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"Charity's sake," she repeated, hoping that the rest would sink it better later. She was exhausted from their wanderings, and knew that they could use some charity. This whole dragon thing sounded ridiculous except for the fact that she had seen one-- a dead one-- herself. It seemed that they were indeed tied to Feretris somehow and that they might not like the place.

In her swirling thoughts it suddenly occurred to her that that might be important to their benefactors. "We saw a dead dragon," she announced abruptly. "Smaller than these ones. The soldiers paraded us in front of it, so I suppose they killed it. We didn't understand why they were showing us. We'd never seen a dragon before. Well, I hadn't. Some of our group seemed more affected...maybe they knew of dragons? But some of them have died. I suppose...you can ask them all about that later, once we're away from this place. I don't know about the others, but I'm willing to go any where else right now."

If she felt loyalty to Feretris, she ignored it as best she could. Her own country had betrayed her for having so-called radical opinions, and had meant to slaughter them like cows, without even inquiring to see who might have committed what crimes.

[our lives mirror each other, we should talk biggrin ]

"I'll do whatever I can to help," she replied simply, modestly. Having been involved in the underground as she was, what Katrina wasn't saying wasn't as much of a surprise. In fact, Fabel would probably over-idealize Tok when she got her first taste of it. She hoped that the men in her group would finally relax when they got there.

In the mean time she and the two tribesmen helped load those who needed to be loaded on the dragons, and helped switch people out and feed every one on the journey. The going was slow for the dragons and fast for every one who had never had the option of flying before. Thankfully, even after a mere day of food the scraggly group started to look better and smile more. The first day was the worst as far as trying to remain unnoticed by Feretris, but luckily the guards had been depleted by recent events, though reinforcements from the capital were on their way. Ironically, it was once they had reached the relative cover of the edge of the forest that the dragons began to smell something they didn't like.

Horses. No-- magical horses.

(time... that's funny)

Fabel felt comfortable talking to Katrina, but had also failed to process why. All she knew was that much of her burden had been taken from her by the arrival of their rescuers. Shouldn't she then feel better? She felt only a creeping malaise.

Fabel shook her head absent mindedly. Turning to Katrina, she explained, "They asked me if I know any thing about magical horses. Do you? I've never seen one myself... or, if I have, didn't know it." She shrugged. "I spent most of my time worrying about wolves and harpies if I thought about wild creatures at all."

Another of the rescued spoke up, an old man: "Mhhmn, Kelpies. Can't trust them. Used to live out by the lake I heard, but we ain't near there I reckon. Any way have never seen one myself." He glanced furtively at the dragons, fully aware of the irony of what he was about to utter. "Old legends and all that."

Suddenly all of the men were talking. Kelpie. Pegasis. Unicorns. But no one could claim to have for sure seen any of these himself. It seemed that many of the 'old legends' had been circulated more faithfully among the slaves than among their masters. The only thing that seemed to run in all of the stories was that these various creatures stuck close to the woods, whether it was in the east or the west of Feretris. It was just then that they were passing the west woods referred to in some of the legends.

In the dragon world stories of unicorns and the like had also been reduced to mere legend due to their lack of existence in that world. They were equally mysterious to the dragons but seen on more of an equal or lesser basis, whereas to the humans kelpie were dangerous and wily creatures.

"If there's keplie or what not," the old man gruffed, "then we should skirt around these woods and travel through the night."

It was at that exact moment that two things happened at once. One, a beacon meant for this rescue group was started in Tok, in Cedric's valley. The dragons had been catching echoes of it for days, but now what they felt actually meant something. Their support people had arrived in the valley with supplies. Second, they heard another dragon, an adult male. He was setting out his own sort of beacon, by ordinary mental communication, from northward in the foot of the mountains and the thick of the woods. His communication was wordless and offered no explanation, like some one shouting "I'm here!". Because of the distance, it was only "audible" to the dragons, whose minds were naturally more attuned to projected dragon thoughts.

The old man went on eagerly. "Well, they drown people, you see. They can change shape, too. There's no knowing what else they can do, as their victims don't tend to live to talk about it. Some lad will tell you as he saw a beautiful wild horse in the woods, one he can't get his mind off ah, and the next day he'll be gone. Some times the bloated corpse floats back up to shore." He seemed to relish telling stories like that, but that was all he had on kelpies.

The large gold dragon, Theddryn, interrupted with a message to all. Going around the woods would add days to our journey. They had planned to cut straight through here around the foot of the mountain range.

One of our kind is close by, Rh'Delle added privately.

"Well what is a dragon to some stupid horse?" one of their group laughed. Every one was happy to have been rescued, and some people were feeling it more than others.

Fabel, on the other hand, was a natural worrier. She was also used to making hard decisions. "We shouldn't lengthen our journey unless there is certain death." If they were to take that attitude, that meant not going after the calling dragon either.

Rh'Delle sighed, reluctantly making the decision herself. We will split our force. One of us can fly north to see about the call, then catch up with us later. These humans are slow with their walking, so you are right that we should not slow them down further.

Alright, but that still left Katrina to decide which dragon would go. It does not sound like a distress call, the male added helpfully.

Fabel was looking to her expectantly, hoping that they would continue on their journey soon. She was eager to get to a place where they could truly rest. Here they were still at risk of Feretris guards catching up to them.