Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The trees... they were HUGE, wherever he was running to. He had no idea, and he didn’t care. Anywhere was better than... back there.

The wind blew through his hair as he ran frantically into the thick forest ahead of him, not knowing if he was being followed or not. They got their sacrifice, just not the one they wanted...

Dave started to recall the unfortunate series of events that led him to this.

He had been standing on the ledge of the abyss, between Vole and Raven, the sweat starting to swelter out of his pores. Almost dripping off of him in fear from what was coming. Vole and Raven both had the same look on him that he did, eyes wide in anticipation while sweat ran down them.

The abyss behind them almost seemed to be calling to the small group. The elder in front of them preached on and on about how the abyss was so important or something.

If they thought that some hole was so important, then why didn't they jump in themselves!

The elder seemed to finish up, holding his hands into the air out wide, “And now... it is time,” the elder said, gaining everyone's attention for his final saying, “The pit... will choose who it want’s as its next guardian.”

He squinted his eyes in confusion at that. What did he mean, “the pit will choose,” acting like it had some sort of mind of its own?

A loud murmur arose around him, the tribe pointing behind him.

He turned around and could feel his face pale at the horrible sight in front of him.

There were tentacle-like vines reaching out of the ground hovering over him, almost like they were... judging him.

He backed up a few feet, “No, there is no way you are going to—”

He was cut off by the elder, “You will show no disrespect to our master!”

The vines decided they liked him, because they shot down towards him.

“NO!” he shouted, grabbing a hold of the closest thing and pushing it towards the vines.

Vole went stumbling and hit the vines, being grabbed onto instantly, and they started to drag him into the hole.

Vole screamed the whole entire way down until his voice was silenced.

The elder pounded his staff into the ground in anger, “You have ignored our master’s will! You will be punished immediately!”

He shot off the ground and started running as fast as he could.

“After him, he must face punishment!” the elder roared.

His memories were cut off when he almost fell as he stumbled over one of the tree roots from the giant trees.

He had heard of this forest as a child, being told that no man or dragon lived here because of how dangerous it was. In other words... perfect.

Surely the elder wasn’t crazy enough to send the tribe into these woods... Right?

Of course, he did listen to some vines that had a mind of their own and dragged people into a pit, so he should probably go deep enough to lose them.

He was a couple hundred yards into the woods now, his mind racing. What was that! I need to get something to eat, I have been running all day and night, trying to stay away from them. This jungle doesn't seem to be too dangerous...

The moment he thought that, he turned around rapidly, hearing a shrieking noise behind him.

He stumbled back when his eyes were mere inches away from a claw that was attached to a thrashing jaguar with some plant wrapped around it like it was strangling it.

“What on earth...” he muttered as he backed away slowly. What kind of plant eats Jaguars?

WHAT KIND OF PLANT DRAGS PEOPLE INTO A HOLE?

He fell back against a tree, clenching his head from the headache he was getting.

These last two days had been horrible! First he learned that he had been picked to be a possible “Guardian.” Then he met a murderous plant! He probably just got an old friend killed. He was on the run from his tribe. He had no food, weapons, or water. Now he was stuck in a jungle that was literally told in horror stories in his village. Not only that, but it seemed those stories were TRUE!

He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt something start to wrap around him.

His eyes shot down in horror to see a dark green-colored snake wrapping itself around his body.

It saw him looking at it and it hissed loudly, baring its obviously venomous fangs at him.

“No... not like this,” he begged as it slithered up his body.

The snake angrily hissed again, clenching up, getting ready to shoot forward.

He rapidly clenched his eyes, expecting pain when he saw the snake go for his throat, but he didn't feel anything.

He opened his eyes to see something that was surprisingly, EVEN MORE TERRIFYING!

A dark green dragon was looking down at him in surprise while holding the snake’s now decapitated head in its claws.

The dragon had light teal eyes and a pattern all over it that made it look like it was covered in the same leaves from the jungle around them.

He had never seen a dragon that looked like this—just those other violent dragons that had wings like dragonflies.

When he looked over at this dragon’s wings, he noted that they looked like leaves.

