"Wake up, Carnoc."

Carnoc groaned reluctantly and tried to roll over, only to realize that he couldn't move.  There was something soft beneath him, which he was pinned to by a number of tight but flexible restraints, and there was a foul-tasting plastic bit in his mouth.  It was all too familiar.

He opened his eyes and glared up at the human standing before him, the dark-skinned male he recognized as Simon.  He growled; he wished he could have roared at the human, or better yet, attacked him, but harnessed and muzzled as he was a growl was about all he could manage.

"Welcome back," Simon said.  "Did you miss us?"

He growled again and thrashed in his harness, only to be hit with a powerful electrical shock that sent a spasm through him.  He moaned past his gag as the pain coursed through him and tried to find some way to make it stop, but he had no means of escape until Simon decided he'd hurt him enough.

Simon walked over to his head, glaring at him.  "Let me make one thing perfectly clear before we go on," he said.  "Allison, if you'll remember, was very nice to you.  She accommodated the few wishes you had, she only shocked you when your behavior forced her to, and she tried to find some way to make you happy.  You repaid her for that by killing her without warning.  So don't expect me to be half as kind to you as she was."

Carnoc growled at him, then unexpectedly heard an answering growl.  He hesitantly took his eyes off the human and looked around the cave to see a blue-grey dragon lying similarly confined next to him.  With all the straps of the harness obscuring her face and body he couldn't tell who she was by sight, but her scent seemed familiar...  Vical, he realized.

"Now, if it was totally up to me," the human continued, "I wouldn't have let you wake up for a couple of more days, and even then just let you stew in your harness for a while.  However, we've been informed that this friend of yours," he jerked a thumb at Vical, "doesn't speak English.  So I need you to tell her that we mean her no harm, make sure she won't try to attack us and otherwise explain the situation to her."

He tried to speak past the bit in his mouth, but couldn't manage anything resembling an intelligible word, so he just snarled at the man instead.  Simon turned up a corner of his mouth, pressed a button on the remote in his hand and shocked him again; it was less powerful this time but still made him jerk against his restraints, grinding his jaw and whining through his muzzle.

"As I was saying before, I am not Allison.  I am not going to be nice to you, I am not going to try to make you happy, and I am definitely not going to be hesitant to punish you for misbehaving.  Now," Simon stepped forward, "I'm going to take off your muzzle and you're going to tell your friend what's going on.  If you try to hit me with whatever that is you can shoot from your mouth, if you try to escape from your harness, if you so much as look at me the wrong way, I will shock you and the other handlers will shoot you.  You got that?"

Carnoc felt his blood rising and did his best to suppress it; as much as he hated this man already, now wasn't the time to attack him.  That could wait until he was at least able to move his limbs, so once he felt he was fully in control, he nodded.  The straps of the harness around his head and neck loosened, then whirred away, releasing him to the base of his neck.  Simon reached down and undid the straps of the muzzle holding his mouth shut, then pulled them forward and tugged the bit out of his mouth.  Carnoc started to work his jaw to get some of the soreness out but hurriedly looked away before Simon could judge it as looking at him "the wrong way."

"Tell her," Simon said.

He growled a little.  "What's wrong with you?"

"You killed Allison," the human glared up at him.

"Yeah, and?  You seem to have been promoted because of it."

"She was my fiance!"  he shouted.  He took a moment to calm himself, then said, "just tell her what's going on before I'm tempted to shock you again."

"Hey," Carnoc started, then hesitated, glancing first at Simon, then at the five humans at the back of the cave who all had their rifles trained on him.  "Vical?"

"What in the ancients' name is going on here?" she snarled, and he noticed angrily that, unlike him, she had not been muzzled.  "Who are these humans, and why are we tied down like this?"

He leaned over to sniff at her neck and chest.  "They captured us back at your caves... some time ago.  I just woke up; I don't know how long it's been."  He glanced at Simon.  "How long has it been since we were caught... again?"

"A week.  What's her name?"

"Vical," he said, then turned back to the other dragon.  "It's been about a week since then, the human says.  We're inside a big cage right now, at a zoo, if you know what that is."

She froze.  "They're putting us on display?"

