Zephyr Rill uprising

The once strikingly-blue eyes, set against that dark face, had begun their transition to their future fierce yellow, and that morning they were searching. Though always a little behind her milk-mates, Bennet's growth spurts were taking force just as eagerly as the change in her eyes, and with it came the ever-upward surge of confidence. The older she got, the less she accepted being cooped up in the den, the less she submitted to authority, and the less she cared about rules.

She didn't ask for permission any less than before - because she had never started.

A more gangly but sure-footed black child trotted calmly along the river which flowed through Hearthwood, moving south, following a trail she had seen @Kjors take many a time. Following a trail which felt strangely familiar, as if she'd been this way before, but she never had, not this far - on many occasions she had watched him go to wherever the man went, but had always held back from going too far. It just had never felt right. Her legs just got tired too quickly. This morning had felt different, and having woken up before her mother, like usual, Bennet had slipped out of the den without a word - like usual. But rather than watch the river flow past or find a high place to stare down from and feel the wind flow over the wings in her mind, she'd been overcome by an urge to walk south, to find what she knew was out there somewhere. Who was out there.

She could smell him. Where did dragons spend the night when they weren't at home with the rest of the pack? The girl hopped off the trail of the main river and started to follow the smaller stream as it split from its larger neighbour, finding something eerily and inexplicably familiar about this place the further she walked. A flash of movement overhead had her fading blue eyes twitching upwards instantly, and there it was, a distant shape soaring through the sky. Not for the first time, she grinned at the sight, imagining how it would be to spread her wings as wide as that, feeling it as though the phantom limbs were real and sprouted from her shoulders instead of her arms.

Elated, she skipped ahead, the trail in her nose as she followed it to where it was strongest, a well-worn entrance to a well-loved den tucked away, and his scent was overpowering. This was it - his den. His lair.

Dragon, she mouthed, feeling her throat make the movements, but as usual did not voice it, the word lost before it was given body. Stepping up to the edge, she was hit with a powerful wave of memory, something deep and primal, but she couldn't explain it. There he slept, peaceful and alone, his one yellow eye closed to bring symmetry to his unsymmetrical face. You didn't just disrupt a sleeping dragon... not unless you were Bennet.

She stretched her legs forward, slipping them into the den, letting her chest meet the ground, large puppy ears pushed forward in open curiosity, breathing hitched as she tried to process why this felt so important, like she belonged here. With him.

"Dragon," she whispered.