Chapter 9: Breaking the Ice

"Hello, there."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars

"Whoops!"

"Oy, be careful! You can't fly."

"Ummmm, I actually never learned how."

"Kilat, you know what I mean!"

"Oh, I'll be fine! Keep worrying like that and you're bound to lose your scales."

"I don't have scales, remember?"

"Joshua, you know what I mean!"

"Goddammit."

The dragon child bounded the trail ahead of him, skipping along the rock-strewn path with a smile on her muzzle. Her bubbly leaps, her vivacious trots, and her chirpy voice all gave away her spirited mood—a drastic change from the angst, resignation, and sorrow from yesterday. She woke up in the wee hours of the morning, refreshed and free of worries, if a little—a lot hungry after sleeping the entire night.

There were no immediate threats to her life.

She was happily on her way to Warfang.

She also basked in the sweet fortune of having no apes dogging her every step.

Well… she actually had one ape following her.

A furless, mostly hairless ape, who apparently cared for her….

In fact, he cared for her so much he sweated profusely at the sight of the dragoness playfully scampering down the precarious slopes of the Dry Canyon with only eight feet separating her from an unfortunate and rather bloody death.

Joshua Renalia's heart skipped a beat every time the Electric dragon hopped on a rock that did not look sturdy to him (even if it really was) or failed to see the rattlesnake minding its own business on either side of the ledge (while its life signature pulsed from surprise and wariness). He skirted around the colorful and angry -looking serpent glaring at him from its little hidey-hole before shaking his head in Kilat's direction. He took a deep breath and wiped off his sweat. "I swear," the teenager complained. "You'll be the death of me one day!"

The human had barely gotten two, no, three more strides down when his ears registered paws scurrying furiously. A golden snout popped up from below as two paws cohered to both his shoulders. Joshua fell backward on a patch of pebbles and weeds. "Holy shi—

Thud. "Ugh!"

"You don't mean that, do you?" Kilat's big, cobalt eyes bored into his. They looked hurt. "Do you?"

Joshua groaned. "Well if you'd stop making me panic every time I look at you—

He never got to complete anything else. Kilat brought her snout down and nuzzled his cheek. Her natural breath smelled faintly like Clorox. "I'm ten years old," she said. "I'm a big girl. I'm not gonna do anything stupid."

That's what I'm afraid of.

"Promise me you'll be more careful, okay? And don't stray too far from me. I don't want to see you get hurt again."

"Okay, okay, I promise."

He sighed. "Good. I'll hold you to that then. Now can you get off me, please?"

Kilat licked his face in response before she sprung away. Her gooey tongue left behind a thick, sticky trail of slobber on Joshua's face in its wake.

He was vexed. "Eew, not again! Ugh…"

The dragoness tittered, to his annoyance. "Remember what I said this morning!" she managed between giggles. "It's good for you!"

Joshua Renalia suppressed whatever rejoinder he had, let loose a subtle, but incoherent curse, and spat out what dribble got in his mouth. Kilat was a handful, he had to admit. There seemed to be no end to her playfulness. Just keeping an eye on her stressed him out every so often.

Sometimes, he wondered, was Spyro like this in A New Beginning, before he met Ignitus? How did Flash and Nina take care of someone large enough to eat them in a single gulp? How did they discipline a baby dragon, before it even knew the difference between right and wrong?

Wait. As a child, was Spyro that energetic to begin with? Sparx always enjoyed teasing him he was the fat one, and the Purple Dragon did possess some level of respect for rules. Otherwise he might've gone into the cave where a scouting party of apes captured the talking dragonfly, probably years before the incident occurred. Then there wouldn't have been a need for Sparx to coax him into loosening up, and he might have never discovered the element of Fire, or even run into Ignitus if it wasn't for that cautious, respectful personality of his.

The human supposed this was something better posed to Spyro or Sparx if—no, when he got to meet them.

He eyed the dragoness before him. Kilat stayed closer, as she promised—thank God—though she still had that worrisome spring in her step. She definitely had none of Spyro's self-restraint, for sure. Kilat expressed herself openly and, the human saying went, wore her heart on her sleeve. Every time they spoke, it amazed Joshua how they could even understand each other.

