Dragoncrest Cliffs ai na drein au bukajus-de

The young dragon threads his way along a jagged strip of rock, tongue caught fixedly between his teeth and one brown butter eye squeezed shut. He’s working on surefootedness today, learning how to keep a steady center of balance even when navigating unsteady terrain, and it isn’t going quite as well as he wants it to. His obsessive desire to be better — to be Drakru — has made a perfectionist of him, and, “‘Enough’ is an illusion,” has become his mantra. The one thing he knows how to train on his own is his body — strength, agility, vitality, and dexterity — and he uses his environment wisely, working with and against it to hone each skill individually.

With his renewed resolve and newfound confidence comes a modicum of regret: in his grief and confusion, he’s postponed seeking out @Antumbra to welcome her back into their home and into his life. (He tells himself that he was just trying to give her space and time to settle in, but deep down, he knows he’s lying.)

A week after that sullen boy slipped unnoticed into the shadows, dithering on the outskirts of pack life, he steps into a patch of chancy sunlight — the weather has been growing colder and damper in a crackling, aching way he can feel deep in his bones — and tips back his head, singing for his nomi. It’s more of a courtesy call than anything else; he’s asking permission to approach, ambling along with his nose to the cool earth, for he isn’t quite confident enough to ask her to come to him.