Tara stared at the massive creature before her on the riverbank in shock. "You... I don't..."

"It has long been understood among my kind that conversations with a Finder must begin with silence. An intelligent beast is a useful ally, but a cunning sentient agent with a lifespan measured in millenia is a threat. It is not in our nature to dissemble, Tara, but we have learned."

"But how can you possibly -- it's been weeks!" Tara's eyes rolled about in confusion, seeking something in this quiet valley with which to make sense of what was happening. Finding a dragon in the first place had been shock enough, but to now discover that after weeks with Sar- ...Serryah ...she really knew so little about the dragon. Something Serryah had said suddenly registered. "There are more of you?!"

Serryah huffed sadly. "There...were once many of us, yes. Now I do not know." Her tail flicked in distraction for a moment. "The Overlay was as damaging to our world as it was to yours, of course."

Tara stared at the dragon blankly. She had been born a villager, and knew little of what had come before, though there were sometimes stories at feast days of a time long past when there were great palaces called Seets connected by rivers of stone. Elder Lathe had once in passing claimed that the west crumblequarry was part of such a river. "Overlay?"

Tara's great neck shifted forward and curved back so that Serryah could blink peevishly at her. "Many lifetimes before yours, Tara. Have your people forgotten already? I suppose it does not much matter. This world was once many worlds. I do not know what brought them crashing together, but the result was terrible. The great cities were devastated immediately, of course, and the Parasites removed even the ruins. My kin, most of them at work or asleep in the caves of our homes, were instantly entombed." Thinking of this, Serrya's scales rippled with a shudder that crept visibly along her back.

"I allowed you to Find me, Tara, and so now we are bound to each other. You seek to move the turbines, and there is ample time for that. But when we have finished with this task, I must ask your help in return." Serryah raised a foreclaw and flexed it, then stamped at the ground impatiently. "We did not build the caverns. Those who did were gone long before even the Overlay. We do not remember anything about them, except for the caverns. I need your help to dig a path to the underground, to the places where my people are in the stone. I must find my mother, and I cannot do it alone, hard as I have tried."

Tara struggled to make sense of the conversation, trying desperately to connect what was happening to reality in some way other than succumbing to insanity. After a moment of silence, she settled for taking the conversation at face value. Perhaps if she pretended this was normal and allowed her body to act accordingly a path would appear for her mind to follow. "Your mother is alive?"

Serryah did not move, but her eyes flashed darkly. "My mother is dead. And with her my birthright. It is my birthright I seek to retrieve."