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? The Dragoness of Salsea Chapter 3: Exploring Explanations Sponsored by TerinasTiger By Draconicon

The nurse gave her the rest of the day off, something which Sarina felt she'd more than earned with how the morning had gone. The dragoness took advantage of the stillness between classes to leave the campus unmolested, heading to the tram station at the bottom of the hill and sitting down. Nobody else was there; lunch hour was over at work, and most people had cars to get around.

She leaned back, her wings curling a bit tighter to her back as she looked up at the sky. Everything had changed, and she had no idea what she was going to do about it.

Werewolves, demons...ugh...What else is out there? What else do I have to worry about? And where are all the other dragons if they're fighting against this? Why...

Sarina clenched her claws against the metal bench, hearing the little screech it made and letting that draw her back from the mix of anger and hurt that came with that thought. She knew where it was going, and she didn't want to let it go any further. Not now. Not when she didn't know anything, and not when she could end up making rash decisions.

After all, she'd been making all sorts of stupid decisions of late, mostly because she didn't know anything. She needed to be smarter. She needed to do this right.

The dragoness looked up as the tram arrived, the little blue streetcar with its wire rods looking like a little blue beetle as it parked at the raised platform. She walked over, waited for the others to get off, then bipped her card on the machine just inside the door. There was an empty seat in the back that she hurried to claim, then leaned back, closing her eyes as she went over what had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

I was raped. I was transformed. I had a weird...vision...thing...of other dragons, and I apparently started a pack of two. With a werewolf. That shouldn't exist.

No headaches, no migraines. Well, that was a step forward, at least.

Okay, then. Now we just need to -

"Pardon me."

Sarina jumped at the new voice, looking up to see a dolphin in bright whites looking down at her. He had thick black sunglasses on in addition to a suit reflective enough to be blinding, and he was gesturing at the seat beside her.

"Do you mind?"

"Go ahead," she said out of habit, sliding a bit more against the wall.

She regretted it as soon as he sat down. He kept away from her and the window, admittedly, but he was staring at her with such intensity that she felt like she was under a microscope, and not in a good way.

Since she'd arrived in Salsea when she was sixteen, she'd been the subject of many stares, but this one was a bit different. More...intense. A bit like Erna's, if she was honest.

Is he...one of them? A demon? Or...

Going through her mental list of what she'd read in fiction, she picked out one that was...possible, though she hoped she was wrong. Erna hadn't mentioned them, after all, but with clothes that'd bounce light away and glasses that kept the eyes hidden -

She snatched for them, but the dolphin caught her by the wrist before her fingers were quite able to grab the stems of his glasses. He chuckled.

"Did you figure it out already, or do you just dislike sunglasses?"

"I..."

Not knowing how to answer, Sarina tried to pull her hand back, but the dolphin had it in a grip of stone, refusing to release her. He turned to look at her, shaking his head.

"Don't worry. I'm not like the wolf. I don't want...that. And besides, I doubt that we would be compatible, anyway."

"You're...one of them?"

"Not a wolf, but yes."

"Why are you talking to me?"

"Call it investigating an investment."

The dolphin pulled down his sunglasses just enough to reveal what Sarina had expected to see. Red eyes, red as blood, and with a swirl to them that seemed to be constantly going round and round and round his pupils. It wasn't blood moving, or at the very least, not his blood; if she was right, he probably hadn't had any sort of circulation for years.

"Vampire," she whispered.

"From knowing nothing to guessing right in less than a day. You are a quick one."

He chuckled, finally letting her go. Sarina glanced out the window, seeing that they were most of the way to her stop. She slowly moved her hand to the call line as the dolphin looked the other way.

"I'm not here to cause problems, dragoness. I'm just here to see who's watching you. After all, a werewolf pack doesn't exile a member lightly. That was probably a move to make sure that any dragons watching you didn't decide to take their own vengeance for what was done as much as they were punishing Erna for what she did. But someone else talking with you...that will be much more interesting."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing that we have time to discuss right now. You're getting off in a moment, and then we probably won't see each other again. At least for a while. But I've added a variable here, and that'll get everyone reacting. It'll be interesting to see who decides you matter and who decides to ignore you."

"..."

"This is your stop, dragoness."

