[TLD] Chapter 3 - Earned

Chapter 3

Earned

The wolf’s muscles tensed. Its haunches lowered. Its eyes shifted between them, intelligent. Assessing.

Azratheon moved without thinking. He stepped closer to the beast, placing the small cub behind him. He wanted the movement to be confident. Smooth. The way a dragon should move.

He stumbled slightly instead.

His tail whipped out for balance. The proportions were all wrong. Everything felt strange and clumsy. He caught himself and settled into what he hoped was a proper stance.

The wolf’s eyes tracked everything.

Azratheon considered shifting. His true form would make this simple. But he didn’t know how long the transformation would take. It might be instant, or it might be seconds. Minutes. The process might leave him vulnerable. And the wolf was already committed, muscles coiling for the strike.

He’d have to fight like this.

The wolf lunged.

It moved fast. Faster than the humans had. Its jaws opened wide, aimed directly at his throat. The attack was almost identical to his own against the first cultivator.

Azratheon tried to dodge. His new body responded wrongly, too slow, the muscles unfamiliar. He twisted sideways, but not far enough. The wolf’s teeth raked across his upper chest, tearing through unscaled flesh.

Pain flared hot. Blood ran down his arm.

The wolf landed and circled, eyes gleaming. It had drawn first blood and knew it.

Azratheon’s mind raced. All these soft parts. His chest, stomach, and the inner parts of his arms and legs were all vulnerable skin where scales didn’t grow. In his true form, his entire body was armored. Here, he had to think about what to protect.

The wolf darted in again. Lower this time, snapping at his leg.

Azratheon slashed down with his claws. The wolf jerked back, and his strike cut only air. Wrong timing. Wrong reach. Fragments of inherited memory surfaced: blade forms, footwork, and movements meant for a sword he didn’t have.

Useless.

The wolf attacked from the side. Teeth clamped onto his thigh, just above the knee. Azratheon snarled and kicked, but the beast released before he could land the blow. It danced away, blood on its muzzle.

His blood. The wolf licked its muzzle, eager.

He was bleeding from multiple wounds now. Exhaustion weighed on him too; he hadn’t recovered from the transformation, from the hunt before, and the weakness that had plagued him since his birth was still ever-present. Every movement cost him more than it should.

The wolf circled again. Patient. Waiting for him to weaken further.

Behind him, he heard the cub’s breathing. Fast and shallow. Afraid.

He couldn’t lose this.

The wolf feinted left, then lunged right. Azratheon twisted to follow but his body betrayed him again. The wolf’s jaws closed on his side, tearing through flesh.

He roared and grabbed for it, but the beast was already gone.

It was too fast. Too experienced.

Azratheon stumbled slightly. His legs shook. The strange body, combined with fresh wounds and exhaustion, was almost too much.

The wolf saw it. Its muscles coiled for another strike. This time it would go for the throat. He could see it in the way the beast positioned itself.

A kill strike. It’s what he would do if he were in his dragon form.

Something flew past his head.

A rock struck the wolf’s temple with a sharp crack. The beast’s head snapped toward the source, eyes locking onto the new threat.

The cub.

The wolf’s lips pulled back in a snarl. It launched itself toward her, jaws open wide.

Azratheon didn’t waste the opening. Using his tail to shove off the ground, he threw himself at the wolf’s flank. They collided mid-air and crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

The wolf snarled, twisting in the heap, snapping for his throat.

He jammed his arm into the wolf’s open maw.

The jaws clamped down. Fangs sank deep into the underside of his arm, punching through flesh and scraping bone. The pain was almost overwhelming. Blood flooded hot down his arm.

But the backside, covered in scales, held. The fangs couldn’t punch completely through. His arm was trapped but not severed.

The wolf tried to jerk back. To rip the arm free and tear it apart.

Azratheon’s other hand shot forward.

His claws found the wolf’s exposed throat. He drove them in deep and ripped sideways with everything he had left. Flesh tore. Blood sprayed across his chest and face.

The wolf’s jaws released. It staggered backward, choking. Blood poured from the ruined throat. It tried to whine but only a wet gurgle came out.

Then it collapsed.

Its legs kicked twice. Then it was still.

Azratheon stood there, panting. His arm hung at his side, mangled and bleeding. The underside shredded where the fangs had sunk in. His shoulder burned. His leg throbbed. Blood ran down his side.

But he was standing. The wolf was dead.

Behind him, he heard the cub’s breathing. Still fast. Still afraid. But she hadn’t run.

He pulled his thoughts together through the haze of pain and exhaustion and approached the corpse. His claws tore into its side, ripping through fur and muscle and bone until he found what he needed.

The heart.

He tore it free and ate it. Bite by bite. His humanoid form’s mouth was ill suited for the task, but he kept at it.

