Happy Friday everyone! This chapter, Ragnar takes a bit of a detour, and Tai brings back an important tradition.

42. The New Beacon

Ragnar stopped so suddenly that Oscar almost slid off his back. He looked around, wondering what the dragon had noticed. There was nothing but trees, and a small clearing full of damp leaves.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Rrae."

"They're here?"

"...Nno." Ragnar walked in a circle with his nose to the ground, until he stopped and pawed at a pile of leaves. Underneath was a piece of wood, charred black on one end. "Gone."

"Oh." Oscar slid off his back. "I'm sorry."

Ragnar's tail drooped. He looked forlornly around the empty clearing, as if waiting for the rogue rider he was looking for to pop out of the bushes. "Ssafe," he said finally. "No... nno..."

"Signs of a struggle?" Oscar suggested.

Ragnar bobbed his head. "Ssafe. Gud."

They stood there in silence for a while, listening to the birds. Oscar scratched Ragnar behind the ears. "So," he said finally. "What do we do now?"

"Rrow."

"Um..."

Ragnar let out a sigh that ruffled his hair. "Scarr see."

"This isn't dangerous, is it?"

"Nno. Rrow gud. Find Rae."

Oscar climbed onto the dragon's back, and they set off at their usual slow, ambling pace. That was, until the wind shifted. Ragnar picked up his head and sniffed. Oscar could feel muscles tensing under his legs.

"Ragnar? What's wrong?"

The old dragon turned abruptly, speeding up to a brisk trot. His leg was still healing... Oscar tried to tell him to slow down, but Ragnar ignored him.

"This is the way to Beacon, isn't it."

"Need," Ragnar rumbled. "Need... see..."

"It's not going to help," Oscar told him, to no effect. He sighed, stroking the dragon's back. "Don't get too close, okay? It's dangerous."

"Nno. Sstay 'way."

"Good."

It only took a few hours for them to reach the shadow of Beacon cliffs. Oscar clung to Ragnar's neck as he circled around, clambering up a small path and disappearing into more woods. The campus was in sight now, patches of green lawns peeking through the trees.

"Okay," Oscar whispered. "We've seen. We need to go, now."

Ragnar took another few steps forward, crouching low to stay hidden behind a few bushes. Oscar heard voices. He ducked against the dragon's neck, his heart in his throat. "We have to go! Please!"

"—last batch of hatchlings has been healthier," a woman was saying. "That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"I'm just saying it's suspicious," a man replied. "Defects in half the dragons last time, and now Wisteria only culls two?"

"He wouldn't hide them."

"I didn't think Lionheart was sitting on that many traitors, but here we are."

She snorted. "Lionheart wasn't complicit, just stupid."

He made a noise, like he disagreed but didn't want to bother arguing about it. "The old man was, though."

"What tipped you off, genius? Kappa, no! Drop it. Now."

"Get a whip," the man suggested. "Keeps their attention better."

Ragnar started to growl low in his throat. Oscar shushed him frantically, tapping on his shoulder in a silent plea to turn around and go.

The woman only laughed. "You obviously never had to deal with a fire dragon before. She'd rip my arm off."

"That's why you teach 'em to respect it when they're smaller. I've got the wind kids using them. It's about showing them consequences, see?"

Ragnar twisted his neck around, grabbing Oscar's collar gently in his teeth and lifting him off his back.

"No!" he hissed, as his feet hit the ground. "You can't, they'll—"

Too late. Ragnar charged out of the bushes, roaring at the top of his lungs.

"Glacier?"

Whitley tapped the dragon's shoulder. He ignored him. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air, and his sides were heaving with the effort of keeping up his trot.

"Glacier. Where are we going?"

No answer. Not that he expected one, at this point. Glacier wove between trees, jumping over small streams and tramping cheerfully past low-hanging branches that threatened to unseat Whitley. He ducked low against the dragon's back to avoid the worst of it.

Then a bugling roar rolled over them, shaking the ground and sending small animals running for cover. Whitley squeaked and almost fell off. Glacier stopped dead. He stared in the direction the sound had come from for a long moment, his head tilted slightly to one side... and burst into motion. This wasn't a gentle trot anymore—he galloped forward with Whitley clinging desperately to the spines on his back.

