Cavaith felt consciousness pull her out from her slumber, regaining awareness of her surroundings. The sun was slowly peeking out from the horizon. She jolted up, remembering what happened last night. Her sharp eyes scanned the area for any threats in the foreign landscape.

  As if anything would dare to disrupt me anyways.

  Eventually she came up with nothing but birds chirping in their trees, leaves rustling in the powerful winds, and a general emptiness all around her. Her attention shifted towards the horizon, wanting to see more of those strange yet beautiful pillars.

  Still as fascinating as ever… I could look at them all day if I really wanted to.

  No. Priorities first. I need to get back home, find my hoard, find and punish those adventurers.

  But where would I begin?

  With no ideas on how to find her hoard, she ultimately ended up sitting and staring at the pillars. She was still trying to think of what to do, but slowly her focus shifted onto the odd objects she was observing. Eventually her mind abandoned thinking about her hoard altogether and shifted to trying to find every detail she could make out. Hours went by as each dart of her eyes brought a new feature to ponder over, ultimately giving herself more questions than answers.

  How would they get from the bottom to the top? Surely one wouldn’t be expected to walk the whole way, assuming whoever made them are human sized.

  Her musings were broken by her stomach rumbling. When was her last meal? She didn’t remember when it was exactly, but it was evidently long enough ago for her to be hungry now.

  Who knows, maybe the teleportation spell that brought me here left me hungrier than normal. Or I was unconscious longer than I thought.

  Well, I probably should do something other than stare at those pillars.

  Caviath stood up and stretched like a cat, arching her back and splaying out her claws. Tilting forward to stretch out her haunches and with her body fully awake, she stalked off in search of food. Relying on her senses of hearing and smell, she was hoping to sneak up on something large - these little birds and squirrels just wouldn’t cut it.

  I could go for some deer… maybe a bear, if I find one.

  Swiftly but silently padding through the woods, inhaling every scent she could, she came up with… nothing. No deer, no wolves, no bears, not even a medium-sized animal like a racoon or beaver. There were rodents and songbirds. Maybe the occasional woodpecker.

  Really? I can smell anything from leagues away! And there’s only these petty morsels in the area?

  Well, I’ll just keep looking until I FIND something fit for my appetite!

  With a huff, she continued on her stealthy trek through the trees - hoping she could find and dig out a fox hole. At least there would be a little meat on the bones. It wouldn’t be enough to satiate her, but it could keep her going until she found something bigger.

  But no scents of good prey, large or small, came to her senses. At this point she was considering abandoning this area in favor of flying to a new one. Flying would be much faster than walking, and even flying for a few minutes could bring her leagues away. She wasn’t having any luck here after all.

  She had spread her wings and was about to lift off when she recognized a faint smell, one that sparked a bit of hope in her mind.

  Is that… a human? If they can help me, that would be great! I can ask for the way back home, get outside of whatever is messing with my mana, and maybe ask a good bit over those pillars, or anything in this land. It will be valuable information to tell those back home, oh every silver dragon will be so jealous, and maybe they’ll also have some blasted food!

  With a clear direction in mind now, she decided it would be best to walk instead of fly towards this human, so she could be as stealthy as possible. Just in case they saw her in the air and went off hiding or running, she would rather not deal with the hassle of calming down a panicked human.

  I fully well know humans panicking is good for no one, I won't make that same mistake twice, maybe if I can get close enough to pin them if they do decide to run that would be more manageable. I believe they won’t run though; they will be awed by my beautiful scales, but that comes with actually finding them first.

  As Caviath followed her new target, she had some time to ponder the situation she found herself in. Not knowing anything of the area she is in, stuff that she could not explain, with no idea on how to get back to make things right. It all allowed for doubts to creep into her mind.

  Would they even have the answers I ask? Would they even be able to speak to me? What if they only know of dragons that terrorized them, and so see me as the same?

  This line of thinking continued for several minutes, before she almost went head first into a tree. Before quickly getting back on track with sneaking.

  Ok, focus. Thinking about that wont help me right now. I need to think of what to say, it would be bad if I ruined any semblance of a decent conversation if I say something offensive.

  - - - - - - - -

  Caviath continued her slow movements through the forest. It had grown denser over time - at first it was a borderline field with how few trees there were, and now the ground was littered with brown trunks. The scent of this human was much stronger too, so it shouldn't be very long until she spotted it.

  Finally, It took me longer than I would have hoped to get here, but it was necessary. Spooking my first chance at getting some answers is not what I need right now.

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  She walked upon a small clearing, where someone had set up a campsite. At least, it seemed to be a campsite. There was clearly a fire earlier - it had a pile of ash and burnt wood surrounded by stones, which baffled her to no end. The campsites she had seen, which were few, just had anything flammable like leaves moved away. She hadn’t seen anyone ever go through the trouble to build a barrier. Why, when the other solution was easier to do? Despite the odd detail, it further proved there was a human nearby.

  But what really caught her interest was this weird triangle-like shape. It was made of some weird fabric she had never seen before. The quality was otherworldly, the color was less so. Being of a mostly gray shade and a little bit of light blue that did not hide it at all

  Clearly someone has the bravery or stupidity to go out with something this obvious, but this quality is so… fine. It looks like what some noble would wear after months of labor to just get it close to this. If this person is some noble, then whoever guards them is doing a really bad job. Not even being anywhere near the area… where even is this human?

