I blinked a few times at the feeling of something warm on my aching head, and I yawned as I came back to my senses. "Time to wake up, Joy."

Steffie's hand patted my head as I slowly lifted my head off the floor to yawn again. The van had come to a stop and the front seats were empty, with Steffie kneeling in the grass just outside the open side door. I felt my wings grow a little warm in embarrassment as I realized I must have slept for the whole ride. "Sowwie. How long was I asleep?"

"About an hour and a half. You seemed like you were having a good nap, so I decided to let you sleep a little longer." Steffie's smile changed to a faint frown. "At least until just now. You were starting to shake in your sleep – were you having another nightmare?"

Another yawn escaped as I tried to think through her question. "Um... I think so."

The frown on Steffie's face deepened as she reached back to rest her hand behind my horns, just above the pain in my head. "What happened?"

I tried to think past the dull three of a headache. "Um... it had people. I tink Dok Tor Jean was there. She was weally mad. And she said a lot of big words, about... about..." I frowned as I tried to remember what she had been talking about. Something with animals, and trees, and... monsters? The details were already getting too fuzzy to remember. "Then people grabbed me, and dere was a needle, and..."

My sleepy mind finally woke up.

"Are we dere?!" I perked up and lifted my head to peek past Steffie, slowing at the last second to make sure my horns didn't scratch her arm. There were buildings! Just like how they looked on tv. And the sky above the buildings was clear – the glare of the glass I had always known was missing! There was nothing between me and the fluffy white clouds.

I was outside.

Steffie giggled and rose to her feet. "Yes, we're here. Come have a look around."

I forgot all about the nightmare and my headache as I scrambled to my feet and jumped out of the van.

"Dillian is going to meet us there." Steffie pointed up at one of the buildings we were walking towards. "Stay close. This is just a small town, and I know you're excited, but I'd still rather you not wander off."

I tried to listen to Steffie as I walked beside her, but it was hard to pay attention to her.

There was so much neat stuff everywhere! Everywhere!!

Steffie had parked the van on a grassy area, but that was replaced almost immediately by pavement – or at least, that's what I was sure it had to be. I had really only seen it on the television before, but it looked like the flat rocky stuff that people walked on in cities and that we had driven on to get here. And just like those cities in the movies, there were buildings! They had doors, like the home that I shared with Steffie had, but they weren't built into a cliff like our home was. It was like a giant block had just been dropped in the pavement, then given windows and a door.

And there were dozens of buildings! Some of them had angled roofs, while others seemed to just have a flat surface, while still other buildings were so big that I couldn't make out the top of them from the ground. The one Steffie had pointed at was even almost as tall as the cliff our home was built into! I would have to fly pretty high into the air to even begin to guess what kind of roof it had, and even though Steffie had just said I could go flying whenever I was wearing the headset, it seemed wrong to just fly away while she was talking to me.

My wings grew a little warm as I realized that Steffie had kept talking, but that I hadn't been paying attention. I gulped and looked away from the super tall building, glancing back at Steffie and hoping I hadn't missed anything too important.

"-called 'CloudComm'. They put equipment high up in the air, and that's what tablets and phones talk to. That's how we're able to use them wherever we go." Steffie reached towards her purse and half-slid her phone out for me to see. "The phone will send a signal up to their equipment, or it will send it to a nearby tower that then sends it on to the equipment in the air. And that's what they would like our help with, because-"

I looked away from Steffie as I noticed somebody pointing at us. He had been walking with someone else, but he had stopped in the middle of the... sidewalk, I think the word was? And he was pointing me out to his friend. He was saying something, too, but he was too far away to make the words out.

My wings grew warm again as I realized there were actually quite a few people scattered between the buildings, and... all of them were looking at us. Had I done something wrong? I didn't know any of them, but they all seemed very interested in me.

A fuzzy half-memory of my dreams came back to mind, of a bunch of angry people staring and muttering in a courtroom, and the dull ache in the back of my head started to get worse. I couldn't help but slink down a little, but I tried to push through the sudden nervousness I was feeling. The people were probably just happy to see me, that must be it, not anything scary. I shifted my weight to my back legs and slowly lifted an arm. I forced myself to lift my frills above my neck so I would look friendlier and waved to the person that was pointing at me, then muttered a nervous, "H-hi..."

