Azendandor hissed and backed off, nose flaring, tongue flicking madly. His wings half-rose, clenched tight and rippling with anxiety.

"It's just a door," Alisa said, reaching down to push it open. Azendandor recoiled, bunching himself up and flaring his wings, locking them into pairs for maximum largeness. He was a sight to behold, so small, so fierce, so scared. She began to see why Zo Rienna insisted they start socializing him now. If he got much bigger and more aggressive, he could be a problem. And she didn't want him to be scared of her classmates.

"Sadie, could you come out here?" she whispered, and her friend turned around in her seat. Mirva’s head emerged from beneath Sadie’s hair, peeking back toward the source of the disruption.

"We've only got a minute," Sadie said, but she walked over. Azendandor calmed down when he saw her, as she'd visited often enough that he recognized her. Mirva hissed a greeting, and Azendandor grumbled something in response. Sadie giggled.

"What?" Alisa asked.

"Mirva said Zen wants to go back outside and build a burrow."

"What?" Alisa glanced down at her dragon. "Zen?"

He bounced up and down in an utterly absurd manner, fluttering his wings madly as he tried to not fall flat on his face, but the display did convey enthusiasm.

“Mirva says, he says ‘Zen!’ very excitedly,” Sadie relayed.

"Well, if that's what he wants, then Zen it is," Alisa said, smiling down at her eager little dragon. He seemed to have completely forgotten that he was scared, instead scampering around her legs in a rapid little circle, then stretching up so his neck was alongside Sadie's stomach, staring up at Mirva as he spoke in hisses and growls again.

"He’s figured out we can communicate," Sadie said with a chuckle and shake of her head. "He likes being able to talk to you and wishes you could be more like Mirva and me." She eyed Alisa sideways. "You still haven't completed the bond, have you?"

Alisa shook her head. "Look at him! He's way too thin. I would hurt him if I tried to fit the spell on his side, and I don't want it permanently seared into his wing."

Sadie looked, and nodded slowly. "You're right. That's a shame."

Mirva rumble-hissed some more, and Zen drooped. His wings folded and he flopped back to the floor dejectedly. He stood very still for a moment, then circled Alisa's foot twice, curling up tight around her ankle and lower leg, with his claws grasping at her trousers and his head resting on her knee.

"Once you're bigger, I promise we’ll be able to do everything they can," Alisa said to him, in case he could understand her. She wasn't entirely clear on how much of their speech he could comprehend, and how much would come from the bond.

"I need to go," Sadie said. The teacher was about to start the class. She hurried back to her seat, Mirva trilling back to Zen one last time before the door closed. Zen leaned forward, poking his head toward the crack under the door, but it was too narrow for even him to fit through.

"You're small, but not that small." Alisa picked him up and sighed. She didn't really want to attend another theory class on things she'd never need in real life, didn't want to force Zen to be still in a new and unfamiliar room that she knew he'd want to explore with his utmost curiosity. It would be better to do it when there wasn’t a class in session.

She knew as soon as he got over his initial fear, he'd be eager to meet every dragon in the room. Nearly all her classmates' eggs had already hatched, Zen had been one of the last holdouts. Francine's had hatched a few days before Zen. She'd already trained her gold-scaled Grandus to walk at her side like a dog while she strutted about, the dragon's head reaching almost to her chest even as a few-weeks-old hatchling. Alisa hated the patronizing way Francine treated her dragon, like a decorative accessory more than a living creature. But there was little she could do about it.

Most of the dragons grew quickly, but slower than Alisa had expected. Perhaps it was the infrequency of their feeding, but she'd somehow expected them to reach monstrous sizes within a month or two. So far, even the earliest dragons hadn't advanced much beyond the size of a large cat or small dog.

Mirva was getting close to too large to fit on Sadie's shoulder, but that was more due to the thickness of her limbs and the incompatibility of her shape than the physical size of her. If Zen were the same size as Mirva, he'd be long enough to wrap around Alisa's waist twice over. Azendandor really was a ridiculously scrawny, snaky thing.

Mirva had a much squarer build, thick legs in front and back, sturdy enough that she’d eventually be ridable for long distances despite her small size. As an adult, she'd be only a little larger than a horse, but significantly faster. Especially once her wings got in on the action.

From what Alisa had heard, Sadie and Mirva would likely end up in the cavalry force, dragon riders who charged into close combat with their mounts. Alisa herself, having a non-mount dragon, would probably become an artillery mage, standing back and firing spells at range with devastating effect.

As much as she hated the thought of being forced into a war, she loved the potential challenge. How would she have to change her spellcasting to adjust for charging enemy riders? How would their ability to fly change her targeting? It added a whole new dimension to the calculations, a whole new set of rules to learn and power shifts to coalesce.

She couldn't wait to get started. And she didn't want it to happen. She still hoped that she could find a way out. To leave, or for the Traitor to be overthrown, or. . . something. Anything.

There had to be a way out. She could still do fun things, learn things, innovate, without going to war.

"Zen?" she asked hesitantly. He raised his head to stare up at her, the way he always did. "If I came up with an escape plan, would you be able to carry it out?"

He didn't seem to understand, staring at her until she stopped talking, then leaned his head back against her leg.

"I want you to get big and strong," she said. "Can you do that for me?"

He stared at her until she finished talking, then returned to his odd repose and closed his eyes.

"Oh, so that's it. You wore yourself out and are going to nap on my leg now, are you?" She smiled and shook her head. "You are too cute."

Zen sleepily watched her, then drooped down further as his eyes flickered closed.

"Yep, that's a nap. Sleep well, Zen."

Alisa kept mulling over the problem for several hours, as she returned to her room and paced. Zen eventually woke, scampered around and inspected every inch of the room in case it had been changed in their absence, then coiled up in his nest to polish his scales until they shone like darkened steel.

