I woke up hungry.
Not the desperate, magic-starved hunger from before. Just... normal hungry. The kind that comes after a good nap on a full stomach. The kind where your body is telling you it's ready for round two.
The Kelpfang carcass was gone. Vesperra had probably dragged the rest away while I slept. But the taste lingered on my tongue — that strange, spicy warmth that wasn't quite spice and wasn't quite heat.
I wanted more.
Not just more of the same. More of that *feeling.* The warmth. The tingle. The way every scale had lit up like they were individually being thanked for existing.
I pushed myself up and padded toward the water. The bank was littered with Kelpfang bones and scraps from the hunt. A few chunks of meat still clung to a half-dissected carcass near the water's edge.
I bit into one.
There it was again. That *burn.*
Not from heat. Not from fire. From something deeper — like swallowing liquid fire that didn't scald my throat but woke up every scale on my body. A slow, rolling warmth that spread from my tongue to my chest to the very tips of my tail.
The meat was spicy. Not "added chili" spicy. "The creature itself is infused with magical essence" spicy. Like eating something that had been marinating in pure elemental energy for its entire life.
*This is incredible.*
Raw was good. Raw was fine. But raw was also *one-note.* The spice was there, but it was buried under the flavor of raw fish flesh. If I could just... concentrate it. Amplify it. Cook it the way the spice *wanted* to be cooked.
An idea sparked.
I looked around the bank. Stones. Dozens of them — various sizes, scattered across the rocky shore from years of water erosion. Most were too small, too round, too irregular.
My eyes landed on one.
A flat, rectangular stone about a meter wide. Flat bottom. Roughly square top. The kind of stone that looked like it was *waiting* to become something.
I walked over to it, sat down on my haunches, and went to work.
My claws sank into the rock. Not with effort — with *ease.* Emerald-scaled claws, sharp enough to slice through Kelpfang hide, carved through sandstone like it was warm butter. Stone chips flew. Dust coated my scales.
*Dragon claws. The original multi-tool.*
I scooped out the center. Chunk by chunk. The motion was instinctive — my claws knew exactly how much pressure to apply, exactly where to dig, exactly when to pull back. It was like they remembered something my brain had never learned. Some ancestral memory of dragons shaping stone before they'd ever shaped words.
A rough, bowl-shaped depression took form. I smoothed the edges with the side of my claw. Added a lip on one side for pouring.
A stone pot. Crude. Ugly. Functional. Beautiful.
I found two smaller stones and stacked them as supports. Placed the pot on top. Added water from the river — clean, cold, straight from the underground current.
*Stove: complete.*
I stepped back and admired my work. It was ugly. Genuinely, objectively ugly. One side was higher than the other. The lip I'd added for pouring was more of a suggestion than a feature. The base wobbled slightly on the uneven ground.
But it was *mine.* And it was going to hold boiling water. Which, in the grand scheme of things, was all that mattered.
*Minimum viable product. Ship it.*
Now I just needed fire.
I looked at the two red hatchlings sleeping on the bank. Vesperra and Ferra. Vesperra was the bigger one. Also the one who hadn't tried to kill me recently.
*Easy choice.*
Besides, Ferra still had scab marks from my thorn vines. Waking her up for a favor felt like asking for a second beating.
I padded over to Vesperra and nudged her snout with my claw.
Her eyelids opened — slowly, reluctantly, like shutters on a building that hadn't been used in weeks. One crimson eye focused on me. Then the other.
"What."
Not a question. A statement of mild annoyance.
"I need a favor."
I pointed my claw at the stone pot setup.
"Borrow some fire."
Vesperra's gaze flicked to the crude stone contraption. She knew what it was — every dragon knew. Cooking stones were for hatchlings with weak stomachs, the kind who couldn't handle raw meat.
She stared at me for a long moment. I could practically see the calculation behind her eyes: *Is this worth the effort of arguing?*
Then she opened her jaws.
A precise line of crimson flame shot out, landing in the gap beneath the stone pot. The fire caught instantly, licking at the rock with steady, controlled heat. Not a wild burst — a sustained, even burn. She'd done this before. Probably many times, for her own meals.
She closed her mouth. Went back to sleep.
No words. No complaint. Just *fire on demand.*
*This was way better than the office microwave. And I didn't have to wait in line.*
I dragged a chunk of Kelpfang meat to the pot. The water was already heating — small bubbles forming at the edges, then larger ones, then a full rolling boil. Vesperra's fire was *efficient.* Enterprise-grade gas line, and I don't even have to pay the utility bill.
I dropped the meat in.
*Sizzle.*
The flesh turned white at the edges almost instantly. Steam rose, carrying that spicy-sweet aroma with it — amplified by the heat into something almost intoxicating. The cave air filled with it.
Behind me, I heard the sound of multiple snouts lifting. Multiple nostrils flaring. The scent of cooked Kelpfang was doing things to the other hatchlings.
I didn't turn around. This was *my* pot. *My* fire. *My* lunch.
The water in the pot went from clear to pale pink as the meat's juices seeped out. The spice dissolved into it too, turning the broth a faint, shimmering gold. Magic-infused broth. If the meat was a free potion, the broth was a *premium* one.
*Note to self: drink the broth after.*
I heard a snort behind me. Munch, waking up from whatever nap she'd been in, sniffing the air with enough enthusiasm to power a windmill.
*"Mrah~!"*
She came trotting over, round belly bouncing, eyes locked on the stone pot.