The dragon threw the snake’s head to the side, stepping over the violently twitching remains.

He backed up into the tree, not knowing what to do.

He had heard the stories of the other dragons eating humans; this dragon could be doing the same thing!

The dragon reached down with his talons, gently grabbing him, surprising him.

The dragon picked him up to his face with a look that just screamed What am I going to do with you...

“Um... hi?” he muttered, wondering why he hadn't died yet.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The classroom was now silent now that all the dragonets had left. The only sound you could hear was the dragon walking around cleaning the class up.  

Dave was sitting down on the table, leaning against one of the large dragon-sized books. His hands holding his face in disbelief, his world being shattered in the last couple of hours.  

Ever since he was a kid, his tribe had taught him that dragons were a clever species, but no more so than monkeys. They had seen their hives before, so they had all agreed that they had some type of social structure and the knowledge to make structures like that. And they had seen them hold some types of weapons, but they had seen monkeys do the same with stones.  

But that was it! Not... this!  

This was a society, a community. It even seemed to be more dignified than his own village that he ran from.  

He realized a while ago what he was witnessing was a class. The way it was set up and structured looked early similar to his own class he had as a kid.  

The strange dragon that had caught him had been motioning to a drawing on the wall that was obviously a snake, motioning it to his class.  

AND THE SPEAKING! At first, he thought they were all just grumbling and growling, but then he started to notice the tones and pitch in their voices and how they would constantly change with each growl. They have an actual language like he had.  

On his way here with his capturer, he had noticed the tree houses outside, just now realizing how detailed they were... they had been decorated with various flowers and colors, showing that they had emotions and wants.  

These weren't wild animals, they were a civilization!  

Dave looked over at his capturer, noticing he was walking around the classroom, cleaning up the mess his students had made.  

Dave’s eyes grew in realization, did they think the same as us? Did they see us as nothing but wild animals?  

The dragon looked around the room like he was looking for something, taking note of an empty cage that the dragon took off the shelf and placed on a desk. He looked over at Dave and started to walk towards him.  

THAT ANSWERED HIS QUESTION! He wasn't going to be someone's pet! How was he going to get him to realize he wasn’t a wild animal?  

“Wait, wait!” Dave started shouting “I'm not an animal, don't do this!”  

The dragon paid no heed to him, continuing what he was doing.  

“He can't understand me,” Dave muttered to himself, scared out of his mind.  

...Wait a minute, maybe he can try to speak their language, certainly, they would make the dragon realize he wasn't an animal.  

Dave started trying to imitate the dragons that he had heard today in desperation, the dragon now almost to the desk he was sitting at. The dragon made a sound like he was laughing at him.  

Dave wracked his brain, trying to remember the sounds that the dragons made during the class.  

His memory went to the dragon in front of him as he taught his class, motioning to the drawing of the snake on the board, mentioning a sound quite a bit during that lesson as he pointed to the drawing.  

Dave took a deep breath while clenching his throat, “Snk!”  

The dragon slowed down and gave him a confused look.  

Dave smiled. Yes, that got his attention! He took another breath and this time tried to get the tone just a bit better.  

“SNEK!”  

The dragon’s eyes grew in shock.  

Dave sighed and fell to the ground. Finally, he stopped and realized at least SOMETHING!  

The dragon ran over to one of the desks, grabbing a couple of pieces of parchment and what looked like a pencil. What was he doing?  

The dragon ran back over to him with an excited look in his eyes like he was expecting something from him.  

What?  