A cliff loomed before them. Glacier was panting now, but he raced up a low rise and launched himself into the sky. For a few blissful seconds they were airborne. Then they slammed into the cliff about ten feet from the top, and the dragon clawed and scrabbled at it.

Whitley, meanwhile, hung by both hands from his spines, doing his best to keep the blanket trapped between his knees. Then, finally, Glacier got a paw over the clifftop and heaved. He stayed there for a few seconds, puffing and wheezing. When he finally started moving again, it was at a slow walk.

Without warning, the trees around them vanished. The sky opened up, and they were staring at a wide open field, gently rolling hills, and... was that Beacon Tower?

"Let's get out of here," Whitley urged Glacier. "There will be people. Lots of people." One of them was bound to have a scroll he could use... but he wasn't sure they'd be in the mood for helping him after a fully grown dragon charged onto the premises, panicked at the crowds, and caused an international incident.

Whitley wasn't sure why he even bothered, though—Glacier wasn't even looking at him. He was staring off to one side, where... oh.

Three dragons were fighting. One, an earth dragon, was riderless. The other two, a fire and a wind dragon, were raking it with their claws from either side. It jumped on the fire dragon, pinning it, and swiped its tail at the rider.

Whitley tugged at Glacier's spines. "Come on!"

Glacier sniffed the air, then let out a confused whine.

"Yes, they're fighting. Let's go before they notice us!"

Too late. A twig snapped in the woods near them, and before Whitley could do more than yelp there was another boy in front of them, gesturing frantically with both arms.

"You have to help me!" He pointed at the brawling group. "He's going to get himself killed!"

Whitley stared at the dragons for a moment. He still wasn't sure which one the boy was referring to—though he supposed it was probably the riderless one.

"He doesn't listen to me," he grumbled, glaring at Glacier, "or we wouldn't be here in the first place."

Without missing a beat, the boy addressed the dragon. "Please... he just lost his rider, and they're—" he glowered at the two humans, one with a whip coiled at his hip. "They're horrible. If you could just help him get away—'

He took a step forward. Whitley opened his mouth to warn him, but Glacier had already reared up. He snapped at the boy, who jumped backwards, tripped over a root, and went sprawling. The dragon hissed, flaring his wings to make himself look bigger.

When the boy sat up, Whitley noticed his eyes for the first time—green and gold and brown, and narrowed defiantly. "Fine," he said, straightening up. "Don't help me." He marched off across the field... directly towards the dragons.

"What are you doing?" Whitley demanded. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

No response.

"Glacier! Can't you do something?"

No response.

Whitley snarled in frustration. He was getting really sick of being ignored.

Whips.

The roar was torn from him by years of watching. Years of being helpless to stop the Cardin's of the world, of spending every waking hour with Ozpin doing what little they could to make things better... Only to find that the sanctuary they built together had been turned into this.

"Get out of the way!" he bellowed, slashing his claws across the face of the fire dragon. She growled at him and heated her scales until he had to rip himself away. On his other side, the wind dragon clawed at him.

He slipped between them. They weren't the enemy. The man with the whip was the enemy. Ragnar slammed a paw into his stomach, sending him spinning end-over-end before he landed in an ungainly heap. He groaned, twitched, then flopped back into the dirt.

The wind dragon shrieked in outrage and leaped onto Ragnar's back. He tore the whip away, catching it in his teeth and chewing it apart. There was more shouting, now, and the other rider reached for a whistle at her hip and blew into it.

Good, he thought. Let them come.

A flash of movement. Oscar, sprinting towards them. The fire dragon's tail lashed behind her, cutting through the air, heading straight for the boy. Ragnar jumped between them, curling protectively around him. The tail smacked his shoulder. He roared a third time, then grabbed a mouthful of Oscar's shirt and ran.

The wind dragon didn't follow. He was crouched over his rider now, nudging the man's side and licking his face. The fire dragon stopped at the edge of the trees, letting out a last defiant hiss before she retreated.

"Bad," Ragnar said, dropping Oscar on the forest floor. "Bad!"

"What was I supposed to do?" There was a smear of dirt across his cheek from when Ragnar had tackled him. "You promised you wouldn't try and get yourself killed like that!"

