The egg wasn't due to hatch for another four moons, but already, an unease thrummed from beyond the shell, a frantic pulse against my unformed being. Mother took longer each day to return from her hunts. When she finally did, her thoughts were burdened, heavy with a growing dread. In murmured tones and mental fragments, I felt her gnawing anxiety—always the humans, always their stirring. They were mobilizing. Planning.
Sometimes, she'd hover outside our cavern, the nest tucked deep into Hangman's Cliff, whispering aloud to no one but herself. "They're mounting a campaign again… The dragon who lives atop the cliff—yes, that must be me, mustn't it?" There was no one to answer her but the wind, and me, still unborn, adrift in dreams and amniotic warmth.
The pressure of that tension pressed against the shell like frostbite, relentless and chilling. Seventeen weeks passed like a storm cloud gathering overhead. Then, one night, under a moon that looked too sharp for comfort, Mother contemplated leaving. Her presence shook with an almost unbearable dread. "But if I go… it could harm the hatchling," she murmured, her voice barely a thought.
And so I broke free.
Too early.
You might think that's a miracle—early bloomers, heroes forged in the crucible of tension. But no. My premature hatching came at a steep price. My body was smaller. Weaker. Underformed. Where others would burst from their shells with roaring lungs and talons of iron, I emerged fragile, blinking into a world I wasn't yet ready for.
Mother, to put it lightly, was vast. Her presence filled the cavern like the sea itself, a living, breathing landscape. Her scales shimmered in hues of garnet and obsidian, the very essence of ancient power. Wisdom soaked into her ruby-red eyes like the deepest, oldest wine. She looked down at me, her voice a warm echo in my still-developing mind.
"Little one… I'm torn between relief and sadness. Your early hatch could be… detrimental to your growth."
I couldn't respond. My mouth couldn't yet form words, nor my mind shape a reply. But my thoughts fluttered with a nascent curiosity and a flicker of shame. She must have heard them, because her gaze softened, and her massive head tilted ever so slightly.
"I see."
She dropped some furry, feathered creature in front of me. I devoured it clumsily, but a clumsy, feeble smile stretched across my snout—my first attempt to show gratitude. I was alive. Small, but fiercely alive.
Three days passed in quiet routine. Sleeping, eating, watching. My small body ached with the strain of simply existing, and my mind still buzzed with instincts I hadn't yet grown into. Then one day, Mother turned her massive gaze toward me.
"I will teach you something," she said. "It is not the fire or the wingbeat. Not yet. But something vital. Something only the clever learn."
I tilted my head, utterly captivated.
Without another word, the air around her shifted—like the wind holding its breath, hushed and expectant. Reality curled inward as if making space for something more precise, more elegant.
And then she was human.
She stood tall, regal in a way that didn't feel diminished but concentrated, magnified. A woman with blood-red hair like strands of twilight flame, eyes still carrying the weight of ages. She didn't speak aloud, nor with her mind. She simply looked at me.
And I understood.
We tried. Or rather, I tried. Again and again. My form would shudder, distort, but never fully shift. Each failure cracked my young heart a little more, until I slumped in silence, wings dragging, heavy with defeat. Mother watched in quiet contemplation, examining me while I nibbled half-heartedly on charred meat.
She sighed—and then a slow, knowing smile spread across her human features.
"Very well. I will gift you something to aid you."
She reached down, her human fingers tracing a sigil into my pale-scaled thigh. A rune flared with warmth, then pulsed like a second heartbeat, vibrant and alive. At once, I felt the world tilt, gravity itself becoming unkind.
I fell. Flat onto my butt.
Humility, I suppose, is nature's favorite teacher.
Mother gave a pleased huff, a wisp of smoke curling from her still-reptilian nostrils as she smiled in her human form. I gazed up at her. Her hair was a rich, powerful red—the color of setting suns and spilled blood, a blazing testament to her lineage. Mine, by stark contrast, was pale, almost silvery blonde, threaded with only timid streaks of crimson, like hesitant brushstrokes of fire.
She conjured clothes from the air, a trick of magic I had no name for yet. She dressed me in thick brown boots and a dark gown that drank light like thirsty velvet, a subtle shadow. Hers, in contrast, was a masterpiece of war and beauty—blood-spun silk wrapped around nobility made flesh, a breathtaking display of power and grace.
And then she crouched beside me and cupped my cheek, her touch surprisingly gentle.
"Now," she whispered like a promise, her voice a low, resonant hum, "let's give you a name."
A name.
Proof of being. A reference point in history. A whisper the world could never erase.
"Time and story both need context, my little one," she said. "Let us decide yours."
I looked at her, my mind still new, still raw—but in that moment, it was as though I gazed upon the heavens themselves, upon a future I was now a part of.
And the stars in my eyes whispered: I am real.