"A tour of anything sounds fun, but... How many- how many dragons are there?" Misty squeaks and avoids any eye contact with Gale.

  "No matter how many, you'll be fine!" Gale says, "I'll even give you a ride!"

  "A ride does sound like fun..." She admits.

  "Great!" Gale yips and raises a talon.

  I smack his leg and scorn him for that, "You idiot, you can't just do that!"

  "Oh, that's right. Sorry." Gale pauses and lowers to let her climb up herself.

  "This is exactly why I called you pitifully aloof." I scoffed as Misty gets closer with short steps.

  Gale takes a whiff of her when she gets close enough.

  "Why do you smell like that?" He questions and tilts his head a little.

  Misty turns pale and replies slowly, "They passed by a village. A-and they- and they-"

  She retches and cries, unable to finish the sentence, but that was enough to get the point across.

  "I'm sorry you had to see that." I console, though this time I have to restrain a new level of boiling fury inside of me.

  Just then, Commander Ashwind returns with a cloud of dust and a loud crash as if it was timed.

  Misty yelps and holds her head on reflex at the return of the larger dragon.

  Indeed, his expression was less stupid and harmless than Gale's. Maybe it did look like she was about to lose her head.

  "Both of you prepare for battle." He demands us, "Those monsters have massacred the village of Frontier. This can be no less than war!"

  War was not something to mention so casually, but somehow, it was to be expected. No, perhaps it was welcomed.

  "Gale will be needed there to translate their surrender." He smirks, before finally looking down.

  "As for you- you just need not to cry. Save it for joy." Ashwind told Misty with a level of sudden pity I didn't expect from his usual imposing stiffness.

  I know I never received that expression at all.

  Misty liked that enough to stop covering her head and look around.

  I grab her hand and lead her to Gale so I could finally show her around.

  I know it would be possible to do this myself, but the average dragon isn't used to someone that cries in terror just from bending down to their level.

  So for that, it was best to give her something to hide behind.

  She trembled silently almost the entire time we were in the city, trying to hide by flattening on Gale's back.

  Nothing was particularly fascinating for her to look at. It probably just looked like a lot and lot of dragons.

  At least that was until we passed by the school on the way back out.

  Misty seemed enthralled with the view of a bunch of young humans running around with dragons.

  "This place really is like a paradise. Why couldn't the world be like this?!" She tears up.

  "Then we'll fix it! Everything. We'll wipe out the monsters of this world like dust in the wind, so that everyone can experience this!" I declare with a confident gesture.

  The teacher from before catches on to our return and looms over the fence, enough to reach her head over to breathe on Misty.

  "Is this one shy?" She questioned towards Gale, who awkwardly looked away while Misty shivered.

  "Not exactly..." I interject, explaining the difficult situation as best as possible.

  "I see. What a sad way to live. But everything bitter will eventually turn sweet." She mutters sadly.

  "Misty, you should probably stay here. There are going to be a lot of dragons gathering outside. And you need to get used to it anyway."

  "What?" Misty blurts out with a shock. "Can't I stay with a smaller one at least?"

  The teacher dragon seems to be pleased with the idea, already reaching a talon over the wooden fence.

  Misty on the other hand doesn't look pleased at all with a talon almost bigger than her body reaching closer, choosing to flinch and avoid it instead.

  "Just let me get you over here. You can get down right away." The teacher snorts impatiently.

  Misty complies immediately, either from a change of mind or just sensing the slight wavering of her patience.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  "I don't like this. It makes me feel like a baby..." She complains.

  "You're not a baby," The teacher interjects, "Babies like being held."

  Both I and Gale laugh ourselves away to get back on track. We had something much more important to be doing.

  "Do you think Misty will be okay like that?" Gale wonders.

  "Of course. Not every teacher files their claws down just so the class idiots don't cut themselves."

  After a few minutes of travel, the confining streets gradually opened up to a more vast view of a long, winding road streaking down the plains.

  There, about a hundred separate dragons waited, with plenty preparing various kinds of armor and weapons.

  Commander Ashwind was at the front, where a singular horse galloped closer to the city down the path.

  Ashwind didn't look the type to be outwardly interested in things that weren't important. But he was staring at the approaching figure intently, so intently that he was shifting and flicking his tail behind him.

  And when they finally got within a few paces, I could finally see them fully.

  A middle-aged woman was dismounting with a confused look.

  "What's going on? What's with all the weapons?"

  Commander Ashwind didn't even bother to answer a question. Instead, he responded with his own question.

  "Where were you?"

  What an odd question.

  "Oh, you worry too much about me, can't I go anywhere?" She laughs at him.

  They must know each other, right?

  "Mother... Tell me now!" He continues with a more demanding tone.

  Mother?!

  "If you really have to know... We were just visiting Frontier for a while, that's it." She answers casually.

