As they’d been speaking, they’d gotten steadily closer to the Dome Houses. They were now just outside the strange little town. The Dome Houses were much bigger up close, which made sense considering Hawk Dragons were quite a bit bigger than a horse. They had been watching Hawk Dragons, along with a few humans, come and go from their dried, but muddy homes. Now that they were close enough, the Dragons themselves were casting them curious stares.

Hawk Dragons looked very like their name sakes. They had a sharp curved beak, round brown eyes, and four leathery legs with four deadly clawed toes at the end. Their feather covered bodies were usually a variety of brown, black, and white strips. They had enormous feathered wings and a long tail reminiscent of a pheasant (rather than a hawk). Their faces, while sharp and predatory, were also childlike because of their large eyes and fluffy feathered faces (which puffed out depending on their mood).

“Let me call Chuck over.” Forest said and then put his fingers in his mouth and gave a sharp whistle. The whistle went: long, short, short, short, long. After he was done, he explained: “Every Dragon Mage has whistle for his Dragon and vice versa, it makes it easier to find each other in a crowd.”

At the end of his explanation, a Hawk Dragon could be seen barreling through the dome town at a recklessly high speed. He hit several other Dragons along the way, who complained loudly. Both Caroline and Thio took a step back as his high speed approach, while Forest seemed totally unconcerned. Chuck the Hawk Dragon came to a sudden screeching halt, his beak softly nudging Forest’s shoulder from the last of his momentum.

Forest patted the side of the Dragon’s face, saying, “Chuck, these are the visitors I said were coming. Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

Chuck snapped his beak twice, and backed up a few steps. He then sat down on all fours, and lowered his head so that he was at eye level with the humans.

“Hello Guests.” Chuck began, his voice slightly high and grainy. “My Community calls me The One Who Chuckles. Forest calls me Chuck, because he is lazy.”

“Your name is just long, you doofus.”

Chuck the Dragon chuckled, just as his name suggested he would do. “Many humans are lazy, like Forest. So you may call me Chuck as well.” He then dipped his head, apparently finished with his introduction.

“As you can see, Chuck’s a bit of a clown. Don’t take anything he says too seriously. No one else does.”

Chuck snapped his beak at this, pretending to be offended, and then laughed with a huff-huff-huff sound.

“Anyway, go ahead and introduce yourselves.” Forest suggested.

“I know the white one already.” Chuck commented, clicking, and then added: “Ice Prince.”

Thio’s eyebrows came together and his lips thinned. “Acanthio, I think you mean.”

“Ice Prince.”

Thio’s eye twitched.

Caroline glanced at Thio, somewhat surprised. “Ice Prince? Why’s he calling you Ice Prince?”

“Ah…!” Forest burst out laughing, pointing at Thio. “So it’s true you hate that name huh? Too ashamed to tell your own wife, is that it?”

Chuck’s feathers puffed slightly in amusement. “Ice Prince, why do you hate your name? It is a good name. I enjoy it very much.”

“Ice Prince…” Caroline squinted her eyes, trying to remember why the name sounded familiar, and then snapped her fingers. “Ah! The mage who killed the fire dragon! I remember, Douglas wouldn’t shut up about it for a week.”

“That’s Archmage Thio, the Ice Prince of the Air Defense.” Forest was still chortling, despite Thio icy glare.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” She asked Thio, doing a poor job of suppressing her laughter. She didn’t really see a problem with the name, as she thought he was very like a Prince.

“I would remind you that you neglected to mention your Handle as well.” He said stiffly.

“Oh, what’s your Handle?” Forest asked, curious.

Caroline made a face. She really didn’t want to say it out loud if she could help it. When she looked at Thio pleadingly, all she got was a mischievous look back. She realized too late her lack of sympathy was going to bite her in the butt.

A corner of Thio’s lips lifted, “You’ll be surprised. She’s actually quite popular. Practically a household name in the South. She goes by—”

“No, wait!” She went to cover his mouth, but he dodged.

“—The Berserker Bear Claw.”

“Arg!” She stomped her foot at her failure.

Forest’s eyebrows shot up and gave Caroline an awed look. “For real? I thought that was a guy! Is it true you fight with your fists and that you actually punched a Spider Demon to death and one hit killed Tiger Bears?”

She sighed. “My fighting style is boxing so…”

Chuck added with a nod, “What a good name for a Warrior! It truly strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies! Any Hawk Dragon would be proud to fly you with a name like that.”

