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A white, sleek, vehicle thrummed over rolling green hills. The late afternoon sun on the distant horizon caught on the dull, tinted windows. A purplish light shone from beneath, creating a whirring sound that compressed the grass below it with an invisible force. It passed over hills and through small valleys effortlessly, never going too far from the ground it hovered above, but never running aground either. Small rocks plastered over the fields caused it to bob softly but otherwise did little to slow its process.

The vehicle rose up a steep incline, cresting atop the hill, before it came to a halt. Several metres away from the nose of the vehicle was a wall. A wall of transparent, blue, shimmering energy, rose from the ground in a large dome. Within the dome, was a home. A large building, with the same sleek white colour of the vehicle awaited outside. A single-story house with a long patio that seemed to stretch all the way around, marked with windows, and the occasional sliding door.

Stretching out from the house were several large trees that marked the edges of a routinely pruned garden, complete with zipping drones diving in and out of the bushes with clipping shears. Further out still, lay a vast blank area of neatly shaved grass. Two parallel fences ran down the centre, cutting the field in two, before continuing in a circle around the house. In each of the fields lay another large building. These buildings were far more robust than the house that lay in the centre, taller, and built from wood and clay rather than the unnatural material of the house. They were bigger buildings than the house, and each had a dome roof, as well as a large yawning opening leading deeper inside.

But, within this picture, it was perhaps the occupants of these fields that garnered the most attention. Dragons. Over a dozen of them. Most were either red or blue, but there was the occasional green, yellow, and even a brilliant white amongst the others. Some were simply laying in the fields, hissing their strange language at each other, while others flew around the inside of the dome, taking careful attention to stop before they went over the fence. Some had a long narrow fin that stripped all the way down from their neck to their tail, while others sported proud spikes that looked eerily similar to long thorns. But the one thing they all had in common was a thin metallic collar strapped around their neck, a blue light blinking in the middle. Almost resembling some technological necklace.

A section of the blue field in front of the vehicle separated itself, like a sliding door, allowing the vehicle to continue into the blocked-off homestead. It came to a soft stop, causing many of the dragons within the compound to turn their attention toward it. A soft hiss emanated from the side as the vehicle's door popped open, revealing a clean white interior with leather seats. There was no driver, though there was a steering wheel, and only one passenger. A girl.

The girl quickly slid off the seat, pulling a backpack stickered with all sorts of alien creatures with her as she did. Long, straight black hair fell from her head, casting itself down her shoulders to the middle of her back. Curious brown eyes gazed from her head as she turned herself toward the fields and house in front of her. A navy-blue dress hung just passed her knee, going up into a buttoned white shirt, and complete with a speckled navy cardigan.

"Will that be all, Mia?" a stilted feminine voice spoke from the vehicle.

"Yes, thank you Mave," Mia responded with a smile, glancing back toward her ride, "Take the car around the back, and let dad know I'm home."

"I can do that for you. 'Dad' has been notified," the car said before the door popped back closed and the car whirred away around the outskirts of the fence line.

Mia took a deep breath, enjoying the evergreen scent on the wind. She gripped the straps of her bag and began the jaunty walk up toward her home. As she did she turned her attention to the dragons that were all following her movement. She waved with a smile. One of the larger ones, a blue female with a long fin running down her back, gave a bellow of greeting. It sounded more like a whale call than anything mildly draconic.

"Hello, Sky! I brought a treat from the city for you," Mia called to the blue dragon.

She came to a stop at the fence, pulling the bag over to her front and unzipping it, rummaging inside. The blue dragon, 'Sky', got up from where she had been laying under a low-hanging tree, and padded over with a short trot. As the dragon got closer, the size difference between her and the human grew larger. The dragon's head alone was nearly half as big as the human, and the slitted reptilian eyes were nearly the size of the girl's head. Regardless, Mia was not fazed. If anything, the proximity excited her.

"Here!" Mia exclaimed as she pulled out a bar from her bag, "You'll like this one."

She hastily pulled the white wrapping away from the bar, revealing the soft golden brown of chocolate from beneath. Sky's snout twitched at the scent, and a heat-filled snort blew Mia's hair back, causing the girl to giggle.

