“Is this the story about your other mentor? The one you always talk about?”

The light of a crackling emberoot flame reflects off Kuro’s curious eyes. I’ve promised her a stirring emberfire tale, one that’ll teach her plenty of new facts about the Farlands. With nothing else to do but listen to our empty stomachs, I thought now would be a good time to share the story of a particularly infamous event in my life.

“Oh, no,” I reply, shaking my wings dismissively. “This happened long before the incident with my mentor. I had only known her for a few months when this took place.”

Kuro inclines her head. "So, this is something that happened when you were young.”

“That’s right. I was, um… 28 seasons old.”

“You were still a fledge,” Enyll observes, lying to my left.

“Kit,” Kuro chides. “Lemurs call their young kits.”

Enyll rolls his eyes so hard they could fall out of their sockets. “Yeah, Kit, whatever…”

Ignoring their squabble, I continue, “I was young, sheltered, and knew nothing about the Kingdoms of the Farlands. If I were even a year older, I would have thought twice about what I did.”

Ironically, I managed to do something far more dangerous as a teenager — that particular event. Mom will never stop complaining about her and what happened to us, but it was the right thing to do.

Kuro’s brow rises. She seems intrigued. “You did something wrong. Asha, I can’t imagine you being disobedient.”

SKREE!

Oh, man! I can’t help but laugh aloud at that. “As a kit, I was a terror.” I shake my head in dismay, recalling every terrible detail from my youth. “And this was one of my most infamous stunts.”

The sound of moving feathers caps the end of my sentence. I twist my neck around and gaze to the back of the den, the room the Loner retreated to. It seems he was listening in on our conversation.

“Um, mister Loner…?” I call out. “Would you like to listen to my story as well?”

Ruefully, the longeared Loner snakes his head around the corner. His facial feathers are sullen, and he has a look of guilt scrawled across him. “I… I would, umm…”

An uneasy silence hangs in the air like a feather caught in a cobweb.

“Yes, very well, then. I will listen to your tale from the Farlands. It would be interesting to learn how Farlanders live, would it not?”

I flash a gaze to Kuro. She isn’t the slightest bit amused, but she’s not objecting.

“Take a seat,” I say, splaying my talons before me. “You’re going to learn a lot about the Farlands.”

Slowly and uncomfortably, the Loner emerges from his den. He holds his head low as he trods before the fire, settling against the ground between me and Enyll. He raises his head to feign a smile and nods for me to continue.

“Now, then!” I announce, finally ready to begin. “This all occurred many seasons ago. To you Dragons, I was 28 seasons old. But to a Farlander, they would say I was…”