Chapter Text

Wanderer was smiling excitedly, griping the sheet of paper. He was almost shaking in excitement from what had just happened.
This creature just SPOKE!
Mind you, it was like a blabbering baby that had no idea how to speak properly, but it was there.
He could tell that the monkey-like creature was trying to mimic him in some way and that shown that it realized at least some language patters.
Maybe it was like Willow’s parrot, “Talkatoo” to where it had no idea what it was saying but it just mimicked things?
No... He could tell he was trying to mimic more than just one word.
Wanderer ran back over to his desk and sat down on his chair, sitting Infront of the desk that the mimic was still standing on while trying to say more words, failing miserably.
Wanderer tried to ignore his blabbering, trying to wright down notes.
Just think of the discovery here!
Wanderer put down hit note’s and watched the blabbering creature for a while, he kept on trying to say other words to mimic but sounded like a dragon that just got done drinking for hours on end.
Maybe he could try to teach the thing some more words?
He walked up to the chalkboard and though for a second. What was an easy thing for a hatchling to say?
Wanderer started drawing a tree on the chock board, finishing the drawling and pointed to it while looking at the monkey.
“Tree...”
Wanderer waited with baited breath, hoping the monkey would mimic him.
“Treeee...”
The monkey sat there looking at him like he was stupid.
Wanderer sighed, oh well... it was worth a sh-
“Tre...” the monkey muttered poorly.
Wanderer smiled brightly...
Allright... progress.
“Tree,” Wanderer said again while nodding, trying to correct him.
“Tree?” The monkey mimicked back at him.
Wanderer smiled and nodded, “Good”
He drew another item on the board, this time a leaf.
“Leaf...”
“Leave.”
Wanderer shook his head, “Leafe.”
“Leafe”
This went on for about twenty minutes, Wanderer going back and forth, teaching the monkey some words, confirming what he thought from the beginning, he definitely wasn’t mimicking him, he was UNDERSTANDING him!
If this was some parrot, it would have already lost interest since it would realize there was no reward for mimicking him.
Not only that, he was able to remember a plethora of the words he taught. Maybe if he can get this... no it’s not right to call him a monkey, he is more than some ape. He can deal with that later.
Maybe if he can get this creature to learn more words, he might be able to explain some things to him... Like what on earth he was!
At least he thought the creature was a he? It didn't matter.
The creature was sitting, paying attention. Waiting for another word to learn.
Wanderer sighed, looking out the window of the tree house that held the school. Seeing that it was now dark outside.
Wanderer had to light candles a bit ago to keep the room lit up so the creature could see the chalkboard.
He had to finish this up soon, it was one of the queen’s rules to not stay up all night and have lights burning everywhere. Trying to keep the village hard to see at night from HiveWing patrols.
Either way, he needed to finish this night up soon.
I guess I can try to teach him my name I guess?
Wanderer cleared his throat, catching the creature's attention, motioning to himself to get him to understand what he was about to say.
“Wanderer.” he said while pointing to himself.
The creature nodded his small fury head, “Wander”
Close enough, Wanderer thought to himself.
Wanderer then pointed to the creature, hoping he got the message. He couldn’t keep calling him “the creature” all the time. Especially if the thing had intelligence.
Wanderer almost shook just thinking about it. If this thing did have remotely the kind of intelligence dragons had, imagine the things he could learn from them.
“Da...” the creature tried to get out.
“Yes...” Wanderer muttered, hoping to get a name out of him.
“Dae,” The creature tried to choke out, trying to make noises his throat had never made before.
“Dave?” Wanderer guessed. He could understand having difficulty pronouncing words he had never said before.
Dave nodded, showing that Wanderer was correct.
Wanderer smiled brightly while writing down a title on his notebook.
Language barrier: Dave
Oh this was going to be so much fun!

Chapter Text

Dave had no idea how he got here... scratch that how anything these last few days have happened.

He was currently sitting on a table inside Wanderer’s house. It has almost been a week since he was first captured lots of things have changed since then. Not even including the earth shattering revelation that dragons were WAY more complicated than he thought. They had social structures, schools, friends and family, and even what seemed to be more common sense than most humans that he had met.

“Dave, what do you want for breakfast?” Wanderer asked him, walking into the kitchen.

And learning how to speak their language, that included. The last couple days they have been working on the language barrier as much as they could, for some reason keeping it from everyone in the village.

Wanderer didn't exactly know how everyone was going to re-act to the information that something sometimes seen as food could speak.

“Anything, I will eat anything.” Dave answered. He had to word his sentences carefully right now or it would sound like gibberish, it was kind of hard to learn some words in dragon tongue since there was no easy way to explain verbs and adjectives with pictures.

