‘Oh no…’ Amber stopped in her tracks half way across the road from the tavern to her house. She lifted one hand to the side to stop Jack going any further as well.

Jack had already stopped, though, when she had. And saw the same thing she had seen, the thing that made her stop.

‘Oh no…’ he agreed, but added, ‘what does this mean?’

To their right, also standing in the middle of the road, was Torn. He had his arms folded, brutish face actually looking thoughtful with just a sliver of furrowing across his brow. He had obviously been lured away from the work at his shop to take a better look at what all three of them were now gawking at. A Chilli.

‘No sudden moves,’ whispered Amber to Jack, ‘just calm and easy, natural movements.’

‘Okay….’ He relied. ‘But why is it here?’

She told him, ‘That is actually the bigger problem.’

‘Looks like you’ve made a friend.’ Said Torn, though it sounded like he may have been half joking, turning his one eye to peer at Jack.

‘Looks that way…’ Jack agreed, though he still didn’t know why.

The Chilli, which looked identical to the one Jack had encountered earlier in the woods, was perched on the railing on Amber’s front porch. It appeared to be rather comfortable, body crumpled down like an accordion, feathers and scales puffed, eyes heavy like it was about to drift off to sleep at any moment.

‘What did you do to her?’ Amber asked.

‘What do you mean what did I do to it?’

Torn chuckled softly.

‘I mean,’ said Amber, ‘a Chilli following a human is so rare it is almost a myth. And the only time they are said to do so is because the human has done something that the Chilli must think is worth becoming submissive to.’

Amber and Torn were keeping their voices low, Jack figured he better do the same. He said;

‘But why are you so certain it is following me. It looks like it’s just stopped to have a sleep.’

‘She is waiting for you,’ Amber said, ‘at a place where your scent probably lingers the freshest.’

‘She, then,' said Jack, 'but how do you know she's here because she is following me?’

Torn said, ‘Because she is here.’

‘That’s right.’ Amber agreed.

‘What?’ Jack was a tad confused.

‘Chilli’s next to never come near human civilisation,’ Amber explained, ‘the fact that she is here at all speaks volumes. This is… it’s a momentous occasion. Unbelievable, actually. I never thought I’d see this.’

‘Agreed,’ said Torn.

‘So what do we do then?’ Jack had to ask, ‘What does she want? What will she do?’

‘We don’t react surprised.’ Amber said. ‘We keep calm. We carry on as if she isn’t there. We go into my shop. We walk casually, like nothing is wrong. And we see what she does.’

‘Good plan,’ Torn approved, with a stern nod of his head, and remained standing on the road to watch pensively. 'May the divine ones grant you luck with that.'

Jack and Amber stayed close, while walking slow and as casual as they could pretend, across the remaining distance of the road towards Amber’s porch. Torn watched on, his one eye squinting pensively, arms still folded.

Jack was feeling a little silly. Seemed odd to be so cautious over such a small animal. After all, how much damage could it do, really? When the Chilli attacked him earlier Jack had been given a serious run for his money, but still. Relativity had some say in this. Physical size did mean something, he was sure.

The first step of Amber’s porch creaked under her weight. It creaked even louder under Jack. The Chilli, now less than two meters from their position, remaining perched on the porch railing, straightened its body some, attentive, cocked its head, eyes opening a little to peer at them inquisitively. The little beast paid special attention to Jack.

‘Just keep going…’ Amber whispered gently.

‘I know,’ said Jack.

It was then that the two children Jack had met earlier came running around the corner next to Amber’s house. Laughing and hollering about the new game they were playing. The two kids were quickly stopped when they saw Torn standing in their way. The man’s mountainous presence certainly commanded attention, and it was obviously unusual to see him standing seemingly idle on the road away from his shop at this time of day. It took the kids all of a few seconds for them to notice what had gripped his attention.

The young boy went pale at the sight of the Chilly.

The girl let out a sharp squeal-like gasp.

The sudden commotion caused Jack and Amber to freeze.

The Chilli shifted on it perch – sharply turning its head toward the kids.

Torn had raised one finger to his mouth to ensure the kids remained quiet and didn’t move. The obeyed.

Everyone was still again.

