A/N: Yep, I got the chapter title from The Dragon Prince, lol.

Holly's POV

Holly opened her eyes.

She was lying on a mountain, in broad daylight, surrounded by pine trees.

She sat up and squinted at the orange sky.
Where was she?
It didn't feel like she was trapped in a forest of evil vines. At least, she didn't THINK so. She couldn't feel the expected sensation of tendrils worming underneath her claws.

She held out her talons, and looked at her wings.
They LOOKED like hers.
She certainly FELT like herself.

WHAT?

She looked at the trees again.
They sure didn't LOOK sinister.
In fact, their very aura said Nope, we most certainly are not interested in taking over your mind.

She felt something clutching her leg, looked down, and saw Dusky.
His eyes were closed, and he wasn't letting go of her.

"Dusky, where the crap are we?", Holly asked.
He shook his head mutely.

"How 'bout you, Bait?"
Bait grunted.

It definitely didn't look like Pantala; it looked more like Santuary, the dragon village that she and her friends had visited while they were on Pyrrhia, which also had lots of pine trees.
But there were no dragons in sight.

Holly spotted an overlook beyond the trees.
She walked over to it, dragging Dusky along.
She gazed at the land below.

She hadn't been sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn't what she actually saw - a peacful human city.
It looked similar to to pictures of Iran that Holly'd seen in history books.
There was a huge wall surrounding the city.
It looked almost indestructible.
Inside, there were humdereds of houses. many with ornate roofs, carefully placed and organized.

"Whoa", Holly breathed.
Dusky peeked out of one eye, then shut it again almost right away.

There were also gardens and fields at the far ends, probably where the lower class lived and worked.
The middle of the city had lots of towers, and tents that looked like silk markets.
There also seemed to be several temples, and a palace, that towered over everything else.

"Dusky?", Holly asked again. "Does any of this look familiar to you?"
He shook his head.

She squinted at the city, and realized that there were shapes moving among the houses and on the roads, so small from here, that they looked more like ants than anything else, but Holly didn't think they were dragons,
They didn't move like dragons, and none of them were flying.

Holly strained her ears to see if she could hear anything.
She'd discovered that if she leaned back, she could hear almost anything from any direction.
Above them, a hawk lazily circled.
The trees peacefully swayed in the light breeze.

But somewhere nearby. . . . were those voices?

They were pitched to a little too high and fast to be dragons.

Humans.

Holly scooped up Dusky and flew into one of the trees, perching in a spot wheer the needles were thick enough to hide them from the ground.

There were four of them, slouching and swaggering up the mountain, bonking into one another, and shouting, and breaking branches off of trees as they passed.

One of them stopped, picked up a rock, and threw it at a nearby tree.
"Yeah! That's right!", he yelled at it.
Two of the others scrampled around to grab rocks and do the same.

The last human rolled his eyes, and stretched out on one of the nearby bolders.
His face looked vaguely of familiar, but Holly couldn't place him.

"How impressive", he said dryly.
"You can throw rocks at trees. somebody should make you emperor."

The first rock-thrower grinned and struted in a circle, holding out his hands to the trees.
"That's me, Emperor Coyote!"

Wait.
How do I understand them?
Did the hit on my head do it?, she though semi-humorously.

"I'd be a better emporer than you!", one of the other humans said.
He jumped on Coyote, an dthe two of them wrestled for a moment, shouting "Emperor Coyote!" and "No! Emporer Argile!" until they lay on the ground, too tired to go on.

Not even Lily's this loud!
Why aren't they worried that something hear them and eat them?
Is this a future where dragons. . . . . don't exist?
Where IS everyone?
Or. . . . . maybe these humans are just careless?

The human on the bolder looked disaprovingly at the others.
"Very regal behavior."

Coyote got up on his feet.
"There are three empires", he said with a shrug.
"We can each have one."
He waved his hands at his friends, casually excluding the one on the rock.

"If this plan works", said his seated friend, "there will be only one empire left,and only one emperor."

He sat up, brushing pine needles off of his silk robe.

They all wore simliar robes, which were much more elegant than anything Holly's seen other humans wear.
They were decorated with silver threads, reached up to their knees, and didn't look good for climbing trees.

"This plan is ridiculous, Cottonmouth", Coyote said.
He started leading the way up the slope again.
"Nobody's seen a dragon in over a year. Nobody knows if they're even out there anymore, or where they're hidding."