Ragnar spat the handle of the whip at his feet.

"I know." Arms around his neck. Warm. "But we have to be smart about this, right? Find, um... Row. Whatever that is."

He whined like a hatchling, craning his neck to look over his shoulder. Oscar was right... but there were riders like that in Beacon. In his home. Teaching children to hurt hatchlings.

"We'll do something," Oscar promised. "But we need help, first."

Ragnar's grumble froze in his throat. A pair of blue eyes was watching him. He jumped back, pulling Oscar under his wing. The other dragon poked his head out from behind two trees, sniffing warily.

"Small ones," he said. "You know?"

He smelled... different. Ragnar thought of Specter, and realized with a start that this must be an ice dragon. Which meant...

"Glacier?"

A confused blink. "Yes. Glacier here. Small ones where?"

Small ones? Slowly, Ragnar lifted his wing. "This is Oscar."

"Don't care." Glacier stepped forward, revealing a young boy sitting on a blanket on his back. Ragnar's ears perked up. He'd heard about this—the two of them had been taken. And, apparently, they'd escaped.

"Are you trying to get home?" he asked.

It was the wrong thing to say. Glacier coiled up like a spring, his eyes narrowing. Deadly mist billowed between his teeth as he hissed.

"Glacier, stop it!" the boy said, shooting a terrified look at Ragnar. "We'll just be going, now—!"

"What are you even doing out here?" Oscar demanded.

"I could ask you the same thing." The child must be a Schnee. Weiss, Winter... Winston? Walter? No, Whitley.

"Nno," Ragnar said, when Oscar opened his mouth to keep arguing. He put a paw on the boy's head and addressed Glacier. "It's alright. We won't harm you."

"And what were you all fighting about, anyway?" Whitley demanded. "What kind of—"

"Nno talk," Ragnar said. "Calm."

While the boy spluttered, Glacier watched Ragnar with the spines on his neck bristling. "Small ones. Find. Where?"

"There are many small ones," Ragnar said, nudging Oscar with his nose. "Which ones do you mean?"

"Singing one. Steely one." Glacier twisted his head to sniff Whitley. "Small Jacques."

Just like that, everything clicked into place. "I don't know where the steely one is," Ragnar told him, "but I'm looking for the singing one, too. She was one of my students."

Glacier growled, low and threatening.

"I'd never harm one of my students. I want to find them all so that I can help them."

"Where?" Glacier's tail began to thrash, uprooting several bushes.

"I don't know yet," Ragnar admitted, "but I know someone who should be able to tell me. Would you like to come with us?"

Glacier paced back and forth in front of Ragnar. He sniffed him, then Oscar, who wisely didn't try to touch him. Then he huffed cool mist into their faces and said, "Yes. We find singing one."

With that settled, the two of them set out with Ragnar in the lead... only for both humans to start protesting immediately.

"What's going on?" Oscar asked. "Who are they?"

"I'm Whitley Schnee, for your information," the other boy said, straightening up haughtily. "And isn't that one of the renegade dragons?"

"...Aren't you supposed to be in Atlas?"

Whitley's ears turned red. "You didn't answer my question!"

Oscar glanced at Ragnar for permission, and he nodded. "This is Ragnar. And, well, we're sort of on the run from the council."

"See, Glacier?" Whitley poked the dragon's shoulder. "They're a couple of ne'er-do-wells." Glacier started to whistle to himself.

"We are not!" Oscar said indignantly.

"Scarr. Calm."

"But—"

"Calm."

Ragnar spent the next few minutes trying, and mostly failing, to figure out how Glacier and Whitley had gone from being kidnapped in Atlas to wandering around in the Emerald forest. All he got was, "Fang bad," and, "No home. Keep small Jacques."

Whitley rounded on Oscar again. "Where are we going," he demanded, in the tones of someone who had been trying to get an answer to that question for a very long time.

Oscar grinned nervously. "I think... we're looking for a Row."

"...That is completely meaningless."

"It's not meaningless," Oscar shot back. "I just... don't know what it means. Yet."

"Rrow find Rrae," Ragnar explained. "Rrae find young."

"Ray is a rogue," Oscar added. "They can help us find some students. I think."

"Gud," Ragnar confirmed.