  The scent of the human was all over the site. Focusing on the most recent traces to figure out where it went led her to a small cave opening, where the scent trail went further inside. She may as well be an ogre trying to enter a halfling’s hut with the size of the opening. She was only able to stick her head in a bit before it curved and twisted out of her reach..

  Oh for the love of Bahamut! Does this human have a death wish? I mean, come on, since when have humans just decided that it's a good idea to go into random caves?! Anything could be in there! Goblins, kobolds, or beholders....

  Caviath clenched her front talons in anger, gouging the ground under her, before taking a breath to calm herself down.

  Ok, maybe that's common, now that I think about it… Well, since I am forced to wait, I'm sure this human wouldn't mind if I poked around its stuff. It’s their fault for leaving it unattended.

  Caviath turned around and made her way back to the campsite. The stupidly bright pyramid-shaped fabric was the first thing to see. Trying to piece together what could be the use for it was like trying to translate a mage’s spell from its gibberish into Common - especially when factoring in those dangerously noticeable colors. She saw what seemed to be a metal rod stretching from one end, arching over the top, and plunging back down, and a much smaller one crossing it at the climax.

  It doesn't seem sturdy. She put a talon on it and gave it a small push, watching it bend to her touch with no resistance. It’s definitely flimsy.

  It seems like the metal is just there to keep it standing, I could pull them out easily if I wanted to. But why give canvas a shape to hold… oh! Is this one of those little fabric structures humans would sleep in? To keep themselves out of the environment when there aren’t any nearby structures? I can’t remember what they’re called… Why is it so bright though? It doesn’t hide it from any predators… or bandits.

  The “sleeping structure” was the only term she could come up with, even then none of it truly explained anything to her. The only reason for that color she could come up with was that the human was a powerful warrior or mage and was just unworried.

  That still doesn’t change the fact that the best ones are still smart with their equipment.

  She did notice a small strap poking out from the blue side of the pyramid. She hooked her claws under the flap, taking care not to pierce the fabric with her claws, and lifted it up a little. Lowering her head allowed her to see what it covered, where she noticed a dull green bag.

  Interesting. If only the outside of this little structure shared the same color scheme. It seems to be partly made with the same material as the structure, alongside some other materials. That is an ungodly amount of pockets. I wonder what’s inside…

  Caviath slowly grabbed the bag with her teeth, making sure she wouldn’t tear it open and have this human get upset at her. She didn’t even know if this could be considered too much, having one snoop in your belongings - she definitely wouldn’t like that. But then again, humans did have many strange habits.

  Here’s hoping this one doesn’t care about it much. Now how do you open this thing?

  Caviath gave the pack (assuming this was a pack) a good look, and gave it a few pokes before eventually finding a small flap at the top that she could barely grab. She gave it a few attempts of trying to hook her claw under it with little success. Frustrated, she flipped the bag over and dumped everything onto the ground.

  Finally! So annoyingly small. but it does not matter now. What was in this mysterious bag?

  She looked at these items, and none of it looked special to her. Once again there were absurdly brightly colored objects - one of which looked to be rope, another a small bright red object with small letters that she couldn’t make out, and what looked like an empty blue bottle (thankfully not as bright as the structure) of some kind - though it certainly wasn’t glass. The red object was curious - it seemed to have a metal piece on one side of it. The purpose of it eluded her mind, it surely could not be some kind of treasure, if it was the metal would have needed to have been shinier than what it is.

  I can always ask later, but it seems whatever was in this bag was not worth my time, but that doesn’t mean that this small “sleeping structure” won't have anything hiding inside.

  Caviath flipped the bag back over, deciding to make herself look better by making it not look like she was rummaging. She tried putting the items back inside the bag, eventually giving up after a couple of items. Everything was just too small for her. Her focus shifted back to the “structure” once again. She wanted to try and view whatever was inside it… buuut probably shouldn’t damage it in the process.

  As she was brainstorming the least destructive method to look inside, a familiar scent entered her nose. It was fresh… and nearby! Her head snapped towards where this fresh trail originated, and what she saw gave her a little pause. Yes, there was a human. Yes, it was walking towards her. It hadn’t noticed her yet since it was looking down at the ground, seemingly deep in thought.

  Oh wonderful, this is great! Finally some other being that I can talk to! Wow, it sure has some weird cloths on its body - I recognize that same material from the bag and structure. Again with the bright coloring. What’s on its head? It’s clearly not a helmet of any kind. Nothing could be stopped with it being so thin.

  Once again she found herself lost in thought inspecting the human. She forgot that she needed to attract his attention, but that came without her doing anything. The human had noticed one of her talon prints marking the dirt from when she arrived.

  His body suddenly went very still. Caviath’s sharp perception noticed how his muscles seemed to tense up, either from fear or anticipation. He slowly raised his head and locked his eyes on her armored scales, long tail, sharp claws, and folded wings. The clearly male human avoided making eye contact with her. He slowly started backing away from the campsite and silver dragon. He took one gradual step backwards towards where he came from - presumably the cave.

  Quickly now. Uh… what did I think about saying when this moment arrived… I really should have come up with the introduction before anything else. Well, it doesn’t matter now.

  Caviath took a small breath in, opened her mouth revealing her sharp teeth, and started saying.

  “Hello-”

  The human immediately whirled around and bolted.