I flew back to my den first. It had been over a month since I had last seen it. I was curious how it had managed. And I still had the watch there - it might feel good to have that last symbol of humanity. Might help me to sort everything out.

I nudged away the bits of leaves that covered the entrance... and recoiled as the smell hit me. Yuck!

The fruits I had stashed in the burrow had definitely rotted in my absence. It smelled unbelievably foul now. It was probably infested by bugs too, nasty things drawn by the scent of decomposing food. It would be easier to just make a new burrow than to try and salvage this one. But I had to get the watch I had left behind, and the leash that had belonged to Susie. They were the only things I had left.

I steeled myself against the smell and slunk through the tunnels. I felt bugs crawling out of my way as I went. The ground was damp... which... didn't make any sense. It wasn't the den I had dug with Susie, but I had still lived in it for months. It had stayed dry against the occasional rains that had come through without any trouble; it shouldn't have been bothered by simple rain.

Though... I was much closer to the river now. And there had been that larger storm not long ago, where it had rained for days. Could the river have flooded? That might explain the humidity. But if water had gotten inside my den, then... Oh, no...

I hurried through the rest of the den and tried not to gag at the stench. I found the watch where I had left it and fumbled for the buttons on the side. I squinted at the tiny face in the darkness and squeezed the button, willing the simple green light to come on and show me the time, just one more time, just like it always had.

The face stayed dark. The watch had been destroyed by the rain. The last relic I had of human existence was destroyed. Irrevocably, permanently, gone.

I crawled back out of the tunnels, clutching a ruined watch that no longer kept time and a simple leash for a dog that was no longer alive. The only things I had left of what I used to be.

I slumped down to the dirt and cried.

"Ivy?" I stared at the sky as the sun set, watching the sky grow slowly darker.

"Hi Nate... how are you doing?" Ivy's voice sounded sad. Guilty. Like she had failed at something she knew she needed to succeed at. "Minna told us you're back in the forest. Do you need anything?"

I closed my eyes. Still worried about me. Still trying to help me. "No... I mean... I have everything I need; there's plenty of food for me, and I just finished digging out a new den." I had spent most of the day working on it - it hadn't really needed that much time, I just... didn't want it to be done. After I had hollowed the first chamber out to stash the watch and leash in, I had simply dragged my feet on the rest. "I was wondering though... I mean... if you're not busy, would you mind if we talked for a bit?"

"Oh, sure. Anything specific on your mind?"

I'm lonely, I miss Minna, I can't believe I left, I hate that all three of those are even things at all, and I don't know what to do about any of them.

"Not really. How was your day?" I stretched out on the sturdy branch and listened to the evening birds chirping out in the forest.

Ivy hesitated. The mindspeech had held a sour note that gave away that I did have things on my mind... but thankfully, the other dragonet didn't press it. "It was good, actually. I killed a sicora! It was hiding in the vents of a cargo ship; we had to chase it through three rooms before Trenil's guards managed to corner it."

I blinked. Okay, that... actually sounded interesting. "I didn't know you were hunting things. What's a sicora?"

"Hm? I was sure I told you about them?" Ivy seemed confused.

"Err... maybe you did, and I forgot?"

"Hrmph. You wouldn't forget this. Is anyone around you?"

I glanced around. There had been a few Kymari wandering around an hour or so ago, but they had all left when the sun had started setting. "No. Why?"

"This is a sicora."

An image appeared in my mind of a nightmare creature that needed to die. Every instinct, every fiber of my being responded with pure hate at the image Ivy had sent me. It had four cruel legs that I knew would propel it quickly forward and still allow it to slash at me. The beady eyes were a weak spot if I could hit them with fire, but I had to avoid the mouth at all costs, because the creature was lethally venomous. The best plan of attack would be to strike at its back, to slash and bite into the flesh there and dart away before it could turn to get me...

I realized I had prepared myself for a leap into the air and forced myself to settle back onto the branch. I was hissing, too, but that took even longer to get under control. No wonder Ivy had made sure nobody was around before sending me that image. I knew it wasn't real, I knew there wasn't one of those things lurking around near me, but I was still shaking with the urge to leap in the air and hunt down the thing.

The rough bark underneath me made a cracking noise and I forced myself to withdraw my claws from where they had begun digging into the branch. "Gah! You killed that thing, right?!"

"Absolutely." A sense of intense satisfaction radiated from Ivy. "Well... okay, technically one of Trenil's guards killed it; they won't let me near one for my own safety. But I was the one that tracked it down for them. Now it won't bother anyone ever again."

"Good." The reassurance that the monstrous creature was dead helped calm me a little and I shook my head. "Good. That thing needs to be dead."

A faint amusement filled Ivy's voice. "That's been the general consensus, yes."

We were quiet for a moment after that. The sun continued to set, and I saw fireflies start to blink in the grass beneath me. They were pretty, and it was a simple pleasure to watch them flitter around. I wanted to keep talking, but... I wasn't really sure what to say.

