[private] Order one drink, then drink the flood // Radar Pon

[Locheed]

Her body was shifting, and as it did, the magic made her sick. Her scales thickened and her spine lengthened, folded wings split the skin on her back, raw and tender to the touch. A kind word from a sister was enough to bring flames roaring from her sharp-toothed mouth, and there was barely any sign of intelligent life behind the fire in her draconic eyes.

She is feral and unaware of how much time passes as her body modifies itself to the specifications of her ancestors, days maybe weeks, but once her wings are large enough to be of use, she takes to the sky. Another week of quick learning, of launching and landing, and the dragoness puts Tephra behind her. It wasn't the first time she had left her birthplace; she had made several attempts at rebellion, unsuccessful in the end because something seemed to pull her back to the volcanic island. But this time, there was no single thought, no dream of something more, no great escape - it was simply a dragon following the primal need to hunt.

She is no longer the clumsy adolescent she had been, half-lizard and half girl. Now, her metamorphosis is complete. She rises into the soot-stain sky an apex predator. The stiff leather of her wings buffers the wind as she travels just below the clouds, heading east with her slit-pupil eyes scanning the earth for prey.

Kingdoms pass below her, and some thread of common sense keeps her from swooping down on the creatures that move within them. She flies, her stomach churning, for the common-lands.

Locheed spots the stag from miles away, and she knows by the way he moves he is injured. Despite the shelter of the forest's leaves, she sees him clearly, tracking his heat signature and its halting progress across the uneven ground. He is angling towards a clearing, and she bites back her impatience. She circles and her steadiness pays off. As he steps into the sun, the earth-tone dragon clips her wings to her sides, and she is upon him before he has a chance to run. It's the first time she's ever felt a weight so large crumple below her or seen so much blood. She relishes in his thrashing, gorging herself on her prey, and she is more content than she had ever been.

Locheed

@[Radar]