Afternoon.
Almost Two Days Later . . .
He leaned down and air-traced the marks in the soft earth. Large, half-cloven. Heavy set creature with no front prints nearby - long body or bipedal. He studied the pattern of flatten grass around the boulder. Broken stalks radiated around this center point. He continued searching and found another set of prints. Five fingers. Opposable thumb. Claws - long claws.
Neither type of print had walked here or left. The prints appear suddenly, make a round and a third, and stop. These last hind prints dug into the ground, the earth pushed into raised crescents. Flight.
"Dragon."
He squashed one of the small crescents of earth between his thumb and forefinger and then pushed his forefinger gingerly into the middle of the print. Dried and compact. This was old but not enough to show considerable weathering.
He walked over back towards the other set of tracks that were clearly of a four legged animal that had sprinted here; likely a cow or possibly an ox, depending on what was kept as livestock around here. There were marks on the boulder face.
The man rubbed his stubbled chin. The cow had run off in the other direction.
Perhaps it was hunting . . . but there was no blood . . .
While dragons do take on human form they're still animals. Clever animals. Despite what the heads say he knew that dragons were smart. Smart enough to hide in plain sight in this shrinking world. It was getting harder and harder to find them and it was almost impossible to find a nest. Maybe it had taken off with it.
It would be interesting to study what strange interplays of behavior go on between its human "self" and the beast.
He straightened, checked the sun, and took and unfolded his paper map.
If only he could find a nest, he mused. Some hunters had found evidence that dragons had abandoned laying eggs and were birthing live young in the shape of humans, taking human form from the beginning and not just when needed to escape the Huntsclan's attacks or herding. The extent of this behavioral change in populations and when it occurred were unknown. There was speculation that they would switch out human babies like fairies use to but there was no evidence of this but a group of shape-shifted dragons had been recently discovered living and nesting in the city of London of all places, surrounded by millions of humans who didn't know any better.
The heads were worried that their main enemy was changing tactics. He, himself, had advocated for an increase in attempts to study these new behaviors and only his rank kept him from ridicule. If their enemy was evolving, they would need to evolve as well.
The territory of a dragon was potentially extensive with their flight capabilities. He needed to at least check out the surrounding settlements. Someone may have seen something - and someone may be missing a cow.
He had to be careful, though. The dragon was considered a good omen in many ethnic groups here. He needed to phrase his words carefully.
First he should survey further out into the area as well as follow the cow's trail and try to determine more of what happened.
He took a moment and let the bustling world of the village swirl around him, taking in the smells, the sights, and the people.
And then he studied the people.
"Xian Sheng, Nin Hao!" (Hello, Sir!)
The man's sharply focused on the woman behind the stall. The woman had a bright dress on and bowed deeply to him.
"May I interested you in our services. You must be tired by traveling without horse or a vehicle for it is a long ways to the main road. Do you wish to at least rest?"
He bowed in greeting. "Nin Hao." The woman smiled at him expectantly. He couldn't help but have his carefully maintained composure waver under the smile and her pretty face. "I . . . I could do with a rest, Miss."
Her face lit up and she turned and nearly skipped to the opening of the main store. "We have a seating area through here, Sir."
It was nice inside given the relative little wealth of the village. It was a village but it seemed well off. His gaze ran up and down the streams of color adorning the walls and draping from the ceiling. "Is there going to be a celebration?"
"Oh, yes," she politely covered her giggles, "there is a local festival happening tomorrow night." She motioned for him to follow her to a side table.
He turned to follow. "But there were no decorations outside?"
"The elders said it was going to rain soon so the decorations outside were taken in to protect them until tomorrow morning."
He sat down. "But it was clear outside," he quietly whispered to himself.
"The clouds often roll down from the mountains here and suddenly bring with them rain," she answered, apparently hearing. She leaned in to whisper, "The elders say there is a rain spirit that lives within an ancient shrine somewhere on one of the mountain peaks and when she sings to the moon it will suddenly turn blue and these rains flood the rivers causing bountiful harvests." She straightened but gave a small laugh. "Parents also tell their children that she'll snatch them away if they don't listen." She waved off the atmosphere she had created. "You know how parents are."