Everybody kept staring at me. The man I had waved to blinked and looked back at his friend, then turned back at me to slowly return my wave.

Steffie paused as she seemed to notice all the strangers staring at us, then looked back to me. "Are you okay? It's only a little further; just to that building. It will be quieter inside."

I started to hear mutters around me, but I couldn't make out what the strangers were saying. I started to shake my head, but winced a little at the ache still coming from behind my horns. "Did I do something bad? They'we all staring at me... can we go back to the van?"

Steffie shot a glare at the people watching us, then pointed to the roof of the building she had pointed to before. "Would you feel better if you flew up to the roof? There won't be as many people up there, and that's where we're going anyways – you can wait for me up there?"

Some of the people had stopped openly staring at me when Steffie had glared at them, but I could tell they were still paying attention to me. The roof felt a lot safer. Even the van would mean all the strangers could just follow after us, but the roof would be harder for them to get up to. And if they did follow after me, I could just fly to another roof to get away from them. I started to nod, before suddenly realizing that Steffie wouldn't be able to fly away from the strangers with me. "Will you be okie?"

"I'll be fine." Steffie glared at one of the strangers that was still staring at me, then knelt down to wrap one arm around my neck in a hug. "Go on; I'll be right behind you."

"'Kay." I mumbled the word as Steffie relaxed her hug with a final pat to my neck. I spread my wings out in preparation to fly...

Every eye was suddenly on me again. I slunk lower to the ground and tried to edge back towards Steffie.

"It's okay, sweetie." Steffie's hand came back to my neck in a slow stroke over my scales. "They're just curious; they've never seen a dragon before. They won't hurt you. Go on."

I looked back at one of the strangers staring at me and gulped, but nodded to Steffie. Once I was in the air they wouldn't be able to keep staring at me, so the best thing to do was just to get up to that roof. There wouldn't be any strange people surrounding me and staring then.

Steffie gave me another comforting pat on my back as I took a deep breath. I spread my wings back out and tried very hard to ignore all the people staring at me, then started running forward. A few flaps of my wings and I was racing upwards, passing by all the windows built into the buildings...

"Way to go everybody, you scared the poor dragon. I hope you're all proud of yoursel-" Steffie's angry words faded into the wind as I flew away.

It took me a few seconds to get to the top of the building – the building was big – and I glided in a circle around it to get a better look. The roof was flat and looked to be covered in gravel, but it had a lot of strange stuff on top of it – metal boxes that had a fan on top, long hoses that looked sort of like bigger versions of the ones workers would use to water trees with, and big ovals that looked kind of like the water tanks scattered around the Arboretum, except made out of a weird yellow material instead of the gleaming silver I was used to. One side of the roof looked like it would usually be empty, but right now there was a blimp parked on it!

Blimps were neat. I always loved it when a coloring book page had one in it, and I think Steffie had noticed that. Almost all of my coloring books had blimps in them now. And a blimp came to the Arboretum every so often, too! It would land just outside the canopy, and the workers would go outside and hook up giant hoses to parts of it. And then there would be a lot of noise for a while, and then the blimp would leave. And Steffie would usually let us use more water for a few days after that, which was another reason blimps were neat.

I had also seen blimps on TV, like with Bertha the Blimp and other shows. I had seen airplanes in television shows too... but those weren't as neat as blimps. Airplanes were really loud and had to fly fast, and were always flying way high up in the sky, so I couldn't really get a good look at them. Which was actually fine with me, since they usually looked weird. They had really big wings, kinda like mine, but their wings never moved. That was just weird. Wings were supposed to move when you flew, and it always felt wrong that airplane wings just... didn't.

Steffie said people mostly used airplanes for moving people around, while blimps were for moving other things around. Airplanes were good at getting somewhere really fast, even if they never actually flapped their wings, and people tended to be in a hurry to get places, so they wanted to use airplanes. But blimps were good for getting a lot of stuff moved somewhere in a few days. She also said it was good at moving things cheaply, and tried to explain something about how gas was expensive and wasn't reusable because it had to be burned up, and blimps... didn't need to do that, for some reason...? I don't think I had really understood what she had tried to tell me with that.