She wasn't sure how to think about Zen when he was like this. Half the time, he acted like a snake or lizard, half like a cat, and half like something else entirely. He would nose at her like a dog, lick the air like a serpent, flare his wings like an angry bird. He was like every other creature and yet none. No one else would stop and stare at her with the same intensity, the same alertness. He had such an intelligent look to him, so much vibrancy.

And he was the cause of every misfortune in her life.

She tried very hard not to resent him for it. He didn't deserve her ire. He didn't. It was the Traitor's fault that she was being pressed into war, not Zen's. He had nothing to do with it. He was just the instrument of her destruction, not its architect.

It was hard to remember, sometimes. When he lay quiet and she wasn't being distracted by his antics, when he didn't need care and she wasn't trying to teach him how to listen to her, he was just a thing. A shiny coil of rope in the corner, the physical manifestation of the leash around her future. His fault.

Not his fault.

But it felt like it sometimes. It felt so much like it sometimes. She doubted there would ever be a day when she could think of what had been done to her and not blame Zen at least a tiny bit, however much she tried not to.

Tried and failed. Only when he was distracting her, when he was peering into mirrors, trying to contort himself fully into a loop, or standing perched on the window like a stretched-out iron bar, gazing at the outdoors with such longing, she couldn't see the weapon. Only the child. The tiny hatchling so curious and so ignorant and so vulnerable.

He was just as much a victim of circumstance as she was. He was a prisoner as much as she was. She wanted to free him as much as she wanted to escape herself.

And that's what she was mulling over as she watched him sleep. Past the resentment, there was a flicker of defiant hope. What if they could escape, before she was forced to bond him? At the very least, she could try to get him out, and maybe herself as well if she was clever enough about dealing with the fallout.

She’d have to put it off as long as possible, so he’d be old enough to fend for himself against wild dragons. And they'd need to disguise him somehow, change his scales from their brilliant silver to something less recognizable.

"Leaves?" she wondered aloud. "How would you look in green, I wonder?"

Zen watched her until she stopped talking, then returned to staring out the window.

"Alright, let's go outside. I have an idea we need to try out." She picked up the harness and leash, and he hissed at them and backed away, coiling into a corner, then sprang past her and darted under the bed with a growl.

"Zen, if you want to go outside, we have to use these."

He hissed at her, sticking his tongue out instead of responding with any amount of equanimity.

"Zen. Listen to me. We can go outside. In the grass, with the trees and bushes. But you need to wear this, or the others will be angry at me. Do you understand?"

He didn't seem to, for he stayed under the bed and continued to alternately hiss and growl when she tried to coax him out. Finally, she set down the straps and chains on her bed and lay down on her stomach beside it, reaching out slowly and gently toward him, making it clear she wasn't carrying anything.

"It's okay, you can come out."

He very very slowly emerged, his head bobbing in every direction, tongue flicking, and allowed her to pick him up, though he promptly scampered across her arm and up onto her head. He hissed when he saw the harness on the bed, but she made sure to stay distant from it until he calmed down a bit.

"Zen, we're going to have to get you used to this. It's like the hood. A good thing will happen if you can put up with an annoying thing."

He stared down at her, his tiny head extended from above to gaze upside-down into her eyes. Alisa couldn't help but laugh. "You are a ridiculous creature, you know that, right?"

He didn't respond. She didn't try to force him, but sat down at her desk and started reading from one of the informational volumes for dragon mages. This was intended both to help the dragon learn human speech, and the prospective mage learn more about dragons. Therefore, it was written simplistically and was unutterably full, but she dutifully recited it aloud in small sections, watching for when Zen lost interest and pausing long enough for him to decide words were interesting to watch again.

And between paragraphs, she plotted. She needed to figure out the logistics of her escape plan before they tried to put it into motion. There was no way she could properly escape without Zen's help. Any attempt to walk out of the academy would go poorly. She needed to have an excuse.

There had to be a way. Something. She had to think of something.

She absently stroked his slick scales, wondering if she could trick him into wearing the harness. She wanted to test her disguise idea, and if she couldn't get leaves to stick to him she'd rather know now before she committed too much to the plan. He'd be distracted soon enough.

Indeed, before long he ran down her arm and onto the desk, nosing at her collection of pens and scattering loose pages everywhere with his limbs and flailing tail. He kept his wings tucked in most of the time, but when he lost his footing on the slippery papers he flapped them quickly to regain his balance, sending even more pages fluttering in every conceivable direction, and brushing her book to a wrong page.

She picked up reading it there anyway. She doubted anyone would care if she skipped a few chapters. It wasn't contributing anything meaningful to her life anyway.

"Do you think this is worth looking at?" she asked, frowning at the page. "I think it's utter drivel."

Zen watched her, then returned to fitting himself into the smallest slot on the desk.

"Alright, you stay here. I'm going to go get some leaves." She snapped the book closed and started for the door. Zen followed right at her feet, and she stopped. "You're going to slip out the moment I open the door, aren't you?" she asked.

He watched her, a glint in his pale purple eyes.

"If you want to go outside, you need to wear the harness. They won't let me take you out without it."

He didn't answer, just kept watching, glancing between her hand and the door and her hand and the door.

Alisa growled softly, and he took a step back with his front legs, bunching up his middle section a bit when his rear legs didn't retreat.

"Well. Fine." She crossed to the bed, grabbed the harness in one swift motion, and lunged for her dragon.

Zen hissed and fled, retreating back under the bed.

Before he could gather himself and race past her, she hung the harness on the doorknob and opening the door. He poked his head out, but she'd slipped outside and closed the door again before he got up the courage to try and slip out after her.