"Have any children gone missing?" He thought back to how the cow's track had stopped abruptly as it had been walking towards the far side of the closest village, this village. The poor creature, he concluded, must have been carried off.
The woman was taken aback by the man's stern gaze. "N-no. It's just a local legend, Sir. Tales to keep children from wandering off and causing mischief."
As practiced he lightened his expression and flashed her a warm smile. "I just wanted to ensure there was no trouble." He could feel that the woman was still scrutinizing him. An idea popped up in his head. "I will be traveling towards the mountain range soon and wished to know of any possible trouble. And stories, say, to pass at the campfire," he quickly added, ". . . old legends fascinate me, you see. I have been collecting stories for a long time and searching for their links to the real world. Always there is some form of truth to them. Characters, places, and abilities change and usually exaggerated but something spurred the story. I write these little known legends in my journal. I may even write a volume organizing these . . . stories and the regions involved in them." Somewhere in the back of his mind caught him in the act of showing off to a pretty face. He scolded himself. He'll never learn.
"The mountains?"
He studied her expression. Perhaps she had not followed forward with the rest of what he said. "Yes. Is . . . there something wrong?"
"The weather is the mountains is treacherous, especially with it being autumn and winter coming." She fell on to the rumors she heard from her traveling patrons to support her, things that the man would hear along this stretch of road. (Hopefully the other villages wasn't equally spreading rumors about them.) "Wolves have also been seen on the outskirts in the foothills near one of our sister villages."
"Wolves?"
"Yes but it is well known that a pack seasonally migrate to this side of the mountain range . . . it's just that they are rumored to be walking into their village at night. Jian, he lives there, says it's probably because something has stirred them up such as another pack."
"Has there been trouble with the wolves?"
The woman finally took a seat opposite from him. "We have seen no trouble but rumors have come from their village that wolves have been lurking around at night. No one said anyone has been hurt but there is fear for the livestock."
He hid his smile, something within him stirred excitedly. "When did this start?"
"I don't know."
"Has any livestock gone missing in this village?" This could help on both accounts.
"No, not from this village."
"Has any livestock gone missing from the surrounding villages?"
"No."
He sighed softly. He'll need to check with the other villages as she would not necessarily know for sure - perhaps he should check on this other village. "Perhaps then it's time for some of those drinks," he smiled.
Off to the side two patrons hunched over a little further. One leaned ever so slightly to his friend, murmuring.
The other gave a small, short nod, a single jerk of the head downwards. He followed the gesture by placing a cup to his mouth letting the once warm liquid pool on his lips as if to sip from it.
"Hey, Fla'q."
Behind a tray of dirty dishes destined for the kitchen's washtubs, a strange mixture of otherwise tasteful smells mixing and irradiating from the porcelain, she looked over at one of her regulars, a local. He had whispered her name so . . . urgently . . . "Yes?"
"Who's that man?"
"I don't know."
"There've been a lot of strangers coming around lately," his friend commented.
"Yeah," he added, "but the woman was one of us - a dragon."
Fla'q turned fully to them and sat her load down on their table. "I . . ." her voice wavered. She proceeded to pick up two of their dishes. "Yes, something does seem off. Something's . . . in his eyes. The way . . . he reacted to me telling a fairy tale. If he was a simply a scholar h-he wouldn't have asked about any children actually missing . . . right?"
"Make sure he moves on, Fla'q. I don't like his aura."
She nodded. "I tried. Maybe . . . get a message to Camelia to keep her pack near our village and away from the mountains for a while."
"And you make sure your gleam doesn't break in front of that human stranger," the other man added, clearly growing more concerned. "And the festival is tomorrow, too," he whispered with a nervous sigh.
[[a/n: Gleam - spell that prevents normal humans from seeing one's true physical form.]]
[[a/n X2: I made up the name Fla'q. If it just happens to be a bad word I don't know about.]]