Linda was on the run again.
For the 69th time in this lifetime!
But this time, it truly felt like she wouldn't escape being hunted, caught, and chewed on.
The little rabbit crouched behind a broad, sun-bleached rock and watched a red fox bolt past. Its tail flicked like a flame. Unfortunately, six more foxes were still yet to pass.
They were hunting for their prey—her. And with the sky refusing to darken for an uncountable number of days and the land cracked dry, there was every possibility she wouldn't escape this time. They must be so hungry…
Linda remembered dying and waking up to the filtered light of thick bushes fighting to keep the sun from touching what lay beneath. One blink later, she had been birthed again but not as a human baby. She was born as a rabbit kit.
Worse, her rabbit mother had taken one look at her, sniffed once, and hopped away like she made a mistake conceiving her.
So the poor baby rabbit had to fend for herself until now, all while trying not to get caught and eaten by the predators of this land which included wolves, foxes, and every wild creature out there that vaguely resembled a dog.
Linda, now a hare-sized young snow-white bunny, tucked away her last bag of red berries and pressed herself quietly against what she hoped was a very sturdy rock. She was starving, no doubt.
But she had been about to enjoy a quiet lunch when a big, bad, black hound decided to stomp into her little bed-nest—which she had worked very hard to arrange—in search of baby birds or bird eggs to eat.
Sadly, that big bad dog had spotted her instead and thought, "Oh, it would be absolutely elegant to eat that rabbit instead of the bird eggs~"
Ha!?
With one whoosh, the rock the little rabbit was hiding behind was lifted with ease.
It was a mere pebble compared to the hand that hoisted it.
With its free hand, the second…or was it the third? Whichever! That red wolf swung a massive paw down toward Linda.
Unfortunately, the claws didn't land on her head… but on her precious bag of berries, ripping it open and smashing the contents into pulp.
!!!!
This was absolutely going to be a failed escape for Linda. It is what it is.
However, Linda Ein didn't have time to mourn her food supply. She launched herself as far as her trembling little feet could carry her.
After bounding into a wide, open area with no bushes to hide in, Linda stared down at her berry-juice-stained paws. She licked them irritably, her stomach growling. She was starving. She was famished.
Now, tasting how juicy those berries could have been if gobbled altogether, that thought even made more hungry. Great.
Suddenly, she jolted at a thunderous uproar from the sky.
Linda urgently scratched a shallow hole in the dirt and dove inside to hide, fearing the unknown. After a moment, she peeked out, ears first, toward the source of the noise.
Right above her, flames bloomed across the bright sky. Smoke billowed, explosions rumbled through the mountains. Even the bushes she had been hiding in minutes ago were now catching fire.
What was happening? Who was setting everything ablaze?
Humans?
Because there was no way these crackhead animals could pull such stunts just to smoke her out!
From the mountains behind her, two enormous dragons burst into view, curling violently around each other. One was pitch-dark, almost swallowing the sunlight, while the other was a brilliant, scorching blue.
Were they… making out?
"!?"
Linda was stunned. She blinked several times, confused.
In her months of years of surviving as a rabbit here, she had never once seen a dragon nor anything with scales as skin. Just animals of the dog family.
Even birds were scarce.
Did they come from somewhere else? A different world?
The blue dragon flapped its massive wings and dove straight at the black one, brutally and fiercely. Its claws shredded the black dragon's scales.
The two were fighting violently… except the black one wasn't fighting back at all.
Black scales tore off and smashed into the ground like falling weapons. Each one was huge, shiny like polished jade, dark as night, sharp as blades and stained with blood.
The scales rained down like a deadly storm, and one of them landed directly into Linda's burrow.
Thankfully, she was so small that it only landed a few inches from her feet.
Unfortunately… this was also a sign that she was hundred percent destined to die today. Either by the hungry mouths of predators or by the falling scales of this foolish, self-sacrificing black dragon who REFUSED to fight back!
The blue one kept attacking the black one until it finally got exhausted. Or maybe it decided it had won, because it then lowered its claw and flew away, disappearing into the sun.
Leaving the black dragon flipping uncontrollably through the sky before falling downward.
The huge shape of the black dragon gradually approached the ground.
Linda, who was still watching the poor huge thing get absolutely beaten to a pulp and abandoned, realized that this situation was becoming… a bit more chaotic.
The black dragon was falling in her direction.
Actually, straight toward her.
The little rabbit shot out of the hole with all her might, hopping back toward the bushes.
The massive shadow cast by the falling dragon covered her completely. Oh great—finally some shade, finally night but this was not the right time. She couldn't see where she was going!
Then the shadow suddenly shrank, and sunlight blasted through again. At the same time, something landed behind the running rabbit.
The sound wasn't big. Not at all. In fact, even for Linda, who was mid-escape, the sound was way too light for a giant beast falling from the sky.
She turned her head.
There was no black dragon.
Linda tilted her head, confused.
She lifted her thick little feet and tiptoed rabbit-toed toward the spot where the sound came from. And there she saw… a man.
A stark naked man, lying face-down on the dry ground, his head stuck in the tiny hole she had been hiding in earlier.
???
A human? Her eyes sparkled.
In a place where every animal was unusually huge and unusually intent on eating her, she had truly believed she was the only "normal" creature around… and now, finally, a normal human!
Or… not.
Linda approached carefully, leaning over just a bit, circling the body with nimble hops as she examined him. He looked normal. Very normal. Except he seemed like he fainted.
This was definitely the black dragon in human form. She didn't need the scenario to replay itself to know this.
But the human body was bleeding exactly where the dragon had been clawed earlier. Meaning… the human and dragon were the same body, one life, one form.
How did that even work!?
Still studying him, Linda noticed a little snake curled around the man's ankle.
Was it alive?
She leaned closer to check, when the man suddenly moved. He lifted his head out of the hole, half sat up, and opened his eyes.
His deep, dark eyes that scanned the area then landed on the furry little ears of a small white rabbit standing at his feet…who was very obviously staring at...