But I knew blimps were neat.

I flew another lap to stare at the blimp, then started my descent. I thought about landing on the blimp itself – the top of it was oddly flattened and had a railing around it, like it had been designed for people to walk on, which didn't seem like how they looked in the coloring books or on the really big one that would visit the Arboretum – but I had a feeling landing on it might be a bad idea to do without permission, so I angled for the roof instead. I made sure to leave enough room next to the blimp, and made sure to keep my tail angled away so the spikes didn't accidentally hit it, as I landed and ran a few paces to bleed off my speed. I felt a surge of pride as I came to a stop – I had landed perfectly, without messing up! – then looked back at the blimp again.

It didn't have a face on it the way Bertha did in the cartoon, which I had been expecting – I had been pretty sure that wasn't real, even if it was neat in that show. But it wasn't as big as I had been expecting, either. Blimps were always huge in the coloring books and television shows, like they were almost as large as the buildings they were flying over. And the blimp that visited the Arboretum was really big. This one was tall – it could probably hold any of the trees I had seen in the Arboretum and still have a little room left over – but it wasn't that long or wide. I started to walk around it as I measured it in my head. It could maybe hold my bedroom and the living room, but that would be about it. It was tall enough that you could stack a few bedrooms and living rooms on top of each other, but it didn't seem like it would have much room otherwise.

But it was pretty! It was a blue color with yellow stripes down the sides, which reminded me of the purple stripes that ran down my back. I would have to ask Steffie if she could see the yellow stripes too, since I knew she couldn't see the purple stripes on my back. There was a really big picture on the side of the blimp, too – it was the same as the symbol that showed whenever our television was first turned on, with the cloud and the funny looking stick coming out of the top, and then the curved lines spread out around the top of the stick.

The blimp bobbed up and down above the roof as I started to walk carefully around it. It had ropes tied to points along the fattest part of it that led back to the roof and kept it from floating off, but I could tell the blimp was ready to float away as soon as those were untied. I made sure to stay far enough away that the ropes would stop the blimp if it started drifting in my direction, but I was really excited to see one up close. There was something along the bottom of the blimp that looked...

"Hello!" I jerked as I heard a man's voice come from further down the blimp. I looked back in that direction – there was a weird bulge underneath the front of the otherwise oval-shaped blimp, and a door and windows had been built into the bulge – and saw a man waving from inside the blimp.

I took a step back and tried to make myself small against the roof, feeling embarrassed at having been caught staring. I was still feeling nervous about all the people that had been staring at me earlier, too. The metal boxes and the maybe-water tanks were near enough that I could probably go hide behind one of them... but the man had clearly seen me, so there wasn't any sense in hiding. I took another look around just in case, then lifted one hand up to wave back. "Um... hello..."

The strange man opened the door to the blimp and hopped the short distance down to the ground. He had blue eyes, a little like Doctor Jean's but darker, and his hair was curly like Steffie's, but shorter and a brown color. He was wearing the same type of clothes that most of the people had been wearing back down on the ground, or that I had seen on some of the Arboretum workers – a neat blue shirt with short sleeves and 'CloudComm' written in yellow letters on one side, and tan-colored pants. "You must be Joy! Is Stephanie here with you?"

I took another step back and glanced back towards the cover on the other side of the roof. "I'm not 'possed to talk with stangers..."

Steffie had mentioned that at one point, though she hadn't seemed too worried about any of the workers I met at the Arboretum. The television shows I watched had been more clear about that – the fuzzy puppets said not to trust strangers, even if they gave you candy. Especially if they drove a white van. Which... Steffie drove a white van, but... she wasn't a stranger, so I wasn't really sure what that was supposed to mean. And the blimp looked kind of like the van, in that it was big... but it was blue, not white. Did that matter?

I eyed the man again. If he knew about Steffie, that might mean he wasn't really a stranger, but that man Steffie had said we were coming to help. Would that mean he would have candy? Maybe suckers, like Doctor Jean had...? A sucker sounded pretty nice, actually, especially with the fading headache still lingering in the back of my head... but if he did have candy, would that mean I should trust him even less?