She pulled the cord and shoved her way past the dolphin. Fighting the horrible feeling that she was doing what he wanted her to do and no more, Sarina tapped her card at the streetcar exit and kept on walking. The feeling of eyes following her continued even after she stepped into the apartment building.

Even with the doors shut behind her and several floors between her and the strange dolphin, she still didn't feel like she'd shaken him off. Maybe there was something that vampires could do that fiction didn't cover, or maybe she was being paranoid.

...Let's just assume anyone can do anything until proven otherwise, huh?

That seemed to be the safest thought. After all, until she knew the rules, she was pretty much a babe wandering past wolves. Rabid wolves, at that, considering she had heard that regular ones were friendly enough if you didn't do stupid stuff.

She left the stairwell after reaching her floor, only to freeze in place.

A Doberman leaned against the door to her apartment down the hall, and he was...not exactly unintimidating, to put it mildly. He wore camo fatigues and heavy-looking boots and had a pair of reflective sunglasses clipped to the front of his jacket, and she was surprised to see that a pistol was holstered at his hip.

He must have heard her, because he turned as soon as she saw him, revealing a knife at his other hip and making a rifle barrel swing over his shoulder. He was armed, heavily so, and he was looking right at her.

Sarina wasn't sure what she was thinking. Maybe she was sick of running. Maybe she wanted to take charge rather than be pushed again. But instead of running, instead of waiting, she stepped forward.

"That's my door," she said, wishing she could have spoken a bit louder than a quiet mutter.

"I know."

"Could you move? Please?"

"We need to talk."

"There's a thing called a phone," she said, trying to move around him and failing. "Or, the mail. Or notes. Lots of things that don't involve -"

"I wasn't clear. We need to talk about last night."

"..."

This must be the 'he' that Erna was talking about, she thought. No wonder she didn't want to talk.

It wasn't just the weapons. It was also the body language. His voice was tense and focused, almost angry, but his body language was anything but. His ears were up and responsive, calm without being friendly, and he wasn't showing any teeth. Either he had a disconnect himself, or he was deliberately messing with her.

She wasn't sure which she preferred.

"I guess you can come in, then."

He finally stepped out of the way, letting her get to the door. Her mind was running a mile a minute, wondering who the hell he was. Not military, she was sure. That uniform was too self-selected to be an official uniform, even though pieces of it looked like they were from one. And she doubted that he would be carrying that much weaponry if he was on active duty. Was he some sort of militia-man? She'd heard that there were some crazies out there that went a bit nuts when it came to self-defense.

They were barely inside her living room when he shut and locked the door behind them. Sarina forced her own rising fear back down, trying to keep from showing quite as much as she was feeling as she walked over to her couch. She had given up on hiding everything; she just hoped she could hide something.

He didn't sit. Instead, he leaned against the half-wall that ran beside the door, looking across the room at her. The Doberman didn't say anything, just looked at her, almost like he was waiting for something. Or...maybe as if he was listening? There was the slightest cock of his head, but his ears didn't move...

He was confusing. He really was.

Finally, he shook his head.

"You weren't ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To be let go."

"...Let go from what?"

"Above your paygrade." The Doberman sneered a bit. "Hate it myself, but true in this case. Head still hurting?"

"...Not so much now, no," she said, slowly shaking her head. "How do you know -"

"They've relaxed it, then. A bit, anyway. Their plans must be changing."

"Who? Who's they?"

"The ones that are above your paygrade."

"I gathered that, but -"

He narrowed his eyes, and that was enough. The words stopped as if they were plugged away. Sarina held the stare for a few seconds, then sighed.

"What can you tell me?"

"That's a better question."

The Doberman walked across the room, making his way to her windows. He pressed a hand against the edges, feeling around the seam before moving on to the next, and the next after that. She watched him curiously, wondering if he thought -

He stopped at the last window, claws digging in before yanking back. A wire came with it, one that went halfway around the glass before going down the wall and out through the corner of an outlet. A quick yank pulled it free, revealing a microphone on one end and a transmitter on the other.

Sarina stared at the obvious bug, her eyes bugging out. Her visitor dropped it and ground it under his heel, silently going through the rest of the apartment.

