DPOV

In the morning I discussed plans and directions with Stan. Rose, Eddie and I would move towards the town, check the surrounding forest and see if we could find out anything from the locals. Even if humans didn't know that Snow Dragons existed or that they could shift to human, they might have seen strange things. Most humans did have a sense about Dragons in general. They somehow saw us as 'other' or strange, even if they couldn't quite put their finger on it. The information main command got must have come from somewhere.

In turn, Stan and a handful of our squad would scout the forest on the other side of the lake, leading away from the town and towards the mountains for tracks.

Once done with the logistics, I moved back to Rose's side. Although she had been quiet around most of the other members of the squad since Mason's death, I was happy to notice she was having a conversation with Meredith now and by the small smile on her face, the topic was light.

I sat down next to her for breakfast but didn't break into their conversation. I merely let my hand brush the small of her back in support. Slowly but surely, Rose was getting back on her feet.

After breakfast, we packed and moved towards our designated areas for tracking. We were all in human form. It was much easier tracking when being six foot tall instead of sixty. We tended to eradicate any tracks by simply stepping on them or breaking trees, that covered the tracks. Even in the military training, we were taught to track as human. My instructor had said that in his eyes it was the only advantage of being able to shift to human. Clearly he had never had sex while human. There are simply so many more positions and things you could try with a limber human body as opposed to the bulky Dragon form. Coupling there mostly consisted of mounting from the back. Although very pleasurable, it wasn't very creative. Just one more reason Rose had given me for liking my human form.

I lead Eddie and Rose into the forest. The sun was on our side today and illuminated the ground even through the canopy of leaves. The forest was dense, and I already deduced that if Snow Dragons passed through here, they either flew overhead, but would had to have done it during the night, not to be seen, or they were in human form on foot.

"Look for anything that doesn't belong. A foreign object, an odd branch, or a disturbance in the ground."

I saw Rose nearly roll her eyes. She thought my instructions were so obvious, but silently she averted her gaze to the ground and started searching. Eddie seemed eager to start, and I saw him staring at the ground so intensely, I was afraid he would set it on fire and destroy any tracks.

"Found something!" Rose even lifted her hand in the air as if she were in school. I chuckled. I was glad some of that playfulness was still there.

She pointed towards the ground, and I could see a bit of loose dirt surrounded by more flattened soil. I crouched down and Eddie and Rose were hovering over my shoulder, watching me inspect the dirt.

"The ground is freshly split. This could mean an animal or a person has come through recently. We are going towards a small town, and most people will approach it from the other side, so traffic from this side will be light. It rained two days ago, so the ground would have been soaked and evened out then. This means that someone, or something, has come by here in the last few days, taking a rather illogical route getting to the village."

Rose jumped up in the air, with her hands raised in triumph.

"Damn, first try and I track those damn bastards. Three cheers for me."

I shook my head, but couldn't help the small smile tugging at my lips.

"Actually you are tracking an animal. By the looks of it a small deer, probably female. See the imprint isn't deep enough to be human? Whoever made this imprint wasn't heavier than one-hundred pounds, I estimate. Also, if we look around, we see more of these kind of tracks scattered around, the trail leads on the road and off the road again, but in a single direction. An animal would have no use for a road, and would likely not follow its logic."

Rose lowered her arms and put her hands on her hips, looking a little annoyed.

"But you did find tracks. Good job." Now she did roll her eyes at my pathetic attempt to praise her.

"So we are looking for deeper imprints then?" Eddie asked, trying to analyze each thing that I said.

"And in a pattern suggesting more intelligent behavior?"

I nodded.

"Not just imprints though. They could have covered their tracks on the ground. Usually, people forget about the damage they do to branches and other plants. Even if the ground seems undisturbed, you can look for broken branches or trampled plants. Those are a lot harder to cover up than simply wiping the ground. Also, a broken branch wouldn't be fixed by rain, so it is a more permanent feature to track, but that also means it is harder to determine the timeline. Although the amount of sap leaking from the branch, and the state of healing from the tree, can tell you something about that. Let's see if we can find something else."

Eddie immediately returned to his task. Maybe he was taking this a little too seriously.

We made our way into the town. So far we had seen a few odd things, but nothing conclusive. I would have to see if the others were having more luck. But for now, we would move onto a different kind of tracking. Interrogating humans.

"A good place to start if you want to gather information is the pub. Most travelers will stop by the pub, and drunk people tend to talk a lot."

