Rangavar's boss continues to push her plans along quickly, while Rangavar scrambles to keep up. He also recently found out the truth about Kraz and Arro, which he isn't really sure how to deal with, but needs to figure out soon.

Arro knows that Rangavar isn't telling him everything, and needs to ask Zark for more information. The two fat dragons wonder if the research facility where they work might be the center of it all.

I meant to upload this chapter the day after the last chapter but my attention span has been nonexistent and that was like 6 days ago I know lol. I'm pretty sure if someone could listen to my brain right now it would just be the sound of a bunch of bees

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“So… you’ve known each other a while?”

Arro sighed, the mound of fat on his middle sagging as he relaxed more firmly into his side of the couch. He’d barely moved since coming home. “Yeah. He doesn’t like me because ONE time, he saw me trying to help someone by climbing on some boxes, and I, uh… couldn’t.” He winced at the memory. “But, he immediately decided that I must be lazy and that my weight problem is more proof of that. He never shuts up about it.”

“I’m sorry.” Rangavar shook his head. “I thought we were friends. I had no idea he was being an ass to you.”

“Well, after yesterday, I hope he stops.” Arro paused to shove another cinnamon bun into his mouth. His muzzle was all sticky. He’d been going at it for a while. “It’s bad enough we were BOTH banned from the gym for thirty days, when he was the one who started it.”

Rangavar sank back farther into his own part of the couch. “I’m just glad the punishment wasn’t worse.” As it was, Arro hadn’t been released from custody until a few hours ago. He’d been held up all night.

Arro pushed another cinnamon bun into his mouth. They were almost gone, at the rapid rate he was eating them. It was a stress-binge this time. His stomach was becoming swollen with food, but he kept going. “Think he’ll be at work today?” They both knew that Kraz must have been held up all night, too.

“Yeah, actually.” Rangavar tilted his head, trying to remember. “He agreed to pick up some of my shifts, so we had a conversation about our upcoming schedules. He couldn’t pick up my shift today because he was already scheduled to work the same time as me.”

“Why did you need him to pick up shifts?”

Rangavar was quiet as he considered what to say. “I wanted some free time to figure out what to do about the research facility,” he admitted, biting his lip. There was no point avoiding the topic.

Arro pricked his ears. “Oh, I heard something odd about it yesterday. About the facility, I mean.”

Rangavar was interested. “Something related?”

Arro pressed his fingers together. He didn’t seem to notice the coating of glaze on their chubby surfaces. “There’s some new rumors… well, uh, more like a bit of gossip, I heard.”

Rangavar watched him curiously for a second. When Arro fell silent, he prompted, “Well?”

“I’m not sure how to describe it,” Arro admitted.

“How does that help me?”

“Alright, alright.” Arro looked away. “Uh. He said there were like—”

“‘He’?”

“The guy who saw—I mean, the guy who started the rumor,” Arro stammered. He started to blush. “Ach, sorry, never mind. I already messed it up.”

Rangavar frowned. “So is it a rumor, or some guy?”

“Never mind.” Arro frantically shook his head. “I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“So it’s really just something some guy said,” Rangavar inferred, but the corner of his mouth quirked up with amusement. “That doesn’t sound like much of a rumor to me.”

Arro stared back at him guiltily. He’d paused eating the cinnamon buns for the moment. Or maybe there weren’t any left in the box.

“Are you going to tell me, or not?”

The larger dragon seemed to genuinely think. “I don’t think I should.”

Rangavar wrinkled his snout. “Arro…”

“I can’t!”

“You don’t trust me?” Rangavar crossed his arms. “What, you really think I’d take part in spreading rumors? Who would I even tell?”

Now Arro scowled back. “Of course I trust you! That’s not fair. It’s that I made a promise, and, uh, need to keep it, you know?”

“A promise to what?” It was starting to get frustrating. Rangavar didn’t really care who this ‘rumor’ came from if it gave him more information. Any information. “What’s going on with the research facility is really important, Arro.” He stared into Arro’s eyes earnestly. “If you know anything, please tell me?”

The fat dragon sighed. “Okay, look. It’s kind of ridiculous anyway. But, uh. So there’s this gossip sort of going around, saying…” He seemed genuinely unable to figure out where to begin. He shifted in his seat a bit, causing rolls of his body to jiggle again, although they were noticeably growing more taut as he stuffed himself. Rangavar didn’t comment on it.