"Catch!" she exclaimed as she threw the bar into the air.

The dragon struck as quickly as a snake, downing the bar with a single bight. The action was followed by an inquisitive head tilt. A hissing from her caused the dragon to look back, some of the others calling to her.

"Yelss," the dragon replied, "Xiss... cavass."

Sky turned her head back toward Mia, who was watching the exchange in awe. The girl wished she could understand what they were saying. Her father had even said the unique hissing was reminiscent of some complicated communication system. Like dolphins, back on earth, but even more complicated still. Almost like a language. But neither had even begun to break down one what each of the thousands of different sounds meant.

Sky touched the tip of her scaled snout against Mia's hand. Mia smiled as she placed her hand against the pearly smooth snout of the dragon. Sky's purr rumbled through the girl's entire body, almost making the ground itself vibrate. Mia allowed herself to study the large female, as she often did. She noted the strong hind legs, winding tail, and loosely folded wings. The two long straight horns on her neck. The slight inflation and deflation along the top of her neck with every breath, where the dragon's fire sacks lay, and the seamless blue tones that danced along the dragon's body. Only different if one looked hard enough. The blue was only broken by several charred scars running along the top of her neck, where the fire sacks lay. Bite marks, Mia's father had said. A common affliction that seemed to run along many of the dragons they rescued.

"Alright, I need to get dressed," Mia pulled her hand away, "then I'll be right back. Okay?"

Sky's scarily intelligent eyes followed the girl as she quickly ran back toward her home, the bag on her back jumping up and down as she did.

"Hello Mia," the same robotic feminine voice from before announced itself as Mia stepped onto the porch, "'Dad' has responded. He says he is glad you are home safe, and you should get your schoolwork done before you can be out with the dragons."

Mia rolled her eyes as she slid the door open, walking into the almost chilling cold of her home. It was a spacious living place. A wooden floor paired with dark blue felt couches. A bleached tan woolen rug stretched out along the floor, separating the furniture from a near-wall-wide, built-in screen. The living room lead into a step where a large kitchen awaited, occupied by a speckled white and grey tabletop. Lights flickered on as Mia made her way down into the corridors and into her room.

"Would you like something to eat and drink, Mia?" the AI that controlled the house spoke again as the girl began to rifle through her draws for more suitable farmwear.

"No thanks, Mave," Mia responded, "But can you send me an alert when Dad is on his way back?"

"Alert set."

"Thank you Mave."

It wasn't long before she was dressed up in an older warn shirt and long roughed-up pants, her uniform discarded on the floor. She strapped heavy boots to her feet, before bouncing up again. She quickly went through her bag, pulling out a white watch which she quickly clasped to her left wrist, and continuing to pull out several more of the chocolate bars she had fed Sky. Feeling far more ready now, she rushed out of the house to the porch overlooking the farm.

The sun was beginning to lay low on the horizon now, not quite sunset, but getting close. The world seemed to almost fall away toward the edge of the farm, revealing an expanse of a planet that stretched for thousands of kilometres. A mountain stood at the edge of that range, one with a jagged peak that speared itself into the heavens.

Around the mountain base, lay New Dawn. A small city, at least from what Mia had heard, but to her, it was a vast expanse of lights. Curling away from the large spire at its centre and into the hostile landscape of the planet known as U5. A blue dome surrounded the city, similar to the one that surrounded the farmstead, and even from a distance Mia could pick out the pinprick moving forms of hovering vehicles making their way through the city. A thriving civilization just starting. The thought caused Mia to smile.

She shook her head away from the thought and turned her attention back to the fields. She quickly ran over to one of the fences and clambered over it. There were gates, but nobody wanted to use those. Many dragons turned their heads toward her as she jogged over to where Sky was waiting. The blue dragon acknowledged her with a snort as Mia sat down. She pulled out another of the chocolate bars, waving it in front of the blue dragon. It seemed to get her attention. With a giggle, Mia unwrapped it, and another morsel of chocolate was snapped up by the dragon's jaws.

