In the wide clearing at the heart of the cave, the hatchlings had formed a circle.
In the middle of the circle, one small green dragon was roaring.
It was a milky little roar, because that was the instrument she had. Hatchling voices are all like that — young, soft, the vocal register of an eight-year-old, which did absolutely nothing to diminish the fury she was pouring through it.
At the tunnel exit, a head quietly emerged, and a pair of crystal-bright emerald pupils reflected the circled crowd.
I watched them and found myself counting, the way you count a full house.
A dozen or so pairs of eyes. Every hatchling in the cave had woken from their first slumber and come to watch.
Plus me.
"Come OUT! Vesperra, get out here!"
Verra planted her claws wide, standing tall on the cave floor, roaring her challenge at the world. Today was the day. Today she would pay back the humiliation of that stolen eggshell, with interest, double, every last crumb of it.
Behind her, the crowd of hatchlings quietly parted, making a path.
Down that path walked a red dragon.
A full head and shoulders above every other hatchling, nearly twice the size she'd been before the slumber, and she moved through the lane of staring dragons like weather moving through a field.
Verra, still roaring, noticed none of this.
"Vesperra, are you SCARED?!"
"You cowardly, despicable—"
Hm?
Why did her back feel... warm?
Sensing something wrong, Verra twisted her head to look behind her.
She went completely blank. Her emerald pupils dilated into two stunned circles.
A red dragon was sitting directly behind her. Had been sitting there, apparently, for some time. That wasn't the important part.
The important part was: she... she was so BIG.
A body more than twice her size. Red claws planted on the ground wrapped in visible muscle. The kind of claws that looked like they could put a hatchling down in one hit. No follow-up required.
Scary. Very scary.
Verra's neck shrank into her shoulders.
The red dragon lowered her head, and a pair of crimson slit pupils fixed on her, unblinking. Then Vesperra spoke, slowly.
"You're the one challenging me?"
...Huh?
All strength left Verra's legs at once. She sat down hard, plop, right there in the dirt.
No — wait — she wanted to challenge the GREEN one. Why was this red dragon saying she was being challenged? Did dragons change COLOR in their first slumber? Was that a thing?!
Vesperra watched the little green dragon sit there with her mouth open, and her pupils narrowed slightly.
Something about this was off.
She dug through her memory. She had, in fact, robbed two green hatchlings of their eggshells — but not this one. And those two, while weak, had both been sharp. Sneaky. Operators.
She looked at the green hatchling in front of her again.
Blank face. Round eyes. A general aura of unplugged appliance.
This one just didn't look... smart.
Still. The challenge had been issued by name, and a named challenge couldn't be ignored. But before answering it, she wanted one thing cleared up.
"Before this challenge begins, answer me one question."
"Why... are you challenging me?"
The word "challenge" rebooted Verra's brain at emergency speed. Her round green head whipped left and right in vigorous denial.
Challenge? Was she crazy?! She couldn't beat THAT. She'd be beaten to death. Even with her Life's Blessing running at full power, she'd be beaten to death with benefits.
"N-no! Not you! I'm not challenging you!"
Vesperra was now genuinely puzzled. Was there another dragon in this cave with her name?
She studied the frantically head-shaking little green. The fear looked real. This one was genuinely terrified of her.
"Not me?"
"Mm-hm! Mm-hm!" Verra nodded at maximum velocity.
"But I am Vesperra."
"No, no, no — the one I'm challenging is the OTHER Vesperra! The GREEN one!"
Green.
The word landed, and something in Vesperra's understanding clicked instantly into place.
Her red head rose high, and her gaze swept the circled crowd with open authority. She stood a full head above ordinary hatchlings; every small face in the ring was visible to her.
The gaze traveled. Past blue faces. Past black faces. Past white faces. It stopped, three-quarters of the way around, on a green hatchling.
The green hatchling caught in that gaze began quietly backing up. She had, in fact, spent her entire slumber dreaming of challenging Vesperra — but now, looking at three meters of red muscle, she was revising her timeline. Green dragons take revenge slowly. There's no rush. Revenge is a slow food.
Vesperra read the fear in her eyes and moved on.
Not her.
The gaze completed its circuit. No male green dragon anywhere in the ring.
Her head turned toward the tunnel.
The tunnel was empty.
***
Behind the tunnel wall, I had my back pressed flat against the rock, claws resting on the thick scales over my heart, quietly congratulating my reflexes.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Vesperra's senses were ridiculous. She hadn't seen me. She had no reason to look. And yet that gaze had swung around and nailed my position like a thrown dart. If I'd been half a second slower ducking back—
If I'd been caught—
I listened. It had gone quiet out there.
