A Dragon’s Tale

Newly minted FBI agent Selene Dawson cursed her choice of shoe as she hiked up the trail to the place where she and agent Mason were supposed to meet the local sheriff. She'd worn flats perfectly suited to walking around the town all day, which is what she thought they'd be doing. Alas, agent Mason had wanted to go directly to the crime scene and she hadn't gotten a chance to change shoes.

Fortunately the trail was well-worn. But when they went off trail into the forest it had become painfully obvious -- literally -- that she needed to rethink her footwear choices in the future.

"Keep up boot; we're almost there." Agent Mason barked.

"I'm not a boot." She said, correcting his choice to use the slang for rookie cops and applying it to her.

He glanced back and looked at her footwear. "You look like a boot to me." Then he kept going. He was wearing what looked like combat boots under his slacks and was handily outpacing her.

She sighed, gritted her teeth through the pain, and picked up her pace. Mason didn't seem like an unpleasant fellow, just tough and no-nonsense. She figured she could learn a lot once she got past the gruff exterior.

A few minutes later, they came into a small grass-covered clearing maybe fifty feet in diameter. There were a dozen men in various law enforcement uniforms clustered and talking. At the periphery, just behind the crime-scene tape, were a few reporters for the local news.

"I'm special Agent Mason, FBI." He announced when he entered the clearing. "Who's in charge here?"

"That would be me." An older fellow in a sheriff's uniform said and approached them. He looked like he was in his sixties, but also tough as nails. He had an almost Clint Eastwood vibe and his age only seemed to add to his toughness.

"I'm Sheriff Anderson." He said holding out his hand. "I'm glad you're here, we could use the help. CSI has already been through the crime scene with a fine-toothed comb, so feel free to look around."

"Take a look boot." Mason said tersely and then headed up to where the collection of law enforcement personnel had congregated.

Selene shook her head and headed towards the crime scene.

There was a muddy trail leading to the center of the clearing which was marked off by more crime scene tape. The muddy trail looked like it was made by about a dozen people, some of whom hadn't come willingly. The curious thing was where it ended though.

The muddy trail ended in the middle of the clearing.

She frowned and leaned closer to get a better look at the footprints. They were all heading in one direction, toward the abrupt ending of the footprints. None of them were facing the opposite way, which would indicate someone had walked out of the clearing. No, they were all going in the same direction.

If that wasn't weird enough, they all ended abruptly.

It was like someone had drawn a line in the ground and beyond it there were simply no footprints in the formerly muddy earth. Well, there was one set that looked like a child had run around the line where the footprints ended, but an adult -- probably male judging from the footprint size -- had caught the child in a few steps and then carried the child back around the line, before their footprints disappeared too.

Selene knelt down and touched the earth where the footprints abruptly disappeared. There was a long furrow in the ground. It looked like part of a very large circle about two inches wide had been cut out of the earth and removed surgically without disturbing any of the surrounding ground.

She pulled out her phone, found an online calculator, and figured out the circle was about ten feet in diameter.

The furrow was perfect.

It was exactly two inches wide the whole way down with no variation. It was like someone had cut it with a laser and just vaporized all the earth. She even saw a few earthworms which had been severed in its creation.

"What do you have, Boot?" Mason said tersely.

Selene jumped, then stood up. "I've never seen anything like it sir. The tracks just stop, with no indication where all the people went."

"Obviously they got into a helicopter." Mason said.

"But look at this set of tracks here." Selene pointed to the adult-chasing-child set of footprints that led around the furrow. "The helicopter would've made that impossible."

"Unless that happened before it landed; use your head boot." Mason replied. He wasn't being condescending, though from anyone else it would've sounded that way. Instead, it almost sounded like he was trying to be encouraging.

She looked at the scene again. If a large helicopter had landed, and it had a ramp that came down, that could explain how the footprints disappeared so abruptly.

Or could it?

She took a closer look around the furrow and saw some of the footprints would've stretched across the furrow, but only the heel was present. It was like everything behind that furrow was transported to another world. She pointed this out to Mason, who also took a closer look.

"Yeah, that's strange alright, but what else could've transported them out of here except a helicopter?"

Selene nodded but wasn't entirely convinced.

"I want to take a closer look and talk about the scene with CSI." Mason said. "In a few days, I want to start talking to witnesses of the earlier kidnappings, so start a list."

"Will do." Selene replied, but her mind was preoccupied with the strange furrow and the abrupt disappearance of the footprints. How could there be a heel print but nothing from the front half of the foot?

It didn't make sense.

* * *

"I see why you are worried." Rachel nodded when Ethan had finished explaining about Taloni wanting to call him 'master', and how Alana had successfully fought off his dragon's will trying to enforce a master/slave relationship on their wedding night. They were sitting in the captain's cabin while Anthiel built up the breakfast fire so the redhead could start creating more wooden grenade bodies.

"Yeah." Ethan replied as he ran his hand over the top of his head. If he was human, he would've been running his fingers through his hair. "I was hoping you would have some advice."

"Advice on what specifically?"

"The last thing in the universe I want is to change Alana, Beth, or Taloni; I like them the way they are. I'm just worried my dragon side has other plans and I don't know how to stop it."

"I'm not sure I can help." Rachel said. "I don't know much about dragon bonding or how your dragon side is causing these changes. It does seem to be linked to the first time you... uh, you know." She blushed slightly.

"Yeah, I noticed that too." He nodded. "In which case I suppose the damage is already done to the three of them." He growled.

Rachel considered.

