Leaving behind the second dirt lair the next morning Tanya had to admit that her means of vengeance were beyond limited. Burning down the pine forest was technically an option but that's about it.

Giving the canopy a dirty look she began heading to her first destination.

Water.

Apparently breathing fire is thirsty work. Who would have guessed? I'm still tempted to roast those little buggers but setting a forest on fire just because I'm annoyed really isn't practical... Climbing a tree should be possible but the chance of catching those pests is remote.

Stretching another kink out of her tail brought her attention back to the main reason she was annoyed this morning, her bed of dirt was uncomfortable.

It was more uncomfortable than her bed of stone.

Quite a feat if you think about it. Sure a bed of stone is hard and cold but to a dragon it's firm and comfortable. Hardly feeling changes in temperature and being relatively heavy the bed made of stone was a much finer bed. Lying on pine needles was like having a mattress with broken springs whereas lying in stone dust was similar to a form fitting blanket with a memory foam mattress. Her bed being made of dirt just made it shift about when she moved in her sleep...

*Crack*

Leading to uncomfortable positions...

Placing her bowl in the rain to collect water she began stretching out in as many ways as possible creating a cacophony of cracks and bangs that really shouldn't come from joints. Her back and tail made at least fifty... Honestly she should have kept counting but it was a little disturbing.

Finished imitating a demented yoga lizard and taking a long drink of water something drinking off to her right caught her attention. It really should have caught her attention sooner but stiff joints are really attention seeking!

Almost the size of a bear with long arms and hooked claws on its paws, a lot of shaggy brown fur getting lighter towards its chest and a very long tongue...

Maybe it's related to anteaters? It almost looks like a bear except for the long snout, long arms and long tongue...

I'm gonna call it a long bear!

It doesn't seem that hostile? I wonder how it will react to me? Walking closer just gets me a stare... it really doesn't seem to care about me? Does it not have a fear of predators or something? I'm gonna poke it!

Jabbing it with my tail just made it look at me funny and walk away... I feel kind of bad now... I wonder what those things even eat? All I've seen so far is pine and... tree... thingies...

What the hell do I call those things!? Pests? Pine lurkers? Pines in the ass? Let's go with pine pests.

Anyways, there's not a lot to eat from what I can tell. Maybe I should follow it and see what it eats? Maybe later... I want to get to an area with stone to make a lair before settling down for more than a day. There's also a weird urge to make a really big lair that I don't want to try to do in a forest. There's probably more of them around anyway.

Later long bear! Have a decent life!

I really should have checked if that long bear was edible...

It's been a few hours since I started heading deeper towards the mountains and now it's too late to go back for it. Having pointy teeth is a good indicator of being carnivorous so I really shouldn't be surprised that I'm craving meat after going a day without. At least I've eaten a lot of fibre!

Ok, New rule. No mentioning anything relating to that event. Eat fibre and avoid looking in the direction I go. Maybe the memories will fade until I start emulating a certain botanist. It won't be the first time I've given that an attempt.

*Chirup*

What the hell just made that sound!? It was really cute! Looking for whatever made that noise leads me in a circle until I look up.

Perched on a branch is a brown and white length of fuzz with a fluffy looking tail covered in bands that's longer and larger than its entire body. It's almost like a pine marten mixed with a squirrel! It's freaking adorable! Although it is rather big... definitely in between a medium dog and a small one. Is that blood? Is it hurt or...

Huh. Seems I've found a predator!

It's making those cute chirps occasionally but it seems to be curious. Wonder what it hunts? Birds maybe? I know that's one of the things pine martens tend to hunt.

Turning and dashing through the branches it leaves a white after image in my vision with the tail catching my eyes when I try and watch the body.

Seems like it's had enough of watching me. That tail was incredible! I wonder what it's like to sleep on? Or cuddle!? It's probably a pain to clean but it would be SO worth the effort!

It's decided. Those shall be named puff tail martens since they look like pine martens and have tails made of fluff.

I wonder what else lives here? The only thing I've seen on the ground so far was that long bear but that can't be all right? Sure there's only pine needles on the ground with the rare branch but there has to be something to eat to feed the bears meaning other things should be able to live down here right?

Digging into the layer of pine needles to clear a space just exposes dirt. So no grass? Maybe fungus? Bugs possibly? More to investigate once I have a stone lair to base myself.

Am I seeing things or is that green up ahead? Hurrying closer I see a small brook with moss and what looks like ferns growing out of the dirt around it. The side of a tree that's too close to the water has a thick coating of moss. Seems like the moss is also coating the roots near the water. Maybe it's parasitic? You don't see moss that often near areas with pollution, Lichen either. Ferns purify water imbalances and minor pollutants if I remember right... Maybe all the decaying pine needles in the water is giving them something? The water is clear as crystal so it doesn't look to be really polluted. Best not to drink the water in any case.

