Chapter 11: Stereotypes

"Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps."

- Tiger Woods

In his old life, Joshua Renalia was not one to frequent online forums. He rarely directed any time to immersing himself in the lore of a video game. He didn't want to get caught up in arguing useless arguments with nerds worth none of his time, and he often always had more important things to keep up with.

His grades, for one.

His girlfriend, for two.

His friends in high school, for three.

There were also the video games that demanded to be played, that he had to pick up and hit the pavement with until he saw the credits roll across his television screen.

Spyro the Dragon was one of the few—the very few—exceptions to this rule. Joshua honestly couldn't understand why his mind refused to let go of the game. He was no more a fan of the Classic trilogy than he was a fan of the Legend trilogy, and had played the first installment in the Classic series enough until he beat it 120%. He picked up the Ripto's Rage and Year of the Dragon titles within weeks of their release. He slogged through every title that came out after Insomniac Games relinquished the purple dragon to reach new heights in the gaming industry. He was sad to see A Hero's Tail come and go, paving the way for the Legend trilogy and went stark mad the moment he booted up Dawn of the Dragon.

And who wouldn't, when the graphics suddenly shifted from cartoonish and childishly colorful to a much more realistic slant? He popped the game's CD into the PlayStation 2, skeptical of any photorealistic display Activision had put on its case. To his delight, Spyro the Dragon almost literally sprung to life before his eyes. Suddenly, the Dragon Realms became a land to explore, to travel as far as the video game would let him. He loved the way Spyro and Cynder flapped their wings to fly, the way every move they made mimicked the quadrupeds back in the real world, or even the way the colors of their bodies interacted with the environment around them.

He was drawn in, lured to browsing various forums on the Internet, to absorbing every useless bit of information about the Spyro series in his free time.

One such trivia had to do with Warfang, the City of Dragons.

Someone pointed out Warfang looked too much like Minas Tirith from The Lord of the Rings. There were almost one too many disgruntled gamers on GameFAQs ripping Etranges Libellules a new one for blatantly copying this particular battle from the Return of the King, all the way from the white, towering walls of rock, their solid fortifications, the city's medieval halls, and the massive spur in the middle—a summit upon which the leadership and the civilian elite called home—up to the way the siege played out in-game, including the towers trying to capture the ramparts as well as the hordes of monsters forcing their way through the city gates.

No wonder Activision pulled enough strings to cast Elijah Wood as Spyro. He already played Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's movies. Might as well add a little familiarity to the game, right? Nudge, nudge, wink wink.

But of course, pictures never did anything grand justice.

And in Warfang's case, Activision's The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon failed to do just that for this massive commune.

"Jesus fucking Christ."

His jaw trying to make love with the well-worn path, Joshua Renalia gawked at the massive city. He was in awe. None of the knowledge he gained from the hard work of Etranges Libellules' game designers and the teenager's own little fascination with the Spyro the Dragon franchise prepared him for the overwhelming stupor of seeing the City of Dragons in real life.

Up close, the walls of Warfang stretched far higher than the Horseshoe Bend in Arizona. It rose nearly a mile, from Joshua's best estimates. The gates were so much larger than what he remembered from the point he moved Spyro and Cynder down from the walls to dispatch a troll that had managed to push through into the city and to keep the gates shut. More than three times the height and three times the width. Much more. He could even glimpse the depth of the tunnel leading into the city. It was long, perhaps as long as the main entrance to Beijing's Forbidden City or even longer.

On its lonesome in the midst of a colossal prairie, with an equally mammoth wasteland to the right and gigantic cliffs to the left (from Joshua's point of view, of course), the City of Dragons was as an island. A shining beacon of hope and progress in the middle of this continent. The teenager did not know how large was the land mass containing the known reaches of the Dragon Realms, Kilat's homeland, and beyond, but surely this was the Dragon Realms' equivalent of the United States of America.

Powerful.

Stalwart.

And civilized.

Joshua shook his head from disbelief. What his eyes just saw made the people who spent hours designing the video game—spent days creating every pixel of Warfang look like unimaginative, lazyass chumps.

He glimpsed the tiny figures patrolling the ramparts; he saw the gilded glint of the cannons that deterred the invaders after Spyro and Cynder flew in from the west four years ago. Knowing about it was one thing, but seeing it all for himself was another.

