By: Emperor

The weather was nice, the sun showed with not a cloud in the sky. The air itself was warm, at least compared to their world. All in all, it should have been a great day.

It wasn’t…

Anna, or Sparkles as she wanted to be called, was making today a living hell. First, the dragonette forgot to get clearance to actually fly, and now the damn idiot had found out how to switch frequencies for their radio.

Ira let out another sigh as Sparkles once again made contact with…someone. She could hear the dragonette laughing, and clearly not paying attention to their GPS. They were in unfamiliar territory, hell they weren’t even in their world.

“Anna-”

“I said to call me Sparkles,” the dragonette yelled out, cutting off the dragon.

“Fine… Sparkles where are we? Those roads just keep going on, and I can’t read any of the signs from up here. It’s just a bunch of fields.”

The dragonette let out a groan, “Sorry boys, I gotta go. Thunder Thighs needs me.”

Ira hadn’t really been paying attention to the dragonette’s antics, but that definitely caught her attention.

She turned her head and looked back at Anna, “What did you call me?”

Anna froze, “Oh, uh, nothing.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing. What does thunder thighs even mean?”

Ira watched as her partner immediately go for the GPS.

“Soooo, it looks like we’re getting close to our next stop.” Anna looked up, “Actually, what’s a truck stop?”

“How should I know, you’re the one who’s been looking everything up.”

“Well we should make a stop there, they got snacks, restrooms, and… OH, they have showers! Yeah, we’re totally stopping there.”

Rolling her eyes, the dragon turned her head back around. “Just let me know when we’re close…”

Nothing else exciting happened for another hour, but as the sun was starting to lower itself, Anna called out.

“There, over there! That should be it!”

Ira didn’t need to see where the dragonette was pointing, there was only one building around for…well, miles. Although calling it a building was a bit much of a compliment, it was clearly some kind of store.

However, to the dragon, the more interesting part was the rows and rows of, what she learned were called trucks or big rigs.

Seeing that they had found this truck stop, Ira was getting ready to land when she remembered something important.

‘Damn it, I bet that idiot didn’t call in our stop. Bah, so annoying. Why do we have to constantly call into ATC for every minor thing…’

“Ann- I mean, Sparkles, did you call in our stop?”

There was a pause in the dragonette’s excitement, “Shit! I’m doing it right now.”

Ira let out a grumble and circled until they finally got clearance to make an unannounced ‘landing.’ Once they received it, she made for a strip of ground that was big enough for her to land on.

The moment she touched down, Anna hopped off with a bag and darted for the store.

“I’ll be back shortly, gotta try out those showers!”

Ira did her best to not roar, “Just grab me something to eat!”

She looked down at the black ground and grumbled. For some reason, humans liked to pave their roads and what they called, parking lots, in nasty, sticky tar. She hated it, it liked to stick to her feet, it was always hot, and worst of all, it smelled atrocious.

Luckily, she spotted a small field, well she was surrounded by fields, but they were all covered in some kind of plant? Whatever it was, it was clearly a crop meant for harvesting and she wasn’t about to go ruin someone’s farm.

The little grassy area had just enough room for her to lay down, which she promptly did. However, it was only then that she realized she was being watched.

From the store, there were at least a dozen individuals standing outside staring at her. Some were holding small thin boxes that caused the odd flash of light, while others were talking to those boxes…or possibly to themselves, she couldn’t really tell.

After a few minutes of this though, a couple of the braver humans began to approach her. She let out a sigh, this hadn’t been the first time but it was getting annoying.

‘Where the hell is Anna?’

While they had their differences, there was a reason why they both worked together. Anna was good at convincing people to give up their hard-earned money, while she was the brains of their operation.

Ira turned her attention to the first human to reach her as he began to talk.

“So you must be Thunder Thighs,” the old, overly weight man said. “Sparkles was tell’n us ‘bout you.”

“What?” She gave him a stern look, “What did you call me?”

“Oh, are you not Thunder Thighs? Didn’t know there was another dra-”

“No, what does that mean?” Her patience was dwindling. “Thunder I understand, being a blue, we shoot lightning and all that, but what I don’t get is how it has anything to do with thighs.”

“Well, ya see…”

---

Sparkles wasn’t having a great time, the shower that was promised only gave out cold water. The entire restroom smelled of piss and mold and to top it all off, only one toilet was in service, forcing her to join a long queue.

The only thing she was successful in was snacks, lots and lots of snacks. She even grab an entire box of something called Flamin’ Hot Cheetos that Thunder Thighs seemed to like. It wasn’t like they didn’t have money to spare, they were here to buy and sell goods after all.

Unfortunately, her day only got worse as she was checking out.

The entire building shook, the glass windows vibrating, as she heard a familiar voice yelling out her real name.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAA!”

‘Uh-oh…’