\n Chris drove slowly back towards his house, worry dampening surprise, excitement and every other feeling he could have had.  There were a lot of implications to what had just happened, and pretty much all of those implications were bad ones.  He shook his head and swore quietly as he turned his truck onto a dirt path that led back to his house; someone was going to receive some bad news tonight.

\n The familiar bumps and curves of the path helped to calm him down, but only a little; while he drove the path often, he had never been comfortable behind the wheel, and he only left his property when he had to.  After about five minutes of driving, the Drake family house appeared at the edge of the headlight beams.  It wasn't much to look at, just a small two-story with whitewashed wood siding and a large brick patio that separated it from a two-car garage.
\n Chris pulled his truck into the garage, shifted into neutral and pulled up the parking brake before he turned the key and removed it from the ignition switch.  He opened the door and got out, then left the garage.

\n He strode to the center of the patio and looked up at the sky.  The reddish tinge at the western edge of the sky was almost gone, exposing tiny winks of starlight above.  Twenty minutes at the most, he thought before walking into the house.

\n He turned on the foyer light and walked over to a gray control box on the wall that was the hub for his security system.  Taking a slip of paper from his pocket, he entered the license numbers of each of the vehicles that had been at the ruins of the fortress.  He looked over the list, then, satisfied, he set the system to detect movement around the borders of his property and in the air around his house.

\n He was greeted in the kitchen by the slapping of bare feet against the tile floor, and his twin daughters, Karen and Tessa, rounded the corner of the counter and ran to meet their father.  "There you are!" Chris said, catching the two of them in a hug; at just over five years old, they were just barely small enough for him to pick both of them up at once.  "Are you two ready for bed?"

\n "Take us flying!" Karen said, ignoring her father's question.

\n "What's that?" Chris asked, grinning.

\n "We wanna fly!" repeated Tessa.

\n "Fly?  Are you sure?"

\n "Fly!  Fly!" the twins said, waving their arms in an imitation of wings.  Chris smiled and hoisted one up under each arm, then started spinning in slow circles.  The two children started laughing uncontrollably, then Karen pointed forward.  "That way!"

\n Chris stopped spinning and stood still for a moment to make sure he could keep his balance, then he walked forward and into the family room.  He laughed with his daughters, then stopped and slowly tipped them forward.  "Oh no, we're diving!" he said with mock panic.

\n The twins waved their arms and laughed even harder.  Chris was about to lower them to the carpeted floor when something back in the foyer started beeping.  "Oh, what's that?" Chris asked the twins.

\n Karen thought for a moment.  Then she stuck her finger out, pointing it at the ceiling and said, "him!"

\n Chris nodded and set his daughters down.  "That's right, one of them is coming.  Now, let's go see who it is, all right?  And try not to pester whoever it is so much this time.  You have to remember that some of them don't like being bothered while they talk to me."

\n Karen and Tessa both stood completely still, even holding their breath for a few moments.  Chris laughed, mussed their bright red hair and said, "good enough, let's go."

\n The twins cheered and ran to the foyer excitedly, pausing only to slip on their sandals.  Chris went ahead of them, standing between them and the door.  They were almost tall enough to reach the deadbolt above the doorknob now, and Chris didn't want them going outside until he was sure they were going out at the right time.

\n "Come on, daddy, let's go!  I wanna go outside and see him!"

\n Chris shook his head.  "Not yet.  We have to wait for..."  He fell silent as the beeping from the security box changed, jumping to a higher pitch and increasing in speed.  The twins started jumping up and down.

\n "Let's go, daddy!  He's here!"

\n Chris obliged and opened the front door, releasing the two girls onto the patio.  He flicked a light switch, activating a row of raised lamps that ringed the open space, walked outside and closed the door behind him.

