"C'mon, Rivka, it's over this way!" Wren pointed off into the woods as she stepped off the path, a bright smile on her face and an insulated lunch box in her other hand.

Rivka followed along, being sure to avoid brushing against the bushes and prickly-looking plants along the way. "If you say so. What are you bringing me to see, anyway?" The two women came up to a stream, stopping as Wren looked around. "Is it the ducks, oh little bird?" Rivka pointed down to the water where it flowed around a bend; standing in the shallows was a pair of ducks, quacking quietly as the waterfowl warily eyed the humans. "I hope it's not, but those are cool ducks."

Wren looked over and gave a soft "aww," before shaking her head. "Nope! Even cooler!" She started walking confidently off in a different direction, saying, "saw my blaze, it should only be a few minutes' walk." At her girlfriend's hesitation, Wren beckoned on, glancing behind her to make sure she didn't trip over a root or vine. "Perfectly safe, I come here every couple of weeks."

The pair continued on for, as Wren predicted, a few minutes, turning left or right at certain trees or rocks. At one turn, Rivka pointed out a curious, red X on a rock. "Yeah," Wren answered, "that's one of my blazes I use to find my way there and back. Most are higher so other hikers don't think to follow, but there's only so much I can do with a rock." From then on, Rivka made sure to glance up whenever Wren turned; most of the time, she could see two red marks about twenty feet or so up a tree: one faced the direction they came from, and the other pointed the direction they were going.

"Hey, Wren?" Rivka asked, "I thought you were deathly scared of heights."

"I am. Even named myself after a low-nesting bird. Why do you ask?"

"How'd you get the nerve to mark something that high up? That's, like, second story and a half, without the whole stairs and floor beneath you." Rivka squinted at the next blaze and ran her gaze up and down the tree. "For that matter, how'd you mark it in the first place? No offense, babe, but I can't really see you lugging a twenty-foot ladder through the woods by yourself."

"I didn't!" Wren chirped as she skipped forward, growing a little faster as they neared the end of their trail, "I got some help from my friends. You'll figure it out after we sit down for a bit."

"Sit down? Oh, you really should've told me, I would have worn, like, actual pants," Rivka said as she followed Wren around a large boulder, "I might end up just... stand... ing..." The woman trailed off as she looked at what appeared to be a bench, roughly carved but carefully smoothed, made out of a section of a thick log. Wren sat down in the middle and patted one side for her girlfriend to join her. After a moment of confusion, Rivka accepted her offer and sat down next to her. "So, what is it you wanted to show me?"

"Well, much like the fairytale princess you love to accuse me of being," Wren said, pulling a small bag of deli meat fom the lunch box, "I have befriended some creatures of the forest." She took a piece of turkey and threw it a distance away, then another one a bit closer, and so on, then repeated in a second direction, creating two trails of meat leading towards them.

"With... meat," Rivka observed with a renewed sense of worry. "Little bird, I hope you charmed a crow or raven, and not a bear."

"Nah, corvids can be jerks. Especially blue jays," Wren said, dropping her voice and motioning Rivka to do the same, "but I did meet some winged friends. Try to stay still and quiet. They know me, and they'll know I trust you, but they don't know you, yet."

The woman nodded, eyes darting silently between the two trails of turkey in the canopy-shadowed sunlight. After a minute or so of staring, she saw something small move next to one. Rivka tensed and watched the next bit of meat closely, hoping to see what happened to its vanished sibling. As she watched, a small, dark green, reptilian head poked out from behind a leafy plant. It moved up and down, inspecting the offering, then darted out, snapped the bite up, and dragged it back behind the plant to eat. A few seconds later, the small, scaly body crept up on the next bit of meat. It was small and a distance away, and its mottled dark-and-light green scales camouflaged it well, but Rivka easily noticed the body shape and wings. "A... a dragon?" she whispered.

"A few," Wren whispered back, "the one on the right is only a year or two old." As Rivka looked away from the tiny creature, she saw two slightly larger dragons at the other trail, in similar, patterened green, though with bigger splotches of color. One of them was holding a bite of turkey in its jaws; the other one raised its paw like a cat. And then, like a cat, it batted at the one with food. After getting snapped at, there was a tense second before they leapt at each other, rolling around in a tangle of scales, hissing and chirping. As one, they froze, looked towards Wren and Rivka, and separated. The one with the meat in its mouth gulped down its snack, and the other claimed the next tidbit. For a moment, Rivka wondered whether they would keep alternating, when the one that got batted trotted towards the women.

