"SO, DO YOU think that's how Selphon got here?" Madi asked as she guided the car into the drive through of a local fast food coffee shop. I had just finished telling her about the crazy night we had had. She sat silent through most it, only speaking to clarify something about Selphon's behavior or for better descriptions of the light discuss.

My head banged painfully against the window as the car ran over the speed bump. Note to self, leaning heads on windows can only be done in sad music videos. "I don't know," I groaned as I rubbed my temple. "I'm not even sure if that thing back there was a dragon – "

"Well, what else could it be – I'm pretty sure our native grackles aren't birthed out of blue light," She asked seriously. The driver side window rolled down and a crackly voice inquired about our orders. Her eyes flashed between me and the menu for a split second. "What do you want?"

"That depends, are you paying?"

"Just this once. There is no way in Hell I'm going to hold up this line just because you take like five minutes to pull out your money – you still owe me pizza, by the way."

I pulled my glasses off my face with a sigh and tried to rub the sleep (or lack of it) from my eyes. "Large French Vanilla then – and I don't owe you a damn thing."

"Love you too," Madi chirped quickly before leaning out her window to yell at the speaker. A few minutes later, the interior of the car was filled with the smell of warm coffee and donut holes. I could see Madi glancing at the food out of the corner of her eye, but then she shook her head and concentrated on driving. It was still very early, the clock on the dashboard read 6:29, and the traffic was lax like the world was happy to sleep away its oblivion. I yawned into my sleeve before sticking my coffee in the nearest cup holder.

"Will the band room be open this early?" Madi asked quietly.

"Alex should be there, so yeah."

"Okay," she replied and put on her blinker.

Ten minutes later, we were parked in the student lot in the space closest to the exterior band room doors. The band's black and blue music was backed up on the curb, ready to load all the big instruments and percussion equipment for the competition we had today. I took a hasty sip of my coffee; I didn't have the energy for a ten-minute show, much less the rehearsal that preceded it.

The slamming of car doors echoed in my mind and school was suddenly the most depressing building I had ever seen. Pre-morning in the darkness, shadows loomed over the sidewalk and absorbed the color from the surrounding area. Our sneakers moved almost silently over the pavement as we approached the band room doors. Madi yawned and stretched, somehow managing to hit me upside the head with the box of donuts.

"We should go back and check it out after the show today," Madi said as she held the door open for me.

"What?"

"The forest – who knows, maybe we'll find another dragon out there."

"I don't know if we should risk it," I replied in a low voice as we stepped into the virtually abandoned band room. At this time of morning, it was eerily silent; the one room in the entire school that usually held enough noise to fill an entire wing, was dead as my freshman marching show. I shuddered and took another sip of my coffee before plopping down into a stray chair that had managed to find its way into the percussion section.

"You said the media was out there," I continued over the lid of the cup. "You know I can't have anyone seeing him – or us for that matter. A couple teenagers visiting a burn site like that, next thing we know they'll be calling our parents and we'll all be royally screwed."

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic." She offered me a small smile and a donut hole as she pulled up a chair beside me. "So are you saying we do nothing? Is that really what you want?"

I set my cup on the floor so I could hang by head over my knees. After several long moments, I sighed loudly and wrung my hands over my face. "Ugh, I don't know. Selphon wanted to see it, like he knew what it was... But he also didn't know that it could hurt me...I wish he could tell me what he was thinking."

"Yeah," Madi chuckled to herself. "All boys are like that sadly."

Before I could muster the energy to chew her out, we both looked up at the sound of footsteps moving in from the back hall near the uniform storage. The footsteps were followed by Mark, the brass techie, rounding the corner, humming to himself as he nodded his head to something playing through his headphones. Somehow, he looked a lot less threatening when participating in normal human mannerisms like listening to music – despite being one of our techies, I had never been under the impression that he liked music that much. He was always muttering about brass just being a hobby of declining interest and that he was just here for the credits.

Mark hurriedly popped his head phones out of his ears when he saw us. "You two are here early," he remarked as he quickly wrapped the earbuds around his phone and shoved them into the back pocket of his khakis.

"Couldn't sleep," Madi supplied.

He seemed to understand that answer, and offered both of us a nod and a small smile. "Well, see you both at practice then." He gathered the field markers into his hands and pushed out the door with his shoulder, leaving the two of us alone again.

I raised my eyebrows at Madi curiously. "Did he just act like a normal human being to you?"

"He must be tired, it's the only thing. He didn't even tell me to wind the wires for our sound system – "

"Or pick up the wrappers when we were done eating," I finished. "I don't think I've ever seen him smile before..."

"Must be tired." Madi repeated.

"Must be," I agreed and leaned my head back. I was tired too.

The both of us munched our breakfast in silence, both relieved to take a break from talking and just enjoy our donuts in peace. Finally, Madi wiped her hands with a napkin and crossed her arms over the back of the chair. "You said you were going out again tomorrow, right."

I took a long draught of my coffee before answering. "I did say that, didn't I?"

She nodded. "And?"

"And what?"

"Repeating the question back to buy yourself time to find the right answer. C'mon David, I was the one who made you watch Leverage, don't think I don't know how casual grifting works."

A thin smile cracked my face. "Fine, then if you were in my shoes, would you go back into a forest that exploded around you?"

"Not really, but – "

"Yeah, yeah." I prodded the skin on my arm experimentally and winced. It tingled like a bad sunburn and the pressure made my skin go white around the prodded area. "He needs to go out, he's a free spirit who needs the sky, blah blah. You think I don't know that?"

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I don't know." I closed my eyes and leaned over a music stand to rest my head.

"I know another park, we can drive there if you want. It may not be as secluded as your place, but it has woods and we probably won't be seen so long as we park on the far end of the lot – "

"I'll think about it."

"Tell me when you decide."

"Yeah."

A/N

Quiet chapter. No explosions, not even a dragon. Just Madi and David and an empty band room. I love the empty band room aesthetic. There is one more quiet chapter after this, and then we get into some action. Dragons, thunder, wind, bystanders, the works.

So what would you do? You don't know how to get your dragon the free time he deserves? There are people everywhere, they could find him and you can't let them take him away. And it turns out that that's not your biggest problem. What would you do? 

Covers up top go to my honorable mention in the cover contest ShreyaMoonlight. Round of applause my friends.

By the way we're still looking for Taurus the elf. Me and TamiAlber spent the better part of last two days chasing him down. To report sightings please call this toll free number 1-800-EASTELF.