Emerald eyes then examined her body in more detail. They took in the features Joshua didn't have the time for, back when she was on the brink of death. The child certainly looked different compared to what he expected a dragon from the Dragon Realms to look like. For one, Kilat actually had earlobes… if they could be called such. From Joshua's point of view, they looked more like frills, but they served the same purpose, and it needed an awkward question for Kilat to figure out most dragons typically had visible, uncovered holes on either side of the snout, much like lizards did back on Earth. The child admitted reluctantly—very reluctantly—how she happened to be one of the few that weren't "hatched that way". (Was she… embarrassed?)

Then there were the horns. Kilat sported thick, sturdy horns that curled tightly around her head and protruded forward, like a mountain ram. In contrast, Joshua remembered the other dragons' slender horns that curved further back from their head. More like deer antlers or the horns of a goat, and this characteristic seemed to persist through both the Classic and Legend trilogies. Joshua did not point out this dissonant trait anymore, not after the way Kilat hesitated to answer his question about her ears or the way she looked away with an expression on her muzzle that reminded him of a self-conscious little girl ashamed of something.

Should he also ask about her monotone color scheme? Last he checked, he wasn't in the How To Train Your Dragon world. Joshua Renalia just couldn't remember any character from the Classic or Legend verse with a single color defining their physical characteristics. Even the Skylanders dragons had a secondary color for their undersides. Surely, Kilat was another odd one out. Joshua pitied her a little. He wondered how life would be like for her in Warfang? Even if that Ape Commander failed to sever her wing, chances were high the other dragons would single her out. Would that be good? Would that be bad? Could dragons be as superficial as humans were?

Did dragons adhere to any sort of social values at all? How could they even coexist in the same city with at least one other sentient species? How similar were they to modern society back on Earth?

The human teenager had so many questions, but the video games never explored any of them. Classic was too focused on the platforming and Legend concentrated too much on the war effort. Next thing he knew, Joshua asked Kilat to wait for him and the second he caught up with her, he coiled his arms around her in a hug.

Kilat froze up a little, not that the human could blame her for it. That stupid ape nearly killed her with this move yesterday. But she relaxed fairly quickly and looked up at him. "….Joshua?" she asked. "Are you okay? Tired?"

He didn't say a word and shook his head.

Kilat didn't get it. "Y-you know, we just passed some Spirit Gems." She moved to backtrack. "We can go back and—

Joshua tightened his grip. "I'm fine, Kilat. I'm fine. Besides, those weren't the green ones."

"Oh." She stopped struggling. "Then…"

"I, I was just thinking, that's all."

"About what?" He detected the tinge of concern in her voice. That's the one thing he's noticed about her, and it seemed to permeate her every decision. The Electric dragoness was very watchful—no, protective of him. It tempered even her child-like curiosity, and Joshua guessed the life she led had been hard enough on her that she held strongly—selfishly—onto people who cared for her.

He stroked her head. "You," he responded. "The other dragons. Warfang…"

"A lot of things, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Do they worry you?"

"…Yeah."

Kilat huffed. She nuzzled against Joshua's chest. "Then stop," she said, in all her innocent childishness. "Let's keep walking." She turned her head back towards the trail. Joshua looked on ahead. The trail was about to get a lot steeper from here, and obviously if he wanted to avoid going splat all over the Dry Canyon, Joshua would need to up his concentration. "We can talk all we want when we're down there."

He released the child, letting the dragoness step away from him. "All right," Joshua acquiesced. "I'll save it for later."

"Why does everyone older than me worry themselves to death?" She ground the soil beneath her forepaw. "It's stupid. You don't have to do it all the time."

Joshua didn't bother explaining how maturity worked. A child would not truly understand the way responsibilities and risks piled on and on every year. A child may even dread growing up and seeing the benefits of accountability. Instead he settled on a simple response Kilat would definitely appreciate. "We do it so you don't have to, Kilat. You're supposed to enjoy life as much as you can while you're young. It's supposed to be the happiest times of your life."

