Allergy pills were not the first thing Dan grabbed when he reached into the medicine cabinet. Most of the time he found the dry air of his hometown pleasant until it caused a nosebleed. He felt lucky to be one of the few who didn't dissolve into a puddle of misery when the Santa Ana winds came through. Looking back on memories of a clear nose and fully functioning sinuses, he realized he'd taken it all for granted.

Now that he was face down in a pile of fresh green leaves layered over their decomposing brethren, he felt the tickle along the bride of his nose that came just before a sneeze. It was going to be the kind of sneeze that made his soul leave his body. Dan took a deep breath to prepare for that and choked on the horde of pine needles that paraded into his mouth. He rolled onto his back and then twisted himself into a sitting position.

As soon as the foliage vacated his esophagus he took the chance to look around. There were no buildings in sight beyond the trees that infested every corner of his vision. It was shockingly quiet aside from the wind rustling the trees. Dan would have assumed there would at least be animal noises. The longer the silence went on the more he wished for even the hum of a hungry mosquito.

Dan pulled himself to his feet and started to poke around the densely wooded area. Wasn't this the part in the wild fantasy adventure where he discovered he'd been transported to another world? Everything looked so mundane still. He supposed passing out in a city and waking up in a forest was something fantastical on its own, but he could have done that by taking a bus.

With the sun directly overhead and no survival skills to speak of, Dan set off in the first direction he turned to. Eventually he'd walk far enough to find something that would either be civilization or point the way to it. He'd just lost sight of his starting point when the ground trembled.

Years of earthquake drills forced Dan to his knees with one hand over his neck and the other reaching out for a table leg that most definitely wasn't there. He laughed at his own stupidity but couldn't move from above a kneeling position. The quakes radiating through the ground were coming in a slow steady rhythm similar to what the Jurassic Park dinosaurs were famed for. It continuously drove him back to his knees just when he thought he'd found his footing. His mind scrambled for what it could be, each answer more ridiculous than the last.

A dragon stepped out from between two trees and he decided he hadn't been ridiculous enough. The massive golden body would have dwarfed a school bus even with the wings flattened against its sides as they were. The massive head swung down to rest just above the ground next to him, one golden eye locked on him. Flames flickered in the depths of the iris.

"You have got to be kidding me," Dan muttered. He jerked a hand through his hair as snatches of memories from the night before started to come back to him.

The tranquilizer dart.

Great claws wrapping gently around him.

The ocean off to his right as city lights flashed by below him.

Golden light began to spill from the dragon's eyes, growing in intensity until Dan was forced to look away. A soft tug on his sleeve pulled him back around to face Valeska still in her strange brown dress. The raging inferno in the dragon's eyes dulled to a tame campfire and she wobbled on unsteady feet.

"You're actually a dragon? That wasn't some joke?" Dan squeaked.

"I was not joking, Daniel," Valeska mumbled. A cloud of pine needles puffed out around where she fell to sit on the ground. "I apologize for our sudden departure. Normally I would prefer to grant some warning ere taking someone on a flight." She rubbed at her eyes and stifled a yawn. Dirt caked her bare feet and calves along with her arms.

"And you flew us, to wherever this is?" Dan sat beside her, patting his clothes. Amazingly, both his phone and wallet had stayed in his jacket pockets. At least they'd be able to rent out the roomiest tree to sleep in that night.

Finding their location on his phone was an absolutely useless plan. If cell service could go below nothing, his phone would be so far from zero it wasn't even considered a way to measure at that point. His signal was the Pluto of signals.

The ambient forest noises had started up again now that a very human looking Valeska was by his side. A bold squirrel even climbed down a tree trunk to yell at them angrily.

"Where are we anyway?" Dan asked, pocketing his phone.

"North?" Valeska answered with a shaky voice. A tremble started in her shoulders and traveled down to her fingers. The short nails were covered in a dusting of dirt as if she'd been digging around all morning. "All's looks so divers from what I remember."

Dan pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "I can't handle this Shakespeare shit, Valeska. Talk normal."

Pine needles fell from Valeska's hair as she tilted her head to the side. "I never wot this, Shakespeare, thou speak of. Is't a dialect?"

Twin points of pain centered above Dan's eyes. "New plan. I will ask you a question, you answer with yes or no. Let's stick with that," he said. There was no telling how long he'd be trapped with her now that she'd dropped them off in some sketchy forest. If he was going to be dependent on her for survival while she also so clearly needed him, they'd need to find a way to communicate.

"Thou are treating me as a child or some village fool," she snapped. Fire consumed a fallen twig resting by her hand. The heat of it washed over Dan before he shoved himself away from it. "It is not mine fault thou never wot meet speech."

"See, that's the problem here. You start off speaking normal English and then you do whatever that was. I don't understand you and I don't have time to teach you the ins and outs of a language that has a shit ton of nonsense rules." The warmth from the twig dwindled as the fire went out and Dan felt the cold waiting to seep into his bones if they didn't find shelter fast.

Valeska crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. "Brave, bid thy questions. I shall play the fool."