Thank you! I always like it when other people enjoy what I wrote!

Thank you for reading!

<3

I'm so glad you enjoyed! It makes me really happy to know that someone liked my stuff enough to read it again <3

Awww, I'm really happy you liked it!

Go for it! Inspiration is very much free, and I can't wait to see what you do with it!

I'm glad you enjoyed! I imagine they both would have a lot of fun indeed! For all the fact that Annie/Andolin has been around for many human lifespans, she hasn't gotten much chance to explore, and is very excited to run around in a human body.

Thank you!

And I don't think I've read those books. I'll have to add it to the list!

I'm glad you liked the story!

(Part 3)

Gelna brought us to myself, keeping the chunks of castle rock and destruction away from our fragile bodies, and I soon found an abandoned mill on my shore. I pulled us out, amazed at the way my hair clung to my neck, the way cold coated my body.

But Katiya stared into nothing, shaking. I put my arms around her, a hug like the one she gave me so recently and so long ago. The sobs came. Wordless, from deep pain, so I held her as we crouched in the corner of an old, wooden house. From the remnant drops of water on her body, I could feel injuries. Some deep, some light. Old injuries she’d had the last time I saw her. New injuries that only just had scabs. I said nothing, only dried the remnants of the river from our clothes and waited for her to still.

After a long time, Katiya sniffed. “I want to go home.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I want to go home and see Da. I want to go home and never leave.”

Sadness lurked in her eyes. But also something else I knew from watching her. I hummed. “You’re nowhere near as old as Old Man Barnes was when he retired. You haven’t gone all the places you want to go yet.”

Katiya turned her head away. “If they’re going to hurt Da, it’s not worth it.”

I snorted. “Who says I’d allow your father to get hurt?”

She froze.

“He lives on my banks. Nothing along my shore happens without my knowledge.”

“But—”

I sighed. “You saved my life, Katiya. The path you chose has brought far more things than evil to those you care for.”

Her shoulders tightened, a sign that the tears might come back. I patted her back. “I will bring you back home. Your father has been worried about you. And then when you’re good and ready, you can step out again on your own two feet and show me the world beyond the banks of the Andolin.”

Katiya’s brow furrowed. “Beyond the Andolin…?”

“It seems that a summoning gives me the added benefit of a solid form that I don’t have to hold together through pure strength of will. I don’t know how long it will last, but I mean to enjoy it to the limit. So…”

I rose to my feet, stretched, and offered Katiya a hand.

I smiled. “I’m counting on you, Katiya.”

r/chanceofwords

(Part 2)

I laughed. She was alive. So strange that we should meet here. One of the magicians looked up at my laughter, bowed hurriedly. “Lady Andolin!” His greeting was a little too loud, trying a little too hard to hide the fear that seeped into his tone. Poor boy. He must have grown up on my floodplains.

In an instant, all heads in the clearing turned towards me. Dozens of heads bowed. I grabbed the back of Katiya’s armor, stopping her. “Oh no,” I rebuked. “Not you too. I can’t have my life-saver bowing to me, can I?”

Katiya glanced upwards, worried. There was no fear, though. She didn’t know the River Andolin beyond reputation. I pulled more of my consciousness in, tried to shed the rampaging energy that ran through me this close to the ocean, tried to smooth myself into the softer form Katiya remembered.

Her eyes widened. “Annie—?” I placed a finger on my lips, grinning. My other palm twisted around her wrist.

“You may call on the Andolin when you are in need,” I whispered. The magic from inside me rustled, curled around her arm, and seeped beneath her skin. I released her, and a blue and green river spun where my fingers had clutched. “Can’t you come back sooner?” I complained even lower. “I’m bored.”

Her lips twitched, and I knew that sunlight-bright laugh wanted to burst out of her. But she held it in. She nodded.

“I am grateful for the Lady Andolin’s thanks,” she announced for the crowd.

“Brat,” I muttered under my breath. “Talking like a sugar-brained nobleman.” Her lip twitched again, and I couldn’t help but snort.

My eyes spread over the clearing again. “Your help is appreciated,” I told them all. “The Andolin does not forget.” I released my consciousness, dripped back into my banks, and prepared to soothe my tributaries.

More time must have passed, but I was less aware of Katiya’s absence in my busy-ness. Once my tributaries were sorted, I had to take care of the tower of magicians that had discovered my ill, had to make sure I ran as smoothly as possible for the sake of the lives that had been uprooted in my cursed anger.

