I awoke in a tiny white chamber, shackles on my arms and wings, my satchel gone from my side. I wrinkled my nose. This must've had something to do with the reserve the Marshae was talking about.
I decided to look around and see if there was anything helpful to my escape. The first things I noticed was that one of the walls was bulletproof glass, and you could look out into a long corridor filled with other small chambers. Most of them were empty, but a few held other dragons; all of which were Lunae, except most of them had wild, starved eyes. I shuddered.
I didn't get to look for much longer, because I saw the shadows of dragons cross the doorway. I did my best to steel my expression and remain calm, even though I was naturally terrified.
The two dragons, which were small, only up to my knee in height, seemed to be arguing about something. The room was also soundproof, to my dismay, because even though they were being loud I could only pick out a few words. The larger of the two, a raptorial dragon with yellow eyes and green feathers, growled something at the other. The smaller dragon sported less colorful grayish blue plumage, which was puffed up in annoyance.
"Inspection.... Not yet ....... Take it to the ...... sector.... We'll see how it does."
I guessed the larger dragon must have been the boss, because the smaller one just muttered something under its breath and glanced over at me.
If they tried anything, I knew better to resist; even though the dragons I was facing were extremely small and weak, it would still be suicide. I was in unfamiliar terrain, and the enemies had an unknown amount of backup. My arms, snout, legs, tail and wings were also bound, so it's not like I could go anywhere.
As the other dragon walked away, the blue-gray one beckoned over two other dragons holding long prod sticks, and I noticed something new. Each of them was wearing a colored collar. The guards' collars were red, and the other dragon from before had a purple collar. I squinted at the glass to see my reflection, and I also wore a purple collar, except mine didn't have silver symbols engraved on it like the other dragons did.
The purple collared dragon pressed a button on a keypad next to the glass, and my shackled unclipped and do fell to the ground. Another button pressed and the glass wall slid down, leaving a suitable sized exit for a dragon up to twice my size in both height and length.
The guards hoisted their prods and walked slightly behind me, poised to strike in case I even slightly stepped out of line. They led me down several long corridors, and when I accidentally tripped while walking I got poked with the prod; the end was thin enough to slide right in between a dragon's tough scales, and it delivered a pretty nasty electric shock that nearly made me yelp.
Finally the purple collared dragon pressed the symbol on his collar up to a keypad on one of the doors, and it opened. The view outside was breathtaking- a vast plain of beautiful wildflowers merged with a wild jungle where birds sang and the breeze rustled the leaves. Maybe this 'reserve' wasn't so bad after all, but there was no way I was going to abandon Leo to be on his own. I had to get back. My wings were still bound, but I looked to the sky anyways, to see if there was any possible way out. A thin netting was laced over the whole sky, and it shouldn't have been able to be suspended without some kind of magic behind it. I assumed it was immune to a Lunae's energy breath, as well.
Right on cue, the shackles on my wings unclipped and the guards snatched them up and returned inside the building, the door quickly shutting behind them. Now it was just me, left to explore a seemingly endless expanse of foreign land.
