I growled in frustration and flew around the room for what had to be the millionth time.

A crawler had definitely been in this room. Something was off about it, and it was an old scent, but... it had been here. And I couldn't figure out where it had gone. The smell was in this room, and didn't seem to go anywhere. It just faded away into the wall. I had been searching for at least an hour at this point and had absolutely nothing to show for it.

Even Minna was starting to seem doubtful. She had called Alec after we had been searching for a few minutes and filled him in on the ktari being aboard, and she had sounded convinced I would find something when she had spoken to him... but I had watched her confidence fade over the next hour as I flew aimlessly around the room.

I had searched everywhere. There wasn't even that much to search. A simple bed, a vent, a single power outlet next to a desk, and the spot where the ktari's table had been. The faint scent of the crawler seemed to come from everywhere and from nowhere, all at the same time. It was just too old and faint to properly track. No matter where I looked I just couldn't pin it down.

It was incredibly frustrating. I knew something was going on. I knew a crawler had been here. But... beneath the chemical stench permeating every breath, and beneath the smell of ktari that was heavy in this room, I just couldn't find it. It was just too hard.

And it was only getting harder. My head was beginning to pound from a headache, though I was determined to push through it.

"I found a ktari." Ivy's voice came through the mindlink. She sounded annoyed too. "Dead. It got into a conduit and chewed through something electrical. It had a collar and a chewed up leash on it. The Ilrivians are making a show of being upset that somebody's pet died, and are holding us up while they try to find whoever it belonged to."

The mindlink filled with general sentiments of congratulations for Ivy and annoyance at the growing sense that we were all being jerked around by the Ilrivians. The other dragonets didn't seem that happy either, and a few of them sounded like they were fighting off headaches of their own.

"They're really drawing this out." Frustration bled into Ivy's tone. "I think they're trying to delay us for some reason, but I can't think of why that would be. Everything they say seems meant to pressure us to go faster, but the things they are doing seem like they want to drag this out. It's weird."

I pulled into a hover and narrowed my eyes as I looked around the room one more time. Ivy was right. The aliens had been dragging things out. It had taken forever for them to open this room for us, but... they hadn't gained anything by doing that. There weren't any other exits from this room - I had flown around it so many times that I was sure of that - so they hadn't been able to move anything out of it while they stalled us. And even if they had moved something out, I would have smelled it. Even with the other scents clouding everything.

And they had seemed perfectly happy to wait outside while I searched. They hadn't even suggested that we should hurry so the gray-furred Ilrivian could get back to his lunch break, or tried to claim I was only reacting to the ktari. They had just waited in the corridor and watched us.

Watched us waste an hour searching for something I couldn't find.

"Yeah... now that you mention it, it does seem like they've been dragging their feet on everything." I hovered in place for a few more wingbeats and tried to think it over. "Why would they want to do that? Is there anything they gain by making us take longer? We'd still smell anything if they were moving stuff around, right?"

"We should. Even with this other stuff filling the air. A crawler or sicora would stand out." I knew Ivy was right - the few times I had smelled a sicora, it had caused such a powerful reaction that I was sure I would smell it no matter what was covering it up. Same with a crawler. It was just too deeply ingrained in us.

"I think they're stalling, too." Serena chimed in with her thoughts. "Tom and I had to wait to get started; our escort was late and took us in circles trying to get to our section. He claimed he had gotten lost."

"How does that work?" The other red dragonet jumped in. Her tone sounded a little strained, about how I felt.

"I had just assumed he was new. But now I'm wondering." Suspicion was clear in Serena's voice. "But I can't think of any reason why they would want to delay us, either."

"Well... if they want us to waste a bunch of time, then that's probably a good enough reason not to." I flew around the room one more time, then forced myself to act calm and unconcerned as I glided back to Minna. I landed on her shoulder and fanned out my wings, stretching them briefly, then folded them back at my side and chirped at her in a bored tone. "Why are we still here?"

She hadn't understood my words, but she could still recognize my change in attitude. She frowned and looked around the room one more time, then nodded. "Okay. I guess there's nothing here. Let's move on."

Her guards seemed surprised by her decision, but none of them said anything. We left the room like nothing was wrong at all and started towards the next section of the corridor... though I couldn't resist hissing at the ktari when it growled at us.

Our escorts seemed surprised and moved to stand in front of us. I felt a bit of excitement at that - the aliens had been trying to waste our time after all. "Is something wrong?"

Minna paused to look back at the Ilrivian and shook her head. "No. Everything seems to be fine. Can we continue, please?"

"We'll need to... we'll need to move the creature back inside." The Ilrivian seemed confused by Minna's change in attitude and didn't appear to know how to respond. We had caught him off guard by moving on that suddenly, and it was obvious he was trying to come up with some sort of excuse to delay us longer.

It was equally obvious Minna wasn't fooled. "It only took two of you to move it in the first place. I'm sure whoever stays to help will be able to catch up with us. After all, I know you must be eager to make up for this delay." She smiled politely and continued onwards.

The Ilrivian stuttered for a moment, then rushed to follow after us.

I wasn't sure how long I spent searching after that. We went through several other sections of corridors and I came across three other pet ktari, all of whom were fed shia fruit while I searched their rooms. Each of those rooms had that same faded scent of crawlers in them. I did my best to try and find the source of the smell, but I didn't waste nearly as much time as I had in the first room. Once it was clear I wasn't going to find anything or pick up a fresh scent I returned to Minna's shoulder to move on.

The other dragonets didn't have much better luck than I had. Tom and Serena had managed to discover a wild ktari hiding in one of the cargo compartments... and the Ilrivians had insisted they spend the next hour to help capture the ktari. I had a nasty feeling that I would run into that ktari at some point, being kept as somebody's pet whenever I came across their room later on in my own patrols.

