Alex felt this was all a little unfair. He just woke up from having his life force drained, and the first thing he did after regaining consciousness was selflessly help Parker heal his wounds. Now, as repayment, he was being questioned like some kind of criminal.

“Explain what?” He wrote.

“Well, what happened since I last saw you?

“Slammed head on a rock. Saw you RUN. AWAY. Taken by thing, drained magic from my head passed out woke up here.” Alex wrote, glaring at Parker.

Look, I’m sorry I ran, but it was the only thing I could do! There was no way I could beat that thing alone, and I… I panicked.” Parker looked away as he spoke, unable to face Alex.

“You left me to DIE, and all you say is sorry? Not good enough.” Electricity began to spark between Alex’s horns as he wrote, and he violently threw down his pencil when he finished writing.

“Well, what’s the writing? What happened?” Lasair excitedly exclaimed, unaware of their conversation.

“I, uh, I’ll tell you later,” he responded despondently.

Lasair read the room and refrained from further questions for the time being.

“I know it was wrong, but I came back for you! I didn’t abandon you or anything, it was just a, uh, tactical retreat.”

A mixture of confusion and anger ran across Alex’s mind. A tactical retreat? So that’s what he called running away and leaving your friend for dead? He had to be kidding!

This anger he felt for Parker felt strange, though. Like it wasn’t his. While he was hurt that Parker left him behind, this was a different feeling. Not of betrayal, but pure hatred. He felt his blood boil and electricity charge inside him as a growl escaped his throat.

“Go! Tear out his throat! Humans are pure evil! They took everything!”

Those words rang out in his head as he got ready to pounce again.

Until he realized those weren’t his thoughts. Alex took a few deep breaths and sat down, releasing the electricity into the ground. He looked up to see Parker was covering his face, likely to protect himself from another attack. Once he realized Alex had calmed down, he lowered his arms.

Alex would process all of that later. He was mad at Parker, sure, but he didn’t want him dead. And while he didn’t want to admit it, he saw Parker’s point. But now, he had an idea of what happened while he was out. Those dreams, or more accurately, memories, he’d experienced while unconscious… They were memories from his new body. Its previous occupant must have been in control!

“Are you good now? Calmed down enough? I get you’re mad, but we need to push that aside for now. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. Now, I feel like you left some things out of your explanation.”

Alex wrote of the whiddsoul trying to return his body but failing, how he felt a pulling towards his old body, along with a force from inside anchoring him, resisting the void. How the whiddsoul had no such luck and was drawn back in. Parker read as he wrote, intently staring at the page.

But the writing process was slow for him. Long before he could start writing about his dreams, they all heard the door to the prison slam open as loud and heavy footsteps stomped towards Parker’s cell.

Lasair looked especially worried.

“That’s my father.”

She quickly snatched Alex off the ground and stuffed him back into her bag before her father could see him.

And she was just in time too, as her father walked into view right after she closed her bag.

“Lasair! What are you doing inside the human’s cell?! Have you gone insane?!” He yelled, reaching in and pulling her past the cell door, slamming it shut.

Parker took the paper and stuffed it in his pocket while her father wasn't looking. He didn’t know how her father would react to it, but judging from the fact she stuffed Alex into her bag hurriedly, it wouldn’t be good.

“What were you thinking? You have no idea what this human is capable of, his motivations, anything, and you walk into his cell and have a friendly conversation? Has it not occurred to you at all the implications of a human finding our town?!”

He began pacing as he spoke.

“Not only do I need to deal with the other clans squabbling, now the humans start venturing into our territory? Do they not have enough as is?”

“Well, dad, actually-” Lasair started when her father interrupted.

“No, that’s enough from you. You are supposed to be grounded! This isn’t a matter you should be attending to!”

The chieftain furrowed his brow and put his hand to his face.

“Now I’ll need a translator for interrogation...”

“Well, actually, you won’t, if that helps at all.” Parker stated, shyly peeking past the bars of his cell.

The chieftain lifted his head from his hand and turned to face him.

“Great, that makes this a lot easier. Now, will you be cooperative and answer my questions?” He said with a threatening tone.

“Dad! Just listen to me, ok? I know this human. I met him while I was on my mission. He’s harmless.”

Parker was a little hurt by that statement, but supposed it wasn’t too wrong. She was only trying to help, after all.

“You know this one? You led a human back here to our town? Did it not even cross your mind for a moment that he could have malicious intent? For all you know, he’s a scout for a human army!”

Lasair responded to her father’s yelling with some of her own.

