We've been seen, we've been seen, they're coming for us, coming again, gods know how many this time they are coming

they are coming

It goes through my head, over and over and over again, while we stare at the little bauble and its small horrible green light. Sweat and panic and a sort of weariness, enough has already happened today, why must there be more? I can't take more, can I? Can I must I does it matter?

The dragon nudges me hard, sleek solid head colliding with my hip. I stumble sideways, and she looks at me, taps the green-glowing terror-source with one claw, then flicks the bauble up into the air and catches it between her jaws.

Crunch. Swallow. Exhale, a long wafting stream of greenish fumes. And that's all. It's gone.

Initial assessment revised: destruction of object best strategic choice, she sends. Enemy will not have seen anything beyond initial report from traitor-human. Near-presence of DRAGON unit suppresses necessary suspension/warping of physical laws for item functioning, enchantment not particularly strong, suppression/consumption not difficult proposition.

I realize I'm gaping, and that no one around me will have any idea why. But they're not paying any attention to me, no one except maybe for Paunea, they only have eyes for the dragon and even then only a glance can be spared as they move through the tunnels quick as feet can safely carry them.

You can just...eat magic?

DRAGON unit meant as magic-immune combat construct, primary purpose for existence, each cell of DRAGON unit body designed to project Tetherdown field, resulting harmonic effect is very strong. However, Operator Kella should understand process: item not simply disenchanted, item consumed by extreme heat, residual magic forced into decoherence by Tetherdown field, unable to communicate as per design. Regrets given that Operator Kella could not be consulted before action taken, device appeared to be active, enemy information minimization high priority for insurgent forces e.g. current human situation.

I've stopped gaping, but I'm still rooted to the wet filthy floor while my mind processes the flood of concepts she's just poured into it.

Apologies to Operator Kella, timing-of-now is suboptimal, last of civilian population moving past, we must move also with them. Discussion necessary en route re: where is next place?

"Yeah," I say, and I can feel the shakes trying to push through my upper body, and I push them back down, have to move, have to move.

Her head tilts as she looks at me, swaying from side to side on that long neck.

"There's a place," I say, and I close my eyes, and I send very hard, because I'm standing next to a body, still, bleeding on the floor, and I won't look at it don't want any more of that image in my head but I'm become suddenly very aware of my own mortality and I don't want any of the things I know to die with me, if I do. When I do.

She nudges me again. Operator Kella's death less likely than any other human in group. Protection of Operator very high DRAGON unit priority. Mental health of Operator also of paramount importance. Future uncertain, worry not useful, concern belongs here, now, time/place of maximum effectiveness. Think/talk on this while moving?

I open my eyes. The last of the stragglers have moved past us.

Yeah, let's go. There's not really room in the narrowest parts of the tunnels for us to walk side by side, so I go ahead with her following, and in the wider spots we squeeze past people who, shocked and sad and determined and excited and unsure, still have enough feeling left to turn on the dragon in the form of awe.

A pictured-place appears in my head, hazy and full of more meaning than actual image, like something half-imagined. This is the place? DRAGON unit could not absorb full information-set, too much too fast. Discussion still needed.

Sorry about that, I send back. I was hoping I could kind of...dump everything I know, I suppose, into your mind. Wherever exactly it was she keeps that. I want to assume it's in her head, but she's not an actual living thing, there's no actual reason for her designers to have put it there. Just...just in case.

I can't see her shake her head, but I know she's doing it, and I wonder why. Isn't sending the meaning of the gesture enough? But maybe physicality has something like the same kind of connection to meaning for her as it does for humans. I have a moment to ponder this before she sends: Information bandwidth limited on multiple fronts. Some aspects more effective/efficient than human vocal communication, especially pure visual/spatial information. Others more limited, such as emotional/cultural conceptualization. Improvement in these areas anticipated as DRAGON unit exercises self-improvement processes.

I frown, thinking, while the full concept of "bandwidth" tries to unpack itself at the back of my brain. So...you're saying you need to mature, you're not hatched fully-formed, uh, mentally speaking?

I can sense the way she rustles her wings, back behind me, same way I knew she'd shaken her head. All thinking creatures must mature, this is wisdom integrated deep into DRAGON unit indoctrination-routines, doubly necessary due to near-prototype status.

