I was frozen in fear; the blade mere centimeters from my left eye, looking for a way to escape. The room was completely enclosed and I doubted I was fast enough to try and run from her...

"Wait!" Redline's yell caused Cinder pause and the sword remained where it was, threatening to end my life at any moment, "I'm pretty sure you're pointing your weapon at the very reason I asked for immediate entry." She stepped towards Cinder cautiously and looked at me. Whether she knew where my eyes were or not didn't really cross my mind due to the deadly sword pointed at my face so when she looked at me I wrestled with my instincts for a moment enough to become partly visible. 

My head and neck at the very least...It seemed that my body's nature despised becoming visible for some reason, as every time I've forced it to retreat so far it fought against me. I couldn't help but shake in fear as the woman's eyes narrowed with hostility, and though she lowered the sword a little she still held it towards me at the ready. I looked at Red for help and she stepped toward Cinder with a pleading tone. 

"I found him in the woods while on a job. I don't think he's a spy sent by the Dragons..." 

"You don't think?" Cinder scowled

"He still has the label of (Young) in his status. Look for yourself. You know how the dragons are with their young..." That seemed to help as the Cinder lady withdrew her sword and put it back in its sheath, but she kept a hand on the pommel and watched me carefully. It was really annoying having to fight these new instincts they wanted me to disappear and flee as far away as I could...but I had to do this otherwise she may cut me down for simply disappearing.

"Yes, they are rather...protective of their young." Cinder mused looking at me inquisitively and took a slightly larger crystal than the one Redline had used on me when I first met her. The three of us stood in silence as Cinder scanned me with it and her expression broke into that of surprise, likely seeing the results of her identification crystal. 

"I see...A (Young) Dragon with three names, and one barely a day old at that..." 

"What?" Red blurted, and I nodded, her mouth parted slightly in shock. "Bar--barely a day old and already past the first evolution?"  

"And if I'm not wrong, you're able to understand us perfectly fine as well aren't you?" I nodded, my attention turning back to Cinder as she hummed with interest, "This is surely intriguing. I can see now why you want to get to Pops as quickly as possible." 

"Yeah. I wanted him to--wait, is it safe to be talking so openly here?" Redline asked and Cinder nodded. 

"My office is probably one of the few safe places to speak of private information. The wards and inscriptions on my door and windows keep eavesdroppers at bay and even masters with high sense and penetration skills would be hard pressed to hear so much as a peep from us with everything closed and active." Cinder's statement eased both Redline and my worries about other people discovering my existence so soon. "I'm guessing you want him to transport the (Young) Dragon to and across the border as quickly and quietly you can in order not to anger whoever's parents this one belongs to?" 

Red nodded and looked at me, "He has three names, so the Royal Dragons are bound to come searching for him...if they haven't already." 

"Yes. If he was found here that would be disastrous for not only the city but the entire Human Empire as a whole," Cinder walked over to her desk and sat down in a chair that seemed like it was made of the same reddish wood as the forest's trees. Though the color of the red wood was a bit deeper than I imagined. It was strangely nostalgic, but also very confusing at the same time. 

"Will you let us go then? I'd like to speak with Pops as soon as possible...I know he's likely waiting for me to get back home by now and if I'm not back by sunrise..." Redline's voice trailed off and she shivered unconsciously at some repressed memory, "I don't want to go through his Hell Week again..." 

"Don't worry I'll let you both off soon, but first I want to hear about how you came across this dragon and I want nothing left out," Cinder stated, her gaze steely and unbending, "I want to hear all of it, or I can just cut down the dragon here and now and you'll be leaving with ashes. After all, what the dragon's don't know about won't hurt us..." Her dark smile didn't reach her eyes and I looked at Redline pleadingly. 

"But I'm not...ugh, fine. It wasn't really a job I accepted officially by the guild anyways so I should be fine sharing it, but only to you. If Pops hears about an unsanctioned op I'll be in hell for a month at least." Red looked at Cinder unflinchingly, who nodded in return. 

"What is discussed here will not leave this room unless I deem it necessary to divulge such information." She said, "You have my word on that." There was a faint pulse of light from Cinder's aura and I could feel that she meant her words. 

"You didn't need to swear an oath...but that did help, thanks." 

"Of course." Cinder's smile seemed genuine this time and I listened intently as she described the job she had to do, going into great detail about the events leading to my discovery. It was actually quite long, and from how she worded it she was with those punks for more than a few days...maybe even a week. The only reason she managed not to snap was because the brothers were too distracted bickering with each-other, or eating, to try anything with her. As her story finished I couldn't help but think back to the two; I should've given them a more painful death than I had.  

Nothing to say Voice?

"I see...that must've been quite a hard experience to go through and I would congratulate you on making it through without losing yourself, but I'm afraid you are causing more problems than you are fixing." Cinder said and Red's ears drooped, her tail going still as she looked at the ground in shame. "But you're already going to get enough of a tongue lashing from the old man so I'm not going to make your mood any worse. All I want now is promise to me that you won't be causing trouble for the next week and I'll let you both be. Whether the dragon stays in the city for the moment or not doesn't matter much as of now, but I don't want to hear of any incidents involving you for at least a week straight. Got it." 