Holly twitched anxiously.
Why are they looking for dragons?
Why hasn't anyboby seen one in so long?

She figgeted again.
She wanted to follow them, but then again, what did they want a dragon for?

As Dusky clung to her neck, Holly carefully crawled across one of the branches, clambering into the next tree without so much as a rustle.
If only she was this graceful in the real worlds.

The humans hiked for a long time, arguing cheerfully about some ball game, before finally stopping for a rest, not far from the mountain's peek.
Now Holly was able to see taller mountains in the distance, some of them with snow on the tops.
And from here, she could see more of the city, more houses built on every single stretch of land possible.

Okay.
Soooooo. . . . just a huge human city. . . . . just. . . .
OUT IN THE OPEN!
Where dragons could just swoop down and eat ALL OF THEM!

"We should get back to camp", one of the humans said.
The four of them were sprawled around a clearing, leaning against the trees, eatting snakes from inside of packs around tehir waists.

"There obviously aren't any dragon out here, just like you predicted, Coyote."

"I know, right?", the bossy one said, popping a blue-berry into his mouth.
"But we can say that we checked it out, just like the commander said."

"I wouldn't call this the most thorough scouting expedition", Cottonmouth said in his flat, disaproving voice.

Holly stiffeled a gasp.

It's HIM!
That's Cottonmouth!
He's- he's here!
How?
What?!

"Feel free to carry on alone", Coyote said grandly, waving his hand at the landscape.
"But I'm telling you, if there were dragons living this close to the city, we'd probably know about it at this point. I bet they're hiding out North, on the edges of the Diamond Empire."

"Fine with me", said one of the others.
"Maybe they'll eat the Diamond army and save us the trouble of fighting them."

One of his friends scoffed
"I'm not scared of the Diamond army; we smashed them the last time they tried to come through the pass."

"And they mashed US the last time we tried to cross over to their side", Cottonmouth pointed out.
"And they're stuck at the river with Emporess Jaguare. None of the empires can expand, we're all stuck, pushing and shoving each other across the sam few miles of territory. That's why the emperor's plan is so genius."

"You keep calling it that, but everyone knows you're the one who whispered it into his head", Coyote said.

"Bleah!", one of the humans said, throwing an orange at him.
He caught it, pulled a knief out of his boot, and started peeling it.

"The emporer is very wise", Cottonmouth said calmly.
"It is to his credit that he listens to even his lowliest advisors."

"Well, this genius plan isn't going to work if we can't find any dragons", one of the others said, yawning.

"We will find them", Cottonmouth said.
"I am quite sure of that."

And then, he looked up into the trees, straight into Holly's eyes.

Holly yelped and ducked into the branches, her heart hamering.
Dusky hugged her neck so hard she felt dizzy for a moment.

What will they do with us?
I can't die now!
Please not now!

There was a momentary silence below them, and then one of the humans laughed and mocked Cottonmouth's tone.
Coyote and the other human laughed with him, and Holly heard the sound of them getting up and bumping into one another.

She risked a peek through the heedles, and saw that Cottenmouth was standing as well, his gaze turned back to his compainons.

But. . . . he HAD to have seen me, right?
I mean. . . . . .there's just no way he didn't see me. . . . right?

"Don't worry, Cottonmouth", Coyote said, slapping him on the shoulder.
"I'm sure the emperor will let you chase imaginary dragons to your hearts content. You can avoid the front line for years, like that."

"That IS NOT", Cottonmouth began.

"Sure, sure", Coyote said, bonding down the slope, the other humans behind him.
"Race you back to camp!"

And with another burst of shouting, fighting, and noise, they were gone.

Holly wriggled.
"Uhhhhhhh, hello?", she called.

Surely, these humans could tell the difference between the growl of a dragon, and the usual noise of the forest, even if they couldn't understand it, right?

"Hellooooo? I'm a dragon, no?", she said louder.
"I am right here!"
She hid Dusky, and jumped down.

Cottonmouth began walking after the others, but Holly got infront of him.

"HELLO? GAINT, LEAFY, DYSLEXIC DRAGON RIGHT INFRONT OF YOU!"

But Cottonmouth kept walking, he had virtually NO reaction.

And before Holly could move aside, he walked. STRAIGHT. THROUGH. HER.

A/N: Yes, I stuck one whole chapter and part of the next chapter into one.
I'm also REALLY excited, because now that we're here, we're getting very close to some scenes that I've really been looking forward to writing.

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Wordcount: 1696

Renx out!