Several others were showing interest now, and it wasn't long before several others had come up to have a bight at the tasty treats that she was giving out. As Mia gave each dragon a bight of the new food, she called them out by name. Fire, Sunset, Opal, Sapphire, and Scar. None were as friendly as Sky, but each seemed to at least tolerate her existence. There was one dragon however that continued to ignore her advancements.

"Come on, Zapper! You sure you don't want one!" she called out, waving the last bar out toward where a lightning-yellow dragon lay, almost stubbornly ignoring the group. There was no indication that she was heard except for the flick of a tail.

Zapper was the newest of the group, only rescued from poachers a couple of weeks prior. He was a young male dragon, with tell-tale spikes running down his spine and four horns poking from the back of his head. She had named him Zapper because when he had first arrived at the farmstead he really liked to test the limits of the shock collars they kept. He was also one of the few dragons that they had found without the bite scars along the back of his neck. He was more stubborn than most dragons, but Mia knew she would eventually get through to him. She had a way with the creatures after all.

She shrugged to herself as she gave Scar, a large male red with long scars along his muzzle and flanks, the last of the chocolate bars before laying up against Sky's flank. She allowed herself to almost fall into a daze against the warmth of the dragon's stomach, watching as the sun set in the horizon. As she drifted off to sleep a sudden alert blinked on her watch.

"Mia, 'Dad' is two minutes away," Mave's voice rang.

The girl jumped up in a mild panic, "Two minutes! Mave, you were meant to warn me when he left, not when he was nearly here!"

Sky let out a hiss of surprise as Mia was suddenly full of energy.

"'Dad' asked me not to," Mave responded.

"Traitorous AI," muttered the girl, before she turned and gave Sky's muzzle a hug.

"I'll catch up with you tomorrow, okay," she rubbed the dragon's snout with her hand before sprinting off to a goodbye warble from the dragon.

Mai vaulted over the fence once again, quickly racing into the house as another sleek white vehicle passed through the forcefield surrounding the property. She raced into her room, nearly out of breath as she collapsed onto her desk chair.

"Mave... um... bring up... the history stuff," she stammered out as she carefully slowed her breathing.

"Bringing up 'the colonization of U5', part 3," Mave responded.

The lights on the desk glowed. Neon blue holograms beamed out from the desk, forming into words, and paused videos. Mia gave herself several more seconds to calm down before she turned her eyes toward the words. But, as her eyes began reading, her mind fell back to the field, as she rested against the scaled flank of a wondrous creature.

She looked up as the sound of a door opened and closed. Her father was home. She pretended to be deep into her work as footsteps began banging along the floorboards, stopping as they reached the door to her room. There was a pause, then a knock. Mia waited a couple of moments, before responding.

"Come in!"

The door slid open, revealing a slight man with an Asian complexion. Neatly trimmed black hair cropped his head, while a black suit and tie occupied the rest of his body. Eyes that matched those of his daughter's stared out, the only distinguishing factor was the tired bags that lay under them.

"Good evening Mia," he said as he stepped into his daughter's room, looking around at the unmade bed, discarded school uniform, and pictures of dragons pasted all over the room, "How was school?"

"Good!" Mia responded with a smile as she got up and gave her father a hug, "We are finally getting to Earth in history class, so I'm excited."

He chuckled as he hugged her back, ruffling her hair, "That is good."

"How was work? Are they any closer to catching the poachers yet?"

There was a sigh from her father at that question, "Possibly. Mr. Ruvil has an idea that might work."

"Oh, what is it?"

"I can't say quite yet, as it may be dangerous," he smiled as he looked at his daughter's face.

"Enough of that though. How about we have some dinner, and then you can help me feed the dragons," he looked her over a little closer, "If you haven't done so already?"

"I haven't fed them yet!" she instantly protested.

"No?" he looked down at her, with an amused eyebrow.

She looked to the floor, "Well... at least nothing substantial."

He ruffled her hair again, "Ah, Mia. What am I going to do with you?"

She pushed his hand away, "Let me quit school so I can help you with them all the time?"

Her father laughed, "You really are just like your mother. Come on, let's eat, then you can help me."

"Is that a yes?"

"That is a no, Mia," he responded as the two of them walked back to the dinner table.