Eventually Ivy spoke again. "We're really important to the Kymari. Sicora are a nasty problem for everybody. They can spend months and years in a larval form that can get pretty much anywhere - 'crawlers' - and something in their skin messes with energy. Scanners can't pick them up, so ships will set out without any idea they have the things lurking in their cargo holds. They can emerge while the ship is out in the middle of nowhere, in between stars, and then ambush the crew.

"Most of the weapons on a ship are energy-based - Trenil explained it to me once; a projectile might damage or go completely through the hull, and on a spaceship that's very bad, while an energy blast can be absorbed by the metal and just heat it up a bit. But a weapon like that is completely useless against a sicora. So most of the time, everybody on the ship will be killed.

"There are lots of stories about ships drifting into a system without answering any calls. No lifesigns are picked up, and there aren't any signs of problems... but everybody knows what happened. Sometimes they'll board the ship and find it was just a single sicora that killed everyone. Sometimes they'll find an entire swarm, and the boarding party will be killed too. A lot of times it's just not worth the risk to try and save the ship, and smaller ships will just be pushed into the nearest star."

Ivy's tone started to grow lighter. "But we've begun to stop that. Our saliva messes with their brains somehow, so if you bite one, it'll start twitching and probably even die. And they really hate our fire and will try to flee from that. But most importantly, we can smell the things. You'll know if one of them is near, be it the adult form or as a crawler. They stink. They can't hide from us." Pride filled Ivy's voice. "No matter where they're hiding, we can catch a whiff of them and show the Kymari. And they'll kill the thing for us. Before it can kill a crew or escape to infest a planet.

"Trenil says I've already saved dozens of lives. The ones who have been doing it longer than me have probably already saved hundreds. Tasha hunted down a queen that had gotten down to the surface, and helped the Kymari kill it before it could infest Earth. There's no telling how many lives would have been lost if she hadn't, both of Kymari and dragonet."

I just stared at the fireflies dancing along the ground. I hadn't known any of that...

"It's been really good for Earth, at least as far as a Kymari colony. A lot of ships are looking for excuses to stop here so we can inspect them, since right now this is the only place in the universe where a ship can go to be certain it's clean of sicora. There's a lot of stuff available that otherwise wouldn't be, or that would be more expensive, because ships are going out of their way just to be inspected by us. Even though there's only a few of us doing the job, we've made a huge difference."

I watched the flickering green insects and tried to imagine having the same pride in my daily work that Ivy obviously held. Even back as a human, what I had been doing had mostly just been a job to pay bills with, not something I was really... dedicated to. "Is that why you do it? Because you're making a difference?"

The other dragonet went quiet for a moment as she thought over the question. "I... I think I would still want to do it even if something happened, yes. It's important, and I like knowing that I've made things safer for everyone." She hesitated again, then continued. "But I really do it because it helps Trenil. I like knowing that what we're doing makes him happy and improves his life. If it was important to Trenil that we stop hunting sicora, and do something else instead... I'd miss doing this, but I wouldn't want to keep doing it at the cost of him being unhappy."

We both became quiet for a long moment. I still couldn't comprehend that... that level of sheer devotion, that legitimate, honest connection with another person, one so deep that you would put your own interests aside to help meet theirs, and be happy to do it.

No, that wasn't right.

At this point I could very much comprehend that. It would be so easy to let myself become like Ivy. To have somebody who meant so much to me that I would gladly put her needs before my own. And to trust somebody so completely that I would know, know as surely as I knew the sun would rise tomorrow, that she would not abuse that devotion. That she would work to put my own needs before hers, so that I would know it was safe for me to care that much about her.

I could picture it so, so easily. I was already almost there. And it terrified me.

"You know you can still come back if you want to, right? If you're lonely, or if you'd like to help. Minna is still here. She very much wants to be with you." I felt a faint sense of hurt in Ivy's words, but she buried it quickly. "She would be very happy to have you back."

I closed my eyes against the sudden desire to say yes. "How can you stand it?"

"Hm?" I got a sense of confusion from the other dragonet. "The Kymari aren't that bad. I know they're scary at first, but once you get used to them, that doesn't stay. It's just our instincts warning against a possible threat, but they aren't actually one. That goes away."

I opened my eyes and shook my head on the branch. She must get asked that a lot, and had assumed I was asking something along the same lines. "Not that... I'm not scared of her, not physically at least, I just mean..."

I broke off and tried to collect my thoughts. Tried to work up the courage to voice them. "How do you stand being so... so..." What was the right word? "...helpless. You're just a pet to him, but you love him so much. I'm feeling that start to happen, too. He could make you do anything, he could do anything to you, and you... you'd still love him. Still want to make him happy. How can you not be terrified of that?"

