Karla didn’t think long, “Escape with you? I’d love to,” she said in a soft sigh. “But it’s not that easy. This collar is magic,” she said, tapping the iron collar around her neck, “and it can’t be removed. It’s meant to be easy to track across any distance by a mage. Leonard and Blake would just hop on a messenger dragon and find us within an afternoon. Maybe if you could fly, we could flee so far as the dragon wilds, far to the north. But it would take weeks to get there on foot, and after a few days it wouldn’t just be Leonard and Blake looking for us, it would be many mages on dragons looking for us. The duke would ask for help to track down a missing dragon and slave. We would never escape so long as I’m with you wearing this collar.” Karla explained.

Rex’s brow crinkled into a dragonic frown.

“If we fled together, they would assume that it was my idea to run away and steal a dragon, so they would chase us to bring you back. But, once you can fly, If you wanted to flee, you could do it without me,” Karla said in a sad voice, “it’s generally not considered worth it to chase a disgruntled escaped dragon past the borders into the dragon wilds. Who would want to ride an unhappy unwilling dragon? It’s a death sentence. It’s why mistreated dragons are very rare. Every dragon is assigned a stableboy whose job it is to keep them content. ”

“That means you would be punished if I left?” Rex guessed.

Karla choked a sob, then nodded. “Yes, I’d probably be whipped and sold off to work on a farm. But I’d live. If I tried to escape and got recaptured, my life would be over. Recaptured runaway slaves get sent to terrible places,” Karla whispered, “like the salt mines or the gladiator pits. No one survives long in those places.”

The dragon duo’s anger returned. Rex admitted.

Idea promised,

With a grimace of distaste, Rex did so.

“What are you doing?” Karla asked the dragon pressed his tongue against the collar.

“I have something like an analysis spell,” Rex explained, “But I have to touch things with my tongue.”

“Oh?” Karla said with a bemused smile, “Is that why you lick me all the time?”

Rex chuckled, a soft repeating grunting sound that Karla recognized as his laugh, then answered, “Nah, I just like teasing you.” he told the catgirl, “but my spit can help you heal. I helped fix your nose didn’t I?”

Karla was impressed, and rubbed Rex’s head gratefully. “What does your analysis spell tell you?” She asked, curious what the dragon could learn about the collar.

But Idea gave a different reply than what she was expecting, “Your DNA is the same as a human. I think whatever makes beastmen beastmen has to do with magic, not genetics.”

“What is genetics?” Karla asked with a frown.

Rex tried to explain, “It's kind of hard to explain, I guess I just mean, you’re the really same species as humans, so it’s odd that they enslave your kind just because you look different.”

Karla nodded, “It’s not odd, it’s terrible, but beastmen aren’t slaves everywhere, if we managed to make it to the Republic of Sidmark to the west, I’d be free. Slavery is illegal there and beastmen and humans live together as equals.”

“That’s where we’d have to escape to then,” Rex said eagerly, “I’m not all that excited about running off to the dragon wilds, but a republic where you can live free sounds perfect.”

Idea announced.

“We can get this collar off,” Rex told Karla excitedly, not picking his pronouns carefully.

“Great,” Karla said softly, “that’s amazing, but, what about Eric?” She asked. “He’ll be devastated,” she said sadly. Talking about Eric made Karla blush a little and her tail wag slightly, Idea noticed, but did not comment on it.

“Eric?” Rex asked, “Won’t he just get a new dragon once I’m gone?” Rex had assumed that it wasn’t that hard to get a new egg.

“It’s not that easy, it took months and a full team of adventurers along with Leonard to find your egg in the dragon wilds, it’s very expensive and dangerous to find an egg. But, even if they did, don’t you think Eric would miss you? I’d feel sorry for him if you just disappeared one day.”

Rex thought about it. “I’d feel bad too, I like Eric. But Eric would just be disappointed, he doesn’t get beaten and mistreated like you do. Your suffering if we stay outweighs his disappointment if we leave.” the dragon argued.

“When Eric goes to the academy in three years it will just be us three, and things will be better. When Eric becomes duke… he’ll be a good master. I wouldn’t mind serving him.” Karla said wistfully.

“A well treated slave is still a slave,” Rex disagreed, “maybe Eric would be a better slaveowner than most, but you can’t afford to wait years until that happens. Blake will just keep hurting you the whole time.”

“Once I figure out how to talk to the other dragons, maybe Blake won’t keep hurting me.” Karla said a choked voice.

“Karla, that won’t ever happen,” Rex told her, a bit angry that she didn’t seem eager to escape, not understanding her justifiable fear of being recaptured, “it’s our... I mean my “magic” that lets us talk, not yours.”

Karla put her hand to cover her mouth, “You lied to me?” she asked in a horrified tone.

Rex hesitated, then hung his head, “Yes, I’m sorry,” he told her, “I thought it would be a good idea, to help you get better treatment. Remember Blake didn’t want to let you go with us to Leonard anymore, so I… found a reason so they would let you keep going despite what Blake wanted.”

Karla shook her head, “Oh no, this is terrible. Blake will never give up until he proves I can’t talk to dragons, proves that it was all a lie!” she said, horrified, forgetting to whisper. Which is how, Blake, who had been lounging outside the stables by the open window, straining unsuccessfully to hear what the catgirl had been whispering about, heard the best news he’d heard in a while.

He grinned, thinking hard on how he’d use this new information to do more than just humiliate and abuse the catgirl. Ultimately, the catgirl was just an amusing pawn. What Blake really wanted was to bring Rex properly under his control, and this might just be the key to that, he thought to himself.