"Yes ma'am" Redline said and I looked at Cinder curiously. 

I wanted to say something, I wanted to ask questions dammit. Stupid voice and it's stupid, irritating, annoyingly inconsistent pop ups. Of course, it had nothing to say for that and I was going to have to do this the old fashioned way if I wanted some answers. I carefully made my way over to the desk and looked for something to write on, careful of the dangerous woman at the desk watching me like a hawk. 

How was I going to do this? I didn't want to just write on something expensive, but I had no idea what was expensive here...What would I even ask? It's not like they would be able to understand me in the first place, and if I wrote an actual language I'd be under even more suspicion. I walked around the desk, not daring enter the range of the woman and finally found something useful. 

Chalk! They had it here too! Despite it's degrading form it was really useful for a great many things: including defacing common travel-sites and drawing on things...

Not like I've done that before--

"What are you doing?" Redline asked and I just looked at her, the chalk, and put it against the empty wall next to the door out. I wasn't quite tall enough to reach anything so I had to use my forelimbs and climb up to stand, unfortunately that also meant that I had to put the chalk in my mouth, but I would make it work!

"Don't you dare--"

I drew the thing that was most important to me at the moment, since I could only draw what I wanted and I've only really seen one thing related to it...It was rather crude but I managed to do what I wanted to. 

I drew a campfire with a roasting chicken over it. 

""..."'

Both of them stared at the door with two different expressions. Redline was watching me literally biting her nails in shock and horror, and Cinder was amused. 

"It seems your dragon is hungry Red. Go and get him something before he starts defacing more of my office." The serious mirth of her tone suggested that, while she was amused, she wasn't fond of having her room used as a drawing board. I spat out the chalk and looked at Red hopefully and she fell over her words trying to diffuse the situation. 

"I'm so sorry Captain Cinder. I didn't know he was going to do that I swear." She came over to me and opened the door quickly. I let my invisibility cover me again as she opened the door and quickly hopped through, "I promise I'll try to stay out of your radiant golden hair for a week!" She then quickly shut the door and walk-rushed down the hall. I was right on her heels as she sped through the building; maneuvering through halls and going down the stairs through more halls in order to reach the front doors as quickly as possible. 

Once we got out of the building she stopped and gripped her ears in frustration, seemingly looking around for me in a panic. I just tapped her leg lightly with my tail to signal that I was still beside her and she sighed in relief...probably thinking that I'd gone and run off somewhere...chasing after good smells coming down the various streets. 

I shook my head and stopped myself, already a few steps in the direction I smelled something heavenly and thought to myself. I wouldn't really be able to just ask her to follow me, and I had plenty of money to spend here so it should be fine if I went and grabbed a quick snack... I chirped a quick 'goodbye' to Redline and raced down the road. 

"Hey! Don't you--" I turned the corner and lost myself to my senses, losing track of how many turns and bends I had to go through to reach what I was smelling. 

It wasn't long before I reached the source...It was a sort of meat-shop, but the things hanging off of the walls and on hooks didn't look like normal creatures. I crept up to it and looked inside, it was dark out and they were still open? Why would they be open at this time in the night? 

Oh, there was something else in here. I ignored the meat racks...for the most part --snagging a few strips here and there--and walked over to the little trap-door in the ground. It seemed to lead to a sort of tunnel but the smell that was coming from it was strange, and yet interesting: it smelled of blood, sweat, and salty water. 

I stopped on the edge pondering whether I should go in or not...it could've been a trap for all I knew, but I really wanted to know what was going on down there. I gnawed on the giant leg bone of one of the giant creatures that had been hanging up near me and decided. Going over to what I assumed was the front counter and leaving a small pile of gold and gems there for taking some meat, then I made my way back over to the trap door. 

...wait. Could I store these in my (Void Storage)? 

I looked over at one of the hanging pieces of meat and touched it, and to my surprise it actually disappeared like the giant pile of coins from before had!

I could 'see' the carcass floating around in a void, similar to how the chest of my riches did, but they never seemed to actually cross paths. I thought about what I should use for this one since storing it in another chest wouldn't really be that helpful for me, and even though it seemed I could grab anything from anywhere I wanted in it I thought that it would be funny if I just thought of all the stored meat I was going to be taking and forming a mini planet or moon out of it...

Needless to say every single scrap of meat from the place was gone in the next ten minutes, with a few of them going to my stomach rather than my storage, but I think the time was well spent...I looked over at the counter with the small pile of riches on it. That was probably not enough to cover all of this was it...

I went over and scraped the gems off of the counter and onto the floor, then I metaphysically upended the chest in the void onto the floor for a second: piles upon piles of gold, silver, and jewels of various sizes and shapes flooded from the empty space before me and onto the floor until there was a mountain standing as high as I was tall. 

...that should be enough.

I then went back to my original goal and entered the hatch leading underground. 

Dragons

This was an interesting chapter to write...At first I was going to have him reveal to Cinder that he could store things anytime he wanted, but there wasn't really any opportunities to showcase this as things progressed and eventually I just ended up making up an entire event just for that purpose.

...Hopefully leading to something else that I can expand on further into the future. Anyways I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you in the next part! 

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