The man stopped walking while I was still trying to decide what to do. His face took on a serious expression, kind of like Steffie's did when I mispronounced a word, and he nodded. "Oh, of course. I'll just wait over here until Stephanie gets here then. She can introduce us so we aren't strangers anymore, and then we can talk. Is she going to be here soon?"

I glanced back at the side of the roof, where I had left Steffie, then nodded slowly back at the man.

"Okay then. I'll just get back to work, and you can stay out here – please don't touch anything, but you're welcome to look around all you like. And when Stephanie gets here, then we can talk." The man smiled at me again, then turned and walked back into the blimp. He started working on the controls – I could spot them through the door he left open, and saw lots of levers and buttons all over the inside of the blimp – and seemed to stop paying me any attention.

I watched him for a few seconds... then I went back to looking at the blimp. A blimp! Just like my coloring books, but up close!

The man smiled a few times as I walked slowly around the blimp and stared at it. I made sure to avoid stepping on any of the ropes holding it down, and I stepped carefully over the two giant hoses that were running between the bottom of the blimp and two of the metal tanks on the other side of the building. The blimp looked the same on both sides – the blue background with more of the yellow stripes, and the same picture from our television – and the back looked the same as in my coloring books, with the rounded bit and three fins sticking out of it.

The bottom of the blimp still looked funny, though. The sides of the blimp all seemed smooth and almost cloth-like, as if it had been made out of the clothes Steffie or other humans wore, but the bottom section was different. I rolled onto my back and tried to wiggle close to get a good view of it, leaving a few marks in the gravel on the roof as my horns scraped against it.

There was a narrow rectangle of something metal-looking running down the underside of the blimp, and it made an occasional 'clunk' sound whenever the blimp bumped into the roof. It looked kind of like the metal boxes spaced around the roof – I could just barely make out what looked like fans if I tilted my head enough and waited for the blimp to lift as high as the ropes allowed it to go – but it was all one long rectangle, and seemed to have several fans all down the length. The metal boxes on the roof all seemed to just have one fan at the top... but I wasn't sure why they only had one, or what they were for at all, so I wasn't sure what that meant for why the blimp had so many. Or why these fans were on the bottom of the blimp, when the metal squares were on top of the roof.

I was wondering if the strange man would notice if I tried touching the bottom of the blimp – or if he would mind – when I heard the sound of a door shutting somewhere behind me. I rolled back onto my feet and glanced in that direction – there was a small shack on the roof over by the maybe-water tanks, and that was where the sound had come from – and I saw Steffie and another strange man – this one wearing the same type of clothes as the first, but with darker eyes and very short, neat black hair – walking towards me.

"Hi Steffie!" My headache had dulled to an easily-ignored one by then, so I hopped back to my feet and ran to meet her, slowing to come to a stop just in front of her. "Look at this! It's a blimp, like in my collawing books!!" I rose up on my back legs and pointed – and stretched out a wing in that direction, just to be extra sure Steffie saw it – at the blimp. And then I turned my head to stare back at it, just to make sure it hadn't vanished at some point while I was running towards Steffie.

"It is!" Steffie nodded towards the blimp as she smiled at me. "And I see! That's one of CloudComm's..." Her voice trailed off as she narrowed her eyes at my horns. "Joy, what happened to your headset?"

My wings grew really warm. I tried my hardest not to look back towards the blimp or the indent in the pebbly roof where my horns had carved small divots in the surface. "...I don't know...?"

I was pretty sure my face had "OOPS" written in bright capital letters all over every one of my scales.

Steffie just stared at me. Her expression had gone back to her 'this is important' expression, and she didn't look away from me.

I looked down at the roof and used one hand to nudge at the gravely surface. "I have another wule... n-no rubbing my head against things when I'm wearing the headset?"

A small smile cracked Steffie's stern expression, and she sighed as she reached for my horn. "That's an important rule, too." I held my head still while she tugged against my horn a few times, but she finally let go and leaned back. "It looks like you just nudged it out of place, not that anything's been broken. Let's give it another quick test though, just in case."

She dug in her purse for her phone, then tapped it a few times before holding it up to her ear. "Go ahead and say something?"

The faint echo of Steffie's voice came from just behind my ear, and I nodded to show her I had heard it. "Um... What wewe you saying about the blimp?"