Eventually, it had been enough time that I decided I could relax my vigilance, my forcefully good behavior. The people by my banks had rebuilt their lives. They could once again withstand the force of my normal whims.

I began to miss Katiya again. I had never understood a mortal’s sense of time, but I only hoped we could speak at least once more before she left this world.

A tug came in the navel of my sense of self. It pulled my waters into hands, my currents into limbs, and brought me back to where it came from. I appeared behind a woman—my Katiya. I blinked. Something felt odd. I pulled my hand up to check. It was skin-toned, not the usual translucence of water. “Oh,” I marveled as I wiggled my fingers, enjoying the feeling of muscles and bones sliding. “How novel!”

“Who are you?” A voice demanded.

I returned my gaze to the room. The voice came from a be-caped and be-crowned little man squatting on a golden chair. His eyes were narrow and dark. And directly in front of me, an armored person pressed a sword to the neck of a kneeling Katiya, her hands bound behind her back. Frost grew in my eyes.

I pressed a hand against her back. “Where is this, Katiya?”

“Credia,” she replied, softly. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Not at all.”

The fancy man rose to his feet angrily. “We demanded,” he spat, “to know who you are!”

I clicked my tongue. “The kingdom of Credia relies on the River Andolin for fishing, trade, and travel,” I mocked. “And you don’t even know my visage?” A harsh intake of breath hissed below me. A small trickle of blood dripped down Katiya’s neck. My frown deepened. I pushed the sword away, reminded it what it was, reminded it what I was, what all iron did before the onslaught of water and time.

The sword shriveled in my gaze, meek. The edge dulled, rusted before our eyes. The armored man staggered backwards, his now useless piece of ironmongery clattering to the floor.

Fear crept into the fancy man’s tone. “Who—who are you?”

I ignored him, pulling Katiya to her feet, freeing her hands. She stumbled, but my novel solid form easily caught her. “Is there anyone here you want to save?”

“…They were going to kill Da if I didn’t cooperate,” she murmured, fists tight. “This castle’s rotten through.”

I sneered. “I see.” I closed my eyes, ignored the growing cries and shouts from the fancy little man, from the armored man, and the growing squadron of others of his kind, and reached out, reached down.

A young spring slept beneath the castle. The original architects had presented her with gifts, comforted her into slumber, and used the waters to support the life of the castle inhabitants. She had always been softer than I. She was content with sleeping, with knowing that she was relied upon.

Gelna, I commanded. It’s time to wake up.

She stirred, started. The ground rumbled.

Gelna awoke.

Gelna awoke, and saw for herself what she now fed with her slumbering waters.

She roared with the rage that only an angry water spirit can funnel.

The foundations of the castle shook. I took Katiya in my arms and turned towards the noisy men who had surrounded us while my attention remained below and smiled.

“If you survive, I hope you can learn to recognize the spirits of the waterways you so cherish. After all, the River Andolin has never been known for forgiveness.”

I reveled in the panic that coated their faces as the first jets of water exploded from the floor.

(Part 1)

I remember the first time I met her. She was a little crybaby back then, small and hopeless and loud and near about the ugliest human I’d ever seen, what with all the snot and tears running down her red, swollen face.

I propped myself on a rock when I couldn’t take it anymore, pulling all the energy I could muster to take the least conspicuous form I could. Not that I could conjure up anything too ferocious this close to my source. I didn’t have enough energy. There was still a small chance she’d run screaming, but I suppose even that would work, since then she wouldn’t be my problem anymore.

“You’re getting my river salty,” I complained, leaning tiredly out of the water.

She turned towards me, forcing her sobs into gasps. But she couldn’t stop the steady stream of sorrow pouring out of her eyes. Even her words turned incomprehensible from the blubbering. Near as I could make out, she was worried about “him” killing her.

“And why is he going to kill you?” I sighed.

“Mother’s scarf,” she wailed. “Lost, hngh, river—”

I cocked my head. “Is it gold colored?” Something like that had washed downstream earlier.

She nodded, scrubbing at her tears. I transferred my senses to the rest of me. It wasn’t too far now, but my currents had carried it such that it was beyond the reach of one as small as herself. All of me was one, so pulling it into my newly formed fingers took merely a thought. I flung its drenched form at her.

“Now it’s back, and you can go away.”

For a moment, the crying stopped, the fabric twisting between her small fingers. She blinked at me. Flinched, as the tears blurring her gaze cleared, and she noticed I wasn’t a person.

“Hnnnnnngh—!” Oh no, the crying was starting again!