"By the Ancestors…"

Joshua Renalia looked at the dragon child a few paces ahead of him. Kilat walked with her eyes in a daze, those cobalt orbs dilated as much as possible, glued to the dazzling spectacle of the dragons' very own 'White City'. The Electric dragoness's small, tiny steps almost tapered to a complete halt. He didn't need to see her muzzle to know she had the same exact reaction as he did. Another gasp of awe came out of her.

He smiled. "Breathtaking, isn't it?"

"Yeah…"

"And we're going straight through that gate over there."

"We are?" She looked back at Joshua. Her eyes went up and down. "Like that?"

Joshua rolled his eyes. "You just looked at all of me."

"Joshua, you know they'll think you're an Ape." She turned away from the bedazzling sight in front of her and ambled to the human. "The, t-th-they'll split us up or—or, or, or, they might just hurt you!" Kilat nuzzled his legs. "Isn't there… isn't there some way we can sneak in?"

The teenager suppressed the urge to sigh.

Her concerns weren't exactly new. Joshua struggled with this whole profiling problem since he woke up. His indecision began from the very moment the golden dragoness nudged him awake and made this morning one of the most memorable he's had in the Dragon Realms by blessing him with an "extra special bath". She had the poor human take off his shirt and, to his utter revulsion, afterwards showered every part of his body from the waist up with much more than 60 sweeps of the tongue to make up for falling asleep dry last night. Fifteen minutes of hell.

Unlike the past several times, Joshua Renalia did not bother with the usual protests and silly flailing that marked the beginning and conclusion of every day. This morning, the young man did not need to put in so much effort in ignoring either the vile sliminess covering his bare skin or the nauseating odor of Kilat's saliva drifting from his face, his neck, his arms, and his torso, because thoughts of entering Warfang consumed him.

Should he stealthily infiltrate the city, keep a low profile, and find a way to meet his heroes? It shouldn't be that difficult finding the secret tunnel leading directly into the heart of Warfang. Certainly, it'd extend the trek by another several days. Just looking at the sheer size of those humongous walls led Joshua to think another week would be required simply to circumnavigate the perimeter to the side facing the Valley of Avalar.

Or…

Should he instead waltz through the front doors, screaming for the guards to look at the one and only human being they would ever see in their entire lives and let him inside their city? It was the quickest and fastest way, no doubt, but how dangerous would it be for him?

Both options had their pros and cons.

Sneaking in meant he'd have to live in Warfang as a vagabond. Until he found the opportunity to meet the Guardians and his heroes, he would need to constantly watch his back for any guards and stand vigilant for the scenario any wandering citizen could easily tag him as an Ape, one who's snuck into the city with a nefarious scheme to enact. On the other hand, by coming in conspicuously through the Eastern Gate, he would theoretically spare himself all this stress but it came at the cost of possibly dying before he could even set foot in the city.

Short-term risk for long-term gain? Or short-term gain for long-term risk?

Neither one appealed to Joshua much.

If it was just him, he figured he could survive in the city on the first option alone, and for several weeks on end. The passive abilities of his unique Element would certainly help. Tremendously.

But Joshua was not alone. He had to keep an eye out for Kilat, even if it meant relinquishing something at his own expense. He did not want her to starve, to be more deprived of things than she already was. The welfare of this dragon child made all the difference to him.

Twin emeralds gazed down at the dragon child rubbing her body on his legs. Awww, just like a cat. He reached down and stroked her cute head. "Kilat, I need to do this. Yes, there is a way we can bypass all the guards—I know exactly where it is—but if we just sneak in, we could get into more hot water than we can handle. Well, I would."

"'Hot water'?" Oh, it's that look again. He hated that look. It came out every time he said something that didn't mesh well with her slang. Seeing Kilat's wonderful blue eyes scrunch and her muzzle contort from consternation gave him the impression she thought he had shit for brains… every time.

"I mean, it's bound to be more trouble than it's worth. You understand?"

She nodded vigorously. A habit she picked up from him, somehow, sometime.

"It's better this way," he said. "I won't have to worry much about you, and the people inside will already know about me."

"And they'll know you're hoo-man?"

"More often than not, I hope." Joshua smiled at her.

Kilat glared at the human, not expecting an honest response. For someone who didn't like worrying and preferred to stay as a child, the dragoness certainly did her fair share of it when it came to him. Still, she relented seconds later, "You better know what you're doing." The child paced ahead. "I, I'd hate to lose you…"

Joshua sent a forlorn gaze at her back. And I'd hate to see you suffer more because of me…

Before another hour lapsed, the hills of the Autumn Plains leveled out. Trees and shrubs became few and far between, and in their place were large tracts of country. Joshua and Kilat found a dirt road sweeping through the agricultural real estate. He couldn't help but notice the abundance of Spirit Gems uncontrollably growing along the path, despite their ostensible absence within the farmlands.

