We do not wish to be treated like our cousins, the Dogs. Our love is for our pack and past and future, theirs is twisted to a new master.

The great dragon worked to keep the order of the forest, neither master nor partner to us. A change to this arrangement is unwelcome.

We cannot beg for protection, but migration is an option taken in times of disaster. If the threat continues, may we ask for some of the new untouched lands?

Yes.

Our warning is delivered. Will you remain here, with no dragon? How can we call for you-and-yours if not?

I can give you an object that will call me if you do something to it - step on it or bite it - will that suffice?

Leader Wolf nods.

I will be right back.

She goes and gets a panic-style emergency services device configured to call her, locks it into that mode, and strings it onto a paw-strap they can reach to bite or step on it.

A wolf bites it by the strap for carrying.

A warning for a promise. A good trade. Sing well. Goodbye.

Goodbye.

And she goes to report a murder.

The dragon-hunters are visited by law enforcement fifteen minutes later.

The four of them are trundling through mountain foothills, dragging two sledges. Three men, one woman, wearing leather and bronze mail and carrying medieval weapons. They have a healing song player. The dragon's head, cleaned up, is perfectly visible on one of the sledges.

"Good afternoon, strangers," the apparent-leader in bronze armor says smilingly.

"Hello," says one of the strangers, a fairy. "We're here because you've been identified as responsible for the death of Snake Below Pines."

"Oh? Who is that? I've never heard of them."

"A dragon. Possibly that one, though I don't actually know what she looked like."

"You're going to arrest us for hunting a dragon, are you?" He shares a look with the others. "Oh, we did that, yes. But not, as far as I'm aware, in the territory of Vanda Nossëo."

"Well, you can talk about that at trial," says the fairy, nodding to one of the accompanying law enforcers. And then all of them - without their sledges - are in a jail on one of the new colony planets since they haven't studied the long term effects of being out of the world for the nonreductionist locals.

They're very calm about this. "I'm sure the property we've left behind will be appropriately looked after," the leader says. "Would you like us to disarm?"

"You can have your weapons in your rooms," says the warden, "which are those four over there, but you can't bring them along anywhere else."

"Let's go put them away then. Can't go annoying the space folk, can we?"

One of the men rolls his eyes, the woman snorts. They put their weapons in their rooms and then take off most of their armor and wander around the prison a bit, exploring and seeing if anyone's going to talk to them.

There's a couple guys playing a sailboat racing game in the common area and another guy reading a book in a hammock in the courtyard but this place hasn't filled up much yet.

One approaches the warden.

"So, I have to send a message out, how can I do that? Also, I want to ask again about the stuff left behind when we were arrested. It's gonna get wrecked if you just leave it on the trail."

"What kind of message? There's computers if you need to send an email. I assume someone's grabbed all the stuff and put it in Physical Evidence but I can check... yeah, they got it."

"Good, good. Yeah, the mail thing. I think I wrote it down somewhere... Yep, I got the address. Can I use them for video calls later? Also, what's this prison's name or whatever?"

"You can use it for video calls no problem. It's called Cape Redemption. Don't look at me, I didn't name it."

"Redemption. Right. We totally get to talk to lawyers, right?"

"Yeah! Do you want help looking through who's available or can you manage the computers yourselves?"

"Probably need it, yeah. Gonna send that email first and I don't want you looking over my shoulder though."