The guard, at the bridge entrance to town, caught wind of current events and decided, after all, that there was finally a reason to draw his sword; now holding the weapon in both hands, but coming no closer than a very cautious 30 feet or so from the miniature dragon. Torn’s wife had appeared, on the Blacksmith shop porch, also now watching on from a distance, her hands clasped nervously in front of her. Theolan had also stepped out from the Inn about the same time Torn’s wife made her appearance. He just stood there too, blocking the doorway to the Inn, his jaw angled strenuously to one side, eyes wide with careful discernment - He went to say something, but then thought better of it. Meanwhile, two more townsfolk who had been making their way down from the end of town - be them two young men - had also caught wind of the situation. They stopped still to watch on eagerly about 20 feet from Amber, Jack and the Chilli. There was also the horse-drawn carriage, parked along the road several feet from the end of Amber's property, the black-and-white horse of which was acting rather nervous with its head down, eyes turned away from the Chilli’s direction, its front left hoof toeing the dirt in a timid manner.

Now that the kids had been stilled, and the growing number of silent spectators had accumulated, the Chilli - very slowly - shifted its attention back to Jack and Amber, but mostly Jack.

In order to relieve a little stress, Jack cussed a few words under his breath as Amber proceeded up the next step to her porch. At this point, their casual manner had been completely dispelled. Both of them were moving rigidly. Nothing cool or smooth about their behaviour at all.

They managed to reach the landing of the porch, though, where Amber finally remembered to breathe. She took two more steps towards the door, opened it, and slipped inside the shop. Jack turned his head, giving the Chilly a small speculative glance before following in after Amber.

The Chilli’s feathers ruffled, her scales stood on end, as she watched the pair disappear into the house.

All those remaining outside stayed where they were. They all kept their eyes on the Dragon, all except the horse who continued to think that looking away from the little beast was a better idea.

One of the two young men that had been walking down from the end of town, shrugged at Torn, as though he had no idea what to do. Torn pulled a face in response to suggest that he didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t an expert on Chilli behaviour. No one was, really. Everyone stayed where they were. They regarded the Chilli, they regarded each other. They were all too afraid to move.

The Chilli, however, didn’t seem to care. Once Amber and Jack had retreated indoors, it lost interest in everything else but itself. It started to nibble at an itchy spot beneath its wing. Maybe a flea.

‘Hm.’ Torn noticed this behaviour, and looked back over his shoulder at his wife standing on the porch. ‘Go back inside.’ He told her, keeping his voice at its standard tempo. Believing in her husband, she gave a nod, turned slowly, and went back inside their house.

The Chilli continued to groom itself, paying no mind to what Torn said, or the fact that his wife had gone back inside.

Everyone else watched Torn, to see what he would do next.

But he didn’t do anything next. Instead, the guard made the next move, and accordingly, everyone’s attention went to him. Somehow, for whatever reason, the guard - previously too scared to get closer than 30 feet from the chilli - had now decided it was his lawful duty to do something about this situation. The hefty man was walking up the road as if walking a tightrope, one foot carefully in front of the other, and his sword held at the ready in front of him, as if to help him keep balance. He stopped beside Torn, lowered his sword just a little.

‘Go back home,’ said the guard, ‘I will deal with this.’ He then looked around at everyone else, all of them still standing and staring apprehensively at him. ‘Everyone go home!’ He demanded. ‘I’ll take care of this. Nothing to see here.’

The Chilli didn’t seem to mind that the guard was getting closer, didn’t seem to mind that the guard had raised his voice to tell everyone to go home, either, the little creature continued to groom itself, now licking contently at a particular spot beneath one raised wing.

Nobody moved, though. They didn’t give a shit what the guard had told them. They all just looked at him as though he was an idiot.

‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ Torn asked the guard. ‘You are one man. Best that we all just walk away, one by one, including you.’

‘Nay….’ The guard narrowed his stare on the dragon as he replied to Torn, ‘It is my duty to protect Greenfalls. The threat must be removed.’

‘This is not a good time to play hero.’ Torn told him. ‘Turn around. Go back to your post. The creature only appears to care about the visitor, Jack. We should be safe enough for now. No reason to test fate.’

The guard ignored this and lifted his sword again as he continued to slowly approach the Chilli.

