The crab roe was incredible.
Bright golden-yellow, glistening like tiny pearls of pure flavor. I'd bitten into it expecting another mouthful of venom-poisoned sludge, but instead—
*Oh.*
Oh, this was good. This was *really* good. Rich, buttery, melting on my tongue like the finest thing I'd never tasted in my previous life. I ate it in three bites, then licked the shell clean, then considered whether licking the ground underneath would be dignified enough to attempt.
I decided against it. Barely.
Vesperra watched me eat, said nothing, then turned and walked back to her own kill. She didn't check if I was okay. She didn't make sure I was settled. She just... left. Like she'd dropped off a package and the delivery was complete.
Absolute individual power. She could leave her prey in the open and no one — not a single hatchling in this valley — would dare touch it.
The rest of us, however, were not so lucky.
The hunt had been a disaster for most of the hatchlings. Only six of us had made kills, and the valley was now a patchwork of feasting dragons and hungry ones. The hungry ones had started eyeing the feasting ones.
I heard a snarl to my left.
A black dragon — not An, a different one — was standing on her shellcrab, teeth bared at three approaching hatchlings. The three didn't care. They kept circling, low and slow, like wolves who'd already decided they were going to eat regardless of the formalities.
The black dragon snapped at the air. Warning shot.
The three kept coming.
Then a shadow passed overhead — Vesperra, doing a lazy circuit of the valley — and the three scattered. But they didn't leave. They just backed off ten meters and waited, patient as vultures.
This was going to be a problem.
I settled onto my shellcrab shell, belly full, claws dangling over the edge, and watched the chaos unfold.
That's when I noticed the white dragon.
She was trying to join a feeding group. Four hatchlings — two blue, one green, one black — were clustered around a large shellcrab, tearing at it with enthusiastic bites. The white dragon approached from the side, fat little legs pumping, round body wobbling with every step.
She got within two meters.
A blue dragon's back foot came up. One casual kick. Right to the side of her head.
She went tumbling. Rolled twice, three times, then scrambled up and shook her head. Dazed but undeterred, she tried again — approaching from a different angle this time, lower, more careful.
The green dragon didn't even look up. Just a casual sideways shove with one shoulder, and the white dragon bounced off and landed on her back.
Third attempt. Fourth attempt. Fifth attempt.
Each time, she got kicked, shoved, bounced, or ignored. Each time, she got up and tried again. The other hatchlings weren't being cruel — they were being *practical.* There wasn't enough food to share, and a mouth they had to feed was a mouth they didn't need.
I understood the logic. I really did. In my previous life, I'd seen the same thing in corporate restructuring — when the budget got cut, the newest people got cut first, and nobody felt bad about it because *that's just how it works.*
But watching this tiny, round, impossibly persistent white dragon get kicked five times in a row and *still keep trying* — that hit differently.
On the fifth kick, the blue dragon put more force into it than the previous four. The white dragon went rolling — fast, spinning, a white blur of scales and determination — and slammed into the side of my shellcrab with a hollow *thunk.*
My shell shifted slightly.
I looked down.
She was spread-eagled on the ground, tongue hanging out, eyes unfocused. Star-shaped. Like a cartoon character who'd just been hit by a piano.
*One窝 of true dragons, and this is the one they got.*
She couldn't fight — white dragons were the weakest of the five colors, bottom of the food chain even among hatchlings. She couldn't heal — no green dragon life magic. She couldn't hunt — she couldn't even get close enough to try. She couldn't even *talk* properly — all she could manage was a single repeated sound.
But she was stupid.
She was *perfectly* stupid.
Think about it. A smart ally would have ambitions. A strong ally would have opinions. A talented ally would eventually outgrow you and leave.
But a *stupid* ally? A stupid ally was loyal by default, because they had no better options. A stupid ally was controllable, because they couldn't outthink you. A stupid ally was *forever,* because nobody else wanted them either.
I'd spent my entire previous career building teams. I knew exactly what kind of person made the best subordinate: not the smartest, not the strongest, not the most ambitious — the one who needed you more than you needed them.
This white dragon was perfect.
She was stirring. Tongue retracting. Eyes slowly focusing. I could see the moment her brain rebooted — a visible *click* behind those round white eyes.