Warmth spread through him. Not the surge of power from his breakthrough. This was smaller. Gentler. His wounds didn’t heal over, but they stopped bleeding as fast. The exhaustion eased slightly. His body felt marginally stronger.

A notification flickered at the edge of his awareness.

[Advancement: Body Tempering - Early Stage 2]

He considered the implications as he dismissed the notification.

Same-tier consumption gave incremental gains. That was obvious now. Useful for maintaining strength, for advancing through stages. But it wouldn’t give him another breakthrough.

Still, there was value in it.

He looked down at his arm. The scales had saved it. Without them, the wolf would have torn the limb clean off. But all the unscaled flesh and skin were vulnerabilities he hadn’t worried about in his true form.

He assessed the rest. The chest wound had mostly stopped bleeding. So had the bites on his thigh and side. The stage advancement had done that much, at least. His arm, though, still leaked. The damage was deeper there, bone-scraped and torn.

This body was a liability in combat.

He’d need to master it. Or avoid fighting until he did.

Azratheon turned and looked at the small cub. She stood a few paces back, another rock still clutched in one paw. Her eyes were wide. She was trembling.

She’d thrown the rock. Created the opening he’d needed. Shown herself useful.

He gathered himself. His wounds throbbed. His body had little left to give. Dragons healed from nearly everything, but it took time. Rest. Both were needed.

He looked back up the mountain. The volcano glowed against the night sky. He could climb back up.

But that seemed like a lot of work.

He looked towards the forest. Dark trees stretched endlessly in all directions. Unknown territory. Potential shelter.

Also a lot of work.

Azratheon sat down where he stood. Right there next to the dead wolf and the spreading pool of blood.

“I’m going to sleep,” he announced.

The cub stared at him. Her mouth opened slightly. She glanced between him and the wolf’s corpse. Confusion clear on her face.

He waited.

She shifted her weight. Looked at the wolf again. Then back at him. Her mouth opened and closed several times.

Finally, she managed: “Master, the... the core. Shouldn’t we—”

“You can harvest it if you want.”

He lay down on his unwounded side and closed his eyes.

Silence stretched between them.

She didn’t move. He could hear her breathing, still uneven from fear or exertion. The sound of her shifting weight. The small intake of breath like she wanted to speak but couldn’t quite manage it.

He waited.

Finally, footsteps. Hesitant. Moving toward the wolf’s corpse.

Azratheon kept his eyes closed but tracked her movements by sound. The wet squelch as she knelt beside the body. A pause. Then the sound of her digging through torn flesh, claws scraping against bone.

She was searching the chest cavity. Where he’d torn it open to reach the heart.

The sounds stopped.

Confusion in her breathing now. Faster. A small noise of frustration.

Then understanding. He heard her move around the corpse. Toward the head.

The skull. She’d figured it out.

Smart.

The next sounds were different. Scratching. Her claws scraping uselessly against bone. A pause. Then more scratching, harder this time. Desperation creeping into the rhythm.

It wasn’t working.

Fabric rustled. Footsteps moving away from the corpse. Toward the supplies she’d gathered earlier. Rummaging sounds.

Looking for a blade, probably. Something sharper than her claws.

The rummaging stopped. A long pause. Then a grunt of effort as something heavy dragged across ash-covered stone.

Azratheon cracked one eye open just enough to see.

The sword was far too large for her, but she was trying anyway. 

The small cub stood over the wolf’s head, a human-sized sword gripped in both paws. She lifted it with visible strain and drove the point down toward the skull.

The blade skittered off bone with a sharp ring.

She tried again and got the same result.

Her shoulders sagged. She stood there for a moment, panting, staring down at the wolf. Then her gaze shifted. To the rings spread out on the ground nearby.

She stared at them. Her paws tightened on the sword hilt.

Then she looked away. Back to the wolf.

Azratheon glanced at the treasure she’d collected and arrayed while he was unconscious. His memories told him they were storage rings. She clearly believed that one of them might have a solution to her problem, but remained unwilling to use them for some reason.

Interesting.

His gaze shifted back to her.

She adjusted her grip and tried a different approach. Wedged the sword point into the wolf’s eye socket. Put her weight on the pommel. The blade sank deeper. She bore down with her full body weight, and something cracked.

The skull fractured.

She worked the blade back and forth, prying the crack wider. Her movements grew more frantic. More desperate. The crack spread with wet, grinding sounds.

Finally, she dropped the sword. It clattered against the ground.

She knelt and reached into the broken skull with both paws. Her face twisted in disgust but she didn’t stop. She dug through brain matter, searching. Her claws scraped against something hard.

She pulled.

A crystal sphere emerged from the ruin. Gray-silver, about the size of a large marble. It caught the starlight and seemed to glow from within, wisps of something swirling in its depths.