My question started coming from her phone even before I had finished speaking, and Steffie nodded as she turned the knob again. There was a faint 'click' as the repeated words cut off. "That's good. And I was saying this blimp is one of CloudComm's floating workshops. They use it to get up to that equipment I was telling you about. It's going to carry us closer to that equipment so that you can fly up and get it for them."

"Ooohhh..." I stared back at the blimp... then I wobbled forward on two feet to try and keep up with Steffie, dropping back to all fours after only a few steps. "But if they have a blimp, can't they just get the equipment themselves?"

The strange man behind Steffie shook his head. "The blimp doesn't quite reach the altitudes our floaters operate at. We do have a method for retrieving floaters with the blimp if it comes to that, but it's... time-consuming, and not very efficient. If Joy can retrieve the floaters for us like Dillian was suggesting, then that would be a huge help for us."

I eyed the stranger nervously as he spoke. Steffie slowed a little and motioned to him. "Joy, this is Frank; he works with Dillian, the man I told you about. He's going to come with us today too."

"Oh. Hello, Fwank!" I paused long enough to sit up and wave at Frank. Frank seemed a little nervous, but he gave me a quick wave back before glancing away. I dropped back to all fours and looked back towards the blimp. "There's a stwanger in the blimp, too. I didn't talk to him."

"That must be Dillian; Frank said he was getting the blimp ready to go. Come on; I'll introduce you to him, too." Steffie started walking again, and I followed after her.

We came to a stop just before the spot where the ropes were tied to the roof, and Frank called out to the door at the front of the blimp. "Hey Dillian, your visitors are here."

The stranger – Dillian – hopped down from the blimp again and waved at us. "Hello! Thanks for bringing Stephanie up." He smiled at Steffie and Frank, then looked back down at me. "I saw Joy arrive a little bit ago, but she was all by herself."

I felt a little embarrassed as I remembered back to why I had come up to the roof, and I mumbled back to Frank and Dillian. "Dere were people down there, and they weppblfleffft."

I made a face as my tongue got stuck on my teeth. I really hated trying to pronounce that sound. Dumb 'r's.

"Were." I grumbled as I slowed down to repeat the word. "All of them watching me. Steffie said it was okay to come to the woof instead."

"And it was perfectly okay; you're welcome on this roof any time you'd like to come up here." The man smiled for another moment before looking back up at Steffie. "She was very well behaved and didn't touch anything; she just seemed curious about our blimp. I would have told her about it, but she isn't supposed to talk to strangers, so..." He trailed off and held his hands out before him in a regretful pose.

"That's what you're supposed to do, Joy; good job." Steffie smiled as she stepped between us, then held one arm out to point to Dillian. "Joy, this is Dillian, the man I told you about. He works for CloudComm and keeps our tablets and televisions working, and thinks you can help him do that. And Dillian, this is Joy, the dragon I told you about."

I rose onto my hind legs and waved up at Dillian. "Hello Dwillen!"

The edges of Dillian's mouth twitched a little in the start of a smile as I said his name – it didn't sound the way Steffie or Frank had said the name, so I had probably messed it up – but he didn't seem to mind. I thought he was going to wave back at me, but he took a few steps closer until he was standing before me, and he took my hand in his.

Then his mouth did rise up in a smile, and I caught something glimmering in his eye just before he leaned down to my hand. He kissed the scales there, just like I had seen people sometimes do on tv shows about fantasy castles and princesses, before standing back up. "A pleasure to meet you, Joy. Stephanie has told me a lot about you, but she didn't mention how adorable you are. Thank you for coming all this way to help me."

I swayed a little and fanned my wings out more as I tried to keep my balance. Dillian was nice.

"Y-you're welcome." I mumbled a little, having trouble meeting Dillian's gaze, and looked back over at Steffie – and at Frank standing beside us. "Um. It was my birfday yesterday... would you like a piece of cake? Steffie got it for me, and it's really good!"

Dillian raised one eyebrow and glanced back to Steffie, but she just shook her head. "I didn't bring any with us, Joy. We'd have to go all the way back home to get a slice, and Dillian doesn't have time to wait that long."

"...oh." My wings sagged a little at my sides.