Arro scratched the back of his head. “…Saying something along the lines of the facility is mind controlling Faerians.”

Rangavar frowned. When Arro didn’t say anything else, he prompted, “I’m listening.” He wasn’t sure what to think yet. He couldn’t possibly be referring to—

“He’s saying there are like, ‘monsters’ or something that patrol the facility.” Arro snorted. “Okay, don’t laugh, but he’s describing them as ‘giant Darkals with feathers’.” Arro’s expression was somewhere between an embarrassed blush, and an amused grin. “I wanted to ask you about it, because you’re actually Glitarian, and I figured you might know what he actually saw. This guy is like, absolutely convinced.”

Rangavar stared. His expression was blank, but his mind was churning somewhere between ‘stunned’ and ‘furious’. It had been all of what, a day or two? Vaugh dammit Zark.

“Rangavar?”

The smaller dragon slowly shook his head. “Sorry. Uh.”

If it were possible, Arro blushed harder. “Look, I know it sounds really stupid. Heh. Forget I even asked.” He pushed his fingers together again, steepling them under his chin. Well, his main chin. “I just didn’t know, if it was, I don’t know, based on anything. Something real, I mean. Like, maybe something real happened, that someone else thought was that, even though it wasn’t. I mean, that it wasn’t that.”

Rangavar pushed himself off the couch. “I have a feeling I know who started this rumor.”

“Oh. Did he—uh, someone—already tell you?” Arro seemed anxious, but doubtful. “He—Everyone’s keeping it kind of hush-hush.” Rangavar could feel him getting increasingly frustrated every time he reflexively said ‘he’ on accident.

“Yeah, ‘everyone’ shouldn’t be talking about it.” Rangavar took several steps towards the front door. If he left for work early, maybe it would give him some extra time to look around the facility and confront the idiot. Zark would have to hope he’d gotten lucky and wasn’t scheduled.

Arro stood up from the couch too, heaving himself forward so that his gut was no longer resting on his heavy thighs. He had to pause and lick the sugary cinnamon bun frosting off his chubby fingers before attempting to wipe away the drips and crumbs that cascaded down the ball of blubber on his middle, although he barely seemed to notice. He began to follow Rangavar to the door, clearly not ready to be done with the conversation. “So you DO know something about it, then?”

Oops. Rangavar hadn’t meant to imply that. He waved his paw dismissively and tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. “I think I know what thing the rumor is based on, and nobody should be…” He paused. If things got as bad as the Glitarian Darkal female had implied, then Arro would inevitably find out a few things. If Rangavar referred to the rumor as ‘completely made up’, not only would he be lying, but Arro wouldn’t trust anything he said about it later. “Nobody should be trying to start a panic,” he said vaguely. “Especially not by saying stuff like that.”

When he opened the door, a blast of icy air hit him in the face. Rangavar turned back to Arro for a moment. “Hey, um, I’m gonna hurry. I forgot how cold it is. Can we continue this later?”

“Oh, I forgot you still haven’t gotten winter clothes.” Arro frowned. “Winter on Karraden sucks.”

“It does.” Rangavar started to shiver. He figured if he ran, it might warm him up on his way to the transport. Then he just had to survive the transport.

Arro seemed to realize as much, too. “Do you want a ride? I mean, what good is the hovercycle, you know? Heh. Kind of what it’s for.” He seemed concerned as a gust of frigid air blew through the door. “It’ll be faster so you’re not in the cold as long.”

Rangavar thought for a moment. “Thanks.” He shut the door again while he waited for Arro to get ready. “Will the cold make the scratch on your nose sting, or anything like that?”

There were still deep claw marks where Kraz had swiped him the night before. The Gemian at the gym had assured Rangavar that Arro would receive medical care. And he had: A bandage. Technically, not a lie, although it was definitely some bullshit.

Rangavar didn’t dare heal it, because his magic would burn, and Jade hadn’t yet returned from the night shift to do it herself. It had finally stopped bleeding, but the Darkal could sense the pain.

Arro shrugged. “It’ll be fiiiiiine.” His emotions said that he wasn’t sure, but Rangavar didn’t try to change his mind as he watched the fat Faerian pull on a coat of his own. It was a light blue color that complimented his pink scales. Or, ‘pale-red’, or whatever.