She held it up, panting. Covered in blood and gore. Her paws were shaking.

She shuffled toward him, the core clutched in both paws. Her eyes were wide. Uncertain.

Azratheon pretended he hadn’t been watching the entire time and cracked his eye fully open. 

“It’s yours,” he said. “You earned it.”

She stared at him. Her mouth opened but no sound came out.

He closed his eye again. “I’m going to sleep now.”

Another long silence.

Then her voice, barely a whisper: “Thank you, Master.”

He didn’t respond. Just let his breathing slow and deepen like he was already drifting off.

But he kept listening.

She moved away from the corpse. Sat down somewhere nearby. The sound of her wiping the core clean on fabric. Then just silence. 

The kind that indicated she was focused on something.

Time passed. He wasn’t sure how much. His wounds throbbed with each heartbeat. The exhaustion pulled at him, genuine now. He’d not slept since hatching. His body needed actual rest.

But not yet.

“Master?”

Her voice was small. Hesitant.

He cracked one eye open again. Looked at her.

She flinched slightly but didn’t back down. “May I... may I make a fire?”

Azratheon considered. Fire meant light. Warmth. It would draw attention if anything else was nearby, though the beast he’d killed would have been territorial. Meaning there shouldn’t be any other large predators nearby. And it would also keep smaller predators away. She was probably cold. Small body, patchy fur, no scales, covered in blood.

“Yes.”

Relief crossed her face. “Thank you, Master.”

She stood and hurried off into the darkness. Not far. He could still hear her moving through the underbrush, snapping small branches. The sound of her gathering wood.

She returned several minutes later with an armful of dry sticks and branches. Set them down and began arranging them in a small pile. She gathered stones from around the area and placed them in a rough circle.

The arrangement was poor. Stones too far apart. Wood stacked wrong. But she clearly understood the process and was trying.

She sat back and stared at the pile. Then picked up two sticks and began rubbing them together.

Nothing happened.

She rubbed harder. Faster. Her breathing grew labored.

Still nothing.

She kept trying. The sticks rasped against each other. Her movements grew jerky. Desperate.

Azratheon watched through barely lidded eyes.

She stopped. Looked at the sticks in her paws. They were slick with blood from her torn pads. She looked at the storage rings again. Then at him. Then back at the sticks.

Her face twisted. Not quite a grimace. Not quite a snarl. Something frustrated and tired and fed up.

She sucked in a breath.

“Master?” Her voice cracked slightly. “Could you... could you help?”

Azratheon opened his eyes fully.

She wilted. Her shoulders hunched and her gaze dropped to the ground.

He waited.

Slowly, she looked back up. Met his eyes. Didn’t look away this time.

He reached out without sitting up. Snatched one of the sticks from her paws.

Held it up in front of his face.

Breathed on it.

Fire erupted along the stick’s length. He held it there until the flames caught properly, then tossed it back to her.

She caught it reflexively. Stared at it. Then at him.

Her expression did something complicated. Like she wanted to glare but was afraid to. Like she was annoyed but also grateful. Like she’d just realized something about him but didn’t know what to do with that information.

“Thank you, Master,” she said quietly.

She placed the burning stick in the center of her poorly arranged pile. The fire caught on the dry wood and began to spread.

Orange light pushed back the darkness.

She stared at him across the fire. The light revealed the full extent of his wounds. Blood covered his chest, his arm, his side. And he wore nothing at all.

Her gaze dropped. She fidgeted with the core still clutched in one paw.

“Master?” Her voice was barely audible. “You’re... there’s a cloak. In the supplies. If you want it.”

Azratheon looked down at himself. He hadn’t thought about it. Clothes seemed like a human thing. Dragons didn’t wear them.

But she was offering. Trying to be useful again.

“Yes.”

She hurried to the pile of gathered supplies. Returned with a large, dark travel cloak and held it out toward him without approaching too close.

The fabric was thick and rough. He took it and wrapped it around his waist.

The cub didn’t speak again. She moved around to the other side of the fire and sat down, visibly relieved. The flames crackled between them.

Azratheon closed his eyes and settled more comfortably.

He let the sounds wash over him. Fire popping. Wind through trees. Her breathing, finally slowing to something normal.

His body demanded sleep now. The wounds, the exhaustion, the constant drain since hatching. It was all catching up.

But before he let himself drift off, he opened his eyes one last time.

She was staring down at the gray-silver core cradled in her paws. Perhaps it was her first true possession. Something truly earned. The firelight caught on the core and made it glow.

She looked small. Alone. But not quite as afraid as before.

Azratheon closed his eyes and let sleep take him.

His last thoughts were that tomorrow he’d teach her his name.

And learn hers.