“Uhm… I’m not really a warrior though…”

The Hawk Dragon tilted his head. “You are not?”

“No, just an Adventurer. Close range fighter, specifically.”

Chuck stretched out his neck, so his face was very close to Caroline’s, causing her to lean back. He tilted his head this way and that way, as if trying to figure something out.

He made a clicking sound, as if confused. “How surprising, you seem very Warrior-ish.”

“Uhm… okay?”

“Oh, lucky you, not many people get called Warriors by Hawk Dragons. It’s a compliment. Warriors, Healers, and Leaders are a big deal in Hawk Dragon Communities.” Forest explained to Caroline and then turned to his dragon friend, “Anyway, Chuck, Caroline here really likes dragons and has wanted to meet one for quite some time. I thought you could show her around the Community, introduce her to your neighbors, what do you think?”

“Yes, yes. The Berserker Bear Claw will surely get along well with the Community. The Ice Prince may tag along too.” He chuckled at Thio’s darkened face before standing back up. “Follow me.”

While Forest stayed near Chuck’s side, Caroline and Thio kept a safer distance. Between the Dragons wings and tail it was hard to guess where you could stand without getting knocked over.

Caroline turned to Thio. “Ice Prince isn’t really that bad a name you know.”

“The Berserker Bear Claw isn’t that bad either.”

“I sound like a rabid animal.”

“I sound like a stuck-up pansy.”

They glanced at each other and then laughed.

Forest heard the laughter and looked behind him. He did a double take at Thio’s expression. He’d never seen that guy look genuinely happy. Marriage had loosened him up.

‘Hm… if he smiled more often, people wouldn’t be so put off.’ Forest thought and then quietly chuckled at Caroline. She was looked looking at Thio with a cheerfully dazed expression.

‘How adorable, she’s totally star struck,’ He thought and then sighed, saying quietly to himself, “Ah… that’d be nice.”

Chuck, who had exceptionally good hearing, asked,“What would be nice?”

“Having a wife who looked at me like that.”

Chuck turned around to look at Caroline and then back at him. “Should I go get one for you?”

“What, a wife?”

“Yes.”

“And how would you find one?”

“I’ll search far and wide and pluck the best lady from the land and bring her to you.”

He pretended to think about it. “Pretty sure that’s called kidnapping and it’s illegal.”

The Hawk Dragon chortled. “Too bad, too bad! I have excellent taste you know!”

“You’d just take the first woman you could find that you thought was fluffy.”

“But good plumage is important.” Clicked the Dragon playfully.

——

They didn’t walk very far in before they met another Hawk Dragon. It was smaller and had plainer brown coloring than Chuck. It’s feathery eyebrows were flat and it did not look happy.

“The One Who Chuckles, what is this I hear about you barreling through town like a fledging!?” Before Chuck could respond, the smaller Hawk Dragon was smacking him with a wing. “You knocked over Wise Elder One! She is very frail, you could have hurt her! Go and apologize at once!”

“But Eyes That Laugh,” Chuck responded while cowering between blows, “Forest wants me to take these visitors around town. I’m working right now! WORKING.”

Eyes That Laugh (who’s eyes were definitely not laughing just then), huffed and snapped at him. “I don’t care if the Emperor is here to visit, you will go apologize to Wise Elder One! She is the leader here, she is important! Do it now or you’re sleeping on the heights tonight! I won’t let you back even if the eggs start hatching!”

‘Now I remember why I’m not married,’ Forest thought humorously at the henpecking.

Chuck cawed in distress and gave a pleading look to Forest.

“Eh? Don’t drag me into this. You could have just flown over the town to get to me.” Forest turned his head, unwilling to get yelled at too.

Eyes that Laugh nodded in angry agreement, “Even Forest has sense! And he is Forest, there is barely anything between his ears!”

“Hey now…” Forest objected.

“Fine! I will go apologize to Wise Elder One! I am going right now! See? I am going!” Not wanting to be harassed any more, and seeing he had no allies, Chuck had already started slinking away.

“Good! Go! I will check with Wise Elder One later!” With that, Eyes That Laugh flapped her wings once and stomped away, grumbling as she went.

Forest coughed and then turned to the wide eyed Caroline and Thio. “So that’s Eyes That Laugh, wife of Chuck. Usually she’s got a chipper attitude but she’d brooding right now. First time. They’ve got two eggs near hatching and it’s making her really high strung.”

“Oh… babies…” Caroline eyes rounded. “Can I… Can I see any eggs? Maybe some children too?”

