Does she know her...? Nothing comes to mind. Perhaps one of the young man's companions. She didn't pay them all that much attention.

The woman smirks, pushes her glasses up, and then a man behind her whispers to a friend, "Isn't that the commander's whore?"

His companion snickers. "Heard he had a different one, not that anyone's seen her... Some enemy of his."

"Hah! A hypocrite, too, huh? Or is he pushing the forgiveness talk that far?" the first asks, grinning.

The red head turns cleanly on her heel and smiles at the two men, teeth bared and air heavy with threat. "Be very, very glad Sasuke-sama doesn't allow us the same privileges Orochimaru-sama did," she says, sweetly. Then, to the instigator, "Though, you quite live alone, don't you? No one would really notice anything that might happen."

Both go pale, stammering an apology, and scurry off.

No one else seems to note the interaction as strange, though a few stop to watch, amusement in their eyes.

Ah, Sasuke. That was the name. Orochimaru is... the one he inherited his position from, and the pattern he's changing?. More information. And the exchange was moderately amusing.

But she's satisfied herself that there are no imminent threats she need concern herself with, and so returns home. She spends the next three days flying around the mountains, dotting them with small magical flames. If she was a blue, she could just look. But she's not. So in a week she will check the flames again to see which have flared and which have sputtered, and try to sketch a rough map of the ley lines.

Once, she returns from her flight to find the lair disturbed. The traps seems to have gone off, but whoever tripped them escaped.

That, she does not like. She breaks the whelping's spine with a smack of her tail and resets the wards, then buries the corpse.

She stays much closer to home for the next while.

That seems to have dissuaded others for now.

The fires she's set don't flare or flicker in response to either ley lines or magic.

Hm. That is... unusual. And potentially problematic. On any normal world, the distribution she has ought to have caught at least one. That none of the fires have changed at all indicates... what? A thaumic dead zone? But then the fires shouldn't have taken at all. She doesn't have enough theoretical background for this. Maybe a mana-neutral region? Are those even possible?

...The lack of elementals. Elementals are formed from loose environmental mana. If there's no mana, there won't be any elementals. If there's no mana, local magic would look different, which it does. Damn the gods great and small. She does not like this conclusion. It means she won't be getting back under her own power any time soon. Her bellowing roar of frustration shakes the ground.

The villagers nearby don't particularly like that, but they got used to the minor trembles during the construction. A roaring dragon sounds an awful lot like Someone Else's Problem.

Okay. Fine. Her first idea isn't going to work and she's young to be here for longer. What does she need?

A bigger lair. Local magic. Better defenses.

Of those, magic first. The mortals learn it within a lifetime, so it will be the quickest to pick up. The other goals require her to stay out of human form for extended periods, which will likely be disadvantageous for learning.

The lair will be straightforward. As for defenses... She'll lay more wards for now. She is not overeager to clutch again so soon. Maybe look to starting a dragoncult. That might dovetail with acquiring magic, if she offers local users the chance at ascension.

And the long-term stability of the mortals' politics is more important. She doesn't want to be caught unawares by an army.

So. Back into their civilization she must go.

The generally agreed upon best place to find shinobi is Otogakure. Otogakure is hidden. It might not actually be a single place, more a political entity spread over multiple places. After that, there's a contact point in the capital, Kometo, which is usually responded to really quickly. There's smaller contact points in the other cities and some of the big towns in more active areas, but they sometimes have a backlog.

(There's gossip about Kometo - people don't talk about the daimyo, much, the shinobi are more interesting, but soon after the new jounin commander solidified his position the old daimyo and all his sons died, leaving only his daughter. That woman, Ueda Kyoku, is the new daimyo, and people are unsure of her. Some think she's weak-willed, letting the shinobi walk all over her. Some think she's cunning. No one actually knows much of anything about her - her most notable trait is being utterly unexceptionable. Given the scandals that follow the nobles like clouds of flies, one old woman says, that alone is something to pause at.)

Kometo, then. She has no desire for a scavenger hunt, nor does she feel like waiting.

Kometo is larger, more colorful, and in better shape than the others by a large margin. There's more new construction, more clearly defined districts, and more people from a variety of places and backgrounds. More shinobi, too, including a large group in a building that's part of the publicly facing parts of the government - the equivalent of city hall is flanked by a large courthouse and the Otogakure contact point. There's a series of lines for the Otogakure contact point, feeding people into rooms made magically impregnable to spying, where presumably they solicit help from the shinobi - for a fee, if wants are determined to be outside their usual purview (as explained by a helpful sign).

She's apparently recognized by one of the guards, who gestures to her to leave the line and follow him, nodding to a door that seems to go further into the building.

Convenient. She follows.

"The dragon Ellisaria, right?" he says, sounding vaguely bored, once the door closes behind her. He sits at a table, and gestures to a chair across from him. "Sit if you want, don't if you don't." After she indicates which, "What's your reason for contacting us today?"

"I wish to speak with your jounin commander, regarding a change in our agreement."

"That's easy to pass on. Any details? Especially on urgency and where you'd rather meet - if it's urgent he can get here faster than most places, if privacy's more important you can meet him at your lair or in one of the bases, if it isn't urgent at all he might want you to come to him, or else wait until he has an opening in his schedule." Then, after a pause, "Usually we'd also ask for proof of identity, but our sensors already identified you positively, and don't think your signature can be trivially faked."

"I doubt that it could be. The matter is not urgent, but I would prefer it addressed sooner. Either my lair or his base would suffice as a meeting point."

"I'll get it sent in. You'll probably receive a message soon enough with a time and place - probably either a human messenger or a hawk. Usual turn around's no more than a week."

"Very well. One further matter. I will be in this area for the next several days and may make some excursions in my true form. I would prefer not to be attacked while doing so."

"That's fine. There's a no-fly zone over and around the capital itself, for safety reasons. I'll point it out on a map. Stay out of there, you should be fine - I'll let the forces nearby know who you are."

(A map can be rather quickly obtained. The no-fly zone is large-ish, but reasonably sized overall.)

She notes the boundaries. And then, her business concluded, will take her leave.

And then she goes for a fly around the capital. If she's showing off a bit more than usual, no one who doesn't know her will be able to tell. You can't start a cult if no one knows who you are or has any reason to appreciate your power and majesty.

A messenger hawk - big, about the size of a small pony, dark brown with flashes of red along the edges of his feathers and an orangish head - finds her before she's ready to leave. He tilts his head at her, and says, "I have a message for Ellisaria."

"I am she."

The hawk rustles his feathers, then, "Good. Sasuke-sama can meet you tomorrow morning, or on Gold Day next week, within his base, which I can lead you to."