Chapter 45: First Flight, First Cling

[YUI'S PERSPECTIVE]

Warmth. That was the first thing I felt. A gentle, comforting warmth, as if I were wrapped in the softest blanket. I felt safe. Protected.

Then came a cracking sound. The warmth was coming from outside. My new instincts, primal and sharp, told me to push. I pushed, and the shell around me broke away.

Cool air hit my face. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the dim light of a cave. I looked down at myself. I wasn't in a soft bed. I was on a pile of what looked like hay. And my hands… they weren't hands. They were small, scaly claws, the color of pearl.

I tried to stand and stumbled, a long, slender tail swishing behind me for balance. On my back, two small, leathery wings twitched nervously.

I was… a dragon?

The goddess had said I'd be a knight, a Dragoon. Maybe this was the first step? A trial? It was confusing, but I wasn't scared. A deep, instinctual feeling hummed within me, overriding all fear: Find them. Protect them. Keep them safe and warm.

I needed to find who I was meant to protect.

I waddled out of the cave into the bright sunlight of a mountainside. The view was breathtaking. But my senses were focused on something else. A scent on the wind. A presence. Someone was nearby.

I followed the feeling, my little clawed feet scrambling over the rocks. There, in a small clearing, was a young man. He had messy brown hair and was carefully trying to pick a bright blue flower growing on a cliff edge.

The moment I saw him, my world snapped into focus. A jolt, like lightning, shot through my tiny body. My soul resonated with a single, deafening thought.

HIM.

My unique skill activated. [Imprint & Protect]. He was the one. My person. The one I was born to keep safe and warm.

He looked so fragile! So exposed! He was leaning over a cliff! He could fall!

I did something I didn't know I could do. I leaped from the rocks, my small wings catching the air in a clumsy flutter. It wasn't flying, more like a controlled fall. I aimed directly for him.

The adventurer, a man named Leo who was just trying to collect a rare Skybloom to pay for his sister's music lessons, heard a strange flapping sound behind him. Before he could turn, a thirty-pound, pearly-white lizard slammed into his back.

"Oof!" he grunted, stumbling but managing to keep his footing.

I wrapped my arms and legs around his torso, my tail coiling around his waist like a belt. I tucked my head under his chin and flapped my wings for good measure. I was the perfect, scaly, living shield.

"I will protect you!" I chirped, my voice a strange mix of a bird's call and a reptilian hiss. To emphasize my point, I let out a puff of what was supposed to be intimidating smoke, but it mostly just smelled like burnt toast.

Leo froze, his eyes wide with terror and confusion. He had a dragon. A baby dragon was clinging to him like a limpet, and it was talking. His simple herb-gathering quest had just become infinitely more complicated.