Chapter Two
The flames of the campfire danced happily, gifting some warmth and light to the chilly winter's night. Walther walked around, adding or rearranging a few twigs, occasionally searching for small cans in his equipment. Lohengrin curiously watched as he pulled out a number of differently shaped boxes, and began to heat up one, holding it at the base of the fire with a metal stick.
"Can I offer you some?" the soldier asked, surprising the dragon a bit.
"Some... what?" Lohengrin asked back, looking at the metal can with confusion.
"I'm making a dinner" Walther explained "I thought you might be a bit hungry, so-"
"You want to share your food with me?" Lohengrin glared at the human.
"Yeah, I'd like to. If you're okay with that." the man replied with a smile.
Lohengrin's ears flattened to his head, as he took a surprised look at the human in front of him. He wasn't sure if the human knew, but sharing food between dragons was a show of honest trust, and willingness to continue on friendly terms. An act of friendship.
"Alright... I guess." Lohengrin said hesitantly.
Walther continued his activities, placing a collapsible metal grid on the fire, and putting a few cans on top of it. While he was preparing the dinner, he spoke up again:
"You know... the first time I saw you I figured that you were a wild Night Fury..."
"I am pretty wild when I blow things up."
"No" Walther laughed "I mean you're not from human populated areas. You live with your own kind, out somewhere in the wilderness, as far from us as possible."
"I used to be like that." Lohengrin said quietly, looking into the eyes of the soldier.
"Then, how can you understand my language so well?"
Lohengrin sighed. He knew this question would eventually pop up, and while the answer was complicated, he decided to explain it as simply as possible.
"Surely you noticed something happened after I pinned you down." he began.
"Yeah, I had a sudden headache... is it related to your understanding of my language?" Walther asked curiously.
"It is." Lohengrin nodded "As far as I've noticed, you humans communicate with eachother mainly vocally, and by some gestures. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"We dragons are a bit different. The dragon way of communication is made up of three components: body language, vocalization, and a sort of mental component only dragons can understand. Using our minds to feel the presence of someone else around us is completely instinctive, and about as natural to us, as talking is to you."
"So, if I understand this right..." Walther began to think out loud "You dragons are mind-readers?"
"I'm not sure what do you mean by that." Lohengrin shook his head "The mind is not something you can simply 'read' like an inscription on a cave wall. It works more like a link; two minds get connected by a very slight margin, and transfer thoughts, feelings and impressions back and forth. Anyone can hear me making sounds and making gestures in my own way, but the essence of what I want to say comes with the mental part. The mental part of my speech tells you what am I saying, the verbal and body gestures tells you how am I saying it, such as indicating my emotional state. I strongly suspect that you are able to understand dragon speech because your mind somehow has the ability to connect with a dragon mind."
"Incredible..." Walther whispered "There are so many things we don't know about your kind. You know, dragons are regarded as fantastic creatures by most of humanity, but now we have the opportunity to speak and learn about beings who are of a similar level of intelligence, as us."
"To be fair" Lohengrin commented "I didn't know you humans were sentient beings for most of my life. But then again, my home used to be secluded enough not to see humans for generations."
"How old are you?" Walther asked.
"Old enough to be fully grown, why?" Lohengrin asked back, shooting a questioning glare at him.
"I mean, how old are you exactly? I'm thirty-one years old."
"Years?"
"A year is twelve months." Walther explained.
"Was that supposed to make sense?"
"I guess it's hard to describe, how do you measure time?"
"We use each winter as a sort of... natural clock."
"Ah! We'll a year is basically the same, " Walther interrupted.
"I see, you humans love your precision." Lohengrin nodded "Then I am forty-five years old."
"Hm. I've only encountered Night Furies who were younger than me... but, I have only met a few of your kind so far, most of which were rescued as babies so they don't know much about their own species, sadly."
"How long do you humans live?" the Night Fury asked.
"Well... anything between sixty and a hundred can happen. It depends a lot on lifestyle and place of birth, as there are places where living is a lot harder than somewhere else. I'd say, the average lifespan of a human is somewhere between seventy and eighty years."