The Faerian squeezed into the sleeves, flexing a few times to readjust his bulky arms and shoulders. Rangavar watched with raised brows as the fat dragon grabbed at the zipper, which didn’t quite go all the way to the bottom of his overhanging chub, and sucked in hard to pull the sides together.

Rangavar went over and helped. Arro let out a sigh as Rangavar took the two sides of the coat, Arro sucking in again and trying to press his own flab out of the way with his paws while the smaller dragon wiggled the zipper into the correct place. Arro’s belly bulged over and under the zipper at the bottom when it connected, making it hard to pull up. Rangavar gritted his teeth as he gave it a few tugs. It didn’t help that Arro had been binging on sugary pastries barely a second ago.

“I’m thinking it’ll stretch out a bit,” Arro laughed awkwardly. Rangavar wasn’t sure if his face was bright red with exertion, or embarrassment, but figured it might be both. “I ordered custom pants to, uh, cover me more.”

“When you go pick them up, could you bring me along?” Rangavar gave another tug and grimaced when it didn’t do anything. “I don’t have anything yet, and it’s fucking cold.” With another few tugs of the zipper, he was finally able to drag it up over Arro’s bulging middle. When Arro let out his breath, his gut pressed hard against the confining clothing, but the coat was apparently really, really well-made. It held.

“Thanks,” Arro grunted. He tried to both catch his breath, and also not let on how much he was out of breath. Rangavar could tell.

“I’m hoping that if I get to work early, I might have time to poke around. Maybe talk to some people.” Rangavar didn’t mention the particular Faerian he’d be after. “Maybe I can find out more information for you.”

Arro seemed a bit unsure. He’d mentioned not wanting to get the dragon who’d told him this ‘rumor’ into trouble. Rangavar wondered if Zark himself had somehow run into Arro, or if he’d told enough people that Arro had managed to get the information second-hand. Either way, it was reckless and stupid.

“Anything I find out, I’ll let you know about, okay?” Rangavar promised. Anything within his ability to explain. He wasn’t quite sure how yet.

Taking a deep breath, Arro nodded. “Alright.”

Rangavar pulled open the door again, rewarded with another blast of cold air. He took a deep breath and plunged himself outside.

~

The coat was a good buffer between Rangavar’s paws and Arro’s back, so his magic didn’t burn into his injury. It meant Rangavar stayed super cold though, as he clutched at the unhelpful fabric. His whole body felt icy by the time they arrived, whipped by the wind the whole way there. At least the hovercycle brought him to the research facility significantly faster than the transport would have.

When Arro pulled into the dirt lot in front of the building, he climbed off the hovercycle too for a moment. He left it running. He stared at the Darkal. “I really wish you’d tell me what was going on. You know I can tell something is. Even I don’t have to be telepathic for that.”

Rangavar stared back up at him. He’d spent the ride trying to think of what to say, but nothing in particular came to mind. He wrapped his wings more tightly around himself as he shivered. “Can we talk about it when I get home later? I’m going to run inside now.”

Arro looked unsure, but he nodded.

Over Arro’s shoulder, Rangavar suddenly saw Kraz come out of the building. Despite the brief brawl yesterday, he looked fine. He hadn’t taken any hits in the fight.

He’d only been walking their way for several moments before he spotted them. An idea began to form. Rangavar looked up into Arro’s eyes. “Arro, how much pain would you be willing to endure for the chance to make Kraz really mad?”

Arro frowned. “Huh?”

“Do you want to make Kraz mad?”

Arro looked around uncertainly as he thought. “I mean, I suppose he’d deserve it. Why?”

Kraz was heading over, scowling their way. Rangavar didn’t acknowledge it. He pretended not to see. “Don’t look, but Kraz is coming up behind you.”

Naturally, Arro almost tilted his head, but stopped himself. “Okay?”

Rangavar locked eyes with him. “Would it be worth enduring a little pain to… kiss me?”

Arro stared back. “What? Right now?”

“Arro. Kraz is looking straight at us. He thinks we don’t see him yet. And based on what happened yesterday, I’m guessing he still doesn’t know we’re actually together.”

He saw understanding slowly dawn on Arro’s face.

“It’ll hurt,” Rangavar reminded him, discreetly gesturing at his nose.

