Hello! This chapter is more like a quick glance back at home to see what's happening, I'm sorry it's short but it's like this for the simple reason that the next is going to be my longest chapter ever. So please don't expect an update for a while, thank you for your patience! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Jane and the Dragon. MEH! XD

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The sun is rising higher still, lifting up above the heads of the sweltering peasants and casting an unexpected, watery glow upon their lanky hair. They continue on, of course, working in their usual way, immune to the tickling, heated sensation of the sun's rays.

But the weak heat is getting to Dragon, Jester can see it from his perch at his windowsill. The makeshift shade they made for him from a stretch of canvas, poking ropes through the two corners and looping it to the stone wall, and propping up the opposite end on rickety posts, does not seem to be enough to keep him cool. He is fidgeting restlessly even as the jingler watches from his window, eyes bulging slightly in his sockets and blood spurting from his throat in little hiccups.

"Jane…" the reptile croaks, and Jester looks away respectfully.

Poor thing… he thinks sadly, as he watches Dragon flip over onto his stomach and retch a white milky substance onto the dusty earth. He's in such pain.

Dragon yelps suddenly like a wounded animal, his claws tearing at his chest as a visibly painful shudder wracks his now-bony form; all trace of the healthy, boisterous animal Jane mysteriously left five days ago has fled, leaving only the skeletal remnants of the beast to writhe in pain.

Jane should be here… Jester thinks miserably. Dragon should not be alone.

But he is alone. No one will venture near his restless, fevered body, most likely from fear of catching this foreign "Night Curse" and dying just as slowly and painfully as Dragon is. Even Sir Theodore, known for a long time as the only dragon expert in the kingdom, keeps his distance from Dragon and simply watches sadly from his balcony; the last dragon in existence, withering away from some ancient illness must just be too much for the elder knight to bear.

Jester sighs quietly, withdrawing into his room and closing the shutters on Dragon's jerking form. Watching an animal die is never nice, but to watch one so large and magnificent and rare do so in the midst of an unusually sunny day is even worse.

"Darn it, Jane!" he mutters to the empty room, as his fists clench in anger. "Where are you?"

If I had known where she was going, that night, he thinks furiously, latching the shutters closed and turning his back on the smooth wood, then I would have stopped her immediately! I should have known that she would leave like this. It's her nature.

He jerks the hat from his head, crushing it into a ball of blue fabric with a distress he was not expecting.

He is dying, Jane. Dying. And he wants you; I wish you had told me where you planned to go, and not left me to speculate and worry! Jester sighs quietly as the moment of wild, upset emotion suddenly subsides, fading away into nothingness and leaving him with a crumpled hat and a heavy silence.

"There is not much I can do anymore…" he whispers to the stifling room. The memory of watching his friend's slender form, cloaked in black, sneaking from the castle and out into the unknown flashes across the broad expanse of his mind, but with a tremendous shove Jester pushes it to a far corner and buries it amidst the recent memories of Jane and Dragon. Now is not the time to dwell on Jane's disappearance.

With another gentle sigh Jester unclenches his hands and smooths out the crushed Fool's hat; the now crinkled blue sits limply in his slim fingers, warm from clutching it to his chest.

"She had best hurry up," the boy mutters to himself, as with a shake he rests the jingling cover atop his swirling golden curls. "Because I have the terrible feeling…"

He does not finish the sentence aloud, even as he adjusts the hat, hurries across the stifling room, and continues out the door back into a lesser heat to attempt to fix Dragon's cover. He does his best to even smother the final words in his mind, but they leap up anyways like flies; always there, even when you think you have at long last eliminated them –they appear out of nowhere and buzz in your ears and eyes and cause even more of a disturbance than before, because you know you failed to destroy them the first time around.

…Because I have the terrible feeling you are already too late.

Jester scowls and bats away the words as they flutter in his head, reaching for him with a truth he refuses to acknowledge, and jerking down on the poor, destroyed hat, he continues on along the dusty earth to climb the stone stairs and adjust the sunshade.

But Dragon has fallen silent now, his limp form stretched upon the hot bed of dirt and his bony chest heaving with weak breaths. The sun does not seem to matter anymore, and his wide, staring eyes do not acknowledge anyone but the hallucinations of his beloved, missing friend.

Does it really matter, anymore?

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Thank you so much everyone, please review! :D