Day 24
The dragon hit a growth spurt and immediately made it everyone's problem.
I woke to her attempting to eat my spear, not the blade, thankfully, but the wooden shaft, while making sounds of intense concentration.
"No," I said groggily, pulling the spear away. "That's not food. We've discussed this."
She tilted her head, eyes gleaming with mischief, and immediately tried to bite my hand instead.
"Also not food!"
Everything might be food. Won't know until I try.
"That's not how, stop trying to eat my fingers!"
Welcome to week four of dragon parenthood: the phase where she had opinions, energy, and absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
[COMPANION UPDATE: SHADOW DRAGON]
[AGE: 9 DAYS]
[SIZE: SMALL DOG EQUIVALENT]
[STATUS: ENTERING JUVENILE PHASE]
[PARENTAL STRESS LEVEL: RISING]
She was growing fast, too fast, if I was being honest. Already she was the size of a large cat, her wings actually functional for short glides, her tail strong enough to knock things over when she got excited (which was constantly).
Her scales had deepened to true black, shot through with veins of ember orange that glowed when she used magic. Because yes, she was already experimenting with magic. Tiny bursts of shadow, little puffs of dark flame, and once, memorably, a blast of pure darkness that had scared both of us.
She was beautiful. Powerful. And absolutely exhausting.
"Okay," I said, after the third time she tried to eat something dangerous. "New plan. We're going hunting. Together. Supervised. So you can learn what's actually food."
She perked up immediately, wings spreading.
Hunt? We hunt!
"Yes. But you listen to me. And you stay close. And you don't..."
She was already scrambling toward the entrance.
"...wander off. Great. This will go great."
The Hunt
Teaching a baby dragon to hunt was like teaching a caffeinated squirrel to meditate. Theoretically possible. Practically a nightmare.
We were stalking a Scale Hare, she'd finally agreed that properly killed meat was acceptable food, when she spotted a glowing butterfly and immediately gave chase.
"No! We're hunting the, and she's gone."
I found her three minutes later, hanging upside down from a tree branch, tangled in her own wings, looking deeply offended by gravity.
This is your fault somehow.
"My fault? You're the one who... never mind. Hold still."
I climbed up (my Agility was getting better, at least) and carefully untangled her. She immediately tried to climb higher.
"Down. We're going down."
But the glowing thing...
"Is probably poisonous. Everything glowing in Shadowfen is poisonous. We've been over this."
She grumbled but let me carry her down. Then immediately spotted the Scale Hare we'd lost and took off running.
This time, I let her go. Kept pace beside her, ready to intervene if needed, but letting her try.
She pounced. Missed. The hare zigzagged. She course-corrected mid-leap with a wing-assisted hop that was actually impressive. Her claws caught its back leg.
The hare squealed and kicked. She held on, instinct guiding her, and in a move I definitely didn't teach her, she breathed out a small blast of shadow-flame.
The hare stopped moving.
She looked up at me, eyes bright with triumph, prey clutched in her jaws.
I did it! I hunted!
Pride surged through the bond, hers and mine tangling together until I couldn't tell whose was whose.
"Yeah," I said, grinning like an idiot. "Yeah, you did. Good job, dragon."
She pranced. Actually pranced, showing off her kill, her tail wagging like an overgrown puppy who'd just fetched a stick.
[COMPANION SKILL GAINED: HUNT (LV. 1)]
[COMPANION SKILL GAINED: SHADOW FLAME (LV. 1)]
[CONGRATULATIONS: YOUR MURDER BABY IS LEARNING]
"She's not a murder baby," I told the System. "She's... okay, she's a little bit of a murder baby."
The dragon, completely unrepentant, settled down to eat her prize. I kept watch, scanning the area for threats, feeling something settle in my chest.
We were learning. Both of us. How to survive, how to work together, how to be a family in a place that wanted us dead.
It wasn't much. But it was ours.
Day 27
We found the fairies by accident.
I'd been following a trail of mana-rich plants, the dragon needed them for growth, and I'd gotten better at sensing them, when we stumbled into a grove that felt... different. Lighter. Less murderous.
