***
Dayo ended up being more than right; Bo actually slept for most of the ride. When he awakened, they were soaring over a large body of water. The sunset shone over it, turning it into liquid gold, the waves glittering. Bo asked if they were in America.
“We’ve been in America the last few hours,” Dayo replied, amused. “This is the lake called Superior. Michigan is surrounded by five of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.”
Oh.
“There is this, Superior, then there are Michigan, Erie, Ontario, and Huron.”
I get it, Dayo. A lot of water. I don’t really believe that I need a geography lesson. Except maybe as to where to find these dragons of yours.
“Fine, I’ll get to that. After we land.”
On the ground at last, Bo sat cross-legged on the forest floor. Dayo had carefully landed in a grove of trees and lay next to Bo like a giant cat. “So,” Bo asked, “where are these dragons of yours?”
“Well, they won’t exactly look like dragons, typically,” Dayo said, peering at Bo from the corner of his eye.
“Changelings?”
“All that remains of the species of dragons. Besides me, of course.”
“How exactly am I supposed to find them, then?”
“Generally, they will be cold and rather factual, and less social with others. What may be more helpful, though, is the fact that fire-breathers will be the most common to receive information.”
“How is that helpful?”
Dayo snorted, as if the answer were obvious. “Fire-breathers stink of sulphur, even as humans. So either they will continue to stink like rotten eggs, or they will wear a false scent strong enough to mask that.”
“So I look for humans with an overpowering scent?”
“Yes. Hang close to them and eavesdrop.”
“Where should I search?”
“Hm…” Dayo rumbled in thought. “Well, I thought you should try the small mountain area. Arvon. It’s to the east of here. We tend to like meeting in high places, and as remote as we can get is all the better.”
“Why didn’t you land there?” Bo asked.
Dayo snorted and shifted his large head to better stare at Bo. “And cause suspicion? Among dragons? Bo, their eyesight is keen. They would have spotted you on my back immediately, and it would be clear to them that you weren’t one of us the moment we landed. No, the more I can make it look like a passing dragon, the better. You shall simply have to deal with the run.”
“All right, I understand,” Bo sighed.
“At the very least, I can tell you that we are creatures of habit. And the habit around the ones you are looking for is to have a meeting every season. The next one of which just so happens to be in two night’s time.”
“Dayo! Why didn’t you start with that?” Bo chastised. Dayo rumbled a laugh.
“Because it is somewhat entertaining to frustrate you, my friend.”
Bo groaned. “You’re rude.”
“I’m an old dragon who enjoys his few pleasures.”
“I see harassing me is one of them.”
“Naturally.”
The two bantered onwards into the night, when Dayo at last bade Bo farewell and flew off under the blanket of darkness. Bo stood, stiff, and looked to the east, trying to find the peak of a mountain. Seeing nothing, he sighed and leapt into the trees, heading off anyway.
Mount Arvon was a rather large hill, Bo realized, arriving at last. It was certainly an extreme compared to the plains he’d been living in within the last couple of centuries. It was the second sunset since he’d arrived in America, and he crouched in a tree and watched it as it painted the mountain with its light.
Bo waited at the mountain’s base in his tree until night fell, when he began to hear something like thunder. He looked up into the moonless night sky, and saw a dark silhouette only discernable by the absence of stars it created. It landed higher on the mountain, and Bo detected a strong smell of sulphur. After the first came four more, each varying in shape and size, and Bo followed the five onto the mountain.
When he got up to the dragons, they were already changed and putting on their clothing. He couldn’t see very well, so they looked rather like dark shadows that moved without hosts. Still, Bo managed to sneak closer and open his ears to the conversation.
“So, Droka, seems one of your friends had a little secret,” said one voice, a gruff male who growled the word ‘friends’.
“What would that be?” The responding voice sounded much younger, like a young-adult boy. He seemed to be acting intentionally relaxed.
“Oh, just that he was a half-demon.” This one was an older woman, with a voice like ice.
“Do explain,” came another man’s voice. He sounded middle-aged and matter-of-fact.
“Well, one was attacked by the demon Oni. He then proceeded to rampage and turn into a demon himself. I had a raven friend flying overhead who saw it all. Then the boy turned back to his human self after his friends took him down. It seems he managed to take down a white she-wolf before it ended, however,” the first voice said.
“Did she…die?” Droka asked. Bo had to strain his ears to hear.
“No clue. My friend came straight to me with the news after the boy turned back. I haven’t sent anyone back to check since then. By the sound of it, however, it did not look good.”
“Which one was it? That turned into the demon?”
“The one with the dark hair. The black wolf,” the woman said. The dragons were quiet for a while.
A fifth voice spoke then. It was another young-adult, this one female with a gentle lilt to her voice. “At least no one else saw, right? After all, they are in the middle of the woods.”
“True,” the middle-aged man replied. “But we cannot afford to forget that the Sault is only twenty some miles north of there. Several thousand live there in close proximity. If he were to do that, there, then…news would spread like fire. Humans couldn’t handle it, or him.”
“We would have to remedy the situation as best we could,” the older woman said.
“You mean kill all those people,” Droka replied, lowering his voice.
“We would do what was necessary.”
“You couldn’t!” the young woman’s voice came again, appalled. “We’re supposed to protect people, remember?”
“It would be for the greater good.”
“She’s right,” the gruff voice agreed.
“I don’t think she is,” the middle-aged man said.
“I agree. If we missed even one, for example, it would give them the opportunity to see us,” Droka said. “And then we would be seen as monsters just as much as demons. Besides, how would we make it look like a human action?”
“Droka?” the young female hissed at him.
“I have to put it into their terms, Opal. I apologize,” he replied in a low voice. The man with the gruff voice snorted.
“Your point is made. But what, then, do you intend for us to do? Sit idly by while this new development rages on and ruins centuries—no, millennia—of secrecy?”
“Of course not.”
“I vote we kill him,” the icy female said.
“I vote not,” Opal and Droka said at once.
“I agree with them,” the other man agreed. The woman snorted.
“What, then?” asked the gruff man.
“Just give them more time,” Droka replied. “I promise, we—they—can handle it.”
“They’d better be able to,” the woman said. “Or else I will.”
“Don’t worry. They’ve got it,” Droka replied. “So, what else do we have?”
Bo snuck away from the dragon’s meeting then, melting into the darkness and fleeing until he was well out of hearing range. Once he felt safely out of the way, he looked up into the dark sky, the stars glittering above him. “So I should find this ‘Sault’ to start with. Then what? Run around the forests?” he thought aloud. Bo shook his head, closing his eyes and sighin
g. He stood like that for another moment before an idea came to him.
“They mentioned some friends,” he muttered, putting a finger under his lower lip in thought. “And a white she-wolf. Wolf changelings, then? I would assume that would narrow it down, but only to someone familiar with those around here.”
Bo turned his gaze back to the sky as he heard the dragons leaving. “Well, I certainly won’t be asking them.”