PREVIOUSLY ON PROJECT IDRAGON!

David has a dragon. The dragon likes mangoes but not vacuum cleaners. He is also smol. David keeps the dragon secret in his room and is in marching band, so he has no free time. David's best friend is Madi. Madi is in the same grade as him and knows about Selphon (Selphon is the dragon). Tern is a dragon hunter. He paralyses dragons as soon as they appear and let's the people he works for pick them up. The people he works for are bad. But he is also bad – that being said he, has a cute brother so that makes him ok. Saida is a Muslim girl who is in the same grade as Madi and David except she has a second job as a software developer for her parents' company and also not sleeping at night before she is just one of those people. Her best friend is Kiara – more like her only friend, am I right? During marching band rehearsal, a dragon falls, Kiara falls, and Lait (Tern's cute kid brother) also falls. And now we're in a hospital, because peoples got hurts. Turning over the mike to Tern. Lol. Puns.

AND THAT'S WHAT YOU MISSED ON PROJECT IDRAGON

Children. They're so innocent. So...happy. They want everything; and us older people will give them the world to spare a few tears. Spare me.... From your crying, kid.

Because it's not you who's crying. It's me. I think.

I can always blame the rain. It was raining. Right?

But deep down I know that's a lie.

I am the one who's crying.

You're the one in pain and I'm here shedding tears like a deflated chinchilla. Why why why....

They didn't know what was wrong with him. From the beginning, Lait was weak. He was born prematurely and had always been the one with the illnesses. Their mother had died giving birth to him and left Tern to do all the rest.

His cheeks were well washed in a salinized mixture of rain and hysteria. Maybe tears too if he wanted to get real with himself. His hands were numb inside the fingerless gloves, so numb that he couldn't even feel it when they pried his brother from his arms. No warmth left his chest as the kid he had carried from an infant now felt like a large sack of potatoes that he didn't want to be fried. He never felt such a coldness, such a void, as when he handed his only family over to the doctor's once again. There wasn't even weight disappearing from his arms – Lait was that light.

The void was almost as cold as his brother was.

He didn't even tremble.

He couldn't.

Even his thoughts weren't coherent as he watched his brother get carted away. Not a syllable not a single sound from his mouth. Tern ground his teeth and stepped off to follow the doctors when he felt something else.

He had let his reflexes go numb while his emotions ran awry. The background noises were nothing but a breath to the flame. He had a heard them a thousand times before. Up until the previous year, he and Lait visited this hospital at least once a month. Sometimes just for checkups. Most of the time for things more urgent. All the sounds were the same and the added wind just made the flames in his heart climb higher.

But he did manage to hear the under-breath whisper before he turned to face the sound.

"Bismillah. Go die at the ends of the Earth!"

Maybe the last part wasn't so much a whisper.

Tern whipped around just in time to avoid a fist smashing into his face. His eyes widened in shock and he leapt back several feet to get stock of the situation. He tensed visibly as a familiar sight beheld him at just beyond arm's reach.

She didn't give him time to look, to catch any details worth remembering. The red scarf was wrapped loosely around her neck, flying wild like a banner of war as she lunged again. He moved quickly and shoulder blocked her attack, but something in the girl's eyes seemed satisfied. Suddenly his belt felt lighter.

She took her warranted steps backward for reassess, and Tern narrowed his eyes. Clutched in her left hand was one of his dragon sabers. A cylindrical steel pole, that when dug into the correct location on a dragon's spinal area, could cause temporary paralysis and unconsciousness without the use of heavy anesthetics.

Something told him that she wasn't going to be using it against dragons.

"Who are you? Why did you come here?" She snarled and back hand swiped at him two times like a knife. The hospital staff were beginning to notice. The numbness from before began spreading down from his shoulder like a fungal plague as Tern took a calculated step forward. He recognized her now. She was on the bleachers from when he stormed off earlier. She had seen the dragon he fell from the sky.

She swiped at him again, just barely grazing the skin on his cheek. It wasn't anything serious, he would barely even call it a flesh wound, but that shit hurt like a paper cut – a really big one. The pain was enough to wake him up.

It was clear as day that she remembered everything – and out of all those everythings she remembered, the worst of those things were his face.

Clean up your messes – or you might not be back in time to save him next time.

Forester's words echoed in his skull like a sonic boom. He knew what he had to do.

He didn't want to do it.

But what he wanted was sort of inconsequential most days.

The hunter dropped his arms an inch, lowering his guard down just enough to make it look like he wasn't faking it. Which of course he was. He needed to get her out of the open. Away from the hospital staff that knew him by face and first name. Up until this moment he never needed to hide from the public, he could blend in in plain sight – even with the bright blue hair his kid brother picked out for him.

The girl ran at him again. Tern stood his ground and counted inside his head.

One.

Two.

"Calm down, cuz!" Tern said loudly and swung around her opposite side. The look on the girl's face was murderous as he slung his left arm over her shoulder, effectively pinning her arm – and the stabby thing she intended to impale him with – to her side. His jacket was still dripping from the storm, and when he swung the water from his eyes and onto her hair, she growled at him.

Actually growled.

"He'll be okay, alright." He said just loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear. Then under his breath he continued. "We're going to take a little walk. We don't want to have to hurt any of these nice people, now do we?"

"You vile..."

He placed his hand at the small of her back and pushed roughly in the direction of the elevator. She went, but with difficulty. "I hate that you're making me have to do this here." He snapped as the elevator doors closed behind them. Tern kept one eye on the girl as he flipped the panel underneath the floor buttons. He typed in a set of numbers before hitting the switch for roof access.

He despised that he had that number. The passcode to the roof access floor on the elevator in his local hospital.

He turned back to the girl. She couldn't have even been out of high school, but her face suggested a longer term of years. Her hair was dark and tumbled past her shoulders in shiny – sort of damp – curtains. Now with his attention focused, she made a point in ripping the scarf from her neck and squaring her shoulders.

"It seems we're alone now." Tern said carefully, mirroring her stance.

Her only response was a smile, colder than the air conditioning and the thunderstorm. He was moderately aware of what taking off the scarf meant to a hijabi. The sheer act put him lower in her eyes than the dogs on the street. She saw him as less than man, and less than child.

She pulled a phone out of her pocket and pointed it at the camera at the corner of the elevator like a TV remote. Tern glanced at the camera in confusion, but when he turned his gaze to her, the phone was already pocketed, and she had started wrapping the ends of the bright red scarf around her hands. She drew her arms apart to create a tight sash between her two fists.

Her grin widened. "It would seem so."

I need a raise, Tern thought bitterly as the hijabi leapt into the air.

A/N

Hello my fellow dragon enthusiasts. For a story about dragons there sure is a severe lack of dragons. Don't worry I will fix that as promptly as I can! Hoping for more regular updates coming soon. Let's have some fun :)