing them to extend.

He regarded me. “Do I want to know why you have dried blood on your claws?”

I blinked at the faint streaks of dried blood in a few of the groves on my claws. I hadn’t even noticed it, so I had no clue how Taureen had spotted it so quickly. Some days he was just far too observant...

I tilted my head as I tried to think how to break the news to him gently. “Probably not. It is quite a long story and will likely tax your patience and sanity to the utmost.”

He looked up at Aeria, searching for clearer answers. “Who did she scratch?”

Aeria sighed in resignation. “She gave Draven a pretty good scratch.”

“How did he react?”

“I’m not entirely sure since I left at that point.”

He took a deep, slow breath at her lack of detail; he knew that both of us were avoiding something – and he wanted to know what it was.

I whispered quietly in his mind, “I think you should hear the full story, but please remain calm.”

He transferred his gaze to me again, watching me intently since I was the closest to providing the information he was after.

My voice was barely audible even in my own mind. “It was bad enough that I ended up mindspeaking Aeria in order to get both of us out alive. She knows that I can mindspeak people and have spoken to you in the past. I did tell her to keep it a secret, but we didn’t exactly have time for speech.”

Taureen inhaled swiftly in shock and stiffened as his head whirled around to face Aeria. “She spoke to you?”

Aeria nodded slowly, although she didn’t reply or offer further details.

Taureen exhaled gustily, still watching her with slightly-narrowed eyes. “You are aware that you can’t mention that to anyone else, right?”

“Yes, she told me it was important that I remain silent, and I wasn’t even going to mention it to you unless you brought it up.” Her voice showed that she knew it was a serious matter.

He glanced at me and then back to Aeria, inquiring, “What exactly did she mean when she said she had to speak to you to get you both out alive?”

Aeria took a deep breath before slowly going over the events. By the time she finished, Taureen’s eyes were closed and his breathing was reflecting whatever self-control exercises he had been trained in.

He had been livid when the back gate had been broken, and I suspected that he was far past that point now that he knew that Draven had just tried to kill both me and Aeria. He was hiding it well though, possibly to avoid scaring or disturbing me.

He finally opened his eyes and gazed down at me. His voice remarkably calm when I knew that thrashing Draven was the main thing on his mind. “I must say that I’m extremely glad that you mindlinked me. I wasn’t aware that you could do that over such a distance.”

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I blinked slowly. “Neither was I.” I let both of them hear my response, and they could feel the difference in my mindvoice. “The main mindlink isn’t even strong enough to stretch from one side of the central park to the other. The direct speech must be stronger than I had realized.”

Aeria sat up straighter in realization. “That was how you knew to send the guards. I wasn’t aware that she had contacted you.”

“Her voice was extremely faint, but I could hear it.” He frowned slightly at me. “But she made it sound like she had gotten loose, and you two had simply gone astray. Her words didn’t make me think that you were in any real trouble.”

I shrugged as best I could while laying on my back. “I’m sorry about that, but what would you have done if I told you that I had flamed the noses of three raptors while trapped in a cave with an insane Kymari outside? If you were closer, say on the planet, I probably would have included more details.”

He sighed heavily and closed his eyes once again. “That is not really helping me calm down.”

I wonder if a distraction would help. I glanced sideways at Aeria as I directed my voice at Taureen, while letting her listen in. “We could always discuss some of the other things that I overheard the ladies talking about while you were away.”

Aeria’s jaw dropped. “What did you tell him?”

Taureen was successfully distracted and started chuckling. “It may be safer to ask what she didn’t tell me.”

“Tasha! How could you? To think that I trusted you!”

I grinned at her. “I am on Taureen’s side, what can I say?”

Aeria shook her head while muttering something about the walls having ears. I wiggled a bit while upside down and gave her an innocent look. “To be fair, I didn’t tell him everything. Some of it was girl talk that I didn’t feel comfortable repeating.”

She groaned as her gaze moved to stare at her feet in embarrassment. “I can’t even remember everything that my friends and mother discussed around you. It never even crossed my mind that you would be capable of understanding us, let alone telling Taureen.”

I tilted my head. “I am a winged lizard that lived in the forest until this year. I don’t understand as much as you give me credit for.”

“Thank goodness for small mercies.”

Taureen chuckled before his mood grew serious once more. He pressed a few buttons on his wrist comm. “Tran, can you please tell me what condition Draven is in and where he is located? I have a bone to pick with him.”