Joshua glimpsed a few bipedal llamas hauling sets of disc harrows on their backs, pulling it along the surface of the fertile soil. At the closest one he waved his hand and smiled. The llama—the atlawa, he remembered—responded with an uncertain expression at first, until Kilat noticed the nonverbal exchange between the two of them. She went between both of them, gave him a wide, toothy grin, and waved back with her only wing. If the atlawa farmer still had misgivings seeing a furless ape walk so close to the City of Dragons, it was no longer present in the smile he rewarded the dragoness's greeting with.

"Who knew Warfang recovered so fast in just four years?" commented Joshua as he stared at the handful of stone windmills scattered across the countryside.

"Joshua!" Kilat hollered at him. "Look, look! What're those things? What do they do? Do you know?"

"They're called windmills. I don't see any rivers here, sooooo I think they're used to water the farms."

"So beautiful!" she remarked.

Kilat trotted further ahead. Her muzzle turned towards every windmill in sight, in awe at the vanes revolving around the center axes. She didn't have that wherever she's from, Joshua mused. He had never seen Kilat this excited in the few days he's known her. Happiness welled inside the human as he watched the rambunctious little girl act her age.

Moles scurried around the farmlands. Quite a few tended to the windmills, conducting quality checks and testing for structural integrity, like the engineers they probably were. Others roamed the agricultural properties, holding a blade and a large backpack that appeared too comical for their size. Joshua watched these walk along the harrowed soil, stop every so often, slash their weapons at something—oh, it was a crystal!—and stash it into the pack. That revealed why the soil didn't have any Spirit Gems growing all over it.

Had Joshua Renalia been a few years older, with an undergraduate degree in the works, he might have appreciated seeing one of the major foundations of Warfang's economy at its infancy. He might have looked at this moment as a good exercise in critical thinking and figure out how the City of Dragons would evolve from this point forward. He would rope Kilat into this, just to teach her a few things about the way a city works from the macroscopic level.

Rather than appreciating the simple lifestyle of these people, Joshua noticed the dirt road had widened slightly. More people ambled along the path, all of them heading to God knew where to do God knew what. Joshua's eyes began wandering, not unlike Kilat's. Rather than capturing the amazing sights, sounds, and smells of an authentic, medieval fantasy, his viridian gaze captured instead the terrible glares being sent his way. Even his Unknown Element refused the human any solace, always keen on telling him when the pulses of life passing by wavered between two different colors, rippled from agitated emotions, or even tightened into a ball of cold, glacial hostility.

Joshua Renalia wished he had a bag with him when he woke up in the Dragon Realms. This would've been the perfect time to grab some of the HP and Mana Spirit Gems growing all around the dirt road like unsightly weeds. After all, if he ever got into trouble with these people, the last thing they'd expect was someone they considered an ape tapping into the gifts of the Ancestors… just like a dragon.

The teenager passed by two manweersmalls heading back to the city, pushing wooden carts filled to the brim with Spirit Gems of all three colors. He walked around them, fully aware of the counterflow giving him a widening berth in addition to the intimidating glowers the closer he approached the Eastern Gate. But Joshua forgot the implications this reflected on Warfang's economy when he realized Kilat was no longer in sight.

"Kilat!" he called. "Where are you?" His voice and the coherence of his words surprised many of the people around him. Some even held dumbfounded miens on their snouts, but Joshua Renalia did not pay them any attention. "Kilat! Say something if you can hear me!"

Eyes flickered among the feet of the crowd. There were so many people now. Their businesses took them out of the massive commune or perhaps, they were headed home after a good day's work under one of the many agricultural entrepreneurs operating beyond Warfang's walls.

Where was she? She was such a small dragon! Kilat risked being trampled or stepped on by an unwary commuter, or worse, being taken away from him by some authority figure, and they'd never see each other again. Joshua worried for the dragoness, and hoped—

"Joshua!" the child called out, to his relief. "Joshua! Over here!"

Where? Where was she? He heard her voice but where exactly was she? He couldn't see a preadolescent dragoness scooting between the furry legs. He couldn't see. He couldn't find any sign of—

And there she was at the distance, standing at the side of the road almost a hundred meters ahead with a pile of depleted Spirit Gems next to her. As they disintegrated into dust, Joshua watched her smile her favorite smile and beckoned him with a wave of her right wing. "OVER HERE! Can you see me now?"