The general mindlink had grown quieter as the day went on. Nobody had as much to say, and whenever somebody did say something, they sounded frustrated and grumpy. We had all developed headaches, but none of us wanted to stop just because of that. Aside from taking more frequent rests on Minna's shoulder than I otherwise would have, I pressed on.

We had been searching for well longer than our shifts normally lasted when the headache became serious. I was searching yet another length of corridor, like I had done so often already, and I was pretty sure a ktari was somewhere around. It had gotten harder to be sure - that horrible chemical smell had grown even worse in the part of the ship we had wandered into an hour or so before, and it had already been stronger than what the other dragonets had mentioned even before that - but I could still pick out the ktari's smell when I took in a deep enough breath.

But I was having so much trouble figuring out where it was coming from...

All the scents were blending together into one cloudy blur. And my head was pounding. Every wingbeat made my skull ache more, but I knew I couldn't go back to rest until I had found the ktari. If I did, Minna would assume nothing was wrong here and move on. And... and that would be a problem, for... for some reason, even if my head hurt far too much to really connect why that would be a problem. So I had to figure out which of these doors led to it...

I flew towards one of the doors, and I thought I was still well away from the side of the corridor... but my vision had gotten blurry somewhere along the way, and my wings felt sluggish. My vision cleared in the last half second before I reached it, and I had a brief surge of alarm as I flew smack into the wall.

"Nate!"

I heard Minna cry out in shock, and I tried to turn back towards her, but... my head just hurt. And my chest and wings weren't feeling that much better, either, like I had just run into something. And there was a ktari somewhere... wasn't there?

It was so hard to think straight. My head just hurt so much, and something was banging on my skull. I wished whoever was doing it would stop.

I was dimly aware of falling towards the ground, but something caught me before I hit it. It was warm, and pulled me close. I tried to focus my blurry vision and recognized a familiar green hand, one covered in scars. Scars I had caused. A hand I had ruined. Minna's hand. She had caught me.

That was good. Now I could relax. And I really, really wanted to relax. My head hurt so much...

"Nate?! Something's wrong - get us back to the shuttle; we're leaving. Kilpin, call the pilot and tell him to be ready to go. Morton, call Trenil and let him know Nate just collapsed. Now!"

There was a feeling of panic in Minna's voice and I felt part of me start to ache at the fear in her voice. I didn't like knowing she was upset. I tried to fight back through the pounding in my head to try and think of something I could do to help her... but... it just hurt too much.

There were other voices around me, but I couldn't focus enough to understand what they were saying. Something about preflight checks. Somebody arguing about delaying a schedule. Another person talking about a fire lizard that had just flown into a wall and collapsed, and the possibility of some sort of threat to the other ones. Was that a problem? I was a fire lizard... right? Did I need to worry about some sort of threat?

I felt myself starting to panic. Was I in danger? I should try and move, but... it was so hard to move. And any time I tried it just made my head hurt worse... I was sure I was breathing, I could feel my chest rising and falling at a frantic pace and filling my lungs with air... and with that horrible scent... but I felt so horribly out of breath all the same, like I was... was... what was the word...

The Blood Memories helpfully supplied the word 'hyperventilating' from some calm, detached portion of my mind.

"Nate! Nate, are you okay? What's wrong?" Ivy's voice sounded in my head. She sounded scared, too. There was pain in it as well, like she was fighting through a headache of her own. The ache grew stronger inside me - the idea that something was wrong with her was almost as upsetting as the idea that something was wrong with Minna.

Her voice reached me again, and this time I got the strange feeling she was talking only to me. She sounded very frightened. "NATE!! NATE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

I struggled to pull my thoughts together enough to respond to her. "I'm okay... just need to rest for a minute..." A strange echo sensation came with my words. That didn't make any sense. Did it? That was only supposed to happen when somebody was blocking me. But why would Ivy do that?

I wished my head didn't hurt so much. It was so hard to think like this...

"He's not answering me, but my mindspeech is getting through. I think he can hear us but just can't answer, like with those sedatives." Ivy's voice again, still panicked, still sounding strained, but this time she was talking to everybody. No. Not everybody. Just the dragonets - we weren't supposed to talk to the Kymari. For... some reason. So she was just talking to... which dragonets were here again?

My head hurt so much, and it was so hard to get enough air...

"Nate, if you can hear me, it's going to be okay." Tom's voice. He sounded like he was in a bit of pain, too, and I could feel a bit of fear in his voice... but mostly he was calm. Certain.

"Minna's taking you to the shuttle and taking you to get help. Her guard filled us in on what happened and the rest of us are leaving, too. We're all safe. You just need to relax. It's going to be okay. Minna's getting you out of there. She's getting you help. You can relax. You're safe."

The steady reassurance in Tom's voice helped. I managed to take another breath, and felt a little less light-headed with the fuller breath.

"Thank you..." I tried to reply to Tom, but I heard that same echo again. Was Tom blocking me, too?

It didn't matter. I could still hear him. He kept talking to me calmly and offering reassurance. Other dragonets joined in and added their own bits of comfort. Serena. That other red I couldn't remember the name of.

Ivy.

My vision went cloudy again. I could tell that I was moving, and that I was moving fast, but... I wasn't sure how. My wings were too heavy to move. My legs weren't even under me; I was on my back. And I couldn't see what I was moving past. It was so hard to think, and so hard to even try to focus on what I was seeing...

It was so much easier to just relax, and not try.

The blur that was my vision faded to darkness, and everything went quiet.