I laid down, curling my neck around my body.

Saya was gone, leaving me alone in our room. Or maybe it was that ‘Reco’s room? Either way, I was left alone for the third day in a row.

Saya had been having her fun outside while I was left here, with nothing to do. As her soulbound partner, it was my duty to protect her and be protected but...

How was I supposed to protect someone who didn’t want me nearby?!

That was mean, though. She clearly didn’t like doing it, it was the stubborn ‘rules’ or whatever that stopped me. What aggravating things!

I snorted, raising my head to look about the room. It was quite bland, clearly a place meant to keep me in. Saya had asked me to stay inside, against some other peoples’ advice, but she did it anyway. She trusted me, after all, to behave.

I lowered my head. Boredom came and went, but I wouldn’t go against her orders without reason. She was strong, and I was weak, so I followed orders. That was the way of my heritage.

But if someone stronger were to order me...

Someone familiar, and powerful was nearby, calling for my attendance.

I raised my head suddenly, but I forgot how long my neck was, and accidentally cracked something in my neck. I took a moment to reel from the jolt, then shook myself to awares.

I reached out with my mind, but I couldn’t sense Saya nearby.

Too bad. I would have to disobey her and find my brethren.

I prod up to the door, then gripped and opened the handle, flinging open the door before pacing out.

I made my way to the fence of the training yard, where that [noble] boy, his mate, and that strange girl their same age blabbed their mouths, probably saying things. That probably meant they were distracted. I quickly rushed across the yard before any of them could see me.

The strange girl pointed at me as I made it to the edge of the guild hall, however, and they suddenly looked toward me. Uh-oh! I couldn’t escape them- not without flying, at least.

I managed to yelp, “errand!” as they flinched, about to leap at me, and chose to stand my ground, my [noble presence] or whatever making them hesitate. With purpose, I walked away.

I was allowed to walk past, thankfully, so I walked into the streets.

The ‘city’ was very big. Shiny, too. All the white hurt my eyes. There was a lot to see on my way to my comrade, and since they didn’t seem very rushed, I didn’t rush either.

I looked at signs and read them as I passed. There were a lot of strange names like, {Star Groomers}, {Merry Blacksmithery}, or {Garland Component Shop}. I wasn’t sure what half the words meant, sadly.

As I made it onto the big, curved street, there were a lot more people, so I began to walk on the sidewalk, where a lot less people were walking. There also weren’t any carts...or Drakes. They always tried to bite me if I got near. Could they not tell we were kin?

People, mostly small people like Saya tried to keel down then touch me, but I sidestepped, then barked, ‘errands’ at them when they tried to. Hopefully they weren’t trying to grab me, but I wasn’t sure.

Eventually, I felt I was getting really close to my brethren. I finally poked my head down a corridor between buildings -an ‘alley’- where they had arrived and were leaning against the stone wall.

I yelled down the corridor, “I’m here!”, but they didn’t seem to make any reaction. I guessed they couldn’t ‘hear’ either. I walked into the alleyway, and as I entered view, I saw their hooded figure glance toward me.

They revealed their gloved hands and began to sign to me as I approached. ‘Hello, ‘Cobaltio’,’ he happily signed to me, spelling out my name. I couldn’t tell his emotions through his strangely dark hood, but his hands made it clear. ‘Is Saya with you?’ he asked.

I shook my head before standing on my two feet, then slowly began to form sentences with my claws. It wasn’t easy, even if I remembered most of the signs. ‘No, she is studying. I’m not allowed in the ‘library’ or the ‘college’.’

He nodded. ‘I see, I see, how are her studies going?’

‘...w-well? She doesn’t like it.’ I wasn’t very familiar with the meaning of ‘studying’, just that she was doing it to get magic or something.

He nodded again and raised his hands. ‘She could always study with-’ Suddenly, his left hand grabbed the spear clipped on his back. My ears picked up on the vibrations as he spoke, his gaze shooting behind me. I looked back, and for a moment I thought nobody was there, but slowly, the three humans from the training field walked into the alley, their expressions a mix between confrontational and confused.

Some exchange of words happened, even though my comrade seemed deaf like me, but after about a minute of tension, things died down. I guess they settled their differences.

My comrade kneeled down, then tugged a brownish-white object out from his pocket, a piece of paper, and pressed it to my mouth. I lightly bit it, clamping it between my teeth. ‘Bring that to Saya, okay?’

I nodded my head.

He then stroked my neck before patting me on the head. ‘Good. I’ll see you sometime later, kay’?’