\n "Remember to stay near the edge of the patio!" he shouted to his daughters, who were running in circles near the center of the brick rectangle.  A loud thump sounded from above, then Chris and his daughters were buffeted by a tremendous blast of wind.  Karen and Tessa shouted with glee and ran back over to their father, each taking one of his hands in their smaller ones, then all three of them looked up at the sky.

\n Chris squinted as a shadowy mass appeared above them, blocking out a section of the star-dotted sky above.  The mass grew larger as it descended, until finally the patio lights revealed a cluster of reddish scales.  Karen and Tessa pointed, then cheered as the giant red-orange dragon landed on the patio, flexing its wings once before folding them.

\n "Evening, Chris," the dragon said.

\n Chris squinted for a moment to identify the dragon in front of him.  "Ah, hello, Carnoc.  It's been a while since I last saw you."

\n The dragon growled softly and glanced up towards mountain behind him, lips pulling back for a moment to reveal his long fangs.  "Alon wanted me to fly down to you tonight.  Nice to see you and the kids again."

\n Karen and Tessa let go of their father and ran over to Carnoc, touching his muscled forelegs and rubbing their hands along the scales there.  He chuckled and kneaded at the brick with his claws, expanding and contracting the muscles beneath the children's hands.

\n Chris followed them, stopping a couple meters from him.  The dragon tilted his head ever so slightly towards him, then sat down on his belly with a groan.  The twins hesitated, looking up at his chest, but he growled at them when they made to start climbing up his side.

\n "Leave him alone, you two," he said, ushering his daughters back over to him.  "So, how are things with the clan?" he asked Carnoc, once Karen and Tessa were safely beside him.

\n He dipped his head to scratch behind one of his horns with a claw.  "Oh, they're normal.  Alon started coughing pretty badly a couple of nights ago, but it's probably just a cold or something.  Maybe he ate something hairy and it's taking its time getting down his throat."

\n "Well, hopefully he's all right.  He should live for, what, another thirty years?"

\n "Around that long.  Other than him, though, everyone's fine.  I think Lemnir said he was planning to just take a few from the herds tonight instead of going out to hunt, so expect three or four head to go missing.  You know how much he eats."

\n He frowned and nodded.  "Well, I have bad news for you..."

\n Carnoc groaned before he could continue.  "Of course, Alon picks me to fly down when it's time to get even more bad news.  I think he likes hearing bad news from me because it gives him even more of a reason to dislike me," he growled.  "Can you save it for someone else to hear, tomorrow night?"

\n "There's no way he could know when I have something bad to tell you guys," he raised his hands, hoping to calm him down.  "And either way, this is too important to wait: people have found the ruins."

\n He sat up straight, wings unfurling partway.  "Someone found the fortress?"

\n "Not just that.  Archaeologists have worked there."

\n "That's not good, is it?" he sniffed at the air.

\n "Well, they found a dragon's skeleton and a book.  I'm pretty sure that book was Sir Bourdan's journal, but even though apparently it was too faded for them to read yet, they already used it to identify the bones as a dragon's, and once they restore it they'll know everything.  The clan is in danger."

\n He lashed his tail with agitation and slammed a forepaw into the patio, cracking a few of the bricks, and snarled a curse in dragontongue.  "That's...  This is bad.  Is there anything we can do?"

\n The three humans backed away nervously, and Chris said, "I don't think so, at least not yet.  Since I don't think they can possibly find anything that will be even worse for them to see, I decided to let them come back to the ruins if they want to.  I tried to nudge them towards thinking dragons don't exist anymore, but I'm not sure if it worked, and once they read the journal and learn Bourdan lost that battle..."

\n Carnoc lowered his head and growled in his face, and Karen and Tessa jumped away with startled cries.  He looked angry enough to lash out at him for a few moments, but he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, and the expression quickly faded.  "Then..." he said, "we'll be exposed.  Once the rest of humanity learns we exist, they'll be all over these mountains wanting to do who knows what to us."

\n "I don't know what you can do about this.  You're barely hiding as it is, but now?  They're going to find the clan."