The only real way to work with adjectives was by doing fill in the blanks so Dave could figure it out.

Wanderer nodded his head and went over to the fire place, starting the fire with some flint and steel.

Dave looked around the house, this being the first time he had been inside his... friend’s... house? Not exactly knowing if Wanderer was his friend or not, or just some kind of researcher.

Wanderer was walking around the kitchen of his house, grabbing various objects such as pots and some kettles.

So, they have blacksmiths too? Dave thought to himself, checking another human-like thing off in his mind.

Wanderer opened up a cabinet and grabbed some various ingredients, like vegetables and eggs.

Do we have anything they don't have? Dave wondered, from what he has seen so far... no. And even if there was, then the dragon’s probably didn't have a word for it... like crazy elders that wanted to throw you into a pit. What did you call that again? Oh yea, INSANE!

The room started to heat up as the flames inside the fire pit grew, Wanderer putting a kettle of water over the water.

“Food should be ready in ~~~~ ~~~” Wanderer said, Dave still not understanding numbers just yet.

He just nodded his head while looking around. Wanderers house was like everyone else's here, a tree house that wrapped around a trunk of a tree, small decorations here and there like family portraits and small keepsakes.

Dave looked outside the window of the tree house and could see the vibrant but deadly jungle outside, it was completely different from where he liv... where he used to live.

There had hardly been any color in his life as a kid or any trees to speak of. Most wood that they had in their village came from thick bushes and salvaged from years past.

He could still recall the first time he ever saw a tree, he was only twelve at the time and he was out with one of the adults, scavenging around the coast for some seeds to plant. They had found a small pine tree sapling hidden behind a rock outcropping.

They actually went back to get the tools to dig it up to re-plant it closer to the village, but when they came back, it had been uprooted and shredded to splinters.

If he forgot about the part where a plant practically tried to molest him, he could think of this as almost a vacation... forever.

“It’s almost finished,” Wanderer said, hovering over the boiling kettle.

“Ok,” Dave answered back.

Truthfully, it didn’t upset him too much that he ran away from the village. His dad died getting trampled by some zebras that the tribe was hunting. And mom died during child birth.

And if the only thing that awaited him coming back was the tentacle monster, then he would be fine hanging out with some dragons that seemed to be pretty chill.

He could start to smell the food, the smell of eggs and some type of vegetables wafting through the house.

Wanderer brought a platter over and put it next to Dave, the plate being bigger than Dave himself.

“Umm... I'll try and get you a smaller plate next time,” Wanderer said sheepishly.

“It’s fine,” Dave said, waving it off. HEY at least he was being fed, couldn't tell you how many times he went without food because of droughts during the dry season.

The dragons here probably had no issue finding food here in the jungle, seeing plenty of fruits while running for his life... of course some of those probably killed you or brought on some CRAZY hallucinations.

Wanderer put a couple of eggs on Dave’s plate, Wanderer taking around twenty or so.

Deer god, how many chickens does it take to get dragons enough eggs to feed them? Dave thought to himself, taking a bite out of the eggs.

“So what are we going to do today Wanderer?” Dave asked the dragon in front of him.

“Work on more words, I don't have to teach today since it’s spring break now,” Wanderer explained.

Dave nodded his head, agreeing with him, “so... after I learn all the words in your language... what then?”

Wandered stopped his chewing, thinking. He swallowed his food, “Well, I figure if you can learn our language, then maybe it’s possible I can learn yours's?”

Dave didn’t even think of that, it made sense. He nodded his head, “I would think, it’s going to make it easy to learn when I know all your words.”
Wanderer nodded his head, having already thought of that.

“But... that’s not exactly what I was talking about...” Dave muttered in his own language.

Wanderer figured it wasn’t important since he was talking in his own language, continuing to eat his food.

Chapter Text

Wanderer was happily walking through the village, bags in hand humming a happy tune. Ignoring the stares he was getting with the scavenger currently strapped to his chest grumbling annoyed.
“Me not Like...” Dave grumbled in rough dragon, lightly bouncing as Wanderer walked down the street.