She had absolutely zero experience in marriage and less in counseling those who were married. Adding the dragon aspect of their relationship made her totally lost. She had no clue how to prevent the dragon from doing what it was doing, nor how to repair the damage that had already been done. What they needed was someone who knew about these sorts of things. Someone skilled in magic who also knew about dragons. Someone like...

"Oh!" Rachel exclaimed. "What about Elder Goman? Didn't he give you a portal stone so you could contact him?"

Ethan's face lit up and he smiled broadly. "Perfect, I knew I asked you for a reason. You're pretty brilliant, you know that?"

"Thank you." Rachel smiled at the compliment. It felt surprisingly good to be complimented by him and she didn't know why. Compliments from anyone were nice, but they just felt different from him. Like they hit her on a slightly deeper level and meant more.

She didn't know why.

She put it out of her mind and turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

As it turned out, Ethan had never written with a quill pen and ink bottle before so Rachel took dictation while they composed a letter explaining the situation to Elder Goman. When it was done, Ethan fished out the portal stone, rolled up the letter, and slipped it through.

"Now we wait." He said with a sigh.

"You wait, I'm going to make more grenades." She said with a slightly sour expression. "You might want to consider training with Serif or Raklan though; you'll need to be in top shape if we end up fighting with this necromancer."

It was his turn to look slightly sour. "You're probably right."

He left and Rachel sat on the bed trying to figure out why compliments from Ethan meant so much to her. It didn't make sense, but she couldn't deny the reality.

She checked her mana and discovered that the chunk of mana he had given her to save her life was still there. It had worn down significantly, but it was still there. For some reason, the fact that she had a piece of Ethan's mana inside of her gave her great comfort. She felt like she carried a little bit of him everywhere, and she liked that.

She couldn't explain why, but she did.

She almost felt disappointed that her own mana would eventually wear his dragon mana down and it would be gone. For some reason, that made her feel incredibly sad.

She sighed.

She could do something about it, something to keep his mana around longer. She knew it was a silly idea but she wanted to anyway. It wouldn't change anything -- not really -- but she liked the idea. It couldn't hurt... could it? No one would ever know, so why not?

Before she had really thought it through, Rachel took a portion of her deep mana and hardened it around the remaining bits of Ethan's deep mana. It would form a sort of protective 'shell' that would allow his remaining mana to last much longer. Not forever, but a lot longer.

She didn't know why she did it.

It didn't make much sense.

Actually, it didn't make any sense at all.

She shook her head; what was she doing? Ethan was Alana's husband, and now Taloni's too, plus he might be able to bring Beth back. There was no way Rachel was willing to share him with three other women. She just wouldn't do it. She was a lord's daughter and -- despite her talk with Alana the previous night -- had no desire to share a husband.

She decided to undo her work and let his mana fade naturally, but couldn't bring herself to. Now that it was done, she couldn't bring herself to undo it. Some part of her just couldn't bear the idea of not having that tiny part of Ethan with her anymore.

She wasn't sure why.

* * *

Beth remained in the captain's cabin for quite a while after Ethan and Rachel had left. The purple hues of the Astral Plane made the entire room seem ethereal and other-worldly. Technically it was another world, but one she was thoroughly sick of and couldn't wait to leave.

She sighed and sat down on the bed to think about the conversation between Rachel and Ethan. Assuming they were right, she didn't know what to think if Ethan had changed her. Surprisingly, it didn't bother her much at all. In fact, there was a part of her that liked the idea that he had changed her to make her a better wife.

She wasn't sure if that should bother her either.

It didn't bother her, but she got the feeling that it should bother her. But why was it a bad thing if he made her into a better wife? As his wife, wasn't it her job to be the best wife she could be? So, why should she be upset if he made that easier?

Resolving to talk more about it with Alana, Rachel, and Taloni when she could speak to them again, she stood up and left the captain's cabin.

Alana and Rachel were working side-by-side to make more grenades while Serif whittled wooden pegs for them. Anthiel was up on the quarterdeck playing some sort of stringed instrument. Hailey was next to Taloni, encouraging the Fey to stay aloft using her wings to get the most out of her exercise. The honey-blonde teen was clearly exhausted from the effort of using her weak wing muscles to stay aloft, but looked very happy anyway.

Ethan was sparring with Raklan. They were using training weapons but otherwise were pulling no punches. He had improved so much since he first started training with Heinrich back in Gralden. He was actually holding his own against Raklan, which was a first.

She sat down to watch the rest of the crew, desperately wishing she could talk to any of them. Well, maybe not Raklan. Ethan had been so good about talking to her and she was extremely grateful. He made her feel included even though no one could see her.

Still, it wasn't the same as talking to him for real.

* * *

Kendra was following the dragon's airship from an extreme distance using her enchanted spyglass. She truly hoped she was far enough back to protect her from the dragon and elf's eyes aboard the airship, because she didn't want to be discovered and face the dragon's wrath again.

She was also trying her level best not to jump to conclusions, but it was hard. According to Thaltien, he was heading toward a slaver's camp. The mine's owner had told her with a minimum of fuss and confirmed all her assumptions: this dragon was no different than any other.

She clenched her jaw and reminded herself that she was trying to give this dragon a fair shake. She was trying to allow for the possibility that he might be different.

But a slaver's camp?

There was no reason to go there unless you wanted a slave. If the rest of the crew was going along with it, they must be as bad as he was. Plus, this slaver was rumored to be a necromancer according to Thaltien. She was trying not to assume it wasn't exactly what it looked like, but it was hard.