The Designs Of Change

~chapter thirteen~

I had slept on the forest floor that night. It was odd, being woken up by the sun. especially odder, when I felt a sudden pull pulse through me as I could sense it breaking the treeline up above.

Then suddenly, I was up in the air, whistling and twisting in the humidity, dancing for all I was worth. I felt the joy of a new day flood through my muscles as I tried to pronounce that message to the world. It felt glorious. I felt glorious. And that was how things were meant to be. How things were meant to feel right.

I felt all my despair at losing my family and friends fade away. I was alive. They were alive. That was enough. And there was no way I was going to let my current state or Vincent's glare break that anymore.

That was my message, as I sang my sadness to the sun, and the sun energized and replaced it with relief, and hope. I was alive. And as long as I was alive, that hope wouldn't stagger.

All living things die, and all living things are born. And that cycle of life would continue as long as the sun still shone. My warbles continued to echo through the greenhouse leisurely, and I banked to land.

The sun cleared the treeline up above, and my chirping automatically ceased.

I was left with a lingering sense of peace, as I watched the sun for a few more moments. Then the whole weirdness of the situation seeped in. was it some kind of instinctual dance? I hadn't heard of any other creatures on earth with such weird behavior.

I was just about to contemplate some more, but my stomach growled, and I realized I needed to eat.

I spent several minutes after that scouring the nearby trees for fruit. I could also hear a brook nearby, but I had no way of knowing if there was fish there for an easy catch.

I managed to find a grouping of apple trees a bit later and helped myself.

The flavors exploded in my mouth, and I thrummed in contentment, not something I knew I could do.

Odd sound. It's almost like purring.

"You WISH you were a cat."

I didn't say anything in hopes Eunice's attention would dissipate, and eventually, it did, when she got no reaction out of me.

Having some odd form of DID was not what I had planned to happen when I was captured, but at least all of Eunice's chatter was so annoying I didn't feel lonely. A positive quirk of having headmates I guess. Nonetheless, I was getting really bored now. And personally, I would rather not spend another night lying in the dirt. It made my scales feel grimy, and I was kind of sore. So it was time to find a good spot, and then somehow make a nest.

I was running through the forest to do this, since my flying, I could tell, wasn't really reliable just yet. Eventually, I found a perfect spot inside a hollow tree. There was a hollow at the base of the trunk, near the roots. It was a small hole, probably just small enough for me to squeeze inside of. But inside the burrow made of roots, was a spacious interior that put even complex rabbit warrens to shame. There were walls or roots all around, with small rays of light shining through narrow gaps in the spindly underground protrusions. If I covered the entrance with a large stone, I could have an effective doorway to block any intrusions. My scales also seemed to hate dirt, so I would probably need to find something to line the floor with.

My thoughts drifted to the sand I felt under my feet during the first day.

—

I scrunched my snout at the glass cage I was inside again. The egg across from me was also still in its cage, but whoever was inside, at least didn't need to deal with the woman staring at me, who was dressed way too nicely in my opinion. It made me want to slash her across the face more than I already did, especially with how close the inspector lady from the actually relevant main flock's lab was standing. It had been about a month since I had woken up a dragonet, and in that time, I would sometimes wake up from sleeping or taking a nap in my den, to being in a glass cage. The metal collar around my neck was annoying, and I was pretty sure it was also being tracked. It made me mad at myself for letting Sahara put it on me in the first place, when I could have just as easily slashed her hands when she tried.