Before
I remember the warmth.
It came from my mother when she curled around me in our nest. Her scales were smooth, close-fitting, and warm — not just warm, but alive, like sun-heated stone. She smelled of moss, damp bark, and something sharp, barely there — the same scent that grew stronger when she was angry.
I burrowed my snout into the fold beneath her wing. It was darker there, quieter. It smelled only of her.
I listened to her heart.
Dull, steady beats.
Slow.
Strong.
Big. Strong. Mine.
My father smelled different.
Of a storm that had not yet broken.
Of iron.
Of blood.
When he returned, the forest changed.
The rustling stopped.
The small creatures hid.
Even the wind seemed to catch on the branches, just to avoid moving.
He was enormous. Far larger than my mother.
When he passed, his shadow swallowed the nest whole, and in that shadow there was calm.
He did not coil around me like she did.
He lay at the entrance.
Blocked it with his body.
And stared outward.
Always outward.
His tail would sometimes move slowly across the ground, carving deep furrows into the soft earth.
I did not understand what he was watching for.
I understood very little back then.
The world was simple.
Mother's scent — warmth.
Father's scent — strength.
The scent of food — hot, wet, rich.
I reached for the meat, clamped my teeth, tore, swallowed, barely chewing.
Blood ran over my tongue.
Hot.
And the ache in my belly stopped.
That was good.
Sometimes my mother made sounds.
Not a growl.
Not a warning.
Something else.
Soft. Undulating.
Almost like a purr.
She would look at me, and those sounds would grow quieter, deeper.
I did not know their meaning.
But I knew — they were for me.
I pressed closer, feeling her wing tighten just a little over me.
And I closed my eyes.
My father rarely made such sounds.
Only sometimes.
When my mother touched her neck to his.
Then a low, brief rumble rose from his chest.
Deep.
Like distant thunder.
And then he fell silent again.
I thought it would last forever.
---
That Day
First came the noise.
It was unlike anything I knew.
Not the snap of branches.
Not the crash of a falling tree.
Not a roar.
It was sharp.
Jagged.
Too loud.
Too many sounds at once.
It cut into my ears.
Made my muscles tense.
The scales on my nape lifted on their own.
My mother's head snapped up.
Her nostrils flared.
I sensed it almost as fast as she did.
The smell.
Foreign.
Bitter.
Metallic.
Mixed with sweat and something acrid.
Danger.
My father was already outside.
His roar rolled through the forest.
Low. Crushing.
The ground beneath my paws shivered faintly.
It was not just sound.
It was a warning.
Leave.
But the noise did not vanish.
It grew closer.
Much closer.
My mother shoved me sharply with her snout.
Hard.
I lurched, my side striking a root.
She shoved again.
Her eyes had gone narrow.
Hard.
I froze.
She made a sound.
Short.
Clipped.
With a hissing whistle.
I had never heard it before.
But the meaning was clear without words.
Do not move.
She pressed me into the crevice between the roots.
It was cramped.
The moss was cold against my flank.
Her wing covered me from above.
Heavy.
Tight.
I could not move.
I wanted to squeak.
To protest.
But her body was trembling.
So I kept silent.
And I watched.
My father struck first.
I saw his shadow lunge forward — not fast, but heavy, with all his mass, snapping bushes and young trees as if they were nothing. A green cloud burst from his jaws. Thick. Oily. It crawled across the ground, swallowing the nearest figures. I heard screams being choked off. Heard someone coughing, ragged, with a wet gurgle. Heard bodies falling.
Something hot stirred inside me. He is strong. He will drive them away. Everything will be as it was.
But the screams did not end.
There were more of them. From all sides, cutting into my ears, tangling with clashing and cracking. I saw something long and gleaming pierce my father's flank. He jerked. Dark blood ran from the wound — thick, almost black in the forest gloom. Then another. And another. He spun, lashed with his tail, his spikes tearing bark from trees, but the small figures did not end. They swarmed like ants over a wounded beast.
Above me, my mother trembled. Not from fear — from strain. Her claws sank slowly into the bark, leaving deep gouges. I heard her breathing: fast, ragged, with a whistle on the exhale. She wanted to go to him. Every muscle beneath her scales screamed for it. But she held me.
Then her wing was gone.
She looked at me. One long look. Her green eyes — my eyes — were strange. There was no fury in them, no fear. Something else. Something I had never seen before and could not name.
She took flight.
Her wings struck the air with a dull, heavy sound. Once. Twice. She rose above the nest, blotting out the sky for a heartbeat, then plunged down into the thick of it. Her breath covered the group of humans surrounding my father. A green wave. I saw them fall, clutching their throats, their skin changing color — graying, then bluing. She tore at them with her claws. Lashed with her tail. One of the humans was flung aside and hit a trunk with a wet, crunching sound.
For one brief moment, I thought we were winning.
Then the earth shuddered.
Not from a blow. Not from footsteps. Different. Deeper. As if the very heart of the forest had turned inside and screamed.
Everything stopped.