Arro nodded resolutely. “I know.”

Rangavar grinned a bit. “Kiss me.”

Arro leaned over and they kissed.

Rangavar felt Arro wince as Rangavar’s energy immediately tried healing his bruises and scratches, but he pulled Rangavar close, and Rangavar leaned his paws on his chest and reached up. They stayed like that for a long moment before parting.

Rangavar kept his eyes focused only on Arro’s, but in the background of his vision, he saw Kraz stop and gape with an incredulous expression.

“How was that?” Arro asked.

“The kiss, or Kraz’s reaction?”

“I mostly meant Kraz’s reaction. I know this sounds impossible, but I might actually enjoy his reaction right now more than the kiss we just had.”

“We’ll share better kisses later,” Rangavar promised. “Also, he’s rubbing the back of his head and looking distressed and confused.”

“Are those his inner emotions, or his face?” Arro asked. “Tell me what his face looks like.”

Rangavar paused for a second to watch some more out the corner of his eye. “He’s glaring at us. Inwardly, he’s mostly distressed and confused,” he grinned.

Arro snorted and rolled his eyes. “What a loser.” Then he paused. “I mean, I’m not trying to say, uh, mean things about… I mean, I know he’s technically, your, uh, your ‘friend’, and—”

“No.” Rangavar shook his head. “If he doesn’t stop being shitty to you, he’s no friend of mine.” It hurt to say. But it hurt even more to know that Kraz had been shitty to Arro all this time.

Slowly, Arro nodded back.

“I’m, uh, going to go inside now, though, if that’s okay,” Rangavar shivered.

“Oh, of course.” Arro stepped back. “Sorry. Go.”

Rangavar gave him another nod before he turned towards the building and rushed inside.

“Really? You’re giving that guy a chance?” Kraz asked incredulously the moment they were relatively alone together at their lockers.

At first Rangavar wasn’t sure how to answer. Everything from yelling, all the way to the silent-treatment, crossed his mind as a possibility. He settled on saying, “After you attacked him and tried to strangle him?” He just wanted to point that out.

Kraz’s ears flattened. He scowled down at the work uniform balled in his paws. “Okay, I admit that entire exchange was not my proudest moment. But, just, that guy—” He shook his head in disgust. “He has no right to be harassing you. Or anyone.”

“Why do you hate him so much?” Rangavar realized as he asked that his curiosity was actually genuine. It was only fair to hear Kraz’s side. Not that it excused a single thing Kraz had done, but Rangavar wanted to know. “What did he ever do to you?”

“To me personally? …Nothing, I guess,” Kraz admitted, still looking down as he pulled on his work pants. “He’s just, you know… ‘that type’.”

“What type?”

“You know…” Kraz finally looked up to see that Rangavar’s expression was blank. “Just, he’s someone who gets in the way. The very first day we had a shift together, you know, I just saw him standing around when someone asked him to help. And you know what? He wouldn’t. He couldn’t get his fat ass up a few shelves to even try. He was too lazy. He probably just sits around eating all day. Actually, you know what happened afterwards? I just remembered—get this—he actually started following me to the gym.” Kraz scoffed and crossed his arms like Arro had committed an unbelievable offense. “Now he’s bothering me on my FREE time, too. He just likes to hang out and take up space when there are people who actually care about themselves trying to get fit.”

Rangavar shot him a look. “Kraz, Arro has been going to gym way longer than that. It has nothing to do with you.”

“How would you know that?” Kraz countered.

“Because I live with him.” Rangavar slammed his locker shut. “He started going almost a year ago.” He took in Kraz’s stunned expression out the corner of his eye as he turned away. He scowled without looking at him. “What? You live with your companion. I live with mine. It’s not weird.” With that, he strode quickly from the room, leaving Kraz staring after him with wide eyes.

~

Arro didn’t go straight home. He knew that Zark didn’t have work today. Even though Rangavar hadn’t given any real answers when Arro probed him earlier, at least now he knew there was something going on, even if the Darkal wouldn’t quite say what. Arro needed to talk to Zark about it again. Not that he believed the stuff about dragon-monsters or anything, but now he knew for sure that Zark must have seen SOMETHING that caused him to think so.