I leaned over the edge of the shell and looked at her.
She looked up at me.
I raised one claw. Waggled it.
She froze.
"Hey," I said. "Stop rolling around. Come here."
She didn't move. Just stared up at me with enormous, glistening white eyes, her round head tilted to one side like a puppy trying to understand a magic trick.
"Want some meat?"
*That* got a reaction. Her entire body perked up. Her tail — a fat, cone-shaped thing — started sweeping back and forth across the ground, stirring up little clouds of dust.
But she didn't move toward me. She glanced sideways — at Vesperra, who was still eating her own kill about fifteen meters away.
Smart enough to be cautious. Not smart enough to be subtle.
Vesperra wasn't looking at us. She'd heard me, of course — a dragon's hearing could pick up a beetle walking on stone from a hundred meters — but she didn't care. She'd already fed me. What I did with my own time was my business.
The white dragon took a tentative step forward. Then another. Her fat little claws padding softly against the stone, her round belly swaying with each step.
I reached over the edge of the shell, grabbed a claw joint with my teeth, and snapped it off. It landed with a *clack* in front of her.
She stared at it. Then up at me. Then back at it.
White eyes wide, pupils dilated, absolutely luminous with trust and hunger and the simple, uncomplicated joy of someone who'd just been given a gift with no strings attached.
"It's yours. Eat."
She didn't need to be told twice. She dove into the claw joint like it was the last meal on earth — shell and all, crunching through the hardened carapace like it was a potato chip, white meat disappearing into her jaws in great enthusiastic mouthfuls.
Two minutes later, the claw joint was gone. She'd eaten everything — meat, shell, cartilage, even the tiny fragments on the ground that she picked up delicately with the tip of her tongue.
She sat back on her haunches, belly visibly rounder, and looked up at me.
Still hungry.
I beckoned with my claw. "Come up here."
She scrambled up the side of the shell — not gracefully, more like a determined log rolling uphill — and plopped down next to me inside the shellcrab's hollowed-out body. The shell was large enough for two if we pressed close, and she pressed close immediately, her cool white scales against my green ones.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Mrah~ Mrah~ Mrah~!"
...She couldn't speak. Could only make that one sound.
"Can you understand me? Nod if you can."
"Mrah~!" She nodded. Enthusiastically. Her entire head bobbed up and down.
"Good. Here are the terms. I'll feed you. In return, you do exactly what I say. We hunt together. I divide the food. You agree, nod."
"Mrah, mrah~!" Nod nod nod.
"Raise your right claw."
She raised her left claw.
...Close enough.
I extended my own claw and pressed it against hers. Her pad was soft — chubby, really, like everything else about her — and cool to the touch. I curled my claw around hers and pulled her slightly closer.
Her eyes were locked on the pile of shellcrab legs inside the shell.
"Eat. Don't be polite."
"Mrah~!"
She launched herself at the nearest claw leg, wrapping both front limbs around it and biting directly through the shell. *Crunch crunch crunch.* Shell fragments flew. Bits of cartilage landed on my scales. She didn't notice. She was in paradise.
I settled down, resting my chin on my claws, and watched her eat.
First teammate: acquired.
She wasn't smart. She wasn't strong. She wasn't talented. She couldn't fight, couldn't heal, couldn't talk, and she had the survival instincts of a lemming.
But she was stupid.
And that made her *mine.*
It was exactly like onboarding the first employee at a startup. No HR process. No offer letter. No awkward first-day orientation where you pretend the company has a five-year plan. Just you and a completely unqualified intern who was enthusiastic about literally everything and said "Mrah~" instead of asking about dental benefits.
Maybe that was better. No resume screening. No performance reviews. Just pure, uncomplicated loyalty, expressed through tail wags and the enthusiastic consumption of shell fragments.
I watched her flip over a shell piece and lick every last trace of meat from the inside. She was happy. Belly full. Scales dusted with crumbs. And she was getting sleepy. Her eyelids were drooping. Her movements were getting slower. And then — just like that — she collapsed against my side, head pillowed on my claw, and was out.
I looked down at her.
*Munch. It is.*