“There, there,” I begged, panicking. “Don’t cry, you’ll give me a headache.” I spread my crystalline fingers wide, letting the drops rolling off my skin sprinkle the sunlight into rainbows. “See? I’m not scary, just a harmless little river spirit!” She didn’t need to know about the part of me where white water crashed heartlessly from heights, or my wide, lazy reaches near the sea that liked to swell with angry storms and slip over my banks. She didn’t need to know about the corpses I sometimes hid in my depths.

The rainbow worked like a charm. Blessed silence spilled across my waters as her hands reached up to catch the colored light.

And then, laughter. Golden, sun-bright. Bubbling like the spring at my headwaters.

I froze.

It was beautiful.

The child looked back at me, her smile spreading across her ugly, swollen, tear-stained face. She wiped the last of the tears and rose to her feet.

“Th-thank you Ms. River Spirit,” she whispered. “Mother always said I should thank people who helped me.” She clutched the scarf, bowed, and turned to leave. One small foot set down the path towards the nearest village.

And then suddenly, she was back at my side, flinging her arms around me and squeezing. For a moment, I forgot that I was miles upon miles of rock-channeled, untamed waves. I forgot that I was more than just a few buckets of water in the shape of a mortal. “My name is Katiya,” the little girl confided.

She let go. Scampered down the path that took her back to her world. And I was myself again, the whole of the wild River Andolin. The false mortal form I’d constructed slopped back into my depths.

She came back, that girl. Day after day, she ran back to the boulder by the side of the stream where we met, and she would do a task or lay on the grass by my banks, and she would talk to me. Little nothings about her day, about her father, about what her mother was like when she was alive. As she grew older, sometimes she would laugh at herself, wonder if I was even listening.

But I was listening.

She left one day after she’d stopped growing taller. She came down to my banks, travel bags slung across her shoulders.

“I’ve come to say goodbye, Annie,” she told me. Annie was what the villagers called me around these parts. I was quieter here, closer to my source, not anything to be associated with the terrors of infamous Andolin, and so Katiya had taken to calling me that, too. “I’ve told you how I’ve always wanted to be an adventurer before, right? Well, Old Man Barnes gave me his old map and his old knife yesterday, and I decided that this was it, you know? Now or never, as they say. I didn’t tell Da, since he’d throw a fit and lock me up for the next six months, but I thought I ought to at least let you know I was going.” She giggled. “I doubt you’ll miss me, but I’ll come back when I’m good and ready, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

And so she waved, and ran off on the other path, the path that took her away from me, away from home.

She was wrong.

I did miss her.

The days passed, much like they did before. But sometimes my consciousness would shift towards our boulder, and I would wonder when she was coming back. I didn’t see her feet on my banks, nor did I hear word of her from my tributaries, the weaker spirits under my protection. So I waited, and I hoped, and poison began to twist its talons into my depths.

It wasn’t normal poison, like the foul stench fools would sometimes throw into my waters near the cities of man—I never suffered those fools for long—but a spirit poison, a poison meant to eat at me, a poison meant to choke my soul and twist my mind. They didn’t think to start from my head, so I fervently spread myself to keep it from my tributaries. But it seeped into me. I started to lose more and more of myself in the bouts of formless pain, sourceless anger that spread from the darkness eating me alive.

In a moment of clarity, I caught one of the perpetrators, his foul work clutched in his hands.

I drowned him.

Drowned him, and spat him and his instruments from my currents at the door to a tower that held magic, betting that someone there could be my salvation.

And then there was nothing again, clarity like lonesome bubbles released from a drowning man’s lungs.

Clarity came back in a heave. The dying man was pulled onto land. I collapsed onto the grass, my mortal form gasping, hacking out gobs of blackness from within. I tasted blood in my waters, the blood that spawned the poison that almost killed me. The blood that now forced the poison to leave me.

I spat out the last of the poison, wiping my mouth with much more ease than I might otherwise have managed. I had gained some humanness, after all, watching Katiya for all those years.

I pulled myself upright, surveying the place my consciousness found itself. I was surrounded by several mortals in a clearing. Some armored ones dragged black-cloaked corpses away from my shores, some directed the black mucus I had expunged from myself into a fire with a wave of their hands.

And heaving for breath over the deadman whose blood I tasted upon awakening, the one who had slain my almost-killer, was Katiya.

The ocean gives many things. Life, death, storms, sun. But no one quite expected it to give this.

Ooo this is definitely an interesting world!