She looked away from him. "Joshua, my life hasn't been really… I mean, I've—

"Look. It's not perfect, but it's better than suffering from the very beginning."

"That, that makes sense."

"Glad you got it." Then he saw the Spirit Gem clusters growing out of the wall. "Oh sweet, an XP gem! Haven't seen those in a while. And there's two of them!"

"A what? Ex-pee? What're you talking about?"

Joshua raised his walking stick, spread his feet for stability, and started whacking his target. "Just shut up and bash the other one. You know what the blue ones do, right?"

"…uhmmm…"

A few fragments fell off. "They make your Element stronger!" He smacked it again. Thank the Lord these crystals were brittle. "Don't you know this?"

"No… Elements never interested me."

Joshua grunted as he thrust at the cluster thrice, dislodging enough crystals to make a 6-inch pile directly below it. "Uh huh."

"Lani's always been the one who wanted to 'get stronger'. Noooot me."

"If you ask me, you still need to be good at using your Element no matter what you want to do with your life." One last strike and the entire crystal crumbled completely. The human grabbed a few and watched the illustrious blue fade to gray before disintegrating to dust. "The Guardians used to have a temple over there," he turned to the horizon and pointed at the massive volcano rising from the far distance, "before Malefor went and turned it into that. They had training rooms. They run on magic so they can make dummies you can practice on."

Kilat quickly put two and two together. "I guess you're right." She smiled at him.

Joshua grinned. "And besides, it'll be a waste if you don't do anything with your Element. Your electricity's really impressive. You could do the Electric Orb! The Purple Dragon didn't even know that until well after he defeated Cynder and got some more training from the Guardians."

"Wow!" she exclaimed. "I can't believe I'm better than the Purple Dragon at something—wait." The child ogled him. "Hey, how would you know this? You're talking like you've seen this yourself."

Joshua Renalia remained calm. Composed, he smoothly bent down and clutched two of the XP crystals, watching his hands absorb their energy within. To Kilat, he hoped, he looked like the perfect portrait of tranquility. A young man with all the answers. But deep inside, all of that was a fake.

He did everything he could to keep his breathing stable as he stared deep into the XP crystals. He cursed himself. Damn it, Joshua! Damn it! You just had to let it slip! The human did not want to come clean with Kilat just yet. She'd think he was crazy… insane! "Well…"

Telling the first ever friend he made in the Dragon Realms he came from a world where their entire planet and the history she knew was a figment of someone's imagination—a mere fiction—definitely wouldn't go well. And if she would have had a hard time accepting that alone, then how about when he blew her over with the knowledge that he controlled Spyro the Dragon? That he saw his history, his struggles—even some of his personal issues? What if it spread across the city when they got there?

Goddammit, he didn't want to deal with this question so soon—

And Kilat decided to accelerate his answer. "Well, what?"

"Well, humanity has a way of keeping track with your history." Yes. Yes. This may just work.

"Oh?"

Fall for it, he prayed. Fall for it. "Yeah, and it relies on very complicated technology. My species invented this thing called a 'camera', and it lets us view things from far away!" C'mon, c'mon. Believe my bullshit. C'mon, Kilat…

The dragoness gave him an astounded look. "You're pulling my tail!"

"Nope, I swear to you, I'm not. That's why I know these things."

"But... but… but how?"

Yes! She fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Joshua scratched his head and flashed a sheepish grin. Good one, meezter Joshua. Very good one. "Hell if I know. I never bothered learning exactly how a camera works. But there's one thing I do know: a camera runs on electricity."

Kilat stayed silent. Rather than replying, the electric dragoness simply turned to the second cluster of Spirit Gems. She swiped and thumped and bashed it until it crumbled into fragments, before absorbing all the XP crystals herself. "Electricity, huh?" he heard the child mumble.

Watching Kilat launch herself at the cluster of Spirit Gems with vigor and fervor, Joshua Renalia absorbed the last fragment from his own pile and reminisced over the events of this morning. The dragoness had certainly gotten more used to him and, judging from the way she accepted his bullshit at face value, clearly saw him much more than a "furless ape", hailing from a society with a distinct and foreign culture from her own.