"Yeah!" he jogged to her position. "Give me a quick second, 'kay? Just stay there."

He swerved and twisted and turned around every person obstructing his path. Being 5-foot 2 the teenager didn't share Kilat's luxury of whizzing through someone's legs. Thankfully he was somewhat agile despite his sedentary lifestyle as an avid gamer, and with his improved stamina Joshua did not find himself panting, gasping for air when he finally stopped in front of her.

"Whew," he exhaled. "You went faaaaaar. I thought I lost you!"

"Me too, me too!" she jumped. "I kept on seeing so many amazing things I just kept going ahead. I walked, walked, and walked, and next thing I knew, I found this biiiiiig pile of those 'expee' Spirit Gems you like to hit." The child grinned. "And when I looked for you, you were gone."

Joshua fell to one knee and gave her muzzle a tender pinch. "I'm so glad you decided to stay in one place, Kilat. Where I come from, children just go wherever they want to and get lost even more."

"Kid hoo-mans don't know how to take care of themselves, do they?"

"In the United States, maybe, but not in my coun—in my land." The last thing Joshua needed was another useless discussion about the difference between a land and a country.

She beamed. "Good thing I know how to take care of myself, huh?"

The human chuckled as he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "A very good thing." Joshua cupped the dragoness' golden underbelly. Fully comfortable with him, she no longer flinched at his touch, and he smiled at the way she trusted him with her life and well-being. "But I have to start carrying you now," he added. "There're way too many people here, and I don't want us getting separated again." Plus I'm starting to feel like I'm in a zoo.

"Okie dokie!" Kilat gabbled. She did not struggle while Joshua lifted her up from the ground. Once he brought the dragoness to his arms in a belly hold, she cuddled up against the nook of his right elbow and droned happily, like a whining dog. "C'mon, let's go! I wanna see Warfang!"

"Hold your horses, little girl," the human mumbled. "I'm making sure I don't let you go by accident."

"What's a horse?" Her tail swished in the air and curled around his left arm. "Ehhhhh, never mind. Hurry up!"

"Okay, okay!"

Confident in his grip, Joshua returned to the road and pushed ahead, knowing his time in the wilderness had improved his strength to the point he could comfortably carry the Electric dragoness for longer periods of time despite her weight, without relying on the Spirit Gems to alleviate his aching muscles. He passed by a pair of cheetahs, clad in traveling robes and leather armor, walking away from the city with packs strapped to their backs.

If it wasn't for the relief coursing through him, for the newfound confidence at entering Warfang, Joshua would have easily noticed one of the cheetahs' life signatures compress and ripple. That did not stop those human ears from catching his disdainful words. "Was that an ape that just went past us?"

"Whatever he is, he resembles one," replied the other cheetah.

Joshua shuddered at the response that came next. "I should kill him before he gets inside the city." His heart stopped when he heard an arrow sliding out of its quiver.

He almost turned back to look at them when he heard a bowstring being pulled, but the second cried out, "No! I'm sure he's not what you think he is." A pause. "Apes hate dragons. Did you not see how friendly he was with that small one? The little girl even nuzzled him."

"Impossible," muttered the first. "He looks so much like one, just without all that ugly hair."

"Paddock, let it go. He means no harm. We are drawing unnecessary attention. Besides, we need to reach the Dry Canyon by dawn tomorrow."

"You're right, Hunter. Chief Prowlus wouldn't want to celebrate his son's successful rite of passage without rare herbs and meat."

Joshua turned back as soon as he heard it. He stared back at the two figures. They retreated into the bustling crowd, slipping away from sight. Even so, the human knew they were still within earshot. He could not explain how his Element allowed him to sift through the scores of life pulses surrounding him and still manage to pinpoint the two cheetahs', even Kilat's.

Good grief, he just walked by Hunter?

Hunter?

The Hunter from Dawn of the Dragon? Joshua couldn't help but freeze in place, staring in the direction of the Autumn Plains. How didn't he recognize Hunter, the very same person who led Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx out of the Well of Souls at the beginning of the game? He looked just like another cheetah! He was taller than him, too—the teenage human only came up to his chest.