When he pulled up in front of Zark’s house, the other Faerian curiously opened the door. Arro hadn’t messaged him in advance or anything. He figured it was probably a type Five thing. “Hey. Are you busy?”

Zark let him in without a word. He still looked confused as he shut the door behind him. “What are you doing here?” He frowned. “What happened to your nose?”

“So, I tried asking my companion a bit about, uh… what you said,” Arro began. He refrained from touching the bandage on his nose. “And he didn’t EXACTLY, say anything, but, he did say some things that sounded sort of, well, suspicious, like he knew something he wasn’t telling me.” Arro turned back to face him. “He—”

“Arro, can I ask you something?” Zark was staring back at him curiously.

Arro faltered. “Yeah?”

“Yesterday, about your companion. Um.” Zark scratched the back of his head with a few pudgy fingers. “You said he—”

This time, they were both interrupted as their wristbands vibrated. Arro frowned down at his chubby wrist. “Must be work,” he said, since they both had gotten a message at the same time. A mass-announcement from the facility, probably. However, when he opened the message, it was a public alert.

“Travel ban?” Zark said out loud, frowning down at his own. He glanced back up at Arro. “When it says all travel in and out of Karraden is ‘on hold’, do they mean that literally?”

“I doubt that.” Arro shook his head, mystified. “Even if someone had that kind of authority, it would be catastrophic to halt everything and everyone from passing through.” He could understand why Zark asked, though. It was worded as if it were literal. Arro would probably think it was too, if only he didn’t know such a thing was impossible. “I wonder what it means. I haven’t seen anything on the news about something like that coming up either.”

Suddenly Zark turned away, fast enough to make his paunch jiggle, and hurried over to the table in the living room. He grabbed the coat lying on it and began to pull it on. He fought with the sleeves for a moment, the tight tubes of fabric catching on his flabby arms.

“Did I interrupt while you were headed out?”Arro suddenly felt disappointed he hadn’t gotten to rehash their conversation about whatever Zark ‘saw’. It was the entire reason he came all the way here. “Sorry. I just wanted to fill you in…”

Zark moved his arms forward and pulled hard to get his fat shoulders through. “Nah, I just… have a really bad feeling.” He grabbed the ends of his coat, and frowned when he tried to bring the zipper together. The curve of his spare tired was in the way.

“Oh. Is it like, a type Five thing?” Arro asked curiously. “I mean, do you get like, senses about how bad a message is?”

“Nah. Messages aren’t telepathic.” Zark grunted as he sucked in his breath and tugged on the zipper. It made his fat squish up between the two sides, and the distance between the zipper teeth was comical. He caught Arro watching. “Sorry. Heh. I haven’t worn this coat since last year, it must have shrank.”

Arro stared. There was no way Zark could really think that.

When Zark caught his look, he gritted his teeth. “I’m kidding. I, uh, know I’ve put on a little weight.”

A little?

Arro pressed his own chubby fingers together. “Do you want help with the zipper? I think it’s stuck.” Wait. Zark could hear lies. “I mean, uh—”

“It’s alright, Arro.” Zark let out his breath. He wouldn’t meet his eyes. Arro wondered if he were blushing, but it was hard to tell because of his black scales. It would be ironic if Zark were the one blushing for once. “I… I’d appreciate it.”

It turned out that Zark had grown significantly enough that putting on his tight jacket was more of a hassle than Arro had putting on his own that morning. At least Arro had chosen something as close as possible to his own size; Zark’s coat had been bought for a much thinner dragon.

“You need to suck in.”

“I am sucking in,” Zark grunted. When he sucked in, his belly barely moved in comparison to the width of the wide, bare stripe of scales down his middle between the two sides of the coat. His pudge jiggled as Arro tugged, trying to force the zipper to connect, but fat overflowed the area. There was too much for the small coat.

Arro sighed. “Think maybe you could just… leave it… open?”

They looked at each other for a moment. They both knew it was cold as fuck out there. But Zark sighed. “Yeah. I’ll just go grab some pants.”

Arro stared pointedly for another long moment, until Zark realized why. He slapped his forehead and groaned.

“If it makes you feel better, I’m not wearing pants either,” Arro pointed out.

“It doesn’t,” said Zark flatly. “Both of us should be wearing pants. I hate how cold it is out there. I didn’t grow up here, the world I’m from is a fuckin’ desert.” He shook his head. “Alright. I’ve wasted enough time. I’m going to go get my companion at work, and then see if anyone knows what’s going on.”