I felt a feeling of sympathy and compassion come from Ivy. "We aren't 'just' anything to a bond handler, Nate. I didn't want to upset you by telling you this, but Minna was devastated when she called to tell us what happened. She was doing her best to make it through the call without crying, and she couldn't look at me. She had spent the last few days preparing for it, she knew it was coming, and it still hurt her deeply to see you fly away from her. She's only known you a month, just a few weeks, and already she cares so much for you that the discovery you might still hate and hold a grudge against her, and that you don't want to be with her... it's torn her up inside."

I closed my eyes again. I didn't want to hear I had hurt Minna.

"And it's even stronger between myself and Trenil. He can't go off-world anymore; we're considered an endangered species and it's forbidden to take us to another planet, for any reason, and he can't bear being away from me long enough to travel anywhere. It hurts him too much to be away from me for more than a few hours. And it's even stronger still between the ones that have been together longer.

"The term 'pet' doesn't apply to us. The Kymari have a word for pet; it's never used for us. We're 'bond animals', or 'bond companions', because we mean so much more to them than what is covered by the word 'pet'. I mean as much to Trenil as Lyzel means to Terron, or as much as any other Kymari child means to their parents. Possibly even more."

Ivy grew silent. At first I thought she had finished, and was waiting for me to say something else, but... I wasn't sure what to say to that. And while I was still thinking Ivy began talking again, though this time I felt a sense of deeply buried hurt beneath her words.

"But... you're right. It is a very scary feeling. Because it is frightening. It's scary to know somebody has so much of an influence on me. It's scary to think how easily somebody could abuse me, or take advantage of me because of how I felt. It scares me to know how vulnerable I am, and how much it would hurt if..." Ivy trailed off for a few long seconds before quietly continuing. "If it was anybody but Trenil, I would feel very, very helpless at knowing that I cared so much about someone that could do such things to me."

Ivy's voice became stronger. Happier. "But I know Trenil would never do that to me. Just like I know Minna can't to you. I knew why she was so upset when she called, before she even said a word, because I know what you mean to her.

"The bond you and I have with our Kymari is one that works both ways. The more we care about them, the more they care about us. The more we trust them, the more we come to love them, the more impossible it becomes for them to even consider abusing our love and trust. I know I can trust Trenil. I know he will always consider my needs and desires in everything he does. I know I don't have to be scared. Not anymore. Not with him." She grew quiet... then continued. "And I know you don't have to be afraid, either. Minna loves you. You don't have to worry about that."

I already knew what Ivy's answer would be... but I still had to ask. "Is it worth it? That fear?" I thought back to the angry dragonet that had attacked me and the things she had said, some of which could have applied to Ivy and the other dragonets with handlers, too. "What the others say to you, the things they call you?"

Ivy responded with the feeling of love she had shown me once before. It was just as deep and pure and beautiful as it had been then.

"I wouldn't trade what I have with Trenil for a million shia plants, each with a million of the most perfect fruits growing fresh for me each and every day. The others can say all the nasty things they want. Their words, that fear, will never begin to even come close to comparing to what Trenil is worth to me."

I laid my head down on the branch. I was pretty sure I was crying again... but it didn't matter. Nobody was around to see. "Why is this... why is this so difficult? Why did everybody have to be so nice; why couldn't you all just have been jerks? Why couldn't Minna have just stayed that monster in my nightmares who murdered Susie, why couldn't the Kymari have all just been disinterested aliens treating us like some new fad, why couldn't it have meant nothing if we stayed or not, why couldn't their food be nasty, why couldn't their heat lamps have all been busted, why couldn't that other dragonet have just stuffed it and let me stay, why couldn't Susie still be alive and with me now, why couldn't... why couldn't..."

A feeling of complete warmth and closeness came through the mindlink from Ivy. I recognized the feeling she was sending me. I had felt it on a few very rare occasions. I doubted I would ever forget it, or ever fail to recognize it.

It was the same thing I had felt those precious times when I was being cradled in Minna's arms, and when I was held close against her chest in a tender hug.

Ivy was sending me the strongest hug she knew of to try and comfort me.

It was a feeling I very much wanted to experience right then.

"...why couldn't you have all just left me alone." I sagged against the branch, letting my wings and tail dangle limply over the sides.

"I'm sorry." I could hear the sadness in Ivy's voice and knew she meant it. She didn't regret what she had done... but she was still sorry that her actions had helped do this to me.

I wanted nothing more than to sink into the feeling of warmth and protection in the memory Ivy had sent me. Wanted nothing more than to go back. Wanted to just accept it, just let it happen. It would be so much easier... it would...

"Do you want me to get Minna? We can come up with an excuse; she'll go out to get you, if you'd like?"

I pictured the mental image of my den rising up around me... and in my mind I blocked off all the entrances, filling them with rocks, leaves, dirt, and other debris. The feel of the hug from Ivy vanished as I lifted my mental shield and blocked away her mindspeech.

I dropped from the branch and glided to the new den I had dug out, then crawled through the tunnels until I reached the small room I had hollowed out to sleep in. I curled up in the dark and shut out the rest of the world.

It was the only way I could stop myself from begging Ivy to send for Minna.