"So, when you wish to summon a dragon, you do this-" Ciara lifted her hands to her mouth, releasing two short whistles in bursts. Comically, both dragons twitched at the sound, looking to her confusedly.

Elias saw this as well, frowning. "Would you not have to train a dragon to recognize those sounds?"

"All dragons know what this sound means," she said. "It mimics the sound their hatchlings use when they need help."

"That is pretty awesome," Alex said. "So, basically, they think us to be hatchlings?"

"Well-" She paused. "It is true hatchlings use the call, but I sincerely doubt they would confuse us for hatchlings. We are merely whistling, after all."

"And you say this sound goes for every and any dragon out there?" Elias asked.

She nodded. "Yes, all of them will react to this," she said. "Now you try it."

Alex was the first to attempt it, putting a pair of fingers into his mouth and trying to do what she did. It was a little off, but pretty good for a first try.

"How did I do?"

"It was close," she earnestly told him. "A little practice yet, and it will be perfect."

While Alex proudly grinned, Elias tried his luck as well. Impressively, he got it down on the first try.

She smiled brightly at the man when he looked inquisitively at her.

"You did absolutely perfect!"

While Elias turned his eyes to Alex, the man crossed his arms and turned away from them.

"Beginner's luck."

"Hardly."

"Why is it always only me?" Alex stomped his foot on the ground.

She giggled at his exaggerated, childish reaction. There was no fixing him.

She felt a nudge from behind and gasped in surprise, catching herself before she tripped. She met Kaisog's worried, yellow gaze, summoned by their cries for help.

She smiled at his concern, shaking her head as she ran a hand down his scales.

"Sorry to worry you, Kaisog. We were only practicing."

Meanwhile, Sunrose was trying to get a look at Alex, who was keeping his back to them. When he saw her pink scales and just as worried gaze, he immediately lit up, though.

"Oh, were you worried?" He reached out to her. "I was just playing around, you know." He looked to Ciara excitedly. "Well, that sure works, huh?"

She smiled and nodded, having seen how well it worked several times before.

"Tch. Beast-lovers," someone grunted loud enough for them all to hear. She looked up to see two Dragon Slayers walking past them.

Neither she nor the Royal Guards said anything and Kaisog only smacked his mouth and bared his teeth in reply as they passed.

They'd become so much harsher ever since Aem left. She couldn't understand why they all seemed to hate her so much.

Alex saw her expression, already knowing what she was thinking.

"They are just a little nervous with another dragon around. It is not you they hate, Ciara."

"They have done nothing to deserve this kind of hatred."

She was certain the two hadn't done anything to wake the Dragon Slayers' ire to this extent. Nothing she'd been told of, anyway.

Alex shook his head. "You are right, neither of these two have done anything wrong," he confirmed, turning her frown to him instead. "It is not these two specifically they hate either; it is the species as a whole."

Elias nodded. "So many of them have seen their family killed by dragons, it is no wonder they hate them so."

"I know," she said, having heard this before. "But it was probably because they did something wrong."

As she'd said so many times, dragons never attacked without a good reason.

"Perhaps. Even so, it does not make the pain any easier to bear," Elias argued, halting her there for a moment.

"Commander Arthas' family was killed by a dragon too," Alex suddenly said, turning all eyes to him. "He told us once when he had gotten drunk after a successful mission a few years back. It was before you came here," he explained, looking to Elias. "Apparently it was when he was still young, a few summers before the Great War. He had returned after a long day of training as a Royal Guard, only to find the village he lived in razed as though by a thunderstorm. He ran to his home, finding his wife and their newborn son dead on the floor, their bodies slashed open by the claws of a dragon. He ran outside then, unable to take the sight any longer, and threw up right outside. And that was when he saw 'a gigantic dragon as black as the night itself and eyes as bright as the moon'. For a long moment, their gazes were locked together like that, until it turned around and disappeared as though it had never been there." he dramatically explained, all of them engrossed in the story he told.

That was horrible.

"I never knew that..."

Alex nodded. "He never really talks about it, but he did that night," he told them solemnly. "He has never gotten over that, unable to let them go and start a new family."

"Then that also explains his obsession over the rumor of the black dragon. He is still hunting the one from back then," Elias said.

She looked at him, brows furrowed. "There is a rumor about a black dragon?"

Alex nodded almost eagerly. "Certainly - and it has been quite the talk, recently," he assured her. "It is about a dragon, twice the size of a normal dragon and thrice as dangerous. It is completely black and unlike any other dragon we have ever seen. In its wake it has left nothing but destruction. That is why we know nothing more about it than that."

"Are we even sure it is real? I have never heard of anything like that."

She was sure that if a dragon like that existed, she and her kingdom would've heard of it already. What reason would a dragon have to fly around, destroying things? Besides, it was only the Elder dragons of each element who could ever grow to that size, and none of them would ever be all-black.

"It is. Commander Arthas has been hunting that dragon his entire life, probably created the Dragon Slayers for that very purpose," Alex explained, his eyes wide and distant. "I have seen the destruction myself. No human could ever do anything like that; it had to have been a dragon."

Her frown only deepened. It was a strange story. They all seemed incredibly convinced, but she wasn't sure she believed it.

"Elias!" someone yelled as they approached from the outer gates, only to stop when he noticed the dragons. "Which one of you is Elias?"

The man wasn't someone she'd seen before, though that didn't say a lot. He wasn't clad in any armor she was used to seeing, though. A messenger of some sort, perhaps?

Elias stepped forward. "That would be me."

"I have a message for you. It is urgent!" the messenger called back, intent on not coming any closer.

"Right," Elias muttered, immediately approaching the other man.