*"Mrah~ Mrah~!"*
"Hot. Don't touch."
She touched it.
*"MRAH!"*
She shook her snout, offended, and sat down three tail-lengths away. Watching. Waiting. Patient as a stone.
I counted to ten. Then fished the meat out with my claw and bit in.
*Oh.*
*Oh yes.*
Tender Kelpfang flesh, seared on the outside, soft on the inside, with that magical spice running through every fiber like veins of flavor. The heat amplified everything — the umami, the sweetness, the strange elemental tang that made my scales tingle.
The spice wasn't just flavor. I could feel it working — a subtle warmth spreading through my channels, thin but real. The Kelpfang's blood had absorbed so much ambient magic from the underground river that cooking it released it in a new form. Not as concentrated as a magic core, but more *digestible.* Like the difference between swallowing a pill and drinking it dissolved in hot water.
*Free potions. Basically. Spicy, delicious, free potions.*
I ate the first piece in three bites. Then cut another. And another.
I dropped a small piece toward Munch. She snapped it up, chewed once, and froze.
Her eyes went wide. Her nostrils flared. Her whole body went rigid for exactly two seconds.
Then she shook her head, sneezed a tiny puff of steam, and started eating it anyway.
*"Mrah~"*
*Brave little idiot.*
The stone pot bubbled away. Piece by piece, the Kelpfang disappeared into my mouth. Each bite was a little different — the edges crispier, the center softer, the spice building in slow, rolling waves that never quite peaked but never quite faded either.
Half an hour later, I'd eaten an entire three-meter Kelpfang. Bone and all.
I sat back and looked at the pile of cleaned bones next to me. A small mountain.
*That was... a lot of fish.*
The stone pot was still bubbling. Vesperra's fire hadn't gone out — it burned with the steady, tireless consistency of dragon flame. She'd set it and forgotten it. The kind of efficiency that made you wonder if red dragons had a built-in thermostat.
I looked at the water. More Kelpfang shadows moved beyond the thorn vine net — the surviving ones, the ones that had been too smart or too fast to enter the pit during the hunt.
And something in my chest *tightened.*
Not hunger. Something older. The same feeling that had surfaced when I imagined the Mindkraken eating all my prey — a deep, territorial *clench* that said: *Those are mine.* Every fish in that river. Every magic core in every fish. Every stretch of water from the cave mouth to the bend upstream. *Mine.*
It wasn't rational. I'd already eaten more than my share. The other hatchlings had worked just as hard, if not harder. By any reasonable standard, the Kelpfang belonged to whoever caught them.
But dragons don't do *reasonable.*
The greed sat in my chest like a second heartbeat — warm, heavy, and utterly unapologetic. I could feel it reshaping the way I saw the river. Not as a shared resource. As a *possession.*
*Second round?*
I looked at my claws. Still sharp. Still capable.
*Why not.*
I dragged another chunk of meat to the pot. Dropped it in. The water had reduced a bit from evaporation, so I added more from the river. Waited for the boil.
This time I ate slower. Savoring each bite. Letting the spice build in layers.
The second Kelpfang piece was even better than the first — the meat had had time to absorb the spicy broth, and the flavor had deepened into something rich and complex.
Munch was still watching from three tail-lengths away. She'd eaten the piece I'd given her and was now staring at the pot with the kind of longing that could melt stone.
*"Mrah~"*
I cut off a small piece and blew on it. Let it cool for a moment. Then tossed it to her.
She caught it, chewed cautiously, and this time didn't sneeze. Just closed her eyes and made a soft humming sound in the back of her throat.
*Enjoying it. The little gourmand.*
I ate until I couldn't eat anymore. Then I ate one more bite, because I'm not a dragon who leaves food on the plate.
Then I lay back on the bank, belly up, limbs splayed.
*So full.*
The warmth in my chest wasn't just from the spice anymore. It was a deep, comfortable heat — the kind that comes from eating food that your body *recognizes* as good. Every scale was relaxed. Every muscle was loose. My eyelids felt like they weighed ten pounds each.
*Best. Meal. Ever.*
I scratched my belly with one claw. A small burp escaped. A tiny wisp of crimson smoke — Vesperra's fire, still burning in the back of my throat from all the steam I'd inhaled.
*If I had a rating system, this would be five stars. Would recommend. Would kill for seconds.*
The stone pot ticked as it cooled. The fire beneath it dimmed to embers. Munch had curled up next to the warmth, using the residual heat as a blanket.
*Resourceful.*
Above me, the cave ceiling glowed faintly with bioluminescent moss. The underground river murmured its endless song. Somewhere in the distance, water dripped in that same steady rhythm.
*Drip. Drip. Drip.*
Everything was quiet. Everything was safe. Everything was exactly where it should be.
My eyes closed.
And just before sleep took me, I felt it.
A shift. Deep in my chest. The hourglass — that phantom image that had been sitting in the back of my mind since the first vision — *turned.*
Not physically. I couldn't see it. But I *felt* it. Like a page turning in a book I hadn't opened.
The sand was flowing again.
Another vision was coming.
I tried to fight it. Tried to stay awake, to be ready, to approach this one with my eyes open and my mind sharp.
But my body had other plans. The spicy meat warmth had settled into something heavier — a comfortable, immovable weight that pulled me down like an anchor. My magic was humming. My scales were buzzing. Every fiber of my being was busy *growing,* and growing took energy.
I was already too tired to care.