“Hey, you were the one that said you don’t think it was the best idea to show that you were a coherent being yet,” Wanderer said with a smirk, “So I am going to act like you are a pet.”

“Why not ride shoulder?” Dave fired back, trying to remember his words.

“Pets don’t get that privilege,” Wanderer answered as he walked up to another stall, looking at the food on the table.
“Anything you want?” Wanderer whispered down to Dave.

Dave nodded and pointed towards one of the apples that were almost twice as big as him.

Wanderer nodded and took a couple off the stall, paying the merchant that was eying the strange scavenger.
“I still don’t understand why you don’t want to tell anyone...” Wanderer muttered.

Dave kind of understood what he was saying, “Dragon not do good found out I speak dragon”

Wanderer shook his head, “I doubt it, I guarantee you they will all think it’s pretty cool, kind of like an advanced level parrot that actually knows what you are talking about.”

Dave shook his head, “Me doubt it...”

So far for Dave, learning his words was going pretty easy. Especially if it was nouns or verbs. It became a bit harder when it came to adjectives and adverbs.
For nouns and verbs, you could just draw a picture of it and voice it out to him, kind of like charades. But there was no easy way to teach the other forms of words.

Dave was actually pretty proud of himself for learning what he has so far. Wanderer himself said that he already practically knew every animal and most verbs.
So far, he only knew a handful of adjectives though...

Wanderer’s nose started to twitch, smelling a sweet smell wafting through the air.
“Dave, do you want to try something new today?” Wanderer asked, already making his way to the sweet smell.

“Taste good?” Dave asked, starting to smell the same thing.

“Very, probably one of the best tasting treats in the world” Wanderer said with a smile forming on his face, memories from his childhood coming back to him. His father used to take him out to get this treat all the time. Wanderer followed the smell and found a stall that had the sweet treat being sold in front of it, “How much for the honey drops?” Wanderer asked the merchant.

“Hey Wanderer, good to see you again, same as always,” The friendly merchant answered with a happy smile.

Wanderer nodded his head, placing some silver on the merchants table, taking a tray of honey drops with him as he left the shop.
He took one of the drops off the tray and handed it to Dave, “Here, give this a try.”

Dave nodded his head, taking the drop that was the size of his head into his hand, taking note of the sweet smell.
Dave thought for a bit, trying to figure out how to eat the large object, watching his dragon friend take it into his mouth whole...

The candy was huge, there was no way he could eat them like that!

Wanderer took notice and sweat dropped, “Oops my bad...”

He took the honey drop back, breaking it into smaller pieces, handing the now smaller chunks back to the scavenger.

Dave took them back, “Thanks,” he took one of the chunks and popped it into his mouth, instantly loving it. It tasted AMAZING! They had a hard outer shell but immediately melted in his mouth, releasing a lemony honey flavor into his mouth.

Wanderer saw his reaction and laughed, “Pretty good, right?”

Dave nodded his head, agreeing with the green dragon.

“Mr. Wanderer, what are you doing here?” a young dragon said from behind him.

Wanderer paled and turned around seeing a dragonet standing there, now eyeing the scavenger that was attached to his chest.

“Why do you have the class pet with you?” the dragonet asked once seeing Dave.

“I decided to take him out Hogweed, the pet can’t just be kept inside his whole life,” Wanderer said, trying to come up with an excuse.

Hogweed shook his head, “Weirdo...”

Wanderer glared, “Shouldn’t you be home studying... or does your mom need to know about that last test?”

Hogweed paled, his face now showing dread, “Yes sir!” He ran off, likely home.

Wanderer shook his head at the dragonet and kept walking on his way back home.

He was almost back home till he saw a sight that made him smile, “Willow, it’s good to see you back home!”

Willow saw him but gave him a half-felt smile, “It’s good to see you too Mr. Wanderer, but it’s not the best time to exchange pleasantries I'm kind of busy.”

Wanderer nodded his head, “That’s alright, do you need any help?”

Willow shook her head, “No, but you might want to be ready for a town wide meeting, if Queen Sequia doesn't call for one then I will be shocked.”