Slowly, keeping flat to the rock, I eased my head back around the edge of the tunnel mouth.
A round crimson head was directly in front of me.
Four eyes met. Very close. Close enough that I could feel the hot breath rolling out of her nostrils, warm as a furnace door opening.
When did she GET here?! Do her feet not make SOUND?!
Vesperra didn't speak. She just watched me, crimson eyes level and unhurried. If her instincts were right — and her instincts were usually right — then the little green's "other Vesperra" was this shifty character's fault.
"Hi~"
I raised one claw in a small wave.
Greeting delivered. And therefore—
RUN.
I spun and dug in, claws churning the dirt at full sprint.
And sprinted.
And sprinted.
Something was wrong. I'd been running for a solid three seconds and the cave wall beside me hadn't moved. Same rock. Same crack in the rock. I was, by all visual evidence, still exactly where I'd started.
My four frantically paddling claws slowed.
I looked back.
My heart fell straight through the floor.
My tail was stretched out behind me in a perfectly straight line, and at the end of it, pinning it to the ground like a paperweight, sat one enormous red claw.
Seeing that I'd finally calmed down, Vesperra extended her right claw toward me.
I looked at the incoming claw and gave up. Completely. I was a caster-class dragon being meleed by a red hatchling three times my mass. This was not a fight. This was an HR meeting.
I went limp and lay flat on the ground.
Fine. Whatever. Do your worst.
A warm giant claw closed over the scruff of destiny at the back of my neck. The ground fell away.
She threw me.
For one weightless second I was airborne, the floor rushing up fast — and then pure instinct took the controls. My wings snapped open on their own, catching the air with a hopeful flutter.
Bloodline instinct. No manual, no practice, just: falling is wrong, fix it.
The wings were very small. The air was very uninterested.
Gravity, which had been waiting patiently for this moment, reasserted itself with enthusiasm.
I hit the ground face-first.
Skidded. Tumbled. Rolled through a scatter of dirt and shell fragments like a green bowling ball with poor aim. Came to a stop on my back, four legs pointing at the ceiling, in the exact center of the circle of hatchlings.
I lay there for a moment, staring at the cave ceiling, waiting for my dignity to return.
It did not.
I looked around.
I had been thrown directly into the center of the circle of hatchlings.
Vesperra, I noted, hadn't hurt me. The throw had been a delivery, not an attack. If she'd wanted damage, I'd have been spiked into the ground instead of gift-wrapped for a landing. The wings had been a nice thought. The landing had been less nice.
"It's YOU!"
A milky little voice, right beside me, absolutely vibrating with teeth-gritted rage.
No need to guess. Verra. The dragon whose egg I robbed.
"You stole my eggshell! The one I'm challenging is YOU!"
She dropped low, eyes locked on me, tail lashing. Found. Confirmed. Target acquired.
I took in the tide of aggression in her eyes and declined to back down.
Vesperra, fine — the size difference was a legitimate argument. But what was this little green bean so brave about? She wasn't even as big as me.
I lowered my body, split my snout, and loaded my hind legs. The instinct drove down into my stance like tent pegs — weight back, wings tight, ready to launch.
Across from me, Verra's pupils contracted in the same instant, her body settling into the mirror image of my posture.
Two green hatchlings, about to fight.
Around the circle, the crowd leaned in. Free show. Excellent.
A tall crimson shape walked directly between us, cutting the line of sight like a curtain dropping.
Vesperra glanced left at one green hatchling, right at the other.
"This is not the time for fighting. Do it later."
You're big, you make the rules.
I quietly unloaded my hind legs and sat up, folding into an obedient sit.
Verra, on the other hand, was not ready to let it go. She held her stance and growled, low and milky.
"He stole my eggshell! I'm challenging him NOW!"
Vesperra turned her head. Said nothing. Just looked at her.
Under that silent crimson stare, the ferocity in Verra's eyes slowly, slowly drained back to clarity. Her lowered body rose by degrees, until the attack posture had fully evaporated.
And that was the moment a long green head poked out from behind Vesperra's back.
Split its snout.
And stuck out a pink tongue at her.
A provocation! After everything, he was STILL provoking her!
"Rrr—!"
Verra's freshly risen body slammed back into a crouch on pure reflex — and the moment she moved, a giant red claw landed on the scruff of her neck.
Irresistible force traveled down her spine. In less than a second she was pinned flat to the ground, cheek in the dirt, wings askew.
Watching Verra get smacked down, I grinned so wide my snout creaked.