This was cute! Thought of a panic spreading because *gasp!* the dragons are writing! made me chuckle

Awwww that was so sad. Good words.

(Part 2)

They’d crossed the border to the Unclaimed Lands yesterday. Another day and they’d make it to Perch, the land of dragons. A place where dragons and humans were free to do as they pleased within the law. A place where dragons were not treated like just another man-made, inanimate creation. Yrth had sent Jaundice there when the crown had first shown interest in the war outside his borders, first shown indications that he did not see dragons as living creatures. It had been a hard parting, and she couldn’t wait to see that little dragonet again.

They landed in a puff of dust under a withered tree.

“Same arrangement?” Yrth asked, sliding off of Nae’ali. She’d finally gotten the trick of it again. She’d never Written any big dragons herself, and the ones her mother had Written were always prickly and only begrudgingly allowed her on their backs.

Ozzy nodded, arrowing in on a direction that seemed exactly the same as any other direction to Yrth.

“It’s a good thing I don’t have to get us to Perch,” she commented, leaning against Nae’ali’s warm hide.

The rumbles of draconic laughter rippled into her, loosening her muscles as a smile tugged at her lips. And then the nothingness, the incompleteness shivered into her on the heels of the laugh. Her fists tightened.

She liked Nae’ali. She didn’t want her to unravel. But…

She wouldn’t dare complete that.

Almost as if Nae’ali could read her thoughts, the dragon spoke up. “It’s been quite a while, M’thor. As talented as you are, I presume you’ve found what’s ailing me.”

Yrth’s jaw clenched. Silence filled the space between them.

Nae’ali wiggled her whiskers, raising an eyebrow. “I’m surprised. I’ve never been wrong about a person before.”

“No,” Yrth found herself saying. “I know what’s missing. But I can’t—won’t—fix it.”

Nae’ali twisted away from her. Yrth fell backwards, her support missing. The dragon appeared in before her, sliding her coils so that she towered over the prostrate Yrth, so that her shadow fell intimidatingly across the woman’s face.

“You won’t?” the dragon hissed, laughing incredulously. “You won’t, and I’ve gone through all this trouble to find you? You won’t, and I’ve even dragged my favorite human across two countries for you?” She laughed again. “Funny, for a moment I was even thinking you might have been in the running for my second-favorite human.”

Yrth shivered. Nae’ali’s author had done a good job. He’d written intimidation deep into her scales, made it so that she seemed to swallow up all the light in the surrounding area until only two orbs of fire raged inside her eyes. Yrth grit her teeth. “What your author Wrote is not something that’s meant to be. That’s why his apprentice burned that sheet of paper.”

The dragon’s sides shifted, and somehow she seemed even bigger, even darker. Nae’ali voice dropped an octave. “Oh? And what could that be, such that it’s worth killing me for?”

Yrth took a deep breath. “He was trying to call down the Dragon God.”

Nae’ali sneered. “And is calling on a god such a terrible thing? Do you take pleasure in a long, drawn-out conflict? Or perhaps you’re on the side that thinks dragons aren’t people and hope the country that kept you locked in a dungeon ought to win?” Nae’ali stormed closer. “My author was astute,” she glowered, “and saw the quickest way to end things. And yet it seems like I’ve inherited his penchant for surrounding himself with traitors.”

Yrth forced herself to her feet. “But at what cost?” she growled, staring into the fiery orbs only inches from her face. “I know I’m sure as hell not willing to pay the damn price.”

Nae’ali leaned backwards, surprised at the sudden ferocity. “What?”

Yrth strode into the empty space, pulled her shaking limbs underneath her. “Dragons are creativity, they’re flights of fancy given form. Have you ever noticed that no two dragons are exactly the same?” Nae’ali tried to retreat again, but Yrth stubbornly advanced. “Have you ever wondered why you look so different and so similar to other dragons? When I first saw you, I was surprised. You had so many different aspects to you, it was like your author was trying to make you every single different type of dragon at the same time. Well, it turns out he was. He wanted to Write the prototypical dragon. The dragon from which all stories of dragons sprang. And he thought,” Yrth choked on her words, could only rely on her balled fists to keep her going. “He thought that in making such a prototype, the epitome of dragondom, the Dragon God, could manifest.” The strength in her tone started to flag. But she had to finish, had to keep talking. Her gaze anchored to the ground. “A dragon is a dragon because there’s no such thing as a single dragon. As a Writer myself… this thing shouldn’t be done.”

Nae’ali seemed to deflate. She gently nudged Yrth’s shoulder. “Even if it should not be done, a god is a god. Think of the lives we can save.”