I should check the ferns for tubers or anything edible. They can be a very useful plant if you know what to look for. Hopefully they aren't poisonous...

Digging into the bank where the ferns are growing is a disappointment. No tubers. Maybe I can pick them in the spring before they unfurl like fiddleheads. It should be a good addition to my food supplies if they are edible.

And providing I survive that long...

Moss is edible too right? Sure it's often poisonous to mammals but here's the thing. I'm a reptile from what I can tell, very large and there is nothing to eat it meaning it probably doesn't have poison.

Or it does have poison and its bad enough to kill anything that eats it...

All in all this stream has great potential as a food supply. I'm not going to drink from it until I can boil water at the very least. Maybe make a distillery out of stone if that's possible, I have a good fuel source so it should be. Hell! I could probably make a foundry with my fire!

Ok. That's another thing to add to the list of "Awesome things to do."

With molten metal I can make cooking utensils, tools, building supplies...

Armour.

List plus one. A dragon wearing armour must happen. There is nothing that can stop me. NOTHING.

May as well follow the stream since it probably came from my destination. I can keep an eye out for anything else to eat in the meantime.

Fish would be nice...

The sound of rain hitting the stream is rather pleasant. The sound of rain hitting the ground can go elsewhere for all I care. The sound on water can stay.

It's rather nice following the stream. There's the relaxing sound of rain and running water and the colour green on the ground instead of brown. You can also wash in it when you need to, my scales must have been filthy because they positively shine after my bath. It's also got some soft things growing around it to wipe the water and dirt off with.

I refuse to acknowledge the previous few minutes before the bath or head downstream. The fibre helped.

In other news I've found that I don't urinate. Strange and mildly unnerving to someone who has gotten into the habit of doing so all of their life to avoid kidney troubles and death. I'm hoping that the pollutants are dealt with via another method. Ammonia poisoning is something I'd rather not deal with currently amongst other things.

I haven't had the urge to vomit up that black-brown stuff again since my last incident so I'm hoping it was just something I ate or drank. I felt better after doing so meaning it was probably beneficial. I'm tempted to just try and do so to check if anything will come out...

Nothing has been in the stream so far so there's possibly nothing that lives in it.

Another reason not to drink the water...

I keep getting the strange urge to do so but there is no way I'm going to drink out of water that potentially contains heavy metals or something else.

I haven't come across any of the forest inhabitants I've discovered so far on my way upstream which is rather strange. Do they avoid it or something? Maybe they know better than to drink from it but they should at least use the water to bathe right? Maybe they're using the rain pools and puddles? Good thing I've been drinking out of bowls of rainwater.

The incline is starting to get steeper now and the trees are starting to get further apart. I'm probably close to being out of the forest and onto the mountain range itself. Hopefully there's stone near the stream and the forest edge so I don't have far to travel from my new lair. Convenient baths and a nearby food source should be somewhat achievable if I'm lucky. The forest is really empty around here...

I'm currently soaked by rain and the ground is practically mud. Not much grass to stop that occurring really. There is the occasional plant but it's just leafy scrub, it's growing in patches further up the mountains from what I can see although that isn't far with the cloud layer.

But what I see is beautiful.

Stone. Exposed stone everywhere, Small infrequent caves with streams coming out, large caves that seem to gape open like maws of stone, exposed boulders just begging to be carved...

It's beautiful. It needs to be said twice.

Now do I go for a cave or carve my own lair? A cave would be less work but I'm not in control of the shape or structural stability...

Carving it is!

I should carve below all the caves so that I don't collapse my new home into them as I work... That would really ruin my plans...

Carving a roughly rectangular room and leaving large equally distant pillars was a bit of a challenge but I managed it. I now have a new length of measurement. Dragonlengths. I drag a line to start from with my tail, place my tail tip against the line and stretch out straight to check my distancing. The room in total is ten dragonlengths wide and thirty six dragonlengths long, there are six pillars with a four dragon length gap between them lengthwise and a two dragonlength gap in width, The gap between the pillars and the walls is two dragonlengths.

I can reach the ceiling with ease with my hind legs so my plan should work nicely. In the centre of the room I carve my bed and sweep in my stone dust.

This shall now be known as lair entrance hall! It's just a temporary framework until I improve my carving skills but I have plenty of caves to practice in.

And with what I'm planning, it's going to give me a lot of practice.

Lots of practice...