\n "You can't make them stay off your property?"

\n "If I did, it would be pretty obvious I'm trying to hide something.  Not only that, but considering I've already given them permission, I can't turn that around now."

\n "I have to go tell Alon about this," he said.  "I don't know what we'll be able to do.  I don't think nights are long enough yet for us to be able to start the cycle flight, but even then the youngest and oldest would still be here, and if those humans have the journal, then we can't hide...  Our only option would be to kill them."

\n Chris sighed.  "Your decision.  I'll let whoever comes tomorrow night know if I learn anything else."

\n "All right.  Alon himself might come if he thinks it's enough of an emergency."  He stood and spread his wings, but before he could take off Karen ran out from behind her father.

\n "Don't go, dragon!  Please, can you take us flying?"

\n Carnoc snarled at her.  "What did you just say?"

\n "I'm sorry," Chris said, hurrying to place himself between his daughter and the dragon again, "ever since Vallen took them up that one time, they've pestered every dragon who's come down to see me.  I've been trying to tell them that dragons don't usually let people fly with them, but they haven't been listening."

\n "Then you'd better explain to them that they shouldn't expect to, no matter how much they ask," he snarled again.

\n "I'll see to it," the man said, glaring at Carnoc for a moment before turning to the twins.  "There are some bad things going on for dragons right now, and they're going to be too busy to fly with you for a while.  Now come inside with me; it's time for us all to go to bed."

\n The twins whined and pleaded for a few moments longer, but they let their father lead them away from the dragon.  Carnoc raised his wings again, and the three humans quickly backed away to the edge of the patio.

\n "See you," Carnoc said, then he thrust his wings downward and disappeared into the night sky.  Chris waved until the dragon's wingbeats had faded into the night, then ushered his children back inside.  Karen and Tessa took off their sandals and were on their way into the kitchen when Tessa tripped and fell.

\n Before Chris could react, Tessa's arms stretched out to stop her fall.  She stood there for a moment, propped up on nearly meter-long arms, then she started screaming.

\n He ran over to her.  "No, no, it's all right, Tessa.  Just relax."  But she kept screaming.  Catching a curse on his tongue before he could say it in front of his daughters, Chris examined Tessa's arms, tracing the bones from the shoulder to the wrist.  They appeared to be perfectly normal, except for the fact that they were almost twice as long as they were supposed to be.

\n "Daddy!  I don't wanna be a mutant!  Fix me!" she wailed.

\n Karen walked back over, mouth hanging open.  "Tessa, what did you do?"

\n Chris shook his head at Karen, hoping that she wouldn't say anything to make her sister feel any worse, then looked back at the other twin.  "Tessa, relax.  It should go away."  She screwed up her face, trying not to think about her stretched-out arms.  They slowly started to contract back to their normal length.

\n When Tessa's arms were back to normal--as far as he could tell, anyway--he picked her up and carried her to her room.  "There, there, it's been a long day.  Go to bed now, and forget about that.  Don't worry; I'm sure everything will be fine."

\n Tessa nodded, turned away from her father and climbed into bed.  Karen soon joined her, then he turned off their light and closed their door most of the way.  "Goodnight," he whispered after them.

\n He sat down at the kitchen table and picked up the newspaper, but he didn't pay attention to what he was reading, instead letting his mind wander.  Maybe this is another sign, he thought.  Ever since their birth, he had known there was something different about his twins.  They had been mixed up within a few hours of their birth, and the nurses had forgotten which one was born first.  That, their mother's death and this new mutation were all indications that something was different in their family now.  And his wife's death had assured him of another thing: he would have no son to pass the farm along to, no male Drake to keep the family name and heritage--and the secret of the dragons--at the farm.

\n He sighed.  Maybe it was time that the Drake family had done all it could to shelter them.  Maybe it's time for them to be found, Chris thought, looking out the window and up towards the mountains where the dragons lived.