"So, you lived one-third of your life already...?" Lohengrin voiced his surprise.
"I... well, yes I suppose so." Walther answered uncomfortably "What about you?"
"Under the given circumstances, I don't know how long will I live" the dragon replied sourly "But my kind can see seven or eight hundred winters, if they are lucky."
It was Walther's turn to be surprised now.
"Heilige Titten! And you're already fully grown?"
As he opened his mouth to answer, Lohengrin's ear twitched, and he turned his attention to the canned food instead, which was sizzling loudly.
"Is this supposed to do that?"
"Scheiße!" Walther exclaimed, and grabbed the can to get it away from the heat, threw it away a second later as it burned his palm. While he swore loudly, and ran to the lake nearby to get his hand into the water, Lohengrin shook his head:
"If a piece of metal gives you this much trouble, how would you fare in an actual hunt?"
"I got distracted, okay?!" Walther shouted back from the shore.
The dragon suppressed a chuckle, then stood up to fetch the dangerous can of food. He quickly found it in the bushes, grabbed it with his fangs, and casually walked up to the human, dropping the can into the shallow water.
"Try touching it now." he grinned as he sat down again, curling his tail around his legs.
"Thanks." Walther growled in annoyance, and pulled his hand out of the water to see it. The skin had turned a harsh red, the ridges of the tin can left ugly marks on his palm.
"This is fantastic." he said sarcastically "I survive a firefight, only to get incapacitated by a goddamn tin can."
"Let me take a look." Lohengrin leaned closer. The soldier lifted his hand, the dragon sniffed it a few times, then spat a huge glob of saliva into it.
"GAH! What the f-"
"Slap your paws together" Lohengrin instructed calmly "and rub the saliva into the burn wound. It will help."
"Well, thanks, I guess." Walther said hesitantly, and rubbed his palms together "It does help, I can barely feel the pain now!" he exclaimed. "This is amazing!"
"Unlike you, I am a creature of fire. I know how to handle it." Lohengrin stated with a shadow of a smile on his face.
"I'll have you know that humans mastered fire tens of thousands of years ago!" Walther frowned.
"If this is your 'mastery', I don't want to see you doing things you're bad at!" Lohengrin burst out laughing.
"Accidents can happen, okay?" Walther protested, but he began to smile too "But I have to admit that this was rather... unprofessional."
"It was." Lohengrin confirmed still smiling, then he asked:
"How's your paw?"
"It's called 'hand', and it's..." Walther took a look at his burned palm, and he was surprised to notice that the ugly shade of red the wound had turned was now a light pink. "It's healing!"
"You may wash it off now for the time that we're eating, I'll give you another treatment after it. It will be completely gone by the morning."
"I... I don't know what to say..."
"A simple 'Thank you." will suffice." the dragon grinned at him again.
"I'm going to give you this whole thing, you deserve it. Mincemeat is my favourite, but I'll heat up something else, I think I still have some stew." Walther dipped his hands into the water, washed off the thick saliva and grabbed the can again. This time it wasn't hot, so he reached for one of his pockets, a pulled out his tin-opener.
"If you open your mouth, I can spoon the food right into it." he offered.
"Alright."
The contents of the tin can weren't even a mouthful for the Night Fury. Lohengrin slowly shut his jaw, and began to carefully chew on the strange thing in his mouth, which was supposed to be meat, but it had all kinds of foreign taints and tastes. Suppressing a frown, he swallowed the so called 'food'.
"Well?" Walther asked "How does it taste?"
"It's... edible." Lohengrin answered hesitantly. "At least I hope so."
"Oh come on, it can't be that bad! I'm eating this stuff all the time! The spice must've been foreign to you..."
"Look, this tastes like a goose's arse!"
Walther froze in his shock.
"Did you actually-"
"You don't want to know." Lohengrin cut in, ears flattening to his head. But as he saw the expecting look on Walther's face, he reluctantly continued "There are occasions, when... when one cannot be picky."
