Her father, her father, was right in front of her. He wasn't anything like she'd expected. He seemed…(Welcoming? Nice? Warm?). The answer was of course none of those things. He seemed like the type of dragon that wouldn't betray his cause and abandon his daughter. But he had, so maybe she wasn't looking at him right.

Ughhh! Why do I have to be nice to him? Ya, he's my father, woah that sounds weird, but I mean he betrayed us! Buuut, what if the rumors are true? What if he was forced to? Maybe I should get to know him first. Try being nice to him! It would be nice to have a parent again. But. What if he left her again, or worse decided he hated her? Then what would she do? Run away?…

I guess I'll give him a chance, she thought internally groaning. I mean, how hard can it be? I just have to respect him and be nice. That's it!

So, telling herself that this could be her only chance to get out of the orphanage she said, "Hi! You're my dad, aren't you? I'm Shamrock."

The expression on his face was hard to read, but she could still pick out some of the emotions shining through. The way his lips curled into a half-smile thing (she had no other name for it), the slight shift in his posture, going from business-like to more casual, and, finally, the small, barely perceptible glint in his eyes when he saw her. She couldn't stop herself from smiling back.

But there was another emotion thrown into the mix (or was it more than one), something negative. She couldn't figure it out and that by itself was strange. Sometimes if there were other faces around she couldn't pick up on some of the less intense emotions but this was weird. She had lots of practice reading other dragon's emotions. She grew up in an orphanage after all.

There were the dragonets whose parents were lost when they weren't as young as she had been. They often didn't want to talk about the intense grief and sadness swirling through them. So, you had to try and interpret how they were feeling or what they were thinking about.

There was one dragonet who was mute so she couldn't share her thoughts and ideas.

There were the times when the dragonets played pranks or felt responsible for their parents' deaths because they were there and didn't try to save them.

They all had the same emotions she could see lingering on her father's face. Grief, anger, guilt, sadness and most importantly, fear and helplessness. They were scared of the war and helpless to stop it. They were consumed with grief and sadness because of the family and friends they'd lost. They were full of guilt at the fact they could have stopped something from happening and angry at themselves for not.

But there was something different going on with those emotions in her fathers head and she was going to try and figure it out.

Ugh, she thought, I wish he would just respond already.

Not a moment after she'd had the thought he replied to her statement.

"Hello," he said. "You're right, I am your father, Addax." He paused for a moment clearly expecting a response.

"Good, just making sure you were,"she replied, making Addax laugh. "And also I have a question for you."

"Fire away."

"I know this might sound a little rude," she stated carefully, Shamrock he's only your dad. She scolded herself, You can ask him simple questions about his past; it isn't going to sound rude to him. "Buuuuut, didyoureallydesertthearmyandjointheOutclaws?" she finished in a nervous rush.

"What?" her father asked. "Can you slow down a little?"

"I said 'Did you really desert the army and join the Outclaws?'" Shamrock repeated.

He paused to think for a moment before saying, "While I won't deny that I did live in Scorpion den for a while and worked with the Outclaws and their leader, Thorn. I did not desert, despite what many think. I was captured by Seawings and rescued by Thorn for basically no reason and now I owe her my life. While the prisons weren't that bad there were interrogations, lots of interrogations. So I guess half that story is true, in a way."

This surprised Shamrock. Was everything she had heard about her dad wrong? Did anyone even know the true story? Where was she going? She thought as she flew away from the orphanage for what she thought was the last time, her father flying in front of her. Is he lying and actually evil? Is something bad going to happen? Am I in danger?

A/N- Dun, dun, dun! Hey, so i'm probably not going to undate much after this, I also have another story to work on for Keeper of the Lost Cities, hey KotLC fans yep I'm one of you, so I'll be busy. If you want to check out my other story it's called We Can Fight Back.