At the end of a ten-minute search, he'd come up with four cameras - one each in the living room and bathroom, two in her bedroom - and three more microphones. She shook her head at the pile.

"Why? How did you -"

"They keep an eye on anything...other."

"..."

She suppressed the question she wanted to ask, if he was 'other.' It would have explained some things, defied others. For the moment, the dragoness had the feeling that anything she wanted to know would either be 'above her paygrade' or something that the Doberman wasn't able to tell her.

But he didn't seem to want to hurt her or catch her or anything, so that was a step above how other things had gone so far.

"They've been watching me. For how long?"

"Since you were placed here, so...eight years."

Since she was sixteen, then. Eight years and she'd never known that there were microphones, let alone cameras. The things that they might have seen...Well, the things that they had seen, for that matter.

"The ones watching me. Are they dragons?"

"...Some of them," he said, nodding.

"You said it was above my paygrade...but I guessed that one. Which means that you can confirm if I guess, but you can't tell me directly."

He nodded, the slightest of smiles - no, not a smile, a smirk - on the edge of his muzzle. He liked that, she imagined. Either because she'd figured it out or because he wasn't best keen on his own employers. At least she had a way forward.

"You saved me," she said, looking down at the floor as she muttered to herself. "You saved me...or you saved both of us. Erna from what I was doing, me from what I was becoming."

No reaction, not even in an ear-twitch or facial tick.

"You weren't hired to do that, were you?"

After a moment, he slowly shook his head.

Not too surprising, she had to admit. He didn't seem the sort to be hired as a bodyguard. As the one a bodyguard would defend against, maybe. Security, definitely. But not as a bodyguard specifically. So, maybe his employers might have pushed him on this job at some point, but if he was as expensive as he looked, that could only be one group.

Government. And if it was the government, it made what Erna said about dragons working with the government sound all the more plausible.

Sarina leaned forward, rubbing her hands against her temples. The migraine hadn't started up again, but she was paranoid about it coming back. Being forced to vomit by raw pain, being knocked out by it, made one start to fear it a little bit.

"You knew where I was. You were watching me for your own reasons, then?" she asked.

"...They haven't done this before."

"You were curious?"

"I was interested."

"In what?"

He arched an eyebrow, and she sighed.

"Right, right. Confirm or deny only."

"You're learning."

"Too slowly for my tastes."

"Heh. Too slow for mine, too."

"We can't all have top secret clearance," she grumped.

"Top secret is a joke."

And he smiled as if he'd just made one, a sneering sort of smirk at the world in general and those that valued such secrets in particular. Sarina shook her head, looking down at her hands as she considered, again, what she'd learned.

Erna had suggested, and this Doberman had confirmed that there was a government agency that had, once, had some sort of ownership of her. Perhaps even had some sort of control over her, even now. The memory of the other dragons around her supported that, even as hazy as that sort of memory was.

Seeing the microphones and cameras told her that they hadn't let go as much as one might have thought, and probably worried about her doing...something. What that was, she didn't know, but she doubted that they believed she was going to be imitating Santa Claus or something.

And this guy...

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Whoever the Doberman was, she was sure that there was someone else behind him. Maybe as a full-time handler, maybe as a part-time one, but he knew things. A lot of things. And she knew that you didn't figure all this out without studying the subject very deeply first.

Most of all, she knew that he could have killed her last night...and he hadn't. He'd knocked her out. He'd probably been the one to get her back to her apartment, considering Erna likely would have been as out of it as she was. There was pragmatism there, practicality. And that might just be enough to keep her alive.

As long as she remained useful, she supposed.

"How long were you here before I got here?"

"Five minutes."

"Then you didn't ride up the hill in the tram and climb the building or something?"

"I'm a Doberman. Not a spider."

"...There was a vampire on the tram. He talked to me for the ride up."

"What did he say?"

There was an instant shift in the room, though no visible shift in the Doberman's body language. Despite standing the same way, despite his ears staying up and his eyes not widening or narrowing, he just seemed...more intense. It pushed her to wrack her brains for what he had actually said, rather than trying to summarize.

"He said something about wanting to see who I mattered to," she managed to recall. "He didn't want to do anything, he said, but he knew that people were acting a certain way to save their own skins. He wants to see who else reacts when he gets involved."