Now, it was the soldier's turn to burst out laughing as he tried to imagine the scene. Lohengrin growled, and clawed the ground in embarrassment.
"Hey, I caught it mid-air, but at the wrong spot, okay?!"
The roads around the city of Cottbus were full both ways: Lohengrin saw the endless caravan of cars and sometimes buses leaving the city in a more or less organized fashion; the number of uniform-wearing people took care of that. Another stream of vehicles was heading towards the city, the shape of these in the broad daylight reminded Lohengrin of the war machines he had encountered.
"Enjoying the view?" an annoyed voice asked from below.
Walther hung between Lohengrin's forelegs as they flew. But even he had to admit that this way of travel was a lot faster than going on foot, despite being quite uncomfortable.
"I'm just wondering how many of your kind live in places like these..." Lohengrin said, as he glided towards their destination, a certain set of buildings near the centre of the city. Walther called it 'University Campus', but Lohengrin had no idea what that was. However, the soldier described thoroughly what they are looking for, and the Night Fury spotted the place from afar.
"A lot." Walther moaned, and tried to shift position, and move his numb arms "You know, I'd have been really grateful if you-"
"We've been through this." Lohengrin interrupted "I am a dragon, not a flying vehicle of yours which you can ride."
"Okay, okay!" Walther sighed, not in the mood to try having a fruitless conversation about convincing the Night Fury to lower his pride a bit. "We're getting close, put me down at the entrance of the courtyard."
The Night Fury bent his head to give an expecting look at him.
"Please." Walther added quickly, and rolled his eyes.
"Much better." Lohengrin nodded, and gently spiralled down, releasing the soldier just before getting to the ground. Walther wavered a bit at the first few steps, but after a few deep breaths, he was well enough to turn towards the black dragon.
"I have to settle a few matters, please wait for me here outside, okay?"
Lohengrin gave a nod as he sat down, and watched the human disappearing into a rather large building. He shifted uncomfortably as he looked around, seeing dozens of humans walking around, minding their own business. He caught a few curious looks coming from them, making him even more uneasy. Two days ago he would have thought it would be impossible to be this close to this many humans, without getting into a fight. Walther assured him that his comrades mean no harm to any dragons, but his past experiences with humans did not allow him to be fully calm. His instincts practically screamed at him to move, don't sit completely exposed in a wide courtyard with a bunch of potentially deadly two-leggers around.
He stood up on all fours. A number of vehicles were also quietly sitting at the courtyard, he decided to check one out, which didn't have any humans around it at the moment. As he walked closer, he tried to figure out what in the name of Wotahn is he seeing right now.
This contraption didn't have those round wheels, it was sitting on two horizontal feet. It had a stubby nose, and a huge, transparent area on its front. It also had a long, sleek tail at the back, and the whole thing's shape vaguely reminded him of a dragonfly's. It even had two thin and long blades at the top, making it similar to the dragonfly's wings... but by the looks of it, these wings couldn't move up or down, like his own. As he arrived next to the thing, he stood up to his hind legs, placing a forepaw on the side of the object, raising the other to touch the blade... as he gave it a gentle push, it moved... sideways.
Rotary wings? How the heck would that work?
There was another one of the thing he was examining, a couple of jumps away. Lohengrin saw two people heading towards it, and another one came in his direction.
"Stand back!" the soldier said, waving his arms around.
Lohengrin snarled at him, but he took a few steps back from the contraption. Who is this human, who thinks he can just shoo him away? But as he saw the two helmet-wearing humans entering the other object, he quickly forgot about his indignation.
The two human inside of the thing began to make movements, touching certain spots on the thing's interior. Lohengrin watched with awe as the rotary wings began to slowly speed up. A loud, high pitched whine emanated from the contraption, and after a minute or two, it began to ascend from the ground.
Vertically.
The thing began to gain altitude, then as soon as it was safely above the buildings, it turned and began to move away.
