Scott waits until Doc is safely far, far out of earshot, and then waits a little longer just to make doubly sure he's as far out of range as possible before turning to the other emperors, heart hammering in his chest.
"Jimmy, your friends are insane," Scott says.
"Why are you blaming me?" Jimmy says incredulously.
"I mean, I don't know! You and Fwhip are the ones who said we should try to keep them in our world! But look at what they've done! We lost track of the green one and now he's shown up here with two dragons."
"Well, that's hardly my fault, is it?"
"I mean," Fwhip says. "I mean. You are one of the ones they recognized -"
"Don't you - excuse you, if we're going off of recognition, then we should be yelling about Gem, or False, or Sausage or something! Not me! It's not my fault one of them is like, my sleep paralysis demon -"
"Your what?" interjects Oli.
"It's not important," Jimmy says.
"I mean, I don't know, King, that sounds maybe a little important -"
"Toy boy gets nightmares," Joel says.
"You said you'd -"
There's a roar overhead. It pierces straight through Scott's chest, filling his lungs with horrible vibrations. Everyone goes deathly silent. Scott's hands shake. Oli goes sheet white. Jimmy visibly swallows hard, hands twitching for the pistol he doesn't have here. Fwhip hisses and gestures under an outcropping. It doesn't take a genius to follow him.
They stuff themselves into the rock. They don't all fit. Shelby has to practically sit on top of Scott, in fact, who puts up with it far more than he should, given how much Shelby gleams to his magic eye.
It is, of course, not nearly as bad as the dragon.
The wingflaps never get too close. They can hear them, though.
"Are - what are you doing?" Scott hears Fwhip hiss to Sausage.
Scott turns. The man has a rosary.
"I'm just making sure that if these are my last words Santa Pearla hears them," Sausage says, "and understands why they're while sandwiched between such beautiful people."
Scott takes a moment to process that. "Haha. Nice," he says.
"I know, isn't it?" Sausage says, giggling.
"I think Scott's right," Shelby says. "Jimmy, your friends here are -"
There's a sound like thunder.
"They're dangerous," Shelby says quietly. "They're dangerous. Why did we follow them?"
Jimmy is very quiet before he says: "I mean, isn't it better they're dangerous where we can see it? Where, er, we can control it?"
Outside, a dragon circles spawn. Scott snorts.
"Don't you think it's too late?" he says. "There's no controlling that."
Everyone is very quiet.
"Maybe we should go home," Fwhip says.
No one moves, though. They stay huddled where they are until they're certain the dragon is nowhere near, and then they slowly spread out into the winter village they're building again. Scott supposes he understands. He never knew when to quit, either.
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