‘Are you joking?’ Torn said, looking at the guard as if he had lost his mind. He then turned to the children and told them to run along home. The kids complied without question or hesitation. He then glanced around at everyone else, and told them to leave as well. Everyone listened to Torn, retreating the way they had come. Even Theolan stepped backwards through the doors of the Inn, but not fully. He remained in the threshold, doors open, wanting to watch the show.

‘Have it your way,’ Torn said to the guard, and turned to walk away as well.

Jack liked Amber, or at least what he knew of her so far. Plus she was a blonde, green eyes, fair skinned, all the physical attributes he normally admired in a woman. Naturally, all that superficial crap was a bonus. So of course he was glad she came to see him at the Inn to apologize for the way she had previously treated him, which also meant that he could now get the leather work done that he wanted to get done. Well, that is if a little dragon didn’t stop things from running smoothly.

When they entered in Amber’s shop and the door had closed behind them, Jack watched as Amber let out a massive sigh of relieve and turned to him with a wide smile, as if she were welcoming a family member home after not seeing them for a long time. He found the whole situation very strange.

‘Are they really that dangerous?’ He had to know. ‘I mean….’ He glanced back at the door as if to wonder if the small creature was about to break down the door at any moment. ‘…it isn’t any bigger than a small cat.’

Amber screwed up her face, wondering. ‘What’s a cat?’

‘Uh.. Never mind. Point is, the thing is small.’

Amber considered this, narrowing her eyes as she looked him up and down searchingly. ‘They think danger is relative to size where you come from?’

‘Well, no.’ Jack sighed, ‘But it makes a difference in many cases, sure. I mean look at the thing out there, how much damage could it possibly do?’

‘It attacked you,’ Amber pointed out as a matter of reference, ‘you should know.’

‘Yeah, that’s the point as well. It did attack me, and even though it was pretty damn savage, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that an entire town freezing in terror is justified.’

‘Hm…’ amber considered this too. ‘Interesting. Sounds like she went easy on you th– ‘

Amber was cut off by a short burst of commotion from outside. The sound of a woman screaming. A mans panicked cry. A horse riled up - the sound of its hooves stomping and the rumble of carriage wheels being dragged in its wake, passed Amber's house at a hasty pace.

Jack swivelled, turned back towards the entrance of the shop. Amber froze for a moment, then rushed to the window beside the door to take a look.

On Amber’s short journey to the window, more sounds of commotion were heard outside: A man called out, maybe the same man as before, only this time in tremendous pain. A woman screamed again, maybe the Blacksmith's wife. There was a clutter of other voices heard, calling urgently for help, and their voices were moving away, fast, indicating that they were running for their lives as they yelled. But another sound was heard among the rest. It was a screech like that of an angry eagle, or hawk - or even a demon hungry and calling for blood - a sound that Jack was all too familiar with. Then, following all these sounds was a noise like that of a strong burst of wind howling, and then the man’s screams of pain were cut off as a dull, thunderous boom was heard, causing the floor and walls of amber’s shop to suddenly shutter, as if an angry giant had stomped its foot into the earth nearby.

It was then - as the sound of commotion ended with the thunderous thud and shaking of the house - that Amber arrived at the window and pulled the shutter open to look outside. Jack had also sought to witness what the hell was taking place outside. He had pulled his Glock from his bag, dropped the bag to the floor, and while Amber gaped with horror out the window, he swung open the door.

He stood in the threshold, gun raised to his shoulder in one hand, barrel pointed up. His lips parted, too stunned to breathe for the moment, eyes staring wide with curious wonder at what he saw.

The horse and carriage were nowhere in sight. The children and the two men from up the road could not be seen either.

A little ways up the road from the bridge, standing tall and sturdy next to his hearth, Torn was serving as a human shield; his wife had her hands gripping to his thick arm as she looked out from behind him.

Across the road at the Inn, one eye peeking out from behind the almost closed door, was Theolan.

