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Azuri was now pacing around in a Florian jail cell, talking to himself out loud. He was quickly startled by a loud banging against the cell bars. Azuri stopped and looked up to see what caused it and saw his mother on the other side. Her face was red with anger, like she was seconds away from beating him within a centimeter of his life. Azuri backed away from the cell bars and his mother until his back touched the wall. He slid his back against the wall until he was sitting down on the floor.

"AZURI VAPOR!" She howled at him with pure rage in the tone of her voice.

"LOOK AT YOU NOW! In a jail cell at only eight years old! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW much I just want to-" She growled loudly and her claws clenched tightly as she grabbed the cell bars and shook them with force. "I HOPE YOU FEEL SORRY NOW!" She snapped at him. Azuri's ears fell flat upon his head and he retreated in on himself, using his wing to cover his body and face. "Give me ONE good reason I should still call you my son!! ONE!"

Azuri was still hiding behind his wing, his mouth was trembling in fear and guilt. He couldn't mutter the words to her, or even give her a reason. Should he say something to her? He didn't know what he could say to even make her happy at this point. She was far too angry, and clearly wanted to beat him to smithereens until he was barely breathing. He tried to keep his distance from her within the cell, only looking over his wing in terror.

His mom scoffed. "Pathetic. Truly pathetic. Can't even come up with a single reason, not one. I hope they keep you here." With that, she walked off in a huff. Azuri found himself alone in the cell, feeling the rush of tears reaching to his eyes. He felt himself beginning to sob, putting the wing close to his face to cry into. As the hot tears rushed out of his eyes, he felt truly terrible. The guilt and sadness wasn't comprehensible, he only wanted one thing now. He wanted a hug, someone to make him feel better, but he was stuck behind bars with both of his friends nowhere around. He was unsure whether he would feel the warm, loving embrace of a hug ever again.

What felt like minutes of sobbing eventually turned to hours before Azuri soon passed out in his cell on the thin mat on the floor, which had been placed there haphazardly without care. Azuri found himself having a nightmare of being chased through doors as BossBiss slowly creeped up on him. He couldn't find the way out through any of the doors. Each door led into the same room that had axes and swords hanging up from the ceiling. By the time he got to the end of the hallway and turned around, seeing BossBiss about to catch him, he heard a familiar voice, causing him to wake up suddenly.

"Psst!"

Azuri looked up from behind his wing, noticing that it was dark outside from the cell window. The blue flame lantern lit up the cell dimly, and Azuri saw Sandstorm just outside his cell door. Azuri cautiously got to his claws, Sandstorm gesturing for Azuri to come over. He hesitantly walked over to his cell door and peeped through the bars. Sandstorm looked around for any guards, before facing him. "What are you doing here?" Azuri asked her.

"Don't worry, I came to get you out!" She raised her wing out and took off a bobby pin from underneath. She was about to raise her claw to unlock his cell door when Azuri reached out and stopped her.

"Don't! You're going to get us both in more trouble." Sandstorm looked into his pleading eyes and lowered her claw. "I don't want you to make things worse. You're free now, you can head back to Vaermia."

She shook her head, "I don't want to go back, I want to get you out so we can both stop BossBiss."

"I'm sorry, but we can't." Azuri tells her with sadness. "I'm stuck in here until they decide to let me out. You can take Uhrwerk with you if he's still around."

Sandstorm sighed as she looked out of the booking door. "He's being interrogated by a very scary Florian that looks a lot like you, but older." Azuri realized who she was describing, prompting him to look through the booking door.

"That's uh... That's my dad." Her eyes widened in shock. She didn't say anything, only muttering a simple "oh" before clipping the bobby pins onto the bottom of her wings.

"What's his role around here? He looks very important." Azuri tried to remember back when the queen offered him a military position. At the time, he wasn't anything special. He just worked under a special secret division within the military. He didn't know what it was called, but it was very important for the queen. For the first time seeing his father in six years, he did seem to be on a higher ranking nowadays. Azuri shrugged while Sandstorm checked the lock on the cell door.

Azuri stopped her again, "Stop, the guards are right outside the door." Sandstorm glanced out the door before leaning in.

"Don't worry, I can take care of them."