“Wha- what for?” Wanderer asked shocked. There usually wouldn't be a town wide meeting unless they were in danger or something serios was happening. The last time there was a meeting like that was when the PoisonWings broke off from the regular LeafWings.

Willow shook her head, “No time, just be ready for something!” She turned around and ran off, heading towards where Sequia lived.

Dave looked up to Wanderer, “What?”

Wanderer shook his head, “I have no clue.”

If it were any other of his students, he wouldn’t have worried. But this was Willow, his most well-behaved student that he actually had a bit of respect for. If she said to get ready for a town wide meeting...

“Come on Dave, we need to go back home.”

Chapter Text

Dave tried to hold on as Wanderer made his way back to town, immediately heading for the town square. Dave took notice of Wanderer’s face, memorizing the emotions since his capture.

Concern

It didn’t help that almost every other dragon in the village seemed to be going the same way. They finally made it to the center and there was a large LeafWing in the center giving out commands, Wanderer had stopped to listen to them.

Dave was only able to capture a few words here and there, still not used to the draconic language.

The large female dragon in the middle flared her wings and roared, pointing out to the west, back to the rest of Pantala.
“-Plants---fire-dragons-” The dragon was roaring out.

Wanderer’s face scrunched up even more in concern.

Dave did not like what he was seeing, it looked way too familiar to the tribe meetings his old village had.

The crowd seemed to get even more nervous as the dragon in the middle went on, dragons clutching their dragonets close, whispering among themselves.

Dave was feeling the tension, shifting around in the harness that held him to Wanderer’s chest.

The queen finally started to quiet down, dragons nodding to what she said, walking away.

Wanderer followed suit and started making his way back home.

Dave crawled out of his harness, climbing up Wanderer’s neck.

“What that?” Dave asked in his rough dragon.

“Queen warned us danger, war,” Wanderer answered. Making his way into his hut, grabbing Dave gently and placing him on the kitchen table.
Wanderer made his way back to the door, giving Dave a worried look before leaving.

Dave seeing Wanderer fly away, spotting him out the window.

War?

Wait a minute.

Dave started to panic, “WAR!” he shouted, now running to the edge of the table which was like staring down the edge of a small cliff.

How could that jerk just leave him here, apparently heading out to a war that he may not even come back from, stuck on a freaking TABLE!

He started looking around for something, anything to help him get down.

Nothing

“DANGIT!” he shouted in frustration.

There was no way he could just jump down the ledge and possibly not break something.
He suddenly had an idea, quickly turning around, noticing the table was up against the wall.

“Wait a minute...”

He quickly dashed across the table, making his way to the wall, noticing the wood like material had gaps all along it.

“Surely I can climb up this... right?” he tried to re-assure himself, slowly grabbing onto the gaps in the wall, giving it a good tug with his weight to make sure it can support him.

“Alright then, here we go...” he said, climbing the wall.
Above the table was a window, if he could just get himself up there...

He slowly made his way up the wall, ignoring the sound of bugs and other critters that he could hear on the other side of the wood.
He quickly looked down, making himself turn pale at how high up he already was.

Did we ever mention he has a fear of heights?

His hand finally grabbed onto the window still, quickly pulling himself up on the ledge of the window, not daring to look down, not wanting to see that again.

Gasping as he stood up, taking in oxygen from all the exertion, he looked out the window.

He quickly noticed the lack of dragons flying through the village, making it almost feel empty. He looked to the left, almost stumbling back at the sight of what he saw.

Smoke, and not just a little bit. The kind that came from a large brush burning or a house fire.

“Oh that can’t be good,” Dave muttered.

He sat there for a while, the smoke cloud getting bigger and bigger... and closer.

“Oh don’t worry Dave, I won’t leave you in a house that will CATCH FIRE!” Dave said, trying to mimic his dragon friend, panicking.

He quickly turned back around, going against his better judgment and looking down.

“I hate my life sometimes...” Dave muttered.

As quickly as he could safely do, he started climbing down the wooden wall, noticing the lack of the scratching on the wooden walls.
Even the bugs know what is going on.

He finally made foot on the table again, looking around for at least some way to get down to the floor.
The door suddenly burst open, a gasping Wanderer at the door.