"I don't like it either.  Either way, they don't mean us--  Well, they don't mean you any harm.  This human here means me harm because I killed some female he liked.  They'll bring you food twice a day, there's a stream outside for when you want water, and there's a little room to fly outside, within the laser barriers.  Of course, there will be a lot of humans watching you if you leave this cave and it isn't nighttime, so..."

"That's awful.  How could they do this to us?"

He snorted.  "Greed.  That's all it's ever about with humans; they exploit others for their own gain.  Here, they put us in cages and charge money for people to see us, and we can't fight back because they hurt us and tie us up if we try."

She sighed and looked away, her blue eyes watering.  "...so will we be stuck here forever?"

"I don't know.  That coward Sean is trying to start some sort of movement to get us freed, but who knows how long that will take, if it even succeeds.  It's hard to say."

"I think you've explained enough," Simon said.  "Tell her we'll let her up in a minute."

He relayed the message, then asked, "does she have her own cave?"

"...what?"

He lowered his head and growled at the human.  "Does she have her own cave?"

"Why would she?" Simon said, taking an instinctive step back and away from his exposed fangs.  "The execs thought you'd be more cooperative if you had a female companion, so they purchased Vical to come here with you."

"She's not my mate!" he roared.  "I'm not going to share a cave with her!"

Simon shocked him, and he bellowed in pain, jerking back and clenching his claws helplessly.  "That's enough out of you.  Tim, Jeff, will you help me with the dragon's muzzle and the loose portion of its harness?"  Two of the humans at the back of the cave stepped forward, and Simon held up the muzzle.  "You want to do this the easy way."

"I thought you were going to let us up!" Carnoc said, holding his head as far away as he could manage.

"I'm going to let her up, yes.  I said that.  You, however, are going to be staying in your harness for a while...  Maybe I'll let you out in the morning, if you're cooperative.  Now let us get you strapped down, or I'll shock you until you do."

He growled, but lowered his head and parted his jaws so Simon could slip the bit into his mouth; even if he hated it, it was better than the pain Simon was obviously quite eager to put him through, and he had enough control of himself to remember that just killing the man wasn't an option.  He stayed still while the straps of his muzzle were secured, then laid his head and neck down so the three humans could secure them to the cushion.  He was about to consign himself to a bad night when Simon pulled a bundle of black cloth from his pocket and unfurled it into one long, wide strip.  After grinning for a moment, the human stepped forward and wrapped the cloth over his eyes, blinding him.

This was too much.  Carnoc howled and strained against the harness, but there was nothing he could do to escape, and all his struggling did was get Simon to shock him again.  "Good night," the human laughed, and a short while later he heard a door slam, the metallic sound echoing through the cave with a note of finality.

All was quiet for a minute or two, then he felt something warm and soft brush against his shoulder.  "It's all right," Vical whispered.  "I'll be here with you and make sure nothing happens.  You can sleep; I'll watch over you."

He gave a low rumble in the back of his throat, then closed his eyes and tried to relax as best he could, tied down and blindfolded in a man-made cave, with an unfamiliar dragoness by his side.

Carnoc wasn't sure if he slept at all that night, though any passage of time was impossible to notice in his present situation.  He heard only Vical's breathing and his own, along with a light rain that began to fall outside at some point, and felt the tightness of his harness and the increasing warmth of her scales against his side.  He could smell another dragon, and while her smell was different from a male's, the powerful scent he had experienced at her clan's caves seemed oddly absent.  He didn't mind that, however; not having that scent in the air was better than having it but not being able to do anything about it--either giving in to it or getting away from it.

Finally, what seemed like several days later, he heard the door open and human footsteps on the ground.  Vical stiffened beside him and snarled, and the footsteps stopped before he heard the light click of metal against rock; a moment later the smell of meat washed over him, and he realized just how hungry he was.  He felt Vical move away from his side, then heard her start eating.

"I'm going to be nice and let you get up now," Simon said.  "But if this rain clears up, I expect you to actually go outside today.  If you don't then I'll harness you again tonight, and something tells me you don't want that to happen.  Now keep still while I release you."

Carnoc stayed as still as he could as the human removed his blindfold, then unfastened his harness.  He squinted at the sudden light until his eyes adjusted, then looked around the cave: Vical was sitting nearby, eating from a tray, and there were five humans with rifles in the cave accompanying Simon.  "Now, that muzzle," he said, tapping his foot impatiently.