"Name?"

"He didn't give one. Dolphin species with a white suit, though."

"Narrows it down," he muttered with a nod. "Stay here."

"But -"

"Stay. Here."

His fingers brushed the top of his holster, his gun in hand before she realized that he'd even touched it. She watched as he switched ammo, removing the bullet from the chamber before ejecting the clip, then sliding a new one in. Trying not to think about how many different ways the Doberman probably had of killing people, she pulled her legs off the floor and slowly hugged them to her chest.

He was at the door a few seconds later, pausing to look back at her.

"Stay," he repeated one more time.

"It's not like I have anywhere to go."

"Regardless. Stay."

Click. The locks came undone and then were done up again just before he shut the door. Sarina leaned back on her couch, looking up at the ceiling for a moment before she closed her eyes.

He's in a hurry. Maybe this guy is more important than I thought.

Or maybe vampires were more of a danger in the supernatural world this time around. She didn't know what the hierarchy was among the Other Folk, or what it was like for the different species that existed out there. She still didn't know how many different creatures there were, or what they wanted, or what sort of things they could do.

And with the Doberman gone, so was her source of answers.

Sarina shook her head, slowly shifting to lie down on the couch. She could have gone to her bedroom, but after seeing how many cameras were in there, she didn't want to put herself at risk of being filmed again. All she wanted was a chance to rest and forget for a bit.

So, she closed her eyes and did just that.

She was on the table again, staring into the light above. As before, the dragon heads leaned over her, various colors and shapes that blended into the light and then back down making it hard to see details. One of them, the same as before, leaned over a bit further than the rest, whispering to her.

"Are you okay, Sarina?"

"I'm...okay."

"There are others that can't see you now. Is everything alright?"

"I feel better without that."

"They can't help you if they can't see you."

"It doesn't matter."

She shook her head, wishing she had the freedom to wrap her arms around her middle. Despite the feeling of comfort that she felt was trying to be projected over her, she felt...vulnerable. Uncomfortable. Exposed.

She closed her eyes, but the light was still there, and so was the presence of the other dragons. Her 'uncle' continued to talk to her.

"It matters more than you think. If they can't see you, they will worry. You don't want them to worry, Sarina. Please. Put them back."

"I can't. They're broken."

"By who?"

"I don't know."

The dragons seemed concerned, looking between each other as she opened her eyes again. Mutters that were beyond her hearing fluttered through the air above her, almost like listening to someone talking to someone else on the other end of a phone. Then her 'uncle' turned to her again.

"Do you know what he looked like?"

"Yes..."

"Tell us."

"..."

"Sarina?"

She shook her head slowly. The dragons muttered again, and she heard something that sounded less draconic muttering back. Too quiet, though, far too quiet for her to hear without some sort of help.

"You need to tell us. It's the only way we can help you."

"When have you helped me?"

"..."

"Let me go."

And they did. The light faded, and she slipped off of the table and back to the couch.

She opened her eyes to find herself staring at the darkness outside the apartment. However long she'd been sleeping, it had been enough for the sun to go down and the moon to come up. Sarina half-expected to feel a sudden burning in her veins, the werewolf curse driving her to change shape.

When nothing happened, she was almost disappointed. Shaking her head, she walked over to the kitchen, her hands fumbling for the fridge door and pulling out a couple of things. Eggs, bread, milk. Just a way of making a bit of breakfast for dinner before she flopped into bed properly.

She closed the fridge door -

"Gah!"

And jumped at the sight of the Doberman on the other side. She hadn't even heard him come in, and yet he was right there.

Well, no, not quite. He was standing at the end of the hall, the door to her apartment open, but his boots a centimeter from crossing over into her actual property. He took off his glasses, folding them and putting them back in the front of his jacket, before lifting a flashlight and flicking them across his eyes.

They weren't red; he was showing her that nothing had happened.

"We have to talk," he said.

"...Alright. Come in."

Knowing that dinner would have to wait, she put everything back in the fridge and walked back to the couch. Once more, he didn't take a seat, merely waiting for her to do it before he continued.

"The vampire you mentioned. His name is Eurig."

"Alright...That doesn't mean anything to me."