Then there was the guard. He was dead. His sword was in many pieced, the steel of which had been shattered like glass, each shard steaming like chunks of dry ice and sprawled across the dirt and cobble road. The handle of the sword, however, was still held in both hands with a white-knuckle grip. But his hands were no longer attached to his arms, they were over near the bottom step of the Inn, while his arms were in two different locations, one down near the bridge, one on the landing of Amber's porch. The rest of his body; both legs, his torso and head, were still one piece, laid on its back several feet from Amber's porch. It, like the rest of its detached members, were pale and frozen like the shards of his sword, steaming like chunks dry ice. Not surprising, in a way, there was practically no blood, since the man had been frozen before being dismembered. Broken apart, not torn.

Far as Jack could see, the Chilli was unharmed. She was on Amber's front porch railing like she had never left her perch. She ruffled her feathers as if dispelling a cool breeze. The scales on her belly seemed to shimmer from shade to shade of fluorescent blues. She turned her face and heavy gaze to Jack.

Jack shuttered when his eyes connected with those of the Chilli. Their stares were locked. For reasons unknown Jack couldn’t look away. His body was still, his thoughts transfixed. His minds eyes seemed to be falling though a vortex into the darkness that lay beyond the Chilli’s cold gaze. Moments later Jack was sharing its emotions. Its feelings. The notion of its thoughts. He was one with the beast.

He felt anger, a primal rage. He felt alone, so alone and desperate. He felt things he couldn’t understand, unidentified, unorganized, so many sensations surging through his being - through both of them united as one - overwhelming Jack as his legs became weak and gave out beneath him and he crumbled to the floor. Everything went black.

Jack was waking up again, only this time there were no horse breathing over his face, no sounds of surrounding forest, no indication he was outside at all. What he did smell was the must of mould again, like that of the inside of Torn’s basement, which is where he thought he was before opening his eyes. But no, he was not back in Torn’s basement. As he lifted his head, blinking several times to clear his vision, he found himself in a different underground grotto. Maybe a cave. Smaller, less kept, damper, a little darker, as it was lit only by two candles at the foot of the extremely uncomfortable bed he was on. He was also very cold.

‘Where the hell are my clothes?’ Were the first words to pass his drowsy lips, as he caught sight of Amber standing nearby, a cloth in her hand. A bucket on the stone floor next to her.

‘I had to remove them,’ she replied, seeming quite wistful about it, ‘You peed your trousers when you fainted.’

Jack regarded his nakedness, regarded Amber with a flat expression. He was just about to ask why she hadn’t bothered to go the extra mile and change him into fresh clothing, or at least covered him with a blanket, but then found a more pressing topic of conversation when he spotted the Chilli perched on the edge of a barrel on the far side of the room.

Jack stared at the Chilli for a while. She stared back. He stared at Amber for a while. She stared back. He then looked around the space for a while more. The three of them were the only ones there.

‘I have a few question.’ He said.

‘Absolutely,’ replied Amber.

The Chilly cocked her head as if to pay closer attention to what Jack had to say.

‘Most important question first,’ said Jack.

‘Sure!’ Amber seemed eager.

He asked, ‘Are you giving me a sponge bath?’

‘Not exactly.’ She glanced at the sponge in her hand, then the bucket, then back at Jack.

‘Not exactly?’ He asked, giving her a pointed look.

‘I was sponging you down, but I finished a while ago. Now I’m just watching you.’ Her eyes darted to his penis, then back to his eyes. ‘You have a decent sized one.’

The Chilly cocked her head to the opposite side, maybe trying to figure out what Amber meant, or maybe she was aiming for a better angle by which to assess Jack's appendage.

‘Uhh… well, thanks. I Guess.’ Jack said.

Amber smiled pleasantly. ‘You are welcome.’ She dropped the sponge in the bucket.

‘Secondly….’ Jack introduced his next question.

Amber nodded patiently.

He gave a furtive glance to the Chilly, and addressed the question to Amber. ‘Why are we in…’ he looked around at the room to try and better guess the situation, ‘A basement, with that… Chilli?’

‘You’re a fugitive.’ Amber was quick to respond.

Jack stared at her, as though expecting a much needed better explanation.

‘Well, technically we all are now.’ She said in a way that suggested it wasn’t such an uncommon thing to say, ‘It started with the Chilly, who killed the town guard.’

Jack nodded, listening.

She added, ‘But it was apparent that the Chilli’s behaviour has something to do with you, and that made it look like you were involved, and that means they will be after you as well.’

