The rock was cold beneath me, but only in theory. I felt its temperature in a detached way — the same way I felt the shift of wind over water, or the weight of frost clinging to the trees below. It was information. Texture. Not discomfort.
I stretched out across the stone ledge, limbs splayed comfortably, tail curved loosely behind me. Above, the sky was clean and pale — streaks of white mist curling into a soft morning sun. It didn't offer heat in the human sense, but I welcomed it all the same. The light soaked into my scales like memory, gleaming faint violet where the black curved sharpest.
Below me, the forest sprawled wide and slow — a sweep of endless green pines, snow-dusted and quiet. The lake lay to the east, still partially iced over, its dark surface flickering in the morning breeze. This place was mine. Not owned, not ruled — but known.
I had no name for the cliff, but I returned here often. The view reminded me how far I could see now. How far I might go.
I tilted my head back against the slope of the stone, let my breath rise in slow plumes, and stared at the sky.
Flying.
The word felt more like a challenge now than a fantasy. I'd tried, more than once — crouched, jumped, spread the wings I wasn't supposed to have and felt gravity laugh me back into the dirt. My muscles weren't strong enough. My wings, while real, weren't ready. The webbing stretched, flexed, moved — but they didn't carry me yet.
Soon, maybe.
Or maybe not.
I turned my head and watched a crow glide effortlessly past the cliff edge, wings tight, eyes sharp. It didn't even notice me. Or maybe it did, and didn't care.
I wondered, not for the first time, what dragons were supposed to be. Not the ones from fiction, not the ones hoarding gold or burning villages. Real dragons — if that was what I was now.
Were they creatures of instinct or thought? Of strength or strategy?
I felt all of it — the quietness of the stone under my chest, the tension resting in my tail, the heat still lingering in the back of my throat. That fire... I hadn't felt it again since the first time. Since I coughed and lit half the cave wall in a burst of purple-black flame.
It had startled me more than it should have. Not because it was violent. Because it felt right.
Below the cliff, something moved.
A rustle of white against the base of a tree. I saw it before it finished its first step — a young animal, fur low, sniffing the edge of a half-buried log. Maybe a hare, maybe something smaller. I didn't stand. I didn't bare claws. I didn't open my mouth.
I let my tail move instead.
It rose slowly, curling to the side, then swung in a sharp, controlled arc. The sound it made cutting the air — subtle but firm — was satisfying. The force was there now. The strength. I was learning to time it, to aim. The first few weeks I could barely move it on command.
Now?
Now I watched the tail snap down like a whip.
I missed, intentionally, but the animal bolted anyway, vanishing into the underbrush before I could exhale.
I didn't chase it.
That wasn't the point.
I was practicing. Claiming space. Learning where my body ended and power began.
The breeze shifted. My nostrils caught the trail of bark, lake water, and something sweet like moss. The scent of deer drifted faintly through the pine. Not nearby. Not urgent. Just enough to know I wouldn't go hungry today.
I stretched once more, claws flexing into the stone.
I didn't know what came next.
No humans. No voices. No planes or smoke. No rules.
Just this body. This view. This world.
And the quiet certainty that I wasn't finished yet.
My throat stirred — not painfully, but with a memory. A trace of something heavier. That pressure behind the sternum. That dry heat curling behind the tongue.
I blinked slowly, staring out across the trees.
The fire had surprised me.
It had been late — maybe a week or two after the first deer. I hadn't even been hunting. I'd been curled inside my cave, back against the stone, half-asleep with an itch I couldn't get rid of. Something sat in my throat. Not a taste. Not a lump. More like heat trapped too deep to clear. I'd tried to cough it out.
That was my mistake.
I reared up, choked once, and a stream of violet-black fire erupted from my mouth like a kicked furnace. It didn't roar or scream — it hissed, coiled, stretched wide across the cave wall and lit the stone like a storm cloud set ablaze.
It was wild. Beautiful. Terrifying.
And then it was gone.
The flame vanished as quickly as it came, leaving nothing but scorched rock and a dry aftertaste like iron and ash.
I hadn't been able to breathe fire since.
At first I thought something was broken. But over the next few weeks, I felt it return — not all at once, but slowly. Like the fire needed time. Like something inside me had to rebuild it.
Maybe dragons stored it. Maybe it wasn't magic, just biology with a memory of flame.
I didn't understand it.
But I didn't fear it either.
I shifted again on the cliff, tail curled loose, and let the morning breeze scrape across my back.
Whatever I was, this body still had more to give.
And I was ready to learn.
I exhaled slowly, watching my breath coil in the cold air—then froze.
Something shifted on the wind.