He laid his head on the ground so Simon could remove his muzzle, spat out the bit as soon as he could and reached over to a second tray lumped with unidentifiable meat.  He ignored the bitter, salty, dry taste and gobbled it all down, glad just to be able to eat again.  One of the humans had stayed behind and took their now-empty trays, then left the two dragons alone in the cave.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Vical asked, starting to clean off her claws.

Carnoc looked up at her and snarled, then leapt to his feet, flaring his wings out aggressively.  "Get out!"

She backed away, crouching.  "What?  ...why?"

"This is my cave!  Get out of here!"

She glanced outside.  "But it's raining, and the humans will be able to see me, and..."

He roared.  "I don't care.  Get out of my cave!"  He pounced at her, and she jumped back, away and out into the rain.

He watched her go outside into the grey, rainy morning, and snorted once before curling up so he could watch the entrance.  The cave was barely large enough for him as it was, and he certainly wasn't going to share such a small space with a dragoness who wasn't his mate.

Vical returned to the ledge outside after a minute.  "Carnoc, it's windy and it's raining out here.  Can't I just come inside for a little while, at least until the storm clears up?"

"No."

"Please, Carnoc.  There are humans out here watching me, and..."  She jumped as a bolt of lightning flashed overhead, followed by a deafening peal of thunder.  "Please, let me come inside!"

"No," he repeated firmly, and started to wash away the traces of his meal that lingered on his mouth and claws, ignoring her.  She cried out when another bolt of lightning struck nearby, but didn't ask him again.

Freed from the distraction of this other dragoness, he turned his thoughts to the one he cared about: Melora.  Where was she?  Was she safe, or even alive?  For all he knew the humans could have decided she wasn't worth keeping and had her killed...  He lashed his tail worriedly, then he remembered: Allison had told him that he--and all the other dragons--were worth a lot of money.  The humans would happily profit from any one of them.

But where was she, then?  Had she been injured in the capture?  He couldn't help but think of Melora, bound bleeding and alone in a cage while humans stood all around, watching and laughing at her helplessness.  No, he pawed the ground; the humans were bad enough to exploit them like this, but they weren't directly mean to them.  Aside from Simon's viciousness towards him, even he couldn't deny that he was being treated well enough, considering the circumstances.

The most likely situation was that Melora was imprisoned with another dragon, a male, just like he was here with Vical.  And that...  He growled and clenched his claws together.  What if she too had been driven out of a cave by an angry dragon, or worse, that male had forced himself on her?  When an image of Melora with a different dragon mounting her appeared in his mind's eye he nearly roared with frustration; she could be anywhere, with any of a hundred dangers threatening her, while he was trapped inside this cage with no way of leaving it to save her.

Nothing I can do about it, he thought miserably.  There was nothing he could do to break free, even if he knew where she was held, and he didn't even know if she was really in danger--for all he knew she could be basking in the sunshine on her own private mountainside, watched by humans but cut off from them by a cube of laser barriers.  That thought helped: while he wished he could be wherever that was to protect and watch over her, he knew the human security devices would be enough to keep her safe.

Carnoc relaxed a little, listening to the sounds of the storm outside the cave.  All he heard for a short while was the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder, but soon he could pick out another sound: Vical was crying.

He looked back over at where she had curled up on the ledge outside, a wing pulled over her head to shield it from the rain--and from him.  Little runnels of water ran down her sides, and his eyes followed one down the curve of her haunch to her belly...  He stopped himself, shaking his head and looking away.  Melora was his mate for this cycle.  Melora.  He pictured her in his mind--this time without another dragon there to mar the image--and relaxed even further, enough to think about maybe closing his eyes for a nap.

He watched Vical, making sure to keep his eyes on the forward half of her body as best he could.  Her sides shook occasionally as she sobbed, and she curled herself up even tighter every time a bolt of lightning flashed overhead or a rumble of thunder was audible.  Carnoc sighed and looked back at the rest of the cave behind him, then at the rain outside.  Somewhere in another cage, he realized, Krain was probably suffering from the same worry he had felt just moments before--even if they hadn't conceived, as he and Melora had, he was sure Krain would still feel some attachment to Vical for a little while.  And how would Krain feel if Carnoc, someone he thought of as a good friend, was so cruel to his mate?  If he wanted any reassurance of Melora's well-being, he realized, the best he could do was to offer Vical the same comforts he hoped would be given to his own mate.  He backed away from the entrance and said, "fine, Vical, you can come inside."