He continued staring expectantly at her, saying nothing.

‘And now I’m aiding and abetting a criminal,’ she concluded, ‘and that makes me a fugitive too.’

Jack considered all this. Somehow, it all seemed reasonable enough.

He asked, ‘Where are my clothes?’

‘In the next room,’ she told him, ‘drying by the fire.’

‘And where are we?’

‘Beneath my shop.’

‘And that’s safe from being found?’ Asked Jack.

She said, ‘I lived my entire childhood without ever knowing this place was here. It will do for now.’

He now looked directly at the Chilli, who seemed comfortable enough just listening in.

‘And how about… this?’ Asked Jack. ‘Are we, you know, safe from being frozen to death then shattered into pieces?’

The chilly let out a low whining noise, similar to that of a small whimpering dog.

Amber seemed vague about her reply, saying, ‘As far as I can tell, sure.’ She shrugged.

‘One more question,’ said Jack.

‘Of course.’

‘Are there any sheets, blankets maybe? Or any clothes at all I can wear till my own clothes are dry?’

The Chilli was watching Jack intently. She watched as he was lying on the bed and asking questions. She watched as he got up and skirted himself in a small blanket Amber provided. She watched as he took a drink of water from the bottle in his bag. But she watched him with even greater intrigue as he unloaded the Glock of its magazine, the bullet from the chamber, and placed the gun on the table for Amber to take a better look at. And then the chilli just kept on staring as Amber took measurements of Jack’s bare torso in order to design a holster for him. Things were getting very uncomfortable.

Amber had taken many of her tools and leather products down into the basement in order to work on Jack’s holster while the three of them were in hiding - and she did just that, carefully drawing out an outline for her first cut of leather as Jack stood and had a staring contest with the Chilli. The first time he had stared into the creatures eyes they had made a special connection – if you want to call it special – in which Jack had shared the creatures feeling and notions of its thoughts before he passed out, and peed himself, apparently. And yet, the connection they had had apparently resulted in very little, as Jack had received no information as to why the Chilli was following him. Nothing. And now, staring into the Chilli’s eyes again, there was no more connection being made, no weird affect at all, just the standard dark, animalistic depth that could be expected of any animal’s gaze.

Eventually Jack had to ask, in quite the demanding tone, ‘What do you want from me?’

In response, the Chilli broke eye contact with Jack. It looked instead at the towel wrapped around Jacks waist, then looked at Amber working on Jack’s holster at the table, and then it moved. It stepped off the rim of the barrel, walked on its two legs to the center of the barrel top, then shrunk down as if it were collapsing in on itself like an accordion. It placed its penny-size clawed hands on its now popped belly. It was getting very comfortable. It nuzzled its face beneath one wing in preparation to sleep.

Jack grumbled, ‘Fine, just ignore me then.’

‘How smart are these things?’ said Jack, returning to Amber and taking a seat across from her at the table.

‘Chilli’s?’ she asked, ‘Or dragons in general?’

Jack thought about this. ‘Uh… Chilli’s, I guess. How about both? And how many breeds of dragon are there, by the way?’

Amber looked up from her work, placing down a knife she was using to cut a pattern from the leather.

‘You really aren’t from around here, are you?’ she said and requested, ‘Why don't you tell me about where you are from, the truth this time, and then tell me why you are here…, then I’ll tell you about this place.’

‘I guess at this point, that sounds about fair.’

He shifted his eyes sideways and she watched him carefully, taking note of the slight changes in his expressions as he gathering his thoughts, carefully working up the words to tell her....

Jack said, ‘My name isn’t actually Jack, and my job doesn’t permit me to divulge my true identity. I can’t tell you a lot about the specific task I perform for the company I work for. But that can depend on what i learn about any given world. In other words, I can’t at this point tell you much about why I’m here. But I guess I can tell you some things about my world.’

Jack paused while Amber leaned forward, her elbows on the table, eyes narrowed with intrigue.