It was subtle. A curl of scent buried in the backdraft. Not the usual pine and frost, not the familiar whisper of deer or hare. This was different.
Meat.
And something beneath it — older, rank with blood and breath and fur.
The wind changed mid-thought.
I paused instinctively, one forepaw lifted just above the snowline. The breeze didn't carry cold this time. It carried presence. Heavy, layered, alive. Not prey. Not tree or moss or stream.
Wolves.
I lowered my foot slowly and turned my snout into the wind. The scent thickened. Eight, maybe more. Moving together. Not deer. Not bear. Canine.
I slipped forward across a narrow ridge overlooking the lake, crouching low as I went. My claws sank softly into the snow. I didn't know how I knew, but I did—the way they moved, the trail they left, the sharp overlapping smell of muscle and breath and raw earth. There was a new presence near my water.
I crept closer.
The trees here thinned just enough to grant a view across the slope, down toward the lake's edge. Patches of ice still clung to the far bank, but the surface near the shallows had melted back, revealing dark water. That's where they stood.
A pack. Eight wolves, their coats mottled gray and white, spread in loose formation across the clearing. One stood taller than the others—broader, neck arched, shoulders thick with winter muscle. The alpha. His steps left the deepest impressions in the frost. The others moved around him with silent purpose, sniffing, circling, scent-marking stones, roots, the ice edge itself.
They weren't hunting. They were claiming.
I stayed still. A part of me wanted to leap down, to test the force in my tail or sink my claws into their leader's back. Not because I wanted to kill—but because I wanted to know if I could. This was the first real challenge I'd seen since hatching. Not a rabbit. Not a deer too slow to flee. This was a pack. A structure. A system of sharp teeth and teamwork.
And I was one. One dragon. No flight. One fireblast long forgotten. The weight of that difference settled into my spine.
As a human, I would've backed off by now. Wolves weren't something to mess with—not without guns or numbers. But that part of me—that older instinct, the one that remembered how to breathe heat and slice fur from bone—didn't flinch. It leaned forward.
I inched closer along the ridge, eyes locked on the alpha. They hadn't seen me yet. The angle, the shadow, the scent blowing the wrong way—I was hidden.
Until I wasn't.
The crunch came from behind me. Not loud. Not sudden. Just wrong.
I hadn't seen it. No heat trail, no scent. The wind must've shifted just before it moved, carrying its warmth the wrong way. Maybe it had been lying still, hidden in the snow long enough to go cold.
I turned too late. A single wolf—pale-furred, ribs slightly showing—stood just behind me on the slope. Not part of the group below. A scout? A stray? It didn't matter. Its eyes met mine and widened.
I froze. It didn't bark. It didn't growl. It charged.
I stepped back once, too far—my rear foot slid against ice hidden beneath the snow, and I slipped sideways off the ridge. Not far. Not deep. But far enough to lose cover. Far enough for the rest to see me.
I landed in a crouch near the base of the slope, tail snapping out for balance. My claws dug in. The wind twisted—and the pack caught my scent.
The alpha's head turned. His ears pinned. His body dropped low, and one step at a time, the wolves turned toward me.
I didn't move. I couldn't. Not because I was frozen. Because I had no path to run.
They didn't rush—they circled. Slowly, deliberately, the snow crunching beneath their paws in uneven rhythm. Their bodies were low to the ground, lean and silent, eyes locked on mine—not with certainty, but confusion. They didn't know what I was, and I wasn't about to explain it.
Backing up slowly, I kept my tail curved wide and my claws flexed into the frozen dirt. My wings stayed tucked, my legs braced to leap—but there was nowhere to go. No slope behind me, no rocky outcrop to scale. I was caught in a shallow bowl of snow and bark, hemmed in by too many teeth.
The first wolf lunged. Slower than I expected. I sidestepped and brought my claws across its side. The cut wasn't deep, but it staggered mid-stride—legs locking, muscles twitching. My venom worked fast. Not enough to kill, but enough to remove it from the fight.
The others didn't pause. Wolves two and three darted in from opposite angles, one low, one wide. I twisted hard and let my tail do the work. The first hit was pure reflex. A sharp snap of muscle that connected squarely—I felt the crunch travel through my spine. The wolf dropped without a sound. The second aimed for my throat. I ducked, spun, and my tail swept under it, slamming into its ribs and sending it crashing into a tree.
I didn't check if it got up. Six more remained. They didn't hesitate. No fear. They tightened the circle, their jaws snapping at my limbs, my tail, the exposed joints. I spun to face one—another snapped at my back. I turned again, and teeth met shoulder. Their bites weren't deep, but the pain added up. My breathing shortened. My movements slowed. I couldn't last like this.