Rivka went stock-still, both to avoid spooking the little one and mentally preparing herself to bolt if it should desire the taste of human flesh. However, it instead leapt up on the other side of Wren, then rested its head on her leg. Wren simply smiled and slowly stroked down its back. "Hope you two are getting along better than last time," Wren said. The dragon chirped. "That's good," the woman replied. "That reminds me, Rivka. If we ever want kids, we should adopt, and not a baby. Skip the loud and experimentally violent phase."

"Sure thing, babe. But wait, aren't dragons vicious?" Rivka asked, watching in awe as one received affection, another steadily snapped up bits of meat, and a third carefully inspected each morsel before taking a mouthful of turkey, and sometimes grass as well. "Like, raze a small town and demand sacrifices?"

"Wrong species," Wren replied, "these guys don't get so big. They'll still mess you up if you're not careful, but the 'eat you in one bite' sort don't live around here. I asked."

"You... asked? Who?"

Wren nodded. "You gotta promise to stay calm, first."

This, naturally, set Rivka on edge. "Wren, little bird, when have those words EVER inspired calm?"

Her girlfriend's eyes widened in understanding, and she slowly shook her head while the dragon at her side squirmed its way onto her lap for petting variety. "No, as in, stay calm so you don't startle them. Especially this little lady. If she decides to cling tight to my arm, those claws of her are kinda sharp."

"Fair enough." Rivka watched the dragons for a few seconds as she took some deep breaths. "Okay, I'm calm. Who'd you ask."

"Well, that little guy is a yearling, right? Ah." Wren winced as the dragon in her lap put its jaws on her finger; the dragon immediately recoiled and headbutted her instead. "Anyway, you'd think his mom or dad would be around to keep him safe, yeah?" Rivka nodded. Wren smiled and tilted her head back, flicking her eyes up for just a moment.

Rivka's blood froze. Slowly, inevitably, she turne her gaze upward, climbing up the large rock they were seated in front of. Atop it, resting with its head on its paws, was a sleek, green dragon, all deep green on the back and lighter green under the belly. She stared, unwilling to move.

<Hello there.> A feminine voice came from an unknown direction. Rivka jerked her head in one direction, then remembered the smaller dragons and slowly looked all around.

"Did you... did you hear that?" Rivka asked Wren.

Her girlfriend gave her a small smile. "Probably not, though I wouldn't know if she can speak to both of us at once." The dragon in her lap wriggled until it slipped off, chirping in surprise when it hit the ground. It flared its wings and pounced at its sibling again, and the two tumbled around. "But I assume Jade talked to you."

Rivka looked back up. The dragon tilted her head. <Rivka, yes? Wren loves to gush about you. I'll refrain from actually making the "ah, you must be my maiden sacrifice" joke, then.>

The smallest dragon finally ran out of meat scraps and instead yanked at Rivka's shoelace, undoing the knot and very slightly tugging at her foot. "Uh... Jade, was it? How do I get my shoelace not eaten?" She found herself tensing, as though the dragon would demand she let it be eaten.

A sudden memory - or, not a memory, but more a sense of reverse deja vu - appeared in her mind, of reaching down, taking a gentle grasp on the dragon, and lifting him away from the inedible noodle. <That should work.>

Rivka blinked, shook her head, and bent down to do so. The two other dragons tumbled into her leg, froze again, then parted, each chirping once at her before finding spots near or on Wren. The hatchling in her hands pawed at the air as she carried it, as though swimming, then stretched and flapped its wings before laying down once she let go on her lap. "You're not worried that I'd hurt... her? Him?"

The human turned to look at the dragon, but she was still in the same relaxed position as before. "You... would you eat me if I hurt him?" A quick glance at Wren showed the woman play-wrestling her lunch box from both dragons.

Jade tilted her head and crinkled her eyes in what Rivka hoped was an approximation of a smile. <No, but if it helps motivate you...>

Wren turned towards her. "She's messing with you, isn't she? Don't listen to her, you're fine, she's friendly. Enjoy the dragons."

A look back at the green dragoness rewarded Rivka with the sight of Jade flicking her tongue out like a snake. "Alright. But if Jade eats me, I'm not sure if I'll haunt you or her." She slowly began to stroke down the back of the hatchling on her lap, before long rewarded with soft purring.

Wren and Rivka soon spun up a conversation, occasionally interrupted by the dragon watching them. As the day progressed, Rivka found herself more and more interested in following her girlfriend next time she decided to go visit the dragons.