“Maybe not the eggs, but fledglings—that’s the kids—I can probably introduce you to. But,” He brightened. “Lets go see the Wise Elder One first.”

Thio frowned. “Is that alright? Isn’t Chuck going to apologize?”

“Why do you think we’re going?” Forest smiled evilly. “It’s not like this is Chuck’s first time or anything. And you should meet Wise Elder One since you’re here anyway. It’s good manners.”

———

Wise Elder One’s dome house was located in the center of the mud town. Forest explained that the older a Hawk Dragon got, the closer to the center they lived. This made it easier for the Community to guard and protect them. Because the oldest living Hawk Dragon ended up being the defacto leader in the Community, living in the center also became a place of honor and power.

Caroline was starting to sweat and shake slightly from the long walk from the office to the center of the dragon town. The mud town was Hawk Dragon sized, so it took a long time to get anywhere, something she hadn’t anticipated. And Thio couldn’t Transport to places he hadn’t been, so they couldn’t zip to the next location.

She really needed to sit down and rest, even for just five minutes. The problem was she’d worn a fancy dress. Hawk Dragons didn’t need chairs which left only the ground. She was seriously regretting her clothing choices, as her regular attire would have allowed her to sit wherever she wanted.

Thio suddenly reached out and squeezed the hand she’d kept rested on his arm. “Do you need to rest?”

She blinked, surprised, and then gave a strained smile. “Sorry. I am a little worn out. But there’s no where to sit, and I didn’t want to inconvenience everyone…”

“What are you saying?” He patted her hand. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I hadn’t planned to take care of you.”

“Oh?”

“Hm.” He nodded and then turned to Forest. “We’re almost there, yes?”

“Yep.” The Dragon Mage pointed ahead of him. “Right over there.”

“Good. Once we’re there, we’ll rest for a while before continuing.”

Chuck was just ahead of him, his head lowering closer to the ground the nearer to the center house they got. His beak was practically touching the ground by the time he’d arrived.

Once they were at the Elder’s house, Thio cast a spell. With a plop, a chair appeared. Caroline stared at it in amazement.

“Isn’t this a chair from our kitchen?”

“It is.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.” She paused. “But you can Teleport people so I guess a chair isn’t an issue, huh?”

“Exactly right.” Thio gently pushed her onto the chair. “Teleporting non-living objects is actually a lot easier than people.”

She nodded and muttered, aggrieved, “…wish I could use magic…”

As they were talking, Chuck had sat himself down in front of the dome house entrance. He pressed his wings as close to his body as possible and flattened his feathers, making him look slightly smaller. He then let out a long whistle and lowered his head to the ground and waited.

There was silence for what seemed like a long time, then a rustling sound from inside the house, and Wise Elder One finally came out. She was smaller and skinnier than the other females they had seen, and her peppered-white feathers refused to sit smoothly (giving her a slightly wild appearance). Her movements were slow and careful, as if suffering from aching joints. But her eyes were bright brown and very much alive.

At seeing the abased Chuck, she made a clicking sound. “Fledgling, how many times must we do this until you’ve learned?”

Chuck seemed to sink into the ground. With a soft whistle, he apologized, “I am very sorry. I will never do it again. I will be good. I will be better. Please forgive this young one.”

“Don’t you have eggs near hatching? Exactly how are you a young one, eh?”

“But you called me a fledgling…”

She cawed at him loudly. “Are you arguing with me?”

“No, no, no… never.” Came the hurried response. After a moment he tried again, “I am still very sorry. My eggs will hatch soon, as you say. If you are angry, how can there be joy in my household? Please forgive me. For my children’s sake, so this youn— this father, may see his children hatch in peace.”

Wise Elder One lifted her chin and looked down on him, squinting.

“In peace you say? I see. You are not sorry for almost breaking my bones, you are sorry Eyes That Laugh is angry and that is why you are here. You are just trying to make her happy. You brat, don’t deny it!”

Chuck gave a long, sad whistle. He didn’t dare deny it.

Wise Elder One then laughed, making a huff-huff-huff sound. “All that talk for years of freedom and flying the skies, and never being tied down— but here you are, thoroughly henpecked! There is no better punishment for all your years of mischief! It gives me the greatest joy to watch you turn into a family man!” She continued to huff-huff-huff at him. “Now all I need to do is find a woman for Forest, and my revenge for both your years of shenanigans will be complete.”

Forest gave Wise Elder One a horrified look, while his human companions tried not to laugh at him.