  "Then what about father?"

  "He said he was going to return later. I'm sure he'll be-"

  Ashwind was snarling very noticably now, with his claws digging into the ground.

  "I- I'll-...Th-THEY'RE DEAD!" He screams and takes off back to the city.

  At first, I thought that was just an obvious deduction that slipped through his lips.

  It wasn't until he took off faster than an arrow that I realized it was the foreign dragons that were slated to be dead.

  ***

  Sepia was contemplating her situation from inside a prison cell, isolated completely from any of her siblings.

  The main thing she kept going over and over in her head was what they could have possibly done to offend them so badly.

  'Did I make a bad gesture?' She thought was the most likely, but that didn't sound like enough to be imprisoned as 'monsters'.

  Even then, this didn't feel like a normal reaction.

  The cell she was forced into looked like it would normally be much more accomodating, yet they even took out what was presumably a bed of some kind.

  Then they went so far as to bite her neck while forcing her in!

  'I think that's going to scar...'

  The next most likely theory was that they just looked so different they thought she was a monster?

  But by far the most bizarre aspect were these strange dragons themselves.

  They talked to each other in this strange language that didn't sound anything like Dragon.

  It sounded more like the squeaking and shrieking of scavengers. In fact, it was eerily similar since she had enough recent experience to make the comparison.

  No matter how she tried to gesture for mercy or plead, the guards outside didn't seem moved at all. If anything, they growled at her and stared with an obvious disdain.

  'What did we do? How could anyone not like a gift? Do they hate scavengers that much?'

  As if on que, a scavenger walked through the entrance.

  Completely on its own. Not even bothered by the two dragons.

  Sepia then thought she figured it out.

  'Maybe they thought we stole someone's pet! I heard RainWings can get pretty mad over that.'

  Though, as she waited and hoped to communicate an apology for a misunderstanding, the scavenger starting making noises directed at the dragons.

  Sepia had a jolt of unease. Then the dragons responded to the scavenger!

  Not only did they look like they were conversing, but the scavenger even looked like it was staring at her with the same pure hatred the dragons did, even clenching its paws so hard they might bleed, before looking away.

  She was even starting to mumble to herself as if it were a dream, or a nightmare. But she suddenly felt as if poisoned or deathly ill.

  "But.. if they were talking... Then all the scavengers we- O-Oh, no... Oh, no!"

  The need to find some excuse or alternative was strong, but impossible.

  It suddenly made everything fit into place. Only now could she imagine from these new dragon's perspective.

  The guilt was already crushing, but there was a bigger problem than that.

  They'd come here representing the Mud Kingdom... Unofficially...

  And if she thought about it from how they see it, then her and her troop just devoured a scavenger den- no, a village-..a city?! Then offered one of their citizens as a snack.

  It was obvious what any other tribe would do.

  Sepia was completely powerless, but still desperately tried to cry out despite them not being able to understand, or maybe they wouldn't care.

  "Wait! Please, we didn't know- Just punish us! Please!"

  She cried hoping for some way to fix this before they went down in history as the MudWings that ruined the Mud Kingdom.

  She thought it was best if her siblings didn't know any of this. They had to be awaiting a death sentence, and they could die without hating themselves at least.

  Just then, something immense sent the door flying open into the wall.

  A hulking dragon with stripes on his snout snarled and approached at a consistently terrifying pace, rambling incoherently in much louder versions of those scavenger noises.

  Sepia didn't need a translator to understand what he was here for.

  But all she could do was whimper and back up into the corner.

  This wasn't a planned execution, this was much worse. She could already see what was about to happen by looking at his eyes, which were more accurate than any NightWing prophecy.

  She resigned herself while watching him approach, only for the other two dragons to grab his sides and struggle to barely force him outside.

  'Are they saving me?' Sepia had hoped they at least wanted her alive for a trial or something similar.

  But no, it turned out that the angry dragon was just so determined that he was about to step on the scavenger.

  She felt that otherwise, they wouldn't have cared.

  ***

  I had just finished explaining everything to the person that seemed to be Commander Ashwind's mother.

  And now I finally had to ask it myself.

  "You're really his mother?"

  "Yes." She answered, sniffling from the realization her husband was almost surely gone. "His parents were killed for witnessing a robbery. It wasn't even far outside their own home. So we had to take over."

  "That sounds difficult." Gale remarks.

  "It was. He was so small then, and they didn't even have the time to explain anything to him, so I think he was trying to eat me." She chuckles, though I could tell there was emptiness inside.

  I never expected Commander Ashwind to have such a soft spot that could move him so far.

  But it was universal that everyone had one.

  I held my bow tightly as I looked to our next destination, before silently uttering a warning to the unfamiliar lands beyond.

  "And we're coming for yours next."