It’s a dark, cloudy night. The kind of night that makes you hide inside and lock your door, hoping at least that it might rain to make the heaviness go away and make things productive. It’s late, I know that, and I definitely would be in trouble if my parents knew I was out. Not that there’s much trouble to get into on a night like this, when everyone was in. The village, for all its unfamiliarity, is dead silent.

            Though there are some people wandering around. There’s a kid out. He’s darting in between wooden and stone houses, almost as though he’s looking for something. Even with my vision, my vantage point on top of one of the houses gives me a pretty good view; it’s barely taller than some of the saplings I’ve climbed out in the forest. Then again, this is not the first time I’m doing this. Including now, I’ve been pulling escapades to the village about five times. Perhaps the fact that I’d already gotten five trips under the belt made me a bit overconfident, but I found myself leaning slightly over the edge of the roof when he came closer. His eyes were still on the ground, and if I didn’t make any noise he wasn’t going to see me. Right?

            Well, true, unless something were to happen that wou— okay, fine. I’ll admit it. I slipped. On a slick patch on the stupid wooden roof. What kind of wooden roof has slick patches?

            It still did though, and I almost tumbled straight over the side if I hadn’t grabbed onto the edge I would have gone straight into the little space between the two far too small houses. Of course, as I was looking over my shoulder, I saw the fact that the boy was now on the ground, clutching at the side of his head as he scrambled away on his backside from me, his eyes staring about wildly before fixating on the figure of me clinging to the roof. At least I think he is. It’s hard to judge when you’re looking over your shoulder and wing while trying your best to keep your grip.

            It was like a weird staring contest, in which it was easy to forget that I was probably in so much trouble right now.

            Thankfully, this was broken up by the fact that his eyes rolled back and he slumped, conveniently passed out propped up on a barrel at the side of the other house.

            My first thought was ‘hmm’, followed immediately by ‘Oh no, oh no no no no….’

            Don’t really know what I had going through my head that said bringing him home was a good idea. Could’ve been the fact that my conscience wouldn’t have let me live it down if I had just left him there. That’s what I would say later, not that I’ll mention the panicking sprinting I did the last stretch, practically incoherent by the time I threw open the front door.

            Mom’s…not happy.

            Namely, Mom took him immediately out of my arms and rushed him to the sitting rooms and closed the doors. Afterwards she told me to go sit in the kitchen at the back of the house and shut that door. I could hear her moving throughout the upstairs, probably making sure all of my siblings were accounted for.

            And now she’s coming back, closing the door and taking a preparing breather so she can scold me proper. At least, that was how it seemed to me.

            By this point I’m drumming my ‘talons’ on the wooden table in nervousness. I’m not sure exactly why Dad calls them talons seeing as they’re nowhere near as sharp as his. They’re more like Mom’s except thicker and slightly longer. She’s also said it leaves marks on the table, though I can’t say I’ve noticed anything.

            “Kal.” She suddenly says from the door, making me jump and immediately cut off the tapping. No need to make this worse.

            “Sorry.” I blurt automatically as I stop. Given that I’m looking more at the table now, for those scratches I tell myself later, I only just catch Mom out of the corner of my eye. Automatically, my wings start rising a bit from their folded position as though that will somehow keep her from yelling at me.

            Wait, speaking of wings—

            “Where’s Dad?” I find myself asking hesitantly. And right after I ask, my mind supplies me with the answer. It was the reason I chose tonight, after all.

            “Out hunting with the others. They might be on their way back now.”

            Ouch. I could definitely tell from the clipped, no nonsense-ness of the answer Mom gave me that yes, I was still in trouble, and the lecture would not be long in coming. Immediately, my brain reached for the first thing to say to put it off.

            “How’s the…kid?”

            Not the finest conversation topic, especially since this brings the stalling neatly back to what I’d been trying to avoid anyhow. The reminder is all it takes for Mom to blow up.

            “Honestly, Kal, why do I have to keep telling you this?! You aren’t allowed in Kryoto. And no matter how many times I tell you, I keep hearing from the farmers about a ‘creature’ walking around their lands late at night. A dragon-man, if I remember right.”

            And me, being the intelligent creature that I was, I could only find one response for this. I swear the scales on my face are flushing red right now. I definitely have enough of a fringe for it to happen like with Dad. Besides, I’m not a guy…

            “You…heard about that?”

            Yep, prime of intelligence over here. I really thought I’d avoided being seen though. I was good. I stayed to the outskirts and barely came into the village proper, just tonight. Guess I just wasn’t careful enough, if there was any sort of careful that really worked for this sort of thing. Of course, this hasn’t helped me in coming up with a better comeback.

            And Mom? She turned all but livid at the question.

            “KAL! Yes, I did hear about it! Your footprints were clearly seen in their fields!”

            “Ah, well, when the traders come through they’ll forget there even was a creature.” Yes, I also have a bit of what my mom calls a mouth. She also keeps telling me it’ll get me in trouble someday. Despite my attempts to lighten the mood, albeit forcefully, Mom’s still torqued at me. That crossed-arms, angry-spitfire stance just gets more dangerous-looking.

            “They might, provided you stay away from the village and actually listen to what your father and I say about that.”

            Oh, if there was anything I didn’t need, it was my father getting wind of this [though, in retrospect, it was probably unavoidable from the second I carried the kid in]. Out of the both of my parents, my father was the one that I didn’t want to get angry enough to ground me if I could help it.

            Because, unlike Mom, he could actually enforce it. One of the perks of being a dragon, as one would guess. He knows the tricks, primarily my favorite involving crawling out windows an easy thing with dragon claws and reflexes to help you down to the ground. And, he can more than keep up with me. So, bad on both counts.

