The little hatchling gnawed at the remaining egg again, more out of habit than hope. His teeth slid uselessly across its smooth shell, producing nothing but a faint scraping sound and a growing sense of dissatisfaction. It was, as he had already determined, a terrible munching partner.

  Still, he persisted.

  He had noticed that his mother watched him more closely when he did this. Since he prefers when she is awake, that alone made the effort worthwhile. Glaring at her piercing gaze, he pushed out a question, shaping it as carefully as he could.

  “Where… is sister?”

  It was a familiar inquiry. He asked it whenever the stillness grew too loud, the world felt too large or there was nothing immediate demanding his claws or teeth. The memory of her rough games lingered, being bowled over, dragged, flicked aside like debris in the wind. Boredom however, had a way of dulling caution.

  His mother’s response came in layers. First, a sensation: distance. Motion. The open sky. Then came the clearer thread of meaning woven through it. “Hunting,” was the most obvious string of the message. As any other, it was layered with multiple snippets of meaning woven into a rather complete message. Sylth had learned to receive many things at once from these messages, yet even now, he suspected he missed much of what was being said.

  He paused his gnawing and lifted his head. Hunting meant many things. Food. Waiting. Not-here. His sister rarely lingered long even when she was near, so her absence was not new. Still, the word settled strangely in his thoughts. Up until now, his mother did not let him wander far, not yet. Yet the idea lodged itself in his mind and refused to settle. perhaps hunting was something he could do as well. Without fully realizing it, he leaned forward and sent the thought outward, uncertain but earnest.

  “I go hunt?” His tail was already wagging at the thought. Exploring sounded fun. Understanding how food worked sounded even better. The world beyond the familiar stone pulled at him, full of moving things and unanswered questions.

  The answer came immediately.

  “No.”

  It was the simplest rejection possible. Yet, somehow, his mother still managed to fold other meanings into it, small and weak, concepts he was only beginning to separate from one another. She used them often to describe him when teaching comparison, a tool to make clear where he stood. Unable to argue, he dipped his head, chagrined. Tail slowed, then stopped. He did not like those words at all. They followed him everywhere. Wrapping around his attempts before he could even try. Small meant less. Weak meant can’t.

  The little hatchling wrestled with his displeasure, the urge to sprawl onto the ground and begin rolling gnawing at him from the inside out. It wasn’t a kind thing to do to his wings, he had learned that much the hard way. Still, there was a part of him that insisted displeasure should be shown, loudly and unmistakably, especially when directed at his mother.

  The big dragon did not approve of loud, messy protests. Sylth knew that now. So instead, he redirected his attention to the rocks beneath his claws, snapping and cracking them apart with short, irritated strikes. He flapped his wings again, stirred ash, paced in tight circles. Anything to burn off the sharp edge of his indignation. Barely a minute passed before the feeling swelled again, too large to contain.

  “I want to hunt!”

  He made sure the desire rang bright through his waves of intent. Wanting had proven to be a useful concept. Even when it didn’t bring results, it mattered. It meant his mother knew what pulled at him, even if she chose to deny it. And sometimes, naming a desire made it more likely to be granted later.

  When no answer came, he pressed on. “I’m not weak!” He beamed the thought with confidence, tail lifting, wings flaring just enough to make the claim feel real. That was the goal. But the narrowed yellow eyes that settled on him carried an outcome he had learned to dread. There, during his indignative remarks, he was met with a tail. Smacking his whole body, sending him rolling over his head a few times, it was very powerful as always. And then, maybe to ensure the lesson landed cleanly, the word followed.

  “Weak.”

  Simple. Flat. Unarguable. The word pressed down on him heavier than the blow had. He stayed still for a heartbeat longer than necessary, staring at the ground as if it might offer a better answer. Then he pushed himself up, lost in thought. If weakness could be proven, then so could strength.

  The conclusion burned bright and immediate. He gathered himself, muscles tightening, claws biting into stone. His gaze lifted to his mother, about to hurl himself forward, to test that thought with tooth and claw.

  Then he felt it.