The smell of the tunnels starts to really hit me now, for no reason I can tell except maybe that I've started to calm down substantially from the attack and the traitor and everything and gods now my heart's going again but the smell's still there and maybe it wasn't me calming down at all, maybe this is just a particularly stinky stretch of corridor I mean don't terrible things like smells always seem worse at terrible times? And I can smell the ashes too, the human ashes only they weren't human they were Elven but it all smells the same, the screams aren't any different only they didn't have time to scream, did they? And maybe I'm imagining that but

Kella, comes my own name into my own head, no Operator this time, no title. Kella, you need to rest. It's amazingly gentle, her voice, even carried straight into my own thoughts it enters mild but not soft, touches my mind like a steadying hand on the shoulder.

I keep going forward. Of course I need to rest. How many times have I needed that, and kept going forward anyway? And I send as much, though maybe I don't need to, I don't think much of my interior tumult is hidden from her now.

Yes now has the necessity but now will not be forever, priority must be given to processing-times, important for all minds, again assert Operator mental health of paramount importance. Emotional/cognitive recovery necessary, well-earned besides.

I take in a deep breath. I'll find time to rest as soon as I can spare it.

She shakes her head, sharp and quick, I can feel it, clearly as I can see the hint of daylight ahead. Time not a thing to be spared, rest instead a thing to be prioritized. Take time not wait until it is given.

I laugh, in spite of myself, in spite of everything, and while there's still a bitter edge to the sound of it moving up through my throat, in the way it starts down in my belly and spreads above, still a bitter edge, yes, but still good anyway. Still good. Gods, my good Lady Dragon, I send, and the warm wash of amusement I can feel in my own thoughts is even better than my laugh, did they toss in an entire philosophy text when they planned out your mind?

Well, she sends back, DRAGON unit imprinted with much useful knowledge in egg phase, retrieved as becomes useful/necessary, DRAGON unit has needed to utilize more esoteric insights than expected. Operator Kella has been in philosophical flux. There's a hint of near-prim, near-impish laughter accompanying that last statement, and I actually turn to look at her.

Are you fucking with me?

No. Almost certainly untrue. Definitely not completely. Unknowable at this time.

I laugh again, and this time it feels entirely good, and besides, there's the sun, shining down the ancient stairs. I take them carefully, watching for spots that have crumbled away, and step out into the calm air of the ruined city that's been my home as long as I can remember. It seems different, somehow. I've always known that any peace it might portray is at best a temporary lie, but now...but now I'm not sure. I can't put a finger on it. I'll have to think on it.

And anyway there are other things to consider, because they're all standing there on the wide cracked space that was once entirely cracked, where our ancestors long long ago gathered to ride the wire-trains high above the streets, or at least that's what the old pictures and stories seem to say. Now they've gathered to look at me, and the dragon. Someone is trying to talk to them all, tell them what to do, but her voice drowns in indifference. It's the woman from the council, the one who wanted to take the dragon away.

They're all looking at me. I don't know why I'm in charge now, if that's what this is. Because all those Elves died by fire and claw? I suppose that's it. I suppose it's something primal, for times and places like now. I don't know how I feel about it, and I don't think I can know, not for a while. The dragon is right, I need rest. But for now—

"Listen," I say, and wince a bit inside at the word, it's unnecessary, they're already listening too damn intently. "I know where we need to go. It's going to be dangerous. You don't have to come, but I— we— could use your help. We'll lead the way. Follow if you want to. Follow if you can."

I turn to the dragon, and she looks up into the air, above the crowd, there were the trains used to rush past on borrowed galvanic charge. No wires now, no trains either, but white-fire eyes project their illumination outward, and there it is, the facility, half-buried, fully sinister, untouched by anyone, even the fey at their most adventurous.

Especially the fey. They know better than anyone what things they'd summoned to guard that place, and how terribly it had gone wrong.

"No," someone whispers, but I nod my head.

"Yes," I say. "We can get past them. We can remove them."

"No one's managed that in more than two thousand years!" someone shouts.

"That's true," I reply. "And how long has it been since anyone had a dragon?"