We walked towards the local pub, and I was mindful of everyone around me. I wanted to see if they reacted to strangers. If many strangers come past this town, they wouldn't give us a second thought, but if travelers were rare, we would be met with curiosity. If Snow Dragons had come by here, I suspected we would be met with vigilance and probably fear.

The town folk didn't seem to pay us any mind though, which was both reassuring as well as disappointing. The town seemed to have stayed safe in the war, and it hadn't encountered Snow Dragons yet. But somehow we had gotten information from this place about sightings. Who had provided that information? And although the people in town were going around their business, I felt ill at ease. I could feel us being watched, but I couldn't pinpoint who was watching us. It sent chills down my spine.

We stepped into the pub, and I walked up to the bar gesturing for Rose and Eddie to take a seat. We ordered three ales so we could blend in. I didn't engage with anybody yet. I was first scouting the place and getting the lay of the land.

"First you have to observe. Find your target. The bartenders are usually chatty and hear most rumors, but also other travelers can be a good source of information about the area around the village and route leading in and out of town. Also, regulars tend to have much information."

I looked around the room and discreetly pointed at a man sitting in a chair by the fire.

"For instance, that man is a regular. The way his chair is angled means he has a clear view of what is going on. Any disturbance or strange things he will have seen."

"How do you know he is a regular?" Eddie asked.

I motioned towards his chair and mug.

"The indent in the chair means the chair has morphed around him. That doesn't happen overnight. The same with his mug. The handle shines more than the rest of it, indicating it has been touched more. The other mugs around the tavern have a large pattern around the handle. So it means many different people have held the cup, the cup has been held in many different ways by many different sized hands. So the overall wear and tear isn't specifically located. The cup the man is holding only shines directly where he is holding it. The man has been sitting in that chair and drinking out of that mug for years."

Eddie seemed impressed, Rose was just starring across the room trying to find a similar pattern seeing if she could determine anything from the tavern's patrons without actually speaking to them.

She pointed towards a man in a cape. I could clearly see his face and his skin was pink and his eyes blue, so no Snow Dragon, but I agreed the man stood out. I wondered what Rose had picked up on?

"His cape has mud on the end. The rest of these people's capes are clean. That is strange right?"

I nodded. It was a good observation.

"Likely the man is coming from the West. It has been raining there a lot, and he probably has been mucking around mud for a while. But that does make him a traveler, and therefore he might have valuable information. Nicely caught Rose."

"So now what? We go up to them and ask them questions? Have you seen white monsters who will eat your children?"

"No, you engage. You ask him about his trip. Try to find some common ground. You could use some charm and gently coerce some information out of them."

Rose hmphed in the chair and crossed her arms.

"You mean I have to seduce them. Plaster on a nice smile and lower my shirt a little, is that it? Comrade?"

I hadn't thought about it. I had merely meant, don't be threatening. And although I didn't want Rose to do any of that stuff, I must admit it would probably work. For me getting information from women was always easier because I would just gently smile and they would tell me anything. I would imagine Rose's smile, and a wiggle of her hips, could get us just about any information we wanted.

"No. Not at all. Don't even think about it. Just talk to someone. Be nice."

She shrugged and walked towards the traveler. She sat down next to him and smiled genuinely at him. He immediately responded, and I could see that she had him engaging in a conversation pretty soon. I moved towards the man in the chair. Of course, it had nothing to do with him being somewhat close to the traveler, so I could keep an eye on Rose and listen in on their conversation.

I tasked Eddie with talking to the bartender.

The man in the chair was nice enough, and talked about how long his family had lived here. I asked simple questions about the town, not delving into any weird things going on just yet. But the entire time we were talking, I could have sworn someone was watching me again. I scanned the room, but I couldn't find the culprit. Eventually, I asked the man if he had seen any strange travelers passing through town and all he did was point at Rose, Eddie and myself. I chuckled and bid the man a good day before returning to my original seat at the bar.

Rose came over a few minutes later and relayed some general information about other towns and the surrounding forest she had gotten from the traveler, but no information that was actually useful to us.

"Well that was utterly useless," Rose said as we walked out of town.

"The man just kept whining and whining about his ruined socks due to the rain. It was hard keeping that smile on my face." As a way of proving her point, she started to rub her cheeks, as if they were sore from all the fake smiling.