‘When I was just a boy,’ continue Jack, ‘my world was…’ he thought about the best word to use, but shaking his head he seemed dissatisfied with the result, saying, ‘…extravagant.’ He paused a little longer to better arrange his thoughts, then added, ‘My world was massive. Billions of people. Cities with buildings as tall as mountains. We had vehicles that moved faster than anything you would have, powered by engines. Machines, you might call them. Some of these vehicles could fly, others were able to reach the moon, even the stars in the sky. It was an era of advanced communication. Information. Convenience. My people, we…. We had these devises called computers. We could use them to find out anything we wanted to know, anything at all, to a point, and just at the touch of a button. We could communicate instantly with anyone, no matter how far away they were. We even developed small handheld devices that we could carry around with us to make this even easier.’

‘Wait,’ Amber stopped him there, raising one hand with a small wave, her face epitomizing fascination. ‘You mean things other than normal senses? Instruments of magic? And what do you mean by… stars?

‘Ohhh boy…’

Jack realised he had opened a can of worms and couldn’t hope to explain things easily for Amber, her mind just wasn’t ready for it. Or is that not fair of me? He asked himself.

‘No, I don’t mean magic,’ he said, ‘although, from my own point of view, far as I can tell from the many places I’ve seen, magic is really nothing more than areas of science yet unexplored. So I guess you could look at it like that, sure.’

Amber seemed disappointed by this, and slightly confused by Jack’s use of the word science. She asked, ‘And the stars?’

Jack stared perplexed at her for a long moment before replying. ‘At night, when you go outside, and look up into the sky, what do you see?’

‘Lights left by the gods,’ said Amber, as if Jack had asked a stupid question, ‘A greater light to rule the day, lesser lights to rule the night. They are also more than just that. They are symbols, or icons, left as a type of reminder. Bodies of worship. We do not forget they watch over us.’

Jack frowned, more curious than mocking. ‘So all those little twinkling lights in the sky…?’

‘Marks of the many lesser gods, of course,’ she told him, ‘the larger marks, like that of Semlin’s Sphere, have been left by the greater gods, like Semlin himself.’

‘Well,’ said Jack, ‘for my own people, all those little lights in the sky are called stars. Some of us believe they were created by God, or gods. But I think at this point everyone agrees that they are suns. Burning balls of gas. Just like the light that rules the day, only the stars - the other suns - are so far away they we see them as small twinkling lights we call stars. I haven’t seen your night sky, yet,’ Jack added, ‘But I’m guess the Sphere you mentioned would be something like what we call a moon. Basically a large round chunk of dirt in orbit of our planet.’

‘Planet….’ Amber wondered at this word, in a way that someone might scrutinise an adult using bad language around children.

‘Yes, planet.’ Jack told her. ‘that is what I mean by “my world”. My world has its own sun. Earth, our planet, spins and goes around the sun. The moon goes around the Earth. Every star in the sky is another sun, countless miles away, and many of those suns have other planets going around then. A few of those other planets have life on them, just like yours, or mine.’ He paused, and concluded. ‘I am from a different planet, near one of those small twinkling lights you see in the night sky.’

Amber Glared at Jack for a long silence, and then suddenly reached across the table and slapped him.

‘Blasphemy!’

It was a little strange. After slapping Jack, Amber settled back into her chair again, apparently now composed with her hands coupled in front of her on the table.

‘So anyway…,’ said Jack, as the sting in his cheek faded, ‘now you know a little more about my world. Happy to oblige.’

Amber tired to keep composed, though the discomfort of what she had done started to play on her. She wriggled a little in her chair. She cleared her throat in a pleasant, ladylike manner.

‘You said “When you were a boy”,’ she said, ‘so things have changed?’

‘Ah, yes, they have.’ Jack remembered there was more to what he was going to say. ‘The world I described was the way things were. The world I knew as a boy started changing when I was in my late teens. First came a virus. Uh…’ Jack revised the word ‘virus’ in his head, realising, especially by the curious frown on amber’s face, that it wasn’t a word she was exactly familiar with.

‘An illness,’ he clarified, and continued, ‘It came up fast. Killed a lot of people. And suddenly the world was a different place. Aside from killing a great number of people, it caused a great depression. The world’s economy crashed. Soon a famine had gripped the world. Then a war broke out. It was a war like no other. Lasted only a few weeks.’ Jack paused, clearly unsettled by the memory. ‘Millions more people died. Billions, actually. The world I knew as a child was left in ruins.’