published 24/06/26
=North Woods=
# ~~~ TAGS ~~~
# clans: Earthkin Dragons
# characters: Valsta
# worlds: Old Kingdoms
# best works
# ~~~ END TAGS ~~~

They were deep in the night and deep in the forest. 
Valsta didn't even know the sunless hour anymore. She just bounced along with the sway of the bus' carriage, strapped into one of many grey felty beds carrying dragons through the night. The lively jigs in her headphones created a thin bubble of life, but beyond the rumble of the wheels, the forest seemed silent as a pillow. She fiddled with the colorful scarf wrapped around her snow-gray claws, and glanced over at her neighbor. Even in the thin sprays of light from the floor, she could see their eyes still sleep-closed. She could hear polite snoring from the bunks above her, too. She sighed, then hitched her breath as the bus hit another bump. Hopefully this would pass soon. 
Then all the lights went out. They hadn't been much; tiny motes casting the dimmest of light, but now the interior was dark beyond sight, silhouetted only by the stars beyond the windows, a thousand miles away. Valsta heard the driver curse and slam on the brakes, and the bus swayed as it rushed to a stop on the deserted highway. 
"Hold on a second folks, just some engine trouble." they called out, before clambering out of the bus. The silver edges of her night vision could just barely make them out as they walked down her side of the bus, one claw knocking against the metal to keep their orientation. They ducked under the bus a couple feet beyond her. There was some clanking around, a muffled curse, and then several repeated slams covering more cursing. That was enough to wake Valsta's neighbor, who looked around rapidly trying to figure out what was going on.
"Engine trouble." Valsta told him. She realized her music had stopped, too; it had been so in the background, she barely noticed. A cold shiver went down her spine. The bus was losing temperature to the frigid night quickly. 
The driver climbed back in. "Hey folks, know this was supposed to be the party bus, but this party's hit a snag. We're outta juice; backups too. We need a couple volunteers to hike out to the nearest convenience stop and get us a new cell. Don't worry, the company will recompense you for it."
That hung in the air for a moment. Then, a distant but still loud BOOM cracked over the trees like a whip in her ears. All the passengers looked over to watch the dark shapes of birds spray out from the trees, like a rock dropped in oil. There was some hissing, and more nervous chatter.
Finally, Valsta unbuckled herself and raised her claws; there was just enough room to do it, with her clawtips brushing the plastic of the bunk above.
"Come on up, Ms. Grey, Mr. Teal over there ... and Mr. Orange! Good show guys, don't let a little night scare you off. Better than fending for ourselves in the woods here, hah." They sounded like they knew. 
Valsta clambered over her neighbor and up the narrow isle, passing by the bus driver, back in his seat. "Watching the bus." they said to her. "I'll keep 'em safe. You can count on ol' Alwood."
"Sure." Valsta said, and stepped out into the night. 
Without the hum of the wheels and the hard walls of the bus, the night revealed itself to be in fact rather lively with noise, at least with insects. They made themselves known through an everpresent buzz, layers and layers of different rhythms of night noise, and through the tiny creatures immediately attempting to fly up her snout.
"Blech." she said, "I hate the south."
"You Valenk?" someone behind her said. It turned out to be the teal dragon. She sized him up; sturdy build, heavy well-pocketed coat, glasses lenses twisted slightly off-axis from eachother.
"Let me guess. Because no one else describes it that way?"
"Well, we are about as far north as you can go before hitting the Vale." he quirked a smile as he stood next to the bus stairs, like this was funny. 
"Well, it is south." Valsta said, without further explanation. 
The orange dragon started down the stairs. Plump, corporate baseball-capped, carrying three different sling bags that he couldn't stop fiddling with. "Hi guys." he said, looking between them eagerly, nervously. "I brought this." He pulled a headlamp out of his bag. He strapped it on. Several clicks revealed ... nothing. 