“Oh, my owner decided to remember me!” Dave scolded, running on the table to where Wanderer meant him with his talons held out, picking up Dave.

“Sorry, -” Wanderer said, turning back around out the door, launching off into the air.

“What?” Dave said, pointing to the smoke.

Wanderer didn’t say anything, continuing to fly out to the east, making his way to the coast.

“What?” Dave asked again till he noticed all the other dragons flying in the air.

“We leaving,” Wanderer answered, “We lose.”

Chapter Text

Well... finally back with this story...... sorry for the wait, mcvluffcins sucks at his job.  

Dave stared into the fire as he tried to think on everything that was happening around him. 

Wanderer still has yet to tell him what's going on. After they landed on this island, he has been running around so much that he has had no time to tell him what happened back in the jungle and why it was burning, only saying “We lose” 

We lose, what did he mean by that? 

Were the dragons in some kind of fight, did any of them get killed? 

Dave spotted Wanderer shuffle back over to the fire after he was done talking to one of the other dragons, looking exhausted as he did so. 

Wanderer collapsed into the dirt next to the fire, making a loud groaning sound as he did so. 

“Wanderer ok?” Dave grumbled, trying to not wince as Wanderer grumbled back at him. 

“No.” 

Dave stayed quiet for a couple moments, trying to piece together the question he was going to ask in dragon, “What bad?” 

Wanderer gave him an annoyed look, obviously having no clue what he was talking about. 

This time, Dave pointed out in the direction from which they flown, “What bad?” he said a bit more concerned this time. 

Wanderer sighed and put his head back onto the ground, “Bad dragons bad, we lose.” 

Dave groaned, he knew the answer was more complex than that. But, their limited vocabulary made it almost impossible to give a more complex answer. 

He was getting tired of being usurped from his home for reasons that were out of his knowledge. 

First it was that weird green tentacle that his own tribe tried to sacrifice him too, and now it was some fight that he had no part in. His “friend?” dragging him off from the jungle and hardly giving him an explanation. 

He couldn’t believe how everything was going for him. It all seemed so wrong! He was a passenger that had no control in his own life, he was supposed to be the driver! 

“I sorry Dave...” Wanderer mumbled from where he was laying down, “I sorry Dave not good...” 

Dave sighed and started to relax. He couldn’t get mad at the dragon, he seemed to be just as lost as he was right now... 

“You good...” he mumbled back. 

He looked around and saw many other dragons surrounded by fires on the beach of the island. Many of them looked just like Wanderer did right now. Tired to the bone, looking like they were in shock. Many of them even had fresh scrapes and cuts on their scales, showing that they had been in a fight of some kind. 

He had never strayed far from his old village as a child, so he knew very little of the dragons that lived in his world... 

So what kind of dragon... he shivered thinking about the strange tentacles again... 

Or creature... did this to them? 

He guessed that he would just have to find out later after he learned more words from Wanderer... 

He looked back over to his dragon friend, “Wanderer, where we?” he tried to ask. 

Wanderer attempted to raise his shoulder bones, showing that he didn’t know, “No dragon me...” 

Dave nodded to that, accepting the answer... 

From the way it looked around him, few dragons knew anything at all... many of them had been muttering to other dragons, sounding confused and scared. 

They were in the same hut he was in. They were just as lost and had no idea what to do with their life right now. 

It almost felt comforting in a way... 

He could now hear Wanderer lightly snoring in his sleep now, having fell asleep after he answered Dave’s question. 

Dave snorted at that lightly, the poor teacher needed it. He didn’t know, but if he had to make a wild guess... they would be flying even more tomorrow. He doubted that the whole dragon tribe would be staying on this puny island for an extended time. 

He lightly shivered as the wind gave off a gust that chilled him to an uncomfortable level. He scooted closer to the fire and sighed in relief when it warmed him... 

Dave didn’t want to sleep, being surrounded by so many strange dragons and being in such a strange situation...  

But he eventually surrendered himself to it... 

“I do wonder where we are going...” he muttered to himself as he closed his eyes. 

Surely it can’t be worse than back there.