Leaves and branches rattled, revealing what most would have labeled a neat stash of purposeless junk. The paws rummaging through it thought otherwise. There was nothing of greater value than what lay stored in that hidden little hollow, something of itself buried there for safekeeping.

  The creature regarded its possessions in quiet peace. Its fur was a mottled mix of whites and browns, its appearance an odd blend of rabbit and bear. Thick limbs supported a stocky, solid body, built for digging and striking rather than hugs or cuddliness.

  Then, for no clear reason, the calm fractured.

  An inkling stirred. It might have been nothing. Luck, perhaps. Yet that faint prick in its conscience was enough. The creature paused and listened.

  Silence.

  No chirps. No small rustlings.

  That absence carried an unwelcome possibility. At once, the berabbit’s senses sharpened, every muscle tightening as its awareness snapped fully awake.

  On the other side was a puzzled dragonling.

  Sylth had been doing his best to be quiet, still, patient. Exercising a restraint no newborn should reasonably possess. And yet the large creature, nearly five hundred meters away through waves of trees and brush, had somehow noticed him again.

  He had begun this attempt when the sun was just leaving the horizon. Now it was already close to meeting it once more. Not once had he succeeded. Every time, the prey sensed him long before he could close the distance. Size didn’t seem to matter. Small or large, they all fled, faster than his short legs could ever hope to chase.

  He could try to sprint, he supposed. But the forest seemed determined to disagree. Trees crowded his path, the terrain turned against him, and great boulders and dense bushes slapped at his snout and wings, mocking what little dexterity he had.

  Sylth paused, chest heaving, frustration simmering. His mother was far farther from him than he was used to. No matter how he ran, turned, or circled, he could always sense where she was. This time, he had been allowed to wander far. Far enough that her presence would not interfere.

  The little hatchling was starting to loathe the experience. It felt impossible, stacked against him in every way. The forest was loud when he moved, the prey too alert, his body too small and clumsy. While another part of him refused to turn back, refusing to return with empty jaws.

  That critter, however, seemed to be doing something.

  Curiosity won out. Sylth abandoned patience and stealth entirely and broke into a run. The large, furry creature reacted at once, fleeing even though it hadn’t fully seen him yet. It knew the direction to avoid him, guided by instinct alone.

  Sylth already knew he wouldn’t catch it. So he stopped chasing and veered toward the disturbed patch of earth where the creature had been moments before.

  It was only a guess. But with little else to do, he gave in to that simple curiosity and began clawing at the ground. Dirt scattered. Roots snapped. He dug with no clear expectation, half-imagining that something important might be hidden there.

  What he found was… unimpressive.

  At least, it seemed so to him. Strands of strange roots. Round, soft things that squished unpleasantly between his claws. He bit into a few out of spite, curiosity, or both. He had swallowed a rock once before, at least some of these had a more interesting, almost savory taste.

  Then he noticed something. His trusty senses, told him the creature had stopped. No. It was turning back. The aura grew clearer by the heartbeat, its speed increasing as it returned toward him. That was new. After such a long streak of failures, he felt a flicker of pride. He hadn’t managed to approach his prey, but he had made the prey approach him.

  The big thing hesitated for a while, only edging closer when Sylth resumed foraging at the ground. Eventually, the creature entered his field of vision. Big. Using himself as a measure, Sylth guessed it was more than twice his size. Its fur immediately made him think of food. Food usually had that texture. Food felt like that. The problem was that this one was still moving, and he had never eaten moving food before.

  At roughly ten meters, Sylth lunged. The moving food pounced first. Its hind legs were powerful, launching it forward far earlier than he expected. Claws flashed. They looked dangerous, in a way uncomfortably similar to his sister’s.

  Scrrrk.

  Claws raked across Sylth’s scales, denting and tearing. They were thin, long, and sharp, finding purchase along his lower body even as he snapped forward. Pain flared. He wasn’t accustomed to how relentless the creature was, how it kept those claws working without pause.

  Sylth bit down hard on its chest, teeth sinking into hide. But he knew, even as he clamped down, that he hadn’t reached the truly good part yet.