"Helps if you charge it, mimatsar." the teal dragon said. He wandered around the bus, then returned with a stick, which he thrust under the kid's nose. "Here." 
"What?" the orange dragon asked. 
"Light it."
"Oh." the kid said, "Well, actually, I can't ... my grandfather can, but he was the last in my family ... oh, except my brother, who can do some smoke, and my other brother, though I'm pretty sure he's just using one of those human smokey-things ..."
"Eeee-nough." the teal dragon said. "Forget the stick." he threw it off into the woods. "We'll do this the old fashioned way."
"Night watch." Valsta said. "No big deal." She started off down the road in the direction the bus had been going. 
"Why are you going that way?" the teal dragon said.
Valsta turned back, and pointed off towards a metal sign on the other side of the road, barely visible in the half-light. But it's reflective paint was still readable: "10 miles to town this way, 25 the other. Seems like obvious choice."
"Oh, sure." the teal dragon said. He rushed to catch up; the orange one close on his heels. "Mark, by the way." He held out a palm in greeting.
"Human name." she noted. 
"Yeah, what of it? They make good ones."
She snorted. "Have some draconic pride. Get a real name or take none at all." 
The orange one chimed in, "I'm Flint!"
"Don't care." she told him, and she didn't. 
"Well, this will be a lovely walk." the teal dragon said. 

It took about forty minutes to reach a station; they were luckily pretty frequent out here. The group nearly missed it, though. All its lights were out; trademark acid green invisible in the darkness. It had taken a couple looks to notice the trees dropping away to reveal the boxy silhouette. The kid, actually, was the one who noticed it–his eyes apparently weren't half bad. Only a dark canopy and a dark building greeted them as they crossed the asphalt.
"Maybe they still have some working cells in the back." Teal suggested. 
"What do you think happened?" the kid asked, "To black this place out too?"
"I don't know." Teal said pricklishly. "Maybe a coincidence. Bus wasn't connected in any way, after all."
"Yup, total coincidence." the kid agreed as the group passed under the deep shadow of the canopy. "Nothing spooky at all. Nada."
A yellow dragon stepped around the corner of the building. Their face lit up when they saw the travelers. "You must be the repairmen! Thank you for coming out with such haste!"
"Uh?" Teal said. 
"We're not repairmen, just lost travelers." the kid said. "Our bus broke down a mile or so back that way." He pointed. "What happened to you?"
The yellow dragon–clearly the clerk tonight for the store–adjusted their purple-zigzagged bowtie. "I'm not sure myself. Everything electronic in the store just lost power at once. It's not the grid because my phone wasn't even plugged in, nor the boombox. Some sort of electromagic pulse?"
"Electromagnetic." the kid corrected. "They don't really work like that–trust me, I tried a few times in school. I'm an engineer by trade!"
Valsta cleared her throat. "Any of your cells survive the blackout?"
"That's the weirdest part." the clerk said. "We've got a full stock of twenty ... and exactly one survived. Little under half power. It's right over there." They pointed to one of the service stations, which did indeed from this angle have a tiny flashing blue light.
Valsta started towards the station, but before she'd made it more than a couple steps, she heard something whish behind her. She held out an arm to stop the kid and started to turn, but it was too late. A shadowy figure ran up from behind, heaved the kid over one shoulder, then threw him into the glass front of the store beside them. He went down, with underwindow racks of snack foods crashing down on top of him.
"Oh goodness!" the clerk called out. 
Valsta was already moving, slamming both her claws into the attacker's neck, sending her tumbling to the pavement. That momentary contact was enough to tell her the attacker wasn't merely cloaked in shadow, but wrapped in skintight latex, black for nighttime camouflage. Someone with a plan. 
The attacker had braced herself and started to rise as soon as she hit the ground. Valsta vaulted over her and, before she could get all the way back to her claws, grabbed her by her slippery back and flipped her over the sill of the broken window and into the next row of snacks over from the kid, who looked up at her from just the other side of the sill, in a pile of crushed packaging and broken shelves. 
