John stood on the opposite end of the door, eavesdropping on the conversation on the other side. Ok, John, remember not to shoot that dragon, he reminded himself, sighing and checking his posture before walking in.

"Oh! Hi John!" The officer said. "I didn't expect to be here this early, give me a moment please?" John simply made a soft nodding motion, and the officer turned to the pale white dragon. "Alright, Peyote. We'll continue after John is done here, capishe?"

"Capishe," the dragon responded, taking the paper with children's drawings on it. John watched as the officer left the two alone. John strode towards the chair and sat across from the dragon.

"How're the lessons?" He asked, getting his supplies from the bag.

"Well," the dragon said. John stared and waited for a few seconds, but eventually responded.

"Good, I have some questions for you," John said, taking a notepad and tearing out a page. "Let's Start simple, eh? Where do you live?"

"Queen Thorn's home," he said. John wrote down in his notebook, writing a series of question marks where Thorn would be.

"Alright. Seeing as you have a queen, I'd assume there's a king? Mind telling me about him?" John asked

"What king?"

John stopped and stared at the dragon again. What? Did the other guy just teach it? He thought. "A king is the male equivalent of the queen, the queen is female."

"Oh. King is bad, Darkstalker eat baby."

Must be an old children's story, at least they don't have a king, John thought, continuing to write in the book. John continued to ask questions about the Sandwing stronghold, learning more about the Kingdom of Sand, until finally asking the questions he really wanted to know. "So, is it safe for me to assume that David is inside this stronghold?" Peyote gave him a simple nod. "Ok. I see." John said, slowly writing down in his notes, the scraping of the pencil lead filling the room. "Now, what's going to happen to David in there?"

"I not know."

John clenched his fists, gently putting down the paper. "What?"

"I are not old dragon, I become fighter after war, not see prisoner ever? You think Peyote like Burn?" He asked the officer.

"Alright, I see. I think that's enough for today, thank you for your cooperation," John said, taking the paper and leaving


What's up with the scavenger? Peyote wondered, watching him leave the room, slamming the door loudly and with enough force to cause the one-way window to shake. Taking his gaze away from the door he turned and looked at the notebook. What's that? He tried to reach around the glass, his talons barely able to hook the notebook and let him grab the book.

Managing to successfully obtain the book, a quick inspection showed how it operated. Carefully opening the cover, he could see that it was a much more evolved scroll, flipping through the pages, he eventually found a page full of blocks of text, which consisted of three pages. He attempted to read them, but could not yet understand the language, especially when holding the book upside down. A click in the door made him scramble, hiding the notebook under his tail.

"Hi Peyote, glad to see you're done with dragent then, ready to learn?" He asked, taking a binder full of papers from a bag.

"Yes! I want to… uh..." Peyote pointed towards the sentences on the paper.

"Oh? Do you want to learn how to read? We can do that!"


Ok so, the dragons live in a desert, John put a note in the wall, connecting the note to a box labelled as supplies. However, I know that dragon's shitting me. Now, what about the queen? John wrote down how the dragons were ruled by a queen, labelling it as a 'matriarchy' and connecting it to weapons. These dragons could probably overpower me easily, I'll need some sort of backup weapon with good range, I'll do research on that later. Finally, he made his final note

STILL DON'T KNOW WHERE DAVID IS

He stared at that one note, it took up almost half of the whiteboard and was in vibrant colour. He sighed and packed his things, heading to the car to drive to David's cabin. During the drive, John couldn't help but wonder, is David still ok? A mix of irrational and rational questions filled John's mind, they eventually died down when he got to David's cabin.

Gaining access to the property was easy enough, he was well known among the force, but it was finding any kind of clue that posed a problem. There was a mountain of evidence that showed what happened during a fight, but not what happened after. It made no sense to him, dragons don't exist. Sure there are big lizards, but not actual dragons, much less talking dragons with insect biology. Did they search The tunnel?

John remembered David talking about it the day before he disappeared, and if he had to guess, the path leading away from the cabin led to the tunnel, and he was right. While it took some searching, he did eventually find it, and there were dragon prints in the mouth of the tunnel. Taking his service pistol and flashlight, he readied himself for anything and made his way through the tunnel.

The red lights didn't help put him at ease, but they went on for a surprisingly long, and eventually came to complete darkness, with a light at the end of the tunnel. It didn't take long to get to the end or to make eye contact with one of the five dragons guarding it. Oh shit. John started walking backwards, aimed at the dragons, switching between targets, it took two of the dragons for him to finally pull the trigger, a deafening sound crashed against the tunnel's walls, dragging the dragons and humans'. A small, hollow projectile flew out of the gun, hitting the two and causing them to fall over. One groaned in pain and the other started screaming in pain. The dragons saw this and immediately started to back up, giving John the perfect chance to run away from the dragons, and to the cold winter.

What the shit! John looked back to the tunnel, none of the dragons had followed him. That was the desert! John knew that his country had no deserts, the only desert like that was on another continent! He knew that his country was just one big boreal forest. Not knowing what to do, he simply went back to the car. The dragon wasn't lying.


"Quick! Help me get them up!" A dragon yelled to the others, helping the two dragons up, they could see the wounds from the gunshot. One had a small hole in their chest - it wasn't lethal, but it wasn't anything compared to the crying dragon. The bullet had gotten between their scales, and the hollow point shredded the dragon's flesh.

A/N: So this chapter was a little late, but I've been having to deal with my final year of school, and the new format hasn't exactly made the work easier. Anyways, I always appreciate reading your reviews!