Joshua cogitated on the choice of turning around and approaching Hunter and Paddock while the two cheetahs were still within range of his Element's passive life detection. Hunter could very well be his ticket to entering Warfang without any sort of fanfare, could even be his best shot at landing a conversation with Spyro and the Guardians, but…

But…

How would he initiate the conversation to begin with? Hunter wouldn't believe anything he said. Why should he? From his point of view, Joshua was a person of an unknown species, a person he's never met in his life. How would the cheetah react if the teenager came out and revealed his knowledge of Hunter's relationship with the two Saviors? With the Guardians?

Joshua knew how he'd react if he was out walking in the streets, minding his own business, and a suspicious-looking stranger in a hoodie approached him, requested for his help, while revealing intimate and specific knowledge about his family and himself. It was the closest scenario the human could imagine, and in such a situation he'd treat the person with suspicion, abscond as fast as his legs managed at first opportunity, and veer straight for the nearest police station and report a stalker with ambiguous intentions.

He gritted his teeth. Goddamn it! Did God do this to f*ck with him again? Was He laughing right now? Shit! Joshua was close—he was so close to getting most of his problems solved by a character from canon. The prospect of having an established video game character help him tempted the teenager greatly, but he knew… Joshua knew it wouldn't work the way he thought it would.

Approaching Hunter was going to be a mistake leading to hell. It might even result in his death, going by the way Paddock immediately assumed he was an ape and moved to kill him. Would Warfang's people respond to him this way? Would they move to kill him first and then ask questions? The thought terrified him.

This was serious.

Joshua knew he didn't live in a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Nearly dying twice, failing to save Lani and Explodon, and almost losing Kilat forever proved that. Those experiences taught him to be more careful. He needed to act as if this was real life. He was not in his own little Neverland. Things ran differently in the Dragon Realms. He must exercise more caution or—

"Joshua?"

"Huh?" He glanced down at the dragoness perched in his arms.

Kilat ogled the human, her large eyes shimmering with concern. "Are you okay?"

He made his choice. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah," he said again. "Sorry, I thought I recognized someone back there."

As he continued his approach, the human recognized the occasional dragon plodding alongside the pedestrians on all fours. They walked with their legs underneath their bodies, like any mammalian animal. They moved confidently. The adults were huge. Joshua's height—5'0", small for a human his age—reached up to just their necks. He tried hard not to look at their jaws. They looked wide enough for his entire body to fit through, and he shivered at the idea of being swallowed whole by a dragon.

Terrifying!

Kilat would eventually grow into that? Her? This little dragon child? Damn.

He had not seen any dragons that looked as old as he was, not yet, but Joshua figured they would at least reach up to his neck. Explodon certainly did, but the human couldn't be too sure. Joshua saw him only from the fringes of the clearing, and for all he knew, the deceased Fire Dragon could've been one of the unusually large or small dragons. How would he know for sure, right? He knew nothing.

Two dragons walked among the crowd for every ten people plying the dirt road, whether they headed into or away from the city. They were as beacons. Large beacons of red, green, blue, or yellow, denoting their elemental affinity. Few seemed to pay a comparatively tiny Joshua Renalia any mind. A handful growled at his primate form, even muttered the three-letter word under their breaths, but if any of these gigantic reptiles felt anything hateful towards him, Kilat's presence in his arms and the way she tenderly nuzzled his neck easily silenced them.

Joshua Renalia glanced up at the Eastern Gate of Warfang when they were closer than ever. It reminded him of the Gates of Justice in the Japanese manga One Piece. These gilded structures were gargantuan and looked solidly strong, yet they reached only up to the first third of the ramparts. From this close, the young man caught sight of tiny figures patrolling the walls above. Soldiers. Guards.

The Guardians wanted tight security. That was understandable, when he thought about it. It's only been four years since Malefor's defeat. Remnants of his Orc and Grublin army still meandered the lands beyond the Warfang's towering walls, and the Apes proved no less hostile than they'd ever been, ungrateful despite being indirectly saved by Spyro and Cynder's efforts to stop the Dark Master. Joshua wondered how many could see him from up there. He, a human—a furless ape; and the dragon child sitting comfortably in his arms.

The answer to that question was most likely a resounding zero. By this point, the density of commuters plying the dirt road magnified dramatically, with a handful of outgoing people compared to tens and tens of incoming entrants. So many people flowed into the City of Dragons.

Joshua Renalia had no choice but to fall in line with the rest of them. "Oh my God," he muttered. What did they have over there? An immigration counter? It definitely felt like one, standing here in the middle of the sun with a young dragoness bearing down in his arms.