"Wow! Are you some kind of super-secret action hero?"
"Engineering." Valsta said, with a ghost of a smile. "But I did have a pretty good run in the army."
"Dang. Maybe ..." and then the attacker was back, leaping over the ruined shelves like a mountain stream and rushing past with all the force. Before Valsta could get her out-of-shape brain into motion, the attacker was gone, running to the partial cell, knocking it free of its housing, then dashing off, apparently only slightly slowed by the eighty pounds of metal-encased dense crystal slung over her shoulders. 
On her other side, the kid was trying to stand back up. "Ugh. I think I broke something. Yow!"
"You sell first aid supplies in this place?" Valsta asked the clerk.
"Oh! Of course, yes. Right in the back there."
Teal, who had been standing there stupidly a few feet from the clerk, suddenly jolted into action, following their pointing claw in a straight line, stepping over the sill and the returned-to-the-ground kid, before grabbing handfuls of supplies and rushing back. 
"Where's it hurt?" he asked. 
"Here." the kid rubbed his claws around the top of his shoulder. "And here." Bottom of his ribs.
Teal gingerly felt the shoulder. "Dislocated, not broken. We'll splint this up and you'll be fine." He tapped the side spot. "This hurt?" 
"A little."
"Take a deep breath for me?"
The kid did, without wincing.
"You're just a little bruised." Teal stated. "I'll give you something to numb it."
Valsta raised a brow. "You serve in an army too, medic?"
Teal raised a brow back, meeting her eyes without losing track of the ointment he was applying to the kid's side. "No. I have dragonets. Last in their class to fly, but top of their class in terms of injury while attempting. That feel better?" He took his claws off the kid.
"My shoulder still hurts."
"Getting to that. But does the bruise feel better?"
"Yeah."
Valsta helped him assemble the splint. "There we are. Right as morning." Teal declared as the kid flexed his elbow, testing his limited range. 
"We should go find that cell." Valsta said. 
"I don't know, it seemed like she really wanted it. Maybe we should leave her to it." Teal said.
"I don't want to walk ten miles home." Valsta countered. 
"We didn't win here; why there?"
"She got the drop on us. Little plan gives great tactical advantage."
"Sure. So what's your 'little plan'?"
"Find her, assess the situation, then beat her up and take her shit."
"Like action heroes!" The wound had not kept him down. 
"Sure." Valsta said noncommittally. 
She turned to go. The clerk was staring openmouthed at the wreckage. Valsta didn't know how long they'd been standing there. "There's no security footage to show to management ..." they half-whispered. 
"What do I owe ya?" Teal asked. 
The clerk shook their head. "You know what, you get that cell back so I don't totally lose my job, and I'll cover the rest."
"Ugh. Well, sounds like a deal." Teal said. "Let's get moving."
Together, battered but not defeated, they climbed over the windowsill, out to the dark lot's edge, and into the trees. 

Luckily, even Captain Stealthy couldn't run through a forest with a six foot long cell on her back without smacking nearly every tree on the way. And apparently dropping it several times to drag through the leaf litter. The path of destruction was pretty easy to follow. 
Traveling it, however, was another matter. The other two kept trying to walk in stride with her, and thusly smacking into the same trees as the energy cell. This forest was wild, not as well tramped as the forests of home, and with none of the feet of snow that let you step right over the brambles (at least those that their bulldozer friend hadn't already ripped up). Valsta was not making great time either. 
"So was it the military that made you so ... short?" the kid said, completely disregarding their own stealth. 
"No, the ghosts of my ancestors can take credit for that."
"I meant more short like ... terse. Short of word."
"No again. My career choice was what made me an ass. Aren't you an engineer too?"
"Well, just a junior." he said. "Really more of a tradesman."
"Uh huh. I wouldn't believe it. You seem wise beyond your years."
"Really? Thanks!" he smacked into another tree.