“Do you think a god will suffer a body guest?” Yrth whispered, voice cracking.

Nae’ali froze. “You mean…”

“I don’t want to watch a god steal your body, Nae’ali. I don’t want to have to lose a friend and watch something that looks like that friend every day, knowing that my friend is gone for good. So no. I won’t complete you.”

Nae’ali’s nose pressed deeper into her shoulder. Yrth heard her quiet exhale.

A cough sounded behind them. Yrth’s head shot up. The two of them separated.

Ozzy coughed again, awkwardly. “So uh. What’s this about Nae’ali being a god?”

Over the campfire, Ozzy sighed, head in his hands. “I feel stupid.”

Nae’ali snorted. “It’s okay, I have more than enough brain for the two of us.”

Yrth rolled her eyes. “Either way, long story short, if you want to go through with summoning a god, I won’t be Writing for it. And you can be sure I’ll do my level best to prevent it.”

Ozzy sighed again. “Forgive me, I know absolutely nothing about this, Miss Writer—”

“Yrth is fine.”

“Yrth, then. But what’s to stop you from finishing Nae’ali a different way? You’re a Writer yourself, can’t you just complete her so that she doesn’t summon a god?”

Two sets of eyes stared at him. He cringed. “Yeah, I know, it’s weird—”

“No,” Yrth interrupted. “That’s not a bad idea. I hadn’t thought of that.” She turned towards the dragon. “Nae’ali?” she asked hesitantly. “I know you liked the idea of a quick end to the war, but… what do you think of me completing you in a way your author didn’t intend? Finish the loose ends, but leave you enough of yourself that the Dragon God can’t move in? I—maybe I can even find some way for you to channel the prototypical dragon…?”

Nae’ali glanced down, scuffed a claw in the dust, the loose ash from the campfire. “I know it’s selfish, but I don’t want to give someone else my body, either.” She met Yrth’s eyes. “I would be honored for you to complete me.” A silent moment, and then a faint rumble shook the campsite. “Won’t it be grand? I’ll be the only dragon with two authors.”

r/chanceofwords

(Part 1)

Something clanked in the depths of the prison, some squeal of rusty hinges, but she ignored it. There were many things here that went clank and squeal.

Instead, she turned her attention upwards, to the short strip of stones on the ceiling actually illuminated in the dim torchlight. She’d started naming them after she’d grown bored of counting. But now, after cementing the last little pebble in the corner as Granite Jr., working her way through the list several times, and giving each of the rocks a backstory, she’d tired of that as well. So now watching the warm-toned chill of the stones was really just an excuse to let her mind wander anywhere she liked.

Well, anywhere except dragons.

The clanks turned to sharp thonks. That was also pretty common, she mused. The prison guard must be making his rounds. She didn’t even look down when they stopped in front of her cell door.

“Writer,” the familiar voice of the jailor greeted.

She hummed. “Captain.”

“I’ve told you,” the jailor growled. “I’m not a Captain.”

“I’ve told you,” she replied mildly. “I’m not a Writer.”

He grunted. “Still not fessing up? You could get out, you know, if you admitted it. Writers are useful. The bigshots would give you a nice cushy bed, and tasty food that the bugs haven’t been crawling over. All you gotta do is tell my superiors when they come tomorrow that ‘Yes, sir, I am a Writer. Yes, sir, I’ll be good and do what you tell me.’”

She scoffed. “Ah, yes, the joys of a comfy prison. What a shame I’m not a Writer.”

The jailor shook his head sadly. “Miss, you ain’t fooling anyone with that. Just think on it.”

He kept talking, but she ignored him, filling her mind with how Rockdrick had fended off the Great Termite Invasion from the Petrified Forest when he was but a wee mineral. Eventually, the thonks clunked away again. She let her mind wander again.

She’d barely dropped herself into the flow of time when the prison squealed again. It was close this time, filling her ears with its harsh shrieks.

She finally tore her eyes away from the ceiling.

A shadow stood at her door, silhouetted by torchlight. Former door, actually. It lay on the ground, torn from its hinges, a crumpled shadow of its former self.

Her lips pressed together. Strange. She hadn’t heard them approach.

The shadow turned its head to the side, revealing part of its—his—face. “All right, we’ve got it open, Nae’ali. What next?” The strange man was suddenly pushed aside by a sinuous form beside him. It wormed its head into the opening, the dim glittering off its jagged outline.