Lohengrin just watched the flying machine disappear from sight. So this is how humans fly? Maybe not entirely, as the flying thing which attacked Toemnir valley did not have rotary wings, and it was a lot faster too... he had to ask Walther about this. How many ways can a human fly, despite that they lack their own wings so they should have no business in air?
He looked around again, but Walther was nowhere to be seen.
The office was warm, uncomfortably warm for Walther, as he stood at attention in front of the officer behind his desk.
"Second Lieutenant Walther von Hohenfels, requesting permission to report."
"At ease." the major said, sipping into his mug of coffee before continuing. "OPCOM received your report last night, it is indeed valuable information, Intelligence sends its regards. You have got eight hours to submit your AAR, is there anything else you need?"
"I have, sir." Walther nodded "My mission was only successful because I encountered a friendly dragon."
"I've heard about that. You're one of them dragon-whisperers, aren't you?"
"Affirmative. This dragon would like to enlist in the UN Armed Forces."
The grey-haired major froze between two gulps of his coffee. After a few moments, he lowered the cup back to his desk.
"What kind of dragon this is?"
"Night Fury, sir."
"So, I guess it is wild-born, am I right?" the major looked at Walther.
"Affirmative."
The older man let out a deep sigh.
"Under normal circumstances, Lieutenant" he began "I would be against turning this army into a zoo. But these are not normal circumstances, we need all the help we can get. Can this dragon follow orders?"
"I'm vouching for him personally, sir. He fully understands human language, and he expressed his wish to help with fighting against the Commonwealth. Can I speak freely, sir?"
The major gave a nod, and Walther continued:
"I think a Night Fury could be extremely helpful in covert operations, intelligence gathering, and providing limited fire support. I've seen him take out an enemy APC without any difficulties. I'm fully convinced that this dragon could be a valuable asset in various combat situations."
There was a brief silence in the office, as the older officer thought things over. Walther did his best, not to show his anxiety, after all, getting Lohengrin into the army would be beneficial for everyone...
"Alright." the major spoke up. "You have my permission; this dragon can accompany you on your missions. If it proves its usefulness in the upcoming situations, it can stay."
Walther couldn't help, but let out a relieved huff.
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't make me regret my decision, Lieutenant. Talk to the quartermaster to get some food and accommodation arranged. Dismissed."
Walther about faced, and hastily left the office. As he closed the door, he couldn't help but let out a smile. As he stepped out of the building, he found Lohengrin sitting at the far side of the courtyard, eyeing one of the helicopters.
"You've got to tell me how these things work." the dragon said, as he got near to him.
"Hah, yeah, a helicopter doesn't fly in the way you do, but it gets the job done." Walther smiled.
"Have you talked to your Leader?" Lohengin asked.
"Commanding officer, and yes, I did. He decided to take you in; we're going to be working together from now on. Essentially, you accompany me, and help me get things done when I'm on a mission."
"It doesn't sound like much." the Night Fury commented.
"Oh you will see. My job is to gather intelligence be-"
"Why, are you stupid or what?" Lohengrin asked in a confused tone.
The soldier took a long look at the dragon.
"Okay." he sighed "We need to go through a bunch of military terms and phrases first."
"Seriously... how are you going to explain that intelligence is something you can just... gather? Like berries from a bush? Why are you laughing, I'm asking a serious question!"
In the following few days, Lohengrin spent most of his time with Walther, familiarizing himself with various things about the military he had joined. The soldier brought him dozens of silhouette pictures of fighting vehicles, so he can identify things from a distance. Knowing what he's seeing was crucial, as Walther described to him that the commanders are going to expect them to sneak into enemy-controlled area, take a good look at what the enemy forces are doing, where are they going, how many of them there are, and forward the knowledge to those who can later decide what to do with it. According to Walther, the humans used to be able to utilize even more efficient methods of keeping an eye on the enemy but due to the continent-wide chaos, shortage of equipment, and enemy countermeasures the UN had to rely on alternative ways of gaining information.