            And, if I didn’t want word of this to reach my father, I’d have to suck up to Mom for a couple days, and stay out of Kryoto.

            “Alright, alright, I’ll stay out of the village, I’ll even weed out the garden like you’ve been asking me to. Promise.” That was probably good enough, but I can’t stop myself from blurting out the one little thing that could destroy all that wonderful brownnosing.

            “So, what are we gonna do about him?”

            That was her cue to plant her forehead in her palm, long black hair ruffling from the impact. Her eyes were screwed shut against an oncoming migraine, opening only to take me in.

            Great, now I feel like I’m on display. And probably about to fire off something else stupid if this keeps up.

            “I suppose the only thing we can do is leave him out in town before he wakes up. Hopefully he’ll think the whole thing was brought on by that head injury. Speaking of which...”

            Already somewhat unnerved, I start running my mouth again.

            “It was an accident. I was hiding on a roof, and fell, and I think I hit him but I don’t remember—!”

            “What is going on in here?”

            Oh, well, that’s just…great. Really fabulous. Of course my dad would choose now to walk in and hear that particular part of the conversation. And he’s looming, even if he doesn’t realize it, with all slight over six feet of him backing up the intense and somewhat angered look in his golden eyes. They kind of look like they’re burning now, though I’d be more interested in it if it wasn’t because of this screw-up. Now that I look, trying to see anything but the glaring, he’s still got black scales poking from his face and arms, though they’re pulling into his skin pretty quick.

            But, even though he isn’t in his usual form, his 6 foot 5 height and presence is easily enough to make me feel like I did when I was five and broke Mom’s rake while ‘sword fighting’. That is, pretty small and insignificant. And like I was about to be squashed like a bug. His eyes, still a slightly eerie glowing gold on a human face, are all but drilling a hole through me. I turn away again, staring at the wall but paying careful attention to the conversation.

            “Avalyon, what are we going to do?”

            “The boy will have to be taken back to the village, and told that he imagined Kal. His supposed head injury will make it unlikely for anyone to believe him straight away, but we will need to be careful.”

            “I know, I know, I mean about…”

            As was obvious, the conversation had turned to me. Surprise, surprise. A few footsteps followed as they stepped out into the hall.

            Although, I probably would not have done this if I wasn’t already slightly mad at the fact that no one was saying ‘Good job, Kal, for helping that kid.’, or even understanding about…Agh, didn’t matter at this point. Anyway, I got up from my spot, and took a few steps over to the doorframe. It didn’t take long before the conversation outside was perfectly audible, another wonderful dragon-trait.

            “—don’t know what to do anymore, this is the third time this week, and the farmers are getting to the point where they might just try something violent if they see her.”

            “Sonia, we knew the time would eventually come when she would want to see the world outside of our home. As it will come with Boron, Krael, and Ayran. Kal is growing up.”

            Wow, didn’t know Dad was taking my side here. Still, what was I going to do, sit in my room and run around the house until I wasted away?

            “I am aware of that, trust me, but, if she keeps sneaking out like this, the townspeople will assume the worst and attack her. And, if things get as bad as they possibly can, they’ll find the rest of us. I am completely agreeing to the fact that we need to introduce her to the outside world, but there has to be better way to go about it than her getting herself killed.” Alright, the slight breaking in her voice was enough to dampen down on the anger a bit, but I was still angry. I could handle myself; I didn’t always need people checking in on me! But, before I could run in and do or say something stupid, Dad’s voice came through again, and I had to strain a bit this time. They definitely didn’t want me to hear this.

            “The townspeople live near the frontier. They have had my kind coming through here many times in the past century. And—”

           Wait, why’s he stopping? He didn’t hear me, did he? An inhumane series of growls and guttural tones filled in the rest of that sentence. Oh, great, now he’s switched to Drakkish. The language of ‘we’ll be keeping the kids in the dark for now’. Not that I didn’t have my background in it, but when they go fast like this—Oh, wait, they’re coming back, time to move. Slipping back down to the wooden chair, I gave the full innocent-little-kid aura as they strolled back through the door.

            Yep, ignoring the feeling of those eyes on my back again.

            “Kal.”

            Yes, flinching like a naughty little kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar. Nothing wrong with that. Turning slowly in his direction, I’m about so-close to blasting myself with the full force of my father’s you’re-in-trouble look, or whichever. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

            The moment is pretty much broken when a clatter at the front hall makes everyone jump, Mom dashing so quickly to the front of the house with a hissed curse that just manages to escape my hearing before she goes.

            In the aftermath of her leaving, Dad stared after her with the closest thing to concern I’ve seen on him in years now. Then he looked back at me and boy do I not like the way he’s staring.

            “We will continue this later.”

             It’s not long before everyone is filed into the kitchen, probably because they were making too much noise in the front of the house. Granted, it’s just four out of the thirteen of the clan, but still…Look, I’m really tense, remember? Four more people is just too many right now.

            “Avalyon.” Yes, hi Cazhene. Fine, thank you. A human? No, you must be seeing things. No humans here sans Mom.

            Never mind, he wouldn’t believe me. He lives with Casvar, the pint-sized wyvern troublemaker. He has — what do you call it? — an aptitude for detecting when someone is giving him the run-around. Not to mention he’s giving my dad the same sort of ‘what is going on here’ look that he gives any other younger member of this family when they’ve been leaving out possibly important information. Usually after or during the point when things are being blown-sky high. Now that I’m looking, no one seems really informed about what’s going on; where’s Mom?