I needed something more.
No fire. No flight.
But I had wings.
I stopped moving. Let them come closer. Then I spread my wings. The sound—membranes snapping open, the sudden rush of air—made them hesitate. Just a beat. Just enough.
I roared. Not fully. Not yet. But the noise rumbled from my chest and spilled into the clearing like something wild. It wasn't human. It wasn't weak. And it threw off their rhythm.
I charged. One wolf turned too late. I hit it shoulder-first, crushing it into the snow. My claws found another in the scramble, tearing through its neck before it could react. Four wolves remained.
Then the alpha stepped forward. He was larger than the rest—thicker in the chest, eyes sharp, movement confident. He didn't bark. Didn't snarl. He just came. Fast.
I moved to intercept him—and pain exploded across my face as his claw slashed clean across my left eye. My head whipped back, vision blurred. I staggered, the wolves shifting to close in again.
I blinked through the haze. The eye burned but stayed open. I locked onto the alpha, the world narrowing down to him. I roared again—louder this time. A real one.
He crouched. I ran. He leapt.
At the last second, just before his jaws reached me, I opened my mouth and felt it.
The warmth. The pressure. The fire.
It surged from deep within and shot outward in a flood of purple-black flame. It hit the alpha mid-air, swallowing him whole. The fire kept going—consuming the snow, the bark, the shadows. When it faded, he was gone. Nothing left but scorched ground and a haze of smoke.
I stood there, chest heaving, jaw open, the warmth fading from my throat. My legs shook. My wings drooped. My eye throbbed. The clearing was silent.
I looked around. The remaining wolves had vanished. No bodies. Just scattered tracks running deep into the woods.
I let out a breath and, without meaning to, laughed. Not a laugh of triumph—just shock, thin and stunned. I'd done it. I'd fought wolves. Killed them. Burned their leader to ash.
I looked again at the blackened circle where the alpha had stood. My heart pounded slower now. My limbs ached. The pain returned, real and steady.
I sat down hard in the snow and let the cold ease into me. For the first time, I realized how close I'd come to dying.
I wasn't just some lost soul in a new world anymore.
I was a dragon.
And dragons fight to live.
The wind had gone still. Snow settled gently around the clearing, falling into the scorched lines my fire had carved across the dirt. The place reeked of smoke, blood, and ash. Bits of fur drifted in the air like burnt feathers. I stood there longer than I meant to, blinking slowly against the sting in my left eye, breath still ragged.
It didn't hurt as much now. The pain had dulled to something manageable—a steady throb across my brow, warm and sticky. The blood trailed between my eyes, pooling at the edge of my snout before dripping into the snow. Superficial. It had to be. But it looked worse than it felt.
Around me, the bodies lay scattered. Four wolves dead. One little more than ash, scorched black where the fire had eaten through him. The rest were broken things now—twisted in the snow, frozen in the last shapes of surprise or rage. I stepped past one slowly, my claws clicking over the cracked ribs.
I didn't feel regret, but pride didn't come clean, either. I'd done what I had to. I'd survived. Still, something inside me curled a little when I looked at the blood that wasn't mine. The wolves hadn't been evil. They'd just been hungry. Just like me.
I exhaled and turned away. The slope back to the cave felt steeper now. My legs ached, joints stiff. Each step sent a new reminder through my muscles—bites, bruises, a scrape along my shoulder I hadn't even noticed during the fight. I moved slowly, deliberately, my tail dragging a broken line behind me in the snow.
When I finally reached the cave, I hesitated at the mouth. It was darker inside than I remembered. Smaller, somehow. Maybe I was bigger now. Or maybe I just didn't see it the same way.
I ducked in, body low, wings folding tighter as I moved through the entrance. The scorched wall still bore the faint outline of my first fire—the accident that had singed the stone black. I stared at it for a moment before curling into my usual spot near the back.
I didn't lie down fully. Not yet. I sat there breathing, watching the mist curl from my nostrils into the dark. My body pulsed with exhaustion. But somewhere beneath it all, in the hollow behind my ribs, I felt it again. That heat. Not a full flame. Just presence. Like the fire hadn't left. Like it had needed release—once, violently—and now rested there, waiting. Ready.
That thought made me smile. Barely. But it stayed. I looked out toward the pale light bleeding through the cave's edge. Snow drifted lazily past the entrance. Quiet returned.
The wolves were gone. The fear was gone. And I was still here.
I lowered my head slowly, letting the warmth inside me settle, and closed my eyes—just one for now. The good one.
I didn't know what was coming next, but I knew what I was now.