  Tearing off as much of the chunk as he could, Sylth saved his appetite for the nice part. He spat out hide and fur in a wet clump just as his tail began to lash out, slapping against the creature’s arms again and again.

  It refused to give in. Some stubborn will drove it to keep clawing at his scales, striking from different angles, trying to deepen the wounds it had already opened. Pain flared sharply with each rake, but Sylth barely registered it now.

  He slipped forward, clumsy but determined, finding another bite in that thick hide. The berabbit clawed desperately at whatever it could reach, retreating even as it did so, dragging its body back to follow the hatchling’s movements.

  With another snap of his jaws, Sylth finally found it. This time, there was real meat between his teeth. So much of it that tearing became difficult. His jaws strained, and a faint warning stirred in his mind: he might be biting too much at once. The flesh resisted, refusing to give. All the while, the creature kept flailing backward, claws raking him again and again. Pain flashed, sharp and constant. Trees slammed against his sides as the larger body dragged him through brush and roots.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Jaws kept firm, unyielding!

  Stubbornness answered stubbornness. He held on through every impact, through every scrape of bark and stone, refusing to release no matter how violently his body was met with trees or ground.

  Then, there was the payoff.

  The tear. The sensation was deeply satisfying, the beginning of a sequence. Sylth braced himself, limbs working together. Some pushing against the creature’s body, others digging into the ground. Everything focused on pulling that chunk free. The blood drew. Just a glimpse at first, red seeping through torn flesh. His mother’s words surfaced unbidden: the red liquid was vital, meant to stay inside. He had never managed to draw blood from his sister. This time was different.

  He knew how it felt when blood spilled. Seeing it now, drawn by his own effort, filled him with a fierce, wordless triumph.

  Thrrk!

  The slow tear met less resistance this time, the creature’s own struggles helping the chunk come free. It hung for a moment, held only by strips of hide. Sylth twisted his head sharply, turning his body to keep the prize for himself. He tore it loose completely. Even the last stubborn threads gave way.

  For an instant, he wanted to carry it off and taste it properly, but the creature only grew more violent. Snarling, flailing, it lashed out harder than before. Sylth dropped the meat and his gaze snapped to the familiar sight now laid bare in the creature’s body. That was the best part of food. So he went for it.

  The creature’s claws kept protesting, raking and digging. At one point, Sylth felt them sink deep into his body, sharp and burning. But that was all they could do now. He drove his jaws in, crunching down deep within the creature’s body. The resistance weakened. Then it went limp. It’s presence disappearing little by little.

  The heavy body sagged and collapsed on top of him, pinning him briefly beneath its weight. Sylth shoved it aside with a grunt. He stood there, panting, staring at the unmoving form. The stillness spoke clearly. The hunt was over.

  Panting heavily, mostly from adrenaline, the hatchling moved at once for the chunk of meat he had left on the ground. It was partly buried beneath the fallen body, but he dug it free and bit into it without hesitation.

  It didn’t taste much different from the other things he had eaten. If anything, the amount of hide and blood he swallowed with it may have made it worse. And yet, it was the best food he had ever eaten. Something about earning it by his own claws and teeth. That alone made it wondrous.

  As he savored the piece, his mother’s presence drew nearer. The thought came with a flicker of uncertainty. Did she know the hunt was over already? He wasn’t sure how she could. Her presence was weaker than usual at this distance, but a message pressed into his awareness clearly.

  “Good hunt.”

  He had never heard the words used like that before. It was probably praise, recognition of success. Good and bad were only labels, markers for whether something had been done the way she desired or not. Praise, then, was something worth seeking. It meant he was being a good dragon. It meant fewer corrections, fewer humiliations, and perhaps more moments when his mother would let him slip free of his sister’s reach.

  As her form became visible through the canopy above, Sylth began to circle his fallen prey. His steps were light despite his exhaustion, tail swaying, wings twitching with restless energy. He wanted her to see it.

  And slowly, the word pride began to take shape. A certain flavor of joy focused on self gratification, the realization of one’s worth through the lens of one’s self.

  Her wings were powerful; everything around them reacted to her approach. Leaves scattered, branches bent, and the ground trembled as she descended. When she landed, it was only his claws biting into the earth that kept Sylth from being pushed aside.