The trees here were healthier, their leaves actually green instead of the sickly yellow-brown of the rest of Shadowfen. Flowers grew in patches, their colors almost painfully bright. And floating through the air, moving between the branches with impossible grace, were tiny figures with wings.
Fairies.
"Oh shit," I breathed, freezing. "We need to..."
The dragon chirped loudly, announcing our presence.
Every fairy in the grove turned to look at us.
For a moment, nobody moved. The fairies stared at us, a seven-foot demon with claws and horns, covered in scars and dried mud, holding a spear that had definitely seen better days. And a juvenile shadow dragon who was currently trying to eat a flower.
Then, one fairy, tiny, with emerald hair and wings like stained glass, flew directly at my face.
I froze, every instinct screaming danger, but afraid to move and provoke an attack.
She stopped an inch from my nose, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Examined me with the intensity of someone trying to decide if I was a threat or just stupid.
Finally, she spoke: "You're the new demon."
"Uh. Yes?"
"The one who's been living in the dead tree."
"That's... accurate."
"With the dragon baby."
"She's not a baby, she's..." The dragon chose that moment to trip over her own tail. "...okay, she's a baby."
The fairy's expression shifted. Not quite friendly, but less hostile. "You're feeding her properly? Mana-rich food?"
"I'm trying. It's been... a learning curve."
She studied me for another long moment. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. "You're doing better than the last demon who came through. He tried to eat us."
"I'm... not planning on eating anyone?"
"Good policy." She flew a lazy circle around my head. "I'm Lira. Welcome to the slightly-less-murderous part of Shadowfen. Try not to ruin it."
And just like that, I made my first non-dragon friend in Shadowfen.
Day 28
The fairies, I quickly learned, were exactly as chaotic as the dragon and twice as opinionated.
Lira had brought friends, Pip, who was quieter but watched everything with sharp eyes; Dewdrop, who was so small she could sit in my palm; and about a dozen others whose names I was desperately trying to remember.
They'd taken one look at my hollow and declared it "tragic."
"You're living in a tree corpse," Lira said, horrified.
"It's defensible!"
"It's depressing." She flew inside, examining my meager possessions. "And you're sleeping on moss."
"The moss is very comfortable!"
"The moss is full of bugs."
That explained some things.
The fairies spent the afternoon "helping" me improve my camp, which mostly meant pointing out everything I was doing wrong while the dragon chased them in circles, thinking they were the best toys ever.
Pip showed me which plants were actually edible versus "will make you hallucinate your own funeral." Dewdrop somehow convinced me to let her braid my hair (I now had exactly one tiny braid that I was absolutely keeping). Lira appointed herself my life coach and immediately started critiquing my life choices.
"You need better weapons. And actual clothes that aren't held together by hope and mud. And have you considered learning magic properly instead of just throwing mana at things and hoping?"
"I'm self-taught!"
"It shows."
But despite the constant commentary, despite the chaos, despite the dragon now refusing to calm down because the fairies were the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her.
I laughed. Actually, genuinely laughed, surrounded by tiny flying beings who'd decided I was their project.
It felt good. Feeling human (demon?) again. Having people, beings, who talked to me like I mattered, who stayed even after seeing how much of a disaster I was.
As the sun set and the fairies prepared to leave (they had their own safe zone to return to), Lira paused at the entrance to the hollow.
"You're doing okay," she said quietly. "With her." She nodded to the dragon, who was finally settling down, exhausted from a day of playing. "Not great. But okay."
"High praise."
"From a fairy? It really is." She grinned. "We'll be back tomorrow. Someone needs to make sure you don't accidentally poison yourself."
And with that, she was gone, the other fairies trailing behind her like a stream of glowing, judgmental fireflies.
I looked at the dragon, who looked at me, both of us exhausted.
"We made friends," I told her.
Good. They're fun. Can we keep them?
"I don't think that's how fairies work."
She yawned, showing off all her sharp baby teeth, and curled up in her nest.
I settled in for watch, spear across my lap, and felt the bond hum with contentment.
Four weeks in Shadowfen. Still alive. Now with a dragon and fairy friends who'd probably get me killed through sheer chaos.
But alive. Growing. Learning.
Maybe even healing.
One day at a time.