Teal put his claws on the kid's shoulder. "Maybe we should focus on the trail for a little bit."
Somehow, they managed it. Which was good, because only a few minutes later, they saw lights through the trees. The first artificial lights they'd seen in over an hour. The other two were smart enough to not run into trees when she stopped, and instead they all stood and listened. Though given how Valsta's heart was behaving after years away from any action, she doubted if the others could hear anything at all. 
"So what? We trying again?"
Someone coughed weakly, "We can't. Not tonight."
"Look, Bert, there's not enough in them, and there's not enough in the grid. Zan got you enough juice to get our equipment packed up and back to camp, and that's probably our night. Not a total failure all around; lot of learning ready for next time."
There were several deep, laborious breaths.
Someone else cut in, "Well, before Bert explodes, I'm going to sound the retreat myself."
Several noises of affirmation. The kid crept around Valsta and poked an eye through the brush. Wingbeats and footsteps. He turned back. "There's a bunch of them in a clearing, right against the fence of a substation!" he whisper-reported, "They've got some sort of crazy machine hooked up to it with these big cables going over the fence. A couple flew over–to get them?"
"Cell?" Valsta asked
"Middle of the group. Bunch of spare cables joined onto it."
"What do we do?" Teal cut in. Something massive hummed out an electrical sigh. 
"We ..." the kid started. Then, he stepped on a twig. Valsta threw herself to the side. A moment later, a couple hands pulled a gap in the brush-cover.
Across the clearing, a big dragon met her eyes. "Kill them all!" he shouted.
At the same time, one of the people–yes, black robed bipedal humanoids–who had moved the bush yelled, "Scatter!"
One of those orders was clearly more popular; everyone but the big dragon dashed off into the woods. He sighed. "What does it take to get good minions?" Then he lumbered off too.
Valsta took a minute to process that. Teal didn't; he dashed in and yanked on the energy cell. "Heavy!" he complained, as he used it as the world's worst plow.
Valsta got up to help him, and so did the kid, the best he could around the splint. They pulled the plugs and heaved the thing into the woods. Once it was over the treeline, Valsta stopped.
"What?" Teal asked
"Don't you want to know what caused all this?" Valsta asked. 
He shrugged. The kid dropped the cell, though, and followed her back into the clearing. Harsh spotlights illuminated the area from tall posts, portable rigs. Shorter pillars, carved and painted wood, stood in a hexagon about a wingspan across. Claw and shoe marks in the dirt showed about five dragons and eight bipedals. Could be humans, given the freaky nature of the thing, more likely to be elves. Valsta didn't really know how to tell them apart. 
The edge of the hexagon nearest the chain link fence was spaced out from it by a large device; a stone pyramid, with four stone pillars of its own, similarly carved with nonsense, balancing a giant cube angled on one of its points on the top of the structure. Orange and purple sparks leaped off the cube. The air around it rumbled with latent power. The power station beyond was completely dark. 
The kid was prying the back panel off a console attached to the structure. "Hey, isn't that the Interstellar Navy's logo?"
Valsta looked at the funny shaped triangle printed on the panel between the kid's claws. She didn't have much experience with the Interstellar Navy, though, so she shrugged. The kid looked at it again. "Well, I think so. I don't really want to get caught messing with their equipment, do you?"
Something else had caught Valsta's attention. She pried out the cable next to the removed panel and turned it over in her claws. There was a much more familiar logo; the crossed lightning bolts of her company. The one she was going to a meeting for. 
The three of them carried the cell out of the woods to the road. The bus driver got it installed, they made it to the station to drop off the old cell, offered the clerk a ride to town (they refused; better to take the heat right when the boss got there than found missing), and then finished their journey. 
And when Valsta got off the bus hours later in the bright 8am sun and hugged her sister, she only briefly glanced over her shoulder to watch the kid and Teal make their own ways into the crowd. But she was definitely thinking about their adventure as she made her way to the office.