Ten minutes passed and he still hasn't moved from his position. This was starting to grate him. The stares he kept receiving from the other people unnerved him, but fortunately, they did nothing else. There was no reason for them to feel wary: he did not act suspiciously, he did not act violently, and, he believed, he at least looked approachable. The human heard his stomach ache a little from hunger, and even Kilat's life signature wobbled slightly. Yet she said nothing, preferring to keep quiet and wait. A miracle, he thought, knowing how much of a chatterbox she was.

But he spoke too soon.

"Never seen that species before," a female voice spoke behind him. "I wonder what he is. Looks like a furless ape."

Kilat jumped the gun as soon as she heard that. "Hey, he's not an Ape! He's a hoo-man!"

"…A hoo-man?" wondered the speaker. "I've never heard of them. Where are hoo-mans from, little one?"

Damn it! Kilat never knew when to quit, didn't she? For once he thought the Electric dragoness could learn to sit still and stay quiet for a bit, but noooooooo. She just couldn't resist.

Joshua wheeled around to apologize to the stranger for Kilat being a nuisance, but all the words he prepared died the instant he saw a dragoness standing right behind him. She was the size of a Great Dane, her head reaching his chin on all fours. An adolescent, perhaps a little older than Dawn of the Dragon Spyro. "Uhhh…"

"Ooooooh, she's monotone, just like me!" uttered the other dragoness curiously, smiling down at the little girl. "Cute!" she squealed. "You don't see those every day." No kidding, Joshua thought. This one sported pure, burgundy-red skin and nothing else. Unlike every other dragon he saw in this place, she had no horns at all whatsoever. Instead she had ridiculously long ear flaps, almost reminded him of How to Train Your Dragon's Toothless. He thanked God this particular dragoness had enough tact not to ask about Kilat's missing left wing.

She jumped. "Oh!" Her lime-green eyes flickered towards the human. "Sorry," she said, giving Joshua a sheepish grin. "I didn't mean for that to come out. I was just wondering, that's all."

He resisted cocking an eyebrow at her presence in the line. She was a dragon. She had wings. Her life signature gave a clean bill of health. She could just... fly over the wall, couldn't she? Why would she want to go through the Gates the normal way?

Whatever. I don't give a shit.

Her reasons for suffering through this line were none of his business to begin with. "It's fine," Joshua brushed it off. "It's fine. No harm in thinking out loud. I do it sometimes, too." Then he focused on the child sitting in his arms. "Look, you can't just disturb the other people in line. It's rude. They can say what they want to say, but if they're not talking to you, you can't simply—

She whined, "But I'm booooooored! We've been standing here for Ancestors know how long."

The teenager groaned. "Ugh. C'mon!" he vented his frustration. "It happens. Just suck it up and deal with it! Life doesn't swing between fun and terrible. There's going to be some shit in the middle that has to be taken care of. It isn't great, it isn't all that bad, but you got to do what you got to do, and this happens to be one of them."

Kilat pouted at him. "Mmmmmmmmm!" she growled at the adolescent gamer. "But I don't wanna!"

"I 'don't wanna' either," Joshua said, throwing her own words back at her with a derisive tone. "But this is something we got to deal with. Together." He smirked. "What can you do anyway? You can't get away from me. You'll just get yourself lost and we'll go back to squ—and we'll have to fall in line waaaay over there in the back."

Heh. I got her now.

"You want to know what I can do?" Kilat challenged him.

"Yeah."

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

A moment passed. Then Kilat scrambled from his arms. She placed her paws on his shoulders and began licking Joshua in the face rapidly.

"GAH!" Joshua shoved Kilat's snout away and wiped the saliva off his nose. "Argh." He spat on the side of the road. "Pth! Oh hell! What was that for? I thought we were only going to do this twice a day!"

She rebutted with a mischievous smirk. "Nuh uh. I only promised to clean you up, day and night! I could still do something like this for fun. 'Cause I just like the way you lose your scales." Kilat teased.

Joshua retorte—actually, he couldn't come up with anything in reply. She had beaten him on a technicality and she knew it. "I hate you," he grumbled.

"And I love you!" rebutted the young child, nuzzling his cheek.

Joshua leered. He turned his head, seized Kilat's ram horns so she couldn't move, and blew a raspberry on her snout.

She squirmed. "Hey! That tickles!"

"Serves you right!" the teenager chortled, stroking the dragon's shoulder.

"You two are so adorable!" The burgundy dragoness gushed. "You know, if you weren't different species, I'd think you're brother and sister."