“I didn’t lead him here! He found it on his own, and it wasn’t even on purpose!”

“Well, if I could just interject-” Parker started.

“Quiet!” Both Lasair and her father yelled at once, turning towards him.

“Well, if he didn’t follow you, how did he find us? No one can see through our illusory barrier without already knowing what's on the other side.”

Parker was tired of their bickering. This was not a healthy father-daughter relationship.

“Aren’t you supposed to be questioning me, not your daughter? I’ll answer your questions, okay? And she’s right, kind of. While I did track her here, in a roundabout kind of way, I wasn’t looking for your town. I was looking for my… pet dragon.”

Parker felt awkward with that wording, but imagined telling the chieftain that not only did Lasair smuggle in a pet, but one that was once human, would not help her case at all.

The chieftain turned to Lasair.

“Is this true? You met because you stole his dragon, and he tracked it back here? Not only did you bring a deadly beast into the town, but a human-trained one? This goes past grounding! I don’t even know what to do with you anymore!” He fumed, throwing his arms up into the air.

“Well, to be fair, he’s not exactly a deadly beast, or human trained… We both found him at the same time!”

Lasair reached into her bag and pulled out Alex by the scruff of his neck, who seemed disturbed from his time inside of the bag.

His expression only got worse as he saw what stood before him. This orc made Lasair look like a runt! He wasn’t sure if it was its raw intimidation factor, or the fact he was only about a foot tall now, but he didn’t want to mess with that guy.

He couldn’t help it and let out a short whimper. Little did he know that was helping his case.

“I-I don’t even know how to react to this… How did you find a baby dragon?! I certainly hope its mother isn’t looking for it! Can I at least trust you didn’t make the decision to steal it from its nest?” He was no longer yelling, just speaking with an exasperated tone.

“Of course I didn’t steal it from its nest! And it is a he! Some of the goblins from the rogue group found it alone and injured and brought it back to the camp. I was only there because I was doing my mission. The rings weren’t there, and when I first saw the dragon this human,” she gestured towards him, “his name is Parker by the way, snuck in and stole him. I tried to get it back but he got away, then he agreed to give it to me once he was finished researching it, so we kind of traveled together for a few days.”

“So that’s why you abandoned your mission? So you could get a cool pet and camp out with a human?”

Lasair tried to come up with an explanation, but there wasn’t one. While he had been confused about everything else, he was spot on there.

“And if it followed him, how did it get here?”

Parker saw this as a good spot to chime in.

“Well, we got separated, and this-”

He almost told the chieftain about Alex. Lasair had conveniently omitted him from her explanation, so he decided it would be best to follow suit. He had never been good at working through tense social situations, so he left the big info drops to Lasair.

“Well, this other human stole him from me, and I had added a tracking spell in case he got lost.”

This was partially true. Long before he knew Alex was the dragon, he’d attached a tracking spell to him while he’d been asleep. Originally it was so he could check up on him sometime in the future to see how he’d grown in the wild, it had found a different use now.

“And when I got back those last three rings from the human who stole them, he’d put the dragon in the cage and used him to re-energize he rings, so I brought him back here.”

The chieftain mulled over all the information, and decided to humor their explanation.

“So, now what do you expect me to do, let you go so you can roam free with the dragon, with the full knowledge of our town’s location and how to find it? Or, perhaps, let you go and keep the dragon here, just trusting that you will release the tracking spell? Or perhaps integrate you into our society and never let you leave? I’m sure the people would love that.”

“Well, I know it was a joke and all, but the first option would be perfect for me, to be honest. And I swear on my life I won’t share anything about your town!” Parker pleaded.

The chieftain only scoffed at his response.

Alex was getting sick and tired of being the topic of a conversation he couldn’t even understand. With every new addition to the conversation, his anger built, and being held in such an undignifying manner only made it worse. He felt that same voice from earlier get louder and louder.

“Shock her and make a run for it! Leave all of them!”

He wasn’t able to suppress those thoughts anymore, as he felt something overpower him in his own mind.

Before he knew it, everything was a haze as he lost control of himself. He could simply observe as he built charge in his body and released it through his scales, causing Lasair to shout and drop him on the floor. The instant his feet hit the ground, he bolted, surprising everyone in the room.

Using his small size, the young dragon was able to slip past the guards, who were used to supervising much larger and more humanoid creatures. After he escaped the building, he leaped into the air and flew over the wall surrounding the town. He looked back to see Lasair and the chieftain bolt outside, who could only watch as he slipped above the cover of the trees, until eventually he was completely out of sight.