“I’m coming with you,” Arro hurried out the door after him, his own overhang of fat bouncing as it hung over his thighs. He didn’t exactly want to go home and play video games or something if something weird was going on. And he also wasn’t ready to give up on his conversation with Zark about the Glitarian monsters, or whatever.

The seat of his hovercycle was gratefully still warm as he started it up. They’d been inside for less than five minutes. “How do you think anyone else would know what the message is about, if we don’t? Wouldn’t we be just as likely to hear about it by flicking on the news? There’s gotta be news reports coming out about it or something.”

“Sometimes, I just have a strong intuition about stuff like this, especially when other weird stuff has been going on lately,” Zark explained. “And my companion picks up rumors like a fat kid picks up candy.” He paused. “Uh, sorry. No offense.”

“It’s alright.” Technically, the ‘offense’ applied to Zark now, too, but the other Faerian apparently hadn’t noticed.

“I think my bad feeling is because a ton of powerful mind-controllers emerge out of nowhere the other day, and then the whole world pulls an emergency shutdown? I’m a little freaked out at the coincidence.” Zark shook his head again, almost to himself. “Since my companion is literally at the facility right now, if anything weird just happened there, he’ll be the first to hear about it.” Then Zark snorted. “Trust me on that.”

Arro paused. The ‘mind control’ at the research facility… He still didn’t know what Zark might have seen, but he did know that just a few days ago, Rangavar had said that he thought the research facility needed to be shut down because they wanted to take over the world.

—Or something. Arro wasn’t really sure, but that was his take away from the conversation. Either way, he was now finding himself wondering exactly how literal that was. Coincidence indeed.

“Vaugh,” he muttered under his breath. He wasn’t really sure if it was from the gravity of the situation, or the sheer absurdity, but if Zark’s companion was a well of information about the research facility then that did seem like the obvious place to go for answers.

Without any more questions, Arro took off after Zark as they raced towards work.

~

“Mine says the same thing,” Rangavar lied. Actually, he wasn’t sure it was a lie. Since his message had popped up at the same time, and given the nature of Kraz’s message, it seemed safe to assume it said the same thing.

“Why would they close off the entire world?” Kraz scoffed.

“Huh. I dunno.” Rangavar kept his expression neutral. Internally, he was losing his shit. It sounded exactly as the female Glitarian Darkal had said, but if she was behind this, then her plan was happening WAY earlier than he’d expected. He wasn’t even sure how they’d pulled it off. That was the worst part, actually; how could he hope to stop something, if he couldn’t even figure out how it was happening in the first place?

Kraz just looked annoyed. “It’s got to be hacked. Somebody hacked the public service announcements. They’re trying to scare people for some reason.”

“Yeah, probably.”

They hadn’t quite made up after their argument earlier, but since they were both the last out of the locker room afterwards, they had ended up with the same assignment anyway. In and of itself, that wasn’t unusual, but it meant they’d been stuck together all morning. For the first hour, Rangavar had finally settled on ‘silent treatment’ as his response, but supposed he could make an exception for this.

“It’s such a dumb prank. Whoever did it is definitely going to get caught, and for what?”

Rangavar crossed his arms and looked away. “Yeah.” He wondered if he could find an excuse to ditch Kraz and get downstairs to find out what was really going on. Not that he was sure anyone would tell him.

“Rangavar?”

He turned back around. “What?”

Kraz was watching him now. He was fidgeting. “Are you still mad at me?”

Rangavar threw up his paws and scowled. “For bullying and harassing my companion? Noooo, why would I be?”

Kraz flattened his ears. “I didn’t know he was your companion!”

“So it’s still okay to treat people like shit, as long as they’re not connected to anyone you know?”

The Faerian winced. “I said I was sorry. I’m not sure how to, uh, say it, more.”

Rangavar turned away. He wasn’t sure how to continue the conversation.

Admittedly, he was also feeling a bit preoccupied. He wasn’t sure whether or not he should try convincing Kraz that the message was real; either option could cause problems, and he wasn’t sure which problems would be worse. Would it be better to let Kraz believe whatever he wanted, so Rangavar could just charge downstairs, and hope the Faerian didn’t start asking questions? Or would it be better to argue with Kraz that the messages might be true, and accidentally incite the Faerian into spreading rumors that would cause mass panic around the facility?