Looking back, the morning wasn't that eventful. Joshua woke up with the sun barely peeping over the horizon. Kilat stood on all fours, and she had been prodding him with her paws—nuzzling him with her snout for a good twenty seconds before the human finally woke up.

But unlike last sundown—after his power broke his mind and healed her instead of repeating the "Death Hound" incident and turning her body into another unsightly corpse—Kilat stayed quiet. She kept to herself more. At the time, she did not talk as much, and she certainly wasn't at all "touchy-feely" with him even when it was clear that's the kind of person this dragoness was.

Was she nervous? He thought. Or did she still distrust him just because he looked like an ape, even after she had long hours of restful sleep?

He heard her stomach growl. "C'mon," he said to her. "Help me get some food here. I'll climb the tree and dislodge the red and blue berries. You get all the ones you can find on the ground."

"…okay…"

"And NO yellow berries! I know they're tasty, but I don't want you dying on me again! Understand?"

"Yeah…"

Other than one-word responses and noncommittal grunts and whines, the electric dragoness did not talk to him at all. She held herself aloof, not interacting in any way. Yet she ate her berries right next to Joshua, and the child never strayed from his side. Maybe it was just the awkwardness of traveling with a stranger?

"Kilat?" he tested the waters. Hopefully she remembered she was with someone who saved her life.

"Joshua?" At least she got the pronunciation right the first time. Kilat had a decent voice. It didn't sound as mature as Cynder's, but at the same time not as fluffy as Ember's. He could hear the youth in it, and Joshua imagined the child would have had a good singing voice if she was human.

"I've been wondering. I know you've never seen my kind before, but… have you ever heard of humans at all? We sometimes call ourselves humanity or humankind."

"No, never. Even Explodon wouldn't know what you are. I think he'll just call you a 'furless ape' like I did."

"Not even in stories? Myths? Or legends?"

"Sorry, but no."

Joshua couldn't figure out a way to respond to this. The child's responses meant humanity never existed on this planet. They have never been heard of. Not in a historical narrative. Not in a myth. Not in a legend. Was he… was he the only human to ever set foot in the Dragon Realms?

Kilat's chuckles brought him out of his thoughts. "Funny you ask. The people I grew up with know about the Purple Dragon of Legend, and they're not even dragons."

Funny? Funny? No, it wasn't funny that he could possibly be the only living human in this world! The fact he could even understand her words as solid English was a miracle in and of itself. He resisted the urge to give the child a light slap in the head and instead focused on the opening that just presented itself. "You didn't grow up with dragons?"

"No. I grew up in a village of foxes and mongooses. It's about six days away from here by foot."

"What," Joshua hesitated to ask. "What happened to your parents? How did you end up in—

"Orphaned during the war," the dragoness answered. "The Apes killed everyone in my family seven years ago. Same with Lani. But we managed to escape from our settlement because of them." Her head drooped. "I just wish that they, t-that they also got away, too…"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" she asked, and tilted her head. "Sorry for what? You didn't do anything."

"It's a human saying," Joshua explained to her. "It means I understand how you feel, and I hope there's something I can do to help you feel better about it."

The child leaned on him. "Just don't ask me about it again. Please."

"Okay," nodded the teenager. "Then… how long has it been since the Purple Dragon defeated Malefor?"

"You… don't know?"

"I haven't been paying attention in a while," he admitted. "Been busy with a lot of things." If only she knew he meant a lot of other video games, including new gaming consoles, new movies, and of course, new schoolwork and new ways to make friends.

"Oh. Uhhh, about four years now."

"Four years?" he repeated. Joshua remembered Explodon saying she and Lani weren't that much older than ten. So that placed Kilat at six years old during the Dawn of the Dragon, and three during The Eternal Night and A New Beginning. That meant…

She was orphaned in the same year Spyro emerged from the swamps and took down Cynder? That sounded like horrible luck to him.

"But that would've made you three years old when the Purple Dragon appeared. I thought dragons are only born every twelve years, during the Year of the Dragon?"