"You think so, huh?"

"Yes!" She suddenly switched subjects. "And hey, this is your first time in Warfang, right?"

"It i—

"Oh, sorry! You're a hoo-man. New species." She chuckled, slightly embarrassed. "Silly me. I shouldn't have asked."

"It's fine. It's not 'hoo-man', by the way. It's human. She just can't say it right."

"Human. Got it."

Before Joshua extolled her for being able to say his species name properly, the burgundy dragoness stretched her neck and sent her gazed further down the line. Then she turned and did the same for the other side. The teenager noticed she had orange fins from the top of her head to the end of her tail. These fins ran along her spine.

Definitely resembles Toothless, all right. Just much smaller, and a lot more red.

"You're wondering why the lines are so long?" she asked.

"Right. I am."

"See, these days, with the Dark Master gone thanks to the Purple Dragon, we're in an era of peace. The war is over. Word's been spreading out very far beyond Warfang's borders, into distant lands. So the city's seeing the biggest influx of immigrants it's ever had in the past few years." She bit into the strap of a satchel dangling down the side of her body and hefted it up a little. Joshua noted it carried dragon fruit and some gorgeous flowers he recognized from the Autumn Plains.

"Really?" Kilat piped up. "That's exactly why we're here! How long have you been living in Warfang?"

"About a couple years now," she replied. "Real estate's in high demand lately, I've heard… whatever that is. I don't need to care, praise the Ancestors. I have my own room in the Warfang Temple. It's not much, but it's a bed I can sleep in and at least I'm away from the other dragons—

"You live in the Temple?" the little girl babbled before Joshua could ask her about it. She turned away from the human, her tail smacking into his cheek.

Oh no, not again…

"Yes. I'm—

"Ooooh! What do you do there? Do you see the Guardians regularly? Have you met the Purple Dragon yet? What's it like living there? Are you the only—

"Kilat, that's enough."

Kilat shut her muzzle as soon as he demanded the dragon child to stay quiet. He glanced at the older dragoness. Joshua couldn't exactly discern it on her burgundy muzzle, but she seemed overwhelmed from the younger dragon's battery of questions. Her life pulse quivered, and it felt as though it was thawing… recovering, he preferred to think. And this was just the first round!

"Oops," she muttered. "Did I do it again?"

Joshua answered, "Yes, you did." He turned to the adolescent reptile before him. "Sorry about that. She's… she's extremely inquisitive about a lot of things, and it's difficult, getting her to shut her mouth without yelling at her. Thinking about putting her in front of Volteer scares me a little."

She cackled at the sound of Volteer's name. "Haha! You said it! Makes me glad I'm not an Electric dragon. Hmmm, I'm surprised you know about the Guardians."

Time to start spinning the wide web of lies around his true origins. "It isn't much, but their reputation precedes them," he explained. "They're well-known. I don't need to be a dragon to know a few things about them."

"That's true," she agreed, taking in his words at face value. She peeked towards the Gates. "Oh, that is where we split." She raised a paw and pointed it at a bifurcation in the line, where it divided into a shorter and a longer lane of people of various species. The former went into the humongous tunnel separating the city proper from the farmland, while the latter diverted to a booth next to it before heading into the tunnel. "The shorter one's for known residents only. The rest goes through the longer line. Tell the guards what you're here for. They'll help you with the paperwork so you're in the council's records. You won't need an ID—that's why the moles are there. They remember everything! And, uh, are you moving in or just visiting?"

He wanted to say 'just visiting', but he knew real life did not do things as easily as he wanted. It never did. "Moving in."

"In that case, you'll be given sleeping quarters. It's right by the other side. You're going to stay there until you are interviewed directly by the Warfang Council and the Guardians. You're free to go anywhere in the city once you're approved."

"What about her?" he asked, gesturing towards Kilat.

"She'll be fine! They'll want to hear her story, but dragons are approved by default anyway. There aren't a lot of us in the Realms, not after what the Dark Master and his army of apes did."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," he acknowledged. "That's good to hear. Glad to know she's going to be all right."

"She's lucky she has you."

Kilat chose the perfect time to contribute. "And he's lucky he has me!"

They finally reached the point of bifurcation. The burgundy dragoness looked both of them over. She gave Joshua a sincere smile. "Good luck getting in. I hope you do."

"I'll need it, miss," he replied. "Thank you for all the help."