  A familiar sensation brushed against his awareness. These signals, he had learned, could be shaped, directed, hidden, sharpened into meaning. But in their rawest state, they were constant waves of intent, blurred and overlapping, an aura that made understanding other dragons almost effortless.

  This one he knew.

  His sister’s aura approached from afar, dimmed by distance but threaded with nuances he could now recognize. Sylth turned, head snapping toward the source. High above, against the dull glow of the sky, a shape cut through the air.

  He waited patiently, the sharp knot of his earlier frustration loosening until the whole ordeal about hunting felt like a passing gust—present for a moment, then already gone. His attention fixed on the sky as his sister descended, wings folding as she landed with a heavy thud not far from him.

  They barely had time to acknowledge each other. No playful shove, no immediate challenge. Their mother spoke first.

  “Sylth wants to hunt.”

  The acknowledgment struck him like a spark. His eyes lit up at once, wings twitching. That alone felt like a victory. His sister’s head tilted, one eye settling on him. Curiosity rippled through her aura, sharp and quick. She lowered herself slightly, bringing her head closer to his level. “You?” Her gaze swept over him, measuring, comparing.

  Sylth puffed up instinctively, standing as tall as his small frame would allow, chest lifted, wings flared just enough to suggest confidence rather than balance. He held his ground while she studied him, though her initial amusement began to falter. Confusion crept in, overtaking the earlier mix of curiosity, surprise, and fleeting joy that had flared at his presence.

  “You’re smaller than prey,” she said at last.

  She used a different word for food, the one tied to hunting, to targets and outcomes. Sylth ignored it completely. He was too focused on the fact she had just presented before him.

  Wasn’t size what defined who was prey and who was not?

  The thought surfaced fully formed. No one had ever told him that was how it worked. It had simply felt true. Prey was supposed to fit inside his mouth. That had been his quiet rule. Yet, when he examined it without hurry, the rule began to fray. She wasn’t wrong. Everything he had eaten so far had come in pieces. Never the whole. He had torn, gnawed, swallowed fragments. Never consumed a thing entirely. And it had still been food. If being smaller than what he ate had never stopped him before, then it shouldn’t stop him now.

  The realization settled with surprising calm. Something was missing from his understanding, something important enough to shape the whole idea. He needed it filled.

  “What is hunting?” He sent out, to his sister immediate surprise. He had a shallow idea of what it meant, but apparently it wasn’t sufficient.

  His mother of course, was aware of his little understanding on the matter. Gesturing for him to settle, she began to form the idea to him. “Let’s learn about hunting.” Her aura said. His sister already anticipating the long and boring conversation tried to flee imediately, just to be dragged back at the very second she left the ground. His sister might be somewhat big, but that huge black tail brought her down with ease.

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  The words began to fly.

  His mother, of course, was already aware of how shallow his understanding was. She gestured for him to settle, a firm but patient pressure in her intent, and began to shape the idea for him.

  “Let’s learn about hunting,” her aura conveyed.

  His sister, already anticipating a long and unbearable lecture, tried to flee immediately, only to be dragged back the instant her claws left the ground. The huge black tail snapped out and pulled her down effortlessly.

  Then the words began to fly.

  First came danger, a concept the little hatchling had never truly encountered. To explain it, his mother introduced death. She built it carefully, starting with prey. Creatures that once moved, played, reacted, much like he did. When danger arrived, they lost that ability. Important parts of their bodies were hurt, hurt beyond what they could endure. Movement failed. Stillness followed.

  From there, more concepts unfolded: life, blood, flesh, meat. Surprise and alertness. Predator and creature. Each word came bundled with meaning, sensations, relationships. The flood was relentless. So many new ideas piled atop one another that he forgot why he had wanted to hunt in the first place. The excitement dulled, replaced by a growing urge for it all to stop. Experience had already taught him this much: once his mother began, there was no arguing. Somewhere within the torrent, a distinction emerged. Dragons standing apart from other living things, but it slipped past him before he could grasp it.

  The talk dragged on so long that, by the time it ended, both hatchlings were spent. His sister had already fallen sound asleep, unaware of when it had happened. One moment she had been listening, barely, and the next her breathing had evened out, her body slack against the ground.