"It wouldn't. But he's getting stronger on the other side. Not quite a big name yet but pushing. He believes that if he has a dragon, he can...advance himself."

"How do you know?"

"He told me. Freely." The Doberman sniffed. "Too freely."

"...He already has a plan, then?"

"Probably. Not one that involves him. Vampires stay hands-off until they've won. He'll use mind-controlled minions, at first, then Others that owe him favors. Keep a distance of plausible deniability."

"...How much trouble am I in?"

"A lot."

"Wonderful."

Sighing, the dragoness leaned forward into her hands, rubbing her face a few times. Despite the 'nap' she'd taken, she was no less tired than she had been before. If anything, she was a great deal more exhausted, and wished that she could have just had her dinner and gone to bed.

Nope. Life decided it needed to get more complicated.

"What do you suggest?" she asked.

"We go with it."

"...What?"

"I have an irrepressible urge to deal with the...problems of this city. Sometimes professionally, sometimes for personal reasons. There are a number of...people...involved in Eurig's operations that I would take a great deal of pleasure taking down, and you are the perfect, incidental way of luring them out."

Bait. He was suggesting using her as bait.

Sarina stared at him for a few more seconds before pulling herself to her feet, walking over to the window. Salsea seemed to extend out forever below her, as if it had grown a hundred times over the last few hours.

In a way, it almost felt like it had. What she'd understood of it was just the surface, the smallest little pittance of what really existed out there. She had no ideas of the dangers beneath the skin of so many people, of the hidden threats that lurked everywhere. Literally everyone was in danger at every moment, and the only reason they weren't panicking about it was because they didn't know about it.

I guess it's still the shock? she thought when she wondered why she wasn't doing just that. It'll wear off soon, I bet. And...

Bait. The Doberman wanted to use her as bait. He felt that he could lure out other threats by doing that. The dragoness forced herself to remember that meant that he would be following her, keeping an eye on what was happening. Bait didn't work if the hunter wasn't around to kill the thing it drew out. She would be safe...safe enough, at least.

"You're good at your job?" she asked.

"Ha...haha..."

He cleared his throat.

"I'm overqualified."

"So you can protect me. Will you?"

"Yes."

"From whatever comes after me?"

"Yes."

"What about whoever?" She looked over her shoulder again. "There's only so much I can do if -"

"I have an utterly-deserved reputation around the school. So long as I'm around, you won't be experiencing any more of your...problems."

Somehow, he knew about them. Probably not too much of a surprise. He'd had twenty-four hours to find out as much as he could about her life, and he didn't seem the sort to wait around for some report from higher-up when he could be finding out about the other facets of her life.

Pushing her curiosity about who he'd talked to and what he'd done to earn that 'reputation,' she nodded.

"Then...I guess I agree. Not that I had much choice."

"Not really, no."

"When do we start?"

"Tomorrow. Now, listen. Don't spend time looking for me; unless I tell you otherwise, assume I know where you are and what is happening. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"You have time off; the nurse at your school decided that your latest 'attack' merits a week away from school. We'll use that."

"I figured. Anything else?"

"Yes. Tomorrow, pay a visit to the science lab at the university. I have a sister there. A German Shepherd named Veronica. She...is not very good at making or keeping friends, but could use one. A real one, not like our façade."

"For when you can't be there?"

"Yes...and for her sake."

"...Veronica. Science lab. I can do that." The dragoness nodded. "Anything I should tell her?"

"Nothing about this. She doesn't know about our little world. She deserves the chance to avoid it, and I plan to give her that chance. You'll probably find her in the middle of a mad science experiment when you get there, but don't startle her. Despite the...laughter...she's quite skittish."

"Okay...Could I get a name?" She gestured at him. "I mean, you're telling me to make friends with her. Maybe I should tell her who sent me or something?"

"Tobias."

She nodded. She looked out towards the city again, thinking about how this was going to go. Hunted by a vampire, probably sending ripples throughout the entire underworld of magic, and from the way that her 'dreams' were going, probably messing with whatever dragons were still out there, too. She turned back to Tobias -

But he was gone. She looked back and forth, half-hoping that he'd appear again. When he didn't, she sighed.

"Great. Vampires, demons, werewolves, and a Doberman who's Batman with guns. Since when did my life become a comic book?"

The End