I nodded again and signed, ‘bye,’ before scampering out of the alley.

I stretched out my arms as I walked back through the training grounds. I’d spent another day studying and training, meaning that Cobaltio had to be left alone, again. I didn’t really like to do that, but it wasn’t much of a choice.

As I got close, I heard him say to me, Letter for you!

I tilted my head as I heard his thoughts. Letter? Did you write one?

No, Song was nearby.

Song...oh, yeah, that was the [dragonborn] guy. Really? He got me a letter?

I quickly made my way to Reco’s Dorm, which I would be moving out of the next day, and as I opened the door, Cobaltio jumped into my arms. Too heavy- I managed to stumble into the room with the 50-pound mutant in my arms and licking my face, then set him on the bed.

For being a sentient drake, he sure acted like a dog.

He then leaped off, took a letter set on Reco’s dresser into his hand(did it count as a hand if it had claws?) and handed it to me.

I sat on the bed, and he rested his head on my lap as I began to read.

{If you are receiving this letter, Saya, then it means I wasn’t able to speak with you today. I’m quite busy, so I might not be able to speak with you until late tonight, tomorrow, or the day after that. I don’t live in the city, but on occasion, I will enter it to meet some contacts of mine, which often takes a few days to do in bulk. I will be in town for two or three days, so once I leave it may be quite a while before we can speak.

Seeing as I haven’t created a more rigid contact line with you, this letter can’t have confidential information in it. I will prepare to meet you where I found Cobaltio earlier today, at the same time we first met.}

I put the letter into my new satchel, which I’d bought with guild funding yesterday.

It looks like we’ll be meeting Song later today.

Yay!

It’ll be pretty late, though...I shrugged. Training?

Cobaltio hopped to the floor, and I walked out.

The streets of The Preclaimed City hardly thinned out at night. Cobaltio and I were able to walk on the main street, along with everyone else, since I’d finally realized the(retrospectively obvious) fact that people on the left side of the street walked one way, and the people on the right side walked the other way. I had begun walking with cobaltio on a leash -only so we couldn’t get separated. Someone had tried to steal him, once.

Eventually, I made it to an alleyway.

As I stepped in, I saw the cloaked man turn toward me, his gloved hands poking from his cloak. ‘Hello, Saya. I’m sorry I pulled you out so late.’

I shook my head, glancing upward. It was nearly midnight. ‘It’s fine. I’m used to sneaking out past hours.’

I could sense some confusion as he hesitated on his next words. ‘Well, it shouldn’t be a problem after today. Why don’t you follow me?’

He took me through some streets, wordless as we walked through. Eventually, I was led into another alley, where he opened a steel door and waited for me to go inside.

It wasn’t a nice place at all inside the building, with dust abound to irritate both my and Cobaltio’s noses, and all there was to see was a candle and simple sleeping gear surrounded by countless boxes. It was clearly a storage room, but...was Song living here?

After sealing the door with a heavy-duty bar, Song sat himself on a box. ‘Take a seat.’ I shrugged, then sat on a box opposite of him. He then pulled his hood down, its illusory darkness fading to reveal his draconic head. ‘I apologize for the room, there isn’t much space for people of my kind in the city.’

I nodded, acknowledging the apology. ‘What does that mean?’

‘We Dragonborn have a long and treacherous history with the gods. With this country’s leaders being puppets of theirs, it becomes quite dangerous to be seen anywhere.’

“Hmm...” I mumbled.

‘Oh, and would you rather I speak?’

I shook my head as Cobaltio sat next to Song and curled up on the nearby crate.

‘Well, I would enjoy elaborating on the Dragonborn’s history, but it unfortunately is not of the most important at the moment. I simply can’t explain everything I would like to all at once, but I will get the important details out of the way first. I need you to pay attention...

First, so that we can meet later without playing a guessing game, I will teach you a simple code of encryption so that my letters can’t be intercepted. Or...’ He frowned, though it was a bit difficult to tell. ‘I’ll simply write down the instructions. Don’t let anyone see the paper.’ He pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote on it for a while before handing it to me. ‘Next, I must ask you that you keep Cobaltio’s heritage a secret as well as you can. I’m assuming many people already know of it, but do what you can to stop word of him or me reaching the top. If any of the noble family heads learn of him...you will have no choice but to flee or find yourself captured and interrogated. You will more than likely be killed, as well.’

My eyes widened, and Cobaltio stared at Song. ‘They’ll kill me?!’ I signed back.

He nodded. ‘You could consider us Dragonborn to be enemy number one in their eyes. Thankfully, our existence is a well-kept secret by the oligarchy, but don’t let that blind you to the connections those families have...’

