I wake up, stretch, get all charged up on mana of different types, and then follow my siblings as it seems they’re going to meet mother halfway this time. Well, it makes no sense to have her walk all the way here now that we got used to the schedule and my siblings are also fast enough to save time, so we trot down the tunnel and find mother lowering her head towards a small bush that wasn’t there yesterday. As I get closer I notice that it is not a bush, but rather ripped up vines thrown to cover something…

I am hit by a stench that at first confuses me, then makes me realize that I forgot something about humans. They need bathrooms. And it seems they improvised one here. Huh, guess mother also forgot they do that.

Now, you ask, how did I forget about a basic human need? Because, it seems, dragons don’t have it. I could not tell you why but in my… three-ish months of life, I still have not yet felt the call of nature. My siblings are the same. What the hell is my stomach? I’ve been eating meat, fruit, bones, even god damned crystals from strange magic organs, yet I have not needed to do anything to get rid of the waste. Is that it? Is there just no waste? Does my stomach somehow turn every little thing I eat into nutrients and then my cells use 100% of the nutrients to power my growth? No toxins that need expelling? No heavy metals that I should be worried about considering my diet of wolves?

To be fair I don’t need water either (I only remembered it exists when I saw it). I don’t really need anything aside from fresh food and some gold to lay on, everything else is extra… Dragons are weird. Ah, speaking of humans, after mother makes the waste disappear by making the earth literally eat it, giving me another glimpse at the earth rune, she looked over at the humans through the vines that pulled themselves away. She looks at the silver basin, which now laid almost empty, then with a combination of runes seemed to give them an expansion, a bathroom. Also, with some earth rumbling, she opened a hole in the wall, from which water started trickling. Well, guess that’s much more efficient.

She put the fear of god in them, but it seems she decided to offer basic creature comfort. Just as I wonder what she’ll do about food, I see multiple green bulbs growing from the wooden walls, which then turned yellowish, then became large, ripe fruits. So, food is assured also, but they can’t survive with just fruits. I will need to save up meat from today’s hunt for them. That’s a bit of an annoyance, but what can ya do? Leaving them to die just because it’s easier would be a quick way to become an apathetic, murderous beast.

Mother reaches down to grab us, but this time I don’t let her pull me in all the way. I make sure to struggle just enough so my head is stuck outside of her tendrilly embrace, so I can see where we’re going. I’ve kind of forgotten to explore more since every day was just waking up, having a couple hours to train, then going out to fight for food, only to get back and sleep. At least now I can see exactly how far away this lake is. The walk is pretty short, what, with mother having a strangely good speed for her mass, and once we are out under the suns I see her spread her wings. She has eyes on the underside, huh, never noticed.

We reach a decent altitude in a matter of moments, an acceleration that should mess with us but we barely feel it… Ah, the tentacles are dampening the hit, smart. Well, regardless, I am stunned by the view. Shades of green paint the land, with many rivers being visible spreading like roots all over the place. They all seem to originate from the large hill below which our cave exists, so maybe that’s why mother made our nest there. Regardless I look all around but quickly realize a saddening fact.

My eyes are worse than in my past life, at least for far away distances. It makes sense since they’re the classic “low to the ground predator” eyes, but even then I had hoped that magic would help them be a bit better. Well, I mean, they are better at close to medium distances… I will need to get new eyes… I should probably focus on that during my naps. After all, I have the design of a bunch of animal eyes saved up in my library.

Ah, there’s the lake… Yeah that’s at least an hour of running. Wings are a bit of a cheat code, after all. Now, let’s see, why aren’t we slowing down? We pass the lake and I begin to worry. Did mother get mad at me for picking up the humans after all? I let out a squeak, but I am soon reminded that we are, in fact, moving at absurd speeds in the air. I take a moment to wonder why I am not being hit by the wind, but then I notice a faint mist shimmering, which makes me realize that mother has a spell going. it’s how she’s moving so fast, in fact. Like that guy who was ice skating at over 100 km/h thanks to having a shield in front of him, absorbing the drag. Cool to see that the dragons here are really smart with their magic!

Now, let’s see, where- we are going down. The trees part and mother touches down, letting go of us on the ground, then spreads her wings and takes off without us. Even the trees go back to their upright forms and cover the sky, letting only a bit of light through. My siblings squeak and jump up after mother, but she’s gone. Fuck. Did she abandon us? So randomly? There’s no way dragons abandon their young at a few months old, even if they’re not the social type!

Is this like a test? The proverbial kicking out of the nest, but not banishing? Is the idea to find our way home? No, she’d at least have us walk over to have even a chance.. As I continue thinking to myself, I notice Red Tail spreading his wings, running forward and flapping them to try and get some lift. He fails, sadly, as neither of us has functional wings yet. They’ve certainly grown but I feel it will take time for any of us to learn to fly.

For now, I focus on my senses. I already know the rough direction we should go in, but I know that a straight path tends to bend when you don’t have a good reference point, so I expect us to get lost if we don’t catch a useful scent. My siblings seem mostly confused with the situation. Crown is sniffing at the air, RT is climbing a tree to try and see where mother went and Spots is… nibbling a rock? Ah, no, he wanted what was under it, a few bugs he catches with his tongue. Actual bugs, no mana infused mutants.