Chuck, however, was relieved and bobbing his head, saying, “Just as your name says, you are most wise! Thank you!”

“Yes, yes. May I see you next when you bring me news of your hatching,” She gave a dismissive click and then looked curiously at the humans and stated: “I see people I don’t know.”

“Er, oh!” Chuck hurriedly introduced them: “This is Ice Prince and The Berserker Bear Claw.”

“Ah, the Ice Prince… that would be… Archmage Acanthio? The one who killed the fire dragon?”

Thio heartily appreciated her using his actual name and title. “It’s an honor that you’ve heard of me, Wise Elder One.”

“It is rare for a fire dragon to enter our territory these days, and for a human to fight it alone… of course I heard about it! All the Communities have, it was quite the talk of the town. I wish I could have seen it with my own two eyes. That’s quite an impressive feat, for a human.”

“While I thank you, I didn’t do it alone. I didn’t even give the killing blow. That was Sir Ritts. There were others with me too.”

“How very humble of you. That is appropriate as well.” She tilted her head and turned to Caroline. “This other one, The Berserker Bear Claw, I have not heard before. May I know your given name?”

Caroline got up from her chair and attempted a very awkward curtsy. “Hello ma’am, I’m Caroline Matth—oh! …er… am I? Should I be going by Hillsdale…?” She gave Thio a confused look.

Family surnames were only used by nobility, otherwise you went by your job title or location or given name. Caroline rarely gave her surname to people to prevent confusion. However, this was a “dragon chief” and not giving her full name seemed impolite. But now that she was really for real married, she had no idea how to introduce herself. It was horrible timing to start asking those questions now.

Thio raised a brow at her confusion. “Why wouldn’t you go by Matthews? It’s your family name isn’t it?”

“But don’t women take on the man’s surname…” She’d never met nobility, so she was only vaguely aware of how naming conventions worked for them.

“If they have one and it’s a higher status. I don’t have one. If anything I ought to be going by yours, just for the status increase.”

“..is that so…?” She touched her forehead, a little uncertain, then realized she’d never finished her introduction. “Oh, sorry ma’am. I’m Caroline Matthews. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“The pleasure is mine.” The elderly Hawk Dragon replied offhandedly and then commented, “Interesting. Are you not from the Empire, Caroline Matthews?”

“Ah, it’s obvious now, huh? I’m not originally from here. I’ve only been in this country about four years.”

“A foreigner? I have not met one of those in a long time.”

“Is that so? I’ve never met a dragon, so I suppose we’re even.”

Wise Elder one tilted her head at this and chuckled slightly. She then walked, slowly, over to Caroline. “I see you have a chair. Are you perhaps tired? Please continue sitting.”

“I will, thanks.” Caroline sat back down, relieved. She hadn’t quite recovered yet.

The elderly Hawk Dragon sat near her, giving her a curious look. “Why the name Berserker Bear Claw, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Forest and Chuck glanced at each other in surprise. While it was polite for Wise Elder One to exchange names, she wasn’t obligated (and often didn’t) go any farther than that. The fact that she was initiating further conversation, with a foreign stranger of no particular status (in Hawk Dragon circles), was quite remarkable.

“Oh, that…” Caroline rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “I’m afraid I got a little overzealous and took on a bunch of difficult Requests, including some with Tiger Bears. The Guildmaster was so impressed he gave me… that.”

“Guildmaster, Requests? As in the Adventurer’s Guild?”

“Yep.”

“Ah… so you’re not a Warrior.”

“Warrior? Chuck told me that too.”

“Oh? So even he has times of perception.” She huffed again, amused, and then continued. “Adventurer though… it’s one step from a Warrior in it’s own way. I suppose it will do, for now.”

“Uh… I don’t quite understand the fixation on being a warrior. Is there something wrong with being an Adventurer? Do Hawk Dragons not like them?”

Wise Elder One gave a thoughtful click. “I have no feelings about Adventurers either way. I understand their existence and why they are needed, but I have met very few in my time. And of those, fewer who deserve any mention. But Warriors? I have met many of those, and I know them. I remember their names and how they died. Even all these years later. I remember them. Yes… like lights shining in the darkness…” She got a very distant look on her face and then gave a small shake, continuing kindly, “Your spirit is more Warrior than Adventurer, is all I am saying.”

“I suppose… I suppose thank you?” Caroline was really not sure how to respond to that. She’d been thinking of the word “warrior” in a literal sense, but Wise Elder One seemed to mean it in a slightly different way.

“It is indeed meant as a compliment.”