The humans ceased moving. The dragons froze. Even the wind went still, as if afraid to breathe.
Vines erupted from the ground.
Huge. Thicker than my body. Thicker than my father. They were covered in thorns — long, hooked, glistening with some kind of moisture. They moved fast. Not like plants. Like predators.
One of the dragons — a stranger, not of our pack, I did not know his name — tried to take flight. A vine pierced him from below, entered his belly and burst from his back between his wings. He did not scream. Only twitched, like a broken toy, and went limp. Blood poured down to the earth, warm, steaming.
The humans screamed.
I heard their voices — high, cracking, filled with the same terror that clenched my insides. They turned their weapons. Not at us. At Her.
My father and one of the humans — the biggest one, in gleaming hide, with a long iron thing in his paws — were suddenly side by side. Back to back. They were no longer trying to kill each other. They were staring in the same direction.
At Her.
It did not last.
The vines moved like living serpents. They grabbed, tore, impaled. I saw another dragon — young, with bright emerald crests — try to fly away. A vine coiled around his tail. Yanked. He screamed, beat his wings, but a second vine seized his neck. A third — his wing. They pulled in different directions.
His scream cut off.
Blood sprayed everywhere. Several drops landed on my snout. Warm. Salty. I tasted them when I licked my muzzle without thinking.
I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut. To curl up. To disappear. But I could not. My eyes seemed fixed to what was happening.
My father tried to rear onto his hind legs. His chest was torn with wounds, blood streaming down his scales in rivulets. He drew a deep breath, swelling his throat-sac, and exhaled everything he had left. A green cloud enveloped the nearest vines. I waited for them to wither. To rot. To die.
They did not care.
One of them punched through his chest. Right in the center, where his heart beat.
He collapsed.
The earth shook under his weight — one last time. He did not move again. His eyes, as green as my mother's, as mine, stared at the sky. Empty.
My mother screamed.
I had never heard such a sound. There was no fury in it. No pain. Only... I do not know what to call it. As if something inside her had torn open and spilled out. As if her heart had died before her body.
She threw herself at Her.
No hiding. No planning. She simply flew, spewing all her venom, all her strength, all she had. Her breath was thicker than I had ever seen. It blanketed everything.
Vines caught her wing.
I heard a crunch. Her wing twisted at an unnatural angle. She screamed but did not stop. Kept straining forward.
A second vine coiled around her tail.
A third — her neck.
They tightened at once.
Her scream cut off. Sharp. Like a snapping branch.
All I heard after that were wet, sucking sounds. And cracking. For a long time.
Then there was silence.
---
After
I do not know how long I lay in that crevice.
The sun rose and fell. I watched the light change color — from gray to gold, from gold to red, from red to black. And again. And again.
The moss beneath me grew wet. From drool. From tears. I did not know dragons could weep, but liquid streamed from my eyes, hot and salty, and I could do nothing about it. Only blink and feel the drops slide down my scales.
I did not eat. Did not drink. My belly ached at first, then burned sharply, then simply went numb.
I just lay there and listened.
The forest was silent.
Even the birds did not sing. Even the wind did not rustle the leaves. Only stillness — deep, crushing, like water at great depth.
When I finally crawled out, the world was different.
The trees around me were uprooted or snapped like dry twigs. Their roots thrust upward, helpless, dead. The earth was churned, littered with scales, shreds of skin, something dark and sticky.
I found my father.
What was left of him.
I could not look for long. I retched — bile, because there was nothing in my stomach.
I did not find my mother.
Only a scrap of her wing, caught in a splintered trunk. It still smelled of her. Moss. Something sharp. Life.
I pressed my snout to it. Inhaled.
And howled.
I howled for a long time. Until I was hoarse. Until my throat hurt so badly that every sound became torture.
Then I walked.
I simply walked wherever my eyes took me, away from that place. My paws carried me on their own. I did not think about where I was going. I did not choose a direction. Away. Only away.
I found this tree many days later.
Huge. Ancient. The bark thick, with deep crevices, smelling of dry wood and time. High in the branches — a hollow. Dark. Narrow. Safe.
It smelled different.
Not of blood. Not of death. Only of tree. Of bark. Of life.
I climbed inside.
Curled into a ball, wrapping my tail around my own body. Because there was no one else to embrace.
And I closed my eyes.
I waited for the earth to shudder again. For the vines to burst through the walls of my new refuge and tear me apart as they had torn them.
It did not happen.
But the fear remained. It settled in my chest. Cold. Heavy. Like a stone.
I wake at every loud sound. I flinch when the wind sways the tree too hard. I am afraid to go outside, because out there — She is.
She is still there. I know it.
And when I look down at the human sleeping in the roots of my tree, I feel that fear again.
But I also feel something else. Very small. Almost invisible.
He hides too. He is afraid too. He is small and weak.
Like me.
And he has not tried to kill me.
Perhaps... perhaps if She comes again, I will not be alone.
Perhaps he will die first. And I will have time to flee.
That thought does not make the fear smaller. But it makes it... bearable.
I watch him and I wait.