  “Eat.”

  The command came simply, and it matched what he already wanted. He didn’t hesitate. Sylth lunged for the carcass, tearing into it again. The work was far easier now. With the struggle gone, his tired jaws could part flesh without resistance, working through it steadily, almost comfortably.

  The munching and crunching went on for quite some time, long enough that his sister eventually arrived. Sylth couldn’t finish the whole thing by himself. Maybe he could have, if he forced it. But he usually stopped eating once it no longer tasted good.

  After his mother dealt with the remaining carcass, they rose into the sky again. It had been a very interesting experience. Perhaps, from now on, he could hunt all his food himself.

  They landed soon after, in an unusual place. His mother was already speaking with another dragon. Sylth wanted, as always, to test his new words. Reaching out with tentative signals toward the stranger, but the responses did come. The signals around the two big fellows were muffled, tangled, impossible to make sense of.

  He pushed a little further. A simple response from his mother cut him off.

  “No.”

  He had only wanted to talk. Disheartened, confusion and annoyance churned within him as he settled back, wings folding tight. He would have gladly clawed his frustrations into her back if her scales hadn’t been so impossibly tough.

  In any case, his mother soon reached out again, signaling for him to get down. He wanted to refuse, to make his frustration known, but he was shaken off her back before the thought could properly form. He slid along her wing and dropped to the ground, landing without much choice in the matter.

  It had been a nice day, right up until this string of unpleasant interactions. His mother’s head lowered toward him. He tried to retreat, to refuse the nuzzling, but she nudged him anyway. For a fleeting moment, he thought he might accept it as an apology. Then her intent came through.

  “I will go for some time.”

  The meaning settled heavily, followed immediately by another message.

  “Listen to your sister and the other dragons.”

  Her head lifted again. Sylth had no time to respond before she took off, wings beating hard as she soared into the distance. He watched her go, a sequence of moments that slowly carved into his chest. It didn’t dawn on him until much later, but the sight of her leaving. The fading of her presence, hurt far more than the wounds littering his small body.

  He didn’t quite notice when it happened, but at some point he found himself resting beneath his sister’s wing. She offered what solace she could, but what he needed were answers. When their gazes met, her aura still brimmed with joy, bright and uncomplicated. He had questions. He just didn’t know how to shape them yet. What he did know was that he missed their mother more than he understood why.

  Nearly a full minute passed before something pulled him from his confused stillness—someone speaking his name. He looked up at a large dragon nearby, scales like glossy crystal, clear and sharp even in the dim light. Horns pointier and longer than it was necessary, didn’t look practical for poking.

  “You can go play. I will be watching.”

  The message came through, and that was all he truly grasped, though the message itself was far longer. Still, it said nothing of his mother. The wrongness of her absence lingered. Family, as he understood it, wasn’t supposed to leave. He was still turning that thought over when the answer arrived anyway.

  “Your mother will be back. Go play.”

  Another layered message, heavy with meanings he couldn’t yet unpack. But one thing settled clearly: she wouldn’t be gone long. The pain in his chest eased, just a little. Then his sister circled around and nudged him insistently.

  “Come on. I want you to see some things.”

  She pushed until he had no choice but to comply. As they moved, he glanced back more than once at the large crystal-scaled dragon. He noticed the egg resting beside it. The sight didn’t make sense to him. Nothing about this did. It all felt sudden. He followed his sister across charred rock and broken ridges, past glowing cracks in the earth, around massive boulders and jagged terrain. Soon, a vast basin opened before them. Inside it were many dragons, each about the same size as his sister. They were playing.

  The sight did nothing to lift his mood. If anything, it made it worse. A glance at his own wounds made him tremble faintly.

  “You’re too tired to play,” his sister said, already sliding down into the volcanic bowl. “But you can talk to them.”

  Sylth hesitated at the edge. Then the slope reminded him of his mother, of sliding and falling off her. That settled it. A heartbeat later, he slid down as well, claws scraping as he descended, soon reaching the lower ground. He braced himself to meet more of his own kind.

  Maybe they liked hunting too.

  That would be nice.