"Then why is Glacier following you?" Whitley demanded, shooting a frustrated look at the ice dragon. Glacier blinked innocently back at him.

"Ice," said Ragnar.

"Yes, I know," Whitley said impatiently, "He's an ice dragon. But why—"

"Nno! Find Ice."

"Well, if he wanted to go north—!"

Ragnar gave up. The two humans would figure out what was going on eventually. Probably.

"Okay!" Tai put his hands on his hips. "Tempest, could you scootch over a little to the left?"

She warbled uncertainly and inched to one side, careful not to erase the circle Qrow had drawn in the dirt with a stick.

"I still say this is ridiculous," Qrow said, even as he gave Salty a gentle nudge to get him centered in his own circle.

"It's... tradition, or something." Tai squinted at the compass in his hand. "Earth is supposed to be north, right?"

"Beats me, I took the combat test."

In the southern circle, York barked expectantly. Tai chuckled. "Yeah, I know. I'll give you an apple when we're done setting up."

Soon Tempest and Salty were both settled into the eastern and western circles, and Qrow had drawn a sloppy plus sign in the middle. "There," he said, dropping the stick. "Tradition."

"It might be important! It's not like we know how it's supposed to work."

"Whatever." Qrow pulled two apples from his pockets. Tai did the same. York wagged his tail when he was fed, accidentally obliterating a quarter of his circle.

"Hey, can you fix that?"

"Fix what?" Qrow pulled his flask from his pocket and tipped his head back.

"Dude, really?"

"What?"

"You can't be drunk when we're meeting our students!"

"I won't be drunk," Qrow promised. "It's just a sip—"

"Rrow." Salty nudged his back. "Nno."

"Ugh. Fine."

"You sound like a whiny teenager," Tai said, snickering.

"You sound like a rickety old man."

"Hey!" Tai put a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I'm a father, I have to be the responsible one."

"Tai," Quake rumbled. "Hind 'oo."

Slowly, Tai spun in place. Four teenagers were staring at him. Qrow was struck by a sudden coughing fit, while Tempest greeted them with a polite whistle.

"Uh. Hello there! Students..." Tai ran a hand through his hair and grinned. "Welcome to your sight test."

Qrow stuffed the flask back into his pocket. "Who wants to go first?"

Dead silence. Then one of them raised her hand. "Uh... sure?"

"Great." Tai gestured to the middle of the clearing. "Just stand here, and... the dragons will do the rest!"

She stood between the four of them and turned in a slow circle, staring at the dragons. They stared back. York made a confused rumbling noise and stuck out his neck to sniff her. Tempest and Quake barked at each other, as if conferring. Salty squinted like he was trying to read tiny print on the back of a coupon.

"Gud," Tempest decided. Quake nodded, and Salty made an approving noise. York barked once.

Tai gave her a thumbs-up. "You're in!"

"Oh." She looked around again. "I kind of thought it would feel more..."

"Grand?" Qrow suggested. "Mysterious? Magical?" He wiggled his fingers.

Tai pressed a hand to his face. "Qrow. Please shut up."

"Yeah, yeah. Next!"

A few minutes later, their little council of dragons had approved all four new students. He also noticed that each of them seemed to have a kid they paid more attention to than all the others—Tempest had taken a particular liking to the first girl to speak up.

"Okay!" he said, clapping his hands together. "Everybody, take an apple!"

They did, and stood there looking very confused.

"We had to bribe this fellow," Qrow explained, giving York an affectionate clap on the shoulder. "And that means we've gotta feed all of 'em. So consider this your first lesson in how to, uh..."

"Feed dragons treats?" one boy asked. "I do that all the time at home."

"Yeah, well," Qrow said, irritated, "We've gotta make sure they like you first before we go around injecting eggs." That, and they still hadn't managed to get their hands on enough injectors. It turned out they weren't legal to own privately, which meant that Qrow had to track them down on the black market. Tai was trying not to think too hard about why he knew how to do that.

He watched with a tiny smile on his face as the first girl approached Tempest, holding out the apple. A small hush fell over the clearing as the students greeted the older dragons, scratching under their chins and petting their necks.

Tai didn't fight the huge smile that spread across his face. "Alright," he declared, putting his hands on his hips. "Welcome to Stark Dragonry."