Nobody was waiting at home when Chris and Mac arrived. Chris didn't know whether to be relieved or not. He had gone from dreading the guaralous questioning that Tanwen would subject him to, to hoping that she would immediately quell Mac's hopes for a pairing between them, but the apartment was quiet and empty.

Mac seemed to feel that the appearance of a female of his kind meant that some kind of romantic relationship was destined to occur. And even though Chris was more than four times older than the elderly man, Mac was acting just like a grandfather encouraging a beloved grandson to marry before he died.

The lights on Anne's computer seemed unusually bright in the darkness, until Mac turned on the overhead light. There was nothing unusual about either the flashing notification light or the soft red glow of the low power notification, but Chris wondered if she'd been out all day. Anne hadn't actually been dying of the new virus when he'd found her, but the fear that she might have been had made her observation of the public safety advisories quite strict.

He plugged the computer in and observed the obvious, "They aren't back yet."

"Those girls can take care of themselves. Especially the pretty one. Anyone who messes with them is in for quite a surprise, no doubt," Mac replied cheerfully.

Chris shrugged. He was losing track of how often Mac had complimented the other dragon's appearance, but even if the two were still together, he wasn't sure how reassuring that was. Perhaps because of his time believing himself to be a vampire, or the fact that a thousand other human legends also warned that the most beautiful monsters were the most deadly, he was aware that Tanwen's presence didn't guarantee Anne's safety.

Not just vampires, the fair folk, the shapeshifters, and the magicians of old stories were all quite dangerous companions for mortals. Even if Tanwen wasn't going to eat Anne, and treated her with kindness, it didn't mean that she was safe. He startled when his phone rang loudly, and blinked in surprise at the identity of his caller.

"Hello, how is your search going," Chris asked Amaru with relief. He wouldn't have admitted to being worried about the elder in front of Tanwen, but even if dragons didn't die of old age, it didn't mean they couldn't be hurt or killed.

"My search? Oh, I am here, he was here. I want you two to add each other as contacts," Amaru replied promptly.

"Okay…" Chris replied in the drawn out tones of one of the young people working at the fast food place. It wasn't that he had any objection to making the acquaintance of another dragon, it just seemed like an odd request for Amaru to make. "Is there something you want us to do together?"

"Teach each other," Amaru replied. The phone couldn't. handle the range of Amaru's voice as he shifted to the tongue of dragons and added, "If you want to learn something, then teach something. He is completely blind to true sight, but he has learned to hear the songs of the strings through his bones far more clearly than you have."

Chris puzzled out the meaning and then replied in his usual language, "Well, they do say that losing your sight improves your hearing?"

"It is not that simple," Amaru informed him strictly. "The sight and sound of the strings are linked, neither truly sight nor sound, I think that it is merely our way of interpreting them."

"Is that why the lenses don't really work?" Chris asked.

A thoughtful silence, that lasted so long that he checked the connection, answered him. "Perhaps," the older dragon grumbled. "I will think on it. I plan to return soon."

"Will he be coming with you?" Chris asked curiously.

The door opened with a bang as it rocked on its hinges from the force of the push that another dragon had given it. Chris missed Amaru's reply as Tanwen caught sight of him and exclaimed, "His scales hold a pattern that stores energy to keep him comfortable!"

"What?" Chris asked blankly, and then remembered the call and informed Amaru, "By the way, your former student has arrived."

"I am not his former student!" Tanwen protested. "I still have a great deal to learn from the elder! Is that him?"

She darted forward and snatched the phone from Chris' hand and growled, "Elder! Why didn't you ever teach me the pattern in your scales?"

Chris didn't protest or prevent the other dragon from taking his phone, as Anne appeared in the doorway behind Tanwen, and reached out to steady the door and then close it nearly silently. The traditions of other eras illustrated the scene as if Anne were a lady's maid tidying up after her mistress. Her slightly weary air only lent authenticity to the illusion.

"That's not what I mean!" Tanwen complained loudly in her dragon voice, as her form transitioned into a compressed version of her natural one, and her clothing fell at her feet in an undamaged heap that had to have been intentional.

Chris held up his hand when Anne stepped forward and bent to collect the pile himself. He kind of wanted to ask Tanwen to do it again so he could see how she'd gotten out of the pants without appearing to lift her feet. But perhaps she simply allowed her atoms to pass through the spaces within the atoms of the clothing the way Amaru could swim through stone.

"Yes, your words are incomplete as well. He's very smart, I agree," Tanwen said clearly in English despite her dragon shape.

Chris finished depositing the pile of laundry into the hamper beside the machines before turning back to raise an eyebrow questioningly.

"I'm putting you on speaker, so repeat that from the beginning," Tanwen instructed Amaru.

Even the most modern phone couldn't entirely remove the momentary lag that the transmission time added to the conversation, and a moment later the elder dragon said clearly, "The heart here is one of the largest in the world and its alignment has been maintained well enough during the last millennia to make it obvious that the fragmentation of the strings is not entirely due to disruptions created by the man- by the humans."

"What else could be causing it?" Tanwen protested.

Even Chris, who couldn't see the strings, could easily imagine that the effect humans were having on the environment would carry over to what seemed to be lifeforce flowing across the surface of the planet.

Amaru replied simply, "The world itself. The world is ready to turn over once more." He went on to explain, "The strings are fading quickly, and most likely the strength of the song of the season of growing was akin to the prosperous summers that often precede an extra long winter. Likely our instincts woke us so that we could fatten up before the lean times ahead."

"Why haven't the string carried warnings then?" Tanwen asked uneasily.

"We have sung the warning into the strings, and I'm sure that others will sing them onward, but the phone is faster. The echoes of our songs probably won't reach across the world for weeks yet. It is unfortunate that the strings do not carry numbers clearly."

"I suppose a website address would also be quite difficult to transmit," Chris replied dryly.

Tanwen blinked at him in surprise, and Anne covered a smile, but Amaru responded, "How would that… oh, we could post our numbers on one? That might be possible, like a riddle, hmm…"

"We could just set up a dragon network on the social media site that Tanwen contacted you from, or start a chat group," Chris suggested.