Tran’s voice came back through the device. “Draven is dead, and his body is already being shipped out to his parent’s place in the delta quadrant for funeral arrangements.”

I blinked in shock. Who beat Taureen to the kill? I know that Tran threatened it, but I had been under the assumption that he would at least wait until Taureen was present from his previous comments. Although if Aeria’s parents already got wind of Draven’s attempt to kill their daughter, then it really isn’t too surprising.

Taureen’s voice was hard. “Who killed him?”

Tran’s voice came back. “He was dead when we got there. Tasha managed to slash an artery in his neck as well as numerous big blood vessels. Aeria’s knife caused internal bleeding and some other serious damage. In the end, he bled out. It looks like he tried to stop the bleeding, but he simply wasn’t carrying the proper first aid stuff to seal that many deep lacerations.”

I was stunned, and my mindvoice was soft. “I thought he was playing dead. It didn’t occur to me that I could have hit an artery.”

I rolled back onto my stomach, no longer feeling quite right. The other two sat in silence as they realized that Draven had actually been dead before our help had arrived. I curled up tightly on Taureen’s lap as my mood shifted; I was responsible for someone’s death, and it was a terrible realization. I felt stained, like I had lost an innocence that could never be reclaimed. My claws had claimed a life. It was a devastating thought.

Taureen picked up my growing distress. “Tasha, what’s wrong?” I could hear the worry in his voice.

My voice was quiet and likely reflected my sad state of mind. “I have never been responsible for someone’s death before. I have always been careful with my claws and fire to ensure that they didn’t do too much damage. I did purposefully attack him, but I simply wanted him to leave us alone. I never intended his death...”

My voice was shaking at the end from my emotions. Taureen picked me up and cradled me against his chest. I curled up even tighter and shook lightly with the force of my guilt and horror. Taureen murmured wordlessly to me as he rocked back and forth slightly.

He stroked my scales as my shaking eventually subsided. “Don’t blame yourself. He would have been dead one way or another, and your way was the kindest he could have received, considering his actions. Had he survived, the Elders would have made an example out of him, and it would have been as close to torture as our kind will go.”

His words made no difference to my guilt. I opened my eyes to look at him. “That does not change what I am feeling.”

He hummed comfortingly as he kept rocking me. “I doubt any death of an intelligent species will ever sit well with you. For all of your hissing, growling, and scratching, and despite the fact that you yearn to see sicora dead, your heart and spirit are peaceful. You would have to be cruel to enjoy someone’s death, and you are not cruel. You prefer the Morning Song to the hunt. Yes, you will feel sadness, but do not blame yourself.”

I was quiet as I absorbed his words. Yes, I would much rather fly the Morning Song than hunt down sicora, but if sicora lived, they threatened the possibility of the Morning Song in a way I couldn’t put words to. Deep down, that was the true reason that all dragonets wanted them dead, although I hadn’t realized it until this moment.

I had known very well that there would be hell to pay as soon as Taureen discovered who had broken the lock on the gate. Draven’s own actions would have brought serious punishment down on himself, although it had been delayed since no one knew it was him. Had he not come into the open in an attempt to force Aeria’s hand, no one would have likely ever figured it out. His attempt to murder a Kymari had sealed his fate and removed any possibility of a second chance.

My Blood Memories gave me faint shadows of the long punishments Draven would have undergone. The Kymari did not tolerate threats to bond animals any more than they would put up with a threat to their own children – and he had done both.

They would have made quite an example out of him to deter any race from thinking about trying anything with the Kymari bond animals – and that didn’t even take into account what Aeria’s father would have done the moment he learned that someone had tried to kill his daughter.

I leaned my head against Taureen’s chest and listened to his soothing heartbeat. I didn’t enjoy torture or death, nor had I meant his death – it had been an accident in my self-defence. I would prefer that he was still alive, but he would not thank me for that thought if he had survived long enough for the guards to arrive. His death would have been long in coming as he faced the consequences of his actions.

My mistake had been his mercy stroke. It had saved him endless pain, suffering, and shame. That didn’t make it right, but I had not intended his death, even though he had looked forward to our demise. I would have to watch my claws more carefully in the future.

With that thought, I slowly relaxed as I forgave myself.

Once I was done, I felt empty and drained. I left my eyes closed and simply listened to Taureen’s steady heartbeat.