Dillian just smiled and shook his head slightly. "It's okay, Joy. Thank you for offering. You can bring me a slice next time you come visit, if you still have any left then." He glanced back at Steffie, then turned back towards the blimp. "But now that everybody is here, I think we're all ready to take off? Just give me a second to get her started and I'll show you on board."

Steffie nodded and stepped back towards me, and I settled back to all fours to wait. Dillian hopped back up into the blimp and began messing with the controls. Frank waited with us while Dillian worked, and after a few seconds I heard the sound of fans beginning to spin all along the bottom of the blimp. The blimp bobbed in the air for another second or two... then it lowered until it was flush against the surface of the roof.

I stared at the bottom of the blimp in amazement. So the fans caused the blimp to go down, somehow? That was neat!

Frank started walking around the blimp and began untying the ropes, but Dillian waved at us from inside the door – the door that was now much closer to the roof, and which had stopped bobbing around so much. "Okay; you can climb up now."

Steffie led the way to the front of the blimp... but she paused beside the door instead of going inside. "You go first, Joy."

I nodded and looked back into the blimp. The doorway was a little narrow, but I should be able to fit through it. And the 'floor' inside the blimp was still a little bit above the roof – not as high as what Dillian had jumped, but still a bit higher than the gap I jumped up to get into Steffie's van. I started to spread my wings out to help with my balance, only to stop when I realized they wouldn't fit through the door.

Dillian noticed me hesitating and held up a hand. "Hold on a second; I'll be right back."

"Okay...?" I tilted my head and looked back at Steffie, but she seemed just as confused as I felt while Dillian disappeared through a larger door behind him.

He was gone for a long moment while Frank untied more of the ropes... but he finally came back with a plastic step stool carried in one hand. "Here, try this."

I beamed as he leaned down to put the step stool on the roof. The gap was perfect now! I waited for him to back out of the doorway, then easily hopped up the two steps and slipped through the narrow door. My wing bumped against the doorway as I slipped through, but that didn't matter – I was inside a blimp!

The front part of the blimp – I think it was called a cockpit? Or maybe a 'gondola'? Or... was that the thing on television shows about ski resorts? Whatever it was called, the front part of the blimp was fairly cramped now that I was in it. There was a half-circle of controls spread all around the front, beneath the windshield – or at least, I guessed that's what it was called, since it looked like the windshield in Steffie's van, only way bigger. I couldn't really tell what the controls were any easier from here, unless I wanted to stand on my back legs, and I didn't think Dillian would appreciate that. Plus Steffie needed to get in, too. And Frank was probably going to want to get inside the blimp, too.

It was about to get really crowded...

My attention was tugged away from all the super interesting controls by Dillian moving behind me. I finally remembered that there was another door that he had gone through – this one was a glass door that slid to the side – as he pulled the door back to the side and held it open for me. "After you, Joy – it will be more comfortable back there, and I'll be able to explain everything to you while Frank flies us to the first receiver."

I craned my neck to peek through the glass door. This door was much wider than the other one, and the room beyond was larger, too – it had two couches like the one in our living room, and a television, and another chair on top of that. And it had stairs leading up, into what seemed to be another room – there was actually plenty of room in the blimp. "Yay!" I happily spread my wings and slipped into the larger room to explore it.

Steffie climbed into the blimp as soon as I was in the larger room, though she paused to talk with Dillian. "Thank you; I didn't think about needing a step stool. She's fine when she's in the air, but she can be a little clumsy on the ground sometimes – will her spikes be a problem? Sometimes she forgets what she's doing with her tail."

I paused from looking at the blank television screen to make sure I had my tail pulled in so that the spikes didn't poke anything.

"It'll be fine. Anything that's really expensive is already safely behind walls. Her spikes won't be a problem." Dillian paused to look back at me with a smile, then looked out through the front of the blimp. "It'll just be a little bit while Frank finishes up and then we'll be ready to get underway. I'll be helping him during take-off, but after that I'll come join you back here and answer any questions."

Steffie pulled her backpack closer and began opening it, pulling her tablet out to arrange in her lap. "Okay. Thanks; just let us know if you need anything."

I nodded back at Dillian as he slipped back through the glass door and let it close behind him... then I went back to exploring the inside of the blimp.