The complexity of the human military marvelled Lohengrin. Everyone had their place, like tiny parts in a gigantic machine. Varying sets of rules dictated the actions of everyone, and a strong hierarchical order was present so through the combined efforts of the individual soldiers, the strength of the masses could be concentrated to where it was needed. The system was far from being flawless, but it seemed to work, as the enemy advances were halted in their sector. How the war was going on in other places of the world, Lohengrin had no clue.
Everything was fine as long as he had something new to learn, something to keep his mind occupied. But Walther had lots of other matters to take care of, and he often left him alone for hours, and that was when he began to feel troubled.
Concern built up inside him, poisoning his mind, making him restless and unable to sleep. Concern for those he had left behind, for his mate, his son, his clan. He spent countless hours in sleepless nights, thinking about them, trying to guess where they were, and wishing that they were safe, despite how grim things looked. The dilemma of Laranys was probably even worse. He had seen a couple of times, what the maniacs of this "commonwealth" were capable of. The mere attempt to imagine what is his daughter was going through now filled his heart with dread. Will he be able to find her? Will he make it in time?
Lohengrin was only sure of one thing, and he tried his best to draw strength from it: he was sure, that all of his family members were alive. The invisible link binding their souls together would have told him if things would be the other way. They were too far away to find comfort in each other's presence, but should one of their souls depart from this world, they would feel it, regardless of the distance.
Luckily, his had the opportunity to sweep all the anxiety to somewhere deep in his mind, when Walther told him about their first mission together.
Now he was silently flying behind a black helicopter, which carried Walt and his equipment to their destination. Focusing on the task ahead of them, he flapped his wings harder, going above the helo to keep distance from the turbulence it was causing. Tonight will be interesting, that's for sure.
Walther hastily jumped out of the helicopter, which barely touched the ground, and ran a few metres before hitting the dirt.
"Thanks for the lift, Indian." he growled to his radio.
"Anytime, Echo. Light 'em up."
"Acknowledged. Echo out." Walther kneeled up as the helicopter hastily retreated south, but he couldn't see Lohengrin.
"Looking for me?" a low voice came from behind.
Walther took a sharp breath. The Night Fury was barely visible; he could only see his shimmering blue eyes.
"Stop scaring me out of my pants."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Okay, we'll head north. HQ is trying to map the enemy supply lines, so if we see anything with meaningful transport capabilities, we note it."
"Understood." Lohengrin nodded "It would be easier if I could go on ahead, but I'd have to return if I see something."
"I have thought about that." the soldier said, and began to search his pouches "I acquired an extra radio, we just have to strap it on you... wait. Will it even work?"
"What do you mean?" the dragon asked.
"I'm talking about that mind-thing you mentioned about your way of speech-"
"It will work." Lohengrin confirmed.
"How?"
"Look, you still have to hear me in order to get what I'm saying... to use your terms, I am broadcasting a coded signal in multiple parts, you need to catch all parts in order to get the message." the Night Fury explained "You have to either see me or hear me and get the mental part. Everyone can do the first two, only you can do the third."
"Alright then. I'll get this on you. It's voice active, I set it to your usual volume so it'll activate automatically once you begin to speak to me. Fly up, head north, and keep an eye out without being seen okay? And don't go too far."
"I'm a Night Fury." Lohengrin stated "I can only be seen when I want to."
With those words, he took off, rapidly gaining altitude. The weather was perfect for hiding: dark, cloudy night, but no precipitation to limit his vision. As far as he could tell, humans had trouble trying to see in the dark, which was a huge disadvantage. Neither side dared to use radar for a prolonged period of time, because they both had ARM missiles to take them out. So he could fly without the fear of being detected.
As he reached an altitude which he considered safe enough, but low enough for safe identification, he began to circle around the position of Walther down below.
"Radio check. Eyeball, this is Echo seven-niner, do you read?" Lohen heard the soldier's voice in his ear, somewhat low and distorted, but acceptably well.
"I'm getting a bit of static. But it's all right." he growled, and Walther replied almost immediately.
"Static is likely, because of all the ECM in the area."
"Copy that. Maintaining observation. Eyeball out." Lohengrin responded.