‘What about Ritta? He knows that Cobaltio can speak and breath fire.’

‘That noble kid who was trailing your drake earlier?’ He hesitated. ‘Don’t get on his bad side. The Gallant family was shattered two decades back when their head died, but they’ve slowly been pulling themselves back together. It’s difficult to say who the landmine in their family is, but out of all the noble families, they are likley the least threatening in way of knowledge...And, on the topic of Cobaltio...’ He slid off his box, then pulled a bag out of his backpack before handing it to me. As I grabbed it, I suddenly felt my hands get weighed down by whatever was inside. He sat back down. ‘That’s well-refined cobalt. That amount should keep Cobaltio fed for about a year. I also left a note in it about keeping him fit. We Zethokin have unique needs as a species.’

Cobaltio quickly leaped to my side with [death wing], and I opened the bag, ready to feed him a bit. Inside was rounded slabs of cobalt. I handed one to Cobaltio and he happily gnawed on it.

‘Could you pass me one?’ Song asked. I threw a slab at him, and he caught it in his arms before raising it and crunching down, taking a large bite of the cobalt. He set it down to continue signing. ‘I would like to ask you one more thing. This question is very important. Does Cobaltio have a [legendary class]?’

I slowly nodded.

‘Just as I suspected...What kind?’

‘[legendary mount]...’ I looked at Cobaltio’s menu, knowing he had gained some classes after the battle with the [boss] monster. ‘He also got two more... [boss] and [insurgent].’

‘I see. Did Maophas give you a document that looked like this?’ After briefly interacting with his menu through sign language, he revealed it to me, where a document like the one I’d seen around a week ago on [legendary classes] was on the screen.

‘I did.’ I signed.

‘Good. Unless you plan on fighting another powerful creature like that again, don’t give him that class.’

‘I am. We’ll be fighting The Mudmule in a few months.’

He blinked, his draconic eyes trained on me in confusion. “The Mudmule?” he said aloud. ‘You plan on fighting that experiment?’

I nodded. ‘Experiment? Did someone really make it?’

‘In a way. After the gods nearly eradicated us some time ago, we Dragonborn had no other choice but to find some way to avoid notice. That was when we learned to turn ourselves into monsters, in a way.’

My eyes narrowed. ‘The gods tried to eradicate Dragonborn? Just how many of you were there?’

‘Nearly a hundred thousand. Now, only a few hundredth of that number of us are alive. Only a fraction of that number was alive when we finally learned to become [zethokin]. Many of us were alive to have lived through the genocide.’

Just what did they do to make the gods do that? ‘But how did you become [zethokin]?’ I asked.

‘That is a secret I can’t tell you, but all of this is to say that The Mudmule was a step in the research toward learning how to. By becoming monsters, we avoided being detected by the system, thus halting the gods from tracking us.’

‘The system tracks you?’ I asked. ‘Why would it do that? All it does is give us the power to stand against the monsters.’

He closed his eyes then rubbed his snout, sighing through his teeth. ‘Listen, the system is not your friend. It was made by the gods to suit the gods’ needs. Whatever you think you know about it, you can cast aside.’

I slowly nodded.

‘Unfortunately, now isn’t the time to tell you about any of that...Oh, and could I ask you a question? Cobaltio said you were studying. I take it you practice magic?’

‘I guess so.’

‘I see. You may want to look into draconic magic. I don’t believe the subject is censored by the state, and it may provide some questions that arise as you raise Cobaltio.’

‘I will. They have books on it in the library.’

‘Good to see.’ He slid off the box again, then unbarred the door. ‘Next time we meet, I will tell you more about us, but for now, I’m not confident in speaking to you on sensitive matters, so I’ll ask that you leave around now. I should be finished with my errands tomorrow, so I’ll depart from the city then.’

As I slipped off the crate, Cobaltio walked to Song and nuzzled his leg. He affectionately patted him on the head. Before I could sign anything, I flinched as a [wyvern] crawled over some of the boxes and stared at me. It raised it’s hands, then signed, ‘Goodbye.’

‘Zatchel can’t speak or read lips like I can,’ Song explained.

I signed ‘goodbye’ back to them, then walked to the door as Song opened it, leaving cold air to trail in.

‘I hope to see you later, Saya, C-o-b-a-l-t-i-o,’ he signed to us.

I rolled my eyes, then signed Cobaltio’s sign for him.

He nodded, then signed, ‘Cobaltio.’

I smiled, then walked away.