  Sylth, on the other claw, had tried to follow every thread. Curiosity kept him engaged long past comfort, even as his mind protested. Now his head felt aflame with strain, thoughts colliding as he struggled to make sense of everything at once, as if understanding were something that had to be seized before it escaped.

  He was still turning fragments over when the ground shifted.

  The movement of his mother rising was impossible to ignore. His sister stirred as well, waking with visible reluctance, forcing herself upright when their mother signaled. A moment later, the great tail reached toward Sylth.

  Flying… now?

  Usually, flight came with explanations, with more words. The thought made his head throb. He hadn’t even sorted the meanings he already carried. Still, he didn’t dare test his mother’s patience. He climbed onto her back, while his mother grabbed the egg upon her jaws. Then they rose. The air rushed beneath them, ash and heat falling away. His sister followed close behind, her aura dull and drowsy, trailing sleep as they disappeared into the sky.

  With nothing to do but observe, the little hatchling noticed that the sky had changed. Only slightly at first. There were more clouds than usual, and they were the wrong color, heavy and dim. The warmth around him thinned, fading in a way he couldn’t quite name.

  Then something touched him. A small, cold drop struck his scales.

  It reminded him unpleasantly of those intrusive licks. Liquid, clinging, unwelcome. He shook instinctively, only to feel another drop, then another. Soon they were falling steadily, growing more frequent. Sylth flattened his wings in irritation. He tried to shake them off again, but there was little room to move, and his mother had taught him very clearly: do not move during flight.

  So he endured it. A sitting duck to the sky’s malicious droplets.

  By the time his patience was nearing its limit, they finally descended. Relief washed over him as they landed, and even more so when his mother began to walk. He quickly noticed that the falling droplets no longer struck him directly. The landscape itself intervened. Sparse trees passed overhead, their branches breaking the fall of the water. Few as they were, Sylth decided they were worthy of remembrance.

  Saviors.

  Ahead, the cliff face rose dark and sheer. Set into it was a cave, its mouth wide and shadowed. His mother led them toward it, and the rain was left behind as stone swallowed them whole.

  He received the signal to get down as his mother set the egg aside atop a squiggly surface scattered with very dark, tiny rocks. Once his claws touched the ground, curiosity pulled him closer and he lowered his head to examine it.

  He was startled when his sister acted.

  A sudden brightness flared from her jaws and washed over the little rocks. It lasted only a moment, but when it faded, the stones themselves still glowed. An orange light, soft and warm, oddly cozy. Sylth froze for half a heartbeat, then pounced toward it without thinking.

  A clear signal snapped into him, sharply directed. “Fire.” The word settled, explaining itself. A label for the brightness he had just seen. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. In his memory of the ridged lands, there had been many glowing spots scattered across the ground. This, however, was different. That light had come from a dragon.

  That meant he could do it too. The thought barely had time to form before his mouth opened, wide and expectant, as if the brightness might simply happen if he waited long enough. Nothing did. He stood there, faintly confused, jaws still parted.

  During his idle experimenting, his sister did it again. She turned to the remaining dark stones and released her fire once more, for longer this time. Until the glow spread across all of them. The cave filled with warmth and soft orange light. Sylth felt it immediately. This was good. Very good. The more rocks that glowed, the better the place felt. Then he heard his name.

  “Sylth, let’s play,” his sister said.

  He wasn’t bored enough. Nor desperate enough. And there was something about the way she said it that made his scales prickle. He couldn’t sense the nuance of a question in it, only intent, and that unsettled him. That was enough. He darted toward his mother without hesitation. The sudden movement confused his sister, who had clearly believed they were about to play together. She lunged after him, trying to catch him as he slipped past, claws meeting ground as Sylth scrambled for the safety of their mother who was laid there motionless, watching them.

  His mother was not one to interfere in their games. Even when he was dragged around helplessly, even when his pleas grew loud and frantic, she often did nothing at all. This time was different. “He is tired,” she said. The words landed with weight. His sister bristled, displeasure rippling through her aura. Before that, she looked more than ready to snatch him away anyway, mother or not.