"Not true," she corrected him. "Dragon eggs hatch much faster than that. Lani told me that 'Year of the Dragon' thing is just a tradition we've followed for thousands and thousands of years."

"Oh."

Joshua Renalia considered talking to her some more, if only to break more ice. But the tone in her voice suggested she wasn't all that interested in a conversation and an invisible tension hung between them. The human and this young dragon weren't exactly friends, but the latter at least appeared willing to talk. I'll just give her some more time, he concluded.

His gaze went skyward. The sky was now a bright orange. "It's time to go." He walked towards the edge of the pond, a few steps away from where he left his walking stick yesterday when he went and coaxed Kilat out of her hiding place. "I want to be done with this place before the sun goes down again."

But it turned out that all Kilat needed was an opportunity to express herself comfortably.

Such an opportunity came as soon as Joshua put his hands in the water and moved to wash his face.

"That water's icky, you know," the dragoness said as she plodded to him. "You shouldn't wash your face with it."

"And how else am I going to clean myself if there's no water?" he retorted, if a little testily.

He did not notice Kilat flinch from tetchy response and instead returned his hands to the water, gathered some up in his palms, and—

"Don't!" the child insisted. "It's dirty! You know it's dirty! It's bad enough we got to drink from it, but you shouldn't add more dirt to it!"

"Okay! Okay!" Joshua groaned. He flicked the water away. He glared at the offending dragoness, drilling into her cobalt eyes. "Fine! I won't use it anymore."

Kilat closed her eyes and beamed. "Good!"

"And what now?" He scowled at the damn child. "I need to wash up. Do you have a better idea than this 'dirty water'?"

The dragoness looked at him and responded coolly. "Actually, I do."

"And where can I get it?"

"Don't worry! I'll give it to you."

His eye twitched. "Huh? What in God's name are you—HEY!"

Kilat suddenly pounced on him, and for the first time that day, Joshua Renalia found himself with a dragoness as heavy as three adult dachshunds sitting on top of his chest. He stared at her. "K-Kilat? What're you—

"I can barely remember it, but mom always told me to stay still."

Joshua didn't like the way the dragon child's muzzle loomed right above his face. "Stay still for what?" He took a deep breath. "Ugh, can you get off please? It's a little hard to breath with you—ACK!"

Kilat licked him.

.

.

She licked him again and again…

.

.

And again.

.

"Gah!" he yelled and suddenly the muck got in his mouth. "Blargh!" He coughed. "Bleh. Ki—lpt! G—roff! Goff!"

She paused. "I said stay still! You aren't making this easy."

"Of course I'm not! Just get off me or I'll—!"

Joshua shuddered at the sinewy, slimy muscle that scraped along his cheeks and his nose. It slid across his eyes. Across his forehead. Across his lips and chin. It felt less like sandpaper and more like a sticky smoother. But he couldn't exactly take comfort from this when his face already had a nice and generously thick coating of slobber all over it. Who knew a dragon's muzzle had such a copious amount of muck in it?

"Hold on. She always did thirty. Just need ten more sweeps."

Ten more? TEN f*cking more?

"It's okay," he said. "I'm—good. I—I'm cle—blah! I'm clean! I'm—GAH!"

The weight vanished from his chest. Joshua sat up instantly. Kilat took his hands in her mouth and coated it in almost the same way she did with his face. But he didn't fight anymore. Not when it was already pointless to. Joshua Renalia took his first breath, and all hell broke loose.

He snorted up some of the disgusting gunk. The unholy marriage of Clorox and halitosis filled his nose with such an intensity Joshua suppressed the urge to hurl. "Yuck! That's gross, Kilat. That is so f*cking disgusting, like you have no idea."

Kilat was offended. "Excuse me?" Her muzzle open with a most baffled expression, she dissented. "You think that's gross?" Her golden tail flickered up and smacked Joshua's cheek.

"Ouch!"

"I cleaned you up the way MOM used to do and Ancestors, you're telling me it's disgusting?"

"But I smell like dragon drool now!" Joshua complained. He brought his fingers to his face and felt the fluid stick a little. He shuddered again. "I'm sorry if I insulted you but, ugghhhhh, I just don't dothis—and you really slathered it all over my face."