“Rangavar?”

Rangavar sighed. “What.”

“I’m really sorry.”

Just rudely leaving didn’t seem so bad. Without looking back at him, Rangavar started to walk away. He’d deal with inevitable questions later.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to be alone and think.” Hey, it was technically true.

He heard Kraz’s wristband go off behind him. He slowed slightly. His own wristband hadn’t gone off this time.

He cast a glance back to see Kraz frowning at his arm. Rangavar slowly turned and took a few steps back towards him, his curiosity and worry winning over. “I didn’t get an alert this time,” he said in as neutral a voice as possible.

He almost expected the other dragon to tell him it was none of his business, but Kraz absently shook his head. “No, it’s my companion. He got the alert this morning too. He’s on his way here.”

Rangavar frowned. “He’d come here because of the alert?”

Kraz snorted. “He seems to think I’d hear what’s going on before anyone else. He knows I’m really good at finding out information. Not sure how well I could help about this, though. He knows I’m stuck at work right now.” He finally looked back up, his brow furrowed in Rangavar’s direction. “Wait, what do you care?”

Rangavar shrugged. “I want to know what the alert was about, too.”

Kraz narrowed his eyes at him. Then he was distracted by another vibration of his wristband. “Oh. I misread that. He actually just got here.”

Rangavar pricked his ears. “What, like your companion just showed up right now? He’s outside?”

“Guess so.” Kraz took off in the direction of the front entrance. He paused briefly as he went to pass Rangavar. “Hey, I know it’s not a good time to ask favors.” He awkwardly looked away. “Can you, uh, cover for me though? If someone asks where I am. I’m going to meet him at the door, and… I don’t know if I’ll be back. Er, when I’ll be back,” he corrected himself. “I mean, it’ll probably be a brief conversation. But my companion and I both want to know what’s going on, and if he has any ideas, I’d want to, uh… figure it out with him.”

Rangavar suppressed a snort. Whenever something even remotely interesting happened, Kraz always needed to be the first to know.

The Darkal thought for a moment. He glanced both ways down the hallway. “You know what? I’m coming too.”

Kraz stared. “Why?”

Rangavar shrugged. “Your companion’s right. You’re good at digging up dirt, and I want in.”

If he went downstairs, a number of things could happen, including the female Glitarian Darkal finding him. Well, especially that, really. And any number of things could happen from there. Probably unpleasant things.

Was Kraz likely to get him answers? Maybe not. But he wasn’t as likely to strangle him or force a transformation. “I think the message might be real,” he said carefully. “I think it might be important.”

“Well either I want to know why all travel, imports, and exports off Karraden have stopped, or I want to know why someone would want to fake that.” Kraz shrugged. He looked confused too, though. “And… from my companion’s message, he… almost thinks Glitara might be involved. Like this research facility might have answers.”

Rangavar nodded. Oh, if only Kraz knew.

Obviously, Rangavar could just trying convincing him the message was real, but Kraz would want to know how Rangavar knew, and they would waste time bickering over what Rangavar could or couldn’t say, that could otherwise be spent convening with Kraz’s companion. Since he was already here, Rangavar sort of wanted to talk to him. He wasn’t really sure how he could possibly help, but right now, Rangavar figured he might have to accept any help he could get.

The other dragon shrugged and started towards the entrance again. “Well, let’s go, then.”

Kraz was tall; when he walked quickly, Rangavar struggled to keep up with his pace. He looked up at him. “I haven’t actually met your companion.”

“Oh, so now you want to make small talk?” Kraz didn’t look at him, but scowled. Rangavar could tell the message wasn’t all he was annoyed about.

Rangavar rolled his eyes. “Fine. Never mind.”

There was a long moment of silence as they walked. Finally, Kraz sighed. “Sorry.”

Rangavar shook his head. “Let’s just, forget about everything for a second and figure this out, alright?” There would be plenty of time to fight later. They turned the last corner and saw the front entrance at the end of the main hall. Supposedly, Kraz’s companion was waiting outside. “If your companion has any information, maybe he can help us find out what’s going on.”

Kraz nodded. “I really want to know what’s happening.”

Rangavar did too. More than Kraz realized.