Not long after dawn, and while the dragon slept, a trio of excited ladies arrived in the local forest. Their mission? Find the missing part of their lives and find out what has kept him away for so long.

The woods were crawling with campers and various would-be local celebrities. People with camera crews were clearly making attempts to create videos for various social media outlets. The dragon of the woods was basically a viral meme at this point.

Ashton frowned at the hubbub, then shook her head. “Can’t really do it here. All these people…”

“Right,” said Sonja. “I wouldn’t be able to follow up even if you found something with things like this…”

The trio started to wander off into the woods, but someone shouted after them. “Ladies! Hold up. You can’t go in there alone.”

Ashton started to say something but Shara shook her head. There was no need to deal with this sort of thing. The trio continued into the woods while acting as though they had not heard the man calling out to them.

They were well beyond the sight of the campers having their festival in the area just off the road before Ashton managed to catch a whiff of what she was looking for all along. The scent of responsibility, rather the scent of Scott.

“It’s faint, spread out. He was definitely in these woods, though.” She closed her eyes and tried to get an idea of where the scent was strongest, but it proved to be problematic.

“Well?” asked Sonja softly. “Do you have him, sister?”

“I might not be able to follow it like this…” said Ashton.

It was something she did not do often, for various reasons, but Ashton knew what she had to do. Her body shimmered as though the light around her was being scattered. Her clothes fell to the ground and a small form caught underneath began to wiggle around.

A soft black snout poked out from beneath the fabric. Soon, a little fox whose fur was a radiant golden color crawled out and looked around.

Shara’s eyes lit up and she began to wiggle her fingers slightly. Ashton shook her head then released an annoyed bark. Not now!

Her fox form was her most magical form, but also her physically weakest. It did have one physical trait that was superior, however. Her senses.

The little fox raised her dainty nose and sniffed the air. Her fluffy tails, both of them, rose up slightly and began to wag them gently. The scent was much easier to discern now.

Ashton bolted forward and the girls took off after her. Though, Shara did snatch up the girl’s clothes first. They began to race through the forest as the fluffy golden business fox sniffed out a path to the strongest scent of responsibility in the woods.

Eventually, after stopping off at several piles of feces, they came upon a small cave near an upturned tree. Unfortunately, others had beat them there quite some time ago. Another campsite had been erected. People from all over the place were standing around the cave entrance while they took selfies and bragged about monsters they had seen or killed.

“This is madness,” muttered Sonja. “These gawking fools have no doubt destroyed all trace of his tracks.”

The little fox sighed wearily then glanced toward Shara, and she received her clothes dutifully. Shara and Sonja stood guard while Ashton got dressed. Though she could have simply made an illusion to cover her nakedness, that would have cost her some energy.

“What now?” asked Ashton.

“Dragons, possibly even Scott, they would need to hunt. He obviously left this place frequently, and has not been back here,” said Sonja. She bit her lower lip a moment then nodded. “There has to be some clue around here, perhaps your nose can lead us beyond this place to somewhere that he has hunted recently?”

Ashton started to say something to Sonja, but she stopped then perked her ears upward. “I don’t know about my nose, but my ears just picked something up.”

“You heard something?” asked Shara. “I hope it’s good news. The trail’s been cold for weeks. I’m surprised we managed to get this far in one day.”

“Yah,” said Ashton. “Just heard one of those campers call his friend over to see a viral video online.”

Ashton listened for a moment, then pulled out her cell. Surprisingly, the signal was not that terrible despite all the trees. A quick video search pulled up some interesting information. She looked to the others, “Seems a black lizard demon saved a church from monsters, and some black lizard monster ate a bunch of home invaders that had broken into a house and did terrible things to its inhabitants night.”

“He’s been in town then… Not even in these woods, anymore?” asked Sonja.

“Seems so, but it’s not that bad. I recognize this church I think…” said Ashton. “I used to drive past it a lot when I wanted to get out of town now and then…”

“If he was there last night…” said Shara, her eyes practically smiling.

“We might be able to pick up his trail,” said Sonja. “Between Ashton’s nose, and our tracking abilities, we should be able to figure out where he’s been and might be now!”

“I wonder what’s causing him to do this…” said Ashton softly. “It seems pretty irresponsible… if he doesn’t have a reason.”

“He’s done this before, and it’s always been because of something weird that has happened. That, or he’s going through a growth spurt,” said Sonja. “Honestly, this all seems like it is the same as the last time this happened.”

“You think?” asked Ashton.

“Maybe. He was barely able to control himself then, due to the hunger. At least he hasn’t seemingly eaten anyone innocent… yet,” said Sonja.

“I’m not a fan of that… yet… that you added at the end there,” said Ashton.

“Neither am I,” admitted Sonja. “We should hurry.”