"Of course I did! My mouth is so much cleaner than what you can find sitting out here."

He grimaced. He tried to wipe off the thick coating, but in the end, Joshua's efforts proved fruitless as they left a thin glaze he had no choice but to let evaporate. "That's what she said."

Kilat heard the sarcasm instantaneously. "Joshua, if you don't believe me, at least you know where it came from and what it had in it."

"Oh my God," Joshua moaned. "This can't be a common thing in Warfang." If it was, he didn't know if he should slap himself silly every night, get drunk on whatever passed for liquor, or throw himself into a wall before going to bed and knock himself out.

The dragoness tilted her head. "I don't know. Licking is the most natural thing for us. Mom used to clean me every morning. It's one of my fondest memories of her." She glowered at the human, and the teenager thought Kilat might try to nip him or something.

Fortunately she didn't. "The foxes liked to comb themselves. Same for Mongooses. They only jump into—ugh—a river if they really, really, really have to, like if they got mud or pebbles or something in their fur. But they never smell."

He sighed. "You're going to do this to me every morning, aren't you?"

"And every night!" she pledged. "Until you see the light and admit it's good for you! But don't worry. I promise, when you start coming to me for it, I'll happily oblige!"

The dragoness then snorted. "Ancestors, you apes are funny with your constant need to be clean. And you also have your personal hygiene all messed up! No wonder you all stink."

That last comment spurred Joshua into action. No matter how much he could tolerate a daily tongue bath f*cking twice a day, there was no way in hell he was letting the dragoness get away with this. He didn't care how old or naïve she was. The teenager brought his damp hands on her horns and forced eye contact. "Kilat, can you please remember that I'm not one of those stupid apes? I'm human! And look, we don't have fur. We don't have scales. Some of us don't even have hair. We only have the clothes we're wearing. That's why humans need to be clean all the time."

The dragoness's eyes widened and she tried to turn away, but Joshua held her steady. "Uhm," she stammered. "I, I, I'm sorry. I kinda forgot you're hoo-man—

"Human."

"Hoo-man." Ahh forget it. I'll just fix this later! "S-sorry, Joshua. It's just you, y-you look so much like that ape that killed Explodon. I sometimes think you're one of them, but… but just without all that hair.

"And a whole lot kinder," she mumbled.

An awkward pause lingered between Joshua and Kilat. He released her, but he still answered the urge to retort. "Humans are sort of related to apes," he spoke, attempting to simplify the concept of genetics to a little dragon girl the size of a small dog. "But we're not apes. My species conducted a lot of studies to trace that back to some common link and until now we haven't found it yet. We share some of our looks with them, okay. But we're also very different. We're not as instinctive, we're very curious about everything, and we can be kind to a fault. Even if I didn't know you were a dragon, I would've helped you anyway. In fact, many humans would've helped you just because you were hurt."

She looked up at him, her muzzle held agape by disbelief. "Really?"

"Really."

After a few seconds, she approached him of her own accord and nuzzled his shoulder. "C-can you, can you tell me more a, about, humanity?"

Joshua Renalia glanced at the sky. The sun had gone up a little bit. Ten minutes must have passed, he figured. They needed to go.

He rubbed her shoulder and gave the child a brief hug. "I can't tell you everything now," he informed her. "Not in one sitting." The young gamer leaned to the side, picked up the walking stick, and rose to his feet. "We need to get going or we'll waste a lot of time."

He sniffled—egad, he could still smell all that dragon drool all over him. The thought of enduring that nasty "cleaning" twice a day revolted Joshua, but if he had to take responsibility for Kilat one way or another, then he supposed he could get used to it for the time being, until he found a way to persuade Kilat to back off a little. Hopefully Warfang's non-dragon residents bathed with clean water. "But if you come up with anything, I'll try to give you an answer when thinking isn't going to kill me, okay?"

"I... do, just have, uh, one question."

"For now?"

"For now."

"Okay. And?"

"Do humans have Elements, too? Like dragons?"