The red terror had range.
Vesperra's sidelong glance found me — the grinning green idiot standing behind her — and she visibly decided I wasn't worth it. She raised her head and swept her gaze across the entire circle.
"You've all seen it by now. We have no mother."
"Without a mother to provide for us, cooperation is our only option."
Sitting obediently in the dirt, I shot Vesperra a surprised look. Big-picture thinking. Not bad for someone who solves most problems by sitting on them.
"And cooperation needs rules."
She understood chromatic nature. It was in our nature that we could never do what the talking species did — gather in a circle and elect a leader. Nobody here would ever vote. So the rules would have to be few, and they would have to be backed by the only currency this crowd respected.
"One. We hunt together, as one group."
"Two. If you find danger, you warn the others."
"Three. If you find a prey herd, you share its location."
"Four. No fighting inside the nesting cave."
"Those four. For now." She let that settle, then added, mildly, "I know how chromatics settle things. If anyone doesn't want to follow these rules — defeat me, and you're exempt."
She released Verra and put one red claw forward.
The hatchlings looked at her, then at each other, quietly running the math. The math came back unanimous. No one made a sound.
I lay flat in the dirt, well-behaved, honest, a model citizen.
Nobody here was stupid. At this stage Vesperra was the ceiling of the whole cave. Challenging her was just donating yourself a beating. And the rules themselves were remarkably reasonable — basic cooperation, nothing more. My heart raised all four paws in favor.
Vesperra held the crowd in her stare, letting the silence ratify everything.
And with nothing left to do, my gaze wandered idly over the circle of hatchlings.
That's when I noticed something wrong.
Wait. Why does everyone have a round head?
In the hatchling stage, sex is easy to read — you look at the head. Round head, female. Long cone head, male.
I looked at the blue one nearest me. Round.
I looked at the black one. Round.
I looked at the white one — Munch, still curled up and purring against a rock. Round.
I looked at another blue. Round. Another green. Round.
My gaze traveled the circle, slower now, checking each one. Round. Round. Round. Round... round.
All of them. Every single hatchling in the circle had a round head.
Why is every dragon here female?
No. Wrong. Very wrong.
A whole cave of eggs, plus one single male dragon. Me.
I rejected this plot development on the spot. Harem comedy was NOT my genre.
I mean — yes, fine, the hatchlings were all round and fluffy and objectively cute. But that was it. Cute like kittens are cute. Cute like nephews are cute. Looking at them as anything else?
Sorry. Can't do it. Dragon tastes are supposed to be broad and free, but mine were manufactured in my previous life and the warranty hadn't expired. This was an HR violation waiting to happen, and I was the only employee in the union of one dragon.
These round little hatchlings? Kin. Colleagues. At absolute most, little sisters.
This job, whatever it was, was not one I could do. I resigned. Effective immediately. Let the Dragonmother file a complaint.
Vesperra's gaze flicked to me — just for a moment, just a tilt of her head, as if she'd sensed something shifting in my expression. She didn't say anything. She just looked at me with those crimson eyes, unblinking, and then looked away.
But the look lingered. It felt like she knew. Not the specifics — she couldn't know about the previous life, about the firmware, about the resignation. But she knew something was off. She was filing it away.
I didn't like being filed.
"Apparently, no one objects."
Vesperra pulled her gaze back from the silent circle.
"Good. Then I expect every one of you to follow those four rules from now on."
Her eyes came to rest on the one honest, well-behaved dragon sitting quietly beside her — the only male in the whole clutch.
"Now," she said. "It's time we left this cave."
She turned and walked toward the tunnel. The other hatchlings followed, one by one, a small procession of round heads and cautious steps.
I stayed where I was for a moment, looking back at the cave.
The nest. The eggshell fragments. The dirt I'd eaten. The ledge where I'd slept, where Munch had curled against my tail and purred. The clearing where Verra had challenged a name that wasn't mine. The spot where I'd landed on my back, four legs in the air, dignity on the floor.
Day one of dragon life. Survived.
I looked at the tunnel. Dark. Narrow. The only way out.
The vision floated up — the black river, the tendril rising slow and patient, the other me sinking without a struggle. My tail-tip tingled, that faint electric prickle that meant something was watching or something was wrong.
*Don't be there.*
But the tunnel was the only road between here and everywhere, and staying here meant starving, and starving meant dying in a cave full of eggshells and dirt, which was not how I wanted to go.
I took a breath. Let it out.
Day two of dragon life: pending.
I followed Vesperra into the dark.
Next chapter tomorrow — that's 8 more days of consecutive releases to go!