She pulled her head out from under her wing, surprised, then stood up and hurried into the cave, shaking the water from her body and wings once she was beneath the shelter of the entrance's overhang.  She looked around the cave for a moment, then shivered.  "It's colder here than it is at home."

He curled up against the wall.  "Just because the sun isn't out.  It'll be warmer once the weather clears up."

"Doesn't help now," she said, stepping closer.  "This cave's a little small for two of us, isn't it?"

"That's what I said, but Simon acted like we were supposed to prefer it this way."

"Simon?"

He looked away.  "The human who doesn't like me."

"I can't believe he hurt you like that yesterday...  I would have helped you if I could, but they had those awful belts all over me...  There was nothing I could do."

"I didn't ask for your help," he growled.

"You certainly could have used it."  She shivered again, then started to curl up against his flank.

He shoved her away with his tail and hind legs.  "If you want to be in here, go to the other side of the cave."

"But... the things they bind us with are over there, and I don't want to be near them."
"Too bad."

Vical nipped at his side.  "Why do the best-looking dragons always have the worst personalities?  You were nice enough to me when I brought you a meal."

"Back then you could have been my mate.  Now I already have one, so stay away from me."

"Why does it matter that you've taken a mate?  All I want to do is be inside, out of the weather and with another of my own kind.  I'm not asking for anything more, and I'm certainly not trying to get between you and her."

He snarled.  Inside, he wasn't sure what to make of her.  Yes, she was a dragoness, and a beautiful one at that.  All she wanted was to sit by his side.  He realized after a moment it wasn't that he disliked her, he was afraid of what might happen if they got too close.  Dragons had few strict traditions, but the mating cycle was one of them.  If she persisted in getting close to him, she started producing that scent and he wasn't able to control himself...  He didn't even want to know what punishment would be thought up if that were to happen, but at the same time he wasn't about to admit his fear.  "Just stay over there."

"Fine," she snorted.  "I thought you would have been taught to respect other dragons more than that, but apparently..." she turned and walked over to the cushions, sprawling out across both of them and letting out a contented sigh.  "Ooh, these are actually comfortable when you aren't forced into a tiny little ball."

Carnoc ignored her and tucked his head under his wing for a nap, soothed into a doze by the sounds of the rain outside.

"What did the human say about me?" Vical asked after a short while.

He raised his head and looked over at her.  "What?"

"I heard him say my name in his language.  What did he say about me?"

"You don't want to hear it.  It's insulting, to both of us."

"Just tell me."

He groaned, hoping she wouldn't get any ideas from it--who could tell with a dragoness.  "He said that they hoped I would be more cooperative if they brought you to be with me, only...  Well, he referred to you as my 'female companion.'"

"What does he mean by that?"

"Simply put, they think that I'll mate with you, and that mating will make me more relaxed and easier to deal with.  It's disgusting, I know," he added quickly.

"So they don't know our customs," she said, to his relief.  "It doesn't mean we have to do what they want.  ...unless you wanted to?" she tilted her head and twitched her tail suggestively.

"You can't be serious," he said, fighting instinct as best he could and just managing to stay still.

She laughed.  "Are you kidding?  What I would give to have so much time alone with a dragon as handsome as you.  But..."

"It's out of the question.  The cycle has ended, and Melora and I have an egg on the way."

"I know.  I don't mean to put myself between you and her... just don't get any ideas from what that human said."

He snorted.  "Me getting ideas?  You're the dragoness here."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she bared her teeth.  "You males are the ones always wanting more when the cycles end--"

"And if we want more, then you dragonesses are desperate for it!  I would know; I practically had to fight Melora off to get her to come back to your clan's cave before this past cycle ended."

"I had to do the same with Krain..."  She was quiet for a moment, then said, "maybe we're both right.  Think about it: our clans only come together when it's time to mate, so whenever we see each other that's only thing on our minds.  What else could we possibly think about each other when that's the only side we see?"

He tilted his head.  "You could be right."

"Of course I'm right," she laughed.  "Anyway, about what that human said... just forget he said it.  I'm sure you won't mind having another dragon's company, anyway."

Carnoc growled and looked away.  "We'll see."