“Thank you for sharing your fire tonight, and for the hearty meal. As thanks I will offer you some advice, take it or leave it, but hear it nonetheless. Come five hours hence, build up your fire, let it not go out amidst the cold and dark. Wander not from its light no matter what you hear or see, for this winter solstice will be a dangerous one indeed. I must go now, my true calling awaits. May the goddess Lula smile upon us all this dark night.”

-A campfire’s guest

Guppy wandered through the hallways until she found a serving girl and got herself led to the nearest exit. She really needed to learn these hallways. It was downright annoying being lost all the time.

As she breathed fresh air Guppy looked around and realised that her particular exit hadn’t been the one leading to the ladies dormitories. Well, she had the afternoon to herself, and wanted to explore the gardens anyway.

Half an hour later found her walking through an orchard, fingers sticky from the last of some late season fruit, helped no doubt by the unnatural warmth emanating from the earth in this section of the gardens.

She had felt the difference the instant she entered the orchard, and moved towards the source, stopping only for the occasional sweet prize. Finally she entered a small grove, ringed by still fruiting chuckleberry bushes that grew taller than the trees. She knelt by a gurgling stream to clean her fingers and felt a gaze upon her.

Snapping her head up, she looked around but couldn't see the watcher. She took a breath and shook off her shoes. The soft moss tufts covering the ground made them unnecessary. Socks followed the shoes, and she dipped her slender ankles into the stream and closed her eyes.

Time for a little trick she had learnt the last few days in her cell turned bedroom. Breath in, feel the light tingle in her lungs. Push it down, down, down, into her feet. Now waves, flowing into the earth, excited to explore, to seek, to report. Out, out, out. Breaking against things that were different. Roots, lots of roots, little burrowing creatures. No, up a bit. Surface covered by a blanket of softness, leaves. Explore more, out, out- there!

Someone stood fifty meters behind her, slowly approaching, carefully moving, avoiding twigs and dried leaves. It paused, then claws dipped softly into the earth that pulsed with her senses, killing the tiny pulses they came in contact with and cutting off her magic.

Guppy snapped back to herself and shuddered. That felt awful.

Her breathing roughened, and muscles tensed. She could hear it breathing now, soft puffs of breath as the air wheezed out its throat. A scent stole into the glade, rotten meat mixed with an oily feel of wrongness.

{Gupulagia! Run! Get Out! Move. Now!}

A rush of adrenaline followed the panicked warning from Batty, icy tendrils flooding her veins so fast that for a moment Guppy froze, then exploded into movement. Running from that terrible twisted smell.

Over roots and under branches she wove and twisted, kicking off trees and hopping over a stone bench. Away from the growling screech she blocked from her hearing. Away from the thud of something large tearing up the earth as it pursued her.

She tripped. Tumbled. Rolled, rolled out from under shade and shadow into sunlight.

Guppy sprung from the moving ball into a stationary crouch, facing the line of trees. She listened, her heart thumping in her ears until it slowly stilled. She watched, eyes jerking and twitching at the smallest movement. Her hands shook, but over the next few minutes gradually steadied. Nothing moved within the trees. They swayed in a gentle wind as if to mock her fear.

Guppy felt the displacement of air as a hand descended on her from behind.

Guppy snarled, twisted, and threw a hasty punch with as much might as she could gather in the moment.

A meaty thud sounded as a human figure was lifted into the air and back three paces, crumpling to the ground in a retching fit as he proceeded to throw up his lunch.

A raucous laughing broke out from the dwarf who stood a bit further back, accompanied by the soft grunting chuckle of a large grey-green orc beside him. Guppy rubbed her eyes as her tension drained, then slapped her face for good measure.

"What the fudgeknuckles???"

“Good to see ye so boisterous lass, last we heard ye were all glum and gloom like.” Called Hadoom as he wiped mithy tears from his cheeks.

Guppy looked to the sorry figure on the ground, yup, one half elf, check, Hadoom, check, Jade, check. She gave herself a hard pinch to make sure, but the scene didn’t fade so she bounded forward and hugged the dwarf, sweeping him off his feet in delight.

“You’re alive! You’re alive! You’re alive!” She shrieked in delight, “Last I saw you were lying still in a puddle of your own blood! With everything that happened afterwards, I never found out what happened! ”

“Aye, aye lass, it's good to see you too. But please be putting me down before I lose my lunch as well?” the dwarf pled, already looking pale from the aerial swinging Guppy was currently inflicting upon him.

Guppy laughed and lowered him gently, before turning and hugging the big pillar that was Jade.

“It's good to see you too big guy. I worried about what happened to you and bugged Emily until she said you were fine and I would see you soon. You doing all right?”

Jade let his massive hand fall and gave her a couple awkward head pats as he answered.

“Perfectly fine little runt. You look better than when we last met. Though you still need to put more meat on those bones.”

Guppy giggled and twisted away as he poked her ribs with a meaty finger in criticism.

She swatted his hand away but grinned at his reproaches."You've filled out as well big guy, a far cry from the bony skeleton I met a few weeks ago!"