"No, we don't." He raised his hands. "I'm a special case, I think."

"Are you sure what you have's an Element?"

"Yeah," he said. "I can absorb Spirit Gems, just like you."

Kilat had no argument before such an indisputable fact, because she knew only dragons could absorb the Spirit Gems. "But I… I've never heard of an Element like yours. It healed me. I even saw it, bounce off my 'Electric Orb'." Really now? That was a new one. He must've done that yesterday and he never noticed. "Did it do anything else?"

Joshua confessed, "Last time I've seen the white stuff come out, it turned a wolf into a dead body. One second it was coming for me. The next, it's on the grass staring at me with dead eyes."

"That's…"

The child gazed at him. "That's really strange… and terrifying. Explodon told me about the 'Purple Element' once, and yours sounds just as scary."

"I know," Joshua admitted. "And I don't even know how it works. Can't even control it."

"Do you think there's a myth behind it? You know, like a legend? Or a prophecy, maybe?"

He stared at her, amused. "Mythology? On me? Ha! I doubt it." Joshua Renalia placed his hand on the wall of the canyon. The trail narrowed at this point, and from here the risk of slipping increased substantially, especially with the heat coming up in a bit. "I really, really doubt it."

"Hey, you never know." Demonstrating a sudden change of character, Kilat galloped past him. "By the way, I'm going ahead!"

"Why?"

"I'll be keeping an eye out for anything."

"Like…?"

"Snakes I can kill? Scorpions? I don't know. Whatever can hurt you. Us."

"I can sense life within a certain distance because of my Element."

"I can see farther than you."

Touché.

"Fine," he yielded. "Just don't go too…"

And she's off!

"…far." The human watched her trot down at least thirty paces ahead before stopping to turn back, gaze at him, smile, and flap her only wing like some kind of greeting. He found it so cute he couldn't yell at her. "Damn kid."

Joshua followed her down the slope. As the minutes passed, he realized that at some point during his "cleaning", during their argument, and during their talk about humanity, Kilat the Electric dragoness had become more open, more expressive, and certainly more carefree. He supposed this was the kind of person she really was, and he had to admit, he liked this Kilat much better than a sniveling, pathetic golden dragon weeping over the recent deaths of her friends.

His feet blistered from his makeshift slippers' lack of protection against the rocks. His muscles ached with every step down, but Joshua Renalia was fortunate for the occasional cluster of red and green Spirit Gems to restore his body and stamina.

An hour down the trail, weaving underneath trees and avoiding cacti scattered on the precarious path, Joshua's mind couldn't resist revisiting the last bit of speculation Kilat left him with, back on at the ledge with the waterfall and its pond. Had he truly been called here into the Dragon Realms? Was there really a legend involving him? A prophecy? Just like Spyro the Dragon and his foretold victory over the Dark Master?

The human couldn't help but muse. The Legend of Joshua Renalia…

Joshua snorted and shook his head. Jesus, that sounds so stupid I hope anyone who'd come up with that dull garbage dies a horrible death a thousand times over.

A sound from the path ahead snapped him back to the descent. "Whoops!" Luckily too, or he might have stepped on a weak spot in the rocks. Then he realized the sound came from Kilat.

"Oy, be careful! You can't fly."

"Ummmm, I actually never learned how."

"Kilat, you know what I mean!"

"Oh, I'll be fine! Keep worrying like that and you're bound to lose your scales."

"I don't have scales, remember?"

"Joshua, you know what I mean!"

"Goddammit."

Author's notes:

Just the initial bonding between Joshua and Kilat. Breaks the ice between them, and shows off Kilat's personality and a little world-building. It's mostly filler, obviously. But hey, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I wrote it.

Unfortunately this means I'll have to push back the final chapter of the "Wilderness" arc to the tenth. Still, expect a few time skips to happen in the next chapter. I'll be doing this to set it up for the conclusion of this little arc and move on to the next story arc ("Gates of Warfang") as originally intended.

And yes. I couldn't resist that last bit at the end. Most HTD/HIDR writers aren't exactly imaginative with their titles, sadly. Lol.