The first few hours of the night went away uneventfully. They slowly but surely got closer to a highway. Lohengrin could see a darkened village and a rather large forest to the north. He had expected this to be boring, but he was determined to keep his guard up, in case of something unexpected. Down below, Walther waded through the tall grass, occasionally stopping for a minute to check their position on his tablet.
Then suddenly, Lohengrin spotted a pair of lights crawling out from the forest, heading south.
"Convoy on the road, heading south." he reported.
"I don't have a visual on it yet, but I'll get on a hill immediately." Walther replied hastily, and as Lohengrin looked down, he could vaguely see him running towards the slope in front of him. Turning his attention back towards the column of vehicles, he narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out what kinds of convoy he's looking at. The first vehicle was a wheeled tank, definitely an infantry carrier. The other end of the column was still in the forest, but he spotted another infantry vehicle around the middle.
"I'm in position." Walther's calm voice came from the earphone in his right ear. "Yeah, I spotted them too, an IFV is leading up the trucks. Can you make out any more details yet."
"I'll land in the forest to take a closer look." Lohengrin said.
"Are you sure you can stay hidden?"
"Positive."
Going into a shallow dive, Lohengrin silently descended, heading for the trees, looking for a spot to get through. He found a fallen tree not far from the road, and after a minute of sneaking, was close to the convoy, which was even bigger than he thought. Every seventh vehicle was an armed escort, the rest were flatbed trucks. He tried to determine what was inside the trucks, and after enough crawling, he managed to peek into one of them, just when the lights of the following truck illuminated the cargo compartment.
He saw faces. Scared faces of men, women, and children. Families, desperately trying to hold together as they are taken away.
Lohengrin's eyes grew wide in horror, as he backtracked and turned away. Knowing that he had seen enough, he rushed out of the forest, and took off, heading towards Walther's position on the hilltop.
"What did you see?" he asked as the dragon arrived.
"They are transporting civilians!"
The face Walther made mirrored his own feelings about this. The soldier let out an angered huff, looked over the details of the convoy again and he reached for his radio.
"Checkmate, this is Echo seven-niner. Enemy convoy spotted at sector foxtrot, map grid three-three-four-niner, heading: two-four-eight degrees, speed: fifty. At least three-five CTs, escorted by five IFVs. Cargo is confirmed friendly. I repeat, cargo is confirmed friendly."
"Solid copy Seven-Niner, standby for further orders."
Walther sighed, as he put down his headset.
"Okay, now what?" Lohengrin asked impatiently, tail lashing left and right.
"We have to wait until HQ decides what to do. They may come up with a rescue operation, although I don't know if we have enough units in the vicinity. Extracting civilians is usually a priority."
The dragon sat down, eyes fixed on the column, which was roughly five kilometres ahead of them.
"I think I have an idea."
"Look, if you're thinking what I'm thinking you're thinking, it's not a good idea!" Walther protested.
"Why? We have the element of surprise."
"There is only the two of us. They can have fifty people in the IFVs."
"I eat IFVs for breakfast, you know." the Night Fury grinned at him.
Walther stared into his eyes for a long moment, then grabbed his rifle.
"You know that HQ is going to screw us. We have orders not to engage, just observe."
"I'm not going to let these fanatics ruin the lives of even more innocents who have nothing to do with this." Lohengrin stood up. "They aren't any different than your family." he added quietly.
"Too right." Walther sighed. He pulled back the charging handle on his rifle, arming it, but when he looked back into Lohengrin's eyes, his gaze was solid with determination.
"Let's do this."
A/N Yeah, let's do this! In the... next chapter? :3
For people who aren't military geeks, let me give you a hand with the abbiverations:
OPCOM - operation command
AAR - after action report
IFV - infantry fighting vehicle
APC - armoured personnel carrier
ARM - anti-radiation missile, follows stuff which emit radio signals, like radars.
HQ - headquarters
Is there anything else? Throw a PM at me if something's not clear. :)
And as always, please tell me your opinion!
I
I
I
V