She turned to the dragon child in his arms. She brought her red muzzle closer to Joshua—a little too close for comfort, actually, but she didn't need to know this—and nuzzled the Electric dragoness. "And it's nice meeting you, little one. I'll see you around sometime."

"Nice meeting you, too, red lady!" Kilat waved goodbye with her right wing as she walked away to join the other line. "See you later!"

Joshua felt his confidence rise at the way his talk with the Toothless lookalike turned out. He successfully held a conversation with another dragoness—a complete stranger, wouldn't you believe it?—and it concluded without a hitch. She did not discriminate. She did not treat him any more differently than she probably would have with another person actually from the Dragon Realms.

Maybe Paddock's reaction earlier was a one-time thing. Maybe all those people stared at him out of curiosity, just like the older dragon. Maybe they weren't hostile at all. He was going to be okay, he thought, ambling to the counter with Kilat perched contentedly in his arms. He hadn't encountered any problems since the burgundy dragoness left them. Only a few minutes of paper-pushing stood between him and a nice, long discussion with the Guardians.

Truly, it appeared all of his worries were for nothing—

A pair of spears crisscrossed each other, barring Joshua Renalia from proceeding. Two moles fully clad in what looked like a samurai's armor remained steadfast in front of the young man. The blades gleamed threateningly under the sun.

"W, w-wha, w-what…?"

"We apologize," remarked one of the moles, "But Warfang will only accept your companion. You are not permitted to enter the City of Dragons."

"What are you talking about?" Joshua questioned. "I waited in line here like everyone else. I'm going here because the war is over—because Malefor's dead! Isn't that why everyone's trying to move in here? This isn't fair!"

"We are sorry."

"Bullshit!" Joshua tried to walk around them, but the moles simply shuffled once and obstructed his path. "This isn't fair, damn it! Just let me through already!"

Kilat defended him. "Yeah, this is wrong! He's done nothing. Please, let him in. He just wants to talk to the Guardians."

All of Kilat's protests drowned beneath the heavy footfalls approaching from the left. A booming growl swept the air, and Joshua Renalia turned to discover a fully-grown Ice Dragon covered in armor, glowering at him ominously. He bared his fangs. "Your kind is not welcome here, Ape. Go away or I will strike you down and devour your flesh."

Author's notes:

I know I said last chapter that I was going to go on a four-week hiatus, but something happened at work yesterday and I was so frustrated, so pissed off, and so depressed (?) that I needed to channel my emotions into something before I go crazy over it.

Anyway, this chapter ended up being a lot longer than I expected (nearly 6600 words), but I had to do some world-building here and there, to explore what Warfang's economy would be like after the war, and even how the surrounding people would act once they've heard the war is over. As for how the City of Dragons looks, I intended it to be similar yet vastly different compared to what we've seen in Dawn of the Dragon. This is because our expectations often cloud reality. Just because we saw something in a photograph, in a video, or in anecdotes, doesn't mean that's how it'll be when we come face to face with something in person.

Moreover, this chapter marks the beginning of problems for Joshua, as he discovers similarities between the people of Warfang and modern human society. Some are friendly, some are neutral, and some are outright hostile to people who are "different". These also explain his decision not to approach Hunter. Joshua knows him from the video game, but who in their right mind would approach someone they only knew by watching them through a TV screen? It doesn't matter if it's Hunter. What if it's Spyro? Or Cynder? Or Sparx? Or anyone in canon?

Oh, and since some of you may be wondering if I'm going to turn Joshua into a dragon at some point in the story. The answer is no. Never. It goes against the reasons I started Aimless in the first place, and it doesn't do anything to accomplish the objectives I've set out for it.

Thanks for reading! See you in the next chapter. ^_^

Oh, and before I forget, if you need a visual reference for how Joshua would stand with respect to the dragons... look up "Spyro - Dawn of the Dragon" by xNIROx on deviantart. S/he got it from somewhere, but it's useful.

Joshua may be 5'0". It's small for an adult human, but he's not that old. He's in his mid-teens and has yet to experience most of his growth spurts, so he's roughly as tall as Hunter's chest. In turn, Dawn of the Dragon Spyro and Cynder's heads reach up to his neck. An adult human would more or less be as tall as Hunter, so that's something good to know, right? :D

04/29/2019 EDIT: Altered author's notes. Also changed Joshua's height to 5' 0" (a flat five feet) to accommodate for IRL Joshua's height back then. (Yes, Joshua has a namesake in real life. He was my friend from my high school days. "Renalia" is just his maiden name.)