Now that I think about it, the mana around is very faint, to the point where it might be a problem. I look around and I can only see the mana clinging to me and my siblings, everything else looks barren. It isn’t, of course, as looking very closely lets me notice a very faint distortion, but that just tells me that this forest has absurdly lower levels of mana compared to even the tunnel. I will have to be careful about that…

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I make a rumbling sound towards my siblings, to draw attention, then started walking towards home. Might as well try and get back. It would really suck if this is really how long we’re being raised for, especially since mother has yet to teach us anything herself… Oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do, and right now I gotta keep myself and my siblings alive. I worry about the humans for a bit, but I really cannot afford to even think about that with my life being on the line. I have to get back home…

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Captain’s log, third entry: We’ve been at this for an hour and I think my siblings aren’t appreciating the walk in nature. I’m not either, if I am being honest. For some reason this has been really exhausting… Even continuously training my breath attack wasn’t this bad! Seriously this is just walking, I’ve been more, for longer, without getting tired before. It might be the stress of looking everywhere, keeping my ears open, noticing every little thing… Yeah the mental exhaustion might be it.

A sound startles me and I go flat to the ground, as do my siblings. I turn to my right and force my eyes to see as well as they can, but it doesn’t work. The forest is too dense to actually see stuff, so I start moving towards the sound slowly. Once I get to a bush, I raise my head above it, only to be startled by what I saw. Deer. I am pretty hungry… and it seems that the wind is in our favor as it is blowing from the side, not giving either of us a specific advantage in detection.

I am pretty hungry, so I should probably catch this one, but how do I tell my siblings about my plan? I wish mother would teach us how to speak already. Well, I improvise, tapping RT and Spots with my tails, then pointing to the side, where the wind is moving towards, and make an arcing motion with it, then bring it back. They look at each other, then start moving as I showed them. Huh, they’re pretty good at least. To be fair, flanking prey was their first instinct, this time we just needed a larger flank.

I then turn to Crown and point to the side. She is confused for a moment so I just emphasize my pointing a bit more. Once in position, we wait. I know I could just spook them in the other two’s direction, but honestly I trust myself to catch it more than I trust the other two. Especially with it being able to run between trees. I wait for their patience to run out, and then I see the deer raising its head as it leaps my way, the sound of crackling fire behind it.

Perfect. I wait for it to be close enough, then as it jumps I leap at its throat. It tries for half a second to throw me off, but I clamp down tighter and its neck breaks. Easy meal. I start digging in its chest as my siblings come close, however I am disappointed. The core is barely there. It’s shriveled up and doesn’t seem to have any rock in it, likely a result of the low mana environment… Wait, if that’s the case, where does mother even find the mutants? Oh well, meat is meat, even if it doesn’t have the heavenly taste of mana.

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After feasting we continued our walk and I am really starting to get exhausted. I checked on the mana reserves in my lungs, since I have a sort of instinctual feel for roughly how much is in there, and it’s been shrinking despite me not using a breath yet. This kind of confirms it, we’re a bit mana dependent. Our bodies are better than they should biologically be, but we consume mana to keep that up. I scratch an arrow in a tree trunk, to make sure I don’t forget the direction we need to go in, then curl up.

My siblings take the break in stride, having started panting a while back. So, we get tired faster without abundant mana. Guess that’s why we literally live on a mountain of gold and gemstones. At least we can still keep going, though we’ll need to find a source of mana soon since I don’t know how long my siblings can last.

After a few minutes of rest, we get up and continue on. I have to say, nature here is a bit boring. There’s grass, there’s moss, there’s all sorts of herbs with their own smells, but there’s nothing I couldn’t see back home. Really this is just a classic forest. No fancy fantasy one with 3 meter tall carnivorous plants or blue trees.

I shake my head and keep on. We need to get home…

I catch a scent, and my body freezes. The wind just changed, it was blowing from in front of us, but now it’s coming from behind. And it’s taking with it the scent of wolf and meat. I turn around and let out a deep roar. My siblings follow my lead and roar in every direction. Nothing happens. Eventually the scent fades and I let out a sigh. Right, a forest like this would have predators. Guess we entered their territory at some point, I didn’t bother sniffing every tree though so I wouldn’t know.

We’ll have to be careful from here on out. A fight might be dangerous when we’re so tired already, even if we have magic on our side. That’s why we have to keep on moving so we leave their territory and they stop thinking about the small pack of lizards marching through.

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Half an hour later, it seems my siblings got bored. They started straying further away, turning rocks, clawing trees, just overall playing like kids should. Even trying to talk to them doesn’t help, they’re just too bored to care about what their big brother is trying to make them do, so I have no choice but to sit here. I wish I could train with the runic magic, but I can’t be wasting all my mana in a situation like this. So I scavenge some food. Bugs and worms are disgusting to look at, but they do taste good after all.

While I do that though, Spots seems to stray away from vision, going through a few bushes towards something. I pay him no mind until I hear a pig squeal, followed by a dragon squeal. Oh god. I turn to where he went and see a flash of rainbow light, which lets me know he got hit. I rush over and see it, a boar, puffing and preparing to charge the downed Spots. I let out a roar, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect as the boar hits him head on. A second flash, this time weaker, and I see his scales going almost greyscale.

That’s bad. I rush over to attack the beast, but it runs away for a bit, only to turn around and prepare another charge. Problem, I can’t shrug off a charge, even from a normal boar, but I can’t dodge because a very exhausted Spots is behind me. So I go for intimidation again, even knowing how strong a boar’s mental fortitude is.

I spread my wings , make my tails tremble, then spew fire in front of me as the boar starts charging. It slows down and turns to run as fire covers its fur, but it takes too long to stop, giving me the time to jump on it and start biting. Sadly the burning pig rams me into a tree and runs off, making me miss the kill for the first time. My scales are a bit busted up, causing me to sigh as I turn to Spots.

Crown and RT came too, poking and sniffing him. He's exhausted his mana on that defense. I have yet to figure out how to do it, but my best bet is that they’re using the mana in their cells to redistribute or even push back against any form of damage. Useful, but costly. And here we don’t have a good source of mana to recharge.

Survival has just become even more difficult…