"No, I don't want you to help me escape. I appreciate that you want to help me, but we can't just cheat the system. You have to wait, even if it hurts knowing that you can get me out yourself." Sandstorm lowered her eyes at him, it was like she was now beginning to examine him like the first time she met him. She begins to think to herself for a bit, before stepping back from the cell. "I'm sorry, Sandstorm. I promise I'll be out soon, just try and wait for me and Uhrwerk." She sighed with disappointment and nodded to him, before turning and leaving the room. Azuri watched her go into the booking room, then vanished around a corner.

Azuri turned around and walked over back to the spot he was in. He laid back down, folding his body inwards and wrapping his wings around himself. He started to let himself relax and let his eyes close. He slowly started to feel himself falling back to sleep. He could only feel sadness and regret as he started to doze off again. This time, his dream was an old memory of himself and his mom reading one of her books. It was the only thing left at this point that gave him the slightest bit of happiness. Even if it was only a dream, he let it wash over him and distract him from reality.

Azuri woke up to a new day, still within his cell. He stood up on all fours and started stretching himself. He turned his head around to the cell door, and grew shocked to see his father on the other side. Azuri stared at him for what felt like ages. Neither of them spoke a single word as their eyes focused on each other. Eventually, his dad finally opened his mouth and spoke. "Good morning, Azuri." He quickly recognized a guard standing beside him with a plate of food and water. Jail food, my favorite, Azuri thought to himself. The guard slid the tray through an opening within the door, which Azuri came over and took from him.

Azuri started to eat from the tray, but wasn't too thrilled by the taste. He still ate it despite the dryness of the food. When he finally finished eating, he handed the tray back and the guard, who then took it. His father looked over to the guard and nodded to them, dismissing them. Though, he didn't leave with the guard. He remained where he was, his eyes still fixated on Azuri. He didn't know what his father might be feeling at that moment. He hadn't spoken to him in six years, his expression was simply a frown featured upon a blank stare.

His father stepped a little closer to the cell, "Well, I will say that I wasn't entirely expecting to see you again from the other side of a jail cell," he admitted, but didn't appear to be disappointed or angry with him. Instead, he seemed to be awfully calm about the whole thing. Azuri still felt a wave of guilt rush through him. His father might not be disappointed in him, but he was still Azuri's father. Azuri lowered his head to the floor, avoiding his eyes. Aphure continued. "So, I spoke to that Luminian that you said was named Uhrwerk." He started saying to him, which made Azuri lift his head up. "His point of view on the whole situation was pretty interesting to me."

Interesting? Azuri thought to himself. My dad thought what we did was interesting? That was the last thing I expected him to say. Azuri met with his fathers eyes again, and he saw a small smile appear. "I-Interesting? You mean, you're not mad?"

The smile disappeared as he started talking again. "Well, while I am a little bit disheartened to see you inside of a jail cell, I know the reason you chose to do the stuff that you did." Azuri was a little surprised to be hearing him say that. In no way did his mother think that he did anything good, not even the Luminian.

"Really?" Azuri asked him, his ears perking up above his head.

His father nodded, "I've talked to Morfern about what I've uncovered from Uhrwerk. I told her that I'll be having a chat with your mother about convincing her to let him stay with you guys. You just wanted to do something good, and I don't think your mother is thinking fairly in regards to a lonely eight year old dragon." Azuri's face lit up and he felt his heart start pumping faster with happiness. It felt good to hear that from his own father, to know that he was on Azuri's side. A grown up that was also his own father, telling him that he didn't do anything wrong.

"Dad..." Azuri started, his mouth slightly opened in shock from what he was hearing. "Is that true? Do you really think I wasn't in the wrong?"

"Well, I don't know about that. I would say more like..." He thought to himself for a second, "Doing a good thing in the wrong way." Azuri didn't know if that meant a good thing, or a bad thing. "Which is actually how I usually go about doing things anyway." Aphure paused for a moment, furrowing his eyebrow. "Only from you, I don't see a murderous hero like myself."

"So... What does this mean for me?" Silence fell on both of them as his father took a deep breath. It looked like he was preparing himself to make a bad decision. Once he released his breath, he went over to the cell door and began to unlock it. "Dad? What are you doing?" Azuri took a step back, unsure how to respond to the situation.

"Come on, Azuri." He gestured for him to follow. "Let's go kill BossBiss."