"Rose. Information is never useless. And you learned something today. That is important too. Gathering information can be a slow process, but it is necessary. Going into battle without all the information can be dangerous, and you should avoid it whenever you can."

Both Eddie's and Rose's face fell. That was the lesson they had learned from Mason. His impatience had gotten him killed in the end. If he had waited one more day, for one more scouting trip, we probably would have been able to figure out it was a relay station. I don't know how the rest would have turned out, but Mason would probably still be alive. But fate had a way of happening no matter what you did, so he might still have ended up dead.

"The bartender didn't have anything either. He said some strangers had come by before us, but he hadn't seen anything worth noticing. And it was a woman with a man. He said she was quite pretty. He hadn't gotten a good look at the man. I doubted those would have been Snow Dragons though."

No human would think Snow Dragons are pretty. Even in human form, their eyes are red and their skin pale. They would be devoid of life. Even if the features of a person could be attractive, the overall picture was one of horror.

"But according to main command, there have been sightings, right? So somebody must have seen something?" Rose was right. The reports had to have come from somewhere.

"Let's get back to camp and see if the other's have had more luck." I tried not to let Rose and Eddie see my unease, but I was starting to get a bad feeling about this mission.

Back at camp, Stan had little more information. He found one large broken branch high in a tree, which might have been broken off by somebody's Dragon form. Or it could have been a bear. Stan sent word to main command of our findings, or lack thereof, and for the rest, all we could do was wait and keep searching.

"So did you ever have to torture information out of somebody?"

Rose sat down next to me. She was wiggling her eyebrows seemingly a little excited.

"I wouldn't call it torture. But I may have threatened a human or two. Usually, that is more than enough. One time, I had to punch a guy and hold him off his feet in the air before he spilled the beans. But usually, humans aren't the issue. Just put a few cups of ale in them, and they will sing whatever song you want them to sing. Getting information from Dragons is usually a little harder."

"How so?"

"Well for starters, they tend to hold their ale better." This made Rose laugh.

"Mostly, it is sufficient for me to reveal my rank and that I am doing the Queen's work and they talk."

She looked towards the fire.

"Ever had to torture a Snow Dragon?"

I shook my head.

"Getting information from Snow Dragons is impossible. Their sheer pride and arrogance will prevent them from talking. Besides, it is hard to control such a strong creature. You are better off killing it as soon as possible and trying to get that information in another way. They have no love for each other, so they will rat each other our in a heartbeat. But submitting to someone? Acknowleding that someone has any sort of power of them? That, they will not allow. I can't imagine what could make them talk."

"Got it. Humans; good for flirting and information. Snow Dragons; good for killing, and with Fire Dragons, I just have to mention your name and rank and we are good."

I laughed as I pulled her close. It was a bit of a simplifaction, but generally, she wasn't wrong. And with Rose's keen sense of observation and charm, she could probably make Tatiana spill the beans about her secret stash of human cigarettes she has in her chambers, that nobody is supposed to know about.

"So tomorrow we will try again? We take a different route to town?"

I nodded.

"I was thinking of letting you track the foothill of the mountain. The displacement of rocks can make very interesting patterns to show us what happened in the last few days. It would be worth exploring."

She leaned against me and started to rub my thigh a little.

"You and I have a very different idea of interesting, Comrade."

Rose's eyes wiggled a little bit, but after a moment they started to track a form behind me. Her eyes lost the sparkle of mischief and instead, I could see worry in her eyes. I saw Eddie move from behind us and towards his sleeping spot and Rose's eyes kept following him.

"He seemed very serious today. Not that today wasn't meant to be serious or anything. I just thought he sounded a bit… obsessive."

I looked at Eddie a few moments more, before I turned back to Rose.

"It happens. Some people dive into their work. I think it is easier for him to focus on this than on Mason. He is trying to keep his mind busy. As long as he learns something and he doesn't overdo it too much, he should be fine. But I will keep an eye out."

She leaned into me and sighed. Even when Rose was barely holding onto herself at times, it was testimony to her protective nature that she was looking out for Eddie. Rose has always been very protective. I had seen it with Lissa. She was willing to risk being beaten again by that idiot human, but she had to get back to her friend. She killed someone because they threatened her friend. And now, even though she was emotionally all over the place, she focused on Eddie. Maybe it was easier for her to focus on him instead of her own pain? Like Eddie was focusing on learning and tracking. I doubted Rose was doing it consciously. It was just her way.

"Come on, let's eat and get some sleep. Another long day tomorrow."