The orc grunted vaguely in reply, but Guppy didn't miss how he flexed slightly under his current servant attire, threatening to rip the already strained clothes with his bulging muscles.

Guppy turned to the last member of the trio, who by this time had straightened and reclaimed his demeanor. She hadn't been ignoring him out of guilt while he gathered himself, no sirree.

Guppy coughed into her hand and turned an innocent gaze at the look of reproach on Jacques' handsome face. She couldn't keep it up for more than a second before a wide grin split her somber facade.

"Sorry Jacques, you surprised me is all. It's good to see you." she sincerely apologized.

Jacques sighed and ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to neaten it, shaking out his lengthening curls as he did so. "The method of our meetings leaves much to be desired, Miss Cooper." a small smile curled his lips upwards, "But It's good to see you too."

Guppy's smile slipped a bit as facts connected and events caught up to her.

"Wait a moment, you all know my real name, and my fake one. How d-"

Jacques raised his hands placatingly as Hadoom cut in, "Hold up miss Bright, blast it, miss Cooper. We signed up as Raven Feathers to help rescue you after we were kicked out of the Canners. We know about the whole shindig and got ourselves assigned here as academy guards. Just signed in this mornin' and were scouting the grounds before our shift begins, ‘Course it was Jacques here who found you.”

Guppy arched her eyebrow at the half elf. “How did you know where to find me?” She asked

Jacques coughed into his fist and shot Hadoom a look before facing Guppy with an awkward look as he retrieved something small from his uniform’s front pocket.

“It's this strange scale we found awhile back. It grows warmer and brighter the closer you are miss Br-Cooper.”

He uncurled his fingers to reveal a shimmering white scale, glowing faintly even in the afternoon’s steady light. She recognised it instantly, swiping it from his hand and clenching it to her bosom. It was warm, slightly hot even, and she was not the only one who noticed.

“Where did you find this?” {Where did you find this?} She asked as Batty echoed her.

“Old Friedrich’s workshop lass, or what was left of it, anyway. Figured it was tied to you in someway, just never had a chance to return it and ask before. But now we know for sure.” answered Hadoom, “Ye mind tell-”

Guppy felt the hair on her neck stand up. She whipped around as a deep throaty chuckle carried itself softly to her ears.

A shadowy form faded between trees knotted and thick with age. Gone in the blink of an eye, but not imagined.

Guppy turned to her companions, who looked askingly at her abrupt shift in temperament.

“There was something in the orchard that chased me when we met up, something that rotted. alive, but not really, I can't fully describe it, I never even really saw it. It just felt so wrong, when it touched my magic before it felt...hungry, so hungry.”

The three males looked at the shivering student as she spoke and then at each other.

Jade placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as Jacques spoke up.

“We’ll keep our eyes and ears peeled Gupulagia, whatever it was, it sounds nasty, lets go have a look and see what we find.”

They made their way back to the orchard, but whatever Guppy had run from was long gone, and the few tracks they found soon faded into the dense layer of leaves after a mere dozen paces.

Guppy stood staring at one of them near the orchard's edge. It was large, the edges jagged and irregular. The crushed leaves were blackened, contrasting sharply with the red and browns that carpeted the ground around the print.

She swept some leaves over the print, no longer wishing to see its ugly stain. Something had been hunting her, a fact she was distinctly unhappy about.

She asked

{No} came the dragon’s reply, {It felt awful, hungry for our magic, for us. I told you to run because I feared it... though I know not wh-. Wait, I’m getting flashes, of fire. Of ruin. I was running, escaping with all my might as my strength and magic failed me, as, as. No, it’s gone. I remember naught else. These new memories are greatly disturbing, the emotions raw. I shall ponder on their meaning. But ominous thoughts aside, that scale is exactly what I need to spin myself a new body.}

Guppy had to stifle a smile at the joy and eagerness she felt radiating from the dragon’s spirit. She shook off the funk she was in and said her goodbyes to her acquaintances? Colleagues? Friends? She wasn’t sure what they were to her.

{Allies} answered Batty, as they made their way back to the dorms and her room, treading corridors that were empty save for maids who curtseyed and hastened out of her way.

She reached her room, and locked it after her entry, rushing to her bed and laying the scale on a soft pillow.

she asked Batty.

{Hold the scale to your forehead, and relax, I will take it from there} He replied.

Guppy sat cross-legged on her bed and did as Batty instructed.

For a minute nothing happened, then warmth slowly built, flowing upwards from her core into her hands, then twisting into the scale in dizzying movements that shone through her closed eyelids. Colours seen and unseen shifted in a myriad display of melding light that paraded in mind bending fractals.

It seemed to stretch on and on, until it didn’t, and Guppy tipped over backwards as a wave of exhaustion dragged at her.

She groaned as a blinding headache stabbed her with blades of fiery pain as spots danced across her vision. Despite it all, she forced herself up and looked around for the dragon.

Guppy cut off as she registered a smooth warmth nestled against her thighs. A large silver egg innocently sat there.

She snorted and rapped on the shell, “Batty, please tell me I didn’t just ‘lay’ you, Dragonkin I may be, but that would be very, very uncool of you.”