She rose to her feet, staring. She knew what that silhouette belonged to.

“Dragon,” she whispered.

The man jumped, swore. “Can’t you warn me next time you want to break open an occupied jail cell?” he complained. A low rumble. Her lips quirked up. Dragon laughter. Finally the man recovered his wits. He glanced towards where her voice had come from. She obligingly stepped into the light. The man offered a hand inwards. He grinned. “I know this is sudden, but Nae’ali was super insistent about breaking into this exact prison and this exact cell, so I imagine she means to get you out. She’s not led me astray yet. I’m Ozzy, want a ride out of this junk heap?”

She chuckled darkly, grasped the hand firmly, pulled herself out into the light. “I’m Yrth. And gladly.”

They’d made good time that afternoon, and now, as the sun set over the forest they now found themselves inside, they were already more than a day’s travel on foot away from the prison.

As they slid off the dragon’s back, the man stretched. “You know how to make camp?”

Yrth nodded. “Mhm.”

“Then I’ll track down some water, maybe some food.” He passed his knapsack to her. “Go ahead and set up the tent.”

As the man—Ozzy, she corrected herself—wandered deeper into the woods, she started digging through the bag, but her eyes inevitably fell on the dragon. Nae’ali, she remembered. She hadn’t gotten a good chance to look earlier, so now her eyes greedily slid over every inch of the hide, as she reveled in Nae’ali’s uniqueness, in the fact that every dragon Written by the hands of humans was new and different.

Nae’ali was a lady dragon, she realized. She had something of an eastern dragon around her whiskers, around the serpentine, feathery tail; something of a western wyrm around the scales and rounded spines that ran down her back. She met Nae’ali’s eyes. They glittered back at her. She blinked. Ah. Nae’ali was one of the intelligent ones.

Yrth turned back to the pack. “Does he know?”

Leaves rustled as the dragon settled down. “That I can talk? No.”

Finally she found the tent. “How’d you pull that one over on him?”

Nae’ali scoffed. “Please. Ozzy’s sweet, but about as perceptive as an ear of corn. I practically served up your identity to him on a platter, and he still thinks you’re just a normal, yet unjustly imprisoned woman we’ve rescued from a dungeon. Do you think he’d realize his dragon is smarter than he is?” She puffed smoke from her nostrils, whiskers twitching. “Besides, most of the big dragons nowadays are just slapdash efforts, and only really draconic in the fact they’re scaly and vaguely reptilian. He’s managed to pick up that I’m smarter than those idiots, but you can’t blame him for not knowing I’m a genius when your average housecat is smarter than your average dragon.”

“So you know what I am.” It wasn’t a question.

Nae’ali only smiled. “I need someone of your capabilities, M’thor. Of course I’m only going to search for the best.”

Yrth raised her head, let her eyes rove over the dragon again, this time letting a critical eye slide over the masterpiece of scales. Nae’ali arched her neck proudly.

“You’re incomplete,” she realized. “And now you’re unraveling.”

Nae’ali nodded, her eyes grew distant. “My author… he was a brilliant man. All of the dragons he Wrote were masterpieces. However, one by one, they all fell in the war. I was to be his final work. His greatest masterpiece. It took him a long time to Write me. Everything had to be perfect. He was still Writing on his deathbed. To anyone else, I already looked whole. But there was one last sheet of paper left. His apprentice woke up to find him dead, lying over the final piece of paper that should have completed me.” She exhaled softly. “And then the apprentice threw it in the fire and burned it.”

Yrth blinked. She frowned as she sparked a tiny campfire into life. “Did he have a reason?”

The dragon’s side glided upwards in a smooth shrug. “I know not. All I know is that there is something missing from my bones. I can feel the traces of what should be there, but I am not a Writer. I do not know what I am missing. And now, after years and years, that missing piece is tearing me apart from the inside. I need you to find my missing piece. I need you to complete me.”

“I haven’t Written in years,” she warned. “Not since the country started looking for Writers and forcing them into Writing for the king.”

“But I’ve met one of your dragonets,” Nae’ali murmured, angling her nose so that she could meet Yrth’s eyes. “He was small, but there was just as much care in his making as mine. You are the only one qualified for this task.”

Yrth stiffened. “Jaundice… How, how is he?”

Nae’ali chuckled. “You’ll have to come with us to find out, won’t you?”

“Scheming dragon,” she growled.

Another laugh, louder. “So it is set that you shall return with us. As we travel, I will let you listen to the song in my bones, and perhaps by our journey’s end I will be complete.”