Darkness.
For the longest time—if "time" even existed here—it was all he knew. Not the hollow, empty kind of darkness, but a living stillness that pressed around him like a cocoon. A warmth that wasn't quite fire but carried a primal heat, pulsing with rhythm.
At first, he thought it was death. A void. But then… there was a heartbeat. Not just his own, though that slow, steady thrum beneath his chest felt alien and new. No—there was another beat, muffled through the walls that enclosed him, deep and titanic, echoing like thunder in the farthest sky.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
The world outside his prison was alive.
He stirred for the first time, shifting against the slick membrane that wrapped his body. He felt the resistance, the pressure, the strange wetness clinging to his limbs. Muscles twitched—muscles he hadn't realized he possessed—and a shiver ran through him. His chest expanded sharply, and suddenly he was choking, drowning in fluid until instinct dragged him to draw in something like breath.
It burned.
It was ecstasy.
His mind was not fully formed, yet instinct whispered truths older than memory: He was not human. He was not weak. He was something far older.
Claws flexed—he felt the curve of sharp talons at the tips of his hands, small but growing. His tail coiled, muscles rippling, testing themselves against confinement. Wings, half-formed, pressed against the shell walls, twitching in discomfort.
He wasn't supposed to stay inside forever.
Cracks ran through the darkness.
At first they were faint, thin lightning veins of light that stabbed through the silence. His senses flared painfully—the outside was brighter, sharper, overwhelming. His ears picked up vibrations through the egg, deep rumbles like mountains moving, gusts of air like storms. His tongue flicked instinctively, tasting the fluid around him, tasting minerals, heat, and the sharp tang of ozone.
The shell was breaking.
Driven by hunger, by instinct, by an ancient will, he struck outward. His claws ripped at the membrane, tearing through viscous strands. A shriek left his throat—not human, not gentle, but raw and primal, the sound vibrating with a resonance that cracked more of the prison around him.
CRACK.
Light spilled in like fire. The world roared into existence.
With a final surge, he burst through, collapsing onto stone slick with egg-fluid, trembling, drenched, but alive.
For a moment, all he could do was breathe—heavy, labored, but filled with a power that shook his chest. Each inhale burned, but each exhale carried sparks, wisps of smoke that curled from between his sharp teeth.
He blinked. His vision adjusted slowly, alien pupils constricting against the glow. Shapes sharpened, edges became defined. The cavern stretched vast around him, glimmering with veins of crystal, reflecting pale light from pools of magma that pulsed like the veins of the earth.
He looked down at himself.
His body was sleek but not frail, covered in scales—obsidian black with a faint sheen, etched with patterns that shimmered faintly like constellations. His hands flexed again, revealing clawed digits. His tail swayed behind him, heavy yet perfectly balanced. His wings twitched, membranes glistening wet, too soft yet already eager to unfurl.
Every motion made him aware of more. The strength coiling in his muscles. The sharpened senses flooding him with information: the way the cavern air tasted of sulfur and stone, the way he could hear even the faint drip of liquid echoing far away, the way his skin felt the tremor of unseen movements within the earth.
And beneath it all… something deeper. A current.
It pulsed inside him, more than blood, more than breath. Power. Magic—or something older than what mortals dared call magic. It coiled in his chest, in his core, and when he focused on it, his body responded. The air around him shifted, thickening, vibrating as sparks of black-and-violet energy crackled across his claws.
He stumbled at first, still clumsy in this new form, his wings dragging against the stone. He snarled in frustration, the sound echoing through the cavern with a resonance that didn't just bounce back—it carried, vibrating through the very ground, as though the stone itself bowed to the sound of his voice.
It thrilled him.
He pushed himself upright, talons scraping the floor.
His reflection glimmered faintly in a molten pool nearby. He crept closer, movements awkward but growing more fluid. And then he saw himself.
A creature born of shadow and firelight. Draconic, yet humanoid in frame, with piercing eyes that glowed faintly—not like simple orbs, but like galaxies condensed, swirling with starfire. His fangs caught the light, sharp and eager. His scales shimmered faintly with void-light, like fragments of night sky carved into flesh.
He was… beautiful. Terrifying. Divine.
But something about his form pulsed strangely. His chest throbbed with more than power—it carried a weight, as if threads of destiny themselves had been woven into his soul. When he reached toward the pool, his reflection flickered, showing not only the dragonic hatchling, but fragments of… others.
A man with six glowing eyes.
A child chained in darkness, fire in his veins.
A hollow mask fragmenting into light.
The visions dissolved as quickly as they appeared, leaving him gasping.
The air thickened.
His instincts screamed, urging him to test his body further. He lashed his tail, cracking stone. He spread his wings, unsteady but wide, membranes shimmering faintly with void-etched sigils that seemed to crawl and shift like constellations. He tried flapping—clumsy, unbalanced, but enough to stir a powerful gust of air that rippled across the cavern.
He roared—not just from his throat, but from his very being. It shook the cavern walls, sent ripples through magma pools, and summoned echoes like thunder answering thunder.
The sound pleased him.
He felt hunger, deep and gnawing, not just for food but for experience—for discovery, for dominance, for understanding.
Every motion he made revealed more of himself: the way his claws could dig effortlessly into stone, the way his scales resisted the molten droplets that splashed against him, the way his senses picked up currents of power hidden in the cavern air. His body was a weapon, but more—it was a vessel. A chrysalis of something far greater.
And he knew it was only the beginning.
The egg had been silence. The world outside was chaos. But he… he was something in between. The balance and the breaker. The child of void and flame.
And as he stood, wings half-open, claws spread, chest heaving with smoke and sparks, the cavern seemed to bow in silence to the birth of its new sovereign