  The moment the words were spoken, it was as if they reminded Sylth’s body of something it had been holding back. Tired… He was indeed. The realization hit all at once. His limbs felt heavy. His head dipped. Without thinking, Sylth pressed himself against his mother’s side, warmth and solidity anchoring him. The world softened around the edges. He curled up where he stood and let himself sink to the ground, comfortable at last. His eyes slid shut, and sleep claimed him without ceremony.

  It was all very nice. Very cozy, as it usually was.

  Until, boom!

  The thunderclap cracked through the sky, loud enough to tear an unsuspecting hatchling straight out of sleep. Sylth jolted upright at once, slipping instinctively into his play stance. It was the closest thing he had to a battle stance, though every battle he’d ever fought had really just been a game with his sister.

  Loud noises, he hated those. Especially sudden ones, the bane of his tiny, short existence. He growled back at the sky, or the entrance of the cave for that matter, he hadn’t a clear idea where the sound had come from. Darkness didn’t help either. Everything was duller when it was dark, and darkness was meant for sleeping, he should be sleeping.

  Evil loud-noise-maker.

  He glared around, only to realize he was the only one awake. That made him even angrier at his newly appointed archnemesis. With a huff, he curled back into his sleeping posture.

  Then again! It rang out again, sharper this time, almost mocking.

  Sylth sprang up and growled louder, a raw, indignant sound that finally stirred his sister awake. She noticed the little hatchling already standing in his usual play stance. Why hesitate? Without waiting for confirmation, she snapped up his tail in her jaws and dragged him away from their mother. In that instant, every bit of his fear, irritation, and frustration snapped into a single focus.

  Her.

  Dragged and indignant, Sylth lashed out, tackling her with all the fury he could muster, claws flailing as he tried to vent his anger on her hide. She responded in kind, delighted, and the familiar rhythm of their rough games took over once more as the storm rumbled on outside.

  It became their longest game yet. Sylth spared nothing, burning through every scrap of energy he had in his effort to gain even a fleeting advantage. He didn’t succeed, but he also didn’t hold back. That alone felt important.

  She would have kept going.

  Only when she noticed the slight lag in his movements, the heaviness creeping back into his limbs, did she stop. In an uncharacteristically gentle gesture, she turned away and reignited the charcoal. “You’re tired,” she pointed out, nudging toward the glowing stones with her muzzle.

  Sylth stared at her, puzzled.

  He did want to go there. The warmth called to him, steady and comforting, and part of him felt a reluctant gratitude for the gesture. The anger felt like a loud intruder, stubborn and unresolved. The mix of feelings sat awkwardly in his chest. Still, she had chased away his boredom, filled the long stretch of the day with movement and noise and purpose. That counted for something.

  Without a word, he sprawled himself atop the charcoal beside the egg, letting the warmth seep into him as the last of his energy finally ran out. He wasn’t quite sleeping, merely resting. From there, he watched his sister, still brimming with energy, play on her own. It didn’t look very fun at first. She chased rocks, tossed them aside, ran in loose loops around the cave. Yet the longer he watched, the more he noticed a pattern beneath the seeming randomness. Movements repeated. Paths overlapped. Maybe there was more to it than it appeared.

  Observing, at least, didn’t hurt.

  She stayed longer this time. Much longer. Many sleeps came and went, and she was still there. Sylth began to dread hearing her call him to play. Usually, pretending to be tired made her lose interest immediately. Then, one day, his mother spoke a set of words that felt especially good.

  “Let’s hunt, Sylth.”

  The reward settled warmly in his chest. The lessons hadn’t been for nothing after all. Learning about hunting had stirred curiosity, now it was time to attempt it. Climbing onto his mother’s back was second nature, and the takeoff followed almost immediately. The ground fell away, the cave shrinking behind them as the air rushed past his scales. His sister was carrying the egg this time, apparently enjoying herself.

  Thinking about hunting, Sylth imagined how fun hunting might be, despite how often his mother had paired the idea with danger in every explanation. Danger felt distant now, abstract. Dragons hunted. That was simply how the world worked. And he was a dragon. No less than any other.

  This was his chance to show her just how much of one he truly was.